Arguments about Him-that square circle

[b]All teleological arguments- probability, fine-tuning, from reason and design- beg the question, assuming some divine mind had intended for us or some comparable species to arrive.
The teleonomic [ no purpose] argument is that as the weight of evidence shows no cosmic teleology- no predetermined outcomes,to postulate God as that teleological entity [ pre-determined outcomes]contradicts science rather than be compatible with it.
So, creationist evolution is an oxymoron.
As a writer in Skeptic magazine and my friend ,Dr. Jerry Coyne in his article in the New Republic [Google his name to find it, please] reveal that we or a similar species do not reflect what some telos[ purposeful entity] wanted. Had the demise of the dinosaurs had not happened, then our primitive ancestors would not have become us, Dr. Kenneth Miller notwithstanding. Natural selection and other natural evolutionary causes and randomness[ mutations and other events]. Also Google Talk Reason for Dr. Amiel Rossow's take on Miller in his essay on him.
The argument from beauty exclaims that when we look all around us, we see the effects of God. No! That reflects the arguments from incredulity and ignorance.
The argument from pareidolia finds that people find cosmic mind behind Existence and patterns as designs as people find Yeshua and Mary on tortillas and walls-no there there. The thread the presumptions for that more abundant life will plead for the presumption of naturalism as valid rather than this pareidolia- like seeing the man in the moon.
We ignostics find God that square circle or married bachelor as He has incoherent attributes that contradict each other such that He cannot exist!
Hume's corollary to the presumption of naturalism finds no evidence for miracles. When we skeptics check them out, they turn out to be natural or mere frauds. Such is the case with Vatican-approved ones and those of the televangelists and others when followed up.
So, prayers don't work. They reflect the post- hoc fallacy -coincidence. Should one state oh , how God has made someone well, that is just happenstance, and should the person prayed for dies, then it is His will- a cop-out. People's maladies are natural, following natural processes. Should a doctor give a probability, she does not thereby affirm that God cures if the probability were 95 to 5 against that the person will survive, and he does.
Those finding miracles and prayers true delude themselves. No one in in Biblical times even tried to verify the miracles of the Tanakh or the Testament. Those people then were superstitious. So we skeptics find those miracles as phony on the basis that they violate the conservation of knowledge So, we do not thereby beg the question!
The argument from history affirms divine input in history in helping Jewry and in other affairs. No, the Holocaust says no!
Why not believe in Him? Why believe in Him?



I couldn't put these emoticons where I tried to pt them!

I pray all the time and have personal experience that those prayers "have" assisted me in being happy, healthy, wealthy and wise just the things I have prayed for.

We ignostics find God that square circle or married bachelor as He has incoherent attributes that contradict each other such that He cannot exist!

An omnipotent God would have established the logical consistency of existence, so God's potential inconsistency does not rule out His existence.

Emoticons that you add by pressing the keys on the left will always go at the end of your text--so if you're writing in the text box, you add them as you go. You can also copy paste the code for them, or type it manually, e.g. is [ : oops : ] without [] or spaces.

Your poll question's have a habit of being a little confusing.

Does god probably exist?

NO - If he doesn't probably exist this means he either diffinatly does or deffinatly does not.

MABEY - If he does or does not probably exist, well why bother voting.

YES - If he does probably exist, well acctually this is the only option that makes sence.

IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY - If it's impossible to say if he does or does not probably exist does that imply that it is possible to say that he deffinatly does or doesn't exist. Hence this answer is already completly covered in the other options. I think.

[b] Nay, Alun. Even He must obey the rules of logic. He cannot instantiate nonsense.
Juice,as noted above,people rationalize in thinking that prayer works other than as a form of meditation. Should someone get better, they claim that He did it when they commit the fallacy of post hoc-coincidence- and should someone die, then it was His will as with heads I win,tales you lose! Remissions happen ubiquitously, so prayer has nothing to do!
Why do you believe in Him? How might one not beg questions in affirming His existence?
God is crying that He cannot think nor act as He has no mind as He is disembodied and so has no brain and so no mind! It is just another theological it must be and guess that he is disembodied as theologians recognize that had He a body, it'd be detectable it seems to me.
Gearge, I men no there is no God, yes there is, maybe of the soft agnostic and it is impossible to say of the strong agnostic. Now, there is the Huxleyan agnosticism, which is an epistemological method whereas atheism is metaphysical so that one can be an agnostic atheist or even an agnostic theist.
Why are you an atheist, theist or other? Without question begging, how can theists affirm His existence? Folks, let us have this dialogue!

Hi Rationalist!

You are very rational!:)

Atheists and agnostics and etc actually know God exists to the extent that they know that atheists exist!:idea:
And vice versa: lack of belief in the existence of self leads to the denial of the existence of God et alia.

By the way, the irrationality of pi is in the rationality of math!::idea:
So there is sense and meaning in a nonsense and in meaninglessness.

By the way too(2), it is as easy to square circles as it is to circle squares once we realise that there are circles in squares and squares in circles because both circles and squares are words!:idea:

Example:
Can you see a flower in a river, and a river in a flower?

Example:
Just as you are in Love, so too at the same time you also have Love in you!

By the way, that's the Logic God uses:
The Logic of Love, the Rationality of Love for the Illogical and the illogical, for the rational and the irrational.

Last but not only least, I am an agnostic, atheistic theist as well as a gnostic, theistic atheist!:) Not to mention an atheistic, theistic gnostic and agnostic!:)

Rationalist-I bet my rationalizations are no better or worse than yours.

Nay, Alun. Even He must obey the rules of logic. He cannot instantiate nonsense

How do you know? Obviously you're a rationalist, but how do you justify believing that logic is a universal/metaphysical paradigm?

Fellow inquirers, reason works to accomplish scientific and technological wonders. We've gotten nowhere with the "Transcendent Temptation," what my friend, Dr. Paul Kurtz calls the paranormal and the supernatural.What are the putative rationalizations of us rationalists?
With logic, one rules out false paths to knowledge.It pervades all cultures as we find through use and misuse.
No, t'is impossible to square circles. Changing something in the form of a circle to a square,one no longer has that circle such that to aver otherwise is to commit logicide-relying on mumbo-jumbo.
So, Alun,Juice and Ape, please why do you insist on obfuscation and sophistry?
So, how does one avoid arguing in a circle in making arguments in His favor? Wherein do my points break down? Do you have other arguments revealing His existence? Why your take on saying yea or nay to His existence?
I post with verve in a baroque style but nevertheless am a fallibilist, like Socrates.Rationalism and skepticism call for realizing our limitations and- the limits our our knowledge. We have criteria for knowledge.
I'd like to know why I have to Google this site rather than receive notification when a new message is posted?
Thanks for answering. We can profit with our exchanges.Why take our points as the ultimate? My rebuttals might vary from the truth, but they are my current thought.
As ever, good will and blessings to all!

We've gotten nowhere with the "Transcendent Temptation,"

Ok, so how do you know that what you cannot learn from must be false?

So, Alun,Juice and Ape, please why do you insist on obfuscation and sophistry?

Because if you insist on universalizing rational thought, then you are in fact making an irrational fallacy. In fact the norm you accept, "I should only consider things possible if they are rationally coherent," is justified only by your emotional attachment to useful or empirically rewarding explanations of the world.

I'd like to know why I have to Google this site rather than receive notification when a new message is posted?

At the bottom left of this thread there should be a hyperlink that says Watch this topic for replies. That will turn on email notification. You should also check your user profile to make sure the email address is correct.

Rationalist cut this question down to its essential when he named God 'telos'.
]
I support myth- making if only because humans seem to make myths as part of the human form of life.However the telos myth no longer serves rational people.

The telos myth may still serve pragmatically to help people to live good lives if the myth's proponents are tolerant of unbelievers in the myth.This is perhaps unlikely in view of the fact that the US, the most powerful nation in the world, contains a high proportion of intolerant believers in the myth.And in view of the fact that many Christian denominations, not least the RC Church, so much favour unquestioning belief in monotheistic teleology. Let's hope that moderate Christians ** will win through.

What we all need though, is a new myth that can serve present needs for peace and the survival of life on Earth.

This is what we are working out. Whether or not the inspirational new myth will be born in time to save life on Earth is uncertain.

** By moderate Christians I refer mainly to process theology

Alvin Plantinga notwithstanding, the argument from physical mind keel hauls God! Theologians have the it must be or it might be of guessing without evidence; here they guess that He must be disembodied so that we don't see HIm anthropomorphically or whatever. Some atheists just as bad, thought that He had to have body that in principle, one could detect. Two theologians think that H has one, but where are the ganglia!
No evidence exists for a disembodied mind. Indeed without a body He has no brain and thus no mind and thus can neither think nor act to save anyone from anthropogenic or natural evils.
No, this is thus a powerful argument,eh?
Thus philosophy exhibits no divine intent, and as I am arguing @ the problem of Heaven, science finds no intent.
And lack of any teleology-planned outcomes - which means that the Cosmos has no direction nor purpose and thus no divine one for us! Otherwise there would be backwards causation, the event before the cause, the future before the past as Dr. Weiss notes in ' The Science of Biology."
He alleges that religion is just another language, which we rationalists find to be just bleating!
This is Lamberth's argument from intent or the atelic or releonmic argument.
I now find that Lamberth's argument from pareidolia bases itself on what scientists are finding about how people find agency- intent- and designs when there exists teleonomy and patterns.
Dawkins illustrate how evolution makes for those patterns. Natural selection, the teleonomic- non-planning - anti-chance agency of Nature indeed with genetic drift and other natural causes what the superstitious attribute ultimately- that Primary Cause.
Yes ,science indeed does disconfirm His acting in the Cosmos as the atheologian-physicist Victor Stenger is ever noting. Scientists find no miracle parthenogenesis or miracles, especially that putative one of the Resurrection!
Again, He has no intent. We have our meanings to make.
Lamberth's argument from autonomy is that t'is our level of consciousness that endows us with rights and liberty to answer the argument fro God that either that He gives us non-revocable rights or the state gives us revocable ones.
My most extensive remarks against Him exist @ Amazon Religion Disscussionsions under the topics arguments for God and arguments about Him- that square circle as well@ my other threads there. I have now these blogs @ Bloggers: Carneades, Griggs 1947's blog, Rationalist, Thales and Theodorus.
Ah, sweet retirement! I always wanted to correspond with others on this matter and others.
As John Paul Sartre notes,t'is up to us ourselves to make our own meanings as my signature now is noting.
However, Sarte has his faulty argument from autonomy that insist that we wouldn't be free where He to exist.
Thhnk y'all for your comments!

"No evidence exists for a disembodied mind. Indeed without a body He has no brain and thus no mind and thus can neither think nor act to save anyone from anthropogenic or natural evils."

The point they have been arguing is that there is no evidence that what we experience is all there is
to "experience."

We have five senses and the ability to think in one way. For all you know, there might be aliens that have a sense of reality and can understand existence for what it is.

Thus, it is just as unreasonable to believe in what you experience as it is to believe in what you don't, the argument strongly reflects the statement, "He had to have body that in principle, one could detect." How do you see something that is invisible? Feel the untangible? you cannot take for face value that humans know what they experience.

Heaven maybe the fifth dimension, and angels might be aliens.

What we all need though, is a new myth that can serve present needs for peace and the survival of life on Earth.

You might need such a new myth. I do not.

No evidence exists for a disembodied mind.

There exists quite a bit of evidence for disembodied minds, and quite a bit that mind is a nonlocal phenomena, and IMO fairly compelling evidence for an afterlife, some of which I outlined in this thread.

A non-temporal, uncaused cause doesn't "beg the question" of where it came from, because it isn't subject to cause and effect. The non-theist, however, is faced with origin (of the universe) questions that are logically problematic; they have only two mechanisms for the origin of the universe (unless they wish to appeal to an infinite regression); chance, or law. Since nothing (by definition) would exist before the universe began, then the non-theist must appeal to something-from-nothing or something-causing-itself.

As far as evidence for the teleological argument for the existence of an ordering mind, quantum leap effects, quantum indeterminancy, quantum observer wave collapse and delayed-choice experiments all currently, scientifically indicate that an observing mind can order aspects of physical existence. Eminent physicist John Wheeler, for example, believed the evidence clearly indicated that the human mind was probably responsible for the entire history of the universe leading up to its existence.

When looking at quantum phenomena, cause and effect seems to go out the window. Subatomic quanta "leap" from one position to the next, simply disappearing from one location and appearing in another, much as if one had a hologram with planck-distance "pixels" that simply turned on and off giving the appearance of cause-and-effect motion.

From the macro perspective, things bump into each other and generate cause and effect; that ordinary things like this occur is an unsolved mystery at the subatomic level, where no such orderly sequence of events is warranted other than as how observing entities collapse quantum states. The blatant, inesecapable teleology that is inescapable is that orderly, predictable events occur at all, considering the quantum potential for virtually anything to happen at any time, like one's computer turning into fudge or the road in front of us melting - or, everything just disappearing into a foggy haze of subatomic warmth via a sudden thermodynamic adjustment via the 2nd law.

But, such disorder is not observed to occur, when there is far, far more potential for chaos and disorder, breakdown and discorporation than than the extremely orderly, breathtakingly convenient and necessary sequential macro-events we observe to continue for billions of years and produce intelligent life.

The faith that random (non-planned) events acted on by conveniently arranged physical laws for billions of years upon a substrate that isn't even known to move from potential to actuality outside of the observation of a mind could somehow escape disorder, decay, and general entropy in some area to fashion a virtually infinite construct of functionally specified complex information is well beyond any faith I could possibly muster.

Teleology is not only evident, it is obvious, and it is necessary unless one wishes to appeal to "the chance faeries" as means of maintaining their atheistic faith.

"Teleology is not only evident, it is obvious, and it is necessary unless one wishes to appeal to "the chance faeries" as means of maintaining their atheistic faith."

While I have no real quarrel with your argument, the "chance faeries" take just about as much to believe in as the "cause faeries," as neiher have any real backing besides assumption.