We are infallible

I’ve been thinking lately about presuppositional apologetics, following (among other things) this post on Aron Ra’s blog. I’ve got the beginnings of an approach to addressing presuppositionalism, and just for fun I thought I’d throw out what I’ve got and see what kind of comments it gets. My approach is a bit Pascalesque [EDIT: Cartesian?]: I start with the premise that there is one presupposition we all share (necessarily so) and at least one fact about which we are each absolutely infallible. From these I believe we can build a rational system which will allow us to examine any other presuppositions we might make, and evaluate which of these, if any, are more likely to be correct than the others.

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Higgs Boson

I heard a rumor that somebody was getting ready to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson, and now I see the discovery being hailed as a done deed on CNN, so I guess they really did it. This is so cool and so awesome! It’s a bit ironic that the discovery was announced on July 4th, the American independence day, by European scientists—if it hadn’t been for penny-pinching anti-science bureaucrats in Washington, that discovery might have been made by, or in conjunction with, an American research team. But America has lost its drive to be pre-eminent in cutting-edge science, preferring instead to come up with innovative ways to mingle science and superstition in public school curricula.

But I digress, and I don’t want my curmudgeonly rant to cast a pall over this tremendous scientific discovery. Like so many in the field of advanced physics, it seems this answer only serves to raise more questions. And that’s the way science ought to work: each new discovery opens the door to making further discoveries. Yes, we have more questions, but now we know what the right questions are, and can start to work on answering them.

Of course, there’s one truly momentous question that’s on everyone’s mind right now, and I’m sure it’s one you all can’t wait to get answered…

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A quick thought

I was driving home from work last night, and was thinking about that slogan, “We report, you decide.” It was bugging me because I had the nagging feeling I’d heard a very similar quote, years ago, but couldn’t remember what it was. Then it came to me.

“Garbage in, garbage out.”

My new favorite religion

For some reason I don’t seem to attract the kind of crank email that, say, PZ Myers gets, but now and then I stumble across a bit of good material. It happened to me this weekend: I was in the store buying vitamins, and noticed that someone had discretely slipped a copy of “Prophetic Observer” into one of the displays. (Talk about a bold witness, eh?) Published by Southwest Radio Ministries and the Southwest Radio Church of the Air, this was a full tabloid-sized four-page newsletter containing a single article: “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?” by Noah W. Hutchings. And man, it brings the crazy.

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Perverted Science

Writing for the Finance section of Townhall.com (wait, the Finance section?), Mark Baisley has great hopes for the future of science.

Galileo was a true scientist.

I like Wikipedia’s description, “He displayed a peculiar ability to ignore established authorities, most notably Aristotelianism. In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought. He was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation.”

Based on recent trends in education and politics, I predict that human thought in the 21st Century will progress even further with a new separation of science, this time from politics. Three recent, unrelated publications; a video study, a book, and a movie; give me encouragement that the contemporary version of geocentricism is about to get its comeuppance.

He bases this hope on three things: a video from Focus on the Family, a book by William Dembski, and the move Expelled.

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Porn safer than religion

A study by antivirus giant Symantec reports that if your anti-malware protection isn’t quite up to snuff, you’re probably safer sticking to porn sites and avoiding those that serve up Bible studies and other ideological exhortations.

Websites with religious or ideological themes were found to have triple the average number of “threats” that those featuring adult content, according to Symantec.

The study reports that porn sites ranked 10th overall in the survey of sites most compromised by malware, and speculates that the purveyors of porn are keeping their shops cleaner in order to avoid discouraging repeat business.

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Consistent self-contradiction

PZ Myers recounts a visit his blog had from a bunch of Hovind fanatics.

I can summarize their argument very briefly:

  • Your ability to reason comes from god.
  • Therefore, if you use reason, you prove the existence of god.
  • If you use reason to disprove god, you actually prove god.
  • If you claim any of their arguments are logically fallacious, you are using reason, which comes from god, therefore you prove them correct.

Maddening, isn’t it? But at least they’re being consistently self-contradictory. Let’s look at their argument and see what it tells us.

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Just a few weeks ago

Thought it might be fun to look at what Rick Santorum was saying just a few weeks ago.

“What won’t they resort to try to bully their way through this race?” Santorum asked following a campaign rally at Harvest Graphics, 14625 W. 100th St. in Lenexa. “If the governor Romney thinks he is now ordained by God to win, let’s just have it out.” …

“I’m going to stay in the race because we’re doing really well,” Santorum told reporters following a campaign rally before 200 to 300 supporters on the day after Super Tuesday. “We’re winning states, and where we’re not winning, we’re finishing second, by and large.”

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A top ten list

Happy Easter everybody—I hope you all have prepared your colored eggs for Astarte, the pagan fertility goddess, and have filled your house with other fertility symbols like rabbits and such. Remember, Astarte is the reason for the season (and even gave it her name, slightly misspelled).

Oh yeah, and some guy died too. I suppose we ought to remember him. So here, by way of holiday celebration, I present the Top Ten Ways the Bible Tells Us Jesus Did Not Literally Rise From The Dead.

10.
If Jesus had been literally and physically raised from the dead, the tomb would not be empty—there would have been a living Jesus in it.
9.
If Mary had seen an angel fly down from heaven, roll away the stone, and tell her that Jesus had been raised from the dead (Matt 28:1-5), she would not have run to the disciples weeping over the missing corpse (John 20:1-2).
8.
If Jesus had been physically raised in a physical body, he would not spontaneously appear and disappear and change his shape to fool the disciples (Luke 24:28-36) and would not have needed to “prove” that he was not a spirit (Luke 24:36-43) by showing him his hands and feet and by eating their food—which angels and the pre-incarnate Jehovah can also do, even though they are supposedly spirits (Gen. 18:1-11).
7.
If Jesus had been physically raised from the dead, still bearing the wounds from his beatings, his crown of thorns, his crucifixion, and the spear thrust in his side, people would have noticed him walking to the room where his disciples were hiding, and he would not have been able to enter the room while the door was shut and/or locked (John 20:19, 26).
6.
The Sanhedrin would not have put a guard on the tomb because they had no reason to expect Jesus to rise from the dead (Matt. 27:62-65, cf John 2:19-21 and John 20:9—even the disciples were surprised!).
5.
If the priests found out Jesus had risen from the dead, they would have worried about Jesus, not about the empty tomb (Matt. 28:11-15).
4.
If Jesus had risen from the dead, the priests would have plotted to kill him again (John 12:9-11) instead of plotting to tell lies about the tomb.
3.
If the priests were going to bribe the guards to tell a lie, they would not have picked an obvious falsehood like “The disciples stole the body while we slept.” (Matt. 28:11-15.) If they were asleep, how would they know? Duh!
2.
If Jesus had literally and physically been raised from the dead, Paul would not have insisted that the body that was raised was a spiritual body rather than the body that was buried, and would not have expanded on this claim by insisting that the “last Adam” (i.e. Jesus) “became a life-giving Spirit” (I Cor. 15: 42-48).

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