(September 19, 2017 at 1:34 pm)Khemikal Wrote: A competent apologist can diffuse special pleading objections by reminding his interlocuters that he has come to his religion by faith, he didn't argue himself into it. It's only special pleading when you actually -do it-, and the nature of some statement as a component in a special pleading argument does not actually make the conclusion of that argument inaccurate. A christyian believes their stories are true despite the similarities, and believes that others stories are false despite the similarities. They cannot rationally argue this case...but they don't need to, because they have faith in their stories..and none in the stories of others. That leap is, supposedly, theologically important. The difficulty and even inability of rationally distinguishing true and false prophets is strongly supported by scripture. Many will be lead astray, after all.
Too bad we don't have any competent apologists....you'd think that the "faith" skyhook would be obvious to the simpletons just the same....but apparently it isn't.
I had to read this over a few times to make sure I got what you were saying. Let me check. So you're saying special pleading is not a problem only provided one does not depend wholly on the argument to result in belief. Faith is a kind of trump card in the deck of possible arguments, its the secret sauce without which all is lost.
The only weakness in this comes when you want to lead others to believe by providing them with the arguments which support your beliefs (pretty much the same way they support other, different beliefs). So a fully actualized apologist would tell his intended victims that, as good as his arguments are, only faith will take them the whole way there. That might be why so many like to suggest that we just try it and see what happens.
Of course to those disinterested in adopting the belief it just remains a silly idea.
