A response to W L Craig's "Five Reasons why God Exists". I wrote this a while ago, but have only just got round to posting it here.

The link is to the article in question.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/13/christmas-gift-for-atheists-five-reasons-why-god-exists.html

1.  God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

Essentially, this boils down to “I don’t know how the universe came to be, therefore God” – or rather “therefore my specific interpretation of God”. Argument from ignorance. Fallacious.

2.  God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.

This amounts to same argument; “I don’t know why the conditions of the universe are such that life (humanity) can exist, therefore God.” Fallacious.

3.  God provides the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Again, an argument from ignorance. “I don’t know why morals exist or how they came to exist, therefore God.” Fallacious. Besides which, even the most cursory reading of the Christian Bible shows that God is very far from a moral being such as human societies have defined morality.

4.  God provides the best explanation of the historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. 

There ARE no “historical facts concerning Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection”; there is nothing but second or third-hand hearsay evidence. Craig assumes that the Biblical accounts of Jesus are factual; that is begging the question. Fallacious.

5.  God can be personally known and experienced. 

Argument from revelation/anecdote. Fallacious. People suffering all manner of delusions, from paranoid certainty that the government is watching them to belief that they were abducted by aliens, know and experience these things as being true. That does not mean that they are. Just because Christians sincerely believe that they have “personally known and experienced” God does not make that objectively true.

Even if we take all of Craig’s arguments above at face value, they STILL do not constitute convincing evidence for the existence of the Christian God; only that one or more deities exist. That is the problem with all theist apologetics; they can be used to argue for the existence of any God or pantheon at all.

Essentially, either no God exists or they all do.

A bit of a blast from the past. Just went back and re-read Chadder's "demolition" of my refutation of TEA. It's hysterical! The guy makes so many errors of logic it's impossible to keep track of them all.

I actually accepted a "debate" with him on one condition back in March of 2014 - before this was posted.

I challenged him to submit TEA to a reputable journal of religious philosophy for peer review. I said I would gladly debate him if and when it passed that hurdle. Needless to say, the silence since - apart from this one post that doesn't reference it at all - has been deafening.

Interesting.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209083011.htm

And doesn't this make William Lane Craig look like a complete tosser?

But then, we always knew he was.

We

A messages for the theists.

We – homosexuals – were here when humanity still lived in caves.

We were here when the first human settlements developed in the hills of what is now Ethiopia.

Remains of homosexual couples buried as ‘man and wife’ have been found in Neolithic grave sites dating back over 5,000 years.

We are known to have existed and been accepted and even honoured in every ancient culture on Earth, including the 60,000 year-old culture of the Australian Aboriginal peoples.

We have outlasted the Egyptian Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

We have survived the European “Dark Ages.”

We have outlasted the Spanish Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, and the witch-burnings of Europe, where homosexuals were thrown on the fires as “faggots.”

We have outlived the death camps of the Nazis, the pogroms of Stalin, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

We have outlasted the discrimination of the 20^th century, where we were branded as mentally ill, subjected to electroshock therapy, and chemical castration.

We have survived the AIDs pandemic.

We will survive your religion.

We were here at the very dawn of humanity’s existence and we will still be here when Christianity, Islam, and every other religion are nothing more than forgotten entries in abandoned history books; long after the names of your prophets and your gods have become overlooked relics of a barbarous age; long after your holy books have rotted into dust in the derelict remains of your mosques and churches and temples.

We will endure because we are part of the natural order.

Your religions are not.

They will NOT endure.

Why so negative?

Why do so many people see the human race so negatively; at one and the same time as only destructive and trivial? It seems to me that such an attitude is a hangover from the monotheist lie that humanity is "inherently evil" and destined for destruction. I do not subscribe to that belief.

There is much that is terrible in what we have done, but there is also much that is amazing.

200 years ago, the idea that humans could fly was "impossible"; 100 years ago, the idea that humans could walk on the surface of the moon was "impossible"; 50 years ago, the idea that you could carry your entire music collection or library around in your pocket was "impossible".

Never assume that anything cannot be done or cannot exist.

As a species, we have been on the Earth for the blink of an eye, relatively speaking. And yet, look at all that we have achieved in that fraction of time - both bad and good, and there is plenty of both.
There may be other civilisations beyond our solar-system that have achieved far more (I find it highly unlikely that there are not), but we do not KNOW that - yet.

For good or ill, we are the dominant species on this planet; and we are a remarkable one!

Another failure for Chad

This is my response to Chad's  attempt to defeat my refutation of TEA which he posted to a Face Book page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Elliott-Argument-Defeated/1464406860456511) recently

Before I begin, I must point out that all of the claims I make regarding my critiques and commentaries on Chad’s arguments have proof in the form of dated blog entries and screen-caps.

Most of his exceedingly long response (it runs to over 10,500 words) is just a series of cut-and-paste sections from his blog and is largely irrelevant. I’ll respond to the few bits that actually deal with my critique.

//It has just been brought to our attention however, that Mr. Godfrey recently submitted a formal refutation to TEA (The Elliott Argument).  //

Actually, I have written critiques of all of Chad’s arguments which I submitted to his blog between December 2012 and May 2013. He never responded directly to any of them, although it became obvious that he was reading them when he referred to one of the counter arguments I posited on his COL page without actually referencing that it was me who raised the argument; once in response to my “yellow shirt” example of epistemological inquiry (Feb 1^st 2013) and once in response to my raising of Descartes’ “cogito” (Feb 20^th 2013). So needless to say, the claim that it has “just come” to his attention is an outright lie. I wonder why it has taken Chad until now to respond to any of them (27^th March 2014).

// If he ever changes he mind and wants to accept our live debate challenge we would be more than happy to publically dismantle him.  //

I attempted only once to enter one of Chad’s “live debates” on Feb 25^th 2013; he blocked me from the chat room as soon as he saw my name appear. I have a screen cap of it.

// Apparently Mr. Godfrey has written numerous blogs, all of which seem to be similarly fallacious in nature, so this will be our only mention of him.  //

Actually, he attempted a refutation of one of my arguments on Feb 1^st 2013. Naturally he got it all wrong.

//'SCPNCEU' actually has been reduced to 'SCPN' but Ill let that slide for now, as more than likely you don't keep up on your apologetics.//

It was still SPNCEU when I wrote the critique over a year ago. Chad likes to move the goalposts and then claim they were where he put them all along.

// We have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that STE is not only illogical, irrational, and incorrect, but also has no supporting evidence.//
and
// Therefore this proves that not only did space exist prior to the expansion of the singularity, but also that the concept of time was in play because ''events'' were in fact occurring.//

and

//It's important to note that in The Elliott Argument, STE is defined as spacetime eternal, not space AND time eternal.//

Interesting, since this is a direct quote from your version of the argument in 2012:
// P1: Both "Space and time are eternal, without a timeless personal mind." (STE) and "Something can come from pure nothingness and then create the entire Universe." (SCPNCEU) are illogical, irrational and have zero evidence.//

It seems the goalposts have shifted yet again.

Apparently Chad can’t see the contradiction in claiming first that STE (Space -Time Eternal) is “illogical, irrational, incorrect”, and without “supporting evidence”, and then immediately claiming that space-time must have pre-existed the Big Bang.

// just because spacetime existed prior to the expansion of the singularity in the Big Bang model, that does not therefore mean that spacetime was eternal in the past without true beginning.//

He seems to think this solves the problem with the argument; the assertion (without the slightest evidence to back it up) that space-time was created prior to the Big Bang. However, this begs the question of what kind of environment God existed in prior to the creation of this prior-to-the-Big-Bang space-time. In a previous discussion with Philosotroll in 2012, he makes the claim that God exists in a kind of “meta space-time” – again without the slightest shred of evidence to back it up. When Philosotroll pointed this out, Chad blocked him.

Regarding my identification of SPCNCEU as a straw man fallacy, he says:

//...It's not a strawman because even though we agree that SCPN is irrational illogical, incorrect, and has no evidence, it still remains an OPTION for atheists. Not a good one I agree, but still an option//

What Chad fails to acknowledge is that few if any atheists actually hold to the idea that the universe came from “Pure Nothingness”. Thus, it DOES qualify as a straw man fallacy, since Elliott contends that they do in blatant disregard of this fact. He creates the argument in order to knock it down.

// So you think the words 'I DONT KNOW' could be responsible for the existence of our Universe?? Do ya huh, Mr. Godfrey?? LOL!!//

And here we have a classic example of Chad deliberately failing to understand the meaning of a statement made by an opponent. What I contended was that the admission of a lack of knowledge by an atheist of how the universe came to exist is a valid answer to the question. His assertion is that I am claiming the actual words “I DON’T KNOW” brought the universe into being. Another straw man fallacy, this time tinged with his grade-school form of personal expression.

// On the basis of P2, this claim is entirely disingenuous; while the argument makes no explicit claim to support the UC option, by (falsely) asserting that there are only two other options.//

This is actually a misquote; here is the full sentence without the period incorrectly placed:
“On the basis of P2, this claim is entirely disingenuous; while the argument makes no explicit claim to support the UC option, by (falsely) asserting that there are only two other options besides this that could be taken and that both are actually invalid, it very clearly implicitly supports that option to the exclusion of all others. Attempting to claim in light of this that it lends no support to the UC option is thus quite simply fallacious – it’s dishonest.”

And chad’s response to the “quote” he has manufactured:

//FAIL...We have not 'falsely' asserted that atheists only have two options. Rather it remains to be an absolute fact that atheists only have two options.//

I should be obvious by now that he has failed to establish his contention as fact.

// The same is true with the acronyms STE an SCPN. I give the correct definitions to my opponent, appeal to human logic and the law of non-contradiction, and then challenge them to prove that some other option could logically exist.//

Actually, I provided a third option in the very response he is attempting to refute here; namely that the universe could have come to exist through a completely natural, non-sentient phenomenon or series of phenomena that exist outside out space-time. As can be seen, this falls under neither STE (since it does not exist in our space-time) nor SPCN (since the universe does not emerge from “Pure nothingness”. This is Chad’s response:
// Simply saying it can be a natural, non-sentient phenomena which exists outside of space-time is nothing more than a baseless assertion.//

This is nonsense, of course. Chad has absolutely no basis to make such a claim and I challenge him to show how the argument is flawed.

// This is where we would challenge our opponent to prove that a non-personal cause (UCNPC), could also in fact be space-less, timeless, immaterial, and unchanging.//

The opposite of course is also the case; I can just as easily challenge Chad to prove that a non-personal cause of the universe cannot be “space-less, timeless, immaterial, and unchanging” – whatever that means.

As usual, Chad’s “defence” of his “undefeatable argument” cannot withstand even the most basic scrutiny.

Chalk up another fail to the AK.

I was angry at Chad for a while after discovering that he was a major plagiariser of other people’s work and was entirely comfortable with misrepresenting facts concerning scientific discoveries to support his botched argument (see entry from 20th Apr 2014).

 However, after reading up on his history, I’ve realised that his behaviour is directly attributable to his failure to achieve the greatness he once saw as inevitable. I have been down that path; on the cusp of seriously big success, only to see it vanish due to some bad luck and bad decisions. Fortunately, I found another path just as fulfilling (although less glamorous). Chad, obviously, did not.

Now I just feel sorry for him.

Chad cheats again

Chad has posted more information his his TEA blog; this time about the WMAP research that indicates that time may have existed before the expansion of the Universe. Chad has deliberately edited the original material to hide the fact that it implies a cyclic cosmos with Universes sequentially coming into being.

From Elliot’s blog:-

Roger Penrose from the University of Oxford, has published a new paper saying that the circular patterns seen in the WMAP mission data on the Cosmic Microwave Background suggest that space and time perhaps did not originate at the Big Bang. His paper also refutes the idea of inflation, a widely accepted theory of a period of very rapid expansion immediately following the Big Bang. Penrose says that inflation cannot account for the very low entropy state in which the universe was thought to have been created.

From the original article:-

One of the great physicists of our time, Roger Penrose from the University of Oxford, has published a new paper saying that the circular patterns seen in the WMAP mission data on the Cosmic Microwave Background suggest that space and time perhaps did not originate at the Big Bang but that our universe continually cycles through a series of “aeons,” and we have an eternal, cyclical cosmos. His paper also refutes the idea of inflation, a widely accepted theory of a period of very rapid expansion immediately following the Big Bang.

Penrose says that inflation cannot account for the very low entropy state in which the universe was thought to have been created.

http://www.universetoday.com/79750/penrose-wmap-shows-evidence-of-%E2%80%98activity%E2%80%99-before-big-bang/

As you see, Elliott has edited the material (italicised in the original text) to remove any reference to a cyclic model of multiple universes, a theory he specifically refutes. The man is an unconscionable liar.

Chad Elliott - cheat, thief, liar.

Well; I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I just read through some of the new stuff that Elliott has added to his blog. There was quite a bit of new material on The Elliott Argument, so I started to read it; I soon realised that it was of far too high a standard to be Elliot's own work - even the writing style was significantly different from what he usually posts. So I did some online detecting. There are whole sections that he has lifted virtually word-for-word from other people's work - personal blogs, answers.com, Wikipedia; he hasn't even bothered to paraphrase most of it. He's been smart enough to credit those pieces from well-known or easily verified sources, such as scientific papers or William Lane Craig's page, which he references often; but there are great slabs which are taken directly from uncredited sources which he then passes off as his own work. He's mixed-and-matched the sentences a bit and changed a word here and there, but a random sample of sentences copied into a search engine revealed the extent of his cheating.

I'm honestly disgusted; I knew he did a bit of that - most of us have used a sentence here or there in our work without crediting the original author properly. But the extent of his cheating goes way beyond that. He's passing off a great deal of writing as his own, when it clearly comes from others, and worse, he is using that material to support, not only his fallacious and childish arguments, but the image he is trying to project of himself. He is stealing other people's hard-won success in order to bolster his ego. I sent him what is probably my final message (below); whatever shreds of respect I had for him are now completely destroyed and I simply will not waste my time on him any more.

OK, Elliott; now you've pissed me off. I really don’t mind that you bang on as if the Elliott Argument was anything other than an easily defeated and fallacious piece of nonsense; if your fragile little ego needs such a myth to make it feel better, who am I to disparage that?

But I’ve just read through some of the new pieces you’ve added since my complete deconstruction of it, (the sections on absolute zero research and so forth) and you have very clearly plagiarised almost all of it. You have added in links to SOME of the pages you got your material from, but there are whole sections you have simply lifted lock, stock, and barrel from other people’s work; answers.com, Wikipedia, you’ve even stolen slabs from other Facebook users – word-for-word. You haven’t even displayed the fractionally small level of common sense needed to unify the fonts, or to paraphrase those segments you pilfered from others with better minds than yours.

Well, Elliott; unlike you, I am a REAL academic, and if there is one thing I despise within my field, it is unbridled plagiarism of this sort.  If this were a paper you had submitted as one of my students, I would haul your sorry arse before the Academic Disciplinary Board so fast you’d get friction burns.

You are NOT an academic, Elliott; you’re not even fit to sweep the floors of a University. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable from anyone, even someone with the superficial reflection of intellect you display. I am disgusted with you. I thought you were, on some primitive level, actually attempting to improve yourself and expand your intellectual capacities; but it is now clear to me that your intent is no more than a childish and artificial attempt to make yourself appear greater than you are by stealing other people’s hard-won success and passing it off as your own.

You are not just a failure, Elliott; you are a cheating failure.

Chad and his Homophobia

This is my response to Elliott’s commentary on the supposed Biblical admonitions against homosexuality. I admit, I’m trying to provoke some response, though so far he has only referred to my posts obliquely; perhaps stirring this particular pot will get some action, as I suspect his long and very rambling condemnation of homosexual acts (he even advises no contact with Gay Christians!) indicates a barely concealed fear of latent – or perhaps NOT so latent – homosexual tendencies. No surprises there.

 So, Elliott ….. you claim that the Christian bible condemns homosexuality. For the sake of argument, I will allow that claim, although the latest biblical scholarship has questioned the translation of words such as arsenokoitai  and malakoi in 1 Corinthins 6:9 (http://btb.sagepub.com/content/34/1/17.abstract), along with interpretation of the Levitican texts and all the other “clobber passages” traditionally used to support homophobia (http://www.psa91.com/pdf/whatthebiblesays.pdf). It needs to be noted that these passages are all open to question, especially since the word “homosexual” did not exist at the time the texts were written down (it was first coined in 1892 by psychologist  Karoly Maria Benkert; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/) , and was in fact not used in the bible at all until 1946 (http://carm.org/word-homosexual-english-bible-1946). These verses when correctly translated are a best obscure about their references to homosexual behaviour per se.

The Bible is much more clear about the issue of sex outside marriage. The verses listed below make it quite clear that such practices constitute “fornication” or “sexual immorality”, which is specifically condemned, as are the children of those unions. It is my understanding, from those who have followed your exploits of FaceBook, that you are not married to the woman with whom you have produced children. Thus, by your own words, you and your children are condemned to Hell.

Fortunately for you (and them), the Christian bible is nothing more than a book of mythology written by Bronze- and Iron-age goat-herders who believed the earth was flat. It has exactly as much authority as the Chronicles of Narnia and frankly is a far less interesting book to read (and yes, I have read both cover to cover). I’m afraid that, unless you can unequivocally prove the existence of the God you happen to believe in (or any God for that matter) to the exclusion of all others, using the Christian bible to support your contentions is about as useful as spitting into the wind.

Deuteronomy 23:2

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. (KJV)

Sorry, Elliott, but it looks like your children (and their children’s children’s children’s etc. children) are going to burn.

1 Corinthians 7:1-2

1 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: [It is] good for a man not to touch a woman. (KJV)

2 Nevertheless, [to avoid] fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. (KJV)

Fornication is sex outside of marriage.

1 Corinthians 7:9

9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn in passion. (KJV)

1 Corinthians 7:28

28 But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. (KJV)

Ephesians 5:3

3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints (KJV)

Hebrews 13:4

4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. (KJV)

1 Corinthians 6:9

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind…(KJV)

I repeat; fornication is sex outside of marriage. You are condemned by the very same verse you are using to condemn homosexuals; MAJOR FAIL there, Elliott. Try again.

(On “Proof of God” post)

I've just demolished all that BS you posted about the eeeeevills of homosexuality; I've also shown that your own sexual immorality condemns you AND you children to Hell according to your own "Holy" book.

I just want to add that pretending I don't post here by ignoring my comments doesn't constitute a victory; it just means you're wimping out.

Response to Chad's "Proof of God" argument.

Couldn't resist (and it's a slow day at work); I popped back to see how Chad was doing and found a few new posts that are, if possible, even more ridiculous than the earlier ones. I've responded to the so-called "Proof" of god he has posted and will get around to the (not one, but two) posts about how eeevil-'n'-nasty Homersekshules are. Again, no great challenge here, but I live in hope that one day he will at least manage one coherent, logical argument. Response below:

Hi there, Elliott. I just thought I’d do what I promised and check in on your progress; sad to say, I’m not impressed. You don’t seem to have advanced much at all in your capability to develop and defend a logical argument. I’ve deconstructed this one for you as I see you are still constructing it, so there is a chance of giving it some kind of logical coherence. As it is, if it were a ship it would never make it out of dry-dock. This is only a brief analysis of the most obvious problems; I have broken the lesson into two sections, as it is again too long to post in one hit.

//Everyone (atheists and theists alike) must admit that either something is without beginning, or that something came from pure nothingness.//

Why? This is just a reiteration of your “Golden Question”, which is a classic false dichotomy; there is a plethora of theoretical possibilities as to how the Universe came to be, a fact which effectively discounts this assertion. I myself have presented you with at least one logically consistent, theoretically sound possibility (which you have flatly refused to address) which accounts quite effectively for the existence of the Universe without having to resort to the “God-did-it” theory.

//No reason to believe that pure nothingness have ever existed or could ever be achieved//

There is similarly no reason to believe that “pure nothingness” did NOT exist at some time, unless you have access to some physics research the rest of the world knows nothing about. Besides which, as I have pointed out to you before, there are few if any Atheists who would assert that the Universe came into existence “out of pure nothingness”; a classic Straw-man fallacy there, Elliot.

//Pure nothingness has no creative powers.//

How do you know that? What evidence can you present to support the contention? Also, see above.

//Discriminatory//

Meaning? I know this probably means something to you, but it is totally meaningless to everyone else. Why would the contention that pure nothingness is possible be “discriminatory”?

//You cannot disprove or undermine mathematical absolutes//

Again, meaning? What does this have to do with the argument? Mathematical absolutes are the very things that have successfully been used by (for example) Dr Stephen Hawking to support his contention that a god is unnecessary as an explanation for the Universe’s existence. In what way do they support your contentions? I tried to tell you before, Elliot; making these bald assertions without anything to back them up makes no sense and does NOT constitute a rational argument.

//There is no evidence to support the claim that something can come from pure nothingness.//

Again, see above; there is similarly no evidence to support the claim that a god exists or ever has.

//…whatever existed in the past without beginning must be timeless. Present our infinite regress argument and remind them that we are using all standard and formal definitions of 'Time', and that all eternal cycles such as string theory and multi-universe theory, big bang, big bounce, etc. are also covered.//

and

//…we can prove that events were happening prior to the expansion. Thus, the concept of time certainly was in play!!//

I really shouldn’t have to point this out, Elliott, but the two statements above are contradictory; if something “existed in the past” then it cannot be timeless, as the past IS A MEASUREMENT of time. The statement is ontologically meaningless. Furthermore, in the very next paragraph, you make the claim that you “…can prove that events were happening prior to the expansion”. Quite aside from the fact that, if this is the case, you are up for the Nobel Prize in Physics, the contention that events were happening prior to the expansion means that time, and therefore space, were already existent; that is elementary relativity any high-school student could figure out. If that is the case, then whatever it was that caused the expansion was a temporal agent and subject to (ergo, not the cause of) time and space per se. I know you have already tried to wiggle out of this one by inventing a kind of “meta-space-time” in which you claim your god exists, but that is just a furphy; the fact is, if you are claiming that space-time existed before the big bang, then you are admitting that your god is subject to temporality and therefore MUST have had a beginning also.

//…we know the event (the creation of the universe) must have been beyond space and time. Therefore it cannot be physical or material.//

As pointed out above, you contend earlier in your exegesis that space and time must have existed prior to the expansion, so you have just contradicted one of the key premises of your argument; in common parlance, you have just shot yourself in the foot.

//There are only two types of things that fit this description. Either abstract objects (like numbers), or some sort of intelligent mind…//

Why? Even if we ignore the glaring contradictions in your argument that I have already pointed out, there is no logical reason why something existing in such a “timeless, spaceless” state could not be some kind of natural force that is neither abstract nor sentient. If you have the mathematical and scientific research that shows otherwise, feel free to present it.

//…only a free agent can account for the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause. If the cause of the universe were an non-personal, mechanically operating cause, then the cause could never exist without its effect. For if the sufficient condition of the effect is given, then the effect must be given as well.//

Again, why “only a free agent”? You have already stated that space-time MUST have existed prior to the expansion in order for “something” to be able to cause the Universe to begin. If that is the case, there is no logical reason to assume that there was only one element existent in that state. It is just as logical, given the conditions you are basing your contentions on, that there were two or more – perhaps an infinite number – of non-sentient, concrete elements existent prior to the expansion that could have reacted with each other in an entirely random manner. In the natural world, we have countless examples of non-sentient elements causing reactions of all kinds; physics is based on the study of just such phenomena.

//…if the cause were a non-personal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without its effect...//

As pointed out above, postulating an entity that exists outside our space-time continuum necessarily permits the postulation of any number of elements existing in the same state. There is absolutely no logical reason why the cause of the Universe could not be the interaction of two or more such elements.

As you see, Elliott, this argument is simply not strong enough to withstand even a brief assault. You really MUST try to learn more about formal logical argument, physics, scientific method, and philosophy. I will do my best to educate you on such matters, but I simply do not have the time to do more than expose the basic flaws, as I have done here. I suggest attending a community college or some other such institution where you can get in some serious study time on these subjects; otherwise, you will continue to be the butt of the jokes about you that are currently flooding the internet.

“The Pious Man is Humble before God” - but nowhere else.

Is it just me, or does anyone else have a problem with the “humility” touted by monotheism? I’ve seen this sort of stuff all over the internet; about how all the problems of the world boil down to humanity’s “arrogance” and how everything would be just peachy if we all simply admitted our “lowly” status and submitted to the will of the almighty (fill in name here).

The contention is that humanity is “arrogant” because we have failed to acknowledge (fill in name here) as our creator and He (why is it always “He”?) is so pissed off about this that he is making our lives miserable – or allowing us to make our own lives miserable, which amounts to the same thing for an omnipotent, omniscient being, a factor which the God Squad never seem to grasp (thank you Epicurus).

My point is, why is it “arrogant” for people to refuse to believe in an all-powerful deity that has remained steadfastly invisible in any meaningful or verifiable way for all of human history, but not arrogant to assume that such a deity would focus its entire attention upon us?

I mean, don’t the God Squad get it? They believe that there exists an immortal, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing being which has existed forever (if that term has any meaning), that yet bends all its attention and will upon us – humanity. They believe that this inconceivably powerful being created the entire Universe and everything in it expressly and solely for the purpose of giving the human species a place to live. They believe that this being focusses its attention so completely on our species and ours alone that it actually cares what we do, what we think, and who we have sex with.

Some of them even think that this being is so enraptured with humanity that He manifested Himself on Earth as His own son in order to offer Himself as a blood sacrifice to Himself so that He could forgive humanity for the sins He allowed us to commit in the first place – they consider this to make perfect sense.

As if that is not enough, the God Squad further believe that they are members of a select group – actually, a range of groups, all of which disagree with each other – with whom (fill in name here) has a special and personal relationship; that this group is so special to (fill in name here) that they and they alone will be taken into His presence on Judgement Day or its equivalent, while everyone else is consigned to (check one):

• burn for all eternity in a Lake of Fire
• suffer the Second Death
• be cast into the Eternal Darkness
• all of the above.

They also think that they and they alone are the ones who know “The Truth”, are the “Keepers of the Flame”, are the “Soldiers of The Lord” and so forth, and that (fill in name here) takes the time to speak directly to them on a daily basis. Somehow, they consider that this truly astonishing level of self-aggrandisement is, in fact, a sign of their self-effacement.

Can these people honestly not see how perverse and distorted their world-view is? What degree of twisted logic must it take to perceive what is clearly the highest level of egotism as abject humility? What is worse, they have the infernal (and I use the term advisedly) gall to claim that those who do not so believe are the ones who are “arrogant”. These people must have egos the size of Jupiter to think that any such deity, even if such existed, would give a small, brown rodent’s rectum about them, their thoughts, or their peccadillos. It would be funny, if the consequences of this distorted and self-centred belief system were not so devastatingly serious.  They have managed, by a combination of good luck and clever politicking, to spread this psychological distortion of reality all over the planet, and even though the power of their institutions is finally waning, the effects on humanity have been and still are deadly serious.

Personally, I can’t wait until the last of them has gone to “meet their maker”; if He actually exists, I wonder what He will make of them?

Trashing an opponent of same-sex marriage

It was surprisingly easy; there's a link to the original article.

Redefining Marriage

The case for caution

by Julian Rivers

http://www.jubilee-centre.org/document.php?id=432

Professor Rivers states that “challenges” to the exclusivity of marriage would risk it becoming a “formalised domestic arrangement between any number of people for any length of time”; yet in the same article, he acknowledges that marriage defined as between “one man and one woman” has only existed since the 11^th century (note [6]), and that only within Europe (Interestingly, it was Cnut the Great who made this rule, who nevertheless is recorded to have had two wives and a concubine). One can assume, therefore, that for all of human history prior to that (or outside the European region), at least 5,000 years according to archaeological records, humanity not only survived but thrived with a far broader description of marriage. This blows a hole in his argument so wide that I’m astonished he can’t see it; it must be due to his theological blinkers.

The common law has always defined marriage as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others….

English Common Law (and as a result, the common law of all her colonies) was begun in the reign of Henry II in the 12^th Century, well after the Romans had imposed Christianity on the country in 200 AD. Therefore, Common Law, like Professor Rivers, carries the baggage of Christian doctrine against homosexuality; a doctrine which has no place in a secular, 21^st Century society.

The debate about same-sex marriage is a debate about using law to change the meaning of the social institution of marriage. And that affects everyone.

 

He’s right about that; I would just like to see him defend the unstated assumption inherent in his argument that Gay and Lesbian citizens should not enjoy the same rights and privileges as the other members of the society in which they live.

The Government's arguments

The argument from equality

… It follows that for marriage to be 'equal' on grounds of sexual orientation, the law should not be restricted to just one type of sexually-intimate companionship. Why can't a man marry two wives? Why isn't prostitution treated as a form of short-term marriage? Why, for that matter, should single people be deprived of the chance to pass on their pension rights to a best friend? There may or may not be reasons for drawing the legal boundaries in any particular place, but until those reasons are stated, the argument from equality is incomplete.

 

This is just the “slippery slope” argument revisited; it has absolutely no basis in observed history and is an emotive and irrational appeal to fears of societal disintegration. In the numerous states and nations in which same-sex marriage has been legitimised and legalised, there have been no negative consequences whatsoever; none of them have enacted further legislation resulting in the redefinition of marriage to include every conceivable sexual union. It is dishonest and disingenuous to use such a tactic and it is neither rational nor logical to conclude that such events will result from the granting of equal marriage rights to all New Zealanders.

The argument from stability

…It is fair to assume that, practically speaking, no same-sex couple would be willing to marry who are not already willing to enter into a civil partnership. So the argument depends on the relative stability of marriage as opposed to civil partnership. … the truth is that we simply do not know the relative stability of marriage and civil partnership. Civil partnership has only been available since 2005. The data so far might even imply that civil partnerships are more stable than marriages. …. the argument from stability is speculative.

 

This is a complete furphy; the issue is not about whether or not civil partnerships are more or less stable than civil or religious marriages, but about whether or not homosexual unions are more or less stable than heterosexual ones. The evidence for this is overwhelmingly that same-sex unions are just as stable as opposite-sex unions when given the same legal rights and obligations; much like same-sex parenting has been shown to be just as advantageous (in fact slightly more so) than opposite-sex parenting. Professor Rivers does himself and his argument no favours by resorting to this clear straw-man fallacy. Again, this is an unproven and fallacious argument which has no basis in logic or rationality.

The argument from convenience

…The difficulties of a small group of people are emphasised at some length by the Government…. The argument from convenience is negligible.

 

This one is so shallow that even Professor Rivers himself spends very little time on it; it almost seems as if he would prefer people to skip right over it without noticing. It is simply absurd to claim that, because this issue affects only a small minority of people, it can be conveniently ignored. Civil rights, one of which is the right to legally marry, affect everyone, as Professor Rivers is at pains to point out at the beginning of the article. Here, however, he seems to be suggesting that this minority can be safely relegated to second-class status because they lack the numbers to be considered worthy of attention. This is an appalling attitude, and it does not surprise me that Rivers does his best to skate over it as rapidly as possible. Just how big a number of members does a minority need to fulfil Professor Rivers’ requirements for recognition? Again, there is NO logical or rational basis for this argument, which moreover flies in the face of many of the moral arguments in favour of democracy.

Two arguments against same-sex marriage

Marriage secures the equal value of men and women

… we live in an age and society which has done more than most to ensure that gender roles are fluid, that men and women are equally able to access jobs, careers and other social opportunities, as well as taking up domestic responsibilities. Yet we still recognise that men and women are in various ways different….

It is only marriage which harnesses gender difference to the purposes of social cooperation….

Redefining marriage to be indifferent to sexual identity reinforces this individualistic tendency because it turns human society - from marriage outwards - into a matter of individual inclination and choice. Marriage will cease to be an institution which reflects the necessary and natural interdependence of men and women.

 

In this one, Professor Rivers shoots himself squarely in the foot. No doubt he was hoping that the average reader would not notice that he uses two completely different definitions as if they are the same thing; gender identity and sexual identity. They are not. By attempting to conflate these two essentially distinct elements of human personality, he shows that he actually has no rational basis for this argument at all. The idea that opposite-sex marriage is the basis from which all societal inter-gender cooperation flows is so absurd that I’m surprise he had the effrontery to postulate it, as is the concept that allowing same-sex couples to marry would in some way permanently damage this societal cooperation. Again; an illogical and irrational argument poorly dressed up to look as if it is not so.

Marriage promotes the welfare of children

…In spite of these developments, there are still connections between marriage as currently defined and the bearing and rearing of children. Most married couples of childbearing age will be able to have children and will have to take steps to avoid having children. By contrast, individuals and same-sex couples have to take active steps to acquire a child, at some point involving another party. Far fewer do.[24] So there is a social and practical presumption connecting marriage with children….

Only a man and a woman can form the biological unit capable of pro-creating another being 'free and equal in dignity and rights'. No new human being can exist as a living expression of the intimacy of a same-sex couple….

The prevailing view is that there is no significant deficit in same-sex parenting, although a recent major study has called this into question.[28]…

Redefining marriage breaks the necessary connection with childbearing, in the sense that marriage will no longer mean 'the relationship which is normally and naturally productive of children and thus a nexus of kinship.' Its intrinsic purpose will be reduced to sexually-intimate companionship.

 

Here we have the ultimate emotive argument that all those opposed to same-sex marriage inevitably resort to; what about the children? Every study ever conducted into same-sex parenting (apart from the now totally discredited Regnerus study Professor Rivers cites in note [28] above) shows emphatically that there are no negative consequences at all for children raised by same-sex couples; however, this fact rarely if ever succeeds in preventing those opposed to same-sex marriage rights from raising this issue. Furthermore, this argument runs counter to his earlier argument about the rights and needs of minorities, in that he claims that very few same-sex couples have or want children. Thus, by the logic of his own argument earlier (if that argument were credible), we could conclude that the effect on society from the children of same-sex couples would be negligible.

He also seems to be under the mistaken impression that same-sex couples can only have children by adoption or through in-vitro fertilisation. This is increasingly not the case. Many same-sex couples – including the highly stable (27 years) Lesbian couple with whom I have fathered two children – elect to have children via a known donor who continues to have contact with the children after their birth. As I find it difficult to believe that a person of Professor Rivers’ education would be ignorant of this fact, I can only assume that he has neglected to mention it because it so effectively undermines his argument.

The fact is that legalising and recognising same-sex marriage, far from putting the children of such unions at risk, will legitimate the relationships that brought those children into being and raised them, thereby providing them with a greater psychological and emotional stability than they would otherwise enjoy. Same-sex couples can and do successfully raise children in ever increasing numbers; individuals like Professor Rivers and organisations like “Protect Marriage New Zealand”, far from ensuring the future happiness of children, are in fact seeking to undermine the happiness and psychological well-being of the ever increasing number of children being raised by same-sex parents.

The permanence of marriage will be undermined

…The fragility of marriage is a major cause of harm in twenty-first-century British society….

Again, Professor Rivers shoots down his own argument here; the study he cites in note [38] (Counting the Cost of Family Failure (2010)) relates to the increasing number of failures in heterosexual marriage. How, I wonder, can he contend that allowing more people to marry will make this situation worse? Furthermore, the article he cites points out that the most serious threat to marriage per-se is not same-sex marriage, but poverty. It seems even someone like Professor Rivers can’t actually manage to find any evidence to support his arguments; probably because there aren’t any.

The sexual dimension of marriage will be undermined

In law, marriage is a sexual relationship. Incapacity and wilful refusal to consummate a marriage are grounds for annulment, and adultery is one of the five facts which demonstrate irretrievable breakdown….

 A close same-sex companionship need not be sexually active, so marriage and sex will be similarly disconnected….

If marriage includes relationships which are not necessarily sexual, the companionship of any adults who aspire to formal recognition and its other advantages could be called a marriage.

 

I honestly have no idea where Rivers is going with this one; the argument is so illogical and the reasoning so Byzantine in its confusion that it’s hard to see what he’s trying to say. Quite apart from the well-know and documented fact that many heterosexual marriages become less sexual in nature as the years progress, how on Earth does he manage to conflate allowing same-sex couples to marry with the idea that marriage and sex will become somehow disconnected thereby? The telling point is in the second line quoted; he uses the words “…need not be sexually active…” in the first part, but then goes on to say “…marriage and sex will be similarly disconnected (my italics).” Again, Professor Rivers is conflating two disconnected ideas here in a deliberate attempt to create a false association. In short, he’s attempting (and failing) to fabricate an argument from nothing.

The moral weight of marriage will be undermined

…. marriage as currently defined derives at least part of its social significance from its historic location in Christian theology….

The insufficiency of the individual points also to human dependency on God, just as the joint capacity to 'procreate' children is testimony to our creation in his image. Furthermore, marriage is a symbol of the mutually loving and dependent relationships between the different persons of the Trinity. It also pictures the relationship between Jesus Christ and his bride, the church. The exclusivity and permanence of marriage represent the faithfulness of the one true God, and our commitment to him. The pleasure of sexual union points to the greater joy of spiritual union with God.

He just couldn’t help himself, I guess; despite his earnest attempts to keep his theological bias out of the argument, he just naturally gravitated to the “my God doesn’t like it” position, even though he expressly stated that this article would not do so:

The purpose of this paper is to set out a non-religious case for retaining the current legal definition of marriage. It does not seek to question the morality of same-sex relationships, the provision of civil partnerships, or the current law prohibiting discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation….

What this final section does is to reduce Professor Rivers’ argument to what he actually thinks; that his religious beliefs should dominate and rule the lives of everyone, even those who do not follow them. Essentially, he’s a Christian apologist posing as a rational intellectual and failing to succeed in maintaining that posture.

Conclusion

… Marriage risks becoming any formalised domestic arrangement between any number of people for any length of time. On such a trajectory, marriage will eventually unravel altogether.

Even here, Professor Rivers’ argument fails in the final analysis; prior to the 11^th century, marriage was defined in many ways that modern liberal democracies would find problematic, if not downright illegal. However, marriage did not “unravel”; the fact that we are here now to discuss this very issue is clear evidence of this. Furthermore, marriage was not even the sole province of the Christian church until the middle of the 15^th century, and then only in Europe. Marriage existed in numerous forms long before the advent of the Christian religion and it will continue to exist long after that religion has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Professor Rivers and Protect Marriage New Zealand would do well to remember that.

To The Cosmic Archer

He won't respond; I've been sending posts to his blog, FB page, and Youtube page for over a year, but apart from one very brief response to my presentation of a viable third option to his "Golden Question" (after which I was immediately banned from his FB page) he made it so that all comments to his blog and Youtube pages required approval. He even banned me from one of his "live debates" as soon as my name appeared on the screen.

I have been sending him "lessons" in logical argumentation and formal logic based on his blog arguments (including one on TSA which is very similar to yours - great minds clearly think alike); he has never acknowledged them, but he has modified several arguments after I posted them, so clearly he reads them.

Chad is really a rather pathetic figure; he had a promising carreer in NFL, but it was stymied through his lack of academic ability (bad, even for a sports scholarship) and some poor decisions. All this "never-been-defeated" crapola is his last attempt to regain some relevance, even if only in his own mind, in a world that has long since passed him over. Thus, he will never admit defeat; it would (I think) quite literally destroy him psychologically.

Addendum: Chad's (failed) attempt to re-work the Suicide Argument.

Elliott had a go at re-working the Suicide Argument in order to make it ‘airtight’; I just hope he doesn’t try to float it anywhere! I had to offer one last lesson before I withdraw into Academia. Here’s the argument itself and my very brief breakdown of its primary flaws.

The Suicide Argument 

P1: Atheists have to accept that all moral values are subjective

P2: If all moral values are subjective, then no action is objectively wrong

P3: If no action is objectively wrong, then abolishing atheism all together (sic) is not objectively wrong

C: Atheism is self-defeating

Well, Elliott; this will be my last foray into your strange, sad little world for a while; my formal study period begins today, so I will be far too busy earning my PhD to be bothered shooting one silly little fish in his tiny barrel. I do hope you've gained something from these lessons; it appears so, as you have been modifying your arguments somewhat. 

I'm sorry I never got around to a proper breakdown of the Suicide Argument, as I said I would; I just had lots of better things to do and it slipped my mind. I see you've been tweaking at it; unfortunately, it's not particularly successful. Your re-working of the Suicide Argument is a valiant attempt to clean up a pretty messy trash-pile, and to a small extent it succeeds; the error you noticed (or maybe you should just ‘fess up to having it pointed out to you) has been dealt with.

Unfortunately, you are still left with P1’s attempt to force a false dichotomy on Atheists.

P1: Atheists have to accept that all moral values are subjective.

 It is simply NOT TRUE that Atheists “have to accept that all moral values are subjective”. Atheists could use a range of potential origins for an objective morality that are logically sound but that do not require a god:

1. Programming by aliens (one of your favorites there)
2. Imprinting from an alternate reality (multiple universe theory there – I know you don’t like that one, but it IS logically possible)
3. The non-deistic, impersonal, natural force that spontaneously caused this Universe (the third option you refuse to acknowledge, even though it does not violate either of the “illogical” alternatives you offer to the deistic theory in the Elliott Argument) imprinted a survival modality on the fabric of space-time which we perceive as an objective moral code.

I could go on, but the list is pretty much endless.

As I have just shown that P1 is NOT TRUE – and if you know logical argumentation as well as you claim – you will realise that this makes P1 unsound.

P2 and P3 are both logically sound as far as they go, but as they rely entirely on the soundness of P1, they fail because it fails.

The conclusion is also something of an aberration; it doesn't actually follow from the premises. It’s unfortunately typical of your form of argument structure that you seem to dream up a ‘conclusion’ and then write premises that you think support it. MAJOR FAIL there, Elliott.

Once again, you have presented an ‘argument’ which is actually not one; in order to reach the conclusion as written, you would have to introduce at least one and probably more branches to the argument, which would probably make it far too complex and convoluted to hold up. You will have to do a lot more work on this one to get it even close to being a sound argument, I’m afraid, but keep up the effort. If nothing else, you are giving a lot of people on the internet some great laughs.

So long, ‘champ’; I’ll pop in and see how you’re doing from time to time.