Advice to icontinent fallacy accusers

[SteveH]

When I started posting here I didn't know what most of the terms you refer to meant, so I educated myself with a bit of googling. Why would anyone not want to do that and prefer something dumbed down? I don't always follow every argument. So what? My mind is being stretched.

Because a few people on here are pretty thick.

[Shaker]

Because a few people on here are pretty thick.

Where to begin ...

[wigginhall]

For Pete's sake, this forum has been going for 7 years, I think, and before that there was the BBC.   Let's call it ten years that these duff arguments have been repeated endlessly.    I get it that new members may not know what 'no true Scotsman' means, but they can google.   

[Dicky Underpants]

I meant the obsessive naming of the logical fallacies. You can show why the argument is fallacious without doing so. Read C.S.Lewis's popular works to see how it's done. You don't catch him writing "Circualr argument", "Appeal to consequences", etc. all the time, but he nails the fallacy effectively in his own words.

Whilst getting caught perpetrating some monstrous howlers of his own.

[wigginhall]

Yes, triple irony quoting Lewis on fallacies.   Fake dichotomies abound in Lewis, e.g. lunatic, liar or lord.   I think he also got into the impersonal/personal arguments, which usually fall off a cliff.   For example, atoms are impersonal, therefore can't produce personality.   Eh?   Well, atoms aren't green, therefore can't end up in green things.   Yeah, sure, would you like  to give me your bank card pin?

[wigginhall]

Lewis's arguments about morality are really nightmarish.   Because he can't imagine how morality can be arrived at naturally (incredulity), therefore (non sequitur), it must be supernatural (undefined term), and therefore (non sequitur), it's created by the Anglican Christian God.   Funny, that.

If you google Lewis and fallacies there is an avalanche of them. 

[wigginhall]

Ah well, I've got the bit between my teeth now.   This is a famous piece from Lewis:

"Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen for certain physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, that gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But if it is so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way the splash arranges will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought; so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God." C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity.

This is just embarrassing, and the guy was a professor, wasn't he?   'Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought'.   It's quite sad, I suppose, but also anti-science, and just stupid.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ah well, I've got the bit between my teeth now.   This is a famous piece from Lewis:

"Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen for certain physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, that gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But if it is so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way the splash arranges will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought; so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God." C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity.

This is just embarrassing, and the guy was a professor, wasn't he?   'Unless I believe in God, I can't believe in thought'.   It's quite sad, I suppose, but also anti-science, and just stupid.

Wigginhall

You seem to be garnering enthusiasm for your idea that Lewis's reputation is in tatters because some of his trilemmas
should in fact be quadrilemmas. Isn't that the ''Oh I've just come up with another possibility.....therefore all others are negated'' fallacy?

I could not resist a smile when you were reminded Lewis's claim that Christianity must be the biggest con job in History you railed at that prospect. The smile was at the idea of you waxing so antilewis/Christian that you could not find it in yourself even to credit Christians with the biggest con job in history Ha Ha.

[wigginhall]

I think Lewis's reputation is in tatters, because he produces awful arguments like the above.   He stuck to this one in various books and papers - nature cannot produce morality or thought, therefore God.   As well as using analogies like the spilled milk one above, which are stupid, and not thought through.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think Lewis's reputation is in tatters, because he produces awful arguments like the above.   He stuck to this one in various books and papers - nature cannot produce morality or thought, therefore God.   As well as using analogies like the spilled milk one above, which are stupid, and not thought through.

I haven't read Lewis recently but I think there has been some questionable accusations of people arguing conclusively when they are not or not in the way they are accused.

Claiming that something is a trilemma when someone argues it should be a quadrilemma seems pretty trivial to me.

Most of what is in the universe is amoral and there are those who argue that any consciousness is an illusion. I think Hillside would argue that morality is actually and effectively absent. Lewis here seems to be refuting that and I do not disagree with him.

In other words if the universe is amoral and unconscious from whence is morality and consciousness being conjured. But more to the point, where are and what are they spatially ?

I think we are still having these debates though and all you seem to be saying is that your preferred view has primacy

[wigginhall]

It's not about my preferred view, but Lewis's terrible arguments.   He seems to be saying that evolution is random, as with the analogy with spilled milk.   I don't know whether he really believed that biologists were saying that, or whether this is his own view, but obviously random evolution would not produce anything.   Somebody doing GCSE biology could see that.

He also seems to forget that thought is often unreliable, and so is feeling and perception.    That is one reason that we have collegiate systems in academic subjects.   I might say something daft, but a colleague will probably correct me.   So are such errors the fault of the devil?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad the Strugglist,

The NPF is where something MUST be BECAUSE it cannot be proved otherwise.

You seem to be missing the words MUST and BECAUSE to suit, guys........................TUT, TUT.

Because it's not there. "Must" would be an argument from necessity; rather all the NPF claims is an "is" - as in, "you can't falsify my orbiting teapot conjecture, therefore my conjecture is true".

Incidentally, if you seriously think you don't use the NPF what point do you think you are making when you post comments like, "But you can't disprove it either"?

What is the "but" supposed to signify here? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad the Strawmanist,

Most of what is in the universe is amoral…

No, “most of the universe" (so far as know) isn’t even a/morality apt. 

…and there are those who argue that any consciousness is an illusion.

Who are these people? Consciousness is real enough. Our intuitive perceptions of what it entails on the other hand (the “free” of free will for example) are not.   

I think Hillside would argue that morality is actually and effectively absent. Lewis here seems to be refuting that and I do not disagree with him.

Hillside would say no such thing. What Hillside would say though is that objective morality is absent. 

In other words if the universe is amoral and unconscious from whence is morality and consciousness being conjured. But more to the point, where are and what are they spatially ?

The same place that aesthetics and language and….come from. They’re emergent properties of mind.

I think we are still having these debates though and all you seem to be saying is that your preferred view has primacy

No, we’re saying that the rational “has primacy” over the irrational.

[Enki]

I think Lewis's reputation is in tatters, because he produces awful arguments like the above.   He stuck to this one in various books and papers - nature cannot produce morality or thought, therefore God.   As well as using analogies like the spilled milk one above, which are stupid, and not thought through.

I tend to agree with you, Wiggs. I see him as a man of great imagination but no visionary. When faced with the intriguing scientific ideas in the realm of probabilities that quantum mechanics had to offer, for instance, he relegated them to the 'sub-natural'(whatever that may be) and made his rather biased and myopic response that:

Those who like myself have had a philosophical rather than a scientific education find it almost impossible to believe that the scientists really mean what they seem to be saying

Shades of AB's incredulity complex.

[ProfessorDavey]

Claiming that something is a trilemma when someone argues it should be a quadrilemma seems pretty trivial to me.

Not when the 4th option is the most plausible explanation, but has been quietly ignored by the author because it doesn't fit with his 'pre-conceived' thesis that god exists.

And of course there are far more that just four (let alone three) explanations.

And, of course the reality is that the distinctions between mad and bad are far more complex and nuanced than Lewis allows - again because he want to force people to reject mad and bad and then accept god. Even if you reject mad and bad, the next option on the list (which Lewis ignores) is misrepresented/misinterpreted during retelling decades later.

And to demonstrate my point - Lewis gets misinterpreted and misrepresented decades after his writing - specifically there are some people who think his arguments are cogent and plausible

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not when the 4th option is the most plausible explanation, but has been quietly ignored by the author because it doesn't fit with his 'pre-conceived' thesis that god exists.

And of course there are far more that just four (let alone three) explanations.

And, of course the reality is that the distinctions between mad and bad are far more complex and nuanced than Lewis allows - again because he want to force people to reject mad and bad and then accept god. Even if you reject mad and bad, the next option on the list (which Lewis ignores) is misrepresented/misinterpreted during retelling decades later.

And to demonstrate my point - Lewis gets misinterpreted and misrepresented decades after his writing - specifically there are some people who think his arguments are cogent and plausible

You write as though the one that is missing is usually the most plausible.
That would rather suggest evasion of issues by Lewis rather than just missing them.
I don't find evasion in Lewis but in New Atheist argument which has a whole host of get outs and virtuous sounding playing field changes. Lewis tends to focus. Others tend to wooliness which is I guess why Wigginhall hates him so.

[ProfessorDavey]

That would rather suggest evasion of issues by Lewis rather than just missing them.

Of course - unless Lewis was really stupid, which I don't think.

The notion that you would fail to recognise that records of an event, written decades after that event, might have misrepresented or misunderstood what actually happened is a pretty obvious explanation. That Lewis fails to offer that explanation in his 'trilemma' is likely evasion on his part as I cannot believe he didn't recognise it as a possibility.

But, of course, it didn't fit his agenda - mad, bad, god or misrepresented doesn't quite lead where he wants to guide the reader does it, on the basis that misrepresented seems the most obvious conclusion and one that doesn't require us to make any value judgement on Jesus at all.

All I can say is 'send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance'.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad the Assertionist,

I don't find evasion in Lewis...

Then you're not looking properly.

...but in New Atheist argument which has a whole host of get outs and virtuous sounding playing field changes.

It's "atheist" (not "new" atheist) and presumably we'll just have to take your word for these assertions as you'll still be unable to produce actual examples of either.

Why bother?

Lewis tends to focus.

On finding reasons to believe the thing he's already decided he believes. It's called confirmation bias, supported by various fallacious arguments (some of which have been identified here already).

Others tend to wooliness...

Which "others", and what "woolliness" do they "tend to" in your mind?

The assertotron is in overdrive tonight eh?

...which is I guess why Wigginhall hates him so.

First Wiggs hasn't suggested that he "hates" him at all, so why misrepresent him like that? Second, what Wiggs has actually done is to falsify some of the arguments Lewis attempted.

If you insist on coming here to tell lies, could you at least try to be a bit less obvious about it? Ta.

[ProfessorDavey]

You write as though the one that is missing is usually the most plausible.
That would rather suggest evasion of issues by Lewis rather than just missing them.
I don't find evasion in Lewis but in New Atheist argument which has a whole host of get outs and virtuous sounding playing field changes. Lewis tends to focus. Others tend to wooliness which is I guess why Wigginhall hates him so.

Lewis' arguments are for the playground. This is the actual wording of his trilemma point which is so laughably lacking in robustness to be almost sad:

'A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God'

To start with the basic premise can only be justified if it can be verified beyond doubt that the gospels are a completely accurate representation of what Jesus actually said - and there is no evidence to support this at all. So you don't even get off the starting blocks.

In reality Lewis' enduring reputation is based entirely on his Narnia books - had he not written those I doubt anyone would remember either his academic career, nor his weak Christian apologist writings.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Lewis' arguments are for the playground. This is the actual wording of his trilemma point which is so laughably lacking in robustness to be almost sad:

'A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God'

To start with the basic premise can only be justified if it can be verified beyond doubt that the gospels are a completely accurate representation of what Jesus actually said - and there is no evidence to support this at all. So you don't even get off the starting blocks.

In reality Lewis' enduring reputation is based entirely on his Narnia books - had he not written those I doubt anyone would remember either his academic career, nor his weak Christian apologist writings.

He certainly did not mess around with mealy mouth options such as Jesus was mistaken.I think he's spot on and the real underlining sentiment is that not only is Jesus mistaken but it is in the same category as someone who thinks they are Napolean. Lewis writes more for the man and woman in the street he gets there I'm afraid more than Dawkins who has never had as common a touch and has after all been in competition with apathetic atheism. I don't know how he compares with Pullman who has some great ideas and comments regarding English education but who I suspect is aided by Secular Humanist parents eager to set the next generation in the right direction.

[Shaker]

He certainly did not mess around with mealy mouth options such as Jesus was mistaken.

On what grounds did he dismiss that possibility from consideration, please?

[ProfessorDavey]

He certainly did not mess around with mealy mouth options such as Jesus was mistaken.I think he's spot on and the real underlining sentiment is that not only is Jesus mistaken but it is in the same category as someone who thinks they are Napolean.

But we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said, what he actually claimed or thought about himself. All we have are accounts written decades later which were written by people who had an agenda, specifically to try to perpetuate a belief amongst that group that Jesus was the son of god.

Interesting, of course, that the vast majority of people who were contemporaries of Jesus didn't believe a word of it - hence they continued to be Jewish, rejecting the notion that he was the son of god.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of course - unless Lewis was really stupid, which I don't think.

The notion that you would fail to recognise that records of an event, written decades after that event, might have misrepresented or misunderstood what actually happened is a pretty obvious explanation. That Lewis fails to offer that explanation in his 'trilemma' is likely evasion on his part as I cannot believe he didn't recognise it as a possibility.

Perhaps he recognises it as a possibility in the same way Dawkins sees God as a possibility or Richard Carrier sees Jesus as a possibility.......I.e. Negligible and certainly not as you would have it the most likely.

That Jesus had it in his manifesto that he was who he said he was is, to Lewis as historical as Caligula manifesto making it known that he was emperor.

In other words you can introduce it as another lemma but your justification is debatable as is it being the most likely.It looks injected to give some kind of hope to some kind of folk.

In fact I push the boat out and would credit Lewis as the father superior of Dawkins here in getting those considering Jesus to be robust about where they stand.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Interesting, of course, that the vast majority of people who were contemporaries of Jesus didn't believe a word of it - hence they continued to be Jewish, rejecting the notion that he was the son of god.

Argumentum ad populum?

[Shaker]

Argumentum ad populum?

No.