concretecamper said:

Thank you for demonstrating your incorrect notion of philosophy as well as Theology

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It falls to you to show the philosophical error, as well as the Scriptural basis regarding "free will,"
keeping in mind that man's will is not free to live sinlessly, at best his "free will" is only partial or limited.

2PhiloVoid said:

Yes, that's true. Some here won't be familiar with him and some will give up reading your exposition after the first or second post, but I'm hanging in here for the moment. The main reason I know of Wittgenstein is because I had to read a portion of his Tractatus years ago for a 20th Century Analytic Philosophy course I took, along with a small smattering of bits of his work regarding his idea of Language Games.

What I find interesting here is that you've shared that you're an older fellow and a former Christian. I'm just wondering what the main locus of relevance is that you're wanting to share here in regard to the Resurrection.

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Basically, that the resurrection evidence is weak and that it doesn't warrant the conclusion that Christians claim. For example, most of the testimonial evidence is secondhand or hearsay and that there is very little corroboration other than the same story being repeated by other Christians. I'll get to how you evaluate good testimonial evidence versus bad testimonial evidence later.

Hans Blaster said:

And what was the conclusion of your evaluation of NDEs? This is an empirical test of yer episemological frame work.

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My conclusion is that we do survive the death of the body with our identity intact. So, there is an afterlife, but you have to read the book to get the full impact of the argument. It's not an easy read for people. I'll give some of the argument later in another thread.

RDKirk said:

We know about the sight reading fiasco that the education industry hasn't given up yet.

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Yeah, teaching a (pretty much) phoneticly written language as though it was Chinese characters was less than brilliant. There was a reason why the design for written Korean (Hangul) is purely phonetic. It's just inherently easier to learn

RDKirk said:

But in the 80s the "new math" concept is also a disaster.

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AFAIK, Asians all teach columnar arithmetic, although I could be wrong. But I know they emphasize the "drill and kill" method of teaching maths, where you do the various operations in various forms and levels of complexity until they're as ingrained as the alphabet. They also requite the memorization of the multiplication table and various rules of operations, and beat them into the students heads by repetition. They prove the truth of the old axioms that "practice makes perfect" and "use makes mastery". But ask any "academic" why we don't use their proven effective methods as opposed to our succession of proven ineffective methods, and they'll give you a scholarly recitation of "reasons " why the Asian Paradign Just Won't Work Here. Apparently American kids are just genetically unable to understand methods that actually work everywhere tjhey're used.

RDKirk said:

I have to quickly point out that a change from the columnar arithmetic we learned up until the 80s to the relational arithmetic used in most of the rest of the world

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I've never seen that one in use. The Korean kids I've turored all seem to their ciphering the same way I was taught back in the stone age, with some minor variations. Then again I don't tutor in Maths. Too many years as an engineer rendered me unable to add 2+2 without grabbing a calculator or writing a fortran function.

Clare73 said:

Correct. . .that is the way philosophy sees it, "free will" being a philosophical notion, not a Biblical notion.

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Thank you for demonstrating your incorrect notion of philosophy as well as Theology

essentialsaltes said:

They do, and this fact was known to the ancients 2000 years ago (if not more).

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I think Del has left the building. I was going to point out another couple of problems for him.

The first is that ships at night have navigation lights. On certain size ships there'd be two white lights visible from the back as she sails away from you. One on the stern and one atop the mast. If the world was flat then you'd always see those two lights. But as the ship sails away the lower one dissapears. Maybe Del could explain that.

And to contact the ship you'd use VHF radio. Except that as it sails over the horizon it will cut out. And aircraft at 10,000 feet with a decent VHF can contact ships at a distance of around 200 miles. But as the plane flies lower, the radius of the circle within which it can make contact gets smaller. Perhaps he would have had an answer for that as well.

concretecamper said:

Listen, you're not going to get anywhere with her. Her belief is that unless you can ALWAYS choose right, you don't have free will. Of course that is a bogus belief, but it's the way she sees it.

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Correct. . .that is the way philosophy sees it, "free will" being a philosophical notion, not a Biblical notion.

If you cannot always choose right, then there are times when your will is not free; i.e., your "free will" is limited, which is only partial free will. . .thanks to the fall.

Yarddog said:

To losing their souls or finding salvation?
Gay children or white supremists.

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Seems you're presenting a false disjunctive. Why should we have to choose?

Hentenza said:

You quoted my post referring to young, non sexual kids being exposed to sexual gender dysphoria. The question really should be, why should they be exposed?

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Because they need to learn that there's nothing to fear. It's okay to be different.

Hentenza said:

Actually it refers to the blood of Christ who provided the ultimate blood sacrifice for the redemption of our sins.

“And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in My blood.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭22‬:‭20‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Luke 22:20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in My blood. | New American Standard Bible - NASB (NASB2020) | Download The Bible App Now

And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in My blood.

bible.com

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And in. MTT 26;29. BUT I will NOT / ME is a DISJUNCATIVE PARTICLE NEGATIVE. AND THAT. MEANS He will not ever

drink the fruit of the VINE WITH YOU IN MY FATHERS KINGDOM. and WAS SPEAKING TO JEWS and not too

the BODY OF CHRIST !!

And check Heb 9:18 and read SLOWLY. !!
dan p

A2SG said:

You said society didn't embrace cross dressing. But it has. Cross dressing has been accepted for thousands of years as a form of entertainment, going back to the earliest days of theatre.

-- A2SG, what you, personally, accept is, of course, your own business, but you are not society....

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It wasn't exactly "embraced" considering that it was considered so ridiculous that simply seeing a male character in drag was considered high comedy. The joke was that it was patently absurd.

Akita Suggagaki said:

So we can renounce and shun any responsibility for this world?

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How can you or I be responsible for a world that we have been called out of ? James 4:4 John 15:19 John 7:7 We had better renounce and shun responsibility for this world as we have been cleansed from being a part of it. Once cleansed don’t go back to wallowing in the mire.

Hentenza said:

I was describing my experience. Perhaps yours was different.

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You said society didn't embrace cross dressing. But it has. Cross dressing has been accepted for thousands of years as a form of entertainment, going back to the earliest days of theatre.

-- A2SG, what you, personally, accept is, of course, your own business, but you are not society....

Akita Suggagaki said:

So we can renounce and shun any responsibility for this world?

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This world as we know it is coming to an end and if someone is indeed a Christian they have no part in it’s governments. This world is not going to be made a better place, it’s going to be replaced by something much better, the kingdom of GOD. I have chosen that kingdom of GOD and encourage all people who call themselves Christians to do the same. Human politics isn’t the answer, it’s actually been the direct cause of this world’s evils. Christians need to develop the attitude of Joshua, Joshua 24:15 Politics is a religion of the god of this world that deceives many people into thinking that human government will make things better when history proves this false and prophecy confirms it. There is coming a world government that will be accepted by All humanity except the elect of GOD , and people who are of a pro human government mind will embrace it to their ruin. The responsibility Christians have in this world is to love GOD and their neighbor and to keep themselves unspotted from this world. You can’t be unspotted if your up to your neck in it.

Tom D said:

Today, students in USA and Australia are mostly educated (or dis-educated?) with progressive elements -- most of them can't read properly, can't spell and are poor at maths.

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If that's the case then it's up to the parents to pick up the slack. It's no use saying "Oh dear, I wish the State was doing a better job of educating my children." You have to get it done yourself. Theres no dearth of resources out there to allow the average parent to teach their chilldren all the fundamentals of reading, maths, and social studies that they're likely to get in a properly taught government school. When the kids are given a solid foundation to build on early, then it makes everything else they do later on that much easier, and the more likely they are to end up with a decent education even if the gummint scools aren't all that good.

Both my wife and myself were brought up in the old Confucian ''Learning Is Everything" viewpoint, so we we just assume that one of the obligations of child rearing is making sure the children get a proper education. It's worked out well for us/ours.

RDKirk said:

And we're going to lay all the blame on the parents?

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Not all of it, but in the end our kids (and grandkids) are our kids and grandkids. Saying "woe is me, the gummint schools failed our kids so they never learned anything" doesn't cut it. Yes, the public schools suck, and they don't particularly have our kids' best interests at heart. The burden's on us, and in the end it always will be.

RDKirk said:

My grandmother, with an 8th grade education, taught her five children to read before they started school in the 1930s. Then in the 1950s, she taught me to read before I started school.

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There you are, then! Your grandmother stepped up and made sure you knew as much as she could teach you. That's what I'm talking about.

RDKirk said:

Schools today have children for 12 years--claiming to be giving them an education--and graduate them still unable to read.

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And that's the fallacy of public education. Like everything else the government doe, it does it half fast. Ultimately they're not responsible to anyone. In the end what the children learn, or don't, is on us. If we keep their teachers' feet to the fire, if we teach the young 'uns what we can, if we demand the kind of discipline of the kids that allows them to learn, and if we hold them to high standards and let them know in no uncertain terms that failure to do their best is unacceptable, then we've played our parts as parents. Whinging about what a lousy job the gummint schools are doing is, while true enough, of no benefit.

RDKirk said:

And we're going to lay all the blame on the parents?

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Again, not all the blame. But sitting back and whinging about how the schools are failing little Johnny helps no one. We have to take responsibility for our own kids. Raising cane with our elected "representatives" is worth the doing in itself, but the reality it accomplishes almost nothing unless you have a few million people behind you.

This is from Nate Silver's site

Of course Truth can be known. Christ promised that the Paraclete will be with His Church forever.


John 14:16 And I will ask the Father: and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever:
14:17 The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him. But you shall know him; because he shall abide with you and shall be in you.

JohnB445 said:

For example, a young man just starting college is murdered. He didn't get to live a long life, while someone else becomes a believer in their 40's.

The person in their 40's had more time to accept Jesus, yet the young man didn't. It seems unfair, but what does the Bible say?

Was the young man probably never would have been a believer anyway? Are we sometimes saved not only because we accepted Jesus, but by chance we survived long enough to accept Jesus as our God? Or does this not make any sense?

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The bare minimum is the Sacrament of Baptism. If he ran out of time, too bad for him.

God bless you @ LoricaLady!