(August 9, 2012 at 8:38 pm)Stimbo Wrote: The bias to which I was referring concerned the connection between Rasmussen's 'survey' and his published article - in fact, he couldn't have been more obvious if he'd put up a sign saying "Today a Necessary Being; Tomorrow a God!!!" - but since you want me to hold your hand:
You open by asking (generally though obviously not exclusively) atheists "Do your beliefs imply a Necessary Being exists?" Rasmussen's article clearly delineates the direction the phrase Necessary Being is intended to flow. Atheists by definition have no belief in the existence of god or gods and certainly not God. Thus your question can be amended to "Do your beliefs imply that an entity that can be defined in such a way as to open the door for God to be defined into existence, as per Rasmussen's article?" Knowingly or not, intentionally or not, you are engaging in definitional sleight of hand. I don't play those games.
The definition of Necessary Being is given. What further arguments Rasmussen has regarding Necessary Beings, I don't know; I haven't looked at them. Have you? Have you analyzed their validity and soundness?
But I'm not playing definitional 'sleight of hand'. Whether your beliefs entail the existence of a Necessary Being is a matter of logic, not "sleight of hand".
I'm not sure on what you think the deception is. Do you think that this survey will say that your beliefs (or a subset of them) entail the existence of a Necessary Being when, in fact, your beliefs (or any subset of them) do not?
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
