Room for Comfort
A few quick notes on the recent Comfort/Cameron vs. "Rational Responders" debate:
First, Comfort and Co. were a bit careless in stating their procedure, namely, that they could "prove that God exists, scientifically, absolutely, without mentioning faith or even the Bible." Their three arguments by themselves (design, conscience, and experience) did not necessarily need references to faith or the Bible, but Comfort made the mistake of referring to such. I understand what he was trying to do in framing the debate up front: you don't necessarily have to explicitly mention faith or the Bible, even though you will have to use Biblical concepts. Easy enough. But Comfort crossed his own line by using the "Ten Commandments" as the moral force behind conscience. He could easily have referred to our moral intuition in general.
However, does this mean he lost the debate? Hardly. What Comfort did not do, and it is being implied that he did, was to appeal to the Bible or faith as an authority. Comfort did not argue anything like, "The Bible says, therefore . . ." I'd say that considering the argument Comfort was trying to make, if he would have not referenced the Bible, Sapient would have had no real complaint. Whether atheists like it or not, even if we don't appeal to the authority of the Bible, the Bible still exists as a historical and very influential scientific piece of evidence. Comfort was on solid ground to refer to it's message as a piece of scientific data.
Secondly, despite the fact that there is still room for Comfort's argument, the debate as a whole shows the clear inferiority of the older methods of argument for the existence of God. No argument that assumes the believer and unbeliever are standing on neutral intellectual "reason" will ever be effective. Theistic arguments must transcend man, and consider the preconditions for argument, morality, etc., to begin with. Else, all we will have is a worldview yo-yo --- being jerked back and forth, slung around in circles, and always returning where we started, only dizzier. Christian apologists such as Comfort and Cameron need to read more about transcendental argumentation, such as that promoted by Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, or Plantinga.
Finally, the atheist blogosphere is whirling with complaints and insults following the debate. One I find hilarious is from Brian Flemming's blog, where he complains in a footnote about journalists not taking Rational Response Squad leader Brian "Sapient"s name seriously. No wonder. Anyone who gives himself a media-name "Sapient" is asking for trouble. Read the latin, Flemming! It means "wise." And that arrogant self-appointed appelative should prompt everyone to another appeal to the Bible: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22).
First, Comfort and Co. were a bit careless in stating their procedure, namely, that they could "prove that God exists, scientifically, absolutely, without mentioning faith or even the Bible." Their three arguments by themselves (design, conscience, and experience) did not necessarily need references to faith or the Bible, but Comfort made the mistake of referring to such. I understand what he was trying to do in framing the debate up front: you don't necessarily have to explicitly mention faith or the Bible, even though you will have to use Biblical concepts. Easy enough. But Comfort crossed his own line by using the "Ten Commandments" as the moral force behind conscience. He could easily have referred to our moral intuition in general.
However, does this mean he lost the debate? Hardly. What Comfort did not do, and it is being implied that he did, was to appeal to the Bible or faith as an authority. Comfort did not argue anything like, "The Bible says, therefore . . ." I'd say that considering the argument Comfort was trying to make, if he would have not referenced the Bible, Sapient would have had no real complaint. Whether atheists like it or not, even if we don't appeal to the authority of the Bible, the Bible still exists as a historical and very influential scientific piece of evidence. Comfort was on solid ground to refer to it's message as a piece of scientific data.
Secondly, despite the fact that there is still room for Comfort's argument, the debate as a whole shows the clear inferiority of the older methods of argument for the existence of God. No argument that assumes the believer and unbeliever are standing on neutral intellectual "reason" will ever be effective. Theistic arguments must transcend man, and consider the preconditions for argument, morality, etc., to begin with. Else, all we will have is a worldview yo-yo --- being jerked back and forth, slung around in circles, and always returning where we started, only dizzier. Christian apologists such as Comfort and Cameron need to read more about transcendental argumentation, such as that promoted by Van Til, Bahnsen, Frame, or Plantinga.
Finally, the atheist blogosphere is whirling with complaints and insults following the debate. One I find hilarious is from Brian Flemming's blog, where he complains in a footnote about journalists not taking Rational Response Squad leader Brian "Sapient"s name seriously. No wonder. Anyone who gives himself a media-name "Sapient" is asking for trouble. Read the latin, Flemming! It means "wise." And that arrogant self-appointed appelative should prompt everyone to another appeal to the Bible: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22).
3 Comments:
The second mistake that Cameron and Comfort made was allowing Brian "WISE" to redefine atheism as "a lack of belief in God". This is agnosticism. Atheism is not a "lack of belief" in anything, but rather a belief in a "lack of a God". Let's face it, no one takes upon themselves a "Blasphemy Challenge" for simply lacking belief. By allowing Brian to redefine atheism, they allowed him to play a little bit of philosophical dodge ball. He never had to defend his worldview. While the RR Squad demanded scientific proof for the existence of God, they never had to provide any scientific proof for the non-existence of God.
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First, puritan lad, there are three distinct categories of atheism/agnosticism.
1.positive atheism - there is no god
2.negative atheism - there is no evidence for a god, so god probably does not exist
3.agnosticism - there may or may not be a god
secondly, I have a question for you and Joel. How you can reconcile your faith with the knowledge that the bible conflicts with almost everything that we know of the cosmos, the universe, and the natural world.
For instance, the NT is based on the fall of man and Jesus giving his life for the forgiveness of man's [and woman's] sins. This is based on Genesis in the OT and Eve giving Adam the apple of knowledge. Even if you ignore the ridiculous nature of the story [a talking snake etc], the conflict with reality is damning.
The fall of man:
Genesis
3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Now, Romans tells us that Jesus gave his life for forgiveness of Adam's sin.
5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Now, a major conflict between reality and the bible is the time of the universe. Archbishop James Ussher estimated the age of the earth at 4004 BC, this age varies by the interpretation between 6-12,000 yrs ago depending on the interpretation of the text. There are some ’old earth creationists’ who believe that the earth’s age is much older and that each day, quoted in genesis, lasted millions of years. This doesn’t add up for several reasons. First, genesis states ‘And the evening and the morning were the third day.’ This verse leaves little room for interpretation. Second, God, supposedly, made grass and plants before making the sun. If each day lasted millions of years, all of the greenery would die because sunlight is essential for photosynthesis. The actual age of the universe, as we know it, is 13.7 billion years old. This is based on physics and the background microwave radiation that is left over from the big bang [Quarks and the Cosmos. Michael S. Turner. Science 5 January 2007 315: 59-61].
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