Talk:Divine fallacy

Is this a fallacy, though?
Is this a fallacy, though? I mean, if no other option comes to mind, then you are warranted to think that there are no other options. It would certainly be a fallacy if the problem was merely one of imagination, not of possibility. For example, to say that 'the accused is guilty because his fingerprints were found on the scene in spite of him denying it, and he had motivation' is not fallacious. It may theoretically be possible that there appears further evidence to disprove the evidence or explain it in a way that the accused is not lying, but one wouldn't say it's a fallacy to think him guilty in light of no other explanations coming to mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sismetic (talk • contribs) 22:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * "you are warranted to think that there are no other options" - you are allowed to conclude this, but only if you are so incredibly smart and so incredibly knowledgeable that you would definitely have been able to find a natural explanation if there were one. Then your failure to come up with a natural explanation would mean that a supernatural one is the only option left.
 * So, is a divine miracle really the only way to keep you from finding an explanation? Then you must be a sort of god yourself. Are you?
 * Your fingerprint stuff is just a red herring. An accused being guilty is a given natural explanation, not a stopgap measure to be employed when all else fails, like gods, ghosts, aliens, or elves. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


 * "but only if you are so incredibly smart and so incredibly knowledgeable that you would definitely have been able to find a natural explanation if there were one" - Well, yes. I mean, after all, there's always the possibility of being mistaken in our assertions, but the thing is that something being improbable or judged to be improbable is a good reason to believe that. Let's put the example of coming into the room to find your girlfriend and a guy in underwear in bed. A possible explanation would be that yes, what she says is true that he's her gay cousin who came to visit but they both fell to the pool by accident and were changing clothes when mid-way through they were both overcome with a deep sense of sleepiness and accidentally fell asleep. Possible? Yes. Probable? No. Would that person be committing the fallacy of personal incredulity by not believing that? I would say that no, he's not being fallacious and he's warranted in not believing the story proposed, and while he can't prove it's false he's warranted in dismissing it as such.


 * "Your fingerprint stuff is just a red herring. An accused being guilty is a given natural explanation, not a stopgap measure to be employed when all else fails, like gods, ghosts, aliens, or elves" - I'm also questioning the relevant similar fallacies that are lumped together. It's part of the same and not a red herring. The bottom line of my questioning is that people are warranted in believing or disbelieving a claim based on its perceived probability and likelihood. If the likelihood is low(incredulity) then the person is warranted to disbelieve it. If something is truly unimaginable(as in it's very unlikely or seemingly logically impossible) then it's not fallacious to dismiss it as an option, and if removing those options the only ones remaining(or the ones likelier) are things deemed as supernatural(because they wouldn't necessarily be supernatural. For example, if Bigfoot were presented to be real and the most likely explanation for a certain phenomena, say, a certain footprint or carcass, would be that Bigfoot is real, then the explanation would most likely be a natural one even though Bigfoot is perceived as supernatural.) it wouldn't be fallacious to go with them. That's why it's an informal fallacy. Informal fallacies are context-dependent and are not fallacious in every application. --Sismetic (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * All this is beside the point. You are talking about underwear and Bigfoot and carcasses, you are talking about everything except what this article is actually about. But the really big red herring is: this is not what this talk page is about. This Talk page is for suggestions to improve the article. Your thoughts about the subject are not just wrong and misguided, they are in the wrong place. Even if you wanted your ideas incorporated in the article, we could not do that because of WP:OR.
 * So, please go somewhere else. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:08, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Issues
In trying to find multiple sources I can only find any mention of this back to Stephen Law. No other person has written a cited source.

They are not listed in common educational sources of informal fallacies only on random websites and comments. This argument simply invalidates any abductive reasoning such as that done in science. Scientists thought that germs didn't exist in the early 1800s no one accused the other person of argument of personal incredulity, rather they present alternative models. For example if in a courtroom during the closing comments:
 * 1) Jury: Based on the available reports and the fingerprints on the barrel of the gun, we conclude that they are guilty
 * 2) Defense: It could be a look-a-like with the exact same fingerprint
 * 3) Jury: we find that unlike--
 * 4) Defense: Personal Incredulity!

Lastly in response to the divine and on the flip-side: X the evidence points to God Y God is a ridiculous idea That would also count as an argument from Personal Incredulity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Ryan E. (talk • contribs) 23:05, 7 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Published sources are available. Many seem to be just passing mentions, but a few that look somewhat promising are . —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:38, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Ontological argument
Is there any relation between this Divine fallacy and the old Ontological argument by Anselm of Canterbury? His Ontological Argument states somehow that 1) You cannot imagine God as not been perfect, 2) if He didn't exist He would not be perfect, ergo3) you must imagine God as existing. This seems to me to correspond to "arguing for a conclusion on the ground that it is unimaginable for it not to be true".

PS By the way this could open another can of worms, as such an argument doesn't seem to prove the existence of God, but on the other side does imply that you contradict yourself if you don't believe in His existence. The same way as a computer passing the Turing Test doesn't prove that this computer thinks, but forces you to regard him as if he did. 2003:F5:6F0D:F700:D18A:6988:3A83:8AF3 (talk) 13:59, 15 December 2019 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

Near-duplicate page?
This page is almost exactly the same as Argument from incredulity but with fewer citations. Half of the text is exactly the same. Shouldn't one of them be a redirect? 65.189.28.135 (talk) 11:55, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What is more: "The argument from personal Incredulity" redirects to the one, and "argument from personal incredulity" to the other. This whole section should be cleaned up. 46.114.108.235 (talk) 15:42, 4 September 2020 (UTC)