How do you decide if something is factual?

[Kylie]

I'd start by wording the quoted a little differently, in still accurate, but more simple terms (Always best to tear it down to the very basics), as in...

One group believes that creationism is factual, and the other group accepts that it all happened on it's on.

We could go on and on about the science used in your version of the question but since science is just our opinion of what the natural is telling us, and not an almighty end all as we are led to believe, it not only remains just opinion, but in the end, it still leads us to the simple basics of "it just happened"...all that is relevant here as I see it. I feel all of that is accurate and removes some confusion (And I know you were not trying to confuse anything, by any means) and confusion plays a huge role in all this, the very reason I need to do away with it and stick with the basic facts in my version in order to draw my personal conclusion.

Next common sense comes into play. I have never ever, even once, seen anything come from nothing, on it's own, yet I have seen things created. As a matter of fact, everything beyond what we call the natural, was created by man...everything.

So, to me, it's about as easy as any decision I've ever made to believe the so-called natural was "created" over what I feel is a very ridiculous, even laughable "it just happened".

That would cover the basic answer to your question, but if one wanted to go a step further, common sense also dictates, if someone created me, a living thinking being just like my creator, that someone (God) would want to let me know all about my creator and why he created me/us...hence the biblical God being the actual creator, and that bible being his explanation to us all.

So your tactic is to twist my question into a strawman, then attack the strawman and then claim you've proven my point wrong?

Yeah, debates don't work that way. You have not address my point at all, merely a twisted version of it.

 

[Kylie]

And God (Elohim-The Trinity, a Plural name) said, Let the earth/ground bring forth the living creature after His (YHWH/Jesus, a Singular name) kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth/ground after His (YHWH/Jesus, a Singular name) kind, and it was so.

Jesus always makes temporary things, things which are subject to death on this Earth. God is telling the Son to bring forth living creatures from the GROUND, from the EARTH. God made ETERNAL creatures from WATER. Gen 1:21 SOME of them were made after His (Jesus kinds) since they are the "common ancestors". Adam, made from the ground, is the common ancestor of ALL Humans. That's WHY Humans MUST be born again by the Trinity IF they want Eternal life. Gen 1:26 Gen 5:1-2 and John 14:16 Amen?

So fish are eternal creatures, but cattle are not?

 

[Kylie]

That method allows you only a very limited set of facts. I mean, how many claims can you test?

I have a few addition methods for determining factuality.

For one, I trust the combination of scientific institutions + time. The findings of respected universities and research institutes that have been time-tested seem to be very reliable. I typically call those findings "facts". Almost none of them do I test myself.

Then we are in agreement.

(You didn't think that I must literally test everything myself, do you? I think the radioactivity of uranium has been well enough established that I don't want to get anywhere near it.)

 

[durangodawood]

Then we are in agreement.

(You didn't think that I must literally test everything myself, do you? I think the radioactivity of uranium has been well enough established that I don't want to get anywhere near it.)

I did think that actually.

Not that you actually administer the tests yourself, but that at least you follow the history of the testing for each item that you admit as "fact".

I go much further. I admit many many facts based solely on the reputation of scientific institutions plus the test of time.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Woah, I never said that was what your state of mind was, I simply said that is how it seems to be from my point of view.

If I am wrong, please feel free to explain to me how you have solved the problem I described.

Ok. My bad if I mis-assessed your intent. That's fair, and I'll readily admit that while my first two comments about how I approach recognizing facts within science and philosophy were meant in a straightforward fashion, my third comment about 'listening to ancient Jewish people' was also meant to be slightly snarky. However, now that I see that you weren't intending to simply psycho-analyze me as some other atheists here do, I'll attempt to answer your question as it relates to my religious faith.

In brief, and in knowing there is much I could bring up to describe my view about 'facts' of faith, my point in doing so here isn't to offer an apologetic on the Christian faith, but rather to describe to you my approach to various types of fact in religion as it compares to my approach to facts in science or philosophy.

First off, I should probably make it clear that I don't try to 'establish' religious truth in the same way as I would scientific truth. I think the possible truth of any religion hinges on the peculiar epistemological and metaphysical structures that are inherent to the claims of that particular religion, as well as to any attending factual manifestations that may attain on a historical scale and happen to be available for our personal evaluation. So, I typically haven't assumed much of anything about any religion in general, or of anything about any specific religion for that matter. For instance, I don't see the need to start with the assumption of an inerrant Christian bible. However, as this pertains to Christianity specifically, I do realize that it, and it's bible, have been pervasive presences (and influences) within Western culture and history over the past two millennia, and it is this social and religious milieu of which I am a part. This affiliation of mine with a general religious context is not so much the case with other religions. I fully realize that in this regard, my view of Christianity as somehow factual will not by any necessity be one that is clearly demonstrable to the satisfaction of each and every other person who might wish for me to provide clear and distinct evidence of its factual state. And so, the factual nature of the Christian religion is, as I see it, conceptually unlike that of science or philosophy, and this should be an expected dynamic that will govern any interlocution involving the facts of the Christian faith.

Secondly, being that religion and/or Christian faith specifically are constructed of epistemic claims which are not fully conducive to the doing of science or philosophy, I allow that religion, for the most part, be considered as a separate sphere of human inquiry, such as is proposed by agnostics like Stephen Jay Gould or by Christian believers like Francis Collins, among others. Sure, I know there is philosophical debate among many thinkers about this issue of separation of spheres, even on and within BOTH sides of the Theist/Non-Theist divide, and those who would disagree with my position would contend that "no, science bears upon whatever contingencies religion may claim for itself." I understand that, I just don't accept it (for philosophical reasons).

So, that in brief, this is the essence of my approach to my Christian faith and the initial and very rudimentary aspects of my methodology as I apply it to religion in contrast to that which I would apply to science and/or philosophy.

Again, I'm not saying any of this as a point of persuasion. It's not meant to be, and I don't expect anyone to feel some sense of "Eureka" over it. I'm merely describing my methodology, or some elements of it, because you requested this. However, I hope that you at least see the cogency in some of the things I've said, Kylie.

Thanks for being civil about.
2PhiloVoid

p.s. Yes, I've already considered the implications of Loftus' Outsider Test for Faith...

 

[miamited]

Hi kylie,

You responded to my post:

God having Jesus die is not the same as letting a criminal go free. It is God deciding that the crime must be paid for with the blood of an innocent.

It would be like me deciding that the only way I could forgive my daughter is by killing her pet goldfish.

I want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to offer you some explanations of supposed conundrums that you've come to understand in God's plan.

I'm not in agreement that your analogy is quite appropriate. After all, what would you care that you flushed a goldfish down the drain to save the daughter that you love more than life itself. However, the Scriptures tell us that God didn't flush some worthless goldfish down the drain that your sin could be cleansed. The Scriptures tell us that God so loved you that He gave the life of His very own Son.

Let's change the analogy just a bit. Let's suppose that for your daughter to be saved, you'd have to sacrifice the life of your other child. Would that choice be so easy? What would you tell the child that you were sacrificing to make it easy for him/her to willingly accept your decision?

If, a sinner accepts the sacrifice of Jesus and then receives God's promise of eternal life, you don't think that would be the same as a judge letting a criminal go free? You're forgetting that God has established a law and that law says that there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. So, God has established that it is righteous and just that the shedding of blood is required for the remission of sin. Now, as I said in my earlier post, I can't really tell you why God has determined that blood is required for the remission of sin, but I can tell you that God has said that blood is required for the remission of sin. You see, God does get to make the rules. I believe that another reason that blood is required for the remission of sin is to give us some idea of just how serious the issue of sin in our lives is and just how seriously we need to understand that we need to deal with it. After all, how serious would we take sin if we could just flush our goldfish down the toilet to have our sin forgiven?

God established that the wages of sin is death. Not that may not seem fair to you, but it is the law that God has established for sin. Now, one of the reasons that God may have established that sin brings death could be that God knows what kind of existence this life would ultimately be if sin was allowed to go on unchecked. Consider, what would this life be like if every sinner, since the days of Adam, were still living and walking about on the earth? All the Adoph Hitlers, Idi Amins, Timothy McVeighs and sinners of every degree of wickedness were still wreaking their havoc. Perhaps the condemnation of death for sin is some small way that the earth can be cleansed from time to time of wickedness.

Yeah, but it doesn't need to be that way, does it?

If my daughter breaks something of mine, then I can forgive her without needing to break something of hers. God created the universe, surely he can change the rules.

Again, let's set the bar as high as it really needs to be set. We aren't talking about just breaking some vase sitting out on your table. We're talking about things like murder, stealing, lying, hating. We're talking about our not recognizing our Creator for just who He is. I often hear people ask, "Well, why does God need man anyway?" Well, God likely doesn't need man, but it is what He desires. It is why He created this realm. He is a God of love and in order for His love to be received and appreciated, then just like your love, there needs to be someone to give it to. I rather doubt that God's love would be of much value even to Him, if there was no one for Him to love. You have a daughter and you love your daughter, but what would your love be worth to you if you had no friends, no family to receive your love? What if you lived an existence all alone with no one to love, but your whole reason for being was love? I'm just asking that you consider, if such a reality was the truth, what would you do? Would you not create creatures to receive and share your love if you have the power to do that?

Finally, you asked:

Why not? Can't God just make it just?

Yes, God can make it right. He is going to make it right. And He has told us just exactly how He is going to make it right. Now, in your human wisdom you can make the claim that you don't think it's fair, but God, who is honestly wiser than any of us, has determined that this plan that He has set in motion and described to us through the Scriptures, is fair and just in His sight.

If you'd humor me for just a moment more, I'd like to explain how I have come to understand the Scriptures and what they tell us about God.

God has created this realm. The account of the first words of Genesis and the law of the Sabbath both declare that God created this realm in which we live. However, mankind fell into sin. Rebellion against God's righteous law of the life that He created for us. The account in Genesis, Jesus, and many of the writers of the Scriptures declare this to be a fact.

So, beginning with a man by the name of Abram, God set in motion a plan whereby He would gain what His desire for creating this realm was in the beginning. To share an eternal existence of love and caring one with another. But man's sin prevents that from happening and so this issue of sin must be dealt with. In raising up this man named Abram, God began building a nation of people to do His bidding upon the earth. They were used to write to us the Scriptures that tell us all about Him and it was through His people Israel that His Son was born to complete the final piece of God's great plan of salvation. One of Jesus' last comments before He died was to look up into the heavens and declare, "It is finished!" God's great plan to provide the knowledge and way of salvation was complete.

Now, Peter declares to us, we are living in the days of God's mercy and patience. He is allowing mankind to live as mankind, overall, chooses to live. However, entwined within that overall direction that mankind is choosing to live, there are some who are coming to understand God's truth. As the Scriptures also declare, many are called, but few are chosen. God's plan of salvation is available to each and every person alive upon the earth, but few will choose.

That's what the Scriptures tell us from beginning to end. God created this realm in which we live and there will come a day that God is going to draw it all to a close. How much do you love your daughter? Do you love her so much that you would want her to share in God's salvation?

Thank you for your patience.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[Kylie]

I did think that actually.

Not that you actually administer the tests yourself, but that at least you follow the history of the testing for each item that you admit as "fact".

I go much further. I admit many many facts based solely on the reputation of scientific institutions plus the test of time.

I figure that if other people who are well trained in the scientific method conduct the testing according to the scientific method, and their work is repeated and checked, then it's likely to be accurate, and that's good enough for me.

 

[AV1611VET]

I figure that if other people who are well trained in the scientific method conduct the testing according to the scientific method, and their work is repeated and checked, then it's likely to be accurate,

Isn't that how we got Thalidomide?

 

[Kylie]

I'm not in agreement that your analogy is quite appropriate. After all, what would you care that you flushed a goldfish down the drain to save the daughter that you love more than life itself. However, the Scriptures tell us that God didn't flush some worthless goldfish down the drain that your sin could be cleansed. The Scriptures tell us that God so loved you that He gave the life of His very own Son.

Let's change the analogy just a bit. Let's suppose that for your daughter to be saved, you'd have to sacrifice the life of your other child. Would that choice be so easy? What would you tell the child that you were sacrificing to make it easy for him/her to willingly accept your decision?

Let's not forget that in this analogy, I am the one who set up such a system, and I am capable of changing the system so that no one needs to die.

If, a sinner accepts the sacrifice of Jesus and then receives God's promise of eternal life, you don't think that would be the same as a judge letting a criminal go free?

That would be the judge letting the criminal go free because the judge decided that his own son would die in the criminal's place.

What would you say to such a judge?

You're forgetting that God has established a law and that law says that there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. So, God has established that it is righteous and just that the shedding of blood is required for the remission of sin.

Yeah, it is righteous and just to expect someone to die for the crimes of another.

Now, as I said in my earlier post, I can't really tell you why God has determined that blood is required for the remission of sin, but I can tell you that God has said that blood is required for the remission of sin.

Funnily enough, it seems that no one has a good answer to this. The cognitive dissonance required to believe something while at the same time knowing it makes zero sense is quite amazing.

You see, God does get to make the rules.

But not change them, apparently.

I believe that another reason that blood is required for the remission of sin is to give us some idea of just how serious the issue of sin in our lives is and just how seriously we need to understand that we need to deal with it. After all, how serious would we take sin if we could just flush our goldfish down the toilet to have our sin forgiven?

You forget that we are dealing with God, who could just snap his fingers and then we'd all understand it perfectly.

God established that the wages of sin is death. Not that may not seem fair to you, but it is the law that God has established for sin. Now, one of the reasons that God may have established that sin brings death could be that God knows what kind of existence this life would ultimately be if sin was allowed to go on unchecked. Consider, what would this life be like if every sinner, since the days of Adam, were still living and walking about on the earth? All the Adoph Hitlers, Idi Amins, Timothy McVeighs and sinners of every degree of wickedness were still wreaking their havoc. Perhaps the condemnation of death for sin is some small way that the earth can be cleansed from time to time of wickedness.

And I tell my daughter that the cost of her misbehaving is death! But if I am to forgive her, someone must die in her place. So I kill her goldfish instead.

Oh wait, you said that wasn't a fair analogy. Let me rephrase it.

And I tell my daughter's goldfish that the cost of splashing water out of the bowl is death! But if I am to forgive the fish, someone must die in her place. So I kill my daughter instead.

Isn't that much better?

Again, let's set the bar as high as it really needs to be set. We aren't talking about just breaking some vase sitting out on your table. We're talking about things like murder, stealing, lying, hating. We're talking about our not recognizing our Creator for just who He is. I often hear people ask, "Well, why does God need man anyway?" Well, God likely doesn't need man, but it is what He desires. It is why He created this realm.

So God created the entire universe just so there would be a bunch of people to worship him? Honestly, that sounds like a great deal of insecurity to me. I knew a kid like that when I was in school. Always had to be the center of attention, always had to be the best, always had to have people praising him.

He scared me, honestly.

He is a God of love and in order for His love to be received and appreciated, then just like your love, there needs to be someone to give it to. I rather doubt that God's love would be of much value even to Him, if there was no one for Him to love. You have a daughter and you love your daughter, but what would your love be worth to you if you had no friends, no family to receive your love?

What about the angels? Did you forget about them?

What if you lived an existence all alone with no one to love, but your whole reason for being was love?

Tell me what Deuteronomy 6:15 says please?

I'm just asking that you consider, if such a reality was the truth, what would you do? Would you not create creatures to receive and share your love if you have the power to do that?

I would not want to live such a shallow and dimensionless life.

Yes, God can make it right. He is going to make it right. And He has told us just exactly how He is going to make it right. Now, in your human wisdom you can make the claim that you don't think it's fair, but God, who is honestly wiser than any of us, has determined that this plan that He has set in motion and described to us through the Scriptures, is fair and just in His sight.

And yet the omnipotent deity who can just snap his fingers and do it seems to be taking his time.

Been at least 6000 years. Longer, if you're not a YEC.

If you'd humor me for just a moment more, I'd like to explain how I have come to understand the Scriptures and what they tell us about God.

Okie dokie...

God has created this realm. The account of the first words of Genesis and the law of the Sabbath both declare that God created this realm in which we live. However, mankind fell into sin. Rebellion against God's righteous law of the life that He created for us. The account in Genesis, Jesus, and many of the writers of the Scriptures declare this to be a fact.

So step one of understanding the scriptures is to just assume they are correct.

So, beginning with a man by the name of Abram, God set in motion a plan whereby He would gain what His desire for creating this realm was in the beginning. To share an eternal existence of love and caring one with another. But man's sin prevents that from happening and so this issue of sin must be dealt with. In raising up this man named Abram, God began building a nation of people to do His bidding upon the earth. They were used to write to us the Scriptures that tell us all about Him and it was through His people Israel that His Son was born to complete the final piece of God's great plan of salvation. One of Jesus' last comments before He died was to look up into the heavens and declare, "It is finished!" God's great plan to provide the knowledge and way of salvation was complete.

To extend the analogy we used earlier...

I have a bunch of fish living in a fish bowl. But some of the fish like biting the others. I can't have that, so I decide to punish them. But since I don't want to kill them, I get pregnant, have a child, and kill the child instead.

Now, Peter declares to us, we are living in the days of God's mercy and patience. He is allowing mankind to live as mankind, overall, chooses to live. However, entwined within that overall direction that mankind is choosing to live, there are some who are coming to understand God's truth. As the Scriptures also declare, many are called, but few are chosen. God's plan of salvation is available to each and every person alive upon the earth, but few will choose.

Nice advertising spiel...

That's what the Scriptures tell us from beginning to end. God created this realm in which we live and there will come a day that God is going to draw it all to a close. How much do you love your daughter? Do you love her so much that you would want her to share in God's salvation?

Do I love my daughter enough that I want her to dedicate her life to something I consider imaginary, you mean.

What you are doing here is advertising. But both the product you are selling and the problem it solves are imaginary as far as I am concerned.

 

[Kenny'sID]

So your tactic is to twist my question into a strawman, then attack the strawman and then claim you've proven my point wrong?

Wow, that was a surprise, guess I hit a nerve, or it had already been hit before I posted, and I caught the flack...never expected that with such a simple straightforward answer. No tactic involved at all, I merely answered your question on how I decide what is factual or not in the area you presented.

What exactly was the problem with my answer? And what exactly did I do that wasn't within the bounds of how a debate works?

Yeah, debates don't work that way. You have not address my point at all, merely a twisted version of it.

I did nothing *but* address your point.

 

[Kenny'sID]

I just reread the OP again thinking I missed something and I'm still at a loss...

In this thread, I'd like to discuss how we reach our conclusions as to what is factual or not. Not to debate on whether creationism or evolution is factual, but how we arrive at our conclusions as to what is factual.

I did exactly that. Told you precisely how I reached my conclusion, and without debate.

I'm more curious now than anything else what in the world you saw in my post.

Odd to say the least.

 

[miamited]

Let's not forget that in this analogy, I am the one who set up such a system, and I am capable of changing the system so that no one needs to die.

Yes, you are in control of the situation and if it was your choice, you could let wickedness prevail forever and eternally. As I would understand the world to ultimately become under such an idea, I imagine that it's fortunate that you aren't in control of everything, but you and I are each individually in control of our own lives.

God is a being of love and so He has made the choice to establish the eternal life with a set of parameters that would foster such love. According to Jesus, His Son, the greatest commandment is that we love God. It's what God asks of us, and as the supreme Creator, it's His right to ask it of us. The second is to love others as we love ourselves. Those creatures whom God has created that understand this and establish this as their life's goal, will receive the promise that God has promised them. All others simply will not.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[Kylie]

Isn't that how we got Thalidomide?

Get a new trick, AV, this one's old. The Bible says there's nothing new under the sun, it's beginning to look like there's nothing new in your posts either.

Tell me, who was it who discovered that thalidomide was dangerous? People studying religion, or people studying science?

 

[Kylie]

Wow, that was a surprise, guess I hit a nerve, or it had already been hit before I posted, and I caught the flack...never expected that with such a simple straightforward answer. No tactic involved at all, I merely answered your question on how I decide what is factual or not in the area you presented.

No, you did not answer my question.

You changed the question from "evolution" to "just random chance with no cause at all". The two are very different things.

What exactly was the problem with my answer? And what exactly did I do that wasn't within the bounds of how a debate works?

Straw man - RationalWiki

I did nothing *but* address your point.

No, you changed my point into something else, and then addressed that, not my actual point.

 

[Kylie]

Yes, you are in control of the situation and if it was your choice, you could let wickedness prevail forever and eternally. As I would understand the world to ultimately become under such an idea, I imagine that it's fortunate that you aren't in control of everything, but you and I are each individually in control of our own lives.

Luckily, my choices are not split between "let wickedness prevail forever" and "kill an innocent for the crimes of another."

God is a being of love and so He has made the choice to establish the eternal life with a set of parameters that would foster such love. According to Jesus, His Son, the greatest commandment is that we love God. It's what God asks of us, and as the supreme Creator, it's His right to ask it of us. The second is to love others as we love ourselves. Those creatures whom God has created that understand this and establish this as their life's goal, will receive the promise that God has promised them. All others simply will not.

How can I be expected to love or even respect any being which sets up such a barbaric system?

 

[AV1611VET]

Tell me, who was it who discovered that thalidomide was dangerous? People studying religion, or people studying science?

Frances Kelsey ... from St. Margaret's school?

 

[miamited]

Hi kylie,

You responded:

Luckily, my choices are not split between "let wickedness prevail forever" and "kill an innocent for the crimes of another."

Yes, but God's choice is. I understand that you won't agree with that. Believe me that there was a time in my life that I believed pretty much as you do. No one is born with the knowledge of God.

You then wrote:

How can I be expected to love or even respect any being which sets up such a barbaric system?

Well, perhaps you can't. The Scriptures do tell us that a whole bunch of folk are on the broad road. But they hold out a great promise for those who choose not to follow it.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[Hidden In Him]

And if you admit that your knowledge about the debate is limited, how can you have reached a conclusion you are willing to hold to without even looking at the opposing evidence?

No, no. There was a time in my life where I was very concerned about this issue and would have probably made a better conversationalist about it then. At the time I was taking upper level courses in paleontology, and what finally revealed to me just how much subjectivity was involved came after seeing the prof put up charts that showed just how much punctuated equilibrium had to account for a lack of tangible evidence in the fossil record. Little black dots all over the place, LoL.

But while you seem like a good conversationalist, you may not realize it but you and I are like fire and ice in our mentalities. I respect people of all different walks of life and different interests. But if you can accept me as well, I have absolutely no interest in scientific matters or scientific perspectives on life. I'm deeply spiritual, which others may or may not value as much, but regardless of whether they do or not I view spirituality to be of far greater importance than scientific interests, given their implications where our eternal welfares are concerned.

So I'll pray the Lord sends you some of our more science-oriented Christian members we have here. I've seen several getting involved in much more heady discussions, and as I recall none of them have gotten involved in this thread yet.

God bless,
Hidden.

 

[friend of]

How about you? How well have your methods worked in the past?

Faith does not require evidence. You either have faith that the bible is the word of God or you do not.

Discussions concerning God are matters of faith, but none are provable.

This.

The entire Creationism vs. Evolution debate is pointless head-desking by people who crave an audience to their self-approval and aren't aware that they are actually masochists.

 

[Kenny'sID]

No, you did not answer my question.

You changed the question from "evolution" to "just random chance with no cause at all". The two are very different things.

I answered your question exactly...with a very solid and well thought out answer, but it seems you want to restrict how I draw my personal conclusion.

I changed nothing, you didn't include a very important factor in your question..."where did it all begin". And I assumed it's as it always has been with Atheist evolutionists, in that it all "just started", (It's not realistic to avoid the unavoidable because we have no answer, but it's done all the time with the beginning of evolution) and didn't really expect an argument on that. You say they are two completely different things, but they are not, where it began is absolutely part of the evolutionary process. Sure it's a stumper for you, but that's not my fault (I'm assuming that is the actual problem you had with my answer) I personally use that "from nothing" as part of my logical process toward conclusion.

In short, since we cannot debate it, I assumed the idea I always get when the question is asked stands true here..."from nothing" nothing new about that.

Evolution had to start somewhere and I'm not going to skip that part in drawing my conclusion, however it's up to you if you choose to. To not recognize a beginning is like, for instance, how does one draw a factual conclusion on how a man got from point A to point B without explaining where he started. It *has* to be included.

You asked, I told you, and now it seems I'm not allowed to use certain criteria in order to draw my factual conclusion.

Are there any other restrictions that I need to know about?

So I call your non existent or Straw beginning and raise you one Straw man. And BTW, there is nothing wrong with putting a creator in that place where you have no explanation of how things came to be. If you asked me where, say, a house came from, a house that neither of us saw built, and I said it was built by a man, you could actually argue "straw man" because neither of us are certain who built, but it would still be logical to assume it was a man that built it, just as logical as assuming it was God at times. Assumption are sometimes necessary to fill in the blanks while compiling a conclusion and if they don't fit in the end, they can be removed....part of the process.

People rely on the Straw Man argument way too much, and throwing it in there as a restriction when this thread is all about how we draw our own individual conclusion is kind of like, you really don't want my conclusion, at least not until you give it to me.