I’m testing out a new argument with a different framework to avoid any issues with people claiming something isn’t well defined. Let me know if there are any logical issues you find if you could please! I have specifically avoided any terminology of “atheist”, “theist”, or “agnostic”, to show the logic is valid and sound regardless of what you want the semantic content to represent. I am seeing if this may be a more effective way to explain logical relationships and what “fence sitting” means, and not get uselessly bogged down with semantics and red herrings that have zero impact on the validity and soundness of an argument. Let me know if there are any logical issues you find if you could please!
Prior objections to save everyone time:1) We can observe a cat, so the argument is not valid.
Validity only goes to the logical structure of the argument. The fact we can observe a cat or not has no relevancy to the logical argument.
2) Premises are not true, therefore not sound.
Which premises are not true? This is an informal logical argument obviously, and to not be sound one would have to show a premise not to be the case, such as showing B~p doesn’t logically entail ~Bp for example.
3) I am a mean poopiehead who kicks puppies.
This could very well be true, but doesn’t make the argument invalid.
Lack of Belief Catism Argument:
Objective: To show that lack of belief acatists who hold that acatism is merely a lack of belief that cats exist are in fact “fence sitting” on the proposition of cats existing.
Cat: A small lovable furry ball of love or (Felis catus) is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal.
Lack of belief catist say they merely lack a belief in Cat and make no other definitive statement. This logically is represented as ~Bp and sometimes also referred to as “weak catism/implicit catism”.
An acatist who claims there are no Cats is logically denoted by B~p. (Sometimes referred to as “strong catism/explicit catism)
A catist who claims there is at least one Cat is logically denoted by Bp
B~p would logically entail ~Bp.
(This means a catist who believes no Cats exists, does not believe Cats exists).
Stop there to make sure that makes sense to you. If a person says there are no Cats, it just follows they do not have a Cat belief so they don’t believe Cats exist)
The logic works like this:
If someone just holds to ~Bp but does not hold to B~p the only other option is they hold to ~Bp ^ ~B~p which means they do not believe Cat exists AND they do not believe Cats do not exist. All is happening here is we are negating (B~p) right, so that is ~(B~p) or just ~B~p. Visually you can see this:
p= “at least one Cat exist”
~p= “it is not the case that Cat exist”
~Bp= I do not believe at least one Cat exist
B~p= I believe it is not the case that at least one Cat exist
~B~p= I do not believe it is not the case that Cat exist
So now:
If a person only holds to ~Bp, but fails to hold to B~p they hold to ~Bp ^ ~B~p. Then they are fence sitting between Bp and ~B~p.
Bp <——- ~Bp ^ ~B~p —–> B~p
QED
