More definitions of non-cognitive to add to the list!
I'm starting to think that it's the wrong word.
My claim is that God has no empirical meaning.
So all the concepts we use to describe the being and behaviour of the everyday world, like objects and relations like causation, God is meaningless in this context... except for the anthropomorphic conceptions...

Meh!
You get gist of what I mean, right?

I don't quite think they've defined it correctly...

See this for a better explanation

http://www.rationalresponders.com/a_clarification_of_the_theological_noncognitivist_position

Conifer's paper is good, but with regards to our disagreement, it seems to be only about the distinguishing between "atheism" and "noncognitivism". Many of the dissections of the incoherencies of "God" as a concept which Conifer examines relates to omnipotence, omniscience etc. My critique of God as a concept rests fundamentally on the notion of "spirit" and "supernatural". He does, briefly touch upon the incoherency of supernaturalism with regards to lack of spatial-temporality and such, however, he concludes at the end of these that the correct position is atheism, not noncognitivism, because he says, the correct conclusion is that "God exists" is a false proposition, not an unintelligible one. This seems to me like splitting hairs. I would say that God is defined, it is just that God is described as supernatural, and supernatural is not defined. In this respect, I am not a traditional noncognitivist, because I hold that the reason that we might view God exists as a false statement is because "supernatural" is an unintelligble predicate. In this respect, I would be in agreement with Conifer. I hold the term supernatural is meaningless, so by extension, the phrase God Exists is a necessary falsehood. Honestly, this is so insignificant...it is the sort of thing only a philosopher would argue about...see my signature.

Well the rebuttal of logical positivism in general that I'm most familiar with is Deconstruction and its descendants (structuralism, semiotics). 

In a nutshell, these schools of thinking say that the meanings of  words are not determined by their reference to empirical reality (or an abstract system of absolute correspondences) but rather by their reference to the author, the audience, and the context of discourse.

So in order to be truly "meaningless," a word would have to be true nonsense--a random string of letters that did not communicate any information to any audience ever.  Terms like "God" still mean something, even if that meaning doesn't fit the definition of "cognitively meaningful" in the context of logical positivism--and even if nobody can entirely encapsulate what that meaning is.

Fair enough, Deludedgod.

I think our difference still lie in two areas:

1. Under the influence of linguistic philosophers since Wittgenstein,  I don't consider any relationship between "positive concept" and meaning to be useful.  The distinction between what's being referred to here as "positive concepts" and other types of concepts in categorizing classes of meaning is something I only found out about by studying backward into old-fashioned styles of philosophy of language.  This stuff isn't used anymore--it's been superseded by things like intentionality, consequence and discourse contexts.

2. I don't think the position "'God is supernatural is equivalent to saying that "God exists" is a false statement" is a necessary argument to make. Although it can be shown to be valid within the context of Tod's positivist assumptions, it tends to work against your rhetorical purpose by (1) confusing/alienating that part of the audience that doesn't understand it and (2) giving rise to tangential arguments about the assumptions by that part of the audience that does understand it.  Even if you can convince everybody of the validity of the argument within its scope, at the end of the day the argument is still unsound applied outside its scope.

Overall I think the argument "there is no good evidence for the existence of God" is a stronger argument that doesn't require as many shared assumptions and leads to a more tenable rhetorical position. 

 Nor do I, except, critically, in the cases of literal reference of nouns and adjectives. And, more critically, in the predicate of a logical statement, such as "supernatural things exist". If supernatural is not defined, this is invalid. I believe I pointed this out when I wrote:

 

And with regards to (2), obviously, what is the point of me arguing with a theist regarding a word neither of us has any idea what it means? 

 

I am not a logical positivist. I do not reject a priori methods (the cornerstone of positivism). Also, as I said multiple times, I do not necessarily belief terms have define things to be meaningful. The lexicon is littered with meaningful words which do not define things. However, nouns and adjectives do have to denote concepts...that's sort of the definition of them, right?

And I would not agree with that either. That would apply only to nouns and adjectives. Supernatural is used as both. In either case, it is not referring to anything.

And, as I explained, due to the fact that it has no literal meaning, supernatural is used in such a way in linguistic discourse such that it makes a standard definition fallacy called equivocation, in this case, confusing literal/metaphorical meaning, as a pointed out. So when making reference to supernatural as literally existing in logical argument, oftentimes the supernaturalist makes reference to metaphorical descriptions and equivocates them with literal reference. This is invalid:

 

Perfectly, however, as I noted, the context of the paper is the language of logical argument (ie making the logical proposition regarding supernatural things existing:

Fortunately, we do not have to deal with a great deal of the complexities of theory of meaning, because in this context, we are attempting to make reference to logical, existent beings using logical statements based on nouns and predicates. This makes our job incredibly easy. In the language of logic, things must be coherently defined, literal definitions must be employed and concepts must have cognitive meaning. We can bypass all these complications like metaphorical reference, multiple definitions, slang, cultural reference and other complexities that make linguistic meaning supremely complex.

 

OK, but that being the case, the supernaturalist cannot validly argue the case for their beliefs by using rational discourse. They might as well just admit that their belief is illogical, hence the RRS is correct in saying it is an irrational precipt, one which can only be defended by an Appeal to magic fallacy. Being that, anyone attempting to make logical arguments for such concepts must cease and desist, and trust me, there are plenty who would try...

To understand why, let us not look at semantics and instead look at the presentation of evidence. Obviously, we cannot present evidence of "hello" or "the" or any other word which we employ as a conjunctive or grammatical copula etc. But concepts for which evidence is attempted to be presented (which are almost always predicates of logical statements) must refer to something and be positively defined...otherwise, what are we providing evidence of?

In other words, a theist cannot even begin to present evidence of the supernatural until they have positively defined it. Wouldn't you agree ? This is why when they attempt to present such evidence, I always stop them and remind them that supernatural is, as of yet, undefined, so they cannot, as of yet, present evidence for it.

Thanks.  That's what I was trying to say.

 

Okay, good, so we are on the same page.  Two things still at issue.

First, if Todangst is really saying, as Hamby quotes, "If you plug valid data into valid logic, you get truth," then Tod is factually incorrect.  If you plug valid data into valid logic, you get *valid* conclusions. Valid conclusions aren't necessarily true.

Okay, now second thing.

 

 I agree with everything up to "the supernaturalist cannot validly argue the case for their beliefs by using rational discourse." 

You can validly argue for anything as long as the logic that connects your premises to your conclusion is valid.
  Your arguments may not be sound (if the premises aren't known to be true) and your conclusions may or may not be true, but you can still make a valid argument.

Finally, the "supernaturalist cannot argue rationally" line of argument is itself unsound.  It goes, if I understand it correctly and please correct me if I'm wrong, like this:

1. Concepts which are not defined in positive terms are meaningless

2. "Supernatural" is not defined in positive terms

3. Any argument for God's existence requires use of the concept "supernatural"

4. Therefore any argument for God's existence is meaningless

This is a valid argument, but the first premise is an assumption. Gavagai pointed this assumption out in the other forum. It cannot be known to be true, so the argument is unsound.

Finally finally, not to call anybody a logical positivist, but premise 1 is a fundamental principle consistent with logical positivism.  There are many many rival assumptions currently floating around that say things more like "Concepts that influence people's behavior have meaning" or "Concepts that interact with a discourse community have meaning."  These assumptions can be used in arguments that are just as valid (and just as unsound) as the argument above.

Yes, I agree in strictly technical terms, but I think this pattern of argument is overly literal. 

There is a definite equivocation happening when people argue about "evidence for the supernatural," but in rhetoric we step back from the strict literal meaning and consider the connotations and intention.  By "evidence for the supernatural" most people actually mean "evidence for natural phenomena that we don't understand and which therefore appear to be supernatural."  It's standard operating procedure among English teachers at least to give people a pass on this kind of equivocation.

Similarly, you can work around the "God exists" problem by defining a new type of existence for God.  Call it "ur-existence," and say, in positive definitional terms, that it's the type of existence that God has.  So then Theists could argue that God ur-exists, but that was what they really meant in the first place anyway.

And has a theist ever coherently defined this meta-existence to which you are referring? I presume you read that short piece I wrote about making reference to discrete numbers such as mono/polytheism with reference to the supernatural is incoherent?

Agreed. I'm struggling as to how to construe this in a simpler manner:

P1a: Nouns are words which refer to objects

P1b: Adjectives are words which ascribe properties to said objects

P2a: Supernatural is attempted to be used in the lexicon as an adjective and a noun

P2b: Supernatural does not refer to any object nor ascribe any properties to objects

Conclusion 1: Supernatural is, therefore, in literal reference, not a noun or an adjective

Therefore: One cannot attempt to reference existent beings (nouns) by employing the term supernatural (either as a noun or an adjective) 

Fundamentalism gets under my skin, too, but I think you may underestimate the ability of fundamentalists to adapt their literalism to new challenges. If they realize that supernatural isn't a useful idea they will come up with something else such as a god particle or something. I'm not sure this would be an improvment because then they can theorize any manner of interaction between the material world and the god particle and still fall back on the dodge  "proof does not exist because god doesn't want it to be easy".

It's a solid point, wave.

I think the trick to beating fundamentalism (if there is such a thing) is to somehow demonstrate that it cannot possibly work without using multiple standards for not only god, but everything else, pretty much.  Of course, you have to do this in the space available on a bumper sticker, because anything longer and they'll accuse you of using your big brain to try to destroy their simple, unadulterated truth.

I think I'm just ranting now...

Anyway, I agree with you, wave.

 

I don't think the part of speech argument is going to communicate the idea, deludedgod.

Parts of speech are, themselves, artificial and arbitrary constructs that vary from one language to another and don't have any necessary correspondence with logic.  Also, even within a single language like English, parts of speech are not consistent.  Nouns and adjectives are interchangable with minor inflection changes ('anger' and 'angry&#39 and there are plenty of words that function as either nouns or adjectives without any changes at all (e.g. "red&quot.  "Supernatural" is one of these latter types, that works as either a noun or adjective depending on context.

Also I don't think it's possible to say that any linking of an existing modifier with a nonexistent noun makes something automatically meaningless.   In chemistry class they still teach people about "electron shells" with full knowledge that they aren't literally "shells."

This is a really intriguing idea, Strafio, and if it can be done, I'll be the first to congratulate you guys and join in. 

Based on the arguments I've seen and the fundie responses, I think the rhetorical (rather than logical) hurdle that you aren't quite clearing yet is getting agreement on the premise that undefined terms, or terms defined only in opposition to defined terms, are meaningless. I don't think the position is tenable in the long run, and I think this is why philosophy of language largely abandoned it in the second half of the 20th century.

Thank you. Please understand that the basis for my argument comes from negative theology. It was the theologian who uncovered the problems with "god talk"; and he did so 1800 years before I could reach a keyboard. The Apophatic tradition has been around for eons, and it's foundations can be found in the words of Paul and even in the OT.

This is precisely what Negative theologians state. But once you special plead a 'god' beyond coherence, you must remain silent.

This is precisely where I agree with Victor Stenger - "god" as a supernatural reference is a broken term, BUT we can examine god claims vis claims about 'effects' in the natural world. I.e. your part '2' here.

I put 'effects' in 'scare quotes' because 'supernatural cause' is a double oxymoron. First, it is also a broken term. Second, the supernatural would be acausal! In fact, the very way we'd surmise that something was 'supernatural' would be if we reguraly encountered magic... i.e. events without any cause. We can examine claims about 'effects without causes' in our world even as the term 'god' remains incoherent. The reason we can do this is because I do see one way of demonstrating that a 'god' exists: if the laws of nature were broken in ways that simply defied naturalism... in other words, if our universe were to appear teleological i.e. if a storm hit and only christians survived, etc.... if bibles rained from the skies, etc.

Ok.

Perhaps you'd like to say that 'god' is not an 'existent' in the first place?

We can examine christian claims concerning the way the world works... in this sense, the christian can make coherent claims. Christians claim that events occur that favor christians, for example.

But the christian can never provide a coherent term for 'something' beyond nature itself. It is impossible. Fortunately, these are two different issues.

 

An inability to answer is simply an inability to answer. Nietzsche once said that all man has to do is feel a need for something to be true for it to be true. But feelings only point to want, not reality.

Agreed, but on this issue, we do have coherent, falsifiable hypotheses... the matter of 'god' is actually separate in my estimation. 

Nice talking. 

 

Yes.

I think it's important to maintain the distinction between philosophical validity and rhetorical argument, the latter being a much more effective way to bring a theist to the table for the former, in my opinion.

I've struggled over the years with the disconnect that theists, particularly fundamentalists, have between cause and effect, and natural/unnatural.  Once they've decided that there is an unexplained dichotomy, and that our inability to explain it is proof of its existence, they're pretty much out of our territory, and I have yet to come up with a suitably concise way to communicate the error to them.

 

We're going off a bit from the OP, but I suspect wave will forgive us. This is a very important topic, and I'm glad to have a sounding board for a bit.

Probably the most common objection I hear. The way I usually handle it is this:

True. Arguments with flaws can produce truth, but how do we find out? We verify the truth of the conclusion by testing it another way, either scientifically, or with another argument. Every argument for god contains a fallacy. This points to god being an invalid conclusion.  

This one, admittedly, gives me real trouble. I haven't quite figured out how to explain that there is a disconnect between the valid statement that lack of evidence does not prove nonexistence, and the invalid statement that the lack of a proof of nonexistence is a proof of existence.

Put another way, I can't think of a way to show that all propositions are not equal, and that the god proposition fails on two levels: First, because there are more parsimonious explanations for the actions attributed to him, and second, because there is no logical link between any of our "unknowns" and god as the solution to those unknowns.

 

If my posts to you ever come off as annoyed, terse, just ignore it and say "lighten up francis"... you're not stepping on anyone's toes, you should feel free to ask whatever you like...

I don't see any need to 'limit' the meaning of the term to natural phenomena... I see it as that there is no way to apply causality to a realm defined from the outset by theists themselves as the antithesis of nature, which, is by definition, 'lawful', 'structured', 'orderly'.. .or 'causal'.

Anyway, what you write next is practically a respnse, so...

Yes, the positive theist must redefine the term. BUT he must make sure to avoid simply providing a euphemism that does nothing to actually change matters.

If the theist tells us that the supernatural is unknown, then what? He merely concedes that 'supernatural' is another word for "I don't know"

This then makes every such statement:

"This has a supernatural cause", read as:

"I don't have a fucking clue as to what happened."

Which leads to the theist reifying ignorance as his god.

So much for that solution.

If the theist tells us that the supernatural is divine, then we must ask him what he means by this, which brings us back to square zero... (we never get to square 1), we simply return to the orginal problematic definition.

If the theist tells us that the supernatural is "material effects with a non-material cause", he simply strips away the word games and bares his contradiction to the world. This has the benefit of making his position more honest, to be sure.

And it does allow us to investigate theist claims, ala Victor Stenger's points.... but it does not provide us with a coherent ontology... only a means of knowing what to look for: events that make no sense.  We can look for events that appear to go against what we consider to be natural.

Now, I know some atheists hold this to be impossible: they may say there's no way to know, a priori, what is natural... a 'change' in a 'law of nature' can always simply mean that we are either wrong about the law, or that we have made an error. But I think this is a backhanded way of ruling out supernaturalism a priori. Another way of saying it as that it's placing a limit on unlimitedness, a contradiction.

If there is a 'god' and this 'god' wishes to make his 'existence' known to natural entities, then he 'can' 'do' so by breaking down the laws of nature - miracles. Some atheists might hold that there are always natural explanations for 'miracles' that are more parsimonious than a supernatural plea, but I disagree... at some point, it become prima facie preposterous to hold that an event is actually a dream or a delusion... there are limits to the nature of delusions or dreams, a delusion is usually not multi-sensory, and dreams are limited in scope... we are their authors, after all... 

If the sky were suddenly filled with a face, looking down at us, while bibles rained from the sky, trumpets blared, angels sang, etc. the 'delusion hypothesis alternative" would be severely stressed. If any attempt to open any book made it turn into a bible, over and over, hour after hour, a bible fully readable, perhaps always open to some passage related to the 'existence of god', the 'dream hypothesis alternative' would be severely stressed. At some point, on a Bayesian basis, it would be more reasonable to hold 'god' 'did' 'it' is the better explanation. Imagine a world where storms struck and killed only criminals, while theists were safe and dry. Such a world would provide a grounds for theism.

But we do not live in such a world.

But this is merely a complaint, not a response. And semantics IS important: if a term cannot actually denote what one intends for it to denote, then one cannot go on to argue over the concept!

But I recognize a valid point in the complaint: the theist wishes to discuss his 'god' with us, he clearly means 'something' when he uses these terms. Well, he can discuss his god claims, provided he refrains from making any ontological assumptions about his 'god'... he must speak of events in our world, and show how they fit into his hypothesis and his hypothesis alone.

I am glad you do. A theist position must violate logic somewhere... negative theologians swallow the bullet right up front...

But once you special plead, you've conceded that you are not able to follow the rules of logic and reasoning, you're saying that your claim requires special dispensation from them!

The special plead does not demonstrate that any 'coherent terminology' beyond 'coherent terminology' actually exists... it merely holds that it does, damn the logic preventing the claim.

I'm not saying that what you hold, doesn't follow.... if one holds that 'god' is beyond nature, then yes, it follows that 'ordinary ontology' no longer applies. But from this, it does not follow that there actually is super-ordinary ontology. I 

Pleasure talking to you.

Woot! Let's do another round.

I don't buy the leap from "I don't have a fucking clue" to "ignorance is my god." I think the theist separates the actions of God from his/her being. I'd have to see the intermediate steps in the logic between "God caused X" and "X is my god."

Also, to borrow an apt quote again, (I have to say I really love this sentence) "Your inability to perform a task does not prove the task impossible." A theist's inability to explain a supernatural cause...well you see where that is going. Also I don't yet see the logical connection to "So much for that solution."

I'd argue that it's only a contradiction from a materialist standpoint, for whatever that's worth. I might elaborate on that later.

I'm not sure, but I think deludedgod is of this party? I think I remember him arguing that any supernatural phenomenon that can be observed is, by definition, thus natural.

But from my (post-modern rhetorical) standpoint, these aren't vital issues since the application of terms to experiential phenomena is all socially constructed anyway.

I don't think I've ever heard the delusion argument--it seems weak to me too. But I also don't think I've ever heard a well-constructed presentation of the idea that miracles don't have to violate physical laws.

I turned water into wine (actually mead, which is a type of wine) this last winter. I had help from some yeast and I had to add honey and other stuff to the water, but it was done.

There's no particular reason why it is necessary for bibles falling from the sky to be created out of nothing, in violation of conservation of matter/energy. It is possible to take available components and assemble them into bibles (we know it has happened before). It's theoretically possible to start even with something as basic as hydrogen and make it into a bible. If you have a mechanism for bringing hydrogen from elsewhere and shaping it quickly into a bible and then dropping it from the sky...

And again here I think is the failure to deal adequately with the problem of induction. From reading your essays I don't think that you, Todangst, are presenting the nonexistence of God as certain because of the lack of evidence. But I think your arguments from materialism are being read by some as more certain than the problem of induction would warrant.

 

 

I don't think most theists see these restrictions on assumptions as necessary. I'm not sure that I do either (but I'm still reading).

And not to go all tu quoque on you, but I'm not sure that the materialist ontological assumptions that you're using as a basis for imposing these restrictions is subject to the same rigor. I recognize the difference in the foundations for the assumptions and I think that's a valid point, so give me more time to think about this one before responding.

I wouldn't characterize special pleading as a "violation" of logic. It's a fallacy, but fallacies don't automatically produce false conclusions. For this reason, informed use of fallacies in valid inductive arguments is well within the "rules" of rhetoric. Sometimes the only way to reach a useful conclusion is through deliberate use of a fallacy--like the fundamentally tautological nature of the argument for natural selection. Maybe this is a difference in disciplines between rhetoric and philosophy?

I'm not seeing here where special pleading in the inductive premise is necessarily producing a false conclusion.

I skimmed some negative theology materials and IMO they've given up too soon

 

Right, I don't think that my line of reasoning supplies any evidence for the existence of a super-ordinary ontology. I think rather that, from a theist standpoint, the possibility of the existence of a super-ordinary ontology reflects the inductive problem inherent in the argument that there isn't one.

If 'god' = "I don't know"

Then

"God is the cause" ="I don't know the cause"

Which equals - "Whatever I don't know, is due to my god"

Which means that you have a god of the gaps. Ignorance reified.

Yes, but all he can know are the 'effects', so all he can speak to are natural events for which he has no understanding.

I think I've given them here.

All I can know of my 'god' are the effects of this god in the universe.

The only 'effects' that I can point to as those providing evidence for my god are those for which I can find no naturalistic explanation or cause.

Ergo you have a god of the gaps. A god that lives in the margin of science textbooks. A god that shrinks each passing year, and faces complete annihiliation if cosmology advances much further.

And I love this one:

"Inductive uncertainty, in of itself, is never a reason unto itself, to reject an inductive claim."

Calling 'god' the unknown is simply conceding that you don't have any way to provide a coherent term for your god. It's giving up in my estimation. The unknown is merely what we do not know!

Atheist: Can you give me a coherent term for god?

Theist 1: No, I can't

Theist 2: I can! The Unknown.

How do theists 1 and 2 responses differ?

 

Give me another standpoint that works. Again, materialism does not rule out other views a priori for a very good reason: it doesn't have to.

Cool

Well, yes, I agree that anything that we observe must exist, and as an existent, has a nature, an identity, and is therfore part of nature.

But my argument is subtle: it implies that a 'god' can demonstrate his 'existence' by... well.... overturning naturalism. In a sense, if muhammad cannot go to the mountain, Allah must make the mountain move towards muhammad.

And if this occurs, well, how can we reasonably say "Plate tectonics!" My point here is that if our world were to begin to exhibit teleology, then naturalism as we know it would be overturned.

Imagine that I, todangst look to the sky and say "god, prove thyself". God, having heard these challenges for eons finally says "fuck it, I've had it with these todangsts... here we go:

And then bibles rain from the sky, angels sing, every christian with a disease becomes healed, every doubter falls to the ground in pain, and so on...... Saying "hey, this must be natural coz I can see it' somehow no longer flies, right?

I mean, at some point, on even a Bayesian analysis, the scales must tip over to 'god'

This is, in part, precisely why there are theists - to an atheist, a theist holds to a false positive - on a purely Bayesian analysis, he accords much, much too much weight to the 'evidence' for god.

To a theist, an atheist is holding to a false negative. He is not weighing the evidence heavily enough.

This and a dollar get you a cup of coffee.

Seriously, to me, the fact that the "application of terms to experiential phenomena are (in part) socially constructed" doesn't seem to help your case. To me, it means that you'd have to concede that your 'god' is merely a social construct. I am absolutely fascinated by the marriage of post modernism and religion.... I can't imagine two views more antithetical to each other.... don't you find post modernism incompatable with your view? I mean, don't you as a theist hold that your view isn't just another subjective viewpoint?

It can be a strong argument if and only if the account tends to relate to only one or two sensory modalities, usually audible, sometimes visual. This can and often does explain many purported religious experiences

However, a report that provides multi sensory experiences (sight, hearing, touch) with a good amount of detail, over a good period of time usually defies the 'delusion' explanation.

I would argue that the non existence of Yahweh, a god who intervenes in our world, who is supposedly omnibenevolent, who threatens non believers with hellfire, can be refuted. But yes, I don't think we can rule out all god claims, a priori.

But then again, we don't have to...

These arguments can rule out specific god claims however, particuarlyomnibenevolent ones with the strange, contradictory desire to eternally torture non believers, the characteristics given to these gods require that these gods make themselves known... ergo a lack of evidence can rule them out. 

Butut yes, agreed, these arguments cannot rule out gods who play 'hide and seek' on the universe.

Well what I find here is a grounds for discussion. You can provide me with a hypothesis for how the world ought to look if there is god X. You can then show how your hypothesis better fits the world we see.

What problems do you see in the materialist ontological assumptions?

 

And again, the restrictions come from the definitions given to us by theists! They are ramifications of the definitions of the terms they use.

I look forward to hearing more. Please undertand that I write to seek understanding, not solely to demonstrate it.

It is a violation of logic. In fact, it's just about the most direct and unapologetic violation of logic I can think of (other than ad bacculum).. it states, point blank, that a claim requires special dispensation from the normal rules of logic:

From my logic page:

http://editthis.info/logic/Informal_Fallacies#Special_Plead

Special pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules to others while claiming special dispensation or exemption for themselves without providing adequate justification for the exemption.

In particular, special pleading occurs when when a person in logical discourse asserts that their claims lie outside of reason or logic itself.

Example: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the same person? Answer: You don't grasp the ineffable mystery of the trinity.

You don't have to grasp the ineffable mystery, (and as stated, your opponent doesn't grasp it either!) If your opponent wants to maintain a belief in an argument, he must provide you with his evidence, not his own explicit admission that he has no evidence!

Remember that the basic premise of rational discourse is to present your reason for why you hold a belief. Stating that you don't know the reason is not a reason. And we cannot invalidate reason simply because reason doesn't give us what we want

nt

From the Nikor Project (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.html):

From a philosophic standpoint, the fallacy of Special Pleading is violating a well accepted principle, namely the 'Principle of Relevant Difference'. According to this principle, two people can be treated differently if and only if there is a relevant difference between them.

There are cases which are similar to instances of Special Pleading in which a person is offering at least some reason why he should be exempt but the reason is not good enough to warrant the exemption. This could be called "Failed Pleading."

 

Because it violates logic.

True, but irrevelant, because you have no grounds upon which to hold that your special plead leads you to truth. To do so is to argue from inductive uncertainty.

We are discussing whether  a special plead violates logic. Logic, as you well know, has to do with justifying when a set of premises can be said to necessarily lead to a conclusion. Logic is about the forms of argument and their validity, not the truth of their premises... truth is a matter of philosophy.

By the way, hope you like my logic page.

Well, if an argument is valid, then it doesn't commit a fallacy, so I don't know what you are saying here.

As for rhetoric, its a tool for persuasion based not on logic, but on emotions.  I'm not sure why emotions would be a better tool than logic, nor do I see how emotions can get you to 'god' seeing as emotions are merely an expression of a desire. No one denies that there is a desire that a god exist.

Yes, when valid reasoning fails to give you what you desire!

I disagree your claims about natural selection. I don't see how it relies on a rhetorical appeal, and while some like to argue that natural selection is circular, its not a vicious circle.

I haven't studied rhetoric all that closely. In fact my section on rhetoric in my logic section of my site is rather meager:

http://editthis.info/logic/Rhetoric

The point is that it means that your claim is unjustified, not necessarily false. BUT, you also cannot justify rejecting inductive claims on inductive uncertainty alone.

Again, from my site:

http://editthis.info/logic/Informal_Fallacies#Argument_from_Uncertainty

Argument from Uncertainty

This is a bit different from Arguing from Ignorance. Arguing from uncertainty occurs when one attempts to use the tentative nature of inductive claims as a reason, in of itself, to reject an inductive claim. Inductive claims are accepted or rejected on a probabilistic basis, as per their evidence.

Consider the following table:

Continuum of Truth

Absolute truth	Most likely true	Maybe true	Probably false	Defintely False
Tautologies	Theory of Gravity	Kant's Categories	"Big Foot"	Contradictions

 

Here we can see that whereas mountains of evidence exist to support the notion of gravity, there is but a dearth of evidence to support "Big Foot' Therefore, while both ideas lie along the continuum, they are hardly equitable in truth value. We can reasonably reject Big foot claims, while we can reasonably accept claims about gravity.

"Quite frequently I encounter people who equate lack of certitude with giant inferential leaps. Science deals with probabilities, often quite high probabilities, but not certitudes. It is one of the strengths of the scientific method as it acknowledges a chance of error(while maintaining rigorous standards to establish provisional acceptance of propositions).

It is a mistake to believe that a science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one. Science in its catechism has but few apodictic precepts; it consists mainly of statements which it has developed to varying degrees of probability. The capacity to be content with these approximations to certainty and the ability to carry on constructive work despite the lack of final confirmation are actually a mark of the scientific habit of mind." -- Sigmund Freud

So speaketh the positive theologian!

I think conceding that something defined as the antithesis of nature would be unknowable to any natural entity is sound. Besides, some negative theologians speak about god even more than positive theologians... they just say that they are relying on 'faith' or 'revelation' to do so...

Yes. Induction cannot rule out such a thing.

But holding to a claim based on inductive uncertainty is a very tenuous position.... it puts you in the same building as supporters of the Loch Ness Monster and on the same floor with Alien abduction therapists and moon landing conspiracists... The mere fact that an invalid argument may have a true conclusion is a very poor grounds for any belief.

 

This actually creates a very funny picture in my mind of apologists playing hide and seek within a logical-scientific playground...

In answer to my question from the previous post, many theists will just claim special pleading again, saying that personal experience counts as evidence for god, even though it's a fallacious claim in logic.

It's like a shell game... where is the theist going to put the special pleading for this argument?  Is it on god?  Is it on logic?  Is it on evidence?  Or linguistics... ahahahahah!!!   You can't find the special pleading, and if you do, it's somewhere else before you can get it under your thumb.

This is the most frustrating thing for me to try to explain.  There is no point in apologetics where there is not a logical fallacy, at least that I've ever seen.  In any other circle, this would be overwhelming evidence that the claim was false, but in theology, it gets turned around and actually used as evidence FOR god!   The recent conversations of philosophy remind me of the god of the gaps in science.  If god won't fit into syllogism, we'll use linguistics... if that fails, we'll get all post-modern on your medieval ass...

Anyway, I'm ranting.   

Do theists find this persuasive, Strafio?  It definitely does a good job of pointing out the contradictions of the concept of god from a materialist standpoint, and I can see where somebody with a particularly analytic style of thinking (and maybe a predisposition toward materialism) would find it persuasive.

I disagree with this.
Like Textom said, rhetoric doesn't necessarily appeal to emotions.
Often it appeals to the intuition, the undermind.
It's our subconscious way of dealing with the world.
Sure, it can sometimes mislead us but is still an indespensible tool to dealing with the world. My rule of thumb is that you ought to trust your intiution unless you have a reason to doubt it. (and I'd imagine that's what you do naturally)

By the way, I've been reading a book on the intuition and undermind and was interested to see what you make of it. It's mostly psychology, with various experiments cited and stuff, so hearing your critique/evalution of it would be very interesting.

Lol! That's the billion dollar question!
I'm planning to perfect it to the point where it seems perfect to me and then unleash it on a theistic public and see the feedback. I'll probably accompany it with a rhetorical advocation of logic and the problems with having contradictions and stuff.