Tag: logic
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Pat Mefford on Titus 1.12-13a
Pat Mefford’s initial post on multi-valued logic was directed at the impossibility of the contrary claim found in covenantal/presuppositional apologetics. I responded here. Pat responded here and here.
His main concern now is as follows:
…In what way are we thinking God’s thoughts after him when think of this scriptural passage that was at the top of my original post?
“One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true.” (Titus 1: 12-13a)
Now I can respect that Paul was rhetorical point in citing Epimenides, he
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Anything But God
Well, just take a look: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/whoa-physicists-testing-see-universe-computer-simulation-224525825.html
Notable quotations:
“‘This is the first testable signature of such an idea,’ Savage said. ‘If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe should emerge.’”
“[I]f energy signatures in our simulations match those in the universe at large, there’s a good chance we, too, exist within a simulation.”
“Interestingly, one of Savage’s students takes the hypothesis further: If we stumble upon the nature of our existence, would we then look for ways to communicate with the civilization who created us?”
To be sure, this article was listed under a section entitled “Odd …
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Listen to Chris Bolt on Backpack Radio this Sunday, December 16
Lord willing, Vocab Malone will be interviewing me on Backpack Radio this Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 6PM on KPXQ-AM in Phoenix, Arizona. You can live stream the program from this website – http://www.kpxq1360.com – or catch the recording when it goes up on this website – http://backpack.podbean.com. Make sure to tune in, and don’t forget to check out other episodes of Backpack Radio!…
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Pat Mefford on Multi-Valued Logic as an Objection to the Impossibility of the Contrary
Introduction
I will be responding to this post – http://servileconformist.typepad.com/servile-conformist/2012/12/can-presuppositional-apologists-account-for-logic-.html#
Atheist Pat Mefford offers a rather ingenious means of getting around the transcendental method as used in covenantal apologetics. Now, I know Pat, so let me begin with a bit of friendly ad hominem. The argument of Pat’s post strikes me as illustrating the dangers of familiarity with a little bit of philosophy and a lot more sin. Pat proposes non-classical views of logic (in some cases held by an extreme minority of philosophers) in an attempt to overturn a presuppositional apologetic argument. Frankly, if that is the best …
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Pat Mefford’s Question about the Impossibility of the Contrary
Atheist Pat Mefford asked a strange question in the context of a discussion about the impossibility of the contrary. I would love to try and answer it. However, Pat is a smart guy, and I need him to dumb it down for me.
What if I insisted on a multi-value logic? Such as Kleene’s 3-valued logic that has a third value that is an intermediate between true and false?
Is Pat claiming A v ~A is false? Or that it is undefined? I’m not sure. Comments are welcome.…
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Switching Prisons
Not too long ago a good friend sent me this article: http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usnj&c=words&id=15275 The author is a Wiccan philosopher. I wanted to respond to it for my friend, and even for myself, as it helps to articulate a position you disagree with. The following is somewhat of a rough sketch, and I’m sure I didn’t get to everything in it. It’s not a response to Wicca per se, but to the philosophical underpinnings highlighted throughout.Here it is:
Alright so here are some of my initial thoughts. The author is clearly using a particular jargon, at times using terms only someone familiar …
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Response to “The Problem with Presuppositionalism”
One of our readers brought this post – http://philosophiles.net/2012/09/28/the-problem-with-presuppositionalism – to my attention. For some reason I was unable to comment on the post, so I have reproduced a brief response here.
The author is probably correct to think that premise four is the one that presuppositionalists are going to object to, but in attempting to defend that premise he makes at least three errors.
First, he focuses on, “The only effective way to falsify premise four,” which assumes that the burden of proof is on the presuppositionalist to falsify the premise. But that’s not the way arguments work. Since …
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Christianity Hinders Scientific Progress
It’s truly a tired mantra. Under the pretense that they own a corner on the Market of Reality while ignoring the fact that they are merely presuming upon the efforts of their relatively recent philosophical parents (many of whose principles are derived from the truths of Christianity), the New Atheists, evangelizing from their Holy Bible of Naturalistic Science and Witless Retorts written by their own venerated prophets, proclaim loudly and often, “Christianity hinders scientific progress.” And of course, as is commonly the hazard of religious discourse, there’s a good bit of nuance to hack through.
First, what is meant by …
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It’s Circular Because It’s Consistent
I just wrote a piece arguing that presuppositionalism is not circular. For the sake of clarity, I will now argue that it is.
“Virtuous Circularity”
There is, of course, a sense in which presuppositionalism is circular. But upon hearing the term “circular” most opponents of the Christian faith, and even many of those who are counted among its friends, immediately start off into lengthy diatribes describing their disgust with Christians and methodologies that rely upon logically fallacious argumentation.
The Logic of Logic
Now the charge of logically fallacious argumentation, it seems to me, rests in some way upon logic. …