Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Then anyone can offer the same question to any "experience".
Was it from one or the other?
How do you tell the difference?

regarding false prophets:
"by their fruits you will know them"  Matt 7:20

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

regarding false prophets:
"by their fruits you will know them"  Matt 7:20

You don't have to be false to be wrong. Try to understand why.

[Dicky Underpants]

regarding false prophets:
"by their fruits you will know them"  Matt 7:20

So, we know that some of the fruits of Christianity were the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Years War, and the burning of 'heretics', and nowadays the gun-toting American evangelical right. We also know that Christianity produced well-meaning good men like William Tyndale, and inspired great composers like Bach and Palestrina, great poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the works of Michelangelo.
We know that Islam created the great cultures centred on Baghdad and Cordoba, and kept the learning of the science of the ancients alive by Islamic scholars translating numerous works from the Greek - all the time that Christianity was doing its best to insist that all that was necessary was the teachings of the Church, and keeping people very much in the dark on other matters. Nowadays, Islam has certainly gone into decline with its exponents being prominently represented by such garbage as the Taliban, Hamas and Al-Qaida. The situation with Christianity has perhaps not degenerated to such an inhuman extent as some aspects of Islam, but in certain areas it looks as though it well might, and in the past it has been just as bad.

You seem to suggesting that there is a clearly discernible difference of right and wrong between the two. I suggest that things are not so clear cut as you would like to think.

[Sebastian Toe]

regarding false prophets:
"by their fruits you will know them"  Matt 7:20

So Mohamed saw only good fruits therefore it was a proper  angel.
Thanks for that.
When will you be attending daily prayers in your local mosque?

[Alan Burns]

Once again with no hope at all of you having the basic decency or honesty to reply:

1. You agree that the way some arguments are framed makes them invalid.
   
2. You agree that fallacies are documented and codified, so your arguments can be compared with those to see whether or not they’re fallacies too regardless of your or my opinions about that.

3. You agree I hope (though you’ve yet to say so) that using demonstrably invalid arguments to justify something you believe to be true does not thereby make those arguments valid.     

So, assuming that you agree with all three premises do you therefore agree that when you attempt a demonstrably invalid argument to justify your faith belief the justification fails necessarily?

A simple “yes/no” would do. Is that really too much to ask?

Really though?

As I have already indicated, quoting fallacies is not a very good way of getting your point across.
There are at least 231 named fallacies, each one open to personal interpretation and opinion.
Better to stick to the actual subject matter.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

As I have already indicated, quoting fallacies is not a very good way of getting your point across.
There are at least 231 named fallacies, each one open to personal interpretation and opinion.
Better to stick to the actual subject matter.

It’s not quoting fallacies, it’s identifying when and why your arguments are fallacious. And when they are fallacious the truth claims they’re trying to justify are irrelevant. I could for example easily identify why your attempt to introduce as evidence personal testimonies relies on a basic mistake in reasoning, which is why there’s no point in discussing what those testimonials happen to say. Until you finally understand though that fallacious arguments are wrong arguments no matter what they happen to be about, you’ll remain lost in a world of white noise irrelevance of your own making.

Once again with no hope at all of you having the basic decency or honesty to answer:

1. You agree that the way some arguments are framed makes them invalid.
   
2. You agree that fallacies are documented and codified, so your arguments can be compared with those to see whether or not they’re fallacies too regardless of your or my opinions about that.

3. You agree I hope (though you’ve yet to say so) that using demonstrably invalid arguments to justify something you believe to be true does not thereby make those arguments valid.     

So, assuming that you agree with all three premises do you therefore agree that when you attempt a demonstrably invalid argument to justify your faith belief the justification fails necessarily?

A simple “yes/no” would do. Is that really too much to ask?

Why?       

[Alan Burns]

AB,

If you have no interest at all in understanding even some basic principles of rhetorical logic what do you think endlessly repeating justifications for your beliefs that are fallacious will achieve?

Just in the last few posts for example you accused me of committing the fallacy fallacy and, despite my explaining to you what it actually means, you just ignored your mistake as if nothing had been said. Then you tried to introduce personal testimonials as evidence, and again when I told you that that enterprise was also a logical fallacy you just ignored that problem too.   

Why then do you think anyone here capable of rational thought won’t every time you post think immediately “here comes AB again with another set of logically false arguments”? What do you think this will achieve?

None of this can answer the point I was making:

It is not a subjective opinion to claim that we need conscious control of our thought processes in order to reach consciously verifiable conclusions.  I am merely pointing out a demonstrable reality - which confirms that the logic you are using to claim the impossibility to exert conscious control of our thoughts is inherently flawed.

You never explained what you meant by the phrase, "consciousness is a self-evaluating emergent property of minds".  But the key to the flaw in this statement lies in what you presume can perform this "self evaluating".  If it is all done by sub conscious brain activity beyond your conscious control there can be no means of validating the outcome.  You would also need to employ some form of conscious control to be able to judge the validity of other people's conclusions.

Anyone here capable of rational thought should at least understand the dilemma of valid conclusions dropping out from subconscious brain activity with no means of conscious control.

[Nearly Sane]

None of this can answer the point I was making:

It is not a subjective opinion to claim that we need conscious control of our thought processes in order to reach consciously verifiable conclusions.  I am merely pointing out a demonstrable reality - which confirms that the logic you are using to claim the impossibility to exert conscious control of our thoughts is inherently flawed.

You never explained what you meant by the phrase, "consciousness is a self-evaluating emergent property of minds".  But the key to the flaw in this statement lies in what you presume can perform this "self evaluating".  If it is all done by sub conscious brain activity beyond your conscious control there can be no means of validating the outcome.  You would also need to employ some form of conscious control to be able to judge the validity of other people's conclusions.

Anyone here capable of rational thought should at least understand the dilemma of valid conclusions dropping ou from subconscious brain activity with no means of conscious control.

Are you saying that you can control the 'subconscious'?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

None of this can answer the point I was making:

It is not a subjective opinion to claim that we need conscious control of our thought processes in order to reach consciously verifiable conclusions.  I am merely pointing out a demonstrable reality - which confirms that the logic you are using to claim the impossibility to exert conscious control of our thoughts is inherently flawed.

You never explained what you meant by the phrase, "consciousness is a self-evaluating emergent property of minds".  But the key to the flaw in this statement lies in what you presume can perform this "self evaluating".  If it is all done by sub conscious brain activity beyond your conscious control there can be no means of validating the outcome.  You would also need to employ some form of conscious control to be able to judge the validity of other people's conclusions.

Anyone here capable of rational thought should at least understand the dilemma of valid conclusions dropping ou from subconscious brain activity with no means of conscious control.

The point you were making consists of a string of fallacious arguments.

Once again therefore and with no hope at all of you having the basic decency or honesty to answer:

1. You agree that the way some arguments are framed makes them invalid.
   
2. You agree that fallacies are documented and codified, so your arguments can be compared with those to see whether or not they’re fallacies too regardless of your or my opinions about that.

3. You agree I hope (though you’ve yet to say so) that using demonstrably invalid arguments to justify something you believe to be true does not thereby make those arguments valid.     

So, assuming that you agree with all three premises do you therefore agree that when you attempt a demonstrably invalid argument to justify your faith belief the justification fails necessarily?

A simple “yes/no” would do. Is that really too much to ask?

Why?       

[Maeght]

I have never claimed that we can choose what to believe.
There is only one truth and it is there to be discerned, not chosen.

Yes, agreed.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I know you struggle with ambiguity and nuance, but try to understand that this is just a thought experiment – NOT a comparison of your god with my leprechauns...

Imagine that I were to assert that leprechauns leave pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and that I justify that claim with a wrong argument (perhaps I claim as evidence a Youtube link to a teary-eyed ingénue recounting how tough her life had been before she started wearing green and hanging out in Irish bogs, when the wee fellas came to her in a vision or some such). It doesn’t matter which wrong argument I try though – let’s just agree that you identify it correctly as a fallacy.

Imagine too that you explain to me why my claim isn’t justified by my argument because my argument is wrong – indeed that it mirrors exactly the framing of a fallacy that each of us could look up.

Imagine then that I just ignore you and repeat the same assertion about leprechauns with the same wrong argument to justify it (and also accuse you of ignoring my "evidence"), and that I do this multiple times. Eventually when even I can see that I’ve run out of road instead of addressing the fallacy you'd identified imagine too that instead I threw sand at the problem with an “each one (ie, fallacy) is open to personal interpretation and opinion” diversionary tactic, eventually followed with a “better to stick to the actual subject matter” of leprechauns and pots of gold.

Would you conclude that I was:

A. A liar?

B. Incapable of understanding even a simple argument?

C. A cult victim?

D. Some combination of the above?

E. Something else?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So, we know that some of the fruits of Christianity were the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Years War, and the burning of 'heretics', and nowadays the gun-toting American evangelical right. We also know that Christianity produced well-meaning good men like William Tyndale, and inspired great composers like Bach and Palestrina, great poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the works of Michelangelo.
We know that Islam created the great cultures centred on Baghdad and Cordoba, and kept the learning of the science of the ancients alive by Islamic scholars translating numerous works from the Greek - all the time that Christianity was doing its best to insist that all that was necessary was the teachings of the Church, and keeping people very much in the dark on other matters.

So are you saying we could have experienced the poverty and exploitation of the industrial revolution sooner?
Along with the H Bomb, Global Warming, Resource depletion and the caning and decimation of the world's species?

Apart from their wisdom, weren't the Greeks slavers?

[Dicky Underpants]

So are you saying we could have experienced the poverty and exploitation of the industrial revolution sooner?
Along with the H Bomb, Global Warming, Resource depletion and the caning and decimation of the world's species?

Apart from their wisdom, weren't the Greeks slavers?

Irrelevant. AB was basically saying Christianity good, Islam bad.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

I know you struggle with ambiguity and nuance, but try to understand that this is just a thought experiment – NOT a comparison of your god with my leprechauns...

Imagine that I were to assert that leprechauns leave pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, and that I justify that claim with a wrong argument (perhaps I claim as evidence a Youtube link to a teary-eyed ingénue recounting how tough her life had been before she started wearing green and hanging out in Irish bogs, when the wee fellas came to her in a vision or some such). It doesn’t matter which wrong argument I try though – let’s just agree that you identify it correctly as a fallacy. .....

I do not use fallacies to back up my arguments.
I use reasoning.
My incredulity is based on reasons - not personal preferences.
Every conclusion I draw is backed up by reasoning - not what I want to believe.
Your comparison with leprechauns is simply ridiculous.
You may not agree with my reasoning, but you can't just hide behind fallacy claims.
And you should not dismiss the content of personal testimonies without listening to what they say.

[Nearly Sane]

I do not use fallacies to back up my arguments.
I use reasoning.
My incredulity is based on reasons - not personal preferences.
Every conclusion I draw is backed up by reasoning - not what I want to believe.
Your comparison with leprechauns is simply ridiculous.
You may not agree with my reasoning, but you can't just hide behind fallacy claims.
And you should not dismiss the content of personal testimonies without listening to what they say.

Could you link to a post with an example of  your reasons/reasoning?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I do not use fallacies to back up my arguments.

Not true – fallacies are all you use. As you refuse to discuss what fallacies actually are though, you’re uneducable about this.

I use reasoning.

Which is always fallacious – see above.

My incredulity is based on reasons - not personal preferences.

Not true – you just declare explanations to be “totally impossible” but never say why you think that. That’s not reasoning – it’s just expressions of your incredulity.

Every conclusion I draw is backed up by reasoning - not what I want to believe.

Not true – see above.

Your comparison with leprechauns is simply ridiculous.

I didn’t make a comparison with leprechauns. Can you really not understand the difference between a what statement and a why statement?

You may not agree with my reasoning, but you can't just hide behind fallacy claims.

I’m not hiding behind them – I’m showing you that your reasoning is always fallacious (see below for another example – the anecdotal fallacy). As you refuse to engage with the nature of rhetorical fallacies though, you’ll continue to get this wrong.

And you should not dismiss the content of personal testimonies without listening to what they say.

Yes you should because addressing only what people say and not why they think it's true it is a basic mistake in reasoning called the anecdotal fallacy. Here’s an explanation of why (sincerely believed or not) personal testimonials aren’t evidence for claims of objective truths:

“An informal fallacy where personal experience or a singular example is used to support an argument or position instead of compelling evidence. People often gravitate towards using their own experiences or those of people around them as evidence in arguments. It's natural to do so as citing scientific evidence to craft a good argument takes effort and most of us are lazy thinkers and opt for the quicker and easier System's 1 thinking versus the required metacognition of System's 2 thinking [1].

In the marketplace, this fallacy is encountered regularly in the form of testimonials. Marketers learned long ago to harness the power of a testimonial in order to influence your view on their product or service. To a degree, this is perfectly reasonable as there are many products offered where the experience is subjective (e.g., dining, uber/lyft, a hotel stay, business reviews in general, etc.), but you start go get into trouble when the product can be rigorously tested and quantified through scientific inquiry (e.g., supplements, global warming, homeopathy, etc.). This is a very important distinction. If you conflate anecdotes from subjective experiences with products that can be scrutinized objectively, you have moved into the realm of spurious arguments.

Furthermore, cognitive biases and logical fallacies are two distinct concepts, but they are often found together distorting your objectivity when constructing arguments. In this instance, the primary cognitive bias of influence is the availability heuristic. Recalling your own experience or the experience of those close to you, biases your objectivity towards this evidence as it must be more important since it is easily recollected. In fact, the idea that there is most likely scientific evidence available on a topic doesn't enter most peoples' calculus when weighing the evidence.”

https://www.intelligentspeculation.com/blog/anecdotal-fallacy

Can you see now why reliance on personal testimonials to justify your faith beliefs is wrongheaded thinking?

Can you see now too why acquiring some understanding of what makes arguments valid and invalid might help you avoid traps like this in the future?

Why are you so scared that you won’t even discuss what fallacies are? Surely if you were that confident in your faith beliefs you’d welcome the opportunity to do so so as to demonstrate that you do indeed have the sound reasoning you claim to have but never produce here. 

[Outrider]

I do not use fallacies to back up my arguments.

There have been a number of examples of clearly fallacious formations in your postings.

I use reasoning. My incredulity is based on reasons - not personal preferences.

That's an excellent situation, however, this is merely an assertion of that fact. If you want us to accept that notion, you need to share with us what those reasonings are, because so far you've not done that.

Every conclusion I draw is backed up by reasoning - not what I want to believe.

It very clearly is exactly what you want to believe. It might not be BECAUSE you want to believe it, but you'd have more credibility if you admitted the correlation and disputed the causation than you do trying to deny the reality.

Your comparison with leprechauns is simply ridiculous.

That's sort of the point... What it isn't, though, is wrong.

You may not agree with my reasoning,

True, we may not. We might. Until you produce it we'll never know.

...but you can't just hide behind fallacy claims.

Nobody's hiding, we're all right out here in the open with your fallacies, waiting for you to ride in on wagon-train of reason. Still.

And you should not dismiss the content of personal testimonies without listening to what they say.

In principle you can't automatically dismiss personal testimony as at least some degree of evidence. Unfortunately, the plethora of individual testimonies in support of vastly different and mutually exclusive spiritual viewpoints mean that they either have to be all accepted, which leads to paradoxical conclusions, or all have to be ignored until some other mechanism for determining which (if any) are valid is provided.

Your, or others', personal testimony is not invalid, but it's not distinct from other, contradictory personal testimony. On what basis should be accept yours, rather than theirs?

O.

[Alan Burns]

Yes you should because addressing only what people say and not why they think it's true it is a basic mistake in reasoning called the anecdotal fallacy.

If you listened to the first link I gave, you would see a young woman from a Muslim family who converted to Christianity.  She had left home and told her father over the telephone that she was a Christian.  Her father said he still loved her and pleaded with her to come home, which she agreed to do.  She then had a vision of Jesus who warned her not to go home because her father planned to have her beheaded.  She later discovered that her father in fact had hired someone to behead her.

Was she lying?
Was she mistaken?
Was she telling the truth?

If you watched the video you may be able to judge whether or not she was sincere.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If you listened to the first link I gave, you would see a young woman from a Muslim family who converted to Christianity.  She had left home and told her father over the telephone that she was a Christian.  Her father said he still loved her and pleaded with her to come home, which she agreed to do.  She then had a vision of Jesus who warned her not to go home because her father planned to have her beheaded.  She later discovered that her father in fact had hired someone to behead her.

Was she lying?
Was she mistaken?
Was she telling the truth?

If you watched the video you may be able to judge whether or not she was sincere.

She failed to offer justifying reasons for thinking her “vision” had anything to do with an actual appearance by Jesus. That’s called the anecdotal fallacy and you’ve been taken in by it, not matter that I explained it to you at length in my last post.

Oh, and sincerity tells you nothing about whether or not the justifications for a truth claim are valid. I might sincerely think leprechauns had appeared to me in a vision too. So what though?           

You really are utterly lost in your own irrationality and dishonesty here.

[Gordon]

If you listened to the first link I gave, you would see a young woman from a Muslim family who converted to Christianity.  She had left home and told her father over the telephone that she was a Christian.  Her father said he still loved her and pleaded with her to come home, which she agreed to do.  She then had a vision of Jesus who warned her not to go home because her father planned to have her beheaded.  She later discovered that her father in fact had hired someone to behead her.

Was she lying?
Was she mistaken?
Was she telling the truth?

If you watched the video you may be able to judge whether or not she was sincere.

You do realise, Alan, that some of us who aren't Christians are unlikely to take 'visions of Jesus' seriously. Moreover, we'd take this type of anectodal account (given the 'vision' stuff) with a lorry-load of salt and conclude that anyone who took this seriously was probably biased in favour of a religious narrative and, therefore, is highly credulous. In my view it is yet more theobollocks.

By the way, sincerity isn't the positive you think it is - I've no doubt that you are sincere, but that you are wrong nonetheless (as evidenced by your fondness for fallacies).

[Alan Burns]

Oh, and sincerity tells you nothing about whether or not the justifications for a truth claim are valid. I might sincerely think leprechauns had appeared to me in a vision too. So what though?           

If Jesus appeared to you and prophesied something which then happened in reality, what would be your take on it?

[Maeght]

How do you know that what she claims actually happened?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If Jesus appeared to you and prophesied something which then happened in reality, what would be your take on it?

My take on it would be to question my reasons for thinking Jesus had appeared and "prophesied" something at all.

If you thought leprechauns appeared to you and prophesied something which then happened in reality, what would be your take on it?

Oh and why did you just ignore the explanation I gave you for the anecdotal fallacy you're trying here?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Maeght,

How do you know that what she claims actually happened?

Because she said so sincerely silly! Never mind the absence of justifying reasons for her explanation - she was sincere dammit!

[torridon]

If Jesus appeared to you and prophesied something which then happened in reality, what would be your take on it?

I'd probably want to ask him why use his unlimited power for magic tricks when he could have stopped the holocaust or ridded the world of childhood cancer.