I wasn't calling into question who has observed or not observed rabbits chewing cud; I was asking how you know either way. I agree that you have to trust your senses and memory in order to function or be rational at all. The problem is, admitting that does not explain why you should be able to trust them and how your worldview accounts for their reliability. Although, while we're talking about scientists, did you know that science couldn't exist in your worldview?


Well yes, it is reduced to a matrix-type situation, in your worldview (not mine). It's true that we have to assume that our senses and memories are reliable and actually correspond to the way reality is, but that's not the question. The question, like I said above, is about how your worldview accounts for this. It's arbitrary to assume that our senses are generally reliable but fallible, because this conclusion is inconsistent with your worldview. Therefore, it's irrationality of a high degree.


This argument is circular. In order to be able to know whose senses are reliable and whose are not, you would have to assume that yours are. Furthermore, you would have to assume this to conclude who actually survived this theoretical situation. Your argument is basically, "I know that my senses are generally reliable because if they were not I would not survive. I know that I would not survive because a person with sharp senses is more likely to survive than a person with dull senses. I know that because I can use my senses to observe this." Therefore, you arbitrarily assume that your senses are reliable even though this is inconsistent with your worldview.


I admit that here the fault was mine for not communicating clearly. What I meant to suggest was that what you 'see' 'hear' 'feel' and so on could merely be the side effects of a chemical reaction that has nothing to do those things; perhaps a chemical reaction that regulates body temperature, for example. Notice also that all the great scientific information you know about nerve signals, you obtained by using your senses, the reliability of which is unfounded in your worldview.


In your worldview, every thought you have is because of an electrochemical reaction in your brain. How do you know that these electrochemical reactions produce thoughts that are actually rational? If you think something is rational or irrational, it's because of chemical reactions in your brain. For example, you think a non sequitir (which my statement was not) does not follow logically from the premises. However, how do you know that the chemical reactions in your brain are telling you what's actually rational? Elaboration on this at the end of my post.

Since our thoughts are merely the products of chemical reactions, there's no reason to think those chemical reactions produce accurate depictions of how things work or how things are.


This section in particular is full of arbitrariness and inconsistency. First of all, you're trusting both your senses and your memory, and I've demonstrated why that's irrational in your worldview. But you also set me up for a second point, my earlier statement about science not making sense in your worldview. Science is dependent on something called uniformity, the principle that laws of physics remain constant throughout time and space. Because of uniformity, if an experiment takes place under the same conditions, we will get the same results. However, there is no basis for uniformity in your worldview. If the universe is the product of randomness, then you cannot explain why laws of physics exist, much less stay constant. Things change over time; so why don't laws of physics? Things are different from place to place; so why aren't laws of physics? You have no basis for believing that the laws of physics will remain constant. Therefore, science is impossible and meaningless in your worldview.


I certainly do know what mutually exclusive means, and I do understand what a contradiction is; but I'm asking you why a proposition can't be both true and false, or neither. Outside of the biblical worldview, there's no real reason to believe this.

asking why yes doesnt equal no has earned you the title of moron

It seems that the vast majority of your response is merely questioning the definition of 'worldview.' I'll take responsibility for this, since I didn't define that term ahead of time. However, you'll see that my argument snaps into place once I define this term. A worldview is a network of our most basic beliefs about reality in light of which all observations are interpreted. A person's specific worldview can be difficult to label because similar worldviews can very slightly from person to person.

The second most important aspect of your response seems to be that you think I accept the absurd conclusions that your worldview leads to (for example, that knowledge and science are impossible). However, my worldview is very different from yours. I hold a biblical worldview. I believe that the Bible is completely true, that there are certain laws of logic that govern our thinking, that there is uniformity in nature, that our senses and memories are basically reliable, and that our minds are capable of understanding the universe, at least to a degree. Laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks. The universe is being upheld by God, who is immaterial, omnipresent, unchanging, and self-consistent. Laws of logic are also immaterial, universal, and invariable. Since God is truth and all truth is in God, truth must be self-consistent (non-contradictory). For similar reasons, we can expect the way God upholds the universe to be consistent and law-like. God has also promised us explicitly that there will be a degree of uniformity in nature (Genesis 8:22; Jeremiah 33:20). Since we are fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image, we can expect our senses and memories to be generally reliable, and we can expect that our minds will be able to understand the universe to a degree.

However, your worldview is a secular one. You also believe in laws of logic, uniformity of nature, the reliability of our senses and memories, and that our minds can understand the universe to some degree. However, your atheistic/secular worldview cannot account for these things. You likely believe in things like materialism and empiricism (both of which make knowledge impossible), which further riddles your position with inconsistencies and arbitrariness.

There are a couple of specific points worth addressing in your post.

This is a false analogy. I have a good reason to believe that God does not change; He said so in His word, and if His word were not true, then we couldn't know anything. I also have a good reason to believe that laws of physics do not arbitrarily change, because an unchanging God is upholding the universe by His power, we would expect the universe to have uniformity to it. Furthermore, God has promised that this will be so. However, you cannot explain why laws of physics remain constant. Moreover, you cannot even know that laws of physics remain constant. To do so, you would have to assume that there is uniformity in nature, that the future will reflect the past. But for you, this would be an arbitrary assumption.


Unfortunately, this is not a justification. You are indeed forced to rely on your senses and memory, on laws of logic, and on uniformity in nature in order to know anything, but this doesn't justify your beliefs. You are arbitrarily and inconsistently borrowing biblical principles when you rely on these things, because they are inexplicable in your own secular worldview. Thus, you're reduced to equality with the critic of air. The critic of air must use air to breathe and trust that his voice will be carried through the air so that his argument can be heard. In order for him to be able to make an argument against air, it must be wrong. Likewise you're relying on biblical principles when you argue against the Bible. In order for you to be able to make an argument against the Bible, it must be wrong.

the O RLY owl will pop up anytime you make an extreme baseless claim or you say something exceptionally stupid. the two groups are not mutually exclusive.

Before I respond specifically to a few points, it seems that some clarification on the place of evidence and worldviews would be helpful. First of all, evidence means nothing on its own. It cannot 'speak for itself' as many seem to believe. Evidence must be interpreted through a person's worldview. To say that evidence contradicts something is really to say that your interpretation of evidence contradicts something. So your statement "oh so the bible (word of god) isnt wrong because of contradicting evidence, evidence is wrong because of contradicting bible" is a bit misleading. Since the biblical worldview is the only worldview that can make sense of rationality and science, then yes, an interpretation of evidence that contradicts the Bible is necessarily a wrong interpretation.

Also, a rational worldview must contain something called an ultimate standard. An ultimate standard is a belief that all other beliefs rest on. I will demonstrate why this is necessary. If you have a certain belief (p), and I ask you how you know that p is true, you will appeal to another proposition (q) to support that belief. If I ask you how you know that q is true, you will defend that proposition with another (r). If I kept questioning, you would eventually have to come to your ultimate standard; your most foundational belief which all your other beliefs rely on. We'll call it s.

Now, the killer question I could ask is, "How do you know that your ultimate standard (s) is true?" There are three bad ways to answer this question. First, you could say, "I know that s is true because it follows from t," However this would mean that s is not really your ultimate standard. The second way you could try to prove your ultimate standard would be to say, "I know that s is true because it implies that r is true," However, this is fallacious because it is affirming the consequent. The third bad way to answer would be to say, "I don't really know that s is true, I just accept it," However, if you do not know that your ultimate standard is true, then you cannot know anything at all. We are forced to conclude that an ultimate standard must somehow prove itself. Without going in-depth, the Bible can do this, because it is the only ultimate standard that makes knowledge possible, while others are arbitrary or self-defeating. To make an argument against the Bible you would have to presuppose that it is true.


Apart from the biblical worldview we could not know that laws of logic are universal and invariant. However, if laws of logic are not immaterial then they are material; we could eat them, trip on them, or change them, and because of entropy, they would be wearing down slowly. Furthermore, they would not be universal, since they would just apply to where they physically are, effectively rendering them useless. Laws of logic must be universal in order for them to be useful; otherwise, we could not know that they apply in places that we have not tested them in. If someone said they had found an island where contradictions are possible, we would have no logical reason to dismiss their claim. Additionally, if they were not invariant, then we could make no rational predictions about the future, because the laws of logic might change, and if someone said that contradictions had started happening to them, we would have no basis for dismissing that claim. So in order for us to really be able to reason, the laws of logic must be immaterial, universal, and invariant. Only the biblical worldview can account for these kinds of laws, whether they're laws of logic or laws of nature.


How do you account for such laws in your worldview?


Why should abstract things exist? Furthermore, how could you define 'argument accountability' without presupposing laws of logic? This sentence basically seems to mean "Logic is an abstract principle applied by human beings based on logic"


How do you know that impotent senses impede survival? Senses could just be illusions, products of chemical reactions that have nothing to do with eyes or ears or nerves. Plenty of organisms (bacteria) do not really have "senses" as we do, yet they far outnumber us humans. How do you know that we are not bacteria with our senses being an illusory side effect of a chemical reaction?


Understand meaning, yes, to know how the universe is and how it works. Why should one chemical accident be able to comprehend another chemical accident?

I'll also explain why materialism and empiricism are untenable positions. Materialism is the belief that matter and energy are all we have. If this were true, then we could not have laws of nature nor laws of logic, because these are not material things, as I demonstrated above. So, without laws of logic, rational reasoning is impossible, meaning that if materialism were true, we could not know anything. Empiricism is the belief that all knowledge is obtained through observation. However, we cannot observe empiricism, therefore we could not know that it is true; it does not pass its own test for truth. So both of these positions are irrational and destroy the possibility of knowledge.


This is still fallacious, because it's applying a generalization to an exception. I have good reason to believe that God is an exception to this; however, you do not have good reason to believe that laws of physics are.


Ignoring the biased language, it's easy to demonstrate how this is circular reasoning. You argue that we can expect the future to be like the past because in the past the future has been like the past, however, in order to think that the future will reflect the past (the past being that the future has reflected the past), you would have to already assume that the future reflects the past. Let me see if I can put it more cogently in a formal argument:
1. If uniformity is true, then the future will be like the past.
2. There has been uniformity in the past.
3. Therefore, there will be uniformity in the future.
You assume uniformity to try to prove uniformity; which is circular and arbitrary. In your worldview, you cannot know that there will be uniformity in the future.

You also seem to object that miracles destroy the possibility of uniformity. However, there are a couple of reasons that this is false. First of all, not all miracles violate the laws of nature (which, in the biblical worldview, are merely descriptions of the way God usually upholds the universe). For example, the parting of the Red Sea was accomplished by the use of wind, and therefore was not necessarily a violation of the laws of nature. Furthermore, we can't really know that any miracles violate the laws of nature, because we do not know all of the laws of nature. However, even if miracles do violate laws of nature, they do not destroy the possibility of uniformity. Miracles are by definition rare occasions, so there's really no reason to think they destroy the possibility of uniformity.

Finally, the principles you borrow are such as laws of logic, uniformity, reliability of senses, reliability of memory, ability of our minds to comprehend the universe, and so on. These are principles that only make sense consistently in a biblical worldview.

Ultimately, when people reject the Bible, they are reduced to foolishness (which is pretty much what I've demonstrated). The critic is not consistent with his worldview when he is rational or presupposes the principles above. Why are critics of the Bible so inconsistent? The critic of the Bible knows God in his heart of hearts, and is self-deceived into thinking he does not. This is the reason for the blatant inconsistency in the critic's worldview: an emotional rejection of God.
The Bible explains and summarizes this quite nicely: