(December 13, 2015 at 11:50 am)athrock Wrote: Consequently, skeptics ignore these arguments at THEIR peril.

You've already been shown how long these arguments and their refutations have existed. I understand this is new to you and you seem enamored and convinced, but there's nothing to be seen here that most of us haven't already considered. Peril? You have grossly exaggerated the efficacy of your claims. There's nothing perilous in these arguments to an atheist's position. You would do yourself a tremendous service if you finished reading about these arguments at the link I provided.

Of course there are some people who were not believers in God (which is all that atheism means) who later converted to religion. Why this is a surprise to anyone, I'm not sure; I'm even less sure of what your point is, here. Nonbelief is not some magic bullet that repels faith. However, we have a hard time accepting the claims of religious apologists who claim they are "former atheists" because it simply works too well as a way to sell their books, since credulous believers just soak up that kind of backstory. With very, very few exceptions, when you dig into the "I used to be an atheist and now I believe" stories (like my aforementioned C. S. Lewis example), what you find is people raised in faith-traditions who revert to that tradition after a rebellious ("mad at god") or apathetic ("couldn't have cared less about religion") period, as opposed to those of us here who have actually done our research and found that the claims made by Christianity are vapid or false.

While "more likely than not" is certainly a valid part of an argument, I have never, repeat never, seen an argument made that strikes me as more likely than not, when it comes to apologetics. Most of the arguments are "just-so" arguments, requiring major leaps from logic to supposition in order to support them, or else flat-out contradicting things we actually know, and asking the audience to reject the Scientific Method in favor of some form of woo-woo thinking.

And none of this changes the basic premise: arguments themselves are not facts. They will never be facts. They cannot be used in place of facts. They cannot be claims at all unless they encompass every fact that may bear on the question, rather than employing observer bias to shade some of the facts into a favored argument, as every apologist's argument I have ever seen has done. If the arguer's goal is to fool people, to make them draw unfounded conclusions, then yes, I suppose they have done their intended job. But that does not change the issue described above. Arguments. Are. Not. Facts!

(December 13, 2015 at 10:03 am)Mr.wizard Wrote:

(December 13, 2015 at 9:25 am)SteveII Wrote: So, your defeater for premise 1 is that we don't know (and logically can't know) what life on other planets will tell us. And you think that is more plausible than this argument? arguments are supposed to find the most plausible answer with the data we have. That is what this does. You are biased because of your scientism.

The best answer when you don't know, is "I don't know", making one up is irrational. If you don't know what life on other planets will tell us it impossible to say what is most plausible. Your just plugging god into places we don't have answers (God of the Gaps). Also arguments are not used for finding the most plausible answers, that's called research. Arguments are used to persuade or convince someone about a specific claim or point of view.

No, that is not the best answer to the question. Your scientism is getting in the way. All that science can tell you is that we don't know (and it may be impossible to ever know). It cannot make conclusions as to what it means if X or Y. Luckily philosophy can help us make sense of the world. You are also wrong about the purpose of logical arguments. They help us make sense of facts and other inputs and ensure our conclusions are sound.

(December 13, 2015 at 1:59 pm)SteveII Wrote: Your scientism is getting in the way. 

(December 13, 2015 at 2:04 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(December 13, 2015 at 1:59 pm)SteveII Wrote: Your scientism is getting in the way. 

Yeah, that's tantamount to saying "you're letting the evidence of your senses" get in your way.

(December 13, 2015 at 1:59 pm)SteveII Wrote: [...]Luckily philosophy can help us make sense of the world. You are also wrong about the purpose of logical arguments. They help us make sense of facts and other inputs and ensure our conclusions are sound.

Well, then - you must be doing it wrong, because your conclusions are moronic...

(December 13, 2015 at 1:35 pm)Cato Wrote:

(December 13, 2015 at 11:50 am)athrock Wrote: Consequently, skeptics ignore these arguments at THEIR peril.

You've already been shown how long these arguments and their refutations have existed. I understand this is new to you and you seem enamored and convinced, but there's nothing to be seen here that most of us haven't already considered. Peril? You have grossly exaggerated the efficacy of your claims. There's nothing perilous in these arguments to an atheist's position. You would do yourself a tremendous service if you finished reading about these arguments at the link I provided.

My position is to be unimpressed with the cogency of the case made thus far for the existence of gods.  Should the missing evidence appear, my position wouldn't be 'imperiled', it would merely become informed by that evidence.  But arguments of a general/logical nature based on the meaning of words will never add up to anything approaching evidence.  So nothing new, nothing imperiled.  Got any other tricks?

Quote:Luckily philosophy can help us make sense of the world.

What rock did they drag this clown out from under?

(December 13, 2015 at 10:29 am)athrock Wrote:

(December 12, 2015 at 9:40 pm)Evie Wrote: No they're not dimwit.

If you think you can provide a sound premise by logical argumentation alone then you are clearly falling into circular reasoning - or question begging - which is fallacious by the way.....................

...........but if you don't know that that may explain why you're Christian. "The Bible is true because God wrote it, and we can trust God because he wrote the Bible."

In which post did I say that I am a Christian? Or have you assumed this simply because (like Aractus) I take issue with stupid arguments even when they are made by atheists?

Okay so you're not Christian.

But you still dodged my main point. Unsurprisingly.

As I said, argument is not evidence. Sigh.