Christianity - A respectful dialogue

[z8000783]

Has he left the building, I had a couple of questions?

John

It doesn't seem like they were going to be answered anyway.

Ah, but that is never the point. How they don't get answered is often very telling.

John

[Hermit]

Sensus divinitatis was originally an idea of John Calvin, and it is pretty circular reasoning in that he concluded that it must be something that everyone has because just about everyone believed in God. He also had a way around the problem that not everyone believed in God: Wickedness and sinful living could destroy sensus divinitatis. And all of this was very convenient for explaining why people that never heard of God should be held morally accountable and deserve divine punishment for not believing in God even if no one had ever told them about God.

Calvin does not say that sensus divinitatis can tell anyone anything about God other than that there is one, he created the universe, and he should be worshipped. To get the details takes revelations by god that become what he called internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.

Sensus divinitatis was and is nothing more than a logical fallacy stemming from an argument from popularity, but something of a double edged sword that allowed him to say that people who claim not to believe actually do believe and just deny it because they hate God, or that they used to believe but do not any longer because their wicked ways have destroyed their ability to believe. I still hear and read these arguments today.

Calvin seems to have though that all are naturally born with Sensus divinitatis. Maybe he would have called it the God gene if genetics would have been understood at the time, but Alvin Plantinga goes a bit further calling Sensus divinitatis, a disposition to for certain religious beliefs triggered by seeing wondrous or complicated things that are hard to imagine being possible without there being a God responsible for it. Basically the design argument relying on credulity.

@ Thedistillers:
This Sensus divinitatis has been explained many times by many people: It is a by product of evolved traits such as pattern seeking, curiosity, and a tendency to want easily understood answers. Sensus divinitatis in the sense that you are using it is not an explanation or argument of any kind for the existence of God.

Hey, good work, Oldskeptic. Although I cannot recall having ever actually addressed you at RDF, I have read your posts there with interest.

Speaking of interesting posters, do you have any means of contacting Factman, and if so, can you invite him to this forum?

[Babel]

I think he's here already. Don't know what username he has, though.

[Thinking Aloud]

Has he left the building, I had a couple of questions?

John

It doesn't seem like they were going to be answered anyway.

Ah, but that is never the point. How they don't get answered is often very telling.

John

Maybe he's followed the crowd to RS?

How threads get derailed here is also very telling... :twisted:

[Feck]

Personally I think this thread got the respect it deserved The OP, started by a known spammer, tried to sneer at a member then ended with laughable assumption and a more general insult to every non believer.

[Valden]

That's not a hydra. Its Tiamat from Dungeons and Dragons. FFS can people get their mythology right!?

It's a fucking Hydra if I say it's a fucking Hydra.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I think he's here already. Don't know what username he has, though.

Fact-man, perhaps. Just a wild guess but it just might be him!

You'll find him over by the global worming debates.

[Hermit]

Thanks, XC.

[Clinton Huxley]

Damn, did I miss the respectful dialogue?

[Hermit]

Damn, did I miss the respectful dialogue?

If you got as far as reading "Humans have a sensus divinitatis, which allow them to know that the proposition "God exists" is true,without any empirical evidence needed", you did not miss a thing.

Come to think of it, you did not miss anything even if you had not read that far.

[Feck]

Damn, did I miss the respectful dialogue?

If you got as far as reading "Humans have a sensus divinitatis, which allow them to know that the proposition "God exists" is true,without any empirical evidence needed", you did not miss a thing.

Come to think of it, you did not miss anything even if had not got that far.

You just said that because you are Wicked

[z8000783]

Has he left the building, I had a couple of questions?

John

It doesn't seem like they were going to be answered anyway.

Ah, but that is never the point. How they don't get answered is often very telling.

John

Maybe he's followed the crowd to RS?

How threads get derailed here is also very telling... :twisted:

RS?

John

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Has he left the building, I had a couple of questions?

John

It doesn't seem like they were going to be answered anyway.

Ah, but that is never the point. How they don't get answered is often very telling.

John

Maybe he's followed the crowd to RS?

How threads get derailed here is also very telling... :twisted:

RS?

John

http://rationalskepticism.org/

A new site started by a few of the refugees. It's pretty damn good.

[Babel]

I think he's here already. Don't know what username he has, though.

Fact-man, perhaps. Just a wild guess but it just might be him!

You'll find him over by the global worming debates.

That's what I get for trying to be helpful when in fact, I'm helpless myself.

I'll get mi coat.

[Elessarina]

I would like to have a respectful dialogue with non-Christians, and challenge their worldview.

Here's a starter:

- Humans have a sensus divinitatis, which allow them to know that the proposition "God exists" is true,without any empirical evidence needed. Those who deny that the proposition "God exists" is true purposely reject the spirit in their wickedness.

Discuss.

To go back to the OP...(although I don't kthink he's reappear) why is he so convinved that the Christian "God" is the correct one? Don't you think Muslims, for example, believe the same of Allah? If you believe in a God how are you certain that you're believing the "correct" God?

Perhaps this is the basis for a new topic though