Category: Miscellaneous

Let Light In

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People who lose an eye have certain psychological ramifications, and I wanted to see if any of my previous research could shed any light on these victims. Perhaps, a new course of treatment could help those who suffer from conditions related to their eye loss.

So in our article about rethinking balance, we examine how light may have other functions inside the body. If light enters the body, and plays a role in the equilibrium process of the brain and eye, removing an eye would naturally impede this process. And while I don’t have the magical ability to give people sight back, I think if we could carefully allow light to enter the body in the same way, we could perhaps minimize the psychological effects of this organ loss.

So in the engineering of prosthetic eyes, I would make certain that light is allowed to pass through the device, into the eye. If I’m right, this should mitigate some of the side effects.

The Main Justification

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is memory.

If experience is evidence, the main source of justification of these past events is our memory. Memory is a record of true propositions. It can be reliable, or not. But to remember something is to believe it to be true. And our memory serves as the path to all knowledge by way of this justification.

We are creatures of truth, and our memories serve as evidence of our past.

My memory has seemed to wane recently, and I’ve learned how dependent I was on it. When I lose justification about whether I said something or not, did something or not, I lose confidence. And if I don’t have internal justification with my memory, I seek external validation.

I’d be afraid to say something because I can’t remember whether I’ve already said it or not. I’d be scared to do something because I can’t remember if I’ve already done it or not. So I’d play a game of tact. I’d say it in a way that could be taken as my second time to say or do something.

Even facts that I know are based in memory. While my memory may not be the justification itself, it is the source of the justification. For example, I know that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. But how do I know that? I read it online. How did they know it?

If knowledge is justified true belief, what is it without the justification?

So if knowledge is based on this justification, our memory, mine is waning. I still know the same things, yet I have less and less confidence in them. I keep trying to justify the justification: refusing to accept my memory. Instead I look for further evidence or justification of the memory that I do have. I basically don’t trust that what’s in my mind matches what’s in reality. And without the justification, my knowledge is just beliefs. True beliefs, but beliefs nonetheless.

Love is kind

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I think I missed the mark on my post about Quantifying Character. In that post, I essentially rank actions as positive or negative, with having inaction labeled as zero. But I don’t think that’s quite right.

See neglect is inaction, and it’s negative. The opposite of neglect is kindness. But since Paul tells us that love is kind. Love is the opposite of neglect. Love is action. Neglect is inaction.

It’s similar to a sin of omission. I think most people can agree that lying is wrong. And telling the truth is right. But when it comes to omitting an important part of the truth, while still telling the truth, it’s wrong. The devil’s lies are full of bits of truth.

I’ve personally struggled with neglect, thinking that since I wasn’t doing anything, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Well, I was wrong.

Flipping Hitchen’s Razor

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Hitchens’s razor is an epistemological razor expressed by writer Christopher Hitchens. It says that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it.

Hitchens has phrased the razor in writing as “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” But atheism is presented without evidence. Thus, using Hitchen’s own protocol we can dismiss atheism.

The main rejection to this will likely be that atheism is not making a claim, so there is no burden of proof. Which is the only way that the atheist can accept atheism without any evidence and be epistemologically consistent.

The phrase “God exists” is either true or false, and atheistic worldviews do not include a God. So I think we can reasonably conclude that atheists believe that God doesn’t exist, whether or not they care to defend that position with evidence.

Experience is Evidence

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And evidence is justification. And justification is what makes belief knowledge. 

We’ve already discussed how knowledge is justified true belief. But most of our human experience is justified only by our senses. This is knowledge. It’s true belief justified by our senses or personal experience.

For example, your hunger or feelings of hunger are true. You can know that you are hungry without any outside test. No more evidence is required to call yourself hungry, and be right. The interesting part is the only way to know if someone is hungry is to ask them. Perhaps hunger is a bad example. Let’s say that you like the taste of meal. You are the lone arbiter of that truth. Without your feedback, no one will know what you thought of the meal.

In this same way, we know Jesus. The evidence of the Holy Spirit is internal, experiential, so that the testimony of the spirit is some of the best evidence we can give of a risen Lord. Therefore, the closest a non-believer can get to Jesus is through you.

Sin means Free

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Sin is proof we have free will. If we didn’t have free will there would be no fall in Eden, no rebellion in heaven,  no need for Jesus.

If there was no free will, there would be no sin. But there is sin, therefore there is free will. 

There is only God’s will in heaven, and therefore is no sin. If a perfect God made perfect creatures, they would be perfect, but not free.

As in Eden , there is God’s will, and our will. And because there was a choice then and is now, the will is free. Not because God doesn’t know the outcome of the decision, but because he allows us to make the decision.

God knows what is going to happen, but still prefers that we choose his will. We have the ability to make a choice outside of his preference. To sin. That is why we’re free.

To matt

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So one of the most popular atheists on the planet responded to my email. Maybe you’ve heard of Matt Dillahunty. Regardless, I pitched my We Are The Evidence argument for Christianity. Here’s his response: 

Your argument is flawed at every point,
1. If the Holy Spirit exists, Christianity is true.  
   – You haven’t defined your terms and, when you do, you’ll see that this all leads to a circular argument. You’ll ultimately be saying “IF this particular thing within Christianity is true then Christianity is true…”
2. The Holy Spirit exists
   – There’s no good reason to believe this is true.

You then go on to an ‘argumentum ad populum’ fallacy.
2.5 billion claims does not mean the claim is true. The plural of anecdote isn’t ‘data’. The truth isn’t impacted by the number of people who believe something or the strength of their conviction.

You’ve literally done NOTHING here, but fail to define terms, create an ultimately circular argument based on those incomplete definitions and then add a fallacious appeal to popularity.

This was a monumental waste of my time. Hopefully, you’ll learn something and it won’t be a waste of yours.

Go. Google. Learn fallacies. Learn why appealing to popularity is a fallacy and why fallacies matter.

Meanwhile, you’ll need to make 2.5 billion the magic number or you’ll have to also agree with the 2 billion Muslims out there. Does the extra 500m make Christianity true…and if the demographic ever flips so that there are more Mulsims…are you going to believe that religion?

Seriously. The ONLY way this is worth my time is if you actually learn something and then share it.

– Matt Dillahunty

His first criticism calls my argument circular. That I’m arguing in a circle. If you are alive, you have a mother. Is that valid? If we can prove that the Holy Spirit exists, I think we can conclude that Christianity is true. 

Circular reasoning is often of the form: “A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true.” Circularity can be difficult to detect if it involves a longer chain of propositions.

Does this apply to my argument? If the Holy spirit exists, Christianity is true. The Holy spirit exists, therefore Christianity is true. I don’t think it does. I think the first premise is undeniable. And the conclusion logically follows the premises. 

The Holy spirit exists. A
Christianity is true. B

B is true because A is true. But A is true because of the witnesses. We are not saying that the Holy Spirit exists because Christianity is true. We are saying that the Holy Spirit exists because we have 2.5 billion witnesses of it. Each witness is a claim that the Holy Spirit exists. And claims are evidence. And consistent claims are good evidence. 

His second criticism is that I commit the appeal to the people fallacy.

According to Wikipedia, this fallacy is In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it, often concisely encapsulated as: “If many believe so, it is so”.

On the surface, he’s right. Essentially I say that 2.5 billion people believe in something, it may be true. But it’s not that simple. We’re not saying that this group of people believe that God exists, or even that Christianity is true. We’re saying that each person is a witness to the Holy Spirit. Each claim is a witness to the same supernatural entity. 

What about Islam? There are 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide. Would this not apply in the same way as Matt suggested in his email? First off, the Quran affirms the Gospel of Jesus. Secondly, the God of Islam is not a personal God. The Holy Spirit mentioned in the Quran is not something poured out to all believers. So 1.8 billion Muslims are simply 1.8 billion people who believe Islam is true. They are not all claiming to have experiences with the supernatural. But let’s say they were, that would be 1.8 billion more reasons to believe that naturalism fails, and atheism is false. 

C-theory of Time

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If time exists inside our universe, and passes as it appears to pass, A-theory of time is true.  If a reality exists outside of spacetime, time is only an illusion. From this perspective, our past, present, and future happen at the same time.

So if we call the extraverse, our universe plus any reality removed from spacetime, we have two different theories of time alive in the same system. Inside the universe we have A-theory of time, and outside the universe we have (looking at the universe) B-theory of time.

C theory of time

So this is what I call C-theory of Time: A-theory in our universe, and B-theory of time observing our universe from the exterior perspective. Time is real inside spacetime but illusory outside of it.

 

 

Exploring Beliefs

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Beliefs are accepted propositions.

I believe you means that I accept what you’re saying is true.  All knowledge is belief, but all beliefs are not knowledge. Beliefs do not require justification, but knowledge does.

For example, I accept that the proposition ‘God exists,’ is true. I believe that God exists. I also feel justified in my beliefs, for reasons I’ve discussed earlier.

Atheism, to be a belief, must have a true or false value to the proposition ‘God exists.’ While atheism now simply claims to be a ‘lack of belief,’ if a belief is accepting a proposition as true, a lack of belief is not accepting that proposition as true. By not accepting the proposition as true, they do not believe that God exists.

Knowledge, Belief, and Fantasy

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What is knowledge? It’s an awareness that something your head corresponds to reality. Of course, there may be justification needed to verify that what’s in your head does actually correspond with reality. Otherwise there is no way of verifying that the thing corresponds with reality. And if you don’t know that it corresponds with reality, it’s not knowledge.

But if your thought corresponds with reality, justified or not, it is true. Wait. If you believe that bigfoot exists [assuming he does] without reason to believe so, is it knowledge? It can’t be. There is no reason to think that the proposition, “Bigfoot exists” is true. You just believe that bigfoot exists.

The question becomes How do you know it’s true? Because it can only be knowledge if it’s true. The only way to know it’s true is justification. So the only way to verify that your belief that bigfoot exists is true is to have reason to believe that bigfoot exists in reality. Otherwise, it is not knowledge. It’s fantasy.