Do you find this person's argument to be sound?

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:

Please summarize the arguments here rather than just linking to videos of the arguments. Thanks. 

TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

This; especially if the video is long.

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Rationalissimo]

And there are multiple videos.

Shawn writes:
[To Rationalissimo]

There are two videos that are 10 minutes each, which is not much longer than a full article, both of which utilize the contingency argument to demonstrate the existence of God. That is, everything that exists is contingent upon the existence of something else until it reaches back to the point that some noncontingent being -- which he argues is God -- brought all things into existence. In the second video, he says evolution is a weak argument for the non-existence of God and once again uses the contingency argument to demonstrate his point. 

Arlo writes:
[To Rationalissimo]

Apologies for my not-so-nimble fingers.  I inadvertently selected this post to down-vote ... however, I only did it once for this post and not twice like I did while trying to correct the error on another post.

I'm not sure how to remove the two down votes.  They certainly don't belong there!

Arlo writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

Apologies for my not-so-nimble fingers.  I inadvertently selected this post to down-vote ... and to prove I'm totally messed up today, I did it twice.  How can I remove the two down votes.  They don't belong there!

Now, I need to apologize to Rationalisimo, too!

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Arlo]

Removed the downvotes.... happens all the time :)

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:

So for an argument to be sound, we need true premises and a conclusion that follows necessarily from the premises. If you are asking if this guys argument is sound, we need to know what the argument is, i.e., what are the premises and the conclusion. Please don't make us watch two 10 minute videos to find these arguments—just write them here. If there was no formal argument presented, and this is essentially just a philosophical musing and/or rant, than the best we can do is refute his reasons and give our opinion, in which is beyond the scope of this forum. If this is the argument from contingency, just look on YouTube for "argument from contingency refuted" and you will find many videos. Here is one by Matt Dilluhanty, who generally knows his stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6esL6yz52Q .

Shawn writes:

There is a formal argument made, and he lays it out quite clearly, but you have to listen to it. Why should I write out what you can listen to in less time that it takes to read a newspaper article. I fail to understand why you don't want to listen to a video that takes less time than your writing me back three times. 

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Shawn]

I am trying to help you. I have been running this site for over 8 years now and I know very few people, myself included, are going to spend 20 minutes watching videos to look for an argument. If you just post the argument, you will get more responses, including one from me. Yes, if I have to spend 20 minutes trying to explain this to you, it is worth it to me, so you don't keep posting links to videos or long articles in the future, and so other people read this and realize that they shouldn't do it either. Again, pardon me if I come across as being difficult;  I really am doing this for you (and the members).

Monique Z writes:

[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

I've noticed on this website that on a few posts that some comments seem to include a lot of ridicule. For example Mchasewalker's comment on this thread. Is this allowed under the guidelines of this site? I personally think it makes it difficult to find good quality answers that don't in themselves include fallacies

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Monique Z]

There is no policy against ridicule. If used within the context of an argument, the person would just be guilty of a fallacy, which others should point out.

Monique Z writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

Thanks for responding. I wasn't sure what the guidelines were if any.

Monique Z writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

You go, Bo!

Seriously, you're right.

TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

[To Shawn]

Another reason we don't just want videos, mind you, is because should we watch them, we can't always tell immediately what the argument is. Even if we can, it does not follow what we pick up is what you  think the argument is.

Telling us the relevant part keeps us from guessing. We know what you mean in the first instance, and we aren't wasting time.

Kaiden writes:

         Shawn, Matt Dillahunty’s video on the contingency argument was recommended by someone in this thread. He assesses the reformulation that Michael Chase Walker commented on below. Matt made several mistakes in his analysis of the argument, due to a lack of research, to name one culprit. Of course, this then played a role in his bad evaluation of the argument. Hamza's presentation of the contingency argument is not persuasive and was too shallow to do the complexities of the issue justice. If anything, Hamza and Matt's videos might whet your appetite for philosophical food.  

         Evaluating contingency arguments has been a special area of interest for a growing number of metaphysicians in contemporary philosophy. Their research is accessible to the public, often for free. 

         I recommend Graham Oppy and William Rowe as sources to start researching into rebuttals to the contingency arguments. I recommend Alexander Pruss, Joshua Rasmussen, and Robert Koons as sources to start researching into defenses of contingency arguments. Besides evaluating entire contingency arguments, some of their papers are about basic issues such as the structure and strategies of contingency arguments, the plausibility of various formulations of the principle of sufficient reason, etc. These are academic philosophers, so prepare for technical language, formal logic, and hair splitting stuff in their papers. But quality research pays back with a quality education and an informed perspective on whether there is a sound formulation of the contingency argument, Shawn.

Monique Z writes:

I think your comment is inappropriate. It contains a lot of appeals to ridicule, which is not a good demonstration of how to respond to errors in other people's reasoning. You are also very uncharitable in your interpretation of the persons arguments. 

You state:  "right off the bat Karamali deceptively Straw Man's Dr. Dawkins by misconstruing his explanation as to why he considers himself an atheist, and then grossly exaggerates it to be a slur against all theists. Hamza is clearly not arguing in good faith at all."

Let's go back to what Dawkins said. "Nobody can actually say for certain that anything doesn't exist. But I'm an atheist in the same way that I'm an a-leprechaun-ist, and a-fairy-ist,  and an a-pig unicorn-ist". 

Now let's look at how Hamza interprets the arguments: 

-there is no evidence for god 
-there is no evidence for fairies
-therefore, belief in God is like belief in fairies.

That seems like a very reasonable interpretation of what Dawkins meant when he says "I'm an atheist in the same way that I'm an a-fairy-ist". 

It seems to me that you are interpreting Hamzas position to be as irrational and fallacious as possible. But surely that isn't what Hamzas intention is

More evidence of your lack of charity is the way you explain the argument from contingency. If you take a look at the way SEP explains it compared to you, you can see that there are stronger iterations of this argument, yet you chose the one you found most fallacious. This doesn't really help anyone properly understand the argument and leaves them unequipped to respond to more sophisticated iterations of the argument. 

There's no educational value in interpreting an argument in the weakest possible form, which it seems you've done in this comment. More importantly, it lacks persuasiveness

Mchasewalker writes:
[To Monique Z]

Hamza’s arguments could only be considered realistic by a fellow religionist and not by a reasonable logician.

First of all :

-there is no evidence for god  
-there is no evidence for fairies 
-therefore, belief in God is like belief in fairies.

Is not at all what Dawkins says:

What Dawkins says is (quoting you):

"Nobody can actually say for certain that anything doesn't exist. But I'm an atheist in the same way that I'm an a-leprechaun-ist, and a-fairy-ist,  and an a-pig unicorn-ist". 

He is not arguing the evidence against God’s existence, but only why he resists labeling himself an atheist.

Explaining why he refrains from describing himself as an atheist Is separate from the question of god’s existence, it only has to do with why he does not agree with the label of atheist.

And there’s your Strongman right there. The same as the “ridiculous” Hamza.

 

 

 

 

 

Monique Z writes:

[To Mchasewalker]

This is a link to the original interview: 

https://youtu.be/9QZcuwWj1CA

At the beginning of the interview, Mehdi Hasan asks him if he's an Atheist. Dawkins replies, "for all practical purposes, yes."

Dawkins is not talking about why he doesn't agree with the label of Atheist. He actually embraces it in this interview.

Starting at 2:48 are the statements in question. The interviewer presses Dawkins about the parallel he's drawing between beleif in fairies and beleif in God.

The interviewer asks "Do you see an equivalence between the idea of God and the idea of a fairy or leprechaun?" 

To which Dawkins replies: "the evidence for both is equally poor" 

As you can see, with additional context it is clear the parallel dawkins is making is very similar to how Hamza interperited it.

He is saying both beleif in God and beleif in faires are similar in that there's no evidence to prove the existence of either.

Kaiden writes:

Unlike Monique, I do not think you chose a version of the contingency argument that you found to be most fallacious. You probably looked up contingency arguments and quickly saw Bill Craig’s reformulation based on Gottfried Leibniz’s writing. The reformulation does not commit either of the two fallacies you accused it of, anyways.

Premise 2 is not a non sequitur because it is not an argument. This premise contains a conditional statement that is either true or false, but neither valid nor invalid.

Can you explain why you think that the argument is circular? From what I see, the argument is not circular. A circular argument assumes what it to be proven, but none of the premise assume the conclusion that the explanation of the universe's existence is God. As far as premise 1 is concerned, the universe does not exist, let alone have God as an explanation of its existence. As far as premise 2 is concerned, the universe does not have an explanation of its existence. The same is true as far as premise 3 is concerned. As far as premise 4 is concerned, the explanation of the universe is in the necessity of its own nature. The premises entail but do not assume the conclusion.

Monique Z writes:

[To Kaiden]

Fair enough. You make some interesting points. Perhaps Its just me that thinks the version he offered is the most fallacious, but he could have other reasons for choosing it XD

TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

Secondly, it can also be argued that Dawkins reasoning commits the fallacy of special pleading. He is suggesting that belief in God is irrational because there is no evidence to prove that any God exists, yet he also seems to admit that there is no evidence to prove that atheism is true, but believes it's rational.

I think Dawkins and other atheists would argue that the comparison is faulty because the two belief systems are not equivalent.

Atheism is a lack of belief in any type of god. Rather than appealing to a story of creation or something similar, atheists typically refer to the Big Bang and Theory of Evolution to explain the origins of species.  Neither of these require a god to work. As the odds of such a god existing are low (it would require extraordinary evidence, none of which has yet been found), it is reasonable to conclude that a god is very unlikely to exist - especially one described by the Bible - hence, the atheist position.

While both theism and atheism require a degree of 'faith', the 'leap of faith' is smaller for atheism - far smaller.

Monique Z writes:

[To Rationalissimo]

You state that the odds of a god existing are quite low. I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion, but that's not what Dawkins argued. He did not say that he felt that atheism is more probable than theism, hence why he is an atheist. He simply says although he can't prove that God doesn't exist he is an atheist the same way that he is an a-fairy-ist, that is he does not believe it because it's ridiculous.

Fearnone writes:
[To Monique Z]

At least look at definition of athiesm it is a lack of belief in god not denial of god. Also burden of proof is on yours who is making the claim that god exists rather than who doesnt believe

Monique Z writes:
[To Fearnone]

What definition are you referring to? Here's how it's defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:  

"If, [...] 'atheism' is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The 'a-' in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as 'not' instead of 'without'. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods)."

(Link: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#DefiAthe)

However, if an atheist wants to be considered logically justified in their attitude toward the God question, you have an obligation to provide grounds for your lack of belief. 

You can see the absurdity in your claim if you consider other lack of belief scenarios.

For example, right now I can deny that the earth is a sphere. According to you, I'm logically justified in my lack of belief without needing any grounds for disbelieving.  I'm not saying the earth is not round, I simply don't believe it IS round.