I think I'll write them up here on a forum page. Put them in a context of theistic arguments.

That sounds excellent Adrian, that would be great.

EvF

Do people want to come up with some good examples for us to use? It would be a great help

LukeMC offers his service to you.

(August 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Arcanus also falsely accused you of using the "ad-hominem" fallacy, however this fallacy only ever applies when you are insulting the person and using this as a disproof of their point, not generally as you did.

In other words, saying "you idiot" (like you did) is an insult, whereas saying "You are an idiot therefore TAG is wrong" (or something to that effect) is a fallacy.

Ad hominem is not only an insult used to disprove a persons argument. It is just as much praising a person to prove his argument. In either case, the fallacy lies in confounding the source of an argument (a person) with the validity of the argument.

(August 11, 2009 at 2:10 pm)LukeMC Wrote: Am I wrong in stating that all of these pathetic arguments for the existence of God are built on a foundation of either;

• a) scientifically verifiable premises or
  
• b) baseless and unverifiable assumptions?
  

Scientific investigation is utterly vital to the search for God, otherwise your premises are just baseless assertions (such as "all things that exist have a beginning").

There are arguments that are scientifically verifiable in the sense of being verifiable by empirical and rational inquiry, yes. Scientifically verifiable in the sense of being provable from the premise of naturalism that "God does not exist", certainly not, for that is an a priori exclusion of the investigation of the proposition that he exists.

Besides, if we are to get into the epistemology, which is what you engaged by speaking of verifiability, an externally unverifiable assumption is not the same as a baseless assumption, since an internal knowledge and warrant which is externally unverifiable is quite possible. An example by Plantinga beneath.

Quote:7. I was alone in the woods all that afternoon, and I did not steal the letter.

But I do have strong evidence for the denial of (7). For I have the same evidence as everyone else that I was in the chairman's office and took the letter; and this evidence is sufficient to convince my colleagues (who are eminently fairminded and initially well disposed towards me) of my guilt. They are convinced on the basis of what they know that I took the letter; and I know everything they know.

So I take (7) as basic; but I have a substantial reason to believe a defeater of (7). According to Q*, if I am to be rational in this situation, I must have even better reason to believe that this potential defeater is false. Do I? Well, the only reason I have for thinking this potential defeater false is just (7) itself; I don't have any independent reason to think the defeater false. (The warrant I have for (7) is nonpropositional warrant; it is not conferred upon (7) by virtue of my believing that proposition on the basis of some other proposition, for I don't believe (7) on the basis of any other proposition.)

In this situation it is obvious, I take it, that I am perfectly rational in continuing to believe (7) in this basic way. The reason is that in this situation the positive epistemic status or warrant that (7) has for me (by virtue of memory) is greater than that conferred upon its potential defeater by the evidence I share with my colleagues. We might say that (7) itself defeats the potential defeater; no further reason for the denial of this defeater is needed for me to be rational. Suppose we say that in this sort of situation a proposition like (7) is an intrinsic defeater of its potential defeater. When a basic belief p has more by way of warrant than a potential defeater q of p, then p is an intrinsic defeater of q-an intrinsic defeater-defeater, we might say. (A belief r is an extrinsic defeater-defeater if it defeats a defeater q of a belief p distinct from r.)

(August 11, 2009 at 1:40 pm)Tiberius Wrote: If TAG is arguing that God's absolute nature (take note) is the source of morals [and also that it has to presuppose the Christian worldview which states quite clearly that God created the universe and everything in it] (...) -> (your conclusion) then TAG is equally clearly stating that God created morality.

The TAG states clearly that Gods absolute nature which is uncreated and transcendent is the source of the moral and logical order of the universe.

So how did you conclude that it states that the moral and logical order is created? It affirms the opposite, that it is part of Gods absolute, transcendent and uncreated nature, and as a result is imposed on his Creation.

Adrian,

This is as far as I got:

Ad hominem
An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter another’s claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself.

EG: You are stupid therefore god does not exist.


Ad ignorantiam
The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true.

EG: I can’t prove there isn’t a god therefore god exists.


Argument from authority
Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true.

EG: Purple Rabbit has a degree in astrophysics so when he says that god doesn’t exist it must be true.


Argument from final Consequences
Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that is serves.

EG: God must exist, because otherwise life would have no meaning.


Argument from Personal Incredulity
I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true.

EG: Reality is complex therefore it can’t possibly have come from nothing.


Confusing association with causation
This is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply because they are correlated, although the relationship here is not strictly that of one variable following the other in time.

EG: As the number of pirates have gone down the average temperature of the Earth has increased, therefore we need more pirates to stop global warming!

Rhizo

(August 11, 2009 at 4:15 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: The TAG states clearly that Gods absolute nature which is uncreated and transcendent is the source of the moral and logical order of the universe.

Yet curiously Arcanus argues the exact opposite! I do wish you wingnuts would fucking agree on things

Kyu

(August 11, 2009 at 4:15 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: The TAG states clearly that Gods absolute nature which is uncreated and transcendent is the source of the moral and logical order of the universe.

So how did you conclude that it states that the moral and logical order is created? It affirms the opposite, that it is part of Gods absolute, transcendent and uncreated nature, and as a result is imposed on his Creation.

You are simply twisting words and definitions. Saying morality simply is because of God (or is part of God's nature) is the same thing as saying morality was created by God. They are both arguments which say that without God, we would have no morality, ergo for all intensive purposes God can be said to be the "creator" of morality in these arguments. The fact still remains that this is a baseless assumption on which the argument rests, and since it is an assumption it cannot possibly be said to be any kind of proof for the existence of God. Assumptions by definition can be false.

If you argue that morality is simply part of the nature of God, you could equally argue that colour is simply part of the nature of light, given that without light there would be no colour (in the sense of colour as a perception). In this case you could make an argument that light is the creator of colour, since only with light would we be able to perceive colour. Whichever way you say it, you still need to prove the assumption before you use it in the argument, and given that your assumption is the very nature of God, all the TAG does is make everything more complex for you.

(August 11, 2009 at 4:15 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: There are arguments that are scientifically verifiable in the sense of being verifiable by empirical and rational inquiry, yes. Scientifically verifiable in the sense of being provable from the premise of naturalism that "God does not exist", certainly not, for that is an a priori exclusion of the investigation of the proposition that he exists.

You mean metaphysical naturalism? The naturalism upon which science is built is not strictly metaphysical naturalism. The first premises of scientific naturalism are that the universe is real and the activities within it can be explained in natural terms. Whether or not the universe was created by a god or a flowerpot man, the methodology seeks to find causal links between phenomena in the observable universe. These verifiable scientific facts are what all of these stupid arguments (such as Kalam's) are based on. Regardless of the philosophy of the scientists, these are the facts that determine your arguments and this is why science is vital to finding the truth about god.

Jon Paul Wrote:Besides, if we are to get into the epistemology, which is what you engaged by speaking of verifiability, an externally unverifiable assumption is not the same as a baseless assumption, since an internal knowledge and warrant which is externally unverifiable is quite possible. An example by Plantinga beneath.

I reject this example. More evidence was available if they chose to pursue it (foot prints, forensic evidence, odours, etc).

(August 11, 2009 at 4:19 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Yet curiously Arcanus argues the exact opposite! I do wish you wingnuts would fucking agree on things

No, he argued the same (as far as I have read).

(August 11, 2009 at 4:27 pm)Tiberius Wrote: You are simply twisting words and definitions. Saying morality simply is because of God (or is part of God's nature) is the same thing as saying morality was created by God.

Saying that something is a part of Gods nature, apart from what he does, is not the same as saying that something is a result of Gods external operation and action. In that case, saying that God is good (a predication of his nature) would be the same kind of statement as saying that God created Saturn, which is a predication of his action in a potentiality outside of his own nature, not a predication of his nature independently of that action.

You are equivocating anything which is implied by Gods existence, such as Gods nature, the logical and moral order, to be equal to created, which is not the case. If it was the case, then Gods attributes would be created, and since his attributes are equal to his being (divine simplicity), that would imply that God is created. This is neither coherent nor orthodox Christian doctrine.

And more importantly, you are not addressing the actual TAG argument, but an argument about "created logic and morality", by a God who is ultimately created, which is not the TAG. The TAG specifically deals with the orthodox Christian conception of God, and specifically states that the logical and moral order is transcendent, and part of Gods uncreated nature.

(August 11, 2009 at 4:27 pm)Tiberius Wrote: They are both arguments which say that without God, we would have no morality, ergo for all intensive purposes God can be said to be the "creator" of morality in these arguments.

He cannot be said to be the creator of morality anymore than he can be said to be the creator of himself and his attributes such as goodness (which really equals to the transcendent moral order), which cannot be said of the Christian conception of God.

(August 11, 2009 at 4:46 pm)LukeMC Wrote: I reject this example. More evidence was available if they chose to pursue it (foot prints, forensic evidence, odours, etc).

Assuming that more evidence was available, which is an assumption you are making that is not a part of the scenario Plantinga speaks of, then until that evidence was collected, it would still be externally unverifiable and the external verifiability of an internal knowledge which is properly basic would be possible both theoretically and practically. There are real cases where people are innocent and yet the evidence is against them due to either viscious coincidences or conspiracies. The external unverifiabillity of an internal knowledge is possible and there are many actual examples of it within the very criminal system of a country like America, where people have been released up to 20 after being convicted of a crime they didn't commit, because the discovery and collection of some new evidence that wasn't previously available suddenly occured.