{"id":257,"date":"2019-02-26T03:02:15","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T03:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/?p=257"},"modified":"2019-02-26T03:02:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T03:02:15","slug":"pantheism-and-the-fallacy-of-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"Pantheism and the Fallacy of Division"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/puzzle_cook_big1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-259\" width=\"298\" height=\"218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/puzzle_cook_big1.jpg 650w, https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/puzzle_cook_big1-300x220.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 85vw, 298px\" \/><figcaption>Parts of a whole<br><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>To date the best argument against our <a href=\"https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/2018\/05\/09\/proving-the-existence-of-god\/\">proof for the existence of God <\/a>has been an accusation of committing the fallacy of division. The fallacy of division involves claiming that because a thing has a property, the components of that thing also have that property.  So because we say &#8220;We have  <br>consciousness  and because consciousness can&#8217;t magically arise out of thin air, the atoms that compose us must have consciousness.&#8221; this means we are committing this fallacy. Or does it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider this argument: &#8220;We have mass. Therefore the atoms composing us have mass.&#8221; This is a correct statement. If I say though, &#8220;I have a mass of 150 pounds. Therefore the atoms composing me each have a mass of 150 pounds.&#8221; this is obviously incorrect. The difference is that the second argument is guilty of equivocating a fundamental property (mass) with a specific property (a specific amount of mass).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what we&#8217;re saying is that consciousness is a fundamental property and that human level consciousness and atom level consciousness are specific properties. We are not equivocating  human level consciousness with atom level consciousness . Therefore our argument is not susceptible to the fallacy of division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Explains how our proof for the existence of God does not commit the fallacy of division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11,10,9],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-logic","tag-consciousness","tag-fallacy-of-division","tag-logic"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pantheism and the Fallacy of Division - Rational Pantheism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalpantheism.org\/?p=257\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pantheism and the Fallacy of Division - 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