Argthtjtr

I heard people having this kind of discussion. I don't know why it sounded a bit off, but I want to know if it was just me or if there is a fallacy here somewhere.

Person 1 = X

Person 2 = Y

X: Aliens do not exist because God did not mention them in the Bible.

Y: You can't say that because maybe God mentioned them in some other book that is not in the Bible. For example, there is the Book of Enoch that talks about God punishing angels who sinned on earth. Did you know that God did that?

X: No.

Y: So, how do you know that God did not mention aliens in one of those books that are not in the Bible or said it in a book that has not yet been discovered?

X: ........

It sounds like person Y is making some sort of appeal to ignorance. Is that the case? Are there any other fallacies involved? Or is this discussion perfectly rational?

There is a fallacy, but it is not being used by one of them against the others.

There an overall appeal to authority here that both have bought into. They just disagree upon whether that authority should be the Bible, or all 'inspired literature' about God that passes some other test. (There has to be some test, or you quickly get to a much better argument: the Ramayana and passages about spaceships. What is the point of a spaceship without aliens? Who would Rama go visit?)

Either that, or this is taking place within a context where a premise of fundamentalist literalism is accepted as an open premise. That would be a rare context these days, but still easy to find.

This argument by 'Y' is not unheard-of on a larger scale. There are definitely traditionalist Mormons who take a fundamentalist literal view of the world. But given their origin story, they then have to accept the notion there are probably undiscovered scriptures in addition to both the Bible and its Mormon extensions. So there might then be more...

X's argument seems to contain the implicit assumption that if something is not explicitly mentioned (or implied) in the Bible then it must not (or more charitable, probably does not) exist. This assumption is clearly suspect. Essentially, X's argument is the one committing the fallacy of appealing to ignorance:

The assumption of a conclusion or fact based primarily on lack of evidence to the contrary. Usually best described by, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” - logicallyfallacious.com

Just because there is no evidence of aliens in the Bible, doesn't mean they don't exist. There are several ways one could further respond. From a theological standpoint, I'd argue that it's implausible to assume that God told human beings everything there is to know in the Bible. The Bible is a book meant to communicate the story of God's redemptive process through history for humans, not a cosmic encyclopedia of all knowledge.

Now, you say that it seems Y is making an appeal to ignorance. I disagree. Notice Y is simply saying X is unjustified in believing the proposition that "because the Bible doesn't mention aliens, they don't exist" because his assumption which I stated above is false. Y then offers counterexamples. There is nothing fallacious here. Y isn't saying, because X has no evidence for his belief, then the converse belief is automatically true.

In another vein, one could argue that the entire discussion between X and Y is fallacious because they're both taking for granted the proposition "The Judeo-Christian God exists", as I've seen some point out. Again, I would have to disagree. The reason it is taken for granted that God exists is that the discussion between X and Y implies both X and Y are Christians. Thus, they both already accept that God exists. If both parties in an argument agree to take certain propositions for granted (as X and Y seem to implicitly do), no fallacy is committed by either party by assuming the truth of the said proposition.

The fallacy only comes when one party in an argument takes for granted a proposition that has not been argued for or the opposing party has not agreed to accept. If X was a Christian and Y was an atheist, then the discussion between X and Y would be fallacious since X is assuming that God exists in his argument, which is a point Y would contest.

If a person told me that wombats don't exist because they aren't mentioned in the Bible, I'd simply point out that there are literally millions (zillions?) of things that aren't mentioned in the Bible.

In that context, this sounds like a rational argument to me.

However, it sounds a little weird at the same time. The argument is needlessly confusing, and the wording also makes it look suspect. Even if there is no fallacy involved, it almost looks like a poster promoting fallacy.

In summary, I think the argument is irrational, and I don't see any obvious fallacies. But it's a very sloppy argument, in my opinion.

Here are the fallacies I can spot :

X: Aliens do not exist because God did not mention them in the Bible.

There are four fallacies in the previous quote :

The statement in bold was an Appeal to the God (or heaven) fallacy, What deities did or said never contributes to a good argument, after all, ancient fanatics could turn sacrificing children into an act that is ethically right if they were to commit this fallacy.

The second fallacy is an Appeal to Authority, even if God has the authority to say such and such, that does not make Him/Her/It right. We have never met a deity and we do not know how Gods behave, or whether they lie or say the truth, or whether they are good, evil or neutral (if they do exist).

The third fallacy is an Appeal to the Scripture, if x is written in the scripture, it does not mean it is from God or that it is right. Scriptures never contribute to good arguments.

The fourth fallacy is formal and is a Denying the Antecedent , I assume person 1 would agree with the conditional if God mentioned A in the Bible then A exists, but they would be a fool if they agree with the conditional if A exists then God mentioned A in the Bible, since there are many things that exist, and that we know exist, which are not in the Bible (like planes and computers).

So, I would take person 1 seriously and assume they are not a fool, in this case they agree only with the conditional if God mentioned A in the Bible then A exists. And I would give the propositional form of their argument :

• 
  Premise 1 (implied): If God mentioned Aliens in the Bible then Aliens exist


• 
  Premise 2: God did not mention aliens in the bible


• 
  Conclusion: Therefore, aliens do not exist

If P then Q , Not-P therefore Not-Q : This was an invalid argument.

Of course, either Person 1 is a fool to think that if x exists then it's in the Bible, or they are not a fool and they have just committed a denying the antecedent fallacy

Y: You can't say that because maybe God mentioned them in some other
book that is not in the Bible. For example, there is the Book of Enoch
that talks about God punishing angels who sinned on earth. Did you
know that God did that?

The first statement in bold is an Argument from Ignorance, or Ad Ignorantiam if we want to sound a bit smarter.

Also, there is an appeal to authority, to the scripture and to God, since the questions asks : did you know that God did that? and not Did you know that it is written in the book of Enoch?

So, the question did you know that God did that? implies this conditional : if it is written in the book of Enoch then God did that.

So, how do you know that God did not mention aliens in one of those
books that are not in the Bible or said it in a book that has not yet
been discovered?

What is in bold is a clear Appeal to the ignorance.