Philosophical Vegan Forum

Now many people use science to prove things in the bible cannot nor could not have happened.It uses the basis of evidence and lack of evidence where as religion lacks evidence while science has evidence.

Now my question what would be what is best argument to use a scientific one or an argument based on pure logic.
For instance a god on a personal existence cannot exist as we see it because it contradicts itself.A being cannot be immortal and omnipotent because if he can kill himself hes not immortal if he cant hes not omnipotent.

Now science is an extension of logical thinking and such but science requires evidence.Which much of it we do have evidence not all have evidence for all of of science.An argument based on pure logic uses the opponents own assertions and contradicts to disprove something for instance a spherical-cube is impossible because it contradicts itself.So unless a religion can be completely logical without any contradictions then they would have no basis for a counter argument.

Now its clear I think an argument based on pure logic is the best what are your opinions on the subject.

Not everyone trusts "pure logical" arguments - there are some people who think that no matter how rational an argument may seem, if it is not grounded in anything empirical, it really proves nothing. They think this because: "You cannot come up with proof of something from your mind". It's the idea that you cannot create proof, you have to identify it empirically in the world.

I think these people are way too critical of logical proofs, obviously, but I also don't think you can convince someone who distrusts logical proofs to trust them. Because the only way to convince someone that rational arguments can serve as proofs... is through a rational argument. It's circular.

In the same way, you can't convince someone that God doesn't exist if they don't think that logic can be a source of proof in the way that empirical evidence can.

But an atheistic argument based on logic is not based on logical proofs rather on logical disproofs for instance I am not attempting to proving anything but disproving something based on logic.

In contrast to empirical evidence logical evidence can actually disprove god. Sadly many theists either do not accept or comprehend logic. I think for us, the people without a physics or biology degree, the logical arguments work best.

TheDarkendStar wrote:But an atheistic argument based on logic is not based on logical proofs rather on logical disproofs for instance I am not attempting to proving anything but disproving something based on logic.

Every proof is a disproof of its own negation, and every disproof is a proof, the only difference is how the statement is phrased in common speech, which is not logically relevant.

You can disprove the proposition "god exists", or prove the proposition "god does not exist". It's the same thing.

miniboes wrote:In contrast to empirical evidence logical evidence can actually disprove god. Sadly many theists either do not accept or comprehend logic. I think for us, the people without a physics or biology degree, the logical arguments work best.

Definitely, logical arguments are easy for any intelligent person to understand with just a little bit of study into the basic terminology, because the laws of logic are highly intuitive (e.g. a proposition and its exact negation can not both be true, a thing is what it is, etc.).

You pretty much just need to know:

Premise
Argument
Conclusion
Valid (the logical steps are valid, although the premises might not be true)
Sound (logic is valid and the premises are true)
Fallacy

Knowing some of the names of the basic types of fallacies can also be useful. This site is fun: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Soycrates, can you think of any others that are particularly important?

brimstoneSalad wrote:
Definitely, logical arguments are easy for any intelligent person to understand with just a little bit of study into the basic terminology, because the laws of logic are highly intuitive (e.g. a proposition and its exact negation can not both be true, a thing is what it is, etc.).

You pretty much just need to know:

Premise
Argument
Conclusion
Valid (the logical steps are valid, although the premises might not be true)
Sound (logic is valid and the premises are true)
Fallacy

Knowing some of the names of the basic types of fallacies can also be useful. This site is fun: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Soycrates, can you think of any others that are particularly important?

The inclusion of fallacy actually makes me doubt whether anyone has found an objective form of argumentation. Fallacy theory is extremely flawed although it can also be extremely useful. It all comes down to the fact that a fallacious argument can still be a true one - fallacies mostly make an argument bad on the grounds of rhetoric, not on the grounds of logic. Rhetoric has nothing to do with the quality of the premise, argument, or conclusion, cannot really affect whether or not the argument is valid or sound, and thus shouldn't stand on the same grounds as those categories of argumentation.

I use to be a big fallacy supporter like a lot of my classmates - we all took this one course on argumentation theory and the professor just utterly destroyed us. We all came out better for it, though, even if it made talking about logic and argumentation a living hell for the rest of our lives!

There's also reason to believe that the standards of logic are not intuitive for those who don't have a sufficiently developed logical-mathematical sense of intelligence (even if they are developed in other categories, like linguistic or creative ones). In this way, someone who seems sufficiently knowledgeable/intelligent might not actually be able to identify or create arguments both valid and sound.

Soycrates wrote:There's also reason to believe that the standards of logic are not intuitive for those who don't have a sufficiently developed logical-mathematical sense of intelligence (even if they are developed in other categories, like linguistic or creative ones). In this way, someone who seems sufficiently knowledgeable/intelligent might not actually be able to identify or create arguments both valid and sound.

This is indeed true. I'm sometimes amazed by people actually failing to understand some basic logic.

Just recently watched this conversation, amazed by Cenk Uygur's understanding of probability theory:
http://youtu.be/WVl3BJoEoAU?t=17m57s

Soycrates wrote: It all comes down to the fact that a fallacious argument can still be a true one - fallacies mostly make an argument bad on the grounds of rhetoric, not on the grounds of logic.

Fallacies affect the validity of an argument (if they are used as an argument). Just because an argument is not valid, of course doesn't mean the conclusions are false (that's the fallacy fallacy).

Most people just misunderstand what fallacies are, and what they mean. It's not flawed so much as widely misunderstood.

Soycrates wrote:Rhetoric has nothing to do with the quality of the premise, argument, or conclusion, cannot really affect whether or not the argument is valid or sound, and thus shouldn't stand on the same grounds as those categories of argumentation.

If it's just rhetoric, and a person isn't attempting to make a logical argument, then it's not a fallacy.

E.g. just insulting a person is not an ad hominem fallacy. Making the argument "You're a toad kisser, therefore your reasoning is invalid" is.

The closest to rhetoric I can think of, that is just distracting the audience, is not a Red Herring fallacy; it only becomes one if it's used as an attempt at an actual argument.

Soycrates wrote: I use to be a big fallacy supporter like a lot of my classmates - we all took this one course on argumentation theory and the professor just utterly destroyed us.

I'm guessing you were falling victim to the fallacy fallacy?

Fallacies are mostly useful in teaching people about logic, and what kind of arguments are not valid. But it's important to know what validity actually means in order to understand that.

People ignorantly accuse me of ad hominem quite often, because I often say "You're an idiot, impervious to reason, therefore I don't want to waste my time arguing with you. I'm right, you're wrong, and you aren't coherent enough to challenge that."

It's not a fallacy, it's just a good old fashioned insult and a refusal to make an argument, followed by a simple assertion.

In order to be guilty of a fallacy, you have to be making an argument, and the fallacy itself must be an essential part of your reasoning, and not just a "by the way, you're also an idiot".

Soycrates wrote: In this way, someone who seems sufficiently knowledgeable/intelligent might not actually be able to identify or create arguments both valid and sound.

Nobody is innately bad at math, they're just lazy.
I'm disinclined to give people a pass on this. If they don't understand, they're just lazy and willfully ignorant.

This is actually a pretty contentious issue, but I find it disgusting to give people an excuse to be idiots:

http://jezebel.com/5895947/bad-at-math- ... n-that-way

Such people don't need our added support in their endeavors to be ignorant.