Is apologetics a science?

[McCulloch]

Christian apologetics have always been a form of cognitive science.

Question for debate: Can Christian apologetics be considered a discipline within the field of cognitive science?

[Cogitoergosum]

What is pure rhetoric compared to theoretical rhetoric which presupposes that men with consciences and souls originated from sub-human beings in Africa once upon a time long ago?

Please give us your enlightened account of how we got here and some evidence to refute the volumes of evidence for evolution.

There are no volumes containing any evidence of evolution outside the minds of religous evolutionists.

there is no evidence for a soul outside your mind.

If you close you eyes so you won't see the truth, the truth still sees you.

Yea, God is watching you too.

God only exists in the mind of religious people.

[jcrawford]

Can you have a mind without a brain?

Not to the best of my limited human knowledge and powers of cognition.

On the contrary, if a person has a seizure that does frontal lobe damage, they will display personality changes similar to tourettes syndrome.

No kidding.

Depression is directly related to serotonin and norepinephrine (neurochemicals) which affect the ego and self esteem. Next?

Since "ego and self-esteem" are mere social constructs and concepts within the mind, a soul may become equally depressed or exhilarated by the social conditions and environment within which it feels itself bound to reflect upon and respond to without the use or abuse of drugs.

[jcrawford]

Let me ask you a question: Do you have a conscience?

Are you equating the soul with a persons conscience?

Conscience and personality are aspects and functions of the human soul.

May I assume that your soul possesses both conscience and personality, since only with conscience (meaning with knowledge or science) and personal character can you be conscious of what is right and wrong, good and evil, true and false about your own personal self (soul).

[jcrawford]

Metaphysics ( Greek: μετά (meta) = "after", φυσικά (phisiká) = "those on nature", derived from the arrangement of Aristotle's works in antiquity[1]) is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the nature of the world. It is the study of being or reality.[2] It addresses questions such as: What is the nature of reality? Is there a God? What is man's place in the universe?

It would logically follow then, that everyone who posts on this site is engaging in metaphysics.

That is about as logical a conclusion as I have ever seen posted anywhere else on this forum, since logic itself has no physical properties or attributes which may be physically investigated by physicists, who by using their own self-proclaimed scientific method of determining the true nature and reality of their own physical existence, are of logical necessity forced to concede that their own presuppositions and conclusions about the world they live in are a singular and particular, in not peculiar, form of metaphysical knowledge and belief.

[Furrowed Brow]

That is about as logical a conclusion as I have ever seen posted anywhere else on this forum, since logic itself has no physical properties or attributes which may be physically investigated by physicists,….

Duh Ya know Jc that is about the first thing you’ve said I can agree with.

…..who by using their own self-proclaimed scientific method of determining the true nature and reality of their own physical existence,...

Well that is an over simplification and faulty generalisation. The scienctific method has been influenced from a wide range of thinkers and philosophers including Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Wittgenstein, the logical positivists, Karl Popper, and even more radical interpreters of science like Kuhn. Science deals with nature. No more no less.

…are of logical necessity forced to concede that their own presuppositions and conclusions about the world they live in are a singular and particular, in not peculiar, form of metaphysical knowledge and belief.

This is wrong. Logic is empty of knowledge and belief. That is why logic can be formalised and expressed in symbolic notation, in just the same way mathematics can be expressed with a formal notation. Neither say anything about the world. But their self evidence, and analytical form limit how we can think coherently and form valid arguments. The contribution logic makes to the drawing of conclusions by science is as a means to gauge and test the formal validity of any argument. Metaphysicians can also use logic to ensure their arguments are valid, and that a conclusion follows from a premise, but that does not mean that the content of the argument is logically equal to science; this is because the conclusions of science are open to be tested, and falsified, whilst metaphysics is not.

[jcrawford]

Metaphysics is usually taken to mean ontological discourses that are of a higher order or beyond the physical. Platonic realms being an obvious metaphysics. Heaven, Hell the holy trinity being theological metaphysics. All are nonsense of one form or another if you go with W or LP.

Not being metaphysically bound or limited to the metaphysical nonsense of W and LP, Christian Reconstructionists can faithfully rely and depend on the more rational and logical epistemologies of Christian metaphysicians like Van Til and Rushdoony.

[jcrawford]

there is no evidence for a soul outside your mind.

There is no evidence of anything if you don't use your mind to construct theories of knowledge pertaining to what may otherwise be called meaningless sense perceptions.

God only exists in the mind of religious people.

Ape-men only exist in the demented minds of religious people and naturalists who think they evolved and originated from some sub-human species of African apes.

[Furrowed Brow]

Metaphysics is usually taken to mean ontological discourses that are of a higher order or beyond the physical. Platonic realms being an obvious metaphysics. Heaven, Hell the holy trinity being theological metaphysics. All are nonsense of one form or another if you go with W or LP.

Not being metaphysically bound or limited to the metaphysical nonsense of W and LP, Christian Reconstructionists can faithfully rely and depend on the more rational and logical epistemologies of Christian metaphysicians like Van Til and Rushdoony.

Ah well. I guess one finds sense wherever one can find it. Strangely W would agree with you I think - in as far as his attempts at metaphysics are nonsense - but the limitation applies to Van Till and Rushdoony whether they realise or not. However even if you do not believe yourself to be limited thus, there is still the hurdle of Metaphysics not being grounded, in the same way science is grounded. The latter being grounded by a logic that limits what it can say to what can be physically tested. Whilst metaphysics can wonder off with the metaphysical faeries.

[jcrawford]

The scienctific method has been influenced from a wide range of thinkers and philosophers including Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Wittgenstein, the logical positivists, Karl Popper, and even more radical interpreters of science like Kuhn. Science deals with nature. No more no less.

True, but the premises, thinking and logical system employed in the use of the scientific method is more metaphysical than physical in character and form since a mental or intellectual concept has no physical properties, physical form or physical substance or essence in and of itself.

[Cathar1950]

The scienctific method has been influenced from a wide range of thinkers and philosophers including Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Wittgenstein, the logical positivists, Karl Popper, and even more radical interpreters of science like Kuhn. Science deals with nature. No more no less.

True, but the premises, thinking and logical system employed in the use of the scientific method is more metaphysical than physical in character and form since a mental or intellectual concept has no physical properties, physical form or physical substance or essence in and of itself.

I would think they also derive from empiricism where the senses and experience take the world as a given. It’s real man. Now you on the other hand are hearing voices or receiving some kind of knowledge about God that has no substance except in your mind.