Theistic Reasoning

[bluegreenearth]

There are few things more intellectually dishonest than non-negotiable confidence in a theistic belief. Theists should, at the very least, be willing to acknowledge the possibility that they might be mistaken in their belief regardless of their level of confidence in it. So, if you are a confident theist, do the responsible thing and work with us to help you discover where any logical fallacies or other cognitive errors might exist in the reasoning process you are using justify your religious belief.

This isn't to presume that you haven't already performed this sort of critical analysis yourself or to imply that I or anyone else participating in the peer review process is your intellectual superior. To the contrary, if your reasoning process is demonstrably reliable or superior, then sharing it will do me and the other participants a great intellectual service. Alternatively, if any errors happen to be exposed in your reasoning process, you benefit from the opportunity to correct for those errors and it wouldn't mean your theistic belief is false. Therefore, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose from cooperating.

Now, if your theistic reasoning process is complex and nuanced, it won't be practical to post a lengthy dissertation on this thread. Instead, if possible, try to break-down your reasoning process into discreet components and permit us to evaluate it one step at a time.

Finally, despite my attempt to carefully word this OP in such a way to avoid or mitigate for potential misinterpretations, I'm fairly confident at least one theist is going to post an objection to something I wrote that was not deliberately intended. If you are that theist, please just ask for a clarification before submitting your objection or leveling accusations against me. Thank you.

[Divine Insight]

I just watched this short 9 minute movie and thought it was perfect for this thread:

[youtube][/youtube]

This is basically where our world appears to be headed. Truth, logic, and reason has given way to freedom of opinion.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 178 by Realworldjack]

You have conflated "thinking about an argument" with "reasoning for an argument." These are not identical concepts. Reasoning in defense of an argument certainly involves thinking but not all thinking is a reasoned argument. Logical fallacies and confirmation bias could only potentially exist within the thinking required to reason an argument in defense of a claim. While thinking is involved in an absence of belief in a claim, it does not involve a reasoned argument in defense of a claim. Therefore, it is not until I begin to reason an argument for or against the resurrection claim that I could potentially be relying upon a logical fallacy or confirmation bias. Conversely, the thinking involved with the identification of logical fallacies and influence by confirmation bias in a Christian's reasoned argument for the resurrection claim is not equivalent to the thinking required to develop a reasoned argument against the resurrection claim. As such, I cannot be relying upon a logical fallacy or confirmation bias when I'm identifying those reasoning errors in a Christian's argument for the resurrection claim.

When I invited you to expose any logical fallacies or confirmation bias in that previous explanation, I wasn't agreeing to the possibility that any such reasoning errors could exist in my explanation but anticipating that your failure to identify any reasoning errors would demonstrate my point. What I probably should have anticipated, instead, was your almost predictable ability to craft unintentional straw-man arguments based on the conflation of two separate but related concepts.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 167]

bluegreenearth: This appears to be another example where a failure to properly communicate my point resulted in confusion and an misunderstanding. My comment was specific to circumstances where complaints were made about the emotional reactions of another person but out of context with respect to the argument being evaluated. In other words, it is valid to point out where an argument from emotion was used to try and persuade others to accept a proposed claim but not necessarily fair to criticize someone for expressing an emotional reaction to a perceived attack on their personal character (whether that is actually the case or not) or some other issue unrelated to the argument being evaluated.

William: And the above has exactly what to do with the initial comment you made about this, where you specifically quoted my post #149 ?

Since your post was in reference to the emotional reactions expressed by other users in their posts, I used it as an opportunity to express a general concern about the way we should try to mitigate for emotional reactions from other users in the thread and didn't intend for it to directly apply to anything specific in your comments. In retrospect, it was an obviously flawed strategy on my part and would have been better if I simply posted my concerns directly to the thread instead linking it to your post.

[William]

[Replying to post 192]

bluegreenearth: Since your post was in reference to the emotional reactions expressed by other users in their posts...

William: The post I made had to do with how honest intellectual reasoning takes a back seat when it came to the emotionally-based comments being made by non-theist contributors.
I don't know why you missed that aspect of the post in question - perhaps bias was the cause - but it appears that this is the underlying reason for your flawed strategy.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 192]

bluegreenearth: Since your post was in reference to the emotional reactions expressed by other users in their posts...

William: The post I made had to do with how honest intellectual reasoning takes a back seat when it came to the emotionally-based comments being made by non-theist contributors.
I don't know why you missed that aspect of the post in question - perhaps bias was the cause - but it appears that this is the underlying reason for your flawed strategy.

Honest intellectual reasoning takes a back seat whenever the amygdala of the brain is activated regardless of whether that brain belongs to a non-theist or a theist. That is just how the brain is wired. As such, my expressed concern applies to everyone with a brain and not just theists. If there was unconscious bias involved in the expressed concern I submitted in response to your post, I'm unable to identify where it is manifested. In fact, it appears I was careful to acknowledge that "if either a theist or a non-theist makes a positive claim using arguments containing logical fallacies, anyone is free to politely and respectfully evaluate the reliability of the proposed reasoning." I apologize if there was something in my post that gave the false impression that I was targeting only theists.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to post 193 by William]

I should clarify that the apology at the close of my previous response to your most recent post was in reference to my initial response to your earlier post and not the OP. Admittedly, the OP does only invite theists to have their reasoning evaluated being that this is a debate thread for Christianity and Apologetic arguments. However, I've subsequently agreed that any positive claim by both theists and non-theists may be evaluated for logical fallacies or confirmation bias.

[Athetotheist]

Maybe Sagan was onto something with his "saving a step" proposal, but didn't take it far enough. Maybe there are three instead of his original two:

1. If we conclude that we can't answer the question of where a creator came from, why not save a step and conclude that we can't answer the question of where the universe came from?

2. If we conclude that a creator has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?

....and....

3. If we conclude that a self-causing creator would be miraculous, why not save a step and conclude that a self-causing universe is miraculous?

I would imagine that Carl would indeed agree with all three of these.

The moment you bring deism into the picture you are automatically making totally unwarranted assumptions.

The very concept of deism is a concept of a conscious thinking entity. If not for this, then how would it be different from Taoism?

Taoism basically takes the position that "yes" something appears to be going on that we cannot explain. Things we cannot explain we tend to call 'magical" or "miraculous" or whatever other terms we can think of to describe things we can't explain.

The difference between Taoism and Deism is that Taoism is happy to stop with that conclusion. Something appears to be going on that we cannot explain.

But the desists when to then jump to the totally unwarranted conclusion that this must mean that there exists some conscious entity who is purposefully performing the magic.

I suggest that this actually stems from an extreme mistake. As soon as magic is said to have been performed most human instantly concluded that the most rational explanation is than a magician performed the magic. Therefore they think that it's reasonable to conclude that there must be a magician behind anything that appears to be magical.

The problem with this is that it's actually dead wrong. The reason it makes sense to call up on a magician as having performed magic in the real world is because this actually explains why no real magic was performed at all. Instead, worldly magicians are actually illusion artists who simply make it appear that something happened that supposedly can't happen. They then serve as an explanation for this because the ultimate explanation is that the magician didn't really perform any magic at all. All they did was create a false illusion.

So this is why a magician explains how magic is done in the real world. In short, the moment a magician is introduced as the explanation, all this really says is that there was never any actual magic performed at all. Instead it was just trickery. An illusion.

So that's why a worldly magician "explains" magic.

But deists have apparently forgotten this. So if they conclude that existence must be "magical" (i.e. unexplained), then there must be a magician behind it who is performing the magic and this then explains how the magic can occur.

But that's wrong. The existence of a magician to explain real magic doesn't work. That would be no explanation because a real magician who could perform real magic would himself be unexplained.

So that's basically the crux of why your argument for the existence of a magician doesn't stand up logically.

If you want to accept that the universe itself is magical (i.e. something we cannot explain), then there's no need to go further to claim that a magician must have done. To claim that a magician must have done it only means that you refuse to accept that magic can exist in the first place, so you need to have a magician who explains how the magic is done. But if there is a magician who can explain how the magic is done, then there wouldn't be any magic at all.

So it's a useless argument.

So yes, Carl Sagan's basic principle applies:

3. If we conclude that a self-causing creator would be miraculous, why not save a step and conclude that a self-causing universe is miraculous?

That's exactly right. Calling in a need for a magician to have performed the magic is an unnecessary step. In fact, it wouldn't even be magic if it required a magician to perform it.

So basically all you are saying is that you can't accept the idea of a magical universe, but you can accept the idea of a magical magician.

But why? What's gained by the extra step?

If magic exists magically, there's nothing to keep it from being magically conscious.......but that's speculation.

[Divine Insight]

If magic exists magically, there's nothing to keep it from being magically conscious.......but that's speculation.

Agreed. But speculation is not a sound logical argument for that specific conclusion.

[marco]

Your idea of not allowing human logic kick in, leaves us all with what, exactly. [/color]

We use our logic in areas where it might apply. When we attempt to make deductions about God by using human models we are already committing an error. We do not have the tools to investigate God though we can use our brains to work out questions about our universe, and people do so. We get into problems when we move from the physical into the divine. We can suspect there will be problems from previous naïve attempts at working with infinity.

The biblical God has been fashioned from human experience: he rages, he creates, he punishes, he demands war trophies and he awards prizes. This is an extreme example of moving from what we know to what we do not know and inventing a deity.

Of course such basic reasoning may produce a right answer but one suspects and hopes that the architect of the universe is a bit more intelligent than Yahweh seems to be.

[William]

[Replying to post 198]

William: Not to digress, my point is, we don't even know for sure that it is not some awesome kind of simulator giving us the experience, and scientists certainly haven't shown that it isn't...so "open mind" remains in that logical position between materialism and religiosity.


Your idea of not allowing human logic kick in, leaves us all with what, exactly.

marco: We use our logic in areas where it might apply. When we attempt to make deductions about God by using human models we are already committing an error. We do not have the tools to investigate God though we can use our brains to work out questions about our universe, and people do so. We get into problems when we move from the physical into the divine. We can suspect there will be problems from previous naïve attempts at working with infinity.

William: So your argument - and perhaps the OP point - is that it is fallacy to investigate the idea of a Creator, because 'we do not have tools' in which to do so:?:

If indeed this is the truth of the matter, would you agree then that non-theists demanding evidence for a Creator/Creators are committing a fallacy themselves, since 'we do not have the tools to investigate':?:

Also, if we suspect there will be problems, should we altogether place it in The Too Hard Box, and slip it away out of sight and mind.