Hello NetDoc,
You said:
you have written much and said little.
And the routinely oblique rebuttal you have once more lent unartfully dodges what is plainly put before you. At least I'm not alone in receipt of such consistently maladroit paucity's.
I had a premonition once...(from post #124)...
"I feel a vision coming upon me....
...it suggests that you will offer, engage, or allege:
no scientifically credible falsifications of the extant evidence;
deflection or misdirection;
some invocation of "personal attack" or "unreasonable" behavior on my part;
...or (even) perhaps that an "if..then" conditional argument is a "cop-out" (if so, then here is the support [one of many available sources] for such an argument, and the prospective instruments of verification/falsifiability:
[ http://www.inconstantmoon.com/lim_0307.htm ] "
Let's see what kind of a prophet you aid me in becoming...
"Have YOU seen the foot prints on the moon? Not via the television or printed material, but have YOU visited the sight where we landed. No? Then your belief or disbelief is based on YOUR FAITH in the evidence that you have seen."
Your assertion and faulty conclusion
remains patently absurd.
As you so often like to plead,
"You just don't get it". The simple reason why both your assertions and conclusions
remain repetitively abstruse is because
you choose to equate evaluation of empirical evidence as foundation in discerning/determining/accepting possibility/probability of predicated conclusions as beyond reasonable and rational doubts ...with (implied religious) "faith", and/or some inferred aspects of "blind trust".
To rationally conclude beyond reasonable doubt that manned moon landings are
fact is not some exercise of "blind trust" and "faith". If there was
NO empirical evidence to
support such a claim, your allegation
might have some merit. But as we both know, there is an
overwhelming amount of
independently verified evidence that attests to the reasonable conclusion drawn that such landings are a matter of historical and scientific
fact.
Two quick anecdotes to illustrate the
absurdity of your equating conclusion:
1) I receive a $20 bill in change from a transaction. Upon quick examination, the bill
appears to be genuine, with
all of the appropriate markings and texture that I am accustomed/experienced to expect as genuine "evidence" of a $20 bill. By
your rationale, unless I was
personally present at the actual printing, cutting, and hand-to-hand distribution of said same - this numerically correct and exact, yet potentially "
suspect" $20 bill - lacking
any direct and first-hand experience, I
must therefore rely upon (or employ) "faith", and
faith alone, to reasonably and rationally conclude that the $20 bill in my hand is in fact
genuine, and
is (and nothing more than) what it presents itself to be. It is both an
unreasonable and
unnecessary burden of
acceptable proof to
insist that I be
physically present to both observe it's crafting, and literally receive first-person and hand-to-hand the evidenced $20 bill...in order to confidently assert that my conclusion that the $20 bill is genuine
absent any (implied/alleged)
requisite "faith". Of course, as any conspiracy theorist or paranoid might assert, the $20 bill I received as change "
could be" counterfeit, and it's only "
by faith" alone that I accept the $20 bill as genuine...
...but is such an instance
likely, or
most probable, versus the
overwhelming likelihood that the $20 bill is
in fact genuine...and that based upon reasonable doubt alone, it's
more irrational (and unlikely, however "possible")
to suppose that any random $20 bill received as change is
not genuine?
"Faith" has
NOTHING to do with assuming/concluding that
any given random $20 bill is genuine.
It is both reasonable and rational to accept that the $20 bill is genuine
absent any "leap of faith" requisite to some inferred "blind acceptance" (quite
literally, as I would have to be sightless to otherwise accept "on faith" -retaining reasonable doubt - that the bill placed in my hand was
indeed a $20 bill).
You retain the"right" of opinion to assert that the $20 bill "
might/could" be "
fake", but then
you bear the burden of demonstrating
why the otherwise
rational assumption/conclusion
based upon objective examination and evidence that the bill is genuine, is an
irrational,
unreasonable, or
highly improbable conclusion/assumption (predicated upon evaluation of the available evidence)...
or is otherwise demonstrably disprovable (or, falsifiable).
[Note: I'll grant (as a skeptic) that you may
choose to ostensibly
reject prima facie the legitimacy, or "genuine" aspects of the $20 bill in your hand; but such chosen "non-acceptance" of implicit veritability is not tantamount to "disproof" or invalidation of any inferred claim as to said bill's actual authenticity. Conversely, prima facie acceptance of the inferred veritability of said $20 bill does not constitute validating "proof" either, but it is reason and experience that lend such a conclusion, not "blind trust". If a doubt is extant, it
is possible to verify/falsify the veritability of the $20 bill
beyond a reasonable doubt.]
2) You awaken to a freshly fallen blanket of snow gently deposited upon your heretofore bare lawn and adjoining street during the night while you slept. Looking out your window, you note a lone set of tire tracks leading to, and away from your mailbox. You make special note that
no other tracks or footprints leading to or from your mailbox are evident. As you are a diligent and daily extractor of personally delivered mail to your mailbox, you
know that your mailbox was indeed emptied the day before (by yourself) . Upon traversing the virgin snowfall, and subsequently inspecting your mailbox, you discover that that junk mail from the ACLJ you were expecting has once again been ritually delivered. What
reasonable conclusions can/would
you draw from the empirical evidence before you? Is it
most reasonable and likely to conclude that
the mailman delivered the mail, as the evidence infers/suggests? Or is is
more likely that some weightless/floating/flying clandestine prankster surreptitiously filled your mailbox with counterfeit mail? Could some sort of supernatural cause, or exercise of deus ex machina been at play? Conspiracy theorists might assert that such causalities are "
possible" (however unlikely or remote)...but are they
"most likely"; and do such inferences/allegations meet
any burdens of
reasonable doubt predicated upon the extant empirical evidence alone?
Must one employ even a scintilla of "faith" to
reasonably conclude that the mailman delivered the mail - well above and beyond
any other remote and
inevidenced suggested improbabilities? If
you would equate
any expressed improbability as
equally valid explanation, and
any conclusion therefore inextricably drawn (as predicated) as being based upon "faith", and faith alone...then
you irrationally delude yourself, and deny all aspects of reason and circumstantial inference as foundation in developing a percipient and reasonable conclusion
absent the need of "blind trust" or "faith".
It requires
NO "faith" to conclude that the mailman faithfully executed his appointed rounds, and routinely delivered the mail. The evidence at hand
reasonably infers and
suggests such a conclusion as
most probable beyond a reasonable doubt. What requires truly
great "faith" is to assume
some other aspect of causality that
no extant available evidence either suggests or infers, thus being exemplar, and true essence and defining aspect of faith itself.
I reiterate upon your apparent heedless ears and erroneously baseless rationale, that logically/reasonably obtained conclusions (satisfying burdens of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, predicated upon empirical/objective evidence) are
NOT equitable with,
OR equivalent to -
purely "faith-based" conclusions predicated upon lacking, "conspiratorial" (or invisible, or spiritual) "evidence" (or alleged suggestions of improbable and unsubstantiated alternate "possibilities").
