{"id":823,"date":"2008-07-29T07:16:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T07:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2008\/07\/29\/syes-proof-2\/"},"modified":"2008-07-29T07:16:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T07:16:00","slug":"syes-proof-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2008\/07\/29\/syes-proof-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sye’s proof"},"content":{"rendered":"

The comments on Sye’s proof of the existence of God (discussed two posts below) have reached 250 in number, so let’s start a new page.<\/p>\n

To newcomers – Sye, the author of this proof<\/span><\/a>, is here defending it.<\/p>\n

My latest response:<\/p>\n

Hello again Sye<\/p>\n

Well, we are getting somewhere, actually, as I now discover that by \u201cproof\u201d you seem<\/span> to mean deductively valid argument.<\/p>\n

Is that correct? If so – well, Golly, that’s a very<\/span> misleading way of using the term “proof”.<\/p>\n

“Proof” usually means, argument establishing the conclusion as true beyond all doubt, beyond reasonable doubt, or whatever. People will be very<\/span> misled by your website’s claim to “prove” God exists, if all you are really claiming is to have put “God exists” at the end of a deductively valid argument. We have all been very misled, in fact.<\/p>\n

When I suggested that by \u201cproof\u201d we mean, proof beyond reasonable doubt, I thought I was doing you a favour by going with the weakest notion of \u201cproof\u201d I was aware of, but if by \u201cproof\u201d you actually just mean deductively valid argument, then, hey, I agree you have a \u201cproof\u201d!<\/p>\n

But then, by your definition, this is a “proof” too:<\/p>\n

1. The existence of the Cosmic Wombat is a necessary precondition of the existence of the laws of logic.
2. The laws of logic exist
Therefore, the Cosmic Wombat exists.<\/p>\n

See? – deductively valid. So I have a “proof” too! If this wombat argument is not a proof, can you explain why?<\/p>\n

My question is: by “proof” do you mean deductively valid argument? If not, what do you mean?<\/p>\n

I will do a post on my views about logic next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The comments on Sye’s proof of the existence of God (discussed two posts below) have reached 250 in number, so let’s start a new page. To newcomers – Sye, the author of this proof, is here defending it. My latest response: Hello again Sye Well, we are getting somewhere, actually, as I now discover that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sinner-ministries-proof-of-the-existence-of-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}