Henke 2022aj

Contrary to Lundahl (2022i), Philosophy Shouldn’t be Separated from Historical or Scientific Evidence

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I made the following statement:

“Later in Lundahl (2022a), he returns to the issue of levitation and again invokes groundless magic to explain the supposed process:

“As explained: levitation does not go against the law of gravity, it either excepts certain matter in and around human bodies from it (in case of God's miracles at walking on water and Ascension) or simply adds an invisible support (cfr the demonic version of how Copperfield does a trick).”

How are “excepts certain matter in and around human bodies” not a violation of the laws of physics? This claim sounds like God temporarily made the mass in human bodies weightless by locally removing the effects of the gravitational constant. How would this not be a violation of the laws of physics? But, before Mr. Lundahl starts throwing out imaginative physics explanations for how Jesus walked on water or ascended, he actually needs to provide evidence that Jesus even walked on water or ascended.” [emphasis mine]

Lundahl (2022i) then replies to my bolded comment.

This is a complaint about my answering one charge at a time. The historical evidence and the philosophical possibility are two different debates, and for the historical evidence, I have already given the "first known audience rule".

Here, Lundahl (2022i) is absolutely wrong. Historical evidence, as well as scientific evidence, should never be divorced from the philosophical “possibility” into two different debates. Philosophy is worthless without evidence to support it and science and history are worthless if they are not based on sound logic. They must go together. For example, let’s say that you go to the zoo and make a list of 50 birds that you’ve seen. You then come to the following conclusion about your list:

All birds are animals.

All of the birds on my list can fly.

Therefore, all of the birds on my list are animals that can fly.

This looks like a perfectly logical argument. However, a biologist sees your list and notices that you’ve made a serious mistake. Animal #32 is a little spotted kiwi, which is a flightless bird. Because your second premise is false, your conclusion is false. Logic needs to be supported by evidence from either good science or valid history.

Similarly, science and valid history must be based on logic. Let’s say on Tuesday, you make the following observation:

Observation #1: Lions are animals.

On Saturday, you make a second observation:

Observation #2: Some animals are dogs.

Anyone with a superficial knowledge of biology knows that both of these statements by themselves are true. However, the statements may be improperly combined to produce an illogical conclusion:

Some animals are dogs,

Lions are animals,

Therefore, lions are dogs.

Philosophy and history cannot and should not be separated into two different debates as Lundahl (2022i) mistakenly believes. They must be part of the same debate. This is why Mr. Lundahl is having so many problems in this debate trying to justify the existence of the Talking Snake of Genesis 3 and many other topics. He doesn’t have the good scientific or historical evidence to support his claims. Furthermore, as explained in Henke (2022b), Henke (2022bh), and my other essays, Mr. Lundahl’s “first known audience rule” is a dogmatic and worthless proclamation based on demonstrably false assumptions. People lie all the time and there is often a large “first known audience” that gullibly believes the lies. As I’ve stated before, the archeological results in Finkelstein and Silberman (2001) demonstrate that the ancient Israelite “first known audience” was wrong about the events in the Old Testament book of Exodus.

Reference:

Finkelstein, I. and N.A. Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts: The Free Press: New York, USA, 385pp.