can you proove there isn't a deity?

[Contemplative Cat]

Yes. But the word "spirit" might be misleading with it's Western religious connotations. It's all tied into one. Spirit not as a separate entity, but spirit within and without. All there is. Consciousness, awareness, all of it, part of what spirit is (or God).

But that's kind of my view, and I'm still an atheist too.


Not in my view. Life, nature, reality, is all divine.

I agree, I think of spirit as an impersonal God, like the Great Spirit, or the Force.

 

[Ouroboros]

Sounds cool

It is cool.

When I was full blown atheist and denied any kind of spirituality, I read about Spinoza, and it got my cogs in my brain ticking. I find myself to be both an atheist and spiritual, simply because this, all that we have, even if it's natural, it is there. Spiritual experiences are just as real as consciousness or thoughts. They exist as something "above" all things physical, but that doesn't make them any more unreal than anything else. There's no physical perfect circle, yet we can imagine a perfect circle for the purpose of calculating pi and accepting the form. Put it this way, things exist in different ways. Not all things have to be physical. Water is a chemical, but it quenches thirst.

 

[Ouroboros]

I agree, I think of spirit as an impersonal God, like the Great Spirit, or the Force.

Yes!

And the way I see it now, is that words can never fully describe what we're really think or mean about the concepts of existence. God is a placeholder for helping us describe it, but putting a name to the unnamable, just lessens it. (Words are really just myths, our illusionary way of trying to describe the inexplicable... )

 

[1robin]

Citing authorities, without mentioning or paraphrasing their argument, is not an acceptable scholarly practice, and you will not find it in professional debates, peer-reviewed journals, and so on. Nice try.

That is not even a correct counter to even one of my five examples, among many. That was at best a get me out of this "hail Mary". Since I could not even get you to respond to what I stated let me make a different illustration. On another site years ago I was debating the certainty of an age of the earth, or an evolutionary claim, or something very similar against 5 or 6 atheists. Back then I worked with peer reviewed engineer who was very interested in these issues. I used several arguments he gave me. No one could counter any of them. Every single person I was debating abandoned every deductive claim and concentrated on only the number of scientists who had adopted what ever views was under discussion. Now the important part is this. I did not yell fallacy to get out of an inconvenient fact. I said despite the weakness of their counter arguments that the numbers of experts who held the conclusions they held was the most persuasive argument they made, and it was. BTW if you make it worth doing I will look up and post that discussion.

No the only use of experts is not in connection with their entire arguments. I have heard on both sides entire lists of experts that simply agreed to a claim or held a position. Of course in many cased their arguments of more often a fragment from it is used, but there is no mandate to do so. Since you did not even attempt to address my other examples there is nothing left to contend with, here.

No, not in the manner you have been doing; i.e. citing the bare agreement as evidence. As I said, citing an expert is hardly fallacious- but you actually need to cite them; paraphrase/mention their argument- not just name-drop and say "so-and-so agrees with me".

It is completely impractical to list every argument (and if done so it must be done in full) of every expert who is cited in a post. I have included a great many of their arguments. In fact another non-theist told me to stop doing so the other day for Craig's arguments. The most effective and efficient way to use scholarship is by citing who agrees with a proposition. If you claim they do not in fact agree then you may of course request I supply their arguments or statements demonstrating what I claimed and I would do so. You cannot by any means mandate I supply every argument of every scholar I use up front and I do not believe you nor anyone else has been consistent with that contrived mandate.

Your claims belie one another; if you've spent any amount of time looking into multiverse models, then you know they are speculative, but nevertheless based on actual data. If you don't know this, then you clearly are unfamiliar with them- can't have it both ways. Multiverse models are, like all scientific models, posited to explain some set of data (in this case, CMB variations, fine-tuning, etc.), and which makes some predictions. Are they currently testable? No, and thats one reason why the theory remains speculative- but it does make predictions (Mersini-Houghtons, Aguirre), and it is based on empirical data- to claim otherwise is plain ignorance or dishonesty. Neither would surprise me in this case.

I have spent way more time chasing down links provided as evidence for them than they deserved. In a philosophic view every additional universe makes God more likely. If you posit infinite universes (which make as much sense as any additional universes) God becomes absolutely existent by necessity, so multiverse are no threat to my views. They are just quite simply the worst science I have ever run across. I notice you not only appealed to authority without their argument but did not even bother with a link. I will track down the best link you have, if supplied, but I am burned out on these false trails and will not go further.

Very convenient for you, then, that my intolerable sarcasm happens to occur during points which you are unable to answer, and so you have an easy excuse not to do so. Very, very convenient.

I never read the points that followed the sarcasm. In fact if you restate the point minus the arrogance I will deal with it.

No, you whined and complained about how I never did what I had in fact offered to do- an offer you refused, BTW. Once again, you can't have things both ways.

I know what I did. I did it. I am the worlds greatest expert on what I did and why. I did what I said for the reasons I said.

"A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. "
-http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

"An argument form is deductively valid if and only if it is impossible that its conclusion is false given its premises are true."
-https://www.msu.edu/user/blmiller/BasicLogic/DeductiveArguments.htm

"An argument is valid if it is impossible for its premises to be true while its conclusion is false. In other words, the conclusion must be true if the premises are true. An argument can be valid even though the premises are false."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning#Validity_and_soundness

We could go on here, since every single source under the sun that we care to pick will say the same thing, but hopefully you get the idea.

I can engage in quote wars if you wish but it is futile:

III Deductive Arguments: Validity and Soundness

When evaluating arguments, i.e. determining whether they are good or bad, strong or weak, persuasive or not persuasive, there are two questions we should ask (1) whether the premises provided appropriate support for the conclusion; (2) whether the premises are, in fact, true. These are the steps taken when evaluating a single argument. When evaluating a complex argument each of the single arguments of which it is composed must be evaluated and then an overall evaluation of how the single arguments fit together must be made.
https://www.msu.edu/user/blmiller/BasicLogic/DeductiveArguments.htm

An argument is considered valid if the premises genuinely support the conclusion. This concerns the connection between the premises and the conclusion, and has nothing to do with the truth of the premises or conclusion. In this sense a valid argument is NOT the same as a cogent argument.
Deductive Validity

I hope you get these are all opinions and worse still opinions that have no possible verification. Instead I would like to do something different. Tell me what claim you can make that is consistent with your own criteria. Make any claim that has a conclusion that is impossible to be false.

There exists no argument beyond the fact we think that produces a conclusion that must be true even if the premise is true and knowable that I am aware of. Every example I saw of a valid deductive argument was of a failure. It either had an unknowable premise, it assumed the truth of a premise, or it's conclusion was not inescapable.

Yeah, none of this is relevant- the question was whether the cosmological argument was logically/deductively valid, which means that it logically entails the conclusion- it does not. And moving the goalposts isn't going to work here.

Common language use and technical semantics many times over lap. When I was discussing logical validity I was not intending to make a statement about a semantic technicality that exists in some form of rigors philosophy. I was intending to convey the deduction was rational and reasonable as is commonly understood. I do not care what the philosophic community officially determines by opinion what a properly basic argument is, a logically deductive validity means, or what the definition is of a necessary being (which no one has ever tested or seen) is.

1. I do not think your official definitions are accurate.
2. If accurate I do not think they are binding on anything even if technically true. They are opinion based agreements used for conventional convenience and are not knowable).
3. They are not related to the permissibility of a deduction, only related to arbitrary technicality based on opinion.
4. I did not realize exactly what you meant. It was not what I was intending to convey.


The cosmological argument is valid even if there are semantic technical objections to it. Now that I understand in what context you are operating I will restate the "official" justification for the argument. I have to find it so it may be tomorrow. I have the justification for each step of the argument listed individually somewhere. When I find it I will supply the "official" philosophic validation for each step even though I hate this kind of crap. That argument makes perfect common sense, regardless of what semantic technicality is appealed to. Remind me if I forget. Even if I do not find it meaningful I do want to provide the "official" justifications for it's steps. I have to leave. I wil try and get to the rest tomorrow.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I mangled that post up more than just about any of my other 7000 ever made. Just ignore it. I made at least two critical mistakes in it. I officially agree with the assessment made in the post above this one.

Okay, no worries.

 

[SkepticThinker]

"Panentheism" is as follows:

Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system which posits that the divine (be it a monotheistic God, polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force) interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Panentheism differentiates itself from pantheism, which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe.

In panentheism, the universe in the first formulation is practically the whole itself. In the second formulation, the universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God, like in the concept of Tzimtzum. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism. -- Panentheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note that the part I underlined is the general direction from whence Spinoza was coming from.

That seems more accurate.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

On another site years ago I was debating the certainty of an age of the earth, or an evolutionary claim, or something very similar against 5 or 6 atheists. Back then I worked with peer reviewed engineer who was very interested in these issues. I used several arguments he gave me.

OK, now do here what you did there- use their arguments, not their names!

It is completely impractical to list every argument (and if done so it must be done in full) of every expert who is cited in a post.

Clearly, but if I say "your claim is false, and here's some people who agree with me" my argument is a fallacious appeal to authority. If I say, however, "your claim is false, and here's what some people who agree with me have said about the matter" my reply is substantive and not fallacious- you don't have to "list every argument", but failing to list ANY makes the argument vacuous and trivial.

I have included a great many of their arguments.

Not on the point in dispute here.

I have spent way more time chasing down links provided as evidence for them than they deserved.

Then you're aware that, whatever else may be said of them, they are based on empirical evidence, and make empirical predictions, even if we are in no position to test them at the moment.

I never read the points that followed the sarcasm. In fact if you restate the point minus the arrogance I will deal with it.

I highly doubt that. They're still there waiting for you to deal with them if you ever grow a pair.

I can engage in quote wars if you wish but it is futile:

III Deductive Arguments: Validity and Soundness

When evaluating arguments, i.e. determining whether they are good or bad, strong or weak, persuasive or not persuasive, there are two questions we should ask (1) whether the premises provided appropriate support for the conclusion; (2) whether the premises are, in fact, true. These are the steps taken when evaluating a single argument. When evaluating a complex argument each of the single arguments of which it is composed must be evaluated and then an overall evaluation of how the single arguments fit together must be made.
https://www.msu.edu/user/blmiller/BasicLogic/DeductiveArguments.htm

Yeah, nice try. You took that from the top of the page, which was discussing evaluating an argument in general, not for validity. They are not talking about validity. Under the section on validity, from this page, you see-

"An argument form is deductively valid if and only if it is impossible that its conclusion is false given its premises are true."

That's what logical validity is, no less and no more.

An argument is considered valid if the premises genuinely support the conclusion.

Nope. Read more carefully-

"When evaluating arguments, i.e. determining whether they are good or bad, strong or weak, persuasive or not persuasive*, there are two questions we should ask (1) whether the premises provided appropriate support for the conclusion; (2) whether the premises are, in fact, true. These are the steps taken when evaluating a single argument. When evaluating a complex argument each of the single arguments of which it is composed must be evaluated and then an overall evaluation of how the single arguments fit together must be made."
(*notice how there's no mention of validity here)

Determining whether the premises genuinely support the conclusion is part of evaluating the overall quality and strength of an argument, not it's validity. For instance, the following is a logically valid argument in which the premises do NOT genuinely support the conclusion-

It is raining and it is not raining.
Therefore I am president of the moon.

As any logic textbook will point out, because its an interesting and curious case, any argument which has a logically false premise (like "it is raining and it is not raining") is deductively valid. This is referred to as the principle of explosion.

I hope you get these are all opinions and worse still opinions that have no possible verification.

No. The definition of validity in formal logic is not an opinion. It is a fact, and a universally agreed upon one- that validity is, as every source you care to pick will tell you, the property of arguments such that the premises cannot be true and the conclusion.

Make any claim that has a conclusion that is impossible to be false.

The point is that the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true; that is what makes an argument valid- if the conclusion follows from the premises (i.e. if they are true, then the conclusion cannot fail to be true). This is basic, basic stuff. If you're confused about this, how can you reasonably make any claims about logic, as you are so prone to do?

The cosmological argument is valid even if there are semantic technical objections to it.

So the cosmological argument is valid even if one of the technical problems is invalidity? That's a good one...

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Since I myself am a language expert, it'll give him and me something to talk about in the future.

Did you write this sentence as is on purpose? I'm a bit out of it, but I'm almost certain it's perfectly correct yet seems deliberately crafted to look as if it were not.

The subject of your independent clause is not only impersonal but also a contraction involving either affixation/cliticization (depending upon one's criteria for each). Even better, the main verb is one of a handful of English verbs which can use either the double accusative/direct object construction as you used, OR a direct and indirect object (direct= that given & indirect= to whom/what). THEN you used "him and me" rather than the simpler (to parse) objective plural "us", which doesn't make it incorrect but does make it (deliberately?) awkward at least. Finally, the other direct object is not only phrasal, but the use of what I would probably call (in ancient Greek) an epexegetical infinitive but I'm not even sure what I would call it in English (as prolative is basically the Latin equivalent and probably just as antiquated and as most of the terminology for such syntactical arrangements comes from various generative grammar approaches that 1) I have studied mostly to understand those I linguistic models I disagree with as well as the history of modern linguistics and 2) construction grammars, the grammatical model I think best, handles these quite differently).

If deliberate, it's brilliant. If not deliberate, I find it hard to believe that, given your experience with language (whatever your familiarity with linguistics), you used the objective forms of the pronouns in the same way people do incorrectly (e.g., "It's me" or "John and me are going...") and in this case it just happens to be correct. I think most people would have used "us", not only because it's more natural but because using two objective pronouns requires a choice between "him and me" and "me and him".

Either way, it tends to support that expressed in the opening dependent clause.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Statistics are notoriously hard to use and constantly used improperly. However some must and do use them appropriately.

Given your attitude towards them you will never be able to work in insurance or the medical fields. They must use statistics correctly and must accurately make predictions from them or they either go bankrupt or demand a government bailout. All of academia, law, historical methodology, and every day decisions extrapolate from out best guesses about what we know to what we do not know. You do it your self unless you are some new a weird form of animal no one is familiar with. That makes what you did here a tactic not a method. It appears you did not want to conclude what was inconvenient for you and also did not want to have to defend a lack of doing so. You took another route. You denied the validity of valid concepts to avoid their implications. That tactic is an attempt to avoid debate so I have nothing further to add at this time

I do know how to use statistics. In fact, I use them professionally. I know full well the difference between legitimate use of statistics and the logical fallacy of appeal to popularity, which is what your example was based on.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Did you write this sentence as is on purpose? I'm a bit out of it, but I'm almost certain it's perfectly correct yet seems deliberately crafted to look as if it were not.

Wow. Most excellent. That's exactly how I crafted it, hoping my grammar policeman might truncheon it so that I could accuse him of not knowing his lawbook.

The subject of your independent clause is not only impersonal but also a contraction involving either affixation/cliticization (depending upon one's criteria for each). Even better, the main verb is one of a handful of English verbs which can use either the double accusative/direct object construction as you used, OR a direct and indirect object (direct= that given & indirect= to whom/what). THEN you used "him and me" rather than the simpler (to parse) objective plural "us", which doesn't make it incorrect but does make it (deliberately?) awkward at least. Finally, the other direct object is not only phrasal, but the use of what I would probably call (in ancient Greek) an epexegetical infinitive but I'm not even sure what I would call it in English (as prolative is basically the Latin equivalent and probably just as antiquated and as most of the terminology for such syntactical arrangements comes from various generative grammar approaches that 1) I have studied mostly to understand those I linguistic models I disagree with as well as the history of modern linguistics and 2) construction grammars, the grammatical model I think best, handles these quite differently).

Nothing personal but I'm so long away from linguistics that I no longer dig into the details of it. I'm sure everything you say is accurate. I assume so anyway.

If deliberate, it's brilliant. If not deliberate, I find it hard to believe that, given your experience with language (whatever your familiarity with linguistics), you used the objective forms of the pronouns in the same way people do incorrectly (e.g., "It's me" or "John and me are going...") and in this case it just happens to be correct.

Thanks. It didn't just happen to be correct, though. I've been watching usage for years and have a decent ear for American attitudes toward the language. I used 'him and me' because it's correct yet seems strained.

I think most people would have used "us", not only because it's more natural but because using two objective pronouns requires a choice between "him and me" and "me and him".

Right. I considered that, not certain which one the CMoS might prefer but not really caring. I was focused on the game. I'm glad you noticed.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Wow. Most excellent. That's exactly how I crafted it, hoping my grammar policeman might truncheon it so that I could accuse him of not knowing his lawbook.

Well done, sir. Very well done.

Nothing personal but I'm so long away from linguistics that I no longer dig into the details of it.

No problem. It was partly just a way to express the complexity of your sentence using specifics, and partly a description from hindsight of some of my thought processes.

Thanks. It didn't just happen to be correct, though.

As I said, I "find it hard to believe" that it did just happen to be correct, in part for the same reasons that I wondered whether you wished it to seem grammatically incorrect: too seemingly, without actually being, grammatically incorrect. That its was correct by lucky coincidence was never an option; it was just a matter of whether you intended it to appear to contain grammatical errors.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

There exists no standards by which to reject much of anything.

This is not true.

Multiverses are speculation based on nothing.

Actually, while they are built upon astrophysics and cosmology, it turns out that they are also and independently reached through quantum mechanics. It's true that there is only so much of multiverse cosmologies that is based upon observation/empirical evidence rather than e.g., mathematical aesthetics, but that does make it pure speculation. More importantly, although this was intended neither by the originator of many-world interpretations of QM nor those who re-discovered his work, it is argued (see Bousso, R., & Susskind, L. (2012). Multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics. Physical Review D, 85(4)).

It is a fantasy on top of a myriad of assumptions based on conjectures.

Such as?

My and billions of personal experiences with God are a direct experiential observation

We never experience nonlocality, entanglement, spacetime curvature, or even the ways in which our perceptions (including very simple ones, such as depth perception) are due to unconscious biases, heuristics, conceptual-perceptual interfaces, etc. We do experience optical illusions, phantom limbs, placebo effects, and any number of experiences that are direct and are false, misleading, inaccurate, etc.

The former is nothing but speculation the later has a little speculation in it.

All experiences depend upon a complex network of perceptual biases, conceptual representations, sensorimotor "programs" involved in conceptual processing, and other processes and factors that influence our interpretations of experiences. The same sensory cues can generate different interpretations depending upon context (one experiment involved having male participants first do something that was "scar" or "heart-pounding" and then either directly describe how they felt or first be introduced to an attractive female; the no-female group described their physical sensations as caused by the scary activity and the other group interpreted the same sensations as being attraction and caused by this attraction).

All experiences involve interpretation biases at any number of levels not to mention combinations of factors.

Invalidity is a word or label.

So are "eigenvector" and "Lebesgue Integral". The difference is that invalidity has both a technical sense in logic and a common sense. The latter is nebulous the way words tend to be. The former is not.

At least 90% only point out irregularities in language or terminology not reality

Interesting, given that most academic sources use formal (symbolic) systems to represent the argument, that it is precisely the issues relating to nuances of language and terminology upon which the argument stands or falls, and that to the extent "reality" enters into the argument, it does in the form of e.g., cosmological models: Craig, William Lane. "J. Howard Sobel on the Kalam Cosmological Argument." Canadian journal of philosophy 36.4 (2006): 565-584.

It is perfect deduction.

Deduction from what?

In answer how about 2 billion experiential claims of God and far more than that to the supernatural in general

Along with known universal ways in which experiences are shaped by perceptual and/or conceptual biases, perspectives, contexts, etc. Everyone who looks at any 2D picture and "sees" depth experiences something that isn't there. How many people would you say have looked at a painting or picture and experienced the perception of depth where none exists?

 

[1robin]

OK, now do here what you did there- use their arguments, not their names!

What arguments do you desire and from who.

Names and qualifications are perfectly appropriate for claims like faith is infantile, faith is incoherent, most scholars claim X, Y cannot be true, etc...

Arguments are needed for claims that faith is infantile because __________ proves they are (which by the way I must have asked a dozen times for and never got), faith must be incoherent because _________, etc......

Sometimes names or even numbers are perfectly appropriate and efficient counters. At times they are not. When you make argument that require them I have supplied the arguments themselves. In 7000 posts there must be 20,000 actual arguments. I do what I think a claim merits.

Clearly, but if I say "your claim is false, and here's some people who agree with me" my argument is a fallacious appeal to authority. If I say, however, "your claim is false, and here's what some people who agree with me have said about the matter" my reply is substantive and not fallacious- you don't have to "list every argument", but failing to list ANY makes the argument vacuous and trivial.

I have been studying quite a bit lately on what justifies the cosmological argument and what logical validity is said to entail. It is not good for your side. I can construct perfectly logically valid arguments that no one would believe are true (and that are verifiably wrong) by the definition you used much easier than I can construct rational arguments. Anyway my point is that I am in the middle of three books and am distracted. I do not know what argument you refer to. The claim that faith is infantile (especially since no reason was given even upon many requests) is sufficiently countered by claiming a great many scholars known to be extremely scrutinizing in every way held a faith position. That is all that claims deserves, in fact it is far more. The claim that an argument is actually irrational or non-logical is easily countered by showing many experts (in fact most of the best) in the fields that deal specifically with the validity of argumentation hold it. That is at best all the claim deserved.

Not on the point in dispute here.

Did you not demand I use the arguments themselves above? Do you realize your entire posts lately have become arguments about arguing?

Then you're aware that, whatever else may be said of them, they are based on empirical evidence, and make empirical predictions, even if we are in no position to test them at the moment.

I claim the exact opposite. We do not even have reliable and empirical data concerning most of the universe we know exists. Exactly what empirical data is dark matter based on? It is undetectable by any instrument known. Exactly how would any scientists know what another universe would be like, to enable him to look for evidence of it. Did they go to at least one of them, did they see one through a telescope, did they hear one somewhere, taste it, smell it, detect it by any means before they decided what it would leave behind as evidence? Do they exist in our space time dimension? Judging from all the links I have tracked down they sat around piling assumptions on top of speculations, then made conclusions they have no reason to think they know, then devised some criteria from all that guess work and then finding anything consistent with it and claiming "evidence" exists. That is not even science, it's science fiction. I told you to give me one link and I would demonstrate what I claimed, your best link. Otherwise the subject deserves no additional commentary.

I highly doubt that. They're still there waiting for you to deal with them if you ever grow a pair.

Not doing the base sarcasm thing. In fact if this continues I am done with you in general for now. I just do not have time for you to take out your frustrations on.

Yeah, nice try. You took that from the top of the page, which was discussing evaluating an argument in general, not for validity. They are not talking about validity. Under the section on validity, from this page, you see-

"An argument form is deductively valid if and only if it is impossible that its conclusion is false given its premises are true."

I am going to officially dispense with this semantic technicality once and for good very soon. I have not finished my prep work.

That's what logical validity is, no less and no more.

This one I can grant in a way. In formal philosophical procedure I think you are accurately describing what they used opinion to conclude. I have finally caught on to what you were saying. I did not mean to follow you into the toilet but we are there anyway and I will resolve this. I meant to suggest the cosmological argument was reasonable and valid as those words are commonly used in the other 99.9% of uses outside of rigorous philosophical theory. Did you know it far easier to produce an argument that satisfies your requirement that is known to be untrue than one that is true. Says a lot about your purpose. Anyway I will resolve this issue for good very soon.

Nope. Read more carefully-

"When evaluating arguments, i.e. determining whether they are good or bad, strong or weak, persuasive or not persuasive*, there are two questions we should ask (1) whether the premises provided appropriate support for the conclusion; (2) whether the premises are, in fact, true. These are the steps taken when evaluating a single argument. When evaluating a complex argument each of the single arguments of which it is composed must be evaluated and then an overall evaluation of how the single arguments fit together must be made."
(*notice how there's no mention of validity here)

See the above.

Determining whether the premises genuinely support the conclusion is part of evaluating the overall quality and strength of an argument, not it's validity. For instance, the following is a logically valid argument in which the premises do NOT genuinely support the conclusion-

It is raining and it is not raining.
Therefore I am president of the moon.

As any logic textbook will point out, because its an interesting and curious case, any argument which has a logically false premise (like "it is raining and it is not raining") is deductively valid. This is referred to as the principle of explosion.


No. The definition of validity in formal logic is not an opinion. It is a fact, and a universally agreed upon one- that validity is, as every source you care to pick will tell you, the property of arguments such that the premises cannot be true and the conclusion.


The point is that the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true; that is what makes an argument valid- if the conclusion follows from the premises (i.e. if they are true, then the conclusion cannot fail to be true). This is basic, basic stuff. If you're confused about this, how can you reasonably make any claims about logic, as you are so prone to do?


So the cosmological argument is valid even if one of the technical problems is invalidity? That's a good one...

As I suspected your entire position is rapidly becoming one consisting of 100% semantic technicality objections. Never the less they as stated above will be dealt with soon. I would have done so today but left the book I needed at home.

You did say one thing I am interested in. I said the definition of logical validity is an opinion. You said it is a fact. My point was not that it's existence is an opinion but that it's truth is an opinion. For example I can make an argument that would be considered valid by your definition but is known to be untrue in reality. Another would be that if two philosophical scholars disagreed on whether something was logically valid or not and both had reasonable case there exists nothing beyond more opinions to decide who is right. It is 100% opinion and an opinion that even if true would make a known to be false argument logically valid anyway, which is the kind of self defeating garbage the academic community should stop doing.

 

[1robin]

I do know how to use statistics. In fact, I use them professionally. I know full well the difference between legitimate use of statistics and the logical fallacy of appeal to popularity, which is what your example was based on.

Ok then, prove to me that using authorities as I actually did was illegitimate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ok then, prove to me that using authorities as I actually did was illegitimate.

Do you understand what the appeal to popularity fallacy entails?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Sometimes names or even numbers are perfectly appropriate and efficient counters. At times they are not. When you make argument that require them I have supplied the arguments themselves.

Seriously, quit rationalizing and making excuses and paraphrase the argument/position of the people whose names you've dropped, or I'll go ahead and consider your appeal to their opinion to have been retracted.

I claim the exact opposite. We do not even have reliable and empirical data concerning most of the universe we know exists. Exactly what empirical data is dark matter based on? It is undetectable by any instrument known. Exactly how would any scientists know what another universe would be like, to enable him to look for evidence of it. Did they go to at least one of them, did they see one through a telescope, did they hear one somewhere, taste it, smell it, detect it by any means before they decided what it would leave behind as evidence? Do they exist in our space time dimension? Judging from all the links I have tracked down they sat around piling assumptions on top of speculations, then made conclusions they have no reason to think they know, then devised some criteria from all that guess work and then finding anything consistent with it and claiming "evidence" exists. That is not even science, it's science fiction. I told you to give me one link and I would demonstrate what I claimed, your best link. Otherwise the subject deserves no additional commentary.

We get it- you, a total and complete layman, don't like and are suspicious of how theoretical physics and cosmology, extremely technical and rigorous fields you are wholly unqualified in, are conducted. Gotcha. Not that your objection amounts to much.

In any case, here are a couple of scholarly articles which tend to belie your (ludicrous) assertion-

-Evidence for the Multiverse in the Standard Model and Beyond, Lawrence J. Hall and Yasunori Nomura
- Nonlocality as Evidence for a Multiverse Cosmology, Frank J. Tipler

(the first is the whole .pdf, the second is only an abstract- but there are many, many more where these came from, trust me- I'd imagine Legion could provide more)

Not doing the base sarcasm thing. In fact if this continues I am done with you in general for now. I just do not have time for you to take out your frustrations on.

If you're this sensitive, are you sure an internet message board is the place for you? I mean honestly, its not like I've called you names or insulted your mother. Good gravy.

I am going to officially dispense with this semantic technicality once and for good very soon. I have not finished my prep work.

Oh dear, I'll try not hold me breath...

I meant to suggest the cosmological argument was reasonable and valid as those words are commonly used in the other 99.9% of uses outside of rigorous philosophical theory. Did you know it far easier to produce an argument that satisfies your requirement that is known to be untrue than one that is true. Says a lot about your purpose. Anyway I will resolve this issue for good very soon.

Validity is one property of a good deductive argument (soundness being a much stronger property, for instance). A valid argument isn't necessarily a good one, but an invalid argument is most assuredly a bad one.

As I suspected your entire position is rapidly becoming one consisting of 100% semantic technicality objections.

Define "semantic technicality"- the cosmological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, and yet it fails to meet one of the minimum criteria for a good argument in that field; validity. If this is a "semantic technicality" then you have, as I've noted before, an extremely bizarre idea of what constitutes a "semantic technicality".

I said the definition of logical validity is an opinion. You said it is a fact. My point was not that it's existence is an opinion but that it's truth is an opinion.

Its truth? You do know what a definition is, don't you?

For example I can make an argument that would be considered valid by your definition but is known to be untrue in reality.

Sure, we can think of plenty of valid arguments that are based on false premises, or are patently ridiculous. As I said, validity is basically a minimum requirement for a good deductive argument- it doesn't assure the argument is good, but if the argument isn't even valid, it most certainly isn't any good.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Statistics are notoriously hard to use and constantly used improperly.

The reason they are so often used improperly is largely due to how unbelievably easy they are to use.

Given your attitude towards them you will never be able to work in insurance or the medical fields. They must use statistics correctly and must accurately make predictions from them or they either go bankrupt or demand a government bailout.

There are few in any of the sciences who have an adequate background in statistics to employ the methods they do.

All of academia, law, historical methodology, and every day decisions extrapolate from out best guesses about what we know to what we do not know.

And when you reference Bayesian analysis or some similar model/technique or set of these, then we can get into how statistics are used. You haven't used any and your description of statistics indicates that you are unfamiliar with statistics.

 

[1robin]

Do you understand what the appeal to popularity fallacy entails?

Yep, (this is not what I asked for BTW) I have been the only one that properly explained when and under what circumstances authority and numbers are fallacious.

Numbers and authority claims are fallacious when used to indicate certain fact. If I say that because Isaac Newton or 1 billion people believe that gravity does not exist, then it doesn't. That is a fallacy. If I said that 90% of the scientists who specialize in a certain field agree about a certain claim then I have indicated the evidence for that claim is substantial and impossible to hand wave away. That is no fallacy and is exactly what I did. To a non-theist fallacy is a crutch so handy even if so misunderstood that it is used where it doe snot apply.

There is a reason that when life and death is on the line the first questions are where are the witnesses, how many do we have, what did they experience. There is a reason that industries who must know facts or they do not survive want all the numerical data they can lay their hands on. There is a reason when we want to know what happened in history we ask those that were there. The ones who did not witness an event have next to no relevance. However there exists no reason the people who did not witness the events to hand wave away or ignore the testimony of those who did. That is why the mangling of fallacy is appealed to in order to dismiss what is inconvenient.

If you watch any professional debate it will include a heavy reliance on authority, watch any trial and it will include not only a dependence on eyewitness testimony but expert testimony as its' chief component. Why only with God is this constant and necessary practice rejected? Actually you do not need to answer that, I am quite sure why it takes place.

 

[1robin]

Seriously, quit rationalizing and making excuses and paraphrase the argument/position of the people whose names you've dropped, or I'll go ahead and consider your appeal to their opinion to have been retracted.

I will defend what I did by pointing out the exact same use of numbers and authority is used in almost every arena of knowledge on earth as long as the favorite crutch (false fallacy) of the non-0theist is used. You may consider whatever you wish is whatever you wish. You would have anyway. However it will not make it true, make my claims fallacious, nor have any effect on me. I will meet falsity with truth (as best as I am able) regardless. If you wish me to stop defending a claim then quit falsely accusing it.

We get it- you, a total and complete layman, don't like and are suspicious of how theoretical physics and cosmology, extremely technical and rigorous fields you are wholly unqualified in, are conducted. Gotcha. Not that your objection amounts to much.

That's it. Speak for me but in a way that allows you to retain whatever is necessary to retain the false narrative. That tactic is as prevalent as it is illegitimate. You have no idea what level of education I have. However a teen ager is more than qualified to know the statement "Because such a thing as gravity exists, something can come from nothing" is complete and abject garbage. It can't be true any more than it is scientific. It is a self contradict mess, and is far more an incorrect philosophy than science to begin with. Multiverses, cracked egg theory, M-theory, etc... are nothing more than preference, opinion, and speculation. They involve far more assumption and philosophy than anything else. They cloth these preferences in scientific language and apparently mesmerize you to sleep. That was far more than your speculative commentary deserved and I wish to get into the links you gave. I will read them and respond later.

In any case, here are a couple of scholarly articles which tend to belie your (ludicrous) assertion-

-Evidence for the Multiverse in the Standard Model and Beyond, Lawrence J. Hall and Yasunori Nomura
- Nonlocality as Evidence for a Multiverse Cosmology, Frank J. Tipler

(the first is the whole .pdf, the second is only an abstract- but there are many, many more where these came from, trust me- I'd imagine Legion could provide more)

If you're this sensitive, are you sure an internet message board is the place for you? I mean honestly, its not like I've called you names or insulted your mother. Good gravy.

There are times when that level of arrogance is intolerable. You did not hurt my feelings (I am sure it would be possible for you to do so). You exhibited an arrogance so base as to ruin even your sincere claim's credibility. At this time I simply am not interested. The fact that most atheists are so embittered and angry so much of the time requires an explanation.

Oh dear, I'll try not hold me breath...

By all means please hold your breath. Actually I have to remember to bring in two books that contain the justification for the argument. I keep forgetting to do so. Until I can let me point out a few things.

Your criteria concerning logical validity makes it far easier to construct a logically valid argument that is not true that one that is. IOW it can and does make arguments that are not true, to be valid. That is exactly what I mean by academics who eventually go over the line of competence and relevance. Of what use is that method if it does not increase truth? Most scholars have my undying respect. Unfortunately atheists always use fringe theoretical science or these ridiculous notions of rigorous philosophy.

An argument can be as acceptable as any other and still not be technically logically valid. That is only one method by which an argument is considered permissible. There are dozens. I thought you were interested in the clients guilt or innocence (the truth of a claim) I should have (but did not) realize you were only trying to get your client off by technicality. I thought you meant the argument is unsound (which is complete garbage). I did not realize you were attempting to dismiss it by technicality. However you cannot even do that as I will show whenever I can get my info and the computer used to debate with in the same room.

Validity is one property of a good deductive argument (soundness being a much stronger property, for instance). A valid argument isn't necessarily a good one, but an invalid argument is most assuredly a bad one.

Now this I can agree with. Why is it I am concerned with the soundness of an argument and you are concerned with getting rid of a sound argument by semantic technicality? Is procedure or truth more important? That last sentence is not true. I can construct arguments known to be true but disqualified by your criteria by the basketful. IOW your criteria rules out all kinds of truth and should not be allowed to do so. This is exactly what I hate about pure academics.

Define "semantic technicality"- the cosmological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, and yet it fails to meet one of the minimum criteria for a good argument in that field; validity. If this is a "semantic technicality" then you have, as I've noted before, an extremely bizarre idea of what constitutes a "semantic technicality".

I will define it as I used it. It is a procedural flaw based on criteria established by opinion and not ion reference to truth. I have read most arguments against the cosmological arguments. 90% of them fit into an amplification of uncertainty to allow plausible denial, or the claim some step or part of one violates some technicality employed in rigorous philosophic think tank type of criteria. IN every academic subject most of it is extremely good and beneficial, but they all progress past that point into counterproductive, speculative, and opinion based garbage. I wish to use only the former and literally hate the latter. I care about truth. I do not care what methodology it is claimed I can use to get it based on opinion. Any argument that produces truth or makes reliable claims is valid regardless of what procedural technicality some Phd claims it violates (or should be anyway). I care about the clients guilt or innocence, not about the procedures used to establish it.

Its truth? You do know what a definition is, don't you?

Are you saying the definition is true? Here is an analogy. If an atheist says that murder is actually wrong. He has stated an opinion, but it is true he has stated it. It is true your criteria exist, it is also known your criteria validates arguments known to be false.

Sure, we can think of plenty of valid arguments that are based on false premises, or are patently ridiculous. As I said, validity is basically a minimum requirement for a good deductive argument- it doesn't assure the argument is good, but if the argument isn't even valid, it most certainly isn't any good.

I have no use for anything that validates falsehood. I have no use for your criteria. However I can use valid criteria to accept every step of the cosmological argument that technically satisfies the criteria philosophy supposes. To me that is a waste of time, but I have agreed to do so anyway to attempt to negate what I think is a waste of time once and for all. IOW I am the prosecutor and know your client is guilty. However I will even show that your procedural objections are inaccurate now that I know that is the way your attempting to get your guilty client released.

 

[1robin]

The reason they are so often used improperly is largely due to how unbelievably easy they are to use.

The most common way stats are misused, is to amplify their ambiguity. For example atheists like to suggest that the secular nation of Sweden is proof secularism works because their quality of life stats are so high. The fact is they are so high because Sweden has such huge untapped natural resources and can pay for whatever it is they wish to provide. Secularism had nothing to do with the coal, oil, and natural gas reserves there. Another would be how data is collected. Even though virtually every intelligent person in the US knows his stats on employment leave out those that have left the work force and given up. Yet he keeps coughing up whatever he needs to look good.

There are few in any of the sciences who have an adequate background in statistics to employ the methods they do.

I found while in college that those who know more about statistics than anyone have a greater capacity to abuse them than anyone. I turned in a paper that justified duck hunting because almost all the money used to buy wetlands to raise ducks on (instead of the farmers selling the land for development) was paid for by duck hunters. She hated hunting and failed my paper. I sent my paper to another teacher and Ducks unlimited and both said I made no errors. Like Mark Twain said about truth: Bad statistics can get half way around the world before good statistics can get their pants on. Statistics have so much ambiguity in them anyone who wishes to abuse them can find a way to do so.

And when you reference Bayesian analysis or some similar model/technique or set of these, then we can get into how statistics are used. You haven't used any and your description of statistics indicates that you are unfamiliar with statistics.

I have had 12 semester hours of statistics. I never claimed to be an expert but I do claim to be familiar with them. However the stats I used are about the most reliable possible.


If I wish to know if something exists. The most meaningful stat I can acquire is a data set of those who met the criteria to have witnessed the existence of X. If I wish to know if Big foot existed I am not going to ask people that live in the Congo. I am going to ask people who live in Oregon. If I wanted to know if it is cold in the ant-arctic I am not going to ask those that had never been there. If I wanted to know how strong the evidence is that the Christian God existed I am going to ask those who met the requirements to have experienced him or who have the qualifications to have examined the historical claims. As ambiguous as stats can be I cannot not even see the hint of a fault in that usage of them. Unless I claimed God exists because a billion people say he does I have done exactly as I should have. This exact methodology is used in every realm of discourse, law, and academia and those industries that must have accurate data do exactly the same.