In Reply to: Atheists--Defenders of the Faith posted by moonshiner on March 15, 2006 at 02:02:49:
Zither (and Moonshiner):
Possibility and probability are not the same thing. Saying that “ANYTHING is possible” is, logically, really a “non-statement”, and is the first false premise that must be accepted in order to “progress” (actually DIgress) towards the acceptance of relativism. A more meaningful term would need to be something like “probable”.
Your use of the word “literalists” actually makes my point for me, Zither:
1.The actual truths of Suras 5, 9, and 11 are LITERALLY what original Islam says about itself.
2.Time since the 6th century doesn’t change the nature of those statements, and therefore
a.They were not “weird” in relation to the rest of the Quran at the religion’s inception, but were and are the politico-military BASIS for its growth, for every century SINCE, and INCLUDING the 6th, and
b.They are not “weird” now, either; they are the clearly provable and document-based BASIS and METHOD FOR all violent jihadism today, and prove that
3.You are insisting upon the logically untenable idea that merely CALLING people who identify themselves as “Muslim” makes them so, when they should be actually called something ELSE (perhaps neo-Islamic?), in order to retain socio-cultural and historical accuracy, when in fact:
a.“Islam” is by definition the yielding of the human will to the will of “Allah”, ONLY as ORIGINALLY DEFINED by the so-called prophet Mohammed, which by definition DOES include the SINGLE BASIS for the expansion of this belief EVER SINCE the 6th century, and
b.You commit the logical errors (ALL of them) of
-false premise – it is not logically sound to take an agreed-upon essential part of an argument, and give its name to something else entirely different, but
–you do this with “Islam” and within the sentence fragment “there are Islamic people who are not literalists”—the first is the original and historic meaning, and the second, slightly changed in its spelling, is intended to assign a completely different meaning—your premise that “Islam” and your use of “Islamic” are identical and mean the same thing in the same way is logically absurd. And, by using an
-"incomplete middle" – you proceed to imply, without a logical reason for doing so, that your “must-be-accepted-definition” for a “newer and better” definition should also be applied to “Christianity” where similar
“non-literalists” do what they do (and where a logical examination of that argument would very similarly explode that argument, and that is called:
-“begging the question” – which is a technique used to further your argument, which you have YET to establish it as logical, to a place where it MUST be accepted on YOUR terms, and not on the original terms, where you must actually stick to the rules of language, and to actually following rules of logic to make your point, which you have not done. So,
-You have merely made a “circular argumentation”; you argue, in effect, that “something is true ONLY BECAUSE you insist that it must be ACCEPTED as true BEFORE any argument proving it is presented”, and have gone on to your NEXT logical “faux pas” (French for “false step”), which is:
“ad bacculum” – an appeal to a belief that is merely POPULAR, not PROVEN within the process of linear logical argument, and, although you
re-frame the same logical error AGAIN, by using the initials ” IMO”, your argument remains unestablished; merely calling something an “opinion” has implied internal false and non-linear arguments in itself; which I hope that I don’t need to belabor. Your use of the phrase “I don’t buy” implies, again, the very same argument which you have not established as linear and therefore logical. Moonshiner applies the same logical absurdities in his most recent pro-atheism presentation which you endorsed—hence this is addressed to the both of you—I’d be glad to take on his simplistic and rife-with-logical-absurdities argument at a later time. I want to see others’ reactions first. He basically gives the same non-arguments each time, as do most atheists—answering them the same way every time despite his constant “failure to launch” logically, to use the movie title, is kind of boring; really.
We can assume the premise that ”everyone has a right to their own opinion”, but that would establish the need to establish where “rights” come from (God, or in variable regimes of power society during variable historical eras, and so on) and probably not get us anywhere here (and illogical “red herring” arguments are such a pain), but I think we can all agree that opinions are not automatically to be assumed as logical; just as applying wishful thinking to history is not tenable.
Neither is the assumption that the worldwide “Islamic” religion (by your definition) does not fund jihadism AS A WHOLE while internally justifying this in a “deceivers yet true” manner, it is obviously meant to con not only naïve “Islamic” (your definition) rank-and–file believers in a more publicly acceptable religion with SIMILARITIES to original “Islam”
(my definition), but a naïve world public as well—your error is in calling these people “Islamic”, by your definition.
You cannot make the original definition “disappear” simply by wishfully applying logical errors and pretending to have made an actual linear argument.
“Islamic” people by YOUR definition fund true Quran-based “Islam” by my definition (which is the historic AND CURRENT accurate term, according to the 3 Suras I cited, as well as “Islam”--my definition--throughout the centuries since the 6th ).
SINCE they are NOT JIHADISTS, those you are claiming are “Islamic” are not; in fact; like it or not.
They ARE, in fact, wishfully-thinking DUPES funding a horrible and violent religion as defined by its documents-of-origin, as are people who believe in and support TF’s “doctrine and manner of life”, based on THEIR documents-of-origin.
Post-cult recovery involves abandoning that type of thinking, and that is NOT an opinion, and the insistence that one can avoid this social and psychological fact, as well as the implied spiritual truths, is “what [ANY] cult people do”; which is the accepted definition of a cult.
Cult thinking is what enables cult leaders to retain cult followers; even after they hav physically left the cult; obviously.
Respectfully,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)