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Durandal
Current Version
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* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning, constant shifting of goalposts and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or that you\\\'re beyond reason, and either way that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
*** I \\\"shifted goalposts\\\" once, in going from \\\"no reason\\\" to \\\"no reason worth consideration,\\\" and explained it\\\'s because my original entry wasn\\\'t clear on my point. Furthermore, you\\\'re the one who attempted to start a flame was on the article page. It was a guy who agreed with me who deleted it and moved it here to keep your angry rant out of the public eye and keep it from happening again. You are in no place to accuse anyone of trolling. I\\\'ve proven that your complaint about this not fitting the page is blatantly false, and explained that your disagreements with the point itself are due to my failure to explain my point, and all you\\\'ve done is get mad that I\\\'m arguing what I actually think rather than what you assumed I thought. Now you\\\'re simply ignoring my reasoning and claiming victory though direct insults. I am rephrasing the entry based on your complaints and returning it to the page. If anyone gives me a reason that new entry doesn\\\'t belong, I will read it. Hopefully they\\\'ll handle it in a more mature fashion than you did.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning, constant shifting of goalposts and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or that you\\\'re beyond reason, and either way that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
*** I \\\"shifted goalposts\\\" once, in going from \\\"no reason\\\" to \\\"no reason worth consideration,\\\" and explained it\\\'s because my original entry wasn\\\'t clear on my point. Furthermore, you\\\'re the one who attempted to start a flame was on the article page. It was a guy who agreed with me who deleted it and moved it here to keep your angry rant out of the public eye and keep it from happening again. You are in no place to accuse anyone of trolling. I\\\'ve proven that your complaint about this not fitting the page is blatantly false, and explained that your disagreements with the point itself are due to my failure to explain my point, and all you\\\'ve done is get mad that I\\\'m arguing what I actually think rather than what you assumed I thought. Now you\\\'re simply ignoring my reasoning and claiming victory though direct insults. I am rephrasing the entry based on your complaints and returning it to the page. If anyone gives me a reason that new entry doesn\\\'t belong, I will read it. Hopefully they\\\'ll handle it in a more mature fashion than you did.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning, constant shifting of goalposts and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or that you\\\'re beyond reason, and either way that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
*** I \\\"shifted goalposts\\\" once, in going from \\\"no reason\\\" to \\\"no reason worth consideration,\\\" and explained it\\\'s because my original entry wasn\\\'t clear on my point. Furthermore, you\\\'re the one who attempted to start a flame was on the article page. It was a guy who agreed with me who deleted it and moved it here to keep your angry rant out of the public eye and keep it from happening again. You are in no place to accuse anyone of trolling. I\\\'ve proven that your complaint about this not fitting the page is blatantly false, and explained that your disagreements with the point itself are due to my failure to explain my point, and you have brought no new argument since then. Now you\\\'re simply ignoring my reasoning and claiming victory though direct insults. I am rephrasing the entry based on your complaints and returning it to the page. If anyone gives me a reason that new entry doesn\\\'t belong, I will read it. Hopefully they\\\'ll handle it in a more mature fashion than you did.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning, constant shifting of goalposts and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or that you\\\'re beyond reason, and either way that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
*** I \\\"shifted goalposts\\\" once, in going from \\\"no reason\\\" to \\\"no reason worth consideration,\\\" and explained it\\\'s because my original entry wasn\\\'t clear on my point. Furthermore, you\\\'re the one who attempted to start a flame was on the article page. It was a guy who agreed with me who deleted it and moved it here to keep your angry rant out of the public eye and keep it from happening again. You are in no place to accuse anyone of trolling. I\\\'ve proven that your complaint about this not fitting the page is blatantly false, and explained that your disagreements with the point itself are due to my failure to explain my point, and you have brought no new argument since then. Now you\\\'re simply ignoring my reasoning and claiming victory though direct insults. I am rephrasing the entry based on your complaints and returning it to the page. If anyone gives me a reason that new entry doesn\\\'t belong, I will read it. Hopefully they\\\'ll handle it in a more mature fashion than you did.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning, constant shifting of goalposts and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or that you\\\'re beyond reason, and either way that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning, constant shifting of goalposts and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or that you\\\'re beyond reason, and either way that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or beyond reason, and that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
*Dude, just no. I\\\'m not going over the same ground again and again, or engaging with your increasingly hysterical paranoia and personal attacks. Your lack of critical thinking, your fallacious reasoning and the fact that you\\\'re trying to turn this into a pure \\\'me vs you\\\' thing tells me everything I need to know: that you\\\'re either a troll or beyond reason, and that\\\'s just not worth my time. Or anyone else\\\'s. Not even yours. Suffice it to say that I haven\\\'t been the only one to disagree with you, and that I don\\\'t see anyone rushing in to support your points. This isn\\\'t going back on the main page, learn to live with it, have a nice day, and do try to chill out before operating a keyboard in future.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
You have \\\'\\\'absolutely no sense of irony\\\'\\\', do you?
-> Me: Atheists are ignoring arguments against them.
-> You: That entry doesn\\\'t belong with the other entries on this page.
-> Me: But it\\\'s exactly like several other entries on this page.
-> You: Well I haven\\\'t seen them and they don\\\'t matter anyway.
Unless I missed the election in which you became king of TVTropes, then yes, it does matter what every other person who has viewed and edited this page apparently thinks belongs here. They\\\'ve all placed or not deleted entries as or more obscure than mine, because the subjects are people who lack a cursory knowledge of the topic they’re discussing, which as I’ve stated is exactly what the description at the top of the page defines the trope as. I’m not trying to \\\"justify the errors\\\" in my entry, I’m saying that you\\\'re the only person who sees that particular error at all.
Also you seem to be acting like we would necessarily need to replace the entry as it was originally written, dismissing my clarifications because you don\\\'t see them as the same as that original argument. It was obviously poorly stated, as evidenced by your gross misunderstanding of my intent, and I am attempting to clarify my point.
But back to the subject, while I\\\'m sure many atheists have counters to the common theological arguments, I’m not talking about those atheists. My point is that as a stand-alone argument Russel\\\'s Teapot and its variations treat theism as a random thought with no basis to be taken seriously, rather than the collection of rational theories that it is. It doesn’t include any arguments against god, it doesn’t even compare theism to a once-respected but now debunked theory like the sun revolving around the earth, it’s comparing it to a ‘’baseless, clearly insane and irrational guess’’ like a teapot in space or fairies in your garden, and then saying because it’s so irrational you don’t need to argue against it. What you call “the courtier’s reply” isn’t some logical fallacy, it’s exactly the proper response, pointing out that Russel’s Teapot is flat-out wrong in its analogy for theism. When someone then goes on to counter-argue the rational arguments presented for theism, they’re not supporting Russel’s Teapot, they’re moving on from it and creating new, unrelated arguments. There’s a huge difference between explaining that “the bases given to think X aren’t sufficiently proven” and just outright stating that “X is dumb so I don’t believe it.” You’re defending the latter by treating it like the former.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
***Ho hum. If you interpreted that as a personal attack then I think you need to try to relax a litte. \\\'Highly-strung\\\' + \\\'keyboard\\\' + \\\'people who don\\\'t agree with you\\\' doesn\\\'t make for a healthy combination.
***Onto your points. Firstly I would point out that Tu Quoque is hardly a valid defence; it doesn\\\'t matter if there are problems with other entries, they don\\\'t justify the errors in your own. I actually didn\\\'t even see the other entry you\\\'re talking about, but I don\\\'t need to defend myself because it has no relevance to the problems with yours. Secondly I\\\'d point out that much of what you are mentioning now was not in the original entry at all. Bringing that stuff in and using it against my original argument could be considered shifting the goalposts. Thirdly, the new points aren\\\'t correct anyway, they\\\'re assuming a false dichotomy: that an argument is either rational or blithering insanity. This is not the case. One can attempt to make arguments rationally but end up making errors in logic resulting in an invalid argument. Such arguments need not be considered rational, and certainly not \\\'evidence\\\'.
***You don\\\'t seem to have understood why your entry was misplaced. As was said above, you\\\'re basically making the Courtier\\\'s Reply. Atheists don\\\'t \\\'\\\'ignore\\\'\\\' the theist arguments or blithely assume there are none, rather they know of them but don\\\'t accept them, don\\\'t consider their reasoning to be valid and/or rational and thus don\\\'t consider them to be evidence. An atheist can say \\\'no evidence for god\\\' \\\'\\\'having researched all the mentioned arguments and dismissed them\\\'\\\'.
***At best, and this would be assuming that all viewpoints are equal, this whole subject is so subjective as to not merit inclusion on the page. The other option is that it doesn\\\'t merit being here based on the two failings I\\\'ve already mentioned - that the arguments are largely obscure (e.g modal logic) and that one can claim \\\'no evidence\\\' having done the research and concluding the pro arguments aren\\\'t valid.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Also, above my point were claims that not knowing about the references to god in Nazi propaganda, the appearance of wild bananas, or \\\'\\\'the reducible complexity of the human immune system\\\'\\\' is a CriticalResearchFailure, despite all of those being at best as obscure as basic philosophy. And yet you scrolled right over those criticisms of the religious to place a sarcastic, argumentative rant that began with a personal attack on me (ironically making multiple baseless assumptions while responding to my accusation that atheists make baseless assumptions) under my criticism of atheists. You should really take a moment to think about who has \\\"an axe to grind.\\\"
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
*** Guy who wrote the original entry here: I\\\'m not a theist, I\\\'m a skeptic. My point is that the argument assumes as common sense that there is \\\'\\\'no rational reason\\\'\\\' to consider the existence of a divine creator, and so you should assume there isn\\\'t one. The description says \\\"anyone with cursory knowledge of the subject\\\" noticing it makes it a CriticalResearchFailure. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of philosophy knows that there exist philosophers who have argued theism from a rational point of view, and most of those arguments are still at the very least worth consideration. To claim that theism is some random, baseless thought that doesn\\\'t even need to be argued against demonstrates a lack of that very basic knowledge.
Changed line(s) 3 from:
n
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
to:
* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
**I wrote the third entry. The original entry is basically saying \\\"God exists and there is evidence for this, so atheists are wrong when they disagree.\\\". Since the evidence in question is disputed even among experts, including some Theist theologians who don\\\'t accept the ontological/teleological argument, I don\\\'t believe the atheist in the first entry can qualify as Critical Research Faliure. As I also said, whether they\\\'re right or wrong the arguments are rather obscure and not something the average person on the street would know and immediately see as a gaping hole in the atheist\\\'s reasoning. I\\\'d have no problem with atheist examples that do meet the trope criteria, I\\\'m sure there are some out there to find, but this one falls down on two counts.
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* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \
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* A common argument given for atheism is essentially \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" This only makes sense if the entire philosophical field of theology, and its volumes of ontological and teleological arguments in favor of a divine creator, don\\\'t exist.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
** And even if you considered those forged, or fallacious, such an assumption would completely destroy any chance of further scientific developement if applied on that field, as the whole scientific method is based on finding proof for theories not yet proven, without even starting talking about how, always following the scientific method, any theory can\\\'t be deemed as right until there\\\'s proof of it, and I challenge any scientist deeming God doesn\\\'t exist into actually proving it.
** Uh, no. Obviously you have an axe to grind with atheism, but you\\\'re way off. Firstly and most importantly, even assuming the evidence is right, this is hardly \\\'critical research faliure\\\' given the rather obscure and esoteric nature of complex theology and philosophy. Anselm\\\'s ontological argument isn\\\'t exactly the subject of everyday dinner time conversation, is it? \\\"So honey, did you realize that God\\\'s existence is implied by His conceptual nature? Great taters by the way, is that basil I can taste?\\\". Secondly, the first entry is implying that all the ontological and teleological arguments are correct and valid. This is diputed by atheists (YMMV), so they aren\\\'t unjustified in saying \\\'no evidence\\\' after having done the research. By \\\'no evidence\\\' they mean \\\'no evidence that holds water\\\'. Thirdly, in the second entry, saying \\\'no evidence right now\\\' does not mean \\\'no evidence and we shouldn\\\'t even look for any, ever\\\'. You\\\'re also reversing the burden of proof in the last sentence. All in all, frankly this entire segment should be removed as ill-thought-out and unjustified.
I\\\'m the author of the second post, and, uhm, sorry, my entry was thought of pointing out that the \\\"there is no evidence there is a God, therefore we should assume there isn\\\'t one.\\\" is phallacious according to the scientific method (being taught to most of not every educated child, I thought it was good for critical research failure, expecially since the sentence it\\\'s usually said by people of science).
The right sentence is \\\"There is no evidence there is a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there\\\'s one\\\" Or, from the other viewpoint \\\"There is no evidence there isn\\\'t a God, therefore we shouldn\\\'t assume there isn\\\'t one\\\".
Also, I don\\\'t really get the revising the burden of proof means.
* FrankMitchell: The \\\"Burden of Proof\\\" in science, most justice systems, and logic in general is generally on the side positing the existence or truth of something. It\\\'s impossible to prove a negative conclusively, except by exhausting all logical possibilities; in the real world that\\\'s simply impossible. Thus, if there\\\'s no evidence for or against the existence of X, the default is to assume X doesn\\\'t exist. X, here, is \\\"God\\\", but could also be \\\"eleven shooters in Dealy Plaza\\\", \\\"extraterrestrial visitors\\\", or \\\"a worldwide conspiracy to hide visits by extraterrestrials\\\".
So, some neutral viewpoint so we can fix the entry in such a way it doesn\\\'t start a flamewar?
If you think it will, I guess it\\\'s better to take it out of the entry anyway, as we don\\\'t need that in the wiki.
Shiroi689
* [[FrankMitchell My]] assessment is that citing atheism or theism as a \\\"research failure\\\" does, indeed, open up a whole can of worms. For example, the original argument assumes that some subtle theological argument somewhere proves the existence of God. Some atheists call this \\\"The Courtier\\\'s Reply\\\", likening it to a hypothetical courtier in \\\"The Emperor\\\'s New Clothes\\\": those horrid Philistines simply don\\\'t appreciate the breadth and scope and subtlety of theology/the New Clothes, and can\\\'t see its fundamental truth. To which most atheists reply, \\\"Explain it to us\\\". Just because so many people have spent so many centuries on an elaborate belief system doesn\\\'t make it true, as defunct religions -- or all religions but one\\\'s own -- demonstrate.
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I would argue the difference is Hercules admits what he does is wrong and submits to punishment including slavery and humiliation. That is not something Types V\'s seem to do. That would make Hercules a Type IV at worse. Deep down Hercules is well meaning and most of his actions are beneficial to mankind, but was cursed with a temper.
to:
I would argue the difference is Hercules admits what he does is wrong and submits to punishment including slavery and humiliation. That is not something Types V\\\'s seem to do. Type V\\\'s are described as \\\"lacking any heroic attributes whatsoever.\\\" Hercules is not like that. Deep down Hercules is well meaning and most of his actions are beneficial to mankind, but was cursed with a temper. That would make Hercules a Type IV at worse.
Even then most of the other Greek heroes fall under Types III or IV depending on which one. Persues and Cadmus would probable bee Type III. Theseus and Achillis may be type IV.
Even then most of the other Greek heroes fall under Types III or IV depending on which one. Persues and Cadmus would probable bee Type III. Theseus and Achillis may be type IV.
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I would argue the difference is Hercules admits what he does is wrong and submits to punishment. That is not something Types V\'s seem to do. That would make Hercules a Type IV at worse.
to:
I would argue the difference is Hercules admits what he does is wrong and submits to punishment including slavery and humiliation. That is not something Types V\\\'s seem to do. That would make Hercules a Type IV at worse. Deep down Hercules is well meaning and most of his actions are beneficial to mankind, but was cursed with a temper.
