Joshua Rasmussen

It's coming...

@wisdomXplorer philosopher

What's your dream job?

@FevziAtaDemirt2 @DanBarker53711 thx!

@worldviewdesign @DanBarker53711 Even starting with “.” (then write whatever you want later) solves the problem.

@DanBarker53711, I shared some things I appreciate about your work at the end of this video: youtube.com/watch?v=bFeZDl… Thanks for your comments on my chapter.

@BanjoAtheist If people are trained to interpret a certain experience as evidence or a sign from God, then it makes sense to me that they'd be more likely to take sincere actions based on that perception of evidence, even if the experience can be better explained in other ways.

@worldviewdesign Josh, question for you. Two identical revival meetings. Meeting 1 participants unknowingly get a good dose of MDMA before. Meeting 2 do not. Ceteris paribus, would there be more commitments for Christ in group 1? Would they count as sincere?

@FevziAtaDemirt2 @DanBarker53711 interesting. what if i start with "Hi @...."? Does that change it?

@worldviewdesign @DanBarker53711 If you start your post with "@", your post will not appear on your page.

Love this paragraph: *Scripture refers to itself as inspired (God breathed, “theopneustos). BUT DOES IT? Watch out for 2 Tim 3:16. (“All scripture is inspired…”) It does NOT mean what Licona implies. (48). We have no idea which documents the (unknown) author had in mind as “Scripture.” Jude? Acts? Mark? Hebrews? Did they mean to include the five or so New Testament documents that had not yet been written? Also, why should we deem 2 Timothy itself “Scripture” anyway? It is maddening how widely 2 Tim 3:16 is abused by pop-apologists and unscrupulous preachers to comfort (and manipulate) the ignorant. Christian scholars should be cautioning their readers against that abuse, not exploiting its results in service of their theories.

My review of conservative evangelical scholar, Mike Licona's, book on historicity of the Gospels. amazon.com/gp/customer-re…

@_ChristIsLord I think that's irrational unless you add sufficient evidence. If someone appeals to direct revelation from God's spirit, thats a different issue, and not in the target of my post.

@worldviewdesign We don’t have to assume all religious claims reduce to mere human opinion. If theism is true and God has revealed Himself through prophets, Christ, scripture, and the Holy Spirit, then it’s rational to prioritize divine revelation over autonomous human opinion.

Religions often advertise themselves in this ironic way: 1. Lean not on the opinions of men, but on these teachings from God. Why? 2. Because men told you to.

@GhostCoase Since everyone is allowed, thats what we see.

"men are not teaching, but God." Assuming that's true, someone can still wonder why they should think that's true. If the answer is in terms of what a man said, then that tacitly acknowledges that the belief it is from God is from a man. That's not itself a problem. The problem arises if one goes on to say that you should trust *that* man over every other man merely because that man happens to correctly be telling you that something is from God. That's a mistake a lot of people make I've seen.

If you are referring to Proverbs, the teaching is a warning against trusting oneself above God. If your “argument” is directed at Christianity in general, the teachings are predicated on the belief that the Bible is divinely inspired. As such, men are not teaching, but God. This is the nature of divine pedagogy.

@PhilosophyBeard @baroquerational What do you mean by "supernatural"?

@baroquerational @worldviewdesign God is by definition supernatural. If you don't want supernatural, theism isn't for you.

Hmmm, am I influencing AI? intheweights.com/p/joshua-rasmu…

@TodAshby Epistemology is built into the advertisement. Read (1) carefully; it doesn't say or imply “Reject anything communicated by men.”

You’re shifting from ontology to epistemology. I agree that we should have good reasons for believing something is true. Christians have argued for those reasons for two millennia. However, your original “irony” still doesn’t follow. Christianity, in particular, doesn’t say, “Reject anything communicated by men.” It says that God’s revelation and not human opinion is the ultimate authority. Human beings are the means by which that revelation is communicated, not the source of its authority. That’s no more ironic than trusting a legal document because it was delivered by a courier. The courier isn’t the author. So the question isn’t whether God used human messengers. The question is whether God actually spoke through them. That’s the claim that has to be evaluated.

@_ChristIsLord Ah, but if you appeal to the resurrection, the question returns: how do you know that happened? The event by itself, without trusting men (or some evidence), does not produce belief.

@worldviewdesign The captain does not presume the general’s orders are really the corporal’s opinion. There is a verifiable chain of custody. In Christianity’s case, the resurrection of Jesus will suffice.

@_ChristIsLord Sure, but that confirms the point about the value of trusting men...

@worldviewdesign (2) should actually say “because God gave His word to us.” A captain guiding his men on the battlefield may receive dispatched orders from his general. He does not disregard those orders simply because they were received, carried and delivered by a corporal.

@TodAshby Thanks, but the irony is in the *combination* of (1) and (2), not in believing men simpliciter. I don't think the truth of a message is all that matters; it also matters what *reason* you have to think it's true. The virtuous truth-seeker gets more truth in the long term.

So didn’t your PhD in philosophy came from people telling you things? If “men told you” is enough to dismiss a claim, then you’ve refuted your own education. That’s the genetic fallacy, judging a claim by its source rather than its truth. The question has never been who delivered the message, but whether the message is true.

@PhilosophyBeard Lots of people I hear. They say to trust God over men but cite only men in their arguments.

@worldviewdesign Theism without the supernatural? Sounds like religion an atheist would like. A strawman is an argument, I suppose. And a necessary argument when facing those straw men. I'm not denying that such men exist. I'm just questioning who you think this applies to.

@PhilosophyBeard First, I'm a theist. Second, you can argue for theism apart from religion (e.g., amazon.com/dp/0801432553). Third, I didn't say this was always true about religion. Fourth, thanks, I do think there's a clever -- and important! -- argument in there.

@worldviewdesign The irony is that you think there's a clever argument in there, but it's really just you assuming atheism. So you're doing the very thing you're accusing religious people of.

@God_Questioner you

What is it?

Stop lying. Theists have never presented any evidence.

@sed13949 Religions often (not always) advertise themselves in this ironic way: 1. Lean not on the opinions of men, but on these teachings from God. Why? 2. Because men told you to.

@sed13949 I accidentally deleted the post. Here it is again: