A False Dilemma, in Atheism

I don't give a damn how many times you've done that. I care about the time you utterly ignored the distinction so as to shift the goal posts, unconsciously or otherwise.

Sure you would. As long as you can objectify Him, you can keep Him at a safe distance.

 

Beliefs are irrelevant, in a philosophical discussion. There are reasons given, or evidence for a position, or there are asserted beliefs. Those are fine, but do not have logical compulsion for the reader.

 

The problem is that the God you described isnt significant in our lives because you've ascribed no characteristics to it and the moment you do the moment you do, then your whole example goes out the window cause then you definitely do need proof of what you are talking about.

Persumably you don't believe in lots of other people's concept of God.

A god with no characteristics that doesn't interact with the universe and who the phrase 'unknown reasons' is attached to, is not important to me.

Teapot example doesn't apply to black holes. We can measure various things about black holes, therefore know they exist. We can take no measurements about the teapot or God. So can't conclude anything about them.

The ability to measure something=existence.

Edit: I find this whole conversation a little disengenous because it is more or less an attempt to make atheists agnostic about a deistic God.

I doubt you are any of those things. Normally when Atheists say affirmatively they don't believe in God, they are referring to Yahweh/Allah not some distant deistic creator being. I am an Atheist and demand proof for Allah/Yahweh. About the non-descript deistic God, I simply don't care that much.

Double edit: I don't believe that people who believe in the supernatural are delusional. I just believe they are wrong. If they claim they are seeing or hearing supernatural things, that's a different story. Most theists don't make that claim though.

 

..these are beliefs, only. You have no empirical evidence for these claims. They are hypothetical theories, at best, and wild irresponsible imaginations, at worst.

How can you ASSUME, 'god is not a necessary ingredient of the universe's energy cycle..'? This is absurd, if there is indeed, a Creator. Only if you ASSUME a godless universe, can you assert such a thing.

 

So because you can construct an absurd fallacy with 'teakettles!', that justifies the fallacy of, 'no evidence = no God!'?

Everybody gotta believe something. Do reason and evidence have any sway in determining something of such significant importance? Or do we just pick something from the philosophical smorgasbord, and pretend we have the Truth?

Everyone has to do their own believing, and their own dying.

 

What? Clarify please.

 

Wrong, delusional, mistaken, wishful thinking, indoctrinated.. pick your descriptor. It relays the same thing:

Godless universe = theism is a delusion

The inverse is also a logical projection:

God ordered universe = atheism is a delusion

So, what actually IS, the nature of the universe? Someone is deluded.. maybe a great many. How can anyone exclude themselves from this tendency of self delusion in humanity?

 

The importance of something to our lives has no effect on whether or not something is a logical fallacy (also I don't care about logical fallacies, they are over used internet tripe. If this is a logical fallacy, so is my tea kettle example, but neither of them make God an iota more or less real)

The problem is that the God described here isn't significant to our lives. Its more or less a deistic creator God that doesn't interact with the world.

Once you start talking abour Yaweh/Allah, this whole conversation becomes irrelevant because you are putting characteristics onto the God and that does require affirmative proof. Of which there is none. That there is no evidence for god might not mean there is no God (persumably its not the whole of why people don't believe). But it certainly doesn't mean there is one. That makes no sense at all.

It's also super ironic that this whole thread is some sort of argument for agnosticism. In fact it makes the argument that disbelief in not just God, but in ANYTHING is a logical fallacy.

 

What hubris in man to conclude atheistic naturalism from a lack of personal evidence?

The argument can go both ways.

 

There is no 'God', described here. This is a philosophical discussion about the 'God/no God' dichotomy. Specifics, beliefs, or perceptions are irrelevant.

The IMPLICATIONS of either possibility can be quite diverse, depending on the definition of 'God'. But that is not the subject of this thread.

 

I think they are very different. Being wrong and deluded are very different things. I don't like to change the definition of words to better suit an argument. Theists are wrong. Not deluded

The reason I dont care about personal evidence is because it varies so much, and the primary factor in it seems to be location of ones birth.

Other than a few scattered examples. In america people have personal evidence of Jesus. In India of Shiva and in Indonesia of Allah. This is so obvious. People are just getting spiritual feelings and then interpreting them through their culture.

Ive heard so much 'personal evidence' that totally contridicts other personal evidence that it has no weight to me whatsoever.

If there was an even geographical distribution of it, i might pay attention.

Edit: I don't exclude myself from the possibility of being wrong. People probably do that mostly cause it's human nature to do so. We are an egotistical lot, humans are. Over confident in our beliefs and minimizing of our flaws.

Its a funny argument from a theist though. Because its basically an argument that we should be agnostics on top of our other beliefs, which all polling data suggests atheists are at enourmously greater rates than theists.

 

Ah, thats why I think its disengenous. Also irrelevant to me. Since I am already an agnostic about a deistic creator. I doubt many atheists who are making the argument in the opening post are referring to a featureless God. Mostly to the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God.

I'm only a strong atheist about Yahweh/Allah.

 

Personal evidence doesnt matter to me, because its so obviously tied to geography and culture. (See my other post)

 

I don't see that. This thread is a rebuttal to the 'no evidence = no God' fallacy.

Evidence for 'ANYTHING', would have to be addressed on an individual case.

Moses
Black holes
Big Bang
Holocaust
Gravity

..these things can be examined, and logical conclusions made, based on available evidence. The strength of the evidence carries over to the strength of the belief. Since few of these things can be experienced personally, the conviction of the conclusions vary accordingly.. for a rational person.. Dogmatists have their unevidenced opinions, but cling to them with religious conviction.

 

The more I read this thread and think about the problem, the less importance I give to it.

It makes an argument for agnosticism, which is a belief far more common in atheists than theists. It implies that Atheists are all are strong Atheists about the most indescript of Gods possible. It attempts to justify a deistic God that basically nobody believes in. It makes the claim that non-belief in Anything is a logical fallacy because other possibilities exisit (not true, or good logic) It attempts to tie the use of logical fallacies to some overall truth (a pet peeve)

I think I'm bowing out of this one.

Capn Awesome out.

 

Fallacy of Hasty Generalization--get with the program!

 

I "knew" it. Your questions were too good to be from a novice. I got to read it again slowly...but it looks really good. You could learn symbolic logic in one semester. Okay, I read it again...and it is a good explanation in plain English of the argument structure and flaws. "Personal evidence" is a good term. Wittgenstein said, "I cannot say what does not exist."

 

LOL! Grasping at straws...straw man argument.

 

At least ;you are finally admitting that you don't care about any but your own opinions or how many times YOU shift the goal posts (constantly btw)

You just cannot admit the possibility that you could be in the slightest way wrong.

Just keep believing in fallacies and leave the realists alone.

 

No it can’t. It’s no more hubris than not believing in pink unicorns because there is no evidence for them.

 

Which is a strawman, that numerous people have called you on.

 

To carry the argument further on, the concept of unicorn is not the same as a deity so the theist claim: Fallacy of False Analogy. The Work/Object Reference Theory of Meaning insists that meaning is the correspondence between a word and its object (Quine). But of course we know that "the faun of Narnia" has meaning, but no objects. Language posits unreal mechanical entities to convey meaning. This is why natural language is a limited tool for doing science (Particle/Wave Duality) based on the assumption that Nature is a machine. The founder of logical positivism Wittgenstein said, "I cannot say what does not exist."

 

Yes your 'belief' that an false dilemma 'is common among atheists'( your words not mine)', as you asserted in the OP, specifically this false dilemma "'If you cannot prove God's existence, then He does not exist!'" is irrelevant in a philosophical discussion.

If you think about it, it is very easy to set up a strawman's argument of your choice, and then point out the illogical fallacy that you put into it.

Stop telling atheists what their argument is, stop telling atheists why they claim they do or do not believe in God and selling your own re-creation as their flawed argument. The first fews times you are told by different atheists, I can accept you as just a bit slow understanding. This has gone on long past seven times.

You dressed this mannikin, put its shoes and coat on, and put it in the store window. If the shoes don't match, don't blame the person who built the window

 

There was no false analogy in my post. Both pink unicorns, and deities have no evidence to support their existence.

 

It should read, "If you cannot prove God's existence, you currently have no ways of knowing if God exists. At least ways as used by science and the scientific process.

The idea that if you cannot prove god exist then he does not exist does not take into account that what is of our dimension cannot logically touch what is not of our dimension. So such a thing as God is outside of our ability to observe given it is not of our dimension. And if such a thing as god exists, it is perfectly reasonable to think it is in a different dimension, untouchable by this one.

When someone says god does not exist, he is also making the claim, giving an opinion, that no other dimension can exist in which god is a part of.

Seems kinda silly to make such a claim. ha ha And just a little big arrogant too. But hey, arrogance is what the ego manifests, right? And like *********s, we all have one.

We humans, most of us, demand strongly "to know". And we have problems and reactions when there are some things we cannot know. We kinda jump into all sorts of denial based upon little more than asumption.