diana

That's not really the fallacy of special pleading. It's just scientific ignorance or (if you want to be gracious) "poetic license." (Special pleading is using the exception to plead the rule. That is, arguing that seatbelts aren't a good idea because I have a friend who hit a tree and was saved from certain death because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.)

I always thought of "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God" was simple Poisoning of the Well. We can add Attacking the Person, probably an unstated but understood Fallacy of Exclusion, and let's toss in one of my personal faves, Untestability.

Since when was "Redundancy" a fallacy? It is a rhetorical tool, but calling out your opponent on a single instance of repetition looks petty indeed.

And isn't Circular Reasoning just a specific form of the Begging the Question category? You wouldn't pad your results, now would you?

d

Ernest Sparks

This line is also part of a song, to be accompanied by harp, and probably filling the sound demands of the original language. Besides, some fool may very well have said this. That fool might also have said "E = MC^2". Some non-fools may have said it too. To deny this is probably a commission of ILLICIT FORCED AFFIRMATION OF A CONDITIONAL'S ANTECEDENT.

Stormy

Seems like a tall order for one who admits that he does not know the Truth.

diana

Boro Nut? Is that you?

OH hell...:notworthy

d

Ernest Sparks

Stop bowing, diana. I'm not boro-nut. I've been registered here for a number of years now.

diana

I know. I meant it as a compliment.

Time to rerail the thread....

d

apple spirit

The man whispered; God, speak to me!
and a meadowlark sang, but he didn't hear.
So the man yelled; God speak to me! -
and the thunder rolled across the sky, but he didn't listen.

The man looked around, and said ; God, let me see you!
and a star shinedbrightly, but he didn't see.

And man shouted; God, show me a miracle!
and life was born, but he didn't notice.

So the man cried out in despair: Touch me God, and let me know that you are here!

and God reached down, and touched the man.......but the man brushed the butterfly away......and walked on.

Albert Cipriani

Dear WMD,
Five of your eight arguments against Psalm 14:1 have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is? I’ll quote the operative words:
If you guessed that all five of them were treating Psalm 14:1 as an argument you’d be correct. You shouldn’t need a fool like me to tell you that Psalm 14:1 is not an argument. It’s a boldfaced assertion, like “my favorite color is blue.” Ergo, it cannot be subjected to logical analysis.

Just to help you see my point, for your homework assignment tonight I’d like to see how many logical fallacies you can find hidden in the following picture:
Which leads us to your charge of “redundancy.” Yeah, your right. Poetry (which is the literary form of the psalms) does that. It’s called poetic technique and is generally appreciated by us illogically inclined theists who don’t know any better than you to reject the Bible because it’s so repetitive. But I make this concession to you only for Protestants, for it is their bible, not the Catholic Bible in which Psalm 53 repeats Psalm 14.

What you call "special pleading” is also a poetic technique known as synecdoche, where the part stands for the whole, like the “hand of man.”

In trying to assert what you call a “questionable premise,” you yourself commit the fallacy of equivocation when you complain The issue is that atheists can do no good. You’ve equivocated “not doing good” with doing “nothing but bad deeds.” The two are not the same. Shame on you.

Fact is, even theists can do no good unless the good they do is for the love of God. Doing good for the love of our selves or others is just garden variety secular humanism, which is filthy rags to God. – Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

P.S. I apologize, again, Diana. But I honestly believe that in total I’ve become a kinder and gentler person this past month. Yet I admit I’ve not yet reached the standard of decency and politeness most people here operate at. I intend to continue to improve in this area and thank you and Jobar for your forbearance.

Soul Invictus

Your second paragraph is a fair assessment of using observation. I guess I would ask where is this empirical evidence to support the claim of the existence of God? Rephrased.... on what empirical evidence is the claim of the existece of God based? (Or is the problem that the alleged evidence isn't empirical?)

diana

Awww. That's so sweet.

It's the "Looky at that tree!" "proof" of God.

Oh. Welcome to IIDB.

Why, exactly, should I believe that tree is anything but a tree?

d