I trust other people, as I must
1) You think you must, but you can't prove that.
2) Bottom line - you have faith in people you can't prove exist. I have faith in Jesus whom you think I can't prove exists.
I like Jesus better. Until you can produce some good reason not to think Jesus exists, I don't see why not follow Him.
3) Are you conceding that empiricism is a false epistemology? Your lack of defense of it makes you sound like you are. Makes me wonder how you think you know anything. Maybe you have blind faith in other humans, but why pick and choose? And of course, why not embrace solipsism?
Er, no, the "other appeals to authority" would be what you religious guys do
You just did it above. I'm sorry you're so blind to how you actually act, but all I can do is point it out over and over and hope you get it. I'm sure the readers do.
Scientific authorities can be checked by duplicating their work
Any scientific judgment commits the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. Piling fallacy upon fallacy does not get you CLOSER to truth. More fallacies are worse than less.
In the end, it's the facts that count, not the authorities.
So why are you continually appealing to authorities? How are you personally checking their work to make sure it's factual?
And in the end, it's INTERPRETATION OF FACTS that counts, not facts themselves.
Fact: There's a rock.
Question: How old is it?
Answer: Depends on the presuppositions brought to the study of the rock.
If this is what you call "blind faith", that the sun will rise tomorrow, then you've just rendered the expression meaningless
You can keep saying it makes the expression meaningless, but that doesn't change anything. You're just uncomfortable with the appellation so you're hoping you can bully me into not saying it.
You have no evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow, nor that any physical process/law will remain in place. You also have no evidence that the physical processes/laws you think you observe were in place 300 years ago when nobody was paying attention. You have faith, blind faith.
NOT to call what you have 'blind faith' would render the expression meaningless!
because by your usage, everything is blind faith.
That's not even close to the case. Too bad you're too busy thinking of bad arguments so you won't have to listen to the truth that you don't pay attention and learn about the truth. You're heading for wrathful judgment, and it will be fully deserved.
z: Uniformitarianism is the necessary basis of any world we can hope to describe
That's just an assertion, and is blatantly false. The Christian WV handles it just fine.
How is this false, blatantly or otherwise?
The Christian worldview, as said before, provides for natural processes and laws just fine.
That's why.
Ironically, the atheist wv doesn't.
If we can't rely on the sun rising tomorrow, or on gravity holding us down, how could we know anything about the world?
Great question!
Answer: YOU CAN'T.
That's why I say that atheism is absurd. By George, I think you may be finally making some progress.
I don't have to "assume" uniformitarianism: I observe it,
That's false. You observe an infinitessimally tiny fraction of all incidents and processes at work in the entire universe. I mean, it's ridiculously small. Every day the ratio composed of:
NUMERATOR: things and events you observe
__________________________________________
DENOMINATOR: all things and events on Earth (to say nothing of all things and events in the universe)
grow smaller and smaller.
Have you observed 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of all things and events since the origin of time?
How could you even know? And what difference would shaving a few significant figures off here or there make?
You need to pry open your mind and realise how little you really know.
I observe it, and it accounts for the data.
1) And YEC accounts for the data too.
2) You need to prove that data carries any meaning, on atheism.
3) I'm not impressed when someone tells me that they've seen their hypothesis account for 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of all possible observations that could be made. I doubt you're much impressed on any other issue, but of course since you're emotionally involved with this one, you won't be consistent here.
3) If we're talking on Christianity, no, it doesn't account for the data, not even close, since God's Word is also data (in fact, it's infallible eyewitness testimony).
If you characterize the atheistic belief that the sun will rise tomorrow as "viciously circular blind faith", then I guess you should be happy you have a worldview where God tells you that the sun will rise.
That's funny. I am pretty happy about that, that I have a reason to think it will (but if it doesn't rise tomorrow, I'll be in the Eschaton, and I'd be even happier about that). The question is: why, since you don't have a reason to think it will, aren't you looking for a worldview that actually accounts for this kind of stuff?
Oh, I know, it's b/c the Bible says you hate God, and your emotions and evil heart lead you away from Jesus.
All you've got is a bald assertion that you can be sure of stuff we atheists can't be sure of, nothing more.
This may come as a surprise, but you're not God. Just talking doesn't change reality.
