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Originally Posted by Robert Tulip
Non-scientific ‘linguistic framework systems’ tend to be internally inconsistent, indicating their weak grasp of truth.
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But scientific systems and even mathematics itself contain internal inconsistancies. The point is to try to reduce the inconsistancies by varying truth-values across the web of implications. So one can cling to the truth of a sentence "come what may", as Quine would say, as long as one is willing to alter enough truth-values elsewhere.
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However, the real job is in comparing ways of thought - commensurating. This is best done from outside their “system”, not within it
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You can't do this from a God's eye perspective. If you judge "their" system from outside their system, then you are judging their system from within
your system. And frankly, I have a hard time figuring out where you're coming from. You're apparently some kind of Christian, or at least a friend of Christians, but apparently only certain kinds. It would be helpful if you laid your cards on the table, as I have; we would be less likely to talk past each other. (I am hard-core scientific materialist--that's why I try hard to understand religious systems on their own terms).
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Creationism is a specific form of theism, going beyond the claims of the existence of a Creator God to argue that God intervenes in the world in ways contrary to those observed by evolutionary biology,
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That's the whole idea of having a god, right? I mean what good is a god that can't violate the laws of physics whenever it wants?
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Please, again this is false. Creationists do deny scientific evidence, notably the geological record. Theists who “interpret the empirical observations of science in a way consistent with the Bible”are not creationists. As well, your statement is not possible as there are claims in the Bible that are inconsistent with empirical observation.
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They don't deny that there are fossils--they just disagree on how to interpret those fossils (as well as the lack of fossil missing links).
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This is a confusing aside which deserves comment nonetheless. Your word “underdetermined” may apply to some beliefs of scientists, but it is precisely the beauty and power of science that its theories are supported by evidence.
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I agree.
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Claims like string theory that do not have evidentiary backing do not have the status of scientific theory, but are merely hypotheses.
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Then why is it that string theory is researched in physics departments, published in science journals, and the researchers think of themselves and scientists, and not mathematicians or theologians or philosophers?
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My point (not made clearly enough) was that creationists use the cosmology they derive from Genesis to underpin their belief in New Testament ideas such as those of Saint Paul on the ransom theory of the cross (1 Tim 2:5). Creationists take cosmic Pauline hymns such as Philippians 2 and Colossians 1 as central to a magical concept of heaven and salvation which in its crude literal form is obsolete. They want to protect their flawed theory of salvation by an equally flawed and obsolete theory of creation. But please don’t get me wrong on this, I am a fan of Saint Paul. He had great ideas about salvation, its just that creationists can’t see them because they insist on clinging to the residues of a medieval concept of faith.
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See, this is what I mean: I can't tell where you're coming from. The way you write out "Saint Paul" makes me think your probably Catholic, and that's cool. But any statement you make will be from within a Catholic system, and not a scientific materialist system, nor an evangelical system.
We can afford to be sectarian about empirical experience. It's either raining or it's not. But it would be better for all of us if we were more pluralistic with respect to our metaphysical systems. We all would get along better.
