Sye Ten Bruggencate

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Sye uses a quote from Bahnsen, which explains it. Greg Bahnsen writes: ”In the Christian worldview, however, the Christian is not engaged in viciously circular argument, a circular argument on the same plane. We appeal above and beyond the temporal realm. God’s self-revelation in nature and in Scripture informs us of the two-level universe. God is not a fact like other facts in the world. He is the Creator and Establisher of all else. His existence alone makes the universe, and reason, and human experience possible… … The “circularity” of a transcendental argument is not at all the same as the fallacious ‘circularity’ of an argument in which the conclusion is a restatement (in one form or another) of one of its premises.” ~ (Pushing the Antithesis pg.) 124.  
 
Sye uses a quote from Bahnsen, which explains it. Greg Bahnsen writes: ”In the Christian worldview, however, the Christian is not engaged in viciously circular argument, a circular argument on the same plane. We appeal above and beyond the temporal realm. God’s self-revelation in nature and in Scripture informs us of the two-level universe. God is not a fact like other facts in the world. He is the Creator and Establisher of all else. His existence alone makes the universe, and reason, and human experience possible… … The “circularity” of a transcendental argument is not at all the same as the fallacious ‘circularity’ of an argument in which the conclusion is a restatement (in one form or another) of one of its premises.” ~ (Pushing the Antithesis pg.) 124.  
  
For this reason ten Bruggencate personifies many aspect of [[Poe's Law]].  For example, a page of buttons on ten Bruggencate's ''Proof That God Exists'' webpage, appear to ask a series of multiple choice questions on logic and rational thinking. Each button literally links back on itself in an infinite loop, until the reader either clicks an answer button which makes a demonstrably false statement or is so ambiguously phrased that it couldn't possibly have been written by someone genuinely concerned with resolving their own confusion.
+
For this reason ten Bruggencate personifies many aspect of [[Poe's Law]].  For example, a page of buttons on ten Bruggencate's ''Proof That God Exists'' webpage, appear to ask a series of multiple choice questions on logic and rational thinking. Each button literally links back on itself in an infinite loop, until the reader either clicks an answer button which makes a demonstrably false statement or is so ambiguously phrased that it couldn't possibly have been written by someone genuinely concerned with resolving their own confusion.
  
If, however, the reader continues to choose answer buttons which are intellectually honest, they are eventually directed to a cartoon website from the Walt Disney Corporation. But if the reader chooses an answer button which leads to the exit page the author always intended for them to reach, the promised ''proof that God exists'' is finally displayed, which simply reads, “The Proof that God exists is that without Him you couldn’t prove anything".  
+
If, however, the reader continues to choose answer buttons which are intellectually honest, they are eventually directed to a cartoon website from the Walt Disney Corporation. But if the reader chooses an answer button which leads to the exit page the author always intended for them to reach, the promised ''proof that God exists'' is finally displayed, which simply reads, “The Proof that God exists is that without Him you couldn’t prove anything".  
  
 
In 1920, the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists declared metaphysical truth-claims of this nature as essentially meaningless, so as to clarify the definition of concepts in empirical science as an exploration of their immediately observable content. This strict definition was later relaxed by Karl Popper, who favored the falsifiability of a theory over the verifiability of a hypothesis.
 
In 1920, the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists declared metaphysical truth-claims of this nature as essentially meaningless, so as to clarify the definition of concepts in empirical science as an exploration of their immediately observable content. This strict definition was later relaxed by Karl Popper, who favored the falsifiability of a theory over the verifiability of a hypothesis.
  
Ten Bruggencate’s entire argument is therefore predicated upon a semantic confusion between strict definitions of this kind in science, and the informal use of words such as ''theory'' and ''logic'' in common parlance. Therefore, as is also found with many other presuppositional apologists, his own inability to differentiate between a description of X and an analysis of the description itself, thanks to the [[Dunning-Kruger effect]], leads him to incorrectly assume that because he cannot delineate what something ''describes'' from what it ''means'', no-one else can either.
+
Ten Bruggencate’s entire argument is therefore predicated upon a semantic confusion between strict definitions of this kind in science, and the informal use of words such as ''theory'' and ''logic'' in common parlance. Therefore, as is also found with many other presuppositional apologists, his own inability to differentiate between a description of X and an analysis of the description itself, leads him to incorrectly assume that because he cannot delineate what something ''describes'' from what it ''means'', no-one else can either.
  
 
==Threats and lies==
 
==Threats and lies==

Revision as of 14:36, 2 November 2012

Someone is wrong on

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Sye Ten Bruggencate[1], a.k.a., Sye TenB., is an internet personality who subscribes to the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG), a branch of Christian apologetics. He is also a regular contributor to Eric Hovind’s ‘Creation Today’ web series of videos on anti-science, and biblical literalism; which disseminate provably false information about science, with the goal of indoctrinating children and vulnerable adults.

Contents

Beliefs

Ten Bruggencate is internet famous for having a single idea which isn’t nearly as interesting as he asserts it is. His argument is based upon a reworking of a very old problem in the philosophy of mind: How do we know what we know is true, if we judge the reliability of our understanding according to attributes which are inherent to the very knowledge we wish to measure?

Taking morality as an example of that which we wish to measure, Sye asserts that we can only know the difference between what is right and what is wrong if we have an absolute standard of morality by which to judge our actions against. As a Christian, Sye’s absolute standard of morality is the God of the bible, Yahweh.

When presented with the fact that, in the bible, Yahweh repeatedly commands his adherents to carry out acts of genocide, rape, enslavement, torture and the genital mutilation of infants, ten Bruggencate’s position is that those who point out this obvious challenge to God’s moral authority are in no position to judge His actions, since atheism cannot account for an absolute standard of morality.

He repeats this over and over on the assumption it will eventually either make sense, or distract attention away from the fact that the atheistic position on morality doesn’t in fact depend on the kind of absolutism he nevertheless insists it does.

Ten Bruggencate is extremely sincere in his religious beliefs and enthusiastic about sharing them with others. The Achilles' heel of his argument is a coupling of his refusal to accept the syllogism at the heart of his own proposal with his eagerness to reassign this characteristic towards anyone who happens to point it out.

Ten Bruggencate and atheism

Ten Bruggencate subscribes to an all-too-common view of atheism — that atheists are in willful denial of what they know to be true. His most notorious 15 megabytes of fame came when he issued a challenge to the illusionist, public speaker, outspoken atheist, executive producer of the TV series ‘Bullshit’ and one half of the magic duo Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette to debate atheism versus Christianity.

There is no evidence Mr. Jillette ever received an invitation to this debate, and the only mention of it ever having been issued may be found on pro-creationist websites to which ten Bruggencate is either directly or loosely affiliated.

Circular reasoning

Ten Bruggencate's one idea comes in the form of a series of straw man arguments and creationist escape hatch questions, for which there is no "yes" or "no," "right" or "wrong" answer. These questions follow a cascading script of ever more irrational assumptions, so that no matter which answer to whichever question is given, it always leads to the same conclusion.

In a podcast debate between ten Bruggencate, Eric Hovind and the hosts of the Fundamentally Flawed podcast, both Hovind and ten Bruggencate admitted on several occasions that presuppositional apologetics is circular in nature. Hence as a means of proving the existence of Yahweh it is a conclusion drawn from its own proposition and, therefore, any claim to have evidence for the existence of the Christian God is based upon a logical fallacy. Having realized they had inadvertently undone their own argument, the duo went on to assert that this is no different to the atheistic position on sense, reason and memory, since without a belief in God it is "impossible to prove anything," including Darwinian evolution by means of natural selection, the big bang, the age of the earth and myriad other scientific facts which have cast doubt over the alleged inerrancy of the Bible for hundreds of years.

Refutation confrontation

Ten Bruggencate denies that his methods are viciously circular (instead dubbing them 'virtuously circular'), despite that his own website demonstrates this perfectly. His understanding of what constitutes a valid criticism of circular reasoning, versus his denial that he uses exactly the same methods, has led some to speculate that he might be being deliberately provocative, in order to raise his profile as a public speaker, rather than because he genuinely believes the creator of the universe would only choose to communicate with people who already believe He exists, but remain invisible to those who can prove the origins of the Yahweh myth actually reside in bronze-age folklore.

Sye uses a quote from Bahnsen, which explains it. Greg Bahnsen writes: ”In the Christian worldview, however, the Christian is not engaged in viciously circular argument, a circular argument on the same plane. We appeal above and beyond the temporal realm. God’s self-revelation in nature and in Scripture informs us of the two-level universe. God is not a fact like other facts in the world. He is the Creator and Establisher of all else. His existence alone makes the universe, and reason, and human experience possible… … The “circularity” of a transcendental argument is not at all the same as the fallacious ‘circularity’ of an argument in which the conclusion is a restatement (in one form or another) of one of its premises.” ~ (Pushing the Antithesis pg.) 124.

For this reason ten Bruggencate personifies many aspect of Poe's Law. For example, a page of buttons on ten Bruggencate's Proof That God Exists webpage, appear to ask a series of multiple choice questions on logic and rational thinking. Each button literally links back on itself in an infinite loop, until the reader either clicks an answer button which makes a demonstrably false statement or is so ambiguously phrased that it couldn't possibly have been written by someone genuinely concerned with resolving their own confusion.

If, however, the reader continues to choose answer buttons which are intellectually honest, they are eventually directed to a cartoon website from the Walt Disney Corporation. But if the reader chooses an answer button which leads to the exit page the author always intended for them to reach, the promised proof that God exists is finally displayed, which simply reads, “The Proof that God exists is that without Him you couldn’t prove anything".

In 1920, the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists declared metaphysical truth-claims of this nature as essentially meaningless, so as to clarify the definition of concepts in empirical science as an exploration of their immediately observable content. This strict definition was later relaxed by Karl Popper, who favored the falsifiability of a theory over the verifiability of a hypothesis.

Ten Bruggencate’s entire argument is therefore predicated upon a semantic confusion between strict definitions of this kind in science, and the informal use of words such as theory and logic in common parlance. Therefore, as is also found with many other presuppositional apologists, his own inability to differentiate between a description of X and an analysis of the description itself, leads him to incorrectly assume that because he cannot delineate what something describes from what it means, no-one else can either.

Threats and lies

The mental acrobatics ten Bruggencate has to perform, when presented with the facts about his methods, very often result in a dark satire of religious groupthink and other forms of confirmation bias. That he is completely oblivious to the fact he demonstrates this every time he opens his mouth or sets pen to paper, has made him the unwitting poster-child of circular reasoning in various debating circles, albeit to an extremely limited clique.

Because of this, it has been argued that to merely engage him on the intellectual level he incorrectly assumes he is capable of operating on, is to give the fish all the oxygen he needs to outgrow his small pond. Others have argued that it is better to examine his ideas and reveal their weaknesses, than allow him to continue operating under the delusion that they have merit.

Ten Bruggencate therefore has a number of outstanding challenges open to him on many websites, blogs and discussion forums, which he rarely responds to directly, except to demand that other people account for his own misunderstanding. This, and his repeated refusals to engage with his many critics on any topic outside of the TAG, has seen him banned from a number of websites and blog comment threads. He frequently justifies his stonewall approach to debating any aspect of Christianity with non-Christians, by threatening them with the fires of hell for their failure to agree that to engage in such a conversation, would require that they first acknowledge the existence of Yahweh. Repeat, ad nauseum.

Unfortunately for the moderators of sites which are then given no choice but to ban him for using threatening language, this merely plays into his underlying persecution complex, leading him to play the hurt feelings card with anyone only willing to listen to his side of the story—which seldom bears any resemblance to a true reflection of the facts. Having been caught playing this game on numerous occasions, this has given rise to a supreme irony; that very often one of the few things both Christians and atheists can agree upon, in on-line debates which ten Bruggencate has involved himself in, is that he alienates as many religious seeking common ground with non-believers, as he does atheists who demand nothing less than freedom of religious expression for their many interlocutors who, unlike Sye, do not make the case for Christianity by resorting to threats and fear theology.

Therefore, albeit to an extremely limited audience of dominionist evangelicals, who are either willfully ignorant of, or genuinely oblivious to the kind of bait and switch debating techniques he employes, ten Bruggencate's exclusion from numerous debating forums is merely "yet more proof" that it is his ideas which atheists find uncomfortable, when in reality it is dealing with someone only interested in listening to themselves which proves the bigger challenge.

See also

External links

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