Best Religious/Nonreligious Debate Ever

[_MrStakhanovite]

Marg,

When you took this logic class, did you take written arguments and translate them into a symbolic language and then attempted to prove them?

[_Kevin Graham]

Oh my gosh, you can't remember details, you don't have a quote..call me unimpressed with your personal attack. You've got nothing better to do in your life Kevin that to pop into threads with nothing of substance but I guess just to hear yourself talk?

Well since you're being a dork about this (personal attack??) here is your quote:

"You mentioned something about red states and morality, I'll take a look at the
book to see what it is you are referring to. I bought another copy yesterday of
the book as I remembered I gave mine away."

This was just one example and it was in reference to an idiotic argument by Sam Harris. You jumped all over me on teh forum for saying these guys make dumb arguments, the same way you're jumping all over MrStakhanovite. Do you have a picture of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins hanging over your bed?

I've never seen anyone get so defensive about other public figures except at MADB where any critical commentary about LDS leaders is immediately countered with similar "you are just misrepresenting them" rhetoric.

by the way I vague remember you criticizing Dawkins and when asked for quotes you didn't have the book, but what it also looked like is you hadn't read the book but was relying on a web site which had criticized him. You are too much Kevin.by the way I vague remember you criticizing Dawkins and when asked for quotes you didn't have the book, but what it also looked like is you hadn't read the book but was relying on a web site which had criticized him. You are too much Kevin.

Nonsense. If this were true, then it should be easy for you to find, right? I've never relied on websites to criticize Dawkins. I have too many books written by people who criticize him (D'Souza, McGrath, Flew, etc.) I presented multiple examples where Dawkins screwed the pooch as a historian. In one instance, he borrowed a citation that internet atheists invented from whole cloth. It was supposedly a citation of an ancient Christian Church Father who said something to the effect that, "If there is no evidence for God, then that is a good reason to believe it." McGrath challenged Dawkins to produce his source, and he was eventually forced to admit it doesn't exist. The only place it existed was on atheist blogs. In another example, he started off his book by pronouncing Einstein an atheist, ignoring all the various citations from Einstein that strongly suggest the opposite (i.e. "I am not an atheist" -Albert Einstein) Antony Flew took him to task for that screw up too, and I relayed it here, only to be met with all sorts of mental gymnastics about how Einstein really was an atheist, even though he didn't know it, therefore Dawkins wasn't wrong.

So yes, Dawkins is a genius academic but he is still human. Outside the realm of science, he falls flat on his face as a philosopher, historian, sociologist and anthropologist. Deal with it.

[_lostindc]

It appears Marg has been served. Some schmo dropped out of the thread a while back. I believe he saw the writing on the wall. Dawkins is terrible outside of biology. He is an absolutely terrible philosopher and this thread has only listed a few of his many failings.

[_marg]

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[_marg]

Marg,

When you took this logic class, did you take written arguments and translate them into a symbolic language and then attempted to prove them?

Yes, we used symbolic language when translating statements of deductive argumentation..not for inductive. So again I would like your definition of invalid and valid, so I can understand your sentences when you use those words.

[_marg]

-

[_MrStakhanovite]

So again I would like your definition of invalid and valid, so I can understand your sentences when you use those words.

One thing at a time. I'm trying to get a grip on what you actually know so I can stop going over your head with terms and concepts you don't get.

Yes, we used symbolic language when translating statements of deductive argumentation..not for inductive.

Was this a long time ago? The reason I ask is becuase you don't seem to get what a negation is, which is a very basic and fundamental concept in all logic. You keep calling it a 'negative' like you mistake it for arithmetic.

I don't mean to sound insulting, but I keep having to make the same points and you refuse to accept them. This means we are talking two different things here, so I want to start from the ground up.

[_marg]

So again I would like your definition of invalid and valid, so I can understand your sentences when you use those words.

One thing at a time. I'm trying to get a grip on what you actually know so I can stop going over your head with terms and concepts you don't get.

How about you give your definition of invalid and valid so I can appreciate how you are using those terms.

Yes, we used symbolic language when translating statements of deductive argumentation..not for inductive.

Was this a long time ago? The reason I ask is becuase you don't seem to get what a negation is, which is a very basic and fundamental concept in all logic. You keep calling it a 'negative' like you mistake it for arithmetic.

Probably about 8 years ago. I don't keep calling anything negative you do. You used the word "negative" not me. And I asked you to define that as well ..when defining "-G". "-G" being a symbol you brought up. I take it that "G" stands for Dawkin's term 'The God Hypothesis" which I believe he essentially is using to replace notions and arguments for a religious monotheistic god. I don't see how entire arguments can be referred to as a negative or even if we look at the G as replacing the entity God how it can be referred to as a negative. All I've asked you to do a number of times is define your terms.

I don't mean to sound insulting, but I keep having to make the same points and you refuse to accept them. This means we are talking two different things here, so I want to start from the ground up.

Ok from the ground up. I'll throw this out..you have not established by argumentation or example, that Dawkin's argument entails a necessary conclusion. He specifically mentioned the conclusion entailed a probability. I explained his argument in my own words..but you've not explained what it is you have found wrong with it, other than to say it's invalid. However when I ask for a definition on how you are using that word I get nothing.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Probably about 8 years ago. I don't keep calling anything negative you do. You used the word "negative" not me.

This is not true in any sense.

And I asked you to define that as well ..when defining "-G". "-G" being a symbol you brought up. I take it that "G" stands for Dawkin's term 'The God Hypothesis" which I believe he essentially is using to replace notions and arguments for a religious monotheistic god. I don't see how entire arguments can be referred to as a negative or even if we look at the G as replacing the entity God how it can be referred to as a negative. All I've asked you to do a number of times is define your terms.

No one is calling it a negative but you. Why do you keep doing this? It's beyond me. Look at what I said:

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.

If G is the God Hypothesis, G being false would be it's negation, or -G.

Ok from the ground up. I'll throw this out..you have not established by argumentation or example, that Dawkin's argument entails a necessary conclusion.

This is also untrue.

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.

Dawkin's own argument is a simple modus ponens.

A --> -G, A, .:. -G

If the ARGUMENT of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion- the GOD HYPOTHESIS- is untenable (that means NEGATION).

So in other words Marg, if A is sufficient for -G and we accept A, -G will follow necessarily.

He specifically mentioned the conclusion entailed a probability.

PROBABILITY

Like I said before, probability doesn't change a thing. Modus ponens has a probabilistic analog, which is actually neatly demonstrated in one of Elliot Sober's papers:

Philosophers schooled in the rules of deductive logic often feel that they can find their way when reasoning about probabilities by using the idea that probability arguments are approximations of deductively valid arguments. In a deductively valid argument, the premises necessitate the conclusion; in a strong probability argument, the premises confer a high probability on the conclusion. As a probability argument is strengthened, the probability of the conclusion, conditional on the premises, increases; in the limit, the premises confer a probability of unity on the conclusion. Deductive validity thus seems to be the limit case of strong probability arguments.

Pay close attention to the bolded part of that paragraph. Compare with what you said here:

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.

"God almost certainly does not exist" sounds like it qualifies as a "strong probability arguments."

So how does one formulate it?

We are to imagine that an agent at time t1 assigns a high value to Pr(Y*X). The agent then learns that X is true; this means that the probability assignment needs to be updated. If X is the total evidence that the agent acquires about Y in the temporal interval separating t1 and t2 , then he or she should assign Y a high probability at time t2. This is nothing other than the Principle of Conditionalization3 applied so as
to respect the Principle of Total Evidence. I didn’t mention either of these in my formulation of (Prob-MP), so a fuller statement of this form of argument should go as follows:

PRt1(Y*X) is high
X is the total evidence that the agent acquires between t1 and t2
Updating proceeds by conditionalization
-------------------
PRt2(Y) is high

There are of course, other ways to frame arguments from probability(such as Bayes Theorem) but the text of Dawkin's argument doesn't contain anything that could even be remotely construed as such. All we have is six points that if we accept as true, then we can only draw the conclusion that the God hypothesis is "is untenable."

I explained his argument in my own words..but you've not explained what it is you have found wrong with it, other than to say it's invalid.

When I say an argument is invalid, I mean that the argument is built in such a way that it contains formal and informal errors that call into question the integrity of the argument. I have no problem with the content of what he said, just that he did not arrange the argument in such a way that makes it strong.

[_marg]

So in other words Marg, if A is sufficient for -G and we accept A, -G will follow necessarily.

I haven't finished reading your post but let me throw this out. A modus ponens argument is not a probability it is a conditional.
---------------
If A is true, then B is true.

A is true

Therefore B is true.
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This isn't a probability..as long as A is true the conclusion is not a probability. The conclusion is not just probable that B is true, it is necessarily true under the condition that A is assumed or known to be true.

That's not what Dawkins did. He said if his premises are true then the arguments given by religions for an intelligent highly complex creator God are highly unlikely to be true.

A deductive argument entails a necessary conclusion with absolutely no opening for a probability conclusion. That's why you can use symbols because in theory it's mathematical ..a statement is either true or false and so they are interchangeable with symbols. As along as premises are true..whatever the conclusion is in a deductive argument it means the conclusion must be true. Nothing will change the conclusion, no additional premises..only if the premises are false is the conclusion unreliable.