Argument from Reason?

[Barefoot]

Please don't overlook my edit above.

[JuliaL]

Geronimo!!!!!!

But at least while falling, we are distracted and amused.

[JuliaL]

Edited to add:
I see where I was mistaken. Embarrassingly, I've been reading the entire argument as though "determinate" meant something like "intelligible" or "able to be understood". So yes, I did misrepresent his points, by ignorance. I feel so incompetent.

Aaaaaannnnnd  we're back in the plane!

I still want to know what 'truth' is. I've never been able to figure it out myself.

[Jackalope]

Please don't overlook my edit above.

I'm.just having fun with it now. It's not intended to be at your expense.

[Jackalope]

Edited to add:
I see where I was mistaken. Embarrassingly, I've been reading the entire argument as though "determinate" meant something like "intelligible" or "able to be understood". So yes, I did misrepresent his points, by ignorance. I feel so incompetent.

Aaaaaannnnnd  we're back in the plane!

I still want to know what 'truth' is.  I've never been able to figure it out myself.

Well, duh, it's those things that aren't false. Everyone knows that

[JuliaL]

Well, duh, it's those things that aren't false.  Everyone knows that

WOW! THANKS! Now I know.

[robvalue]

Erm... looks like one of Kalam's cousins. Baseless assertions designed to make a predrawn conclusion inevitable.

Most sceptics are methodological naturalists, I would think. (I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong on that.) So they don't deny the existence of the supernatural on principle, just that if it exists, it is beyond our ability to investigate.

And something supernatural is a far fling from a god, which again isn't someone's favourite storybook character by default. So like the Kalam, it needs non sequiturs to reach the conclusion.

I didn't read it all in detail so apologies if I misinterpreted.

[Pyrrho]

Erm... looks like one of Kalam's cousins. Baseless assertions designed to make a predrawn conclusion inevitable.

It is more than just baseless assertions, it involves possibly meaningless assertions, or at least nebulous assertions, i.e., assertions whose meanings are unclear and are not properly defined.

I am not sure I would call it a "cousin" of a cosmological argument, but since that must be metaphorical, I am not going to argue with you on that.  It is, if anything, more silly than a cosmological argument.

You can almost just judge the level of silliness of an argument for the existence of god by when the argument was first put forth.  The more recent, the more silly, because in olden times they put forth the best things they could come up with.  So new things tend to be less and less intellectually respectable when it comes to this topic, because they are dealing with ideas that are selected from the dregs, as it were.

Most sceptics are methodological naturalists, I would think. (I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong on that.) So they don't deny the existence of the supernatural on principle, just that if it exists, it is beyond our ability to investigate.

I would not say that supernatural things might exist.  I am not at all certain that "supernatural" is meaningful.  So I would require a definition given (and the definition must contain something positive, not simply defined as "something not natural"), before I would be willing to assert that such things (if the term properly refers to things) might exist.

And something supernatural is a far fling from a god, which again isn't someone's favourite storybook character by default. So like the Kalam, it needs non sequiturs to reach the conclusion.

I didn't read it all in detail so apologies if I misinterpreted.

Good god, it would be a waste of your time to read it, unless you have a particular interest in reading gibberish.

If someone wishes to argue here based on it, you still won't need to read it, as you can just read whatever nonsense someone types here and object to that.  But if you like reading crap that is put forth to try to prove that there is a god, go ahead and read it, and you will see the level of drivel that religious "intellectuals" write.

[robvalue]

Nah, thanks for the warning, I won't waste my brain cell on it!

Yeah, supernatural means pretty much whatever people want it to mean. I think of it as anything that we (or anything natural) can never affect or measure in any way, no matter what happens. It's like another kind of existence overlaying our own which can act on us, but we can never act on it. Other methodological naturalists may view it differently, I don't know. It's just "whatever science can never reach" I suppose, however you want to hide it.

Of course, this may well be nothing at all. I have no reason to think any such thing exists. But I don't feel it necessary to declare that the set is empty.

If someone wants to posit its existence, its up to them to properly define what they are talking about. So really, I don't need a definition as I'd never be making a case that involves it. It's just kind of a fallback definition. Whatever your definition of supernatural, as long as its internally consistent, I'm not going to claim it doesn't exist. I have no need to.

The obvious mistake is to appeal to the limits of our current understanding; as this can render something supernatural today and natural tomorrow. Makes no sense to me.

I've found that debate doesn't tend to get past the definition stage when precise meanings are requested, often (I suspect) because the person defending such ideas is referring entirely to their imagination for reference.

[Esquilax]

Does it bother anyone else that these apologist arguments more often than not boil down to:

1. X thing exists.
2. X thing belongs to my god.
3. Therefore, my god exists, or else you can't use X.

Much of the christian intellectual edifice is just christians pointing at aspects of the world and shouting "mine!"