SoliDeoGloria
Active Member
Being as how the OP (which, by the way, I posted) quoted two Christain Apologetics books affirming Natural Theology, I don't see how it is a detraction at all.
Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria
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Natural Theology
- Thread starter SoliDeoGloria
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Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria
SoliDeoGloria
Active Member
AG claims in their profile to be a christian and posted in a Philosophical debate thread about Natural Theology such profound statements as:
Now being as how what Ag has given in response to my inquiries, ironically, can easily by definition be classified as a philosophical Apologetic and not a detailed answer as to what about Christian Apologetics and Natural Theology is
Sincerely,
SolideoGloria
After considering Rom 1:20 " For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and Divine Nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" and other verses like Ps. 19:1 etc., and studying such things a Christian Apologetics, I was compelled to ask the questions AG has attributed to me and make the comments I did. With AG's response to my inquiries, I can't help but wonder if they also consider verses such as 1 Th. 5:21 and 1 Jn. 4:1 an
or rude. I wonder if they also think verses like 1 Cor. 5:12 OR 1 Pet. 3:15 are uncalled for.
Now being as how what Ag has given in response to my inquiries, ironically, can easily by definition be classified as a philosophical Apologetic and not a detailed answer as to what about Christian Apologetics and Natural Theology is
.I can only conclude that these comments are a result of ignorance and personal feelings rather than an objective inquiry of the subjects mentioned. Besides that, there is absolutely no Biblical backing to their implications that anything that I have done has been what they claim it to be.
Sincerely,
SolideoGloria
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Nothing in may posts warrants your baseless accusations and attacks. There is no excuse for your agressive and offensive behavior, the attacks should be removed by a MOD as no attack adds to a debate or a discussion and therefore cannot pertain to the OP, wasting our time.SolideoGloria said:
You are not able to produce adequate evidence that my comments are the result of ignorance and personal feelings rather than an objective inquiry of the subjects mentioned.SolideoGloria said:
I have clearly stated and defended my position, which instead of addressing, you baselessly attacked my Christian confession and character, and now you are questioning my competence. You didn't even know to which creeds I was referring, which indicates that you don't even know what defines someone as a Christian.
You have concluded, despite my very clear posts, that my conclusions are based on feelings, but my posts are logical and not emotive. Are you able to post something that actually addresses the issues or are you content to keep attacking me?
SoliDeoGloria
Active Member
Hows about your lack of evidence for why you have stated
The most you have done is attack my exercising of Biblical verses like 1 Th. 5:21 and 1 Jn. 4:1 and given a philosophical apologetic of why you adhere to such statements with absolutely no Biblical basis. There has not been one example given of a writting of Christian Apologetics or about Natural Theology that you strongly disagree with and specifically why. I have even provided verses of scripture that confirm the philosophy of natural theology:
and all you continue to do is try to get my posts removed with no real violation for a reason and attack my inquiries as if they are soley personal attacks against you as a person. You have diverted me to different threads and continue to accuse me of getting off subject.
Just because I didn't know which "creeds" you were reffering to does not constitute that I did not know of many different Christian Creeds and all your insistant reffering of "creeds" defining one as a Christian just reinforces my comments earlier being as how there is much more to being defined as a Christian than agreeing with a "creed" (James 2:14-26).
and cause you to make such statements as
? BTW, what emotions are you experiencing when you continue to have my posts removed, since your motives are purely logical?
Are you going to give more than a philosophical apologetic and attempts to get my posts removed and finally address the issue that you have probably never read anything that has to do with natural theology and or christian apologetics but attack them as if you know everything about them?
Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
An ad hominim is always off topic, I saw no reason to have your further attacks on my thread, and frankly, I don't think that they belong here, either.
Are you able to prove that I attacked you in any way? I am able to clearly and convincingly outline your baseless accusations, whereas you have nothing because I did no such thing. I have provided proof of your senseless attacks, but there is nothing of the sort from me. You have attacked me and then accuse me of attacking you whilst unable to provide proof.
If you cannot identify presuppositions and premises in an argument and engage them, there is no reason to respond to your posts.
Starting a thread with an important question and then baselessly attacking those whom answer is not good form.
EDIT: It does seem to me like your having a difficult time with logic (by not addressing my thinking and by constantly coming to conclusions that doesn't match evidence), so I will be glad to outline any of my posts into presuppositions and premises if that will help you to respond more responsibly if I have the time.
Are you able to prove that I attacked you in any way? I am able to clearly and convincingly outline your baseless accusations, whereas you have nothing because I did no such thing. I have provided proof of your senseless attacks, but there is nothing of the sort from me. You have attacked me and then accuse me of attacking you whilst unable to provide proof.
If you cannot identify presuppositions and premises in an argument and engage them, there is no reason to respond to your posts.
Starting a thread with an important question and then baselessly attacking those whom answer is not good form.
EDIT: It does seem to me like your having a difficult time with logic (by not addressing my thinking and by constantly coming to conclusions that doesn't match evidence), so I will be glad to outline any of my posts into presuppositions and premises if that will help you to respond more responsibly if I have the time.
SoliDeoGloria
Active Member
(^Directly unaffirmable statement #1) You brag about proof in a statement that has no proof added to it. Would you like me to show you the private message that I was sent that states that there is no real violation for why my post was taken off of a thread that you bragged was for
and then whined about questions that were brought in a way that you felt was an attack.
(^directly unaffirmable statement #2)I not only identified them for what they are but treated them as they should've been treated, as presuppositions with absolutley no factual evidence to back them and directly contradicted your claim at being a Christian. Your best defense has been to name off a couple of creeds, claim to agree with them and whine about my posts as being direct attacks upon your person and move to get my posts removed. I have come not only with Scriptual basis for why I have done what I have done and directly contradict your presuppositions, which you have yet to address, The original post, which I posted, quotes actual books that deal with the subject matter, to which you have brought absolutley no factual proof, but more presuppositions.
And neither is addressing factual evidence with unfactual presuppositions and then constatnly whinning when they have gotten treated as they should've especially due to claims as a "christian".
alrighty then, lets do it (But don't ever say I didn't give you what you wanted). I will show not only how your presuppositional statements not only are parallel to, but almost quote, verbatim, some of the most noted agnostics/atheists in human history, are by definition probably the most dangerous psuedochristian notion to have infiltrated church doctrine (fideism:taken from:http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Fideism:In Christian theology, fideism is any of a number of positions.It is occasionally used to refer to a belief that Christians are saved by faith alone: for which see sola fide. This position is sometimes called solifidianism. Note that sola fide is a doctrine mostly accepted by Protestants.
A more widely used meaning for the term is that fideism essentially teaches that reason is more-or-less irrelevant to religious belief. Specifically, fideism teaches that arguments for the existence of God are fallacious and irrelevant, and have nothing to do with the truth of Christian theology.),but also how they directly contradict your claim to Christianity but also themselves. The following statements have been taken from http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/comparative-religion/27522-ask-angellous-any-question-about-angellouss-interpretation-christianity-5.html
(^Directly unaffirmable statement #3) My favorite part is how the first three words of this statement are "Consistent with scripture". Then the only scripture you quote,(Gen 1:1) "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", is one that agrees with the next four words in this statement, begging the question of whether or not you could come up with any other scriptural basis for anything else. to answer that question,you not only fail to come up with any more Scriptural basis for anything you state then begin to make conclusions that directly contradict scripture. While the Scripture and I agree with the notion that "God is available to humanity only on Gods terms" (Dan.4:34-35) The notion that God has made Himself " inaccessible completely by means of all of humanitys tools that are designed for the evaluation of nature" directly contradict verses of Scripture like Rom. 1:20" For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and Divine Nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" and other verses like Ps. 19:1 etc. On top of that they directly parallel quotes from some of the most noted promoters of Fideism. For example, in his book "Philosophical Fragments", Soren Kierkegaard claimed that humans see God as a perplexing unknown. God must innitiate communication. What should also be noted is how another promoter of fideism, A German professor of theology, Karl Barth,who not only claims such influences as Soren Kiekegaard which he later disavowed, but also the epistemology of Immanuel Kant, one of the most noted agnostic philosophers in human history, through Albrecht Ritschl and Wilhel Herrmann, the atheism of Franz Overbeck, and the atheism of Ludwig Feuerbach to the point of writing a foward for an edition of Feuebach's book, "The Essence of Christianity" where he seemed to affirm that anthropomorphic religion is the best humans can do apart from Divine revelation, wrote in one of his own books "Anselm, (282) that only God can make God known; The word of God becomes knowable by making itself knowable, and then continued to take his fideism to an even further unbiblically based extreme by writing in an apologetic response titled "Nein" to a neoorthodox theologian, Emil Brunner, that human being don't even have an active compacity torecieve special revelation from God, so God has to miraculously create the contact point within the person before they can communicate ("Nein", 29).
In the spirit of Immanuel Kant, who claimed to have been "awakened from" his "dogmatic slumbers" by David Hume (whom many claim as the originator of modern day Agnosticism), and his book "Critique of Pure Reason"(173-75, 257-750) the statement, "being inaccessible completely by means of all of humanitys tools that are designed for the evaluation of nature: science and philosophy", makes an attempt at disjuctioning noumena (things as they are) from phenomena (our experiences). But one wonders how one can make a noumenal statement about phenomena without claiming to have noumenal knowledge about what they claim to be phenomenal, therefore contradicting themselves and violating the first principle of noncontradiction, thereby making the statement false.
In the same way, from a scientific standpoint, the statement,"being inaccessible completely by means of all of humanitys tools that are designed for the evaluation of nature: science and philosophy", in the very least, presupposes a scientific classification of what God is, therefore, once again contradicting itself, for how can one make a scientific claim about something being "inaccessible" to science unless a scientific study has been successfully done? Unless, the statement has absolutely no scientific base to it, making it absolute speculation, without a shred of scientific evidence to back it. I'll let you decide which one fits your intentions.
(continued in the next post)
SoliDeoGloria
Active Member
(^directly unaffirmable statement #4)As if your original statements in this thread did not show enough ignorance of what the intentions and conclusions of Natural Theology and Christian Apologetics are, this statement presupposes something about Natural Theology and Christian Apologetics that is just simply not there. I have yet to read a Christian Apologetic work about Natural Theology that claims that Christianity is a "result" of scientifc review. To disprove my claims, it would be greatly appreciated if you would post a quote from a Christian Apologetic work that claimed that Christianity is a "result" of scientific review. Even the Bakers Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler has this to say about Soren Kierkegaard: "Kierkegaard can be commended for his belief in the fundamentals of Christian faith".
You see, what Christian Apologetics affirms through Natural Theology is that, apart from faith or the Bible/special revelation, one can come to the conclusion that a God, even the Christian God, simply exisits through philosophical and or scientific review. In denying that, you may as well as agree with many followers of Atheism and Agnosticism in stating that your affirmation of the Nicean and Athenasian creeds are nothing more than an affirmation of belief in a figment of your imagination or something that is just simply not real. Even the Apostle Paul, in his pressentation to the Epicurian and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens Greece (Acts 17:16-34) did not use one verse of Biblical Scripture, but rather quoted their own Poets. Ofcourse, the crux of Christianity is faith (Eph 2:8-9) but it is not faith in something that does not exist.
Who stated that we have a mythfull religion? I decided to do a search on the words "christianity myth" and this: http://www.mywebsearch.com/jsp/GGmain.jsp?st=bar&ptnrS=ZCxdm313&searchfor=christianity+myth
is what I got. I'll let you chose from the 1,230,000 atheist and antichristian websites to figure out which one best fits your presuppositions. With statements like this, I can't help but wonder why you don't just add the word "atheist" to your profile. Then you can be an "atheist/christian".
(^ directly unaffirmable statement #5)No you are not!!!!! You are confessing to affirm creeds about a "myth" or did you forget that a couple of minutes before that you just typed
*** The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 ***
Myth \Myth\ (m[i^]th), n. [Written also {mythe}.] [Gr. my^qos
myth, fable, tale, talk, speech: cf. F. mythe.]
A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
[1913 Webster]
(^ directly unaffirmable statement #6)If only you could've gotten past Gen. 1:1, you might've seen Gen 1:26 "Then God said, "Let Us make make man in Our image; according to Our likeness...". No matter how one tranlates the words "image" or "likeness", it becomes a point of relation between humans and God and it took absolutley no scientific or philosophical review.
(^ directly unaffirmable statement #7)If God created humanity, he could not have "discovered" humanity. For God to have "discovered" humanity, humanity would've had to have already existed.
*** The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 ***
Discover \Dis*cov"er\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Discovered}; p. pr.
& vb. n. {Discovering}.] [OE. discoveren, discuren, descuren,
OF. descovrir, descouvrir, F. d['e]couvrir; des- (L. dis-) +
To obtain for the first time sight or knowledge of, as of a thing existing already, but not perceived or known; to find; to ascertain; to espy; to detect. [WordNet sense 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] [1913 Webster]
Presuppositional statements, as you wish me to treat your statements:
do not equal evidence:
*** WordNet (r) 2.0 ***
presupposition
n : the act of presupposing; a supposition made prior to having knowledge (as for the purpose of argument)
evidence
n 1: your basis for belief or disbelief; knowledge on which to base belief; "the evidence that smoking causes lung cancer is very compelling" [syn: {grounds}]
(^ directly unaffirmable statement #8) Once again, you must've just forgotten that a couple of minutes before you typed this statement, you also typed
Given the definition of the word confess: *** The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 *** Confess \Con*fess"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Confessed}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Confessing}.] [F. confesser, fr. L. confessus, p. p. of confiteri to confess; con- + fateri to confess; akin to fari to speak. See 2d {Ban}, {Fame}.]
To admit as true; to assent to; to acknowledge, as after a previous doubt, denial, or concealment.
[1913 Webster]
One has to wondor how one can confess God's existence as being true and then call it a mythicall being that has absolutly no evidence to prove it's existence.
After all your presuppostional statements made in an attempt to show that God does not exist, your emphasis of the Nicean and Athanasian creeds come across as nothing more than a statement of faith in faith. You issues are not to different from the issues raised when the Apostle James penned in James 2:19 "You believe that God is one, you do well; the demons also believe and shudder." You have made it abundantly clear that your faith is not in something you believe to be true or something that even exists unlike how the first five words of the Nicean Creed "I believe in one God". On top of that, if all you affirm are these creeds, than you are defenselessly open to probably the most frequently used attacks against the Christian faith; the attacks against the ecumenical councils where these creeds were formed and adobted into Christian doctrine.
Your claims that Christian Apologetics emphasizes proving God's existence through soley scientific or philosophical means not only demeans a Biblical comand for all Christians to (1Pet 3:15) "always being ready to make a defnese-(the greek word "apologia") to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you", but shows a true ignorance of what Christian Apologetics is. As shown in the previous sentence, we get the word "Apologetics" from the greek word used in 1 Peter 3:15 that is properly translated into the english word "defense". Christian Apologetics is a defense of Christian doctrine and beliefs against all accusations, whether they are philosophical, scientific, or scriptural. My personal interests in Christian Apologetics began when I had heard about a book written by the president of the Christian Research Institute ( http://www.equip.org ), Hank Hanegraaff, that had nothing to do with proving God's existence through philosophical or scientific means, but rather was a defense against a televangelist movement called the "Word of Faith Movement". In the book, "Christianity in Crisis", Hanegraaff identifies from a Biblical standpoint what these televangelists and their doctrine turly were and unfortunately still are, unbiblical and unchristian.
In Conclusion. Fideism, which you have been shown to be a follower of, is nothing more than philosphical atheism with a christian looking mask. With your claim to christianity and the part of your nickname (evangellous), I can't help but wonder what your evangelism consists of. If I was an Atheist and I had seen your claims about the existence of God, I would have to ask what exactly is the difference between what you believed and what any other atheists believed.
Sincerely,
SoliDeogloria
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
I guess others too have recognized that this thread is so perversely off topic that it hardly warrants response.
I'll be glad to debate the topic if all personal attacks are removed and the arguments alone are clearly stated. I see no reason why I or anyone should have to read between all the off-topic attacks to locate an insightful rebutal to my logic, if indeed there is any on this thread.
I'll be glad to debate the topic if all personal attacks are removed and the arguments alone are clearly stated. I see no reason why I or anyone should have to read between all the off-topic attacks to locate an insightful rebutal to my logic, if indeed there is any on this thread.
I feel that most people will most likely, in my mind, take this in a metaphysical sense, so I will do as you suggested and take it in physical terms. If you truly want to beleive in a god then you will have to beleive that there is some kind of physical application to it. Mostly this would appear in religions in which Omnicism is accepted. There would either be a "part" of god in everything, and/or it would be "controled" by god. So although Naturla Theology stripped, in its most pure form may not be entirly correct, some duration from it must be in theism.
SoliDeoGloria
Active Member
And I think probably the biggest misconception about Natural Theology is that people superimpose upon those who promote Natural Theology, an idea that Theism is somehow dependant upon Natural Theology, which is not the case at all. As a matter of fact, most truthfull theists who know about this subject will acknowledge that faith plays an extremely vital role in theism. What Natural Theology does is compliment and affirm theism, no more.
Sincerely,
SoliDeoGloria