The circularity part is a little confusing though. Specifically, the theistic example argument could actually be one of two different theistic arguments, and the more common interpretation of that argument doesn’t seem to be the one you are considering. This confused me because I was thinking of the more common argument.
Said in detail, the argument “God exists because the Bible says so, and the Bible is the word of God.” could mean either:
1) God exists because the Bible exists, and the Bible was made by God.
Here, it doesn’t really matter what the Bible says; the evidence we are using is that whatever was said was said by God. This argument seems to be the one you are addressing, and put in those terms, it doesn’t even look like a circular argument.
or,
2) God exists because the Bible says he exists, and the Bible can’t be wrong because it was written by God (and he never lies).
This is the argument I thought you were talking about, so I was confused at first while reading the circularity section. Here, our sense data is not just that the Bible exists, but also what the Bible says. (In some versions of the argument, the only evidence being used is what the Bible says, and the arguer doesn’t use the mere existence of the Bible.)
Regarding the argument about what the Bible says, there does seem to be a bit of valid reasoning there. Namely, if we assume that God exists, wrote the Bible, and never lies, then we would be kind of confused if the Bible said that God didn’t exist. In other words, the fact that the Bible says God exists is at least evidence of self-consistency.
Overall, it seems that a lot of common “fallacies” are actually just weak Bayesian evidence. (Again, this was an awesome post and I found it informative, especially the section on the argument from ignorance.) But it also seems that sometimes people just make mistakes in their reasoning, honest and otherwise.
For example, I think the argument-from-Bible-contents is sometimes used among children and teenagers, and sometimes takes the form “Of course God exists: he wrote the Bible and he said he does. You don’t think God would lie, do you?” This is somewhat confused reasoning, and I expect that most or all of the children in that debate are genuinely failing to notice that it’s not an issue of whether God is lying, its an issue of whether he exists and said anything at all. Nor do I expect they’ve noticed the inconsistency in the idea “God exists and said he exists, but he was lying (and really doesn’t exist).”
Awesome post.
The circularity part is a little confusing though. Specifically, the theistic example argument could actually be one of two different theistic arguments, and the more common interpretation of that argument doesn’t seem to be the one you are considering. This confused me because I was thinking of the more common argument.
Said in detail, the argument “God exists because the Bible says so, and the Bible is the word of God.” could mean either:
1) God exists because the Bible exists, and the Bible was made by God.
Here, it doesn’t really matter what the Bible says; the evidence we are using is that whatever was said was said by God. This argument seems to be the one you are addressing, and put in those terms, it doesn’t even look like a circular argument.
or,
2) God exists because the Bible says he exists, and the Bible can’t be wrong because it was written by God (and he never lies).
This is the argument I thought you were talking about, so I was confused at first while reading the circularity section. Here, our sense data is not just that the Bible exists, but also what the Bible says. (In some versions of the argument, the only evidence being used is what the Bible says, and the arguer doesn’t use the mere existence of the Bible.)
Regarding the argument about what the Bible says, there does seem to be a bit of valid reasoning there. Namely, if we assume that God exists, wrote the Bible, and never lies, then we would be kind of confused if the Bible said that God didn’t exist. In other words, the fact that the Bible says God exists is at least evidence of self-consistency.
Overall, it seems that a lot of common “fallacies” are actually just weak Bayesian evidence. (Again, this was an awesome post and I found it informative, especially the section on the argument from ignorance.) But it also seems that sometimes people just make mistakes in their reasoning, honest and otherwise.
For example, I think the argument-from-Bible-contents is sometimes used among children and teenagers, and sometimes takes the form “Of course God exists: he wrote the Bible and he said he does. You don’t think God would lie, do you?” This is somewhat confused reasoning, and I expect that most or all of the children in that debate are genuinely failing to notice that it’s not an issue of whether God is lying, its an issue of whether he exists and said anything at all. Nor do I expect they’ve noticed the inconsistency in the idea “God exists and said he exists, but he was lying (and really doesn’t exist).”