73
votes
Accepted
If the Bible contains circular reasoning, does it discredit it?
Circular reasoning doesn't "discredit" any point of view --if anything, it demonstrates internal consistency. However, it also doesn't provide any external support for a point of view. It has no ...
- 26.9k
35
votes
Is Christianity testable?
Is John Lennox's defense of the testability of Christianity sound?
No. It's true that Christianity as a religion contains some testable claims, but the implication – that therefore Christianity is ...
- 525
23
votes
Is Christianity testable?
We have to start from the neutral observation that while Lennox is deliberately using scientific terminology, and explicitly placing it in a scientific context, he is NOT using the term with the same ...
- 26.9k
20
votes
Accepted
Is Christianity testable?
TL;DR Testable claims are testable, untestable claims are not testable, and it's easy to confuse the two when they appear to be one package.
People who study comparative religion tend to distinguish ...
- 376
16
votes
On the claim that science is an offspring of Christian thought?
First, concerning “the belief in a rational and orderly universe” one can just quote wikipedia:
The philosopher Pythagoras used the term kosmos (Ancient Greek:
κόσμος, Latinized kósmos) for the order ...
- 23.7k
12
votes
On the claim that science is an offspring of Christian thought?
Even if the premise that Christianity provided the right environment for science to be born were true, it does not follow that it is necessary for it. That Christian countries developed science, were ...
- 221
10
votes
Accepted
Was Plato influenced by Moses?
I do not remember any passage where Plato refers to the Jewish religion or to Jewish mythology.
Sometimes Plato refers to myths he pretends to have heard from Egyptians and possibly he invented some ...
- 23.7k
10
votes
On the claim that science is an offspring of Christian thought?
Maybe my first installment was a bit rushed so let me try and improve it a little.
The claim that science originates from Christian thought is vastly overblown.
First because it ignores the scientific ...
- 1,667
9
votes
Is Christianity testable?
Well, he's playing with polysemy, but what he really says is that it's testable in the sense of someone adopting it may have beneficial results. Of course there's the issue what the control group is ...
- 1,932
9
votes
Is Christianity testable?
Not really. Firstly you need to be clear what you mean by testing Christianity. It's a bit like testing a person- there are hundreds of different attributes, some of which are testable and some are ...
- 12.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Atheists who follow the teachings of Jesus
Being a cultural but not religious/theological adherent is far more common in Judaism, & increasingly Islam. There are reasons for that, not least that apostasy in Christian countries has not been ...
- 20.5k
7
votes
Accepted
Are there any counterarguments to the criticism of Christianity as too local in time and space?
You have lighted on the soteriological problem of evil (Gk σωτηρία = sōtēria = salvation). This is the evil supposedly inflicted on the innocent in an afterlife - innocent (a) because they have grown ...
- 35.4k
7
votes
Is Christianity testable?
Firstly no, because he is cherry-picking evidence
In order for his claim to be valid, he would have to track the number of people went into a church and felt nothing. He would also have to track the ...
- 1,722
6
votes
The concept of eudaimonia
Eudaimonia, happiness, and well-being
The standard definition of eudaimonia used to be that it denotes happiness. In recent decades a more satisfactory rendering has been found in notions such as ...
- 35.4k
6
votes
On the claim that science is an offspring of Christian thought?
I would argue the core structures of science, the discoursive method of mutual pursuit of truth, academia and the idea of a universal education, were all from the Ancient Greeks. Christianity involved ...
- 20.5k
5
votes
If the Bible contains circular reasoning, does it discredit it?
A presence of circular reasoning does not automatically, or necessarily at all, discredit a publication. Circular reasoning may indicate a lack of external support for some argument expressed in a ...
- 161
5
votes
If the Bible contains circular reasoning, does it discredit it?
Just to be clear from the outset, there is no instance of which I know where the Bible employs circular reasoning. There are plenty of examples of Christians misusing the Bible to employ circular ...
- 385
5
votes
Who are the most prominent Christian philosophers of the 21st century?
Edward Feser—most well-known for his The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide, and Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction*—is one of the most ...
- 7,817
5
votes
How consistent is Christian theology compared to Islamic and Buddhist theologies?
On religious views inconsistency is not necessarily a fault, after all God is supposed to surpass human reason and logic. And many paradoxical notions come from general monotheistic doctrines, like ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
Does believing in a Christian God logically imply believing in miracles?
Miracles and Providence in Christian theism
As you are asking about Christianity, I think the first place to start is by noting that Christianity is explicitly opposed to Deism, the belief that God ...
- 1,767
5
votes
Accepted
What puts Christians off "hard determinism"?
Hard deterninism
“Physical determinism” (hereinafter “determinism” [or 'hard determinism' - GT])
is
a partial and unprovable hypothesis about the history,
present state, and future of ...
- 35.4k
5
votes
Who is Kierkegaard's knight of faith?
The passage is a bit difficult to follow and if memory serves there's quite a bit of literature out there trying to figure out exactly what the distinction between a knight of faith and knight of ...
- 24.6k
5
votes
Accepted
What are all attributes of God and what is the manner of knowing them according to Aquinas?
God's attributes known negatively
Following St. Damascene (De Fide Orth. i, 4), St. Thomas Aquinas writes (Summa Theologica I q. 2 a. 2 arg. 2):
we cannot know in what God's essence consists, but ...
- 7,817
5
votes
Question about the Thomistic view of God's attributes
What you seem to be running into here is the change in philosophy from the schoolmen to the moderns. In the course of that transition, several philosophical concepts were replaced with other concepts ...
- 7,436
5
votes
The apparent and partial "sui-deicide" of the Christian god
I'll offer, if I may, a simple reductio ad absurdium to the premise of your question. If Jesus had not been crucified, He (in the Person of God) still would have been the creator of the forces that ...
- 689
5
votes
Is Christianity testable?
So, the view that things can be tested and evidence (SEP) can be considered is evidentialism. But just what constitutes evidence can be given a very wide berth. For instance, an astrologer claims to ...
- 22.6k
5
votes
Is Christianity testable?
From the short video by John Lennox I understand that he proclaims Christianity to be an evidence based religion. He repeats two basic statements of Christianity:
Jesus is the son of God, Jesus is ...
- 23.7k
5
votes
Is Christianity testable?
Allow me to be uncomfortably philosophical for a moment.
This question — and in fact this entire (oh so irritating) dispute — rests on a fundamental misunderstanding. Most everyone holds the naïve ...
- 18.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible