Well the title says it all. Fullmonty has attempted to use philosophy to make his points. He tries to come off as being "smarter" and more "logical" in his reasoning but is he really? The problem is that he tends to ignore the basic understanding of epistemology in order to make his beliefs. For somebody who claims to know philosophy I find it hard to believe.

The philosophical definition of knowledge is to have "justified true belief" Now for other people who know philosophy this might be slightly different but you will recognize it.

Now this definition needs to be broken down and explained more and you will see the problems fullmonty has.

True - this is a part of what is necessary. Obviously if you are going to have knowledge of something it must be true. It would make no sense to say you know something that you dont.

Belief - If you know something in the propositional sense, you must at least believe it. It would make no sense for you to know something but not believe it

Justification - basically this means you have sufficient evidence for the belief.

So this is the the philosophical defintion of knowledge. Now lets look at fullmonty:

He has a belief - Thinks that if you dont know God, He isnt going to punish them

He believes its true - this is obvious

But does he have justification? The answer to this is a resounding NO.

I have asked him on several occasions to provide evidence for his beliefs and his response?



So what can we conclude? His beliefs lack justification therefore making them pointless. If you cant provide justification as to why you believe something then it really shouldnt be respected

Im sure copernicus will agree with this as he appears to have some understanding of philosophy

The belief that you have attributed to me I lay no claim to. I never said this anywhere.

I said:

1) That, there may be alternate paths to God, I do not know God's will, therefore I cannot say one way or another for certain; that I believe in my heart that God will take care of God's creation wisely, and that "knowing God" is something that could possibly come in many forms; and

2) That, your belief that non-Christians are barred from Heaven is not supported by the Bible; and

3) That, I do not have to prove a negative proposition; I do not have to prove that something is not necessarily true; you, on the other hand, must prove that what you claim is necessarily true, if you claim it to be both necessary and true.

Since the belief you attribute to me is not a belief I have claimed or agued for, the rest of your post is irrelevant.

Monty

HAHAHA do yall see what I mean. He has a belief. He just laid it out. But does he give justification for it? NOT A SINGLE SHRED. What does he say?



I have proved over and over again what the bible says it takes to get to heaven. You must be righteous. To be righteous means to be free from sin. So please explain how somebody who has sinned should get a free ride into heaven? The bible offers no evidence for this. So you have to add yoru own pesonal views in order to believe what you want

YOU HAVE NO JUSTIFICATION FOR YOUR BELIEFS JUST ADMIT IT

Wow I can almost see the foam and the bulging veins from here!

Nice work Monty

Why oh why would you create a thread dedicated to bashing someone else?

If anyone is worried about it (moderators et al), it doesn't bother me at all. I am confident that such a thread simply highlights the desperation Matt is feeling right now when faced with a full-bore assault of logic and reason as applied to actual language from the Bible.

The truth is a frightening thing, Matt. But you will come to terms with it, I hope.

Monty

Matt, if you're sticking to the logic of:

[a] if you sign up for my team, then [b] you are on my team

therefore, [-a] if you don't sign up for my team then [-B] you are not on my team. YOU ARE USING A LOGICAL FALLACY.

READ THIS: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/denyante.html

Monty, you've earnt the title of my favourite poster this month (sorry no awards...) because as a non-christian I can judge you

Articulate, intelligent and calm.

Unfortunately I don't think we will be hearing much sense from Matt for a while as I'm sure he's smashing his keyboard as we speak (or should that be type?)

What is the logical conclusion you can draw about somebody who does not sign up for my team?

They don't want to be associated with a psychopath?

Actually Im not. I am getting a good laugh from it. I enjoy watchin people make fulls of themselves. What does bother me though is that people will associate fullmonty with being a christian and im sorry but from what I can tell he does not live up to the bible. Yes I can judge you fullmonty i have biblical proof for that so dont try to hide behind that.

It does bother me to watch somebody try to act smart when they seem to not actually understand much. He has to add his opinion to logic and to the bible b/c neither is close to being what he wants them to believe....

So again full monty. Where is your justification for yoru beliefs? You believe that it is possibly for nonbelievers to get to heaven. You believe there is another way to get to heaven. Where in the bible is it? Very simpel question

If you are looking for something that is TRUE, you cannot say a person who doesn't sign up for your team, isn't on your team UNLESS you have another rule that generally states:

the only way to be on the team is to sign up for the team



OTHERWISE, YOU ARE JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS. And when you are discussing what the word of God is, and what God requires of us, you cannot run on a bunch of assumptions like this and expect everyone to agree that your view is 100% correct.

and the beat goes on...

I believe that was in fact stated on the initial phrasing of my analogy.





As long as it is known that fullmonty has no justification for his beliefs I have no problem with you callin me names. Until he provides any evidence I will continue to show that what his says is the eqivalent of the easter bunny being alive. Both can be believe but both lack justification.

Who's calling you names?

I just found it delicious that you wrote 'I like watching people making fools of themselves', but spelt it 'fulls'

Irony is so sweet

I am not going to judge whether you live up to the Bible or not. I do -know- that the Bible tells me not to judge others, to worry about my own shortcomings before I worry about other's shortcomings, to not subsitute my own will for God's will, and to try to love my neighbor.

I'm not going to claim that you don't know what you are talking about, or that you do not honestly believe you are in the right.

I -am- claiming that you have shown -little- Biblical justification for your beliefs and that I have shown -ample- Biblical justification for mine.

The Bible verses I have quoted, and the points I have made - supported by sound logic - are simple. The points I have made do NOT REQUIRE that anything be true. In fact, that is part of my argument. We CANNOT know what God's will is, so to say that we do is arrogance.

Monty

Hate to break it to you big boy. Here is your original analogy

Thank you for the kind words.

Monty

was that my inital posting of that phrase? I am not sure it was...I will go check. If it was then yes it is my fault as I would have assumed that it would be read a certain way and maybe its not. I will look into it

Backpedal much?

Cmon, we arent stupid. Your phraseology was quoted by half a dozen other posters, including me and Monty several times.

Just admit you didnt know wtf you were talking about and save yourself the embarassment of

pretending you dont remember what you said and admitting to not reading posts that directly refute your inanity and that you responded to.

Hmm i have referred back to the phrase on multiple occasions so there are many different times that i could have been quoted. But even that is beside the point. Why?

My contention from the start has been that the only way anybody will get to heaven is to believe in Jesus. I then used the example of only those who sign up can be on the team. There is a direct relation there. Even if it wasnt clear you should have been able to see where I was going. If it wasnt then thats my fault and I have cleared it up now. But since my stance from the very beginning is that the only way to heaven is through Jesus. If clearing up a situation is backpedaling then everybody who isnt perfect like you must be backpedaling all the time.

ITs funny for somebody who says that you never claimed to be smart you sure try to act like you are.

It is not beside the point. You have repeatedly posted responses that used the specific language you used, and you responded insistently and abusively that they were wrong.

Now, when you finally realize you were wrong, you claim that maybe you used the wrong words in your OP. But it wasnt just in your OP, it was there and many responses.

If you perceive perfection in me, I appreciate the compliment.

If you perceive me "acting like I am smart", then that is your perception, not my claim. Though I do understand you having that perception, since relative to you a gnewt is apparently further evolved.

It's called humility. Try it sometime.



The point about "denial of the antecedent" was that the verses you quoted only show ways in which you can go to heaven. They were not stated in a way that would indicate that it is the ONLY way you can go to heaven. You were applying the logical fallacy to come to the conclusion that you must do "x" to get into heaven, which, according to the verses you have quoted, isn't technically correct. While someone can expand/extend the logic to come to your conclusions, they need to "fill in some blanks" to come to that conclusion. In a sense, read more into the bible than is actually written. In other words, it is YOUR interpretation. It isn't wrong, necessarily, and it isn't 100% correct either. It is just a VIEW. And all views should be respected--and no one person should hold such views up as being superior to others.

Succinct and dead-on. GJ

Monty

As I see it, Christians and logic have been fighting for hundreds of years.

What makes this instance any different?

Logic can't fight back, but always wins in the end

This is a misperception. I am Christian, and I am using logic to fight Mattnxtc 's erroneous interpretations of the Bible.

Monty

No i didnt apply it wrong. I merely left something to be understood that yall missed thats all. I assumed yall would pick up on the only way to heaven is through belief in Jesus. So when I said that "only those who sign up" i was directly relating it to that belief in Jesus. If i wasnt clear with it I am sorry, I did correct it as soon as confusin came.




you may understand logic but you arent very good at applying it. Nor do you seem to have a grasp on the bible in order to apply logic to the bible

I'm not even bothering with a reply to this. You are simply twisting the truth, outright lying, ignoring clear results of cleanly-applied logic, and showing a complete disregard for common sense.

Arguing with you at this point is basically as follows:

Matt: The sky is blue
Monty: Sometimes the sky is not blue.
Matt: THE SKY IS BLUE!!!!!!!!!
Monty: If it is night, the sky is not blue
Matt: If it is the sky, it is blue, therefore the sky is blue. You are not using logic correctly, Monty. You clearly don't know anything about logic or the sky.

Monty

Logic is obviously the work of the devil and anyone who applies it is going to hell.

funny this conversation nor one similiar to it ever happened

Funny, this conversation is satire.

Monty

I thought there was a minimum age requirement to post. Probably lied about that also.

This conversation also brings up an existential question.

If Matt posts, and everyone has him on ignore, did he really post at all?

I'll be honest, I have started to wonder if I have been trying to engage in a dialectic with a fifteen-year-old. Matt, that comment is not intended to impugn you, I simply cannot understand the way you are ignoring all of the issues at hand and resorting to baseless hyperbole.

If Matt is younger, however, I think this conversation in these threads is even more valuable. It might encourage him to think and read and express himself with a more critical eye. Nothing but good would come from this.

Monty

So i guess yall decided to attempt to change the subject in order to avoid answering a question...

Let me refresh your memory:

You have a belief that you think is true. You will not justify this belief which leads me to believe you cant justify it.

Therefore yes this conversation is pointless b/c you can add no knowledge to the conversation. All you can do and continue to do is avoid answering questions.

So again where is your justification for your belief?

I am not attempting to change the subject. I will continue to discuss this with you ad nauseum.

I have...

Justified my beliefs.

With...

The Bible

With....

Logic

With...

Hypothetical situations

With

Sound reasoning

In the other thread, you have conceded my point, so our discussion is over. I accept your agreement with me on this matter.

Monty

i'm not going to read the rest of the thread, since it seems a juvenile attack, but since your beliefs seem to stem from a dogmatic insistance of the unquestionable truth of a book, supposedly written by an unseen, all-knowing, omnipotent figure that conveniently explains everything with convenient interpretations at your convenience...
*deep breath*
you don't seem in a good position to argue others' justifications.

My justification comes from a book older than any of us. That has withstood 2000 years of problems.



really? And the biblical verses for somebody who doesnt believe in Jesus getting into Heaven are where?

In you hypothetical you showed nothing. i explained that already to. So in fact you are still left without any justification. Nice try

Again, you are so completely off-base...

I am saying that you cannot eliminate the possibility of someone who doesn't know Jesus getting into Heaven.

You are saying that you -can- eliminate the possibility of someone who doesn't know Jesus getting into Heaven.

To eliminate a possibility, you must provide logically-sound evidence that supports elimination of that possibility.

I am not trying to eliminate possibilities, yet I have provided logically-sound evidence that supports -not- eliminating those possibilities.

You are trying to eliminate possibilities, and have -failed- to provide logically-sound evidence support the elimination of those possibilities.



My hypothetical is ironclad. You refused to answer and resorted to deux ex machina. ("I am positive they will be saved, no matter what" - a statement made so that you could backpedal from your previous statement that they were going to Hell) I riposted that you, in fact, by resorting to duex ex machina, while a questionable decision, did in fact prove my original point.

That God can act, as an omnipotent entity, and accomplish things outside the confines of the scriptures.

Monty

I will impress you with my vast biblical knowledge and say you have the patience of job

Lol, well I wouldn't go that far, the limits have certainly been pressed, and pressed well.

Monty

Hmm bible makes a conditional statement

If you are righteous you can enter heaven. If there are other ways to enter heaven then we are left with the conclusion that the bible is wrong. As a christian I stick to what the bibles says. I dont live in the world of "what ifs" as you do. The bible is God's word that He wants us to know. you have to add to the bible to justify your belief (which you still havent done). Only the bible is considered the inspired word of God. That means nothing else that exists is. Yet you rely on the "what ifs" and "maybes"


as for your "ironclad hypothetical"

I run into people like you all the time. You say lots of big words and hope that people dont realize the truth. That you lack any justification for what you say. Your "ironclad hypothetical" shows absolutely nothing. All it does is prove the bible. If that person "seeks the Lord he will not be disappointed" If he doesnt seek the Lord he will be judged for his sins. There are no exceptions. Your "ironclad hypothetical" falls apart merely by opening a bible and reading. Those who do not seek the Lord will not see Him.

This is the straw that breaks the camel's back, Matt. We've gone over conditionals over and over and over again. What you have just said, in the quote above, is the exact same logical fallacy that you ran into with your "sign up for the team" analogy.

IF [You are righteous] ----> THEN [You can enter Heaven]

Says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about other ways to enter Heaven.



This is where you are sorely mistaken.

As a Christian I read the Bible and take it at face value. When the Bible says, (paraphrased): if you are righteous, you will go to Heaven, that's all it says. It says if you are righteous you go.



Matt, your lack of understanding pains me. It really does. -You- are the one dealing in "what ifs" and "maybes" when you assume that a statement about how to get into Heaven is an exclusive statement, when there are no indications that it is an exclusive statement.




The words in my hypothetical are words that are clearly understood by anyone who has gotten at least part-way through high school. There are no "big words" in the hypothetical.



You are becoming a broken record, Matt. I have provided literally dozens of different pieces of information supporting my side of the argument. All you have done is say "you lack any justification for what you say, the Bible is what I believe and it is all there is."

So all you have done is state the complete opposite of what has actually happened and then thrown up the Bible as an "ironclad" shield against criticism or inquiry.

If you are an adult, then shame on you.

If you are a child, then I hope you take what I have said to you to heart. Because you will do MORE HARM to Christianity, if you continue on your current course. If you are a child, then you don't know what you are saying or doing. But if you persist in what you are saying and doing, you will harm the cause of religion in this modern world, you will be held up as an example of why people that believe in God are closed-minded, but that doesn't mean you will be a martyr, that means you will be a tool of people who want to see religion fail. If you've been given limited information at an impressionable age, that is understandable. I hope that is the case, and that you will open your eyes to the brilliant and wondrous tools God provides us in things such as logic and reasoning. God created everything, including logic and reasoning and big words, and if he created those things he wants us to use them.

Monty

please provide any justification for anything you believe. Thats all I ask. Provide just one piece of evidence. Please i bet of you. Just provide one shred of evidence. O wait you cant

This is why this discussion is over Matt. I have provided evidence. Once I provide evidence, you are free to point out flaws in my evidence, or dispute the evidence's validity.

Instead you have chosen to engage in a bizarre, delusional form of hyperbole, a form that no one reading could possibly put any stock into.

When you develop better strategies for discussion of these issues, we can continue this conversation. Until then, denying what is obviously true will not suffice.

Monty

and your evidence is what? That you really want to believe it? I am sorry Monty but "God works in mysterious ways" isnt an answer

Your hypothetical is touching BUT as I pointed out God wouldnt let the person down ONLY if the person first seeked the Lord. Then I said God would appear in some form. IF that person does not seek the Lord then he will be judged on his own actions. So where is your evidence for this?

Where is your biblical evidence? I have seen none that supports the idea that a person who doesnt know the Lord can get in to heaven. John 14 doesnt help you. It sticks with the theme of believers only. You must go beyond the bible in order to justify your beliefs. Which when it comes to God isnt a wise idea.

Your logical deductions? All made on wrong assumptions. When you broke belief into 3 different meanings you showed you had to change the bible to fit what you want. I called you on it and still you have not fixed it

So no you have not provided any justification.

To be honest, I have not read all of these posts, but I have read alot of them.

Monty,

Do you believe that those who have never heard the Gospel, but are sincerely seeking God will be saved? What are the conditions for someone never hearing the Gospel to be saved? What if someone DOES hear the Gospel, but blatantly rejects it; will they be saved?

Just some questions...

Like I said Matt, this discussion is over. I have adequately supported my POV, you have chosen to respond with inanity. I'm not getting frustrated by this process, but a reasonable person has to know when to say "it's over." And this discussion is definetly over, because all you are doing is denying things that are obviously true in a bizarre attempt to "prove" your point.

Monty

You have adequately supported your POV with what? You say its over merely b/c you know you cant get around the facts. The facts are that nothing you have provide gives any reasonable proof to anything. Please be man enough to admit that. I showed that of all your "evidence" it still does not answer any real questions. Please clear those up for us.

I have done my best to engage in a reasonable, thought-provoking discussion with you, Matt. You have chosen to take the low-road and engage in hyperbole. That is why this discussion is over. If anyone wishs to review the evidence I have provided supporting my POV, then they can review the thread, I am not going to rehash everything here.

You already accepted my point in response to the hypothetical anyways, so all the backpedalling and hyperbole in the world will not bring us back from that point in the discussion.

Monty

What points did i accept from your hypothetical? I believe from the start that you accepted my points which are:

1. If the boy seeks the Lord he will not be disappointed
2. If he does not seek the Lord he will stand judgement

Those are my points. Those have always been my points. If you agree with this then your own beliefs are wrong. If not please explain how I am wrong

what backpedaling? I have stuck to the very same answer the entire time

Further I want to clarify John 14 for you Monty. It has been my contention that your interpretation is wrong and that the "many dwellings" are not open to the option of nonbelievers.

We go to John 3:18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God"

These are Jesus's words. All have been judged guilty who do not believe. There is no exception to this. So your interpetation does not follow the flow of the book.