Why I Can't Be An Atheist

On my last post I wrote about David Hume and how Hume's claim that "something can only be meaningful if it's empirically verifiable or true by definition" is self-defeating, it excludes itself because that statement is neither empirically verifiable nor true by definition. However another person Atheists like speaking of is Immanuel Kant.

Kant's impact has been more devastating to the Christian worldview than David Hume's. If Kant's philosophy is right, then there is no way to know anything about the real world, even empirically verifiable things. According to Kant the structure of your senses and your mind forms all sense data, so you never really know the thing in itself. You only know the thing to you after your mind and senses form it.
Another words, if we look at a tree, Kant is saying that the tree you think you are looking at appears the way it does because your mind is forming the sense data you're getting from the tree. You really don't know the tree in itself, you only know the phenomena your mind categorizes about the tree. In short, you "kant" know the real tree in itself, only the tree as it appears to you.

It's funny that the average person on the street doesn't doubt what he sees, but supposedly brilliant philosophers do. If you want to make the obvious seem obscure, just let a philosopher get ahold of it. C.S. Lewis wrote, "good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered." Kant's philosophy is bad philosophy, yet it has convinced many people that there is an unbridgeable gulf between them and the real world; that there's no way you can get any reliable knowledge about what the real world is really like, much less what God is really like.

Kant commits the same error as Hume, he violates the Law of Noncontradiction. He contradicts his own premise by saying that no one can know the real world while he claims to know something about it, namely that the real world is unknowable. Kant says the truth about the real world is that there are no truths about the real world.

Kant also makes another logical fallacy called  the "nothing-but" fallacy. This is a fallacy because "nothing-but" statements imply "more than" knowledge. Kant says he knows the data that gets to his brain is nothing but phenomena. But in order to know this, he would have to be able to see more than just phenomena. In other words, in order to differentiate one thing from another thing, you have to be able to perceive where one ends and the other begins. For example, if you put a white a piece of paper on a black desk, the only way you can tell where the paper ends is by seeing some of the desk that borders it. The contrast between the paper and the desk allows you to see the boundaries of the paper.  In order for Kant to differentiate the thing in the real world from that which his mind perceives, he would have to be able to see both. But this is exactly what he says can't be done! He says only the phenomena of the mind can be known, not the noumena (his term for the real world).

If there's no way to distinguish between the phenomena and noumena, then you can't see how they might differ. And if you can't see how they might differ, then it makes much more sense to assume that they are the same - in other words, that the idea in your mnd accurately represents te things in the real world.

Kant was wrong by saying that your mind doesn't mold the tree, the tree molds your mind. If Kant claims that he can't know anything about te real wolrd, then how does he know the real world is there? And secondly, his view is self-defeating because he claims that you can't know anything about the real world while asserting that he knows the real world is unknowable.

This is what happens when a beautiful theory meets a brutal gang of facts. This one more reason WHY I CAN'T BE AN ATHEIST!!

Why I Can't Be An Atheist

With so many Atheists attacking Christianity I find it necessary to love those haters, after all that is what Jesus taught his disciples to do, to love the enemy. Some atheist told me that was impossible to do, perhaps to him it might, not to a Christian.

Someone recently said that one day Christianity will die out thanks to people like David Hume, Richard Dawkins, and Immanuel Kant. I really don't think so.
David Hume is known for his philosophy, he believed that all meaningful ideas were either true by definition or must be based on sense experience. According to Hume, there are no sense experiences for concepts beyond the physical, any metaphysical claims should not be believed because they are meaningless.
He asserted that propositions can be meaningful only if they meet one of the two conditions: the truth claim is abstract reasoning such as a mathematical equation or a feinition; or the truth claim can be verified empirically through one or more of the five senses.

While he claimed to be a skeptic, Hume certainly wasn't skeptical about these two conditions - he was absolutely convinced he had the truth. He wrote, "If we take in our hand any volume - of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance - let us ask, 'Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?' No. 'Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?' No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." If he is correct than all the talking about God is meaningless. 200 years later Hume's two conditions were converted into the "principle of empirical verifiability" by twentieth-century philosopher A.J. Ayer. The principle of empirical verifiability claims that a proposition can be meaningful  only if it's true by definition or if it's empirically verifiable.
Dr. Norman Geisler replys to Hume and Ayer, "The principle of empirical verifiability states that there only two kinds of meaningful propositions: 1) those that are true by definition and 2) those that are empirically verifiable. Since the principle of empirical verifiability itself is neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable, it cannot be meaningful."

Therefore the principle of empirical verifiability could not be meaningful based on its own standard. Hume's hard empiricism, and that of A.J. Ayer, is self-defeating. The claim that "something can only be meaningful if it's empirically verifiable or true by definition" excludes itself because that statement is neither empirically verifiable nor true by definition. In other words, Hume and Ayer try to prove too much because their method of discovering meaningful propositions excludes too much. Certainly claims that are empirically verifiable or true by definition are meaningful. However, such claims don't comprise all meaningful statements as Hume and Ayer contend. So instead of committing all books about God "to the flames" as Hume suggests, you may want to consider using Hume's books to get your fire going.

This is one of the many reasons I can't be an atheist.

The Publication of a Book (New Testament)

It must be understood that the synoptic Gospels were published orally for many years before the written text came to market. With many of the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures, you have the author himself penning the book (rough draft), making needed corrections, and then producing the 'authorized' text. From this authorized text, other copies were made. For those authors who dictated their writings, the scribe would take it down initially in shorthand and then create a rough draft to be corrected by the author and himself. From this, the scribe would produce the authorized text for the author to sign in his own hand. After the individual books had been in circulation for a few decades, the community of Christians throughout the Roman Empire started to form collections, such as combined books of the Gospels, and compilations of the apostle Paul's letters. These groupings were accomplished by 125 C.E., with the total collection of the 27 books of the Christian Greek Scriptures coming throughout this process of publishing, copying, collecting, and canonizing of the Christian Greek Scriptures, those involved recognized these writings as being authoritative, no less than the graphe Scriptures of the Hebrew Old Testament books.

Illinois anti-gun legislation

Governor Pat Quinn and anti-gun legislators across the state are garnering support for semi-automatic gun and magazine bans, registration schemes and shooting range restrictions they intend to pass on Tuesday, January 8.

Anti-gun politicians are trying to exploit recent tragedies involving the misuse of firearms by violent criminals as an excuse to restrict or even eliminate your gun rights. Do Not let them blame and penalize you by passing more gun control laws that will only be ignored by criminals.

We urge you to contact your state Senator Steven Landek now at (708) 430-2510 and (217) 782-0054 to respectfully demand he protect your rights and vote No on House Bills 815 and 1263!

Autographs

As most Bible scholars are well aware, but most churchgoers may not be, the autographs, which were penned by actual Bible writers (Paul, Peter, John, Luke, and so on), or dictated to a scribe by the actual Bible writer, are no longer available. For example Paul would have dictated what was to become 1 and 2 Thessalonians to Silas, his scribe, who would have taken things down in shorthand. Afterward, Silas would have created a rough draft from the dictation notes, at which point, he and Paul would have made corrections. Thereafter, Silas would have made a master-copy, which is known as the originally published work, the official copy, from which other copies would be made. The apostle John  and others, who penned their own original, would create a published version as well, meanin that would not be that much difference between the autograph and the original. These were written on perishable materials that would soon decayor were destroyed by enemies within the first two centuries of the Christian era.

Corrector

A Corrector is one who checked the manuscripts for needed corrections. Corrections could be by three primary persons: (1) the copyist himself, (2) by the official corrector of the scriptorium, and (3) by the person who had purchased the copy. Hand: This refers to the person who is making the copy, distinguishing his level of training. Paleographers have set out four basic levels of handwriting. First, we have the common hand of a person who is untrained in making copies. Second, there is the documentary hand of a person who is trained in preparing documents. Third, there is the reformed documentary hand of a person who is experienced in the preparation of documents and copying literature; and fourth, the professional hand of a person who is a professional scribe.

Authorized Text, Exemplar, and Scriptorium

Authorized Text (Archetypal Manuscript): A text used to make other copes.

Exemplar: The authoritative text of a New Testament book from which other copies were made; if in a scriptorium, an archetype; if in a congregation or home, a master-copy.

Scriptorium: A scriptorium is a room where multiple scribes or even one worked to produce manuscript(s). A lector would read aloud from the exemplar, as the scribes(s) would write down the material.