So, what, convert 'em and ban 'em?
Oh, God, that was horrible.
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Hahahaha… Touche’. It makes you think, though. Why would a human try to convince someone that a lie is the truth by describing the attributes of a lie in such a way that it is patently illogical?
As I said, it looked good on paper… 
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Anyway, aren’t you, as a moderator, a member of PS inner circle? Shouldn’t you keep this hush hush lest @swamidass sends a highly trained (non-Catholic) exorcist on you?
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The inner circle of PS is perfectly round as shown by @dga471
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Let me see if I can try to give an example. The legal system tries to establish truth (guilt or innocence) reliably. It does so by establishing legal codes, burden of proof, and a system of adversarial (defense/prosecutor) argumentation in front of a judge (an individual, panel, or jury). Truth is established by weighing the strength of the argument, applying previous interpretation of the law, and of course, evaluation of the evidence. There’s also different levels of proof required (reasonable suspicion, probable cause, preponderance, clear and convincing, and beyond a reasonable doubt) depending on the type and seriousness of the crime. Much of this was well established before science as a discipline came about. And the legal system in the U.S. is different than the legal system in the U.K or Europe, but they are all non-scientific ways of determining the truth of a situation. Of course we hope scientific evidence is heavily considered because it is so reliable, but I think it’s too strong to say that truth can only come from science. It seem clear to me from this example that science isn’t the only “test” of truth.
Also consider that “science” can be less reliable than the legal system. The law can get it wrong and a lot of scientific journal articles are never reproduced, that doesn’t mean we toss either out.
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@Michael_Callen Not really a good representation of the doctrine of the Trinity, in my opinion… when we say “the Father is God” and “Jesus is God”, we are using a different sense of “is” than when we say “Jesus is not the Father”. Otherwise it really is a logical contradiction, and absurd to believe.
E.g. we can have “is” of identity (Jesus is not the Father) and an “is” of attribution (Jesus is God, or Jesus is Divine, or Jesus is a person instantiating the divine nature). That’s what’s going on with these seemingly contradictory statements.
Don’t I wish I was a member of the inner circle!! There are several PS layers, and probably many more I’ve never even heard of. There is the inner circle. Just beyond that is the inner trapezoid. Next is the inner parallelogram, and the inner rhombus. I’m many more layers out in the inner dodecagon.
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I do too!
Where do I sign up?
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I disagree, but people have disagreed over this very issue for a couple thousand years. The trinity IS a logical contradiction. Your description solves that, but creates three gods, not one God. Three persons of the trinity are one God. But those three persons are disparate.
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Hahaha. Well, we have rituals…
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It doesn’t, but I think both of us are content not to pursue this topic further. (Though I do recommend William Lane Craig’s work on the coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity.)
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Agreed, completely, about pursuing. I will check out what WLC has to say. Thanks for the tip!
Scientists simply go out and attempt to analyze nature through the lens of regularity, repeatability and regularity, putting aside (for the time being) aspects which do not conform to that model. The prime example, as I mentioned, is the “random instrument malfunction” event. For example, in 1982, Blas Cabrera’s experiment recorded one event which was a candidate for detection of a magnetic monopole; no other group has since duplicated the signal. If you ask today what could have explained the source of the signal, people would probably say that it must have been some unknown malfunction or mechanism in the experiment was not well-understood.
It is similar with regards to Jesus’ miracles and Resurrection. Jesus claimed that his actions were always done after what the Father does (John 5:19). Thus it’s unlikely that he would submit to have his healing powers tested under a scientific, rationalist microscope (as James Randi did to Uri Geller’s and others). After all, Jesus expressly rejected the Devil’s challenge for him to demonstrate his powers (Luke 4:12). Thus Jesus’ miracles are not well-suited to regular scientific analysis.
This is a very interesting question. I tend to think that science is hard-pressed to rule in God. Imagine if a scientific study established that invoking Jesus’ name in a prayer for the sick reliably increased their odds of getting healed from cancer. Would that be scientific evidence for the supernatural power of prayer? I don’t think so. A good scientist would go on and possibly theorize that say, the words “Jesus Christ” activate some neurons in the brain that are connected to some unknown, efficacious placebo mechanism that destroys cancer cells. More investigations would follow, perhaps inviting people to pray saying only “Beezus Christ”, and seeing if that changes the outcomes at all. An evolutionary psychologist would be delighted, finally finding a scientific basis for explaining the success of Christianity as a religion. And atheist blogs would trumpet this as yet another example of the reduction of religion to naturalistic mechanisms!
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I had to quote your whole wonderful post here… I was the first to point out the distinctions in “legal proof” some 15 years ago or more in a Bible History blog while discussing how credible various Biblical stories could be.
But here you are using the same fine points of logic to muddy the whole realm of “science”.
Where is there an Epistemology Cop when you really need one?!?!?
The ways of faith are mysterious, are they not?
If the path was obviously wrong, there would be more Atheists. And if the path was obviously correct, there would be FEWER Atheists…
My way is because Consciousness exists. It isn’t scientific proof. But it is proof enough for my purposes. No doubt you disagree … but only because you think you can be my proxy. Nobody can be my proxy.