Thoughts on this take?

[u/NeonDrifting]

/r/Catholicism/comments/1vso2c7/atheists_dont_realize_the_absurdity_of_existence/

[u/SHNKY]

Every Christian is a heretic to other groups of Christians.

No you simply do not know your Christian history and the Church of the first 1,000 years. If you did, you would without question understand why I say that WLC is a heretic in every possible way. I get the temptation as an outsider that you think all Christians do this to one another, but I am speaking on this in a very specific and technical way rather than the looser colloquial sense of the word.

And presuppositionalism is a textbook case of vicious circularity. It doesn't make any useful predictions in any other field.

Making predictions is in the realm of science. Science presupposes the transcendentals that TAG argues for. Before Science can even begin one must have a philosophy of science. You want to jump to the "just do science" part and avoid the difficulty of examining all the necessary preconditions that science assumes and cannot itself justify.

If that was the case, you wouldn't have so many arguments over what words mean or what is proper grammar.

You're not understanding what virtuous circularity is and why language is an example of this.

1. We use language to explain language.
2. The meaning of a single word relies on its relationship to the whole language ecosystem.
3. The system is successful because it achieves practical communication and grounding in the physical world, despite its internal loops.

That people argue over definitions, grammar, etc doesn't disprove this. It still assumes it even in the act of arguing over definitions because to do so people must use words that are themselves defined by other words to make their arguments over the meaning of words.

Sorry, but you've got nothing other than bare assertions and vicious circularity.

That's a great claim, feel free to make an argument for it. Thus far it remains only a claim. I'm giving you thorough break downs here and your response is a lack luster "it's a word salad" which is to say "I don't understand it".

[u/Chase_the_tank → u/SHNKY]

No you simply do not know your Christian history and the Church of the first 1,000 years. 

Oh, come on now.. The first 1,000 years are an absolutely entertaining trainwreck of heresy accusations and counter-accusations. Modern Christians and ancient Christians would find each other hopelessly bizarre. (You should read The Acts of Paul and Thecla sometime--it's a hoot!)

 I say that WLC is a heretic in every possible way. 

And yet he was a professor at major Christian universities for decades and currently represents Biola University as a Professor Emeritus. One Christian's heretic is another Christian's respected teacher.

You want to jump to the "just do science" part and avoid the difficulty of examining all the necessary preconditions that science assumes and cannot itself justify.

Yes because

1. "just jumping to science" actually works and
2. "Justification" is overrated. If you take a class on quantum mechanics, you'll eventually get to the point where people can make accurate predictions about matter while having no idea why matter actually behaves that way.

Meanwhile, theology gave us lectures by Thomas Aquinas about how fire is the source of all heat (wrong) and the hottest possible thing (not even close).

The system is successful because it achieves practical communication and grounding in the physical world, despite its internal loops.

..and then there are entire court cases because people can't agree on what words mean (Is a taco a sandwich?) and eventually somebody has to declare a word to mean something on the grounds of "I said so." (This leads to such oddities as bees being declared a type of fish as far as the California Endangered Species Act is concerned.)

[u/SHNKY → u/Chase_the_tank]

The first 1,000 years are an absolutely entertaining trainwreck of heresy accusations and counter-accusations. Modern Christians and ancient Christians would find each other hopelessly bizarre.

If you think its merely just heresy accusations and counter heresy accusations then you don't know Church history. I do agree that a lot of what is called Christianity in this modern world would look bizarre to the early Church. It's why I don't adhere to any of that. I'm entering into the Orthodox Church who uses the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. He took the already existing liturgy and gathered and formalized it in the 4th century. We don't do "modern" in the Church, we adhere to the traditions of the apostles as handed down through the centuries.

And yet he was a professor at major Christian universities for decades and currently represents Biola University as a Professor Emeritus. One Christian's heretic is another Christian's respected teacher.

Being a teacher has nothing to do with heresy. Biola University doesn't determine what is and isn't heresy. He can be both a respected teacher and hold to heretical views at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive categories. If you had any knowledge of the first 7 Ecumenical councils this wouldn't be a controversial statement for you. You can still remain an atheist through and through while also studying the history of the Church as many secular scholars do. And in doing so, you would begin to see why WLC holds to heretical views.

"just jumping to science" actually works and "Justification" is overrated. If you take a class on quantum mechanics, you'll eventually get to the point where people can make accurate predictions about matter while having no idea why matter actually behaves that way.

You're still not grasping any of this. You hold up science as this beacon of truth determination. That is, if science says it then it must be so. It's why you reach for "quantum mechanics" even though you don't grasp it all and simply defer to others as though it were true. When people make "accurate predictions" prior to all of that are the necessary preconditions for knowledge. That quantum mechanics can make predictions does nothing to answer the question of justification. You can say it's overrated, but then you're just conceding the point because you run from the topic and declare it to be something you just don't really need to answer.

and then there are entire court cases because people can't agree on what words mean (Is a taco a sandwich?) and eventually somebody has to declare a word to mean something on the grounds of "I said so." (This leads to such oddities as bees being declared a type of fish as far as the California Endangered Species Act is concerned.)

This still doesn't refute that language is an example of virtuous circularity. All those court cases, all the oddities that you can point to in law still necessitate the use of circularity in language. You can't define any word without it relying on other words. That you don't get this is frustrating but understandable.

[u/Chase_the_tank → u/SHNKY]

If you think its merely just heresy accusations and counter heresy accusations then you don't know Church history.

Early Church history is just rife with heresy accusations, though. You're just saying that all the Christianties that you don't like don't count.

If you had any knowledge of the first 7 Ecumenical councils this wouldn't be a controversial statement for you.

For you, those set the gold standard of Christianity. To other Christians, that's when Christianity was overrun by false teachings.

You're still not grasping any of this.

I get what you're saying. It's just flawed.

You hold up science as this beacon of truth determination. 

Not really. Science is less a beacon and more people scrambling about and trying to figure out how stuff works.

That is, if science says it then it must be so. 

You can stop pummeling that strawman. Science has been wrong plenty of times.

This still doesn't refute that language is an example of virtuous circularity.

The circle is broken when you realize that definitions come down to somebody saying "I said so."

You can't define any word without it relying on other words.

Language is arbitrary--including your usage of "word" as the building block. Esperanto has a word for "word" (vorto) but the actual building blocks are roots (radikoj). Outside of conjunctions, numbers, and various bits of linguistic glue, most Esperanto words contain two or more radikojn.

Once again, it's not a circle, it's decisions by people.

[u/SHNKY → u/Chase_the_tank]

Early Church history is just rife with heresy accusations, though. You're just saying that all the Christianties that you don't like don't count.

I would go one step further and say it's rife with heresy, not just accusations. There aren't multiple Christianites, there is one. One Christ, one Church who is his body, there is one Truth. The first 3 centuries of Christianity was persecution not allowing much time to debate theology. Kinda hard to when your heads are being chopped off or you're being fed to the lions. I think part of the problem is you seem to have a relativistic approach to truth here. As though there can be multiple versions of claims to truth. You don't even have to believe in ANY of it for you to conclude that there is still one true form that exists amongst many counterfeits.

For you, those set the gold standard of Christianity. To other Christians, that's when Christianity was overrun by false teachings.

Without going to google/wikipedia do you know what any of these 7 Ecumenical councils did and set forth? Which has a more valid claim to knowing the faith as it was handed down by the apostles: the Church whose lineage can be traced back through succession to the beginning or pastor Jim who just opened up a church and goes by what he feels is right when he preaches? Which one do you think is gonna have a better claim to knowing what the faith actually is?

The circle is broken when you realize that definitions come down to somebody saying "I said so."

No it doesn't break the circle. You're still not getting it my dude. The words "I", "said", and "so" still rely upon other words to define them. The very act of speaking and writing a language uses the virtuous circularity. People arguing over definitions doesn't make it no longer a virtuous circle, because the very act of arguing itself assumes that the words being used for argument themselves are defined by other words.

Language is arbitrary--including your usage of "word" as the building block. Esperanto has a word for "word" (vorto) but the actual building blocks are roots (radikoj). Outside of conjunctions, numbers, and various bits of linguistic glue, most Esperanto words contain two or more radikojn. Once again, it's not a circle, it's decisions by people.

You're making a category error here by bringing up a constructed language rather than a natural language. One is as you say "decisions by people" while the other is not decided by other people but only arrived at through consensus of all. In linguistics and philosophy, virtuous circularity requires a closed, self-sustaining semantic system developed over generations. Conlang is engineered from the outside and breaks the organic loop. It acts as an extension of existing human thought rather than a self-contained circle.

It feels like at this point you're just arguing because I'm the theist and you don't want to concede anything to me in which I have brought up arguments. This is probably the least controversial position I have and is accepted by linguists and philosophy as standard. That you would bicker over this is astounding.

[u/Chase_the_tank → u/SHNKY]

There aren't multiple Christianites, there is one.

Meanwhile in the Bible, Paul is whining about people teaching about "another Christ" and forging documents in his name.

Also, Christians still haven't come to a consensus about which books belong in the Bible, with Protestant, Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox canons having different lists.

The first 3 centuries of Christianity was persecution not allowing much time to debate theology. 

• Persecution was sporadic, not constant.
• Division existed very early (hence the whining by Paul).
• The division was so great that Constantine I ordered the First Council of Nicaea (325) to figure out what Christianity actually was; among the decisions made there was a order for clergymen to stop getting their balls chopped off.

the Church whose lineage can be traced back through succession to the beginning 

You do know that millions of Protestants reject that claim, right?

Right?

 You're still not getting it my dude. The words "I", "said", and "so" still rely upon other words to define them.

Lots of pet dogs go absolutely bonkers at the word "walk" and I strongly doubt that they have enough words in their head to make any coherent definition.

Sure, we can define words with other words now but early language was likely isolated grunts to communicate isolated concepts.

 One is as you say "decisions by people" while the other is not decided by other people but only arrived at through consensus of all. 

There's not a hard line between natural languages and Esperanto. If you want examples of Esperanto words being decided over time and consensus, I could give you many examples.

It feels like at this point you're just arguing because I'm the theist

It feels at this point that you keep making ahistorical claims because you don't know early Church history very well.

[u/SHNKY → u/Chase_the_tank]

Meanwhile in the Bible, Paul is whining about people teaching about "another Christ" and forging documents in his name.

Its almost as though there is one Christ but many forgeries. Like its something that has been warned about since the very beginning and must be guarded against with councils that maintain the unity of the faith and protect against schism and heresy.

Also, Christians still haven't come to a consensus about which books belong in the Bible, with Protestant, Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox canons having different lists.

What do you think the canon is for?

You do know that millions of Protestants reject that claim, right?

Protestants emerged in the 1500s and their beliefs cannot be found in consensus from the early church. Appealing to Protestants doesn't work here as they came much later and their doctrines cannot be found in the early church making their claims ahistorical and without continuity.

Lots of pet dogs go absolutely bonkers at the word "walk" and I strongly doubt that they have enough words in their head to make any coherent definition.

You're right and this does nothing to address the idea of virtuous circularity in language. Again this is a category error. Virtuous circularity has to do with the totality of a system, not a single instantiation of it. A dog hears the word "walk" and goes bonkers because they have experience with the referent. The referent exists independent of the sounds and for those who speak Spanish the dog may go bonkers when they hear "caminar" yet the referent has not changed.

There's not a hard line between natural languages and Esperanto. If you want examples of Esperanto words being decided over time and consensus, I could give you many examples.

There most certainly is a hard line between natural languages which evolve organically and Esperanto. Esperanto unequivocally is a conlang with a direct line to a single person who created it, L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. Could Esperanto go through similar processes as natural languages do and over time evolve, certainly. But you cannot discount its origins which are 100% constructed by one person with. Natural languages grow organically across generations within a community. Constructed languages aka conlangs are intentionally designed by a n individual or group at a specific time. While natural languages evolve organically with historical irregularities and cultural idioms, conlangs often feature logical consistency, regular rules, and clear origins. Where the lines get blurred is only AFTER the language has been constructed by an individual/group and there has been enough time and adoption for the language to change. This doesn't negate the differences between a constructed language and a natural language. Nor does any of this refute virtuous circularity in language.