Category Archives: Standards of Evidence

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Sye Ten Bruggencate and His Mendacious Pals


A case study in the inherent dishonesty of presuppositional tactics

(More about Sye now at http://syetenbruggencate.wordpress.com.)

Sye Ten Bruggencate is a Christian presuppositionalist. He does not think you have any basis for rationality other than his choice of a god. After centuries of emphasizing faith, Christianity was forced by the success of science to focus on its “evidences”, and having manifestly failed there, is now justifiably cowering in the face of scientific scrutiny, and is desperately employing increasingly absurd tactics in an attempt to destroy the utility of rationality in order to salvage a god who, most Christians admit, would eternally torture all those who follow a nature they neither requested nor can avoid. Sye is a prominent promoter of a new tactic that attempts to wrest the right to rationality away from those rational enough to reject the bible myth by irrationally suggesting that, in the very use of rationality, those promoting rationality must acknowledge the god of the bible as the author of rationality.

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Coloring Inside The Lines

coloringWhat is skepticism? And what value does it have? Isn’t it just something that grumpy old men do to make the world cloudy for the rest of us?

Remember that first coloring book you had? The boring black and white outlines on the pages would stare at you expressionlessly, so you would take the crayons you hadn’t yet eaten and scribble in wild abandon inside and outside the lines in an uninhibited expression of creativity…or at least I did.

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A Mockery Of Evidence

Here’s how one Christian defends his faith.

Christianity IS based on evidence. You are free to dispute the evidence, but you cannot rationally say Christianity is not based on evidence…

  1. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. (John 11:47)
  2. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:5-6)
  3. “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. (Acts 4:16)
  4. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. (Acts 26:26)
  5. He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:44-48)
  6. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)
  7. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. (Acts 13:30-31)

Now, you may only change the subject after you accept that Christianity is evidence-based.

From a Facebook exchange in 2009.

There you have it. Pay close attention to the words in bold. Convincing evidence?   Continue reading →