Logic lessons for Jak and Marg

[_Aquinas]

Marg, thank you for taking the time to read Aquinas. It means a lot that you cared about our debates enough to take time to do that, I hope to respond to your criticisms soon, they will take some time to look over and I am trying to cut down on the time I spend on this message board (my wife is getting a little P-ed). If the time I take is too long, I'll post my response as a new thread.

[_moksha]

I have avoided this thread because I expected to find it loaded with symbolic logic signs. However, I applaud your working with syllogisms. I especially like the one the shows Wade is a chocolate cake. Lessons are important. Carry on.

[_Aquinas]

In other words Aquinas, it's quite probable that individuals might be bamboozled through fallacious reasoning via the presentation of deductive form logic in argumentation and think that good reasoning has been employed to say something logical, meaningful and true. Apparently it's worked on you and you think it should work on others. I think in your case you are misusing deductive formal logic, I think in the real Aquinas's case he was probably disingenuously using it.

Have more faith in people Marg, they are able to think for themselves. I greatly doubt anyone who didn't already believe 1) that God exists 2) that He is all good and 3) that truth is a good thing would be so foolish as to think I in any way shape or form proved these three premises. It was, however, logical inasmuch as it was valid (sloppy as it may be). Whether the statement was meaningful or true is still an open question, but come on! You seriously think anyone who didn't previously believe the premises were compelled to believe them by that statement? Give me a break.

Lastly, I find it both comical and offending that you jump to conclusions about great thinkers like Aquinas so quickly. Perhaps you wrote this before reading his proofs, but even still it is insulting. Again, you are making assertions absent evidence (i.e. that I am pursuaded by reason without evidence and that Aquinas deceitfully uses logic to trick people) the very basis of your accusations against me. This is hypocritical.

Get over your paranoia and your stereotypes please, so we can have a real discussion.

[_marg]

Have more faith in people Marg, they are able to think for themselves. I greatly doubt anyone who didn't already believe 1) that God exists 2) that He is all good and 3) that truth is a good thing would be so foolish as to think I in any way shape or form proved these three premises. It was, however, logical inasmuch as it was valid (sloppy as it may be).

]

No Aquinas your arguments were NOT logical and they were not VALID (well-grounded). Just because you put arguments into valid form does not make the arguments valid. But the kicker is, you still haven't put your argument into valid deductive form. I asked you to do that and unless I've missed it, you still haven't done it.

Whether the statement was meaningful or true is still an open question, but come on! You seriously think anyone who didn't previously believe the premises were compelled to believe them by that statement? Give me a break.

Apparently you've been bamboozled by your guru T. Aquinas. You've come on this board attacking personally virtually anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Lastly, I find it both comical and offending that you jump to conclusions about great thinkers like Aquinas so quickly. Perhaps you wrote this before reading his proofs, but even still it is insulting.

Insulting to whom, you? You have been extremely insulting to those who disagree with you. Insulting to T. Aquinas? He's dead, I don't think he'll mind.

Again, you are making assertions absent evidence (I.e. that I am pursuaded by reason without evidence and that Aquinas deceitfully uses logic to trick people) the very basis of your accusations against me. This is hypocritical.

If you got evidence, that's fine. I don't know what goes on in your mind, because apparently you think evidence can be created by mind alone. But if you want that evidence to be accepted it needs to be transparent, there needs to be some sort of predictive value to it which can be tested. Making claims absent evidence which is what those who attempt to reason God into existence do, is not transparent evidence.

Get over your paranoia and your stereotypes please, so we can have a real discussion.

I suggest you get over yourself. It's likely not possible to have a real discussion with you.

Let's take a look at what you wrote:

"Your problem with the argument is that you do not want me to present that God exists and that He is good to be true things; but too bad, both are true, your lack of belief is insignificant to the truth of these principles."

Here you assert what is true, and tell me it doesn't matter what I think. Is this someone open to a realdiscussion?

We all hear about beliefs we don't agree with, it's part of life, deal with it. Many happen to believe the truths that God exists and He is all good, whether by faith or reason or both, and it was to those who do believe that the logic of my statement was useful.

Huh? you only want to appeal to a select few who share your beliefs? Then how are we to have a real discussion?

Are we to call the beliefs knowledge? Yes if it by reason, and no if it is by faith,

Really? So all one needs to do is "reason" and they will have knowledge? Great thinking there Aquinas, very logical of you. Yes, let's just do away with evidence. (sarcasm)

but regardless, if by reason or faith you believe God exists and He is all good, you believe true things. Truth doesn't depend on peoples belief in it. If you want to know that God exists, Thomas Aquinas has five proofs for this, I've already given you the reference...

First of all T. Aquinas does not have proof of a creator/God's existence. And if as per your belief a creator/God is all good and if as you claim there is only one God, then there should be no evil in the world. So your "God is all good" claim, you can toss out.

[_grayskull]

I think in the real Aquinas's case he was probably disingenuously using it.

lol. let's not forget Aquinas died within the 13th century. Aquinas offers barely more than Aristotle. I suppose Aristotle was disingenuous as well for positing an eternal self-thinking process by virtually the same argument (that Aquinas follows). Cretins, both of them. I'm sure if JAK and Marg had been born a thousand years ago or so they would have startled the would-be great learning of the day and brought the enlightenment hundreds of years earlier. Good God.

While many of today's pop atheists are impervious to historical or cultural circumstances which might mitigate - at least a little - the thinking or actions of those not born in late twentieth century Berkeley, some of the key guiding lights do in fact see the relevance.

Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Charles Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. - Richard Dawkins, 1986

[_marg]

previously: I think in the real Aquinas's case he was probably disingenuously using it .

Grayskull:

lol. let's not forget Aquinas died within the 13th century. Aquinas offers barely more than Aristotle. I suppose Aristotle was disingenuous as well for positing an eternal self-thinking process by virtually the same argument (that Aquinas follows). Cretins, both of them. I'm sure if JAK and Marg had been born a thousand years ago or so they would have startled the would-be great learning of the day and brought the enlightenment hundreds of years earlier. Good God.

Since you are bringing up Aristotle please enlighten me on his beliefs in a God. And while you are at it enlighten me on Aquinas's God belief. You seem to be spectacularly knowledgeable in this area.

As far as Aquinas (13th century) I don't believe people in previous times to be any less or any more intelligent than people today. I don't think religious apologist's tactics are much different either, of people today versus those of the past. I think it likely that just as it is typical of religious apologists today to use deliberate disingenous tactics in argumentation, that it is likely Aquinas used knowingly disingenously tactics to argue a proof for a God's existence. In otherwords I give him credit for intelligence and I don't think he was stupid enough to think he actually proved a God existed. But if you want to convince me otherwise, I'm ready to learn.

[_JAK]

marg: "I can guarantee you have presented no sound argument for the oneness of God in the sense of a reality of a God. What you may have presented is an argument which uses the Bible as authority and the premise that a god exists as well as particulars for that god, is assumed true based upon the claims within the Bible. That doesn't mean the premises which you supplied are really true, in the sense of being a reflection of the world we all experience and observe."

She notes she hadn't read anything I wrote, but yet she asserts she guarantees my argument wasn't sound. How is that not a lack of evidence? At least my statement incorporated some amount of logic, this is just a blind assertion. When I pushed Marg on this issue, she presented her evidence for making such a guarantee:

"if a God could be proven, the newspapers around the world would be interested in the news. I haven’t heard anything recently."

The reasoning I gave you Aquinas is inductive reasoning.. I wrote previously: If you are going to argue for the existence of a God it can not be something hidden up in your mind or the minds of select individuals who are not able to offer this evidence for all to examine should they so wish. As in the scientific method process, it has to be open to independent objective evaluation and/or verification. Since God is of interest to many people, if a God could be proven, the newspapers around the world would be interested in the news. I haven’t heard anything recently.

So the reasoning is that extraordinary news, which is of interest to people, based my observations is likely to be with extremely high probability in the news. So for practical purposes I willingly go out on a limb in some situations. For example if I turn on the news tomorrow and nothing is said about President Bush being shot/killed I can safely assume, go out on a limb that he's alive and hasn't been shot.

God's existence proven, would be of such extraordinary news to people that if somehow God was proven to exist, I can safely assume for operational purposes, it would be in the news.

marg,

In communication, the more common the denominator (something understood by everyone) the better that denominator for conveying thought or information.

I want to apply that observation to this comment you made:

So the reasoning is that extraordinary news, which is of interest to people, based my observations is likely to be with extremely high probability in the news. So for practical purposes I willingly go out on a limb in some situations. For example if I turn on the news tomorrow and nothing is said about President Bush being shot/killed I can safely assume, go out on a limb that he's alive and hasn't been shot.

For people in close association with the United States, this is an excellent “example” of using the common denominator to make a point.

It’s excellent also in that we all use no news (your illustration) as a basis for conclusion.

JAK

[_JAK]

Jak, you are missing the point entirely. I think all the hype about one sentence taken out of context has confused you, I want to believe you are a reasonable person, so let's see.

The original statement that was attacked by Marg was:

If God is all good, then truth must lead to God, since all truth is good. God is all good, therefore, all truth must lead to God.

Here is the entirety of what I wrote in context to comments made by fake David Bednar in the "I will try not to offend" thread:

David is boring. He has no humility before God, which is expected since he does not know who God is. David, you are in my prayers. May God bless you and may you come to know who the one true God is. As for anyone else reading, do not fear the truth. If God is all good, then truth must lead to God, since all truth is good. God is all good, therefore, all truth must lead to God. Our human reason is a primary faculty for knowing truth, so do not abandon it for the blind obidience that is being asked of you by the Mormon church. Reason is from God, since God created us. It should not contradict your faith, but rather be employed with faith to know God.

It was addressed to an audience I believed, at the time, was primarily Mormon. Yes Mormons don't profess belief in the same God I do and yes I didn't demonstrate that God exists, or define my terms. Again, I don't need to define terms, if terms are generally accepted as true by an audience, and even if they are not, the burden of proof lies on those questioning the soundness to prove why it is wrong. See my scientist example at the beginning of this thread. My original statement, given the context, was obviously more of a plea to Mormons reading to not listen to their authorities if what the authorities teach is not consistent with reason, and I appealed to God, since Mormons at least claim belief in Christian God (insisting that they are a Christian religion is proof enough for that). Indeed, in my original statement, the validity is even questionable, since terms were not defined. Later, Marg attacked the statement in question by posting this:

I love your use of deductive logic Aquinas, it's so easy to be mis-used or used disingenously in order to fallaciously prove whatever one wants. Let's see,

God is all good,
truth is all good,

Therefore god = truth. or to put in your words truth leads to God.

Unfortunately though, nothing has been proven. The truth of your conclusion is dependent upon the truth of the premises!

All you've done is created a proof based on a personal definition. You've defined God as "all good" You've not proven true God is all good, let alone even proven a god exists who could be all good. So your premises have not been proven true. And your conclusion can not be relied upon.

let's see:

If chocolate cake with whipped cream is all good
and truth is all good,
Threfore chocolate cake with whipped cream is truth.

In order to show Marg that her argument was not reflective of mine, I explained the meaning of my original sentence more thoroughly:

If in God, all goodness resides (thus to say of an object "A" that it is good, means that it participates in God's goodness in some way) and truth is good, then truth necessarily leads to God, since in God all goodness resides. The goodness of truth itself is found by following true things. Thus, given these explainations, here is an argument:

1. In God all goodness resides
2. all truth is good and
3. Therefore, truth leads to God

This is valid and logical, even if you don't find it at all compelling. The problem now is, that you Jak, charged the conclusion in this argument as being invalid, and Marg later patted you on the back for it:

Right. And Aquinas established nothing. Superb analysis -- that if the major premise is not established, the conclusion is invalid. And, your correct “(Aquinas’) conclusion can not be relied upon.”

This is a misunderstanding of logic. Not establishing truth in a major premise has nothing to do with validity, because validity is about an argument's form; your problem is with soundness. If you would have accused my argument of not demonstrating anything true, because the soundness cannot be know with ill defined terms, I would conceed that you are right. By saying the premises are nonsense, or false, you imply that you know the meaning of the terms already, and the burden of proving this accusation lies on you. Marg accused the premises as being nonsense many times. She has yet to demonstrate why. She also accused the argument as not being logical, but the valid form of the argument is what makes it deductive logic, it does not depend on whether the premises are true.

What I want to know is this: why am I not allowed to write assertions in deductive order, when Marg is allowed to make comments like this (this was taken from a different thread than the one already cited):

I haven't been following this discussion, nor seen your sound argument for the oneness of God.

But deductive reasoning which you are illustrating here is only as good as the truth of the premises relied upon.

I can guarantee you have presented no sound argument for the oneness of God in the sense of a reality of a God. What you may have presented is an argument which uses the Bible as authority and the premise that a god exists as well as particulars for that god, is assumed true based upon the claims within the Bible. That doesn't mean the premises which you supplied are really true, in the sense of being a reflection of the world we all experience and observe.

She notes she hadn't read anything I wrote, but yet she asserts she guarantees my argument wasn't sound. How is that not a lack of evidence? At least my statement incorporated some amount of logic, this is just a blind assertion. When I pushed Marg on this issue, she presented her evidence for making such a guarantee:

if a God could be proven, the newspapers around the world would be interested in the news. I haven’t heard anything recently.

Wow. That utter drivel coming from someone condeming people who appeal to the Bible, and condeming me for a statement I made about true things leading to God? She appeals to newspapers as her source of truth! Marg is a hypocrite, she expects solid evidence of all assertions made by a Christian, yet she herself presents evidence as nonesensical as this, to support her "guarantee." Remember, Marg sought my posts out, she is the one attacking me, I have been on the defensive. Given this statement she made, I wouldn't doubt if I could go through these threads and pull out more bunk assertions unsupported by any evidence at all that Marg has made, but I won't. I'm not as petty as she, I'm sure the assertions she has made in her lifetime were directed to people that she believed to be of like mind on the issues. Jak, you wrote of deciept? Who is decieving who, when the fact that my original post (in response to fake Bednar) is continually ignored as being the catalyist for this debate that Marg started. THE ORIGINAL POST WAS CLEARLY NOT MEANT TO PROVE ANYTHING OF SUBSTANCE! I know that. I never claimed that my statement proved existence in God, that all goodness comes from God or that all truth is good. My use of the word "therefore" was legitimate because it was demonstrating deductive order, if you accept the premises, you are "therefore" forced to accept the conclusion. It is obvious the premises were assertions that weren't established with evidence, do you both want medals for pointing this out?

It is obvious that the only thing offending Marg is that she does not like the idea of "God" being a subject of logic and reason. Get over it Marg, you may not believe in God, but it doesn't mean that you can belittle believers into believing their thinking is inferior to yours. Yes, there is much evidence to support belief in God (T. Aquinas), Marg refuses to read it. Again, I appeal to your reasonable nature Jak to give this post consideration. Thank you and God bless.

---------------------------------------
Aquinas,

You make many “if” statements in your writing. A central dilemma is with the establishment of the “if” construction. Another problem is assertion as substitute for transparent evidence of support.

Doing this is what we call truth by assertion.

Example Aquinas:
Quote:
If in God, all goodness resides (thus to say of an object "A" that it is good, means that it participates in God's goodness in some way) and truth is good, then truth necessarily leads to God, since in God all goodness resides. The goodness of truth itself is found by following true things. Thus, given these explainations, here is an argument:

1. In God all goodness resides
2. all truth is good and
3. Therefore, truth leads to God
This is valid and logical, even if you don't find it at all compelling. The problem now is, that you Jak, charged the conclusion in this argument as being invalid, and Marg later patted you on the back for it:

JAK:
You have neither established “valid” or “logical” by merely asserting such. What do we need for reliable conclusion? We need clear, transparent evidence. You fail to offer any.

Quote Aquinas:
Right. And Aquinas established nothing. Superb analysis -- that if the major premise is not established, the conclusion is invalid. And, your correct “(Aquinas’) conclusion can not be relied upon.”


This is a misunderstanding of logic. Not establishing truth in a major premise has nothing to do with validity, because validity is about an argument's form; your problem is with soundness. If you would have accused my argument of not demonstrating anything true, because the soundness cannot be know with ill defined terms, I would conceed that you are right. By saying the premises are nonsense, or false, you imply that you know the meaning of the terms already, and the burden of proving this accusation lies on you. Marg accused the premises as being nonsense many times. She has yet to demonstrate why. She also accused the argument as not being logical, but the valid form of the argument is what makes it deductive logic, it does not depend on whether the premises are true.

What I want to know is this: why am I not allowed to write assertions in deductive order, when Marg is allowed to make comments like this (this was taken from a different thread than the one already cited):

JAK:
Aquinas, you have the faulty understanding here as evidenced by Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus.

Validity is not so constrained or marginalized as you claim. It is not about “argument’s form” alone. It is inclusive of terms here represented.

In the thesaurus mentioned above are some definitions for the word valid. Among the definitions are genuine, correct, examining.

Your narrow use (understanding) of the word valid could be ameliorated by looking through the results in the website I cited above.

See these references to valid:

accurate, attested, authentic, authoritative, binding, bona fide, cogent, compelling, conclusive, confirmed, convincing, credible, determinative, efficacious, efficient, good, in force, irrefutable, just, legitimate, logical, original, persuasive, potent, powerful, proven, right, solid, sound, stringent, strong, substantial, telling, tested, true, trustworthy, ultimate, unadulterated, unanswerable, uncorrupted, weighty, well-founded, well-grounded

He who asserts has the responsibility to prove or offer compelling evidence. The definitions above from this on-line dictionary clearly demonstrate your notion of “valid” is faulty.

marg speaks well for herself. You can quote her and address her remarks. I have so done with your remarks (several posts) and see no refutation.

Now, you demonstrate misunderstanding of deductive reasoning. You also appear to misunderstand how a valid, trustworthy Major Premise can be established. I’ll not repeat what I previously posted to you regarding that, but I addressed it. You have not responded (that I can find). It seems this bb is tedious to navigate, and I may not have seen a direct response from you in which you quote in context what I stated and respond.

If you want to discuss forms only for deductive reasoning, using words like “God,” “truth,” and “good” are very poor. Why? They are poor because there is serious lack of consensus on what any of those words mean in the context of religious reference. And as you have use them, they are words out of the language of religious dogma.

So, you need words which have some universal understanding.
-------------------
While there is more to your post and since you do not respond to my rejoinders, I’ll end quotations here.

Attacking marg (ad hominem) in no way benefits any position you may take. Namecalling only diverts attention from issues which might be addressed.

How is evidence established? What are reliable methods for establishing evidence? How can we assemble numerous pieces of evidence to draw conclusions which are reliable?

If that was your intended focus, much better illustrations could have been used to keep the focus on that. I’m skeptical that it was your intention to focus only on rational thinking.

marg referred to a website, <A HREF="http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e08a.htm">this one</A> which has multiple internal links addressing language and logic.

You titled a post: “Logic Lessons for JAK and Marg.” She took you up on that topic as did I.

JAK

[Mayan Elephant]

I think in the real Aquinas's case he was probably disingenuously using it.

lol. let's not forget Aquinas died within the 13th century. Aquinas offers barely more than Aristotle. I suppose Aristotle was disingenuous as well for positing an eternal self-thinking process by virtually the same argument (that Aquinas follows). Cretins, both of them. I'm sure if JAK and Marg had been born a thousand years ago or so they would have startled the would-be great learning of the day and brought the enlightenment hundreds of years earlier. Good God.

While many of today's pop atheists are impervious to historical or cultural circumstances which might mitigate - at least a little - the thinking or actions of those not born in late twentieth century Berkeley, some of the key guiding lights do in fact see the relevance.

Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Charles Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. - Richard Dawkins, 1986

Thank you. Good post Grayskull. You are right, his thinking is consistent with Aristotle, and yes Aristotle argued for a supreme intelligence that governed the universe and was the cause of all existing things Marg. He likened it to a supreme mind. You need to retake your phil 101 class, apparently you fell asleep the day they taught Aristotle. Aquinas is still studied in philosophy programs in acredited universities, 8 centuries later. I wonder if anything Marg writes will be around for 8 centuries? I'm sure this will endure the test of time:

marg: "I can guarantee you have presented no sound argument for the oneness of God in the sense of a reality of a God.

if a God could be proven, the newspapers around the world would be interested in the news. I haven’t heard anything recently.

What a joke.

[_asbestosman]

Aquinas is still studied in philosophy programs in acredited universities

Yes, but so is David Hume.

Hume is actually a very interesting philosopher. While noticing many weaknesses in the usual arguments for God, he also concluded that there was a governing intelligence most likely because his time was before Darwin. At least this is what I learned from Daniel Dennett in Darwin't Dangerous Idea. A very interesting book.

In any case we are arrogant when we proclaim ourselves smarter than the geniuses of the past. The only reason we know better than them is because we stand on the shoulders of other giants (such as Hume and Darwin). I think that was grayskull's point.