Claim: Co-determinism fails as an argument.

This was put up on CARM by an atheist as an attack upon my argument from mystical experince.


The first observation I make is that calling it "c0-determinism" is just a way of saying he doesn't think it's logically valid. So he doesn't know what the concept has been used by real thinkers for generations. It goes back to Schleiermacher, probably before him. It also is also kin to what Derrida calls "the trace." So it has a long and honorable history it is not a fallacy. It's nothing more than a form of argument from sign.



Support:

I. What co-determinism is

Zharavic:

From another forum: First, we establish that these transformational experiences are real. Anecdotal evidence abounds, AA has documented success with religious people, and many studies show that religious and spiritual lifestyles are correlated with increased life expectancy and quality of life. This correlation could be caused by religious experiences.
Second, we establish that the experience itself invokes religious themes (e.g. universal oneness, the ultimate, pure love, etc) in the thoughts of the people who have them.
Third, we note that they happen more often with religious people.
Finally, we can say that since the "God hypothesis" predicts these transformations and this phenomenon is found to be consistent with the prediction then this comprises rational warrant for belief.

Zharavic:

Is this about right?
Metacrock's reply from that forum: "More or less. 350 studies are not anecdotal. "

So, above we have a short definition of co-determinism that we can work with.

Except I never called it an "ism." I think that's either changing the argument or at least casting a pol upon the concept as though it's some crack pot move.



Zharavic:

Since Metacrock did not accuse the other poster of not understanding co-determinism we can conclude that this summation adequately encompasses it. Henceforth, when I refer to co-determinism, I will be referring to the above argument. Because Metacrock accepted it as accurate with only the changes of pointing out that there are (allegedly) 350 studies and that the studies are (allegedly) not anecdotal.

He's creating the illusion that this is all there is to the argument. That's part of it. It's not the whole argument in a nut shell.


Zharavic:

We'll also be referring to co-determinism as "CD".

Moving on.

II. The fallacies
Before we delve into CD, we need to have a strong understanding of a few logical fallacies.

a. Appeal to belief

Appeal to Belief is a fallacy that has this general pattern:

1. Most people believe that a claim, X, is true.
2. Therefore X is true.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the fact that many people believe a claim does not, in general, serve as evidence that the claim is true.

Example: "God must exist. After all, I just saw a poll that says 85% of all Americans believe in God."

He is creting the illusion that I"m actualy arguing this:

(1) there is no such fallacy!

there is no fallacy in any logic text book called "fallacy of bleief."

(2) I never made any such claim that "I believe it that proves it becasue I belief it."

he is trying to twist the argument from co-determinate, or the trace, into this mutated concept that its true because I believe it.

I said: It's rationally warranted, that means "I have good reason to believe this." do you see how this is not what he's selling?

What he said: "It's true becasue I believe it."

What I said: "I have a good reason to believe so I assert it's truth."

see the difference?

Zharavic:

So, we know that believing a thing to be true isn't a reason to hold a thing as true. Certainly not a thing that's not based on popular opinion.

where does he get popular opinion in it? Why does he drag that into it? Where did I ever link the argument to popular opinion? He's merely building a straw man argument.


Zharavic:

While a group of people may be able to determine through belief that mini-skirts are popular, no amount of belief will be able to prove that mini-skirts magically popped into being from dimension 7. Belief cannot determine things in the real world. We require additional evidence for that. Always.

Meta:He's still trying to promote the bait and switch that co-determinate equals truth by belief, believing it makes it true. I never said anything of the kind. What I have said is accepted logic used by major thinkers throughout the years. In fact it's used by everyone all the time for assessing cause and effect. It's nothing more than saying "I have a good reason to assume this, I can't prove it conclusively but my reasons are strong enough that I will assert it is true and assume it as an assumption until given other reasons to reject it."

we do this all the time and it is totally and absolutely different than asserting that it's true because it's believed. I said nothing about popularity. If you can't see the difference in these let me help you:

what's he's trying to sell would say that the only reason for believing is that you believe.

what I'm saying is that there are good reasons which are prior to belief and which are taken as the warrant (reason) for belief.

there is nothing illogical about that. It's totally different then what he's trying to sell you.



(1) We don't have a mechanism that shows lungs betting cancer from smoking tabaco. We really don't. the tabbaco companies are right about that. But the reason their attempt to argue that is laughable is because the statistical correlation is so tight that it's would stupid to deny a causal link even though we don't know what it is.

that is exactly analogs to what I'm saying. The causal link between religious experince, (the religious aspect of the experinces) and the result of having such experinces that makes people's lives better is very tight and backed by so many studies we can assume a causal link even though we can't prove it. Just we like we can't prove smoking causes cancer but we can assume it logically because of the tight correlation.

(2) Derrida's concept of the trace is that of the foot print in the snow. If something always accompanies something else then we can assume the first thing is a sing of the second.

......(a) the aura on neutrinos when they react with other partials. This is always there, so even though we do not have a picture of a neutrino even today, we can assume that the presence of the arura is an indication of a neutrino.

......(b) figerprints: we can assume someone was present in a place where his prints are found, even though we have no real observation of him there. Because we seldom find that one's finger prints are traveling alone and are found where the person was not.


this is very apt because the arguemnt is that these experiences are like the finger print of God. so even though we can't prove the actual presence of God, if we have logical reason to assume that his is like God's print we can assume that God is present.

to say it another way, if X is always present with Y, then we need not prove the presence of Y if we have the presence of X. This of course assumes that the assumption is correct, so this is what the argument will revolve around.

AT that level we just have to go on and have the arguments.



Zharavic:

b. Appeal to popularity

The Appeal to Popularity has the following form:

1. Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
2. Therefore X is true.

The basic idea is that a claim is accepted as being true simply because most people are favorably inclined towards the claim. More formally, the fact that most people have favorable emotions associated with the claim is substituted in place of actual evidence for the claim. A person falls prey to this fallacy if he accepts a claim as being true simply because most other people approve of the claim.

It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim. For example, suppose that a skilled speaker managed to get most people to absolutely love the claim that 1+1=3. It would still not be rational to accept this claim simply because most people approved of it. After all, mere approval is no substitute for a mathematical proof. At one time people approved of claims such as "the world is flat", "humans cannot survive at speeds greater than 25 miles per hour", "the sun revolves around the earth" but all these claims turned out to be false. This sort of "reasoning" is quite common and can be quite an effective persuasive device.

Since most humans tend to conform with the views of the majority, convincing a person that the majority approves of a claim is often an effective way to get him to accept it. Advertisers often use this tactic when they attempt to sell products by claiming that everyone uses and loves their products. In such cases they hope that people will accept the (purported) approval of others as a good reason to buy the product.

Meta: Of cousrse I have made no such claim. He is mistaking what I've said for such a calim, probaly on purpose, but maybe becasue he doesn't' understand ideas very well.

I think I know what argument he is mistaking, so we will see if this is the case.


Zharavic:

Very simple: if a lot of people believe something, it doesn't mean that something is true. Just like the appeal to belief, we need additional evidence to prove a thing is true. What everyone believes simply isn't enough for obvious reasons.

I think he's confussing this with my argument that we can establish the sense of the numinous as the presence of God, or at least the indication of such based upon 50,000 years of history. The historical association that has always been made indicates we should understand this. Now he's apt to see that as appeal to popularity because he can't understand concepts.

this has nothing to do with popularity. It has everything to do with why religion exists> he is confusing appeal to popularity as a claim for a warrant for some idea with the notion of cultural constructs.

cultural constructs are not merely popularity, they are basis of how we understand the world. An analogy would be love of freedom for example. My argument would be all love freedom, this is universal throughout human civilization, freedom has always been a value. But Zharavic would say "this is just appeal to popularity." No it' s much deeper than popularity, tis' about the basic axiomatic values that all cultures accept, it's about how we know certain things in life, such as the meaning of languae the nature the concept of truth.

why do we value logic? We only value logic becuase cultures have found unvically that's very useful to construct rules of logic to appeal to as game theory would suggest. But I have a feeling that Z would not be able to understand the difference in game theroy and not takings seriously. O rthat he would not understand why aximoatic princpels are not appeal to popularity.


Zharavic:
c. Special pleading

Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Person A accepts standard(s) S and applies them to others in circumtance(s) C.
2. Person A is in circumstance(s) C.
3. Therefore A is exempt from S.

The person committing Special Pleading is claiming that he is exempt from certain principles or standards yet he provides no good reason for his exemption. That this sort of reasoning is fallacious is shown by the following extreme example:

1. Barbara accepts that all murderers should be punished for their crimes.
2. Although she murdered Bill, Barbara claims she is an exception because she really would not like going to prison.
3. Therefore, the standard of punishing murderers should not be applied to her.

This is obviously a blatant case of special pleading. Since no one likes going to prison, this cannot justify the claim that Barbara alone should be exempt from punishment.

Special pleading can and do apply to phenomenon as well as people. For example, if I state "We'd need photographic evidence for Bigfoot and all monsters, but not the loch ness monster. The loch ness monster is real." I am creating a special pleading.

We cannot invoke special rules without establishing a valid reason first.

These fallacies are important because CD employs all three of them. This is part of why it fails. I'll demonstrate where in a few paragraphs.

Co-determinate is not a special set of rules that opporates only in this case. It's been used by many great thinkers form Schliermacher to Derrida, includer Peirce and others. Anyone who accepts arguments of corrolation and arguments form sign are accepting the co-determinate concept.


Now don't confuse that with some slip shod half backed attempt to use to proves something silly in order to show that it doesn't work. I find people doing this a lot and their taken on it usually truns upon misundertanding the new application.

Zharavic:III. Delusion
Humans are creatures of delusion.

People have an amazing ability to delude themselves. The most vivid example of this is the placebo effect. People who are convinced that they are on a particular drug sometimes exhibit the effects of that drug even though the chemicals aren't actually in their system. The placebo effect is a well established phenomenon.

Meta:Plecebo is not Delusion. this is proven over and over again. That Z thinks it's an illusion means that he does not understand placebo. I can show you evidence form the leading thinkers in the field saying "why can't we get people to undersand that palecobo is not a delusion?"

real healing takes palce from Placebos. the most recent theory is that there is a real link in the brain between central nerous system and he brain such that your mind really can effect your wellness.

this was proved by a guy at U. of Rochester in New York. He gave rats poisoned sweet water then took the poison out after a time. The rats continued to drkin the sugar water and they died. Their systems continued to react as though the poison was there. He won a major scinece prize for this as well.

Placebo is not a delusion. but it doesn't disprove the erligious expeirnce argument either.

essentually Placebo argument is misapplied because the things being heald by RE are psychological and not physiological. No data exists to show that placebo can apply to things other than physiological phenomena. AT best the use fo the term si a bad pun when applied to RE.

My chapter on Placebo and drugs will treat this argument apart. I don't want to put it up on a b.og or message baord now. I have to wait until its copywritted and if I find a publisher he may nt want to have the material published on the net before hand. so that is not a good idea. but you can take my word for it it will be worth wait to read it in the book.





Zharavic:

In CD, people have experiences that have positive impacts on their lives. We refer to these as religious experiences (RE's). The argumentation behind CD excellently supports a version of the placebo effect wherein people have experiences that cause them to feel a certain way. Just like the placebo effect renders an effect without a drug, there is no evidence the subjects of CD are experiencing anything from an exterior source. They are having positive experiences which begin and end exclusively within their own minds. No one arguing in favor of CD has ever been able to point to any evidence of anything external.

(1) the statment that it supports a version of placebo is wrong. There is no link that has been demosntrated between medine and pshcyolgoical issues of personality. you cannot show a case where lack of assertiveness in life is cured by placebo. I mean it 's common sense that condiderence can be given though some illurary means, but that doesn't mean we have hard data to really prove that placebos can be used in this way.We also have a multiplicity of pycholgoical phenomena that are all beyond any sort of data of placebo. There is no data of any kind that placebo can create self actualization.

that's the main thing RE does. It makes one self actualized. But no data suggests this can be done with any sort of placebo effect.

(2) The assertion Z makes that you have to show an outside source is mistaken from start to finnish. Its' an assertion that the experineces are like little miralces. that is not an issue. no ever said this. the arguent does not turn on the expernice being a miracle. in fact it doesn't turn upon the actual experince itself at all, but upon the effect of having had it. To that exitent it doesn't even matter if it is accompanied by some form of nauralisitic mechnism.

(3) The argument all the researchers make is that drugs open pathways for nueral transmitters. Everyone agrees there. So those researchers who believe in God (a veritable army of researchers who actually beilev in some form of God support the mushroom reserach as a sing of God) none of these guys think that the chemicals form the mushrooms disprove God's involvemetn. why? because they are not saying it's a miralce. They saying made us such that we have chemical induced behaviors.

(4) the kind of people who do these studies are not christians for the most part. To the exent that they beileve in god (some are, some are even priests) they dno't believe in the big man in the sky of the fudnies. they are not concerned proving that god exists. they are only concenred with getting a deeper persective on God. They are not the least bit detered by muschroom or by seratonin or any of it.

(5) there is no data that shows any kind of placebo doing the things that RE does as an effect of having had the experince. You can't show in other respects. so there's no reason to assume it here.


Zharavic:

We cannot discount the experiences that people have. Clearly, all these hundreds of people are feeling something. But we cannot presume or assume the origin of that feeling.

Meta: Yes we sure can. The reason we can is because the corrolation is so tight. If you can't show the brain chemistry having this effect in other respects, why should we assume it would have it just because it's accompaied by feelings of religious imagry?




Zharavic:

Just as an individual can feel the effects of say... a painkiller without actually having taken the pain killer, the only sound conclusion we can draw from positive experience is that they are completely internal with no outside factor.

Meta: except for one little probelm. you dont' have any data to back it up. You cant' show that nural transmitter X has the same effect in non religous contexts taht it does in reatlion to the religous experince context. that means there's no reason to assuem that that chemical in and of itself is the cause. no data exits to back this assertion.

this is the same as saying to the example just given, there is no data to show that people feel the effects of this pain kiler.

the assertion in the analogy is fallacious too. Becaues there is no reason to believe that no sing of "external" factors would be an idication that god si not invovled. there is no estabishment of hte rule that God has to be detectable as an outside agent. Morover God might be an inside agent, if we are desinged in this matter.

I agree that there must be a distinction between God and not God in realation to these expeirnces or there's no point in talknig about it. But the data we have backing the arguement is the only data we have at all on any of it. In other words, the only correlation that exits is that between the aspects of religious experience and the outcomes. There are no studies demosntrating that nueral transmitters apart form religious experinces can produce these effects. Thus we should conclude that the conent of the experince is improatnt too. The conent is the presence of God. so there's no reason why we should not take it on face value that is ethe actaul presence of God. that is evidence of an outside agent as well.

this is a little fact that Z totally overlooks, all the experinces of thousands of subjects demontrate they had these effects in relation to Gods' presence, there is no data backing the idea of the effects without God's presnce, so we are warrante (have a good reason to assume that it is the presence of God and that would be an outside agent.

when he makes his argument about outside agents he's loaded the aruemet as a straw man to only reflect his ideas of what that agent would be like.




Zharavic:

In other words, any implication in any form that they're coming from god is completely unsupported.

Meta:

I just demonstrated that it is supported, and it is supported by 50,000 years of people feeling the sense of the numinous. It is not countered by one study. Not one single person no data at all to counter it.

Zharavic:

Worse, such assumptions invoke the fallacies discussed above. People believing that god is intervening in their life doesn't prove that their good feelings have divine inspiration... no more so than a person on sugar pills can prove their improving condition is the result of the actual drug.

Meta: Here we see him do exactly what I knew he would do: bait and switch. He's trying to identify a perfectly valid assuption about warrants with the fallaicies that has never bothered to demosntrate fit my argumetns at all.

He asserts that since its' a fallacy to assert the truth of a propsition jsut becose one believes it or because the majority believe it, therefore, any kind of belief is a fallacy; so therefore, any assertions made invovling belief must be fallacious. But the problem is there's a setp missing in there that he neglects to deal with. The assertion of God's presence is not predicated upon merly the fact that we beileve in God, it's predictated upon the feelings of ;God's prsence, and the effects of having felt it. that means that all those people who bleieve become evidence. Because their belief is not just based upon believing it's based upon something very real, and he admits its real. He has the bop to show that there's a counter causality.

that's the trick he doesn't tumble to in the orignal arugment. he just cahlcks it up to fallacious reaosnsing which he doesn't understand and totally ignores the reasons upon which I predicated it.

Those reasons are clearly demonstrated in a huge body of work spannign four decades. the correlation tiself between the feeling of presents and the self actuliation as a result of the epeirnce is the predication and that is the warrant for belief. that is nto fallacious it has nothign to do wtih the fallacies discussed. it is evdience of an external agent.



Zharavic:

So, the core of CD is built on the unsupported / fallacious assumption that good feelings people think are from god are actually from a divine origin of some kind. Since there's no support for this, we can discount it for what it is: delusion.

he's confussing the conclusion with the warrant.

there is nothing illogical about assuming that the experince one has is real and thus taking the conent of it seriously as it's predication. We do this all the time. WE see something, we it is real because we see it, then it's the skeptic's BOP to show that we mispercieved it. there is no prior burden to assume that our perceptions are wrong, and no evidence has been presented to back up the assertion that they are.

his logic amounts to this: placebo exists, placebo would answer the arguemnti f it applied, therefore it must apply so the argument is answered.

that is not logical.

He's also ignoring one little facit that I have spoken about and insisted upon all the time:

the effects are real, thus the experince can be assumed as real!

that doesn't match any of the fallacies he talks about.

(1) belief as preidcation to justfy beilef: this is not it since the preidcation here is the reality of the effects of the experince.

(2) delusion: if the effects are real it's not a delusion

(3) popualrity: its' not preducated upon popularity it's predicated upon the realtiy of the effects of the experince.






Zharavic:
IV. Empiricism

Those who favor CD often point to studies that they believe support CD. Many of these studies are performed in a scientific manner and present their results in a form that is acceptable in academia.

Meta: they are all scientific. not one of them is not scientific. some of them are better than others, they are all scientific and all done by real actual academics.


Zharavic:

However, since the core of CD is based on an unsupported assumption, these studies are ultimately impotent to prove that CD is anything but delusion.

this is just a bait and switch sicne none of arguments are based upon any of the fallacies he spoke of. He has done nothing but twist and misrpesent the nature of the arugments. He's made a bait and switch. He starts out a farily dencent understanding of the arugment, but slips in the fallacoius assertion that the arguemnts are prediated upon the fallacies when he knows very well they are not.

he never admits what they are precuated upon: the reality of the effects.




Zharavic:

As we've established, no one is arguing that RE exist. No one is arguing that hundreds of people mentioned in these studies felt something. From the M scale, we can know they felt something extremely profound!

Meta: The studies don't assume a religious veiw point. they are not trying to prove that God exits. that's why they are objective and scientific. That doesn't mean their findings can't be applied that way.

a palpable feeilng of a presence is a sense of an exteranl agetns. Dont' forget the internal agent argument.


Zharavic:

The problem is that none of these studies are delving into the origin of these feelings. They're concerned with studying what the feelings are, how intense they are, and the like. They are incapable of looking into where they come from and cannot delve into divine origin without invoking appeals to belief or popularity fallacies. I've read many of them and none do.

Meta:that's just why they are good stduies. they would be extremly silly studies to try and prove the existence of God or try and find the cause of such experinces. That's ludicrous. That's how they maintain their scentific integrity. But the same token, none ofhtem calim to have disproved God. None of them claim "there must be a non God orinted cause."

btw the M scale doesn't pretend to find God either. Hood is not a chrsitain. It only maeaures these experineces with respect to typologies.

Zharavic:

The prevailing mentality is, "People believe that god / religion is causing their positive feelings (or change in lifestyle) so it's rational to believe god / religion is the cause." Imagine for a moment a doctor saying, "All these people who were never given drug X exhibited effects as though they were on drug X. Therefor, they were on drug X." No one would accept such a conclusion because it's contradictory. It ignores the fact that humans have a deep and powerful ability to delude themselves.

Meta:Here he has compeltey departed from what the studies say and what they talk about and he's inserting his own view of placebo effects and ignoring the findings.


Zharavic:

Furthermore, some of the supporters of CD have a dubious attitude towards science. We've seen them lash out at the overall concept of science only to turn 180 degrees and attempt to claim the legitimacy that science offers.

Meta: man this guy has no understanding of the studies or who did them or what their attitudes are. He has not read a page of any study. He' totally making this up based upon is famous and constantly used assertions of steriotypes. He must think they are all done by Christians. as far as I can see none of them are.

his statement thaat they lash at science is totally unfounded. I mean I dare say this is nothing more than achildish bold faced lie. they do nothing of the sort and he had no evdience waht so ever. He is not basing this upon a single page of any study. he made it up or making one of his fmaous stupid assertions.


Zharavic:

So, the empirical side of CD does nothing for the overall argument because it's unable to prove the most critical part; where these feelings come from.

Of course we have all seen in the past how Z does not understand the nature of scinece. He basically worships science as a God and he doesn't understand that it is limited entiroely to things that can be observed and measured.

Now whyw ould "where feelings come forom" be the most crucail part? why would they have to prove that? He's assuming that to be science they have provide all knoweldge of th subject because he thinks scinece is ;God and can disovoer all truth. The fact of the matter is the demsontrate exaclty what they need to for the claims that I make about them.

I say they show the effects of the experinces are real, they are transformative and thus real, and thus it is a rational warratn to assuem the cause is real. We assume the cause based the conent because the outcome is real. Just as we observe some phenomena and we find that the effects are real then we should assuem the observatin is real.

I think I see a dog. I find a dog turd and dog tracks where I saw the dog. why should I not assume it was really a dog? maybe ti was a Kote or something like a dog but not a dog, but why should I not assume its a dog until I have good reason not to?


Zharavic:
V. Rational warrant
It's been made abundently clear from CD supporters

Meta: yea and hat a legion they are. where are these CD supporters? I'd like to meet them?

Zharavic:

that CD does not prove there is a Christian god or a Jesus. Instead, it provides a rational warrant. This requires some scrutiny. What does that actually mean?

As near as I can tell, it means that it doesn't independently prove that Jesus/god exists. It allegedly proves that we have reason enough to believe that there is a god/Jesus. After all, where else could all those good feelings and RE's come from?

There are a few problems with the idea of a rational warrant.

Meta:so? Its still prima facie case. so it's your burden to prove its inadqute.

It's not a satisfactory position. It's very obvious that the supporters of CD want the experiences to be of divine origin.

meta; how superscious can you get? He's talking about this as though there aer thousands of peole around the coutnry, why I don'tk now. but really it's just me. I don't know what that's about. But be that as it may, of course that's I'm usignm it duh. are we not on a message board the existence of which si to argue about ;God? why in the hell would I be doing this?

that's a big duuuuUUUUUuuuuh!






Zharavic:

Nor are they particularly eager to entertain other alternatives (such as this argument). So, if RE's don't support CD... if they aren't directly proving a Jesus/god... then what good are they? No. Furthermore, many theists use CD as a basis for belief in god/Jesus.

that isanother supercillious comment. essentually he's arguing since "they" (me) are not falling all over themselves (Myself) to embrace his explaintion this in itself is an indicmetn of my logic.

that is nothing more than the good old fasion plice tactic from before the days of Mirada rights when they charge people with suspecion. He's bascially saying "he's guilty of suspicion."

like so many of his argumements they wont work without the up front assertion that he has to be right and whims and prejdices are treu and his view point is axomic for all humanity.






Zharavic:

What's really going on here?

Meta: well, basically, you are making an ass of youself. You are demonstrating your lack of knoweldge in logic and argument.

well he did ask.

Zharavic:

CD has a lot of holes in it and doesn't actually prove what theists want it to prove.

Meta:when will you show us one?

what is the real reason for this pretsnese this is soem kind of major movement? show me one other person who argues this? can you document that any sort of group exists?

Zharavic:

Yet, they still use it.

Meta who they? where? show me.

Zharavic:

They cannot discount the hundreds of RE's even though they're very impotant to prove other than they're the product of delusion.

hu? this makes no sense. (btw there are thousands of subjects, probalby thousands of studies but I dont' care). This sentence just makes no sense. It starts by assuming that somehow all these major gaint movmenet of co-detemirntae people want to discount religious experince. that makes no sense at all.

then it assets taht he's prove something about them being delusions when actauly he admitted they were real, and he's proven nothin. he did not give one study or piece of data to back his view.

all he's done is assert a possiblity, and its' a possiblty that is contracted by the lack of data.

Since the effects are real ther's no reason to assume its delusion.



So, theists have come up with the idea of a "rational warrant". It allows them to evade the obvious problem that CD doesn't prove god while allowing them to keep touting it.


then he dreges up the pacebo thing again.


Zharavic:

Let's look back at our placebo effect analogy.

"All these people who were never given drug X exhibited effects as though they were on drug X. Therefor, they were on drug X."

We know this statement is false. If we change it to read...

"All these people who were never given drug X exhibited effects as though they were on drug X. Therefor, they may have been on drug X."

It's tempting to believe this weaker assertion. Clearly, it's closer to truth than the stronger version. However, both of them are invalid & unsound. Neither one of them is true. Similarly, it's pointless to declare that CD gives us a rational warrant to believe anything other than lots of people have an experience.

Meta: this is nothing more than flying in the face of the data. more of Z[s mendacity.

he starts with the false assetion that I've somehow made a false calim taht cant' be born out. my only calim is preseisly demosntrated by the hundreds of studies, it is backed by scietnific evdience out the You know what?

that's the calim that thsoe who have experince X tend to have higher degrees of postive effects as a result of the experince than do those who do not have such experiences.

this fac is repeated over and ove again in studies of all kinds of methodoogy, cross culturally verified, longitudinal and so forth for four decades. This is as weel established as the link between smoking and cancer.

I extrapoloate certain conclusions from this fact but ti is a fact. Morover, he has no evidence to any degree to coutner it and he has not read a signle page of any study.

having demosntrated that he understands the arguent to a degree fair enough that I don't care to correct his misconceptions he then feels free to make fallacious assertions and insert bait and switch tactics which change the nature of the arugment so he's in effect lying about what it says. But he illicieted by endorsement of his understanding. So now he can make as though he really is honest about it but he's is being totally dishonest.


the simple fact of the matter is his assertion:

All these people who were never given drug X exhibited effects as though they were on drug X. Therefor, they may have been on drug X.

is not analogous to what the study claims. First of all, casting it in terms of a drug study is misleading because it sets up the assertion that this is some atuomatic thing that hast to have the same outcome. But then in the statment he ingores the fact that two groups are being compared. so he can assert that it's false, but what's fale? is it false that the people in the study had re? No, because they were measured by verious scales, usually the M scale. so that is proved. is it false that those who don't have those expeinrces have the same self actualiztaion? no, that's disproved by the data.

so what's the argument? It bears no relation to what he siad. he's merely omitting the comparision of two groups, one with the expeirnce to one without.

by saying "they may have been on drug X" I'm assuming he means I say 'they may have experinced God." But I don't say that. I day it's rational to assume they have given the reality of the consequences and how it fits what we can expect from expericing the divine.

His only retart is the retart of all atheits in all situations: "I refuse to bleieve that so therefore no one may assert soemthing I wouldn't assert."

sorry. (Oops).

Zharavic:

Without evidence, we cannot in any way attribute CD to god/Jesus. A rational warrant is just another term for wishful thinking.

Meta: but this statment is totally fallacious because the whole point is that the studies are evdience. He will assert that we can' make a link from the experiences to God. But the link is the conent of the experince, the histircal association (as aximonatic consturcts, not populaity) and that is established by phenoemological apprhsino of 65,000 years. Given all of that we can certianly assert that the conent is religious, if the effects are real we can assume the content is a real reflection of the cause.

He mises the whole ponit of the term "detemrinate." It means the thing that goes with it. That's because these expeirnces go with beilef and they have since before we were homospiens. they are very reason have religion at all. there is simply no reason to assume otherwise.

that's the basis of the perdication of the experinces as being of God, the effects of the are the reason for assuing its real. he has no argument. he says nothing about that.



Zharavic:

VI. Co-determinism fails

So co-determinsim fails as an argument. It's based on fallacies. It ignores the fact that people can delude themselves to the point of having physiological responses. It assumes phenomenon are connected to the divine without providing any evidence. And it uses a disingenuous weak conclusion.

Meta: posturing. I've already answered.

VII. Responding (CHALLENGE)

Lately, there has been too much bad blood on CARM. That ends with this thread.

If you've already begun replying, please erase it. No. Really. Erase everything you have.

Start over using the following house rules.

0. Obey all CARM rules. Period.

Meta:
why? If the ruels weren't good enough for you when you kept insulting me all the time why are suddenly improtant now?

don't forget his lied repeatedly in this very post.

Meta:
o yes it clearly does.

a. Nothing here requires advanced degrees or years of theological studies. No ad hominem responses will be accepted including implying that an individual doesn't have the proper background in a subject to fully understand it. Instead, all participants will demonstrate, being as specific as possible with examples from the thread, where an individual has failed to understand a particular argument and what the explanation is.

Zharavic:

b. Re-read the argument. At absolutely no moment have I invoked any personal attack. I hold CD supporters in high esteem.

Meta: this is so sickening! WE all know he hates Chrsitians with all his heart. we all know he hates me with all his heart. Im the only CD supporter there is! there are no others. I'm it. there are some thinkers like Shleiermacher that use it but there is no body of people in the chruch that reads Schleiermacher. you have to go to semianry to even know he existed.

I guarontee Zharavic never heard of him so his claim is totally disengenous.



Zharavic:

I hearby publically apologize for any insult, sleight, or hurtful statement to them in the past. This is a new beginning of debate on CARM and you will respect that by employing absolutely no personal attacks of any kind.

Meta; I"m willing to accept and stop insulting and to offer my own apologies but not just at the drop of a hat. I have to some good faith.

c. It is completely unacceptable to imply that an argument has "already been made" unless one links to that argument. This is a fresh start with fresh ideas. As such, all thread participants will make arguments in the thread. Claiming an argument was made elsewhere without linking to it is the same as not making an argument.

that's ridiculous. I'm dealing with a vast gody of wroik. it's absurd to think--hell Im writting a whole book just of this one argument! it's asurd to think I just whip out all the info I need at a moment's notice.

It's also unfair given as much work as I've done on this over the last several years, just to expect me to pretend I have not made the arguements.