Veil of Fire

JJ: I only know what I've experienced. *shrug* The Athiest Union on campus is composed almost entirely of such people.

The false dilemma is as follows:

(A) Either Christianity is right, or there is no Creator/Higher Power/God.
(B) Christianity is wrong.
(C) Therefore there is no God/etc.

It convieniently releases them from having to determine that Hinduism, Sihkism, Shinto, Buddism, Taoism, Druidism, Wicca, Golden Dawn, Satanism, Setism, Baha'i, Pantheism, and Shamanism are also wrong. Christianity is apparently a representative of all the above to such a degree that if Christianity is wrong, all the others must be wrong too.

THAT is the false dilemma. My "spiteful straw man" is based on the same anecdotal evidence that your refutation is based in, ie "I don't know anyone, personally, who uses that argument as a basis for their atheism."

Well good for you. You live in an area that probably can't be classified as the world's largest insane asylum. I *DID* set up a caveat for regional differences didn't I? Why yes, I did! I don't generally consider internet people to be people who I've "met". Based on that logic, every atheist I've ever met fits my above criteria. Perhaps you've had a different experience based on your friends, or locality, or some other factor? Wonderful for you! But using your own unprovable anecdotal evidence (without any sort of caveat attached thereto) as evidence as to why MY unprovable anecdotal evidence (that I made sure to preface with a reason my experience might be different from that of others) is nothing but a "spiteful straw man" really shows me just how attached you REALLY are to evidence and discussion.


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Theli: "I don't think you can make so many theories (not wrong theories either) on the matter of creation/evolution. Either the world was created out of nothing to instantly form what we know today, or it evolved from chaos.

I can't even come up with a 3rd option."

Does that mean there's not one?

Even a combination of those two would make a credible third option.

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Pompus Bastard: "I'd be very interested to see the details of those experiments. Can you comment now on which facets of your beliefs you intend to test?"

I intend to scietifically test the belief in an energy force inherent in nature that is manipulatable by humans towards the achievement of a direct goal. In other words, magic. *I* know it works, in that I've used it successfully and felt it and all that, but I'm sure as hell (pun intended) not going to use that as evidence to anyone else. It doesn't pass muster. So I'm in the beginning phases of designing an experimental procedure in order to gain REAL evidence. Theoretically, it should lend itself well to experimentation (as opposed to, say, prayer), especially if I'm working with purely physical goals (as opposed to "I want to be a better person" tripe).

jj

Now, Helen, I'm pretty sure you would find my experience repugnant, and that you wouldn't endorse it, either, but doing what you suggest CAN be dangerous.

I did that to my high school "sunday school" teacher, I asked him questions. A couple of the boys showed up after church to shove me around and threaten to beat me up because I was upsetting the teacher.

How THAT fits in with "brotherly love" is beyond me. It depends on the church, I'm sure, but at least in some places, you aren't allowed to ask questions, YOU MUST BELIEVE OR ELSE.

It's also true that that particular person didn't last long in the job, which I think is good, BUT the point holds, asking questions can be outright dangerous.

I know it's not the only place that happens, too, unfortunately.

Theli

I was talking about evolution and creation in general. I didn't provide any specific explainations such as "the christian god must have done it" or "All species evolved through small mutations".

But you are right about the 3rd option. If evolution was forced by god to achieve a certain preset design then we would have a mix between evolution and creation.
An unnecessary mix from god's point of view. He has no reason to "evolve" creatures to the point they become humans. If god existed and was our creator, creationism should be more likely the cause.
But I can't see how you can produce thousands of general theories such as creationism/evolution.

jj

Well first, a nitpick, but I figure I should say it... It's not a "false dilemma", rather it's a rather glaring and obvious exercise of the fallacy of the excluded middle. Needless to say, the word "fallacy" did occur there, yes?

I can hardly know your experiences, but I admit to being quite surprised, because I've not met any people I recall who took that particular path to atheism.

I HAVE met quite a few people who would pose that as a question for believers, though. Are you sure that's not what's happening? (No, I'm not trying to be insulting, that's a sincere question.) While I would find it startling to be given that reasoning by an atheist, I would not be surprised to see that asked as a question of a Christian by an atheist who is really SICK of being harrangued, a condition that I'm sorry to say seems to rather describe most atheists about 5 minutes after they decide to admit their lack of belief.

The reason (and I don't say this applies to you, but it most certainly has applied to more than a few people who have chosen to get into an argument with me) (I specify it that way because in general I do NOT go out of my way to discuss the issue at all, except perhaps with people I'll have to deal with for years) that this happens a lot is that the fallacy of the excluded middle has been thrown back at me in the form of "if you don't believe in god, then you worship satan" so many times that I've lost count decades ago.

Needless to say, an atheist wouldn't be atheist if they believed in satan, but this point has seemed lost on many people, at least until confronted with the same doctrine (false doctrine, you notice) of the excluded middle in a form that bites them.

It's the same reasoning I got from Senator Bill Bradley's staffer when I asked him (this was rather a while ago) why he was co-sponsoring a bill that contained a provision that removed the tax exemption for "wiccans and other satanists". That staffer told me directly on the phone that "if you don't think that's righteous, then you're a satanist yourself" and then sent me a letter arguing that anyone who denied "god's will" was obviously evil.

Now, I got the impression rather later (the Senator came to where I used to work, and I flat-out asked him) that perhaps the wording was pushed to such an extreme specifically to invite a veto, which is in fact what happened, Reagan vetoed it because it was "obviously unconstitutional".

It was interesting to see a bill that was co-sponsored by Bill Bradley, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, and Ted Kennedy, though. I was somewhat surprised it didn't implode in a burst of radiation

I'm sorry I disappeared for a while, my machine went in for a mother-board-ectomy and I wasn't doing any web browsing for most of the week. Further, I'll be away MOST of next week, but at least not (I hope) because my computer go boom

(excised long rant on mother boards that last 1 month and then die)

HelenM

Ok, so you choose carefully which Christians to ask...

I know all about getting in trouble for asking questions. It's the story of my life.

But I still say that if you really want to know whether there's a good Christian response to your questions, ask Christians. Because they are the ones motivated to rebut what you say. Non-Christians aren't.

love
Helen

Veil of Fire

jj: Don't have a whole lot of time right now, but about your nitpick.. I'm nitpicking it.

From <a href="http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html" target="_blank">http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html</a>

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Fallacy: False Dilemma

Also Known as: Black & White Thinking.

Description of False Dilemma

A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

- Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
- Claim Y is false.
- Therefore claim X is true.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because if both claims could be false, then it cannot be inferred that one is true because the other is false. That this is the case is made clear by the following example:

- Either 1+1=4 or 1+1=12.
- It is not the case that 1+1=4.
- Therefore 1+1=12.

In cases in which the two options are, in fact, the only two options, this line of reasoning is not fallacious. For example:

- Bill is dead or he is alive.
- Bill is not dead.
- Therefore Bill is alive.

Examples of False Dilemma:

Senator Jill: "We'll have to cut education funding this year."
Senator Bill: "Why?"
Senator Jill: "Well, either we cut the social programs or we live with a huge deficit and we can't live with the deficit."

Bill: "Jill and I both support having prayer in public schools."
Jill: "Hey, I never said that!"
Bill: "You're not an atheist are you Jill?"

"Look, you are going to have to make up your mind. Either you decide that you can afford this stereo, or you decide you are going to do without music for a while."
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Will get to the rest in a while.

jj

It's the same thing. Habermass calls it the excluded middle, so do at least a few other rhetorician types.

Philosoft

Veil,

You seem to be operating under a couple of unreasonable assumptions. Correct me if I'm wrong; you seem to be saying most atheists you have encountered have a personal belief statement like this: "I claim positive knowledge that no gods exist because of all the logical, rational and evidential problems with Christianity." This is a misrepresentation in a few ways. First, for a great many atheists (mostly the skeptical kind), including most of those at Infidels, atheism is a provisional lack of belief. Thus, when someone says, "I do not belive in any gods," what she is most basically saying is that she is passively withholding acknowledgement of their existences until belief is justified, whether through empiricism, rationalism, etc. To say, then, that this person is, irrationally, actively denying that the gods of some undiscovered rainforest tribe don't exist is disingenuous.

Second, your logical objection to atheism doesn't transmute to a rational objection. We are simply not able to make a case-by-case determination of the truth or falsity of every single god-concept on the planet. Indeed, I maintain that would be a separate god-concept for every single theist! What we can (and do) notice that a great many of the mainstream god-concepts share certain fundamental flaws. And while we can't go from "Chritstianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Taoism are fatally flawed and therefore false" to "all religions that have a creator-concept are false," we can make a reasonable judgement about the likelihood that one of those unfamiliar religions is the One True Religion(tm).