Does God Exist?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Groktruth
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Groktruth »

Logic4All wrote:Well instead of addressing my counter argument you said that when we die we will find out for ourselves.......... not exactly something most would include in an intellectual debate. However, to each their own.

Do you have any other arguments worthy of philosophical discourse?
This may be relevant:

"What reasons does Socrates give for not fearing death? Why is Socrates so little concerned with how his body is to be buried?"


"Now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition ... I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of use who think that death is an evil are in error ... Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things:--either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. ... Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is a journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? ... What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. ... Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. ... The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."
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Logic4All
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Logic4All »

Seahunt,
I’m, just wondering if you could elaborate on your argument. I’m not sure how to take it, are you actually giving an argument, or is it simply showing your relation to God and Genetics?

If it is from God and genetics I feel as though this is an already exhausted argument. Unless I am manipulating your argument (If I am I apologize, but please correct me) it would seem that your argument is simply that if we look to humans, animals etc. we will notice their perfection?

If this is then the case, it seems extremely similar to a “master creator” argument, for example if one sees a watch on a beach, and they have never seen one before, they would know that it is not something that can just happen, but must have a creator. In the same way that humans seem to have the same complexity.

However this is easily countered by fact, which is of course evolution. What you perceive as a complex being is simply a product of evolution. All of the ‘excellence’ and complexity we attribute to animals and humans is through a means of adaptation. This is certainly not a new argument, and for the most part is not even accepted by most theologians
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Martin Ekdahl
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Martin Ekdahl »

Logic4All wrote:Martin,
Very interesting point, and it oddly reminds me of a Star Trek episode, however that is not of concern.
The point you make is one that has been looked at many times however, and to some acts as a good argument against the existence of God.
Yes it is a very strong argument against the existence of (at least an active) god.
Nick_A wrote:Suppose God doesn't exist but rather "IS' as a quality of Being: consciousness without content. God's non existence wouldn't deny God. The process of functioning creation is existence and God IS.
"Consciousness without content". I like that concept. The closest to an acceptance of the existence of god that I could ever reach.
"The meaning with life must be to do something meaningful with your life".
edelker
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by edelker »

Hello all,

Alan wrote,

“Hi Eric use constantly use the term Absurd in response to my augments for the existence of God.”


Not really! Moreover, where the term is used it is in response to a technical matter of reasoning that is appropriate in philosophy.


Alan wrote,

“Respectfully they are "absurd to you" BUT not to "billions of humans living on this planet", you are of the tiny minority and should own up to that fact!”


I do own up to the fact that truth and good argument are not determined by statistical agreement. If such matters were solved in this way-then you may wish to convert to Islam! Minority views have often turned out to be true or a better answer than what the majority has bought into. I may be in the minority, but I think I’m in quite good company!


Alan wrote,

“You have likely heard that it is impossible to prove that God exists. You have heard wrong. Not only can the existence of God be proven, denying the proof undermines rational thought. It is true that God does not need anyone, to prove His existence... No one needs proof that God exists, I simply offer these 8 steps to the logical proof of God's existence in addition to what you already know (and may be suppressing).”


Ah…thanks for the possible armchair spiritual psychological analysis-as to what I may be “suppressing.” But perhaps we could just stick to the arguments! Shall we? What I know thus far is that you put up arguments that have now been well criticized twice over. These following fair no better.


“Step One: Laws of Logic
In the introduction page I mentioned 'logical proof.' The first step towards the proof that God exists is to determine whether you actually believe that laws of logic exist. Logical proof would be irrelevant to someone who denies that laws of logic exist. An example of a law of logic is the law of non-contradiction. This law states, for instance, that it cannot both be true that my car is in the parking lot and that it is not in the parking lot at the same time, and in the same way”


One can acknowledge that the “laws of logic” are “useful” for us! To say that they ‘exist’ delves into very odd ontology. You could mean that the laws of logic are ‘forms’ of reason and that our minds naturally discover them. Yet, this is saying no more than that the laws of logic make sense to us—and, again, is useful to us. By acknowledging their usefulness to us-we are not also saying that they speak to what’s true outside of us! Herein-you’re conflating useful conventions with what must be true ‘in reality.’ For example, let’s use the ‘law of non-contradiction’ that you cited above. To say that “my car cannot be in the same place and in the same place at the same time and in the same relationship” only states that what we can or cannot conceive in a certain sense. Yet, in another sense, I can conceive of two parallel universes with the exact same things in both that interchange between one another wherein one car can be in the same parking lot and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. The universes are exactly the same and with the exact same stuff. Therefore, at time T and in relationship R in universe 1 we could imagine a direct parallel effect on universe 2 wherein the absence of my car in the parking lot in 1 would mean the presence of my car in 2.


Now, let me be clear since you’re likely to scoff at this example and say that it is weird and plays only to fantasy and not reality. It is first important to note what the law of identity states and what it implies to even exist as a so-called ‘law.’ It assumes that entities and processes work in a way that preserves a view of causality and a simple view of identity—and even space. We must assume that ‘A’ has a place in time that is fundamentally separate from-say-‘B.’ Our ‘A’ space must be assumed to be only singular and cannot be shared with any other space. In fact, we must say that it is impossible! The causal effects of ‘A’ on ‘B’ will also be such that we can always identify ‘A’ or ‘A’s’ constituents (properties). Therefore, all causation that evokes change is linearly managed and cannot transform ‘A’ into ‘B’ in any way that violates these assumptions; otherwise, we could have a legitimate exception to the rule.


None of this has to follow-however! ‘Yes,’ that’s right-the law of identity (an essential rule to the law of non-contradiction), which is assumed in the very words, grammar, and reasoning I’m employing here, itself does not follow once we parse out what is required for its being present. Yet, you understand both my above example and my critical review that followed. In other words, the law of identity is a useful way for us to approach our world, reason, and structure our lingual community. The example above IS POSSIBLE! As a consequence, in other words, you can comprehend it even if it sounds wholly odd to you and is technically problematic! Existence, in fact, may work just in this way. As a matter of fact, this is a whole school of thought called parallelism. But whether or not this is how things go-it is possible to imagine it and think it out! All one has to do, critically speaking, is parse out what each rule of logic requires in order to exist. Logic depends on human language, psychology and conventional agreements on how things are. Nonetheless, we can delve beneath these factors and examine their ontological status-so to speak. What the laws of logic reveal is our reasoning about things-not necessarily about reality in general. Oddly, all I need to show that identities are not fixed even when we apply the ‘same time’ and ‘same relationship’ requirements is think up of an example wherein they ‘could’ be otherwise. Since we can imagine such cases, it cannot be true that the law of identity MUST (or non-contradictory) hold in all cases and at all times.


Let’s now expand this from the abstractions of logic to everyday considerations. What does it mean that ‘my’ car is in the parking lot? Well, can we identify a ‘car’ absolutely? I would argue that we can only in the conventional sense. I can analyze my car into its pieces, which come from other parts of the world and from different things. When all of these parts and processes come together in certain relations, then I can say we have a car. When we say that ‘I’ own this set of relations-then we may say it is ‘my car.’ Yet, defining the ‘things’ and concepts that define either myself or the car is always elusive. Who am I? I’m made of numerous thoughts, emotions, organisms, memories, past and present experiences and so on. I cannot even say that I am the same person today that I was yesterday because I had experiences that altered my body in some way and thought-processes, which is going on all the time. Which one of these things is more or less me? All we can say is that we must arrest certain properties and processes and ‘say’ what is and what isn’t. If we took my car’s parts and scattered them all across a field, we wouldn’t be tempted to say that these parts are a car. We might, in fact, identify the pieces as having its own properties: like “that’s a window” or “is that a steering wheel?” or “that’s just a hunk of small metal.” Yet, things like my car may well exist as a concept long after its parts have dissolved into the earth. I have multiple influences over people, things, and processes that are neither directly experiencing me nor are experiencing me in consistent ways: some people think I’m the best thing since peanut butter while others would say I’m the incarnation of evil. Some things experience me as soft while others hard—sometimes at the same time. We divide the world in a way that fits our ontological biases. However, there’s nothing that says this is the way it must be or only can be—‘yes’ not even the laws of logic can dictate this.


None of this is to imply that logic is useless or arbitrary! Like our language or monetary system-these rules emerge out of a complex history-language and interconnected sets of social relations. While these things are human conventions, they are not arbitrary, controlled by any one person or process, nor can we just change them without severe problems. They make sense and are useful ways in which we relate to each other and the world. To say, however, that these conventions are reflective of the way reality IS-is a huge problem. To say that the law of identity reflects something true about the world and not HOW we organize that world-is making assumptions that require some filling out. A is not B is so in as long as we assume a whole series of things without question. Yet, the moment we ask is A truly independent of B, then we have a problem. Obviously, A is not independent of B any more than B is of C and so on. You and I or our cars are all interconnected and interdepend on things that cannot ultimately be defined without assuming certain parameters for reasonable convenience sake. This helps us-sure! Does it reveal some fundamental nature of reality? Nope!


Therefore, your first point, ironically, perhaps, doesn’t follow! I may acknowledge the usefulness of our practice of logical reasoning without thinking that it MUST be reflective of some essential truth! As a result, I can deny the law of non-contradiction as a universal and fixed law in reality without having to do away with it as a valuable tool in doing everyday philosophy or logical reasoning.


“Step Two: Laws of Mathematics
The basic operations of arithmetic are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Laws of mathematics then, are basically descriptions of what happens within these operations (and more complex ones as well). For example, with the law of addition we know that if you take 4 things and add them to 3 things, you end up with 7 things.”


Yes, just like the laws of logic can be rightly viewed and described as descriptions of what happens within human psychology. Arithmetic functions need no more describe the world than A is not B! They describe functions and processes sensible to us and useful for us in how we manage our world. Thus far, you’ve said nothing about the world-only our reasoning s about it.


“Step Three: Laws of Science
Laws of science are basically descriptions of what matter does based on repeated observations, and are usually expressed in mathematical equations. An example of a law of science is the law of gravity. Using the law of gravity, we can predict how fast a heavier than air object will fall to the ground given all the factors for the equation.”


Yes! Again, we map a useful function onto observable entities. Yet, saying that this describes the nature of reality will smash up against Hume’s Fork of inductive problems much related to what was already written. All science can say is that given OUR instruments—designed for our understanding etc.—and our findings to date this is what we say gravity is—usually only in Newtonian mechanics. We can also describe it in other ways. In basic, since we cannot account for all the causal factors at play in a single event, our knowledge of things scientific can only be probabilistic at best. Even our probability calculations will reveal, on further inquiry, built-in assumptions that we must accept. So, understanding the world scientifically is vital for our understanding. However, such an understanding is contingent on OUR own thinking about the world and can never yield anything conclusive.


Now we see the two approaches you’ve thus far offered: (1) deductive forms of reasoning, and (2) inductive inferential reasoning. To summarize here: to use (1) assumes that our concepts and our reasoning about these concepts somehow is informing us of some external world! Yet, all we can logically say about such logical deductions is that out deductive inferences speak only to our way of reasoning and how we approach the world through it. Hence, such reasoning cannot say that it IS reflecting or corresponding to reality. (2) Again, our inductive inferential reasoning can never track all possible causes or state in any deductive way what is so from any given inductive observation. Therefore, induction is a reflection of our tentative understanding of some given portion of the universe only! All scientific observations are reflections of our own limited understanding. We cannot be categorically certain given this severe limitation. To determine the existence of god by use of these methods will not be had as objective free.


“Step Four: Absolute Moral Laws
I have seldom heard anyone deny that laws of logic, mathematics, or science exist, but I have often heard people deny the existence of absolute moral laws. Whereas some laws like those that govern science, and mathematics describe reality, and how things do behave, absolute moral laws 'prescribe' how humans ought to, or ought not to behave.”


There are works that analyze the philosophical nature of mathematics and logic.


“Rape, and child molestation, are two examples of absolute moral wrongs”


No argument? OK! I can say that these are moral wrongs without having to say they are absolute moral wrongs! To say they are absolute only creates ambiguity not clarity of the moral situation.


“Step Five: The Nature of Laws (a)
By reaching this stage you might have acknowledged that laws of logic, mathematics, science, and absolute morality exist. Next we will examine what you believe about these laws. Are these laws material, or are they immaterial? In other words, are they made of matter, or are they 'abstract' entities? - are they physical or non-physical things? Step Six: The Nature of Laws (b) You have to acknowledge that laws of logic, mathematics, science, and absolute morality exist and that they are not made of matter. The next question is whether you believe they are universal or up to the individual. Does 2 + 2 = 4 only where you are, and only because you say it does, or is this a universal law?”


I’ve already answered that such laws and functions may exist and yet depend entirely on human psychology. Also, I explained how such laws function etc. may not be strictly matter per se, but they can supervene on material beings! You do not think that our monetary system is based on any material being nor are you tempted to think that it is of a spiritual nature. Something can be useful to us and be an ultimate existential fiction. There’s no problem in conceiving this in the least! So, quite obviously, I do not have to acknowledge any such spirituality to these conventions.


As to the subjective/objective question: Your question is constructing a false dichotomy: we have more choices open to us than just whether such functions are objective or subjective. As above, I have argued that such things are BOTH/AND not EITHER/OR. 2+2=4 is useful to us because it fits our reasoning- experiences of the world: I can take two rocks and place them in a pile and take two more and throw them onto the pile—hence four as a total. Does this way of useful functioning say something about the world as possessing fourness or what? Not at all! It says how WE go about adding things up deductively. Certainly this is a helpful thing to do-but tells us nothing about the world-external. Your appeal to math-logic and so on can only be based on how it appeals to our intuitions when it comes to how effectively we manage things around our world, and not how the world manages us!


“You have to acknowled that laws of logic, mathematics, science, and absolute morality exist, that they are not made of matter, and that they are universal. The next question is whether you believe they are changing or unchanging.”


Lots of things can be declared universal AND still be conventional. You’re assuming that these useful functions have to be separate from us because their character differs from our existential state. Yet, this doesn’t follow either! Fictional characters may rarely change-if at all-but you would hardly be tempted to say that they are eternal or wholly spiritual. These fictions work—and work well! Why that MUST imply some other ontology to explain them is something you’ve ONLY declared and not shown. Why can’t certain conventions, grounded and founded in our way of reasoning, be both fictional in an ontological sense and useful at the same time? Saying that certain things are so isn’t an argument—it’s only a declaration! Convention need not be subjectively arbitrary. I know this argument is popular in Christian apologetics-but in actual philosophical circles it has no currency precisely because its conclusion is assumed and not demonstrated!!

Since everything else you wrote follows on these poorly structured premises, we can dispense with the so-called cogent conclusion of god’s existence supposedly evident all around us. We may thus far have every right to suspend belief in god as we do belief in Santa Claus.

Eric D.
Last edited by edelker on December 5th, 2011, 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Alan McDougall
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Alan McDougall »

Eric I respectfully disagree with all your well written, long, protracted and convoluted attempt to philosophy away what to me is a fact, Gods Exists and that is the reason you exist and can take part in this debate.
edelker
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by edelker »

Alan wrote,

“Eric I respectfully disagree with all your well written, long, protracted and convoluted attempt to philosophy away what to me is a fact, Gods Exists and that is the reason you exist and can take part in this debate.”


Well, I have posted my responses to your arguments Alan! Sorry you do not engage them in a way that reveals cogent-clear arguments. Insults only reveal the ugly and angry side of a criticized faith-Alan! Both you and your faith I’m sure can do better than what this post of yours represents.

Eric D.
Wooden shoe
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Wooden shoe »

My idea of a God: The ultimate metaphysical entity/s, indescribable with human language.
That is why the Biblical descriptors fail because it gives human qualities to a metaphysical entity.

Logic: a human tool in order to deal with human reality.

Using any kind of human logic or any other human discipline simply has no chance of proving or disproving the existence of God, for one, when it is impossible to define God, there is nothing to tie to, it is like trying to tie a rope to a cloud.
Second, the very same discipline used to try to prove God's existence, can be used to try to disprove its existence.
So the whole endeavor to prove or disprove something we can not imagine or understand becomes nothing more than blowing wind.

Regards, John.
We experience today through the lens of all our yesterdays
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Logic4All
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Logic4All »

Wooden Shoe,
That’s a rather disappointing post for a philosophy forum, and is clearly false. To hold so firmly that we can never prove the existence of something is a tricky endeavor, at one time people thought that we could NEVER know what distant stars and planets are composed of.

First I will invoke a common defense of such arguments. If you say, we cannot have any idea of what x is, you already have a understanding of x since we can all agree on what is being discussed, therefore simply for us to have a discussion of God means that we have a common notion of what God is.

Your point on Logic is true, yet improperly used. Logic cannot prove the existence of anything, therefore to say it can’t be used to prove God’s existence does not put the argument back any further, it simply puts it on the same level as everything else that has ever been proven.

The second point is the same, of course the same discipline can do both things, it is through such analysis, arguments, and counter arguments that ground can be made in either direction.

To the point that proving God is like tying a rope to a cloud is a terrible metaphor. If one believes or has faith in God everything that comes from that belief revolves around the tangible world. They believe God created the earth and heavens, that means that at the very least one can have a very good understanding of what God has done. Unless your belief is that God is something, somewhere who has done nothing, and will never do anything then perhaps your argument holds, but then were not talking about God at all.

Also, how can one claim that the biblical records do not hold because something is beyond understanding, if this is the case how can you understand the bible doesn’t do an accurate job? I of course believe one can very effectively prove God does not exist. As a final note, biblical records shouldn’t even be included in such an argument, it has been proven that the number of false translations such as from “young lady Marry” to “virgin Marry”, and the gaps in the timeline make the events of the bible either impossible due to a contradiction in time, or simply a misrepresentation due to translation.

-- Updated December 5th, 2011, 8:58 pm to add the following --

Alan,
Schizophrenics feel a lot of things are true to them, and that many things to them are fact. The goal in proving something is so the rest of us can come to the same conclusion. I could use the same argument you just gave for why flying unicorns exist. If you have such strong feelings, and truly are interested in a debate, put your views in a rational argument.
rainchild
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by rainchild »

Hi, Alan,
“Eric I respectfully disagree with all your well written, long, protracted and convoluted attempt to philosophy away what to me is a fact, Gods Exists and that is the reason you exist and can take part in this debate.”
What debate? Alan, you're not debating. You've presented arguments, but generally don't answer others' attempts to critique them. For example, characterizing Eric's argument as "a protracted and convoluted attempt to philosophy away" God's existence does not constitute an answer (i.e. a counter-argument) to the points Eric made.

Regarding the transcendental argument: What, if anything, justifies the transcendental argument's apparent equation between the "laws" of logic on one hand and immaterial entities that can exist apart from reality on the other? You've already gotten two possible alternative accounts of the "laws" of logic; the claim that such "laws" are abstract features of the universe that don't exist apart from it (from me) and the claim that such "laws" exist as useful conventions (from Eric). What, exactly, rules such claims out in favor of your position?

More generally, if you've decided not to answer such points, and don't want to debate, what brings you to this forum?

--Jim G.

-

-- Updated Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:45 pm to add the following --

Hi, John,

If I'm being naive, please point out why: I have always considered the issue of whether God's existence can be proven to be a question of contingent fact, not the outcome of a priori reasoning.

In my flavor of agnosticism, I think it vanishingly unlikely that anyone will prove the existence of God. From an empirical standpoint, gods of all types exhibit the character of legend, and make patently obsolete explanations of the physical world.

However, I think that there may be pragmatic grounds for some religious beliefs. Common sense and its gifted children, the sciences, are better than religion when it comes to explaining observables, but I believe that a sufficiently liberal religion would do a better job than science at assigning significance to observables and to our own lives in particular. In this sense, the existence of God is a philosophical issue.

But I don't rule out an empirical proof of God in principle. Suppose that astronomers found that the red shift had vanished at some precise instant without any consequent destruction of the material bodies that had stopped so suddenly.

Suppose further that the universe's background radiation, left over from the Big Bang, began to modulate and carry the message, in ancient Hebrew, "I am the God of Abraham and Isaac, creator and sustainer of the universe. In order to quit being bashful and show myself for a change, I will now render the entire universe habitable, and render all sentient beings capable of instantly traveling anywhere in the Cosmos. And by the way, the Unity church at the corner of 4th and Main in Cow's Head, Wisconsin, is the only church whose admittedly loose doctrines are even remotely true."

Suppose that, sure enough, the entire universe became habitable at the moment that the message had ceased, and that me and my family could picnic on the green hills of Mars, or even on an edible rock in deep space.

Given this empirical data, I would at least entertain the notion that the atheists have been mistaken.

Never say never, :)

--Jim G.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Wooden shoe »

Hello logic, you wrote:
Wooden Shoe,
That’s a rather disappointing post for a philosophy forum, and is clearly false. To hold so firmly that we can never prove the existence of something is a tricky endeavor, at one time people thought that we could NEVER know what distant stars and planets are composed of. [End quote]

So sorry I disappointed you. [BG]
Unless some deity meets us halfways, I will stick with what I said. Even If we were looking at it we would not recognize it,nor would we know if we were dealing with an apprentice or the real thing.

You wrote:
First I will invoke a common defense of such arguments. If you say, we cannot have any idea of what x is, you already have a understanding of x since we can all agree on what is being discussed, therefore simply for us to have a discussion of God means that we have a common notion of what God is. [end quote]

The range of the notions is so wide as to be almost meaningless and have changed drastically in the last 2 centuries.
I am not limiting the God Idea to the Judeo/Christian one.

You wrote:
Your point on Logic is true, yet improperly used. Logic cannot prove the existence of anything, therefore to say it can’t be used to prove God’s existence does not put the argument back any further, it simply puts it on the same level as everything else that has ever been proven.

The second point is the same, of course the same discipline can do both things, it is through such analysis, arguments, and counter arguments that ground can be made in either direction.

To the point that proving God is like tying a rope to a cloud is a terrible metaphor. If one believes or has faith in God everything that comes from that belief revolves around the tangible world. They believe God created the earth and heavens, that means that at the very least one can have a very good understanding of what God has done. Unless your belief is that God is something, somewhere who has done nothing, and will never do anything then perhaps your argument holds, but then were not talking about God at all. [End quote]

This point had little to do with that faith, but was meant to show that if we do not know the description of something, we have no anchoring points. And yes I think it quite possible that there can be some super powerful entity which had nothing to do with the beginning of our universe, but to us would still be like a God. This not qualifying as a God is your idea.

You wrote:
Also, how can one claim that the biblical records do not hold because something is beyond understanding, if this is the case how can you understand the bible doesn’t do an accurate job? I of course believe one can very effectively prove God does not exist. As a final note, biblical records shouldn’t even be included in such an argument, it has been proven that the number of false translations such as from “young lady Marry” to “virgin Marry”, and the gaps in the timeline make the events of the bible either impossible due to a contradiction in time, or simply a misrepresentation due to translation. [End Quote]

Many descriptors in the Bible show a God who is quite emotional which does not fit at all with the other atributes given in the same book, so it describes a super human but based on earthly kings.

All of the above is just the musings of this old fart who is aware that this argument is thousands of years old and is no closer to a solution, so in my opinion it most likely will still be argued two thousand years from now, without any progress.
We experience today through the lens of all our yesterdays
Groktruth
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Groktruth »

Rainchild, or Jim G.,

Your post #69 affirmed some basic philosophical principles. Good on you! I like the axiom in human affairs,

"You can't play the game if you do not know the rules." Philosophical "rules" are a bit soft, but is is good to do the best we can.

To wit:

You affirm that "I have always considered the issue of whether God's existence can be proven to be a question of contingent fact, not the outcome of a priori reasoning."

By God, if we suppose we are talking about the God who supposedly inspired the scriptures, we have the immediate problem that this God is all powerful, and insists that He will not be known through the exercise of "one's own understanding." So, if He does exist, and is as self-described, reason will not reveal the fact. The reasoner would have to be a greater God than this God, for it to be otherwise.

But "faith," which He defines as "evidence," will get the job done, according to His specifications. So, looking for contingent fact, as you call evidence, is the only logical way to go. And, evidentialism in philosophy, while there are limitations re interpretation, has much to recommend it.

And, you admit to those limitations, in your assessment of "vanishingly unlikely."


"I think it vanishingly unlikely that anyone will prove the existence of God."

Certainly accurate as long as you are strict with your notion of "prove." The thrust of most philosophical discussion through the ages is a rant against dogmatic opinion, the assessment of the probability, 1.0, that anything we know is true. We very probably cannot prove anything.

But the notion of assigning a probability to ideas is at the heart of modern, state of the art, Bayesian science. Common sense, really, but overlooked a lot. No idea can be proven, but the plausibility of any idea can be estimated, with the aid of "contingent facts." And, as that science would have it (thousand or more studies designed to gather evidence that addresses the idea that God exists), the contingent facts estimate the plausibility that God does not exist as "vanishingly unlikely." They actually allow one to put a number on that plausibility, somewhere below 10 to the minus 30th power.

Now, if we got the data you suggest might convince you, as a scientist I would warn you to be very careful. Such evidence would not be consistent with the God of Abraham, etc, as self described. I grant that such data would cry out for some explanation, but such a response is out of character for the God of the scriptures. In considering what sort of data would convince you, following ordinary scientific proceedures, you would have to get a clear understanding of biblical theology.

A very interesting and relevant "contingent fact," is that, "Well, I'll be!" there are few that know of (find?) this strict, (narrow?) view of science, despite it's philosophical credentials! Hmmm.

Stephen
Belinda
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Belinda »

Wooden Shoe wrote:
My idea of a God: The ultimate metaphysical entity/s, indescribable with human language.
That is why the Biblical descriptors fail because it gives human qualities to a metaphysical entity.
I thInk this is the God that is under discussion, and we are not right now discussing God of Providence who is not necessarily the same idea although Christians tend to assume that the ultimate metaphysical entity is the same essence as Providence.

The ultimate metaphysical entity or, in other words, the God who exists is not as all- embracing , not as ultimate, as existence itself. This is because some finite entity such as a pen, a dog, a brain, a rock, a mountain or etc. is a part of what exists, therefore the claim that God exists is a lesser claim than that God is existence itself.
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Alan McDougall
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Alan McDougall »

Belinda wrote:Wooden Shoe wrote:
My idea of a God: The ultimate metaphysical entity/s, indescribable with human language.
That is why the Biblical descriptors fail because it gives human qualities to a metaphysical entity.
I thInk this is the God that is under discussion, and we are not right now discussing God of Providence who is not necessarily the same idea although Christians tend to assume that the ultimate metaphysical entity is the same essence as Providence.

The ultimate metaphysical entity or, in other words, the God who exists is not as all- embracing , not as ultimate, as existence itself. This is because some finite entity such as a pen, a dog, a brain, a rock, a mountain or etc. is a part of what exists, therefore the claim that God exists is a lesser claim than that God is existence itself.
Hi, Belinda and others , the God I was talking about at the start of this thread is not the God of Christianity or any religion for that fact, the closest to a god by my why of thinking is the prime mover, uncaused cause, a mysterious sort of a ever existing consciousness that caused both the universe and all the other universes etc, if they exist, including maybe existence in multiple dimensions as yet unknown, to come into existence. Thus to me God equates to Existence and Existence equates to the Supreme mind. We cannot separate the two an Astronomer once said the Universe looks less like a great well oiled machine and "more like a great thought , the more he looked out on it" To me this thought is one of the creations of this infinitely intelligent Entity call it god if you like


"Astrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote in the 1930s, “…the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.” So, too, I am proposing, in The God Theory, that ultimately it is consciousness that is the origin of matter, energy, and the laws of nature in this universe and all others that may exist
."

This entity to me is simply beyond human comprehension and if we have difficulty with imagining an entity that is both ever existing, eternal and infinite, it is because of our limited human intellect, when compared to the entity, that caused all of existence to come into being, that we argue debate maybe this great Entity when it is maybe is so completely , beyond human comprehension and so utterly awesome, that when compared to little humanity sticking to a little ball of dust in some tiny corner withing the unimaginable vastness of the universe, that we are but a microbe in the vastness of the universe
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by Logic4All »

Alan;

What an interesting attempt at an argument. However, through the poorly written paragraphs it seems you are contradicting yourself.

At the end you say “This entity to me is simply beyond human comprehension”, and at the start you say “the closest to a god by my why of thinking is the prime mover, uncaused cause, a mysterious sort of a ever existing consciousness”. How is it that you can argue and conceptualize your personal point of view, but when a counter argument arises you claim it fallacious because we cannot conceptualize that God.

If a God cannot be comprehended than why argue its existence? To my knowledge your post is “Does God exist”, well if you already hold that God cannot be comprehended, how can you formulate a argument for its existence.

To simplify, your argument rests on a contradiction, you claim the arguments for God not existing are false because we cannot comprehend God, then argue all the attributes that make your God exist. Unless you are super human, God would be beyond your comprehension as well, making your argument useless.
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Re: Does God Exist?

Post by edelker »

Just a couple of notes: Groktruth/Alan

Groktruth wrote,

“Now, if we got the data you suggest might convince you, as a scientist I would warn you to be very careful. Such evidence would not be consistent with the God of Abraham, etc, as self described. I grant that such data would cry out for some explanation, but such a response is out of character for the God of the scriptures. In considering what sort of data would convince you, following ordinary scientific proceedures, you would have to get a clear understanding of biblical theology.”

Scientific procedures that can never be justified with state of the art skepticism—see Hume! No deductive or inductive method will ever be apt to reaching the eternal non-material nature of a fixed-transcendent and absolute god. At best, all you can have are probabilities contingent on still further inquiries that must rest on assumptions that we must possess for doing any of it. Expanding or limiting one’s definitions of “proof” does not remove the problems with deduction and induction! To do science—especially Bayesian science—requires assumptions upon which we must assume-never prove! If by “proof” you merely mean what is subjectively appropriate and personally convincing TO and FOR you, then fine. Any other way will require an answer to these problems-mentioned elsewhere.

“Biblical theology” the discipline or “systematic theology” called by another name? Nowhere in the biblical literature can one find any justification for inductively structured testing of god or his behavior. The very idea is weird to any scholar of any genre of the literature. Testing god in this way is made out of whole cloth by moderns who have made rules that make sense in a human-materialist worldview. To force god (especially the god of scripture) to answer to one’s modern scientific “rules” is the height of being anachronistic.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alan,

I appreciate your written out comments relating to your commitment of faith-whatever that may be. But the arguments you’ve used are obviously applicable to whichever god of theism one would like to consider. It matters little if we’re discussing the god of providence or the god of Islam. If you use the exact same arguments that Jews, Muslims, and Christians have used throughout history, the criticisms are also applicable-regardless.

Eric D.
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