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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 12/30/2008 :  00:42:17   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
It looks to me that Sye's apologetic is fallacious because it is a circular argument which doesn't even approach rising to a level that requires refutation. It may be dismissed off-hand as meaningless. Being certain of oneself, and repeating a mantra, doesn't add an iota to what is merely a fallacious argument.


Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
Edited by - HalfMooner on 12/30/2008 00:43:07
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 12/30/2008 :  23:40:17   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Actually, deep down, Sye's idea is that all bases for logic are circular, so the one which includes his God is better. You can read more about it at Wikipedia.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2008 :  02:40:25   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Actually, deep down, Sye's idea is that all bases for logic are circular, so the one which includes his God is better. You can read more about it at Wikipedia.
I was reading through that waiting to find the big fat "criticisms" section, only to find it wasn't there. Something to add on a free afternoon, Dave?


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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Simon
SFN Regular

USA
1992 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2008 :  08:27:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Simon a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by the_ignored

Philosopher Stephen Law has had several goes at ol' Sye. Just go to the labels on the left hand side of his blog and click on Sinnner's Ministries: Proof of the Existence of God.

A good one is here where Sye's "logic" is explicitly laid out and examined.

Hi Sye

You said:

Nope, that is not the argument. Again, it is like this:

1. God is the necessary precondition for logic (by the impossiblity of the contrary).
2. Logic exists
3. Therefore God exists.
All that anyone would have to do to refute me is to demonstrate how the universal, abstract, invariant laws of logic can exist without God. You folks are going on and on about the format, why not offer your refutation?



Electrons that can exist in two places at once?
Time that flows more slowly the faster you move?
Is any of this thatlogical and invariant?

But, the basic premise is flawed. Why in hell, would the presence of a God be required for the law of logic to exist?
Here is where the burden of proof reside.


Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2008 :  11:15:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Simon
But, the basic premise is flawed. Why in hell, would the presence of a God be required for the law of logic to exist?
Here is where the burden of proof reside.
But Sye would claim the burden of proof is not on him, since he contends no one has any basis on which to challenge him without first providing the methodology one will use to judge his answer. In Sye's world, anyone who doesn't say "my ability to think, reason, and make judgments comes from god" has no other way to actually do so, and so must concede that one is either completely senseless or that god exists. And he claims victory either way.

Of course, if god doesn't exist and there is no basis for reason or logic, then that fact applies to Sye as well. He just fails to acknowledge this possibility, and insists that he can be confident god has directly revealed himself to Sye. Also, Sye's appeal to a benevolent god as the font of all reason can simply be countered by invoking a different source of knowledge. Someone claiming to derive their sense of logic and reason from the Flying Spaghetti Monster would be making an essentially equal claim.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
Edited by - H. Humbert on 12/31/2008 11:20:30
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