(April 6, 2013 at 6:47 pm)Darkstar Wrote: I didn't know it was possible to put so many strawmen and loaded questions into one paragraph.

You've just described all of his posts.

Quote:That takes real talent.

I'm not sure I'd describe obstinacy as a talent.

(April 6, 2013 at 4:09 pm)Maelstrom Wrote: Oh, are we honestly going to have the proper way to obtain knowledge argument now? The American education system is not designed to educate the average person so much as it is about ensuring those people fill the required work force slots available after graduation while piling further debt onto society. Besides that, not everyone performs to their best in a school environment. Some very intelligent people do not finish high school and they make great contributions to society.

Who cares?

(April 6, 2013 at 6:31 pm)jstrodel Wrote: Why don't you correct the people that are 18 years old and believe that logic proves that God doesn't exist, using faulty arguments?

OK, I'll go eeeeveeeennn sloooooweeerrrrrr

You can't logically prove a negative.

Is there an invisible fairy hovering to your left right now? Are you sure? It's invisible. There, it flew away just as you moved your hand through where it was just a second ago. They can go through walls too, so even if your left side is back against a wall, it wouldn't rule out the fairy silently and invisibly flying next to you. Silly? Sure. That's logically why the person making a claim has the burden of proof.

Hence, "shifting the burden of proof" and "argument from ignorance" are logically fallacies.

If I see any atheists making such an argument, I'll be sure to correct them. Until then, do you have any proof that such a person has made such an argument?

(April 8, 2013 at 5:05 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: You can't logically prove a negative.

Yes you can. It can be a paradox. The argument of evil had potential of disproving a benevolent creator if the argument was sound. You can logically argue against trinity for example.

It's more accurate to say, some negatives cannot be proven, and some negatives can be proven.

Quote:Hence, "shifting the burden of proof" and "argument from ignorance" are logically fallacies.

Objective morality is a delusion. Concept of free-will is a delusion. Concept of value is a delusion. Concept of praiseworthiness is a delusion. If you can't prove they are true and based on reality, then you are not justified in believing in any of these or demanding justification from those who deny it or don't believe in any of them.

Does that sound logical?

Whether God exists or not, it seems most humanity is inclined to the sacred and holiness and have a belief in existence of such things, even it came in the form of different gods, etc...

I don't think it's very easy to dismiss simply on the "burden of proof is on you, if you can't prove it, I don't need to justify why I don't believe in it or why I deny it."

(April 8, 2013 at 5:17 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Objective morality is a delusion. Concept of free-will is a delusion. Concept of value is a delusion. Concept of praiseworthiness is a delusion. If you can't prove they are true and based on reality, then you are not justified in believing in any of these or demanding justification from those who deny it or don't believe in any of them.

Does that sound logical?

Whether God exists or not, it seems most humanity is inclined to the sacred and holiness and have a belief in existence of such things, even it came in the form of different gods, etc...

I don't think it's very easy to dismiss simply on the "burden of proof is on you, if you can't prove it, I don't need to justify why I don't believe in it or why I deny it."

Bolding mine.

There is a difference between proving the mere existence of a being, and proving the validity of a concept. A very big one at that.

(April 6, 2013 at 3:56 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You guys are dumb. I'm not going to argue about this anymore. An argument from authority is not categorically fallacious, anyone who thinks it is is just ignorant of basic academic knowledge and is ignorant of the probabilistic nature of science and learning. If you think an argument from authority is categorically fallacious, it is because you learned how to think from reading a website, not from a real university.

Universities have websites. Here's UT at El Paso.

http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/EN...lacies.htm

Check "Testimonial".

(April 8, 2013 at 5:27 pm)Darkstar Wrote:

(April 8, 2013 at 5:17 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Objective morality is a delusion. Concept of free-will is a delusion. Concept of value is a delusion. Concept of praiseworthiness is a delusion. If you can't prove they are true and based on reality, then you are not justified in believing in any of these or demanding justification from those who deny it or don't believe in any of them.

Does that sound logical?

Whether God exists or not, it seems most humanity is inclined to the sacred and holiness and have a belief in existence of such things, even it came in the form of different gods, etc...

I don't think it's very easy to dismiss simply on the "burden of proof is on you, if you can't prove it, I don't need to justify why I don't believe in it or why I deny it."

Bolding mine.

There is a difference between proving the mere existence of a being, and proving the validity of a concept. A very big one at that.

If free-will was just a concept, and had no reality behind it, it would be a delusion. The same is true of the rest of the properties. In fact, I would say these things are properties of essence. But naturalism wise, since the self is a concept generated by the brain with no reference to a real soul, there is no essence. Hence naturalism wise, it is a delusion. It's merely a concept, like the self, which too would be a delusion.

"Who recognizes himself, recognizes his Lord" - hadith.

There is no real difference in the analogy. The analogy was to say, it's part of the human experience to believe in holiness, sacred, and supernatural, just like it is to believe in morals, free-will, identity.

In fact, holiness is subsect of praise. Easy to dismiss the praise you don't believe in.

The analogy is not weakened at all by that difference.

(April 8, 2013 at 6:06 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: There is no real difference in the analogy. The analogy was to say, it's part of the human experience to believe in holiness, sacred, and supernatural, just like it is to believe in morals, free-will, identity.

In fact, holiness is subsect of praise. Easy to dismiss the praise you don't believe in.

The analogy is not weakened at all by that difference.

Perhaps I misunderstood your analogy. I agree that humans are sometimes inclined to believe in the supernatural, etc.

The point I was making was that, assuming free will exists, it is still a concept; there can be no physical proof of free will. God, on the other hand, could simply make an appearance and prove himself. I know that theists like to argue that god is non-physical, but he has physical effects (unless he never interacts with the world), and these effects should be scientifically verifiable (unless he is deliberately hiding).

(April 8, 2013 at 6:41 pm)Darkstar Wrote:

(April 8, 2013 at 6:06 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: There is no real difference in the analogy. The analogy was to say, it's part of the human experience to believe in holiness, sacred, and supernatural, just like it is to believe in morals, free-will, identity.

In fact, holiness is subsect of praise. Easy to dismiss the praise you don't believe in.

The analogy is not weakened at all by that difference.

Perhaps I misunderstood your analogy. I agree that humans are sometimes inclined to believe in the supernatural, etc.

The point I was making was that, assuming free will exists, it is still a concept; there can be no physical proof of free will. God, on the other hand, could simply make an appearance and prove himself. I know that theists like to argue that god is non-physical, but he has physical effects (unless he never interacts with the world), and these effects should be scientifically verifiable (unless he is deliberately hiding).

Maybe they are but you need perspective. For example, if a giant spoon appeared in the sky and fell down, we can assume there needs to be a cause.

But what if particles are constantly being streamed into existence by the creator or don't follow a pattern at all, and hence constantly randomly controlled.

You would not know that if ontologically you didn't know, "from nothing, nothing follows".

Therefore when people say empirical evidence suggests things are uncaused or come to exist with no cause, I say that means ontological reasoning suggests there is a supernatural cause.

But science right now is allergic to the supernatural. So even if the evidence was right there sitting in front of you, it would not be admitted.

Also the very knowledge of praise, the soul, perpetual identity, morality, can be a proof of the supernatural creator.

Moreover, if you look how much things we lucked out with, in nature, physical things horses, donkeys, dogs, like different type of foods, etc, all this was not necessary. It's all taken for granted. The metals we have that came from comets, etc...

It's another thing to demand that everyone be convinced of the Creator or else he doesn't exist or there is no evidence of his existence.

jdstrodel Wrote:It has come to my attention that many atheists believe that the argument from authority is essentially a fallacious argument. I am not going to argue that the argument from authority is, in essence, a fallacy. That is too obvious of a point to make. Of course the argument from authority is a real argument and not a blatant logical fallacy (and of course some arguments from authority are better than others and some are completely fallacious).

I'm kind of late to this thread, but I do have to point out that he actually used a logical fallacy to try to claim that the argument from authority is not a logical fallacy. It's called Begging the Question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question You don't get to just say 'it's too obvious' and thus avoid having to prove your first assertion. Since you never showed that the Argument from Authority isn't a logical fallacy and rather you just asserted it, the rest of your premise crumbles rather quickly.

Try this one and maybe you'll understand why the Argument from Authority is a logical fallacy. The Argument from Authority is a logical fallacy because renown philosophy professor Alex Byrne says that it's a logical fallacy.