Episode 37 - Dumb and Dumber. Part 2 - Dumber

Doubts Aloud Podcast

Episode 37– Show Notes
We continue the discussion from the last episode which had launched from the chapter in our favourite Apologetics book - "How Darwinism Dumbs Us Down: Evolution and Postmodernism". This time we discuss the theists’ side of deriving confidence in our knowledge (quoting the book): “an absolute mind as the basis for trust in human cognition”, i.e. being in God’s hands when it comes to what we can know.
So what does happen when theists face their own source for determining truths and knowledge, which boils down to a reliance on God not deceiving them. Are they Dumber?
We discussed the philosophy of how we can know that an all powerful God isn’t deceiving us and then we couldn’t help ourselves and turned to the passages in the Bible (Old and New Testament) where God does actively deceive. (See 1 Kings 22, Ezekiel 20:25 onwards and 2 Thessalonians 2:11 for starters)
Ed thought that it might still be OK to live under a good loving God who may well be deceiving so that he (Ed) would just think what he was supposed to think. The question of knowing whether God is indeed good then comes to the fore. We looked at that too and had great trouble seeing how we could get there without merely trusting God’s supposed message to us that He is good.
Links:
Andrew’s YouTube clips on prophecies of Trump’s election win:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gIAtDxyTaM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfDouDlHM88
Frances’ article by Dallas G Denery II, associate professor of history and chair of the history department at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he discusses the history of the theologians’ struggle with the issue of divine deception.
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-scientific-revolution-made-an-honest-man-of-god
Ed’s Christian site “Answering Islam” that claims to show that Allah is deceiving:
https://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/allah_best_deceiver.htm
Frances’ quote by Bertrand Russell on the absence of good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absence_of_good
The Unbelievable episode on ontological argument
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-
Debating-the-Ontological-Argument-Peter-S-Williams-Peter-Millican
Doubts Aloud Links:
The 50 Arguments for Faith book: “Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy and Science” by Mike Licona and William Dembski. (It can be found on Amazon.)
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