Logical fallacy "Appeal to authority"

I'll get to the title of the OP in a moment.

Firstly, The Quran:

The comment:
Muhammad was renowned for his honesty long before he began to receive revelation and became Allah’s Messenger. He had been known among his people (even those that opposed him) for years as al-Amîn (the Trustworthy) .

“Truthfulness leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to Paradise. In addition, a man keeps on telling the truth until he becomes a truthful person. Falsehood leads to wickedness and evil-doing, and wickedness leads to the (Hell) Fire, and a man may keep on telling lies till he is written before God, as a liar”. (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)


This is the thing.
There are no Gods.
We know this as easily as we know there are no Xenu's or FSMs or IPUs.

So the question really is: If Mohammad really was such an honest person then why did he decide to lie about hearing an angels voice? Why make this up? Why lie? If he had something worth listening to, something inspiring and important - then he could have simply told people and they would have listened. That's exactly what Buddha did. That's exactly what many Greek philosophers did - and they had huge followers who studied and debated their teachings. They never felt the need to make up some story about a God or Gods.
Why?
Because what they taught was actually worth thinking about.


It's asinine to say Mohammad was honest when most of his "revelations" are just copied Jewish and the Xian stories? IF Mohammad really lived THEN he must have been dishonest person. It's a simple matter of logic. Either that or we must suspend our capacity for logic and reason.

This is why I sometimes ask: What is novel and enlightened in the Qur'an.


Again, as an example, take the case of Buddha. He didn't have to say his idea's came from a God, because they were HIS IDEAS!! Like any good philosopher, he spent a good deal of time THINKING about them. People listened to the ideas on the MERIT of those ideas. There was no need for Buddha use madeup a God to validate his ideas BECAUSE they were original and enlightened ideas.

Does this make sense?


Think about it like this. Ron Hubbard said he received revelations from Xenu that detailed Jewish, Buddhist, Christian and Muslims stories. Now, with the exception of brainwashed Scientologists, every thinking person knows Ron just copied these stories. Ron copied these stories and then presented himself as the Last Prophet and because he had no novel ideas that were also enlightening (Xenu is in fact novel but not enlightening) he therefor used the imaginary "Xenu" character just as Mohammad used the imaginary "Allah"character - to make it seem as if the "revelations" were worth listening to. To give them Validity.

That is the Logical fallacy "Appeal to authority"

The Qur'an and Books of Scientology are therefor great examples of the logical fallacy: Appeal to authority. Which is an assertion deemed to be true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it (in this case Allah) as Mohammad was JUST the messenger (or Xenu and Ron was JUST the messenger).


No one, outside of brainwashed Scientologist, could say with a straight face Ron Hubbard was an honest person. It's asinine. The same must be true of Mohammad.


M

 

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There is a 3rd possibility. They believed what they were saying was true tho it wasn't.
May be some advanced alien(s) contacted them & played games with them. May be they were hypnotized. May be they were mentally ill.

All god religions & some others promote & depend on appeal to authority. Buddha might not have but modern Buddhists do.

(BTW, that should be logic fallacy not logical fallacy, if either. All fallacies are logic fallacies so the word fallacy is enough. Logical fallacy tho is quite silly.)

 

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Sorry about the grammar - thanks I'm always trying to improve

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Although I just typed into Google and got enough hits to make me think we need to have a discussion in Linguistics!

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Yes, there is a possibility that they were mentally ill. BUT, I seriously doubt it. I just don't see the military discipline coming from someone THAT mentality ill (often hearing voices). Yes, I can see a person thinking that were appointed by God, Alexander is said to have thought himself of divine birth (Julius Caesar and Ghangus Khan as well), however these men didn't hear voices in their heads. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not putting Mohammad in their league, he united a couple of small arab tribes and then was snuffed out. But still, it seems more reasonable to assume he was a lier rather than mentally ill.


A simpler explanation would be he pretended (lied) to be doing a God's bidding as that was more likely to get people to do what he said. Thousands of TV evangelists use this method (lie) to motive people to give money everyday.

Of course, I made the assumption there was a Mohammad - more than likely he's a composite literary character and it was really his creators that lied for political purposes.

 

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I wonder if we all can agree that Ron Hubbard is Appealing to Authority via Xenu when he channeled/Prophesied/lied about Xenuic revelation?

 

That + drugs isn't exactly far fetched.

 

Haha! I never knew Ron was a pot-head. Makes sense though. The whole Xenu thing is a brilliant idea though. There's a branch of Islam in the USA where they also believe in Aliens (and somehow these aliens live in Japan?).

I was thinking, even if Mohammad was crazy, he is STILL Appealing to Authority by suggesting his "revelations" come from Allah. You see, the argument really is BECAUSE: Allah says such and such it's therefor correct or good or right etc... ... That's just not logical. Allah could be full of shit or wrong or also lieing etc....

I think the fallacy still stands,

M

 

You know Paul and Joseph Smith do the same thing.

 

Yes, of course, Bahá'u'lláh too - it's prerequisite to start a new monotheistic cult.

You do agree they all base their credibility on the fallacy of appealing to authority?



That's the fascinating thing about Buddha. He didn't. I met a devout Buddhist the other day and was asking a bit about Buddha and she suddenly stoped made it clear she thought Buddha was a just a man, not a God and not godlike and he died and is gone - just as will happen to me, her and everyone else. She seemed to be of the mind he was like an Einstein. A Genius. But, definitely only a man.

Also, maybe Confucius never claimed he was divine?

 

wow
a subtle continuity between paragraphs like a helicopter crashing into an orphanage

and your point is?

meh
more "if someone gets it wrong everyone gets it wrong" .....
an easy way to discredit anything from scientists to postmen
(and to think you had the hide to title this "logical fallacy"!)

if you think there is no philosophy that is understood in connection to god you have practically discredited over 60% of philosophy

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I'll give you a hint
you will get one sort of answer from an atheist and another different one from a theist

lol
and what is the philosophical requirement to re-invent the wheel just so one can put one's signature to it like a mad artist?

so let me get this straight

In recent history a sci-fi writer concocted a fiction with a lead god like character that got passed off as a religion. This logically indicates that all talk of god is a fiction.

So tell me, what do you think of

In recent history a parent was convicted of sexually molesting their child. This proves that all parents are guilty of sexually molesting their child.

(Geez. Dangerous philosophy dude. Politicians, teachers, postmen and even scientists ... no one's safe. Personally I would prefer to take my chances with IED's and human bombs)

I'm just trying to help you form a logical arrgument

you can argue about the transparency of mediums (ie whether someone is an actual messenger or adds a bit here or there), but to say that philosophy requires that one exclusively pout forth ramblings from their fertile brain is just plain silly. Even if you examine the history of the world's great mental speculators, you can see that they exist in a continuum of ideas and that copyright infringement is simply a result of post-industrialism


N

just waiting for you to turn your wrathful eye on postmen and parents now .... stalin would be envious

 

Ron Hubbard wasn't influenced by drugs. Well, perhaps they helped, but he was well aware that starting a religion was a great way to make money. The point is that he made a conscious decision to create this religion, and it wasn't because he was having visions.

As far as why Mohammad would lie after having a reputation of being an honest person...has the thought ever crossed your mind that this detail about being honest could have been added later to enhance the myth? Especially considering that his story was originally spread through oral tradition, it would come as no surprise to find out that the end result was far more myth than reality--even if we weren't talking about a man claiming to be God's final prophet.

 

No, it’s a basic assumption that must be met in order to logically discuss this topic. If you believe in Xenu and you believe Ron channelled his thoughts – then really there’s no point discussion the ideas in this particular post.

IF there are no Gods, THEN all Prophets are liars.

Do we agree?

If so, then, the question really becomes: Why do MEN lie and say they are Prophets?

Well? Any ideas?

I thought, perhaps they lie because what they have to say is not really all that worthwhile listening to. Hence the need to appeal to an authority, aka the Gods, and say that these are really their words and because they are “Gods” the words must therefore be worth listening to. Which isn’t necessarily true either – the OT God was actually an imbecile.

In the case of Buddha, his words themselves had merit. His ideas were worth listening to and so people did listen, debate and discuss. Buddha didn’t need to pretend there were Gods telling him what to say and for that reason he wasn’t a liar.

I’m not sure I get your point here. Mohammad spent his entire life pretending he heard God inorder to get people to listen to him. Sometimes right on the spot! Someone didn’t do what he wanted them to do and *poof* a “revelation” telling them God wanted them to do as Mohammad wanted them to do earlier.

Actually IF there is an honest answer THEN both should agree. We can, after all, just look into the past and see if such and such ideas had existed prior.

EX: Monotheism. We can all agree Joseph Smith did not invent monotheism.
EX: We can all agree the half man/ half God who died for humanity’s salvation was not invented by Paul.

These ideas come from Egypt.

There is an equal amount of good evidence for Xenu as there is for Athena as there is for Allah as there is for YWHA as there is for Amaterasu – which is to say none.

Which is why I prefaced the OP with the basic assumption that must be met in order to logically discuss this topic - there are no Gods. If you believe in Xenu and you believe Ron channeled his thoughts – then really there’s no point discussion the ideas in this particular post because you can not see that Ron was a liar.

If you believe in Allah and you believe Mohammad channeled his thoughts – then really there’s no point discussion the ideas in this particular post because you can not see that Mohammad was a liar.

If you believe in YWHA and you believe Joseph channeled his thoughts – then really there’s no point discussion the ideas in this particular post because you can not see that Joseph was a liar.


etc...


Buddha must have had a philosophy the was itself worth listening to - hence no need to lie.

No need for this kind of bullshit:
"The great Goddess says give me 10% yeazha! Holy Mother Marry! YEEEazha! 10% in da dish my Brothers!!! Great Goddess gonna bless you my sistas!"

 

Yes I agree. I'm sure Mohammad is mostly a literary character created to fill a political need. Hell, the Arabs that conquered Persia didn't even consider themselves "Muslims" at that time.

 

Michael

you run into problems when you try to extrapolate your conclusions on scientology (which I don't disagree with) to all religious claims (which is where I do disagree with you)

sure
much like if we agree that all pigs can fly and all horses are pigs we should also agree that all horses can fly

I guess that just leaves you with the issue why all the historical high points of culture (eg architecture, music, art, philosophy/morals etc) have their foundation in theological influences

he did attest to a state of self realization however, which is practically identical to the claims of those who claim to be god realized.

There may be some branches in the vein of theism that rest solely on claims of "god told me so" but if you examine any theology that has born a reasonable (positive) social influence (islam included), you will see that there is more to it.

Trying to configure sophisticated arguments based on an overly simplified (or worst example) of religion is kind of self defeating.

“

you base this assumption that he "pretends" on what?
or can we just as easily be talking about flying horses and their identical nature to pigs?

 

Well at least we agree to that much. I mean, it's sort of the bases of this thread that we must assume Athena or Zeus or YWHA or Allah or Thor simply do not exist.

Also, I fail to see how Xenu is any different. Yeah, Ron made him up just as were all the other fantastic creatures, Pixis, Goddesses, etc... made up. Seems the only difference is the length of time people have been believing in these made up fairy creatures. Perhaps in 10,000 years Xenu will seem a natural figure to worship? Steeped in tradition and worshiped by trillions. And I'd say then about Xenu, what I say now about the Gods - they are made up.

You left out war, poverty, murder, suicide, slavery ….

Mathematics also influenced music – I fail to see what it has to do with the FACT that all Prophets are inherently liars?

So you are saying they lied because people needed to hear the lies? It was for their own good? Firstly, then why didn’t Buddha lie? Secondly, I don’t think people need gods to behave according to social rules. A sharp sword usually does the trick.

Oh come off if LG. If some Scientologist told his followers to do such and such - because Xenu told him to tell them so – you and I both know that such a man is liar.

The assumption is rationality and logical thinking.

I’m not following you. Explain please

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I think that pretending to hear a God’s voice is one of those things we can extrapolate!

The Buddhist I met Saturday said she was an atheist, that there is no Buddha anywhere today, he was just a man and he simply taught his philosophy, which was, apparently for her, ingenuously insightful. Personally I wouldn't know, I'm not Buddhist. But even if it weren't - it still seems he didn't pretend his advice came from a God. People still listened. maybe Indian people are just smarter than your average person?



Tell me LG:

Suppose Ron Hubbard were to have said: Carrots can not be eaten and men can have 7 wives but women can only have 2 husbands. Then he said, I know these things because Xenu told me so. It's "true" because Xenu told me so.

Is this not Appealing to Authority?!?!??!


As I hear it, Ron (pbuh) was ONLY the Last Messenger after all. These are the direct words from Xenu. You are hearing the voice of Xenu! Now turn towards Hollywood and pray 6.8 times a day!

 

Michael

Do you understand that logic does not establish truth?
I assume that you have problems with the idea of all horses being able to fly ...

once again, "someone gets it wrong so everyone gets it wrong" is not a very sophisticated grounds for further intelligent discussion ... rather it is a means employed by societal maniacs to assert their agenda.

It's not clear how war is inherently a religious idea ... what to speak of murder, etc

Mathematics also flourished within periods of theological renaissance

You haven't talked ANYTHING of the facts of prophets, just as I have not talked anything of the facts of horses and their flying capacities.

However, back to the issue at hand, if you want to say that the basis of religious claims are lies, you are making grave implications about all the great aspects of human civilization.

no
I am saying that any argument that works with judging a genre by its worst example is pathetic

It doesn't matter whether the topic is theology, science or postmen.
In all cases, it doesn't take a PhD to find examples of people who have lied in any field or discipline.

If one removes the philosophy of buddhism from buddha (much like you seem to enjoy separating the philosophy of islam from Mohamed) one could very easily establish that Buddha is lying.

Yet an intelligent school teacher can achieve something merely by raising their eyebrows that a buffalo herder can not achieve with a swag of bad language, a large stick and several rocks.

IOW persons capable of learning by example are celebrated as being more intelligent then persons who are only capable of learning by experience (what to speak of those who can't learn by experience).

And scientology is generally accepted as the bench mark of theistic practices and philosophy?

The philosophy that surrounds animism is practically non-existent. Basically it boils down to a world of wonder and there exists no philosophical tools for understanding the world in which we exist. Rather, all such inquiry is guided by a sort of mystical subjectivity. There are general guiding principles of animism (like say understanding that the living entity is dependent on nature) but this is not sophisticated enough to allow for serious examination of the world we live in (for instance it would be very difficult to understand how a society guided by animism could ever progress to atomic science)

Polytheism adds a bit more with narratives about gods, but again is a bit lacking in philosophy since the framework of absolute relationships (to this world, to each other, to the gods, etc etc) cannot manifest. IOW there is no possibility to enter into discussing ideas of the purpose/causes of existence, since the so-called rulers are an array of souped up human personalities quite frequently with unresolved anger issues).

Monotheism is basically philosophy attuned to narratives about god(s), so that absolute causes are determined. This is exemplified nicely by greek history whether plato shifted the paradigm from polytheism to something more monist by philosophizing on the "chos" (void) or original cause of the greek pantheon. There is some digression about whether this origin is impersonal (as buddhists and mayavadis attest) or personal, and also there are issues whether the person is claiming familiarity with the topic at hand (divine revelation or bhakti) or approaching the issue from mental speculation (or jnana) like plato .... but in short, to compress the claims of animism to monism with a statement like "there exists equal evidence for all" simply reveals that one hasn't really investigated the nature of the claims being made or the nature of the persons making the claim.

further extrapolation to all cases doesn't make the argument any less foolish

so if he said that the advice came from god, suddenly it would not be insightful?

certainly theistic notions haven't undergone such a severe deterioration in india as they have in the west ... although admittedly they are becoming increasingly competitive in this regard, doing themselves what any invading society has failed to do in the past 2000 years

there is a break down of issues in theism, technically called sanatana dharma (or eternal duties or duties pertinent to the soul) and sva dharma (or duties pertinent to the body). An example of sanatana dharma might be that the living entity is eternally situated in a position of dependence, whether liberated or conditioned. An example of sva dharma might be that one should beget progeny within the institution of marriage. The sum and substance of a theistic claim is the sanatana dharma and the sva dharma is kind of just like optional dressing. Its a favourite occupation of neophyte/materially inclined theists to dwell on sva dharma and it is a favourite occupation of atheists to responding to the claims of such neophytes.

basically sva dharma exists to maintain society in such a way that sanatana dharma can be performed. Because time place and circumstance is constantly changing, it is required that one be a little intelligent (and perhaps fortunate) to determine how sva dharma should be applied and who is a reliable authority in this regard.

Kind of like there may be loads of medical advice on the market that cater to not only people's ignorance but their willingness to pay the proper price for the proper treatment. This in no way impacts that there actually exists proper treatment. Its not that simply because some or even many treatments are cheap and ineffective that all treatments are equally cheap and ineffective.

 

I asked:

If Ron Hubbard were to have said: Carrots can not be eaten and men can have 7 wives but women can only have 2 husbands. Then he said, I know these things because Xenu told me so. It's "true" because Xenu told me so.

Is this not Appealing to Authority?!?!??!

YOu said:

there is a break down of issues in theism, technically called sanatana dharma (or eternal duties or duties pertinent to the soul) and sva dharma (or duties pertinent to the body). An example of sanatana dharma might be that the living entity is eternally situated in a position of dependence, whether liberated or conditioned. An example of sva dharma might be that one should beget progeny within the institution of marriage. The sum and substance of a theistic claim is the sanatana dharma and the sva dharma is kind of just like optional dressing. Its a favourite occupation of neophyte/materially inclined theists to dwell on sva dharma and it is a favourite occupation of atheists to responding to the claims of such neophytes

Somewhere in there I'm looking for an answer to my question and I'm not finding it...

Well? Is Ron Hubbard appealing to authority? Yes or No?



SIDE NOTE:
Plato never said the Gods were talking to him and that because they were you should therefor listen to him. Plato instead said: This is what I think, then expounded his views on this or that. Plato taught that our brain served a "cooling" function (specifically the venticals cooled "spirits" which animated our bodies) and these tempered the passionate spirits that were located in our heart. The diaphragm separated the two spiritual worlds alive in our body. Now this is interesting: Because Plato never claimed he was the Last Prophet there is no need today to dance around his words post hoc in a pretzel-like fashion as I see many theists here do with their 2000 year old religious baggage. Make sense? We can plainly see Plato was wrong and we have progressed past Plato too. Now if a prophet had said such things and you lived in a society that revered such prophet - well then, you'd probably have your head cut off for suggesting the brain was anything other than a cooling mechanism. You'd live in a backwards society and probably be in the habit of blaming your backwardness on someone else (perhaps the big bad "West"). Because surely it can't be your outdated antiquated obsolete philosophy .. no no no, THEM'S IS God's words - must be true as true is blue!

When in reality the whole of your plight can be neatly summed up here:

Prophets make the fallacy of appealing to authority and are liars

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I'm saying that reducing a theistic discipline to issues of sva dharma is straw manning.

IOW the value or worth of sva dharma rests upon sanatana dharms

if you remove sanatana dharma from theistic claims, yes you have an appeal to authority (which is kind of a no-brainer)

yes

that's why I mentioned

There is some digression about whether this origin is impersonal (as buddhists and mayavadis attest) or personal, and also there are issues whether the person is claiming familiarity with the topic at hand (divine revelation or bhakti) or approaching the issue from mental speculation (or jnana) like plato ....

he also declared that he wasn't directly familiar with the absolute world he was trying to explain .... which is a key to understanding why mental speculation is certainly more noble than false claims of divine perception but cannot tally with proper claims of divine perception. However the demands of mental speculation and the demands of divine revelation are resolved if the claims of divine revelation are logical, etc. IOW if you get a divine revelation that can be explained by philosophy (something which scientology fails to do IMHO) then you have the best of both worlds.

Actually we haven't progressed past Plato.
Rather we have assimilated his contributions in quite a few of the ideals and social bodies of our society.

what is the absolute requirement that all claims of knowledge must be susceptible to being proven wrong (especially when dealing with questions like say the origins of existence, etc, something which constitutionally we are unable to approach as human beings)?
I can fathom the reason but I will let you answer.

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LG, "divine" revelation comes from one's own mind. There is absolutely no difference between mental speculation and divine revelation.

No difference.

None.

They both originate in the brain.

We have incorporated some of Plato's ideas and further developed them. They are NOT the end point. Even in the life of Plato this was true. You see with a Prophet the ideas are from a God, there is no need to develop them and they are the end point.

Which brings me to the title of this thread.

Which brings me to the observation on the backwardness (or one could say mentally stuck in the lifetime of the so-called prophecy.)

You will need to state this question much more clearly if I am going to attempt and answer.

Mathematical proofs do offer truths.



SIDE Q: (really your opinion)

Do you think Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) was Appealing to Authority when he said an angel visited him with magical plates and that only he could read said magical plates?!?!??!

 

Michael

well, that's what you think. Certainly no evidence for this though


None.

(unless one is happy to take work "someone gets it wrong therefore everyone gets it wrong" .... which out to see one in the joyful association of other like minded societal maniacs)

end point?
please explain

I'm not sure why you think ideas of god don't need development.

For instance the Srimad Bhagavatam (12 000 verses) is an explanation of 4 key verses. And furthermore there are more commentaries on the Srimad Bhagavatam than you could hope to finish with in your lifetime (one famous speaker spent one month giving a discussion every day on one sloka)

Besides this, the beforementioned progress from animism to monistic ideas clearly indicates otherwise

IOW you have a break down of concept and application. Issues of application can be thoroughly expanded.

which brings me back to the assertion that you haven't really investigated the nature of the claims being made, and nor are you likely to.

hehe
which brings me to the next question

You pose that the problem with god is that it is tied with absolute issues of knowledge or things that are beyond being refuted. (actually any system of knowledge acquiring has at its core things that are beyond being refuted, or must be accepted apriori to even begin, .... but that's a different topic)

Given that our discussions often involve issues like the origins of existence, etc, what is the (absolute) requirement that a claim of knowledge be capable of being refuted (refuted by us humans of course)?

Well?

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Maths is a system of logic and abstraction.
Trying to show an example of a "1" certainly requires tacit explanations, what to speak of "-1"

 

I think the idea you propose of the problem with god being tied with absolute issues of knowledge or things that are beyond being refuted is worth it's own thread. I doubt you'll find too many monotheists that will agree their God is anything but absolute in it's proclamations, which emanate from the mouths of their choose "prophets".

So, that is a second assumption and one usually made on the part of Monotheists. I prefaced the discussion with the quote from the Qur'an - something that is taken as absolute. (you did see the thread on the murder of any Afghan who dares even translate this God's holy words out of the magical language of Arabic! [even though almost no one can read the original script.. but meh, that's different]).


LG, we will have to disagree as to the reality of where information comes from. I say it always comes from a brain. if someone thinks they hear voices those voices are really from one's brain. We can even suppress these voices with drugs.


Lastly:

We agree that when Ron Hubbard "channeled" Xenu he was in fact lieing through his teeth and using Xenu as a authoritarian proxy.

Now I missed the answer on this one:

Do you think Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) was Appealing to Authority when he said an angel visited him with magical plates and that only he could read said magical plates?!?!??!