Walter Sinnott-Armstrong - Fallacies in Arguing for God?

Believers in God should be appalled when poor arguments are offered to 'prove' the existence of God. These arguments can be so bad that one might think the proponents are really atheists in disguise.
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[@KeithCooper-Albuquerque]

Great video! I'm really enjoying Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's discussions.

[@b1zzler]

At the end of the video, Walter left out what I think is by far the biggest impetus for religious belief: the concept of immortality. In most major religions, all humans possess immortality in the form of a soul that carries their living consciousness, subconsciousness, essence, or what have you into some sort of an afterlife in which they may even be able to reunite with deceased loved ones. This scenario- improbable as it may be- is immensely preferable to the "eternal slumber" that deep down most of us know awaits us.

[@b1zzler]

The second biggest impetus for belief is predominantly socio-cultural. In the middle east, for example, people can legally kill you for not believing in god. So there's another impetus for internally suppressing one's skepticism.

[@stephenlawrence4821]

I think the "eternal slumber" is preferable. Being conscious forever is very frightening indeed.

[@CarlosElio82]

Those people concerned with immortality are concerned with their existence in the future, but are blissfully unconcerned with their existence in the past although they surely know there was a past one thousand years ago, and further back. What is curious about he time bias of the believers is that if they look at their hands under a microscope, they will see cells. Each cell is made of molecules and each molecule is a collection of atoms. Each of those atoms were in this planet one thousand years ago, so their entire material body existed in this planet one thousand years ago. Mormons believe that their had a pre-existence but it really doesn't matter much. They do ancestral research but no lesson is derived from that research. The Mormon believe in pre-existence is, at best, vacuously true. Like believing unicorns prefer vanilla ice cream. Hindus believe in reincarnation. Why people concerned with their immortality are unconcerned with their existence in the past? What moral lessons would they derive from thinking about their past? Are they afraid of those possible lessons?

[@ericjohnson6665]

@@stephenlawrence4821 - 🤣🤣 - Yes, the unknown is scary. "Being conscious forever", without any qualifications or reason for living forever, doesn't really make sense. Then again, living forever might be for the purpose of taking as long as you need to become perfect. And perfection feels great! But Walter is correct as to why many people believe.

[@ericjohnson6665]

I do look forward to meeting my loved ones again. But that's not the primary reason I'm a fan of God. I'm more into the idea of becoming perfect and living as long as it takes to become a perfected spirit being and meeting God face to face on the Central Isle of Paradise. I actually find it quite funny, the idea of being perfect, given how completely imperfect I am on this world.

[@TheSandeman72]

Too bad the sound quality is bad in this series. Quality discussions deserve quality sound.

[@vgrof2315]

This guy is shining a bright light on WLC and Dinesh D'Souza. I love it.

[@victorbekee4549]

ikr ....i could see their style of arguments as he mentioned the fallacies

[@Afterword.]

Well, regarding his critique of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, that's not at all how WLC formulates it. 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Sure, the implications are of a timeless, spaceless something with the capacity to timelessly and spacelessly cause the universe. But the actual argument doesn't inflate the conclusion. It's just that the universe has a cause.

[@robertbristow-johnson6362]

This guy's pretty good. Explicitly insightful. And I'm a Christian theist.

[@infov0y]

The bloating point against theist arguments like 'first cause' is a strong case against almost all knowledge of any god, for sure. Probably the main reason I've never taken religion very seriously.

[@jonu5336]

I love these conversations,can't get enough 👍🏻✌🏻️🙏🏻

[@JamesJohnson-xb9jc]

Sinnott-Armstrong speaks as though he’s read Aquinas, yet anyone whose taken even a cursory glance at the table of contents of the Summa will recognize that Aquinas argues for numerous attributes ascribed to that which he has presumably proven to exist. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with Aquinas’ proof, S-A’s inability to recognize this simple fact reflects either ignorance or disingenuity. Either way, one would hope for better than S-A’s poor analysis.

[@robeltadesse8370]

I was about to read this man's book. Oh well... "I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details." ~ Albert Einstein

[@jacderida]

Einstein used the word "God" metaphorically. He was an atheist.

[@robeltadesse8370]

@@jacderida that's not what he told me!

[@deepaktripathi4417]

@@jacderida No, he wasn't an atheist. Listen to Dr. Michio Kaku who knows Einstein more than you. Einstein never believed in personal God but he wasn't an atheist either

[@jacderida]

@@deepaktripathi4417 Atheism is lack of belief in a personal God.

[@quidam3810]

It's too bad because the guy starts with a very honest and open minded approach that suppose to be sympathetic to the argument and really try to understand it... And i sympathize with his attitude a lot... and he shows, when talking, about the cosmological argument from Aquinas, that either he didn't study or didn't understand a bit : Aquinas does not deduce from this argument that the classical Christian God exists, only that a first cause exists. It's in the Summa theologiae, available online, read it for yourself : Aquinas spends an awful lot of time after that argument examining what can be said about God. This gentleman just plainly mischaracterizes Aquinas...

[@njeyasreedharan]

Is the sound out of sync with the video? The sound is lagging the image!

[@onefodderunit]

Theist: The material world is an intended creation of incomprehensible intelligence. Atheist: Intelligence is created by matter, and the material world is an unintended byproduct of chance. Theist: The purpose of our lives is spiritual evolution. Atheist: Life exists for no objective reason and is therefor purposeless and ultimately pointless. Rational people know that mind is thought, and thought is energy, not particulate. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy is eternal. Mind is energy.

[@dj_OVI_J_TIMIS]

Pin point arguments.... excellent :)

[@runecscapeman]

The Antagonizer how so?

[@connorbeveridge2006]

Smart people believe in religion because emotion is a much more powerful mental influence than logic.

[@joshheter1517]

Smart people don’t believe in religion because emotion is much more powerful mental influence than logic.

[@AtheistCook]

What about down syndrome people? or people who are not smart yet? what about people who were smart but are no longer smart for different reasons?

[@connorbeveridge2006]

@@AtheistCook What about them?

[@xspotbox4400]

Enlightenment has radically changed how people live, think and even feel, symbolic language is also expanded, humanity will never be the same again. Even if civilization collapse, new structures of knowledge left deep imprint over everything that would survive cataclysm, so not even the end of the world could bring old traditions back. But before we can forget about idea of divine presence forever, it would be nice to tackle the most impossible constructs, just in case we all missed something big and rely important. Like how about entire universe is a giant living organism and our world is like an atom, We can't ever see entire animal, but living force is everywhere, trying to survive and thrive in whatever space something like that could exist. I have never read a good argument why entire Universe could not be a giant living form.

[@InteGritti]

The Gaia Network advertising before this video is hilarious! A fallacy as a last resort is an awesome rule to keep in mind. (The Fallacy if Bloated Conclusions) Lol (The Fallacy of excessive footnotes) over-siting authorities. Is that the same as (Appeal to Authority) (False Dichotomy) claiming two things are opposites or in someway connected. Are there other options? Do you have universal exclusivity? Wonderful.

[@myothersoul1953]

Decide on the conclusion first and develop the argument later .... so bad.... but then what else could you do?

[@jcespinoza]

Gather facts and build a conclusion, that's what :)

[@petermetcalfe6722]

Brilliant.

[@SmegInThePants]

Yeah beliefs in gods tend to have the problem of being a lot more than they claim. Most (not all) people who believe in god, don't just believe that there is a god and leave it at that, though they usually like to pretend that this is all that is at issue, that its that simple. One of their problems is that they *also* believe he's the creator of the universe, or that he is the universe, or that he's a dude running a simulation, that he looks like a man, that he cares about x,y,z, that he watches us, that he judges us, that he did certain acts/miracles - has a specific history, that he likes this but doesn't like that, that he is omnipotent or omniscient or omni-present or omni-benevolent, etc... Most theists have a host of beliefs beyond just that there is a god but also that this god has attributes A through Z. And every time you combine an unproven belief w/another unproven belief you are increasing the odds that you are wrong. Lets say there is a god, and you believe in god and that he is ominpotent and both these 2 beliefs are important core beliefs of your religion. But lets say although this god exists, he isn't omnipotent. Even though there is a god in this scenario, your religion is now wrong because you just had to add an extraneous detail give it the importance of a core belief. Every detail you add to your belief in a god that you consider core to your belief, increases the odds your religion is now wrong. Not that it couldn't also be wrong w/even just the beginning simple single belief that there is a god w/out anything added, but you worsen your odds w/every unproven detail you add.

[@AtheistCook]

great conclusion

[@RonaldoEuSi]

Please, interview Hamza Tzortiz

[@absquereligione5409]

Jeger Silve Hamza is not capable of this level of honesty

[@salmanCCIE]

Yes, he deserves to be interviewed.

[@absquereligione5409]

salman Amoodi I think Hamza deserves to be ignored. Why would you like him to be interviewed if I may ask?

[@salmanCCIE]

Absque Religione He is a researcher in Islam. Like Robert, he traversed the path to Truth. www.hamzatzortzis.com/about-me/

[@absquereligione5409]

+Salman He is also a liar who has been debunked by everybody on KZbin and as a shameless apologist he lost every debate with the famous atheists. He is called a radical many times and as far as I am considered he is not worthy of attention. He did mellow down a little bit after everybody was sick of him but that could have been a strategic decision. The wiki is very clear: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamza_Tzortzis

[@PMKehoe]

Sunnott Armstrong vs St. Thomas Aquinas… I‘ll go with St. Thomas! :)))

[@fractalnomics]

More important to the climate debate and and economics: gee, I'm and atheist and eco (Keynesian) atheist. Bet that!

[@madmax2976]

I'm an atheist and I am much more inclined to vote Republican than I am Democrat - so not just maybe.

[@et7021]

Explains what a straw man is, Proceeds to give a straw man for the empty tomb. 🤦‍♂️. I'm sure someone, somewhere gave one or two of these fallacious arguments, but I've never seen a real apologist or intellectual Christian argue like this. Plenty of atheists though. I feel like he might need to hold up a mirror.

[@TheBruces56]

I give significant weight to the fact that from our inception modern man has been hardwired to know that we have a "creator". Obviously, throughout the ages man has used this belief to create many religions and spiritual practices and not all were good. While no one knows what form "God" may take, many see the order and complexity of life as evidence of His existence. Since the dawn of man the vast majority of people accept that the true nature of reality involves a "power greater than themselves".

[@jugbrewer]

The impulse to believe in a higher power is common. However we are also hardwired for illusion in many cases. Take optical illusions, they universally create the appearance of untrue things, simply as an artifact of the way our visual system works. Or the way that the sun appears to move over the earth, which most if not all cultures have at some point believed. I think we have to be careful not to assume that just because we all experience something, that makes it true. The human mind does not represent the world around us perfectly, sometimes there are major errors in our deepest assumptions.

[@UnconsciousQualms]

Fuckin perfect!

[@MrAndrew535]

All discourses to date on the subject of the existence of God have no intellectual merit without first defining what is meant by "God" and the context or perspective in which such a concept is being discussed, all of which is invariably the case, on both sides of the debate. It can now be said, for example, how limited human perspective and understanding is with respect to "AI" beyond the event horizon of the singularity. Ther are additional problems with how such debates have been traditionally discussed, one of which is the constant decay of language use. Any discourse, regardless of topic, will prove consistently retarded, even if just one side of a given debate has a poor grasp of the requisite linguistic instruments. So, in short, the first response to the question "Does God exist"? ought to be: what do you mean by God? And does he exist in what contxt?

[@miriamstrauss1251]

Excellent comment.

[@MrAndrew535]

Miriam Strauss What a rare compliment. Thank you very much.

[@spencermead5338]

That's a pretty naive statement. Your belief that there is no consensus of what is meant by "God" is simply false. In modernity there has been a rise of the so-called "theistic personalism" among evangelical Christian circles, that much I will grant, but it lacks the intellectual weight of 2000+ years of natural theology. The God of classical theism as argued for by Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, Boethius, Athanasius, Anselm, Maimonides, Averroes, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, and many others is very well defined. Appealing to "limited human perspective" or "language decay" is a red herring and, quite frankly, ignorant. It fails to disprove the arguments.

[@MrAndrew535]

Spencer Mead It is not possible for me to disprove the arguments for arguments continue. My position if you bother to read it correctly, is that there are no valid arguments which have significant existential merit based on cogent definitions of "GOD". Perhaps you could of some insight into the subject given your vast reading experience. If Merely citing was intended to intimidate then I report it failed. In order to prove or disprove the existence of a "God", how would you define it? I little less of the needless insults HeY".

[@vincent3177]

Hello Andew ! I totally agree with you with the fact that you must define what does "God" mean to answer the question "Does God exist?". But in here, the question was not "Does God exist?", the question is "Is there fallacies in arguing for God?". The focus is on the arguing. In this case, I think it is not necessary to investigate very precisely what God is about because the point is to discover if it exists bias in general arguing. So we can take a very large, common, and unprecise definition of God. I think it is a very interesting question, because in here (the presented fallacies), it really seems that human beings are really incline to lose or occulte (volontary or involuntary) a part of their realism to satisfy some kind of pleasant fantasy or mind projection. And the more the emotional issue is important in our mind (to be able to face to death, or to life uncertainties for example) the more we need an important emotional compensation to equilibrate our mind (I think) : we need coherence to feel secure and give a meaning to our life. I think it is really interesting to notice the sense we give to God and or the place we give to "God" in our minds, even if it is not precise : God is the ultimate truth, the ultimate life, the ultimate security, the ultimate influence, meaning, etc. At all... in our mind, or representation of the world. So, with this approach, I think we can quite easily imagine which kind of fallacies or "mindtricks" we can have to protect our inner equilibrium : ultimate fallacies, or mindtricks. Closer to truth come here to put in evidence reccurent bias and fallacies in this field, "God", to be a little bit more sure that we investigate in the good way this field. If some of you are believers, do not interpret my comment as a denial of "God" : it is not. The question of "God" is still open, it is a possibility, and "God knows" how bad we would like that God exist, but at this time we really don't know... I really join you Andew to start to define what "God" can be, but always keepin in mind that our minds can be really tricky to investigate. I think it is the purpose of this video.

[@sankalpc9492]

Please interview venki ramakrishnan president of royal society

[@djacob7]

99% of those who believe in a god do so because their parents did.

[@davidfurst7233]

You bring up politics? Seriously?

[@mrshankerbillletmein491]

I believe a mind is behind DNA not chance mutation fine tuning for life the prophets and Jesus

[@mackdmara]

He describes a bunch of doors that swing both ways. He also gives somethings that are simply weak due to how he said them. Let's look. 1) Is any theist saying you are immoral just because you are an atheist? I would hope not, & I personally don't. What the arguments I hear say is you have *no moral foundation,* not that you personally misapplied morals. That is a clear fallacy called *ad hominem* (to the man). That is a personal attack, not a response to an argument. My advise is don't feed the trolls that use that. Make sure, as he said, that you know that is their argument before accusation. That door swings both ways. 2) Is it bad to sight an atheist as a source? Well, no. A person sighting the opposite side of their argument, where they agree with the point, is just fine. Keep it in context though. If an atheist agreed with a theist that abortion is wrong, site them. As long as you maintain context, as he said, sure, why not. Again, in context. 3) When it comes down to the cosmological constants, are the three prongs fine? Not his given ones no. There is a fallacy in what he gave as the peongs. Here are the three normally given. Chance, Necessity, & design are the options the most popular argument gives. It was very probable these would be the constants (odds). These must be the constants (necessity). It was made to work this way (design). These three are exhaustive. I have never heard another viable option from any person. You might believe there is another answer or that one is true, either way, just say it. You might improve or undermine the argument by doing this. Still, that argument is not fallacious as far as I know, his flub was. 4) Were the women at the tomb lying? To this, saying you don't know if they are lying is an intentional deception, a lie. He does not think they are telling the truth, & they would have to be lying if you maintain the context of the passage. The women lack a reason to lie, so maybe they messed it up he said. Read the context (what he told you to), they claim much more than just to witness an empty tomb. They had an encounter that is either a fabrication of some kind (maybe false, but not a lie), or is what it is. You are required to say they are, from the evidence you have, spreading a falsehood or telling the truth. Beware the details! *Lies are intentionally spreading a known falsehood.* If the person you are talking to does not know it is a falsehood, it isn't a lie. He was not specific there about what the women were doing. Very suspect for someone who is a person who needs clear answers to evaluate things. 5) In general is this man honest? Yes & no. He is a philosopher. This means he wants things defined in the extreme. This does not imply or state that he is being honest. What he said is 100% a door that swings both ways. Rushing to conclusions is bad for Atheists, Agnostics, & any form of Theist. *How he said what he said makes it fallacious, NOT the larger arguments.* I find him slick, & you would have to be very specific with him. He also was not charitable to theistic arguments, since no theist I know of would argue as he did. Beware what people say. He setup some big strawmen there, since he made up those specific argument offshoots, & then called them fallacies. He made them with the fallacious bits baked in. Strawmen, setup to knock'em down. I still agreed with about 30% of what he said. He might be worth a quote, in context.

[@akirataimatsu8741]

Ironic.. He did a good job making a straw man! He mentioned a few fallacies which were made in some arguments, laughed about it and dismissed all arguments for God on the basis of these fallacies.. (not mentioning robust arguments like the "contingency argument for a necessary being" which tackles atheism)... PS: Objective morality is not possible unless there is some authority who is able to make it objective, without it all we have are subjective moralities, none of them superior to the other

[@istakblankz9569]

The fact that all arguments for god are flawed is enough to dismiss the claim of it existence, the need for a straw man comes if you´re making a claim not if you´re dismissing one.

[@akirataimatsu8741]

@@istakblankz9569 Well, it's not a fact, it's a claim to be substantiated; that's the whole point. Also, making a straw man starts at misrepresenting the position of the other. Which is what he, and you, did. So, you both made the claim that ALL arguments for God are fallacious. That's hell of a claim, not only because of the amount of these arguments, but mainly because it simply is not true. There are robus arguments for Gods existence. For example the famous "Argument from Contingency". For more info please refere to Joshua Rasmussen, expect on this argument and co-author of a recent Book on the matter: "Necessary Existence" by Oxford University Press.

[@lupusdivinorum4673]

Would have liked to see this man's counter arguments against those he made fun of, all he did is laugh at them, not giving an alternative. This guy straw manned all of those arguments meant for the existence of God, those arguments are not meant to PROVE God. 2:47 If you never had a spiritual experience, don't expect to understand other people if they talk to you about their experiences. He asks, how do they know that He is this and that, well, you just know, simple as that. 10:45 That's not true, I don't think that's the main reason Christians believe in God. They believe because it gives them an explanation for our existence, our morals, laws of logic, mathematics, guidance, meaning, love, compassion to your fellow people, makes you strive to become a better person and top all of that with a spiritual experince(not all have one, but for those who do) and you will choose God against anything else this life has to offer. What's the alternative? our existence is meaningless, you have no purpose or meaning, you are an accident on this world, there are no objective morals so better become a nihilist, the laws of logic exist but we don't know how same as with mathematics, hedonism is the way to follow and that spiritual experience you had is just a proof you're a whacko because this guy says so; thanks, but no!

[@keithrelyea7997]

Seens you are worried a bit about what you think your life would be like if you didn't have your pet god, well a very good many of the world's inhabitants get along just fine without so thank you very much. So I hold that as a fine proof that your arguement if in error.

[@jasmoism]

Maybe a better question to mr amstrong is "fallacies in arguing god is not exist"

[@jasguy2715]

What I immediately felt after listening to this guy is: he just doesn't believe in God, he doesn't want to believe in God or in other words: this man would prefer that there isn't a god and feels more comfortable without a god! That's just my opinion of course.

[@salmanCCIE]

Answering the "fallacies": 1. Bloated conclusions: Waltor's not knowing anything of the Creator doesn't imply that He doesn't exist. what if a religion can show miraculous signs to proof that this religion can only be from the Creator? It's surprising that he considers the cosmological argument to be weak along side the bloated "argument" of religious experience. 2. ‎excessive footnotes: well, citing right information in correct contexts and from correct contexts is not a fallacy. Not every citation is misleading and deceptive. 3. ‎false dichotomy: the universe of possibilities just discussed can be classified into two; i) the universe we live in WAS created by a Conscious Being who decided to do so ii) it GOT created as a result of random phenomena without involving a Conscious decision maker. Now you have two mutually exclusive sets of possibilities. You have no way but to choose between possibilities from only either of them, not both. It is ironic to say both that possibilities of both sets might be involved. And the classification is sensible, not obscure. 5. ‎straw man: "marrying one's daughters". One can't move away just by saying he accepts it's morally incorrect. He has to justify why he accepts. Does he believe in something unproven? While other atheists are inclined towards following animal behaviours as a result of their "findings" or evolutionary fictions. If there is no purpose, and only the material world, Where did morality come from? • There are sound logical arguments for existence of God while there is no argument for His non-existence. • ‎"People reside on the conclusion first and construct the arguments later. That's when you typically get fallacies". What if somebody is already on Truth and presents arguments for it?

[@ąყŋ-o8q]

Kind of a cheap shot at conservatives

[@jonmarknewman5671]

Belief in God stems from wanting to be a good person and we think that if we don't believe in God then that makes us a bad person? Really? Didn't you just cover the strawman argument?

[@sethtipps7093]

So... he doesn't actually know Aquinas' arguments. Got it.

[@jonmarknewman5671]

Yep. He said he tries to understand it charitable but wasn't charitable or understanding.

[@timetrap4982]

I think you're being a bit unfair here. He's citing Aquinas' cosmological argument here, not to properly and formally argue against it, but rather to exhibit how one can "bloat" a conclusion. In this example Aquinas attaches a heaps of Christian doctrine onto the conclusion of his argument. Aquinas does in fact do this in his writing. Aquinas' cosmological argument is pretty short, simple, and I think fairly unsophisticated anyway. It is really just harping on this unmoved mover bit. There isn't much charity to be afforded in this case.

[@jonmarknewman5671]

Have you read Aquinas work? Summa theological? It is by no means "short".

[@blamtasticful]

Long does not mean meaningful. As Mox stated he attached way to many Christian dogmas to his conclusions that are unsupported.

[@suatustel746]

But Aquinas also doesn't know mankind arrived today by leaps and bounds,

[@askandwonder18]

Robert was a bit biased here.

[@davidanful]

Weak

[@dan23563]

Cool headset

[@uremove]

Great list of fallacies.. but he would have seemed less biased if he’d acknowledged their use by both sides in the debate - indeed in most debates! For example, “Russell’s teapot” as a metaphor for Gods existence is a great example of a straw man argument commonly used by atheists, as is talk of the ‘invisible pink unicorn’ or comparisons to the tooth fairy etc. Another very common fallacy is the false definition of “faith” as “belief without evidence” (OED actually defines faith as “belief without PROOF” which is quite different). As for “religious experience”, this could be convincing evidence for the person experiencing it, but will always be subjective, and therefore unavailable for the rest of us. For example, I know the experience of pain, but convincing a robotic sceptic, who has never had such an experience themselves would be next to impossible! There is no way I can convince them through argument of the existence of “pain”. That doesn’t make my ‘knowledge’ of pain’s existence a fallacy! To argue such, is in itself a fallacious argument. Finally, I think Sinnott-Armstrong is himself indulging in a “fallacy of bloated demands” in his criticism of the “Cosmological Argument” as a “fallacy of bloated conclusions”. Aquinas’ argument is indeed flawed, but he never claims to prove the biblical God, or the Christian God specifically. That is to demand too much of one simple argument. Indeed, if you take the argument seriously, the necessary conclusion is anything but “trivial”. Anything coming into being ex-nihilo eg. as a quantum fluctuation, must depend on pre-existing physical Laws etc. ie. of quantum mechanics. If you argue that the Laws of Physics came into being ex-nihilo, you get caught in an infinite regress. Thus the “uncaused cause” if you accept Aquinas argument, must necessarily be outside any system of laws ie. ‘supernatural’, the creator (cause) of everything else, and unlimited by space & time ie. eternal. That’s a fair description of “God”. It’s not a trivial conclusion requiring bloating up!

[@tomjackson7755]

uermove Did you purposely get everything you said wrong to prove a point? Example: “Russell’s teapot” is not a metaphor for Gods existence. It is an analogy used to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others, as are the others that you listed.

[@uremove]

tom jackson LOL! I sometimes am wrong, but in this case I’m fairly sure I’m not. I think you need to check your facts. Look it up on Wiki! It’s true that Russell used the argument in 1952 about the burden of proof. However, since then, Russell (1958) and then others have use it as an argument for the non-existence of God. Here’s Dawkins in TGD: “If agnosticism demands giving equal respect to the belief and disbelief in a supreme being, then it must also give equal respect to belief in an orbiting teapot, since the existence of an orbiting teapot is just as plausible scientifically as the existence of a supreme being.” Right? So the unlikely existence of the teapot is being used as an analogy (in terms of evidence) for the unlikely existence of God! So, here’s two reasons why it’s a straw man: 1. Theists do not generally claim anything about the burden of proof, as Russell (1952) claims - the theist claim is that belief in God is maintained by FAITH, not by proof. Thus Russell is falsely asserting theists claim something they don’t. 2. The teapot argument is ‘argument by analogy’, but the analogy is a bad one. “God” is not a measurable ‘thing’ like a teapot, existing within the physical universe. So, the argument about Gods existence isn’t about the existence of a measurable ‘thing’, but the more profound question of whether the transcendental origin of all being is physical or is spiritual. Belief in God thus requires a paradigm shift, from the materialist assumption that space/time/matter/energy is primordial, to the Idealist belief that mind/spirit is primordial. This is an ontological question, NOT a question Science is equipped to answer, based as it is on methodological materialism. In using the teapot analogy, and fallaciously turning it into a scientific question, Russell thus falls into a fairly basic category error, and creates a straw man. It’s like he’s trying to argue ‘truth’ can’t exist because it has no discernible mass, while ‘beauty’ has no identifiable chemical properties. However, lots of atheists have been taken in by Russell’s teapot argument, so don’t feel too bad that you have been too! 😜

[@tomjackson7755]

Bravo You have completely gotten it wrong again. Later people have used it as *part* of an argument against the *plausiblity* and/or *probability* of gods.Your lame Dawkins quote a great example of this. Also it is still not used as a metaphor in any of those cases. In your two "reasons" you are focusing on Russell, while your original comment was about atheists in general, so I don't see the relevance of any of the first point or the last part of the second. " “God” is not a measurable ‘thing’ like a teapot" How do you know it's not? Man is supposedly "created" in its image, so man would be a measurement of this image. No one can demonstrate that one exists. How can one honestly claim what properties that an completely unknown "entity" has? "However, lots of atheists have been taken in by Russell’s teapot argument, so don’t feel too bad that you have been too! 😜" I think you're still confused. I have never heard of it being used in anything but burden of proof context until you pointed out your lame example, which it is used only because it is something that is known but could have been anything else just as easily.

[@uremove]

tom jackson You should read more widely then! Russell himself in 1958 wrote: “nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.” I’ve come across the analogy many times as an argument for the unlikeliness of the existence of God. Sorry if you haven’t! You keep insisting I’m wrong, but give no evidence yourself, other than asserting your own opinions. If you want to use Russells teapot to prove the unlikely existence of God as a physical thing floating round the universe - good luck! However, this is not the God anyone actually believes in. Hence it’s a straw man.

[@tomjackson7755]

Your response was already covered in my last reply. Since you missed it here it is again. Bravo You have completely gotten it wrong again. Later people have used it as part of an argument against the plausibility and/or probability of gods.Your lame Dawkins quote a great example of this. Also it is still not used as a metaphor in any of those cases. I keep proving, not insisting that you are wrong. If you need another example just look at how much your story has changed from your original post.

[@AhlusSunnahwalJamah]

This guy is committing the fallacy fallacy. It’s not called bloating it up, it’s called following up with whatever your conclusion you arrived at. The footnotes fallacy is not a fallacy if the authority is truly an authority. Authority to an atheist is the only authority worthy to be an authority according to their subjective beliefs it seems. It’s not a false dichotomy, it’s called the basic law of logic called the excluded middle. Any false belief would be a red herring. It is the atheists that commit the equivocation fallacy by conflating created gods with Uncreated God. God I was looking for some good arguments to challenge my theism but this dude is disappointing. He’s not a very critical philosopher after all.

[@YAWTon]

"I was looking for some good arguments to challenge my theism but this dude is disappointing." Well, you were looking in the wrong place, then. This clip is not about good arguments against theism, it is about bad arguments for theism. I have the impression that you do not understand what Walter Sinnott Armstron is saying. The law of excluded middle ("tertium non datur") says that a (meaningful) statement is either true or false. It is not an absolute law (in intuitionistic logic it is not a law), and it is completely irrelevant to the false dichotomy example in the clip. رمضان مبارك

[@MrTitanic222]

First please define "smart". Does that mean mastery of language like Shakespeare? If so, we're all out of the running. Mastery of logic like Godel? In truth, everything we do in life is in part based on our personal biases and assumptions, including whether math as we know it is truly the ultimate "truth" or revealer of nature. What did Godel teach us with his Incompleteness Theorem??