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RE: Most frustrating Fallacies that Religious people bring up?
April 10, 2014 at 5:56 pm
(April 10, 2014 at 5:31 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Ad Hoc Hypothesis: Spuriously dismissing all contrary evidence by inventing new assertions, often pulled out of one's butt, that the skeptic must now disprove. The object is to wear down the skeptic and eventually force him/her to prove a negative.
Skeptic: Herod died in 4 BCE. Qurinius didn't start his administration until 6 CE. Matt says Jesus was born before Herod died while Luke says Jesus was born during the administration of Quirinius. Christian: Well, maybe Quirinius had an earlier administration in Syria. Skeptic: But Rome never allowed that, lest a governor get too much support from one province. Christian: Well, maybe they made an exception for Quirinius. Skeptic: But Judea was another kingdom under Herod, Rome wouldn't have conducted a census there. Christian: Well, maybe they did anyway and Herod complied. Skeptic: OK, I looked up the information on Quirinius and it says he was governor of another province in modern day Turkey at the time. Christian: Well, maybe he was brought in to administer the census in Syria. And maybe Luke meant "administrator", not "governor". Skeptic: What do you base that on? Christian: It coulda happened. Skeptic: OK, the census prior to 4 BC was in 8/9 BCE. Jesus would have been too old to be "about 30" when John the Baptist was arrested. JtB didn't even start his ministry until 28 CE according to Luke. Christian: Well, maybe Luke meant 37 when he said "about 30". Skeptic: What? That's ridiculous. Christian: Can you prove Luke wouldn't think 37 was "about 30". Skeptic: No one does! Christian: Have you polled everyone on the planet about that? Skeptic: OK, even if that is true, Jesus would have been 37 when JtB started his ministry, not when he finished it. Christian: Well, maybe JtB only had a ministry for a year. Skeptic: Gah! His hugely successful ministry was built in one year? Christian: It coulda happened. Skeptic: Look, John the Baptist was arrested for speaking out against Herod Antipas' marriage to Herodius. We know this marriage and divorce of Antipas' previous wife triggered a war with his neighbor and that battle happened in 37 CE. Why would king Aratas IV wait 10 years before attacking Judea? Christian: It coulda happened.
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The fallacy continues until the Christian "wins" when the skeptic gets frustrated and goes home.
I consider this behaviour in the religion memeplex to be homologous to that of mutation in the gene pool. It is essentially random and generally neutral to detrimental to the organism. But when they find an argument which sort of works reliably, it propagates through the system until that argument is fixed and becomes dogma. "There are no transitional forms." would be one such which has outlived its usefulness as generally even the densest religiots have a vague recognition that more transitional forms have been discovered than can be conveniently ignored. Use of such an argument can continue in the really dim ones as sort of a vestigial phenotype.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?
