Rationalism
Definition
Rationalism describes any philosophy that claims that beliefs and opinions should always be logical, deductive conclusions rather than being based on experience, observations, religious teachings, or divine revelation.
Keywords: Rationalism, Philosophy, Logical, Reasoning, Deductive, Experience, Observations, Religious, Revelation, Contradictory.
Veracity
Rationalistic claims are false .
Proof
All self-refuting or contradictory claims are deductively false.
Premise 1: Only deductive conclusions should be believed.
Premise 2: Premise 1, being the foundation or starting point of the philosophy, is not itself a deductive conclusion.
Conclusion: Therefore, premise 1, also known as "rationalism", should not be believed.
Rationalistic claims, when adhered to, require the rejection of rationalistic claims. To accept them is to reject them, making rationalism inherently contradictory and deductively false.
Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons
Riveting, yet absurd; romantic, yet innocent; Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons is a little Roald Dahl, a little Harry Potter, and a little Chronicles of Narnia, all rolled into one. Timothy McCabe collaborates with the great Benedict Ballyhoot to bring you the novel of the century!
In Printed Form
Along with numerous other authors including Don Landis, Bodie Hodge and Roger Patterson, Timothy McCabe contributes analyses of various world religions and cults in this volume from Master Books.
Other Writings
"Where did Jesus go after his baptism, is it as according to Mark 1:12-13 or John 1:35-2:1-2. They both have been chosen by the council of Nicea over thousands of gospels and thought to be inspired by the Holy Ghost. Isn't this a contradiction?"
The book of John does not relate the baptism of Jesus. It simply quotes John the Baptist talking about the baptism sometime after the fact. Nowhere does it claim to inform us of what happened immediately after Christ's baptism. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all inform us that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness after His baptism (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1), where He was to be tempted by the devil.
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"Since an Actual Infinity cannot logically exist, is an infinite God a logical contradiction? Are there any religions that believe in God as a potential infinitely omnipotent being, but not an actual one?"
Complete sets with members that are unending in quantity do exist. A sample set would be the set of all possible configurations of the letters ABC, where duplication of characters is permitted. We would have: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA, AABC, AACB, ABAC, ABCA, ACAB, ACBA, BABC, etc. In fact, the quantity of complete sets with members that are unending in quantity are themselves unending in quantity (the set of all infinite sets is an infinite set).
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"Does Michael Martin's "Atheist's Wager" really show that leading a good life is more important than belief in God?"
No, it doesn't. I'll explain. According to Wikipedia (at the time of this writing), the Atheist's Wager states that if one were to analyze their options in regard to how to live their life, they would arrive at the following possibilities: (A) You may live a good life and believe in a god, and a benevolent god exists, in which case you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
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