(August 1, 2024 at 8:09 pm)Foxaèr Wrote: Public opinion, so-called witness opinion, is subjective.

Can something which is subjective be evidence?

Rarely.

(August 1, 2024 at 9:40 pm)Foxaèr Wrote: Rarely.

So you're only in the small town for one night, and you want to eat at the best restaurant.

Is it rational to conclude that the subjective opinion of the 99% is good evidence that the restaurant is in fact the best one?

Or is it rational to conclude that another restaurant, picked at random, has an equally good chance of being the best one? 

If you think that the opinion of the 99% is more likely to be correct, then their subjective opinion counts as evidence, which it is rational to listen to.

It's rational to understand that just because most people enjoy the food of a particular establishment does not mean I will also enjoy the food or that it is the best restaurant in town.

(August 1, 2024 at 10:13 pm)Foxaèr Wrote: It's rational to understand that just because most people enjoy the food of a particular establishment does not mean I will also enjoy the food or that it is the best restaurant in town.

OK, so for you, the fact that 99 out of 100 people name one restaurant as best does not increase the credibility of the statement "That restaurant is best."

I know, some would disagree and still insist empirical seen with eyes, evidence for God. While many things are not necessarily must be seen, like love, mind, mathematical numbers, etc. Some would hold “ideology” point of view to judge something. Whether they are atheists, or even theists. But I take a hat off to someone who just open mind and can accept the two type of realities we live in. That we have physical seen thing and also non physical seen thing.


The existence of God was proved by rational evidence. That there must be prime cause, prime mover of all existences that have beginning. Many atheists and theists would agree that there must be fundamental stuff of universe we live in, regarding it still unknown/unseen.

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But many atheists would be materialist in this case:
The fundamental stuff would be just matter, that has no intelligence, not alive, no plan, no controlling power.

And theists of course say that fundamental matter is has intelligence, alive, has plan, has controlling power. The reason is simple, because the impact of this fundamental stuff are like we see, matter that turning to many forms, the regularity as seen in the law of the nature, and the living creatures that emerged.

If we assess the materialist way of view and put it on a test in reality, we know that single matter itself can not come or turn into another material forms. For example, suppose that fundamental matter is water. If we just put water in experimental lab, in a vaccuum circumstances, without anything added. We just know that nothing happen with those water.
But when we arranged the condition, like maybe raising the temperature, the water become evaporated. Or lower the temperature, then the water would be turn to ice form.

Look here, when human interfene, the water can turn into another form, by raising or lowing the temperature. Now the raising or decreasing the temperature is absolute needs for water to become another form. So, it turned out that it must be setted the condition in first history of universe, to make some matter form into another materials.

Besides, none any type of matter can come in existence without prior other matter or event or condition that influence it. So, it would not and could not be matter, as fundamental stuff that generating all of universe that happen.

But if we look back at our examples about water experiment, it turn out that intelligent entity being (human) could made the situation to manipulate such matter to become other form. That is why theist proposed that fundamental stuff must be living and intelligent entity. Because only those qualities, could manipulate matters in our universe reality.

Look that theist can still based their belief/proposition through the empirical case in the universe. This one I called rational evidence of God based on empirical cases.

If I continue, many empirical cases that point only the intelligent designer could made it. These include the facts of DNA-RNA, detailed prophecies in religions scriptures, correct facts in Quran that inline with science, correct historical facts in Quran, and maybe many more. All of those contains of information, designing information, that can only be done by living intelligent being.

Many atheists of course demand the seen God, so they would believe it. While in rationality, this intelligent living entity of course can not be seen. He know past, present, and future. Meaning that he doesn’t bound by time dimension. It means he is not in our 3 dimension universe. Only entity in higher dimension can interfene 3 dimensional creatures directly, without need to broken such matter thing.

Well, this theory I got from Neil deGrasse Tyson. He said that if 4 dimensional being want to do surgery on 3 dimensional creatures, he just can do it directly without cut our body. So, it could also no difficult for this 4 dimensional being to give information directly to the 3 dimensional creatures, while the 3 dimensional creatures still can’t see it. The real point is the trace was there (the information), in the mind of human. While the mind of human itself, can’t possibly made it.

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(August 1, 2024 at 8:04 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(August 1, 2024 at 7:44 pm)Sheldon Wrote: Yes I am familiar with how an appeal to authority fallacy is defined, and that was textbook. You didn't offer any evidence to support your claim, just the assertion that "there are a number of very smart people who think that numbers do have existence independent of human minds. Roger Penrose, for example."

You're saying that now, that's not what you said in your previous post though. Not that it matters, in the larger context of you evidencing any deity. 



Except you presented no argument? Hence it was a bare appeal using his name and the claim the belief was shared by "some very intelligent people". Are there very intelligent people who dispute his claim? Is there a broad consensus among relevant experts to support his belief? Have these arguments been supported by any evidence, ahs it been peer reviewed etc etc...evidence see?



You shared no knowledge though, just an appeal to authority, and are you seriously saying that the opinions of architects are not underpinned by objective evidence? 



Ad hominem literally means to the person, it is fallacious when a person ignores the argument(s) someone has made, and instead attacks the person making them, as you did. 
That one is called a straw man fallacy, since I made no such claim. Now, if someone presents arguments, as I did, and you ignore those arguments, as you did, and instead make a petty insult, more than one in fact, then that is ad hominem. Here it is again for clarity:

 Did it even occur to you that I might just not find them as compelling as you do? or did you imagine there is a consensus among philosophers that a deity or deities exist? As I suggested in the post you just answered without commenting on it, here:

Then there was this:




Again this kind of ad hominem doesn't bother me, why would it, when someone resorts to this kind of fallacious reasoning in a debate I usually infer they've exhausted their spiel. 




No indeed, but it would be silly to suggest one could not doubt the claim wizards exist, just because I'd never read a Harry Potter novel . It was your claim that philosophers have made sound arguments for a deity, I stated I had never seen one, not that I had never seen any philosophical arguments for a deity, just not any I found compelling. So I invited you to present one, evidence your claim in other words. It seems this was too much of a task to educate someone as ignorant as me, at least that's what you implied. I found and quoted one by Plato, it took about ten seconds. 

Try this, what is the most compelling reason you think you have to believe a deity exists outside of the human imagination? I already asked, but it went unanswered? Anyway off to bed now...have fun everyone...

OK, well let's work on what you mean by "objective evidence." 

Or you could read the explanation I gave a couple of posts back, or look the words up in any dictionary. Your hypothetical is moot sorry, since you're talking about a trivial claim, that's why I usually use the qualifier of sufficient objective evidence as my threshold for credulity. 

I also know what the word objective means, and I know what the word evidence means. I explained the difference between entirely subjective claims and objective facts, and compared it to a scale with the former at the bottom and the latter at the top, the more evidence from the higher end of the scale the more compelling I would find the claim. The most successful methods for understanding reality, are the ones designed to remove as much subjective bias as possible. 

Quote:Do you consider this to be evidence that the restaurant is, indeed, the best in town? 

Will you reject it as "subjective" because it involves people's opinions? 

I would withhold my judgment, and objectively test the claim, since it is eminently falsifiable, but yes it is without doubt a bare appeal to numbers and therefore an argumentum ad populum fallacy.

Now I keep asking questions, and you keep ignoring them, while I promptly and honestly answer yours, so FYI, I shall not be answering another of your questions until you make some effort to answer mine that you've ignored. Debate requires reciprocity, and I am starting to feel a little like I'm being preached at, as you make claims, then when I address them, you either move on to new ones ignoring what I've said, or focus on minutia, like the numbers debate, which was tangential to evidencing a deity. Since you seem to be trying to make its existence an unfalsifiable concept. I explained my views on such ideas, and you ignored that completely. 

Now one more time, if you can't present any objective evidence that any deity exists outside of the human imagination, and by now that is the only inference left, then why not present the most compelling reason you think there is for believing the Christian deity exists outside of the human imagination.

(August 1, 2024 at 10:13 pm)Foxaèr Wrote: It's rational to understand that just because most people enjoy the food of a particular establishment does not mean I will also enjoy the food or that it is the best restaurant in town.

It was an illuminating choice really, as taste can be very subjective, and if one were visiting a town where one had never been, as the hypothetical suggests, then it is quite possible the local tastes might differ substantially from my own. Also of course the claim is falsifiable, so it can be tested, paradoxically all the concepts of deities @Belacqua has offered so far, are carefully crafted to evade such objective verification. 

FWIW in the absence of any objective evidence, and assuming I couldn't test the restraint in some objective way, the assertion it is the best in town, based solely on a bare appeal to numbers, would of course have all the hallmarks of an argumentum ad populum fallacy. I suspect he picked a trivial claim on purpose to make that fact less obvious, perhaps to imply logically fallacious claims can have credence, so lets try another example that more amply demonstrates why this is poor reasoning. 

One thousand people claim they saw a mermaid in the surf, the people are a cross section of demographics from professional like doctors, lawyers etc, even a few eminent scientists. 

Are we now to believes mermaids exist, would @Belacqua? 

Note the scenario is a textbook argumentum ad populum fallacy, with an appeal to authority fallacy thrown in, because I couldn't resist. No objective evidence is offered just as with his claim, it is just a bare appeal to numbers but for a more extraordinary claim. Logically however, declaring the claims true is equally fallacious. 

Though as I said originally, since the first claim is a trivial one, we'd be inclined to ignore the fallacy, but it remains poor or weak reasoning. As I said very telling...