Special Pleading and the PoE (Part 3)

[Rise]

If they were only abstaining from murdering because they were scared of consequences, then I daresay they never valued not murdering in the first place (and putting on your worldview's hat, I would daresay they were never a good person to begin with; they were just going through the motions). So (3) seems to be objecting that there are some people that just go through the motions: this exists in any moral worldview, how is it an objection to noncognitivism specifically?

The people that genuinely value not murdering would continue to not murder even if they attended Erin's Seminar on Noncognitivity and agreed that my worldview describes the world. The people that never really valued not murdering, well, wouldn't they still have been a problem if objective morality were true anyway? So what's the objection here?

People abstaining from doing what they want out of fear of consequences is not relevant to refuting any particular point I made nor does it save your position from being undermined.

Your worldview still ends up being socially unworkable, logically hypocritical, and gives people excuse to do whatever they want for whatever reason without having to consider themselves wrong for doing anything.

In fact, the idea that people abstain from immoral behavior for no other reason than because they believe there are consequences for it is a good reason not to tell those people the lie that morality doesn't exist if it does in fact exist. For they surely will do whatever they can get away with if they believe there is no such thing as true right or wrong but only what they want and what they have the power to actualize. This is, actually, as the Bible tells us, how people justify to themselves doing wrong behaviors - by telling themselves it's not really wrong or that there won't be any punishment for it.

One thing I think you are not factoring into this is the fact that not everyone abstains from behavior just because they fear society's legal consequences. In the case where the law puts no prohibition on morally wrong behavior people are still accountable to God's judgement and therefore have reason to abstain from wrong behavior regardless of what earthly authorities tell them to do.
And, in the case where people are too powerful to be reigned in by the mechanisms of society, again the only restraint on their behavior would be accountability to God.

It is no accident or concidence that American culture changing to embrace things morally forbidden by Christianity is directly linked with cultural abandonment of a belief in Christ.
If those things are truly wrong and Christ is true, then you are causing harm to people by telling people that Christ is not true and that no morally exists.

So you cannot argue that worldview does not have consequences on directing peoples actions. We have watched this play out every decade in American society for the past 50-60 years in a major way.

You can only act if you first believe something to direct your actions.
Your worldview defines what you believe.
What you believe can have world shaping and destroying consequences.

It was the worldview of the nazis that said people are just the product of natural selection that caused them to conclude the best way to be successful as a nation was to murder anyone they consider subhuman or subpar so they could steer evolution to create supermen.

You can't, therefore, say ideas/worldview don't have consequences.
Sometimes the only reason people's ideas have not yet had consequences is because they haven't been given the power to act on what they believe.

We build hypothetical imperatives based on our value hierarchies. If I value x, then I ought to do y. These hypothetical imperatives are propositional: they carry truth values. If I value altruism, if I value property, then I ought not steal this stranger's wallet.

You can't logically justify your claim, based on your worldview, that you "ought" to act according to your values.

Saying anything "ought" to be any particular way first requires being able to objectively identify how things are intended to be.
We can only say you ought not to murder because we were not created and intended by God to murder.
Without any statement of intention there can be no oughts of any sort.

You can't say there is any requirement for you to act based on what you value. There is no objective decree that says you ought to act according to what you value.

If no God or morality exists then you are perfectly free to live in contradiction with what you value and there is nothing wrong with that.

No one can tell you that you ought to do otherwise - not even yourself.

And that's the key part I think you're missing in all this. You don't understand that you logically don't and can't have the power to create oughts for yourself.

Oughts by definition require an objective measure of how things are intended to be in order to contrast with how things currently are.

All you would logically have the power to do is recognize what those already existing intentions for your creation are as assigned by your creator.

You can't decide what the intention behind your being is because you didn't create yourself. You can't decide what the intention behind mankind is because you didnt create mankind.

Therefore, in the absence of there being a creator to assign intention and oughts to mankind as a whole and to yourself specifically, you simply have no oughts and never will have oughts because you will never be in the position of being able to go back in time and create yourself to assign intention to your being.

Oh, you might tell yourself in your mind that you can create intentions and requirements for yourself - but you aren't truly obligated to do any of it. There is no true ought being put on you that says this is the way things are suppose to be.

Any idea you have of being bound by any kind of ought would just be a delusion based on your worldview.

Deontology is demarcated from consequentialism. If we feel we ought to do something or not do something regardless of the consequences, then we are behaving deontologically: in philosophy this is a duty. It doesn't require some external authority to impose it. The word is used to mean that we're behaving deontologically rather than consequentially.

You didn't refute what I said.
In philosophical deontology you are said to have a duty to act according to a set of universal moral laws.

By it's very definition you are having a duty imposed on you by something external to yourself. In this philosophical case, it's an external idea of a set of moral laws that exists and for some reason you are bound by duty to obey it.

Which only confirms what I said: you can't say anything is a duty without there being something external to yourself which obligates you to be directed by it.


To that I will also add:
You can't make any statement of "oughts" without appealing to an objective standard outside of yourself. So right there your argument falls apart on the basis that you can't even make the argument without first having an objective moral standard for oughts to exist.

Hypothetical imperatives of the form "if I value x then I ought to do y" are deontological, because we do not consider "but I would rather do z;" or rather it's implied that "if I value x then I ought to do y and not z, even if I would rather do z at the time." If we value x, we're obliged not to do z; it's what it means to value x in these contexts.

You can't say you have the duty to act in accordance with your values unless you can first identify an external source that you are under the authority of.

In the absence of such a source it's not an actual duty. No one is obligating you to act in accordance with your values

It is at that point just merely your personal preference to act consistent with your values. You could just as easily change your preference to say you want to always act in contradiction with your values - and no one could tell you that you were wrong for doing so in the absence of an objective ought standard or an external authority to whom you owe a duty.

Even you could not tell yourself you're wrong for having that oppposite preference because morality doesn't exist in your worldview.

We can have dissonant desires obviously. When I was very young and up to dumb shenanigans there were times I had the opportunity to lie to my parents. Sometimes I took those opportunities, sometimes I told the truth. As I matured and developed, I valued the truth over lies even if it meant no more short term benefits like not being yelled at/disciplined. I can want to tell a lie badly, but I feel an obligation not to. That's a duty; self-imposed, based on a hypothetical

There are several critical problems with your claim:

1. You can't justify that your feeling of obligation to act a certain way is an actual obligation/duty. That would require either an objective standard to exist of what ought to be done or it would require identifying an external source to which you are in obligation/duty to.

2. You can't impose a duty/obligation on yourself by definition. All definitions of duties/obligations you will find involve being under the authority of something external to yourself.

3. You cannot create objective oughts for yourself because you did not create yourself. Therefore you cannot self-impose oughts on yourself. You could only discover whatever oughts may already be on you from some other external source. In the absence of such a source, no oughts for you exist nor can they ever logically exist.

4. Therefore, any sense you have of believing you have duties/obligations on yourself, or believing you can self-impose them, is purely delusional on your part - according to your worldview of no morality or God existing.


That is why what you say you believe and how you act is not consistent with what your intellectual worldview demands - which demands a rejection of any oughts and a rejection of any ability to impose duty/obligation on yourself. And a recognition that the only thing that exists is your personal preferences.

But you don't want to believe that because you know in your heart it's not true.
You have an internal sense of duty and obligation to behave a certain way because God has put in your heart an understanding that there is such a thing as right or wrong and that you have an obligation to line up your behavior to be consistent with what is right.

 

[Rise]

None of this addresses the counterpoint, though.

The counterpoint is this: God created the world and had intentions for the world as it was created. But so what? Why should a free agent care what the intention was by a creator?

This still needs to be addressed: you're going to need a deontology to get from "the designer had an intention" to "we should care about that intention."

Or in other words, you're going to need a deontology to get from "the designer had an intention" to "we ought not to go against that intention."

...

If "moral" just means "in line with God's intention," then you still need a deontology to explain why we should care about that

...


But you're still not answering the microcosm question: why ought you value God's intention?

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But creating things with an intention doesn't make things objectively prescriptive. They're still just things, even if they were created with an intention in mind.

...

You need a deontology to get prescriptiveness out of any of it. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but it's still true.

Your argument never was a counter-point to my argument because, as I already explained, my argument was only designed to establish the reality and source of objective moral values and not meant to establish the existence or source of objective moral duties.

The later would require a separate argument.

It is an argument I could make; but as I already said more than once, it would be getting ahead of ourselves to start trying to debate where objective moral duties come from if you are still trying to argue against what I said about objective moral values.

I'm not sure what you mean by "it is false to suggest that you have the ability to generate your own intentions that are on par with God's intentions for you." What do you mean by "on par?" I think you're sneaking a deontological claim in here without possibly even realizing it, because "on par" implies there's an intention that is "better than" another intention.

The meaning is quite plain in it's original context:
Your ability to have creative intention is very limited compared with God, and it cannot by definition override the intention God had when he created the universe and you.

For instance:
God created you with the intention that you not murder other people.
You have the creative power to invent a tool to perform a task. You have given intention to this tool.
But if the intention for your tool is to murder other people with it then you have violated God's intention for you.

That is an example of how your intentions for what you create can never erase or override God's intentions for you.

Your actions are still judged by how they line up with your creator's intentions for you.

Another key distinction is that you don't have the ability to create intentions that define objective moral values for anything or anyone.

God is unique in that he can create beings with freewill. The freewill to choose to line up with their created intention or not.

You can't create anything with free will. Therefore, you will never be able to create anything where you define what is an objective moral value for it.

And even if you could: the intentions you gave for any freewill being you created would still be measured against the intentions God created for you. Therefore, anything you create is ultimately morally judged by God's intentions for you therefore can't create your own morality around your own intentions for anything.

The only way you could create your own morality around your own intentions were to be if you were uncreated. God is uncreated but you are aren't. So you are imposed with the intentions of one who created you and have no ability to impose intentions on anything you create that is not also measured against God's intentions for His creation.

Likewise, your intentions for your invention have no ability to impose upon other people a new moral value to dictate how they should use your invention. They are still ultimately judged by God's intentions about how they use your invention without regard for what you intended.

We could make another term, zoral, to mean in line with Erin's intention.

No new term is needed. Because you are only talking about your personal preferences and desires.

Your intention has no special ability to impose any moral values on anyone or anything, for the reasons I outlined above.

Therefore, no special term is needed to distinguish your creative intention from your usual desires/preferences.

Why is moral > zoral?

I outlined that above.

You need a deontology, otherwise it is just a neutral fact that something is line with God's intention or not and a neutral fact that something is in line with Erin's intention or not. One is not "better" than the other without a deontology.

You don't need moral duty to establish the supremacy of God's moral values/intentions over your own values/intentions. I outlined why above.

So you could make hypothetical imperatives like "if you value God's intention, then you ought to follow God's intention."

That is fallacious logic for the reasons I outlined in my previous post.

Valuing something does not, by itself, logically obligate someone to act in accordance with what they value.

They are perfectly capable of acting in contradiction with what they value.

And without the ability to appeal to morality you have no way of saying they are wrong for doing one as opposed to the other.

You argue that morality is the way the world ought to be, but you have only given God's intention for it as the way it ought to be.

You are not quoting what I said.
I never used the word "ought" in my argument's formulation. Ought is a word that is too imprecise for this purpose.

I said that moral values are defined by how things are "intended" to be.

Which is not the same as saying how things ought to be. Because ought is a word that could imply a duty along with intention.


Furthermore:
It's not simply what I argue but it is a definitional fact that has already been established in earlier posts and which you have not refuted. There is no other way to define morality accurately other than to boil it down to say "the way things are intended to be".

If God creates the trees and the rocks and the Earth and intends something for them, they are still just trees and rocks and the Earth. Another free agent doesn't have to agree with God's intention for the trees and rocks and Earth.

Things are just things. If you suggest that they inherently carry something that carries God's intention, then you are saying they carry some prescriptive property, which is a bold metaphysical claim that I don't think you're prepared to defend.

You missed the point, which is several parts:

1. You don't have the ability to change what the intention of those things are just by disagreeing with it. You have no ability to remake their intention or replace their intention.

2. If there is any objective standard of moral values for anything in creation then it can logically only come from God's intentions for creation.
Nothing else could assign objective moral values to anything in reality without a creator behind those things to intend their purpose and function.

You cannot make objective value judgements without an objective standard to measure something against.

3. It is impossible that God could create without having intention behind His creation. Therefore, it is impossible for creation to not have an objective standard to measure how things are versus how things were intended to be.

4. Conversely, if there were no creator then there could be no value judgements made and thus no moral values because there would be no objective standard of how things are intended to be to compare them to how they currently are.

5. Since it is impossible for anything created to not have an intention for it, it is therefore impossible for anything to not have an objective value judgement put on it which compares how a freewill agent uses that thing versus what it was intended to be used for. Ie. An objective value about how something should be used (which does not require an objective moral duty saying you are obligated to use something according to it's intention. That is a separate argument).

 

[Rise]

I think you misunderstood me: I was asserting they're linked, not challenging that intuition.

Ah, yes, I did misunderstand you.

I am in agreement with you that free agency involves being able to project intention into the world.

But, as I outlined in my latest posts, where you go wrong is in the specifics of what you think mankind is capable of imparting intention to and how that relates to God's intentions.

I disagree, but do we really want to get into this on top of everything else we already have going? I'll just say that I disagree.

Your opinion of disagreement doesn't change the logical conclusion one is necessarily forced to reach.

If the universe is governed only by the deterministic laws of physics then having your own intention towards anything is impossible because free will is impossible. Your thinking would just be the biological product of the laws of physics. You aren't actually really thinking and making conclusions. Your conclusion was predetermined by the laws of physics in relation to your specific set of material arrangements.

And if the defining attribute of consciousness is intention then consciousness is also impossible.

We have no experience to suggest it is possible for anything to be consciously self aware but also lack the freedom to choose and have their own intention towards things.

Such a being would be more like a prisoner on a ride they have no control over it.

But even the awareness such a being would have that it's not making intentions to drive itself would imply it has it's own ability to make intentions to even understand what the difference is between it's own intentions and something else.

So the idea of having consciousness without intention/free will would seem to be self contradicting.

And you can't have intention without free will. So the self evident existence of consciousness would seem to put away any speculation that free will doesn't exist and is just an illusion. As consciousness and free will are inextricably linked.

There is no mechanism to even imagine how the either true consciousness or the illusion of consciousness could be given to matter by the arrangement of matter governed by the laws of physics.

As such, consciousness by itself refutes the assumption of most scientists that everything in reality can be explained by the laws of physics governing the interaction of energy/matter.

The phenomenon of consciousness/free will demands an explanation that only something transcendent unbound by the laws of physics can provide.


Is it necessary to debate that as part of this thread? It would depend on where we need to go related to issues of intention and morality.

 

[Rise]

We weren't talking about mistaken claims of knowledge though. We were speaking about the ability to introspect whether we know something -- or to placate your recent points, to introspect at least that we think we know something.

We can't know or think we know something without being able to introspect it. Neither of us "knows" something we aren't aware that we know (or think we know). That's not how knowledge (or belief, which I think knowledge is a special type of) works.

Your definition of knowledge/belief is only your opinion and not a statement of any kind of logically derived fact.

You can't prove your claim that it's impossible for someone to know something in their heart/subconscious but to suppress that truth in their active understanding so they are functionally unaware of it or unwilling to admit to themselves they are aware of it.

You therefore cannot show any logical or evidence based contradiction with the Biblical concept that it is possible someone could be willfully suppressing something they know is true because they want to believe a lie.

I don't think you would even try to deny that this takes place as a psychological phenomenon. Would you try to deny it's possible for people to stare clear proof of something in the face but then still refuse to accept that it's true?

It's also just against good discussion practices of assuming the good faith of our ideological opponents. If we're sitting there thinking our opponents are being dishonest, what's the point? I do not think this line is fruitful and I would rather spend my limited time on more constructive topics.

...

I don't care to talk about this further, at least not in this thread. If you want to go deeper, open another thread and I'll engage if and when I have free time; but I'd rather spend my sparse time on interesting things.

You are the one who tried to argue that people can't will their values or beliefs to be different in an attempt to argue against what the Bible says about morality.

It is therefore necessary to point out that your presumptions about how the will works are false.

You also tried to use that line of argument to claim that Eve could not have engaged in self deception but that God must have been at fault for not giving her enough information.

Pointing out that people can engage in self deception, both as a Biblical concept and as a psychologically observed reality, is necessary in order to undermine some key claims you have tried to use to support your position.


Now, if you try to introduce yourself as evidence in support of your claim, by claiming it's not possible for you to be in self deception about anything and you don't believe in God, then you have necessarily required us to refute your claim

So you are also the one who have introduced to the examination table whether or not you can be in self deception.

Therefore you cannot logically be offended if I tell you it's possible you could be in a state of self deception in response to you trying to use yourself as evidence against what the Bible says.



The Bible says all men will be judged on the last day and be without excuse for their sins and rejection of God because God has put the truth in their heart.
This goes against your claim that people aren't able to will their values or beliefs to be different.

You cannot prove the Bible is wrong nor can you prove your idea must be right with regards to what it says about the ability for people to will themselves to embrace a lie and reject the truth in an act of self deception.

Therefore you cannot claim your belief about knowledge and it's relationship to will has to be true.

I don't know a god exists, I have no introspection of any kind of knowledge or self-deception regarding this, that's the end of the story.

You are presuming you would be aware of any self-deception you might be engaged in. But you have no reason to assume that is guaranteed.

If self deception were something people could easily be aware of then it wouldn't be very effective as self-deception now would it?

The Bible tells us that people do engage in such self deception. It says on the last day of judgement no one will be able to stand before God and say "you can't hold me responsible for not following you because I never knew you existed and never knew what you required of me".

For one, it says the moral law is written on all men's hearts and that testifies to what is right or wrong without any special intervention by God.

But it also says that God has made Himself known plainly through His creation.
I believe that is a reference to the fact that design is obviously evident all throughout creation without any special scientific knowledge required to reach that conclusion - but just our natural ability to recognize intentional design/engineering/information as opposed to randomness.

Of course, no matter how obvious something is there's always a way for someone to rationalize to themselves why they should not believe it if that's what they want.

Even scientists like Carroll recognize this fact about human reasoning - pointing out that it's impossible to ever truly disprove anything in science because there is always a way to salvage any model by inventing more convoluted ideas to prop it up.

I've made several concessions when I was in error because I'm an honest person. That includes being honest with myself. Again, I don't think this is fruitful. Someone disagreeing with you doesn't mean they have ulterior motives. Your arguments could be at fault.

You are in that case taking general comments personal when they weren't directed at you specifically.

I was saying that there are atheists who have been exposed to the overwhelming logical and factual evidence for God's existence but still persist in refusing to believe.

In those cases we have to ask ourselves why they aren't going where the evidence takes them.

I was not assuming you were one of those people. As I don't presume to know what level of evidence and logic you have been exposed to.

I actually believe you are not someone who is closed off to truth. And I believe you could be open to being convinced on a variety of topics.

The kinds of people who refuse to admit when they are wrong, even when it is made overwhelmingly and plainly clear to them what is true through logic and evidence, but just start committing fallacies to affirm what they want to believe, are precisely the kind of people who are rejecting what is made plainly true to them because they willingly choose to embrace a lie.

And I see it happen all the time; even on this very forum. Even on this very thread we see examples of individuals who throw up a wall of fallacies to not have to admit something they believe is disproven.
Which is proof of the idea that people are routinely willingly deny what is obviously true in order to embrace a preferred lie.

In my experience, very few people are truthseeking enough to go wherever the evidence takes them on absolutely any and every issue. Most people seem to engage in willful deception to differing extents. Some moreso than others.

I have been guilty of doing this in the past. Especially before I was a follower of Christ.

Even Christians are known to engage in willful deception on sins they don't want to give up, finding ways to convince themselves that the Bible doesn't really mean what it says when it tells them not to do it.
So believing enough to call yourself a Christian is no guarantee that your heart and mind have been fully conformed to the accept the full truth on every issue.

People that are in cognitive dissonance don't stop and genuinely introspect to see if they're kidding themselves.

Introspection does not logically guarantee one will arrive at what is true.

One cannot embrace truth without first being one who loves truth more than anything else.

No amount of introspection by someone who fully 100% loves lies can ever be expected to ever result in anything more than that person generating a bunch of new lies and excuses to justify holding to what they already want to believe.

Because only if you love truth more than anything else will you, upon being shown why something they deeply cherish and think they depend on is a lie, be willing to jettison that lie immediately to embrace truth.

Accusing someone of lying to themselves is the same thing as accusing them of arguing in bad faith: that they haven't stopped to make sure they, themselves, are reasoning through things as best they can rather than with an agenda. It is insulting: it's assuming your opponent is arguing in bad faith.

That is false. You could not accuse someone of males fides by definition if they are arguing for something they think they believe is true. It would only become males fides if they consciously were arguing in support of a lie.

I am saying, as the Bible does, that it is part of the commonly experienced human condition for people to engage in self deception and lie to themselves.

Because it is the original sin that caused Adam and Eve to fall, it is pervasive in all of mankind from birth. It is part of their collectively shared fallen condition.

In my experience there isn't anyone who hasn't done it at some point and probably extremely few people who are completely free of doing it to in even minor ways after having spent a lifetime working to align themselves closer to God's truth.

I'm telling you right now that I don't have knowledge a god exists, and I introspect that I'm not kidding myself about that. That should be good enough.

Why should that be good enough?
Logically I can point out why it isn't.
As I pointed out, introspection by itself doesn't determine your ability to embrace truth. Your position with regards to truth will determine that.

If someone loves nothing but lies then they can introspect all day long and all they are going to find is more ways to invent lies to shore up the lies they are already believing.

Introspection can only yield a realignment to truth to the extent to which the individual is ready to accept any given truth.

 

[samtonga43]

You are quite wrong. And you too chose the trolling route. If I remember correctly you made poor assumptions. But any time either of you want to get serious I would more than gladly give you a shot.

By the way accusations such as gaslighting and mala fides are technically against the rules here since it implies dishonesty.

It is simply amazing that both of you claim to be so sure of yourself but both are appear to be afraid to debate.

We appear to you to be afraid to debate.
LOL! That's just an excuse for your inability to debate.

 

[Rise]

Nope. You never disproved anything. You only misused logical fallacies and demonstrated that you do not understand the burden of proof.

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition and failure to meet your burden of rejoinder

Your fallacies have already been refuted in previous posts as fallacious arguments by assertion.
Merely repeating your refuted arguments doesn't make them stop being refuted nor stop being fallacious

To re-iterate the reasons why they were fallacies of assertion:
1. Merely asserting that my arguments supposedly failed to prove anything doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You are required to provide logical reasons and evidence to meet the burden of proof for your claim.

2. Merely asserting that I have supposedly misused any logical fallacy doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You are required to provide logical reasons and evidence to meet the burden of proof for your claim.

3. Merely asserting that I supposedly do not understand the burden of proof doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You are required to provide logical reasons and evidence to meet the burden of proof for your claim.


You have therefore failed to meet your burden of rejoinder to offer a valid counter argument to my arguments that you have committed the fallacies of assertion, repetition, failure to meet your burden of proof, and failure to meet your burden of rejoinder

Therefore, my arguments remain standing unrefuted by you.

And my arguments, if true, refute your claims.

Therefore, by definition, you have lost the debate because your claims stand refuted and you cannot refute my arguments with valid counter arguments.

If you claim a logical fallacy and it is challenged since it was your claim you would need to justify it. It is not a magical automatic win. That is why you are so humorous. You keep treating terms as magic words. They do not work that way.

You don't understand how logical conclusions are justified. They are justified with logical reasons and evidence.

In every case where I have pointed out you are guilty of committing a logical fallacy, I have given the evidence of quoting you and followed that with giving specific logical reasons why you committed the fallacy.

You do not refute the validity of my argument or disprove it's truth by merely saying "not good enough".

You have the burden of rejoinder that requires you to submit a counter argument with valid logical reasons or evidence to demonstrate why you think there is something wrong with my reasons or evidence.

If you cannot meet your burden of rejoinder then my conclusion stands unrefuted and you have lost the debate by definition.

You are quite wrong. And you too chose the trolling route. If I remember correctly you made poor assumptions.

You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof against sam.

You have provided no reasons or evidence to support your claim that any assumption he has made is supposedly poor or that anything he has said is supposedly wrong.

But any time either of you want to get serious I would more than gladly give you a shot.

By the way accusations such as gaslighting and mala fides are technically against the rules here since it implies dishonesty.

You are then being a hypocrit by your own standards - because you are engaging in accusing everyone who puts forth a logical argument you can't refute as not being serious about having a real debate so you can give an excuse to run away without admitting you are unable to defend your position any further.

You are accusing them of males fides by definition by accusing them of not intending to engage in legitimate debate even though they say otherwise.

Males fides in a debate setting would, by definition, include people who put on the pretense of being willing to debate but actually aren't intending to have a legitimate debate.
That would also commonly be referred to as trolling by definition.


And when you accuse others of the males fides of supposedly pretending to want debate but not being willing to have a legitimate debate, the fact that you are doing what you accuse others of is indisputable by looking at the evidence contained within your posts.

It's not simply an accusation without proof at that point. Your posts furnish the proof that you are engaged in the hypocrisy of doing what you accuse others of.

We could remove the terms males fides and gaslighting from the post but we are still left with the plain fact that the evidence shows you are guilty of doing what you accuse others of.

You were the first to start accusing us of not being willing to properly debate when you were logically cornered without a counter argument to offer.

But a logical and evidentiary examination of your posts shows that you have repeatedly:
1. Failed to meet your burdens of proof.
2. Failed to meet your burdens of rejoinder.
3. Unrepentently committed logical fallacies without amending them when shown why they are fallacious.
4. That you have given no valid reasons or evidence to justify your claim that others supposedly don't want to, or aren't, engaging in proper debate.

By every standard and measure of how a proper debate is conducted you have failed to engage in proper debate and your unwillingness to amend your ways when your errors are explained to you shows you are not actually willing to engage in a proper debate if given the chance to.

That is why we can state as a matter of established fact that you are engaged in doing precisely what you accuse others of. Which is the psychological act of projection.

It is simply amazing that both of you claim to be so sure of yourself but both are appear to be afraid to debate.

You see, you just did it again, proving my case.

You are trying to accuse others of doing precisely what you have been proven to be doing.

You give no evidence or reasons to support your claim that either of us supposedly don't want to engage in a proper debate.

But I have given numerous evidences and reasons over many posts for why you have failed to meet the requirements of engaging in a proper debate.

And your unwillingness to amend your faults in order to engage in proper debate is evidence that you don't actually want to have a real debate or you are unable to but just don't want to admit that.

Therefore, factually, the only one here who can be said to be afraid of debating is you. And you have no basis for accusing anyone else of being that way.

Which means you are engaging in the psychological act of projection to accuse others of what yourself are doing.

And when you are confronted about the inadequacy of your posts to qualify as legitimate debate, you don't amend your errors but instead accuse others of not being willing to engage in proper debate. Which is what most people would refer to as gaslighting. Although that might not be the most accurate way to use that word according to strict definition.
It is a type of gaslighting because gaslighting is when you argue something that obviously happened didn't actually happen to the person who saw it.

In this case, you are obviously not engaging in proper debate by every measure of how a proper debate is defined. When confronted with this you try to pretend it never happened by claiming you tried to have a proper debate but we supposedly weren't willing. Without ever addressing the information I presented for why you never qualified as trying to have a proper debate.

You are gaslighting by ignoring all the logical reasons we gave you that show aren't engaging in proper debate by definition of how debates are conducted and then responding by just claiming you tried to engage in proper debate but we supposedly weren't willing. You're trying to make us believe something happened opposite to what we just witnessed - which is a form of gaslighting by definition.

 

[Subduction Zone]

We appear to you to be afraid to debate.
LOL! That's just an excuse for your inability to debate.

No, I tried to engage you more than once. You never took me up on my offer just as @Rise has not.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Logical fallacy, argument by repetition and failure to meet your burden of rejoinder

Your fallacies have already been refuted in previous posts as fallacious arguments by assertion.
Merely repeating your refuted arguments doesn't make them stop being refuted nor stop being fallacious

To re-iterate the reasons why they were fallacies of assertion:
1. Merely asserting that my arguments supposedly failed to prove anything doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You are required to provide logical reasons and evidence to meet the burden of proof for your claim.

2. Merely asserting that I have supposedly misused any logical fallacy doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You are required to provide logical reasons and evidence to meet the burden of proof for your claim.

3. Merely asserting that I supposedly do not understand the burden of proof doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You are required to provide logical reasons and evidence to meet the burden of proof for your claim.


You have therefore failed to meet your burden of rejoinder to offer a valid counter argument to my arguments that you have committed the fallacies of assertion, repetition, failure to meet your burden of proof, and failure to meet your burden of rejoinder

Therefore, my arguments remain standing unrefuted by you.

And my arguments, if true, refute your claims.

Therefore, by definition, you have lost the debate because your claims stand refuted and you cannot refute my arguments with valid counter arguments.




You don't understand how logical conclusions are justified. They are justified with logical reasons and evidence.

In every case where I have pointed out you are guilty of committing a logical fallacy, I have given the evidence of quoting you and followed that with giving specific logical reasons why you committed the fallacy.

You do not refute the validity of my argument or disprove it's truth by merely saying "not good enough".

You have the burden of rejoinder that requires you to submit a counter argument with valid logical reasons or evidence to demonstrate why you think there is something wrong with my reasons or evidence.

If you cannot meet your burden of rejoinder then my conclusion stands unrefuted and you have lost the debate by definition.



You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion and failure to meet your burden of proof against sam.

You have provided no reasons or evidence to support your claim that any assumption he has made is supposedly poor or that anything he has said is supposedly wrong.



You are then being a hypocrit by your own standards - because you are engaging in accusing everyone who puts forth a logical argument you can't refute as not being serious about having a real debate so you can give an excuse to run away without admitting you are unable to defend your position any further.

You are accusing them of males fides by definition by accusing them of not intending to engage in legitimate debate even though they say otherwise.

Males fides in a debate setting would, by definition, include people who put on the pretense of being willing to debate but actually aren't intending to have a legitimate debate.
That would also commonly be referred to as trolling by definition.


And when you accuse others of the males fides of supposedly pretending to want debate but not being willing to have a legitimate debate, the fact that you are doing what you accuse others of is indisputable by looking at the evidence contained within your posts.

It's not simply an accusation without proof at that point. Your posts furnish the proof that you are engaged in the hypocrisy of doing what you accuse others of.

We could remove the terms males fides and gaslighting from the post but we are still left with the plain fact that the evidence shows you are guilty of doing what you accuse others of.

You were the first to start accusing us of not being willing to properly debate when you were logically cornered without a counter argument to offer.

But a logical and evidentiary examination of your posts shows that you have repeatedly:
1. Failed to meet your burdens of proof.
2. Failed to meet your burdens of rejoinder.
3. Unrepentently committed logical fallacies without amending them when shown why they are fallacious.
4. That you have given no valid reasons or evidence to justify your claim that others supposedly don't want to, or aren't, engaging in proper debate.

By every standard and measure of how a proper debate is conducted you have failed to engage in proper debate and your unwillingness to amend your ways when your errors are explained to you shows you are not actually willing to engage in a proper debate if given the chance to.

That is why we can state as a matter of established fact that you are engaged in doing precisely what you accuse others of. Which is the psychological act of projection.



You see, you just did it again, proving my case.

You are trying to accuse others of doing precisely what you have been proven to be doing.

You give no evidence or reasons to support your claim that either of us supposedly don't want to engage in a proper debate.

But I have given numerous evidences and reasons over many posts for why you have failed to meet the requirements of engaging in a proper debate.

And your unwillingness to amend your faults in order to engage in proper debate is evidence that you don't actually want to have a real debate or you are unable to but just don't want to admit that.

Therefore, factually, the only one here who can be said to be afraid of debating is you. And you have no basis for accusing anyone else of being that way.

Which means you are engaging in the psychological act of projection to accuse others of what yourself are doing.

And when you are confronted about the inadequacy of your posts to qualify as legitimate debate, you don't amend your errors but instead accuse others of not being willing to engage in proper debate. Which is what most people would refer to as gaslighting. Although that might not be the most accurate way to use that word according to strict definition.
It is a type of gaslighting because gaslighting is when you argue something that obviously happened didn't actually happen to the person who saw it.

In this case, you are obviously not engaging in proper debate by every measure of how a proper debate is defined. When confronted with this you try to pretend it never happened by claiming you tried to have a proper debate but we supposedly weren't willing. Without ever addressing the information I presented for why you never qualified as trying to have a proper debate.

You are gaslighting by ignoring all the logical reasons we gave you that show aren't engaging in proper debate by definition of how debates are conducted and then responding by just claiming you tried to engage in proper debate but we supposedly weren't willing. You're trying to make us believe something happened opposite to what we just witnessed - which is a form of gaslighting by definition.

Look at this utter nonsense. It is a mass of TLDR. He simply does not know how or when to apply logical fallacies and uses that as an excuse not to debate.

Once again, I will have a polite discussion with you. One thing that is obvious that neither side can use (the rules obviously have to apply to both sides) is to try to apply logical fallacies to the claims of the other.

Concepts have to be supported by evidence. That is all. No attempts to use logical fallacies as magic words can be allowed for either side.


Is that too daunting for you?

And one other clear rule. Excessively long answers are not to be allowed. In debates time is usually limited so that it is equal for both sides. Sometimes an answer to a particular claim may take a bit longer, but let's set an arbitrary claim that an answer may only be up to twice the length of a counter claim.

 

[night912]

You failed to understand the nature of the evidence presented and what defines evidence.

An eyewitness account is an example of evidence.

The book is written by someone offering personal testimony of the lion they owned an it's behavior.

Therefore, it is false to claim no evidence is offered.

You may not like the evidence. You might not want to accept the evidence. You might not personally be convinced by the evidence - but none of that means that no evidence has been presented.

So you decided to combine several fallacies, argument by assertion, a strawman, ad hominem (specifically, appeal to motive). You asserted that I didn't understand what "evidence" is, but gave no reason and/or explanation to justify what you've asserted. All you did was present a strawman. You also asserted motive(s), attaching it to me as if I had rejected the "evidence" because of them.

It appears to be that you are the one who does not understand the nature of evidence. Your attempt to display your knowledge of "evidence," is an indicator of this. But since it was part of your strawman, instead of actually addressing what I said, I'll wait for your future responses to see if that's the case before I make can make a final conclusion about it.

I'll go over what you said. You said:

"An eyewitness account is an example of evidence."

An eyewitness account is not an example of evidence. If I was to say, "give me evidence for the existence of bigfoot," and your response is, "an eyewitness account." That response demonstrated nothing in regards to the existence of bigfoot, neither for nor against it. An "eyewitness account" is a type of evidence.

And why does this matter? It's important because evidence is contingent on what the claim is. Someone's actual testimony would automatically qualify as being an "eyewitness account" type of evidence, but the actual testimony itself does not automatically qualify as being evidence. What is said and by whom, is contingent on the claim. I addressed this in my other post, which you responded with a strawman and ignoring I said.

You may not like the evidence. You might not want to accept the evidence. You might not personally be convinced by the evidence - but none of that means that no evidence has been presented.

Appeal to motive fallacy. None of those are the reason(s) why I rejected the information as being evidence supporting the truthfulness of the story. And tactically using the words, "may" and "might" so that you can say that you never said for certain that they are my motives or anything similar to that. But that does not work here because it was your justification for saying this:

"The book is written by someone offering personal testimony of the lion they owned an it's behavior.

Therefore, it is false to claim no evidence is offered."

And yes, I already addressed this. But instead of addressing what I said, you gave a strawman in response to it. So I not going to repeat all the things I said about it.

As I just pointed out, his only basis for calling the eyewitness testimony (the book) evidence unreliable was to call its source "extreme Christian".
A genetic fallacy.

Giving false information about what he said is not make it a genetic fallacy. And please demonstrate that the was the only reason for him rejecting the "sources."

Your statement about how logical debate works is true but also irrelevant because it doesn't refute anything I argued. You have a misunderstanding of what happened, as I pointed out above.

The eyewitness testimony in the book meets the burden of proof for the claim in the sense that it provides reasons and evidences to justify the claim.

The burden of rejoinder is then on the person who wants to dispute the validity or truth of that evidence to offer valid counter arguments against it

@Subduction Zone did not offer a valid counter argument against the evidence.

He claimed it was unreliable without offering any valid reasons or evidence for why it should not be regarded as reliable.

He only offered the genetic fallacy of calling the source "extreme christian".

Please address what I said about this instead of dodging it and present a strawman.

Your statement is not relevant because you are operating from the false belief that no evidence was presented.
As I pointed out above, eyewitness testimony in the form of a published book constitutes evidence by definition.

It doesn't have to meet your personal standard of being "good enough" evidence to convince you in order to qualify as being evidence in the logical sense.

Please address what I said about this instead of dodging it and present a strawman.

You demonstrate you don't know what the defining features of an ad hominem fallacy are.

If you logically demonstrate why someone's argument is false, and don't even offer any comments of ridicule with that, that that obvious isn't an appeal to ridicule - and I don't see why you would be so confused as to think it is.

But the mere presence of ridicule is not the defining feature of a fallacy of ridicule.

If you call someone's argument ridiculous and then go on to give valid logical reasons and evidence for why you think it qualifies as ridiculous, then you aren't committing the fallacy of appeal to ridicule by definition.

The appeal to ridicule fallacy is when you ignore the argument someone made and just offer ridicule as your only response.

If you offer valid rebuttals to someone's argument and refute it, and then go on to also call them names, you wouldn't technically be guilty of an ad hominem because you aren't using name calling to avoid dealing with the arguments in question.

If, however, you don't even attempt to meet your burden of rejoinder to offer valid counter arguments to someone's arguments, but then simply respond by calling them names, then you are guilty of a textbook ad hominem fallacy.

Given that subduction zone did not in most cases attempt at all to offer any type of counter arguments to my arguments, and the few he did were shown to be fallacious and went uncorrected by him, for him to them go on to refer to my arguments as "babbling" represents a textbook fallacy of a type of ad hominem. He is trying to call the argument names in order to dismiss it without either offering a valid counter argument or even substantiating with reason or evidence why his namecalling should even be regarded as accurate.

For him to not be committing a type of ad hominem fallacy here he would need to provide valid logical reasons and evidence to not only establish his claim is true that anything I have posted supposedly qualified as "babbling", but he would also need to furnish valid counter arguments to all the arguments I made against his claims so that he is not guilty of using his personal attack as a type of red herring or avoiding the issue fallacy.

Because even a personal attack, if proven to be a true attack, would still be a fallacy of red herring because it's not relevant to refuting the arguments you are responding to.

So apparently your comments have led me to conclude that you do not fully understand logical fallacies. On the numerous posts that I've read of you accusing others of committing a logical fallacy, not one of them has been shown to have committed a logical fallacy. You failed to point out where and how it's a fallacy. Majority of the time, all you're doing is posting the meaning of a logical fallacy then asserted that the person has committed that logical fallacy. By you simply inserting the accused into the repeated meaning, you have not demonstrate that the fallacy was committed. Other times, your explanation does not even match the definition of the fallacy that you posted. And on the rare occasions that your explanation matches the fallacy that you've accused the person of committing, a strawman was used. So since it wasn't their actual argument/position, you still failed to demonstrate that the fallacy was committed.

Your fallacy hunting does nothing to help validate your arguments nor does it refute the other person's argument.

Like I said earlier, fools don't realize that they are fools. That's why a fool keeps on being a fool by repeating the same foolish thing again and again, thinking that he/she is spitting out some kind of great knowledge and wisdom. In actuality, he/she just adding more evidence on top of existing ones, further demonstrating that he/she remains to be a fool.

You're free to add more evidence to the pile that's already been.

 

[samtonga43]

No, I tried to engage you more than once. You never took me up on my offer just as @Rise has not.

Not true. But you may have evidence which proves otherwise...?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not true. But you may have evidence which proves otherwise...?

This is a foolish demand. I do not obsess over you. I could provide you a link to the source if you really want one. You can find it yourself from there.

 

[samtonga43]

This is a foolish demand. I do not obsess over you. I could provide you a link to the source if you really want one. You can find it yourself from there.

Ah! Déjà vu! Now I remember our previous encounter!

1: You accuse me of one thing or another.

2: I ask for evidence that your accusations are based on fact.

3: You tell me that you're not doing my 'work' for me, or that you have no time to go back to former posts.

No evidence was ever forth-coming.​

 

[samtonga43]

Like I said earlier, fools don't realize that they are fools. That's why a fool keeps on being a fool by repeating the same foolish thing again and again, thinking that he/she is spitting out some kind of great knowledge and wisdom. In actuality, he/she just adding more evidence on top of existing ones, further demonstrating that he/she remains to be a fool.

I would be interested to know YOUR definition of 'a fool',
night912.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ah! Déjà vu! Now I remember our previous encounter!

1: You accuse me of one thing or another.

2: I ask for evidence that your accusations are based on fact.

3: You tell me that you're not doing my 'work' for me, or that you have no time to go back to former posts.

No evidence was ever forth-coming.​

No, you started a long detour and we never got to the subject matter. You got hung up on nonsense. Your memory is faulty.

 

[samtonga43]

No, you started a long detour and we never got to the subject matter. You got hung up on nonsense. Your memory is faulty.

Oh, I don't think so. You told me over and over again that, because I would not take up your offer of a debate, I was very scared of you.

You also made me laugh when you kept insisting that you could definitely prove that the Bible is a book of myths. The proof never showed up of course. You could have changed theology forever, SZ!!

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oh, I don't think so. You told me over and over again that, because I would not take up your offer of a debate, I was very scared of you.

You also made me laugh when you kept insisting that you could definitely prove that the Bible is a book of myths. The proof never showed up of course. You could have changed theology forever, SZ!!

Oh that. It is no problem. But since you love logical fallacies and your new friend who can't use them correctly let me explain to you why you are wrong. You want me to prove that it is all myths, but I never said that it was all myths. Genesis, Exodus, Jonah, sure those are no problem. Some of the other stories such as the genocides that God supposedly ordered can be shown to be mythical too. But you started to post nonsense and false narratives instead.

I know that you don't take Genesis literally. You know it is mythical. I would hope that you do the same for Exodus and Jonah. How much of the Bible has to be shown to be mythical to convince you?

 

[samtonga43]

You want me to prove that it is all myths, but I never said that it was all myths.

Here's what you said:
"And of course I can prove that the Bible is a book of myths".

I know that you don't take Genesis literally. You know it is mythical.

You think that 'literal' is the opposite of 'mythical'?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Here's what you said:
"And of course I can prove that the Bible is a book of myths".


You think that 'literal' is the opposite of 'mythical'?

Nope. That might be your problem. At least that appears to have been your reasoning in the past. Did you not read my prior post.

 

[samtonga43]

Nope.

So, let me get this straight. You do not now say that the Bible is a book of myths, although you said in the past that the Bible is a book of myths and that you could prove it. Am I correct?

Remember, SZ, that a bag of cookies means what it says.
A jar of coffee means what it says.
A bunch of flowers means what it says.
A cup of milk means what it says.

You get the idea?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You must be upset since you could not use something as simple as the reply button properly. You are now being overly literalistic, just as some of your fellow Christians are. when it comes to Genesis. You need to learn what a myth is. Myth is not that different from a legend. So there will be some historical elements in a book of myths. Joseph Campbell, a rather well noted mythologist wrote a book : The Power of Myth. It is about how myths have shaped our society. And he, among others, include all religious beliefs in that category:

"Campbell defines the function of a mythology as the provision of a cultural framework for a society or people to educate their young, and to provide them with a means of coping with their passage through the different stages of life from birth to death. In a general sense myths include religion as well and the development of religion is an intrinsic part of a society's culture. A mythology is inevitably bound to the society and time in which it occurs and cannot be divorced from this culture and environment. This is true even though Western society previously learnt from, and was informed by, the mythology of other cultures by including the study of Greek and Roman writings as part of its heritage.

The record of the history of the development of a culture and society is embodied in its mythology. For example, the Bible describes the evolution of the Judeo-Christian concept of God from the time when the Jews were in Babylon and the god they worshiped corresponded to a local tribal god, to when the concept became that of a world savior as a result of the Hebrews becoming a major force in the East Mediterranean region. The geographic context of a specific mythology also plays a role in its evolution. The physical scope of Biblical mythology was limited to the general area of the Middle East but in other parts of the world, Chinese and Aztec religions and cultures emerged as separate and distinct belief systems. When different cultures expand their spheres of influence they eventually come into contact with each other, and the outcome of the collision, be it conquest, subjugation, or amalgamation, will be evident in the resultant mythology."

The Power of Myth - Wikipedia

You might be conflating myths and fantasy. Now there is a good amount of fantasy in the Bible too, but if fits more into the myth category. Lord of the Rings is an example of fantasy. The Bible is not that far off. From reality.