Pah
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From Austin Cline,
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/125591.htm?nl=1
November 15, 2004
Six Reasons to Believe in God
There are a lot of works of Christian apologetics available - some of it decent, some of it awful. Unfortunately, a significant amount of apologetics falls firmly in the "awful" camp, apparently written by people who really don't understand philosophy, logic, or science. Even worse, few Christians seem to be able to distinguish between the two types.
Marilyn Adamson writes:
Notice that Adamson assumes two things: the credibility of the Bible and the gender of God ("Him"). Neither assumption is valid in a discussion about whether any gods exist in the first place. If a person doesn't accept the premise that some sort of god exists, it isn't reasonable to cite the Bible as an authority on the matter and it isn't reasonable to ascribe qualities to this alleged god.
First, Adamson is probably wrong in the assertion that all cultures "have been convinced there is a God," and for two reasons. The first reason is the existence of certain Pygmy tribes in Africa with no identifiable gods or spirits in their belief systems. The second is the fact that Adamson says "a God," which implies a particular deity with particular attributes. In this case, we can safely say that Adamson is probably referring to the traditional God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is absolutely untrue that all or even most cultures have believed in anything like this god religious and theistic beliefs have been far more varied than this.
The second thing to keep in mind that a belief is not made more likely true simply because it is common. This is a fallacy that Adamson is using alongside the fallacious appeal to tradition. Adamson employs quite a few fallacies throughout her arguments and it is important to keep in mind that she couldn't even get through the first argument without stumbling over two of them. The short response: the fact that a belief is common or traditional has no relevancy when considering whether or not the belief is reasonable. Anyone who suggests otherwise either doesn't know what they are talking about or does, but can't be entirely trusted.
I'd addressed teleological and design arguments at some length elsewhere and I won't repeat everything here. All that is important to say in response to this is that Adamson not only doesn't offer anything new or interesting but she does, in fact, offer a form of this argument with examples that have been rebutted in many, many places. If she isn't aware of all this, she hasn't done her homework. If she is aware but chose to offer such a superficial argument anyway, then she doesn't have much respect for her readers.
What are Adamson's standards for "adequate"? She doesn't deign to inform us, so it is impossible to determine whether her conclusion is valid or not. As it stands, all we have is an assertion devoid of substance or support. I might as well say "Does God exist? Marilyn Adamson's god is not an adequate explanation of the universe" and be done with it.
Notice also that she manages to slip in the word "creation" instead of "universe" if this is a "creation" then there must be a "creator," but whether a creator exists or not is the point of her argument. Once again we catch her fallaciously Begging the Question.
Here we have the Argument from Morals and Values, also addressed at length elsewhere. I won't repeat what I have already written but I will point out that it simply isn't enough for someone like Adamson to assert that our sense of right and wrong cannot have a biological explanation. She may not be able to figure out one that satisfies her, but that's a long way from insisting that a biological explanation is impossible. There is a great deal of literature out there on the evolutionary development of things like ethics and altruism. If Adamson really cared about the subject, she'd read up on it.
Here we find the Argument from Scriptures: My religious scriptures are True, therefore my God exists. The fact that just about every religion can make the same argument with the same validity (which is very little) doesn't bother people like Adamson. Simply asserting that the Bible is true and consistent just isn't good enough. It's a rhetorical device used by weak apologists who count on an audience that doesn't ask too many difficult questions.
Unless we assume not merely that some god exists, but in fact that a very specific God exists, how on earth will we be able to determine that a particular set of writings qualifies not only as a divine "revelation," but is in fact the "clearest, most specific picture of God"? Answer: we can't. Absent a specific conception of God (not "a god," but God), there is nothing to compare the descriptions in the Bible to such that we could conclude that those descriptions are or are not clear.
Thus, Adamson's final "reason to believe that God exists" assumes the truth of exactly what she is trying to demonstrate. Begging the Question appears to be Adamson's favorite fallacy because she uses it so often. I have to wonder if she has the slightest idea how a logical argument is supposed to be formulated. Is she the least bit familiar with logical fallacies? Does she have any idea what some common errors in reasoning are?
I sincerely doubt that. Marilyn Adamson doesn't offer any reasons to believe in her god, but she does offer reasons to doubt the validity of any religion that would produce such atrocious apologetics. She cites Josh McDowell more than once and since McDowell is probably the leader of Bad Apologetics, it's not surprising that something derivative of his work would be equally poor in quality.
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/125591.htm?nl=1
November 15, 2004
Six Reasons to Believe in God
There are a lot of works of Christian apologetics available - some of it decent, some of it awful. Unfortunately, a significant amount of apologetics falls firmly in the "awful" camp, apparently written by people who really don't understand philosophy, logic, or science. Even worse, few Christians seem to be able to distinguish between the two types.
Marilyn Adamson writes:
Notice that Adamson assumes two things: the credibility of the Bible and the gender of God ("Him"). Neither assumption is valid in a discussion about whether any gods exist in the first place. If a person doesn't accept the premise that some sort of god exists, it isn't reasonable to cite the Bible as an authority on the matter and it isn't reasonable to ascribe qualities to this alleged god.
First, Adamson is probably wrong in the assertion that all cultures "have been convinced there is a God," and for two reasons. The first reason is the existence of certain Pygmy tribes in Africa with no identifiable gods or spirits in their belief systems. The second is the fact that Adamson says "a God," which implies a particular deity with particular attributes. In this case, we can safely say that Adamson is probably referring to the traditional God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is absolutely untrue that all or even most cultures have believed in anything like this god religious and theistic beliefs have been far more varied than this.
The second thing to keep in mind that a belief is not made more likely true simply because it is common. This is a fallacy that Adamson is using alongside the fallacious appeal to tradition. Adamson employs quite a few fallacies throughout her arguments and it is important to keep in mind that she couldn't even get through the first argument without stumbling over two of them. The short response: the fact that a belief is common or traditional has no relevancy when considering whether or not the belief is reasonable. Anyone who suggests otherwise either doesn't know what they are talking about or does, but can't be entirely trusted.
I'd addressed teleological and design arguments at some length elsewhere and I won't repeat everything here. All that is important to say in response to this is that Adamson not only doesn't offer anything new or interesting but she does, in fact, offer a form of this argument with examples that have been rebutted in many, many places. If she isn't aware of all this, she hasn't done her homework. If she is aware but chose to offer such a superficial argument anyway, then she doesn't have much respect for her readers.
What are Adamson's standards for "adequate"? She doesn't deign to inform us, so it is impossible to determine whether her conclusion is valid or not. As it stands, all we have is an assertion devoid of substance or support. I might as well say "Does God exist? Marilyn Adamson's god is not an adequate explanation of the universe" and be done with it.
Notice also that she manages to slip in the word "creation" instead of "universe" if this is a "creation" then there must be a "creator," but whether a creator exists or not is the point of her argument. Once again we catch her fallaciously Begging the Question.
Here we have the Argument from Morals and Values, also addressed at length elsewhere. I won't repeat what I have already written but I will point out that it simply isn't enough for someone like Adamson to assert that our sense of right and wrong cannot have a biological explanation. She may not be able to figure out one that satisfies her, but that's a long way from insisting that a biological explanation is impossible. There is a great deal of literature out there on the evolutionary development of things like ethics and altruism. If Adamson really cared about the subject, she'd read up on it.
Here we find the Argument from Scriptures: My religious scriptures are True, therefore my God exists. The fact that just about every religion can make the same argument with the same validity (which is very little) doesn't bother people like Adamson. Simply asserting that the Bible is true and consistent just isn't good enough. It's a rhetorical device used by weak apologists who count on an audience that doesn't ask too many difficult questions.
Unless we assume not merely that some god exists, but in fact that a very specific God exists, how on earth will we be able to determine that a particular set of writings qualifies not only as a divine "revelation," but is in fact the "clearest, most specific picture of God"? Answer: we can't. Absent a specific conception of God (not "a god," but God), there is nothing to compare the descriptions in the Bible to such that we could conclude that those descriptions are or are not clear.
Thus, Adamson's final "reason to believe that God exists" assumes the truth of exactly what she is trying to demonstrate. Begging the Question appears to be Adamson's favorite fallacy because she uses it so often. I have to wonder if she has the slightest idea how a logical argument is supposed to be formulated. Is she the least bit familiar with logical fallacies? Does she have any idea what some common errors in reasoning are?
I sincerely doubt that. Marilyn Adamson doesn't offer any reasons to believe in her god, but she does offer reasons to doubt the validity of any religion that would produce such atrocious apologetics. She cites Josh McDowell more than once and since McDowell is probably the leader of Bad Apologetics, it's not surprising that something derivative of his work would be equally poor in quality.
