Gabriella,
I don’t have the time (or frankly the inclination) to engage in an ever-expanding dialogue, so I’ll just bullet point if that’s ok.
None of those examples work as none of them state that anyone believes in teapots, which is what you asserted that I had said.
That’s disingenuous. By inviting him to talk about teapots you were missing the point of Russell’s teapot. The point was and is Russell’s
argument, not the object used to illustrate it.
No you have misunderstood. He was not explaining anything - a quip is not an explanation and a quip is not worth engaging with in any serious way, so I chose not to take his quip seriously or engage with it. And my way of dismissing it was to focus on the teapot and leprechauns and Hansel and Gretel etc as they were the substance of the words he could be bothered to write in his post. If Ippy wants me to engage with a thought experiment he needs to show how the thought experiment relates to my post rather than talk about teapots or Hansel and Gretel or leprechauns.
No – people use phrases like “Russell’s teapot”, “needle in a haystack” etc as a shorthand way to explain a point, not as a “quip” as you put it. If you thought you weren’t attempting the negative proof fallacy (which Russell’s teapot illustrates) then you could easily have said, “I’m not attempting a NPF because…”. What you’re doing here is just throwing sand at missing the point of the thought experiment.
No he wasn't. Russell's teapot is commonplace but what he does need to do is explain how it relates to my post.
That’s debatable at best. Once you’d given us the
non sequitur that after you’d eliminated the impossibility of “God” believing in that god wasn’t difficult then the NPF component was fairly obvious I’d have thought (because non-falsifiability tells you nothing about probability) – if you felt it had to be spelled out though, then that’s up to you.
Did I post that reply to you? I might choose to engage with your posts if they contain explanations and treat them seriously but I still choose to not engage with Ippy seriously. If you don't like my choices, tough - that's your problem. I plan to continue in responding to Ippy in that way if he cannot be bothered to type an explanation of how the thought experiment relates to my post and you can get in the middle of that if you want but your assertions about my conversation with Ippy would still be wrong.
Ippy has commented on what he perceives as your sometimes aggressive posting style. This is an example of it I think – you set up the straw man (“if you don’t like my choices”), then you wave your fists at it (“tough”) and you finish with telling me that if I said the thing I haven’t said then I'd have “a problem”. It doesn’t bother me overmuch by the way – I just see it as a case of “she protesteth too much” that deflects from any argument you might have had, but it does you no favours.
No I didn't because as I have stated, there is no method to establish truthfulness of something supernatural. There is only a leap of faith to a true for me belief.
Once again I would draw your attention to your, “I find the concept of a "God that can't be defined" not that difficult to believe in, once you get to the point where you can't rule out the supernatural entirely”.
If he thinks the argument works for him, he needs to show how the argument applies to my post. If he makes a quip all he will continue to get from me in response is a comment containing the word "teapot" no matter how many times you try to intercede on his behalf.
See above.
As explained it persuades me to take a leap of faith to a true for me belief. There is no "must" about it.
That’s not the object of the “must” though. Rather it’s the suggestion that non-falsifiability must make a “"God that can't be defined" not that difficult” as you put it. Whether you actually take that “leap of faith” from “not that difficult” to belief is a different matter.
My posts have made no mention of probability. There is no method to establish the probability of existence of something undefined and supernatural so probability does not come into it. I cannot assign a probability if there is no method of doing so. All I can do is take a leap of faith.
Yet again: “I find the concept of a "God that can't be defined" not that difficult to believe in, once you get to the point where you can't rule out the supernatural entirely”. Why is belief in “God” more probable (ie, less difficult) when it’s unfalsifiable?
You're still wrong because I have not made a claim of fact.
You conflated the method of a teacher with the content of factual clams in a book.
You are still wrong because I have made no claims of fact.
Nope – see above. You might find the Koran to tell you all sorts of beneficial things about how to live your life. That still tells you nothing though about the veracity or otherwise of its claims of fact.
The whole point of faith in the supernatural is that there is no method of establishing truth so you are arguing against a point I haven't made.
That’s not true. If you want to introduce how appealing you find something in the context of epistemic truth then you have all your work ahead against you still to connect the two.
No it isn't a straw man and yes you are using the term straw man incorrectly.
I’m not sure that yes/no/yes here is helpful. A straw man is a straw man – you’re not as given to it as some here, but it’s something you do sometimes nonetheless.
And my explanation is that because when I allowed the possibility of the supernatural i.e. something that can't be objectively investigated using tools available, it becomes possible for me to believe in any or all supernatural entities, including undefined Gods since an undefined God comes into the category of a supernatural entity.
That’s circular (“If it’s possible then it’s possible”) and it’s not what you said in any case – what you actually said was that “God” becomes “not that difficult to believe in” – a qualitatively different claim from “possible”. That leprechauns are possible does make them “not that difficult to believe in”. Why do you think otherwise for “God”?
The entity being undefined makes it easier for me to believe in because there is nothing for me to envisage that I can then dismiss. There are described attributes of that entity in the Quran and those attributes are in the form of words and concepts that it is possible for me to understand and relate to in order that I was able to make some kind of sense of the concepts the entity represents and take a leap of faith to believe in this undefined entity. The rituals and practices that produce benefits for me sustains my leap of faith.
I can only give you the reason why I think I believe in the entity. Whether you accept the reason or not, it still remains the reason for my belief.
I find that to be poor reasoning, but I don’t doubt that it is your reasoning nonetheless.
What I actually said was that it is not that difficult. I have given you the reasons why it is not that difficult for me. If you don't want to accept my reasons that's your right. They still remain my reasons whether you accept them or not.
No, you made a conditional statement – that realising that a conjecture is unfalsifiable makes it not that difficult to believe in. Much as you duck and dive, all I was questioning was the conjunction of those two statements. If you have other reasons for believing either good or bad then that's a separate matter.
See above for how I deal with Ippy's posts and how I will continue to deal with similar posts - and the word "teapot" may well feature heavily. So we can continue this conversation about Ippy and teapots ad nauseam if you want every time I mention the word "teapot" and "if it works for you" to Ippy. What ever works for you BHS.
To summarise:
1. Ippy’s point was about the argument of Russell’s teapot, not about its illustrative object.
2. As you‘ve been unable to provide one (or even to engage with the question) I think we have to conclude that you have no argument to link unfalsifiability with making “your leap of faith” “not that difficult”.
3. Incidentally, the “supernatural” stuff collapses very quickly anyway. It doesn’t even get its trousers off as an argument that’s truth
apt – ie, that’s falsifiable or not. It’s just incoherent – equivalent to the white noise of 7yy78O&T*&^T. The moment you want to break that by saying something
about this supposed supernatural then you’re forced into naturalistism.
