CADRE Comments

A poster on YouTube calling himself "Genetically Modified Skeptic''(GMS) defends the "Puddle argument." [1] This is an atheist refutation of design arguments and just says we mistakenly think the world is designed for us because we fit into it;s scheme so well. Why "puddle?" The oringal version says an orgnaism crawls out of a puddle and sees how well it fits into the world. Christian apologist Frank Turek argues the fine tunning arguent (FT) He is  making a basic istae with the argument. GMS reduces the argent to one issue, perspective. Huge mistake because that is not it.FT does not take the same perspective as a regular design argument. GMS wants you to think it does; he even says this "just the old Palley argument." The difference is profound. The old argument did not have target levels that quantify the probability each target being met. FT only takes fitedness as a basic assumption but it does not stop there.  It says we have numbers ...

The Scientistic movement cuts across many boundaries. It includes, but is not limited to, atheism. One major facet of its ideology which has been especially important to atheism is the transformation of knowledge to technique. I refer to Barrett’s concept of the illusion of technique, of which I spoke in chapter one. The first move is a reduction of knowledge from a multiplicity of forms to one thing only, scientific knowledge. Then scientific knowledge lends itself to the working of technique in shaping our understanding by manipulating reality and thus truth. This reduction of knowledge to scientific data, is reflected on the popular internet site answers.com. One such question asked: “is science the supreme form of knowledge?” The answer it gives us is, “Science is the only form of knowledge. There is no way to know something without it being scientific in some way.” [1] It goes to ask “what is science knowledge the answer is “science knowledge is the understanding of everything ar...

The name of infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of our being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without any reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even that word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. --Paul Tillich, The Shaking of The Foundations Argument: (1) We recognize the same primary ontological qualities in being itsel that we recognize in God: necessary, Reity, Eternal. (2)We can grasp this association...

This is one of my favorite God arguments and its my origonal. Argument: (1) we trust perceptions that work for us in navigating the world (2) we juge by criteria "Regular.consistant, shared" *(RCS) (3) Reliious Experience fits this criteria (4 )enables navigation (5) :. we are warranted to trust RE as indicative *We assume reality by means of a Jugement *we make such jugements based upon criteria *Because RE fits the same criteria we are justfied in making the same assumption; ie that these experinces are idicative of a reality. The criteria: If our experiences are: *Regular *consistant *inter=subjective ("shared") *navigational Then we assume our eperience3s reflect reality. VIII. The Thomas Reid Argument. A. How do we Know the external world exists? Philosophers have often expressed skepticism about the external world, the existence of other minds, and even one's own existence. Rene Descartes went so far as to build an elabor...

Argument: (1) If God exists, he must exist necessarily, if God does not exist his existence is impossible. (2) Therefore, God is either necessary or impossible. (3) God can be conceived without contradiction (4) therefore, God is not impossible (5) Since God is not impossible he must be necessary. (6) Since god is necessary he must exist. The assumption that God cannot be contingent is implicit in the concept of God itself.Therefore God cannot exist contingently. A. The logic of the argument: What follows is one of the most challenging subjects you will ever hear about. It is the best way to get a head ache, but I think it proves the existence of God. The problem is it requires a very specialized background to understand it. First you have to understand modal logic. Modal Logic is so called because it turns upon the use of so called "modal operators." It's called "modal" because it is the logic of modes of being. "modes" as i...

1. Something exists. 2. Whatever exists, does so either necessarily or contingently. 3. It is impossible that only contingent things exist. 4. Therefore, there exists at least one necessary thing. 5. If there is a necessary thing, that thing is appropriately called 'God.' 6. Therefore God exists. (revised 8/6/'18) This version understands Necessity and contingency largely in causal terms. The necessity that creates the universe must be understood as eternal and uncaused for two reasons: (1) The impossibility of ICR[1], there has to be a final cause or nothing would ever come to be, (2) empirically we know the universe is not eternal. See the supporting material. Atheists will often argue that this kind of argument doesn't prove that God is the necessity that causes the universe. but being necessary and creator and primary cause makes it the sources of all things we can rationally construe that as God. Finally, even if the cosmological argument is sound or ...

The Internet Infidels blog Secular Outpost 6/09/10 A discussion is launched by Bradley Bowen over the concept of alleged incoherence of the statement "God exists." In The Coherence of Theism (original:1977, revised ed.:1993), Richard Swinburne argues that the sentence “God exists” is a meaningful indicative sentence that expresses a coherent proposition. He does this by raising objections to arguments that have been given against this view, and by also making a detailed positive case. For the negative or defensive case, Swinburne starts out by raising objections to some general arguments against this view, and later in the book he raises objections to more specific arguments that focus on the alleged incoherence of specific characteristics or combinations of specific characteristics that are used to define the word “God”. The main general argument against his position that is examined by Swinburne is a logical positivist argument about the sentence “God exists”, ...

  We go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong Remembered forever As shoo-bop sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom ~Grease the Musical While I have no idea what it means to go together like “rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong,” there are certain people in history that are so closely associated that you can hardly think of one without thinking of the other. In the NFL, one might think of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice almost like a single person. If you are a fan of classic movies, hearing the name Ginger Rogers almost certainly brings to mind Fred Astaire.   In music, it is hard to say Darrel Hall without adding John Oates. They are connected in our collective minds. Thinking Biblically, there are similar groupings of people whose names flow off the tongue like they were meant to be together: David and Jonathan, Samson and Delilah, Cain and Abel (for bad reasons), Jacob and Esau, and on and on. One significant pair in the Bible from the period of the two kingdoms...

  “Skydaddy - A big daddy in the sky in whom most people believe, but no one has seen. He's a really nice guy unless you fail to submit to his will and/or doubt his existence, because then he will punish you forever. He's also kind of nazi about who you have sex with. But hey, a buddy is a buddy right?” – Urban Dictionary It seems as if I regularly run into people who won’t believe in a God that they cannot see. Oh, they will cover it with lots of other objections, but there is too much focus on the “Invisible Skydaddy” (one of the many demeaning terms atheists use to refer to God) to believe that a lot of it has nothing to do with the fact that he cannot be seen. Of course, it would be nice to be able to see God. Certainly, it is much easier to believe in something that you can see or touch rather than something that can be neither seen nor touched. But a scientifically-minded friend of mine shared with me the following illustration which he says he regularly uses when discu...