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Help me to respond to this

Started by kakarot123, October 28, 2017, 05:34:41 PM

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kakarot123

fck me daddy

Gawdzilla Sama

He's using bald assertions to try and control the conversation. Make him prove his assertions and he won't be happy.

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

You'll catch him at several of those if your transcript is accurate.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Mike Cl

You are sooooo clever.  Do you think you are the only theist to use this tact?????  Demonstrate to me you are an atheist and maybe then I'll engage in a discussion.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

#3
Quote from: kakarot123 on October 28, 2017, 05:34:41 PM
HELP!! How do i respond to this?
So, i got into an argument with a fellow about God and his existence. And i asked him to give me an logical, rational reason that God exists.
He said "The simple fact that i need to have a reason, that our discussion has a purpose".
So i asked him to elaborate and he basically said: "Our discussion would have no purpose if god wont exist, our discussion purpose its life, this is what we want from this discussion, this is what we want this disscussion to teach us, to have life. If God wont exist (the eternal life), our discussion wont serve a purpose, because everything we would do, we will get to DEAD. But the purpose is life ( life afterlife, eternal life), who gives eternal life? God, therfore God HAS TO EXIST".

His elaborate answer was this: "For truth to exist, there has to exist someting that is not true, like saying: for something blue to exist, there most exist something that is not blue. If not, it wouldnt make any sense to say that something its blue.Why we need to have truth as the purpose, and not the untruth/not true? Not because we see that that thing its doing good to us?Ex: why u say smoking its bad? But now the big problem comes.. what does it trully mean to exist? because the faithfull people say that a true living with God its beyond Dead. For christians, that its heaven, so, good for them its that truth, which help you get to that place. For materialistic people, those who belive that this is all the life we have, the good is that, that help them live a longer life. so which one is right? if you take materialistic people, why is their concept not good about life? Because in their conception, every life its sorted to dead, the only chance of a materialistc guy to live its to pass his genes. so the purpose of our discussion it not the truth, its dead, it has no purpose you could say. But if you take christians, where life its eternal, THEN to obtain that eternal life you must follow the path=> our purpose its the truth - truth exists - truth its necesary - the usefull things are good -good thing give life -our purpose its life - this discussion has a meaning. Who gives eternal life? GOD. 1+1=2 - God is necesairy to exist.

HOW DO I RESPOND TO HIS?? btw sorry for my english

A clear definition of terms ... giving the atheist version of the argument:

1. What is actual, is what exists; it has been or is being observed
2. What is potential, could exist; it could be observed
3. Therefore what exists has been, is or could be observed
4. What is actual must have already happened or is happening now ... we cannot observe the future
5. What is potential could happen in the future ... at which point it becomes actual
6. I am excluding anything that was or is unobserved, or unobservable on principle
7. Deity by definition is neither actual nor potential (a crucial atheist point)
8. What is not actual nor potential; hasn't been, isn't nor can it be observed
9. Therefore the supernatural or deity is unobservable on principle

Your conversant ... they are arguing for some definition of truth.  It is better to argue on the basis of what is.

Examples:

It is a actual fact that Donald Trump is US President.  It was observable, and was observed at the election/inauguration.  It is observable and is observed now.  We don't know who will be President after the next election.  Potentially that President could be Bernie Sanders.  If that happens, it would be observable.  The question of ... did Putin steal the US election? True/false.  That is something hard to determine compared to who is presently the US President.  It may not have been observed, or even observable.  Evidence is lacking for many past events ... and what happens behind closed doors isn't very observable.  A conspiracy theory like that, is like a theistic claim (not same as, just similar to).  We just got a data dump on the President Kennedy assassination ... and I still don't think we know what happened and probably never will.  Alternative history is even more dubious ... "What would have happened if President Kennedy had survived the assassination attempt that day?"  It would at least have been a potential thing, prior to the assassination.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

fencerider

Thanks for the interpretation Baruch. I didnt see any kind of logic in that mess to argue for or against.

What would the world be like if Kennedy wasn’t assasinated? Same kind of question as what would my life be like if I took the job in the location I was assigned instead of asking for a transfer to one closer to my house? What would be different if I had picked this girlfriend instead of that one? Doesn’t take very long to end in pure speculation.

Maybe some aspects of the Vietnam War would have been different. Or maybe his car would have crashed at the end of the street because fate had decided it was his day.
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

Baruch

#5
Quote from: fencerider on October 29, 2017, 12:15:51 AM
Thanks for the interpretation Baruch. I didnt see any kind of logic in that mess to argue for or against.

What would the world be like if Kennedy wasn’t assasinated? Same kind of question as what would my life be like if I took the job in the location I was assigned instead of asking for a transfer to one closer to my house? What would be different if I had picked this girlfriend instead of that one? Doesn’t take very long to end in pure speculation.

Maybe some aspects of the Vietnam War would have been different. Or maybe his car would have crashed at the end of the street because fate had decided it was his day.

I can give an argument, if necessary, that doesn't reflect my personal view.  That seemed to apply here, given that I took the OP seriously.  Personally, I don't agree with #7, and therefore neither do I agree with #8 or #9.  I didn't directly address the opponent's (of the OP) argument, as usual I pirouette around anyone defining the location of conflict (rhetorically).  Accepting an opponent's terms, is simply the same as surrendering.  The OP is stuck, because they accepted the opponent's terms.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

aitm

Quote from: kakarot123 on October 29, 2017, 07:04:21 AM
I dont exclude the posibility of a higher being,
By higher do you mean, simply all powerful or of a kind of super moral just being that judges and deals out justice as it sees fit?


Quote.more like one that dosent care or impersonal.
I have no problem with this, and as such we would have no need to worship it and it wouldn't care if we did or not, so why call it a god?

QuoteBut this being can be even a programmer who simulated this universe.

What would be the reason for a "simulated" universe? Why bother? What does IT gain?
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Baruch

Quote from: kakarot123 on October 29, 2017, 07:04:21 AM
And i am an agnostic.I dont exclude the posibility of a higher being, but not like a personal one..more like one that dosent care or impersonal. But this being can be even a programmer who simulated this universe. that idea intrigues me

Specifically, my example argument can be used for agnosticism ... if you accept the possibility of a god, just not the actuality of one.  But that implies that at some time in the future, a god would be observed, because that observation is possible, it just hasn't happened yet.  I did equate supernatural with deity ... but that doesn't have to be so.  If we define natural as "anything that has been, is being or could be observed" then a god would be natural, not supernatural.  Like in Von Daniken.

And yes, then don't call it a god.  Call scripture a cook book ;-)

In my case, I regard reality from a human perspective, from the POV of psychology, not physics.  Physician and physicist come from the same Greek root "phusis".  But in the modern period, the idea has diverged, and for atheists are mutually incompatible.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

That's fairly easy, really -- your disputant has clearly started with his conclusion ('there is a god') and therefore any and every statement he brings to bear "proves" it, since he's already assumed his conclusion without demonstrating it first.  Basically, the game he's playing is: since god is everything, everything proves god.

There's a lot of assumptions in there -- that there is a"purpose" to life, that there is "life after death", that truth only exists in duality with non-truth.  The secondary game he's playing is "baffle 'em with bullshit", throwing out a ton of things that attempt to sound profound and hiding all his preconceived notions thereunder.

Try this on for size, as far as truth without negation goes: it is true that the number of grains of sand on the Earth is either odd or even.  The negation of that is that the number of grains of sand is neither odd nor even, which is absurd on the face of it -- it must be one or the other, simply because that's the way counting things works.  And even without knowing which of the two it is, that fact still exists absent a negation.  So his understanding of logic is, well, let's call it incomplete.

Fundamentally, what you have here are a list of random assertions followed by non sequiturs and preconceived conclusions.  It doesn't even really deserve the distinction of being called an 'argument'.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Cavebear

Quote from: trdsf on October 30, 2017, 11:59:15 AM
That's fairly easy, really -- your disputant has clearly started with his conclusion ('there is a god') and therefore any and every statement he brings to bear "proves" it, since he's already assumed his conclusion without demonstrating it first.  Basically, the game he's playing is: since god is everything, everything proves god.

There's a lot of assumptions in there -- that there is a"purpose" to life, that there is "life after death", that truth only exists in duality with non-truth.  The secondary game he's playing is "baffle 'em with bullshit", throwing out a ton of things that attempt to sound profound and hiding all his preconceived notions thereunder.

Try this on for size, as far as truth without negation goes: it is true that the number of grains of sand on the Earth is either odd or even.  The negation of that is that the number of grains of sand is neither odd nor even, which is absurd on the face of it -- it must be one or the other, simply because that's the way counting things works.  And even without knowing which of the two it is, that fact still exists absent a negation.  So his understanding of logic is, well, let's call it incomplete.

Fundamentally, what you have here are a list of random assertions followed by non sequiturs and preconceived conclusions.  It doesn't even really deserve the distinction of being called an 'argument'.

I love the "grains of sand" argument.  I'll have to remember it. 

The simple fact is that some bad analogies can take a lot of argument to dismiss.  And I am sometimes inclined to just dismiss them outright rather than write a page explaining the dismissal.  Theists are good at asking a one sentence question that takes loads of time to refute.  I've stopped doing that in detail.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

There are multiple kinds of reasoning.  Deductive, inductive, abductive.  Metaphor is related to abduction.  Most people have no skill at it.  Many geeks claim to have skill with deduction and induction, but are tooting their own horn, blowing their own gonads.  I gave a deductive argument in support of atheism higher up in this thread.  Care to dispute it?

My particular charism, is abductive.  Memory is associative.  Abduction is worked by association.  Abduction is where hypotheses come from (tentative associations that might be further refined by deductive or inductive reasoning (aka empiricism)).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning

I don't particular agree with this Wiki article, my own leaning is toward Historical Linguistics, Belief Revision and Anthropology.  The article focuses on AI.  I focus on HI .. human intelligence.  AI is intellectualizing, and a marketing fraud.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on October 31, 2017, 06:54:14 AM
There are multiple kinds of reasoning.  Deductive, inductive, abductive.  Metaphor is related to abduction.  Most people have no skill at it.  Many geeks claim to have skill with deduction and induction, but are tooting their own horn, blowing their own gonads.  I gave a deductive argument in support of atheism higher up in this thread.  Care to dispute it?

My particular charism, is abductive.  Memory is associative.  Abduction is worked by association.  Abduction is where hypotheses come from (tentative associations that might be further refined by deductive or inductive reasoning (aka empiricism)).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning

I don't particular agree with this Wiki article, my own leaning is toward Historical Linguistics, Belief Revision and Anthropology.  The article focuses on AI.  I focus on HI .. human intelligence.  AI is intellectualizing, and a marketing fraud.

I'm glad to read that, as I consider abduction and induction as mostly the same (a hypothesis).  I vaguely recalled the term from college philosophy and had to look it up.  I prefer to think in terms of proposition, hypothesis, and thesis.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

#12
Quote from: Cavebear on October 31, 2017, 07:59:45 AM
I'm glad to read that, as I consider abduction and induction as mostly the same (a hypothesis).  I vaguely recalled the term from college philosophy and had to look it up.  I prefer to think in terms of proposition, hypothesis, and thesis.

Actual people fire, aim, and load in that order.  Usually rationalize, not reason ... because they are already emotionally committed to the conclusion they intend to reach.

Induction is less exploratory than abduction.  With induction, you are basically looking at similar cases, over and over.  Induction is seeing the sun rise in the East 1000 times, and concluding it will probably do the same thing tomorrow.  Induction (and statistics) are best used in factories producing the same part again and again, and looking at the variance.  Abduction might explore "what is the sun" or "what is the horizon".  Deduction is used to firm up what is already convincing ... Euclid's geometry for instance (Eudoxus did most of the hard work earlier).

But geometry didn't start at deduction.  It started as abduction ... to come up with the idea of right triangle, being a special case of intersection of three lines (triangle) and the idea of measurement (Egyptians needed knotted ropes with knots at regular intervals, and needed to lay out triangles, including right triangles, for surveying).  Induction was when people realized that one could come up with Pythagorean triples indefinitely (3,4,5 i.e. 9 + 16 = 25).  Deduction was Pythagoras devising a formula that lets you create as many Pythagorean triples as you want to ... because these triples are the consequence of other ideas we are more certain of.

Demonstrating that complex item depends on simpler items B, C etc ... is what proof is.  It is a form of analysis/abstraction.  Notice that this is the result of human activity, and human psychology (more certain).  Physics does the same for the physical world.  But in both math and physics, you get more and more abstract as it develops, and it becomes less and less relevant to human existence.  Ivory tower stuff.  Engineering etc the corrective that puts mid level abstraction to practical use.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.