Banned within moments!

Elliott had a Q&A about the Suicide argument on tinychat today; this is what happened as soon as he saw my name appear.

I posted to his blog straight away; no response, of course.

Elliott; really, 'champ'! Fancy banning your own teacher within moments of my appearing on your tinychat page - and this after you have repeatedly claimed you would debate anyone who was prepared to turn up and challenge you. Do I really frighten you that much? I guess so :)
Too bad, 'champ'; I was looking forward to taking you on in the real world. Guess I'll just have to wait until you man up enough to appear on debate.org - although I'm not sure any of us will live that long.
Take it easy, 'champ'.

Elliott shoots himself in the foot

I know, I know - I should just let this little fish go and get on with other things. But it's hard to resist when he makes himself such an easy target. Another poke at the turtle.

Elliott; I thought I’d continue to be a thorn in your side for a while longer – at least until my formal study begins in early March. I think the constant irritation will do you good, not to mention continuing to show everyone your real, gutless nature (I post all these comments on my own blog and Face Book page for the entire world to see).

I lifted this from your Face Book page:

“Creationism and the Origin of Life ·

Tuesday at 1:11am ·

Post your name as a COMMENT on this thread if you think you can prove there are more options for atheists than the two ive(sic) defined.

LIKE this comment if you agree and understand logically its(sic) impossible for there ever to be a third option other than these two because of the way they have been defined.

IGNORE this comment if you are too scared to find real truth and enjoy hidng(sic) in your ignorance.”

 

Essentially, this is you actually proving that you are “too scared” to take me on; I have repeatedly posted my COMMENTs to your blog with my name attached and you have IGNOREd them all, except for completely (and I suspect deliberately) misinterpreting the “yellow shirt” analogy, and mentioning the Descartes dictum (without citing him as the source – more evidence of your ignorance of Academic conventions) in another argument without mentioning where you heard of it – namely, from me.

So; by your own definition, as outlined above, you have IGNOREd my COMMENTs – and in this case I have ample proof, not simply a Face Book visitor count.

Thus, you are shown by your own hand to be “too scared to find real truth and [to] enjoy hidng(sic) in your ignorance”. You haven’t even mentioned how “owned” I am in a YouTube video; thus I can safely assume that you have no answer to the refutations of your arguments I presented here – as I knew you would not.

Congratulations in once again comprehensively shooting yourself in the foot.

I have also repeatedly challenged you to a debate – a real one, rather than one of your “live” chats on tiny.url. I will ONLY debate you (or anyone else for that matter) in a completely neutral forum where neither of us has any control over the environment, where the moderator is completely neutral and knows the rules of debating, and where neither of us can close the debate down – as you frequently do by citing “rule violations” and leaving the room. Debate.org is it, ‘champ’; if you’re not up to it, just say so and I’ll stop harassing you.

P.S. just in case you don’t know, the (sic) I have included in the above copy of your post is from “sic erat scriptum”, Latin for “thus was it written”; it indicates that the grammatical and spelling errors are from the original text.

Have a nice day :)

Elliott takes on Descartes

This appeared on his “Circus Argument” after I used Descartes’ dictum to refute his contention that Atheists can’t be sure they exist. No mention of ‘Peter Godfrey’ this time, so he can pretend he thought of it himself. My response (posted to his blog) is below.

[[I think, therefore I am. So atheists can know something. If only that one thing. So P2 is no longer accurate.]] - This rebuttal is a complete failure. Just because you can think doesn't mean you really exist. Matter a fact, the atheist cant even be sure he is thinking at all. As we have already talked about, the atheist cannot accept an objective reality. This means they cannot be sure that their brains and thoughts are really theirs. They cannot be sure that they aren't pre-programmed visions of an alien. They cannot be sure that their thoughts are not dreams of a butterfly. They cannot be sure of anything.  They have no foundation. So it is a true statement that atheists cannot know anything and P2 stands. One must remember that without objective reality you are really are lost. 

Elliott; I see you've made a vain (and foolish) attempt to refute the Descartes objection I raised in response to your Objective Reality Argument (why didn't you do it there?). It fails, of course (as do all your arguments) because, even if our thoughts ARE those of a butterfly (or imposed on us by Aliens etc, etc) that STILL means we effectively exist as discrete entities.

In fact, your argument above does more to support the contention that so-called "Objective Reality" is insecure, as your list of alternate possibilities clearly demonstrates. If we are pre-programmed visions of an alien, we must be real in order to BE programmed, therefore we exist; if we are dreams of butterfly, we are the butterfly and therefore we exist.

You can't get around it, Elliott. I'd be happy to debate you on this at debate.org. I'm still waiting for you to grow some balls and take on the challenge - but I won't be holding my breath.

By the way; I checked out your "Origin of Life" Face Book page - do you seriously assume that everyone who ignores you is too scared to take you on and therefore count that as a "victory"? What a sad, pathetic little man you must be if that's what you have to do to pretend to some kind of relevance in the world.

I'm starting to feel sorry for you.

Elliott has (tacitly) acknowleged my tutoring

Yes; it's true! Elliott has stated on his Face Book page, "Creationism and the Origin of Life", that he is taking time off to further his studies; this is EXACTLY what I suggested he do in my last post, as well as earlier in the lesson series. I sent him the message below via the blog, so that he knows how happy I am to have assisted his education.

Elliott; I’m truly touched. An associate has just sent me a screen-cap of your Face Book page “Creationism and the Origin of Life”, in which you have stated you are taking time off to concentrate on your studies. I’m so happy that you have elected to follow my advice and extend your knowledge of the fields of philosophy and apologetics (I’m assuming those are the areas you are focusing on).

It is always gratifying to a teacher when a student demonstrates that they have gained insight into the field of study covered in a course and have chosen to go further. I am happy that my lessons have had such a positive influence on your life, and I will be glad to offer advice and further constructive criticism if and when you feel the need to request it.

By the way; the challenge to a REAL debate, as opposed to those "live debate" chats you have on tiny.url, still stands. I know you won't ever do it (WAY too challenging for you), but I'll keep pressing you. You'll never be taken seriously by the academic community until you learn to play by the rules.

Elliott – Lesson 9 – Objective Reality argument

Objective Reality Argument

P1: if you can never accept an objective reality, then you have to accept that you may not be real

P2: if you have to accept that you may not be real, then you can never know if anything you say is true.

P3: atheists can never accept an objective reality.

T:  atheists can never know if anything they say is true

Elliott: I probably should have addressed this argument before I took apart the “Circus Argument”, as you have obviously used this one to support one of your premises there. However, the order in which I took them on was dictated more by the order in which I read them than anything else. Frankly, this one presents no challenge as it is one of your weakest arguments; it fails at the first premise. Its logical structure is OK, though personally I find it too wordy (you could do some editing with most of your arguments), but the whole argument hinges in the soundness of the first premise, which can very quickly and easily be shown to be false.

The structure of the argument is:

P1: A ⊂ B

P2: B ⊂ C

P3: X = A

C:  X = C

All that needs to be done here is to show that P1 is unsound to make the whole argument fail.

P1: if you can never accept an objective reality, then you have to accept that you may not be real

P1 flies directly in the face of Renee Descartes “Cogito ergo sum” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum); if you want to take on the entire Modernist project, be my guest, but I don’t like your chances. Descartes demonstrated quite clearly with his now famous maxim that uncertainty regarding an objective reality is no barrier to having a certainty that you exist. Your qualification with the word “may” might give you a very narrow possibility of escape, but it would take some extremely fancy footwork to pull it off, and personally I can’t see how you would manage.

To put it bluntly, how could the enquirer in the situation above possibly conclude that they were not real if they were thinking that thought? Unless they actually exist, there is no possibility of the thought being manifested; therefore, they MUST necessarily exist. If you wish to debate this point, you will have to travel down the same path as Kierkegaard with respect to the existence of the “I”, in which case you will undermine your own contention outlined in the exegesis that Christians have a stronger hold on objective reality than atheists. – unless you want to argue that Christians do not possess an identity.

P1 is clearly shown to be unsound

P2, P3 and the conclusion are totally dependent on P1 being sound; thus, having completely demolished the first premise, the entire argument falls – and the Circus Argument, which uses this argument to support one of its premises, also falls.

QED.

Well, that’s it, Elliott. I have now exposed the flaws and fallacies in all of the arguments you have posted here. I hope you realise that I have only done so in order to stimulate you to do some real study of philosophy, logical structure, and critical thinking. These subjects were the ones that inspired my interest in philosophy as an undergraduate, which led to my furthering my studies in that field and now, have led me to undertake a PhD, which I am beginning in a few weeks. If you apply yourself to your studies, you will be amazed at how far it can take you.

I’ll be watching, Elliott.

Elliott – Lesson 8 – The Kardi Argument

This is the second-to-last lesson in this series; I have based them on the arguments Elliot has posted on his blog - 9 in all. I understand that he has a few more that he mentions on one of his Face Book pages (I think he gives them the title "The 11 Pillars of Truth"), but I am only addressing the ones he has posted on the blog itself.

The Kardi Argument

P1: life is not eternal in the past

P2: life cannot come from non-life on it's own without a designer

C : life is designed

“Structure: the "kardi argument" is a deductive 3 part syllogism which includes two 2 premises and a conclusion. We feel that the argument is sound and valid and in order for one to defeat the arguments conclusion they would have to defeat one of the premises.”

Elliott; this one has already been dealt with quite effectively by others, but I’ll reiterate their observations as you may not have seen their commentary (I know you tend to delete comments before you read them on your Face Book sites).

The problem with this argument lies in the second premise, in which you presuppose the conclusion of your own argument. This is a classic example of “begging the question”, or more formally the fallacy of circular reasoning.

This can be more easily seen if we unpack the second premise to make the semantics more clear. It is evident that the phrase “Life cannot come from non-life, on its own & without a designer” is semantically identical to “All life is designed”. As soon as we do this, the problem with the argument becomes evident. Essentially the argument becomes:

P1 Life is not eternal in the past

P2 All life is designed

C: Life is designed

Clearly, this is not a valid argument. Once again, what you need to do here is develop an argument that logically supports your contention that life is designed, either by appealing to complexity or through some other means. All of the material you have supplied in the exegesis of this argument can work as a defence of the contention that some elements of life are irreducibly complex, but they do NOT support this argument as either valid or sound; that is a matter of logical construction, not supportive evidence. This is an error you make in many of your exegeses; you assume that factual evidence in support of a contention means logical support of an argument’s structure, when this is emphatically NOT the case.

Of course, many “arguments from design” have significant problems, but there are some good examples around in the literature which are quite robust; you should look at the work of Michael Behe and Jonathan Sarfati with regard to this, though Behe is on record as saying that the levels of complexity he discusses do not necessarily rule out evolutionary development, and Sarfati is a young-Earth Creationist, so I’m not sure how either of them would sit with your own theories. Keep working on this problem and I’m pretty sure you could develop an argument that does not turn back on itself as this one does.

Addenda: there is also something of a problem with P1, although it is slightly more obscure. P1 states that “Life is not eternal in the past”. The problem here is that, if this premise is true in all possible worlds (an argument easy to make since you do not specify which ‘past’ you are referring to), you have essentially stated that God cannot be alive – or at least cannot have been alive eternally in the past and therefore cannot be the God defined in the Christian tradition. I understand that you have claimed that your arguments do not necessarily support the UC option (and therefore do not support the Christian theory of God), but I’m pretty sure you did not intend to kill Him off in this manner. You need to modify the premise to reflect this.

Elliott - Lesson 7 - The Peachtree argument

Hi there, Elliott; sorry if I’ve been less than regular with these classes, but I’ve been asked to undertake a PhD this year and there’s quite a lot of work to do leading up to it. I’ll be formally starting the research in early March, so I’ll do my best to deal with the three other arguments on this blog before then.

I’m starting with the Peachtree Argument because it is the easiest to deconstruct, although I could probably do a more thorough analysis of its problems if I had more time; I’ll see if I can get around to that later. This one is pretty brief, but I don’t feel the argument warrants much more attention at this stage.

The formal argument:

1- if you are given two options (one of which is correct), and you purposely select the option which is irrational illogical and has no evidence, then you are intentionally being dishonest

2- if you are intentionally being dishonest, then you are a liar

3- atheists are given two options (one of which is correct), yet they purposely select the option that is irrational illogical and has no evidence.

T- atheists are liars

This argument displays the classic fallacy of the false premise. It is based on the contention that the Elliott Argument is sound, when in fact that argument has been shown to be unsound for a variety of reasons (see lesson 6). Since that is the case, both premise 1 and 3 fail on that basis.

It is also a clear ad-hominem directed towards atheists, which in itself is a logical fallacy.

This sort of device may make you feel superior Elliott, but it simply exposes the weakness of your general position, as well as the fact that you are to some degree aware of that weakness; if you really felt sure of your standpoint you would have no need to use the disparaging language you use to describe your opponents.

Frankly, it’s a bit pathetic to have to resort to this kind of thing. I strongly suggest you ditch this one altogether; it just makes you look like a childish little boy calling all the other kids in the playground nasty names. Hardly the image you need to project if you want to be taken seriously as an apologist.

Proof!!

So ... Elliott DOES read my posts to his blog, even though he never responded to one until now.

Here's the evidence:

From Creationism and the Origin of Life retrieved 2/2/13

http://www.facebook.com/CreationismandtheOriginofLife?fref=ts

Creationism and the Origin of Life

Thursday

"Some clown atheist (pgodfrey) posted the following question on the ATHEISM IS A RELIGION Blog...

//Do you believe that I am wearing a yellow shirt? To put the question more technically, do you believe the proposition "Peter is wearing a yellow shirt at this moment" ?//
For some reason, I think the illogical, nonsensical atheist trash had thought he found an 'aha or gotcha moment.' LMFAO...Unfortunately for him, let me yell out the word...FAIL!!!!!! The answer to this question is simple...I would not take a position on if PETER is wearing a yellow shirt or not...Because I simply wouldn't know either way....SO I would be an agnostic on the matter...However, "atheists" on the other hand, DO take a position on wether or not God exists....They BELIEVE, as defined by their stance, that NO God exists!!...That is there position!!...Once they take such a position then I can prove that atheism is in fact a religion....#Defeating atheism fun and easy...Get a clue pgodfrey...you're a clown!!! One of your atheist buddies should slap you lol"

I've fired it straight back to him with corrections to his misinterpretation AND informed that, as I now KNOW he reads my posts, the lessons will be continuing.

He's either completely misunderstood the content and nature of the post he refers to, or (and this is more likely, given his prior behaviour) he has deliberately misrepresented it in order to make it look like an argument he can win; the two lines he has quoted from a post that was more than two pages long indicates that he had to scour the text to find something he could respond to without making himself look like the loser.

Needless to say, he has banned me from his Face Book page, so that I cannot respond. "Defeating Atheism is fun and easy" - if you put your hands over you ears and go "LA, LA, LA, LA" as loud as you can so you cant hear them and close your eyes so you can't see them.

This should be fun :)