You're misunderstanding what special pleading is. It's not just pleading that can be described as special.
It's arguing that the world couldn't be eternal with no cause and also couldn't have created itself, and then positing a god created it. But when asked how the god came about, you say "oh, he is eternal." You bypass the restrictions because of convenience for your argument, without justification.
Where did a god come from?
The world is so complex and so it needs to have been designed, but the god who created it is even more complex, and how come he didn't need to be designed? Oh, just because. That's special pleading.
The claims of all religions are of similar credibility. But you love Judaism because you were raised in it. You deny the silly claims of all but one, without proper justification. That's special pleading.
You read about it and then spent an entire article special pleading your case.
I didn't not say one word about intelligent design or where God came from. All I said was that the logic of cause and effect dictates there are things we don't understand, and that means there may be space for God, which also cannot be understood. Rational thought and empiricism are not able to explain the existence of the universe.
And, I wasn't raised Jewish, so you have not been paying attention.
And, the definition of special pleading I came across is consistent with what I argued, and I never denied pleading the case. In fact, I argued that pleading is appropriate in some circumstances.
Here's the AI def with examples:
Special pleading is a logical fallacy where someone claims an exception to a general rule or principle without providing sufficient justification, essentially applying a double standard.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Definition:
Special pleading involves arguing for a particular case or situation as an exception to a general rule or principle, often without offering a valid reason for that exception.
Double Standard:
It's characterized by applying different standards or rules to different people or situations, depending on who or what is involved.
Lack of Justification:
The key element of special pleading is the absence of a reasonable or justifiable reason for the claimed exception.
Examples:
"Everyone should follow the speed limit, but I'm in a hurry, so I'll just go a little faster".
"I know lying is wrong, but my friend is in danger, so it's okay for me to lie to protect them".
"I know that everyone should be held accountable for their actions, but my son is a good kid, and he just made a mistake".
Related Fallacies:
Special pleading can sometimes be seen as a type of red herring or appeal to emotion fallacy.
Religionists have a problem and it is this: there is no sound argument, and so the only thing to respond with is faulty.
>>>the definition of special pleading I came across
There might be different types of special pleading, and you might not have been in violation of all of them except for one, which you are consistently in violation of.
>>>And, I wasn't raised Jewish
It doesn't matter if you were raised Jewish or not. You are obviously looking for something to fill an emotional void, or perhaps you thought that religion could fill an intellectual void. But you were wrong on account of no good evidence. Pleading your case for a god when your exact words can apply equally to a leprechaun is exactly the problem you keep making.
Where are all your other comments discussing the following:
"...there are things we don't understand, and that means there may be space for __________, which also cannot be understood..."
Fill in that blank with any mythological creature or entity and I agree with you, including a god. I am open minded, but you are not. You have made your decision before any good evidence. You are jumping the gun.
>>>Well, you've had your say and I mine, many times over
And this, to respond to Aron T, is another major issue with religionists. They often think that since the secular guy said his part and the religious guy said his part, that we can all agree to disagree. No. The religious guy brings bad arguments and performs special pleading and has absolutely no good points to make. I refer to the Dawkins/Sacks interview here again.
Sacks and his religious followers are delusional in thinking that this was a good interaction and they post it to his heritage website. This was an abysmal trouncing and if religious people were honest with themselves, this single debate video should lead them to question Orthodoxy.
It's not a fair assessment to say: "well, you said some words and now I said some words and so it's even steven." If any readers see otherwise, I plead with them to please comment or ask questions or write their own post. Or you can message me privately, like some of you already have. If you're interested in being religious, you shouldn't be reading any of these conversations. But if you're interested in being honest, then there's no going back.
I love my wife. Is this truth to be judged by the standards of technological truth...? When you show me the tricorder that can measure this truth, I will listen to arguments that this standard is the only one ever applicable.
Nietzsche already covered all this, and there's a reason that Nietzsche - who has the least patience for religion and God - is *never* cited by New Atheists and their disciples. From The Gay Science, section 344:
We see that science also rests on a faith, there simply is no science "without presuppositions." The question whether truth is needed must not only have been affirmed in advance, but affirmed to such a degree that the principle, the faith, the conviction finds expression: "Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."
I think that atheists present belief in God as a scientific-type argument and then damn it for not being a good scientific argument, when it isn’t a scientific argument at all. The cosmological argument, which you reference, isn’t something you can test empirically in a laboratory like Newton’s laws of motion. It isn’t even something you can observe without empirical experiment, like astronomical laws. It’s an argument like a model in philosophy or the social sciences, something that we want to be broadly congruent with the world around us, but we don’t expect a 1:1 correlation or a total absence of doubt, because we accept that we haven’t perfected the model by its very nature (and here you could bring in the negative theology of Rambam and Rav Saadia Gaon, that the only thing we can say with certainty about God is what He is not). It is more of a thought experiment where we say, “Given X, do we think the existence of God is more or less likely?” which is inherently subjective and inconclusive.
So, I agree with your “fuzzy truth” idea. I also find it interesting that atheists often manage to manifest a level of belief in politicians and political theories that I find extraordinarily high and unjustified on any measure. Not that I’m arguing that politicians don’t exist (if only), but whether their ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, Marxism, etc.) are valid and tested. Marxism has probably been tested more systematically than any other ideology, yet you find no end of people engaging in special pleading for it, usually of the “No true Scotsman” kind (“The USSR wasn’t real Marxism… or Mao, or North Korea, or the Khmer Rouge.”) These people are often militant atheists, but miss the irony.
That said, I don’t think that I fully agree with the utilitarian argument you’re presenting here. Taking the example of disabusing a dying person of the afterlife is going to depend on your ethical system. If you have a Kantian loyalty to truth as a categorical imperative, then you are going to view it differently than if you’re a utilitarian. And I am genuinely torn on that. I wouldn’t actually say to someone who was dying, “No, this is literally your last moment of existence in any kind of reality, deal with it,” (even if I actually believed that, which I don’t). But I think I would feel uncomfortable with saying something that I felt was untrue especially at such a consequential juncture. (I am currently extremely conflicted around pronoun use for people who I think are mentally ill and indoctrinated into thinking they are a different gender than they are, but who I have no wish to offend.)
I did agree with the bit about “If you tear down the fabric of culture that has enabled the very sort of truth telling of which you are so enamored, you had better have a real alternative.”
Btw, I have watched a lot of TV science fiction and fantasy, but I’ve never seen Buffy, although I’ve seen an episode of Angel (I didn’t like it much). I have an aversion to school stories as my school days were not great (although I did eventually read Harry Potter).
"Angel" is to "Buffy" what morphine is to heroin. It's just a substitute. Give the real thing a try. The story is about people who didn't fit in with school, largely, so you might like it.
Awesome reply! I was thinking very similarly but had other bones to pick. Thank you!
One question. When you say: “And there are also some truths that are simply beyond human understanding. There’s no rational way to account for a universe that always existed. Because everything as far as we know has a cause.”
Thanks Jethro, I guess I just mean that we have no way of thinking about it that makes sense to us based on our limited understanding and human perception. So we have to go beyond the rational (empirically based logic, mathematical logic) to something outside of that. Maybe "rational" isn't the right word, exactly. Maybe what I mean is empirical?
No problem. It's difficult to proofread one's own work. I suggest copying and pasting into Word before publishing and looking at anything that is underlined. You won't catch everything, and there will also be "false positives", but you can add words (including Yiddish or Hebrew ones), into your Microsoft dictionary by right-clicking and following the directions.
I once heard a podcast, I am not sure how I got to it, by a Christian member of the clergy.
He pointed out, I think rightfully, that atheists benefit from the positive externalities of other people believing in G-d. The roots of most of civilization are from Christianity, which originated from Judaism, and the words we use to describe almost everything comes out of a Christian idea or usage.
There is an element of hypocrisy living in a society rooted in monotheism but rejecting it, as one benefits from others not stealing their stuff because they believe in a god, but they themselves do not believe.
Not really relevant, but that’s what I say to anti-Vaxers . “Because I vaccinate my children, you don’t have to. Your children are immunized by my children.” Just saying. Sorry for going off subject.
I have a friend who once said something like "thank you very much, religion, for bringing morality into the world, but we're done with you now," meaning we didn't need religion to maintain the morality it instituted. I don't think that works out well in the long run.
I believe you are going to get comments and arguments whether you want them or not. In any case, on this quote:
“Morever, if we take an evolutionary approach, then we may well make a scientific argument that religion serves a vital evolutionary role. How else to explain its near universality? It may well be that the human brain is designed with a proclivity towards religion and that religion serves a purpose in the propagation and survival of the species “
It is fascinating because it means that Hashem actually hard-wired us (or programmed us) to search for Him. That is not a contradiction to Free Will. As Victor Frankel observed, searching for meaning is one of the essentials of human survival.
I don’t quite understand this. Why does everyone ignore time? If humans have existed and evolved for 300,000 years, and religions only existed for 6,000-11,000 years, why do you (and mostly Thomas) presume religion is needed as a necessity for humanity’s continuation? Yes, social cohesion seems important, but the same religions that fought to end slavery (for example) enslaved individuals using the Bible as a support (hence why slave owners created slave bibles which omitted certain texts related to liberation etc). Why does atheism automatically mean lack of community? It doesn’t have to. We can progress as humans without the dogma of religion, no?
Yes, religion has only existed for 11,000 years. . . . as if that weren't enough. As if we could even know whether humans had religion before that. No one has said it's a necessity for human continuity, certainly not me. What I am saying is that religion improves human existence. If you want to go back to 9,000 BC, be my guest. See how that looks and feels. Atheism doesn't mean lack of community. The communists had community. It means there's no basis for morality except for fanciful constructions that one person may impose on another. There certainly will be morality. It will be the morality of the strong imposed on the weak.
I hear you. But disagree that religion and its texts are needed for moral guidance (Slavery isn’t moral. Genocide isn’t moral. Not looking to go down the morality origin question, but the Bible is literally a fanciful construction that the elites imposed upon a people.). Also not sure why [organized] religion is needed to improve human existence. It’s like those who say that most inventors and scientists believed in god or were religious as if that proves the importance of religion. It was just the reality in their time. Correlation does not equal causation. I feel like you’re placing such emphasis on religion and assuming that we would be worse off without it. Says who? Even if there were some deistic beliefs 50,000 years ago, that is but a speck in time. And who’s to say that religion hasn’t reached its tipping point?
50,000 years is a speck in time? We're humans, not amoeba. That's huge amount of time. It's all of civilization. As for who's to say, we'll be worse off without it? I don't know. It's all guess work. Who's to say we won't? Atheists are supposed to be skeptical, but they believe a system that's organized mankind for 50,000 years (or more) is unnecessary. Based on what?
Of course, I could be wrong. I grant that. I'm just reacting to what I've seen in my own life and what I've seen in society in the 60 years I've been around and, and the downfall of religion, in my view, has been detrimental and will continue to be so. But who knows, I could very well be wrong.
A poet I very much admire said, "we're caught be two worlds, one dying, and one powerless to be born." Another poet asked, "What rough beast is slouching it's way to Bethlehem." There's good reason to be cautious about jettisoning religion. But, sure, maybe it will all work out . . .
Sure. I meant organized religion but wrote that poorly. 3% vs 16% is a big deal.
We can talk about guess work, or we can look at the active threats religion has, and currently is, posing: radical Islam/jihad, Christian nationalism (although nowhere near as bad as radical Islam), Israelies/jews who seek a greater Israel based off their religion.
I’ve seen your other posts and can understand why you choose to be religious. I also choose to be religious (presently due to a number of factors) but I’m at least open to saying that I am not convinced there is a god.
I don’t think I’ve been arguing that religion is inherently evil, rather that we shouldn’t presume that religion is needed for society to flourish because it’s all we know.
>>>Sometimes special pleading is justified.
You're misunderstanding what special pleading is. It's not just pleading that can be described as special.
It's arguing that the world couldn't be eternal with no cause and also couldn't have created itself, and then positing a god created it. But when asked how the god came about, you say "oh, he is eternal." You bypass the restrictions because of convenience for your argument, without justification.
Where did a god come from?
The world is so complex and so it needs to have been designed, but the god who created it is even more complex, and how come he didn't need to be designed? Oh, just because. That's special pleading.
The claims of all religions are of similar credibility. But you love Judaism because you were raised in it. You deny the silly claims of all but one, without proper justification. That's special pleading.
You read about it and then spent an entire article special pleading your case.
I didn't not say one word about intelligent design or where God came from. All I said was that the logic of cause and effect dictates there are things we don't understand, and that means there may be space for God, which also cannot be understood. Rational thought and empiricism are not able to explain the existence of the universe.
And, I wasn't raised Jewish, so you have not been paying attention.
And, the definition of special pleading I came across is consistent with what I argued, and I never denied pleading the case. In fact, I argued that pleading is appropriate in some circumstances.
Here's the AI def with examples:
Special pleading is a logical fallacy where someone claims an exception to a general rule or principle without providing sufficient justification, essentially applying a double standard.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Definition:
Special pleading involves arguing for a particular case or situation as an exception to a general rule or principle, often without offering a valid reason for that exception.
Double Standard:
It's characterized by applying different standards or rules to different people or situations, depending on who or what is involved.
Lack of Justification:
The key element of special pleading is the absence of a reasonable or justifiable reason for the claimed exception.
Examples:
"Everyone should follow the speed limit, but I'm in a hurry, so I'll just go a little faster".
"I know lying is wrong, but my friend is in danger, so it's okay for me to lie to protect them".
"I know that everyone should be held accountable for their actions, but my son is a good kid, and he just made a mistake".
Related Fallacies:
Special pleading can sometimes be seen as a type of red herring or appeal to emotion fallacy.
Religionists have a problem and it is this: there is no sound argument, and so the only thing to respond with is faulty.
>>>the definition of special pleading I came across
There might be different types of special pleading, and you might not have been in violation of all of them except for one, which you are consistently in violation of.
>>>And, I wasn't raised Jewish
It doesn't matter if you were raised Jewish or not. You are obviously looking for something to fill an emotional void, or perhaps you thought that religion could fill an intellectual void. But you were wrong on account of no good evidence. Pleading your case for a god when your exact words can apply equally to a leprechaun is exactly the problem you keep making.
Where are all your other comments discussing the following:
"...there are things we don't understand, and that means there may be space for __________, which also cannot be understood..."
Fill in that blank with any mythological creature or entity and I agree with you, including a god. I am open minded, but you are not. You have made your decision before any good evidence. You are jumping the gun.
>>>Well, you've had your say and I mine, many times over
And this, to respond to Aron T, is another major issue with religionists. They often think that since the secular guy said his part and the religious guy said his part, that we can all agree to disagree. No. The religious guy brings bad arguments and performs special pleading and has absolutely no good points to make. I refer to the Dawkins/Sacks interview here again.
Sacks and his religious followers are delusional in thinking that this was a good interaction and they post it to his heritage website. This was an abysmal trouncing and if religious people were honest with themselves, this single debate video should lead them to question Orthodoxy.
It's not a fair assessment to say: "well, you said some words and now I said some words and so it's even steven." If any readers see otherwise, I plead with them to please comment or ask questions or write their own post. Or you can message me privately, like some of you already have. If you're interested in being religious, you shouldn't be reading any of these conversations. But if you're interested in being honest, then there's no going back.
Someone once said that Jews are the proof of God.
Hi Thomas,
I love my wife. Is this truth to be judged by the standards of technological truth...? When you show me the tricorder that can measure this truth, I will listen to arguments that this standard is the only one ever applicable.
Nietzsche already covered all this, and there's a reason that Nietzsche - who has the least patience for religion and God - is *never* cited by New Atheists and their disciples. From The Gay Science, section 344:
We see that science also rests on a faith, there simply is no science "without presuppositions." The question whether truth is needed must not only have been affirmed in advance, but affirmed to such a degree that the principle, the faith, the conviction finds expression: "Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."
Stay wonderful,
Chris.
I think that atheists present belief in God as a scientific-type argument and then damn it for not being a good scientific argument, when it isn’t a scientific argument at all. The cosmological argument, which you reference, isn’t something you can test empirically in a laboratory like Newton’s laws of motion. It isn’t even something you can observe without empirical experiment, like astronomical laws. It’s an argument like a model in philosophy or the social sciences, something that we want to be broadly congruent with the world around us, but we don’t expect a 1:1 correlation or a total absence of doubt, because we accept that we haven’t perfected the model by its very nature (and here you could bring in the negative theology of Rambam and Rav Saadia Gaon, that the only thing we can say with certainty about God is what He is not). It is more of a thought experiment where we say, “Given X, do we think the existence of God is more or less likely?” which is inherently subjective and inconclusive.
So, I agree with your “fuzzy truth” idea. I also find it interesting that atheists often manage to manifest a level of belief in politicians and political theories that I find extraordinarily high and unjustified on any measure. Not that I’m arguing that politicians don’t exist (if only), but whether their ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, Marxism, etc.) are valid and tested. Marxism has probably been tested more systematically than any other ideology, yet you find no end of people engaging in special pleading for it, usually of the “No true Scotsman” kind (“The USSR wasn’t real Marxism… or Mao, or North Korea, or the Khmer Rouge.”) These people are often militant atheists, but miss the irony.
That said, I don’t think that I fully agree with the utilitarian argument you’re presenting here. Taking the example of disabusing a dying person of the afterlife is going to depend on your ethical system. If you have a Kantian loyalty to truth as a categorical imperative, then you are going to view it differently than if you’re a utilitarian. And I am genuinely torn on that. I wouldn’t actually say to someone who was dying, “No, this is literally your last moment of existence in any kind of reality, deal with it,” (even if I actually believed that, which I don’t). But I think I would feel uncomfortable with saying something that I felt was untrue especially at such a consequential juncture. (I am currently extremely conflicted around pronoun use for people who I think are mentally ill and indoctrinated into thinking they are a different gender than they are, but who I have no wish to offend.)
I did agree with the bit about “If you tear down the fabric of culture that has enabled the very sort of truth telling of which you are so enamored, you had better have a real alternative.”
Btw, I have watched a lot of TV science fiction and fantasy, but I’ve never seen Buffy, although I’ve seen an episode of Angel (I didn’t like it much). I have an aversion to school stories as my school days were not great (although I did eventually read Harry Potter).
"Angel" is to "Buffy" what morphine is to heroin. It's just a substitute. Give the real thing a try. The story is about people who didn't fit in with school, largely, so you might like it.
Awesome reply! I was thinking very similarly but had other bones to pick. Thank you!
One question. When you say: “And there are also some truths that are simply beyond human understanding. There’s no rational way to account for a universe that always existed. Because everything as far as we know has a cause.”
What do you mean by “rational”?
Thanks Jethro, I guess I just mean that we have no way of thinking about it that makes sense to us based on our limited understanding and human perception. So we have to go beyond the rational (empirically based logic, mathematical logic) to something outside of that. Maybe "rational" isn't the right word, exactly. Maybe what I mean is empirical?
Thank you for the clarification! Sounds good.
attick [sic]
Fixed. Thanks again for your sharp eye!
No problem. It's difficult to proofread one's own work. I suggest copying and pasting into Word before publishing and looking at anything that is underlined. You won't catch everything, and there will also be "false positives", but you can add words (including Yiddish or Hebrew ones), into your Microsoft dictionary by right-clicking and following the directions.
I argue, therefore you are wrong. Oh, the humanities!
I once heard a podcast, I am not sure how I got to it, by a Christian member of the clergy.
He pointed out, I think rightfully, that atheists benefit from the positive externalities of other people believing in G-d. The roots of most of civilization are from Christianity, which originated from Judaism, and the words we use to describe almost everything comes out of a Christian idea or usage.
There is an element of hypocrisy living in a society rooted in monotheism but rejecting it, as one benefits from others not stealing their stuff because they believe in a god, but they themselves do not believe.
Not really relevant, but that’s what I say to anti-Vaxers . “Because I vaccinate my children, you don’t have to. Your children are immunized by my children.” Just saying. Sorry for going off subject.
I like the analogy. Moral vaccination.
I have a friend who once said something like "thank you very much, religion, for bringing morality into the world, but we're done with you now," meaning we didn't need religion to maintain the morality it instituted. I don't think that works out well in the long run.
I believe you are going to get comments and arguments whether you want them or not. In any case, on this quote:
“Morever, if we take an evolutionary approach, then we may well make a scientific argument that religion serves a vital evolutionary role. How else to explain its near universality? It may well be that the human brain is designed with a proclivity towards religion and that religion serves a purpose in the propagation and survival of the species “
It is fascinating because it means that Hashem actually hard-wired us (or programmed us) to search for Him. That is not a contradiction to Free Will. As Victor Frankel observed, searching for meaning is one of the essentials of human survival.
I don’t quite understand this. Why does everyone ignore time? If humans have existed and evolved for 300,000 years, and religions only existed for 6,000-11,000 years, why do you (and mostly Thomas) presume religion is needed as a necessity for humanity’s continuation? Yes, social cohesion seems important, but the same religions that fought to end slavery (for example) enslaved individuals using the Bible as a support (hence why slave owners created slave bibles which omitted certain texts related to liberation etc). Why does atheism automatically mean lack of community? It doesn’t have to. We can progress as humans without the dogma of religion, no?
Yes, religion has only existed for 11,000 years. . . . as if that weren't enough. As if we could even know whether humans had religion before that. No one has said it's a necessity for human continuity, certainly not me. What I am saying is that religion improves human existence. If you want to go back to 9,000 BC, be my guest. See how that looks and feels. Atheism doesn't mean lack of community. The communists had community. It means there's no basis for morality except for fanciful constructions that one person may impose on another. There certainly will be morality. It will be the morality of the strong imposed on the weak.
PS my brief research suggests religion has been around about 50,000 years. And if it were before that, I can hardly imagine how we would even know.
I hear you. But disagree that religion and its texts are needed for moral guidance (Slavery isn’t moral. Genocide isn’t moral. Not looking to go down the morality origin question, but the Bible is literally a fanciful construction that the elites imposed upon a people.). Also not sure why [organized] religion is needed to improve human existence. It’s like those who say that most inventors and scientists believed in god or were religious as if that proves the importance of religion. It was just the reality in their time. Correlation does not equal causation. I feel like you’re placing such emphasis on religion and assuming that we would be worse off without it. Says who? Even if there were some deistic beliefs 50,000 years ago, that is but a speck in time. And who’s to say that religion hasn’t reached its tipping point?
50,000 years is a speck in time? We're humans, not amoeba. That's huge amount of time. It's all of civilization. As for who's to say, we'll be worse off without it? I don't know. It's all guess work. Who's to say we won't? Atheists are supposed to be skeptical, but they believe a system that's organized mankind for 50,000 years (or more) is unnecessary. Based on what?
Of course, I could be wrong. I grant that. I'm just reacting to what I've seen in my own life and what I've seen in society in the 60 years I've been around and, and the downfall of religion, in my view, has been detrimental and will continue to be so. But who knows, I could very well be wrong.
A poet I very much admire said, "we're caught be two worlds, one dying, and one powerless to be born." Another poet asked, "What rough beast is slouching it's way to Bethlehem." There's good reason to be cautious about jettisoning religion. But, sure, maybe it will all work out . . .
Sure. I meant organized religion but wrote that poorly. 3% vs 16% is a big deal.
We can talk about guess work, or we can look at the active threats religion has, and currently is, posing: radical Islam/jihad, Christian nationalism (although nowhere near as bad as radical Islam), Israelies/jews who seek a greater Israel based off their religion.
I’ve seen your other posts and can understand why you choose to be religious. I also choose to be religious (presently due to a number of factors) but I’m at least open to saying that I am not convinced there is a god.
I don’t think I’ve been arguing that religion is inherently evil, rather that we shouldn’t presume that religion is needed for society to flourish because it’s all we know.