If anybody has any questions, I’m here for a while. If you don’t know why you’d want to ask me questions, ask around.
Are you speaking of religious questions or some other form?
Thinking a few minutes after I had posted the sentence above, how about posting a topic in the ‘Theological Discussion’ folder?
One more I had just thought of, what do you think of apologetics in discussing Christian theology?
Why don’t you answer my calls? 
Either! Both! Really I just want attention, it’ll pass soon.
I’ll have a look. I’m really more of a philosopher of religion than a theologian- theology scares me because I’m afraid of getting something wrong. I can bullshit philosophy.
Well, I think that apologetics are basically complete in Christianity. We’ve answered the good questions, largely successfully, and proven that Christianity is at least a ‘contender’ in the intellectual world. Proving one’s chops as a contender is about as good as you can get with pure rational discourse. Apologetics is primarily useful now for informing people (believers and unbelievers both) who are unaware of this fact. But the “Oh no, what if it’s all lies!!?” stage is pretty well behind us.
You got all clingy. I needed some space, man. But look me up sometime, you know how.
I have a question.
When we find an artist making a piece of art, the art usually represents an idea of the artist.
If the artist is against war, for example, he would making pieceful art, or he would make war depicted as bad.
In this way, the nature of the artist is represented, at least in part, by his works.
When we look at nature, do we look at the personality of the Creator/God?
In a world full of predators and ignorance, weakness and brief existence,
what kind of God would decide to make an ecosystem like the one we have here on earth?
Why could I imagine something allot better than this, especially from a supposedly all-loving, all-powerful God?
Well, technically neither Bachelard nor Kant would say that counts as art. But ok.
No. We look at a partial representation of God’s intentions, corrupted by the Fall. It’s pretty standard Christian theology that the world is not exactly as God intends it.
The standard Problem of Evil? Ok. The world isn't perfect because the Fall messed it up, Satan messes it up, we mess it up. Plus, some percentage of what we don't like about the world is probably more about us not seeing things correctly, than it is about the world.
On that note, why do you find it striking that you would prefer a conjuration of your own imagination to reality? Seems to me you've spent a lifetime doing that. I'm sure, if I looked on the internet long enough, I could find somebody who thinks an imagined dog turd is a lot better than real life apple pie. What should I conclude, but that some people just ain't right?
Hey Ucc, what you been up to…? I’m hoping for:
a) children.
b) travelling.
c) riding around on a motorbike.
Or possibly all three.
Sadly no. Working pretty directly on my degree these days. I do have a bicycle, and college is a few hundred miles from my hometown, so I guess that constitutes a little bit of travel and riding.
I dunno why, but it’s surprisingly un-fun to talk about philosophy here when you actually spend all your time formally studying it.
Hello. I recall you commenting at one point to someone if they “knew that the sun would come up tomorrow?”. I don’t remember the context but it was naturally something about certainty. At the time I felt that your belief in god was highly dependent on the uncertainty that that kind of statement implies, though again I can’t remember where it was. I take fault with this statement which I see as potentially philosophically loaded but materially empty. You can question all the rules in the universe, and you can claim that gravity might fail tomorrow, but in reality, that is a useless exercise. You simply have no reason to think that any fundamental law will fail, other than as a thought exercise.
Just wondering what your thoughts on that are.
Well, obviously I don’t remember what you’re talking about…you barely seem to remember it, after all. I can imagine myself saying that sort of thing, and if I did, it would probably be because somebody was trying to push my belief in God into the realm of certainty- where, I can’t have justified belief in God if there’s any chance at all that it might be false- and I may have pushed back by reminding them that we claim to know all sorts of things we don’t have that kind of certainty of. That seems like the kind of thing I might say, but I’m just guessing.
Well, it appeared that Jesus didn’t want people to be sick, because the bible says Jesus healed the sick.
With that in mind, viruses and parasites didn’t just create themselves out of nothing. Did Satan create them?
That makes insight and creative thinking look like crap.
Imagining something better, then trying to make it that way, is what progress is all about.
I’ve got a question for you Ucci: boxers or y-fronts? 
Boxer briefs.
Well, it appeared that Jesus didn’t want people to be sick, because the bible says Jesus healed the sick.
With that in mind, viruses and parasites didn’t just create themselves out of nothing. Did Satan create them?
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I don’t know!
That makes insight and creative thinking look like crap.
Imagining something better, then trying to make it that way, is what progress is all about.
[/quote]
My point wasn’t so much that people shouldn’t try to imagine better things. My point was more that just because you think you’re imagining something better, doesn’t mean it IS better. Maybe you’re just a nutjob. So, you thinking you can imagine something way better than the world doesn’t obligate me into any sort of philosophical position, see? It’s easier for me to assume you’re a nut.
In short, your question is “Why can I imagine something better?” in some cases, the answer is, “Because there’s something wrong with you.” The related question of “why is there bad stuff in the world,” I answered, too.
What are you studying and where? Also, does it bother you that the only thing apologetics have going for them is consistency?
Philosophy at the University of Maine. And no, because I’m not sure what else they could have going for them. Consistency is really all I could expect from a philosophical defense. Unless by consistency you mean ‘consistently wrong’, and then I suppose it would bother me if I believed it!
Not trying to be a pain here Ucci, but do you think apologetics has an advantage over traditional basic Christian belief? Plus, if you have the information on it, where or how did apologetics manifest?
Is that a pic of a copperhead snake in your avatar?
I’m sure it was you that said “do you know if the sun will rise tomorrow?”, and as I searched for it I saw Omar who I understand holds a position similar to yours iterate the same thing. The problem I have with that though (assuming on the good chance that you said it), and one of the foundations I think of a belief in theism, is that we do indeed know that the sun will rise tomorrow. There’s a set of laws and principles in place, from the micro to the planetary scale, that ensure that the sun will come out tomorrow, and that the world won’t be gone for no reason.
From a philosophical perspective, you might argue that we don’t know anything for certain, but it seems to me that would be as useful as solipsism. You can think that you’re a brain in a vat and will wake up any minute, but we simply have no reason to think that. Having that frame of thought, I think it would be difficult to believe in the existence of an abramahic god, because we simply have no reason again to believe in the literal interpretations of Jesus as a god, of a literal devil, a literal heaven and hell, and so on. If you look at it selectively and metaphorically, I suppose it would be fine, but then I would ask why one faith over the other.
No, I think apologetic is a necessary evil, that's not necessary for everybody. Obsessing over it can even have a destructive effect; you'll meet Christians who only allow themselves to believe what atheists won't smirk at, and that's pointless.
In other words, in apologetics, you need to meet the atheist halfway, because they are your audience. But to bring that to doctrine would be to say that the atheist's perspective and standard of judgment is how believers ought to evalulate their own faith, and it's not.
And no, it’s a king cobra, or so the file search and caption said. Though admittedly, I’ve never seen one colored quite like that other than in this screenshot. Ain’t it grand?
Rouzbeh
If you say so. I have no problem working with your definition of knowledge!
“The Sun won’t stop rising tomorrow.”
and
“The Sun won’t stop rising tomorrow for no reason.”
are too completely different assertions. You need to pick one. Of course if the Sun doesn’t rise tomorrow, it will be for a reason.
I think Ilovephilosophy.com is as good a place as any to approach things from a philosophical perspective. But nevertheless, yes I agree with you. Pointing out that we don’t know anything for certain is rarely of any use.
What about the Resurrection? What about tradition? What about philosophical arguments for the existence of God? What about personal religious experience? What about the testimony of other people’s personal religious experience? These are all reasons why people believe in the God of Christianity, and even if you have arguments against the legitimacy of them all, your arguments better be pretty damn good (as in, better than what has currently ever been published) for you to just blithely say ‘we have no reason’ and expect anybody this side of Richard Dawkins to agree with you. Again, “there is no reason” and “I find the reasons insufficient” are two completely different assertions.
In other words, if you’re going to demand that I accept “there is no reason to believe in God” for the sake of argument, and then ask me why I believe in God, I kinda have to say “no reason”, don’t I?
Grad or undergrad?
You can expect justification or at least something linking these seemingly fabricated ideas to actual reality. I’m sure if thousands of brilliant people dedicated their lives over the course of a couple millenniums to star wars apologetics they could demonstrate that world is not inconsistent with our givens, but that wouldn’t mean much, now would it?