The True Religion (Page 3)

CoIin: Well, you can choose to laugh. Or you can try to refute me with logic.

I suggest you'll have more success with your laughter.

CoIin: If you want it in the jargon, you are committing the fallacy of "begging the question".

Perhaps you should do some reading on it.

Or else, continue as you are doing now arguing in a circle. It's quite handy really. You can prove absolutely anything.

If we assume X, then X

CoIin: This is my final post as I see Vetigo has no interest in sound reasoning. All he/she cares about is CONFIRMING what he/she already believes, even if that entails invoking flawed argumentation.

Don't worry. You're in good company. It happens a lot around here.

I would just point out that that I've noticed Vetigo has made some rather radical edits to his previous posts thus giving a misleading representation of our discussion. This tends not to add confidence in my assessment of a person's integrity.

Bye for now and may your God be with you.

CoIin: I said above that I wouldn't post again. Well, I'm gonna break that promise ( ) since I think an analysis of Vetigo's flawed reasoning will be helpful, not only to myself as a little mental exercise, but also to anyone else who is genuinely interested in proper argumentation. It's not my intention to be gratuitously disruptive. I am genuinely interested in the analysis of valid and invalid reasoning and I have no particular agenda to push besides this.

In addition, Vetigo himself did request of me on the previous page - "If what you say be true, explain in detail how what you say is so". I will now try my best to oblige. And, needless to say, if anyone thinks I've gone wrong in my reasoning anywhere, be sure to holler.

Vetigo began on page 2 (his 5th post to bottom) by offering what are apparently two criteria for the identification of a true prophet. My discussion with Vetigo was limited to his first criterion, namely:-

(1) Whether the things they prophecy actually do all come true, thus proving they were all spoken only of God

In other words, according to Vetigo, if we can find a person whose prophesies all come true (and of course, we'd need to hammer out the specifics of what exactly this means), then we may have good reason to attribute divine knowledge to him; we may have identified a true prophet, depending on whether or not he also satisfies Criterion (2).

Now, this is the kind of objective criterion that warms the heart of a philosophically minded fellow like myself. Instead of being simply TOLD by the wise men who is, and who is not, a true prophet, we may all now ascertain these matters by ourselves in an objective manner according to the criteria provided.

Yippee!

As past experience is my guide, however, the rule of thumb is that the "wise men" are rarely, if ever, so insouciant about relinquishing their authority on determination of such matters to the hoi polloi. I thought I'd put Vetigo to the test.

Sure enough, when it began to dawn on Vetigo that he might have opened Pandora's box, that according to his very own criteria certain undesirables (like, say, me ) may have to be granted prophethood, and even worse, certain established prophets may LOSE their prophethood, he decided to crack down post haste.

Vetigo's original requirement that "the things they prophecy actually do all come true" was withdrawn and replaced by:-


"There is a difference between predicting purely by the use of discernment born of the knowledge which comes of experience and the wisdom one is able to derive for that knowledge.
And you are right that many who think themselves prophets do mistake that ability for being a prophet.
But for a real prophet the things God places into his mind to prophecy concerning come totally apart from his own mind having to perform deductions to speak it."


In other words, in order to identify a true prophet, it's no longer good enough that his pronouncements all come true, but now they must come true IN THE RIGHT WAY.

And what does "in the right way" entail? It entails that his prophesies must come true IN VIRTUE OF HIM BEING A TRUE PROPHET.

This is the circularity I was alluding to, and that Vetigo either does not see or chooses not to see. I've tried to make it as clear as I can to anyone who might be interested. We started out with an objective test for identifying a true prophet. We ended up with the entirely unhelpful and uninformative conclusion that we can know a true prophet from the fact that he is a true prophet.

Ahem!

Summary:-
1. Vetigo began by offering us criteria through which we might objectively identify a true prophet.
2. I raised concerns that the True Prophet Club may end up having to admit riff-raff like myself and others who satisfy his criteria.
3. This was unacceptable to Vetigo. He will continue to adjudicate for us who is, and who is not, a true prophet, thank you very much.

chay chayi: Islam is based on
1) Rape
2) Forcing little girls, 9 year old girls, to marry old perv pigs
3) The entire concept of their Heaven is 72 virgins (all about perving)
4) Raping infidels
5) marrying 4 wives
6) Covering them self in the streets, to cover up their perveness at home

Zanjan: God doesn't like people who spread lies and hatred, Chay.......try to tone it down a bit before He nails you one.

ghostgeek: I guess we all see what we want to see. To me, Islam demands conformity, imposed if necessary by the sword. I once knew a number of Muslims and none of them struck me as being wild eyed fanatics but after all the news reports I find my perceptions have changed. Now I feel threatened. Is this the way hatred develops between people?

Zanjan: "I guess we all see what we want to see."

That doesn't mean one has to say everything that's on one's mind. Common sense dictates you hold a few thoughts back. If ugliness spews from one's mouth, imagine how revolting are the contents still in the vessel.

I must admit that, amongst Muslims, I prefer certain sects over others, same for the Christians. Idiots tend to pool in certain places, just they do in the non-sectarian world. But I'm not about to disclose my preferences because the others would see that as overtly unfair.

Undoubtedly, all parents and grandparents have a favorite child but they have a duty not to outwardly display extra attention at the expense of the other children. Guarding one's mouth and hand is essential while children are young.

The media doesn't hold those same thoughts - they're in the business of reporting news. If they'd simply leave it at that, all would be well......but no, they have interviews with the hoi polloi to analyze the news - this is where they obtain shock value. They aim to stimulate the sleepy, de-sensitized audience; drumming up paranoia is not only fashionable, but gets the highest ratings.

No, Ghost, hatred develops as a product of prejudice, which is fostered by ignorance and censorship. North American media would not have you miss a thing - even the news has slow days and they are far too competitive to lose attention.