What’s this, Rick?
I think the basic problem we're trying to define here, RickD, stems from the fact that you can't say 'absolute morality requires an arbiter of absolute morality' without defining the characteristics of that arbiter.
Prove the claim there cannot be an arbiter without a full definition of the arbiter’s characteristics.
The key problem for presuppositional apologetics, then, is precisely that it presupposes what the definition of these characteristics actually are — as opposed to taking an objective view of them.
Of course. It wouldn’t be called presuppositionalism if it did not presuppose the characteristics of the God described in the Bible. And this is fallacious how? Circular? Is circularity in world-view fallacious? If so, then I guess they’ll be abandoning their world-view on a logical fallacy.
Are their views objective?
If you define the arbiter of absolute morality by simply saying it is the God of the bible, Yahweh, you're not actually saying anything about where that authority comes from without relying upon the presumption that the bible is absolutely, unquestionably true.
Where
what authority comes from? God? God is necessarily eternal and self-sufficient.
And since it is the case that even Christian bible scholars, for at least the last 200 years, have conceded that this simply isn't the case, you're still left with the original problem.
Prove the Bible is contradicted, and try to refrain from obscure and irrelevant references.
Whereas, if you define the origins of morality as an emergent property of evolution, the problem of presumption does not arise
LOL. Doesn’t it?
— because we can trace the linage of organisms which display altruism, group solidarity and reciprocity to thousands of other species
These ideas can be dismissed as speculation emanating from a presupposed world-view: Darwinism. Explain how “altruism” has been traced and studied; in other words, expand on this vague assertion. Reciprocity, group selection and kin selection have nothing to do with altruism. These ideas
redefine altruism. The fact that they even use the term shows they’re being inconsistent with their world-view.
with whom we happen to share a common ancestry.
Prove common ancestry.
So the problem for presuppositionalism is not merely that it demonstrably plays philosophical semantics
It does not play semantics. It shows the absurdity of unbelief. Presuppositionalism is on rock solid ground. There is no rational objection to presuppositionalism, evidenced in the feeble argument before us.
it's that even if it did begin to offer something as genuinely interesting — as so many of its adherents nevertheless believe it does — it would still have a long way to go before it even counterbalanced, let alone exceeded the weight of evidence, which explains the evolutionary origins of these traits.
Do what? Again we have a non-statement. There is no “evolutionary explanation” for morality. There are ideas and speculations, which emanate from the presupposition of the Darwinian metaphor, but there is no evolutionary evidence (whatever that means) for morality, or altruism.
One of the central claims of presuppositionalism is that all world-views carry their own presuppositions. Here we see a prime example of one such world-view. Another of presuppositionalism’s claims is that all other world-views are, on inspection, reduced to absurdity. Again we see a nice example of this. We have astonishing claims being made in the name of “evidence”, and the absurdity here is that the evidence they speak of is not evidence at all. It’s mere speculation springing forth from a presupposed world-view. And the absurdity continues unabated, since they aren’t even aware that they are presupposing their world-view. It doesn’t get any better than this, Rick. They actually validate presuppositionalism.
