Religious Question-Leave it alone? - Page 4

[Music-mommy]

Originally Posted by Smokering

Um... well, you could look up post hoc ergo propter hoc and see what it means... Translated, it means 'After this, therefore because of this'. Google Hume's Problem of Induction and you'll find many sites which explain it nicely.

So again, you avoid answering the question. Perhaps you do not know the answer? Yes I could look it up, but the whole reason to have a discussion is to explain things to people who may not know that which you reference. My personal experience has always been that people who do not explain things but choose to try bamboozling their counterpart with terminology, often do not understand what they are argueing enough to explain it in plain English.

Yes, 'God is real' is an assumption, just as 'God is not real' is an assumption (and scientific fact doesn't really enter into it, as secular science by definition has no comment on the supernatural). However, why do you say that logic cannot be applied to either of these assumptions? Presuppositional theology is largely dedicated to teasing out the implications of assumptions or first principles, and seeing if they can create an internally consistent, logically valid worldview.

ANd how does it do that?

As for 'fallacy', I use the term in a logical sense because that's how it's generally used. If you simply mean 'wrong', why say 'fallacy' which is generally associated with logic? Or are you using 'fallacy' in a completely different sense, with which I'm unfamiliar? Merriam-Webster only has it listed in the senses of 'wrong', 'logically fallacious' or 'deceptive'.

Because "wrong" supposes that there is a "right" or "correct" answer. An informal fallacy is an argument pattern that is wrong due to a mistake in its reasoning. I think the problem here is that I don't think there is a correct or right answer sometimes where as you seem to.

You say definitively that God has always existed, to me this is an informal fallacy as it is flawed in its reasoning. For there is no reasoning behind this except the belief that He exists.

[lyttlewon]

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

She's only 5! Five year olds may talk about what they believe in, but I hardly think she's trying to "convert" your daughter. A question to ponder is, would you be this concerned if a friend of your child's was Buddhist or some other non-Christian religion? What if your daughter had a friend of another race with major cultural differences? Would you want to limit that child's expression because it's different from yours, or would you see it as an interesting difference to talk to your daughter about?

One more note--not all Christians are "evangelical." Some of us believe that living our faith and being willing to talk about our experiences and answer questions if asked is enough. There are lots of us who think that ramming Christianity down people's throats is not the way to lead them to God.

I do understand that not all Christians are evangelical.

[Smokering]

So again, you avoid answering the question. Perhaps you do not know the answer? Yes I could look it up, but the whole reason to have a discussion is to explain things to people who may not know that which you reference. My personal experience has always been that people who do not explain things but choose to try bamboozling their counterpart with terminology, often do not understand what they are argueing enough to explain it in plain English.

Music-mommy, you asked me what the logical fallacy was, and I told you. I am happy to continue this discussion, but not if you are planning to be offensive. Can we continue to discuss this in a civil manner, or can we not?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc--translated, after this, therefore because of this--is the logical fallacy which is the secular scientific method. It has also been written as 'A occured, then B occured; therefore, A caused B'. The upshot of it is that in order to dogmatically declare that A caused B, one has to have more evidence than simply 'B happened after A', even if B happened consistently every time A was performed. The upshot of all this for secular science is that there is no philosophical justification for empiricism. While it makes common sense that A causes B (say, 'heating water causes it to boil'), there is no logical proof of it. The doctrine of occasionalism circumvents this difficulty (which was best expressed as Hume's Problem of Induction), by saying that while A and B are correlated, the cause of B is ultimately God's intervention.

ANd how does it do that?

...Using logic? I'm not sure what you're asking. If you want a full-blown exposition of Christian presuppositional theology, that's rather outside the scope of this thread, but I can recommend my husband's book The Wisdom of God at bnonn.blogspot.com, or the works of Gordon Clark or Vincent Cheung.

Because "wrong" supposes that there is a "right" or "correct" answer. An informal fallacy is an argument pattern that is wrong due to a mistake in its reasoning. I think the problem here is that I don't think there is a correct or right answer sometimes where as you seem to.

Hang on--are you saying there isn't a correct answer to the question 'Does God exist'? Also, your definition of 'informal fallacy' is wrong.

You say definitively that God has always existed, to me this is an informal fallacy as it is flawed in its reasoning. For there is no reasoning behind this except the belief that He exists.

Only arguments can be fallacious (in the logical sense of the word). If there is no reasoning behind the statement 'God exists', it is not an argument but an assertion--and while assertions can be right or wrong, they cannot be fallacious. The proof of the pudding when it comes to assertions is how well they comport to reality, whether or not they are self-refuting, and how they relate to first principles (unless they are first principles, in which case it's whether or not they can provide a valid and internally consistent metaphysic and epistemology).

[gaialice]

Originally Posted by Smokering

Only arguments can be fallacious (in the logical sense of the word). If there is no reasoning behind the statement 'God exists', it is not an argument but an assertion--and while assertions can be right or wrong, they cannot be fallacious. The proof of the pudding when it comes to assertions is how well they comport to reality, whether or not they are self-refuting, and how they relate to first principles (unless they are first principles, in which case it's whether or not they can provide a valid and internally consistent metaphysic and epistemology).

I agree with this. Some things, such as the eternity of life, for example - for me as a buddhist - cannot be proved logically, and I would not feel a need to do so. And much less with children as young as 5. But, I did say to my dds, life is eternal, nothing dies... do you see anything around you that just dies like that -- without turning into something else? there's nothing that just dies that way anywhere around us, and nothing is born that way anywhere around us. So how can life -- which is the sum total of all things that live -- ever have died or started on its very own? They asked no further questions and found that very reassuring. It is clear of course (and I am not kidding myself) that, because I am their mom, they find my faith in this assertion reassuring, more than anything else I said. This is why I wholeheatedly agree that you cannot present religion in a non-biased way, much as you would like to project a fair and non critical view of other people's beliefs.

[Music-mommy]

Originally Posted by Smokering

Music-mommy, you asked me what the logical fallacy was, and I told you. I am happy to continue this discussion, but not if you are planning to be offensive. Can we continue to discuss this in a civil manner, or can we not?
).

No I didn't ask you what a logical fallacy is, you'd need to re-read my post.

Anyhow, I am not interested in debating the definition of a logical fallacy. I'm not even interested in debating whether God exists or not. Because in the end my "belief" (I am not actually an Atheist believe it or not), is that there is no definitive answer to any of this, and therefore, that is the answer. And it is not important either, because if every person in the world spent one nanosecond every day focusing on being a good person, being respectful of other peoples' religions, beliefs, and trying to create a functional society, we wouldn't have the wars that we have and the hatred that we have.

So rather than argueing these trivial facts on a board like this we Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists alike should rather spend the time with our children teaching them to be more understanding of each other (which was the point of the original thread I might add!)

You first attacked my comment to my daughter about the fact that I was applauding her critical thinking, and twisted it into something else, to which I tried to explain myself, thinking that perhaps if you misunderstood my meaning perhaps others on the thread did as well.

I don't feel I've been uncivil in my arguements. Let's leave it here because we obviously are not connecting or making any sense to each other, and I feel like this argument is going in circles, so that doesn't interest me either. I'm learning nothing, you're learning nothing, and we've probably bored the pants off of the other posters.