Best Religious/Nonreligious Debate Ever

[_marg]

So actually he makes a pretty good argument. Do you see a problem with this argument Stak?

No, it's not a pretty good argument, it's invalid. That definition of the God Hypothesis, it's negation does not follow from Dawkin's six point argument.

I'm not following you Stak. The God Hypothesis is essentially the god/god of current monotheistic religions. Those religions don't say there might be such a God, and many religious individuals don't view their beliefs as there might be a creator God.

So Dawkins argument is a counter to those religious claims to that God. Specifically that complexity, the appearance of design is not an argument for such a God. What we see as complexity in life is a product of evolution. Complexity evolves, happens in stages. So God of religions must have evolved as well, being as the God claimed is complex. Therefore that (religious) God would have arrived after the universe existed and therefore can not be responsible for it. Therefore based upon the reasons given for the existence of a religious god ...the argument makes no sense and therefore there is no reason to accept such a God exists.

I see this as a good counter argument to the claims of a creator type God of religion.

[_lostindc]

Dawkin's doesn't assert Jesus never claimed to be divinity of any sort. If you are going to attack him then have the integrity to attack what he does say, not what you've created in your own mind.

p 117 he says: The historical evidence that Jesus claimed any sort of divine status is minimal.

p. 118 he says: "The fact that something is written down is persuasive to people not used to asking questions like" 'Who wrote it, and when?' 'How did they know what to write?' 'Did they, in their time, really mean what we, in our time, understand them to be saying?' 'Were they unbiased observers, or did they have an agenda that coloured their writing?' Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly theologians have made an overwhelming case that the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus' life. All were then copied and recopied, through many scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agendas."

He is correct, the gospels are a biased source with a religious agenda and are not reliable as to what an actual Jesus may have said.

Wordsmithing...he even clarified in an interview around the time of publication that Jesus did not claim to be divinity. I will look for the source on Monday and post. Maybe you should take the time to understand the history of your prophet? At least have this basic integrity.

[_MrStakhanovite]

I'm not following you Stak.

This is what I mean. When you make an argument like Dawkins did, you have a series of premises and from those you draw a conclusion (or a set of conclusions). When people are confronted with the argument, there are two main options to attack it. You can either try to show one of the premises doesn't hold, or you show a problem with validity.

When it comes to logical validity, all we are concerned with is form, not that the premises are true or false. The way the argument is presented, it's not possible for the conclusion (negation of the GH) to necessarily follow from his 6 premises.

[_marg]

Wordsmithing...he even clarified in an interview around the time of publication that Jesus did not claim to be divinity. I will look for the source on Monday and post. Maybe you should take the time to understand the history of your prophet? At least have this basic integrity.

I've read Bart Ehrman & Hyam Maccoby. What I like about information from these sorts of individuals is that they give information which allows the reader to understand and critically evaluate. Christians such as yourself seem to rely essentially upon biased sources and rarely are capable of honest critical evaluation of the religious beliefs they have. Nothing that I quoted from Dawkins was wrong. In fact he gave information valuable for critical evaluation of the gospels. But you don't appear to be able to acknowledge that with any sort of honesty.

[_marg]

I'm not following you Stak.

This is what I mean. When you make an argument like Dawkins did, you have a series of premises and from those you draw a conclusion (or a set of conclusions). When people are confronted with the argument, there are two main options to attack it. You can either try to show one of the premises doesn't hold, or you show a problem with validity.

When it comes to logical validity, all we are concerned with is form, not that the premises are true or false. The way the argument is presented, it's not possible for the conclusion (negation of the GH) to necessarily follow from his 6 premises.

Where on earth does he say he's making a deductive argument? Also note his conclusion "God almost certainly does not exist".

I'm still not following you and I believe I understand deduction and inductive reasoning fairly well.

This was his conclusion : If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion- the God Hypothesis- is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist.

At the beginning of the book somewhere he mentions that when he refers to the word God he's talking about a religious god not a deistic or pantheistic one. So his argument is essentially that observed complexity in the universe is not a good reason to warrant a claim for a creator religious God. At least I believe that's in essence what he's arguing.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Where on earth does he say he's making a deductive argument? Also note his conclusion "God almost certainly does not exist".

words like "certainly", "almost", and "maybe" doesn't render an argument ipso facto non-deductive. So I wouldn't say anything like that again.

I'm still not following you and I believe I understand deduction and inductive reasoning fairly well.

If you did, you'd have proven validity by now. You have not because you can't. No one can, unless they change a great deal of it.

At the beginning of the book somewhere he mentions that when he refers to the word God he's talking about a religious god not a deistic or pantheistic one.

That doesn't change anything

So his argument is essentially that observed complexity in the universe is not a good reason to warrant a claim for a creator religious God. At least I believe that's in essence what he's arguing.

No, he states it pretty clearly on 157 that those 6 points that God almost certainly does not exist.

[_marg]

[

words like "certainly", "almost", and "maybe" doesn't render an argument ipso facto non-deductive. So I wouldn't say anything like that again.

In deduction the conclusion necessarily follows. If one writes "might" in the conclusion ..it means it doesn not necessarily follow. Therefore by the words in his conclusion it is obvious he's not making a formal deductive argument.

I'm still not following you and I believe I understand deduction and inductive reasoning fairly well.

If you did, you'd have proven validity by now. You have not because you can't. No one can, unless they change a great deal of it.

What on earth are you talking about? Deductive logic is formal logic ..as long as the premises are true the conclusion necessarily follows. He did not write a formal deductive argument despite your claim that he did. So he wrote an inductive one and essentially it is a matter of whether or not he has provided good reasoning to warrant the conclusion. I think he has.

At the beginning of the book somewhere he mentions that when he refers to the word God he's talking about a religious god not a deistic or pantheistic one.

That doesn't change anything

Sure it does. It would be an entirely different argument if he was claiming no matter what someone refers to as God that doesn't exist. He is simply countering religious claims of God and saying they aren't well warranted and hence that god is not likely to exist.

So his argument is essentially that observed complexity in the universe is not a good reason to warrant a claim for a creator religious God. At least I believe that's in essence what he's arguing.

No, he states it pretty clearly on 157 that those 6 points that God almost certainly does not exist.

Sure if you don't read carefully it sounds as if he's making a claim that any and all possible God doesn't exist based upon the premises. But that's not what he's doing. The whole book is about arguing in support of a position of atheism and against theism of monotheistic religions...which have a creator God who created mankind and all life..and religions present such as God not as a possibility but as a given. For that God, I understand him to be saying that the arguments given by theology and accepted by theists in particular that complexity warrants such a belief in such an entity is untenable..because complexity of intelligence evolves and how could that god have ever evolved without there first being the existence of the universe. I think I'm distorting his argument a bit and I forget all the arguments he makes up until the point you quoted however in essence I believe that's his argument..it is a counter to religious claims to a God creator.

[_MrStakhanovite]

In deduction the conclusion necessarily follows. If one writes "might" in the conclusion ..it means it doesn not necessarily follow.

They are called demonstrative inductions and since they act identical to deductions in that the conclusion is a neccesary consequence of the premise. They go by names like deductions from phenomena and eliminative inductions.

He did not write a formal deductive argument despite your claim that he did.

Show me where I said that his argument was a formal deductive argument. Better yet, prove the validity of Dawkins argument. Show me any person who proves the validity of the argument. I'd be impressed if you could find someone even attempting to show it.

[_marg]

In deduction the conclusion necessarily follows. If one writes "might" in the conclusion ..it means it doesn not necessarily follow.

They are called demonstrative inductions and since they act identical to deductions in that the conclusion is a neccesary consequence of the premise. They go by names like deductions from phenomena and eliminative inductions.

Dawkins clearly did not say or imply given his premises the conclusion "necessarily" follows. If you think he did state or imply his conclusion "necessarily" follows a la deduction, then you need to make the argument and demonstrate. I don't care what you call it, you need to show how he made an argument with a conclusion that states it necessarily follows.

He did not write a formal deductive argument despite your claim that he did.

Show me where I said that his argument was a formal deductive argument. Better yet, prove the validity of Dawkins argument. Show me any person who proves the validity of the argument. I'd be impressed if you could find someone even attempting to show it.

I'm basing it upon your words: You said: "When it comes to logical validity, all we are concerned with is form, not that the premises are true or false. The way the argument is presented, it's not possible for the conclusion (negation of the GH) to necessarily follow from his 6 premises."

Deduction is about logical validity and form ..not induction and deduction entails a conclusion necessarily follows not induction...so what else are you saying if not criticizing Dawkin's argument by saying his conclusion doesn't "necessarily" follow from the premises of his deductive argument?

And why would I try to prove the "validity" of Dawkins' argument. By validity are you talking deductive form or are you talking about the reasoning that the conclusion he offers doesn't follows logically from the premises? If so I've already discussed that. I think his conclusion does follow from the premises which were a summary of what he had presented in the chapter.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Dawkins clearly did not say or imply given his premises the conclusion "necessarily" follows. If you think he did state or imply his conclusion "necessarily" follows a la deduction, then you need to make the argument and demonstrate. I don't care what you call it, you need to show how he made an argument with a conclusion that states it necessarily follows.

Marg, look at what he wrote on page 157 after lists his 6 premises

If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion- the God Hypothesis- is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist.

Look at the first word of this statement, "if". When you translate this into logical notation, that word is doing two things. First, it's setting you up for a conditional statement and second, it's telling you what the antecedent is.

This is A

If the argument of this chapter is accepted

This is the negation of G

the factual premise of religion- the God Hypothesis- is untenable.

This becomes If A then -G. He's saying that A alone is sufficient for -G to come about.

Deduction is about logical validity and form ..not induction

Look at what you just wrote. You just told me, that induction is not about validity and form. You are telling me, that when someone makes an inductive argument, they don't have to offer a proof to show it's valid. Do I have to explain why this is patently absurd and borderline stupid?

and deduction entails a conclusion necessarily follows not induction

I gave you counter examples to this, but you ignored them. Probably because you don't know what they are and I don't think you have a clear idea what exactly you are arguing for.

And why would I try to prove the "validity" of Dawkins' argument.

Well, when someone says, " hey, that argument is invalid." And someone else says, " I think it's a strong argument!" The first thing they try to do is show the arguments validity.

I also wanted to demonstrate you don't know what you are talking about.

By validity are you talking deductive form or are you talking about the reasoning that the conclusion he offers doesn't follows logically from the premises?

deduction, induction, abduction, whatever. All forms of logical argumentation have proofs of validity.

[quote="marg"]If so I've already discussed that. I think his conclusion does follow from the premises which were a summary of what he had presented in the chapter.[/quote

This is the part where you show it....