Logical Fallacy

[Blue_Horizon]

Then how is it that saying there is no God is also not a pretend-explanation for anything?

It isn’t mean’t to be an explanation, just a denial of explanation’s that aren’t explanations.

For atheists who say “God is begging the question” there would still a problem to be explained.

They are happier with the as yet unexplained than with the falsely explained.

 

[seagal]

You ever come across that “enlightened Athiest” who shoots down all your arguments for anything as being logical fallacies? What do you in these scenarios? Things like tossing out “No True Scottsman” if you decry people that foster genuine hatred for gays while saying that they are Catholic as not being good Catholics or whatever.

Their “no true Scotsman” jibe can be dealt with fairly easily because we actually have a document that spells out exactly what Catholics believe – the Catechism of the Catholic Church. For example, your example of the proper Catholic attitude towards people suffering from SSA can be backed up with paragraph 2358 from the CCC

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It isn’t mean’t to be an explanation, just a denial of explanation’s that aren’t explanations.

For atheists who say “God is begging the question” there would still a problem to be explained.

They are happier with the as yet unexplained than with the falsely explained.

Of course atheism isn’t meant to be an explanation, since it denies there is an explanation. Atheism doesn’t look for intent or purpose behind the universe, because there is no designing intelligence to provide that intent or purpose. But how they think theism is a false explanation is beyond me, since they cannot prove there is no God, which would be the only way to assert the “falsehood” that there is.

But you raise an interesting point. They do seem to be happier with no explanation than the only possible alternative to no explanation – God. Why is that?

 

[livingwordunity]

Another point that I forgot to mention is that many who believe in God came to believe because of a personal encounter they had with God in one form or another. This is usually in the form of something miraculous happening in their life. There are several examples of miraculous events in my life, but one that stands out is when I was hit by a car while on a bicycle and did a flip through the air but came out of it absolutely uninjured and without even a scratch. Just before it happened, I had received a message which gave me specific instructions on what to do and was reassured that I would be fine. It wasn’t a voice, it was something like a thought that came instantly into my head. I was only 14 years old at the time and did a lot of stupid things. So I know that this couldn’t have come from my own intellect. This was years before I would convert to Christianity. Looking back, I believe that it was my guardian angel who interceded to save my life. This was around 1983 or 1984 when kids didn’t wear helmets or any other kind of safety gear while bicycle riding.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

But you raise an interesting point. They do seem to be happier with no explanation than the only possible alternative to no explanation – God. Why is that?

How people react to answers, lack of answers, and ambiguous answers falls under an area of study of psychology that would collectively deal with one’s sense of closure. There’s some implications from one’s ratings on need for closure (NFC) or lack of it and and some other personality attributes (reactions to authoritarianism, ability to suspend judgement, dogmatism, reactions to knowledge with positive or negative implications, so on). While there’s lots of relevance to this and other discussions in these forums it’s not a topic of discussion that I think many would care to follow or research. But for the few that might be interested taking a look at research on closure might be a good starting point to finding the answer for the above question.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Another point that I forgot to mention is that many who believe in God came to believe because of a personal encounter they had with God in one form or another. This is usually in the form of something miraculous happening in their life. There are several examples of miraculous events in my life, but one that stands out is when I was hit by a car while on a bicycle and did a flip through the air but came out of it absolutely uninjured and without even a scratch. Just before it happened, I had received a message which gave me specific instructions on what to do and was reassured that I would be fine. It wasn’t a voice, it was something like a thought that came instantly into my head. I was only 14 years old at the time and did a lot of stupid things. So I know that this couldn’t have come from my own intellect. This was years before I would convert to Christianity. Looking back, I believe that it was my guardian angel who interceded to save my life. This was around 1983 or 1984 when kids didn’t wear helmets or any other kind of safety gear while bicycle riding.

Thank you for sharing that.

I too have had similar experiences of miracles or events bordering on the miraculous, too extraordinary to be explained as normal phenomenon or pure coincidence.

I’ve also experienced consciousness of events happening at a great distance just as they are happening. One of them included a dream of a person who had just died during the night I had the dream that he had died. I was about 16 at the time of the dream. Another comparable but scarier experience happened when I was about 56.

The paranormal offers great possibilities to conversion as to the existence of other realms of being so long as one does not get caught up in it through a diabolical influence.

This is an area where logical fallacies are difficult to detect. You’ve either had the experience or you haven’t, and you either make the deduction that mysterious forces are at work or you don’t.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

How people react to answers, lack of answers, and ambiguous answers falls under an area of study of psychology that would collectively deal with one’s sense of closure.

Perhaps the most vital need for closure (literally) comes when the last hour of life arrives and everything is closing in on us. For many people closure consists of coming to terms with the Creator, even when one has never done so before or felt the need to do so before.

Again, there is no possible logical fallacy to attach to this need for closure.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Of course atheism isn’t meant to be an explanation, since it denies there is an explanation. Atheism doesn’t look for intent or purpose behind the universe, because there is no designing intelligence to provide that intent or purpose. But how they think theism is a false explanation is beyond me, since they cannot prove there is no God, which would be the only way to assert the “falsehood” that there is.

But you raise an interesting point. They do seem to be happier with no explanation than the only possible alternative to no explanation – God. Why is that?

I was only really offering a reasonable understanding only of those atheists who say people too readily posit a “god” to explain as yet unexplained physical events (ie begging the question).

Often they are right. We have only to look at history to see how “god” or superstition has been used to explain unusual natural happenings that were eventually explained by science.

We humans have a remarkable abhorrence for long tolerating the inexplicable.
We must have an explanation even if it involves fairies or conspiracy or paranoia or demons or aliens or Zeus or crystals.

Authentic Christianity and other mainstream religions (eg Buddhism) at their core are anti-superstitious regarding reason highly (but not solely) for that reason. Yet there are always significant numbers of people of “simple faith” even in mainline religions who easily fall into these “god of the gaps” weaknesses…because the unexplained is so intolerable.

 

[RGCheek]

It may even happen that when he explains the logical fallacy, you might catch him making an illogical fallacy. Maybe he made an assumption about your argument that you did not make. I Googled the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. This would only apply if you are talking about a “true” sort of thing; a “true” Catholic, a “true” so and so. If you did not say anything of this sort, then you can correct him.

I addition it is invalid to make comparisons of nationality to religion.

There is no defining set of values to be a Scotsman, while there is to being a Catholic.

So the ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy is never applicable to a discussion of religious behavior as the latter has standards and the former does not other than being born in Scotland.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . We humans have a remarkable abhorrence for long tolerating the inexplicable. . .

That’s not been my experience. Most people find that the more they know, the more they realizes what they do not know. Know-it-alls are frequently viewed as ignorant and prideful.

 

[RGCheek]

Thank you for sharing that.

I too have had similar experiences of miracles or events bordering on the miraculous, too extraordinary to be explained as normal phenomenon or pure coincidence.

I’ve also experienced consciousness of events happening at a great distance just as they are happening. One of them included a dream of a person who had just died during the night I had the dream that he had died. I was about 16 at the time of the dream. Another comparable but scarier experience happened when I was about 56…

Yes, I have had both of those events as well. I don’t want to go into a discussion of the first case, but the second is astonishing to me even now.

My father had been going into dementia for a couple of years beginning in 1998. He was in good care at a nursing home and expected to live for years more when he died on Easter day, 2000, just before 6:00 am Dallas time.

That morning I woke up from a dream that he had come to me and told me I was right, everything was beautiful and he was going to leave me and go to see old relative he had not seen in years. The last thing I remember was him telling me “Good bye, son.” and turning and walking away.

I woke up and it was 6:42 am East Coast time. They found him dead from a stroke ten minutes later and I got a call from my uncle around 8:00 am. I knew it was my uncle and what he was going to tell me before I even picked up the ringing phone.

It was uncanny.

It doesn’t prove God in my mind, but it does prove to me that there is more to life than materialism can explain.

 

[RGCheek]

That’s not been my experience. Most people find that the more they know, the more they realizes what they does not know. Know-it-alls are frequently viewed as ignorant and prideful.

Unless the ‘Know-it-alls’ are also equally aware of the limits to their own knowledge and some people are just jealous.

But I thank God every day that I am not a know-it-all and keenly aware of my ignorance thanks to my wife.

 

[RGCheek]

It’s not the same. Authentic Christianity requires that one work at making radical changes to their life to be more Christ-like which means constantly striving for self-denial and self-sacrifice, whereas an atheist can continue indulging in sin because they believe there is no one to judge them for it after they die. Belief in God stands in the way of self-indulgence.

I disagree. Though we are called to greater spirituality and thus greater reward in Heaven, we can skate by on daily confessions and sort of ‘gaming’ God similar to what Constantine is rumored to have done.

Jesus said His burden for us is light. What you describe does not sound light at all.

 

[RGCheek]

Disbelieving in God stands in the way of nothing.

It stands in the way of a deeper knowledge and understanding of ourselves, our future and our universe.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It doesn’t prove God in my mind, but it does prove to me that there is more to life than materialism can explain.

It even suggests what religion has always taught, that there is another world.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

We have only to look at history to see how “god” or superstition has been used to explain unusual natural happenings that were eventually explained by science.

That is true. But the “god of the gaps” argument does not preclude the existence of God, nor the providential nature of God. The materialists, skeptics, and atheists seem to have no choice but to create a “god of the gaps” who exists altogether as a chimera, a false explanation for anything. In which case the gap widens into an axiomatic universal that God cannot be used to explain anything.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

That’s not been my experience. Most people find that the more they know, the more they realizes what they do not know. Know-it-alls are frequently viewed as ignorant and prideful.

Sounds like the Dunning Kruger effect.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Sounds like the Dunning Kruger effect.

Known to persist in certain Chief Executives.

 

[RGCheek]

Sounds like the Dunning Kruger effect.

And what is the name of the effect academics have given to other academics who think they have explored a subject but really haven’t scratched the surface? They tend to dismiss people as cranks until reality strikes them. Oh, dash it all, I bet that their is no name for that one, but surprise me if you can. I love surprises.

For example, the common mathematical scenario of ten thousand coin flips in a row all resulting in heads. It is supposed to illustrate a fallacy that gamblers most often subscribe to, that the odds of the next flip is going to be tails are overwhelming. The academic laughs and says that the unbiased coin will still have a 50% chance only of coming up heads.

But the engineer knows that any coin that comes up heads is not an unbiased coin and knows that if it came up heads ten thousand times in a row it is deeply biased and will come up heads yet again. The engineer then wonders how on earth the mathematician could still remotely consider it the coin to be an unbiased coin.

I cant tell you how many times I have tripped up the sheep-skinned with that riddle.

Or the mathematical assertion that one cannot trisect an angle with an unmarked straight edge and a compass. It is in fact possible to do EXACTLY that. What is almost always left unstated is that the compass must also be a collapsing compass. So when I show people how one can trisect an angle with an unmarked straight edge and fixed compass (not mentioning the fixed nature of the compass) the academics guffaw, ‘Oh everybody knows that is impossible!’ When the reality is that no, it is not impossible at all, it is only impossible if the compass is a collapsing compass.

Of course it is easier to deflate academics with mathematical arguments and proofs because mathematics is an objective field of study. It is impossible to shine light into the academic mind whose expertise lies in subjective ‘sciences’ or philosophy or theology, etc. They simply sneer and retreat into an insistence that they are right because they learned it from Trusted Masters that I could never even hope to understand. And never even have a single doubt that all they are doing is trusting an institution to guide them eyes closed like every other tailless monkey in a suit that came before them back to the earliest Cromagnon shaman that split open a chest on an altar to a godling of their choice.

 

[livingwordunity]

I disagree. Though we are called to greater spirituality and thus greater reward in Heaven, we can skate by on daily confessions and sort of ‘gaming’ God similar to what Constantine is rumored to have done.

Jesus said His burden for us is light. What you describe does not sound light at all.

I was talking about the goal of authentic Christianity. Since we are generally prone to sin, most Christian’s in this world don’t live completely up to the high goal of perfection that Jesus has set for us. That’s why we have to struggle to be Christ-like. But the burden for us is light because, despite our failings, Jesus paid the price for our sins, and God is always there to forgive us when we repent of our sins.