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Reply #87: Eloquent, but [View All]

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SOteric Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-16-03 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #80
87. Eloquent, but
you are quite obviously not getting what I'm saying here.

It is a "case of proving one's case."

I have asserted repeatedly in this thread that this is an Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, and nothing in your statement convinces me that it is otherwise, to argue the existence of God.



"The argumentum ad ignorntiam is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false, or that it is false because it has not been proved true."

Irving M. Copi, "Introduction to Logic," Collier MacMillan of London publishers.



So let's take an analogous assertion:



"The government is hiding the remains of several UFO crashes, including alien bodies, in Area 51."


While the government has denied this claim, they've never proven that its false. So I'm entitled to believe it true. -or

The government has denied this claim, and you can't prove it otherwise. So I'm entitled to believe it false.

The latter is closely tied to the assertion that there is no god. Some unreferenced, unattributed authority has suggest there is no god for x reasons and no one can prove this untrue.

But that is a fallacious argument.

Just as is the discovery of the "God Spot" referenced in our Kiwi friend's post not excluding the existence of a diety. It may tend to suggest possibilities, but it does not exclude or preclude.



If you as an individual chose to evaluate the opinion, conjecture, hypothesis and miscellaneous supporting evidence, - and form the belief that there is no god, - that is your right. I support and defend your ability to do so. But where you begin to argue that your 'evidence' excludes the possibility of a god and it is the duty of anyone who believe otherwise to prove you wrong, you commit a fallacy.

I most certainly won't be suckered into a questionable defence in a blatantly fallacious argument, simply because I point out that your position has a few gaping holes.


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