The Case for Theism

[Esquilax]

Hypothetically or theoretically anything is possible. So if you want a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question I will concede that hypothetically its concievable there could be a set of circumstances in which neither design or happenstance is the case. Will you agree that by that absurd standard, no dichotomy is true? The fact remains though that for all practical purposes in the real world (not the imaginary hypothetical one) the dichotomy holds true. What have you really gained by dragging out this conversation just so you can say hypthetically the dichotomy isn't true?

You'd be right on, if I was just advancing any old thing. But I'm not: I specifically chose a couple of theories that had some research and mathematical models backing them up. That's the difference: these aren't just any old hypotheticals, they're real theories as to the universe around us, and they have exactly as much credible evidence as your chance/design binary. Don't believe me? Here you go :

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science...verse2.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/

No, I said the only type of life we know of to exist.

My issue was more with the assertion that of all the places in the universe that life could exist as we understand it, Earth is the only one that has. It's inherently unprovable, at the moment.

As far as I'm concerned evolution is a fact...its Darwinism I am skeptical of.

Would you care to explain that? I mean, I've heard plenty of differing definitions of what Darwinism actually entails, I'd like to know what I'm responding to before I do.

[genkaus]

Hypothetically or theoretically anything is possible.

No its not. The illogical and irrational are still excluded from hypothetical and theoretical consideration.

So if you want a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question I will concede that hypothetically its concievable there could be a set of circumstances in which neither design or happenstance is the case.

And since your premises of design and happenstance also fall under hypotheticals, they would fall in the same category as those set of circumstances. You seem to be getting it finally.

Will you agree that by that absurd standard, no dichotomy is true?

No. As I said, if alternate options presented to a dichotomy are illogical then the dichotomy would be true.

The fact remains though that for all practical purposes in the real world (not the imaginary hypothetical one) the dichotomy holds true.

As has been demonstrated multiple times - no, it doesn't.

What have you really gained by dragging out this conversation just so you can say hypthetically the dichotomy isn't true?

Given that your dichotomy itself is hypothetical, it can now be established as a false dichotomy. Not that it wasn't before.

The case I am making is inferential.

And your inference is incorrect due to your premise being incorrect.

As far as I'm concerned evolution is a fact...its Darwinism I am skeptical of.

Then your skepticism is about half a century out of date.

[Drew_2013]

If your goal is as stated, simply to convince people who are liable to be persuaded by unsound arguments, well have at it. I'm interested in something more substantial.

Then go some place else and spew your blather...

As a simple matter of logic, if you exclude them for any other reason than their being unsound and untrue explanations of the facts, then you have constructed an argument that is logically invalid, and its conclusions are therefore of necessity a non sequitur. If you fail to demonstrate their implausibility or otherwise account for these hypotheses on substantive and material grounds, your conclusions are worthless.

Allow an analogy. Let's say that you have an amateur athlete, a runner, who you claim is a serious competitor in the 100 metre dash. I as the manager of our country's Olympic team, have never seen any convincing demonstration that your boy is fit to compete at the level required to be given a slot on the team. So you suggest a tryout. You'll run your boy against runners on my team to determine if even considering him is reasonable. So I call everybody out of the clubhouse, and ask my top 6 runners to line up at the starting line alongside your boy, to see if he's got game. You immediately start in with the whining and pleading and complain that you should only have to prove your runner's mettle against Johnson over there. Whether he is anywhere close to being able to compete against the others is irrelevant, according to you. Why you picked Johnson, I don't know; perhaps you know something specific about Johnson that I don't know (like that he has the stomach flu, or just lost custody of his daughter recently and is suicidally depressed). I don't know the specific reasons for your insisting on running only against Johnson, nor do I particularly care. If you're not willing to prove your boy against a representative sample of runners with demonstrated track records, you're not getting a place on my team, no matter how long and loudly you complain about how unfair it is.

I'm glad you did dummy this down to an analogy so I can see for myself how self serving it is. A more accurate analogy would be that you or others want to run 'my boy' against hypothetical boys that you claim can run at the speed of light, not real competitiors just hypothetical ones you made up for the sake or argumentation. Then because I refuse to run my boy against hypothetical boys you claim my argument is logically invalid.

I'm going to reiterate something you've already been told more than once. I am not an atheist, I'm not committed to a specific theory of origins, and matter of fact, I'm not even committed to metaphysical naturalism. Moreover, if I can be allowed a little lack of humility, I have a fairly sharp mind, am somewhat knowledgeable about these arguments, and am fairly scientifically literate. By all accounts, I am your ideal "uncommitted" and impartial witness. Yet you seem to discount my opinion with prejudice. Why? I suspect because what you mean by "uncommitted" and impartial is not someone who, given appropriate arguments, might agree to either position. No, your idea of uncommitted and impartial is defined as "someone whom you can get to agree with you." Anyone who actually disagrees with you has their opinion discounted by you with appeal to unfounded accusations of bias and prejudice. I may not always think as highly of my peers as perhaps I should, but I would hope that anyone whom you hope to convince has sufficient common sense to see through such sophistry.

You're perfectly entitled to disagree with the case I am making regardless of what point of view or position you hold. Just because I have disagreed with some of the things you have written is hardly reason to say I am either discounting your opinion or acting with prejudice. Is that your opinion of anyone who challenges what you say? The problem might be thin skin. I hope anyone reading our respective arguments sees through the sophistry of raising hypothetical objections and then acting as if there as valid are real objections as well as see through self serving analogies...

There is an article I have read many times that has had an enormous influence on me its called:

Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism

There is, to be sure, a lot of misinformation about, and that is, certainly, a problem. But what concerns me is a deeper and more disturbing development: a rising tide of irrationalism, a widespread and increasingly articulate loss of confidence in the very possibility of honest inquiry, scientific or otherwise.

A hundred years or so ago, C. S. Peirce, a working scientist as well as the greatest of American philosophers, distinguished genuine inquiry from “sham reasoning,” pseudo-inquiry aimed not at finding the truth but at making a case for some conclusion immovably believed in advance; and predicted that, when sham reasoning becomes commonplace, people will come “to look on reasoning as merely decorative,” and will "lose their conceptions of truth and of reason.”2

This is the very debacle taking place before our eyes: genuine inquiry is so complex and difficult, and advocacy “research” and politically-motivated “scholarship” have become so commonplace, that our grip on the concepts of truth, evidence, objectivity, inquiry has been loosened. I want to talk about how this disaster came about, and the role played by the phenomenon Barzun calls “preposterism” in encouraging it.

Pseudo-Inquiry; and the Real Thing

A genuine inquirer aims to find out the truth of some question, whatever the color of that truth. This is a tautology (Webster’s: “inquiry: search for truth . . .”). A pseudo-inquirer seeks to make a case for the truth of some proposition(s) determined in advance. There are two kinds of pseudo-inquirer, the sham and the fake. A sham reasoner is concerned, not to find out how things really are, but to make a case for some immovably-held preconceived conviction. A fake reasoner is concerned, not to find out how things really are, but to advance himself by making a case for some proposition to the truth-value of which he is indifferent.

Neither sham nor fake inquiry is really inquiry; but we need to get beyond this tautology to understand what is wrong with sham and fake reasoning. The sham inquirer tries to make a case for the truth of a proposition his commitment to which is already evidence- and argument-proof. The fake inquirer tries to make a case for some proposition advancing which he thinks will enhance his own reputation, but to the truth-value of which he is indifferent. (Such indifference is, as Harry Frankfurt once shrewdly observed, the characteristic attitude of the bullshitter.)3 Both the sham and the fake inquirer, but especially the sham, are motivated to avoid examining any apparently contrary evidence or argument too closely, to play down its importance or impugn its relevance, to contort themselves explaining it away. And, since people often mistake the impressively obscure for the profound, both, but especially the fake reasoner, are motivated to obfuscate.

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/science_sc...posterism/

As for the rest of your diatribe...I don't care if you like me, I don't know you nor do I wish to.

[of monkeys and men]

Ha ha ha So this is what atheists do, every time a christian poses a question youguys can't answer you bann them... I would say that's pretty smart but then I would be lying because I'm just going to keep coming back on with a different username and the same question you "thinking" atheists cant answer... so the cycle continues and the unanswered questions remain... so please kick me off again you thinkers

[Jackalope]

Ha ha ha So this is what atheists do, every time a christian poses a question youguys can't answer you bann them

No. We ban you when you create multiple accounts, switch back and forth between them in the same thread, and give rep from one to another.

[Gonzalo697]

Are you a moral relativist, or do you believe in absolute morality?  In other words, do you believe that cultures, or even individuals, can define their own rules on what is moral and what is not, or do you believe that every action has one unique, absolute, and true moral assessment?

---

who or what determines which actions are moral and which are not?  

[genkaus]

I'm glad you did dummy this down to an analogy so I can see for myself how self serving it is. A more accurate analogy would be that you or others want to run 'my boy' against hypothetical boys that you claim can run at the speed of light, not real competitiors just hypothetical ones you made up for the sake or argumentation. Then because I refuse to run my boy against hypothetical boys you claim my argument is logically invalid.

Actually, since your boy is hypothetical as well, the analogy is still valid.

There is an article I have read many times that has had an enormous influence on me its called:

Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism

Do you even realize how well you fit the description of the pseudo-inquirer as given in the article?

[Angrboda]

[Drew_2013]

The problem is you can't use a theory to support yet another theory.

Why not?

A theory is an idea or a concept that may or may not be true. To support a theory you cite facts that comport with that belief which is considered evidence in favor of your belief (or hypothesis). You don't improve your lot to offer yet another unproven idea in support of your hypothesis since the theory your offering is also suspect.

Except it's not special pleading because that fallacy applies when an unjustified exemption to the rule has been made and your rule about design and happenstance being the only two possibilities has never been accepted.

Who made an unjustified exemption?

Secondly I think its a red herring because I don't believe the folks pining for some other option actually believe that the universe was caused by some circumstance that would be neither design or plan, they're just running interference to obfuscate the issue. I suspect your actual take on this is that mindless forces without plan or design caused the universe to exist and life is just the accidental by product or the laws of physics. I suspect this is exactly what most atheists think. So why hide and obfuscate. I don't raise objections I myself don't actually beileve in. Its seems disengenous some folks do.

Then all I can say is that you are the one being disingenuous. There are atheists who take that position and others who take a different one and provide justification for it. They have given no evidence for you to assume that they actually don't believe what they are arguing for. Its about as deluded as saying that atheists are just angry at god.

No one is actually offering evidence that the universe and life could be the result of some cause that was neither planned or by happenstance, they just want to argue its a false dichotomy based only on hypothetical scenarios that they don't actually believe either. There is a saying among lawyers, when you have the facts in a case you argue the facts, when you don't you argue smoke and mirrors.

On the basis that what makes sense and what doesn't itself is derived from the laws of nature.

Want to take a stab at explaining that?

Why does nature seem to act as if it is compelled by a set or rules?

Because humans tend to project their own nature onto things where it is not applicable. Nature is not compelled to follow a set of rules nor is it free to act as it pleases. Those concepts apply only to conscious entities - which nature is not.

If any dichotomy appears to be false on the face of it the bolded statement above does seeing how it's contradictory. If I made that statement I'd be hounded from here to kingdom come. By the way I agree humans do project their own nature into things which is in part why the methodology of science was created.

Correct most atheists would opine the laws we observe are not some blueprint the universe had to follow but are just patterns of regularity we happen to observe...unless they are raising an objection for instance to the argument of fine tuning in which case they do raise the objection that maybe in fact the laws of nature do have to be as we observe them, not that they actually believe that... but just because they don't actually believe something is true that's no reason not to raise it as an objection anyway and will argue the objection should carry weight even though they themselves don't believe the objection. I call it bullshit but thats just me.

That is just you and that's because you cannot comprehend that those two arguments are in fact the same. Nature is what it is. It does not conform to any external authority nor does it follow a set of blueprints. That is what necessity means.

You must be using the atheist dictionary again where words take on whatever meaning is convenient at the moment. What the dictionary mistakenly seems to think that necessity means is when something or someone is forced to do something by compulsion.

The fact that atheist does not believe in a creator or a creator's creator does not make the objection any less valid. The atheist is simply holding you to your own logic and showing how quickly you choose to commit a fallacy when confronted with the uncomfortable implications of your position.

Except in my case I'm not uncomfortable at all. If the Creator was created then theism is still correct.

[genkaus]

A theory is an idea or a concept that may or may not be true. To support a theory you cite facts that comport with that belief which is considered evidence in favor of your belief (or hypothesis). You don't improve your lot to offer yet another unproven idea in support of your hypothesis since the theory your offering is also suspect.

You do realize that we are talking about scientific theories right? The concept of proven/unproven do not apply there. Rather, if something can be considered as proven within science, a theory is it. Which makes perfectly rational for one theory to be used as support for another. In fact, it is done all the time.

Who made an unjustified exemption?

Nobody. That's why it's not a fallacy of special pleading.

No one is actually offering evidence that the universe and life could be the result of some cause that was neither planned or by happenstance, they just want to argue its a false dichotomy based only on hypothetical scenarios that they don't actually believe either. There is a saying among lawyers, when you have the facts in a case you argue the facts, when you don't you argue smoke and mirrors.

First of all, no evidence is required for that hypothesis, because at this stage, your position is no better than a hypothesis itself. You haven't provided any evidence for the statement that planning and happenstance are the only two possibilities - so that's a hypothesis itself and all that is required to prove it false is presenting other possible hypotheticals. Don't delude yourself into thinking that your arguments have anything to do with facts.

Want to take a stab at explaining that?

Naah... I don't think you are capable of understanding that.

If any dichotomy appears to be false on the face of it the bolded statement above does seeing how it's contradictory.

Except, the bolded statement is not a dichotomy.

If I made that statement I'd be hounded from here to kingdom come.

Because you wouldn't justify it in the very next statement.

By the way I agree humans do project their own nature into things which is in part why the methodology of science was created.

Yes - to prevent that from happening.

You must be using the atheist dictionary again where words take on whatever meaning is convenient at the moment. What the dictionary mistakenly seems to think that necessity means is when something or someone is forced to do something by compulsion.

None - that is my argument. Nature is what it is by necessity - not because it was compelled by something or someone external. Try and keep up.