Atheist's flawed logic.
Posted on: November 18, 2008 - 11:21pm
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Atheist's flawed logic.
Luckily we have freedom of choice and freedom of religion, and some of us choose God. There is no evidence that God is real, however we don't have evidence that you are real either, we just have to assume that you are real. I've never met you, it's quite possible that you could be a robot or artificial intelligence or several persons posting under the same username. Or you could be a figment of my imagination.
Since I don't have proof for your existence, would the "logical" position be that you do not exist?
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If you want people here to belive in your God, proving that God is a requirement.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Yes. However, you said that such a proof can only prove consistent statements. This is untrue. proofs do more than that. it proves that the statement is true insofar as premises that it is derived from are true. Any such conclusion is inescapably true and consistent.
I never said "this is simply deductive reasoning..etc" I said it was simple inductive reasoning.
Which is fine within inductive logic. New information is to be avoided within deductive logic. deductive logic preserves. inductive logic produces.
the argument follows the standard inductive formula
All of the ducks i have seen are feathered
I have seen a large and varied grouping of ducks
probably all ducks are feathered.
if the second premise is that I have seen all of the ducks, then the argument becomes deductive rather than inductive.
Some people believe that God exists without some sort of proof. Consequently, it seems that proving God is unnecessary for some people to believe that God exists. Furthermore, this thread is not intended to prove the existence of God and hence I will neither hijack it nor participate within the proofs for God's existence.
No, the point of this thread was (summarizing the OP):
1. I have no evidence that God exists.
2. I have no evidence that you (the posters on the forum) exist.
3. The posters on the forum exist.
Therefore God exists.
Then it degenearted into you and Bob agreeing in circles around each other until you created your own system of logic where internal inconsistencies are OK because you say so.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
What is your problem? You are agreeing with me when you find it necessary to add the extra condition "insofar as premises that it is derived from are true". IOW, by itself the logic cannot prove the result is true, since it cannot prove those premises are true, only that they are consistent.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
The problem with your particular argument is that the idea that you could somehow actually experience something which was not your own experience, which is problematic, to say the least. So the only conscious experience you could have would be your own, virtually by definition. So until you can show that the idea that you could experience something which is not your experience even makes sense, the observation that all the experiences you experience are your own in no way justifies the conclusion that there are probably no experineces that are not yours.
It's a bit like saying "everything I have seen has been visible to my eyes, I have seen a wide range of things, therefore everything probably is visible to my eyes".
You see, the ability of any argument, deductive or inductive, to arrive at a clear conclusion, is limited by the nature of the premises.
Deductive arguments only demonstrate truth if the premises are true. They also fail in different ways if a premise refers to the argument itself, as in "this argument is true", or is a statement like the classic "The barber shaves everyone who doesn't shave himself. Who shaves the barber?".
This is an extension of my point that it is not enough to have a valid logical argument, or a inductive argument which correctly applies the probabilities of its input statements to its conclusion, the inputs in each case must meet certain requirements in themselves.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
let me put it this way: logic can show consistent statements and also show statements that are necessitated from earlier ones. this is more than mere consistency. this is deduction. it is necessitation.
p if and only if q entails if p then q. It's not just a matter of consistency.
nonsense. the poster never gave that argument.
Yes, but I do not see how that's problematic for the argument. It basically ensures the truthfulness of the premise.
Well, since premise one, alone, is not meant to justify the conclusion, then I need not argue that it does justify the conclusion.
A wide and varied range of things. All you seem to be illustrating is the problem of inductive reasoning.
I see that you didn't read the OP too closely. As the posts provide proof of our existence he's extrapolating that to his God. He just doesn't mention it directly.
Meanwhile, are you agreeing that you've created your own system of logic where you can make internally inconsistent arguments and they OK becaus you like them?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Any premise that is inherently incoherent, poorly framed, etc renders any conclusion from the argument, whether inductive or deductive, similarly questionable.
Poorly formed premises are a problem for any argument, inductive or deductive, no matter how correctly the argument itself is structured.
EDIT: IOW, if any if the premises for any argument can be shown to be faulty, the conclusion is of questionable value, unless it can be shown that in a particular case, the problematic premise had little or no influence on the conclusion. This can readily be tested by trying several different assertions in place of the premise in question, and run thru the argument again.
My final point I keep trying to ram home here is that logic is necessary but not sufficient to generate an improved approximation the 'truth' about reality, outside of the domain of definitions and deductive systems like math, and logic itself.
So I don't care much how much someone throws the terms 'logical' and 'illogical' and derivatives around, if they do not squarely address the issue of evidence, data, etc, without which we would be as misguided as most of the ancient Greek philosophers who thought pure reason alone would lead to truth, which is bollocks.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Yes, but this direct, observable, testable, proveable sentance in response to your question is proof that I exist.
Pray to your God and see if he responds. I bet he won't. Or, is that evidence of his existence... and theist logic?
HAHAHAHAHA <<<<<That's me laughing at you.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
desertwolf9, This argument is old and ridiculous. Here's why:
You are pre-supposing in your argument that the proof for god is just as concrete as a post on a forum. This is riduculous. Why? Because we have evidence for how forums are made, how they operate, and really have no reason to believe that each post is not made by a different person. Unless they are suspicious in some way possibly. Not to mention, this post as evidence for me is tangible and universal. You can show it to your friends, or even your enemies, and they could not deny that there is indeed a post here that seems to be from a human by the alias 'Vermilion'. However, when you pray to god, there is not universal evidence. There is only disputable evidence all with much better explanations. When 'miracles' happen, there are always more feasible explanations than "god". Start praying for an amputee to grow a limb back, and just see how much evidence you can produce for a 'god' answering that prayer. Sure, 'God' supposedly doesn't answer all prayers, but a million people prayed for a million different amputees to grow their limb back, would you ever expect one to grow back? Of course not, because there is no real proof for god. Period.
Please consider as Sam Harris says... Why we have phrases like 'wishful thinking' or delusion. Self-deception is called self-deception because the person being decieved doesn't realize they are the ones doing the decieving! The bottom line is that if you claim to have evidence for something, it better be universal to both friend and foe, otherwise there is no reason to call you crazy.
I wonder... What if a Muslim made the same argument for Allah? Or if I made the same argument for a teapot orbiting jupiter? If I have my own self evidence that you can never sense yourself, then it's bullshit evidence, end of story.
Yes.
Who would want to finish what they have said with the same thing everytime?
See, this argument is fine as an inductive argument. I have no problem with it. Your argument, however, is like saying:
All of the ducks I have seen are feathered
I have seen a large and varied grouping of ducks
I'm probably the only person who can see the ducks.
That introduces new information. If you followed the standard formula, you'd get what I outlined above:
All things I have experienced are mine
I have experienced a large and varied group of experiences
Probably all of my experiences will be mine.
At least the above conclusion is connected to the previous statements. Your conclusion, however, does not follow at all.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence