An argument against naturalism

[The Omnissiunt One]

I think we should attack other premises.

You think wrong.

You are right that this premise is false, so the argument is unsound. However, the argument still holds water if we believe that reason is reliable in determining truth.

A better response would be this, which I've just found: http://atheism.about.com/od/cslewisnarni...ralism.htm

[lrh9]

If you go down the path you want to go down, you'll never be able to refute the person's argument. You'll give it a good try. You'll refute certain premises. You'll invalidate the argument. In the end you'll just meander until one of you is tired enough of arguing to end it, because in his mind anything you say is just minor nitpicks about an obvious truth. However, if you make a false premise a deal breaker, you might actually see him make rational arguments and you might actually see him think for himself.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Not at all. I just think that, whilst attacking the first premise would invalidate the argument, the argument can easily be reformulated as, 'For an assertion to be reliably capable of truth or falsehood it must come from a rational source'. Thus, to deny the first premise would be to deny the efficacy of reason. Attacking the second premise seems to avoid this problem, however the argument is formulated. Not that you weren't technically correct that the first premise is unsound.

[DeistPaladin]

C.S. Lewis loved working backward from the presupposition and made a number of "arguments" based upon it. The most famous is his "trilemma" (Liar, Lunatic or Lord). Another, featuring prominently in Mere Christianity, is his argument from morality. Other famous "arguments", like the Ontological, follow his pattern.

Could someone help me out here? Starting with a preconceived idea and looking for evidence to then support it is a formal logical fallacy. We see this in a lot of creationist arguments as well. Which one is it? A Priori?

Constructing such arguments typically involves any of the following:

- Presupposition determined prior to the construction of the argument
- Unwarrented assumptions
- False dilemmas or trilemmas
- Strawmanning of undesireable conclusions.
- Oversimplification or sweeping generalizations

Now we can break down each of these arguments (Ontological, the moral lawgiver argument, the Trilemma, etc) but they all boil down to Lewis wanting something to be true so he searches for any excuse to believe it, no matter how many logical fallacies are committed. The presupposition is always the core fallacy, much like a spoke to a wheel.

Now on to the argument against naturalism:

1) For an assertion to be capable of truth or falsehood it must come from a rational source.
2) No merely physical material or combination of merely physical materials constitute a rational source. (i.e. anti-panpsychism)
3) Therefore, no assertion that is true or false can come from a merely physical source.
4) The assertions of human minds are capable of truth or falsehood
Conclusion: Therefore, human minds are not a merely physical source (see explanation below).

Point 1. Blur the lines between truth and falsehood with factual and not factual. The "truth" is that you can say something that's wrong and not be lying if you really believe it. A calculator, if damaged, might give you wrong numbers but that doesn't mean it has a soul.

Point 2. "Panpsychism" or the believe that the universe as a whole is conscious, is confused with materialism. This is a strawman argument. The alternative undesirable conclusion is being misrepresented at this point.

Point 3. Non psychic sources, whether mechanical or biological, can give false information. A damaged computer might give a false conclusion. A damaged ear might hear ringing that isn't in the external environment.

And the argument for God:

(5) A being requires a rational process to assess the truth or falsehood of a claim (hereinafter, to be convinced by argument).
(6) Therefore, if humans are able to be convinced by argument, their reasoning processes must have a rational source.
(7) Therefore, considering element two above, if humans are able to be convinced by argument, their reasoning processes must have a non-physical (as well as rational) source.
(8) Rationality cannot arise out of non-rationality. That is, no arrangement of non-rational materials creates a rational thing.
(9) No being that begins to exist can be rational except through reliance, ultimately, on a rational being that did not begin to exist. That is, rationality does not arise spontaneously from out of nothing but only from another rationality.
(10) All humans began to exist at some point in time.
(11) Therefore, if humans are able to be convinced by argument, there must be a necessary and rational being on which their rationality ultimately relies.
Conclusion: This being we call God.

Points 5 and 6: Confuse "convinced by argument" with "argument is true". People are convinced all the time of crazy things for emotional reasons.

Point 8: Unfounded assumption to support the conclusion. People can turn out to be right following faulty logic just by good fortune.

Point 9: Unfounded assumption that I shouldn't have to explain to this crowd.

Nearly every one of C.S. Lewis' arguments consist of this pattern of working backward from the desired conclusion. The "Trilemma" and his argument from morality follow this pattern.

[Cerrone]

I think we should attack other premises.

You think wrong.

You are right that this premise is false, so the argument is unsound. However, the argument still holds water if we believe that reason is reliable in determining truth.

As a matter of fact I've often found reason to be the enemy of truth. Lawyers, politicians and dishonest people with a way with words often use some form of reason as a way of avoiding or manipulating the truth.

(11) Therefore, if humans are able to be convinced by argument, there must be a necessary and rational being on which their rationality ultimately relies.
Conclusion: This being we call God.

I think- if you're looking fo different ways to bring C.S Lewis down, and you seem to be- then you could write this all off as christian bias, that assumes before the debate begins that there is a "god" responsible for everything. Essentially failing as an evolved species by reverting to primitive doctrines when we find ourselves incapable of "thinking outside the box".

[blood_pardon]

The presupposition is always the core fallacy, much like a spoke to a wheel.

C.S. Lewis loved working backward from the presupposition and made a number of "arguments" based upon it.

It seems like atheists do the exact same thing from my expirences. The only difference is they begin with the pre conceived notion that Christianity/Theism is an incorrect world view.

[DeistPaladin]

It seems like atheists do the exact same thing from my expirences. The only difference is they begin with the pre conceived notion that Christianity/Theism is an incorrect world view.

Most atheists that I've known have been ex-Christians. Some of them were very intense about their beliefs, "felt the Holy Spirit", etc. They only arrived at atheism when they could no longer support their previous convictions.

[solja247]

My counter argument would be we can rationalise because we are evolved social creatures with problem solving abilities. these are all manifestations of the evoloutionary path our species has taken and down to some elusive sky daddy.

So your counter argument is a straw man and also making a large assumption (that our rational minds came from evolution, we dont know if thats true, we dont how they came around, well some people dont).

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Most atheists that I've known have been ex-Christians. Some of them were very intense about their beliefs, "felt the Holy Spirit", etc. They only arrived at atheism when they could no longer support their previous convictions.

Dellusions. I get very discouraged when Christians rape their own emotions to try to feel that God is real i.e. the pentecostals.

[theVOID]

1) For an assertion to be capable of truth or falsehood it must come from a rational source (see explanation below).

And we have the false premise already

When considering the truth or falsehoold of an assertion the means by which one arrived at the assertion is arbitrary, one may be correct in asserting that God exists even though the assertion has no rational basis, likewise if the existence of God is false, then the assertion was still false, despite the assertion being irrational.

2) No merely physical material or combination of merely physical materials constitute a rational source. (i.e. anti-panpsychism)

This seems to be nothing more than a bare assertion fallacy - In the day of this argument substance dualism was seen by many to be absolutely necessary, with our neurobiological knowledge we now know that rationality can be mechanised - Even in the instance of a computer weighing two compeeting options in a rational way.

The rest of the argument is invalid due to the first two premises being false.