Fallacy of irrelevant thesis
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi

Example...
Beleiver: How can you explain the impossible odds required for our universe to not only begin to exist, but sustain itself?
Skeptic: Well if it was impossible than we wouldn't be here talking about this right now.

AKA: Missing the point

(October 23, 2016 at 1:58 pm)Soldat Du Christ Wrote: Example...
Beleiver:  How can you explain the impossible odds required for our universe to not only begin to exist, but sustain itself?

This would be the argument from improbability, where probabilities for events are stacked one upon the next until it provides a 'statistical probability' that is so large that the specific event would seem impossible. Lawrence Krauss once explained --in a letter to the Wall Street Journal-- that a case could be made that it would be impossible for anyone to ever write a letter to the WSJ by calculating the odds in a similar fashion. The farther back we go and more detailed we become (what are the odds that his great-great-grandfather would meet his great-great-grandmother, etc) the more astronomically huge the odds become.

So the fact that we are here does indicate that we beat the odds, either because they weren't long to begin with, or because there was enough of something (time, circumstances, variables, etc) to mitigate the unlikelihood. After all, what are the odds that there's a supernatural dimension inhabited by a single being of near-infinite power who is timeless and eternal and decided --at some point in the eternal timeline-- to create a massive universe around a tiny speck of a planet and seed it with life which failed his simple test of obedience and forced him to reduce himself to their level in order to save them? Could that be the irrelevant thesis?

What are the chances of the universe coming into existence?
100% coz its here.
That wasn't so hard was it.

And remember -- those odds are often computed serially when it comes to EbNS, when in fact they should be computed in parallel. Getting a particular number while rolling one die is one-in-six odds; but you'll improve your chances by adding dice to the toss.

I didn't read back through the last 10 pages so forgive me if this was already addressed.

What would you call the fallacy that would occur from someone who, if they got a skeptic to admit that the deistic god concept had validity, and then immediately proceeded to say that it necessarily meant that all of the other theistic characteristics they want to tack on to it were also valid (or true) without any lead-up to them in the previous conversation?

I'd call that conflation.

It's treating two concepts as if they are the same, and transferring properties between them. In this case, the property that has been "established" for the deistic God is that it exists. They are then treating their specific God as the same thing, so it also exists.

It's also called "bait and switch" for this kind of example, where you swap out one thing for another and hope no one notices.

That sounds like a non sequitur to me ... an unsupported leap.

Agreed, it is that too

(January 4, 2017 at 12:49 am)robvalue Wrote: Agreed, it is that too

Yeah. I mean, the bait and switch works if you swap the simplistic concept out for the more complex theistic flavor of the month, but I thought about it more like where, okay, we've got our foot in the door, now we're going to shove all this junk mail through before you can shut it. That way the originally (conditionally or provisionally) accepted premise remains rather than being swapped out, although maybe it just sounds different in my head than how you guys presented it. I would think that would have a different kind of name, maybe one I've heard before, but can't seem to recall what precisely it would be, or maybe it is just what you've already mentioned.

There is a name for this kind of technique, where you bombard someone with so much crap that they can't respond to it all and end up overwhelmed: "Gish gallop". The person's confusion and inability to address it all is taken as victory.

It's often employed by scummy money making apologists like Ray Comfort.