You're still avoiding the point, and evading the implicit request. Telling me who agrees with you is not helpful, and just looks like an appeal to authority. Telling me why certain people agree with you, on the other hand, is substantive and conducive to discussion.
This is circling the drain. I used numbers exactly where they apply and are used in almost every form of discourse there is. I am not saying the same things over and over again.
When the claims I'm responding to do not desperately beg for it, sure.
Ok, since you're lost, here's a quick step-by-step recap:
1. 1robin claims he doesn't like discussing speculative topics
2. enaidealukal points out the irony in this, given 1robin's affinity for discussing God, a speculative topic
3. 1robin introduces a distinction between topics based purely on speculation, and containing speculation; and as an instance of the former, gives a speculative scientific hypothesis based on empirical observations.
1. Robin point out the specific disparity between the content of speculation in two categories of claims.
2. Robin points out the evidentiary and experiential basis for faith which exceeds most of science in it's veracity.
3. enaidealukal ignore both and repeats a failed analysis.
In other words, either your example was terrible, or you completely undermined the distinction you were trying to use to backpedal away from the first silly thing you said. Better to just admit that you do like some speculative topics.
No in the actual words multiverses are pure speculation based on no evidence and even a lack for any potential future evidence and Biblical faith is based on more evidence than most conclusions including person confirmation. What is wrong with you? I normally disagree with you, but usually you can actually comprehend my simple and emphatic claims. Your responses seem to be divorced from what they are a response to. It is as if I said 2 + 2 = 4 and you respond since I believe it is = 5 that produces I am back peddling and whatever else you can throw in there. This stuff is not even coherent. I expect disagreement (you must do so to maintain the narrative) but I also expect you can track simple claims.
Sure, on this thread- but I have commented, at some length, on the cosmological and causal arguments for the existence of God, and why they are not deductively sound or valid.
I have read dozens and dozens of them and they are of the exact nature I have already explained. They do not work. They are an effort to excuse a guilty man based on a perceived and non binding technicality they invent or they amplify slight uncertainties into reasons for dismissal. BTW the issue was what you have said here. I am not responsible for knowing what every post you have ever typed contains. Here you have attempted to label something into negation.
The cosmological argument for the existence of God is not "the currently accepted model". Are you drunk?
I am not responding to sarcasm.
Oh boy... Irony alert, for one thing- who complains more than anyone about people supposedly misdiagnosing fallacies? You just broke my irony meter. And strawman alert, for another- I said no such thing; that the cosmological argument is invalid because there is a scholarly consensus to this effect. The great thing about logic is, unlike everything else in philosophy, it is not ambiguous. We can, and many people have, formalized the argument, and we can see, in absolute binary black-and-white terms, that the argument is not deductively valid in the vast majority of formulations. This is a simple fact. And I even offered to go over this with you, if you have the stomach for some tedious formal logic discussion. Oh wait, you've already provided yourself an escape route here-
I am not even going to read past pure sarcasm.
Don't complain that I haven't backed up a technical claim with a demonstration, when I've offered to do so but you're going to refuse anyways. That's simply dishonest.
I did not say you have not alluded to some verification somewhere. I said you did not provide it but did provide a label.
Since you've said you don't want a lengthy technical discussion, I'll just skip to probably the most pertinent one here-
Fine but I am burned out on purely semantic objections so my response will be brief.
If we're talking about the deductive validity of the cosmological argument, whether God is the best candidate is irrelevant. He needs to be the only logically possible candidate. And since, among many other problems, the cosmological argument, if granted, does not entail that there is only one cause of the universe, that God is the cause of the universe, does not follow necessarily. And an argument whose conclusion does not follow necessarily is not deductively valid.
No he does not. That is the most ridiculous response I could have imagined. The majority of our decisions of all kinds are best fit. I think a ford is better than a Chevy. I think this girl would be better than another. You think no God is more probable than having one. The one place where the best fit, best explanation, or most likely is most at home is in faith matters. Faith precludes proof. Without proof only probability conclusions are possible. The conclusion is perfectly valid if it is stated as a best candidate conclusion. If I had said God is the answer then that might be invalid. If I say he is the best explanation we currently have it is perfectly valid. Actually the burden of faith is actually only that it does not contradict reliable fact. I adopt a higher burden because my evidence allows it but I do not actually have it. This was not a semantic technicality, it was simply wrong. I do not know of anything that has a burden that includes a criteria that it only concludes an explanation is true if it is the only possible explanation. That's absurd. Christian even comes close to meeting the nonexistent irrational burden anyway. It currently is the only known concept that is capable of explaining all of reality.
Sometimes reading more slowly, or reading out loud helps me when I have trouble reading a difficult passage.
I did not say I did not understand it. I said the first sentence was so arrogant it did not warrant further reading.
Really? Like which parts?
The only part we can know for a fact is true is that we think, if you wish to be technical. You cannot possibly prove you are not a mind in a vat somewhere that is being fed apparently bad philosophy. I will be more generous. Dark energy is not visible, dark matter is not detectable by anything ever devised, anything past eh event horizon (which is potentially most of the universe) is undetectable. Anything previous to recorded history, etc........
I think the above covered this.
None of these are uniquely explained by any god, and clearly fail the test; in each case, not only is there a logical alternative, the alternative seems to be far more plausible.
I have no burden even remotely associated with unique. I actually only have a plausible burden but I will add a probable burden because I can. Quit inventing false criteria justified by nothing what so ever and then declaring a failure. Let me illustrate this another way since you do not seem to get it.
Most NT historians regardless of which side they are on theologically agree that 4 things historically occurred among many.
1.
Jesus appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
(Both his sense of authority and it's unprecedented nature are true but are irrelevant, I include them because it was part of another persons claim).
2. He was crucified by the Romans.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. He was sincerely claimed to have appeared after death to many people including believers, non-believers, and people hostile to him.
The only burden I have is to have an explanation for these pieces of evidence that does not conflict with anything reliably known, but I am going much further. I am claiming the Gospel explanation for these historical events is the best by far of all existent explanations. I am far exceeding my actual burden and your inventing a burden out of thin air that nothing I know of actually has, and claiming failure. What are you doing, and why?
