RE: Are Atheists using Intellectually Dishonest Arguments?
March 8, 2018 at 3:29 pm
(This post was last modified: March 8, 2018 at 3:31 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
(March 7, 2018 at 7:27 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I clicked the link hoping to find an article which would make some significant points and perhaps challenge me to become more intellectually honest. I was sorely disappointed.
Keneinan’s blog post is clearly a list of generalizations, one that IMHO does indeed apply to a majority of the most active atheist AF members. As such she is not attempting to “refute” the so-called arguments. Her intended audience appears not to be persuadable atheists; but rather, believers. It provides believers with warning signs for when an atheist is not interested in a serious discussion but rather intent on scoring rhetorical points.
(March 7, 2018 at 7:27 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:Eve Keneinan Wrote:the atheist is simply attempting to conflate God with a god in order to set up a strawman and/or trying to annoy you by belittling God—while ignoring the basic conceptual distinction that all European languages mark by differentiating the word “God” from the word “god” by capitalization.
Who gives a shit? Some people have the bizarre habit of capitalizing a pronoun when "God" is the antecedent. This practice has no precedent outside of circles of believers and in no fucking way marks a logical distinction.
Well, I do. Capitalization often indicates a distinct connotation and there are different reasons for capitalizing various words. Zeus is capitalized because it is a proper name. God is not a proper name; but rather, a title like His Majesty. Similarly, capitalization is used to distinguish between different connotations of the same concept. “The Truth” has a different connotation (that of a transcendent value) from any particular mundane truth. Childishly insisting that a word with multiple connotations has one and only one connotation (and the most unfavorable one at that) is just acting like an annoying twat.
(March 7, 2018 at 7:27 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: …They [the vast majority of believers] worship the tribal god of the Israelites, and they will tell you as much if you inquire about the nature of their god. It seems quite unfair to atheists to have them respond to god-claims that resemble paganism with counterarguments that refute an eternal, cosmic being.
And what is it called when a theist is clearly talking about Classical Monotheism and the atheist keeps referring to ‘skydaddy’ and ‘Jeebus’? It’s called being a dick.
