By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
JWeinCom on 09 October 2017
Edit Thread
OhNoYouDont said:
JWeinCom said:

That's not how the law of the excluded middle works.  The law of the excluded midddle simply states that something can not be A and not A simultaneously.   If I have an object in my hand it is either a potato or not potato.  It can't be both, but that doesn't mean that those are the only ways that the object can be described.  The object can be described as not potato, not carrot, not duck, sock, cotton, etc.  

In the case of a proposition the proposition can be right or not right.  But, that doesn't mean there's not a gray area.  Because a proposition can be both not right and not wrong.  And that is a pretty gray area.  

Not sure why you picked Jerusalem as an example (Israel is a pretty secular state actually), but the prolife secular argument is pretty simple.  The baby is a living human, and therefore should not be killed.  I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's pretty straight forward.

If you're interested, there is a secular debate that was done on the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P78_V1Z9CO4  I don't think the prolife speaker is especially good, but those are basically the arguments used.

Nope, that's the law of noncontradiction. 

Because a proposition can be both not right and not wrong.

To say that a proposition is not right is equivalent to stating that the proposition is wrong. I think you see the issue with your statement here now.

I wish people would stop incorrecting me. 

Equivocation fallacy in regard to treating a fetus and a baby as the same entity as there are both biological and classical distinctions between such entities so if that's the secular argument I see why no one takes it seriously.

As to the subversive act of treating Jerusalem and Israel as the same entity, see above as well.

Yup.  Got the laws mixed up.   My bad.  But the statement still stands.  

Assuming we take right and wrong to mean demonstrably right or wrong (which I generally assume to be the case because otherwise, I'm not sure why we'd bother) a statement can definitely be neither right or wrong.  

Just to go with the easiest example, take the statement god exists.  We can say it's not true.  As in, it has not been demonstrated to be true.  We can also say it's not false.  As in, it has not been demonstrated to be false.  Even though there is a definitive answer that's really of little interest since it's inaccessible.

That's the problem with claiming everything to be binary.  In a system with perfect definitions and perfect knowledge, that might be the case.  In reality, where we have imperfect knowledge and imperfect communication, the there are definitely statements that cannot be shown to be right or wrong.