Just when I thought I was over you, oh baby, those fallacious arguments come crashing though….

This happens every time. Just when I decide to live and let live (da da da da), some crazy believer comes along with a bunch of ridiculous arguments that I can’t resist addressing.

Last night was a veritable goldmine of such arguments, from Yus and Huh?. I would love to know what RJM thinks of these people. He is always suspiciously absent from these kind of debates. My guess is he’s embarrassed, but doesn’t want to let the side down.

Anyways, here is a short list:

Fallacy 1: Other religions only have a revelation to one person (or small groups of persons), but Judaism has a revelation to 600,000 people! How could 600,000 people have been deceived like that?

Answer: There was never any revelation to 600,000 people, and 600,000 people were never deceived like that. There was a small revelation myth, which 500 years later grew into a bigger story about people’s ancestors. There is a huge difference between 600,000 people claiming to have seen something, or people 500 years later claiming that 600,000 people saw something.

Fallacy 2: Okay, but how could you deceive a whole nation about what their ancestors saw? Surely they wouldn’t have believed it unless they heard it from their parents. And yet the entire nation of Israel believed it!

Answer 2: Firstly, the entire nation of Israel did NOT believe it. Tenach is full of stories of idolatry etc. Could be the majority of people did NOT ever believe it, but we don't hear about such people since they assimilated. (Just like today, the vast majority of Jews don’t believe it). Secondly, the belief only spread HUNDREDS of years after the supposed event. People back then had no clue about ancient history (we know more about it today than they did then). There was no TV, no newspapers, no nothing. Just oral transmission. If the priests and community spread a story, people believed it. There are thousands of examples of ancient cultures all believing the most ridiculous things. (Modern cultures too) It is FAR more likely that gullible people were misled into believing some false mythology than any other alternative.

Fallacy 3: My parents wouldn’t lie to me. And they heard this from their parents, all the way back to Sinai. It’s an unbroken chain of Mesorah! No other religion has this.

Answer 2: Firstly, the Mesorah is probably broken. There are stories in Tenach about things being entirely forgotten for hundreds of years. Who says it’s an unbroken chain? Why the Mesorah of course! So the Mesorah tells you that the Mesorah is reliable because the Mesorah is unbroken! Ever hear of circular reasoning? Secondly, the entire argument is incredibly poor. No one is accusing your parents of lying, just that they are mistaken. Since most (if not all) religions are false, this would be a good assumption.

Fallacy 4: How can you not trust your parents? Do you not trust them about you being a legitimate child etc?

Answer 4: Most parents don’t lie about their parenthood. If we lived in a society where most parents did indeed lie (or were mistaken) about this, then yes, we would probably doubt them. For example, there are certain segemnts of modern society where fatherhood is much debated. (See Jerry Springer for more details). However even believers agree that most religious beliefs are wrong, so it makes sense to doubt parents about religious beliefs, since the statistics in this case are undeniable.

Fallacy 5: The story of mass revelation being a myth is so amazing. Such a thing never happens. How can you make such an amazing claim without any proof? Aren't you transgressing your own maxim that amazng claims need amazing proof?

Answer 5: Firstly, it’s not so amazing. We have plenty examples of all sorts of fantastic ancient myths that people believed, even mass myths (global flood, the Aztecs etc). Within the three ‘Abrahamic’ faiths, it is true that we are the only one with a mass revelation story. However all this means is that we have a better story than the other two. That’s it! Doesn't make it any truer. Also, the Jewish story was claimed to have happened 3,000 years ago, and that claim was only made 2,500 years ago, before there was even much writing. Xtianity was 500 years later, and Islam a 1000 years later. By that time it would have been too difficult to fake a mass claim.

Secondly and more importantly, we don’t NEED any proof that the myth grew. It’s certainly a possibility, and it’s not a miraculous possibility, it’s an understandable possibility. So, given the choice between a natural possibility, and a supernatural possibility, it makes sense to pick the natural one. You don't ever pick some super natural explanation if there is a perfectly reasonable natural explanation.

Fallacy 6: It doesn’t matter that the Torah looks complex, confusing, multiple texts etc. It was written by God, so it doesn’t have to follow normal writing rules.

Answer 6: Sure, if it was indeed written by God, then fine. But we have no evidence it was written by God. Instead, it looks exactly like you would expect an ancient text to look. It has Summarian style ancient creation myths (modified to be monotheistic of couese), Hammurabi style law codes, and all the other usual stuff. Plus lots of duplicate passages, many contradictions, etc etc.

Fallacy 7: Sure it looks like other texts, 'Dibrah Torah Keloshon Bnei Odom'. But that's how God writes!

Answer 7: Maybe so. But again, without any evidence that God wrote it, there's every reason to believe that man wrote it, just like all the other 99.9999999999999% of books in the world.

Fallacy 8: Let’s say Har Sinai happened. What evidence would be left today? None at all, except a legacy of descendants from the original people saying it happened. And that’s exactly what we have today!

Answer 8: Maybe so. But again, without any evidence that God wrote it, there's every reason to believe that man wrote it, just like all the other 99.9999999999999% of books in the world. The bottom line is there's no evidence that God wrote it, and no good reason to believe so.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

How do we know anything?

Sigh.

An Intellefundie by the name of Anthony has raised the old chestnut of 'How do we know anything?'. We have discussed this numerous times in the past, but I guess that's never stopped me before, so here we go yet again.

How do we know we really exist? Maybe we are all in the Matrix, or in the imagination of an evil demon. Maybe reality is an illusion. Maybe I'm real, but you are all simulations. How do I know anyone else really has consciousness? Maybe only I have consciousness, but the rest of you are robots? Maybe when I see red, you see blue? Maybe what I experience as pain you experience as an itch? Can I ever really understand what you subjectively feel? And if I did would I be you? If I got cloned into two people, and then you killed the original, would I be dead? What is reality anyway? What's an atom? What's a quark? Is anything actually real? Maybe we are all just information in the mind of God? Or an alien. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Can God commit suicide? What happens when an immovable post gets hit by an unstoppable cannonball? How do we know God isn't just a congenital liar? How come you can wait and wait and wait for a bus and none will come, and then just when you give up and start walking, three will come together?

Well, there's been plenty of philosophical ink spilt on the above subjects, and I've read plenty of it. There's some cute philosophy books (mostly out of the UK) which go through all of these. A fun read. Especially if you're in 12th grade.

But all of this is irrelevant to us.

We assume we exist because we can think, and we also have sensory inputs. We see other people like us, so we assume they are the same. Could this be a false assumption? Yes, it certainly could be. But what possible gain could there be in thinking like this? Let's say this is all a dream. Would we act any differently? Probably not.

People assume they exist, even philosophers, and even radical skeptics. The only people who don't assume they exist are locked up in asylums. And the only people who bring up these subjects are Intellefundies desperate to try and score some points, and divert attention away from their lack of ACTUAL REASONS why their religion is true.

Now, starting with the assumption that we exist, can we please continue?

[I can see it now: The intellefundie response: 'See! All systems start with basic axioms which are unprovable! Mine are the ikkarim!'. Yes, yes. The only thing this proves is how intellectually bankrupt the intellefundies are.]

HALOSCAN COMMENTS