Good exists - a Catholic comments

[The Grand Nudger]

Imagine if they'd come back after the first fuckup...said "yeah we fucked that up. I'll get back to you...." and never did. It would stand as a rare moment of self restraint and intellectual rigor in prophetic religions.

But no...we can't have religions like that. We can only have the fucking nutty ones. The dumb ones. The ones that can't help, or control, themselves.

[Ravenshire]

@Barry is proof positive the religion is nothing more than simplification for the hard-of-thinking.

[Bucky Ball]

It's not a series of non seqs...or any fallacy, at all.  That's why it's deemed successful.  It might be wrong for any number of reasons, but logical validity isn't one of them.

My personal favorite objection is to start with an antithetical initial premise.  Just as, if you accept that a god possibly exists in some world, modal logic will tell you that a god necessarily exists in all worlds..if you accept the premise that a god possibly does not exist in some world, modal logic will tell you that gods are necessarily nonexistent in all worlds.  Technically, the antithetical premise is implicit in the possible world god premise (as all the worlds without gods are worlds where it's not only possible, but actual, that a god does not exist).

-and that, is why it's famously described as successful, but unconvincing.  Sometimes it helps to think of logic like a word game.  Just as a tv mentalist can arrange for an initial set of variables that inevitably leads to just one conclusion after any number of seemingly complicated steps in their at-home audience .... a committed logician can exclude all but the desirable answer by an identical process.  It's not that this is invalid, a fallacy, against the rules.....it's just a limitation of our logical system.  It's a game, so it can be gamed.

It is nothing but a series of non-sequiturs. It's not successful. I do not accept anything about it. It's all entirely complete utter rubbish.

[The Grand Nudger]

I mean...I don't accept it either? It's one thing to think a conclusion is wrong, and another to declare an argument invalid.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that it may actually be invalid in some non obvious way (this is evergreen, btw). Some non obvious way that indicts every other conclusion of modal logic in equal measure. We did build this system on the fly, after all. Until we figure out how that is or might be, though, I'm willing to give credit where it's due. It's obviously pretty hard to argue for a god without tripping all over your own dick.

Our experience (and the observational data) of time is another example of this. Reality as we apprehend and observe it suggests that there's something fundamentally invalid in the mt/mp equivalence. Logic (as we have it) suggests that causality can flow "backward" in time. I feel like we'd notice this in lottery winnings at some point if it were true, but maybe we just aren't at that point yet.

[Bucky Ball]

IDK.   I think we can all call a mulligan.  It's rare for us to describe or explain something right, and the very first time.  The trouble with christian apologetics is that it's not an attempt to get things right the second time.  It's an attempt to reassert the troubled bits some other way, the second time.  Inevitably necessitating a third, and a fourth, and a...rinse and repeat for centuries.

Daniel 9:26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood...

2nd Century BCE (after nothing happened): "Oh, it was sixty-two weeks of YEARS!"

2nd Century CE (after Rome wiped out the city): "The flood part referred to the legions.  It was a flood of soldiers."

1975 CE: "The Soviet Union will destroy Jerusalem"

1995 CE: "The Russians will destroy Jerusalem"

2029 CE: "China will destroy Jerusalem."

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Carrier's LONG list of historical errors. https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/18242
Daniel was a forgery. A total fraud.

[The Grand Nudger]

Imagine a religion that owned up to all of that, and then said they'd get back to us when they figured out the real deal...but never did.

Here again - it seems like we can't have a religion like this. Just the nuts.

[Bucky Ball]

I mean...I don't accept it either?  It's one thing to think a conclusion is wrong, and another to declare an argument invalid.  

I'm sympathetic to the idea that it may actually be invalid in some non obvious way (this is evergreen, btw).  Some non obvious way that indicts every other conclusion of modal logic in equal measure.  We did build this system on the fly, after all.  Until we figure out how that is or might be, though, I'm willing to give credit where it's due.  It's obviously pretty hard to argue for a god without tripping all over your own dick.

Our experience (and the observational data) of time is another example of this.  Reality as we apprehend and observe it suggests that there's something fundamentally invalid in the mt/mp equivalence.  Logic (as we have it) suggests that causality can flow "backward" in time.  I feel like we'd notice this in lottery winnings at some point if it were true, but maybe we just aren't at that point yet.

Premise #1: If god exists, he exists necessarily. 

Wrong, If a being exists "necessarily" it's not a god, and it would be subject to the laws of Reality ... and that's not a god. 
Plantigna destroyed in the first premise. No justification, nothing but an assertion. The end.

[LinuxGal]

It's not a series of non seqs...or any fallacy, at all.  That's why it's deemed successful.  It might be wrong for any number of reasons, but logical validity isn't one of them.

Plantigna:

"Let P be the ensemble of the properties of omniscience, omnipotence, and perfect moral goodness, and define the property of being maximally P as that property possessed by something if and only if it exists, and has P, in every possible world. If it is then granted that the property of being maximally P is possibly exemplified, it follows that it is exemplified."

Teresita:

"Let Q be the ensemble of the properties of omniscience, omnipotence, and unadulterated moral evil.  Substitute Q for P in your argument.  If it is granted that the property of being maximally Q is possibly exemplified, it follows that it is exemplified."

[The Grand Nudger]

There's a term for it. Mechanically exclusive rhetorical avenue (alley?). I read a great summary with dozens of suprisingly hilarious examples years ago - IDK if I'll be able to find it, but I'll look.

[The Grand Nudger]

I mean...I don't accept it either?  It's one thing to think a conclusion is wrong, and another to declare an argument invalid.  

I'm sympathetic to the idea that it may actually be invalid in some non obvious way (this is evergreen, btw).  Some non obvious way that indicts every other conclusion of modal logic in equal measure.  We did build this system on the fly, after all.  Until we figure out how that is or might be, though, I'm willing to give credit where it's due.  It's obviously pretty hard to argue for a god without tripping all over your own dick.

Our experience (and the observational data) of time is another example of this.  Reality as we apprehend and observe it suggests that there's something fundamentally invalid in the mt/mp equivalence.  Logic (as we have it) suggests that causality can flow "backward" in time.  I feel like we'd notice this in lottery winnings at some point if it were true, but maybe we just aren't at that point yet.

Premise #1: If god exists, he exists necessarily. 

Wrong, If a being exists "necessarily" it's not a god, and it would be subject to the laws of Reality ... ad that's not a god. 
Plantigna destroyed in the first premise. No justification, nothing but an assertion. The end.

-disagreeing with a premise is generally disagreeing with the soundness of an argument, not it's validity.  As I said before, I also disagree.  As it so happens I disagree that the argument is sound.  Still...do you want the faithful to keep bombarding us with "If we came from apes, why are there still apes?" bullshit?  Let them make valid arguments and we can..at least...have an intelligent discussion, and intelligent disagreements.