Posted by Ivan on January 25, 19101 at 13:12:50:
In Reply to: Re: Christ OS: natural and supernatural: Second Law? posted by Charlotte on January 25, 19101 at 11:18:00:
: But you still haven't replied to Jenn's challenge about Oscam's Razor and the resurrection.
With all due respect, Charlotte, I really don't want to get into some sophomoric, Josh McDowellish, Christian apologetic rhetorical hogwash. There's a lot of "evidence that demands a verdict" and people martyring themselves because they believe something is true doesn't make it true, not in Islamic jihads, not with Japanese kamikazee pilots, not with fanatics in the lion's den and not with people praying forgiveness for those who are stoning them to death. The simplest explanations for these behaviors are found in the writings of Freud, Watson, Skinner, Marx, Bertrand Russell and the like. Occam's Razor cuts both ways!
: And, while you're at it, you might think about why there is anything at all--why not nothing? A lawful universe running on the laws of physics, chemistry and biology can account somewhat for evolution, but it can't account for the fact of the universe itself.
Why is there something rather than nothing? I've seen this attributed to so many authors, I can't remember who wrote it but I do recall Wittgenstein saying: It's not *how* things are but *that* things are which is the mystical.
And here we have nothing more, really, than the Cosmological Argument from contingency, the first cause. And you will follow, I'm sure, with the moral argument and the ontological argument or with Aquinas who combines them all. Even the Catholic Church, which teaches natural theology and man's ability to know God by simply "looking around", so to speak, acknowledges that Kant has robbed such arguments of their logical coerciveness. They simply aren't logically compelling and St. Augustine would point out that a leap of faith must be made.
I ain't leaping nowhere. And, if faith is a gift, I'm waiting. I truly am.
Caio to you, Charlotte
Ivan