It seems you're claiming that you cannot have a valid argument without true premises. — AmadeusD

What I'm saying is the other way around: you cannot have a sound argument without true premises. You cannot have a sound argument without true premises and validity.

For example:

For an argument to be sound, it has to be valid already. A requirement for soundness is the truth of the premises, whereas validity is to do with how the rules of logic are applied. — Hallucinogen

What I am saying is that sound arguments are a subset of valid arguments. — Hallucinogen

This is why I said this :

A true premise with a false conclusion is not sound — AmadeusD

Because it isn't valid. — Hallucinogen

Sound premise + valid argument = sound conclusion. I can't see how a true premise could lead to a false conclusion without an invalid argument.

But you said this is false because:

Your premises can be entirely false — AmadeusD

And I got lost because your answer was no longer talking about a true premise.

If your premises are empirically wrong, the argument is unsound, but can be considered valid — AmadeusD

I agree with that. I didn't realize by "supported conclusion" in your other statement only meant following validly (from the false premise). I thought it meant a true conclusion.

P1: Hitler was German
P2: Hitler carried out his acts in service of Germany
C: Hitler was a German dictator.

This is false. He was an Austrian dictator of Germany.

But the above is a valid argument. In the world where Hitler was German, it holds. However, P1 is untrue, therefore it is not a Sound argument.

Another example:

P1: It is raining today where i am
P2: I am outside, unshaded
C: I am wet with rain. — AmadeusD

OK, but I misunderstood what you earlier said. I thought you were saying that a false premise with a valid argument could produce a true conclusion.

So in summary, my answer to why validity is related to truth is that it preserves the truth of a sound premise. In other words, validity is required for soundness, or a requirement for truth.

False.
Your premises can be entirely false — AmadeusD

Why are you bringing up false premises?
What you're responding to is my response to this comment:

A true premise with a false conclusion is not sound — AmadeusD

I'm going on the basis of this:

Soundness: An argument is sound if it meets these two criteria: (1) It is valid. (2) Its premises are true. — colorado.edu

What I am saying is that sound arguments are a subset of valid arguments.

The addition of the premises being true creates soundness. — AmadeusD

I'm not disagreeing that true premises makes an argument sound. I don't see how you could have the type of argument you're using to illustrate your point, where one has false premises validly leading to a "supported" conclusion. Could you give an example?

What my first response to your statement

Validity doesn't have much of a relationship with truth. — AmadeusD

ought to have been was that validity is a requirement for soundness.

Consistency with reality is a form of evidence, so if one theory is more consistent than others, that serves as evidence for that theory.

Do not attempt to argue with Me, worm. Cower in fear of My wrath. — unenlightened

But since unenlightened is not God — unenlightened

Soundness is a relationship between true premises and a valid conclusion. — AmadeusD

I agree, but before we were talking about soundness and validity in terms of how they differ. You began by saying that validity doesn't have much to do with truth, but now you're pointing out what they have to do with each other in terms of soundness. For an argument to be sound, it has to be valid already. A requirement for soundness is the truth of the premises, whereas validity is to do with how the rules of logic are applied.

A true premise with a false conclusion is not sound — AmadeusD

Because it isn't valid.

That's soundness — AmadeusD

No, soundness is the truth of the premises, not the relationship it has to the conclusion.

Validity is mere formal agreement between premises and conclusion. — AmadeusD

No, an argument can be invalid with a false conclusion that still doesn't follow from a false premise.
Validity consists of the rules of logic being applied consistently to each line of the argument.

If your premises are empirically wrong, the argument is unsound — AmadeusD

Correct, so your first sentence was false. Soundness isn't a relationship between premise and conclusion.

Validity doesn't have much of a relationship with truth. — AmadeusD

Validity is the relationship a true premise has with a true conclusion, just like invalidity is the relationship a false premise has with true premises.

But since unenlightened is not God, there is a contradiction. — unenlightened

You didn't say unenlightened isn't God, before. As far as I could see, you only changed one word to another.

If everything is evidence that God did it, then everything is evidence that unenlightened did it. — unenlightened

This is now no longer the case, because now you've added the information that unenlightened isn't God.

Hence, if "God did it" explains O relative to other members of T that it is a member of E, that doesn't entail that changing "God did it" to "unenlightened" implies that "unenlightened" is a member of E, because they don't have the same intension or extension.

I have another theory: — "unenlightened did it". — unenlightened

Changing the semantics doesn't change the validity of the argument.

You have a whole lot of work to do on - at least - defining your terms and how they relate to each other. — tim wood

It seems to me like you bring up this red-herring as a way of avoiding the OP of this thread.

Well if "God did it" explains O relative to other members of T, it would seem "God did it" is evidenced relative to the others.

Why would that be false?

Scientific evidence depends entirely on repetition in controlled environments where particular experiences composed of beliefs, desires, motivations and various subjective phenomena are neutralized. — JuanZu

When science is used to study something other than those subjective phenomena, but not when it is studying the subjective phenomena themselves. And by “neutralized” I assume you mean “controlled”. Science cannot remove such confounding factors from the picture entirely.

Subjective experiences and scientific evidence are not the same thing. — JuanZu

Of course they aren't, but the two are intertwined.

In subjective experience that which validates a belief does not escape the particular subjective experience. — JuanZu

It does, validation is a part of logic and logic is the very system that provides any invariant relationship between subjective experience and an external referent.

In scientific evidence that which validates theory necessarily escapes particular subjective experience. — JuanZu

The method of validation does, but scientific evidence itself doesn't, because scientific evidence always consists of subjectively experienced data. All observations involve subjective experience.

When we compare both types of validation we realize how poor is the validation of beliefs on the religious plane — JuanZu

There's only one means of validation. The difference between validating religious and scientific claims is the rarity and predictability of the data types.

It is your job to say what you are talking about. — I like sushi

And the OP does this. I can't answer your question unless I know how broadly you're using the term phenomena -- are you using it the same way I did in some of my replies later in the thread? Those should answer your question.
What I claim to have presented is an argument for Christianity.

There is no argument. — I like sushi

The OP fits the definition of an argument.

When I look outside my house I experience seeing my car for "biological reasons," but this doesn't undermine my claim that my car is "really there." — Count Timothy von Icarus

The inference is meant to be about prayer specifically, it's not meant to hold under generalization. It's intended to clarify where prayer-induced experiences might come from. A critic of prayer-induced experiences isn't going to think I'm disputing that cars have a non-hallucinatory reality.

There is a phenomenon referred to as Christianity.
Are you saying anything else other than this? — I like sushi

I can't answer that question without knowing how broadly you mean "phenomenon".
The argument discerns between observations and hallucinations, and concludes there is evidence for Christianity consisting of the former.

You said address what bert1 was responding to (180proof's post), not bert1's reply to 180proof. — Lionino

Yes, your comment would have to support what 180proof was arguing, for it to be an effective reply to bert1. Like I said, agreeing with 180proof isn't enough for this. What I'm trying to draw your attention to is that the comments by 180proof and bert1 copied the pattern of argument I presented, while yours deviated from it. So it failed to either support what 180proof was saying or to address my side of the argument.

Anyhow, not only that but bert1 himself said he agreed, not just 180proof. — Lionino

This doesn't mean that what you said addresses the argument, even though theirs did. Simply agreeing with them doesn't add up to that.

And it is not like what I said has any room for disagreement, it is something obvious. — Lionino

You could point out a wide range of obvious things that don't address the argument.

The fact that you and 180proof are on the same side doesn't mean your reply to bert1 addresses bert1's reply to 180proof.

The Bible says the Sun sets on the West. We see the sun sets on the West. Is that evidence of Christianity? Of course not. — Lionino

This isn't a response to what bert1 was responding to, though.

Well, this is like saying

'If some observation corresponds to some Star Wars-specific proposition, then it is evidence that Jediism is true.' — 180 Proof

I don't see a problem with this. If we observed midichlorions, it would indicate Jediism is true.

Too subjective, you need some objective way to verify that the experience is veridical. — Sam26

This would be the fact that many people have them, along with a logical model (theology) that provides rational support for any given claim.

Attacks are restarting now that there is more dry weather. In 2023 Russia took 1000 sq km of territory while Ukraine only 500 sq km. In 2024 Ukraine hasn't taken anything except an island near Kherson, meanwhile Russia has taken Avdiivka and Bakhmut. So far this year Russia has taken about 450 sq km, which is almost as much as its net gains in the whole of last year. This can't continue for Ukraine. But it's actually going to get worse. Russia can mobilise far more soldiers, but Ukraine already has mobilised everything it can, with no reserves. Almost all the men over 18 who would fight already are fighting. Ukraine's strategy is heavily reliant on drones, which you can't win a war with as they don't have offensive capabilities. Russia is fighting with a sustainable strategy, deploying troops with tank, artillery and missile support, enabled by its ability to replace this equipment. Russia is now making a lot of precise missile strikes, which it wasn't before 2024. Before 2024, Ukraine's interception rate was about 90%, but now that has dropped to 50%. I think the slow downward spiral has begun for Ukraine. By the end of the year, Russia might have taken another 700 sq km, possibly more if Ukraine gets pushed past a tipping point.

You first need to distinguish evidence of Christianity from interpretations of "Christianity" — sime

Evidence is a true interpretation.

Do you really wish to argue that mystical visions are externally related to Christian concepts and present inferential evidence that those Christian concepts denote 'facts'? — sime

Yes, they're rare subjective occurrences for which religions propose models. They offer a means of true interpretation.

If you can't figure out what's wrong with #2, you are not thinking or engaging in good faith. — Lionino

You should state what's wrong with it.

It is comical that God intentionally bothers to mysteriously appear to random people at random times — Lionino

Well, you made this up. God is appearing to all people at all times. The universe He's thinking up is in your face; this can't be avoided.

yet stays quiet when a little Nepali child is being ripped to shreds by a Bengali tiger. — Lionino

This doesn't support anything you've said.

Curing children from cancer is somehow a violation of free will — Lionino

Another statement that wasn't agreed on -- God does this often.

You are scurrying through abstracts like a politician to find convenient statements — Lionino

What convenient statements?

“Prayer induced experiences” - what is that to you? — Fire Ologist

A person sees an image, such as an apparition, or experiences their body in another location during prayer.

I’d like to see how you distinguish “prayer induced experiences” from “experiences of observations”. — Fire Ologist

For something to reach the status of an observation, the referent in the observation must have some degree of replicability across observers. Prayer induced experiences of certain descriptions can meet this.

“Bible-specific propositions” - probably just need an example, one that cashes out with the other terms using an example would help. — Fire Ologist

That Jesus was crucified/resurrected, that there are angels composed of a winged cow, lion, eagle and man.

“Christianity is true”. Do you mean objectively, verifiably true, like the earth revolves around the sun type truth? — Fire Ologist

I don't acknowledge any other type.

I think I need to see an example that shows how a person’s prayers are answered so to speak in a way that verifies a connection between the prayer and the observable experiences of that person — Fire Ologist

The experience and its correspondence to a proposition in the Bible itself is sufficient, we don't need to know what the prayer was "answering".

Someone giving a specific account of a prayer leading to proof of a Christian proposition in themselves, that is evidence of faith at work. — Fire Ologist

Yes, because a logical argument has to show something multiple third parties can use to see the same thing, to see whatever is the conclusion of the argument — Fire Ologist

That is what the argument does, it shows that an observation specific to Christianity is consistent with reality. Evidence as defined premise (1) is acceptable to multiple third parties.

I’m saying to the third party scientists running tests on believers and taking as objects things like Christian propositions, and prayer-induced experiences, all the scientists are left with (if they believe in the honesty of the test subject) is someone who is demonstrating faith. — Fire Ologist

I'm not seeing how this follows. Do you mean to contrast faith with evidence? If not, then OK.

They don’t see the reason that test subject sees a reason to connect the Christian proposition to the prayer. You don’t see the reasons as a third party, you just see their reasons (that the scientific observer didn’t directly access) — Fire Ologist

But this is to deny that scientists have reliable means of testing subjective self-reported phenomena. They do, and it produces replicable results. In the case of prayer-induced visions, that should even be clear to a non-scientist who merely looks at a significant number of cases. There are clear patterns in people's subjective experiences.

and would be better to call this evidence of what faith is, namely, someone in the act of believing something) rather than any proof about Truth of the thing they believe (how the christian proposition relates to their own prayer.) — Fire Ologist

This just insists that the claim isn't based on evidence without argument, but only by referring to it as faith and not truth. You cannot refute the argument by simply calling it faith, and faith in turn not constituting evidence by definition.

All of your premises are wrong except for number 1. — Lionino

Well, you're free to explain if you want to.

Meanwhile children dying from cancer: — Lionino

This doesn't seem to be relevant to the argument.

You are not saying any of this is about what's true, it's merely evidence for the person having the experience. — Tom Storm

Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

People believe all kinds of absurdities based on bad evidence. — Tom Storm

What an absurdity is and what bad evidence would be is what is under contention.

Is this intended to be an argument? — bert1

Yes.

Is (4) an assumption? — bert1

No, there's no evolutionary or brain-physiological reason why praying would cause an immersive experience.

Granting (4), doesn't this apply to other religions as well? — bert1

Yes.

Are you as happy for this line of thinking to support other religions than Christianity? — bert1

Up to their degree of logical and model-theoretic consistency.

Perhaps you think that all religions are culture-specific approaches to one spiritual reality? — bert1

Yes.

Conversely, the Christian vison confirms that Islam is not true and Jesus is God. How do you resolve this psycho-cultural conundrum? — Tom Storm

The first thing to be determined would be whether Muslims do have visions of Muhammad, or that they have any that would contradict other religions. I've heard of several cases of Muslims having visions of Jesus and becoming Christian, but never Muslims having visions of Muhammad, although that may be due to language barriers.

In any such case, contradictions between observations are interpreted within a model. A model can establish the underlying explanation through having criteria for what kind of theology each observation is consistent with. It could be that a given observation is consistent with a theology that doesn't have certain moral characteristics established within the model. This would allocate any observation that would be Islam-specific to having a different explanation, for example, not coming from God but some other metaphysical source, but observations Muslims make that are consistent with the model at the global level would be accepted.

In other words, you need a model to interpret observations, and the most invariant features of that model are established first. Apparent contradictions at more specific levels are interpreted afterward.

I am wondering if you are arguing that all religions are equally proven true if followers have specific religious experiences? — Tom Storm

Those that are consistent with the model can be proven true. The model is necessary to interpret what they mean, be they in different languages as they may. Any that have a convergent meaning with other observations consistent with the model can be accepted.

It would be far more convincing if those people had visons or experiences of a god outside of their cultural expectations — Tom Storm

This happens to Muslims and Buddhists.

like Kali or an Australian Aboriginal creator spirit. — Tom Storm

These theologies may lack important qualities that God might want us to understand. They might have been adequate for guiding the destiny of their native populations before converging with the rest of humanity, but it could be the case that God uses visions to point a person in the direction of a more sophisticated religion when their free will can be relied on to get them to the correct destination.

The fact that someone in a Christian country sees Christian vision just taps into expectations. Hallucinations or psychological experiences tend to be tied to the culture you know. — Tom Storm

But this doesn't prove that they are a product of culture. Consequently, it doesn't prove point (4) false.

Can you cite reputable studies? — Tom Storm

Such scientific studies are not difficult to find. Examples; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31162335/ , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20472012/ , https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00070/full

“because I experienced God, I know God is true.” — Fire Ologist

My argument is about gathering evidence for a religion, not proving God.

That argument only works for that one person. — Fire Ologist

Yes, it's just evidence. It provides that person with an individual basis to interpret the spiritual world.

but without firsthand experience of this prayer induced evidence, the praying one is asking the other scientist/logicians to take his word on it. — Fire Ologist

For those of us who haven't had such experiences, one could build a model from the internally-consistent religious experiences other people have had. All of them seem to involve a metaphysical basis of life, certain metaphysical operations such as prayer, a distinction between good and evil, and so on. This permits us to build a global model.

Someone giving a specific account of a prayer leading to proof of a Christian proposition in themselves, that is evidence of faith at work. — Fire Ologist

I'm not sure what you mean, do you mean to contradict the argument?

But the link between Christianity and prayer-induced experiences is as invisible to the scientist — Fire Ologist

Scientists have established methods for investigating subjective phenomena, such as hallucinations, out of body experiences, neuropathic pain and other private experiences that lack an adequate scientific model.

We can meet people who have had direct experiences (during prayer) of Mohammad and Allah. Are they true too? — Tom Storm

It wouldn't contradict the argument if it were.

All religions contain people convinced they have had direct and personal experiences of gods, angels, demons, spirits, etc. All religions also have their miracle stories. — Tom Storm

Yes, so since religions have certain aspects in common, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping those personal experiences having subjective qualitiies specific to the experiencer, so long as universal features aren't contradicted.

, from such disparate and contradictory sources — Tom Storm

Where was the contradiction?

How exactly do we determine which of these stories (...) are true and which are hallucinations, mistakes, or fabrications? — Tom Storm

Using a model that establishes the criteria for each category.

This is equivalent to saying what I was saying before: according to you, to rationally believe X, one must know X (saying it is a fact is redundant). — Bob Ross

So what is your response to my claim that to rationally believe X, one has to know X?

I don’t think one needs to know X to believe X — Bob Ross

I said to rationally believe X. Do you think one needs to know X to rationally believe X?

"To rationally believe X, I have to know what X means"
This is perfectly compatible with agnostic atheism. An agnostic atheist knows what it means for god(s) not to exist, so they can “rationally” believe that god(s) don’t exist without knowing god(s) don’t exist. — Bob Ross

I was giving you an example of atemporal dependency, not telling you what is sufficient for rational belief. Knowing what X means is required for rational belief in X, but it is obviously not sufficient. It doesn't establish that an agnostic atheist can rationally believe that God doesn’t exist without knowing God doesn’t exist, only that they can't without knowing what it means. The connection between rational belief and knowledge is just the connection between mental representation and informational content. For some kinds of information, there's a temporal dependency, but there are always atemporal dependencies (rationality itself, semantics etc).

Your OP was attacking agnostic atheist in the sense that one needs knowledge of X to believe X — Bob Ross

Under rationality*

To have a belief about presidents, you need to know what "presidents" means.
To have a belief about who will become president in the future, I have to know what "becoming president in the future" means.
These are both examples of "To rationally believe X, I have to know what X means".
Another such relationship: "To rationally believe X, I have to know X is a fact"

I don’t see how any of that is atemporal. In order to know what “becoming president in the future” means to believe Bob is going to be the next president, I need to know the former before the latter. — Bob Ross

As soon as you know what X means, you're mentally representing it, so you believe what it means. There isn't a delay. The atemporality is between the two.

Is believing a ridged state for you? Are you equally sure about all your beliefs? — mentos987

No, I have different degrees of certainty in my beliefs. Some are based on more knowledge than others.

how do I non-temporally acquire knowledge of X and then a belief in X without that inevitably being a temporal process? — Bob Ross

I didn't say this. I gave an example of a kind of belief that can turn out to be irrational or rational on some temporal dependency.

"No, I can have an irrational belief that turns out to be incorrect, based on fallacy or just lack of knoweldge, or I can have a rational belief that turns out to be correct based on knowledge."

That’s not what you implied thought with:

"I have to know what the president of the United States is in order to have a belief about who will become president in the future." — Bob Ross

Why is it necessary for one of those two statements of mine to imply the other?
Of course the former doesn't imply the latter. The latter is a much simpler claim about rational beliefs than what the former says about rational beliefs that have some temporal dependency. They are not in contradiction, either.

This implies that one only needs some knowledge which is not the thing about to be beleived for that belief to be rational — Bob Ross

Because you insisted on talking about beliefs with temporal dependency for rationality.
So I gave you an example of those, and now you're writing as if you're undermining the general depency of rational belief in X on knowledge of X.

To have a belief about presidents, you need to know what "presidents" means.
To have a belief about who will become president in the future, I have to know what "becoming president in the future" means.
Those are both examples of atemporal logical/semantic dependency of rational belief on knowledge that beliefs possessing temporal dependency also have.

Which one seems more relevant to philosophy of religion's terminology? — Lionino

It's you that said one is more relevant than the other, not me. I'd say "relevance" of a definition comes down to popularity and history.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the OP mentions dictionaries and definitions at many points — Lionino

As a way of debunking what the OP is aimed at debunking - the idea that definitions prove what things are.

and some arguments seem to be based on these definitions — Lionino

They aren't.

This whole argument references the sourced definition of atheism you used. — Lionino

The argument doesn't depend on the definition, it mentions it as an example of how atheism should be defined based on the argument.

Let's see what the relevant dictionaries say:

A Dictionary of Atheism Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee: "A belief in the non-existence of a God or gods, or (more broadly) an absence of belief in their existence".
A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.) Simon Blackburn: "Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none."
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.) Andrew M. Colman: "Rejection of belief in God. atheist n. One who rejects belief in God."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World: "The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove the gods’." — Lionino

And they aren't even incompatible with the definition I gave or the OP either. So you aren't even proving me wrong by pointing these out.

Let's see what the relevant dictionaries say: — Lionino

How are you deciding "relevant", other than as a way of describing the reference that supports your own view?

I should point out that appealing to dictionaries is going to be completely fruitless for your side of the argument, since dictionaries aren't reason-giving.

Hence, the OP.

This sort of “logical dependency” you described is not atemporal. — Bob Ross

Then I don't know what your criteria for atemporality is or how you're reaching any conclusion about what is temporal and what isn't.

Exactly, so you could believe that the next president will be Bob without knowing it: — Bob Ross

No, I can have an irrational belief that turns out to be incorrect, based on fallacy or just lack of knoweldge, or I can have a rational belief that turns out to be correct based on knowledge.

that’s exactly how agnostic atheism works. — Bob Ross

It doesn't work at all, it pushes together agnosticism, defined as lack of knowledge, together with atheism, a knowledge claim regarding the same thing.

You have now conflated the knowledge used to formulate the belief in X with the need for knowledge of X to formulate the belief in X. — Bob Ross

The "need" is rationality, it's not being conflated with knowledge itself. One arrives at belief from knowledge through rationality.