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To: swmobuffalo; Dimensio; mlc9852; ahayes; js1138; Coyoteman; PatrickHenry; WildHorseCrash
and I think that simply looking around at the wonders of nature proves the existence of God.

You really should work at having a better understanding of the word "prove" before you misuse it again, as you have in this sentence. It may "suggest" that to you, but it hardly "proves" it. Sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking.

It is preposterous to think that all this came about by chance.

Ah, yes, the old fallacy of "argument by incredulity", which is of the form, "I can't believe or imagine that something is true (or false) thus this is a good reason for thinking it isn't true (or false)."

To show the vacuity of your "argument", it can be employed with equal "validity" by an atheist: "It is preposterous to think that there are infinite beings!" Well gosh, *that* settles it, doesn't it? Oh, wait, no it doesn't. And neither does your version.

Additionally, there are four more glaring flaws in your "argument":

1. Your false presumption that the only two alternatives are: a) completely "by chance", or b) by the notion of God in the Christian Bible. No, sorry, this is known as the fallacy of the False Dichotomy. You've artificially set things up in such a childishly simplistic way that the "only" two choices you pretend to see are the preposterous (and cartoonish) on one hand, and the answer *you* want on the other. Nice try, but there are infinitely more possibilities than just those two, and in fact this is a remarkably dishonest "choice" you've set up, given that NOBODY, not even strict materialists, believe that the alternative to divine creation is anything as goofy and simplistic as "by chance". Which leads us to our next point:

2. The next glaring flaw inherent in your argument is that you falsely describe the infinitude of non-deity origins as "by chance". That's a ludicrously inadequate and flatly incorrect description of the many alternative views to the "GodDitIt(tm)" position. Yes, it *is* preposterous to "think that all this came about by chance", but that's exactly why no one *does* think that it happened that way. Why don't you learn a teensy weensy bit more about physical processes, cosmology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, and a number of other things before you again say something as goofy as trying to sum them up with such a mindbogglingly inadequate description as "by chance"?

3. There's a similar flaw in your "on the other hand, God" side of your False Dichotomy. Even if you could manage to eliminate every single one of the infinite number of potential materialistic origins for "the wonders of nature", and good luck with *that* task, you *still* would not have "proven" the existence of "God" as you imagine it. It might very well have been the work of Xorg, an alien from the universe next door, completing his grad school project in his Universe Creation 204 course required for his advanced physics degree. Hint: Even if you could "prove by elimination", as you are so clumsily attempting to do, that our world couldn't have resulted from natural processes, you STILL would not have established the existence of "Jehovah" -- you would *ONLY* have established that *some* entity had a hand in it, *not* necessarily the one that matches the notion of a deity that some folks 2000 years ago thought seemed reasonable. I mean seriously, if the Bible had never existed, would your look out the window cause you say, "hey, this looks just like the kind of thing that a deity which gave his son for our sins and had rules against eating pork would come up with, not any other kind of deity..."? Need I point out that *other* folks have looked out *their* windows and concluded that it provided clear "proof" of the existence of Quetzalcoatl, who created this world (the fifth reincarnation of the world) and mankind from the dead bones of previous races and the blood from his own phallus?

4. You have "forgotten" to include in your so-called "argument" that many of the origins of things you see "out your window" are already understood to a high degree, and a) did not occur "randomly", and b) are known to be able to occur naturally, without the involvement of a deity which you seem to consider necessary.

You know, epistemology is a well-trodden field, and you might want to familiarize yourself with what's already known about it, and what's already recognized to be fallacious lines of argument, before you make another attempt at it as an amateur.

799 posted on 04/28/2006 6:00:01 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)
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To: Ichneumon

[Thunderous applause!]


804 posted on 04/28/2006 6:34:59 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Unresponsive to trolls, lunatics, fanatics, retards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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