RE: Faith?
October 5, 2009 at 2:13 am
(This post was last modified: October 5, 2009 at 2:17 am by Ryft.)
First, if you will notice, Sagan does not address my question. Had an answer to my question existed, I would have confronted it. That is why I posed my question to you in the first place. "Tell me what evidence one should expect, given a dragon that is invisible, floating, and transcendent?"
Second, notice too that Sagan supports my position. While you proposed that one would be "justified in saying there really isn't a dragon" based on the absence of evidence for it—which I said is fallacious rather than justified—Sagan writes that "the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis." There is your fallacious assertion of ¬P ("there really is not a dragon") on the one hand, and Sagan's sensible rejection of P on the other.
As I said previously (Msg. #61), not accepting the claim P (the position Sagan espoused) is very different from asserting the claim ¬P (the position you espoused). The former does not commit the fallacy, but the latter certainly does. The difference between your position and his can be seen in the following: while he wondered what the difference is "between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all," you went the whole way to assert there is no difference and the dragon does not exist. Sagan saw in the circumstance reason to formulate a question, while you thought one could formulate an answer.
Man, I really miss Carl Sagan.
Second, notice too that Sagan supports my position. While you proposed that one would be "justified in saying there really isn't a dragon" based on the absence of evidence for it—which I said is fallacious rather than justified—Sagan writes that "the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis." There is your fallacious assertion of ¬P ("there really is not a dragon") on the one hand, and Sagan's sensible rejection of P on the other.
As I said previously (Msg. #61), not accepting the claim P (the position Sagan espoused) is very different from asserting the claim ¬P (the position you espoused). The former does not commit the fallacy, but the latter certainly does. The difference between your position and his can be seen in the following: while he wondered what the difference is "between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all," you went the whole way to assert there is no difference and the dragon does not exist. Sagan saw in the circumstance reason to formulate a question, while you thought one could formulate an answer.
Man, I really miss Carl Sagan.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
