Burden of Proof - Part 2

[STT]

Do you mean “true Christians who never sin”?

For one can certainly be a “true Christian” but fall short of the mark, repeatedly.

You might do little sin but avoid killing your brother. What would be the point of Jesus teaching if even Christian go to war against each other?

 

[STT]

According to that theory atheists were not true atheists if they went to war against each other! Or do you believe all atheists are immoral?

Thou shall not kill. That is the basic teaching of Christianity. There is not such a moral principle in atheism.

 

[tonyrey]

And this aversion is manifested, subtly, by the atheist’s “sometimes I’m ok with not knowing the why”.

Rather than pursue the logical direction a question leads (towards Theism), the atheist will, peculiarly, say, “Hey, I don’t need to know all the answers”.

And we all know why there is this sudden tolerance of lack of knowledge.

Could it be the possibility of an unwelcome conclusion? What is certain that atheism violates not only the principle of adequate explanation but it also leads to a “dead end” (in more senses than one). It is sterile and incoherent in its use of reason to imply reason is an insignificant feature of reality yet according to the OP atheist philosophers contend that the burden of proof is on believers:

All in all, atheists are not being irrational by justifying their atheism simply in a lack of evidence for God’s existence, any more than I am being irrational in justifying “a-bigfootism” in a lack of evidence for Bigfoot.

What is the rebuttal?

Bigfoot isn’t regarded as the Creator, the First Cause or the Necessary Being. To assert that God needs a cause implies an infinite regress of causes which is not a satisfactory explanation because there is not one jot of evidence that it has occurred. It amounts to an appeal to ignorance given that science is based on the principle of causality. To abandon the search for explanations is equivalent to admitting defeat. It is highly significant that atheists have failed to produced an alternative explanation for the most fundamental fact of all. To derive everything from nothing is the apogee of absurdity…

 

[tonyrey]

Thou shall not kill. That is the basic teaching of Christianity. There is not such a moral principle in atheism.

It doesn’t follow that atheists reject it nor does it justify murder… Its absence is not an asset but a liability which reveals its inadequacy.

 

[STT]

It doesn’t follow that atheists reject it nor does it justify murder… Its absence is not an asset but a liability which reveals its inadequacy.

Do you as a Christian believe in objective morality? If no what was the point of God’s teaching, thou shall not kill for example? If yes, how you could justify war between Christian?

 

[PRmerger]

You might do little sin but avoid killing your brother.

What sin is permissible in your paradigm, and what is to be avoided?

And how do you come to this conclusion?

 

[inocente]

While that may be true, it is equally correct to point out that when the No True Scotsman fallacy is invoked in an argument, it is typically invoked by those who balk at clearly defining what a “Scotsman” is in the first place. Ergo, you are damned if you do AND damned if you don’t.

Would a “true” shark ever be a filter feeder surviving on plankton? Well, that depends upon how “shark” is defined, I suppose. When a scientifically precise definition of “shark” exists, clearly sharks need not be sharp-toothed killers of the deep. The No True Shark fallacy cannot be invoked in this instance BECAUSE a well-developed and precise definition of shark exists. The ONLY reason that the No True Scotsman fallacy is a fallacy is because the one invoking it does not permit a well-defined definition of “Scotsman.” If they did, the fallacy wouldn’t exist.

Same with no true Christian. My guess is that anyone who invokes No True Christian in order to call out what they say is a fallacious claim will not permit the word “Christian” to be well-defined in the first place. They will argue against any definition in order to appeal to the No True Scotsman fallacy to dismiss any claim they don’t like with reference to Christians.

I recently listened to Richard Carrier attempting to argue that Hitler was a specific kind of neo-Christian even though he didn’t accept the divinity of Christ and rejected pretty much everything else Christianity teaches. When it was pointed out by Richard Weikart that Muslims, too, believe what Hitler believed about Christ and, therefore, by Carrier’s method of determining who can be identified as Christians, Muslims would be. He never got the point. He simply argued that Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons had similar beliefs as Hitler about Christ and he, Carrier, would classify them as “Christians.”

The point being that if we are going to be sloppy with regard to defining the meaning of words, everything and anything we have to say will just be one big fallacy. It starts with the refusal by would-be discussers to be precise, which is why philosophy is the art of making distinctions.

Before we make any claims about “true” Christians, we need to arrive at a proper definition of what it means to be “Christian” in the first place. Absent that, nothing we have to say will be worth discussing.

No true Christian listens to Pink Floyd. No true Christian has a tattoo. No true Christian voted for Trump. No true Christian voted for Clinton. No true Christian goes to war. Each is trying to add an ad hoc clause which has nothing to do with the definition of ‘Christian’.

Consider the statement ‘Jim is a Scotsman but Jim is not a true Scotsman’. It’s trying to change the definition mid-sentence. At the start of the sentence Jim is a Scotsman, by the end he isn’t. That’s the fallacy, it’s trying to claim that he is both a Scotsman and not a Scotsman.

 

[tonyrey]

t doesn’t follow that atheists reject it nor does it justify murder… Its absence is not an asset but a liability which reveals its inadequacy.

Of course I do.

If no what was the point of God’s teaching, thou shall not kill for example? If yes, how you could justify war between Christian?

No problem whatsoever. It is a question of choosing the lesser evil. Allowing innocent people to be attacked and killed is a greater evil than defending them.

 

[Tomdstone]

Of course I do.

No problem whatsoever. It is a question of choosing the lesser evil. Allowing innocent people to be attacked and killed is a greater evil than defending them.

If someone attacks you, should you turn the other cheek and let them attack more, or is is better to fight back and not turn the other cheek?

 

[Peter_Plato]

No true Christian listens to Pink Floyd. No true Christian has a tattoo. No true Christian voted for Trump. No true Christian voted for Clinton. No true Christian goes to war. Each is trying to add an ad hoc clause which has nothing to do with the definition of ‘Christian’.

Consider the statement ‘Jim is a Scotsman but Jim is not a true Scotsman’. It’s trying to change the definition mid-sentence. At the start of the sentence Jim is a Scotsman, by the end he isn’t. That’s the fallacy, it’s trying to claim that he is both a Scotsman and not a Scotsman.

Still not clear what your point is here.

Would a Scotsman who turned traitor to his country still be a “true Scotsman?” Is that trying to change the definition in mid-sentence? Or is it a function of the imprecise way that words are often used?

Is it possible to “unbecome” something you are, even when that something is biologically determined, say?

I still think the fallacy, although interesting and at times significant, is often tossed into discussions thoughtlessly and even more often abused.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If someone attacks you, should you turn the other cheek and let them attack more, or is is better to fight back and not turn the other cheek?

“Turn the other cheek” is more a “rule of thumb” than a principle which always applies. There are higher principles that determine when to turn the other cheek, when to leave and when to retaliate.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Do you as a Christian believe in objective morality? If no what was the point of God’s teaching, thou shall not kill for example? If yes, how you could justify war between Christian?

God’s “teaching” isn’t “Thou shalt not kill.” The teaching is more correctly written as, “Thou shalt not kill unjustly.” The original Hebrew word means something like “kill the innocent in a predatory manner.” The word “kill” is not a Hebrew word - something of the original meaning was lost in the English translation under James I.

So war could be justified for the same reasons, basically, as self-defense can be justified.

I am not clear why this is still a contentious issue for some who just won’t give it up.

 

[Polycarp1]

"Since theists demand the Big Bang needs an explanation, God would need an explanation as well. "

Okay who said that the Big bang needs an explanation? We know the explanation… God said let there be light!

 

[Peter_Plato]

It is basically saying “Since theists demand the Big Bang needs an explanation, God would need an explanation as well. Saying he doesn’t need one is a double standard. Since he can’t be explained, there is no evidence that He exists, thus there is not logical reason to believe”
What is the rebuttal?

There isn’t one.

If you want to claim that something exists, then there is a requirement on you, should you wish to excercise it, to offer some proof.

An atheist, or at least this one, doesn’t make any claim. He just asserts that the evidence for your particular claim in regard to God’s existence, is not sufficient to assert a personal belief.

There is no requirement on me to prove that God doesn’t exist, because, quite simply, I am not making that claim in the first instance.

The difficulty here is that “God,” as Ipsum Esse Subsistens, acts as a placeholder for “sufficient and necessary explanation.”

The Big Bang doesn’t explain itself and, therefore, itself requires a sufficient and necessary explanation for how it came about.

Now, if God. properly understood, explains his own existence then God does not require some OTHER explanation outside of his existing precisely because he is, in principle, self-subsistent, i.e., God exists a se or without reference or need for any other outside explanation.

Bradski’s claim that “There isn’t one,” may refer to there not being a need for a complete and sufficient explanation in the first place. Or it may refer to there not being a rebuttal to the alleged “double standard.”

The rebuttal to the double standard allegation, as I outlined above, is that there is no double standard because the Big Bang does not purport to be a complete and sufficient explanation and, thus, still requires one, while God is held to be precisely that – a complete and sufficient explanation.

If Bradski wants to claim that a completely sufficient explanation for everything existing is unnecessary, then why would he want to claim any explanation for anything at all is necessary? That would seem to leave him in a logically untenable and inconsistent position, since he is being entirely capricious about when and why explanations for some things and not for others are required in the first place.

 

[STT]

God’s “teaching” isn’t “Thou shalt not kill.” The teaching is more correctly written as, “Thou shalt not kill unjustly.” The original Hebrew word means something like “kill the innocent in a predatory manner.” The word “kill” is not a Hebrew word - something of the original meaning was lost in the English translation under James I.

So war could be justified for the same reasons, basically, as self-defense can be justified.

I am not clear why this is still a contentious issue for some who just won’t give it up.

The problem is that you open the doors to human interpretations once you add “unjustly”.

 

[Tomdstone]

“Turn the other cheek” is more a “rule of thumb” than a principle which always applies.

Who (other that your personal opinion) determines what is a rule of thumb and what is a principle which always applies?

 

[Bradski]

If I ask what caused everything and the answer was ‘something we call God and we should be thankfull to her (I’m an equal opportunity atheist)’ and we left it at that, I would probably roll my eyes and think that as explanations go, it’s not much of an improvement on turtles all the way down. But hey, someone once told me there could be more than one universe and there’s no evidence for that either, so who am I to complain about what people want to believe.

But…it doesn’t stop there, does it. You can’t just hold that belief in isolation. Because it’s just the wrapping on a cumbersome, complex and complicated package of beliefs, all of which it is necessary to accept as being not just possibly or even probably true but explicitly and undeniably true. It’s all or nothing, isn’t it.

You don’t want me to accept that she created the whole shebang. There’s a god in human form and an original couple and massacres and floods and eternal punishment and dancing suns and everlasting life and virgin births and a holy ghost and angels and a devil and…well, you know the story.

And just a thought for Xmas…if the Middle East had been a matriacal society back in the day, you’d be celebrating the birth of Her daughter tomorrow.

 

[PRmerger]

But…it doesn’t stop there, does it. You can’t just hold that belief in isolation. Because it’s just the wrapping on a cumbersome, complex and complicated package of beliefs, all of which it is necessary to accept as being not just possibly or even probably true but explicitly and undeniably true. It’s all or nothing, isn’t it.

Yes, you are correct.

You don’t want me to accept that she created the whole shebang. There’s a god in human form and an original couple and massacres and floods and eternal punishment and dancing suns and everlasting life and virgin births and a holy ghost and angels and a devil and…well, you know the story.

We want you go accept that God exists first…and, of course, that’s the ONLY answer for why there is something rather than nothing (which has been called our “trump card”, and I rejoice in that concession made by an atheist).

And then, we go from there.

We don’t say: accept God exists first…and then <boom!> believe in the entirety of the kerygma.

And just a thought for Xmas…if the Middle East had been a matriacal society back in the day, you’d be celebrating the birth of Her daughter tomorrow.

Not sure how that’s any argument, at all, about the truth of Christianity.

If you lived in the South in the USA in the 1860s, were a white male plantation owner, you’d be celebrating the purchase of several slaves.

But that doesn’t make any statement, whatsoever, about whether slavery, objectively is wrong.

So…

 

[Peter_Plato]

…it’s not much of an improvement on turtles all the way down.

Sure, Brad. “…turtles all the way down…” are very explanatory, in the same way that self-subsistent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Being Itself just doesn’t measure up (or down).

I would think that complete explanatory sufficiency, at the very least, gives us something to look into to try to understand what we don’t yet know completely, and keep us open to the truth and meaning of it all, whereas “turtles all the way down” just seems cynical and inadequate – given, I mean, that turtles, no matter how deep they are piled, don’t and can’t really explain anything whatsoever.

Feel free to believe in “turtles all the way down” if you wish and see where that gets you, but don’t continue to insist that you are interested in gaining any greater depth or sufficiency of understanding since your position appears to be that understanding itself only amounts to turtles piled higher and deeper,

 

[Bradski]

I want you to accept that I have a brother. Hey, no problem.

But now I want you to accept that he’s a biilionaire and has a castle in Scotland and he’s married to royalty and he works for MI5 and he was good friends with Castro and he plays off scratch and…hey, hang on…that’s all a bit of a stretch to accept.

Well, you either believe every single fact I give you about him or you are rejecting his very existence. It’s all or nothing.