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
"Does the biblical god "YHWH" tempt? Because it says in Gen. 22:11 that God tempted Abraham, and in James 1:13 it says "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man? Which should I believe?"
Here are the verses in question from the NASB: Genesis 22:1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested (KJV - "did tempt") Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
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"Would you please provide step-by-step logic, or point me to where I might find it, for your statements about atheism and polytheism?"
Sure. Here is how I see it. First, we demonstrate that infinite regress is incoherent. 1. Infinite Regress is logically incoherent. Infinite regress would mean that we have completely iterated, one-by-one, through every single item of an infinite series. If we were to go backwards through each previous item, and there were an infinite number of past items, there would necessarily be some item in the set of previous items that we would never, ever get to.
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"What kind of god would give people cancer, aids, epilepsy, emphysema, diarrhea, or any of the other medical problems people get? Why worship a god that isn't good, even if he does exist?"
Interestingly enough, in presupposing that there is such a thing as "good", we must acknowledge that there is some kind of "rule of behavior" that transcends individual humans. However, if there is no good God, then such a transcendent rule of behavior cannot exist. In other words, the only reason we can identify things as being good is because there is a good God who is the very measure of goodness.
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