Thread by @SteveMcRae_

"I'm confused because normally they list next to each name whether it's a theist or an atheist so we can give priority to theists and next to yours it says neither and that's not possible" -Matt Dillahunty 4/17/2017



WRONG. WRONG and WRONG.

Matt is using a trivial semantic argument to try to claim something is impossible. To show how inane this is:

Let's define "not theist" as “dog”.
Theist or dog
Not theist then dog.
:. It is impossible to be anything but a theist or a dog. 🙄

This is just semantic nonsense.

To show something is impossible need prove it using logic by like a proof by contradiction or by modal logic (~◊ = not possible). The most we can show using logic deductively and not trivial usage of semantics is:

LNC :=~(p V ~p)
p V ~p ≡ T (Negation law)
Theist or Not Theist

So can Matt show given ∀x(P(x)) given P(x)="can be neither theist nor atheist" without loss of generality (∀x(P(x)) is true x ∈ S) that ~◊x to be neither theist nor atheist by proof by contradiction and that P(x) is false (⊥) s.t. x can not be neither theist nor atheist?

Since theist and not theist are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive (if x ∈ theist then x ∉ not theist. ) then x must either be theist or not theist and can not be neither by necessity and it is impossible for x to not be in at least one of those two sets.

I would like to see a proof that one *must* by necessity and starting with axioms that it is "not possible" to be neither theist nor atheist as a matter of logical necessity rather than resort to silly semantic arguments which are not by necessity and a modal scope fallacy.

@landonnoll Your thoughts?
@zeemo_n If you can clean this up by all means, but I think you get my gist here. Matt is claiming something is not possible by fiat. I want to make into blog post, so can you help check this? :)

@Cheshireviqq @NickSoutter @SweetHeathen @booleanenator

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Air date on this was actually Easter Sunday 4/16/2017