wooooooow, that is such a fresh take on it, this is so new.
I wonder. What do you suppose is the most commonly used fallacy as proof of God?
No respect until you introduce yourself. After that, you have to earn respect the hard way.
Quote from: SGOS on December 06, 2017, 08:02:39 PM
I wonder. What do you suppose is the most commonly used fallacy as proof of God?
I'd guess its the one of 'since you weren't there at the start of the big bang, how can you prove god wasn't there to make it happen' one.
Quote from: Munch on December 06, 2017, 08:47:33 PM
I'd guess its the one of 'since you weren't there at the start of the big bang, how can you prove god wasn't there to make it happen' one.
What would that be? Perhaps the argument from ignorance: "You don't know, so it must be from God" ??
Quote from: SGOS on December 06, 2017, 09:11:52 PM
What would that be? Perhaps the argument from ignorance: "You don't know, so it must be from God" ??
sounds about right. Which is also why the majority of scientists are atheist or agnostic, being the pursuit of science is to grow upon what it already knows.
Argument from ignorance, just because I wasn't there to witness something, doesn't mean that something did or didn't happen.
Welcome to our Muslim poster. A rare honor indeed.
Don't scare him away, we need to learn the TRUTH.
Bring on the dawah! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawah)
Quote from: SGOS on December 06, 2017, 08:02:39 PM
I wonder. What do you suppose is the most commonly used fallacy as proof of God?
Probably "You can't prove it wasn't, so it was!"
Quote from: Sal1981 on December 07, 2017, 10:22:28 AM
Argument from ignorance, just because I wasn't there to witness something, doesn't mean that something did or didn't happen.
I was trying to take Munch's example and identify the fallacy bag it comes from. This example, like most theist reasoning, includes little twists and turns with bits of various fallacies that work in chorus that cause the argument to fail. You are exactly right, however. Just because a bit of reasoning doesn't fit well into a common fallacy, doesn't mean it passes logical scrutiny.
Quote from: trdsf on December 07, 2017, 10:43:06 AM
Probably "You can't prove it wasn't, so it was!"
That's the argument from ignorance, isn't it, or am I missing something?
There's a plethora of arguments from ignorance. This one is basically about not witnessing something, therefore true/false.
Just another drive-by-troll. Typical, nothing special.
Quote from: SGOS on December 07, 2017, 10:47:31 AM
That's the argument from ignorance, isn't it, or am I missing something?
And shifting the burden of proof.
Quote from: trdsf on December 07, 2017, 12:15:39 PM
And shifting the burden of proof.
Yeah, that's what I meant about theist logic taking bits of fallacies and mixing them together.
Remember Randy? This was a foundation of much of his arguing. He even copied and pasted some nonsense about one bit of evidence (one fallacy) may not be proof of God, but several bits of evidence (many fallacies combined) may very well prove his existence. In his defense, the stuff in parenthesis were not part of his quote. None-the-less, each bit of evidence he presented contained a fallacy, and sometimes even a truth, but none proved existence.
Quote from: SGOS on December 07, 2017, 12:43:43 PM
Yeah, that's what I meant about theist logic taking bits of fallacies and mixing them together.
Remember Randy? This was a foundation of much of his arguing. He even copied and pasted some nonsense about one bit of evidence (one fallacy) may not be proof of God, but several bits of evidence (many fallacies combined) may very well prove his existence. In his defense, the stuff in parenthesis were not part of his quote. None-the-less, each bit of evidence he presented contained a fallacy, and sometimes even a truth, but none proved existence.
Yeah, you have to waste a lot of time untangling the thicket of logical errors before you can even get to the meat of the argument, much of the time. And there's a fair amount of overlap -- a statement will often combine elements of arguments from ignorance
and incredulity
and a straw man.
I don't recall Randy particularly -- I have enough trouble remembering useful things anymore, much less pointless ones. ;)
So he reckons his god is the big bang? Either that or it's a total hash of the ontological argument.
I wasn't even going to watch the video, but saw that it was pretty short, so I did. I can't say I got much out of it, just a brief rehashing of the Kalam cosmological argument, which is a good argument for those who know very little, but for those of us who have a bit more learning, it isn't convincing - certainly nowhere near "proof."
This "cause" that was supposed to have begun the universe is completely undefined, and there's no reason to think it was God that was the cause. According to QM causality is an emergent quality in the universe, on submicroscopic scales there is no causality.
I think the most common god "argument" I've seen is probably that, since I can't prove there is no God, then the believer is justified in their belief, or something to that effect.
Quote from: trdsf on December 07, 2017, 01:38:51 PM
I don't recall Randy particularly -- I have enough trouble remembering useful things anymore, much less pointless ones. ;)
I won't forget him, because he used to start with some reasonable sounding bait, and draw me in. The bait was usually something like a directive to contemplate the possibility of something, which would later be referred back to as having been established as fact. He would continue on with ,"therefore, if follows that...". Then I would find myself supposedly in logical agreement with him and have to read backwards to find something I had only theoretically agreed to consider for the moment. He did that enough times that he drove me a little nuts.
Theists often hide their reasoning in long pages of text, making it difficult to sort through and pinpoint the errors where the argument fails. Often times they start with areas of agreement followed by blather where the reader will lose track, and then the presentation will end with a flourish of unwarranted conclusions induced by a mountain of grammatically correct sleep inducing drowse. Randy had mastered the technique. At most, he would capture my attention, but his arguments always failed in the end, because as you observed, they were things that were pointless.
It may have been Randy who would say "I believe" thus and such, "and that proves" thus and such else - as if his belief could prove anything at all.
I'll give him credit though - he was consistent. But we know what Baruch thinks about consistency...
Quote from: SGOS on December 07, 2017, 02:24:50 PM
I won't forget him, because he used to start with some reasonable sounding bait, and draw me in. The bait was usually something like a directive to contemplate the possibility of something, which would later be referred back to as having been established as fact. He would continue on with ,"therefore, if follows that...". Then I would find myself supposedly in logical agreement with him and have to read backwards to find something I had only theoretically agreed to consider for the moment. He did that enough times that he drove me a little nuts.
Oh, I think I remember him, yeah. Fond of that kind of bait and switch, mistaking premises for conclusions.
Quote from: SGOS on December 07, 2017, 02:24:50 PM
Theists often hide their reasoning in long pages of text, making it difficult to sort through and pinpoint the errors where the argument fails. Often times they start with areas of agreement followed by blather where the reader will lose track, and then the presentation will end with a flourish of unwarranted conclusions induced by a mountain of grammatically correct sleep inducing drowse. Randy had mastered the technique. At most, he would capture my attention, but his arguments always failed in the end, because as you observed, they were things that were pointless.
Colloquially, the "if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit" gambit. :)
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 07, 2017, 02:38:45 PM
It may have been Randy who would say "I believe" thus and such, "and that proves" thus and such else - as if his belief could prove anything at all.
I'll give him credit though - he was consistent. But we know what Baruch thinks about consistency...
With humans ... consistently wrong ;-)
"on submicroscopic scales there is no causality" ... Buddhism of Physics ... not Tao of Physics ;-) Nobody exists, not even the Buddha.
The weak arguments from religious newbies never interests me, but I suspect the most common argument FOR religion is "I believe, so THERE, PFFFT").
Followed by "I don't wanna go to Hell".
Quote from: Baruch on December 07, 2017, 11:58:01 PM
With humans ... consistently wrong ;-)
"on submicroscopic scales there is no causality" ... Buddhism of Physics ... not Tao of Physics ;-) Nobody exists, not even the Buddha.
The universe is pure number, nothing else - at least according to Max Tegmark, and I think that's pretty close to the truth.
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 14, 2017, 05:52:52 PM
The universe is pure number, nothing else - at least according to Max Tegmark, and I think that's pretty close to the truth.
Pythagoras believed in reincarnation. He was a pain in the ass and his opponents killed him (or exiled him, your folk story choice). He was messing with politics in Samos and in Croton ... with his New Age Freemasonry and opposition to beans. If Max Tegmark is like him, it may be necessary to at least exile him. Generally speaking, in my work, the bean counters are the enemy ;-)
Quote from: Unbeliever on December 14, 2017, 05:52:52 PM
The universe is pure number, nothing else - at least according to Max Tegmark, and I think that's pretty close to the truth.
To the extent that the universe is particles and quanta, you may be right. I think life is all chemistry, and perhaps chemistry is trying to figure out the particles and quanta that construct us.
(https://new4.fjcdn.com/pictures/Seal_f57c93_1121936.jpg)
Quote from: Hijiri Byakuren on December 16, 2017, 10:17:28 PM
(https://new4.fjcdn.com/pictures/Seal_f57c93_1121936.jpg)
One should keep in mind that seals are not the smartest mammals. Not the dumbest, but not the smartest either.