Tin Hanes bans and deletes comments he could never refute. Not only that he doesn't even allow any debates to begin with. He is destroyed by atheist cal bcoz he doesn't know anything about catholicism. He's a secularist truly and my example is when he claims that his network is, "all logic no nonsense". Just ask him this. Can supernatural miracles still be believed if it requires only logic? The answer is that it would not be supernatural and in fact there is nothing supernatural about the miracle if it doesn't require faith. Consider Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice isaac, and when Isaac asked on the way to the mountains about the lamb he replied "god will provide for himself the lamb". He was talking about the future sacrifice of Jesus but he doesn't know it's a pre figurement or I guess you could say. Further it requires no questioning the ethics simply bcoz it's god that asks the killing. Did you know god kills more in Bible than satan? Tin don't know these issues he calls all debates, "soft". He's abused and not built for any debates just can't believe how anyone could trust such a dishonest pile of red herring marketer

I think my dad was the same. When I first thought of it as a child, I considered that if it was the end of me then that would be great, I wouldn't have to waste any more of my time here, if there was a heaven though, then that raised the bar for how I should live my life right now as well as continue to stay, which was troublesome (I legit thought that) but if it was true then I should continue living to find out, I would have nothing to lose anyway. In that way, I never really feared or was negative to death. Anyway, a few years later I got my proof XD Which is why I still hang around today.

How did you develop your conception of what "an inspired text" must look like? I suggest a read of Peter Enns' recent blog post, Christian, don't expect more from the Bible than you would of Jesus. I'm inclined to say that your conception of what "an inspired text" must look like is a pre-theoretical religious belief not formed based on the evidence. :-p

I am not completely sure how an inspired text should look. I am waiting for someone who believes in them to explain it to me. On one hand, theologians will obsess over minute details of the bible, trying to tease out the inspired author's reasoning for putting those details there, or will draw out significant meditations (some are quite beautiful) out of the smallest details. But then, theologians will apply a totally different line of reasoning to more unsavory parts of the bible. It lacks consistency.

When I said "in the way you request", I meant giving the Israelites perfect moral commands, which would be recognized as 'perfect' for all time. Contrast this to F = ma, which will probably be seen as 'quaint' at some point in the future.

Could God give perfect moral commands?

Can we merely take the OT to be 'truth-like', instead of also requiring it to be 'historical'? That is, can we, for the sake of conversation, treat it as accurate "what-if" simulations?

Of course. I am interested on how you think the bible should be read or viewed.

It occurred to me that one could read the bible as inspired in the sense that it was purely humans writing about their understanding of God. Not privileged over later post biblical writings, but representing what men at the time thought about God, and valued for the sake of tradition as well as its keen insights. I don't know if any Christians hold such a view.

Do you see any epistemological problems with an imperfect being trying to imagine how a perfect being would do things?

Yes, although I am not sure this objection always applies.

But surely you wouldn't allow the powerless to be executed so we can use their organs to help the powerful? I question whether you actually employ utilitarianism. Add enough qualifications to it, and the thing you are left with oughtn't be called by that name.

I agree with John Stuart Mill when he argues that type of action does not have utility.

I think it can be found outside of Catholicism as well. Years ago, I read some of the things that Calvin and Luther thought about hell, I remember it being quite frightening.

Many things are quite frightening. Climate change is a good example; the threat of global thermonuclear war is probably a better example. I don't see how "level of frightening" is relevant to truth, though. Note also that global thermonuclear war isn't anywhere near infinite suffering. Can you empirically demonstrate that the threat of it generated less fear than the threat of hell? Given that it's mostly a historical worry (for most), feel free to pick the closest example which is real for enough people to run the empirical test.

I spent a great deal of time trying to understand the bible as the inspired word of God. Perhaps I read the wrong theologians, but they did not convince me that the bible can be read consistently as a biblical text, without stripping away its status as an inspired text.

How did you develop your conception of what "an inspired text" must look like? I suggest a read of Peter Enns' recent blog post, Christian, don't expect more from the Bible than you would of Jesus. I'm inclined to say that your conception of what "an inspired text" must look like is a pre-theoretical religious belief not formed based on the evidence. :-p

If he is all-powerful than yes. He made the rules that we play by.

When I said "in the way you request", I meant giving the Israelites perfect moral commands, which would be recognized as 'perfect' for all time. Contrast this to F = ma, which will probably be seen as 'quaint' at some point in the future.

Yes. Although some of this depends on how much of the bible we take to be historical.

Can we merely take the OT to be 'truth-like', instead of also requiring it to be 'historical'? That is, can we, for the sake of conversation, treat it as accurate "what-if" simulations?

However, I expect more from an all-powerful being.

Do you see any epistemological problems with an imperfect being trying to imagine how a perfect being would do things?

It is either circular or foundational. It is however consistent and I explicitly say how I think ethical decisions should be made.

But surely you wouldn't allow the powerless to be executed so we can use their organs to help the powerful? I question whether you actually employ utilitarianism. Add enough qualifications to it, and the thing you are left with oughtn't be called by that name.

I think we should make a distinction between well-evidenced propositions that are held to be true by most experts and theological dogmas.

If you can show me how causation is exclusively derived from the evidence, instead of presupposed to even construct the idea 'evidence', then I'll grant you your claim. But if what is presupposed—see "theory-ladenness of observation"—is actually much bigger than you imply, then much more importance needs to be given to that, and "well-evidenced propositions" need to be knocked down a few notches in relative importance.

Sure, enlightenment figures will largely agree that the religious body of knowledge is largely wrong. However, this has nothing to with whether or not religion is in full blown conflict with science.

Perhaps you could sketch out which parts of "the religious body of knowledge" Enlightenment thinkers do not think "is largely wrong". It's not clear what you mean by "full blown conflict"; it seems like you mean it to only obtain if nothing in religion survives the full acceptance of science. But then this begs the question of what you mean by 'religion'. For example, I could see the only aspects surviving—of what frequently goes by 'religion'—being the psychological parts and the fictional parts. And yet, I think many religious folks would refuse to acknowledge the residue as 'religion'.

And the amazon reviews.

Stephen Toulmin's Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity has 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 17 reviews. There is one 1-star review, one 3-star review, with the rest being 4- or 5-stars. Perhaps you could be more precise in how you got the impression you did from those reviews. I would also appreciate your thoughts on whether these reviews are written by experts; supposing there's no guarantee they are, I'd like to know how that meshes with the first thing of you which I quoted, which seems to care about the experts.

I've read quite a bit of Hayek. I really don't think planned societies are in vogue anymore. Not in academic circles, policy circles, or in the minds of the masses.

Toulmin would likely agree that planned societies are no longer in vogue. Your criticism which sparked this tangent is "I really don't think this is the modern western view."; perhaps this was a mistake, as a result of only partially understanding the argument in Cosmopolis?

Perhaps it is a possible task, but it is still a good undertaking.

I think you meant "not a possible task", and I disagree that it is a good idea to undertake impossible tasks. If indeed you depend on some truths which are less-justified, or even not-justified, then you ought not immediately criticize others who do the same. I think it is intellectually dishonest (if known) and/or intellectually incompetent (if not known) to claim that you are doing something that you are not in fact doing.

Exists independent of the physical universe and could not be described as emerging from the material universe.

This would seem to make out the multiverse as a "transcendent entity"; are you ok with this? Some scientists seriously think that our universe came out of something 'other'; see for example Lawrence Krauss' A Universe from Nothing.

What are the key observations that you make or hold to be true that make you think Christianity is the best explanation? For instance, one of the fundamental observations that I make is that I think that the universe is too uncaring to be sustained or monitored by a personal God.

That's not how I employ Christianity; it is not a hypothesis which best fits my observations. Likewise, one does not pick a model of causation based on the evidence, one presupposes a model and interprets the evidence in light of it. Now, this does not mean that the evidence cannot alter presuppositions, but it means that presuppositions do not supervene on the evidence. I will still try to give you something of an answer to your question, but my refusal of how I think you're framing might render my attempt futile.

A philosophical reason is that in order for there to be an ontological distinction between truth and falsity, it has to be something other than "adaptation to the environment". And yet, it makes no sense that (1) the laws of nature are responsible for all time-evolution of state; (2) there is some law or set of laws which promotes the time-evolution towards 'true' states. And so, something other than the laws of nature must be involved with a robust notion of truth: I call that 'mind', and assert that it cannot ontologically supervene on non-mind. Now, I am convinced that there really is a robust notion of truth, and so there is at least one mind. I also believe that humans are not the only minds, which means there is at least one other mind in addition. But this reason only gets one to an a-moral (not immoral) deism.

I am also convinced that there must be a "genuine distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative social relations", to use a term from Alasdair MacIntyre's famous book, After Virtue (23). By 'genuine', I take him to mean ontological. This seems to presuppose that there is something in addition to unilateral causation, that there is also (maybe only) cooperative causation. Multiple persons, acting in concert, where none is taking advantage of another. If this isn't possible, all is Machiavellian/​Nietzschean, whether we are conscious of it or suppress this knowledge and construct pretend worlds, underwritten by heinous acts, the likes of which happen all the time in our reality. The Trinity seems to be the kind of ontological undergirding for what I am calling 'cooperative causation'. More at Alistair McFadyen's The Call to Personhood.

An odd reason I have not seen anywhere else, lies in Fitch's Paradox of Knowability, which can be understood as a proof that if we accept a few axioms which most people would probably want to accept, then it is necessarily true that "all knowable truths are already known". I am inclined to believe that there are is an infinity of truth that can be known (Gödel's incompleteness theorems help, here) and the only way this can be, again given Fitch's axioms, is if all of these truths are already known. By whom? Well, God of course. :-) Note that an alternative to this is to limit what can be known, like those of new mysterianism. The progress of human knowledge could slow, even stop, perhaps even whether there being priests who tend to the mysteries. This would be a valid logical alternative to God existing.

There are almost certainly a number of other things I could say, but I think this is enough for now. I'm not ready to write a full "Why I am a Christian" essay, and that's essentially what you asked for.

This study had numerous issues.

However, I do think part of the backlash was due to the fact that his paper simply does not show what he claims it shows. This could be a false impression on my part.

That is not the question, though. All studies have issues. The question is whether that study was given more scrutiny than other studies, with similar issues. Christian Smith, a long-time sociologist with good reputation, argues that it was given more scrutiny, ceteris paribus. This is a hallmark of discrimination, of prejudice.

You realize that the peer-review process, when the audit finished, resulted in "it was ok that this article was published when judged by the most rigorous sociological standards", right? See my excerpt starting "The Chronicle of Higher Education". The auditor who said that turned around and said, in non-peer-reviewed places, that the article should not have been published. I leave it up to you to determine whether or not this is flagrant intellectual dishonesty.

If you don't have a theoretical way in which you think education should work, you have no basis for objecting to the behavior that happened during the Regnerus controversy.

I would likely draw my theory from Paul Feyerabend, who studied not mythologies of how science ought to work, but how it actually works. I would also note the importance of developing character, perhaps keying off of Harry Lewis' Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future? and James Davison Hunter's The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil. But I don't have a well-developed theory of education, and I doubt you do, either.

What do you think the best means are for discovering truth?

You've just asked me for a full-fledged epistemology; that seems kind of crazy. So I will give you a snippet: I think charitable interpretation of points of view different than oneself is absolutely critical, as is a proper analysis of what beliefs ontologically supervene on observation, and which ones don't.

My point was that if something can be described precisely via mathematics than it counts as knowledge.

I think I might disagree. Reality itself is not guaranteed to be mathematical. Unless you follow the Pythagorean religion or a new version of it? Knowledge of logic is very different from knowledge of reality, IMO.

However, I do not think the Trinity can be precisely described.

I agree. Neither do I think reality can be precisely described.

When I read theologians, I do not get the understanding of faith that you claim is the correct one according to scriptures.

Examples, please.

Here, you've picked out a particularly Catholic version of hell; I'm not
even sure it is true to e.g. what Augustine believed, not to mention
Luther or Calvin.

I think it can be found outside of Catholicism as well. Years ago, I read some of the things that Calvin and Luther thought about hell, I remember it being quite frightening.

Many things seem nonsensical when you have too much distance from them
and haven't worked hard to bridge that distance. Indeed, this is
probably one of the things that is contributing to the increasing
polarization in American politics. That which cannot be easily and
immediately understood is portrayed as capricious, evil, stupid, etc.

I spent a great deal of time trying to understand the bible as the inspired word of God. Perhaps I read the wrong theologians, but they did not convince me that the bible can be read consistently as a biblical text, without stripping away its status as an inspired text.

Can God be perfectly just with fallen humans in the way you request? It's not clear what you're asking for.

If he is all-powerful than yes. He made the rules that we play by.

"God could have gone about things in a better way." Such
historical–counterfactual claims cannot be tested directly, but surely
there are indirect tests which can be carried out. Can you defend such a
positive claim in this way?

Yes. Although some of this depends on how much of the bible we take to be historical.

Where's the line of demarcation, between "man did it himself" vs. "man got assistance from God"? How can I explore this line?

I don't think there is a personal God, so I think man does everything himself. This is why I would praise some of the accomplishments of ancient peoples, even if their laws seem backwards today, because they were working towards a better future. However, I expect more from an all-powerful being.

Telling the works of God from the works of man depends on your theology. I let believers tell me how they distinguish.

But don't you judge "best" via utilitarianism? This would make your being convinced viciously circular.

It is either circular or foundational. It is however consistent and I explicitly say how I think ethical decisions should be made.

It is my understanding that challenging those "fundamental unifying
principles" could result in a very similar range of behavior. Now, a
possible exception is that ridicule, mockery, and excommunication were
used more than outright physical violence. I don't see this as violating
the natural kind; if one can neuter ideas without physical violence,
that is a more convenient of accomplishing the same goal: the
suppression of heresy.

I think we should make a distinction between well-evidenced propositions that are held to be true by most experts and theological dogmas.

You don't see how religion generally has revelation in addition to
religion, a strong focus on community, and a respect for authority?

Sure, enlightenment figures will largely agree that the religious body of knowledge is largely wrong. However, this has nothing to with whether or not religion is in full blown conflict with science. I think enlightenment thinkers would all argue that if a reasoned truth conflicts with a religious truth, we should believe the reasoned truth true.

Then I suggest a study of Christian rationalism and deism, which are
radically different from anything you will see in the Bible. These two
lead naturally to atheism

Rationalism does lead to at least a soft atheism.

Edit: Accidentally hit the post button:

So now you're judging books by their titles alone?

And the amazon reviews.

I can excerpt from prominent sociologists Peter Berger and Jacques Ellul on this matter, as well as economics Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek. Now, within the last fifty years, there has been a breakdown in the hope of a full rationalized, planned society. Where sociologists once had cosmic hopes for what their discipline could do, there is a deep acknowledgment that sociology can do no such thing—at least not on anything like its current foundation.

I've read quite a bit of Hayek. I really don't think planned societies are in vogue anymore. Not in academic circles, policy circles, or in the minds of the masses.

Here, I would criticize the idea that one can expose all of one's assumptions to deep questioning, without lapsing into coherentism which has its bundle of problems. It's not even clear that we are conscious of enough of our assumptions; see the idea of an unarticulated background, and especially the conception put forth by scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi, of tacit knowledge.

Perhaps it is a possible task, but it is still a good undertaking.

What is a "transcendent entity"?

Exists independent of the physical universe and could not be described as emerging from the material universe.

As to fundamentals, I don't really know what you mean, as I reject foundationalism. Perhaps you mean the 'axiom' option of Agrippa's trilemma?

What are the key observations that you make or hold to be true that make you think Christianity is the best explanation? For instance, one of the fundamental observations that I make is that I think that the universe is too uncaring to be sustained or monitored by a personal God.

If you want to see an example of dissent being shut down, read about Mark Regnerus' New Family Structures Study in Christian Smith's book, The Sacred Project of American Sociology, which is listed at Heterodox Academy § Publications. The short version is that massive pressure was applied to Regnerus' paper solely because it violated the prevalent ideology in sociology.

This study had numerous issues.

No, your "softly discouraged" does not in any way capture what can happen. As to this "theoretical goal of secular education", I'm not sure I care if practice isn't increasingly matching theory. Some theories simply don't match reality.

You may be correct. I would have to look into it more. With regard to the study itself, we have good reasons to reject its conclusions. I don't remember the academic shut down - I just remember thinking the study was flawed. If you don't have a theoretical way in which you think education should work, you have no basis for objecting to the behavior that happened during the Regnerus controversy.

The Regnerus paper doesn't rise to the level of 'theory', but it's certainly an example of suppression of empirical results by the scientific community (and extra-scientific community). Here's the official audit report, as reported by Christian Smith:

If Regnerus' results were being suppressed than yes, I think that is very bad behavior by the academic community. However, I do think part of the backlash was due to the fact that his paper simply does not show what he claims it shows. This could be a false impression on my part.

I agree. The problem, of course, is that we will disagree on the means and/or the ends—probably both. This doesn't mean that we cannot in any way get along, but it does open up the danger that one or both of us will try to undermine the other, perhaps by attempting to frame everything the other says not in his own framework, but transplanted into one's own framework.

What do you think the best means are for discovering truth?

IR But if it is phased precisely via mathematics and true, it is a subset of knowledge.

LB:Ok...? I seem to have undermined the implication of:

IR: When your theories can be expressed precisely via mathematics, they make sense. This isn't even on the same level as the Trinity.

LB:To clarify, my failure to explicate the Trinity "precisely via mathematics" does not preclude it from qualifying as possible knowledge.

I agree. My point was that if something can be described precisely via mathematics than it counts as knowledge. That is what I claimed. I did not claim that all knowledge is mathematical.

However, I do not think the Trinity can be precisely described.

What do you mean by "hardly used"? The definition of 'evolution' used by the vast majority of humans who use the term probably doesn't well-match what scientists specializing in it mean by the term. Most people will be sloppy, get things wrong, and generally not have a very good conception except in rough outlines.

When I read theologians, I do not get the understanding of faith that you claim is the correct one according to scriptures.

That's an interesting claim; I'm not sure it is true. But suppose that it is. How does this lead to special pleading?

It was probably unfortunate that I chose the word orthodox to describe the view of hell. I have in mind the following:

Here, you've picked out a particularly Catholic version of hell; I'm not even sure it is true to e.g. what Augustine believed, not to mention Luther or Calvin. What you've described here does seem closer to the Buri, 1991-type "authoritarian parent" than my understanding of hell, which I'm pretty sure is "sufficiently orthodox". BTW, I'm not sure that you picked the word 'orthodox'; I may have done that.

In general, I would employ a charitable reading. However, the book is said to be inspired by God, so I ask, why does God portray himself as being capricious?

Many things seem nonsensical when you have too much distance from them and haven't worked hard to bridge that distance. Indeed, this is probably one of the things that is contributing to the increasing polarization in American politics. That which cannot be easily and immediately understood is portrayed as capricious, evil, stupid, etc.

So as long as God's laws are slightly better than whatever laws are currently in vogue, he gets a free pass? Somehow I would expect a little better from a tri-omni being. I certainly would expect him to be just at least. He commands and does all sorts of injustice though.

Can God be perfectly just with fallen humans in the way you request? It's not clear what you're asking for. I imagine that 2200 years from now, Newtonian mechanics will seem pathetic. And yet, it seems that it was all we could handle, at that stage in development. I take arguments like yours here to entail a positive claim: "God could have gone about things in a better way." Such historical–counterfactual claims cannot be tested directly, but surely there are indirect tests which can be carried out. Can you defend such a positive claim in this way?

In this case, I would commend the Israelites for making social progress, but I am ascribing it to man not to God. If God is in charge of the social progress, I would expect something more.

Where's the line of demarcation, between "man did it himself" vs. "man got assistance from God"? How can I explore this line?

I am convinced that utilitarianism is the best ethical system.

But don't you judge "best" via utilitarianism? This would make your being convinced viciously circular.

Conservative Christians on the other hand do hold consistency in a very high regard (as their application of natural law theory is inconsistent) and place unmerited value on a very old text. I will admit to the possibility of error as my knowledge comes from man, while they will not admit to the possibility of error, because they think their knowledge comes from God. This may be the crux of the issue. Christians who believe that their knowledge is of Divine origin and thus infallible.You cannot argue with such people. They are immune to reason.

Honestly, I've run across to plenty of self-described atheists who are also "immune to reason". So it's not clear that this problem is unique to Christianity, to treating the Bible as inspired, etc. In ages past, the analogical method of understanding God and the faith has fallibilism built into it. Throughout the Bible, God consistently hates on pride and arrogance. In Job 40:6–14, God seems to be telling Job that if he can accomplish the one task of putting the proud in their place, he would consider Job a god.

As I've said in other discussions with you, the idea that anything you believe is open to falsification is deeply problematic, unless you want to admit to holding to coherentism, which has its own problems. That Christians put the Bible, or perhaps something closer to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, in the place of 'axiom' in Agrippa's trilemma, doesn't strike me as immediately problematic. Feel free to mount a philosophical argument against this which doesn't merely presuppose its conclusion. What you're picking out with your label "conservative Christians" seems like a failure mode, of an instance where sharp knives are used to harm instead of help.

Would you agree that the fundamental unifying principles of enlightenment thinking are that reason is the best method for discerning truth, an optimism regarding the effectiveness of reason in discerning truth, individualism, and skepticism of traditional authority?

I would object to these being the only fundamental principles, but they certainly are some of them. I might quibble with the idea that the skepticism was just targeted toward "traditional authority", vs. all tradition whatsoever.

Now, regardless of whether or not these beliefs are true, I would really hesitate to call any of these beliefs dogma.

When I think of the term 'dogma', I try and understand it as a natural kind. So for example, when dogma is challenged, there is a range of behavior that this provokes. It is my understanding that challenging those "fundamental unifying principles" could result in a very similar range of behavior. Now, a possible exception is that ridicule, mockery, and excommunication were used more than outright physical violence. I don't see this as violating the natural kind; if one can neuter ideas without physical violence, that is a more convenient of accomplishing the same goal: the suppression of heresy.

I do not see how the conflict thesis is built into these unifying principles.

You don't see how religion generally has revelation in addition to religion, a strong focus on community, and a respect for authority?

No.

Then I suggest a study of Christian rationalism and deism, which are radically different from anything you will see in the Bible. These two lead naturally to atheism.

You would have to show that whatever statement you are labeling as dogmatic is held to be unquestionably true (i.e. nearly no argument could overturn it) and one could not be considered an enlightenment philosopher without holding the statement to be true. Honestly, I have trouble thinking that dogmas are possible without some authority figure or authority group.

This standard is too high; it is possible to establish an ideology without anything like what you describe. Want evidence? Visit Heterodox Academy, which wouldn't even exist if there weren't dogma in the human sciences. And if you think there are no authority figures in science, or that there were none in the Enlightenment, then I think you're deluded about how humans in society function.

What are you?

Sorry, I meant to say that I'm not a scholar. I am a layman when it comes to this stuff.

I'm very skeptical about books with "Hidden Agenda" in their title.

No, it literally sounds like a conspiracy theory. Hidden agendas and all....

So now you're judging books by their titles alone?

I really don't think this is the modern western view.

I can excerpt from prominent sociologists Peter Berger and Jacques Ellul on this matter, as well as economics Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek. Now, within the last fifty years, there has been a breakdown in the hope of a full rationalized, planned society. Where sociologists once had cosmic hopes for what their discipline could do, there is a deep acknowledgment that sociology can do no such thing—at least not on anything like its current foundation. Or you could read a little further on the dust cover: "Under the weight of the passions and predicaments of the 20th century, these wishful intellectual structures have collapsed."

What is it that I already believe? And why is it opposed to the belief that reason is unifying?

What I said is independent of the particulars of what you already believe. Your attitude is conservative of whatever your current plausibility structure happens to be. Such conservatism and resistance to other plausibility structures is opposed to the unification that the Enlightenment conception of 'Reason' promised to bring—unless you just happen to be closest to the truth of all humans.

Or, we can use study ethics via philosophical and perhaps soft scientific inquiry.

Tell me the process whereby you get an 'ought' from an 'is' and we can start jamming.

Why should a religious text and its interpretations be valued over other texts and their interpretations?

I wasn't arguing that point.

With regard to the second proposition, I have a few different problems with inspired texts. Firstly, the texts that are considered inspired gain that distinction via special pleading. Why is Genesis inspired but the Iliad is not? How do I know that book A is inspired? Secondly, every inspired text has a myriad of interpretations, which are often contradictory. This provides very little certainty that my interpretation is actually correct.

Special pleading indicates that there is no merit to prefer A over B except something idiosyncratic to the person doing the preferring. You haven't established this. As to having a myriad of interpretations, take a look at WP: Interpretations of quantum mechanics. Your reasoning would have that none of those interpretations is on the right track; I reject this.

Those who are abusing religion think they are doing good.

Yes, and Hitler thought he was "doing good" as well.

Besides my own existence, I don't think there are any non mathematical self-evidence propositions. I would pragmatically accept that the world that we perceive is real and that our senses are somewhat accurate. I also accept various logical axioms.

Ok; the way you used "self-evident" seemed more expansive than Descartes Cogito, the acceptance of an external reality, and mathematics/​logic.

And the best one available is one that values questioning your deeply held assumptions. While some religions advocate this, there are many who advocate the opposite. The latter are what this discussion is all about.

Here, I would criticize the idea that one can expose all of one's assumptions to deep questioning, without lapsing into coherentism which has its bundle of problems. It's not even clear that we are conscious of enough of our assumptions; see the idea of an unarticulated background, and especially the conception put forth by scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi, of tacit knowledge.

Religious truths deal with humankinds relationship with transcendent entities or forces and the properties of said entities and forces.

What is a "transcendent entity"? Christians didn't even carve up reality into the 'natural' and 'supernatural' until the sixteenth century (Passage to Modernity, 171). Is 'beauty' a transcendent thing? How about 'simplicity'? I could pull out some quotations of Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg talking about how important simplicity and beauty are in evaluating scientific theory. We could investigate whether that sense of simplicity and beauty changes as science advances. Perhaps it has a sort of transcendental status, whereby we can only ever approximate what it really is. Were this the case, then scientists would be in relationship with a transcendent entity which constantly makes them more than they were before, which is a very god-like thing to do, at least when your god is like YHWH.

I don't really have a problem with this, but it is completely subjective. What are the fundamentals about reality that you observe?

What do you mean by "completely subjective"? See for example the numerous non-identical definitions at dictionary.com: subjective. As to fundamentals, I don't really know what you mean, as I reject foundationalism. Perhaps you mean the 'axiom' option of Agrippa's trilemma?

Because I am most justified believing things that I have discovered via good means.

This is but a bare assertion. It also begs the question of how you know a given means is 'good'. How you probably do is that it has delivered in the past. But this is judging it via an end, not a means!

I also don't think dissent is necessarily shut down, but is often softly discouraged via smug and dismissive attitudes. Unfortunately, these attitudes are often only evidenced with mere platitudes. At least though, these sorts of things are contrary to the theoretical goal of secular education.

If you want to see an example of dissent being shut down, read about Mark Regnerus' New Family Structures Study in Christian Smith's book, The Sacred Project of American Sociology, which is listed at Heterodox Academy § Publications. The short version is that massive pressure was applied to Regnerus' paper solely because it violated the prevalent ideology in sociology. All the other ostensible reasons obtained of many other papers which were not exposed to much of any scrutiny. Furthermore, the lead investigator appointed to review the peer-review process said at the end that he might have also approved of that paper, but then went on to argue in the public (non-scholarly sphere) that the paper should never have been accepted. The result of the persecution targeted at Regnerus is that nobody else would want to publish something which so violates the reigning ideology.

No, your "softly discouraged" does not in any way capture what can happen. As to this "theoretical goal of secular education", I'm not sure I care if practice isn't increasingly matching theory. Some theories simply don't match reality.

A single counterexample will do. Give me an evidenced scientific theory that is being suppressed and evidence for the truthfulness of the scientific theory.

The Regnerus paper doesn't rise to the level of 'theory', but it's certainly an example of suppression of empirical results by the scientific community (and extra-scientific community). Here's the official audit report, as reported by Christian Smith:

The Chronicle of Higher Education thus reported the following about the audit:

[The auditor] did not find that the journal’s normal procedures had been disregarded, or that the Regnerus paper had been inappropriately expedited to publication, as some critics have charged. He also vigorously defended … the editor. “If I were in [the editor’s] shoes,” he writes, “I may well have made the same decisions.” Because the reviewers were unanimously positive, [the editor] had little choice but to go ahead with publication, according to [the auditor]. He goes on: “My review of the editorial processing of the Regnerus … paper … revealed that there were no gross violations of editorial procedures— the papers were peer-reviewed, and the ‘peers’ for papers on this topic were similar to what you would expect at Social Science Research.”

That was the official report.[22] (Kindle Locations 2572–2580)

[22] See Darren Sherkat, 2012, “The Editorial Process and Politicized Scholarship: Monday Morning Editorial Quarterbacking and a Call for Scientific Vigilance,” Social Science Research, 41:1346–1349.

If you want to see the kind of person Sherkat is (he's the one who audited the peer-review process), feel free to peruse his Wonkette article, Let’s All Laugh At The Christianist ‘Sociologists’ With An Actual Sociologist Who Is Not Dumb!

No. But going back to the discussion at hand, the goal of education should be to learn to discern the truth and the nature of truth. Agree or disagree?

I agree. The problem, of course, is that we will disagree on the means and/or the ends—probably both. This doesn't mean that we cannot in any way get along, but it does open up the danger that one or both of us will try to undermine the other, perhaps by attempting to frame everything the other says not in his own framework, but transplanted into one's own framework.

But if it is phased precisely via mathematics and true, it is a subset of knowledge.

Ok...? I seem to have undermined the implication of:

IR: When your theories can be expressed precisely via mathematics, they make sense. This isn't even on the same level as the Trinity.

To clarify, my failure to explicate the Trinity "precisely via mathematics" does not preclude it from qualifying as possible knowledge.

It is in the catechism....

Yep, and you said in this very comment that "every inspired text has a myriad of interpretations". Surely the same goes for non-inspired texts, as well.

If you change the definition of faith to one that is hardly used, the objections against standard views of faith may evaporate.

What do you mean by "hardly used"? The definition of 'evolution' used by the vast majority of humans who use the term probably doesn't well-match what scientists specializing in it mean by the term. Most people will be sloppy, get things wrong, and generally not have a very good conception except in rough outlines. Texts such as The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual and Between Understanding and Trust: The Public, Science and Technology open up the question of how accurate the average layman's knowledge will ever get about science. However, all is not lost. These inaccuracies aren't necessarily harmful. One just has to be careful about whether one is criticizing quantum physics because of what Deepak Chopra is saying, or because of what John Preskill is saying.