Tag Archives: Truth

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Is anything that Deepak Chopra says remotely logical?

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I say “NO”. It’s just happy-clappy jibba-jabba!

Here, look at this post from CARM.

Excerpt:

Logic is the backbone of critical thinking. Logic is extremely useful for uncovering error and establishing truth. There are principles of logic and I would like to introduce you to the first three laws of logic. These are very important.

  1. The Law of Identity
  2. The Law of Non-Contradiction
  3. The Law of Excluded Middle

The law of identity states that A is A. An Apple is an Apple. In other words, something is what it is. If something exists, it has a nature, an essence. For example, a book has a front and back cover with pages. A car has four wheels, seats, doors, windows, etc. A tree has branches, leaves, a trunk, and roots. This also means that anything that exists has characteristics. We recognize what something is by observing its characteristic. You know that a tree is a tree because you see its branches, it’s leads, its trunk, etc.
Furthermore, if something has an identity, it has a single identity. It does not have more than one identity. In other words, if something exists it has a set of attributes that are consistent with its own existence. It does not have a set of attributes that are inconsistent with itself. Therefore we can easily conclude that a cat is not a parachute. An Apple is not a race car. A tree is not a movie.

The law of non-contradiction tells us that A cannot be both A and not A at the same time and in the same sense. In other words, something (a statement) cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same way. We use the law of non-contradiction constantly in discussions and debates because we are naturally able to recognize when someone is contradicting himself. If I were to tell you that yesterday I went shopping and then later I told you that yesterday I did not go shopping, you would be correct in saying there was a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when one statement excludes the possibility of another and yet both are claimed to be true. Since we know that both cannot be true, we see a contradiction. From this principle, we can conclude that truth is not self-contradictory. This is a very important concept. Let me repeat it. Truth is not self-contradictory.

The law of excluded middle says that a statement is either true or false. For example, my hair is brown. It is either true or false that my hair is brown. Another example: I am pregnant. The statement is either true or false. Since I am a male, it is not possible for me to be pregnant. Therefore, the statement is false. If I were a female, it would be possible for me to be pregnant (given normal bodily conditions). A woman is not “kind-of” pregnant. She either is or is not pregnant – there is no middle position. The law of excluded middle is important because it helps us deal in absolutes. This is particularly important in a society where relativism is promoted and truth statements are denied.

Please review these three laws and become familiar with them. They are extremely important when developing critical thinking skills.

Deepak Chopra says what feels good to him. But we have to test his words using the laws of logic. If his words pass that test, then we go on to empirical validation against the external world.

Polemics

Sean McDowell on whether Christians should embrace postmodernism

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The article by Sean McDowell is here.

Excerpt:

In Postmodern Youth Ministry, for example, Tony Jones argues that postmodernity is the most important culture shift of the past 500 years, upending our theology, philosophy, epistemology (how we know things), and church practice. It is an “earthquake that has changed the landscape of academia and is currently rocking Western culture.” (p. 11). Thus, to be relevant in ministry today, according to Jones and other postmodernists, we must shed our modern tendencies and embrace the postmodern shift.

For the longest time I simply accepted that we inhabit a postmodern world and that we must completely transform our approach to ministry to be effective today. But that all changed when I had the opportunity of hearing philosopher William Lane Craig speak at an apologetics conference not too long ago.

[…]In the introduction to Reasonable Faith, Craig provocatively claims, “Indeed, I think that getting people to believe that we live in a postmodern culture is one of the craftiest deceptions that Satan has yet devised” (p. 18). Accordingly, we ought to stop emphasizing argumentation and apologetics and just share our narrative. Craig develops this idea further:

And so Satan deceives us into voluntarily laying aside our best weapons of logic and evidence, thereby ensuring unawares modernism’s triumph over us. If we adopt this suicidal course of action, the consequences for the church in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality, while scientific naturalism shapes our culture’s view of how the world really is (p. 18-19).

In a personal email, Craig relayed to me that he believes postmodernism is largely being propagated in our church by misguided youth pastors. While he meant the comment more to elicit a smile than to be taken as a stab in the back, I can’t help but wonder if he is right.

There was a podcast that Sean did a while back on the worldview of Christian youth, where he explains how they think that religious claims are all basically personal preferences, not real knowledge that can be reasoned about and supported by evidence. It really eats into their ability to act in Christian ways when they don’t think Christianity is true.

My personal experiences with “Christian” postmodernism

Growing up, I was often confronted with the idea that God was not somehow insulated from logic and evidence. The main people who asserted that idea were the church leaders and campus club leaders. They were very skeptical of controversial doctrines like Hell, exclusive salvation, inerrancy and authorial intent. They didn’t like the law of non-contradiction, and they didn’t like historical or scientific evidence. Some others didn’t even like the idea that the Bible could override their emotions and intuitions.

As I grew older, I began to uncover why the postmoderns in leadership believed that God is not bound by the laws of logic, and that evidence was not as authoritative as personal experiences and stories. It was because of their desire for popularity. They did not want to have to confront people with exclusive and judgmental Christian claims. They did not want to have defend orthodox Christianity as true, using logic and evidence. The leaders even attacked the people who tried to introduce thinking and reasoning about Christian claims.

Postmodern Christians want to be able say to offer Christianity as one choice in a buffet, with the goal of addressing people’s felt needs. They say things like, “Christianity is true for me, and Hinduism is true for you“, in order to be accepted. And they feel, emotionally and intuitively, that non-judmentalism and non-exclusivism are right. Postmodernism helps them to justify their focus on popularity and their refusal to learn apologetics. They don’t want to learn facts, because they don’t want to have to defend Christianity as being objectively true.

Postmodern Christians are opposed to the idea that Christianity is knowledge, because “knowing for certain” takes away their ability to have “wiggle-room” when they want to do what all the other people are doing. They want to be able to keep God at arms-length when he is morally demanding, while keeping him within arm’s reach for emotional support, when needed – maybe just in private. God “exists” for postmoderns when they need comfort, and he doesn’t “exist” when they want autonomy from the moral law.

Polemics

Is having a burning bosom a good test for truth in religion?

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Here’s a good post from Biola University professor Clay Jones.

He’s talking about how Mormons embrace Mormonism because of a burning in their bosom. (A subjective feeling) In the quote below, I reproduce the main thrust of the post – which he makes as part of his conversation with some Mormon missionaries. If you ever run into Mormons, this might help you.

Excerpt:

I pointed out that the Mormons base the truth of their religion on a subjective personal experience—namely, they base the truth of Mormonism on praying a prayer to ask God whether the Book of Mormon is trustworthy and if they get a warm feeling, which is described in some of their works a “a burning in the bosom,” then they conclude that Mormonism is true. They agreed.

I said that we evangelicals base our faith in historic Christianity on the evidence of Jesus being raised from the dead.

[…]But then I pointed out that the Mormons base their beliefs on a subjective personal experience that has led them to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that historic Christianity is mistaken, that there was a great falling away, that there are many gods, that Mormons one day believe that they are going to become gods (just the males, actually), and that the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods still function today (they didn’t disagree with even one word of this). I explained that you couldn’t get any of these ideas from the New Testament.

He goes to explain why subjective experiences are unreliable for determining truth.

When facing Mormons, and other cults, I also argue against subjectivism. But I supplement that with evidence. For Mormons, I use scientific evidence for the creation of the universe out of nothing. Mormons think that the matter in the universe existed eternally. They don’t accept the Big Bang theory! So you just roll through the scientific advances, show that the cause of the universe was non-physical, eternal, powerful and endowed with free will (to create an effect in time without antecedent conditions), and that’s the end of that.

I think that people in cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Science have similar ways of forming their beliefs. They just filter out evidence falsifying their religion. JWs made all kinds of silly predictions about the end of the world that are not true – they’re false prophets, in other words. And Christian Science thinks that Jesus didn’t actually die, which no credentialed historian believes. (Just like Islam)

UPDATE: ECM freaked out at me and he demands that I say that Mormons are my political allies on every issue. I just want to point out that this is true, although Mitt Romney is nothing but a big fat RINO.