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L&FP 41: George Barna helps us to understand the worldviews chaos we must address

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Barna has issued new survey results that paint a stunning picture of the bellwether United States, as an utterly confused, conflicted nation, with 88 percent defaulting to incongruous worldview components, with the single largest bloc being 39% inclined to “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Of course, actual full adherence is at the 1% level. Biblical theism comes first on full adherence, at 6% but that is itself a radical shift of worldviews, probably reflecting the impact of generations of cultural elites hostile to the Gospel and Gospel ethics (most often articulated in terms of its being anti-Science, outdated and intellectually indefensible . . . the standard media and “education” narratives). Such elites have long since sought to overthrow the influence of the Christian Faith on our Civilisation, viewing it as a threat to their imagined ideal future.

Barna tabulates actual adherence:

Also, “leans to”:

We can clearly detect the breakdown of the impact of the Christian faith on the leading nation in our civilisation and the worldviews chaos that stems from it. The predominance of incongruous syncretistic, smorgasbord blends of beliefs shows how deeply conflicted people have become and it is for sure that the ability of such a people to think straight and act soundly is severely compromised. This is the crooked yardstick effect on steroids:

In political thinking, it clearly will lead to vulnerability to cynical, ruthless manipulators, thus to confused policy balances. This opens the door to the new Jacobinism on the rampage, thus the next door — the one to lawless oligarchy:

Doubtless, there are some who would be only too eager to see such happen, as it would open the door to terrible opportunities — and yes, that’s five years ago now:

What is to be done?

First, let us hear the ghost of Isaiah, speaking to hell-bent oligarchic elites c 700 BC, setting out on marches of folly that led to defeat, ruin and exile:

Isa 5:18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood,
    who draw sin as with cart ropes,
19 who say: “Let him be quick,
    let him speed his work
    that we may see it;
let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near,
    and let it come, that we may know it!”

20 Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
    and shrewd in their own sight!
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
    and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
    and deprive the innocent of his right!

24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,
    and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,
so their root will be as rottenness,
    and their blossom go up like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts,
    and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. [ESV]

Severe but necessary.

A key step in fixing the rot is to learn to think worldviewishly, in a coherent, sound, prudent, responsible fashion.

Vocab:

worldview

Also found in: Thesaurus, Wikipedia.

world·view

(wûrld′vyo͞o′)n.1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group. In both senses also called Weltanschauung.


[Translation of German Weltanschauung.]American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Welt•an•schau•ung

(ˈvɛltˌɑnˌʃaʊ ʊŋ)

n. German. a comprehensive conception or image of the universe and of humanity’s relation to it. [literally, world-view] Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

To start with, ponder why we frame worldviews pivoting on first plausibles:

A summary of why we end up with foundations for our worldviews, whether or not we would phrase the matter that way}

In the now notorious “turtles” metaphor:

So, the pivotal question is sound worldviews choice, meeting the comparative difficulties challenge: factual adequacy, coherence, balanced explanatory power. Hasker [Metaphysics. IVP, 1983. Ch. 1] summarises how such comparative difficulties testing properly focuses:

  1. Factual adequacy: Does a worldview’s scope of explanations/insights (and predictions) account across time for and comfortably agree with the material “facts”– those that make a difference to our conclusions and decisions?  Are there key gaps, and/or contradictions to such “facts”? Are these claimed “facts” warranted to an appropriate degree? Relative to competing worldviews, are there fewer gaps and/or contradictions to such credible, well-warranted “facts”? But also, sometimes, quite diverse views are empirically equivalent, so “facts” generally under-determine the truth. That means that the two further tests are vital:
  2. Logical Coherence: Do the claims within a worldview (and their implications) support or deny one another?  For, if two such claims/implications contradict, at most one can be true.  (NB: Both may be false, or may refer to empty sets and so are vacuous. If a contradiction is important and cannot be excised without utterly changing the worldview into something else, this issue can be decisive. That is why the problem of evil is so important, and why the question of the evident incoherence of naturalism is also important, as has been ably discussed by Alvin Plantinga.) On the other hand, is the worldview’s key warranting argument merely circular; i.e. is it self-consistent, but at the cost of assuming what should be proved? However, on pain of absurd infinite regress, it is also manifest that the chain of proofs, explanations and evidence has to stop somewhere. So, is the resulting faith-/ presuppositions- point at least comparably credible to that of “live option” alternatives? Now, too, as systems rub up against alternatives and more and more credible facts, they are often “patched,” over and over, to keep them “viable,” i.e. matching facts and avoiding circularity or self-contradiction. But, too often that is at the expense of becoming a patchwork of ad hoc assumptions. Thus, the third test arises:
  3. Explanatory Power — i.e. simplicity vs ad hocness: Credible worldviews UNIFY the facts/entities of reality as we discover them across time, showing how they relate, interact and/or work together; thus, giving us powerful insights, clear vision and solid, sustainable guidelines/principles for thought, decisions and life. [Cf. Prov. 1:1 – 7.] This helps equip us to know, love and live by, wisdom — the ultimate goal of philosophy. In turn, wisdom allows us to understand, predict and influence/shape the world, to the good. To do that unifying task well — as William of Occam argues, in his famous “Razor”: hypotheses should not be multiplied without necessity — worldviews should use a relatively few, plausible but powerful core beliefs that are consistent, tie together the material facts, bring out the dynamics that drive how the world “works,” and give us “handles” by which we can influence the course of events towards the good. Thus, such a worldview should avoid the continual need to patch newly discovered gaps by repeatedly tacking on yet another assumption or assertion. For, if that happens, the resulting view soon becomes an ad hoc patchwork of after-the-fact claims, “justified” by the argument that these additions patch holes in the system. (Ignoring or suppressing such gaps and/or censoring discussion of them is even worse — and, too often resorted to by those whose credibility and interests are invested in a socially powerful but failing system. Cf. Plato’s Parable of the Cave, and also Matt. 6:22.) But equally, Einstein aptly observed that every theory should be as simple as possible — but not simpler than that. That is, there is a difference between being simple (or, “elegant”) and being simplistic: failing to come to grips with the credibly established complexities — and sometimes just plain strangeness and mystery — of the world. So, relative to the live options, is the view more or less elegant or an ad hoc patchwork; or, is it simplistic?

That is where we can begin. Just maybe, it is not already too late. END

PS: I adapt Francis Schaeffer’s “line of Despair” analysis:

Extending (and correcting) Schaeffer’s vision of the course of western thought, worldviews and culture, C1 – 21

U/D Apr 24: An illustration on factors and influences in worldview formation:

Here, we can observe how our perceptions stimulate our thinking, which is also influenced by available knowledge, opinions and views including on key themes tied to core ideas on the world and oneself in it. As we work through our interior lives, we have perceptions, expectations, emotions, focus of attention, reasoning/logic, valuing informed by sense of duty/morals, solution strategies for challenges, discernment, decisions and judgements, actions and influences. As embodied agents in a world and community, we orient ourselves, move, manipulate objects, communicate.

Knowledge and its warrant are key issues, raising questions of reliability, credible truth, degree of certainty, possibility of error, opinion vs soundness and more. Such is a gateway to characteristic themes of philosophy:

  • the nature of knowledge and its credibility [epistemology]
  • the nature of reality — what exists, whence, what is the world, what are we etc [metaphysics embracing ontology, logic of being],
  • the accepted “world story” that uses these elements to build a narrative on how the world came to be or always was, how we came to be in it, how we are where we are now, why we are as we are
  • similarly, where are we headed individually and collectively
  • what death is and signifies
  • what is ultimate or source reality, or does such exist
  • what is duty, what of right and wrong, what of beauty [axiology, ethics and aesthetics]
  • what, then, is valuable and to be prized
  • thus, religions, philosophies, ideologies, mindsets etc and associated “plausibility structures”:

“In sociology and especially the sociological study of religion, plausibility structures are the sociocultural contexts for systems of meaning within which these meanings make sense, or are made plausible. Beliefs and meanings held by individuals and groups are supported by, and embedded in, sociocultural institutions and processes.” [Semantic Scholar, using Wikipedia]

  • what is seemingly or actually sensible, reasonable or logical [logic, plausibility, epistemology, ethics etc]
  • what is knowledge, what is known, why, who or what hold credibility, authority and wisdom, why should we trust such sources [epistemology, logic, language, decision-making, governance, policy, law and justice, politics, ponder Plato’s parables of the Cave and of the Ship of State (cf. Ac 27 as a real-life microcosm)]
  • Hence, we may see the significance of the following progression of equations:

1: WORLDVIEW + POLICY/CULTURAL AGENDA = IDEOLOGY

2: IDEOLOGY + POWER/STRONG INFLUENCE = REGIME

3: REGIME (AKA, BALANCE OF POWER-FACTIONS) + DECISION-MAKING INFLUENCES = BUSINESS AS USUAL (BAU)
_______________________________________________

4: BAU + INSISTENT VOYAGE OF SINFUL FOLLY = SHIPWRECK

  • what makes for a good and successful life
  • is there direct awareness of knowledge, i.e. intuition
  • is there knowledge communicated from God, revelation
  • etc

These help us to understand how we come to have a worldview. And, of how and why, in Francis Schaeffer’s phrase, “ideas have consequences.”

It is worth adding, that once a certain pattern of worldviews, associated patterns of attitudes, expectations, values, life goals etc is established, this model can help us identify the likely reaction to situations, trends, shocks, messages, communication etc.

So, worldviews mapping as Barna did has highly practical use.

Comments
Above I refer to Wilkins recommendation of a book on evolution which I have purchased. In this book, the author (Kampourakis) commits several logical errors on ID. For example, he uses the argument from evil as a reason for why ID is not correct. It is not the only fallacy he commits. So I assume that Wilkins commits the same errors. Based on this alone, there is no reason to take Wilkins as an unbiased author on anything relevant to ID especially for world-views which should either include the idea of ID or not. By the way, Kampourakis has also written philosophy of science books as has Wilkins. The reason that they can get away with committing such fallacies and not getting called on it is evolution has zero to do with everyday life. If it did then there would be more honest discussion on just what it is. Genetics which flowed from Darwin's ideas and the discovery of the power of genes/DNA is extremely important but not for providing a mechanism for evolution. Nearly every example, a Darwinist gives to justify their beliefs is usually from genetics. By using this fallacy all the time to validate their theory of evolution is the best example that Darwinist's ideas are bogus. Aside: the term Darwinist is not a pejorative here since this is a term that many who endorse Darwin's ideas use to identify themselves.jerry
April 26, 2021
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The DNA system is an information processing system. The human brain is an information processing system. Therefore it seems obvious, that the human brain is more of an extension of the DNA system, rather than a product of it. Which means Wallace was smart to exclude the human brain from evolution theory. The fundamental meaning of choice is to make one of alternative futures the present. That is the useful concept for intelligent design theory. To fundamentally conceive of making a choice in terms of what is best, then obviously, choice is just a cultural fantasy, because there is no physics of the best. And basically in science choice is denoted as (true) randomness. And then intelligent design theory speculates about sophisticated ways of decisionmaking. So it is crucial for intelligent design theory that the concept of choice is broken down into a subjective part, the agency of the choice, and an objective part, what's chosen. So that intelligent design theory can deal with the objective part. Science can never deal with anything inherently subjective, because science is limited to objectivity.mohammadnursyamsu
April 25, 2021
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MNY, I conceive of the responsible, rational individual, and I happen to believe we are embodied spirits and that the soul though often used in a different sense can be usefully seen as the interface betwixt the two, especially as regards mindedness, emotion, volition and self awareness. One may choose to advantage or to duty knowing that it is NOT advantageous but is right. The point is that advantage must be tempered by justice and humbled by the realities of our limitations and struggles, even bondage to habitual vices and sins etc, e g alcoholism. Prudence is a particular virtue at the heart of wisdom and turning on discernment built up through lifetime practice of virtue. Choice pivots on freedom, wisdom advises but we choose and may even find ourselves helplessly trapped in addiction etc such as alcohol. Which leads to the doctrine of redemptive, resurrection power fired transformation by the power of God accessed through living encounter through the gospel of the risen one. But that is far afield of design theory, opinion, uncertainty, limits and defeasibility of knowledge claims, recognition of facts and opinions, moral facts and truths etc. Even, truth. KF PS: Evolutionary materialism cannot credibly account for brains much less minds. It is irretrievably self referentially incoherent and a dead end. It is only of political significance.kairosfocus
April 25, 2021
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The way you write, it seems to me you fundamentally conceive of making a choice in terms of figuring out the best option. And not in terms of expression of the spirit. The prudence, justice, etc. is in the spirit making the choice, not in the chosen option. Choice is the fundamental mechanism of intelligent design. It would be bad for someone supporting intelligent design to get the fundamental mechanism of intelligent design wrong. In Gertz vs Robert Welch, 418 U.S. 323 (1974), the supreme court of the USA mandated that a distinction be made between fact and opinion. Now only to define in legal terms what an opinion is, and what a fact is, with the creationist conceptual scheme, and materialism is gone.mohammadnursyamsu
April 25, 2021
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MNY, I spoke to built in moral government, which is different from civil law. We are duty bound to truth and deceit is a source of harm for example hence fraud and defamation law as well as perjury. KFkairosfocus
April 25, 2021
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So go ahead and rewrite the constitution Kairosfocus. Amendment 1 everyone must be truthful Amendment 2 Everyone must be prudent Amendment 3 Everyone must be just Amendment 4 do gooddery etc. It is just naive thinking that such laws would make good people and good government. Free speech is number 1. The concept of personal opinion is number 1. What would be smart is to define the concepts of opinion and fact into law. Define personal opinion as a chosen expression, in reference to what makes a choice, and define a fact as a 1 to 1 corresponding model of a creation. Then basically materialism would be inconsistent with the definition of personal opinion, and outside the law.mohammadnursyamsu
April 25, 2021
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BA77, I am struck by the issue of the crooked yardstick, which warps judgement and may sour the temper to the point where one is disinclined to heed the voice of a plumb line. The basic message is plain: one cannot soundly judge what is straight by demanding that it conform to crookedness. Like unto it, it is unfair and ill advised to tax the Christian faith with blame for struggles tied to the moral hazards of being human, leading to that individual and collective struggle that so mars and haunts history all over the world. We are finite, fallible, morally struggling, too often stubborn and ill-willed creatures. Let us acknowledge, then, our common failings and seek the paths of sound reformation. Which need to be paths that uphold rather than undermine the first canons of moral government. I suggest, as a start-point: it is inescapable that we are bound by duties to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, to fairness and justice, etc. Where, it can readily be seen that the Judaeo-Christian tradition that contributed the Jerusalem dimension to our civilisation and led in the synthesis of the heritage of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome, freely, whole heartedly endorses and articulates moral government turning on such canons. Indeed, it directly affirms that certain core principles of moral government are built in, coeval with our humanity. A good reflection on that happens to be pivotal to the teachings of Locke in his 2nd essay on civil govt, foundational to modern constitutional democracy. Note, how he calls on the judicious Richard Hooker, an Anglican Canon, writing on ecclesiastical polity:
[2nd Treatise on Civil Gov't, Ch 2 sec. 5:] . . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant . . . [This directly echoes St. Paul in Rom 2: "14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . . " and 13: "9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law . . . " Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8:] as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [Eccl. Polity ,preface, Bk I, "ch." 8, p.80, cf. here. Emphasis added.] [Augmented citation, Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government, Ch 2 Sect. 5. ]
Now, obviously, UD is not a theology and biblical studies blog, but it is evident that a significant part of the driving force of some objections we see here is deep seated hostility to not only the Christian heritage and influences in our civilisation, but to the foundations of that faith. It is appropriate, from time to time, to give at least an outline answer. First, the general insinuation of racist prejudice and murderous hostility:
Ac 17: 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,3 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth [--> universal brotherhood, sharing a common humanity], having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’;4 as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’5 1 Jn 3: 11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers,3 that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
There is no foundation for hate, murder, racial prejudice or injustice in the Christian Faith's foundations. Yes, Christianity-influenced civilisation has struggled with ugly moments when such have risen to the fore. That reflects how lawless we can be and how ill-willed, common human traits. Christianity is the friend of reformation, not of reprobate thought and deeds. A reasonable mind would acknowledge such. Jews, obviously, are implied in the above. There are specific texts on Jews, but instead of a further raft of references, the matter can be very simply resolved: Jesus of Nazareth was and is a Jew, as were his Apostles. Hatred of Jews . . . or Arabs, or Blacks, or Indians, or Amerindians, or Caucasians etc -- is the moral equivalent of murder [and a motive to such] and is incompatible with eternal life. Punto final. As for deriding and sneering at the theology of redemption, I will simply clip the classic text on that subject:
John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.7 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.8 16 “For God so loved the world,9 that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
No contest, the Apostle has it on the merits of substance and tone. KFkairosfocus
April 25, 2021
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Seversky Sandy/73 1.There are no strangers from Christian’s point of view :because all people are brothers and have a single root Adam and Eve.
Tell that to the Jewish population of Europe. Tell that to the native populations of the Americas – those that are left.
2. If indeed God(Christ) died for you and you ignore Him ,who are you , what are you?
By Christian belief, Jesus is immortal like His Father. He cannot be killed, certainly not by us. So how was his supposed death on the cross anything other than a gesture?
If you want to find out about christianity you should read something written by christians not by atheists ;) You can start from here: http://patristica.net/latina/ http://patristica.net/graeca/ You say you don't know latin and greek ? Ok ,you can search for John of Damascus https://archive.org/details/AnExactExpositionOfTheOrthodoxFaithSandy
April 25, 2021
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BA77, having pondered overnight, I will DV come back to you later. KFkairosfocus
April 25, 2021
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Paige, First, you seem to be a new commenter, so welcome to the world of the un-lurked. Second, while worldviews are often culturally conditioned and may be passed down in families [BTW, secularist, marxist and atheistical views too], that is not the whole story. Once human rational responsible freedom is on the table, we are able to re-think, adjust and revise, never mind what our new massas in schools, media houses, fact check operations, new media censors and the like would want us to think. Indeed, if we are not significantly free, argument, reason and even knowledge fall apart. Where, one of the pernicious problems of a polarised indoctrinated age is that we tend to displace cognitive dissonance to the despised other. They are "religious," "racist," lackeys to the capitalists, pawns of the religious right etc, all expressing disdain and dismissal. Too often without examining significant issues of warrant and first plausibles. Which, is what worldviews analysis is about in key part. Above in the OP, Barna is tracking trends in US worldview thought, and has identified that the majority are caught up in a pattern of syncretism of incongruent, mismatched bits and pieces of views. That is already significant as it means people are not being informed in a balanced way and lack exposure to comparative difficulties analysis. Which operates at a higher level than the rhetoric involved in pro-con debates and deplatforming. That is, we need to be aware of enough and have skills for looking at factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power [as the OP raises]. That becomes all the more necessary in a day when manipulators abound in an increasingly polarised climate. For just one instance, how many know that critical race theory is an expression of culture form marxism, which comes with a raft of onward issues? How many know that trained community organisers tracing to the Chicago School associated with Saul Alinsky are in fact trained marxist agitators? That colour revolution is a strategy for taking state power? (One that was warned about when it was playing out in the Ukrainein the 00's)? Then, more directly on UD's line of focus, how many understand that Big S Science often means imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism as an ideology? Or, that such ideologies are flawed in many ways? For example, the notion that science monopolises knowledge is self-refuting, as this is a philosophical assertion claiming to be significant knowledge. This, means Scientism fails. Similarly, evolutionary materialism has no empirically warranted mechanism to create the huge quantities of functionally specific coded textual information in DNA to make cell based life and onwards to make dozens of body plans. For the former, 100 - 1,000+ k bits. For the latter, 10 - 100+ M bits, dozens of times over. Where the search capacity of the10^57 atoms of our solar system or the 10^80 of the observed cosmos for 10^17 s, max out at a generous 500 - 1,000 bits. Ask yourself, why that is not a commonplace, frankly and fairly discussed in textbooks and museums or on TV documentary channels. Then, there is the problem of accounting for the creation of a sophisticated computer, the human brain, by same mechanisms. As if that were bad, consider that computing substrates are not freely reasoning minds. As JBS Haldane, a co founder of the neo-darwinian synthesis that still largely rules the roost notes:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain [–> taking in DNA, epigenetics and matters of computer organisation, programming and dynamic-stochastic processes] I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. Cf. here on (and esp here) on the self-refutation by self-falsifying self referential incoherence and on linked amorality.]
And so forth. Fresh thinking is needed and the worldviews concept is key to such. KFkairosfocus
April 25, 2021
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Food for thought
I personally don’t come here to argue. I come here to learn. And I have learned a lot over the years especially about science. ID cannot afford to back bad science or it will get excoriated by those who hate it. Not like Wilkins or Kampourakis’s book on evolution that I mentioned above. They can espouse all the nonsense they want and feel secure no one will challenge them. They cannot justify the positions they take. Recently I learned some things about epistemology that are obvious but which I never put together before. There’s a lot to learn here from others. Sometimes It’s good to be provocative to tease out if there is anything to learn about positions one might hold. If all the responses are trivial or bogus, then one knows the positions are probably close to being correct.jerry
April 24, 2021
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For most Friday nights for the last couple years John Batchelor and Michael Vlahos have had a conversation on the possible civi war happening in the US. (Batchelor’s show is probably the most eclectic show on the planet and tends conservative). The premise is that you don’t know you are in a civil war while it’s happening. So they have been comparing the US to previous civil wars in history. Namely, Rome’s one or two civil wars, our Revolutionary War, and the 1961 Civl War. Last night the focus shifted to the Spanish Civil War with the analysis showing the war is still being fought today in Spain. As in the Revolutionary War and the 1861 Civil War the Spanish Civil War was split somewhat equally between sides. So is today’s US civil war. As in the previous civil wars one side wants the complete subjugation of the other. This cannot have a happy ending. The instigation for total subjugation of the other side in today’s world is coming from the left both in Spain today as it is in the US. Here are the two radio shows from last night of Batchelor and Vlahos. The actual show starts about a minute in as there are ads till then. https://audioboom.com/posts/7851926-2-civilwar-not-forgetting-the-deep-divisions-in-spain-and-america-michael-vlahos-johns-ho https://audioboom.com/posts/7851927-2-2-civilwar-not-forgetting-the-deep-divisions-in-spain-and-america-michael-vlahos-johns-h And an article written by Vlahos on this https://www.anewcivilwar.com/post/old-civil-wars-never-die-like-zombies-they-are-raised-by-history-to-devour-usjerry
April 24, 2021
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Sev, I took some time to seek the source of your clip. Someone who projects "Gish Gallops" is going to sink in my estimation, for cause. When that rhetorical gambit is matched with the layercake of dozens of errors and fallacies I corrected above, it even more regrettably confirms my concern on confession by projection. For cause, I will continue to use worldviews analysis as a responsible, useful and even powerful tool, one that bears but little resemblance to the strawman caricature knocked over in the clip. KFkairosfocus
April 24, 2021
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Seversky in response to Sandy's comment,
There are no strangers from Christian’s point of view :because all people are brothers and have a single root Adam and Eve.
in response to that, Seversky states,
Tell that to the Jewish population of Europe. Tell that to the native populations of the Americas – those that are left.
What's that got to do with whether or not all humanity shares a single unique origin in Adam and Eve? Exactly what is your argument Seversky? All people are not brothers because men have killed other men? That simply makes no sense from a Biblical point of view since the first murder recorded in the Bible is Cain killing his brother Abel. Should you not have instead presented some kind of scientific evidence to refute the Biblical Claim that all men are related via Adam and Eve? i.e. to refute the claim that all men are brothers? But then again, the supposed scientific evidence for human evolution is rather sparse nowadays.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE INDEPENDENT HISTORIES OF THE HUMAN Y CHROMOSOME AND THE HUMAN MITOCHONDRIAL CHROMOSOME - Robert W. Carter, Stephen S. Lee, John C. Sanford, - 2018 Excerpt: The existence of a literal Adam and Eve is hotly debated, even within the Christian body. Now that many full-length human Y (chrY) and mitochondrial (chrM) chromosome sequences have been sequenced and made publicly available, it may be possible to bring clarity to this question. We have used these data to comprehensively analyze the historical changes in these two chromosomes, starting with the sequences of people alive today, and working backwards to the ancestral sequence of the family groups to which they belong. The genetic evidence strongly suggests that Y Chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve were not just real people, they were the progenitors of us all. In this light, there is every reason to believe that they were the Adam/Noah and Eve of the Bible. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol8/iss1/7/ No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests - Oct. 21, 2013? Excerpt: The article, "No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans," relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins -- humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.,,,?They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match.?"None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor," Gómez-Robles said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm? If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? - January 20, 2011 Excerpt: John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.” “Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.,,, He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking Contested Bones: Is There Any Solid Fossil Evidence for Ape-to-Man Evolution? - Dr. John Sanford and Chris Rupe Excerpt: We have spent four years carefully examining the scientific literature on this subject. We have discovered that within this field (paleoanthropology), virtually all the famous hominin types have either been discredited or are still being hotly contested. Within this field, not one of the hominin types have been definitively established as being in the lineage from ape to man. This includes the famous fossils that have been nicknamed Lucy, Ardi, Sediba, Habilis, Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal. Well-respected people in the field openly admit that their field is in a state of disarray. It is very clear that the general public has been deceived regarding the credibility and significance of the reputed hominin fossils. We will show that the actual fossil evidence is actually most consistent with the following three points. 1) The hominin bones reveal only two basic types; ape bones (Ardi and Lucy), and human bones (Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal). 2) The ape bones and the human bones have been repeatedly found together in the same strata – therefore both lived at the same basic timeframe (the humans were apparently hunting and eating the apes). 3) Because the hominin bones were often found in mixed bone beds (with bones of many animal species in the same site), numerous hominin types represent chimeras (mixtures) of ape and human bones (i.e., Sediba, Habilis). We will also present evidence that the anomalous hominin bones that are of the human (Homo) type most likely represent isolated human populations that experienced severe inbreeding and subsequent genetic degeneration. This best explains why these Homo bones display aberrant morphologies, reduced body size, and reduced brain volume. We conclude that the hominin bones do not reveal a continuous upward progression from ape to man, but rather reveal a clear separation between the human type and the ape type. The best evidence for any type of intermediate “ape-men” derived from bones collected from mixed bone beds (containing bones of both apes and men), which led to the assembly of chimeric skeletons. Therefore, the hominin fossils do not prove human evolution at all.,,, We suggest that the field of paleoanthropology has been seriously distorted by a very strong ideological agenda and by very ambitious personalities. https://ses.edu/contested-bones-is-there-any-solid-fossil-evidence-for-ape-to-man-evolution/
Seversky's second response makes even less sense than his first one did.
Sev: "Jesus is immortal like His Father. He cannot be killed, certainly not by us. So how was his supposed death on the cross anything other than a gesture?"
HUH??? So God becoming a man, living a sin-free life, dying on a cross to atone for our sins, and then rising from the dead, since it was, by your own admission, impossible for Him to die, is nothing more than a meaningless 'gesture' on your part? Really??? God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth and all life in it, becoming a human is a meaningless 'gesture' to you? Really??? I could see someone trying to deny that God became a man simply because of the sheer audacity of the claim, but I have never heard anyone say that they thought that God becoming man was just a meaningless gesture for God to do. A 'big yawn' if you will. Perhaps someone who is more Biblically literate would like to address Seversky response in a bit more detail than I have. I'm literally speechless that anyone could respond as Seversky has.bornagain77
April 24, 2021
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Obviously it is my opinion that their judgements are bad, but it is a fact that they don't know what the logic of opinion is. I explained the distinction between opinion and fact on creationwiki. http://www.creationwiki.org/Creationist_Philosophymohammadnursyamsu
April 24, 2021
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Sandy/73
1.There are no strangers from Christian’s point of view :because all people are brothers and have a single root Adam and Eve.
Tell that to the Jewish population of Europe. Tell that to the native populations of the Americas - those that are left.
2. If indeed God(Christ) died for you and you ignore Him ,who are you , what are you?
By Christian belief, Jesus is immortal like His Father. He cannot be killed, certainly not by us. So how was his supposed death on the cross anything other than a gesture?Seversky
April 24, 2021
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Viola Lee Food for thought
1.There are no strangers from Christian's point of view :because all people are brothers and have a single root Adam and Eve. 2. If indeed God(Christ) died for you and you ignore Him ,who are you , what are you?Sandy
April 24, 2021
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Food for thoughtViola Lee
April 24, 2021
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Mohammadnursyamsu My idea about what’s going wrong with society should have priority because 1. My explanation is more simple. It is simply fact obsessed people who are clueless about subjectivity, who consequently produce bad personal opinions.
Your opinion is subjective or objective?
Viola Lee Well, it’s part of an explanation why people hold certain worldviews: they are raised to believe as the community around them believes. This helps provide social stability, which is good for everyone. For instance, in some societies older people are revered as the source of institutional knowledge (a practical good) and as being closest to those ancestors which have died (a religious or metaphysical good.) Both of these reasons can be undermined as time goes by (in fact has, in many societies). The first, preservation of institutional knowledge, can be demonstrably justified if one considers the stability and continuation of that culture as a good. The second can’t be empirically verified, but believe in it also contributes to stability of the culture. I’m not sure what other criteria of truth one might apply to this particular example.
:) This is just an opinion you have chosen to believe that is true(among many other opinions that flow around). The big problem you have is if you think an opinion(yours in this case )is closer to truth, or true then this is a law of objectivity and of unique,exclusive truth .You think from all opinions from this Earth there is only one that is true or closer to truth but in the same time you don't actually believe that .Because you think that all religions are the same ,none is superior to other,which is absurd but is your opinion and you value it as the truth. :)) Why this "objectivity" in irelevant opinions and why this laxity in relevant opinions like true religion? Don't you fell the disonance from your reason?Sandy
April 24, 2021
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I agree with Viola Lee with respect to worldviews. The worldview that we hold is the result of cultural inertia modified by experience. For example, the vast majority of us equate to the same religion as our parents but as we experience life the extent to which we practice this religion may change. What has happened over the last century or so is that the ease of travel and immigration has resulted in a diversification of our society. In my mind this is a great improvement, but it definitely comes with significant challenges.paige
April 24, 2021
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My idea about what's going wrong with society should have priority because 1. My explanation is more simple. It is simply fact obsessed people who are clueless about subjectivity, who consequently produce bad personal opinions. 2. My explanation is directly rooted in creationism, because I explain that subjectivity is an inherently creationist concept. And because this is an intelligent design blog, therefore the creationist explanation must have priority. Also, how can anybody be so "stupid" to not "appreciate" the "importance" of the concept of personal opinion? All these words between quotation marks are subjective. Which shows subjectivity is a big deal, used all over the place. It is very obvious that if people throw out subjectivity, as materialists, atheists, evolutionists do, that the consequences will be catastrophic. And this is obviously not about tolerance for diversity of opinion. You only get diversity of opinion when first you accept the concept of opinion. But this is about people who undermine the concept of personal opinion. Everyone must accept the concept of personal opinion, must accept creationism.mohammadnursyamsu
April 24, 2021
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Jerry, the issue is to correct not merely to discredit. Rhetoric does not answer to all things, as well you know as you read essays, papers and books etc. Enough of your side track. KFkairosfocus
April 24, 2021
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A better use of your time, Jerry. Enjoy.Viola Lee
April 24, 2021
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Does the phrase “such beliefs” refer to what I said, or the beliefs of a particular worldview? I think you mean the latter.
Any belief. Some beliefs have zero effect on every day life or worldview. I mentioned belief in alien civilizations in the galaxy above. That is such a belief that will affect next to nothing about life today or in the foreseeable future. Others have extremely relevant effects on every day life and worldviews. Have to go explore the Maine coast with my wife as it is a beautiful day in New Hampshire.jerry
April 24, 2021
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Well, it's part of an explanation why people hold certain worldviews: they are raised to believe as the community around them believes. This helps provide social stability, which is good for everyone. For instance, in some societies older people are revered as the source of institutional knowledge (a practical good) and as being closest to those ancestors which have died (a religious or metaphysical good.) Both of these reasons can be undermined as time goes by (in fact has, in many societies). The first, preservation of institutional knowledge, can be demonstrably justified if one considers the stability and continuation of that culture as a good. The second can't be empirically verified, but believe in it also contributes to stability of the culture. I'm not sure what other criteria of truth one might apply to this particular example.Viola Lee
April 24, 2021
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Viola Lee Jerry asks, “But why do they hold to a certain worldview? ” A major reason is that people are brought up to believe in certain metaphysical propositions which are part of the conceptual glue that helps hold the society together. They don’t believe because of empirical evidence but because of the emotional bonds engendered among common believers.
This is a non-explanation. PS: What is the difference between lets say The Bible and the commentary of Viola Lee? What makes your message more to be trusted ? What is the sign of truth?Sandy
April 24, 2021
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Not quite sure what you're asking Jerry. Does the phrase "such beliefs" refer to what I said, or the beliefs of a particular worldview? I think you mean the latter.Viola Lee
April 24, 2021
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why do people hold to certain worldviews. I made a few comments on that question
Yes, I read it. I understand where they come from. The question is do such beliefs/opinions have any justification let alone sufficient justification?jerry
April 24, 2021
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you are wrong on that subject.
No, I am right. Wilkins can be discredited in one or two sentences. As a philosopher of science writer/expert, he holds false information to be true on science. Consequently, why would one trust such a person on anything on science or other things such as worldviews. Done!jerry
April 24, 2021
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FYI: Jerry asked upwards why do people hold to certain worldviews. I made a few comments on that question at 32.Viola Lee
April 24, 2021
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