I’m convinced religion is all about fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of not having a magical, invisible friend to turn to. It can be a great comfort to think there is some great plan for you, and random awful shit happens for some mysterious reason that you’ll understand after you die.
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I believe that this is because theists perceive a conflict between science and religion.
Religion says the Earth is about 6,000 years old, while science says the Earth is 4.6 billion years old.
Religion says that lightning is God’s punishment, and science gave us lightning rods.
And so on.
Theists are desperate to hold on to their power and influence, so they try to attack the scientific process with underhanded means.
Religion has been feeling the bite of reason as secularism replaces religion in slow increments, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Church attendance has been falling across the board, and pastors are having difficulty finding replacements when they retire.
So they double down.
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I’d be willing to bet that every flat-earther out there also believes in the mystery man in the sky.
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It also logically fallacious, as an argument belief or assertion does not logically gain any credence or validity from the lack of an alternative, it is a very common and irrational argument many religious apologists present. As I hope everyone now knows this is called an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
I’d also add that if there were parity in any way between unevidenced subjective religious beliefs and scientific facts, why don’t religious people design and build a plane based solely on prayer and faith, and we can compare the two methods to see which one flies the best?
As you point out, even were this risible comparison true it would not be an open door for unevidenced superstition, and the fact @Sherlock-Holmes is dedicating so much energy to this fallacious argument, while tellingly not presenting any evidence for his deity can only infer one thing, he is holding an empty bag, and knows it.
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If you disagree with something I said then quote me verbatim and I’m happy to discuss. The reliance on paraphrasing (with the clear intent of misrepresentation) is a tired tactic too often used by anti-theists.
This:
I am still waiting for you to define what you think the word fact means, as I seriously doubt it means what you think it does, judging from that, but an irrefutable scientific fact is never immutable.
This:
If they were scientifically justified then there would be a scientific consensus reflecting that.
This:
Though it could just be very poorly worded, as you seem fond of sweeping assertions.
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What seems an attempt to bait me is thinly veiled and going unanswered.
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Very wise, since I gave him three, and he hasn’t answered them at all. I’ve also posted several questions asked about unevidenced claims he’s made, some of them longstanding that he has evaded, still waiting for any reply at all.
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Who cares? If you wany to paraphrase me so that you can attack strawmen, then do so, I’ll call you out every time.
We weren’t talking about not answering, we were talking about the dangers (or perhaps I should say the attraction) of paraphrasing rather than verbatim quotes.
Like I called you out on this claim of yours you mean:
No answers, sp I must infer it was your usual vapid rhetoric.
See? I did not say any of that, you made it up, paraphrased intentionally because you are a weak debater. What is wrong with just quoting me verbatim?
My dear fellow, I only saw this thread a short time ago, so of course there are no answers until there are answers.
If you had a firmer grasp of language you’d understand you just created a straw man, as @CyberLN didn’t say you’d said it, she was offering a generic hypothetical based on the type of apologetics a lot of religious apologists use on here, and merely pointed to you being the latest to use such apologetics.
Nice try, but everyone can see that the quote if clearly from another thread, and your claim is months old. Still no answer as well, quelle surprise.
HERE is a link
So can you offer anything to support this?
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This is stooping to a new low. So in your fairytale world of scientism those who challenge consensus are wrong, cannot be right, are not “justified” to do so, at least that’s what you words above seem to equate to.
You have far more in common with those who persecuted Galileo than you do with Galileo, God the irony!
Perhaps but he is attacking an argument I did not make, he is responding to something I said by attacking an argument I did not make, this is known as a strawman fallacy FYI.
Really, I could write a book on some of the characters here. I’d call it The atheists derision of logic.
Nope I was challenging your false assertion, and now you’re mendaciously paraphrasing me, the irony is palpable.
That risible piece of mendacious trolling is pretty ironic, but I’d bet my house you don’t know why. It seems you are angry that your creationist appeal to authority has been challenged, you could try submitting me to the Inquisition, as your lot did to Galileo when they didn’t like his facts contradicting their religious dogma and doctrine. Luckily religious superstition is an offer I am in a position to refuse nowadays.
She, and she is attacking a type of apologetics that attacks science, which you are using. You’re also trying to claim scientific evidence based on appeal to authority fallacies, as what you claim is scientifically justified is in no way accepted by the wider scientific community, not surprising when the goal is to point to something we don’t fully understand and insist this justifies leaping to the superstitious claim an unevidenced deity did it all, using inexplicable magic. That doesn’t sound like science to me, but then I’m not scientifically trained.
She, never said you’d made that specific argument, you are lying.
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I did not paraphrase you, I deduced a conclusion from what you wrote. If you say X > Y then I can conclude that you also mean Y < X that’s not paraphrasing its simple boolean logic.
What your wrote is pretty indisputable, it’s meaning is - without consensus there can be no justification.
Look:
If you want to pretend it means something else then tell us what that something else is.
That’s a lie, and you asked people to quote you verbatim if they disagreed I gave three examples, and you paraphrased one of them mendaciously, after crying that @CyberLN had done this to you, your hypocrisy is being laid bare here. Here is your post:
Now here was my first example, that you have ignored of course quelle surprise.
Here is my second example that you ignored:
As for your lie that you had not paraphrased me lets expose that then:
My response there verbatim, and now here is yours:
So you changed my challenge to your claim that it was scientifically justified being dubious, because there is not a scientific consensus to support it, to a dishonest straw man claim that no one can be right or justified in challenging a consensus, which I never remotely said. So a rather silly lie on top of your duplicitous straw man.