Comments on: Anti-abortionists jump on censorship bandwagon

By: Christopher Shell

Christopher Shell — Tue, 17 May 2005 10:08:41 +0000

How would you characterise Russell’s point? I see him as being evasive – ducking the question – and also as question-begging in a sense similar to the sense given. The existence of the world is simultaneously (a) the puzzle which is up for debate and (b) Russell’s unargued assumption. It’s bad enough for assumptions to be unargued; but if they are identical to the topic of debate, one might just as well not have the debate at all.
To reduce it down: The topic being debated at this point by Copleston & Russell was: How is it that anything exists in the first place? and Russell is claiming that there is no ‘how’ about it. This tends to break the laws of debate. Although Russell could argue that an exception can be made when the topic is everything-but-everything.
Russell’s answer seems to ‘invite’ or ‘beg’ a specific question arising directly from the inadequacy of his assumptions: namely, what sort of universe is it (given that the whole of science is to do with causation and assumes that questions are answerable) that (a) is entirely uncaused and (b) consists entirely of an unanswered question?

By: tom p

tom p — Mon, 16 May 2005 10:33:06 +0000

To beg the question is to assume precisely what is being contested.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/badmovesprint.php?num=43
Russell was answering the question of what came before specifically by saying there was no before

By: Christopher Shell

Christopher Shell — Sat, 14 May 2005 09:15:41 +0000

To say that God is ‘just there and that’s all’ raises more questions in one way: God is presumably more complex – or at least clever- than the universe. It raises fewer questions in other ways: the universe has no power of creativity, or of eternity, or of necessity, which may mean that we are forced to postulate someone or something that does have these 3 attributes.
Why is it that you say the term ‘question-begging’ is being misused?

By: Monitor

Monitor — Fri, 13 May 2005 18:32:25 +0000

And a Christian says much the same about their “god” – which seems to raise at least as many questions, if not more.
BTW, how unusual that a self-described “logician” should misuse the term question-begging. Logicians are usually so irritated by that common mistake.
Anyone would think you were full of shit.

By: Christopher Shell

Christopher Shell — Fri, 13 May 2005 17:22:30 +0000

It may for all I know be valid. But all that demonstrates is that some things which seem like fairy stories to us may actually be true. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth’ and all that.

Joe-
as I said earlier I hold no particular brief for the Old Testament, being a New Testament buff.

Questions of origins I can approach only as a logician, certainly not as a scientist. B. Russell reckoned that the universe was ‘just there, and that’s all’ – too question-begging for most ppl’s liking.

By: tom p

tom p — Fri, 13 May 2005 14:29:13 +0000

Also, nobody has ever said that it was there for no particular reason, just that we don’t know how it came to be there. Yet. That is an honest position. ‘I know that God is behind it all’ is a dishonest position because you have no evidence for it, merely belief.
your claim that the big bang theory is invalid because we don’t know what came before the big bang is matched by your inability to tell us who created god, thus discrediting your belief.

By: Andrew Nixon

Andrew Nixon — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:42:14 +0000

Also I don’t think anyone “believes” in the Big Bang, they accept it as the best possible explanation.

To clarify my last point…. no scientist would say anything like your almost-straw man, as size is a function of the universe, and therefore the universe could not have come from something smaller than a full stop.

By: Andrew Nixon

Andrew Nixon — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:39:44 +0000

Could you tell me which scientist has ever said that Christopher?

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:39:19 +0000

The key difference here is that the Big Bang theory is derived from actual study of the universe, rather than being something that a nomadic desert tribe who thought the sun went around the earth (Joshua 10) came up with.

By: Christopher Shell

Christopher Shell — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:25:18 +0000

Everybody believes some fairy stories. Some people believe the one entitled: ‘All the universe came from a dot smaller than a full-stop which was just there for no particular reason’.