Ana the 1st:
I'm quoting a passage from a book; a brief quote:
Rules For Talking Back
When we talk back, we want to do more than just "share our feelings" or opinions. That is childish; that is just "getting it out", "getting it off our chest." We want not just to get something out but to get something in: the truth. We want not just to "express our opinion but to be impressed by the truth. We want not just to externalize what is inside but to internalize what is outside; to learn the truth, to find out [insert X, what one wants to find out]. That is, if we are honest.
There are only three ways to refute any argument. This is not negotiable, conventional, or changeable, not the man-made roles of a man-made game. This situation is inherent in the structure of reason itself. Aristotle did not invent it; God did.
An argument--any argument--has three ingredients, and any of of these three ingredients can be defective. But there are only these three. An argument is composed of propositions, statements, sentences. These in turn are composed of terms (words or phrases). An argument is built of these building blocks, just like a physical building. Its propositions are like sto[ry]s, just like a physical building. Its propositions are like storys, and its terms are like rooms.
Each argument is a three-story building (if it is a syllogism, the natural and most usual form of argument and the form we find in Ecclesiastes).
The storys are called two "premises" and "one conclusion". The conclusion is like the top story; it is where the building goes. Each story has two rooms, called the "subject term" and the "predicate term". Thus a syllogistic argument looks like this... (I'll represent the author's diagram as best I can):
Subject = Predicate
Conclusion
Subject = Predicate
The Second Premise
Subject = Predicate
The First Premise
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There are three things that must go right with any argument:
1. The terms must be unambiguous.
2. The premises must be true.
3. The argument must be logical.
Thus there are three things that can go wrong with any argument:
1. The terms may be ambiguous
2. The premises may be false.
3. The argument may be illogical.
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I'll stop there with the quote, which is from Three Philosophies of Life by Peter Kreeft (professor of philosophy at Boston College. He is the author of ... )
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Now, for my first mistake?
Continuing to move 'forward', into the Thread, after reading its title.
The thread title indicated 'loose and broad' question; no argument, so I made a second mistake and went inside and read the OP (post, not poster); again, so loose/broad, no argument, and I made my third mistake by trying to 'create' a 'more snug, narrower' and therefore 'answer to an argument never made'.
I did not expect, however foolish my attempt to answer a non-argument; I did not expect to have a poster, any poster, i.e. person make assumptions about what I've done in my entire life or failed to do concerning an animal the OP didn't 'present an argument concerning'; I did not expect a poster, i.e. a person, of any religious or non-religious affiliation to project his/her mental activity concerning what s/he couldn't know about me, into my own.
As I don't attack CF members (go read an adequate sampling of m posts on this forum; heck, read 'em all, every line--find an 'attack' of mine? I'll claim it).
I didn't insult 'atheists' as I wasn't writing about my personal experience 'to' any, let alone 'all' atheists, as I would, as the individual that I am, be guilty of demeaning myself and therefore the 'any' or 'all' I judged and condemned to the cookie-cutter-bureau drawer.
I don't write for 'any' or 'all' Christians. I write as one among many, and I have read numerous posts on CF in which a Christian broadcasts, tars-n-feathers, and otherwise demeans his own denom; another's sect; attacks an atheist, agnostic (keep going...), and by my moral standards; by the Christian code I try to live by?
It's unacceptable for 'me' to demean another human being, and the Authority I look to for what 'demean' means is GOD.
I've known numerous atheists through the years. I even spent a few years trying to shoe-horn my mind into that bureau drawer, using 'atheist' as defined, far as I could make out, by Christians... though once I became better educated, I realized that one can never pinpoint the exact moment, or give credit/blame (depending on whether one feels the need for one or the either) for a particular label making its way through popular culture, gaining currency, its value being raised and lowered by this group or that, during a particular point in history vs. another, and so on...
Compare the point in the last paragraph to the word, Christian: I recently read a so-called reliable source which claims that pagans, i.e. Greeks, approximately 50 years after Jesus of Nazareth's death, began referring to followers of him as followers of Krestos, and the term Christian grew from there.
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Ana the 1st?
I don't know you. In person? We might get along; on paper, clearly not so well, at least not in this thread, and only in part because of how each of us responded to the loose and broadly phrased thread heading...
I want to say two things more, and only two things:
1) I'm sorry I came in (I already explained the errors in logic/logistics); I'm sorry I came in to the Philosophy area at all, because I had a sense--since reinforced, that some who fly under the atheist banner feel that this area of the CF is one of the few in which they can post with 'some' freedom as they define it, and so I should have, from a position of fair play, stayed away.
2) I'm sorry I came in because I was so exhausted, and as it turned out, so irritable because of physical pain, that I was bound to post sub-par (by my standards) and in unfamiliar territory (a sub-forum frequented by those who are strangers to me), I felt too vulnerable, defensive, childish.
3) I'm sorry I 'acted on' while exhausted and referred to the thread title, to a particular word, 'trite' as being a red flag (gist of what I said, as I recall) because that word wasn't 'the' word that tipped me off I should back out, and go do some yoga; lie with my legs up the wall, take a hot bath--do anything soothing... rather than thoughtlessly shoot off a reaction, not a response, while needing to quiet, not excite an already over-excited nervous system
I'm sorry because I am capable of better; and you, as a fellow human being, deserving of the best I can share--and the post before this one was surely not in the ballpark of what I aim as a disciple of Jesus Christ, to offer to other persons--on or off CF.
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I am unsubscribing from this thread as soon as I hit Submit Reply; I'll work on increasing--especially 'late night'--self-discipline, in part by staying away from an General Philosophy.
~ Carolyn
P.S. Well-intentioned PMs, or dropping by for a visit, are welcome via my Home Page or whatever it's called. But hey? Let's be smart and make any contact before, say, 4:00P.M. I'm humble enough to say I'm sorry--and getting better at it with practice, but if necessity is the mother of invention, she needs the balance of father time...
