Another Circular Circular.

[Tcg]

.

Apparently due to the pandemic, the JWs have taken to mailing out their circulars rather than knocking on doors and handing them out personally or leaving them in mailboxes if they get no answer. The latest I've gotten in the mail asks, "How do you view the future?" As is often the case, the first part refers to the Bible to answer the question on the cover and the second part purports to answer the question, "Can we really believe what the Bible says?" Oddly the second part contains a total of eight biblical references to support the claim that one can.

Does it make logical sense to accept the verses supporting the Bible as evidence the Bible should be believed?

Do some who receive this circular circular not notice its circular nature?


Tcg

[Tcg]

Why one lacks belief and wants to tell others those reasons, has nothing directly to do with atheism.

So close. I'll correct it for you:

"Why one lacks belief, has nothing directly to do with atheism.


Tcg

Yes, other than atheism having atheists who want to preach about it (is why I'm here) and those who listen may come to come to unbelief or continue in it and thereby are atheist or atheists. In that respect atheism may have had something to do with not having belief.

Nope. You are describing why you an atheist wants to preach. Your desire to preach doesn't change the definition of atheism.


Tcg

[TRANSPONDER]

Why one lacks belief and wants to tell others those reasons, has nothing directly to do with atheism.

So close. I'll correct it for you:

"Why one lacks belief, has nothing directly to do with atheism.


Tcg

Yes, other than atheism having atheists who want to preach about it (is why I'm here) and those who listen may come to come to unbelief or continue in it and thereby are atheist or atheists. In that respect atheism may have had something to do with not having belief.

Nope. You are describing why you an atheist wants to preach. Your desire to preach doesn't change the definition of atheism.


Tcg

I agree;it doesn't change the definition of atheism and wasn't trying to. It was pointing up here one might see atheism as occasioning the atheist evangelism, which most atheists don't actually do, just as most theists don't do theist apologetics. Though without the theism, you wouldn't get the apologetics, that's the point.

[JehovahsWitness]

.

Apparently due to the pandemic, the [ Jehovah's Witnesses] have taken to mailing out their circulars rather than knocking on doors and handing them out personally or leaving them in mailboxes if they get no answer. The latest I've gotten in the mail asks, "How do you view the future?"

Yes we have suspended our door-to-door preaching in many areas due to the pandemic and are now conducting our outreach work via telephoning, letter writing, contacting friends and aquaintences via social media.

We are also inviting people to our religious meetings which are currently being held on ZOOM in many parts of the world.



Did the pamflet come with a hand written letter?






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Getting back on topic, I do not see how the pamphlet in question is circular as it was not attempting to prove God exists or that the bible is God's word. It is primarily written for people who already believe in God and respect the BIBLE.





JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

[benchwarmer]

Getting back on topic, I do not see how the pamphlet in question is circular as it was not attempting to prove God exists or that the bible is God's word. It is primarily written for people who already believe in God and respect the BIBLE.

The pamphlet you posted requires circular thinking. It assumes that the Bible will answer the question posed. "How will God change our world for the better?" "The Bible answers that question..."

As you say, it requires pre-existing belief in God and expecting the Bible to have answers about that God. Without circular thinking, it makes no sense.

[JehovahsWitness]

Getting back on topic, I do not see how the pamphlet in question is circular as it was not attempting to prove God exists or that the bible is God's word. It is primarily written for people who already believe in God and respect the BIBLE.

The pamphlet you posted requires circular thinking. It assumes that the Bible will answer the question posed. "How will God change our world for the better?" "The Bible answers that question..."

As you say, it requires pre-existing belief in God and expecting the Bible to have answers about that God. Without circular thinking, it makes no sense.

Assuming the answer to a question be found somewhere is not the definition of circular reasoning any more than assuming you will find recipes in a cookbook.

If the question was: Does God exist and the brochure says yes God exists because this brochure says God exists or even "Is the bible true? And then proposes: Yes because the bible says the bible is true ...THAT would be circular. But building an argument on what has already been proven or what is already believed (however the person came to that belief) is not circular.

Yes it requires pre-existing belief (which is fine because the majority of people believe in God and in most Western countries have some form of belief in the bible). Nope it is not circular as it is not designed to prove that God exists only proposing to present what the bible has to say on a particular topic.

As someone who regularly preached to all kinds of people I know it would be generally viewed as needlessly insulting and a waste of time to attempt to prove God exists to someone that already believed God exists. Atheist and people who do not have any confidence in the bible are not the pamphlets target reader.





FALLACIES
https://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ ... fallacies/



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[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #36]

Neither you nor I know why those bods got together to talk about simulation -theory.

In the intro, Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us.

It's tempting, but wearyingly often in the past opponents wouldn't debate on the forum but would give links, videos, books which we should research to convince ourselves.

The idea is to have something in which we can discuss further, so introducing the video was a response to Purple Knight saying that we do have that nugget extra of observation in reality confirming scientific reasoning is a good foundation, but it still requires some faith that what we see and experience is real and follows the basic laws of logic, to which you somewhat emotionally responded that it appeared both Purple Knight and myself were 'missing the point' about 'trusting the science' which is questioning materialism.
So what? Why shouldn't materialism be questioned?
You believe that the idea with all these alien computer -game, brain in a vat - these upsetting bewildering aspects you say are uncertain or vague arguments, which exist to make materialists doubt everything they thought they knew - which you also said is 'everything science tells us'.
Science doesn't 'tell' us emergent theory [materialism] is the truth. Materialists simply see it that way because of confirmation bias

You further freak about how theories outside of the acceptable materialist parameters are a threat designed to "get rid of science" [except where it can be trotted out to fit into to some 'Comic Mind' hypothesis] so that some "personal preference" can be held up as valid as any other.

What you appear to fail to comprehend is that your personal preference to regard the universe through the filter of materialism is no more valid than my personal preference to regard the universe through the filter of non-materialism.

[benchwarmer]

We'll just have to agree to disagree then. You don't see the circular nature of using the Bible to describe God, when the God in question is necessarily rooted in the very same Bible. This is shown when people get into debates about what does God want/mean/etc and out comes the Bible and it trumps all else.

This, I find quite interesting:

Atheist and people who do not have any confidence in the bible are not the pamphlets target reader.

So are you saying that these pamphlets are solely aimed at converting other Christians to JWs way of thinking? Why would Christians (who presumably know to go to the Bible already and should have read it) need to be told about what God is saying in the Bible from a pamphlet from JW?

Not only is this preaching to the choir, it seems like you are trying to steal from the other choirs

[Tcg]

Getting back on topic, I do not see how the pamphlet in question is circular as it was not attempting to prove God exists or that the bible is God's word. It is primarily written for people who already believe in God and respect the BIBLE.

I'm not sure why the mention of either an attempt to prove God exists or that the Bible is God's word given that neither are mentioned in the topic. It is circular in that it uses the Bible to address the issue of whether or not the Bible is trustworthy. It's intended audience does nothing to change the circular nature of this circular.


Tcg

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #36]

Neither you nor I know why those bods got together to talk about simulation -theory.

In the intro, Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us.

It's tempting, but wearyingly often in the past opponents wouldn't debate on the forum but would give links, videos, books which we should research to convince ourselves.

The idea is to have something in which we can discuss further, so introducing the video was a response to Purple Knight saying that we do have that nugget extra of observation in reality confirming scientific reasoning is a good foundation, but it still requires some faith that what we see and experience is real and follows the basic laws of logic, to which you somewhat emotionally responded that it appeared both Purple Knight and myself were 'missing the point' about 'trusting the science' which is questioning materialism.
So what? Why shouldn't materialism be questioned?
You believe that the idea with all these alien computer -game, brain in a vat - these upsetting bewildering aspects you say are uncertain or vague arguments, which exist to make materialists doubt everything they thought they knew - which you also said is 'everything science tells us'.
Science doesn't 'tell' us emergent theory [materialism] is the truth. Materialists simply see it that way because of confirmation bias

You further freak about how theories outside of the acceptable materialist parameters are a threat designed to "get rid of science" [except where it can be trotted out to fit into to some 'Comic Mind' hypothesis] so that some "personal preference" can be held up as valid as any other.

What you appear to fail to comprehend is that your personal preference to regard the universe through the filter of materialism is no more valid than my personal preference to regard the universe through the filter of non-materialism.

Thank you for that. The point is not that materialism should not be questioned or at least discussed, but rather why it should be questioned and discussed on a forum like this.After all the science is that the explanation are all natural and nothing supernatural, and so the default theory is materialism until the supernatural is proven and validated (in which case it would probably become science anyway). And yet above you are playing the 'my beliefs are as valid as yours. Not when mine accept the validated science of the material and apparently you want to make supernatural claims. Well, we know why, for the same reason that the science of Geology and Palaeontology are debated here by those who want to try to debunk its'findings so that religious claims can replace them. And that is what is going on in questioning and debating materialism - to try to shoehorn in 'god' -claims. Isn't that it? Be honest now.

And it isn't materialism that has to prove its' case by having what is already validated questioned, especially by posting videos we are supposed to spend our time watching in the hopes that we might conjure up the case that you should be making yourself. It probably is worth mentioning that some sort of cosmic intelligence is a claim neither here nor there unless connected with the claims of religion and particularly Christianity. After all natural physical forces,whether thinking or not are only of academic interest and I'm rather curious why it should be of such overriding interest to you to try to persuade us here to accept belief in it.

Why? Why does it matter, either academically or to you?

[Tcg]

Atheist and people who do not have any confidence in the bible are not the pamphlets target reader.

Odd then that one page out of four is dedicated to convincing the reader that they can believe what the Bible says. Is it JWs normal practice to attempt to convince people of something they are already convinced of? Had that page been skipped, it's circular nature would be avoided. Given that it has been included this circular remains circular.


Tcg