Atheists... Your life is pointless

Quote:

Reason: the capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; intelligence

ok so let me make sure I'm understanding you right... you are saying then that "false reasoning" does not fit into the definition of reasoning, correct? Which would then mean (at least to me) that intelligence does not apply to the person who is functioning in "false reasoning". So who then is able to say what is false reasoning and what is not?

By all means I am certain that my reasoning to you is false reasoning because you do not believe the same things that I consider facts. However, to me, your reasoning could be considered false reasoning because I may not believe the same things that you consider facts. So does that mean we are calling each other stupid? I'm not into name calling...

I will reason that a wrist watch is a mechanism to keep time while you will reason that a wrist watch is something to eat. The two reasonings and their methods to reach their differing conclusions are not equal in merit. Do you agree?

Quote:

I will reason that a wrist watch is a mechanism to keep time while you will reason that a wrist watch is something to eat. The two reasonings and their methods to reach their differing conclusions are not equal in merit. Do you agree?

It depends what you mean by merit. Can you be more specific?

False reasoning may result from:
Incorrect premises
or
Faulty logic

A good place to start with premises might be a dictionary. I had a fairly good topic on the definition of God started here.

A good place to start with logic might be here.

neologist wrote:

False reasoning may result from:
Incorrect premises
or
Faulty logic

A good place to start with premises might be a dictionary. I had a fairly good topic on the definition of God started here.

A good place to start with logic might be here.

Again I ask, who is to say who's premise is incorrect or who's logic is faulty? Seems to me it's all a matter of one's personal opinion...

hephzibah wrote:

neologist wrote:

False reasoning may result from:
Incorrect premises
or
Faulty logic

A good place to start with premises might be a dictionary. I had a fairly good topic on the definition of God started here.

A good place to start with logic might be here.

Again I ask, who is to say who's premise is incorrect or who's logic is faulty? Seems to me it's all a matter of one's personal opinion...

Yeah, but if you can't even agree on the premises. There is nothing to be gained by argument. At least with premises, you may be able to work backward to some agreement.

Coninuing heuristically, there arises an ambiguity through assuming reasoning to be "right" or "wrong"; more correctly, reasoning is either valid or invalid, not at all the same thing. For reasoning to be valid, it must proceed from a licit premise through logical analysis of available evidence to a supported conclusion. This the religionist proposition cannot do; it proceeds from an illicit premise, that being the forensically unestablished, therefore invalid, assumptive premise that there first exists the religionist premise, which assumption by definition is the fallacy of Petitio in Principii - "begging the question", circular logic, wholly internally-referential validation.

No forensically valid argument may be made for the religionist proposition, whether or not there may be intrinsic validity to that proposition.

No forensically valid argument may be made for the religionist proposition, whether or not there may be intrinsic validity to that proposition

What I believe or you believe concerning God and His existance, at least, is totally irrelevant to the current subject. Which is whether or not reasoning factors into belief.

Once again timber, not the point.

What I believe or you believe concerning God and His existance, at least, is totally irrelevant to the current subject. Which is whether or not reasoning factors into belief.

hephzibah wrote:

Once again timber, not the point.

Poppycock; that precisely is the point.

Quote:

What I believe or you believe concerning God and His existance, at least, is totally irrelevant to the current subject. Which is whether or not reasoning factors into belief.

The sole and inescapable point is that only through invalid reasoning may one arrive forensically at the religionist proposition, whether or not anyone misses that point.

The best thing about this last scrap of thread is not whether specific arguments have been properly founded and amplified on (although that certainly would be a nice net result) but that it has been entered into with decent temperament. In one sense I don't even care about a concrete outcome (difficult at best in this open context) as long as it's all done in a thoughtful intelligent congruent manner. Humors help too.