Examples of the argument from incredulity.

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Nessie
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Re: Examples of the argument from incredulity.

Post by Nessie »

Stubble is at it again, he is the gift that keeps on giving;

viewtopic.php?p=22178#p22178
In short, I feel that we are all, including yourself, owed history that reflects reality, not fables about piles of dead jews spread across half a continent, murdered in ironic and ridiculous ways (sardine method, diesel exhaust).
https://effectiviology.com/argument-from-incredulity/

"The argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone concludes that since they can’t believe something is true, then it must be false, and vice versa."
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Wetzelrad
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Re: Examples of the argument from incredulity.

Post by Wetzelrad »

Nessie wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 7:33 am
Archie wrote: Wed Feb 18, 2026 7:40 pm This argument against the reality of the Santa Claus story is fallacious according to Nessie's interpretation:

"That Santa could deliver billions of presents in one night would require him to deliver thousands of presents per second which is just totally unbelievable."

This would be "trying to work out" how Santa could deliver so many presents which is not allowed, according to Nessie.
You are revealing that you still do not understand the fallacy. It is evidenced that it is impossible for a man, to get a reindeer drawn sleigh, to fly around the world, delivering presents at any rate, let alone thousands per second.
Can Nessie show us that "evidence"?

It seems Nessie "cannot work out, to his satisfaction, or believe, how it was possible to" deliver all the presents, and therefore "concludes it did not happen."

Nessie does not believe the physical evidence of gifts signed by Santa Clause are sufficient to prove his mass philanthropy. Nessie thinks that because he does not find witnesses to Santa and his giftgiving convincing, that is evidence to prove he doesn't exist.

https://effectiviology.com/argument-from-incredulity/

"The argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone concludes that since they can’t believe something is true, then it must be false, and vice versa."

Next Nessie will tell us that Santa's giftgiving "is prima facie implausible, therefore it did not happen and we hardly need to bother with the evidence!"
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pilgrimofdark
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Re: Examples of the argument from incredulity.

Post by pilgrimofdark »

HansHill wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 12:35 am Santa deniers always seem to forget that he literally freezes time.

Checkmate.
I'm a survivor of Christmas. This is my eyewitness testimony, written in 1943 in the forest. Everything is true. I can never forget what happened to me.

Deniers claim that their belief that Santa doesn't exist is evidence he doesn't exist. But those people are frankly idiotic.

For so-called Santa revisionism to be true, a conspiracy involving tens of millions of people, each wrapping presents and placing them under Christmas trees covered in tinsel and Christmas lights, would need to happen every single year on the exact same date, which is impossible.

The Ten Months of Christmas

It happened in October 2021, at the time of the Lenten fast. I was picked up from my winter hearth where the stockings hung by the fireplace.

A large man dressed in red, the color of the blood of my brothers, who was the Santafuhrer, drove down the lane with his whip in his hand. He was accompanied by his large beast Barudolph, who was famous for biting the genitals and buttocks of my nation and people.

Forced to march to the Sleighschlagplatz, I and 130 other people were forced onto covered sleigh wagons.

"Roasted chestnuts," we cried. But the Elfkrainians only robbed us. We got no Christmas chestnuts, and no sugar cookies for nearly 10 hours. On the first day, we were mercilessly beaten by partridgefuhrers in pear trees.

For the next year, we rode the sleigh through the frigid weather, arriving at the North Pole in November 2021. 90% of the people had died. We were never given hot chocolate or peppermint. On the second day, we were fed only moldy turtle dove meat.

When we arrived at the North Pole, a switching sleigh took us in fives to the death camp, named "Candy Cane Corner." The entire time, we were mercilessly beaten by the Elfscharfuhrers. None of us knew what was in store for us. On the third day, I was forced to build a zoo for French hens.

As an experienced carpenter, I was given access to all of the workshops. I hadn't worked as a carpenter for 20 years, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered. As more people died in the "factory" of the Santafuhrers, I grew apathetic. On the fourth day, we decided that the signal for our rebellion would be calling birds.

It was only after we had wrapped approximately 3.5 million presents that I was allowed my ham dinner and hot cocoa with marshmallows. It was then that we all knew we were going to die. On the fifth day, the Elfkrainians beat to death all of the workers for hiding five gold rings.

As we slaves were forced by the Elfkrainians to drag presents to the sleighs, a crackling fire burned day and night. The smell of baking cookies filled the air. On the sixth day, the geese-a-laying chambers were finally ready to accept new "gift recipients."

The fresh snowfall of Christmas Eve told us our time was over. We would be the next to die. On the seventh day, I saw seven swans a-swimming and I knew the golden dream of freedom for the caged bird was over.

In the distance, we heard church bells ringing. That was the signal for us to begin our escape. On the eighth day, I managed to make contact with the lower workshops, where maids-a-milking were mercilessly beaten if they failed to meet their quota.

With my trusty carpenter's pistol, I was able to kill two Elfkrainians, whom we named "Lalkalas" and "Elfenstein."

Finally, I got home.

I see the evidence of the crimes of the Santafuhrer even now: presents under the Christmas tree.

I can point to them on the ground.
Last edited by pilgrimofdark on Thu Feb 19, 2026 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Archie
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Re: Examples of the argument from incredulity.

Post by Archie »

Nessie wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 4:18 pm
Archie wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 2:48 pm
Nessie wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 7:27 am

If Hincks concluded that the Semitics had not invented cuneiform system purely on his doubts, then yes. If he presented evidence to show it was uncertain that they had, then no.
Another evasive response. You're falling back on conditionals. I quoted the argument for you and you won't say whether you think it's a fallacy because you know that if we continue playing this game you'll end up contradicting yourself like crazy and you'll look like an idiot.

There are no ifs here. Hincks's arguments are not fallacious. He gave good reasons why the conventional wisdom at the time was wrong. Even if Hincks had turned out to be wrong, his arguments would not have been fallacious.
On face value, from the quoted text, he is not using the argument from incredulity, since he is only expressing his doubt. He is not concluding that cuneiform was invented by non-Semitic people, he is merely suspecting that is the case and stating his reasons for that suspicion.

Revisionists do more than express doubts about gassings, graves and cremations. They conclude that they did not happen. That is the step which completes the argument from incredulity.

Despite repeated requests, neither you nor anyone else I have challenged, has been able to explain both logically and evidentially, why, to use words from the passage on Hincks, revisionist "doubts" about seemingly "unnatural" mass gassing, graves and cremations by the Nazis, is evidence to prove none happened.
1) You are drawing an arbitrary and largely unimportant distinction between "concluding" and "suspecting." Level of confidence is ultimately subjective, and it is a gradient, not an absolute binary like you are suggesting.

2) Insisting on 100% confidence for conclusions to be non-fallacious is especially stupid in a domain like history where as a rule conclusions are not absolutely certain. It seems you don't understand the distinction between formal deductive logic and informal logic. The former applies to domains like mathematics and contrived philosophy class syllogisms. Domains like politics, history, economics, archaeology, are far too complex for purely deductive reasoning to get us very far.

3) Saying "X did not happen" in a non-deductive context is absolutely fine. It goes without saying that this reflects the opinion of the person speaking and that it is possible the person could be wrong. It could be softened to something like "X probably did not happen." But such hedging rarely adds anything, and it is generally bad style and rhetorically ineffective. (As I aside, I will add that I think you are lying and this thing about "concluding" vs "suspecting" is a total red herring. It's just something you made up just now to try to explain all of your inconsistencies. You would object just as strongly to revisionists even if we were to word our objections in extremely careful and cautious language.)

4) Confidence and mode of expression are more the realm of rhetoric than pure logic. You can word a conclusion to be more cautious or more confident. You may even vary the tone and approach, depending on the audience. However the position is expressed, the strength of the underlying arguments remains unchanged. Even if someone is guilty of hyperbole of expression, you still must address the underlying arguments.

The side that is most guilty of overstating their conclusions is very obviously the Holocaust side who claim absolute certainty.

You yourself recently admitted that you engage in "hyperbole" to make your case appear stronger than it is.
Archie wrote: Tue Jan 13, 2026 2:50 pm <<My use of the word "galore" was obvious hyperbole>>

Lmao. Gets caught lying. "I was being hyperbolic." No. You were lying to people on X hoping they wouldn't check and wouldn't know any better. That is deliberate deception.
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Stubble
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Re: Examples of the argument from incredulity.

Post by Stubble »

Spoiler
pilgrimofdark wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 9:45 pm
HansHill wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 12:35 am Santa deniers always seem to forget that he literally freezes time.

Checkmate.
I'm a survivor of Christmas. This is my eyewitness testimony, written in 1943 in the forest. Everything is true. I can never forget what happened to me.

The Ten Months of Christmas

It happened in October 2021, at the time of the Lenten fast. I was picked up from my winter hearth where the stockings hung by the fireplace.

A large man dressed in red, the color of the blood of my brothers, who was the Santafuhrer, drove down the lane with his whip in his hand. He was accompanied by his large beast Barudolph, who was famous for biting the genitals and buttocks of my nation and people.

Forced to march to the Sleighschlagplatz, I and 130 other people were forced onto covered sleigh wagons.

"Roasted chestnuts," we cried. But the Elfkrainians only robbed us. We got no Christmas chestnuts, and no sugar cookies for nearly 10 hours.

For the next year, we rode the sleigh through the frigid weather, arriving at the North Pole in November 2021. 90% of the people had died. We were never given hot chocolate or peppermint.

When we arrived at the North Pole, a switching sleigh took us in fives to the death camp, named "Candy Cane Corner." The entire time, we were mercilessly beaten by the Elfscharfuhrers. None of us knew what was in store for us.

As an experienced carpenter, I was given access to all of the workshops. I hadn't worked as a carpenter for 20 years, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered. As more people died in the "factory" of the Santafuhrers, I grew apathetic.

It was only after we had wrapped approximately 3.5 million presents that I was allowed my ham dinner and hot cocoa with marshmallows. It was then that we all knew we were going to die.

As we slaves were forced by the Elfkrainians to drag presents to the sleighs, a crackling fire burned day and night. The smell of baking cookies filled the air.

The fresh snowfall of Christmas Eve told us our time was over. We would be the next to die.

In the distance, we heard church bells ringing. That was the signal for us to begin our escape.

With my trusty carpenter's pistol, I was able to kill two Elfkrainians, whom we named "Lalkalas" and "Elfenstein."

Finally, I got home.

I see the evidence of the crimes of the Santafuhrer even now: presents under the Christmas tree.

I can point to them on the ground.
I can't, stop, laughing
If I were to guess why no t4 personnel were chosen to perform gassing that had experience with gassing, it would be because THERE WERE NONE.
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