"I BELIEVE that a progressive, Christian, welcoming, grace and justice-oriented worldview best explains the world we live in."
With the acknowledgement that you've jumped multiple steps ahead of the discussion I was trying to have, I'll put your Truth claim to the test.
If the worldview you just espoused is the best at explaining the world we live in, how does it explain the following?
The transition from the absolute existence of nothing to the existence of all of the matter in the universe in an instant?
The origin of the vast amounts of information encoded into our DNA?
The fine tuned nature of the universe?
A natural order based on the survival of the fittest?
Anything other than a clear, direct, specific, answer to the question exactly as asked will end up somewhere else. The only questions I will answer on this thread are questions asked to clarify specific aspects of the questions asked, do not expect answers to anything else. This is your opportunity to prove how well your worldview aligns with the world we live in. Do you your inability to stop jumping ahead, my usual rule of posting all of your comments might be suspended for this post.
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13 comments:
Science is not my forte. However, I'll be glad to give my best answers that I can to these rather science-oriented questions AS SOON AS you answer the questions I asked you first in the next post where you put my comments and questions.
MY questions should be pretty dang easy by comparison. I'm mostly just asking if you can agree with reality.
We'll see.
Dan,
Clearly you either didn't read the entire post, or chose to what I wrote.
As far as this post goes, the only reason it exists is because you insisted on jumping ahead from my question, "Does a worldview exist that most closely aligns with the Truth about the world we live in?", to making an argument for a specific worldview.
As I've tried to explain, in my original post, I'm trying to lay a foundation of some very basic elements, before building from there. I understand that your impatience causes you to want to jump ahead, but that isn't helpful.
So, I gave you this opportunity to demonstrate the Truth of your claim. If you can't or won't, that's fine. I really don't care that much, at this point, but since you were so insistent I gave you the space.
I'll note that I can't tell if your problem is that you've never cared enough about these questions to bother considering if your worldview actually has answers for them, or that your worldview doesn't have answers for these questions.
Either way, answer or don't. I'm only trying to remove this distracting line of conversation from the other thread.
It does always amaze me that you think that making demands of me, at my blog, is a good and helpful way to achieve your goals. Especially since the converse would see me deleted quickly.
With the acknowledgement that you've jumped multiple steps ahead of the discussion I was trying to have, I'll put your Truth claim to the test.
If the worldview you just espoused is the best at explaining the world we live in, how does it explain the following?
The transition from the absolute existence of nothing to the existence of all of the matter in the universe in an instant?
One reason that I believe my worldview is a good one is that it recognizes the great value of using our God-given reasoning to understand the world around us by observation and scientific evaluation.
A second reason I think the progressive worldview is a good one (indeed, the best that I know of) is because it emphasizes grace and recognizes that, by grace, we don't HAVE to be able to completely understand or explain all there is to know about science or God or anything, really, to be able to recognize beauty, goodness, love and kindness... to recognize morality and act in a reasonable and moral manner.
Thus, I don't have to have an answer to questions like "Explain the Big Bang/Creation in correct and factual way" in order to recognize the value of the Golden Rule and grace and kindness and using our reason and not bowing to bullies who'd try to oppress or cause harm or merely assert that THEY ALONE have the right answers or speak for God...
Excellent answer. You've just admitted that you have chosen a worldview that doesn't actually offer an explanation of our world. Of course you don't "have to answer questions", I've never said you did (unlike you). I quite clearly said you didn't have to answer these hard questions. Of course you didn't have to accuse people who are interested in exploring these questions and finding the Truth as bullies either, but you did.
I do want to thank you for making the point I was trying to make in the other post.
If The Truth exists
If The Truth is universal
If a worldview exists that is most closely aligned with The Truth
Then that worldview is, of necessity, exclusive.
The fact that you appear to be equating acknowledging The Truth about something with oppressing those who don't acknowledge The Truth is an interesting way to look at the topic.
So, I'll repeat.
"So, I gave you this opportunity to demonstrate the Truth of your claim. If you can't or won't, that's fine. I really don't care that much, at this point, but since you were so insistent I gave you the space.
I'll note that I can't tell if your problem is that you've never cared enough about these questions to bother considering if your worldview actually has answers for them, or that your worldview doesn't have answers for these questions.
Either way, answer or don't. I'm only trying to remove this distracting line of conversation from the other thread."
All I'm asking is, what good is a worldview if it doesn't even attempt to offer explanations of the world we live in?
You've just admitted that you have chosen a worldview that doesn't actually offer an explanation of our world.
No, Craig. I literally did not say that. No.
I said that my worldview DOES value answers that can be gleaned from the available data AND has the best approach to gleaning those answers. At the same time, I don't have to be able to perfectly explain God or science to value or believe in either of them.
HOW do you think your worldview attempts to offer explanations of the world we live in? And how is your worldview different in that respect that my worldview.
what good is a worldview if it doesn't even attempt to offer explanations of the world we live in?
My worldview DOES attempt to offer explanations and does the best job that I know of as compared to other worldviews. How does yours do so differently? By saying "God did it, that settles it!"
IF so, that isn't an attempt to explain. It's a dodging of the explanation.
So, by all means, answer your own questions IF you think YOU have a worldview that is "better" (however you're defining that) than mine.
"No, Craig. I literally did not say that. No."
No, not specifically. I suspect that if your worldview offered answers, you would have offered them.
"I said that my worldview DOES value answers that can be gleaned from the available data AND has the best approach to gleaning those answers. At the same time, I don't have to be able to perfectly explain God or science to value or believe in either of them."
Well, no you didn't. At lest not in the comment I was responding to.
"HOW do you think your worldview attempts to offer explanations of the world we live in? And how is your worldview different in that respect that my worldview."
I think that my worldview offers explanations by looking at what we know, and comparing it to the claims of the worldview. Accepting what aligns, continuing to search for what doesn't. Since you've really offered such a vague and undetailed explanation of your worldview, I can't really answer my questions. What I will say is that if a worldview doesn't have, at a minimum, the potential to offer a reasonable explanation for all aspects of the world (clearly I'm referring to more than simply the Earth), then it's usefulness is incredibly limited and the likelihood that it will align with The Truth, is very low.
I'm not being evasive here, I'm intentionally trying to do two things.
Keep the focus on the general concept of what a worldview should be.
To not get bogged down is specific details, when there is no agreement on generalities.
Honestly, at this point I have no desire to argue the merits of specific worldviews. I'm simply hoping to get to a point where we might be able to acknowledge that comparing worldviews against each other is pointless. The point isn't to say "My worldview beats your worldview.", but to openly and uncritically look at how well a particular worldview provides explanations for what we can observe of reality.
It appears that you'd like to jump into comparing worldview A against worldview B, if that's the case, I see very little value in doing so.
"My worldview DOES attempt to offer explanations and does the best job that I know of as compared to other worldviews."
1. This isn't an answer to the question as asked.
2. How many and what specific worldviews have you compared yours to and what level of detail have you gone into in these comparisons?
3. What exactly does "does the best job" mean?
4. It's interesting that since your worldview "does the best job", that you can't even give me an example of what it offers in answer to a few questions.
"How does yours do so differently?"
I've already explained this.
"By saying "God did it, that settles it!""
Ahhhh, your prejudices and preconceptions are coming out.
"IF so, that isn't an attempt to explain. It's a dodging of the explanation."
It's neither. Nor is it a cheap attempt to impose your prejudices and preconceptions.
"So, by all means, answer your own questions IF you think YOU have a worldview that is "better" (however you're defining that) than mine."
1. As I explained earlier. It's not about comparing A to B, it's about (broadly and generally) comparing A and B to The Truth.
2. I have no desire to engage in that sort of game. If you can't even acknowledge the possibility that there might be one worldview that most closely aligns with the Truth, then it's a pointless conversaton.
3. I noted earlier that in the absence of any sort of understanding of what "the best" means, it's even more pointless to continue this conversation.
I really don't think you understand either the purpose of this post, or what I've now said twice about the post and the questions.
All I'm trying to do is give you the space to address the claims you've made about your worldview. I've been quite clear that I don't expect or care of you answer the questions, that my motivation was to keep the other thread on topic, while allowing you the freedom to elaborate or not.
Since I've been clear, I don't see much value in doing much further that simply approving your comments.
Having said that, I'll leave this here.
If you are going to adopt a worldview that offers at least the possibility of explaining everything about the world we live in, wouldn't you want to adopt the one that most closely aligns with The Truth about the world we inhabit? If there was even a remote possibility of being able to examine the claims of one's worldview to honestly and dispassionately follow the evidence wherever it leads regardless of one's preconceptions, wouldn't it makes sense to explore that possibility?
Dan, initially: "I said that my worldview DOES value answers that can be gleaned from the available data AND has the best approach to gleaning those answers. At the same time, I don't have to be able to perfectly explain God or science to value or believe in either of them."
Craig, in response: Well, no you didn't. At lest not in the comment I was responding to.
Dan, in the comment Craig was responding to: One reason that I believe my worldview is a good one is that it recognizes the great value of using our God-given reasoning to understand the world around us by observation and scientific evaluation.
I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
Ok, it's close enough. Yet the second answer is clearly, literally not what you "said".
Probably too nit picky, but whatever.
My frustration comes from your need to provide excuses for why you won't answer questions, that I was clear that you didn't need to answer.
I don't see where you making those kind of assertions actually moves the conversation anywhere significant.
Clearly even an idiot could conclude that you've adopted your worldview because "You believe" X,Y,or Z about it. It self evident, and pointless. The fact that you've decided to keep going with this pointless minutia, doesn't seem to make sense.
Just to be clear, then, it appears all of this berating and denigration of my answers arise from you having asked the wrong questions (which I DID answer as precisely as possible), not from any problem with my answers to the questions that were actually asked.
It's always cute when you get your panties in a wad about something like "berating or denigrating" anything.
Now the fact that I apologized for my confusion regarding the answers to the two questions I poorly worded doesn't seem to mean much to you since you get all wadded after my apology.
To be clear, the two question/answers that I apologized for were in a different thread, and the fact that I owned mi mistake, corrected, and apologized for it doesn't somehow mean that I can't question all of the other answers your obfuscated, avoided, given poor answers to, or reworded the questions to suit yourself. Nor does it render my valid criticism of you bastardizing the 2 questions at issue into something completely different and designed to suit your prejudices and preconceptions.
Unfortunately, your concept of grace can't allow you to simply, graciously accept my apology, acknowledge my poorly worded questions and my responses that were a direct result of my poorly worded questions.
Again, your call. You can choose grace and delete the above comment and I'll delete this. Or you can let your pettiness stand for all to see, on the wrong thread.
Clearly not choosing grace, not surprising at all.
The more I've thought about why you've run away from these questions, I've formed a few opinions.
Given that I also am not a huge science guy, but can at least point to answers to these questions that align with "my" worldview. The fact that you haven't even tried leads me to conclude that your worldview isn't adequate to provide any sort of explanatory framework for the world as we know it, or that you really don't know enough about your worldview to even know where to look.
The other possibility, that might explain this lapse is that you aren't quite sure exactly what a worldview is and what it should be able to offer an explanation for. Building on this opinion leads me to wonder if your pride isn't getting in the way of you asking for help.
A third possibility is that the totality of these four questions is simply too much and you decided that retreat was a better option than choosing one as a starting point.
Obviously these are just opinions and speculations, but how quickly you retreated from the questions and how often you seem to idolize Science in other contexts, make me wonder about your motivation.
Or, it's remotely possible that you're doing research and might have clear, direct, specific, answers at some point.
Since I answered, and you've been ignoring my answers, the questions that were a barrier to you giving your answers here I'm not sure why you haven't done what you said you'd do.
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