Karma reasons for concrete message



    Posts: 826
  • Darwins +61/-1

Logic 101, euroclydon:

When you begin with an assumption, your entire argument predicates on that assumption being true.

Allow me to use an example to explain why your arguments fail despite their structure, based on your foundational issue:

Harry Potter is a literary series consisting of several books.  Over the span of its authorship, it has a remarkable degree of internal consistency; events that happen within the book are, generally, straightforward and comprehensible.  The books are internally logical - accepting the core premise of 'magic', they make sense, both in how the world is constructed and how the story fits together around that construct.

However internally consistent the books may be, however, they are not evidence for the existence of magic, only that the supposition that if magic exited, the world would have a certain shape that strongly resembles the world we have now.  In Harry's world, London exists. King's Cross Station exists.  Little cottages exist.  The geography makes sense, and matches up to reality; the characters could be part of our world, except for the magical bits. 

Unfortunately, they cannot be considered histories - magic doesn't exist. 

If you picked up these books without context, or- even better - with a dust jacket that proclaimed them to be absolutely true in every word, with events that took place in the late 50's - would you, after reading them, consider them histories.. or would it make more sense to point out that magic itself is illogical based on our current understanding of the world, and dismiss them as fantasy?

If the core assumption of 'truth' is illogical - that's the illogic you hear us talk about the most.  Donkeys don't talk.  People don't rise from the  dead.  Nobody heals with a touch.  Tyre is still standing.  Bald men don't send bears out to kill children that ridicule them.  These things just ... don't happen.  The world doesn't, and as best we can tell, never has worked that way.

You begin from the assumption and viewpoint that the bible is true and is internally consistent.  You build all of your logical proofs from these assumptions, and use these assumptions to prove themselves (like you did with the 'who was at the tomb' question).  I don't care if the bible had the same level of consistency as Rowling's work - it doesn't make the events true, or make the argument of the faith valid.

The entire flood event (for example) is illogical on its face, given what we know about genetics, migrations, the age of the world, and more (not to mention the thriving societies of c.a. 4000BCE that just didn't notice it happening).  That it is internally consistent doesn't help it in the slightest.

Get the point?  All of your logic doesn't save you if your core assumptions are insupportable.
Changed Change Reason Date
screwtape tell it, brother June 14, 2012, 08:02:28 AM