I am pointing out that the consequent does not follow the ground, thus the conclusion is non sequitur. That is in fact a logical fallacy. Logic.
Actually, the fact that electricity is the flow of charges means that electricity is not God’s flaming sword (unless you’re using “flaming sword” in an extremely obscure, abstract sense) because a flow of charges is not a flaming sword. Nobody looks at an electrical circuit and says, “My, what a nice flaming sword you have there!”
I literally can’t believe you are trying to argue this point. It’s so ludicrous, in fact, that I’m starting to think you’re just trying to pull my leg. I’m going to invoke Poe’s Law.
Without logic, you could not carry out even the most basic reasoning.
Err…which logic? Classical logic? Intuitionist logics? Paraconsistent logics?
You make the same error in referring to logic as you do when referring to philosophy: there is no single logic just as there is no single philosophy. There are different camps that support mutually exclusive logics and philosophies. And so if you cite philosophy or logic to support your argument, you must qualify that reference by stating precisely which philosophy or logic you’re using.
That isn’t true. We don’t need science to explain logic at all.
I didn’t say we needed science to explain logic. We need science to show that certain arguments are sound or unsound. Like it or not, you demonstrated this point by invoking the Second Law of Thermodynamics to contradict my entropy argument. Logic would examine my argument and declare it valid, but wouldn’t have anything to say about its soundness. You need empirical observations for that.
Nothing about logic prevents us from using information derived from observation.
Logic doesn’t, but rationalism does. Rationalism holds that truth can only be derived by logical argumentation; any appeal to empirical observations is unnecessary and unfounded. This is why I asked you to refute my argument using logic alone, without appealing to observations. Predictably, you couldn’t do it. This shows that a rationalist view is insufficient. Or, at the very least, it shows that your logic isn’t sophisticated enough to verify the Second Law of Thermodynamics without empirical observations. And if your logic (which would presumably be the same as the logic of others) fails you in this regard, what makes you think logic
alone is sufficient to derive all knowledge?
Philosophy is the basis for all reasoning.
Again, which philosophy? Which kind of logic/reasoning? You act as though philosophy as a whole is unified, but it is quite divided. Different philosophies will tell you different things, and there isn’t even a common logic that can be used to prove or disprove certain philosophies, because the nature of logic itself is a point of contention, as I mentioned above.
So you are willing to accept a necessarily false logical contradiction as true because it is convenient? That is nowhere near any standard of intellectual integrity of which I am aware.
No, I told you that I don’t think it’s necessarily true; I just think it’s a mostly true guideline. There is nothing wrong with living by guidelines. You wouldn’t believe me if I said that immaterial fairies are fluttering about your room, and rightfully so. You wouldn’t believe it because there is no evidence for it and it’s unfalsifiable. You would probably react similarly to other unsupported, unfalsifiable claims. Does this mean that every unsupported, unfalsifiable claim is false or meaningless? No, it doesn’t. However, it sounds a lot more reasonable living as though such claims are false rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt, doesn’t it?
And, lo and behold, history shows that the human race progresses every time our standard of evidence becomes more stringent. Is it surprising that humans are correct more often when they don’t go around making things up at their own caprice?
You just made the atheistic hard determinism argument, replacing causality with little green men, and then pointed out how ridiculous it is. I agree.
If you insist on strawmanning my argument, the least you can do is make sense. I didn’t replace causality with green men; I just made them the cause of your body’s actions rather than your brain. In other words, I changed the cause, but I didn’t replace causation itself–the green men would still be causing the actions.
However I suspect that you think it is ridiculous because you cannot imagine how it could be true, correct?
False. I actually
can imagine that immaterial fairies and little green men exist. That isn’t terribly surprising, because I had enough imagination to concoct that “theory” in the first place, didn’t I? No, I reject it primarily because we already have scientific explanations of your actions in terms of materials (namely, anatomy and neuroscience), and so postulating immaterial beings to explain them is unnecessary and therefore violates Occam’s Razor. Falsificationism tries to keep people within reasonable bounds and prevent them from making wild metaphysical speculations where they aren’t needed.
And before you ask, no, I don’t think the most economical explanations are always true as Occam’s Razor would suggest. But the Razor is nonetheless a fantastic guideline. Again, humans are correct more often whenever they minimize the assumptions they make. The more guesses you make, the less likely you’ll be right.
(Oreilly rocks…atheists and all philosophers are…YOU GUYS) "except the hitler stuff at the end