In apologetics, all is permitted.

[_Chap]

The web seems to be full of stuff about Setterfield's crazy ideas. Anyone who has done any serious physics knows that once you start messing with c, very strange things will happen. A universe with a different c value would behave very differently, and perhaps be quite unstable. But as the easily available criticism points out, Setterfield's writing was obviously flawed within his own limited terms of reference - including the fact that he had to admit that the value of c had been constant since the 1960s - when, funnily enough, measurements of a much higher degree of reliability began.

But really, this is such obvious crap that we do not need to discuss it - except to say that the fact that apologists for creationism continue to cite his work points to one very marked feature of apologetic religious writing: it is not designed to provide a dispassionate analysis of the reliability of the propositions it advocates, but is an effort to allow people who already believe those propositions on largely non-rational grounds to feel that there may, somewhere, be a reason to hope that their beliefs may not be baseless.

In that enterprise, the facts often turn out not to be very important. And the persistence of references to Setterfield's long-exploded claims by religious apologists is a case in point.

[_Pokatator]

There is no argument so absurd that it cannot be used by critics, libertarians, vegans, Methodists, carpet layers, atheists, Democrats, flight attendants, politicians, sanitary engineers, rice farmers, lawyers, deep sea fishermen, drama teachers, pugilists, fundraisers, drug addicts, actors, surgeons, and cellists, either.

Dr., could you switch potato for rice?

PS John, yes sanitation engineer is pretty close.


.

[_The Dude]

I hope the people who say "I don't trust radiomentric dating because the physical constants of the universe cannot be assumed as constant" aren't the same people who say "the physical constants of the universe had to be just right for life to exist as we know it, and therefore God fine-tuned the universe for us." Because a person who claims both of those things (deeply contradictory things) would lose considerable credibility with me.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I agree. But I noticed what you didn't list: Anthropologists, geologists, historians, mathematicians, physicists, etc.

I'm happy to add them.

Stupid arguments have been advanced -- and demonstrably so -- in anthropology, geology, history, mathematics, physics, and etc.

And this is especially the case if, analogously to the way many here like to use apologists as a blanket term denoting an undifferentiated monolith, you include, under "anthropologists, geologists, historians, mathematicians, physicists, etc.," anybody and everybody who expresses an opinion, even anonymously on a message board, about those topics.

My point is simple, apologetics has no rules and everything goes.

And my point is that your point is false, stupid, and tendentious. (I hope I'm clear enough.)

Although one item on your list, sanitation engineers, comes pretty close.

I'm inclined to agree. Both dispose of noxious things produced by humans.

[_Some Schmo]

My point is simple, apologetics has no rules and everything goes.

And my point is that your point is false, stupid, and tendentious.

Dog: My point is simple, cats like to catch and kill mice mercilessly.

Cat: And my point is that your point is false, stupid, and tendentious.

(Of course, there's absolutely nothing "tendentious" about the cat's reply, now is there children?)

LOL

[_John Larsen]

I agree. But I noticed what you didn't list: Anthropologists, geologists, historians, mathematicians, physicists, etc.

I'm happy to add them.

Stupid arguments have been advanced -- and demonstrably so -- in anthropology, geology, history, mathematics, physics, and etc.

And this is especially the case if, analogously to the way many here like to use apologists as a blanket term denoting an undifferentiated monolith, you include, under "anthropologists, geologists, historians, mathematicians, physicists, etc.," anybody and everybody who expresses an opinion, even anonymously on a message board, about those topics.

We have been over this before, Dr. Peterson. An apologist is anyone who takes the conclusions of their arguments as a necessary, immutable precondition of their arguments. By definition, an apologist cannot arrive at any conclusion that contradicts the core hypothesis of their apologetic endeavor. So it is true that anthropologists my result to apologetic, but anthropology as a science is immuned from the house of apologia, because it accepts the scientific process as its bases rather than a laundry list of faith based propositions.

My point is simple, apologetics has no rules and everything goes.

And my point is that your point is false, stupid, and tendentious. (I hope I'm clear enough.)

Ah, you have learned the rhetorical trick of the playground. Call you opponent stupid and you win. Bravo.

Although one item on your list, sanitation engineers, comes pretty close.

I'm inclined to agree. Both dispose of noxious things produced by humans.

I agree 100% that what you are dealing with is fully produced by humans.

[_EAllusion]

I hope the people who say "I don't trust radiomentric dating because the physical constants of the universe cannot be assumed as constant" aren't the same people who say "the physical constants of the universe had to be just right for life to exist as we know it, and therefore God fine-tuned the universe for us." Because a person who claims both of those things (deeply contradictory things) would lose considerable credibility with me.

I don't think I've seen that before. Along the same lines, you typically don't see a fundamentalist who sees big bang theory as atheistic nonsense also argue that the universe requires a finite beginning that can only be sufficiently explained by the existence of a God.

What I have seen numerous times is the same person argue that the natural origin of life is extremely unlikely, therefore God on the one hand and on the other argue that nature is set up so the origin of life is inevitable, therefore God on the other.

[_John Larsen]

Maybe we can reverse the question--what is not permitted in apologetics?

• Ad Hominem? It's allowed, butthead.
• Logical Contradictions? Allowed both formally and informally.
• Lack of Scientific Method? Not required. Science changes anyway.
• Doctrinal inconsistency? Sometimes they are speaking as men.
• Scriptural reinterpretation? Might just be a metaphor.
• Irregular definitions of words? Not bound by common understanding.

What is missing? What is not permitted? Maybe the only one you can come up with is "poor written". So long as it gets it point across, no mater how fantastic, it is generally acceptable.

Good apologetics needs to do only one thing, arrive at the place where it started from.

[_skippy the dead]

So maybe it's kinda like this, except substitute apologetics for math:

[_Daniel Peterson]

An apologist is anyone who takes the conclusions of their arguments as a necessary, immutable precondition of their arguments.

Which, ironically, is precisely what that self-serving, question-begging definition of apologetics -- which I reject completely -- does.

By definition, an apologist cannot arrive at any conclusion that contradicts the core hypothesis of their apologetic endeavor.

Which, even if it were true, would be significantly distinct from what your definition, above, alleges.

And my point is that your point is false, stupid, and tendentious. (I hope I'm clear enough.)

Ah, you have learned the rhetorical trick of the playground. Call you opponent stupid and you win. Bravo.

I thought your name was John Larsen. I didn't realize it was actually Your Point.

My apologies.

Maybe we can reverse the question--what is not permitted in apologetics?

Ad Hominem? It's allowed, butthead.

That wasn't an ad hominem, and it wasn't allowed.

Bad example.

Logical Contradictions? Allowed both formally and informally.

Straw man.

Lack of Scientific Method? Not required. Science changes anyway.

Straw man.

Doctrinal inconsistency? Sometimes they are speaking as men.

And your position is that they never do?

Scriptural reinterpretation? Might just be a metaphor.

I've rarely seen this, but, anyway, are you claiming that scripture contains no metaphors?

Are you opposed to all metaphors?

Bette Midler: "They say love, it is a river."
Your Point: "They're liars!"

Irregular definitions of words? Not bound by common understanding.

Straw man.

What is missing? What is not permitted? Maybe the only one you can come up with is "poor written". So long as it gets it point across, no mater how fantastic, it is generally acceptable.

Straw man.

Good apologetics needs to do only one thing, arrive at the place where it started from.

Straw man.

A little intellectual seriousness might help.