I agree, Axegrrl. The whole thing seems bogus and accusational to me. IMHO, I think it would be the other way around, because critical examination of such claims is imperative and to say that if on finds whole, then they are insane is the same thing as saying, “You cannot question this or any other claims herein about our god”, which simply is not true. It is irrational not to question and think for oneself.
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Clearly, the mule scenario is simply a not-terribly-sophisticated attempt at shifting the burden of proof from the one making a claim to the one who isn’t convinced that the claim is necessarily true.
This is not how one demonstrates how ‘compelling’ their argument is.
Here’s my main problem with the cosmological argument: as long as there are other plausible explanations that can’t be dismissed, there’s nothing especially compelling about it at all.
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such as…?
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Our ‘big bang’ could have been one event in a long series of cyclical occurences in which the ‘death’ of one thing gives rise to the emergence of another (akin to the collapse of molecular clouds leading to the ‘birth’ of stars)
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Which began where? You still do not escape the necessity of a necessary being to bring the first cause. An infinite regress leads to absurdities, Zeno’s paradox demonstrates this.
You disagree that the movement of a hand is something which began to exist?
It does not prove a deity exists.
if you agree with the premises of the argument then the conclusion is irrefutable.
How so? It does not give evidence of anything except the movement of a hand. The rest of your sentence doesn’t make much sense.
Ok I’m not sure you are understanding.
Premise 1: [I lift my hand in real life, point to it and say:] The movement of my hand is something which began to exist.
Premise 2: Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.
Premise 3: Therefore, the movement of my hand must have a cause.
Premise 4: This cause will either be A: contingently existent [along with what that entails], or B: necessarily existent [along with what that entails]. There is no 3rd possibility.
Premise 5: This cause is not a contingently existing cause.
Premise 6: Therefore, by rational necessity, it must be a necessarily existent Being who created the movement of my hand [along with all of what this entails].
“It is not possible for any sane human being to understand what we are saying and claim that there is anything wrong with our deduction. The brilliant example of this given by al-Ghazali in the Qistas is that of an animal with an inflated stomach.We see it in front of us and someone claims that it is pregnant. The animal happens to be a mule. In order to disprove the assertion of whoever claimed it was pregnant, you will have to do 2 things in a particular order. Firstly, you will have to demonstrate that the animal is indeed a mule. Otherwise, whatever claim you make about mules, even if u can prove it, will be totally irrelevant. Hence the first step would be to observe the animal and determine that it is definitely a mule. Once done, you can now draw attention to the fact that all mules (as a class) are sterile. You will ask, Do you not know that this animal is a mule? The person will say, Yes… Do you not know that all mules as a class are sterile? He will reply, Yes… Now you know that the animal standing in front of us is not pregnant.”
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Hmm, let’s see what that breaks down to: if someone makes a claim about something, it must be accepted until it can be disproven.
I know I’m not the only one here who will find that reasoning ‘problematic’, to say the least.
Also, the red flags start with this: “It is not possible for any sane human being to understand what we are saying and claim that there is anything wrong with our deduction.” Translation: “if you find any holes in our conclusion, you’re insane”. No one offering a truly compelling argument needs to preface what they’re about to say with such a statement.
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A ‘red flag’ does not negate the logic/argument. I concede it is unfortunate and superfluous wording on behalf of the author.
I agree, Axegrrl. The whole thing seems bogus and accusational to me. IMHO, I think it would be the other way around, because critical examination of such claims is imperative and to say that if on finds whole, then they are insane is the same thing as saying, “You cannot question this or any other claims herein about our god”, which simply is not true. It is irrational not to question and think for oneself.
The ‘whole’ thing seems bogus? Do you disagree with the logic?
I agree, Axegrrl. The whole thing seems bogus and accusational to me. IMHO, I think it would be the other way around, because critical examination of such claims is imperative and to say that if on finds whole, then they are insane is the same thing as saying, “You cannot question this or any other claims herein about our god”, which simply is not true. It is irrational not to question and think for oneself.
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Clearly, the mule scenario is simply a not-terribly-sophisticated attempt at shifting the burden of proof from the one making a claim to the one who isn’t convinced that the claim is necessarily true.
This is not how one demonstrates how ‘compelling’ their argument is.
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The analogy of the mule is not to illustrate how to shift the burden of proof. It is to demonstrate the Great Rule of Equivalence. You are correct that the burden of proof is on the one making the claim, hence the analogy demonstrate how that is going to be done.
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Our ‘big bang’ could have been one event in a long series of cyclical occurences in which the ‘death’ of one thing gives rise to the emergence of another (akin to the collapse of molecular clouds leading to the ‘birth’ of stars)
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Which began where? You still do not escape the necessity of a necessary being to bring the first cause. An infinite regress leads to absurdities, Zeno’s paradox demonstrates this.
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But you haven’t established that there IS ‘the necessity of a necessary being to bring the first cause’. That’s merely an assumption on your part.
To claim that something is a ‘necessity’ means it couldn’t have happened any other way. You haven’t demonstrated that yet, and you can’t just skip that step and toss the word ‘necessity’ in there as though you’ve justified using it.
“It is not possible for any sane human being to understand what we are saying and claim that there is anything wrong with our deduction. The brilliant example of this given by al-Ghazali in the Qistas is that of an animal with an inflated stomach.We see it in front of us and someone claims that it is pregnant. The animal happens to be a mule. In order to disprove the assertion of whoever claimed it was pregnant, you will have to do 2 things in a particular order. Firstly, you will have to demonstrate that the animal is indeed a mule. Otherwise, whatever claim you make about mules, even if u can prove it, will be totally irrelevant. Hence the first step would be to observe the animal and determine that it is definitely a mule. Once done, you can now draw attention to the fact that all mules (as a class) are sterile. You will ask, Do you not know that this animal is a mule? The person will say, Yes… Do you not know that all mules as a class are sterile? He will reply, Yes… Now you know that the animal standing in front of us is not pregnant.”
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Hmm, let’s see what that breaks down to: if someone makes a claim about something, it must be accepted until it can be disproven.
I know I’m not the only one here who will find that reasoning ‘problematic’, to say the least.
Also, the red flags start with this: “It is not possible for any sane human being to understand what we are saying and claim that there is anything wrong with our deduction.” Translation: “if you find any holes in our conclusion, you’re insane”. No one offering a truly compelling argument needs to preface what they’re about to say with such a statement.
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A ‘red flag’ does not negate the logic/argument. I concede it is unfortunate and superfluous wording on behalf of the author.
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That was merely a closing comment and not the crux of my problem with the example.
Can you respond to everything I said before that closing remark, since that is the essential part?
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Our ‘big bang’ could have been one event in a long series of cyclical occurences in which the ‘death’ of one thing gives rise to the emergence of another (akin to the collapse of molecular clouds leading to the ‘birth’ of stars)
`
Which began where? You still do not escape the necessity of a necessary being to bring the first cause. An infinite regress leads to absurdities, Zeno’s paradox demonstrates this.
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But you haven’t established that there IS ‘the necessity of a necessary being to bring the first cause’. That’s merely an assumption on your part.
To claim that something is a ‘necessity’ means it couldn’t have happened any other way. You haven’t demonstrated that yet, and you can’t just skip that step and toss the word ‘necessity’ in there as though you’ve justified using its usage.
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You have to follow the logic. It is either a contingent cause in which case we have an infinite regression or it is a necessarily existing cause with no cause prior, free from the absurdities that would exist with a contingent cause.
I’m curious why any of our members are even wasting their time responding to such a primitive argument. I’ve seen far more intelligent, although fallacious, arguments for the existence of a mythical creator. One cannot substitute verbose rambling for clear, succinct logic. If you go through that long, silly article and delete all of the extraneous and repetitive words, you’ll see the reasoning errors yourself.
“It is not possible for any sane human being to understand what we are saying and claim that there is anything wrong with our deduction. The brilliant example of this given by al-Ghazali in the Qistas is that of an animal with an inflated stomach.We see it in front of us and someone claims that it is pregnant. The animal happens to be a mule. In order to disprove the assertion of whoever claimed it was pregnant, you will have to do 2 things in a particular order. Firstly, you will have to demonstrate that the animal is indeed a mule. Otherwise, whatever claim you make about mules, even if u can prove it, will be totally irrelevant. Hence the first step would be to observe the animal and determine that it is definitely a mule. Once done, you can now draw attention to the fact that all mules (as a class) are sterile. You will ask, Do you not know that this animal is a mule? The person will say, Yes… Do you not know that all mules as a class are sterile? He will reply, Yes… Now you know that the animal standing in front of us is not pregnant.”
`
Hmm, let’s see what that breaks down to: if someone makes a claim about something, it must be accepted until it can be disproven.
I know I’m not the only one here who will find that reasoning ‘problematic’, to say the least.
Also, the red flags start with this: “It is not possible for any sane human being to understand what we are saying and claim that there is anything wrong with our deduction.” Translation: “if you find any holes in our conclusion, you’re insane”. No one offering a truly compelling argument needs to preface what they’re about to say with such a statement.
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A ‘red flag’ does not negate the logic/argument. I concede it is unfortunate and superfluous wording on behalf of the author.
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That was merely a closing comment and not the crux of my problem with the example.
Can you respond to everything I said before that closing remark, since that is the essential part?
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I did address that in my previous reply regarding the purpose of the mule analogy. You are right that if someone makes a claim the burden of proof is on them, again the analogy is simply to demonstrate the equivalence rule. We could just as easily have responded by asking them to prove the mule was pregnant and they could use the logic of the rule of equivalence to attempt to prove which would result in them disproving their claim. It makes no difference ultimately.
I’m curious why any of our members are even wasting their time responding to such a primitive argument. I’ve seen far more intelligent, although fallacious, arguments for the existence of a mythical creator. One cannot substitute verbose rambling for clear, succinct logic. If you go through that long, silly article and delete all of the extraneous and repetitive words, you’ll see the reasoning errors yourself.
Occam
Well just humour me then and point them out, please.
“How then do we demonstrate the truth of the proposition ‘Everything which begins to exist must have a cause’? Is it by accepting this to be a self-evident axiom not in need of being proven, or is it done by surveying the particulars of the principle, i.e. by way of induction, or by way of some other method? We say, it is indeed a self-evident truth.”
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The problem here, imo, is the phrase “which begins to exist”. It may be valid to apply this to our universe, but we do not know that our universe is ‘all’ that exists or has existed. Because we have no knowledge about what was ‘before’ the big bang, we can’t just assume what we want about it.
Saying that the universe “began to exist” at one point doesn’t contradict the possibility of the event being one in a long cycle of events, as I proferred earlier.
