The Mars Hill Club

Religious relativism is the idea that all religions are equally true. This is usually supported by at least two arguments. First, religious truth is seen as a fundamentally different kind of truth from historical truth or scientific truth. The claim is that this kind of truth cannot be evaluated through science, reason, or history. This second claim is used to argue that since religious truth is so fundamentally different, all religious claims can be equally true.

The ontological argument makes most sense if one buys into substance metaphysics. Not just substance metaphysics though, but Thomistic substance metaphysics. Therefore, it is incumbent upon those who believe that this is a good argument to demonstrate the veracity of Thomistic metaphyics.

The meaning of the statement “God is Love” is not self-evident. It seems that today, most people use this phrase as the primary descriptor of God while at the same time assuming that God does not feel anything. At least, there seems to be some sort of lip service to “God is Love” while living life as if God does not truly love. This problem should cause pangs of remorse and pity in anyone who has a spiritual inclination.

This is a question to stir discussion.

A deist and a pantheist walk into a bar. They would like to talk about God. How would this be possible considering the depth of difference between the views of the two?

Kant’s 4th Antinomy

This could be called the antinomy of the existence of a necessary being or the antinomy of the existence of God.

Keep in mind some of the same things as in the 3rd Antinomy, namely:

1) Kant, as well as most academics of his time, was enamored of Isaac Newton and the new breakthroughs in physics that Newton brought to science. It seemed as though science would and could solve all of the mysteries of the universe.

2) Kant was trying to use reason alone without resorting to either empirical data or metaphysical speculation. As seen in this quote:

As with Kant’s other antinomies, this one starts off with a thesis and antithesis which he claims are equally valid based on pure reason. They cannot both actually be true so Kant then works to resolve the antinomy.

Keep in mind four things regarding Kant as he develops and resolves these antinomies:

1) Kant, as well as most academics of his time, was enamored of Isaac Newton and the new breakthroughs in physics that Newton brought to science. It seemed as though science would and could solve all of the mysteries of the universe.

Join me as we review Kant's 3rd and 4th Antinomies. These are the antinomy of free-will and predestination and the antinomy of the existence of God. This would be rather interesting and exciting as we explore these two critical issues.

As a philosopher, I appreciate the value of defining terms, so I will start out by stating what I mean by judgment, judgmentalism, and judgmentalist (defining terms is particularly important here since I am coining two terms; ‘judgmentalism’ and ‘judgmentalist’). In this blog entry, when I refer to judge, judging, or judgment I mean a conclusion regarding a particular subject. Judgmentalism is the habitual act or lifestyle of making uncritical ‘snap’ judgments regarding issues regardless of whether those judgments are accurate or not.

There is little doubt of Immanuel Kant’s importance to philosophy and that he has had far reaching impact upon philosophy, philosophy of religion, and human knowledge in general. James Van Cleve says that Kant is, “Often regarded as the greatest of the modern philosophers…” (Van Cleve 255). Kant’s influence upon modern philosophy can be seen as a domino or billiard ball effect regarding how Kant has influenced philosophers who have influenced other philosophers in chain.

Responding to Critics (Source: Essays ‘Is Irreducible Complexity (IC) Falsifiable?’ and ‘Blood Clotting Blues’ by Michael Behe from the Discovery Institute website, and some material from DBB)

a. Philosophical naturalism ('nuff said?)
b. Falsifiability (In proposing IC, are we ‘staking the deck’ and writing the rules such that we cannot be proved wrong?)
i. Contradictory argumentation
1. Critics have said it is not falsifiable,
2. Critics have also said it is falsifiable and they have evidence against it
ii. IC is open to direct experimental rebuttal, in other words, you can go into a lab and see if you can make these things happen through naturalistic processes