Questions for Atheists

Hi Mike, Which one? It's no use you arguing against quotes that you don't produce. Both Open Mind and yourself seem keen to argue against Dawkins' arguments, without ever establishing what they are.I can't really answer your points if I don't know what you're referring to.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

That may be so, but it is still unfair to represent others views without some kind of citation. Oh, you mean the argument that Dawkins never made! Sorry Mike, but I call bullshit. He has never said that natural processes can answer everything. He makes similar arguments, but less fallaciously phrased. If you want to prove me wrong, find a quote. Well of course it is, that's obvious. It is however an answer to the God of the Gaps who has been so enthusiastically promoted in this thread.If we have naturalistic explanations for observed phenomena, we don't need to insert God as a flimsy explanation. What on Earth is fallacious about that?

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Hi Open Mind, I think you will find that Rrhain was posing a rhetorical question, one which you are taking out of context. You are doing exactly what you complain of Rrhain doing.Oh, and by the way, there is no argument from ignorance in the quoted snippet. I think you need to look up the definition of that particular logical fallacy before accusing others of employing it.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Scientific explanations for phenomena are not founded upon logic, but upon observation. However, where a naturalistic explanation sufficiently explains observations, it is only logical to (tentatively) accept that explanation above supernatural explanations, of which we could invent an infinite number for any phenomenon. If you want to talk about logic, logic demands that we base our explanations upon verifiable observation and that we make our explanations as parsimonious as possible. That means your fanciful talk of supernatural explanations (for which no evidence exists of course) is simply superfluous.Your supernatural explanation is indistinguishable from any number of supernatural explanations that I might invent. It tells us nothing. That makes it entirely worthless. Well if Dawkins has said this many times, it will be super-easy for you to find a quote substantiating this, won't it. I have no idea. Since I doubt he has said anything as stupid as that, I don't really care. A naturalistic explanation for thunder certainly helps eliminate an emotional need to explain thunder by reference to thunder gods though, wouldn't you agree? Why mention it then? As I understand it, his argument is more along the lines that God-based explanations are not required because of naturalism. Given a plethora of naturalistic explanations in the modern age, it makes the God of the Gaps argument for God's existence less compelling, since there are fewer unknowns demanding explanation, fewer gaps.Naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena are not an argument against God in their own right. They are, however, an answer to spurious arguments for God such as Paley's watch example or reference to alleged miracles. Such arguments may be superficially compelling, but arguing for God's existence from incredulity in this way will inevitably lead to fewer and smaller gaps for him to hide in. If you must insist upon worshipping the little God of the Gaps, then face it; naturalism is anathema to him. Saying that Dawkins doesn't believe in God because of evolution, as though this were the totality of his argument is the very essence of a strawman I'm afraid.Apparently I can shout bullshit for as long as I like, yet nothing I do will induce you to back up any of claims about what Dawkins has said with a quote. Oh well.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

I'm lazy too onifre, but I have a searchable PDF version of The God Delusion! Here's the bit you mention; Pages 50-51 in my copy.I would also place myself in category 6 and I think that this way of looking at categories of belief is quite useful. I think that the kind of fallaciousness Mike is talking about is inherent in position 7, but, of course, equally inherit in position 1...Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Grammar.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

With respect Mike, I think Dawkins puts it a bit better than you did. Don't you see? It's your injection of "purpose" into the discussion that lies at the heart of the lack of parsimony Dawkins complains of. Why should there be a purpose to something like, for example, planetary formation? Mindless physical forces seem to be doing an admirable job of explaining this phenomenon. Injecting talk of "purpose" tells us nothing new, is unverifiable and just clutters up the explanation. Physical purpose? I think that's something you just invented. It could certainly be better phrased, but assuming you mean something like "physical forces", then why exactly is explanation 2 more likely? You don't say. Any claim about the origins of everything that is will be pretty big don't you think? Besides, "just a chance consequent"? Who claimed that? Who said motive was an important consideration? Why do we need to consider motive in something like planetary formation? Once again, you are adding unnecessary entities to the explanation. And truism? If design were as much of a truism as you seem to think, this forum would not exist.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

It does not follow. Effect may require cause, but it does not require motivation and any use of such terminology is obfuscatory.The point I am trying to get across here is that an explanation which is a combination of chance and immutable physical forces is very far from the picture paint of "just chance" being the materialist's explanation. It's not true. Er, why? What is outside our universe cannot be usefully speculated upon. Dragging such imponderables into an argument is a very clear cut case of a lack of parsimony. You are doing a bang up job of confirming Dawkins' claims about the unparsimonious nature of arguments for God. You introduced talk of purpose mike and unless you can explain how "motivational cause" applies to evolution and not lightning, or how talk of "motivational cause" (I think you mean "final cause") adds anything tangible to our understanding of an event like planetary formation, it remains an extraneous entity, just waiting for the swoop of Occam's Razor, Aristotle or no Aristotle. I'm sorry, but it is not possible to think deeply about that. It's just too shallow.It's a terrible metaphor. You pick something that we all know is human-designed and human-made for a human purpose. The only purpose it has is the purpose put into it by a human mind. You then compare it to a range of non-human phenomena, where no mind or conciousness can be observed in the process. It's a completely false comparison.Humans have minds. Minds create motivations. Rocks floating through space don't have minds, yet they seem to be perfectly able to form into planets, without any kind of motivation, in much the same way that a pebble will fall to the ground without any kind of motivation. Why should a planet forming under gravity require concious intent, but (presumably) not a falling pebble? What is it that allows thunder to happen without motivation, yet requires a motivation for evolution?Unless you can actually point to some evidence of a conciousness at work, by some method other than the completely circular ones you have employed so far, any talk of "motivation" is meaningless. Perhaps you should be posting on Syamsu's thread, with his evil toothbrushes and optimistic egg-cups...

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

It is, simply because we can both accept, through observation that washing machines have been built for a purpose.We cannot know and, vitally, do not agree that, planets or biological organisms have a purpose. We are not privy to their conception, design and utility in the way that we verifiably are in the case of your washing machine. That's what makes the analogy so poor.Further, washing machines, even if we had never seen one before, have a clear purpose; washing things. The same cannot be said of planets, rocks or creatures. What is the purpose of a lump of sandstone? A bush baby? A tsetse fly? What is it for? No, for much the same reason as above. In one case, we absolutely know that motivations were involved. In the case of natural phenomena, this is not known, can only be speculated about, is completely without corroborative evidence and, fatally, adds nothing to our knowledge of the phenomenon under consideration, rendering it redundant. I chose rather to argue that there is no reason to believe that there is no "motivational cause" and, in the absence of evidence, it is most logical to (tentatively) believe that there is none. Yeah, and it's painfully obvious to David Icke that the Earth is ruled by alien shape-changing lizards. What is obvious to you is irrelevant to any discussion of what is actually real, as is the popularity of your chosen delusion. Then why, if you understand the fallacy involved in this line of reasoning, do you, as shown above, indulge in it yourself?I never had the cheek to claim that you were wrong because it was just obvious. What?! You said, in Message 90; These two statements are directly contradictory. You are lecturing others on logic whilst showing a complete inability to maintain a coherent argument. What I dislike is a circular argument based upon unfounded assumptions. What I like is Occam's Razor. You should try it some time, it works wonders. Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade