Heaving Dead Cats » fallacy

Proof Against God

GMNightmare — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:29:08 +0000

The following is an article by GMNightmare which follows up from a previous post titled Your god is Not Omnipotent:

To start out, the definition I am using for god is any given being that can supposedly create matter out of nothing, is omnipotent, and is unbound by physical spatial traits. Furthermore I derive that an omnipotent god constitutes as an unstoppable force or can be the causation of such. The existence of such a god forms my hypothesis (which I will regard as true for this proof); therefore the following mainly concerns itself with monotheistic brands of gods.

Using the above traits, the god from my hypothesis could create an object of infinite size and maximum density. This theoretical object would literally fill the entirety of the universe, with every small speck of space filled with matter. This rock constitutes as an immovable object as there is nowhere left to move the rock and thus it is incapable of movement. As an aside it happens that god can create an object so large that he cannot move it.

However the existence of an immovable object by definition means that an unstoppable force cannot also exist. Since that is a part of the definition of god outlined above, I therefore must reject the hypothesis and assert that such a god cannot and does not exist. In particular a god that can create matter unrestrained cannot also be omnipotent in all regards.

Simple, short, and sweet… but the devil is in the details (ha ha). Any god with boundaries and limitations obviously escapes the above, but from my experience that’s the last thing any monotheist will even begin to contemplate (god being the biggest baddest supernatural being that ever was—who also happened to create everything—just isn’t enough, seemingly god must also have limitless power and ability). So please qualify objections to the below considerations.

1) Can god create an object so large even he cannot move it?

The answer given above is yes. To disagree, please provide what way the following proof is inaccurate and give an alternative:

a)      Definition: god is omnipotent (omnipresent as well).
b)      Definition: god can create matter anywhere out of nothing.
c)       Action: god creates matter everywhere he exists / in all space.
d)      Analysis: there is nowhere left to move the object, thus…
e)      Conclusion: god can create an object so large that he cannot move it.

It is a very logical progression given omnipotence that does not limit god in any way. Please refrain from self-defeating arguments, god cannot create space no matter how capable he is as space is nothing. I literally mean nothing, it doesn’t exist—it is the default before anything is created or exists there. Furthermore adding a step between c and d is self-defeating as well (such as removing a portion of the object to create space to move it) as it implies that before god does something to it the object is immovable.

2) Infinity and Gravity

The first thing to note is that the matter in the object from the proof is countable infinity and the force is not. Infinity in mathematics doesn’t actually exist either, so any mathematical attempts should have both these considerations explained with it. I’d also like to add here that a theoretically infinite object is at equilibrium and has no center, so that should take care of gravity qualms.

3) Hilbert’s Hotel Paradox

Hilbert’s Hotel paradox refers to a hotel with infinite rooms each filled with a guest (so full). However the hotel can accommodate infinitely more guests by putting a new guest in room 1 by having the guest in room 1 move to room 2, the guest in room 2 to room 3, and so on for each new guest. The conceptual flaw to this problem is that the hotel isn’t actually accommodating more guests; it’s just that there are now guests infinitely transitioning rooms. In other words the number of guests in rooms did not increase. This paradox cannot apply to the infinite object due to the incapability of having a transitional progression.

4) Beyond Reason

Please refrain from trying to tell me god is not understandable by human reason. Realize that there would be no correct religion if that was the case as no religion understands god, and there would be no assertions that god exists because it would be beyond reasoning. Besides religions often like to claim we were created in the image of god, thus cannot be outside of our reasoning. I’m going to make an assertion that anybody who asserts such doesn’t actually believe it… By saying god is beyond reason, nobody could then assert that anything above is wrong since it would be beyond their reasoning as well.

There we go, I think that covers all the rift-raft arguments. Let the fun begin!

Funny Tidbits To Make You Smile

Neece — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:58:23 +0000

Just a few funny tidbits to entertain you. Plus the Pale Blue Dot for a bit of awesomeness.

“There have been numerous cases where practicing christians have been obliged to obey the same laws and abide by the same rules as everybody else.” (How Barbaric!) Jesus and Mo

God! It’s like everyone I’ve ever slept with is here.

Hitler was a drug-free vegetarian. Do your part to fight fascism: eat meat and do drugs. (name that logical fallacy!)

Having a great vocabulary didn’t save the Thesaurus from extinction/eradication/extirpation.

Man and religion, a synopsis: They said christianity was a religion of peace…

Carl Sagan and the Pale Blue Dot. Awesome!

Logical Fallacies in Advertising

Neece — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:29:18 +0000

Awhile ago I wrote about Advertisements and Logical Fallacies. It was basically just an overview, but this time I thought I’d list some of the actual fallacies in advertising. No matter where we go, we’re bombarded with advertising and marketing. While companies have to follow the letter of the law and be “truthful” there are loopholes and ways to avoid following the spirit of the law.

This is part of a series on Logical Fallacies.

People are highly suggestible. That’s just the way it is. I’m a skeptic and I still fall prey to suggestibility. Usually I catch myself and then put on my critical thinking cap, but it happens to the best of us. The fact that companies (anyone using a marketing campaign, including governments) go out of their way to trick us into buying their stuff, meaning that more than ever we have to be critical thinkers in our everyday lives.

Ad Hominem: often used in political campaigns where some character flaw is brought up. If it doesn’t have anything to do with their ability to do their job, it’s irrelevant, and therefore a logical fallacy.

Appeal to Emotion: any emotion can be exploited. If they manipulate your feelings of sympathy, sexuality, anger, fear, love, pity, pride, flattery, wishful thinking, ignorance, etc., the company then snags you. You make a decision based on that feeling. No logic or real benefit is addressed. This is a type of Red Herring.

The Bandwagon: everyone else is doing it or buying it so you should too. But that is irrelevant. Even if 99 people in 100 buy X toothpaste, it doesn’t mean X toothpaste is a good product. It just means the company is good at marketing. Do your research!

False Dilemma: The either-or fallacy: Only two options are given when in fact others are there but not mentioned. This is black and white thinking. A company makes it sound like you have to choose between one of two extremes, and their product or service is the only choice you could make because the other is awful. In fact usually there is a range of choices or a continuum of how the situation works, not just the two extremes. And they may not even be mutually exclusive as shown.

Appeal to Fear: An appeal to emotion, this is common in politics and marketing. Deception and propaganda are used in an attempt to increase your fear and prejudice toward the competitor. The False Dilemma is implied, because if A is scary then B is offered as your only alternative.

Hasty Generalization: Making a decision based on insufficient evidence. Often there is a broad conclusion using statistics of a small group even thought it fails to represent the whole population.

Red Herring: A diversionary tactic. Bringing an argument up in response to another argument which does not address the real issue. Usually there is an appeal to emotion in there as well. There are many kinds of red herring arguments. Some used in advertising would be Appeal to Tradition, Style over Substance, Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, Appeal to Authority, and many more.

Appeal to Tradition: An idea is deemed correct based on the correlation with some past or present tradition. Basically, this is right because it’s always been done this way. Two assumptions are made: the old way of thinking was proven correct when it was introduced (when in fact this may be false), and the past justifications for the tradition are still valid at present (but the circumstances may have changed).

Appeal to Authority: Saying something is true because a perceived authority figure says it’s true. This is the opposite of the ad hominem argument because the arguer is appealing to positive characteristics of the person to support their argument. A classic example is a person in a lab coat. The person is probably an actor, but they appear to be a scientist so whatever they say must be true. Another example is a business suit. If someone has a nice suit on, it doesn’t mean they are experts at anything.

Answering Paul’s Questions

Neece — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:34:55 +0000

A person named Paul commented on HDC on GMNightmare’s deconversion story and I thought they were interesting questions. Both Johnny and GMNightmare already gave long answers, also worth noting, instead of letting it get lost in comments. And I added my 2 cents on at the bottom.

Here is Paul’s comment:

I have a couple of questions that I would like answered, and you seem like the type to answer questions. First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang? And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

I just have these questions, and no one can really answer them, except with some lame thing like “It just goes on and on”. And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily.

But what about our consciousness? It seems to me that consciousness is somewhat of a mystery in and of itself. Scientists can make a body, and they can put blood and oxygen in it, but yet they can’t make it live? So, if a consciousness isn’t something like a body, something that decomposes, what happens when the consciousness dies? Does it really just cease to exist? I can’t even imagine not existing. It just seems so foreign, to not exist.

Lastly, I don’t really get the term “gnostic atheist”. From what I’ve read, gnostics claim to “know” something, that other people don’t. So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?

First, here is Johnny’s reply:

I’m sure GMN will have a response; but I just feel the desire to chime in.

First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Do you have an actual documented example of something you would consider supernatural phenomena? Unless there is documented studies, physical evidence, or repeatable through scientific testing – its pretty much a big hoax.

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang?

Huge misconception here. Evolution DOES NOT explain the Big Bang and/or Abiogenesis — here’s a post with three short videos to help understand the difference.

And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

Science does not know all the details of the Big Bang and the singularity; but we know more and more all the time. Instead of assigning supernatural properties to it, science continues to seek answers; science knows it doesn’t have all the answers, but is doing everything possible to answer as many questions as it can.

And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily. But what about our consciousness?

We don’t know. But all evidence indicates that nothing happens. Consciousness ceases to exist when the brain dies. We have no evidence of something ‘on the other side’ – no one has come back to tell us or prove to us that ‘the other side’ exists. Thus the easiest, and most logical explanation is that there is no ‘other side.’

And here is GMNightmare’s reply:

Ah, now that is a respectful post. Thank you. I’ve actually been meaning to rewrite my article to make it a little less aggressive and explain some more, so answering your questions will help guide that.

Q.1) Supernatural phenomena

I’ll cover aspects of ghosts and such first. Most of these, mysterious circumstances are just that, mysterious. People are quick to jump to conclusions, that this weird thing they couldn’t explain must be a ghost. Quite often than not, it’s just their mind jumping to conclusions, natural instincts (*mind speak* hey hey, I heard a noise, something might be there that could eat us and it’s dark and I can’t see very well, run!) If you don’t know what caused it, you can’t then claim it to be a ghost did it. I mean, it was just claimed you don’t know!

And now we’ll cover medical miracles. I have never seen evidence of one. Many people like to claim, oh, they survived a deadly disease it’s a miracle, but that makes no sense. Some people do make it past deadly diseases, by coincidence or luck. There are always survivors, people do survive cancer naturally to a small percentage. Being in that small percentage is nothing magical.

And what about all the people who didn’t? Does god just choose who he wants to save from illness if this is what really happened? Here’s the real question in regard to this: why won’t god heal amputees? There has never been a case of an amputee being healed, now that would be a real miracle. There is a whole website completely devoted to that question, just type it into google.

Q.2) Evolution

I want to quickly say something over this, just in case we have a misconception here. Evolution only says what is happening to life, it doesn’t explain how life originated. Abiogenesis and other theories like that cover how life originated from chemical cocktails.

Now I’m going to jumble up your questions a bit to make them easier to answer, they build upon one another.

Q.3) “Science cleary states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have a beginning”

I’m sorry to say, but science does not say that. Okay, I’m not really sorry, but nowhere does science actually say that. Now I’m going to cover some advanced thinking here, so try to stay with me here:

Space is infinite? No. Although it’s commonly said to, what is space? Nothing. Space = nothing, you can’t have infinite of something that doesn’t exist. And this brings us to what is really said:
There is a finite amount of energy in the universe. There is a finite amount of stuff, in an unbound container. god breaks this, as god isn’t nothing, he must be stuff, and it’s claimed he is everywhere in the unbound container.

Yeah, that unbound container can be a tricky concept. But truthfully, we really don’t know if it’s unbound or not, because we haven’t been there… Does space somehow bend back into itself? We really don’t know. Yeah, it can be hard to fathom that space can just continue on forever, but it’s ridiculous to say that some magical being exists everywhere (doesn’t that just make it worse?)

And, energy does not have a beginning. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This is one of the primary laws of the universe. It may change forms, but it’ll always be there and can be assumed following all evidence always has. Now we’re going to use this in the following questions…

Q.4) Causer of the Big Bang

The cause of the Big Bang was a bunch of energy, compressed greatly. The energy then went kabooie and expanded out. That’s what caused it, the energy that as I had said, is naturally believed to have always existed and always will.

Beyond that, we do not really know. Using the above knowledge, we could say it has just always liked to repeat the course, but can we ever be 100% sure? Not really.

But remember what I said about supernatural occurrences with ghosts? Claiming we don’t know, then saying god did it… it was just claimed you don’t know!

Q.5) Time

Time doesn’t actually exist how you think of it. Time is only a measurement, an illusion because you remember what actions you’ve previously taken. It measures decay… and it’s completely arbitrary (IE, you could consider 2.5 seconds to be 1 second). It’s relative, due to decay being affected by the speed of particles.

There was no start of time, time doesn’t really exist. Just like a gallon doesn’t really exist, it’s nothing more than a tool to help manage our life and share information.

So we may like to measure our lives in our notion of time. And for us, yes, we have a beginning and end. But as I said earlier, pure energy does not have those constraints. So if you were looking for something not constrained by “time” as it where, energy is it.

Q.6) Consciousness

Very much controlled by physical reactions in the brain. I give you diseases like alzheimers. Physical damage damages our consciousness, it is very much tied down. And yes, we’ve as a species developed some marvelous consciousnesses, and we still have very much to learn about.

But as I like to keep saying, claiming knowledge because we lack knowledge… is baseless. Creating life took billions upon billions of years, it’s completely understandable that we can’t replicate it in a lab over an incredibly short period of time when we don’t even know that much about it!

Q.7) Existing

Of course you can’t imagine not existing, your existing. It’s rather a little silly, not that I haven’t tried mind you. Just think about before you were born. Boom, there you go. You know you didn’t exist before you were born, no pain or hardships right? Besides, existing forever would get really boring after a trillion years or so. Hell, some can’t even last 100 without killing themselves off.

Q.8) Gnostic atheism

“So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?”

Yes. And I quote from my article:

This brings us to the question, what is knowledge? Knowing does not mean truth; it means you regard it as true. Knowing is paradoxical in its nature, how can anything be known with exact certainty? It can’t, but for the sake of progress we have to start at some point.

I’ve argued against countless excuses for god. I’ve found fundamental flaws against any kind of omni-ability. I’ve argued against not only the existence but the uselessness of a creator. Essentially, I’ve argued if god cannot be known in this reality then god has no basis in this reality. I’ve even argued the word classification of the word god even.

All and all, perhaps it’s just more honest. I have found flaws and argued against all types of gods, how much more must it take to know? I’ve argued against the whole notion, reason, and existence of god… why can I not be certain there is no god?

The moment you define the term god, is the moment I’ll pick it apart.

And then there was little ol’ Neece. I think I want to say a few words on these questions too:

1. Supernatural phenomena: There is zero evidence of any kind of supernatural of any sort in the known universe. Everything that we have observed scientifically in this world is completely natural. That’s not to say that people don’t have weird experiences that they can’t explain given the little bit of data they’ve got from an event. But no one has ever grown back an ear that has been cut off, or a limb. As GMN says, go to the website Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? God doesn’t because he doesn’t exist and humans have never evolved the ability to regenerate limbs. It’s usually safe to rule out anecdotal evidence as simply a story; even if the person telling it believes it, it doesn’t make it factual. It’s also the case that the human mind fills in the gaps as it processes huge amounts of data at any given instant. This leads to pareidolia which can lead to thinking you’ve seen or heard something that really wasn’t there.

2. I think the guys covered the Big Bang pretty well. I think at this point the main theory is that the Big Bang started as a Singularity where all matter was compressed into a teeny little speck and then expanded rapidly outward. Of course, they are still studying and gathering more data in the cosmos to verify this theory. But no one knows what happened before the Big Bang. Still, that doesn’t mean that someday we might not know. And it certainly doesn’t mean that anything supernatural caused it. That would be falling on the fallacy of the god of the gaps. The great thing about science is that they keep asking questions and looking for answers. It is a never-ending quest. Scientists don’t just throw up their hands and give up when things get tough and say well, then god did it. So far all the answers are completely natural. I can’t stress that enough.

And no, science never said that nothing is infinite. In fact, I would remind you that matter can never be destroyed. It just gets converted to energy. And time is just a concept that we use to make our lives easier. It’s very real to us, but don’t forget the theory of relativity.

3. What happens when we die? We die. Our consciousness dies with the death of our brain. There is no evidence of life after death. It’s all completely anecdotal. While it may seem frightening, you didn’t exist for billions of years before you were born. So when you die, you will again cease to exist. It’s really not much of a mystery. It just seems strange because we have so many myths that cling to the idea of life or lives after death. Again, there is no evidence that our consciousness is eternal. You’ve got one precious life. Make the most of it here and now!

4. I would also call myself a gnostic atheist. I think it’s pretty clear that we live in a completely natural universe. I am confident that there are no gods or supernatural beings or phenomena in the world.

How To Argue

Neece — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:02:04 +0000

Almost all of us argue or have discussions. But there’s actually a right way and lots of wrong ways to go about it. As an ethical person, I don’t really want to do it wrong because that’s being dishonest and unfair. I am definitely not a debater, which is where people actually use logical fallacies on purpose to win an argument. I don’t really care for debates because they seem forced to me. It’s about winning, not about finding out the truth. I think the main reason I hate arguing is because most people fight dirty. I am sure I’ve done it too, mainly out of ignorance. Now, with the following information, we can argue more logically.

Yesterday while being domestic, I was listening to podcasts. The following one was so cool, I actually decided to transcribe it for you because it was both concise and chock full of good information.

Here is a pretty close transcript to this podcast episode. It’s not exact, so you can listen to it to get everything I left out, which was where someone started a sentence or a thought and didn’t finish it, stuff like that. I also turned it into more of an article and less of a conversation. So really, it’s a companion to listening to the podcast (which is about 6 minutes) and for your convenience.

How To Structure A Logical Argument
by the Skeptics’ Guide 5×5, Episode 62, March 19, 2009

There are two components to any argument:

Premises – the facts you base your argument on

Logic – connects your premises to the conclusion that you’re trying to draw

Some important properties of logical systems should include:

Consistency: nothing in your argument should contradict one another.

Soundness: the system rules for proof will never allow false interference from a true premise

Completeness: there are no true sentences in the system that cannot be proved in the system

It’s very important that logical arguments are only about factual claims and not value judgments. Value judgments are by definition subjective and are not amenable to logical arguments.
Another important thing to keep in mind is what logical fallacies are and to look for them not just in your opponent’s argument in order to deconstruct that, but also to get them out of your own argument. It’s very easy to fall into certain traps without realizing it. Studying common logical fallacies can really help you tone up your own logical argument.
One key is that the purpose of an argument shouldn’t be to win. It should be to figure out what is valid, what is true. If two people disagree, then one or both people is making an unsound argument. So something would be wrong with one or both arguments.

Unsound argument: not based both on true premises and valid logic.

First Goal: Decide what the common ground is. What are the points you can both agree upon? What are the premises that are rock solid? Then proceed very carefully from there, examining each premise and all of the logic every step of the way to find out who is wrong here, who is making the incorrect assumption, who is making a hidden premise, who is committing a logical fallacy or are both of you?

Don’t neglect your own arguments. Don’t assume you’re right and the other person is wrong. Proceed in a careful manner.

If two people examining the same math problem came to a different answer they wouldn’t just start yelling at each other. They’d say OK, let’s go through it step by step and see who made a mistake, or maybe both of us made a mistake and we’ll figure out what the right answer is.

An argument is the same thing. It has a structure.

One important thing to note: if you start with premises that are true, and you make a valid logic, that is what is called a Sound Argument. The conclusion of a sound argument must be true, by definition. Therefore if two people disagree they can’t both be making sound arguments. And that includes yourself.

Also, you really do need to listen to the person you’re arguing with. A large portion of the discussion is going to be reacting to the other person. You’re going to be formulating your thoughts, ideas and responses as that person is telling you what they believe. You’re preparing your next statement as you go. You really do need to take into account what they’re saying, or else you’re having a one sided discussion.

A good component of a constructive argument: It’s very helpful to try to explain your position to someone else. When you are forced to make someone else understand your position, then it really exposes some of the holes and gaps in your logic and your thinking. You’re trying to make your position unambiguously understood. You’re exposing all of your premises, you’re not hiding them. You’re exposing all of your logic, you’re explaining it to yourself and the other person at the same time, and then you’re giving them the opportunity to do the same thing.

Again, a good place to start is, what is the common ground. What are the things we can agree upon?

Some discussions are about value judgments, and if you expose that, OK we’re talking about something that is a subjective opinion here, then you can at least agree to disagree and then you’re not wasting your time that can’t be resolved with facts and logic.

Conversations With Craig The Christian 2 – Biblical Interpretations and A Logical Fallacy

Neece — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:51:09 +0000

Remember Craig the christian from last month? He emailed me yesterday about the recent post I wrote: Cherry-Picking and a bible Lesson for Atheists. I’ll quote his email and then post my replies.

Craig said: I do not have a problem with your use of the Skeptic’s Bible per se. The issue I have with the Skeptic’s Bible is the use of the King James Bible, which relies on later documents for its translation (8th and 9th century if I remember correctly) as opposed to the 1st and 2nd century documents other translations use (NRSV & NET to name a few).

Neece’s reply:
If you know of a more accurate interpretation of the bible that I can link to online and read online, can you link me? Otherwise I’ll stick to the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. Because it’s the one people know best, and it’s the one I was indoctrinated with, and it honestly shouldn’t matter that much for the following reasons below.

Craig said: Unchecked, the Bible can be made to mean a number of things. The Bible has been used to support slavery and patriarchy. It has also been used to try to define marriage and condemn homosexuality. I’m sure we will get into these matters at a different time. My point is, that the Bible does none of these.
There are three different courses of action on can take when interpreting tricky passages from the Bible
1. Cherry-pick from the texts
2. Ignore difficult texts
3. Admit that we don’t know what the text means and hope that future research will shed light on the meaning.

(Neece’s note: Craig thoughtfully included commentary regarding the quotes I chose in the bible lesson for atheists from April 7th, but I am omitting them here. If you’d like me to include them, comment below and I’ll add them to the bottom of this post.) Instead of getting tangled in the apologetic thinking of the commentary, I said this:

Neece’s reply:
Regarding the bible verses and their interpretation, I think that the word of god should be infallible and shouldn’t be ruined and easily misinterpreted by man. It should be the same in every language, and should be offered to every culture in their own tongue, by god himself, if it should even be necessary at all. Why can’t god make it so that we’re born with an inherent understanding of our creator? Why did this local god play a prominent role in the lives of the Israelites, who ordered the killing and maiming, the torture and deaths of women and children, as well as people who made the slightest error in their worship of that god says a lot to me. The sheer barbarity of the bible is telling. It certainly doesn’t read as a divinely inspired text of love and understanding. It is conflicting at almost every turn, it’s barbaric and cruel and unjust, just like the people of that time.
Why only preach to the men of the Middle East and make those few men tell the rest of the world? It is so easily warped and interpreted to suit anyone and everyone, whether for good or ill. It was written by men from many different walks of life, and many different political eras, over a huge range of time. The stories are all stolen from more ancient religions, and not much of it is original, which is quite telling as well. It all leads to a text that, in its original form, is relevant historically, but certainly doesn’t appear to be divinely inspired.
If god existed, and cared about humans, the bible wouldn’t be easily misinterpreted and would not contradict itself in any way. The message would be simple and clear and probably quite concise.

What you said is the exact opposite of what I think about the bible. What do you mean by the statement that the bible does not support slavery and patriarchy, that it doesn’t define marriage and condemn homosexuality? That is exactly what it does. Sometimes by different authors in different books, sometimes with a different message, but often the same statement of hatefulness as the others.

It says those things plainly in some cases, and in other contexts it’s more a part of a story. But usually it’s pretty plain and blatant what it means. So what do you mean that the bible doesn’t do that? What does the bible do, then? What is its purpose and what is its message? What does the bible do? What is its moral stance? I ask because I was assuming a more direct interpretation of the text, and now I am not sure where you’re coming from.

Next, Craig quoted me from the Cherry-Picking article. I said: “Hey, if I am smart enough to realize that, don’t you think an all powerful god would figure it out too? Maybe it’s because he was just all made up and not really there. That would be the simplest and most logical explanation. Especially since there is zero evidence of yahweh or any other god ever having existed in any fashion.”

Craig said: I debated how I was going to respond to this because I don’t want to come off harsh or sound like an arrogant ass. In fact, I was very hesitant to respond in this way, but I really can’t see any way around it. It’s taken me about four days to get it to this point. So please keep that in mind as you read on.

Zero evidence does not equate non-existence. Saying that something does not exist because there is no evidence is a logical fallacy, the fallacy of negative evidence, or more specifically the argument from ignorance. I pulled this from Wikipedia:

“The two most common forms of the argument from ignorance, both fallacious, can be reduced to the following form:
* Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
* Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.”

I will concede that this same fallacy can be applied to Christians because it can be said that we make claims that there is a God when there is a lack of evidence.

First, I don’t think Craig sounded like an arrogant ass. I forgot to tell him that in my reply.

Neece’s reply:
Zero evidence does not equate to non-existence. That’s true.

Claiming that a supernatural being in the sky is the creator of the universe and only started talking to men in the middle east about 6,000 years ago, and simply ignored all other humans before and since is pretty extraordinary. Not to mention virgin births, talking snakes, rising from the dead, etc. It’s all pretty magical.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If evidence came along that was convincing and extraordinary, after it was verified and retested, I’d reconsider my position on the existence of god. But since I’ve yet to come across any evidence, then the burden of proof is on you to show and verify the existence of god.

If I say I am the best bread baker in the world, I’d better be prepared to back that claim up. You come along and say you don’t believe me. That’s your prerogative because there’s been no evidence for my claim. So why should you believe me for no reason? That’s faith, which is based on belief without proof.

If I say the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU) visits me every other Tuesday if it’s raining, then I had better be able to show the IPU in all her glory off to a bank of scientists who want to verify her existence. There’s no difference. I’m sure you don’t believe in the IPU. Would you say that is an argument from ignorance, too?

Neither one of us believes in Santa Claus anymore (I hope) and that isn’t an argument from ignorance. There’s no evidence of Santa and no proof of his existence, not to mention his very existence would break the laws of physics. So we can say we don’t believe in him without argument. That isn’t a fallacy.

Now, if Santa walked into the room and offered to prove his existence to us and show that he can fly in his sleigh and deliver tons of presents to good christian boys and girls all over the world, I’d be skeptical, but I wouldn’t stop him from doing the tests.

Skepticism is about holding off judgment, being doubtful and thinking critically. We want proof of wild claims, instead of ignorantly believing everything that is told to us.
Skepticism doesn’t mean we flat out deny everything and don’t believe anything. There’s a huge difference.

There IS ZERO evidence for yahweh or any other god in history having existed in any fashion. And since yahweh makes some huge claims, just like I’d require extraordinary evidence for cold fusion, I’d want it for yahweh. No evidence? Well, I see your point, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist, but the burden of proof lies on the claimant. You claim there is a god, so you have to prove it. I can’t prove a negative. So I am left with lack of belief in a god.

That’s not to say that I can’t change my mind if there was proof and evidence and it all followed testing and the scientific method, which is the best way to verify claims that we have. Until then, you don’t believe in leprechauns any more than I do, and that’s not an argument from ignorance any more than my lack of belief in gods.

Cherry-Picking and A bible Lesson For Atheists

Neece — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:59:18 +0000

I was stumbling around the intertoobs and found a blog post at dmiessler titled The Jesus Quote You’ll Never Hear In Church. The quote is as follows:

Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Now, this is actually the end of the parable of the talents that jesus is telling. Basically the lesson that jesus seems to imply is that god takes what is not rightly his and reaps what he didn’t sow. Of course, jesus freely admits that he tells parables to confuse people so they will go to hell:

Mark 4:10-12 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.
And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

Not very nice, is it? Then again the bible is full of amoral cruelty and malice. Most people talk about the old testament, which is rife with stories of god slaughtering and maiming just about everything because he’s so angry and jealous. But the new testament is full of nastiness as well. The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible has compiled a nice list to make it easy: Cruelty In The New Testament, so I won’t go over each one.

Anyway, regarding the first quote above from the book of Luke, christians will retort that it was a parable, not a quote. But right after the story, he tells his disciples to go steal a colt so that he can ride it into Jerusalem (Luke 19:30). So if he’s willing to have his disciples steal for him and take what wasn’t his, it really isn’t out of context, now is it?

I really must point out one other new testament quote by jesus, because it shows that he is just as petty and cruel as his dad:

Luke 14:26, 33 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

What kind of kindly, peace-loving godlike person would say such a stupid thing? Then again, just read all the heinous things that god did in the old testament to see that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Anyway, this all reminded me about cherry-picking, which is a logical fallacy. I’ve found that it’s quite natural for people to cherry-pick information to suit their needs. You remember the bad times with your ex and happen to forget how many happy times you had together. Or, the most famous and irritating of all, christians take the bible and filter out the parts that support whatever message they are trying to find there and simply ignore the rest. When you call them on it, they say you have to take the icky bits in context, because then they show that they really aren’t amoral and cruel or malicious, just misunderstood.

What they are really doing is using their flawed logic and ability to cherry-pick to interpret the bible any way that suits them, for whatever personal purpose or gain they may be advancing.

I don’t think you need to read the bible in context. And you don’t need to cherry-pick at all. Why? Because supposedly this ancient collection of stories from the bronze and iron ages in Mesopotamia is the infallible word of yahweh. So, I contend you are in one of 2 camps: the bible is the infallible word of your god and you should follow it completely (which is completely insane and I’m not recommending it), or the bible is a collection of stories written by goat herders in the Middle East a long time ago and holds some historical relevance, and that’s it.

Why on earth would I say such a thing? Because cherry-picking shows that your argument is weak and flawed. So if you distill the bible to just the bits that you like and throw the rest away, you’re basically saying that you are superior to your god. Yeah, that would be the same god that enjoyed the smell of burning goat flesh and killed innocent babies and whole cities on a whim. That would also be the same jesus that says that you have to hate your family to be his disciple. You can’t subject yourself to this barbaric god while only choosing to follow 15% of what he demands. How is that going to get you into his good graces? Wait, he doesn’t have good graces.

Also, if the bible was the true word of god, it would be crystal clear, don’t you think? It certainly wouldn’t be vague and contradictory, and it wouldn’t lose its meaning if it were taken out of context. If I were a god and I wanted people to love me and respect me, and I wanted to have a book for them to read, I’d make sure it was simple, clear and well written. But yahweh went to a whole bunch of half literate men over a long period of time and continually contradicted himself. Then he supposedly let a bunch of power hungry guys in Nicea cherry-pick the books that would be called the official bible and throw the rest away. Why would yahweh let himself be edited like that if he’s god?

There were people all over the world at this point. But he only went to Mesopotamia. Why is that? Why didn’t yahweh have the exact same book written in Chinese, Aboriginal, Latin, Nordic, American Indian, and Hindi, just to name a few? Each book should have been dictated in every language, all over the world, because otherwise yahweh is only saving the barbaric goat herders in one small area. That means that millions upon millions of people were supposedly condemned to die because they never heard about the local god of Abraham? It makes no sense, especially if yahweh wants to be worshiped and loved. If he really wanted people to worship him then he’d have shown up in other cultures and would have clearly given them the rules and information he gave to the Fertile Crescent.

Hey, if I am smart enough to realize that, don’t you think an all powerful god would figure it out too? Maybe it’s because he was just all made up and not really there. That would be the simplest and most logical explanation. Especially since there is zero evidence of yahweh or any other god ever having existed in any fashion.

Just because you choose to believe it, doesn’t make it real or true. And just because your parents told you jesus was watching over you, doesn’t make that true any more than the easter bunny. Use your mind. Think for yourself.

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