Post by Kevin on May 8, 2021 10:08:06 GMT -7
For the purposes of my journey, I broke this down into three broad categories for my truth search. Christianity, Agnosticism, or another religion. The reason I lumped the others together, being raised in a Christian home, I would explore that first. If invalid, I would explore others, unless naturalism gave me reason not to.
Notice I do not put atheism. The reason is simple. The true atheistic claim (until the 1990’s when Dawkins created various “classes” of atheism to redefine it to be agnosticism) was that “there is no God.” This is a definitive statement. To say definitively “there is no God” means you must know everything throughout all of time. Just because you have not heard convincing evidence does not mean it doesn’t exist, it just means you haven’t heard it. For this reason, to be able to reasonably claim “there is no God” you must be, in essence, God. To me, atheism is untenable. They are truly agnostic, just calling themselves atheist because they cannot know with 100% certainty that God does not exist. They can believe He does not, but they cannot know.
In my search for truth, I wanted to use various methods in my research. I broke things down into analytical, statistical, logical (deductive reasoning), and legal (abductive reasoning) methods. Each methodology has its strength and weaknesses. Each can be applied to broad fields, such as science, the Bible, religions, etc.
How to Begin
I wanted to begin by working through some of the easier areas, that if true, would disprove the Christian worldview or at the last, severely hurt the ability of the Christian worldview being true.’
The central figure within Christianity is Jesus. Did He exist? Did He die on the cross? Did he raise from the dead? For me, the first question, did Jesus exist as a person would be the easiest way to quickly disprove Christianity. The evidence for this would need to be historical.
However, if Jesus existed, then I wanted to explore two broad subjects of naturalism, because if there is a viable explanation for abiogenesis (the naturalistic origin of life) and cosmology (the naturalistic origin of the universe). If there are viable and reasonable understandings for this, then the need for a God would be less, and put a serious dent in the Christian worldview. The evidence for this would require analytical, statistical reasoning with science.
Standards of proof
By its nature, statistical proof is not 100% certain but is highly reliable. In physics, reliability or proof is certain if proved to exceed 1 chance of non-occurrence in 10 to the 50th power. Essentially, anything beyond 1 in 1050 is considered impossible or absurd. This, for me, was a good standard to use.
The next standard is understanding the difference between possible and reasonable. When we come down to it, most anything is possible. You can be in the Matrix right now, and not know it. But is that reasonable? No. While it can be fun to imagine the possibilities (after all, that’s what Hollywood is founded on), it is important to focus on what is reasonable, especially when the truth is at stake. We must refrain from speculation and focus on the evidence and what it is telling us, not what we want it to say. In other words, we want to stay away from the “what if’s” and “Isn’t it possible.”
There is a reason our courts place a high standard on reasonableness. This reasonableness is important as we consider the process of abductive reasoning. This rational approach helps detectives come up with the truth of an event and form a reasonable conclusion.
Abductive reasoning is a form of logical inference. It starts with an observation or set of observations and then seeks to find the simplest and most likely conclusion from the observations. This process, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not positively verify it. Abductive conclusions are thus qualified as having a remnant of uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms such as "best available" or "most likely".
Here are some points I considered as I explored truth claims:
1. The truth must be feasible (the explanation has explanatory viability)
2. The truth will usually be straightforward (the explanation demonstrates explanatory simplicity)
3. The truth should be exhaustive (the explanation displays explanatory depth)
4. The truth must be logical (the explanation possesses explanatory consistency)
5. The truth will be superior (the explanation achieves explanatory superiority)
This is what I refer to as Legal reasoning or evidence and standard of proof.
Notice I do not put atheism. The reason is simple. The true atheistic claim (until the 1990’s when Dawkins created various “classes” of atheism to redefine it to be agnosticism) was that “there is no God.” This is a definitive statement. To say definitively “there is no God” means you must know everything throughout all of time. Just because you have not heard convincing evidence does not mean it doesn’t exist, it just means you haven’t heard it. For this reason, to be able to reasonably claim “there is no God” you must be, in essence, God. To me, atheism is untenable. They are truly agnostic, just calling themselves atheist because they cannot know with 100% certainty that God does not exist. They can believe He does not, but they cannot know.
In my search for truth, I wanted to use various methods in my research. I broke things down into analytical, statistical, logical (deductive reasoning), and legal (abductive reasoning) methods. Each methodology has its strength and weaknesses. Each can be applied to broad fields, such as science, the Bible, religions, etc.
How to Begin
I wanted to begin by working through some of the easier areas, that if true, would disprove the Christian worldview or at the last, severely hurt the ability of the Christian worldview being true.’
The central figure within Christianity is Jesus. Did He exist? Did He die on the cross? Did he raise from the dead? For me, the first question, did Jesus exist as a person would be the easiest way to quickly disprove Christianity. The evidence for this would need to be historical.
However, if Jesus existed, then I wanted to explore two broad subjects of naturalism, because if there is a viable explanation for abiogenesis (the naturalistic origin of life) and cosmology (the naturalistic origin of the universe). If there are viable and reasonable understandings for this, then the need for a God would be less, and put a serious dent in the Christian worldview. The evidence for this would require analytical, statistical reasoning with science.
Standards of proof
By its nature, statistical proof is not 100% certain but is highly reliable. In physics, reliability or proof is certain if proved to exceed 1 chance of non-occurrence in 10 to the 50th power. Essentially, anything beyond 1 in 1050 is considered impossible or absurd. This, for me, was a good standard to use.
The next standard is understanding the difference between possible and reasonable. When we come down to it, most anything is possible. You can be in the Matrix right now, and not know it. But is that reasonable? No. While it can be fun to imagine the possibilities (after all, that’s what Hollywood is founded on), it is important to focus on what is reasonable, especially when the truth is at stake. We must refrain from speculation and focus on the evidence and what it is telling us, not what we want it to say. In other words, we want to stay away from the “what if’s” and “Isn’t it possible.”
There is a reason our courts place a high standard on reasonableness. This reasonableness is important as we consider the process of abductive reasoning. This rational approach helps detectives come up with the truth of an event and form a reasonable conclusion.
Abductive reasoning is a form of logical inference. It starts with an observation or set of observations and then seeks to find the simplest and most likely conclusion from the observations. This process, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not positively verify it. Abductive conclusions are thus qualified as having a remnant of uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in retreat terms such as "best available" or "most likely".
Here are some points I considered as I explored truth claims:
1. The truth must be feasible (the explanation has explanatory viability)
2. The truth will usually be straightforward (the explanation demonstrates explanatory simplicity)
3. The truth should be exhaustive (the explanation displays explanatory depth)
4. The truth must be logical (the explanation possesses explanatory consistency)
5. The truth will be superior (the explanation achieves explanatory superiority)
This is what I refer to as Legal reasoning or evidence and standard of proof.