AB,
I could not try to address any argument without my God given freedom to choose to do so.
I tell you what Alan, for once will you try at least to understand something and to reply as honestly as you can to it?
OK, when someone wants to persuade someone else that a belief they have is true, here’s how it should be done:
1. Explain what the belief is;
and 2. Provide the reasons they rely on to
justify the belief.
In response other people can then consider the reasons and either find them to be sound (and thus accept the belief as true), or find them to be false (and thus not accept the belief as true). This process is called an
argument.
Here’s what you do though:
1. “I believe X is true.”
And that’s it. There’s never a part 2 set of arguments for people to consider. This puts you not in right or wrong territory, but in “not even wrong” territory because you provide nothing to consider.
It gets worse. What you then do is to deploy your wholly unjustified belief (“god”) to bat away the arguments you are given. Hence:
1. Person A: “But you have no evidence for this supposed god.”
2. You: “Ah, but if god didn’t exist I wouldn’t have the god-given freedom to tell you that he does exist” etc.
It’s desperately poor, wholly circular reasoning but you fall back on it over and over again. It’s like me saying the universe is populated with shape-shifting lizards, you telling me there’s no evidence for them, and me replying, “that’s because that’s exactly what the shape-shifting lizards have made you think”.
This is simple stuff Alan. Do you understand any of it though? More to the point, is there any way at all you could find it in yourself finally to have just enough honesty at least to address it without collapsing immediately into using your conclusion as your argument again?
