Hitchens was wildly overrated as a thinker/debater

[Rise]

You have lied repeatedly and will not address post 194.

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition.
Your argument was already refuted. Merely repeating your refuted argument doesn't mean it's no longer refuted.

Previous response that refuted your position:
Logical fallacy, irrelevant conclusion.
Your statement doesn't constitute a valid counter argument to any of the arguments in the post you are responding to.
You have demonstrated no reason why it would be relevant to refuting what I argued or disproving what I concluded is true.

 

[Justanatheist]

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition.
Your argument was already refuted. Merely repeating your refuted argument doesn't mean it's no longer refuted.

Previous response that refuted your position:
Logical fallacy, irrelevant conclusion.
Your statement doesn't constitute a valid counter argument to any of the arguments in the post you are responding to.
You have demonstrated no reason why it would be relevant to refuting what I argued or disproving what I concluded is true.

Show me the post where you refuted post 194 or are you lying again.

 

[Rise]

Show me the post where you refuted post 194 or are you lying again.

I refuted your implied claim that your reference to that is relevant to you meeting your burden or proof or rejoinder. I gave an argument demonstrating why you failed to meet your burden of proof. You have provided no counter argument to that. You have therefore failed to meet both your burden of proof and your burden of rejoinder to argue why you don't think you have a burden of proof to meet.

Since the core issue of this debate is whether or not your claims about Carroll's arguments are true, the burden fall on you to prove your claims with logical arguments. You never met your burden of proof but merely asserted conclusions about it.

Unless you can give some logical reason why post 194 would refute why I said you have a burden of proof to meet, it simply is not relevant to the issue being debated, and therefore can be dismissed without any need to address it.

Only if you can demonstrate relevance to the issue being debated then would I have the burden of rejoinder to offer a counter argument to refute it.

Since there is no relevance, your continued attempt to argue about it constituted a logical fallacy of a Red Herring. Unable to refute my arguments about the core issue of the debate, you are trying to change the topic.

 

[Yazata]

What does Sean Carroll have to do with Christopher Hitchens and whether or not Hitchens was overrated as a thinker? (I'm inclined to think that he probably was, by many people.)

A reader can get whiplash from reading threads like this one.

 

[Justanatheist]

I refuted your implied claim that your reference to that is relevant to you meeting your burden or proof or rejoinder. I gave an argument demonstrating why you failed to meet your burden of proof. You have provided no counter argument to that. You have therefore failed to meet both your burden of proof and your burden of rejoinder to argue why you don't think you have a burden of proof to meet.

Since the core issue of this debate is whether or not your claims about Carroll's arguments are true, the burden fall on you to prove your claims with logical arguments. You never met your burden of proof but merely asserted conclusions about it.

Unless you can give some logical reason why post 194 would refute why I said you have a burden of proof to meet, it simply is not relevant to the issue being debated, and therefore can be dismissed without any need to address it.

Only if you can demonstrate relevance to the issue being debated then would I have the burden of rejoinder to offer a counter argument to refute it.

Since there is no relevance, your continued attempt to argue about it constituted a logical fallacy of a Red Herring. Unable to refute my arguments about the core issue of the debate, you are trying to change the topic.

Right so you lied about refuting post 194, got it.

 

[Rise]

Right so you lied about refuting post 194, got it.

Actually I see now there was some misunderstanding here.

See, after post 194 you immediately responded with another post that was just reasserting your previous fallacious responses that you had been bombarding the entire face of the page with.
So I got the alert you had responded, I saw your second post, responded to it, and thought that was all you had written.

Given that you had been engaging in the fallacy of assertion and repetition constantly for more than I page, it is understandable that I would be mistaken in thinking your post represented an unbroken continuance of your previous behavior. And when you tried to make reference to a previous post, assumed you were merely continuing what you were doing earlier where you were pointing to something you claimed I had gotten wrong and then trying to press that claim despite the fact that it had no demonstrated relevance to the core issue being debated.

I will go address it and we'll see if it constitutes meeting your burden of proof.

 

[Justanatheist]

Actually I see now there was some misunderstanding here.

See, after post 194 you immediately responded with another post that was just reasserting your previous fallacious responses that you had been bombarding the entire face of the page with.
So I got the alert you had responded, I saw your second post, responded to it, and thought that was all you had written.

Given that you had been engaging in the fallacy of assertion and repetition constantly for more than I page, it is understandable that I would be mistaken in thinking your post represented an unbroken continuance of your previous behavior. And when you tried to make reference to a previous post, assumed you were merely continuing what you were doing earlier where you were pointing to something you claimed I had gotten wrong and then trying to press that claim despite the fact that it had no demonstrated relevance to the core issue being debated.

I will go address it and we'll see if it constitutes meeting your burden of proof.

I told you I am done with you, your opinion is of no relevance anymore, for post after post you ignored what I wrote, not looking at 194, I warned you that you were digging a hole, but you carried on with your supreme arrogance. Now rather than apologise you try to blame me for your error, your priceless. Good Day

 

[Rise]

I told you I am done with you, your opinion is of no relevance anymore, for post after post you ignored what I wrote, not looking at 194, I warned you that you were digging a hole, but you carried on with your supreme arrogance. Now rather than apologise you try to blame me for your error, your priceless. Good Day

It was never my intention to avoid addressing any attempts you made at offering arguments in support your original claims.
In fact, my pressing you to do so by pointing out why you were engaging in fallacies of assertion, repetition, and avoidance, etc, was in the hopes that you would indeed go back and try to actually support your original claims with logical arguments so a real debate could be had on the merits of your claims.

Although I take responsibility for my error in assuming I knew what you were referring to when you mentioned a previous post of yours, it is factually untrue that you bear no part of the responsibility for this situation. And I must point this out in the hopes that you learn from it and do not continue sowing unnecessary confusion in the future.

If you had at any point given an actual reason for why you thought post 194 was relevant to addressing the claims, as I asked you to do, then I would have gone back and looked at it to assess whether or not your claim was true.

Instead you chose to merely assert I was lying, without giving any proof of why I would be lying - which is the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.
You see, an argument by assertion doesn't stop being a fallacy even if your claim happens to be true. It's still fallacious logic that doesn't establish why your claim is true.

Your unwillingness to meet the burden of proof for your claim that what I said constituted a lie meant I had no reason to believe your claim was true.
Especially when you have a demonstrated habit throughout this thread of making fallacious arguments by assertion and repetition in lieu of having a real valid argument to present.

Therefore, you do bear responsibility for your choice to commit fallacies instead of offering valid answers to the question I posed about why you thought post 194 was relevant.
Merely asserting it did fallaciously gave me no valid reason to think what you said was true.
Therefore there was no burden upon me to assume it was true and act accordingly.

Now, in hindsight, it would have been a good idea for me to go back and be sure it wasn't relevant - but the point is that your fallacious responses to my questions about why it would be relevant put no logical burden on me to have to go back and check. You didn't even ask me to go double check to be sure wasn't mistaken. You just fallaciously asserted you thought I was lying, giving no reason for us to believe that could be true.

It was only by chance, as I was going by through previous pages to find other posts that needed to be responded to, that I happened to come across post 194 and realize why I had missed it the first time around.

I am currently drafting a response to your attempted arguments in support of your original claims.

 

[Rise]

No I do not it is your strawman.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
Merely claiming I have engaged in the fallacy of a strawman does not prove your claim is true just because you assert it is true.

I have already given reasons and arguments why your post carried with it claims and therefore has burdens to prove. I quoted your post and then gave a breakdown of what the implied claims of your statement had to be based on what you were concluding.

Therefore, the burden of rejoinder is on you, if you want to dispute my conclusion that you have a burden of proof, to provide counter arguments as to why you think my reasoning about your post's claims was in error.

If you cannot do that then my conclusion stands proved that you have a burden of proof to meet.

Word salad. edit, re read this and it should be obvious to you that Craig was arguing from the first premise, everything has a cause.

You are committing the fallacy of "not even wrong".
Your argument is neither right nor wrong with regards to what you are responding to. It shows you don't understand the nature of the claim you are trying to dispute enough in order to understand what would constitute a valid counter argument to it.

I will explain why in more detail:

Your claims:
1. "Word salad."
2. Its obvious that Craig was arguing everything has a cause as part of his premise.

#1. Saying "word salad" isn't an argument. It doesn't mean anything in the context of what you are responding to. It's just a nonsense word thrown out at random as far as the debate s concerned because you've attached no logical arguments to the word in order to give it any meaning.

#2. Shows you didn't even understand the question.
Let's go back to what I said so you can see why:

"1. Why physics doesn't need to deal with a cause related to anything Craig was arguing."

So, I am pointing out that your original statements implied you thought physics did not have to deal with having a cause for the beginning of the universe.

Your response is to merely point out that one of Craig's premises was the law of causality that everything has a cause.

Ok, yes, that was one of his premises - but so what? You haven't given any logical reasons why that would prove your claim was true that physics doesn't need to have a cause for the beginning of the universe.

So you still have a burden of proof you need to meet for your claim by providing logical reasons why we should believe your claim is true.

It deals with "causes rather than models, explained that to you already, if you doubt that modern fundamental physics does indeed deal with models rather than causes google it.

You are again committing the fallacy of "not even wrong" again, or perhaps it would be a nonsequitur mixed with argument by assertion.
Your response doesn't constitute an answering of the question I posed. Which either suggests you don't understand the nature of the question or the nature of what kind of response would be a valid to answer it.

Let's look back at what I said:
"2. Why specifically there is anything wrong with Craig's view of physics that invalidates his argument."

In response, you have claimed:
a) That Craig's argument is dealing with causes and not models.
b) Which implies the claim that causes and models are mutually exclusive things and that models can't have caused as part of the models.

There are two problems with your response:
1. There is no logical connection between what you are trying to argue and what you are trying to refute. Which makes it a nonsequitur fallacy at best or a "Not even wrong" fallacy at worst.

In order to establish a logical connection you would need to provide logical arguments to establish first why we should believe your claims about physics and modeling and causality is true and second why you think it would supposedly invalidate any specific argument Craig made.

See, even if we assume your claim about physics is true, at best all you're doing here is committing another fallacy of argument by assertion because you are merely asserting that your claim about physics proves Craig's argument is refuted without giving any logical reasons WHY your claim would refute any specific argument Craig's gave.

This takes us back to the central problem with your original claims: You state conclusions without any logical arguments to support why we should believe your conclusion is true. That is the logical fallacy of argument by assertion. It's not true just because you assert it is. You need to logically prove it's true with logically valid supporting reasons.


2. Your premise isn't even proven to be true in the first place. You have given no logical reasons why we should believe your claim is true that no models in physics need to be concerned with the law of causality.
Thus you again commit the fallacy of argument by assertion.

Not only have you not even established your premise is sound, but what you are trying to claim isn't even an accurate representation of what Carroll tried to argue!

You see, this is why it's important you try to give actual reasons behind the conclusions you assert, because then it exposes the flaws in your reasons that led you to those wrong conclusions.

You aren't merely trying to argue that a model for the beginning of the universe need not be concerned with the law of causality because you think it's governed by different quantum laws which are as yet undiscovered and unknown (and if you were, you have still given no reasons why we should believe that's true), but you're going further and trying to argue that physics as a whole never needs to be concerned with the law of cause and effect in any of it's models about anything.

With regard to the later, Carroll never said that nor tried to argue that.

Your claims are obviously not true by definition of the scientific method. Because by definition space-time physics models are seeking to explain what causes the effects we observe. It is in a sense the study of cause of effect by definition.

That's why we have a law of causality in the first place - because as far as we've observed everything in the universe does have a cause. We know of nothing that is without cause. Ignorance of the cause is not the same as saying we can prove there was no cause.

You can't give an example of anything we have observed in reality that you can truthfully claim doesn't have a cause of some sort behind it.

 

[Rise]

Here is the model as shown in the video, show where it is not possible. Of course I never actually suggested we should believe Carols model only that it was a possible explanation, yet another strawman.
View attachment 52818

Logical fallacy, shifting the burden of proof.

You are the one who claimed that that Carroll's model provided a way of explaining the creation of space-time without regard to the law of causality.

Let's pull up your original claims again:

Carol explains that modern fundamental physics does not deal with "causes" it deals with mathematical models, Craig is using an old view of physics. Carol presents models that show how a universe could exist without a cause. Show where Craig actually refutes this suggestion in the debate, Craig is out of his depth using ill defined words like cause and Carol points that out.

You explicitly claim:
1. Generally that physics does not need to deal with the law of causality.
2. By implication you claim that physics does not need to explain the cause behind the universe's creation.
3. That there exist valid models which can give us a universe without a cause.

You then demand evidence Craig refuted any of those ideas - but he wouldn't need to because you have never demonstrated they are true with any logical proofs in the first place. You haven't met your burden of proof to provide a logical reason for why we should believe your conclusion could be true yet.
You would actually be engaging in the fallacy of shifting the burden of proof onto Craig by what you are doing.

The burden of proof is therefore still on you to prove your claim is true by giving logical reasons why Carroll's model is supposedly not subject to the law of causality and why it supposedly would be a valid way of explaining the universe without a cause.

You are trying to fallaciously shift the burden of proof by demanding I prove your claims are wrong when you have never provided any logical support for why we should believe your claims are true in the first place. It seems the reason you are doing this is because you don't understand the issue enough to actually argue for it yourself, so you're just asserting that Carroll is right and demanding others prove he's wrong. That's a fallacy of appeal to authority - just assuming something is true just because Carroll said it is.

This goes back to your repeated pattern of merely asserting conclusions without giving reasons for why we should believe those conclusion are true.
This suggests to me you never did understand anything Carroll or Craig were arguing because you're not capable of arguing those arguments yourself.
This suggests you are merely asserting what Carroll concluded is true just because you want to assume Carroll is right.

But why do you just assume Carroll is right?
Does is credentials impress you? Does he just sound smart to you by throwing around words and concepts you don't understand? Does he just sound more confident?

None of those are valid reasons for you to believe Carroll's conclusions are true.

Where are your actual logical reasons for thinking you can claim Carroll's conclusions are true?'

This goes back to the whole point of what prompted me to challenge you to show why any specific argument Carroll made refuted any specific argument Craig made. I could tell that several of you were concluding that Carroll was right and Craig was wrong without actually understanding the arguments involved.

You shouldn't do that because you won't arrive at the truth that way. You should reserve judgment about what is true until you understand the arguments enough to draw a valid conclusion.

See above, this was debated in some length in the video. Carol explains that his model does not have a beginning to Craig. If you require more information watch the video.

You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion or "not even wrong".

I asked you to provide specific logical arguments to demonstrate your claim of why we should believe Carroll's model doesn't actually have a cause or beginning to it - in order for you to meet the burden of proof for your claim.

Let's examine why your response is a fallacious failure:

All you've done is claimed the following:
1. That this issue was debated in the video.
2. That Carroll explains his model.
3. That Carroll claims his model doesn't need a beginning.

All three of those claims I agree are true - but the problem for you is that those facts are completely irrelevant to proving your claim is true. Not a single one of those facts proves your original claim is true that Carroll's model doesn't actually need a beginning.

Just because he tries to give reasons in the video doesn't mean those reasons are logically valid or consistent with the evidence.
Therefore, you can't assume his conclusion is true just because he tried to argue in support of it.

Either this shows you don't even understand the nature of the question and what would be required to formulate a response to the question, or it shows you are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion by merely asserting the answer is in the video somewhere.

You don't prove your claim is true by merely pointing to the video and saying the answer is in there somewhere - the burden of proof is still on you to prove your claim is true that the answer is in there by quoting something from it or giving a timestamp.

You demonstrate that you aren't capable of actually arguing why Carroll is supposedly right because you don't understand what either of them argued well enough to have anything logically valid to say about the issue.

You don't even understand what he argue well enough to go extract his arguments from the debate and quote them for us.
You're just pulling out his conclusions without any of the arguments attached to them, assuming his conclusions are true without being able to demonstrate why they would be true.

I make no such claim, yet another strawman.

Your claim is demonstrably false.

Let's look at what I said first:
"5. Why we have any reason to think these models are a better explanation than what Craig is arguing for."

You claimed that Craig's premise for his argument was wrong. (Ie. The premise that all effects have a cause)
The implication is that you are claiming Craig's arguments are wrong, because they would logically have to be if the premise were unsound.

You have also claimed that Carroll has provided a valid model of a universe beginning that doesn't require a cause.

I have already plainly shown above you did make those claims and I don't think you would even try to dispute you made those claims at this point.

So, based on that, you by implication you are logically forced to conclude that Carroll's model is a better explanation than what Craig is arguing for.

Hence, what I said is true. You therefore have the burden of proof to support your claim unless you want to withdraw your claim.

I did and I have again.

By my logical refutation of your post in this response, I have demonstrated that you have not given, and never did give, proof that Carroll proved what you claim in the video by anything he said.

If Carroll really did prove what you claim then you could give us the actual arguments he used - not just give us his conclusions and assume his conclusions must be true.

In fact, the whole point of my challenge to you was to demonstrate that you don't understand or know the arguments enough to even present them to us. All you're doing is asserting Carroll proved his claims without giving us any reasons why we should believe that is true.

If Carroll truly did prove his claims are true by anything he said in the debate then it should be a relatively easy matter for you to go find those arguments and re-present them here to us.

But you can't.

Because you can't produce evidence of something that never actually happened.

 

[Meow Mix]

This is just friendly teasing, but I literally cannot help it but to hear all these posts that start out with “logical fallacy — (description of fallacy)” as that generic referee voice everyone has in American football games.

“Personal foul —“

 

[Meow Mix]

Anyway I’m still waiting in the wings regarding the cosmological argument premise 2 being unjustified.

 

[Justanatheist]

Anyway I’m still waiting in the wings regarding the cosmological argument premise 2 being unjustified.

I am done with the liar so maybe he will debate with you.

 

[Meow Mix]

I am done with the liar so maybe he will debate with you.

I just read all the stuff about Carroll in the last few posts and I’m wondering “did we not just discuss this like a page ago?” Re: them saying you didn’t explain Carroll’s view.

 

[Justanatheist]

I just read all the stuff about Carroll in the last few posts and I’m wondering “did we not just discuss this like a page ago?” Re: them saying you didn’t explain Carroll’s view.

Sad really, anyway I will be watching with interest, go get em Meow.

 

[tas8831]

I just showed where he simply wrote falsehoods about my claims by using the quote function, his logical fallacy was as imagined as the things he stated I wrote. Apparently it was just a "technicality" I never actually wrote what he claimed I wrote!

"logic"

Is there not something in the christian bible about bearing false witness?

Supposedly... But there are lots of things in the bible that Christians ignore.

 

[tas8831]

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition.
Your argument was already refuted. Merely repeating your refuted argument doesn't mean it's no longer refuted.

Most interesting.

Still waiting for you to provide support for your many arguments from assertion.

Or do you really think only you get to use "logic"?

 

[Rise]

I just read all the stuff about Carroll in the last few posts and I’m wondering “did we not just discuss this like a page ago?” Re: them saying you didn’t explain Carroll’s view.

It is not clear to me what you are referring to.
What is your definition of “explaining Carroll’s view”?
If your definition is “state what Carroll’s conclusion was”, then @Justanatheist did that - but that was all he did and that by itself doesn’t get him anywhere as far as the issue in contention goes.

Why not?
Because I originally challenged him to pull out any specific argument Carroll gave and explain why it refuted any specific argument Craig made.

He never did that. He didn’t even try.

In order to do that he would not only need to give the reasons behind why Carroll reaches the conclusion he does but then give reasons why we must conclude that refutes anything Craig argued. Because that is the only way you could logically prove that Carroll did, in fact, present any argument that refuted Craig.

Merely stating what Carroll concluded doesn’t prove what Carroll concluded is actually true. You would need to give reasons why you think you can claim what Carroll said is true before you can claim Carroll refuted Craig’s arguments.

If he can’t do that the he can’t claim it happened because he can’t logically prove it happened.

 

[tas8831]

I
Why not?
Because I originally challenged him to pull out any specific argument Carroll gave and explain why it refuted any specific argument Craig made.

And yet all you have done is assert via implication that Craig is correct. Fallacy of argument from false authority.

 

[Meow Mix]

It is not clear to me what you are referring to.
What is your definition of “explaining Carroll’s view”?
If your definition is “state what Carroll’s conclusion was”, then @Justanatheist did that - but that was all he did and that by itself doesn’t get him anywhere as far as the issue in contention goes.

Why not?
Because I originally challenged him to pull out any specific argument Carroll gave and explain why it refuted any specific argument Craig made.

He never did that. He didn’t even try.

In order to do that he would not only need to give the reasons behind why Carroll reaches the conclusion he does but then give reasons why we must conclude that refutes anything Craig argued. Because that is the only way you can logically prove that Carroll did, in fact, present and argument that refuted Craig.

Merely stating what Carroll concluded doesn’t prove what Carroll concluded is actually true. You would need to give reasons why you think you can claim what Carroll said is true before you can claim Carroll refuted Craig’s arguments.

Oh, I did not watch the video, but I did digest the paper that was posted by Carroll. So that’s all I was referring to.