02-08-2022, 11:39 PM
busker,
You are just reiterating Mark’s argument. But it is the same fallacy. It is the Argument from Authority. Just because a really smart and successful person believes in a god does not mean they are correct, just because they are smart and correct on other matters. That’s like saying the Rams are more likely to win the Super Bowl just because a Nobel Prize winner picked them to.
If a Nobel Prize winner believes in a god, that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth of the assertion. The only thing that has bearing is the evidence they present itself for their belief. If they have evidence for god’s existence, then present it, have it challenged, replicated, peer-reviewed, etc. and then accept ANOTHER Noble Prize for it. Otherwise, it’s just an unsupported assertion.
We are pretty certain that your ethnicity, nationality, upbringing (parents’ religion), education, time period, etc. have much more to do with what religion you are than just freely choosing it by careful study and weighing the different religions and philosophies. Whether you are religious and what your religion is, is basically determined and chosen for you, so-to-speak.
Because I wonder (and I do not mean this as racist, because I discuss other races below), do you think someone named Mohammad Abdus Salam born in Jhang, Pakistan in 1926 to Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain and Hjira Hussain really “weighed” in on all of the religions of the world and picked the one “true” one to him after hours, weeks, months of careful study? We can only speculate, but what do think his chances were of being Christian or Atheist at that time and place, in that environment? Would you even give the odds at 1%?
Let’s reverse it. What if Mr. Abdus was a Caucasian baby-boomer born in Tennessee in 1947? What would be the odds he’d still be a Muslim? Why or why not?
Let’s reverse it again. What about Mr. Becker? If he were born in Iraq in 1965. What would be his chances of being a Catholic and writing that poem now on this site praising the Christian Bible for its prophetic scientific accuracies? Why?
And just because we’d LIKE for something to be true, does not mean it ACTUALLY is. I’d like for there to be a million dollars in my bank account, but that does not mean it is true. In order to believe something as factually true, there must be evidence to support it.
You are just reiterating Mark’s argument. But it is the same fallacy. It is the Argument from Authority. Just because a really smart and successful person believes in a god does not mean they are correct, just because they are smart and correct on other matters. That’s like saying the Rams are more likely to win the Super Bowl just because a Nobel Prize winner picked them to.
If a Nobel Prize winner believes in a god, that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth of the assertion. The only thing that has bearing is the evidence they present itself for their belief. If they have evidence for god’s existence, then present it, have it challenged, replicated, peer-reviewed, etc. and then accept ANOTHER Noble Prize for it. Otherwise, it’s just an unsupported assertion.
We are pretty certain that your ethnicity, nationality, upbringing (parents’ religion), education, time period, etc. have much more to do with what religion you are than just freely choosing it by careful study and weighing the different religions and philosophies. Whether you are religious and what your religion is, is basically determined and chosen for you, so-to-speak.
Because I wonder (and I do not mean this as racist, because I discuss other races below), do you think someone named Mohammad Abdus Salam born in Jhang, Pakistan in 1926 to Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain and Hjira Hussain really “weighed” in on all of the religions of the world and picked the one “true” one to him after hours, weeks, months of careful study? We can only speculate, but what do think his chances were of being Christian or Atheist at that time and place, in that environment? Would you even give the odds at 1%?
Let’s reverse it. What if Mr. Abdus was a Caucasian baby-boomer born in Tennessee in 1947? What would be the odds he’d still be a Muslim? Why or why not?
Let’s reverse it again. What about Mr. Becker? If he were born in Iraq in 1965. What would be his chances of being a Catholic and writing that poem now on this site praising the Christian Bible for its prophetic scientific accuracies? Why?
And just because we’d LIKE for something to be true, does not mean it ACTUALLY is. I’d like for there to be a million dollars in my bank account, but that does not mean it is true. In order to believe something as factually true, there must be evidence to support it.