Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
Which is exacty the point, Alex Malpass summed this up nicely when taking apart the TAG arguement.
A logical arguement can be well made but be completely false! The analogy he used was in the form of a conjunctive syllogism, it went something in the lines of...
P1 - The king of France has hair or has no hair
P2 - The king of France is half
C - The king of France has no hair
This on face value this could look a reasonable arguement, but the fact is France is a republic and has no king.
So the proof has to be solid and and within the premise, and if say in the opening section when detailing parts of the premises you need it to be solid and verifiable.
Otherwise it's simply saying 'my opinion is...'
that is very good, do you have a link to this alex malpass argument?
and is your point that the premises of original post whilst looking good do not have the relevant evidence of proof?
https://youtu.be/HUR49lBH1iE
Hi, Dumb Ox. Thanks for the advice, that's what I'm trying to... We can consider the Universe as a combination of 'observable entities' (as you infer... then what happens to the non-observable, should we consider them?), or maybe we can say that's a combination of space, matter and time... In this last case, are those elements separately beings? I don't know, because it has not been established what 'being' means. As you can see, semantics have sth to do with the question.
Given the density of the debate, and this is a very dificult question to solve, I just wanted to make sure that we all are on the same page and that I'm following the arguments... I'm sorry if Russell and I are too "Dumb" for you.
And I also recommend you to read the Nyarlathotep post below, I think it's very revealing. Even if we agree with the definition of 'being', why should we infer that individual attributes will work for the whole entity?
About the Composition fallacy, it doesn't work all the time and here are two cases:
First case, which does not commit the fallacy of composition.
- each block of a wall is red so the wall must be red [unless, of course you painted it, that's a different thing]
- every part of a structure consists of stone then the whole structure must consists of stone.
The second case which commits the fallacy.
- each block of a wall weighs less than a pound so the wall must weigh less than a pound.
- each part of number 2 is odd then number 2 must be odd.
Now, I think you should prove that My third argument for the contingency of the universe applies to the second case Not to the first. since, it's possible for such reasoning to be fallacious and not to be, then I think that I need a reason why you think it falls under the second case.
I think this is a false analogy. I think that it should be something like:
P1: each block in a wall needs a cause for its existence.
C1: the wall needs a cause for its existence.
Now, I think that is a good analogy to the case of the universe. and that example is exactly what I would use to prove my point. In fact, I did use a similar example about a clock in the argument to prove that it does not commit the composition fallacy.
Now, can we say that a wall is necessary while each block, which constitutes the thing we call 'a wall' , is contingent?
Can we say that the wall has always been existed although its parts hasn't?
so, I think it's pretty obvious that it can't be the case that the wall is necessary but its parts are contingent. and that's why I think the universe falls under the first case not to the second.
Otherwise you must give me your reasons for thinking that it applies to the second case.
It isn't a false analogy, because it isn't an analogy.
- A false analogy is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone applies facts from one situation to another situation but the situations are substantially different.
- false analogy is an argument based on misleading, superficial, or implausible comparisons.
- The 'False Analogy' fallacy incorrectly makes an analogical connection between two unconnected items.
If you are holding another meaning/definition for it, then It's a dispute in terminology. so I still do think that your example is not similar to mine and thus it's a faulty objection.
Added: I think you would say: "A false analogy is ......" is a hidden premise, Why don't you have defined it in the post? that's intellectually dishonest and therefore it's word salad.
Right, and I made no comparison between two items (connected or otherwise).
---------------------------------
I made no comparison to yours. Get that through your head. How many times do I have to explain that?
using a counter example is a way of disproving another one in an analogous way. so that is technically comparison. it does not need you to say "hey guys I'm gonna make a comparison" to say that it's comparison. Get that through your Brainless head. Jerk.
Nyarlathotep, dear, You're empty headed you don't have anything to explain to me.
Again, I don't see how does this relate? Do you want to say that since there's a doubt that the universe might not be a 'being' -by a certain definition- so we must not rush and say that it's contingent? If that's your point then you should know that I don't argue that since the universe is a being therefore it's contingent. so I think it's better to steer you objection towards 'Contingent' Not towards 'Being' since i told you how do i use the word 'contingent being'. I think if you just completely remove it, it would still do the same meaning that I intended to deliver.
Anything that is possible in itself to exist and not to exist i.e., it doesn't exist by virtue of itself, I call it 'contingent/possible' So I still see it as a linguistic dispute.
Dumb Ox
What proof has been given that any necessary being/god is real? Just saying one exist is not enough evidence that one exist. What proof do you have that there is only one necessary being/god? We don't know what existed before the universe started to exist. Do you know what existed before the universe started to exist? I understand if you can't answer the questions I have ask you. It's okay to say I don't know.
edit
I'd like to point out... And that's also a question for Peripatetic... How do we even know that the universe began to exist? Maybe, I'm saying sth too dumb, but as far as I'm concerned, (please, if there's any physicist in the room, correct me) we still don't know if the initial state of time, matter and space began to exist with the Big Bang (Law of Conservation of Matter suggests the opposite, but maybe, in that state, we could think that the laws of Physics, as we know them, aren't applicable to that stage), they were always there (and the Big Bang just results in their expansion) or our Universe was originated within another universe... (in that case, could we consider that it has always existed?)
Thus, if we don't even know if the Universe began to exists, or was forever there, the two possibilites should be contemplated in this dilemma. If the Universe has never begun to exist, but it has always existed, premise 2 is not valid because then the Universe is not contigent, but necessary.
I have proved that the universe cannot be eternal let alone necessary, the infinite regress of contingent things is impossible and there cannot be a necessary being that is composite of contingent parts.
I think you should re-read the post and the arguments that I made to support premise 2.
Yet cannot see why your premise nº 2 still stands, even in an ever-lasting scenario... Anyway, I'll review your posts again. Thanks for the answer.
I have responded to your Objection regarding the composition fallacy. So if you still think that premise 2 is fallacious you just should give me some reasons. If you just think it is for no reason i would call it dogmatic. Maybe I should wait until you review the post.
false, you have claimed to but this assertion goes against all that is known in physics.
False, You're just claiming that I have claimed assertions without evidence. You have to prove it.
I think this is might be useful for you and everyone here
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
If we are talking pure philosophy that is fine. If your point is pure philosophy I accept your argument could be a conclusion, (and not any better or worse then anyone else's philosophical conclusions.)
Pure philosophy is not going to convince me of anything though. On any subject, it is just philosophy, fun to talk about it, and maybe eventually some testable conclusions of philosophy conclusion can be borne of it. If those testable conclusions then help support the philosophy conclusion, it moves out of the realm of philosophy and into actual science. Where observable, repeatable data can be used. Then you can start talking about "proof for god's existence, like your original thread states.
But anyone just using pure philosophy to "prove" something is... well how do you put it nicely? Confused?
I think we both know the idea of necessary cause will never leave the realm of philosophy, it is impossible to test for one way or the other. It sounds nice, it makes for a good philosophy debate. But proof in god? Sorry, you need more then a philosophical argument.
You have done no such thing.
I agree with you, there is nothing in the OP that delves into what is known in physics.
There is an infinite number of tiny intervals between your finger and your keyboard, yet you managed to move your finger across this infinite number of intervals repeatedly to type the message to us that it was impossible.
Hi, Peripatetic. I've re-read your post and I've re-read the basis of the Big Bang Theory and about graviational singularity as well, but I haven't studied physics since I was in high-school, so I won't pretend to have become an expert in the last couple of hours... But what I could grasp is that not even theoretical physicists agree on the origin of the Universe, as I told you before, and they haven't proved if the Universe is eternal or not, as I told you in another post, so I don't think that you can prove it, even with the best logical argument that you can think of, what physicists are still struggling with....
And about this last claim: You think that the universe cannot be eternal, because the infinite regress of contingent things is impossible, but in this phrase you're already assuming that universe is contigent because it's a combination of contingent things, and I have to agree with Nyarlathotep that it's a fallacy (even after reading Dumb Ox' rebut, it still makes sense to me what Nyar' logic proposition infered), to apply individual attributes to the whole.
I guess my answer disappoints you, I'm sorry, but I've no better one.
From what I have experienced here, it seems to me that when you guys are incapable of refuting an argument you just immediately go back to Your but-science-hasn't-prove-that-yet Sanctuary and then start a thread '2000 years and every proof of a god has been shot down'!
I refuted, or let's just say responded to Nyar's objection Here
Since I, and Dumb Ox responded to this objection and yet you still entitle to it, then there must be something wrong with our arguments, so could you please point out the fallacies in them? I told you that Nyar's example is fallacious. so I want to know why insisting on something that has been proved to be fallacious without even giving any reason to justify your position? Isn't it a solid fact that Only theists, those dumb people, that are dogmatic, biased and hold beliefs with no evidence at all to support them? then why would a rational intellectual thinker act like those idiots?
It's ok, I did not expect you would have any.
What I meant is that you claim to "refute" that the Universe can be eternal, therefore cannot be necessary, thus premise 2 is true. And I couldn't see any real proof to this claim... No matter how many times I review your arguments, I simply cannot, because your premises have gaps you're unwilling to admit.
There's no need to be rude and condescending, just because I don't agree with you. I took the time to read (and re-read) your endless posts, but I simply cannot say that you're right so you can feel better.
I'll be more specific (but I'm repeating myself): First, I can't see why an individual attribute could always apply to the whole, and I can't see why the Universe shouldn't be eternal, therefore necessary.
P.S. No matter how many times I read your (or Dumb Ox') rebuts.
no one said that an individual attribute could always apply to the whole. convincing yourself that this is what we assert to make it justified to deny that assertion IS a pathetic thing. we have made it clear that it applies to certain cases and doesn't apply to other cases. and we have demonstrated that to which side our argument belongs.
So we clearly have argued for our situation. but all that you have to say IS "I don't see how this right, I don't see how that right" which is just as saying "I can't refute what you have said so I'm gonna entitle to my position to consider them false anyway without any reason"
And I have this question, Why can't anyone here just quoting any statement and refute it? it's simple. but the only thing that you guys are good at IS Ignoring every thing and claiming that we have not proved anything.
Well, you have the burden of proof, since you were the one who brought this question up and we're supposed to be the Inquisition, that should be our part. Anyways, today I was planning to review Alex Malpass' (an atheist who has a PhD on Philosophy, expert on philosophical logics) opinion about this, for my own's sake, so I can make a more elaborated argument about what my -since I'm not able to put in an articulate argument yet (and within the restrictions of my evident limited knowledge of your language, which I'm aware it makes me look like even more idiotic that I really am), I'll call this- guts, so that it doesn't seem that I'm being just stubborn or illogic. And don't know if I'll have enough time to do it today, but this has not finished!
In the meantime I'll repeat my question, and maybe you can see my pathetic point of view: Given that you admit that individual attributes couldn't always apply to the whole... Then why are we supposed to apply them when it comes to the Universe, and when do we know it's a fallacy and when it isn't? I see that when it comes to your premises, it's okey. I mean, your fundamental premise is that the Universe is a combination of contigent beings, therefore the Universe is contigent... and I should take your word for it. But if I ask why are you concluding this, if there are cases when this is not true, you show some other logical examples, to support your argument, and then am I not supposed to infer that you mean that every case is true? I hope this makes sense.
Irrelevant, I did not say Prove that god doesn't exist. I obviously Proved my claim that there is one. you didn't accept it so i asked you to refute it and state your reason for why not accepting them but you didn't. so I really don't know what else should I do.
And I really Admire that Part of you. RESPECT.
I would accept that as an objection if it was the case that i just claiming that the fallacy doesn't apply to the universe.
and i have demonstrated here why the fallacy doesn't apply to it.
Just by Analyzing it. How did we come to know that the following example is fallacious?
each block of a wall weighs less than 1 pound then the wall weigh less than a pound.
But Is saying "each block of wall is contingent but the wall is necessary" not fallacious?
I think if you just took a look on the definitions of necessary and contingent you would know that this fallacious.
How could possibly be a wall that has always been existed when each block of it hasn't?
come on, it's too obvious it doesn't need all that discussion.
That's Exactly what I did in the comment I referred to earlier. It seems that you didn't read it.
claiming that you couldn't see any real proofs doesn't prove that there isn't any. Claiming that you cannot see that X is right, IS not a problem in itself. the problem is you are not giving any reasons for thinking so. You are just saying i can't see how it's true. and that can be said about anything even the scientific facts. but since you would not present any reasons for thinking so. so it's just a waste of time to debate about it.
Pages