Atheism and the Celestial Teapot!

[bluehillside Retd.]

DU,

Beware those nurses - they steal your trousers when you're asleep, you know!

Ah, thanks old friend - I'd assumed it was Vlad doing it to replace all those pairs he'd ruined of his own.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

So - if I acquire a calculator I also acquire a 'worldview', or indeed several depending on how I decide to approach the arithmetic?

Sounds like simplistic bollocks to me.

Poor analogy.

If you put the calculator in stats mode and try and do something not appropriate for that mode, it isn't going to work, is it?

[Gordon]

I see the type of atheism that argues against religious belief (as opposed to being an absence of belief) as being a product of it, Nearly Sane.

The rejection of fallacious arguments is not arguing against religious belief: it is no more than just rejecting bad arguments.

[Nearly Sane]

Poor analogy.

If you put the calculator in stats mode and try and do something not appropriate for that mode, it isn't going to work, is it?

No, this emphasises why your own analogy binary = worldview is flawed

[Nearly Sane]

I see the type of atheism that argues against religious belief (as opposed to being an absence of belief) as being a product of it, Nearly Sane.
I did start a thread on it and tried to deal with the many questions there.

Faith & Belief: Induction vs Deduction

It was based on the 'Cold-case Christianity thread.

Yes, I read them, they aren't methods they are assertions. And you still haven't defined a worldview.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gordon,

The rejection of fallacious arguments is not arguing against religious belief: it is no more than just rejecting bad arguments.

Quite so. That the religious will often seek to validate their beliefs by hitching them to bad arguments is a separate matter. A fallacious argument is a fallacious argument regardless of which beliefs happen to piggy-back on it.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Your mistake though is to equate applying different bases to a maths question with the same "worldview" - logic - as if that were in some way equivalent to equating a logic-based answer to a faith belief.

It's not - not by any stretch. And that's why it's a false analogy or, more properly, a category error.       

And, as ever, I disagree. Essentially, you are claiming religious belief as illogical!

[Gordon]

Poor analogy.

If you put the calculator in stats mode and try and do something not appropriate for that mode, it isn't going to work, is it?

Not really - your analogy was based on arithmetic, where you equated a different numeric bases to different 'worldviews': that a calculator has a stats function (and I'm quite familiar with statistics) is irrelevant to your analogy although I suppose, to follow your analogy, one could have a 'stats worldview': would that be parametric or non-parametric though?

[torridon]

And this is why I keep on disagreeing with you! Logic is meaningless without a worldview.

2+2=10 is not logical if the worldview used is base 10. It is logical if the worldview being used is base 5. Your logic comes out of your worldview.

I think you are causing confusion by being hung up on this worldview business.  Trouble is, the term is poorly defined, and you are using it in a particular way that confuses people who use it in a more regular way.  For instance, you say "Your logic comes out of your worldview".  To my way of understanding these terms, that is completely wrong.  Logic is not relative or subservient to any more profound epistemic system. Worldviews are personal and messy things that owe to cultural baggage, time and place. A worldview might derive, in part, from logic, but logic is logic is logic and it does not derive from a worldview.  Your arithmetic base analogy is trivially misleading.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

And, as ever, I disagree. Essentially, you are claiming religious belief as illogical!

You're changing horses now - if you think that belief in "God" (by which presumably you mean the god in which you happen to believe rather than different gods in which others believe) is the result of logical argument what need have you of "faith"? Make the logically cogent argument for it and we can have it taught immediately in schools across the country alongside physics and maths and geography and... 

Oh, and can you now at least see why your maths example is a category error? Both outcomes are logically arrived at, the only difference being different starting conditions. If you want to call confidence in logical cogency a "worldview" then it's the same worldview in each case. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

DU,

Ah, thanks old friend - I'd assumed it was Vlad doing it to replace all those pairs he'd ruined of his own.

Meanwhile it's Jazz night down at the Antitheist and Shunters Club. Blue Hillside is about to get into his Set.

''Ok Ladies and gentlemen....here's a little number dedicated to Vlad a 1 and a 2.....I got you...under my skin........''

[Sebastian Toe]

And this is why I keep on disagreeing with you! Logic is meaningless without a worldview.

2+2=10 is not logical if the worldview used is base 10. It is logical if the worldview being used is base 5. Your logic comes out of your worldview.

I would just like to point out that 2+2=4 using Base 5.

Thank you and goodnight.   

[Sebastian Toe]

Meanwhile it's Jazz night down at the Antitheist and Shunters Club.

Is that the club just down the street from the Anti-secularist and Turdpolishers Union.
The one where the hit song of the moment is Neil Diamond's 'Straw in  the Wind'?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Is that the club just down the street from the Anti-secularist and Turdpolishers Union.
The one where the hit song of the moment is Neil Diamond's 'Straw in  the Wind'?

...No Seb it's the one opposite the Jokerecyclers and plagiarists society.

[Sebastian Toe]

...No Seb it's the one opposite the Jokerecyclers and plagiarists society.

So you frequent them both?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So you frequent them both?

No.... I'm just better informed than you.

[Sebastian Toe]

No.... I'm just better informed than you.

See now you made me laugh there!
You can do it if you really try hard....before it wears off.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

See now you made me laugh there!
You can do it if you really try hard....before it wears off.

That's a good one.........is it recycled?

[ippy]

Gordon's point there strikes me as quite common.   I mean, that people start off with 'God', for whatever reason, and then look around for arguments to support it.   You could argue, of course, that we all do that - for example, I can't stand Theresa May, in a kind of instinctive way, so then I look for reasons, like she gurns.

But what is weird is the claim that such and such arguments lead us to God belief.  Really?

I don't know why but I like this post of yours wiggi.

ippy

[Enki]

I would just like to point out that 2+2=4 using Base 5.

Thank you and goodnight.   

I would also stress that in binary, 1+1=10 means exactly the same as 1+1=2. The same logic applies to both. It is simply a different way of representing the same process. It is not a different worldview by any stretch of the imagination. Incidentally, in binary mode, 10 does not mean represent the word 'ten', of course. That would be to confuse it with the decimal system.

[ippy]

And, as ever, I disagree. Essentially, you are claiming religious belief as illogical!

I have a certain amount of sympathy for you Sword, I get treated in a similar way about my belief in 'Star Trek'.

ippy

[SteveH]

I can't possibly address all SotS's fevered ratiocination, but one point that he made on page one must be answered. The burden of proof is always on the person making the positive claim; thus it is incumbent on theists to defend their belief, otherwise atheism wins by default. Occam's razor.

[Walter]

That has been pointed out so many times on this board and remains true in this case too.

Why do people keep making the same error?. it beats me.

Yes , I'm new here, hello everyone.

[torridon]

That has been pointed out so many times on this board and remains true in this case too.

Why do people keep making the same error?. it beats me.

Yes , I'm new here, hello everyone.

Hi Walter, welcome to the RE board.  We have a thread for people to introduce themselves if interested :

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=3.msg639281#new

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

I can't possibly address all SotS's fevered ratiocination, but one point that he made on page one must be answered. The burden of proof is always on the person making the positive claim;

That has been pointed out so many times on this board and remains true in this case too.

Why do people keep making the same error?. it beats me.

Which is what I said in my very first post on Page 1:

Up to a point, I agree. However, I think that the burden of proof should lie with the one making the claim. If I were to make a statement about the Christian faith, e.g. Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then the onus is on me to demonstrate why I believe this. However, if I went up to a Muslim and said, “Mohammed was not God’s final messenger”, then the onus should be on me to back up my claim, not expect the Muslim to affirm why he or she believes that particular tenet of their religion.

The truth (or otherwise) of a statement can be established in the affirmative, or disproved by showing that something that contradicts it is true.