Worst Arguments For Christianity

[Chas]

"Influential" doesn't mean intelligent, insightful, or correct.

Of course. Though I meant influential in the sense of influencing progress. It's that many were intelligent and insightful that I meant by "greatest."

It's the "correct" part that is the problem.

[Mudhammam]

It's the "correct" part that is the problem.

It's even much deeper, because even though the insightful illuminate reality in certain respects, it's the safeguarding of ignorance and the persuasion over undiscerning minds in which they subtly confuse and fill gaps of knowledge with fallacious dogmas so that "objective" no longer carries the same meaning as it does to the rest of us.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...you could have enough respect to spell Jesus and God correctly. I for one do not find it funny, but suck up to those others if that's why you're here.

Yeah, there seems to some kind of sick competition among some members to see who can be the most disrespectful to our Lord and Savior.

[Exian]

...you could have enough respect to spell Jesus and God correctly. I for one do not find it funny, but suck up to those others if that's why you're here.

Yeah, there seems to some kind of sick competition among some members to see who can be the most disrespectful to our Lord and Savior.

Don't give us any ideas. I do remember an entertaining thread on what the "H" stood for. Good times.

[JesusHChrist]

...you could have enough respect to spell Jesus and God correctly. I for one do not find it funny, but suck up to those others if that's why you're here.

Yeah, there seems to some kind of sick competition among some members to see who can be the most disrespectful to our Lord and Savior.

A great idea for a thread...ty.

Let the sickness begin!

And I'll add sacred cow is delicious.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I and the others here already have purposes they have self-determined, and meaning in their lives that is individual, yet still present. Therefore, physical processes are sufficient for meaning and purpose.

And your fallacy is... begging the question!

I don't think you're going to be able to do that [prove that souls exist], which leaves us with... physical processes, that are readily demonstrable to everyone.

I made no mention of souls and I don’t need to. What is demonstrable is that mental properties, by virtue of their intentionality, are distinct from physical states. Physical reduction is only one among many possibilities. Others include panpsychism, phenomenalism, and property dualism. Your belief that physical and/or material processes must be the default position is ideological, not informed.

I have meaning and purpose and the only demonstrable parts of me... are the physical processes that compose us.

Except you seem incapable of actually showing how one reduces to the other.

Remember what I said earlier about not covering for one assertion with a second assertion? Your entire position is based on doing exactly that.

Christian apologetics are terribly predictable.

Atheistic dismissals are usually based on ignorance and/or lies.

.... wouldn't you then be implying that human beings are artifacts, given that your position hinges on the idea that their purpose is externally derived?

Human beings are not artifacts. Nor are they biological robots. Humans are the material instantiations of an essential form and each acts toward his or her potential.

[Angrboda]

I made no mention of souls and I don’t need to. What is demonstrable is that mental properties, by virtue of their intentionality, are distinct from physical states. Physical reduction is only one among many possibilities.

If physical reduction is a possibility and is in fact the reality, then mental properties are not distinct from physical states. If physical reduction is true, then mental properties are physical states. You've proposed a dichotomy and collapsed it all in one breath. You're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

[Chas]

Christian apologetics are terribly predictable.

Atheistic dismissals are usually based on ignorance and/or lies.

If by 'ignorance' you mean lack of any credible evidence, and by 'lies' you mean lies told by Christians, then yes.

[Esquilax]

I and the others here already have purposes they have self-determined, and meaning in their lives that is individual, yet still present. Therefore, physical processes are sufficient for meaning and purpose.

And your fallacy is... begging the question!

... Which I addressed later on in that same post, by reminding you that, while physical processes are readily demonstrable in every respect, any additional mental or spiritual source you might want to claim is not. If you want to claim that there's something more, you first have to demonstrate it; I'm under no obligation to assume your conclusions when in truth only mine are obvious to everyone. Physical things exist, and you haven't bothered to demonstrate that there's anything more. The assertion that there is, and a gap in our knowledge where the mind is concerned, is not sufficient proof to make what I'm saying begging the question, rather than simply a logical conclusion based on the evidence currently available to us.

I made no mention of souls and I don’t need to. What is demonstrable is that mental properties, by virtue of their intentionality, are distinct from physical states.

You want to talk about begging the question? Your entire argument hinges on the idea that physical properties cannot generate intentionality on their own, and hence must be distinct from the mind... which is the very claim you're attempting to justify with this argument.

Where did you demonstrate that physical states cannot generate intentionality?

Physical reduction is only one among many possibilities. Others include panpsychism, phenomenalism, and property dualism. Your belief that physical and/or material processes must be the default position is ideological, not informed.

Physical properties are easily demonstrable to everyone. Aside from, indeed, begging the question and uttering bare assertions, you've given no real argument for the existence of this other thing you think exists. If one thing is readily apparent but the other is not, then belief in the former over the latter is more probably true, and no amount of attempts to define the latter into existence by fiat assertion is going to make that otherwise.

Except you seem incapable of actually showing how one reduces to the other.

Remember what I said earlier about not covering for one assertion with a second assertion? Your entire position is based on doing exactly that.

What, you haven't seen the architecture of the brain? Sure, we might not know everything about it, but if your rebuttal hinges entirely on that ignorance, then I think you know what kind of fallacy you're using there, cute echoes of my earlier words notwithstanding.

Besides, you don't know what my position is; me finding your desperate attempts to define additional states of being into existence by fiat assertion to be ridiculous does not entail that I hold the exact opposite view to you. It just means that I find your position ridiculous, and that's nothing new: I've always found your style of "here's the thing that solves the problem I've defined into existence from nothing" argumentation to be highly silly.

Atheistic dismissals are usually based on ignorance and/or lies.

Ignorance isn't anything shameful; when we both don't know something, it's the guy who makes up an answer who's embarrassing himself, not the one who simply acknowledges the limits of his knowledge. That said, ignorance of what? You haven't provided any information or evidence to be ignorant of, you've just demanded that X or Y property of life cannot be explained via physical properties, therefore magic. Is it ignorance of your fantasy world, that you're talking about there?

Because I don't have any particular interest in educating myself on what you want to be true, Chad.

Human beings are not artifacts. Nor are they biological robots. Humans are the material instantiations of an essential form and each acts toward his or her potential.

See? Like this: bare assertion, with no attempt at providing evidence. This is all you ever do, and then when someone else pipes up and tells you how unconvincing that is, or asks you to provide the evidence that you should have shown in the first place, you jump to conclusions and demand that they defend the contra-positive. As if it's everyone else's job to prove your assertions wrong before you let go of them.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I made no mention of souls and I don’t need to. What is demonstrable is that mental properties, by virtue of their intentionality, are distinct from physical states. Physical reduction is only one among many possibilities.

If physical reduction is a possibility and is in fact the reality, then mental properties are not distinct from physical states. If physical reduction is true, then mental properties are physical states. You've proposed a dichotomy and collapsed it all in one breath. You're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Perhaps I was unclear by trying to be diplomatic. Some people believe that physical reduction is possible. I am willing to be convinced but have not seen a conceivable means for even showing such to be the reality. I also think trying to make one the same as the other violates the Leibniz's Law of Identity. The only point I was trying to make was that physical reduction is not the automatic default position, as Eqlax suggests, since other reasonable alternates, like phenomenalism, are more coherent, even if they have their own deficiencies.

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... while physical processes are readily demonstrable in every respect, any additional mental or spiritual source you might want to claim is not. ...Physical things exist, and you haven't bothered to demonstrate that there's anything more.

Non-physical properties are also easily demonstrated: triangularity, the truth preserving quality of logical propositions, etc. Unless of course you opt for nominalism or conceptualism, both of which crash and burn under the weight of their own paradoxes.

... Your entire argument hinges on the idea that physical properties cannot generate intentionality on their own, and hence must be distinct from the mind... which is the very claim you're attempting to justify with this argument.

Why should I believe that they can?

... Where did you demonstrate that physical states cannot generate intentionality?

And you cannot demonstrate that God doesn’t exist. I would like to see you try using only material and efficient causes to communicate a the goal directness of any physical process.

... Physical properties are easily demonstrable to everyone...you've given no real argument for the existence of this other thing you think exists.

You have already done so by saying that your life has meaning and purpose. Please, describe one, just one, physical property of meaning.