POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : An example of confirmation bias? : Re: An example of confirmation bias? Server Time
9 Oct 2024 02:30:14 EDT (-0400)
  Re: An example of confirmation bias?  
From: Warp
Date: 5 Jul 2009 06:24:31
Message: <4a507f5f@news.povray.org>
andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> > It's completely full of fallacious argumentation,

> Why don't you point them out?

  Done that a long time ago:

http://warp.povusers.org/OpenLetters/ResponseTo10Questions.html

> I think it is horrible, very American, and 
> assuming a type of religion that is not very common among European 
> intellectuals, but that does not make the arguments false.

  My point is not really whether what they are *trying* to say is, in the
end, true or false (because that's the whole question in atheism and
religion). My point is that the *way* they are saying it is wrong because
they present a bunch of fallacious distorted arguments and outright straw
men, and then present questions and conclusions based directly on them.
I think the term for this is petitio principii: Start from a fallacious
statement and then formulate a question assuming the statement is valid.

  The people who made the video are trying to be clever, and to many people
(especially fellow atheists) they do it rather convincingly, but they are
still basing their arguments on fallacies and straw men.

> Then follow a few things about selective usage of verses. Again if you 
> don't claim that everything in the bible is the Truth that won't make 
> any sense.

  I wouldn't use the words "some christians don't claim that everything in
the bible is the Truth" because that sounds like they believed that some
parts of it are false. (Ok, there certainly *are* some people who call
themselves christians *and* believe there are outright falsities in the
bible, but I'm not referring to those.)

  Some christians understand that the bible uses a lot of metaphors and
similes, but they believe that the *message* these metaphors and similes
are expressing is true. Of course you have to understand that it *is* a
metaphor, and what it is trying to say. (Naturally different people may
have different interpretations, which is why we have a myriad of different
churches, branches, sects and whatnot.)

  Some christians take some metaphors too literally and they are way too
dogmatic about them. Some of them are so fanatic that it seems like they
thought that anyone who didn't interpret these parts literally is claiming
the bible contains lies. Ironically, they are themselves most probably
misinterpreting and distorting the bible by obscuring the true message
these metaphors are trying to convey and replacing it with their own
interpretations.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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