Worst Arguments For Christianity

[Pizza]

Non-physical properties are also easily demonstrated: triangularity, the truth preserving quality of logical propositions, etc. Unless of course you opt for nominalism or conceptualism, both of which crash and burn under the weight of their own paradoxes.

Those things you just listed as examples are all causally inert abstractions and mental properties have causal effects. That's a non starter since any analogy between them will be a weak one and would lead to the obviously false conclusion that minds don't cause things.

You have already done so by saying that your life has meaning and purpose. Please, describe one, just one, physical property of meaning.

However, I don't think "purposes and meanings of life" is a well-enough defined idea to really matter since some people define it to mean goals given to life by humans. Most apologists will define it in such way as to smuggle their conclusion(God exists) into it by defining "meaning" as goal given by God or something like that. So the claim deflates into a trivial tautology.

If you don't define your terms clearly we are going to be talking pass enough other. What do you mean by meaning? But this is all a moot point since mind-body dualism has nothing to do with a deity giving meaning to life since human minds can do that.

[Esquilax]

Non-physical properties are also easily demonstrated: triangularity, the truth preserving quality of logical propositions, etc. Unless of course you opt for nominalism or conceptualism, both of which crash and burn under the weight of their own paradoxes.

Great, so you've established the existence of conceptual items, which rely upon physical brains to exist; logical propositions require minds to think them, which would be either the result of physical brains, or of this mind stuff... that you still haven't demonstrated. So you're either going to beg the question by using the existence of conceptual items- which equally might find their roots in physical brains- as evidence for the existence of the non-physical thing that you're trying to prove, without dealing with the obvious issue that those concepts exist as neurochemical brain states in those that consider them, or you don't have an argument at all, without first demonstrating the existence of the mind-as-separate-from-the-brain, in which case you're having to make a separate argument for the claim you're making, in order to justify the first argument for that claim you're making, which kinda shows that the first argument doesn't really work.

Either way, it could easily be argued that the examples you've listed are observations of physical things in reality, not discrete entities on their own. They are dependent on physical brain states in the observer, not objective quantities that exist without being physical.

... Your entire argument hinges on the idea that physical properties cannot generate intentionality on their own, and hence must be distinct from the mind... which is the very claim you're attempting to justify with this argument.

Why should I believe that they can?

Why shouldn't you use a circular argument? Seriously?

You can't use an argument as justification for a claim, when that argument includes the premises of the claim as true facts. I really shouldn't have to tell you why that is, but if I have to, then you may be too far gone to talk to.

... Where did you demonstrate that physical states cannot generate intentionality?

And you cannot demonstrate that God doesn’t exist. I would like to see you try using only material and efficient causes to communicate a the goal directness of any physical process.

Once again, the argument from ignorance, Wooters style: my inability to do so doesn't mean the contra-positive is suddenly true. Your above argument is still guilty of begging the question, and splitting my response in two to try and separate my pointing that out from my equally true comment that you haven't bothered justifying the positive claim you've made here isn't going to change that.

You have already done so by saying that your life has meaning and purpose. Please, describe one, just one, physical property of meaning.

If minds are properties of brains and not some distinct entity on their own, then every meaning is, ultimately, a physical property. Once again, you're begging the question by assuming that meanings are not physical in any sense and then demanding that everyone else prove you wrong, when you've never established the non-physical nature of meaning to begin with.

[Angrboda]

I also think trying to make one the same as the other violates the Leibniz's Law of Identity.

Please explain how you think making physical states the same as mental states violates Liebniz' law. I have a hunch, but I want to hear your own words.

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What is demonstrable is that mental properties, by virtue of their intentionality, are distinct from physical states.

Please demonstrate this.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I also think trying to make one the same as the other violates the Leibniz's Law of Identity.

Please explain how you think making physical states the same as mental states violates Liebniz' law.

Two things are identical if the share all the same properties, for example Samael Clemens is identical to Mark Twain. For something mental, like a thought, to be identical something physical, like cascade of firing neurons, they must share all the same properties. They do not.

The medium is not the message. What Rush Limbaugh says is distinct from the radio waves that carry his show. For the reductionist, the show just is the electromagnetic waves. That position is clearly false since a transcript of that show carries the same meaning even though it has a completely different physicality. Even different signs can carry the same meaning. The English word ‘dog’ has the same meaning as ‘chien’ in French.

These examples show that meaning has features distinct from the various physical mediums that support it. It may be that meaning must always instantiate in some material way, from electromagnetic waves to scratches on stone. The simplistic belief that the mind is identical to the brain is woefully incomplete. Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows. At least formal and final causes provides a more complete model for that relationship.

[Pizza]

He needs to show there to be form without matter or energy. He hasn't done that.

I think he's talking about Aristotle's four causes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes

"Four causes" refers to an influential principle in Aristotelian thought whereby causes of change or movement are categorized into four fundamental types of answer to the question "why?". Aristotle wrote that "we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause."[1][2] While there are cases where identifying a cause is difficult, or in which causes might merge, Aristotle was convinced that his four causes provided an analytical scheme of general applicability.[3]

[Angrboda]

Please explain how you think making physical states the same as mental states violates Liebniz' law.

Two things are identical if the share all the same properties, for example Samael Clemens is identical to Mark Twain. For something mental, like a thought, to be identical something physical, like cascade of firing neurons, they must share all the same properties. They do not.

The medium is not the message. What Rush Limbaugh says is distinct from the radio waves that carry his show. For the reductionist, the show just is the electromagnetic waves. That position is clearly false since a transcript of that show carries the same meaning even though it has a completely different physicality. Even different signs can carry the same meaning. The English word ‘dog’ has the same meaning as ‘chien’ in French.

These examples show that meaning has features distinct from the various physical mediums that support it. It may be that meaning must always instantiate in some material way, from electromagnetic waves to scratches on stone. The simplistic belief that the mind is identical to the brain is woefully incomplete. Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows. At least formal and final causes provides a more complete model for that relationship.

I honestly don't understand what you just said. Let me go back and go line by line.

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Please explain how you think making physical states the same as mental states violates Liebniz' law.

Two things are identical if the share all the same properties, for example Samael Clemens is identical to Mark Twain. For something mental, like a thought, to be identical something physical, like cascade of firing neurons, they must share all the same properties. They do not.

Being charitable here, I think you're begging the question. If mental properties reduce to physical properties then the brain has both mental and physical properties; it is identical with itself.

The medium is not the message...These examples show that meaning has features distinct from the various physical mediums that support it.

True, but irrelevant. We're talking about meaning in a complex set of neurons, not writing on a page. This doesn't even remotely relate.

The simplistic belief that the mind is identical to the brain is woefully incomplete. Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows. At least formal and final causes provides a more complete model for that relationship.

This is an abstract philosophical argument which depends on a certain theory of causes, which, even if true, is far from obvious. This is simply insufficient and seems to put you in the position of claiming to know the kinds of causes which meaning and intentionality require. I'll admit that I don't fully understand how meaning arises from brain matter, but substituting some philosophical just-so story in its place is inadequate. You'll need to be more explicit on this point before I'll bite.

Let me return to a point in that whole:

Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows.

I think this reduces to a form of argument from ignorance, but could you explain what kinds of causes are required that aren't allowed by reductionism?

[IATIA]

The simplistic belief that the mind is identical to the brain is woefully incomplete. Explaining the relationship between signs and their significance requires more kinds of cause than reductionism allows. At least formal and final causes provides a more complete model for that relationship.

This is an abstract philosophical argument which depends on a certain theory of causes, which, even if true, is far from obvious. This is simply insufficient and seems to put you in the position of claiming to know the kinds of causes which meaning and intentionality require. I'll admit that I don't fully understand how meaning arises from brain matter, but substituting some philosophical just-so story in its place is inadequate. You'll need to be more explicit on this point before I'll bite.

I kudoed ChadWooters though I do not necessarily agree on all points, but I thought it was a good overall picture of a viable philosophical hypothesis.

And I do not necessarily disagree with all you said, however ChadWooters has set up a good dialog for examination as one would need to start somewhere, so albeit there is no proof, there is no disproof either.

As each thought is preceded by a chemical reaction, the awareness we have is of what happened 500ms ago. We have no awareness of the now. That would suggest the awareness is just the nature of the brain reactions and does not fall into the matter or energy category.

[Angrboda]

Knowing from the Inside/Having a Point of View

For Nagel, there is something special about having an introspective capacity — a capacity to know one's thoughts, feelings, and sensations from the inside, as it were. One's experiences have a certain unmistakable, phenomenological character, such as the felt quality of pain or the perceived character of red. One therefore has a subjective point of view. It is the qualia or qualitative character of experiences, sensations, feelings, and so forth, to which we have introspective access, and it is this that, in Nagel's view, is not reducible to neural states. These mental states resist reduction because introspective access to them has an essentially different character, yielding essentially different information, than does external access via neuroscience. The argument does exert a powerful attraction, but as stated it is still teasingly vague. In order to see exactly how it works, it is necessary to set out a more precise version.

(A)
(1) The qualia of my sensations are knowable to me by introspection.
(2) The properties of my brain states are not knowable to me by introspection.
Therefore:
(3) The qualia of my sensations =/= the properties of my brain states.

A second argument, complementary to the first, seems also in play:

(B)
(1) The properties of my brain states are knowable by the various external senses.
(2) The qualia of my sensations are not knowable by the various external senses.
Therefore:
(3) The qualia of my sensations =/= the properties of my brain states.

The general form of the argument seems to be this:

(1) a is F
(2) b is not F
Therefore:
(3) a =/= b

Leibniz's law says that a = b if and only if a and b have every property in common. So if a = b, then if a is red, b is red, if a weighs ten pounds, then b weighs ten pounds, and so forth. If a is red and b is not, then a =/= b. Assuming their premises are true, arguments (A) and (B) appear to establish the nonidentity of brain states and mental states. But are their premises true?

Let us begin with argument (A). There is no quarrel with the first premise (the qualia of my sensations are known-to-me-by-introspection), especially since qualia are defined as those sensory qualities known by introspection, and in any case I have no wish to deny introspective awareness of sensations. In contrast, the second premise (the properties of my brain states are not known-to-me-by-introspection) looks decidedly troublesome. Its first problem is that it begs the very question at issue-that is, the question of whether or not mental states are identical to brain states. This is easy to see when we ask what the justification is for thinking that premise true.

The point is this: if in fact mental states are identical to brain states, then when I introspect a mental state, I do introspect the brain state with which it is identical. Needless to say, I may not describe my mental state as a brain state, but whether I do depends on what information I have about the brain, not upon whether the mental state really is identical to some brain state. The identity can be a fact about the world independently of my knowledge that it is a fact about the world. Similarly, when Jones swallows an aspirin, he thereby swallows acetylsalicylic acid, whether or not he thinks of himself thus; when Oedipus kissed Jocasta, he kissed his mother, whether or not he thought of himself thus. In short, identities may obtain even when we have not discovered that they do. The problem with the second premise is that the only justification for denying that introspective awareness of sensations could be introspective awareness of brain states derives from the assumption that mental states are not identical with brain states. And that is precisely what the argument is supposed to prove. Hence the charge of begging the question. (Although I have used (A) as an illustration, the same kind of criticism applies equally to (B).)

Other problems with these arguments are more subtle. One difficulty is best brought out by constructing an argument analogous to (A) or (B) with respect to the character of the properties under discussion and comparing the arguments for adequacy. Consider the following arguments:

(C)
(1) Smith believes Hitler to be a mass murderer.
(2) Smith does not believe Adolf Schicklgruber to be a mass murderer.
Therefore:
(3) Adolf Schicklgruber =/= Adolf Hitler.

As it happens, however, Adolf Schicklgruber = Adolf Hitler, so the argument cannot be right.

Or consider another instance of the general argument form where the property taking the place of F is a complex property concerning what John believes or knows:

(D)
(1) Aspirin is known by John to be a pain reliever.
(2) Acetylsalicylic acid is not known by John to be a pain reliever.
Therefore:
(3) Aspirin =/= acetylsalicylic acid.

And one final example more closely analogous to the arguments at issue:

(E)
(1) Temperature is directly apprehendable by me as a feature of material objects.
(2) Mean molecular kinetic energy is not directly apprehendable by me as a feature of material objects.
Therefore:
(3) Temperature =/= mean molecular kinetic energy.

These arguments fail because being-recognized-as-a-something or being-believed-to-be-a-something is not a genuine feature of the object itself, but rather is a feature of the object as apprehended under some description or other or as thought about in some manner. Having a certain mass is a property of the object, but being-thought-by-Smith-to-have-a-certain-mass is not a genuine property of the object. Such queer properties are sometimes called "intentional properties" to reflect their thought-mediated dependency. Notice that in (B) the property is being-knowable-by-the-various-external-senses, and in (A) the property is being-known-by-me-by-introspection. Both are sterling examples of thought-dependent properties.

Now the arguments (C) through (E) are fallacious because they treat intentional properties as though they were genuine properties of the objects, and a mistake of this type is called the intentional fallacy. It is evident that the arguments designed to demonstrate the nonidentity of qualia and brain states are analogous to arguments (C) through (E). Consequently, they are equally fallacious, and the nonidentity of mental states and brain states cannot be considered established by arguments such as (A) and (B).

The last difficulty with the arguments is better seen in a slightly different and more compelling version of the argument for the nonidentity of mental states and brain states, which I present and discuss below. [Discussion of Mary the Neuroscientist omitted]

- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland

[IanHulett]

Oh, yew don't have an explanation for it? HA! GOT YEW!!! Yew can't explain dis, so derefore God dun diddit!!! Few don't believe it, den dat's communism! Yew need tuh be dragged into da street and den shat!

Well, that's an over dramatization of the real argument, but that's how ridiculous it sounds from my perspective.

[Dystopia]

- God manifests himself in the physical world
- I've felt god's presence
- Therefore god exists

- There are many holy books
- Only the bible is divinely inspired
- Therefore the bible is true and other holy books are not

- The majority of people in the world believe in god
- The religion with most adherents is Christianity
- Therefore Christianity is correct

- Without god there is no absolute morality
- Humans need moral guidance
- Therefore god has to exist

- The bible needs evidence
- The bible is anthropologically and historically accurate
- Therefore the bible is correct [and Christianity is right]

Anyone notice the fallacies?