(July 16, 2013 at 12:51 am)genkaus Wrote: My point was, rather than granting contradictory moral premises and formulating an argument around them, you could've just as simply pointed out the contradiction and saved yourself the trouble.
Hm, indeed. However, I plan on running this argument sometimes and I honestly wouldn't want to deal with the hassle of trying to get monotheists to accept that, so I figure putting it in a deductive argument makes it more obvious when they're BSing.
Quote:They are starting to. A lot of theologians have tried to reconcile different religions by using this argument.
Huh. That's a little odd to me, but good to know. Thanks.
Quote:You missed the point here. Saying that "X acts according to its nature" is a tautological statement. That's because X's nature is determined by how X acts. The statement doesn't tell us anything about X or its nature - its just another way of saying "X does what it does and doesn't do what it doesn't do".
Oh, I did miss that. But wouldn't it make more sense to say "How X acts is dependent on X's nature", not the other way around? Unless you're, say, referring our epistemic situation with regards to inferring X's nature from its actions?
Quote:Accepting that god acts contrary to his nature would be self-contradictory. It'd mean that the theist has given up on any pretensions that this being is subject to logic or laws of reality.
Ah, good point. But didn't you earlier state that you were surprised Christians/Muslims didn't take that position, since "it'd leave their opponent without a refutation"?
