Debate:The trumping of reason

When arguing creationism, the creationists who are not outright shysters leave their brains at the door. This is understandable, since as CMI mouthpieces have stated several times, the formal principle of the creationists is that the Bible trumps reason, thus leaving no serious need for the latter in discussions of the origin of species.

The ideological nature of creationism also leads people with minimal technical ability but plenty of non-technical enthusiasm to try and take on the scientific establishment, thus catapulting themselves right off the deep end and further advancing the image of creationists as a pack of gibbering morons. 03:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC) ...
 * (not article related) Listener, you know not whereof you speak. I am no shyster and I do not leave my brains at the door (or lying around generally, or maybe I did - since I can only find the one).  Creationists do not, by the by, hold that the Bible trumps reason.  They hold that human reason is limited and fallible.  The Bible being God's word thus trumps human reason (when the two are discordant) not absolute reason.  The implication is that human reason is sometimes not.  We believe in special creation because we know someone who has proven trustworthy and was there, and told us that that's what happened. LowKey 06:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh balls. At this point I don't actually think you're a shyster, Bradley. I tried speaking with you privately about my concern that you seem to leave your brain at the door to the extent you at leat implicitly advocate this CMI "creation science" horseshit when I know your religious faith is come by honestly and without any need for even engaging in a battle that for you is completely unwinnable except by presupping. Accomodationism ought to be a much more attractive perspective to you than me. But hey. And you carry Philip's water into battle. You're a better man than he is. Creationists absolutely do by the by hold that the Bible trumps reason. All day everyday. If the rational conclusion is at odds with the Bible, it's not rational. That's by definition and applies with more force in the kind of scientific inquiry LX is referring to. The false dichotomy between human reason and absolute reason you rely on is an escape hatch creationists invented to pretend they're still at the table of rationality while still being able to argue something for which there is no supporting evidence except personal anecdote. Sure, one can imagine a being with some of Bradley's god's characteristics (especially this bizarre opacity to human inquiry creationists urge) but doing so explains nothing of value, much less puts you anywhere on the road toward confirming whether such a being actually exists. CMI is a rich source of cognitive dissonance in this regard, at once decrying certain conclusions of mainstream science as incorrect solely because they're at odds with the Bible (sometimes formulated as Bradley does that humans have no ability to outreason Bradley's god, or apparently understand what it's even talking about sometimes), and then having the chutzpah to misrepresent the science to claim it's also internally inconsistent or somehow otherwise "unscientific." Cake is had and eaten by creationists all and sundry. God is glorified in the highest. Hosanna. Rinse repeat. Nutty Roux 16:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There is much there that deserves a response, but I am at the moment weary & disinclined. I would be arguing for the sake of arguing, which I personally dislike.  Hopefully I'll remember to come back to this later.  LowKey 11:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Bradley, if you remove in your statement all references to concepts you did not properly define, chiefly "absolute" vs. "human" reason, your sentence reads thus: " They hold that human reason is limited and fallible. The Bible being God's word thus trumps human reason (when the two are discordant) not absolute reason. The implication is that human reason is sometimes not. "  19:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * So what about "absolute" do you not understand, and are you saying that human reason is faultless? The phrase consistently used by Creationists is "human reason", and it was you not I who omitted "human" in the statement "CMI mouthpieces have stated several times, the formal principle of the creationists is that the Bible trumps reason".  Likewise is was not I but Nutty who omitted "human" in his similar statement.  I could simply have pointed out your misrepresentations without further comment, but gave you an explanation of why "human" should not be omitted.  Human reason has arrived at faulty conclusions, and thus is known to be faulty.  Examples:  that travelling at more than about 12 MPH would be fatal, as it renders breathing impossible; that certain human beings are simply part of certain other human beings (like an appendix or a tumour); that the moon is covered in water with an atmosphere that includes sparse clouds.  Those conclusions are real; those conclusions are wrong - there is no "escape hatch" in this.  Human reason is known to be faulty.  The premise is that God's reason is not faulty and that God's reason is presented in the Bible.  The "formal principle" is that faultless trumps faulty.  LowKey 06:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, but LowKey - how do you know that the Bible really is a communication from God, rather than a falliable human product? Well, if one picks up your average book of Christian apologetics, they will address this question with various kinds of evidences - quality of manuscript evidence, claims of eyewitness testimony, dating of biblical books, arguments about what it would make sense for Jesus or the disciples to do (e.g. they wouldn't have been willing to die for their faith if the ressurection was fake), rebuttals of alternative explanations of the ressurection or miracles (e.g. swoon theory), "Lord, Lunatic or Liar", arguments from ancient historians (e.g. Tacitus or Josephus), archaeology, philosophical arguments for God's existence (we should expect such a message, the contents of the message are what we expect, etc.)... But, aren't all these exercises in human reason? Human reason is so falliable, that we can't rely on it, we need a communication from perfect divine reason. How do we identify which alleged revelations are actual and which ones are fake? Using our falliable human reason? But if it is so falliable, we can't rely on it to identify any of those revelations as worth believing in. Or else, if it is not so falliable that we have no hope of successfully identifying a revelation if there was one, maybe it is sufficiently non-falliable that we don't need any revelation after all? A conundrum for you. Maratrean 11:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC) Ah, that would explain the confusion. You see, what you call "human reason" other people call "a parody of inductive reasoning," and what you call "absolute reason" others call "quoting the Bible." On the other hand, Jonathan Sarfati has discussed "magisterial" versus "ministerial" reason; "ministerial" reason being the sort trumped by the Bible (in his words, when "reason submits to Scripture"), "magisterial" reason being when one presumes to submit the Bible to the same sort of logical criticism as everything else. He holds "magisterial" reason to be categorically invalid. 15:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * @ Maratrean; "The Trilemma" was Lewis's, but I guess some may consider him ancient. As to the main body of your comment, I did not say that human reason is useless or hopeless, just that it is known to be faulty.  As you indicate there is a weight of evidence to conclude the reliability of the Bible, and there are known examples of the unreliability of human reason.  We must use human reason (which should be self evident) but we should also acknowledge that there are gaps (sometime the gaps are simply a lack of information).  When human reason and the Bible disagree, why assume the Bible is at fault?  For example, human reason wrote off the Bible for mentioning people like Sargon.
 * @ LX; If I meant a parody of inductive reasoning I would have mentioned the magic smoke that powers electronic devices. The examples I use are (as I already stated) real (not parody) examples of earnest human reason arriving at wrong conclusions.  I included the lunar oceans and clouds example because Leonardo was known for being meticulous in his observations and rigorous in his reasoning but was still completely wrong. LowKey 02:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * By "parody" I meant that you provided (1) a gap-filling conjecture predating the age of modern science; (2) a statement that has not even been falsified in the fashion of the other two; (3) an hysterical reaction to early rail transport, held by superstitious persons in the face of extant falsifying evidence. Not what I would call good examples of the kind of inductive reasoning used in science today. But no one is disputing that "human reason," if that is what you call inductive reasoning, can draw false conclusions due to insufficient data, so we do not need to go any further on that point. 04:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually that is exactly what you seem to be disputing.   Also you have made a false equivalence between human reason and "the kind of inductive reasoning used in science today".  The latter is a subset of the former.  Regarding your (1) above (assuming you speak of the moon) the reasoning was inductive and sound.  It simply was wrong because the information was incomplete and at least one of the observations was misinterpreted.  Regarding (2) (assuming you speak of one human being as a part of another), you are incorrect.  Read up. Regarding (3) not hysterical or superstitious, and why should the falsifying evidence trump the supporting evidence? LowKey 05:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * As you have consistently failed to provide me with any rigorous definition of "human reason," I was guessing as best I could. Apparently I got it wrong. If you can give me the correct definition, and also say more explicitly what you mean by your point #2, we can proceed further. 04:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * By human reason I simply mean the reason (inductive, deductive etc) used by sane humans beings. In point 2 I am specifically referring to the pro-abortion argument based on a womans' right to make decisions about her own body.  I didn't want to be too explicit about that because of the vitriol that usually ensues over any abortion discussion.  I was addressing the underlying premise that the unborn are part of the woman's body.  My overall point is as you phrased it, that human reason (as I just defined it) can draw false conclusions due to insufficient data.  The reason that Bible believing Christians can say that the Bible trumps human reason is because God also uses reason, but never has insufficient data, and the Bible employs God's reason.  I would suggest that if you wish to continue this then we move it elsewhere.

I see. If you think the difference between "human" and "divine" reason is down to a lack of knowledge on humanity's part (flawed premises rather than flawed rules of inference), your position is different from CMI's official line and also from Sarfati's distinction between "magisterial" and "ministerial" reason (both categorically discount the use of any reductio ad absurdum against their interpretation of the Bible).

As to the abortion question, as I said, that matter is not settled at all like the other two. To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Roe v. Wade:

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. 04:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)


 * On what part of CMI's official line do I differ? Certainly not (D)6 which seems to me to be the relevant one.
 * As to abortion I was specifically only referring to the underlying premise about the unborn being part of the woman's body. That matter has been settled - biologically there are two (at least) separate human organisms.  Roe v. Wade despite the above statement about not being in a position to speculate as to the answer went ahead and assumed the answer (for at least part of the pregnancy).  By including the life or death or the unborn in the "mother's" privacy the court actd as if there is no seperate recognisable entity involved.  Also Roe v. Wade was 38 years ago (i.e. "at this stage" is quiet some time ago) and medical science has produced a couple of advances since then.  Apart from that legal conclusion and biological fact are not always congruent, and USA is only one country amongst many.  Also, I was not speaking of a U.S. Supreme Court decision but the argument that is made by many reasonable people to the effect that "It's the woman's body and nobody else can tell her what she can or can't do with it."
 * Oh, I see that you have again truncated "human reason" to "reason" in the title, once again mis-stating (and thus misrepresenting) the Creationist principle. Not cool.  LowKey (talk) 05:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * (D)6 is where you differ. You seem to be holding to Henry Morris's old principle that "where science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data." CMI agrees on this point, but additionally rules out any evidence falsifying their interpretation of the Bible by definition — not even admitting it as a logical possibility as distinct from an empirical one.
 * I was aware that the point of viability had shifted some since 1973 due to medical advances, but that does not quite relate to the point you refer to. I am not read up enough in this to dispute any further, so I am going to call in our resident abortion activist. 03:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Lowkey, what do you mean "biology has established that the fetus is not a part of the mother's body". It has a separate gene code, but so in fact do parasitic twins, chimeras, and in fact some rare tumors.  When you check into a hospital, for what it's worth, you check in as ONE patient, and doctors by law are required to put THE PATIENT BEFORE THEM, first. Now, i won't actually try to argue to you that the individual I'm carrying is not really a separate individual, but i will tell you that stating "the matter has already been proven" is false.  It has not, because of the myriad of definitions necessary for this discussion - biological, medial, personal, etc.
 * But the real argument here is that the child is living inside of me, so it is a part of me. What I do - from killing myself, to taking drugs, to eating well, to drinking cinnamon tea will effect that child directly.  My choices of how i treat my body, effect that child.  therefore, it's part of me.  In no other situation can you claim that.  Yes, a born child is * dependent* on me, and if i drink i might indirectly harm it -- but it's not physically part of my body.  the drug I take in, the prescription medicine I take, the food I eat does not effect the born child in any way other than incidentally.   The child is a part of me in a tangible way.  by the way, for it NOT to be part of me, you could take it out, and it could live.   I know of no 4 month or under child that can live outside of the mother.
 * Now, I'm sure your next move will be to say "see, you admit it's a baby, it's a child, and your choices effect it. but the kicker is, ***I come first in my own life***.  I can drink.  I can smoke.  I can eat healthily.  I can eat poorly.  I can even take a drug that will cause me to abort the baby.  cause it's my body.  and what I do with my body is my right.  That's the trouble with your argument.  It is irrelevant if it is "part of me" or not.  It lives inside of me, and if i do not want it living there, that's just too bad for the little baby, cause I have the right to drink myself to oblivion, and you cannot change that fundamental basic right without turning me into a slave to the state.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]En attendant Godot  03:41, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * OOps, ignore those last to paragraphs. They are important to me, not you.  The answer is "no, it has not been settled that the child is a separate individual from the mother, and it is highly dependent on context and the person using the term.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]En attendant Godot  03:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

To say whether mother and foetus are one "being" or one "person" or one "individual" or not, we need an agreed definition of what "being"/"person"/"individual" mean. Too often, I think, people start a debate by defining words differently, but never come to an explicit awareness of the differences in definition, and that renders the whole debate a pointless waste of time. 10:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * In all honesty, i think that is because you really cannot define them. 1) they are far too contextual.  Are we talking medical science?  Philosophy?  Religion?   Under 6 month old children are beings, but Theory of Mind level, they are not yet Persons, cause they do not and cannot understand themselves as Persons.  2) they are far more like "beauty" in "i know it when i see it", but it's hard to pin down.  I generally like to talk about stages of life, and ignore the "terms", cause they get us into this game.  "Everyone agrees (at least in modern societies) that once a person is born, it is endowed with some particular rights, and is infact quite different than ten seconds before when it's life is fully dependent on mom.    Then I say "and outside of 'can we abort the child', everyone can agree that there is something fundamentally different about a 2 week old mush of cells and a swimming, kicking 6 month old.  It's just that the "line" is very hard to pin point.  so a two week old is a bunch of cells, but what about a 2 month old, or a three month old?  The whole concept of "is it a human person", "is it alive", "does it have rights" gets very tricky cause nothing about the relationship of fetus and "host" (assuming we are not talking a wanted baby) is replicated in our legal based society.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]En attendant Godot  17:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Since different people are approaching the debate from completely different starting points, the definition that makes the most sense for one person will be meaningless to another. For example, I believe in the soul, so to me, a major (but not entirely decisive) issue in deciding the ethics of abortion, is does the foetus have a soul yet? And my answer is post-conception, which implies at least some abortions are okay. Someone else will adopt the same definition, but believe the soul comes at conception, and hence conclude abortion is wrong from conception. Another person won't believe in the soul, so this definition is meaningless to them—whatever position they adopt, they'll have to justify it in some other terms. And then, we need to keep clear the difference between the ethical-moral debate and political-legal debate. The law/government's job is not to stop every possible immoral act—some things may well be immoral, but it is not right for the state or the law to try to stop them. If one believes in divine justice, one leaves these things to that. 10:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)