Searching for GOD...

[torridon]

Or Alan experiences things in a different way.

Or he can see something you appear blind too.

Rather than cracks in the pavement, It's more like Alan is trying to explain what red  is like, to a colour blind man. ( I have experience of that)

He can only tell you what he sees, you can get as angry as you like, and deny his experiences or that red even exists ............. Or that he can see it.

But he can still see it.

My father is colour blind ( one bright red sock, one obviously green) he used to deny it and hated to admit he couldn't see the difference ( he still had to ask if he wanted to know if the socks matched)

Would never admit it though, used to get angry.

Couldn't see the red berries on a holly tree, completely crap at decorating. Once painted the flagstone floor blood red ( instead of brick red) looked like a massacre. Mother hysterical, he insisted it was brick red. Total bloodbath.
 




Alan in effect is describing a red sock to a colourblind man.

I think most of us understand that people experience reality uniquely.  But that is why we cannot extrapolate our personal experience as if it were objective, and therefore 'true' for everyone.

[Shaker]

Alan in effect is describing a red sock to a colourblind man.

No he isn't. By his own admission Alan is trying to make people see his red socks because if they don't, their souls are doomed and won't go to heaven.

[Bubbles]

I think most of us understand that people experience reality uniquely.  But that is why we cannot extrapolate our personal experience as if it were objective, and therefore 'true' for everyone.

Agreed, I had to accept my father saw a different world to me, where green and red were the same shade of grey and that his world was more of the blue spectrum.

The problem comes when you start discussing what is real.

He never has admitted his colourblindness.

What is real can be a very loaded question.

[torridon]

So what evidence would you accept for God's existence?

If we define god as supernatural then there cannot be any direct evidence for god as that would falsify his own definition.

[Bubbles]

No he isn't. By his own admission Alan is trying to make people see his red socks because if they don't, their souls are doomed and won't go to heaven.

That's what he's been taught, that bit.

[Bubbles]

If we define god as supernatural then there cannot be any direct evidence for god as that would falsify his own definition.

Some people see God in the symmetry and beauty of a flower, or in the order of the universe and the way things are.
Some even in maths or fractals.
It's hard to bottle that.

🌹

[torridon]

Some people see God in the symmetry and beauty of a flower, or in the order of the universe and the way things are.
Some even in maths or fractals.
It's hard to bottle that.

🌹

Yes I know.  It's not really evidence though.

[Alan Burns]

This isn't rocket science, Alan. Perhaps this would help.

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

I am fully aware of what a logical fallacy is.
I think the problem is in the way some of my posts have been interpreted.
In most cases, I am being accused of a fallacy because people do not agree with the logic I use, but this may be a case of just alternative logic or mis interpreted logic, or I may not have explained my logic as fully as I should have.  So instead of just labelling it as incorrect, it would be more fruitful to say why it is considered incorrect.

[Gordon]

So what evidence would you accept for God's existence?

That really is your problem, Alan, since the claim is yours.

The important thing to note though is that evidence needs to be presented within some sort of methodology within which the evidence can be justifiably cited as 'evidence' by being described, categorised, assessed, measured and presented within some kind of theoretical framework etc etc etc.

Critically this method needs to be suited specifically to the supernatural phenomena you claim ('Gods', 'souls' etc), so it can't be based on naturalism since naturalism (such as the scientific method) doesn't deal with supernatural claims since it has no suitable methodology suited to such claims - so you'll need a method that is mutually exclusive from naturalism, and it seems there isn't one.

By the way stuff like history and what people are alleged to have seen, said and done (which includes writing holy books) isn't valid as evidence of the supernatural since people are animals and everything about them is naturalistic, so that what they think and claim is an output of their biology. Since we know that people are fallible: they make mistakes and make stuff up, then any method to quantify the supernatural must also be robust enough methodologically to exclude naturalistic possibilities: for example, by excluding the risks that any testimony of witnesses to miracles was mistaken or fictitious, or that people say they 'feel' the presence of God' etc.

Over to you.

   

[Gordon]

I am fully aware of what a logical fallacy is.
I think the problem is in the way some of my posts have been interpreted.
In most cases, I am being accused of a fallacy because people do not agree with the logic I use, but this may be a case of just alternative logic or mis interpreted logic, or I may not have explained my logic as fully as I should have.  So instead of just labelling it as incorrect, it would be more fruitful to say why it is considered incorrect.

It seems you are still in denial of the blindingly obvious: that various posters have pointed out your repeated use of logical fallacies is the same as them telling you your reasoning is flawed, and when they cite the fallacy you committed this explains in which way your reasoning is flawed.


 

[Shaker]

That's what he's been taught, that bit.

No question, but then everything he regurgitates here is what he's been taught - it didn't come from nowhere and he didn't arrive at it on his own - and he gives every appearance of having swallowed each and every last bit of it without any form of critical, sceptical scrutiny whatsoever.

[Alan Burns]

No question, but then everything he regurgitates here is what he's been taught - it didn't come from nowhere and he didn't arrive at it on his own - and he gives every appearance of having swallowed each and every last bit of it without any form of critical, sceptical scrutiny whatsoever.

I have questioned what I have been taught, but I have not rejected it - because in questioning it I found no reason to reject it.

[torridon]

I have questioned what I have been taught, but I have not rejected it - because in questioning it I found no reason to reject it.

We have shown you dozens of areas over recent months where your logic is flawed; have you really not noticed ?

[Gordon]

I have questioned what I have been taught, but I have not rejected it - because in questioning it I found no reason to reject it.

Bearing in mind your dependence on fallacies perhaps you aren't asking the right questions, or perhaps you aren't fully scrutinising the answers you have accepted.

For example: how have you excluded the risk of mistake or lies in the NT accounts of the alleged resurrection of Jesus?   

[Shaker]

I have questioned what I have been taught, but I have not rejected it - because in questioning it I found no reason to reject it.

I for one don't believe a word of this. Various different posters here have pointed out to you, over a long period of time, various fallacies - that's defective, aberrant reasoning - that you rely on to make what you think is a case, and on each occasion you show absolutely no sign whatever of taking any of this on board because you keep using the same fallacies over and over again. (You are very far from the only member here to suffer from this syndrome, believe you me).

It's no good whining about people crying "Fallacy!" simply as a way of rejecting what you say; we've had this complaint from you before and since repetition seems to be the order of the day it may as well have the same response. People call you out on the logical fallacies you use because you keep using them. Nobody really likes being corrected and having their arguments shown to be wrong, but intellectual honesty compels people with integrity to accept that they've been using a duff argument and to stop wheeling it out in future. You seem incapable of this. Probably pride again, as I said yesterday.

There are some very highly intelligent people here - I won't name them only because inevitably I'll temporarily leave someone out -; critical, sceptical thinking people who don't and won't rely on your say-so, who don't want bald assertions and expressions of your personal faith, however sincere it may be, but can be persuaded by a clear, logical, rational argument that doesn't hit the buffers every time you say you personally can't believe this or that, or some other fallacy.

Of course, whether there can even be such a thing as a rational, logical argument for a god is another matter altogether. I've yet to hear one, and strongly suspect that there's no such thing in existence. There's always a fallacy of some sort somewhere along the line, or obviously man-made and man-centred thinking, or a fallback on that perennial last chance saloon, faith.

[Alan Burns]

Bearing in mind your dependence on fallacies perhaps you aren't asking the right questions, or perhaps you aren't fully scrutinising the answers you have accepted.

For example: how have you excluded the risk of mistake or lies in the NT accounts of the alleged resurrection of Jesus?

If the resurrection was based on lies or mistakes, the few disciples who were left would not have sacrificed their lives in spreading false stories.  The historical facts which support this view are well described in various books and articles.

[Shaker]

If the resurrection was based on lies or mistakes the few disciples who were left would not have sacrificed their lives in spreading false stories.

Why not?

I agree that few if any people sacrifice their lives for what they know to be a lie - granted. But you are dismissing the possibility that people sacrifice their lives for what they sincerely and quite genuinely believe to be true, but in which they are mistaken.

How would you characterise the deaths of many, many millions of German and Soviet soldiers in World War Two? Did they die for what they knew was a falsehood, or did they die sincerely believing in causes which you believe were/are false?

I cannot believe how many times this same simple point has had to be made on this forum. Literal truth or deliberate falsehood do not exhaust all options; stop acting as though they do

[Gordon]

If the resurrection was based on lies or mistakes, the few disciples who were left would not have sacrificed their lives in spreading false stories.

Don't be daft: that people are prepared to die in support the cause they support is known human behaviour and no doubt, sadly, sometime soon another suicide bomber somewhere will demonstrate this. That they do so may say something about them but it says nothing about the truth of their cause.

The historical facts which support this view are well described in various books and articles.

No doubt but they are, but these are claims and not facts: how do you know, as opposed to believe, that there weren't mistakes or lies involved at the point these accounts were some made decades later: mistakes and lies are known risks when it comes to people and testimony so on what basis have you meaningfully excluded these risks?

[Alan Burns]

I for one don't believe a word of this. Various different posters here have pointed out to you, over a long period of time, various fallacies - that's defective, aberrant reasoning - that you rely on to make what you think is a case, and on each occasion you show absolutely no sign whatever of taking any of this on board because you keep using the same fallacies over and over again. (You are very far from the only member here to suffer from this syndrome, believe you me).

It's no good whining about people crying "Fallacy!" simply as a way of rejecting what you say; we've had this complaint from you before and since repetition seems to be the order of the day it may as well have the same response. People call you out on the logical fallacies you use because you keep using them. Nobody really likes being corrected and having their arguments shown to be wrong, but intellectual honesty compels people with integrity to accept that they've been using a duff argument and to stop wheeling it out in future. You seem incapable of this. Probably pride again, as I said yesterday.

There are some very highly intelligent people here - I won't name them only because inevitably I'll temporarily leave someone out -; critical, sceptical thinking people who don't and won't rely on your say-so, who don't want bald assertions and expressions of your personal faith, however sincere it may be, but can be persuaded by a clear, logical, rational argument that doesn't hit the buffers every time you say you personally can't believe this or that, or some other fallacy.

Of course, whether there can even be such a thing as a rational, logical argument for a god is another matter altogether. I've yet to hear one, and strongly suspect that there's no such thing in existence. There's always a fallacy of some sort somewhere along the line, or obviously man-made and man-centred thinking, or a fallback on that perennial last chance saloon, faith.

To me the greatest fallacy is the assumption that natural unguided forces of this universe are capable of bringing human beings into existence.

I know the evidence supporting this assumption has been compiled over many years by some very intelligent people, but I find incredible irony in the way people can use their God given intelligence to show that God does not exist.

I know I will inevitably be labelled again with personal incredulity, but looking at the recent TV series on the brain, we are just begining to discover the incredible complexity of the way the human brain works.  Yet we are expected to believe that all this complexity was generated by the crude "trial and error" method of random mutations coupled with natural selection.  And the fact that all this complexity is defined in a single microscopic DNA molecule is truly mind blowing.  And we still have not discovered the mysteries behind conscious perception and free will.  Far from solving the mysteries behind our existence, I see that the more science discovers, the more unsolved mysteries it unearths.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

So what evidence would you accept for God's existence?

That's called the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof; it's your conjecture, so it's your job to propose a method to verify it.

What some of us say though is that, when you attempt arguments that are logically false, then those arguments are necessarily wrong. They need therefore to be abandoned or amended if you want your claim to be distinguished from just guessing about stuff.

And that's your problem. As I used to explain to Vlad (only for him to run away rather than answer) I can line up nine people before breakfast if I want to, each of whom believes deeply, sincerely, profoundly in a different supernatural "something" - as deeply, sincerely, profoundly as you do in fact in the whatever version of the Christian god floats your boat.

When I include you, that gives me ten people all with different "because I say so" claims. How then should I distinguish between any of those claims, and for that matter how should I decide whether any of them are more likely to be true than not?     

[Shaker]

To me the greatest fallacy is the assumption that natural unguided forces of this universe are capable of bringing human beings into existence.

I know the evidence supporting this assumption has been compiled over many years by some very intelligent people

There's your answer - evidence.

but I find incredible irony in the way people can use their God given intelligence to show that God does not exist.

That's just your belief, and can be treated as such.

I know I will inevitably be labelled again with personal incredulity

If you know it, why do it then?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I am fully aware of what a logical fallacy is.

Then, as they fatally undermine your arguments, why do you keep using them here?

I think the problem is in the way some of my posts have been interpreted.

Then you think wrongly. A logical fallacy is a logical fallacy is a logical fallacy. When your arguments fit the pattern of a logical fallacy then they're just wrong - and no "interpretation" is needed for that to be the case. Was your non-acceptance of my "pavement crack curing Grannie's flu" claim a problem of interpretation, or did you just recognise it for being a false argument a priori? 

In most cases, I am being accused of a fallacy because people do not agree with the logic I use...

No - you're "accused" of it because you do it. A lot. And you really need to stop kidding yourself about this.

...but this may be a case of just alternative logic or mis interpreted logic, or I may not have explained my logic as fully as I should have.  So instead of just labelling it as incorrect, it would be more fruitful to say why it is considered incorrect.

This is both unfair and untrue. I for example started by pointing out the fallacies you were using; in response you just ignored that and carried on using them.

So next I explained to you each time why your arguments were logically wrong; again you ignored that and carried on using them.

Finally, I asked whether even conceptually you understood the term "logical fallacy" and took the time to explain it to you. In response you claim that you do, but then try to finesse the problem as one of "interpretation" when it's no such thing.

You need to start afresh here if you want your claims to be taken seriously. I can see that it'll be difficult for you given how heavily invested your are in your position but - if you have any honesty about you at all - then you owe it to yourself I'd have thought at least to try.

Good luck!

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

To me the greatest fallacy is the assumption that natural unguided forces of this universe are capable of bringing human beings into existence.

I know the evidence supporting this assumption has been compiled over many years by some very intelligent people...

So why just ignore the evidence in that area, when you don't ignore the evidence that germs cause disease or that gravity makes the apple hit the ground?

...but I find incredible irony in the way people can use their God given intelligence to show that God does not exist.

That's a fallacy two-for-one deal. Your personal incredulity is of no epistemic value whatever, and simply asserting "God given intelligence" is the reification fallacy. If you want to assert "God" then you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate it before you introduce it into your argument. 

I know I will inevitably be labelled again with personal incredulity...

And rightly so...

... but looking at the recent TV series on the brain, we are just begining to discover the incredible complexity of the way the human brain works.  Yet we are expected to believe that all this complexity was generated by the crude "trial and error" method of random mutations coupled with natural selection.  And the fact that all this complexity is defined in a single microscopic DNA molecule is truly mind blowing.  And we still have not discovered the mysteries behind conscious perception and free will.  Far from solving the mysteries behind our existence, I see that the more science discovers, the more unsolved mysteries it unearths.

Oh dear. This is just a re-hash of your personal incredulity fallacy. Evolutionary theory is hugely well understood and documented, and your arbitrary junking of it in favour of a conjecture for which there's no evidence whatever is confirmation bias of the highest order.

Give it up Alan. Really, just give it up - you can't win an argument with broken reasoning.   

[Shaker]

AB,

So why just ignore the evidence in that area, when you don't ignore the evidence that germs cause disease or that gravity makes the apple hit the ground?

The latter example, I might add, being very much less well understood than evolution by a very long way indeed.

I doubt if Alan knows this, or cares.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If the resurrection was based on lies or mistakes, the few disciples who were left would not have sacrificed their lives in spreading false stories.  The historical facts which support this view are well described in various books and articles.

See whether you can work out where you went wrong there without other people holding your hand.

I'll give you a clue: focus on that word "mistakes" for a bit...