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Just try to argue with Russell's Teapot?
Again long but hopefully worth it.
Bertrand Russell's Teapot:
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
Essentially, the belief in a God does not need to be proven; it must be disproven, because it is an unnecessary and therefore less likely (Occam's Razor and Marcus Hutter's mathematical proof whose name I cannot remember nor find). Moreover it is possible if not likely that this claim was created during an age of irrational thought and carried over by its strong social entrenchment, not its validity.
Common Rebuttal #1: "James Wood, without believing in a god, says that belief in God is more reasonable than belief in a teapot because God is a "grand and big idea" which "is not analogically disproved by reference to celestial teapots or vacuum cleaners, which lack the necessary bigness and grandeur"."
Actually, the larger and more convoluted an idea is, the less likely it is because it rests on more assumptions. The teapot is, assuming someone had the will and means to place it there, more plausible than a God because we know teapots exist in a material form, and less assumptions are required to support this.
Common Rebuttal #2: "Another counter-argument, advanced by Eric Reitan, is that belief in God is different from belief in a teapot because teapots are physical and therefore in principle verifiable, and that given what we know about the physical world we have no good reason to think that belief in Russell's teapot is justified and at least some reason to think it not."
This assumes that the spiritual world exists outside of physical matter and that within it dwells a God. While it is potentially possible (like the teapot) that such a thing exists, we have no reason to believe this nor evidence to verify this. As said within the argument itself, it is unverifiable. Why, then should it be believed when a less complex and equally compatible possibility exists: That it does not exist.
Any other theist counterarguments?
@.... other person named Graham o.0
Of course. That's the point. It's called argumentum ad absurdium... the idea is to take an opponent's argument and use the same principles to create a hypothetical situation that is analogous in logical flow but absurd in content in order to elicit a visceral response, a realization of the absurdity, which can then be transferred to their analogous argument.
He's saying that the notion of a God existing beyond our ability to identify it is as plausible as the absurd notion of an invisible teacup doing the same.
@ OLT
I stated that it was long, because that was about the shortest I could make it while explaining it adequately for the layman. Just because you're too lazy to read a properly constructed and expounded argument and analyze it doesn't mean you have to leave an extraneous and poorly formed response.
3 Answers
- OKLv 61 decade agoFavorite Answer
"Never argue with a fool in public, as observers may not be able to tell the difference."
unknown
Source(s): agnostic theist - ?Lv 71 decade ago
Such a bogus scenario fails on so many levels that it is not worthy of arguing with.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
And I care whether there is a teapot there why?