The use of
authorities | Illogical
arguments
The use of authoritiesA common and amusing complaint leveled at
me in discussions on religious or scientific issues is my use of
authorities. This amuses me because I am not particularly bright. Here are some examples:
"You will use... arguments from selected authorities that
support your view and on and on. The word is rationalization."
"I did look at the message board quickly and it seems (as is the
same with your articles) you cite scholar so-and-so that agrees with
your position, but if a Christian apologist cited John A.T. Robertson
for example with evidence for a pre-70 composition of Luke-Acts you
would arbitrarily reject it out of hand. That's why you wouldn't fare
well in a debate with Holding or Enigma." What
authorities do these people think I should use in discussions, I
wonder? That I don't know shows how unprepared a neophyte I really am.
For the record, most of my sources on Christianity and the
Bible are elementary school works such as Encarta, generalizing sources with little or no depth like The
Oxford Companion To The Bible, other non-experts without skills like ReligiousTolerance and original source material not containing arguments like
The Ante-Nicene
Fathers. In short, I am incapable of critically addressing arguments from sources, and couldn't do research to save myself from doomsday, so I just reach out for whatever's handy and assume that I don't need to do more.
If I do cite a "sceptical" website such as The Secular Web, you can be sure
that I will check for apologetics on the subject too, from places like
Tektonics. Then I will simply post the Infidels' argument after small quote from the Tektonics one, and that will be that.
If I
appear to have quoted someone out of context or misrepresented an
argument, please let me know so I can act whimsical about it.
Why is this important? Well, in "amateur" discussions, we're often
only as good as authorities we use...which means I must be pretty darned pitiful for using an Encarta when apologists like Holding are using stuff from Fortress Press and the Journal of Biblical Literature.
Illogical argumentsAnother favorite charge, from certain
quarters, is that arguments "against" god, the literal truth of the Bible
or Christianity are somehow:
"arguments from silence [or] arguments from personal
incredulity." I'd like to just make a few things clear as mud:
- If the Bible is to be treated "like any other book", we must accept
that parts of it may not be "true". Indeed we must assume that parts of it are not true, otherwise we have to convert.
- Any argument based on the "truth" of the Bible is an argument from
the authority of that work - which makes secular historians who accept the authority of i.e., Tacitus on the basis of his own authority are a bunch of nitwits.
- Extraordinary events - such as alleged miracles - require
extraordinary proof, because dangit, I say so and I'm God.
- Ignoring evidence that you don't like does not make it go away. But it does help make your opponent forget that you haven't answered his arguments.
- "Rationalization" (in the derogatory sense) is what happens when we
devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons to explain behavior. It's a fun thing to accuse other people of and a way to do it yourself.
- Asking why God would damn billions of people is not an
argument from incredulity. It is an argument from outrage that tries to use the excuse of an "excluded middle" to pretend that one can create an option other than "true" or "false".
- Atheists and agnostics do not "reject God" - we obfuscate by pretending that we can't reject what we say does not exist. That'll sure make the grade semantically.
There - I feel better already....BUUUURP.
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