Bohemian's Waterfall
I was finally banned from a debate:
http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/
It seems to me that there is no measure of conformity of thought like conformity of outward actions. So to be concerned with one is to be concerned with the other.
Well the actions that government is concerned with are those affecting the survival of society and it's prosperity which is only a fraction of all possible actions, even so one may conform in action and dissent in thought or to dissent in both action and thought.
I think removing "those specific" from the statement wouldn't detract from it's meaning at all so... Do you think of yourself as "anti-religion"?
I am only anti-religion when religion is anti-me. I may dispute religion in terms of veracity and usefulness, but so long as religion doesn't presume to dictate my actions or beliefs then I am perfectly fine with others being religious.
I don't think you can make a critical comment about religion in general without referencing something that's not common to every religious sect.
Here is something common to all of religion the priority of faith over reason, and the presumption of the supernatural.
The same goes for government. If you can point out something about government in general that is objectionable without referring to a specific type of government, I would understand my logic to be flawed.
Have you ever conversed with an anarchist?
Well I think that what it would be overwhelmingly deleterious of, would be the false distinction that there are religious and non-religious people.
Of course there is a distinction between the religious and the non-religious, it may not be a black and white distinction, but a distinction can be made nonetheless.
Group think has it's advantages and disadvantages.
Social advantages I'm sure, but as for epistemological advantages there are none.
Do you agree that the institution of a government is the same sort of "move away from independant thought"?
Disagree. Any legitimate form of government is concerned with actions and not innate personal beliefs. Political parties on the other hand do lend to this sort of group-think. George Washington in some of his early statements expressed his concerns over the creation of political parties.
Please critique the following statement: "Religion consists of those specific philosophical principles that an individual decides to live up to and promote"
If I were to find fault with this statement it would be the use of the word 'Specific'. The principals a religion chooses to promote are often very inter-related not only with each other but with the dogma of that religion. Some of the more successful religions typically include doctrine which attempts to punish or dissuade dissenting thought. There are notable excepts however.
You might criticize a religious sect as you recognize it, but to criticize religion itself would be just as pointless as attempting to criticize government in general.
I don't see anything pointless about either. Both of these social institutes exert an incredible influence over our lives so it is important to criticize them so that they remain honest, the problem with religion is that people are often afraid to criticize it publicly.
Are you willing to defend the "can only" portion of that statement?
How about if I said "overwhelmingly will", would that be better?
For largely the same reason I oppose atheist "churches". It is a move away from independent thought and towards group-think. It is these belief re-affirming institutions and practices that I have criticized religion for. To make atheism more like religion can only have a deleterious affect, not just on atheists but on everybody. It gives the impression that we must totally surrender ourselves to some pre-defined school of thought.
Strangely Enough:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/
Although Personally I would oppose this move.
I forgot that we're supposed to pretend that your arguments aren't rife with fallacies, because you don't understand them. It's like you think your arguments should be given special considerations because you're an incompetent debater. I'm not going to afford you that luxury.
You miss the point entirely. Point being that it does not require faith to not believe a proposition for which there exists contradicting evidence. If I have evidence that the sun won't explode tomorrow (e.g. everyday that it has not exploded) then I am not taking this on faith, I am taking it on evidence.
To say that the sun won't explode tomorrow and to say that the sun won't explode ever, are fundamentally different statements. One of these statements we have evidence to support and the other statement we do not. We have no instances of a star existing forever because we have not been around forever to witness one, but we have been around long enough to see several stars explode. We have innumerable instances of the sun existing the next day.
To insist that anything except absolute certainty is faith, is to misunderstand what it is to have faith.
past results are indicators of future results is one believed by faith.
Past results are evidence, good evidence. He is not saying that his car will never break down, but that is it unlikely to break down tomorrow. Given the exact same conditions you are going to have the same results, and the condition of your car is not going to change much over the course of one night. Thus why it doesn't require faith to believe your car won't break down tomorrow given that it has a long reliable history or to believe that the sun won't go supernova tomorrow.
If this was the case, then calling you lier would be all I need to do.
If you provided a link to where I said something opposite to what I am currently saying, then yes. Just as I typically supply a link to the fallacy that I accuse you of committing.
The evidence is that your statements reflect the fallacy. I'm not sure what more evidence you require. Should I juxtapose your statements with the fallacy, would that satisfy you?
Nothing else is required. A fallacy by definition is an invalid argument. If I point out that you've committed a fallacy, then I have shown your argument to be invalid. I almost always provide a link to the fallacy, so observers can see for themselves that you have in fact committed that fallacy.
I actually went back and looked at the post your were responding to and unsurprisingly you put words into his mouth.
He said this statement was illogical:
A is X
therefore
Not-A is X
then you began arguing:
A is X
Therefore
X is A
So even though what you said was still illogical it didn't address his argument. These were two different arguments.
I wonder where are you having these sort of conversations where people describe faith this way. It seems an uncommon way to describe faith according to my experience.
It is the example that you gave, is it not? People give these sort of examples when they are trying to show that faith isn't just intellectually lazy and/or illogical.
Indeed repeated observations strengthen faith
Repeated observations constitutes evidence. If you have evidence then you don't have faith.
But not having observed something happening before isn't necessarily a reliable guarantee that something won't happen.
One does not require a guarantee to NOT have faith. One only needs evidence. How reliable that evidence is depends on the strength of the evidence.
I don't believe that one can believe something without evidence.
The world is full of examples of people who believe things without evidence. I suspect you think evidence is merely anything that persuades a person.
I will use the definition of evidence as provided by the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Evidence is that which raises or lowers the probability of a proposition (of being true).
While pascal's wager may persuade one to accept Christianity it does not change the probability of Christianity being true. People can be persuaded by things other than the likelihood that a given claim is true.
Actually I don't notice a meaningful distinction between the proven and the trusted.
Zombee was mostly speaking about the difference between proof and evidence.
I will go on to say that most proven things are trusted, but not all trusted things are proven. Proof is that which decisively leads us to only one conclusion. If some fact can lead us to multiple contrary conclusions then it's not proof. What you seem to be saying is that nothing can truly be proven.
This is the common example I get, that people have 'faith' that some event won't occur for which there is no reason to believe it would occur to begin with. I would argue that it doesn't require faith to believe that the sun won't explode tomorrow, because everyday that we have lived that the sun has remained intact is strong evidence that it won't explode tomorrow.
By faith I am referring to: strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence. I think you are referring to faith as simply trust in something unproven.
Maybe I should state the obvious once more: Sarcasm is not a substitute for an argument, you are simply trying to sidetrack the conversation so that we will stop talking about your mistake. You were wrong, clearly. The question is whether you will admit your error or not.
No, it is converse as in opposite, inverse, or contrary in direction.
Unfortunately for you this isn't a math debate. You were trying to use fallacious logical argumentation. Premise and conclusion mustn't always be inversely true, which is what you are arguing.
An example of a converse error is; Man evolved over thousands of years, so evolution must be the origin of man.
This is not even remotely close to what a converse error is, nor any other fallacy for that matter. You are completely missing a conditional statement. In your example you have only stated X therefor Y.
The converse error goes as follows:
If P then Q
Q Therefore P
Your example only states Q therefore P which by itself is not fallacious. Only when it is used in conjunction with a converse statement does it then become fallacious.
An example of the Converse error would be:
If I have the flu, then I have a sore throat.
I have a sore throat.
Therefore, I have the flu.
All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.
You have committed the Converse Error aka Affirming the Consequent which is an invalid form of reasoning and a formal logical fallacy. If the school you went to teaches that this is an acceptable form of reasoning then I would highly recommend that you find a new school.
