From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 2:14 PM To: Brian Holtz Subject: Re: JH: The Design Argument "Paul Filseth" wrote in > > In an Aug 19 article in this thread you wrote: > > I don't have a definition of "deity" to work with that's capable > > of partitioning the set of possible beings into deities and > > nondeities. The first requirement for a legitimate theory is > > clarity. > > What you wrote implied I objected to your > definition of "deity" because it allowed ambiguous borderline cases. > I couldn't care less about that. It's nice to finally learn that. I asked for a clarification of your Aug 19 statement in my Aug 20 reply, but your subsequent posting was just a 2-line injunction that I should go debate with somebody else. :-( At any rate, I'm glad we agree that such possible cases either don't exist or wouldn't be a problem for the definition. > The problem was not the presence > of possible maybe-gods but the lack of possible definite-gods Note that non-existent things (e.g. bigfoot) can still be well-defined. > because your definition of deity relied on your IMHO content-free > definition of "supernatural". So emphasizing the perfection that > you felt was implicit in my choice of the word "partition" was > a red herring. I of course did not intentionally use your "partitioning" comment to ignore your criticism elsewhere and elsewhen of my "supernatural" definition, as I have eagerly (and I think successfully) answered all such criticisms that you and others here have been kind enough to offer. > > why haven't you or anyone else submitted a journal > > article that demonstrates that the debate is meaningless? > > I'm not inclined to accept the premise that no one has submitted > such an article just because you do. The reason why I accept this premise is that I've never seen such a journal article, never seen a citation of such, and instead have seen many journal articles that would presumably be required by editors and peer reviewers to deal with such a demonstration if it existed. If you are instead inclined to think such an article exists, then how do you explain that it seems never to be cited by either side of the a/theism debate, and never seems to affect the willingness of journals to accept and print more articles in such a demonstrably meaningless debate? > (You will no doubt challenge me to produce one, You prophesy falsely. :-) If you knew of one you would of course have cited it already. > thus demonstrating how well you grasp the concept of > burden of proof.) So you'd have me enumerate all the journal articles that *don't* demonstrate such meaninglessness and show that this enumeration exhausts the relevant set of journal articles? Are you saying that when people are debating whether X exists, the burden of proof is only on the side that says X doesn't exist? That would be a rather strange "grasp [of] the concept of burden of proof" for an atheist to have. :-) > > I've answered your criticisms of my definitions. I've shown that > > they harmonize with those used by lexicographers. And I've asserted > > without rebuttal that there is no evidence the philosophical > > literature uses the terms to mean anything other than their > > dictionary definitions. > > I.e., you've answered reason with authority. No: I've answered your every argument and backed up those reasoned answers with lexicographic evidence that my definition harmonizes with both general and specialist usage. In particular, I've indeed noted that mainstream scholarship appears at odds with your claim that supernaturality isn't well-defined enough to argue over whether it exists. If you claimed that the moon landings never happened, or that there was no Q source for the gospels, or disputed any other matter of settled scholarship, then you could similarly accuse me (as has biblical inerrantist James Holding) of answering reason with authority. But it wouldn't make your contrarian claim any stronger, and it wouldn't motivate me to rehearse for you how the issue came to be a matter of settled scholarship. > > If you dispute this assertion, then surely you have as your basis > > some evidence or argument or assumption that you can share with us. > > That assertion is not interesting enough to dispute, accept, or > investigate. Far be it from me to invest time convincing you that the current state of philosophical usage is relevant to a debate over whether a philosophical term is in fact well-defined. :-) > > I'm simply asking you to explain why you think [..] the professional > > philosophical community (including writers at infidels.org) is wrong > > that supernaturality is well-defined enough to argue over whether it > > exists. > > Repeatedly waving your hands in the general > direction of "the philosophical community" instead of quoting it isn't > evidence for that premise Almost every article at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/arguments.html use the terms "God" or "deity", most use "supernatural", and none (that I've seen) bother giving specialist definitions for them. Good exampels are: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/victor_reppert/miracles.html http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/miracles.html > I'm not going to put any weight on anybody's opinion just because > you label him a "professional" if you don't bother to reproduce his > arguments here. How can I "reproduce" an argument that I've been explicitly claiming does not exist? My point is that both theistic and atheistic philosophers use the terms "God" and "supernatural" *without* bothering to argue that they mean anything other than their dictionary definitions. > > I'm inclined to pop the debate up a level and ask how the opponent > > reconciles the contested belief with the overwhelmingly contrary > > consensus that currently exists in the broader marketplace of ideas. > > If that seems like a good argument to you, happy believing. And if you have no explanation for why a belief of yours appears contrary to the overwhelming consensus that currently exists in the broader marketplace of ideas, happy believing to you too. :-) -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net