I agree, this kind of post hoc rationalization floods the ranks of the religious and "spiritual" alike. I often hear it most from the New Ager's, the Theists simply say their version: "god did it for a reason".

I used to have a I Ching book and would ask a question, then toss some coins.  Guess what: EVERY QUESTION WAS ANSWERED!  It was a miracle!

"I Ching, will I go out with Lotte?" (I was in highschool...)

I Ching: "The horses drawn for war will be aligned in defensive position..."

"YEs!  Thats a clear sign!"


This is the same thing that happens with people who comb the OT for prophesies, or Kabalaists, or ID'ists.

It's trying to apply a pattern to a random event and making meaning out of it. We are mythmaking animals. We excel at this.

It doesn't make it objectively true.

I have come to the conclusion that you simply try logic as another vehicle to spew ad homs.  Its sad that you fail so miserably at both.

Read up on logical fallacies. Special Pleading, Argument from Ignorance, non sequiter and Category Error would be a great start.  You've committed all of these in record time.

And your whole premise relies on the fallacy: Post hoc ergo propter hoc, but you use a Straw Man to prop it up.



edit: btw, you are right that if you can't understand the reason for something it doesn't mean there isn't a reason. Determinism covers this nicely, as does Metholodogical Materialism.  You are simply making a claim of something that hasn't been shown to exist in the first place.  You need to prove that your "chess master" exists.

  Apparently you hadn't observed my Check Mate. Just because you can't explain an action doesn't mean you can jump to any conclusion you want.  Perhaps the "chess master" really was confused.  Perhaps the "chess master" is the observer and the poster: a Trinity of Raca's.

Baldar, please get this through your head: in the context of what we are talking about:

An event happens, and someone declares "it happened for a reason".  I claim that there is no reason to think that it did, it could have just been chance, and until evidence presents itself, I see no reason to think it is something else.

You are already contructing an invisible chess game, with Masters toppling pieces, etc.

In the context of what we are talking about: WHAT GAME?  You haven't shown there IS a game in the first place, let alone tie it to the cause of an event.

Even if you somehow, miraculously showed a "Big Chess Game in the Sky" existed, you'd have to show the connection between the Game and the event.

You have only made the claim that a "chess game" exists. I am not agnostic about your chess game. I don't believe that it exists. I don't bleieve there are Chess Mssters in the sky.

I am not responsible to disprove your dellusion.

When you start responding to yourself is a good time for me to take my leave.

We will assume you can't show there is some "Chess Game in the Sky" and just claim it exists.

Is this argument different than 'does god exist?' If god (all knowing and all powerful) exists than clearly everything happens for His reasons. If not I can't think of anywhere to put responsibility for everything other that quantum hijinx (randomness)

As an unsupported statement this is just tripe. It is the very success of reductionism that makes it such a strong doctrine.  I would never claim that it has all the answers, but comparatively speaking, in accounting for much of the physical world it has no serious cotender.  When it comes to the social/psychological phenomena, there are other, 'mysterion' theories.  This, I think, reflects our current weakness in truly philosophical foundations for defining 'the mental'. 


This too is nonsense.  There is nothing in western doctrines of free will that is necessary to the establishment of a stable society.  Baldar had a point when he referred to high complexity blinding people to the nexus of forces and causes that might lead lead to an outcome.  I realise that he used the metaphor of the chess players to push a line concerning 'purpose' and 'reason'.  I totally disagree with that, but the epistemological transcendence of the physical world is not a reason for us to assume that there is a 'something' that DOES understand it and manipulates it. 


It is not a logical sequence to go from 'there is a possibility' to 'can never be discovered'.  This 'prejudicial philosophy' has underpinned the processes that have given us all our drugs, high yield GM crops, MRI, the Might of the most powerful nation the world has ever known, hedge funds, coca cola, etc.  It even contains its own 'let-out' clause - show us some evidence and we'll investigate.  Just listing the current problems is not an argument that a methodology has failed (yet).  Show us the alternative that has anything like the same success.


No it is not.


most christians take unquestioningly and without examination both the results of that 'ability' and what it consists in.  Therefore they arrive inevitably at...


All the great superstructure of this religion (and most others) is founded on the phenomenon of consciousness.  The tables turn here.  Because this pernicious philosophy of mysticism has a blind spot, it is incapable of understanding the physical nature of the mental. Sadly, it does not have a let-out.    (I was amazed to see the 'without bias'!!!)