Tricks New Atheist Play (Part 1)

zippy2006 said:

You misrepresent me yet again. What I said is that the appeal of faith does not apply to all New Atheists, not that definition (2) does not apply to all New Atheists.

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There is no statement above and beyond my simple claim that you can apply to every single atheist. You can try to create some sort of distinction between "New Atheist" and atheist, but any distinction is arbitrary. You don't define what a "New Atheist" is, some atheists decide to call themselves "New Atheists". So we can drop this faux "I'm just talking about 'new' atheists" shtick. That someone would decide to apply that label to themselves is not an absolute indicator of what their beliefs are. Now if an atheist acknowledges that they don't know for certain no gods exist, and that they don't know they won't ever be convinced to change their mind, then you cannot assign the claim "God is not worthy of anyone's belief".

Whatever reasons you have that you think you should be able to assign a claim to another person about their beliefs, they simply don't matter. If you hear an atheist say, "I reject all theistic claims" just ask "Why?" and they'll almost certainly make a claim you can refute, and it will almost certainly sound just like mine.

zippy2006 said:

But this reduces to an absurdity. Suppose that a consensus is incorrect more than 50% of the time. Since a consensus is simply a sum of individual opinions, this means that each individual is incorrect more than 50% of the time. But if each individual is incorrect more than 50% of the time, then all of our perceptions, beliefs, and opinions are generally unreliable and cannot be trusted. It is only if humans are generally reliable (i.e. correct greater than 50% of the time) that we can trust human knowledge. Refined scientific methodologies can increase our reliability, but they cannot create reliability where none previously existed.

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No. If your reduction is true, it still only means that each individual on average is wrong more than 50% of the time. Not that human knowledge is wrong more than 50% of the time. There can still be plenty of individuals who are right more than 50% of the time making human knowledge reliable depending on your source.

zippy2006 said:

But consensus does not determine absolute probability, it is only one probabilistic argument. Therefore the probability for something being true or false under the aspect of an argument from consensus changes over time. This is no different than saying that opinions about what is true change over time, and is no more mysterious. The probabilities for what we believe to be true change as new data is gathered and new arguments considered. There is nothing strange about this.

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Still, the value of your argument changes over time. Without knowing how many people in the future will continue to hold a belief, you have no idea the actual value of your argument.

zippy2006 said:

Again, you're committing the error of assuming that a single counterexample or set of counterexamples undermines a probabilistic argument. That's not true. If the majority of humans believe that the Bible is not inerrant then this constitutes a probabilistic argument in favor of the thesis that the Bible is not inerrant.

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My "set of counter examples" is the totality of human knowledge past, present, and future. That's a pretty big set.

But like you said, way off topic, you didn't want to discuss it, so help yourself to the last word again.

zippy2006 said:

I said that my post provides an opportunity to dismiss superficial interpretations such as Variant's, namely the response Variant gave here. It is noteworthy that no one has opposed the argument I gave.

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Probably because it was full of discussions about the failings of New Atheists - none of which are participating in this thread. If you want a response from actual people, probably best to talk to them.

Non sequitur said:

Only if a deductive justification for induction cannot be provided. Which was from every previous argument.

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Or you could just notice that science relies on induction quite a bit and also manages to do pretty well despite this "limitation". For all the talk about alleged logical fallacies it certainly does better than philosophy at discovering stuff about reality. So maybe it isn't induction that needs to be defended but the presupposition that pure deduction gets us anywhere useful here in the real world.

Non sequitur said:

Only if a deductive justification for induction cannot be provided.

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It is well known that no deductive justification for induction exists.

Which was from every previous argument.

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The argument that "All past arguments have been X, therefore all future arguments will be X" is a classic example of inductive reasoning and has nothing at all to do with deductive reasoning.

Nicholas Deka said:

Now if an atheist acknowledges that they don't know for certain no gods exist, and that they don't know they won't ever be convinced to change their mind, then you cannot assign the claim "God is not worthy of anyone's belief".

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This is the same fallacy I've already explained earlier. A potential willingness to change one's mind does not undermine definition (2).

Whatever reasons you have that you think you should be able to assign a claim to another person about their beliefs, they simply don't matter. If you hear an atheist say, "I reject all theistic claims" just ask "Why?" and they'll almost certainly make a claim you can refute, and it will almost certainly sound just like mine.

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Your definition is an imposition on all atheists just as much as mine is.

No. If your reduction is true, it still only means that each individual on average is wrong more than 50% of the time. Not that human knowledge is wrong more than 50% of the time.

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What else could being wrong more than 50% of the time possibly mean than an average?

There can still be plenty of individuals who are right more than 50% of the time making human knowledge reliable depending on your source.

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If an argument from consensus is not probabilistically valid, then the majority of humans are wrong more than 50% of the time. If the majority of humans are right more than 50% of the time, then arguments from consensus are probabilistically valid. If humans are wrong more than 50% of the time, then knowledge is impossible. Since knowledge is possible, the majority of humans are right more than 50% of the time, and arguments from consensus are probabilistically valid.

Still, the value of your argument changes over time.

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I've explained why that doesn't matter.

Without knowing how many people in the future will continue to hold a belief, you have no idea the actual value of your argument.

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The argument works with any consensus, but the larger the sample size the more accurate the argument.

But like you said, way off topic, you didn't want to discuss it, so help yourself to the last word again.

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So when you think you have me pinned on a faulty argument, you press on and continue the off-topic discussion, but when you're shown to be wrong, you're no longer interested in the off-topic discussion? It would be preferable if you would make up your mind earlier rather than going half-way and then stopping.

variant said:

You should say 'isn't purely rational'.

Regardless, I have every reason.

Wagers are things you make depending on what you think will happen, so unless you think relying on long term experience when making predictions is irrational you don't have a case.

Experience based Induction is not an absolute method for determining truth, but it is a great way to predict future events.

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zippy2006 said:

Then feel free to describe how they are related in such a way that the falsity of one implies the falsity of another. Until you do that there is simply no reason to believe that induction is a valid means of argument when applied to things like species of argument.

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(Sorry, I see that you answered my longer post; only your two initial posts showed up on my feed so I didn't see it at first.)

zippy2006 said:

It is well known that no deductive justification for induction exists.

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Is there a deductive justification that deductive proofs are required for us to decide that an approach to investigating reality is effective?

The argument that "All past arguments have been X, therefore all future arguments will be X" is

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an argument I don't know that any one has made. I've seen discussions about probabilities based on past observations but no one trying to guarantee anything.

variant said:

Experience with believers and the arguments of believers makes you familiar with the way believers think, and thus familiar with the way believers will think, to the point that you can predict that their arguments are unlikely to persuade based upon assumptions you don't share, and the evidence they are unlikely to give.

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The identification of an unshared premise that grounds most all arguments for God would be a legitimate reason to wager. But what is this unshared premise that affects most arguments for God? I'm not convinced that it exists.

It took you about one whole post to admit the definitions of God are difficult and probably insufficient,...

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I explained why defining God is very different from defining mundane realities. If you accept that reasoning, then stop complaining. If you don't accept it, then offer a critique.

and then nod off into vagueness and duck any attempt to find a single workable quality that would give me a conceivable way to evaluate your beliefs.

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I gave you something like 10 qualities.

Are you still going to tell me this stuff doesn't get difficult quick?

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What is the difficulty? As I said, every particular conversation isolates certain attributes or effects of God, using this as a provisional definition. There's nothing difficult about it.

Are you going to hold to the demonstrably false idea that I am wrong to wager that I am unlikely to be surprised by your new arguments?

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You haven't provided any good reason for your desire to wager.

See, all I actually asked for were some definite qualities for God that could show us the difference between God and not God and you threw up a bunch of assertions and now you've gotten completely defensive.

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I gave you a string of such qualities. In this post I gave 4 qualities of God and 10 means of distinguishing. Is that not enough?

Well my argument is that I asked you for some relatively simple things, well simple for ideas that aren't defined so as to be difficult. And here we are off on some tangent.

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I gave you what you asked for. What I didn't do is launch new arguments for God's existence, and I explained why. Additionally, in another thread we have a live argument relating to God's existence, which serves perfectly as an example.

Yes, the point is that it is hard to have evidence for something when you can't even give me some reasonable ideas what that evidence should or should not look like.

I'll call that serious problem #1

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This is addressed above in pointing out the numerous ideas proffered.

In that argument you've basically defined god as "that which causes the universe" and, have demonstrated virtually nothing about it.

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That's because the conclusion is that it exists, not an exhaustive array of attributes.

I feel like it demonstrates my points better than yours.

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It demonstrates that you either didn't read or didn't understand the conclusion of the argument.

zippy2006 said:

The identification of an unshared premise that grounds most all arguments for God would be a legitimate reason to wager. But what is this unshared premise that affects most arguments for God? I'm not convinced that it exists.

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There are plenty of assumptions I don't share with theists.

Here's one of my assumptions that the religious usually don't share:

1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Here's one of yours:

It depends on the concept. In general you can examine the Scriptures or creation as data for making inferences about God.

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You can? Data you say? These are stories about a not particularly well sussed out character.

I explained why defining God is very different from defining mundane realities. If you accept that reasoning, then stop complaining. If you don't accept it, then offer a critique.

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It's problem #1, you've chosen a completely abstract subject matter, that changes with the person.

I gave you something like 10 qualities.

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Then explain how any one of them leads to God instead of not God. I don't see any of them as obviously up for that task.

What is the difficulty? As I said, every particular conversation isolates certain attributes or effects of God, using this as a provisional definition. There's nothing difficult about it.

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In practice it is quite difficult if your provisional description doesn't really describe any Gods...

So, you need to figure out how to match the "provisional" (set of qualities) you give to reality to see if the idea is useful in describing anything.

The way we usually decide if ideas are describing reality is to demonstrate that the ideas explain circumstances and for that we need a solid rather than a "provisional" definition of what someone means by God.

You haven't provided any good reason for your desire to wager.

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I really have. Experience is almost the only thing we rely upon when we wager.

I gave you a string of such qualities. In this post I gave 4 qualities of God and 10 means of distinguishing. Is that not enough?

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Given that I AM familiar with a lot of those arguments, no.

I gave you what you asked for. What I didn't do is launch new arguments for God's existence, and I explained why. Additionally, in another thread we have a live argument relating to God's existence, which serves perfectly as an example.

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If I thought that argument was convincing of much of anything I would already agree.

I've seen better apologists try to make that argument and thought it was completely unconvincing.

That's because the conclusion is that it exists, not an exhaustive array of attributes.

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To say something exists, is saying that it is exhibiting attributes. So, to say something exists requires an array of demonstrable attributes.

It demonstrates that you either didn't read or didn't understand the conclusion of the argument.

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Yeah I think not.

zippy2006 said:

Your definition is an imposition on all atheists just as much as mine is.

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Nope. Mine can be directly derived from the statement "I reject all theistic claims". The only assumption to make is that they have ever heard any evidence whatsoever, but remember my universal uncertainty principle, which I hope you agree at least applies to humans. If they don't know about something then they don't know that they don't know. If they do know about something enough to even state, "I reject all theistic claims" then they have to have some knowledge of theistic claims. So the statement, "All the evidence I have seen is bad" comes directly from that statement because they had to have seen some evidence, no matter how little (even one Christian saying "I believe in God" is testimony, is evidence). The evidence is "bad" because they were not convinced. If it was good, they would be convinced.


Your version, "God is not worthy of belief" means that it was God that the atheist evaluated the worthiness of, which isn't true. It was the evidence that the atheist evaluated as being unconvincing, not the being that the atheist doesn't believe exists.


But you still missed the point of what I said. If you don't like "I reject all theistic claims" then ask questions. Don't tell people what they think. Don't tell people what they believe. Don't tell people how to phrase their own claims. How much time have you and the OP wasted arguing about this to try and create the illusion that a god existing is falsifiable and that atheists are at fault for not taking a positive position on an unfalsifiable claim?


Atheists, in general, don't make the claim "no god(s) exist" because that is impossible to prove. Maybe a god can't have this quality or that quality, but whatever qualities you think are the essence of what makes a being a god are arbitrary. And changing the phrasing to "this god doesn't exist" or "that type of god doesn't exist" is just an ad hoc way of using rhetoric to confuse the fact that we aren't talking about existence at all, but attributes.


If I wanted to prove Donald Trump wasn't a billionaire, and succeeded, I would say, "Donald Trump doesn't have a billion dollars". I wouldn't say, "Donald Trump the billionaire doesn't exist". Your awkward phrasing of "God is not worthy of belief" serves no purpose other than to make extra assumptions about people's beliefs, how they arrived at them, and how they justify them that you don't know.


Think about this, I've seen you use a version of the Kalaam argument, so it's safe to say you are convinced by that argument, and to the extent I saw you use it, you would then believe that there is a being which transcends the universe that caused the universe to come into existence. Now imagine that I prove any god must be less than good with the problem of evil. That argument has no bearing on the Kalaam. You should still believe that there is a being which transcends the universe that caused the universe to come into existence. That you wouldn't call that being "God" anymore because you have arbitrarily decided "perfect goodness" defines your God doesn't mean that being doesn't exist, it only means that being lacks the attribute you thought it did.

That's why there is no atheist counter-example to the Kalaam or the Fine-Tuning arguments, because proving an invisible, immaterial, eternal being that exists outside of our universe is impossible to prove is non existent. So you've constructed this entirely unfalsifiable concept, and then demanded from the people who see no evidence to believe in said concept to make attempts to prove your wrong to shift the burden of proof away from your claim. Put some effort into proving your own claim instead of complaining that the people who don't believe you don't attempt to do the impossible.

zippy2006 said:

So when you think you have me pinned on a faulty argument, you press on and continue the off-topic discussion, but when you're shown to be wrong, you're no longer interested in the off-topic discussion? It would be preferable if you would make up your mind earlier rather than going half-way and then stopping.

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Start a thread justifying your use of a fallacy and I'll jump right back in. If there's nothing pertinent to this thread to discuss, I'd rather see the thread die. If you'd like, I won't stop till I have the last word in your thread if that makes you feel better.

Nicholas Deka said:

Nope. Mine can be directly derived from the statement "I reject all theistic claims".

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So what? What does that claim have to support it?

Heck, the stronger version of my claim can be derived from "I reject all theistic claims."

Your version, "God is not worthy of belief" means that it was God that the atheist evaluated the worthiness of, which isn't true.

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This is a strawman that you and you alone persist in. The atheists aren't even committing this strawman.

variant said:

There are plenty of assumptions I don't share with theists.

Here's one of my assumptions that the religious usually don't share:

1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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People who make use of such an assumption tend to be begging the question, for "extraordinary" is measured by personal preference.

Here's one of yours:



You can? Data you say? These are stories about a not particularly well sussed out character.

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Nice strawman. I've never proposed Scriptural arguments for the existence of God.

Then explain how any one of them leads to God instead of not God. I don't see any of them as obviously up for that task.

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I am not interested in CVN, I am interested in your supposed demonstration that arguments about God suffer from serious problems. If you need an example of such an argument, feel free to refer to my argument from another thread concluding with the existence of an immaterial being that transcends the universe.

The way we usually decide if ideas are describing reality is to demonstrate that the ideas explain circumstances and for that we need a solid rather than a "provisional" definition of what someone means by God.

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That's simply false. If we define a reality according to one of its effects and demonstrate the effect, then--insofar as the effect is unique to the reality--we have demonstrated the reality.

This is why you were so overly skeptical about the attribute "immaterial" in our other thread--you knew that immateriality is getting mighty close to God and you wish to avoid that at all costs.

I really have. Experience is almost the only thing we rely upon when we wager.

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You gave the reason of induction on a species of argument and unshared assumptions. You are in the process of trying to support these explanations.

I've seen better apologists try to make that argument and thought it was completely unconvincing.

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Grand. But your being unconvinced doesn't demonstrate that there is something inherently wrong with theistic arguments such that all future arguments are unlikely to convince you.

I think a basic reason future arguments would be unlikely to convince is the skepticism you harbor, which I take to be far from rational.

To say something exists, is saying that it is exhibiting attributes. So, to say something exists requires an array of demonstrable attributes.

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It requires at least one in the form of the provisional effect-definition.

zippy2006 said:

People who make use of such an assumption tend to be begging the question, for "extraordinary" is measured by personal preference.

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Extraordinary means out of the ordinary or mundane.

Nice strawman. I've never proposed Scriptural arguments for the existence of God.

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Those are your words, I responded to them.

I am not interested in CVN, I am interested in your supposed demonstration that arguments about God suffer from serious problems. If you need an example of such an argument, feel free to refer to my argument from another thread concluding with the existence of an immaterial being that transcends the universe.

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Yeah, again, that argument relies on your (and everyone eases) limitations in cosmology to be misleading about the vague thing you wish to call God.

That's simply false. If we define a reality according to one of its effects and demonstrate the effect, then--insofar as the effect is unique to the reality--we have demonstrated the reality.

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Well no, I meant you can demonstrate a provisional definition without making any real headway.

This is why you were so overly skeptical about the attribute "immaterial" in our other thread--you knew that immateriality is getting mighty close to God and you wish to avoid that at all costs.

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Feel free to actually demonstrate it.

Grand. But your being unconvinced doesn't demonstrate that there is something inherently wrong with theistic arguments such that all future arguments are unlikely to convince you.

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What's generally wrong with theistic arguments is that they don't demonstrate anything, let alone God.

I think a basic reason future arguments would be unlikely to convince is the skepticism you harbor, which I take to be far from rational.

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Well skepticism is made out of those basic assumptions friend.

It requires at least one in the form of the provisional effect-definition.

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At least one is the bare minimum for trying to say something exists. We generally experience reality in a more robust way.

zippy2006 said:

So what? What does that claim have to support it?

Heck, the stronger version of my claim can be derived from "I reject all theistic claims."

I reject all theistic claims -> all theistic claims are worthy of being rejected -> God is not worthy of (anyone's) belief.
This is a strawman that you and you alone persist in. The atheists aren't even committing this strawman.

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Whatever. Keep on thinking that you have a better understanding of what people's subjective beliefs are. People use mine around here all the time. No one has ever used yours around here except you, a theist.

Nicholas Deka said:

Whatever. Keep on thinking that you have a better understanding of what people's subjective beliefs are. People use mine around here all the time. No one has ever used yours around here except you, a theist.

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Contrary to your gratuitous assertions, three atheists have explicitly agreed to my description, and I showed above how that description logically follows from yours.

zippy2006 said:

Contrary to your gratuitous assertions, three atheists have explicitly agreed to my description, and I showed above how that description logically follows from yours.

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Well when you can show me an atheist using your version, you make sure to let me know.

zippy2006 said:

So what? What does that claim have to support it?

Heck, the stronger version of my claim can be derived from "I reject all theistic claims."

I reject all theistic claims -> all theistic claims are worthy of being rejected -> God is not worthy of (anyone's) belief.​

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These continued attempts to not address what real non-believers are actually writing are quite curious.

Uber Genius said:

...I'm sitting on an "Atheist," chair as I write this thread on my "Atheist," ipad.....

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And my bike is a non-citizen.

And my radio is "on the wagon".

And my old table from the 60's was a draft dodger!!!

Uber Genius said:

Actually inductive reasoning leads to hypothesis which is tested and produce a deductive theory.

The issues being discussed are philosophical in nature having no interaction with the physical world. While knowledge in science has limits and we don't want to equivocate "real world" as "physical world" or "best discovered by science," because it assumes naturalism.

What we are trying to do in the "Tricks series" is eliminate the fallacious rhetorical approaches to knowledge about God's existence on both sides.

It seems intelligent, well-educated individuals can differ greatly on the best explanation of th data we currently have.

My goal here was to causally get rid of the garbage on both sides of the debate. And help theists and atheists alike get acquainted with the best arguments on both sides.

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Ok. What data do you have?