The Dawkins Deception (bogus reasoning on the "improbability" of God)

by hooberus 49 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Galileo

  Beginnings and Endings only have meaning within the context of Time. Remove Time and there are no Beginnings and no Endings. Time began with the Universe. Of course, it's difficult for us to imagine Timelessness (aka Eternity), but it's just as difficult for us to imagine a Universe with more than three physical dimensions.

  Yes, they only have meaning within the context of time. This argument of god being outside of time is no different than the argument that he has always existed. It still has no evidence to back it up, so requires none to refute, so here's once again my refutation that your god is outside of time, and I will give the exact same amount of evidence you have given: No he isn't.
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  BurnTheShips

  Can you religionists not understand that Dawkins, for all his faults, is merely trying to introduce measurability into the equation of faith. When he does so, faith falls away.

  The Dawkins is hardly "merely" trying to introduce measurability. It has an enormous agenda. The very fact that it can consider the "Ultimate 747" argument a viable disproof indicates a certain mental weakness.

  but you have already denied the power of this measurability in your first sentence.

  Explain.

  BTS
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  BurnTheShips

  No he isn't.

  If that is your belief, run with it!

  I don't believe that.

  BTS
• 

  VoidEater

  Hey, hey, folks - New Shimmer is both a floor wax AND a desert topping!

  Seriously, Dawkins has set up a limited possibility context for his logical argument. Rather than making the construct unwieldy with a variety of possible "beginnings", he's limiting things to "by chance". This gives the exemplar some precision and makes it more easily handled.

  It doesn't really matter whether whether "beginnings" is limited to "by chance", or includes "through natural selection", or even moves to "created by". The same comparison exists: however people got here, when you introduce a Creator, you have to apply that "beginning" to the Creator which is always an order of magnitude beyond whatever you are positing for humans.

  Burn, the difficulty with positing the unbounded-time context to God is that once you ascribe it to God, you can also ascribe it to anything, including humans. If God is in the timeless context and therefore had no beginning, it is only an arbitrary distinction to say that man could not also have originated in that context. Any of this may or may not be true - but from a logical perpsective, it is itself unbounded.

  Arbitrary assertions, like belief, are fine within the context of our own heads, but are the antithesis of logical development.
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  BurnTheShips

  Burn, the difficulty with positing the unbounded-time context to God is that once you ascribe it to God, you can also ascribe it to anything, including humans. If God is in the timeless context and therefore had no beginning, it is only an arbitrary distinction to say that man could not also have originated in that context. Any of this may or may not be true - but from a logical perpsective, it is itself unbounded.

  Void, seeing how humans originate in this timebound context daily, I don't see the logic of your argument. And even if it were asserted that man does originate in the unbounded-time context (which I do not), I hardly see how that makes any difference.

  BTS
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  VoidEater

  seeing how humans originate in this timebound context daily, I don't see the logic of your argument.

  Maybe they do - or maybe, since we posit a time-unbound context, perhaps we originate outside and poke through to here. Or perhaps we at one time started existence in the other context, and then started being born here. The possibilities are endless - once you posit a special case for the existence of one entity (God), that case can be said to apply to any other class of entities.

  It's just a case of being honest within the premise of the argument. I think this would be called "special pleading", or at least going beyond the scope of the premise. From a logical perspective, if you assert the special nature of one of your population, you pretty much have to allow for the special nature of other members of your population (in this case, we're dealing with a population of entities, and the logical argument is about beginnings).

  To arbitrarily assert that God is the one thing (perhaps by definition) that had no beginning, or was not created, or is not subject to any evidentiary limitations or logic, is perfectly ok - it's just not then a part of this logical argument.

  I am increasingly convinced that no logical grounds for God will ever be obtained. That doesn't make God non-existent - it merely shows He's not provable in the logical sense. By assertion, supposition, intuition, experientially - all fine; but not by logic.
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  Meeting Junkie No More

  Void Eater:

  I am increasingly convinced that no logical grounds for God will ever be obtained. That doesn't make God non-existent - it merely shows He's not provable in the logical sense. By assertion, supposition, intuition, experientially - all fine; but not by logic

  That's it!
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  BurnTheShips

  Maybe they do - or maybe, since we posit a time-unbound context, perhaps we originate outside and poke through to here.

  If our souls are each specially created by God who resides in Eternity, or if we reincarnate and come from the Eternity that way, then your statement would be true I suppose.
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  hillary_step

  Void.

  I am increasingly convinced that no logical grounds for God will ever be obtained. That doesn't make God non-existent - it merely shows He's not provable in the logical sense. By assertion, supposition, intuition, experientially - all fine; but not by logic.

  Of course, and this is the conclusion reached in most of these debates on this Board. I see nothing to be ashamed of in this position for the believer, though many religionists seem to feel it shameful to acknowledge what is actually a fact.

  I think the issue rears its head only when the religious mind tries to defend the indefensible. Then the conversation more often than it should slides into psuedo-sceince, psuedo-logic, and an appeal to the emotions rather than the development of rational thinking.

  This thread is a picture of such thinking. Hooberus seems to feel that in undermining the argument of one man, Dawkins, that then the sum of his arguments become void. Dawkins arguments are not unique, he just shouts louder than most. He is merely collating the philosophy and science of the past hundred years into a summation that is easily disgested by those who are not of a scientific bent. Does he make errors of logic here and there? Of course. Does he make minor mistakes in his scientific analogies? Yes, on occasion. Are his arguments thus defeated, of coure not.

  HS
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  BurnTheShips

  Of course, and this is the conclusion reached in most of these debates on this Board. I see nothing to be ashamed of in this position for the believer, though many religionists seem to feel it shameful to acknowledge what is actually a fact.

  I think the issue rears its head only when the religious mind tries to defend the indefensible. Then the conversation more often than it should slides into psuedo-sceince, psuedo-logic, and an appeal to the emotions rather than the development of rational thinking.

  I disagree with you. Naked Faith is worthy of being clothed with Reason, even if only for the intellectual exercise. And we cannot know that God cannot be demonstrated logically, every logical attack has met with a corresponding defence.

  BTS