Daily reminder whenever you argue with atheists simply draw out their presuppositions and show how they are incoherent.
So if you're arguing the morality of some Christian doctrine or prophet's behavior , don't let them presuppose good and evil as givens, but challenge how such things can even exist in a godless world.
If they argue evolutionary/empiricism check out C.S Lewis' materialist argument
and Plantinga's anti-naturalism argument.
bmp
The Reddit meme at the end ruined it.
This argument doesn't make sense to me. Why thought be worthless if you're an atheist?
It isn't just thought that is meaningless, but all of life. If life has no meaning, then why even bother living at all?
At that point they start with their "pragmatist" nonsense, you can check out of the debate. But most atheists only have the canned zingers they've heard from Dawkins & Co anyways.
Apatheism. Not everything needs an answer, make your own meaning, finding an objective meaning won't change anything, etc.
I don't really care about atheists or apologetics tbh (my fault, I suppose). But I do care about presuppositions hiding behind my own brothers' and sisters' thinking. People who are Christian, but outside traditional church thinking (I still consider them brothers though.. I just them to see the conclusion of some of their assumptions. I hope they do me the same favor if I have any bad ones too).
Go complain about muh dialectics somewhere else Jay
Faking it til you make it is not uncommon in Christianity. There was a martyr who was an actor and he performed a full Christian service in mockery before a Roman emperor and by the end of it he confessed that he actually believed.Pascal's wager is a good retort. Atheists like to play victim. At that point, you should realize they are just being disingenous.
You're missing the point. It's an argument by contradiction: if your thoughts are the end result of random natural processes, then does "thought" really exist? Obviously, thought is not random, logic exists, and thus, there must have been something intelligent that created our intelligence. The principle of infinite regress then points to God as the original, supernatural creator of natural intelligence.
I don't know why Jay engages in this stuff. He himself knows God is only revealed through revelation. You won't find him through philosophy… and the god you find there will have just as much in common with the theist's god (which is altogether worthless, without any sense of specificity or revelation in order to know him).
Some anons just put too much stock in Dyer. He provides great intellectual headway into the faith, but like any other earthly endeavor it's ultimately fruitless. I pray that he understands this, and hope that other anons learn not to put too much into him.
That argument by CS Lewis is pretty dodgy. Its just a fancy expression of disguising your feelings of incredulity as an argument. Likewise its pretty dishonest or ignorant to hold things evolution being akin to spilled milk. Even with all of this this argument could be reversed and used to argue for atheism by holding that unless there is nothing but material objects there is no reason to trust your thoughts because divine beings could just be implanting or messing with them.
Discussions of consciousness and abstract things like numbers is a much better way to go about dealing with empiricism.
Probably a combination of:
1.It gets views and attention for his other work. 2.He is American and still has that kind of volatility and fire that defines American religious and Athiest identity
I'm pretty sure he's made the "wisdom of this world is foolishness" argument against atheism, not Christianity. He just holds that the atheistic worldview is incomplete and easily refuted.
He probably sees it as a form of evangelism
I don't argue with atheists. Nobody should. Let them pat themselves on the back and retweet themselves and have their little circle-jerks. We should focus on the needs of our community and Christians in need.
Doesnt he do simmilar things with respect to scholasticism though?
These arent mutually exclusive. If argument can help bring friends and family to Christ it is absolutely worthwhile.
Why?
The why is supposed to quote the green text
This is where he's extremely helpful, I think. Forget the atheists. Catholics and Orthodox are seperated brothers, and I'm sad to say Orthodox don't make enough effort to speak Catholic's language. He can.
You're asking why Thought isn't Random? Or how that gets back to, God? For thought not being just this random bi product of nature. You're already consciously or unconsciously assuming it's more than just random flux. Otherwise what's the winnie the pooh of thinking about anything. Let alone Grand Get that *Grand* Scheme narratives that we can like in this thread. It just follows, which being unwarranted in it's self. But if we're still using *Logic* Then logically speaking what's the point about asking questions about, or anything for that matter. None of this going anywhere and never will go anywhere, it's all just going to end up in Nietzsche's ouroboros. As for Thought being the direct creation of, God. Well if we come to the realization that Thought actually isn't just random Chemical flux, where we're not making actual arguments. But that they do have Weight behind them. It just logically follows down the trail of. That order is established in the world. And ultimately where do i get this standard from? Why are my thoughts carrying weight to them, and why do i, like, you go out into the world with ideally, although it's evident that great many people do not. But ideally after going over thoughts acting as if they have meaning and a real weight and force to them, people then tend to go out and argue for certain axioms, even, Atheism Which is retared see, Hume, Or Nietzsche who saw these types of people as same side of a flip coin. But point being that If God Created the Universe he established order, purpose, reasoning, Logic, and everything we hold dear in this world. And it can account for yes, Thought, Which Naturalism can't even account for it's self. It's just Like C.S Lewis said in his Reply to, Dr. H.H. Price. *I don't even need to appeal to religion to refute Naturalism, Naturalism refutes it's self on it's on grounds*
Pic related just to tie it up. This, is more on logic. But with thought you can really get the same idea, i mean with thought, people even the evangelical atheist, like to and usually by some odd reason tend to have the default axiom of Yes my thoughts carry weight and meaning. Which if atheism is true they really don't, which you don't see people admitting that until you get up to someone like Hume or Nietzsche.