As long as the fight is remains with the "non-existent" God, I predict it will take a lot to bend those knees. We just happened to be in the line of fire between him and God is all I really see.

Orph,

quote:

---

Steve..did you raed this article?

---

I did read it.. I was one of the responses.

I tried hard to find something substantial to respond to, I really did, but the arguments presented in response to mine are one of four kinds: (a) You’re wrong because everyone says so, (b) You’re wrong because the bible says so (c) You’re wrong because you’re an atheist, and atheism is wrong (c) You’re wrong because you have faith in the wrong thing.

I am going to try to pick the two best arguments offered to me and respond to those. But first, there are three logical fallacies that have to be made understood:

Argumentum ad verecundiam, or appeal to authority: No matter how many people say that X is true, no matter what the credentials of Mr X or Book X are, that does not make your argument true. Neither public opinion, nor words in a book, not even “common sense” determines reality. To show that your argument is true, you must show that your premises are true and your argument is sound.

Appeal to emotion: Claiming that X is true because it feels right, or because you “just know” that it’s right is not a valid argument.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam, or argument from ignorance: “Arguments of this form assume that since something has not been proven false, it is therefore true. Conversely, such an argument may assume that since something has not been proven true, it is therefore false.” Examples: “Since you cannot prove that ghosts do not exist, they must exist.” “There is a pink elephant in my room.” Let’s develop this last one a bit:
“But I don’t see any pink elephant!”
“It’s invisible.”
“But elephants are not invisible!”
“This is a special elephant made in a lab.”
“But we don’t know how to make matter invisible.”
“This is a brand new technology developed in a top-secret lab.”
“But living matter can’t just be made invisible like that.”
“It can’t? Prove it.”
“OK, there is no particle with property X, etc, etc”
“This is a new particle….”
And so on and so on. You can see why you can never disprove an arbitrary assertion and must simply dismiss it.

False Analogy: Ex: “Either the universe was created by God, or everything must happen by random chance, and life is not possible. Since life exists, the universe was created by God.” There is no reason to think that just because X is false, alternative Y is the only one possible. A proof must be given to validate this claim.

Before I go on to the arguments, let me remind you why the burden of proof must be on the theist. As the fallacy of the argument from ignorance shows, it is possible to make any number of arbitrary claims about pink elephants, gods, ghosts, etc. It’s impossible and unnecessary to disprove arbitrary claims because their proponent can continue to invent more arbitrary “proofs” backed up by yet more arbitrary “proofs” ad infinitum. In order to prove the existence of a thing, you must present positive evidence for it.

OK, now to move on to the two arguments I picked out from this mess:

Creationism: “God must exist because life exists. If there was no God, the universe would be in chaos.”
This one falls under both the fallacy of the Arbitrary and the False Alternative.
It’s arbitrary because you, the theist, have no basis whatsoever to claim what would or would not exist in the absence of God. Which physical laws do you claim would be the same or different? All of them or none of them? How so? On what basis? What “accidental” occurrences would or would not happen? What proof do you have to claim this? Why must the universe be chaotic without intelligent design? Doesn’t chaos have it’s own order (ever heard of chaos theory?)
It’s impossible for me to show that “without God” physical law X or Y would be the same or different because your claim that physical law X or Y was made by God is completely arbitrary. I might as well claim that human life exists because aliens from Zorgon created it. I can’t prove it – but can you disprove it?

It’s a false alternative because it assume that the only alternative to Creationism is “chaos” of some sort. Because this claim is arbitrary, there is no evidence to this that these are the only two options. “Chaos” is always presented as a floating abstraction – you cannot give any of it’s properties or define its nature because it’s only defining characteristics is that there’s no intelligence behind it. It’s nothing more than result of a primitive human tendency to anthropomorphize everything, from volcanoes, to rain, to the entire universe.

What is a more logical alternative to “chaos”? That things act according to their nature. A ball rolls, a cube does not. Why? Not because of some arbitrary declaration by an all-powerful being, but because to be a ball means to have the property of rolling. To exist, is to exist as something – with a certain delimited nature. In other words, everything that exists in the universe has a certain nature – not a nature that is a assignment to an object (as theists claims) but a nature that defines the object. Existence is identity -- a ball is a ball because it is round and it rolls. If it wasn’t round and didn’t roll, then it wouldn’t be a ball, but something else – but it would not be some chaotic, undefined non-thing waiting for God to name it. Just try to imagine such an object. It’s impossible because there’s nothing to define it’s identity – and without identity, there is no existence.

Burden of Proof: This is the argument that I the atheist must disprove God, since I am making the positive claim that he does not exist.

I think I’ve already covered this one. To reiterate, there are two arguments I present: first and primary, I don’t have to disprove God, I simply have to show that he is arbitrary, just like ghost, and pink elephants. If something is arbitrary, it cannot exist. Second, we can know that no God is possible because a god by definition is a being with a consciousness, yet without a physical nature. This argument is more complex, and may be too abstract for this forum. To quote Ayn Rand:

quote:

---

Existence exists--and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.
If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as a consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.

---

The Bible is contradictory: I dropped this argument, because there’s just too much room to evade, and claim that the bible doesn’t mean what it says it means. I have no interest in debating the bible because the degree of internal consistency per se has no bearing on reality. I can invent any number of completely arbitrary theories that are consistent within themselves but have absolutely not bearing on reality. No amount of evidence can disprove something detached from reality, and even internal contradictions can be explained away with yet more arbitrary claims This is what I call “rationalism” and to have any sort of productive argument, I insist that we stay as close to reality as possible.

[This message has been edited by MrAggie2003 (edited 8/21/2003 3:54a).]

quote:

---

If something is arbitrary, it cannot exist.

---

I knew you were just a gimmick.

Good Heavens 2003...can't you do any better than that?

david

Welcome back.

That's the first time anyone on here has accused me of being a creationist.

On with a little more serious answer/question. Let's take a slightly different turn here in the problem of "creation"/existence. My question is based on some of the things you have said concerning other possible intelligent life in the universe. Out of all these billions of galaxies with their hundreds of millions or more of stars in each, do you think we are the only intelligent life?

Mr. Aggie,
What would you say to the idea that since you started by saying that you have Three Proofs of the non-existence of God that the burden of proof in this context is in fact on you? Or is one of your proofs of non-existence the idea that the burden of proof is on the theists? As an attorney, I was told to never open by saying, "I will prove.... I will show" unless I really could "prove" or "show." It seems a very odd thing to now retreat behind the burden of proof after you have in fact made a positive assertion and claimed that you have proof.

You state that you have responded to all arguments which you do not find to be fallacious, however, on the surface, it appears that you have only responded to those that you thought you could have some success against. Secondarily, as the person making a defending an assertion, which, in this context, you are, it is your duty to point out the fallacies in the counterarguments. I would specifically ask that you reply to the Librarian's arguments, which you have failed to deal with at all.

oblchorn

You captured my thoughts exactly! Particularly here:

quote:

---

What would you say to the idea that since you started by saying that you have Three Proofs of the non-existence of God that the burden of proof in this context is in fact on you?

---

quote:

---

It seems a very odd thing to now retreat behind the burden of proof after you have in fact made a positive assertion and claimed that you have proof.

---

Especially this:

quote:

---

You state that you have responded to all arguments which you do not find to be fallacious, however, on the surface, it appears that you have only responded to those that you thought you could have some success against.

---

quote:

---

Secondarily, as the person making a defending an assertion, which, in this context, you are, it is your duty to point out the fallacies in the counterarguments.

---

quote:

---

I would specifically ask that you reply to the Librarian's arguments, which you have failed to deal with at all.

---

Exactly. As well as Physics's. There was even numbered rebuttals.


That said, on Mr.Aggie's behalf, after dealing with these, he may be asking for a `suspension of assumption' akin to the "suspension of disbelief" granted in movies. On the other thread Mr.Aggie said this:

quote:

---

What is the source of all true knowledge? Inductive conclusions that come directly from perceiving reality.

---

He may be asking to philosophically discuss taking that temporarily for granted. This is acceptable if stated -- I for one assume the primacy of existence vs the Schroedinger's cat take, for example.

quote:

---

Intrincisism: A claim about some aspect of reality put forth a priori, independent of any evidence.
(There two kinds: ethical and metaphysical. This is my own definition for the metaphysical.)

Faith: “Faith” designates blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence of proof. (Leonard Peikoff)

What Objectivism takes on faith: Nothing. “No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum of his knowledge.” (Ayn Rand)

---

By that definition, I don't accept the existence of God on faith either. At least as I experience it, faith is nothing like blind acceptance, at least not of the kind Peikoff describes. Rather, it is certainty in a belief that is otherwise plausibly, although not definitively, true. Personally, although you belittle the causation argument, I find it persuasive, since I have never experience, nor has mathematics ever demonstrated, an identifiable point that can be constructed by an infinite series of finite steps. Or to put a finer point on it (groan), the fact that there is a perceivable "now," and the fact that there was a previous second, and a second before that, and so on, means that the universe cannot have existed into the infinite past. Realistically, only an entity that is eternal/timeless makes any sense as a cause for such a construct. William Lane Craig does a good job of sketching out the relative plausibility of the arguments here: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/mackie.html, and goes into detail about the reasonable attributes of an eternal being here: http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/timelessness-personhood.html

Now, you can discard causation entirely, and assert that the universe is nothing more than a pretty 4-dimensional construct, and the connection of moment to moment is arbitrary. In other words, it's only a pretty coincidence of the folds of spacetime that the now of the universe exists, and any minute now, it could cheerfully be annihilated. We can act, irrationally, as if that's not the case, but deep down, we all know that it is.

That's a possibility, but not an aesthetic one. Moreover, one wonders what purpose it would give to man at all. Ascribing some significance to consciousness, and to the need to seek meaning, and to our inherent sense of cause and effect, it seems contrary to human nature to accept such a conclusion, or at least, antithetical to the concept of man as having any significance at all.

My theory (theism) is explanatory of both concerns, and would be plausible independent of faith. Faith fills in some details and provides certainty, but realistically, the plausibility of the theory may be established entirely apart from faith, which is why it is not a fideistic argument.

The difficulty of Rand is that she appropriates Aristotle, but doesn't follow it to its logical conclusion, and moreover, she is subject to the numerous rebuttals of his philosophy. In effect, she asserts that the purpose of reason is to discover the truth of reality, and assumes that it will be accurate for this purpose, but she herself does not propose any reason for this accuracy. To use the "end cause" rationale for reason is to assert that things require an "end cause" in the first place, something that Aquinas would use exactly to argue that theism explains reason and all sorts of other human characteristics (the quest for meaning, etc.). In fact, based on the observation of people being able to function perfectly well and survive in spite of erroneous conceptions, you would actually be inclined more to doubt your own reason based on naturalistic arguments, a failing which Plantinga observes here: http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/files/alspaper.htm. Moreover, the falsity of her premise for rational discussion is evident, since if she is asserting that no one without her preconceptions can have a rational discussion, then obviously, she doesn't mean by rational what the vast majority of humanity menas by rational. In conclusion, she accept a belief that is supposedly not a priori (that reason has an end of obtaining truth from reality) that is also contradictory to common experience (people make mistakes all the time). Without a reason for such naive idealism, we can discard her epistemology as the fideism it is, an irrational belief in the ability of reason to perceive truth.

Now the point of all of this is that I have made an argument without resorting to even one of the fallacies that you assert. In addition, you are holding the theist to a higher standard of proof than you hold yourself. To the extent that the theistic hypothesis corresponds to the observed behavior and inherent characteristics of human beings, and furthermore, that it provides a logically coherent explanation, it bears both the consistency and resemblance to reality required of a reasonable theory. God is singular, to be sure, but singular in a way that would be expected given the problem to be solved.

[This message has been edited by Physics96 (edited 8/21/2003 1:35p).]

Aggie2003


I don’t have time right now, but I guess that you were saying that my arguments were that you had faith in the wrong things…. I can’t really see where we got to that… You would make a statement, and I would ask you on what basis you made the statement, what you appealed to justify what things you stated that were simply assumptions. You continued to try and justify that they were not assumptions but based on facts about reality, at which point since many people disagreed with you about what facts were I would ask you how you knew they were facts since they were simply appeals to the ultimate nature of reality , and how things could be known and therefore the were not provable through empiricism. You then went into a big deal about how it was just the best way to know things, to which I asked what your basis for that was, to which you never responded. Leaving the only basis for your assumption that it was blind faith in yourself and that what you assumed was true. This faith in yourself what something that you chose to never justify, because you are smart enough to know that you have no justification for it, and that it is indeed a blind faith in self, But you don’t have the honesty to admit that, so you simply stopped responding.

That being said everything else you come up with is built upon this baseless claim of blind faith in yourself. So the way I see it, your legs are really cut out from under all of your arguments before you ever start the race, because a baseless claim supports and under girds your entire worldview. Therefore if someone is stupid enough to believe anything you come up with, I can not help them, but as far as I am concerned you have lost the debate, and are ignoring that by refocusing on other things. If you want to act cocky or ignore things so that you can feel better about your view, go ahead, but know this, you have already been soundly defeated and you are simply ignoring it.

quote:

---

Argumentum ad ignorantiam, or argument from ignorance: “Arguments of this form assume that since something has not been proven false, it is therefore true. Conversely, such an argument may assume that since something has not been proven true, it is therefore false.” Examples: “Since you cannot prove that ghosts do not exist, they must exist.” “There is a pink elephant in my room.” Let’s develop this last one a bit:
“But I don’t see any pink elephant!”
“It’s invisible.”
“But elephants are not invisible!”
“This is a special elephant made in a lab.”
“But we don’t know how to make matter invisible.”
“This is a brand new technology developed in a top-secret lab.”
“But living matter can’t just be made invisible like that.”
“It can’t? Prove it.”
“OK, there is no particle with property X, etc, etc”
“This is a new particle….”
And so on and so on. You can see why you can never disprove an arbitrary assertion and must simply dismiss it.

---

First, my response still holds because you never address reasons for Christian belief (not even Christian evidentialism or Christian presuppositionalism). You never showed it to be arbitrary belief, nor did you undermine legitimate reasons for belief. Secondly, my earlier response holds because I did not attempt to prove the existence of God in that manner.

quote:

---

Before I go on to the arguments, let me remind you why the burden of proof must be on the theist. As the fallacy of the argument from ignorance shows, it is possible to make any number of arbitrary claims about pink elephants, gods, ghosts, etc. It’s impossible and unnecessary to disprove arbitrary claims because their proponent can continue to invent more arbitrary “proofs” backed up by yet more arbitrary “proofs” ad infinitum. In order to prove the existence of a thing, you must present positive evidence for it.

---

I argued that atheism requires the same burden of proof as the theist because it holds to the same sorts of assumptions arbitrarily. In effect, I've already turned your accusation against you because 1.) atheism is not a neutral position, and 2.) you have been trying to "prove" that God does not exist. The topic does not seek to prove God's existence. You still have the burden because you seek to prove.

quote:

---

To reiterate, there are two arguments I present: first and primary, I don’t have to disprove God, I simply have to show that he is arbitrary, just like ghost, and pink elephants. If something is arbitrary, it cannot exist. Second, we can know that no God is possible because a god by definition is a being with a consciousness, yet without a physical nature. This argument is more complex, and may be too abstract for this forum.

---

First, your intent alone undermines this statement. Second, proving that our reasons for believing something lie in arbitrarity does not prove that the thing does not exist. It only proves that we cannot know that it exists. There's a very large difference between being epistemology and metaphysics. Third, to do so, you will have to engage the theist on their ground. You simply have not shown that theistic belief bases itself upon arbitrary reasoning. Fourth, you would also need to posit that atheism was not arbitrary.

You still have your work cut out for you.

"Don't you know the Dewey Decimal System?!?!" ~ Conan (the Librarian)

ttt