While all mammals provide milk, not all providers of milk are mammals.

Gentlemen, I introduce you to pigeon milk: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_milk

Delicious in Froot Loops and a frothy cappuccino. Those birds will fight you though when you try to milk them.

Crop milk isn't from a maary gland.

Crop milk isn't from a maary gland. — Benkei

At least properly use you M key when you correct me.

The argument is valid but its first premise is false (or at least hasn't been proven to be true). — Michael

The first premise is the product of an inversion fallacy which I explained on the first page of this thread. There is an assumed cause/effect relation between God's existence and prayers being answered. We say that prayers being answered is the effect, and God's existence is the cause of this effect. God's existence causes prayers to be answered. However, it's an inverse fallacy to say that if prayers are answered then God exists. And saying "if God does not exist my prayers will not be answered" is another way of representing that same fallacious conclusion. So, the first premise, "If God does not exist, then it is false that if I pray, then my prayers will be answered" is a convoluted representation of that very same inversion fallacy.

The first premise is the product of a logical fallacy, and therefore can be considered to be false on that basis. I believe this is the fallacy which Hanover refers to as making the argument "inductively false".

We say that prayers being answered is the effect, and God's existence is the cause of this effect. God's existence causes prayers to be answered. However, it's an inverse fallacy to say that if prayers are answered then God exists. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you are saying that your prayers might still be answered even if God does not exist? So that an atheist could be justified in praying?

So you are saying that your prayers might still be answered even if God does not exist? So that an atheist could be justified in praying? — Leontiskos

There are all sorts of hypothetical entities that could answer prayers; devils, angels, fairies, wizards, extremely advanced aliens, the universe branching into a new timeline in accordance to one's will, etc. There's no reason to believe that it can only be the working of some sort of monotheistic creator deity (and certainly no reason to believe that it can only be the working of a specific religion's deity).

None of that matters. Just assume that the premise is true. The conclusion is still (superficially) counterintuitive.

The issue concerns making sense of the argument's validity, not proving or disproving its soundness.

So you are saying that your prayers might still be answered even if God does not exist? So that an atheist could be justified in praying? — Leontiskos

The inverse fallacy is the perfect example of the need for skepticism. When we establish a cause/effect relationship between two types of events, A and B, this is based on either noticing that the first brings about the second, or in the case of the op, assuming that the first brings about the second. When the relationship is well known, and well documented, we get accustomed to it, and this produces a corresponding certitude surrounding those events.

The problem is that we never know for sure whether or not something other than A might bring about the occurrence of B. Because some degree of uncertainty lingers, even though we might say with a great degree of certainty that A always produces B, we cannot validly conclude that if we have B there must have been A.

There are many very good examples of this. For instance, the boiling point of water. We see that 100 degrees Celsius causes water to boil. But we cannot say that if water is boiling its temperature has reached that point, because pressure plays a role to decrease boiling temperature.

This is why ancient skeptics like Socrates and Plato were so persistent in warning us about how the senses mislead us. It is through this process whereby our inductively produced customs are held to high esteem. You can see that in those days it was assumed that the sun orbiting the earth caused the appearance of sunrise and sunset. If we do not allow the skeptic's premise, that possibly something other than the sun orbiting the earth could cause sunrise and sunset, we deny the possibility of advancements to scientific knowledge.

None of that matters. Just assume that the premise is true. The conclusion is still (superficially) counterintuitive. — Michael

The occurrence of a counterintuitive conclusion is the argument which Aristotle used against sophistry. This is why he placed Intuition as the highest form of knowledge. The sophists, such as Zeno, could use logic to produce absurd conclusions. When a conclusion produced from valid logic is strongly counterintuitive, this indicates the need to address the premises. It is very likely that there is hidden falsity, and that's what Socrates and Plato were demonstrating was the trick of sophistry, to veil falsity within the premises.

The issue concerns making sense of the argument's validity, not proving or disprove its soundness. — Michael

Nah, that's boring, Benkei went through that already on the first page, and as far as I'm concerned nothing more needs to be said. The real issue is the question of how this form of logic can produce seemingly absurd conclusions. And that was demonstrated by Hanover, it separates the form from the content.

This, I've argued in other places is the problem with "formalism" in general, it is an attempt to separate form from content, and this cannot actually be done without rendering the logic as totally meaningless and useless. So what happens is that little snippets of content get hidden within the logical form of the argument, or else there's be no argument. And, content always contains some degree of uncertainty. Then the form, being the logical process itself, has room for error inherent within it, rendering this a less than perfect form of logic. That is how formalism contaminates logic with uncertainty, in its attempt to do the impossible, remove all uncertainty (content).

There are all sorts of hypothetical entities that could answer prayers; devils, angels, fairies, wizards, extremely advanced aliens, the universe branching into a new timeline in accordance to one's will, etc. There's no reason to believe that it can only be the working of some sort of monotheistic creator deity (and certainly no reason to believe that it can only be the working of a specific religion's deity). — Michael

Eh. If I ask you to do something and someone else does it then you haven't fulfilled my request. Pretty basic. Has my petition been granted? No, I don't think so, unless the petition was somehow made to no one in particular.

The problem is that we never know for sure whether or not something other than A might bring about the occurrence of B. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you seem to think that atheists should go ahead and pray. It doesn't make sense. If someone believes that person X does not exist then they should not petition person X. A petition/prayer is not offered in generality, to no one in particular.