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.
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
"A religious friend declined an invitation to a coworker's going away party because he feared there would be drinking there. Does the bible not encourage moderate consumption of wine?"
I'm going to answer with more information than you probably want, in anticipation of possible objections to my answer. When reading the Bible in English, it can often be difficult to discern what the writers were referring to when we see the word "wine". In Hebrew (the Old Testament), there are at least two different words that are both translated "wine" in our modern English versions, and there is a third word we will look at as well.
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"How did polar bears get from the middle east to the polar ice caps, and penguins to Antarctica, and all the strange Australian beasts to Australia, etc., without leaving populations behind?"
The Bible does not tell us the specific answer to this question, and neither does pure logic, therefore there is no official "Christian" answer. This means Christians are free to speculate about questions like this, keeping in mind that such speculations should not overshadow what is really important in our walk with Christ -- namely, what is clearly revealed in scripture.
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"William Lane Craig offers 5 arguments against divine determinism at reasonablefaith.org in an article called "Troubled by Calvinists". Do you agree?"
Dr. William Lane Craig is an astounding debater and an extremely intelligent individual. He has many excellent arguments with regard to many things. These arguments, however, are not among them. The question of free will is one that has been thoroughly debated for thousands of years. Some would say that free will can be defined as "the ability to do what you want".
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