Regarding Atheism, Agnosticism, Humanism, Rational Skepticism, etc...

What?

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Originally Posted by Sjakihata

What?

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You mean I didn't get my point across with just a link to a wikipedia article? Well fancy that.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

You mean I didn't get my point across with just a link to a wikipedia article? Well fancy that.

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You asked what PSR was. I gave you a link so you could read. Not that hard, is it?

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Originally Posted by Sjakihata

You asked what PSR was. I gave you a link so you could read. Not that hard, is it?

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Thanks. I just didn't know what you meant.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

To use your analogy, it's like saying that being warm blooded means your a mammal, when in fact there are lot's of other requirements to being a mammal and birds are also warm blooded.


It's not rigorous :tongue3:

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My analogy was not with warm bloodedness, but creatures that produce milk. You have confused necessary and sufficient conditions.

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I think it's significant if the only attribute of god you can offer a proof of is minor and irrelevant.

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Necessary being is not a minor attribute: it speaks to the foundational being of a thing: its basic ontic standing.

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Originally Posted by Pindar

My analogy was not with warm bloodedness, but creatures that produce milk. You have confused necessary and sufficient conditions.

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There are birds that produce milk as well.

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Necessary being is not a minor attribute: it speaks to the foundational being of a thing: its basic ontic standing.

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Whether the universe was created or came into being on it's own has no effect on our lives. You're evading the point.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

There are birds that produce milk as well.

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You've missed the point again: necessary and sufficient conditions are distinct logical categories.

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Originally Posted by me

Necessary being is not a minor attribute: it speaks to the foundational being of a thing: its basic ontic standing.

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Whether the universe was created or came into being on it's own has no effect on our lives. You're evading the point.

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Your post doesn't relate to my post which is not concerned with any ex nihilo commentary. My comment is concerned with the importance of a thing's ontic status and that that is fundamental.

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Originally Posted by Pindar

*stuff*

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Have you given any proof of attributes of god other than "first mover"?

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Have you given any proof of attributes of god other than "first mover"?

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I gave a proof of God as necessary being. First Mover doesn't appear in the proof.

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Originally Posted by Pindar

I gave a proof of God as necessary being. First Mover doesn't appear in the proof.

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I understood them to be the same, but whatever. Insert other phrase, same question?

This is taking way longer than it should.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I understood them to be the same, but whatever. Insert other phrase, same question?

This is taking way longer than it should.

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They are not the same. I don't know what the "it" refers to above.

As far as the new question: I've only put forward one proof. It focuses on one essential feature of God. It is all that is needed. A proof for God does not require a taxonomy for very aspect of God i.e. the necessarily best basketball player. I chose one simple proof that revolves around the basic being of God. The proof is more than sufficient for its purpose which was to give an example why your earlier statement that "all strong statements about God are illogical" was incorrect. The absurdity of strong atheism, which I pointed out, remains, but none have been able to show my proof as invalid, despite some rather bizarre tangents.

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Originally Posted by Pindar

They are not the same. I don't know what the "it" refers to above.

As far as the new question: I've only put forward one proof. It focuses on one essential feature of God. It is all that is needed. A proof for God does not require a taxonomy for very aspect of God i.e. the necessarily best basketball player. I choose one simple proof that revolves around the basic being of God. The proof is more than sufficient for its purpose which was to give an example why your earlier statement that "all strong statements about God are illogical" was incorrect. The absurdity of strong atheism, which I pointed out, remains, but none have been able to show my proof as invalid, despite some rather bizarre tangents.

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Your proof leaves no way of differentiating between:

"Thou shalt not post on message boards or you will be cast into the fiery pit"--God

and

"Thou shalt post on message boards or you will be cast into the fiery pit"--God

Which does God believe?

There has to be some significance to god's existence, or he is irrelevant. Necessary being provides no significance.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

There has to be some significance to god's existence, or he is irrelevant. Necessary being provides no significance.

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If you believe God may exist, but is irrelevant- you're not an atheist. Just sayin... :wink:

What is God necessary for?

Actually what is difference between the Big Bang and God?

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Your proof leaves no way of differentiating between:

"Thou shalt not post on message boards or you will be cast into the fiery pit"--God

and

"Thou shalt post on message boards or you will be cast into the fiery pit"--God

Which does God believe?

There has to be some significance to god's existence, or he is irrelevant. Necessary being provides no significance.

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The proof is concerned with the existence of God not a particular Divine edict. There has been a penchant in the thread to confuse sectarian notions (i.e. God commanding X) with rational display. They are not the same.

The significance of God's existence can be seen in the proof.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

What is God necessary for?

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See the proof.

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Actually what is difference between the Big Bang and God?

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The former is an event the latter is a being.

Hi,

I have watched this debate for a long time and I will now throw in my 2 cents.


The proof, Pindar has put, is based on the word "god". And god is obviously understood to be the necessary being, the "First Mover".

The word "god" has been shaped in our culture by the jewish/christian tradition. In this tradition god is indeed the necessary being. But I would argue that the connection of "god" with "necessary being" itself is not necessary.

To illustrate the point:

Imagine the first chapter of Genesis was slightly different and it would be like this: There was a BIG BANG and god came into being. He was almighty and omniscient and had many ideas about morality, but somehow he felt lonely. So he created Earth, plants and animals and finally mankind....

Reenk Roink,

Reason is inevitable. Any conclusion assumes its own rightness and the correctness of the means used to get there. It is contrary to any point we would wish to make to say that we cannot make a point. Organizing our understanding is an attempt to perfect what we must use. In the experience of humans so far, the scientific method of testing conclusions against our environment has been more successful than simply tossing the dice and coming to contradictory beliefs.


Pindar,

Just what qualities do you suppose that God necessarily has, and what leads to say that it has those qualities?

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Originally Posted by Haudegen

Hi,

I have watched this debate for a long time and I will now throw in my 2 cents.


The proof, Pindar has put, is based on the word "god". And god is obviously understood to be the necessary being, the "First Mover".

The word "god" has been shaped in our culture by the jewish/christian tradition. In this tradition god is indeed the necessary being. But I would argue that the connection of "god" with "necessary being" itself is not necessary.

To illustrate the point:

Imagine the first chapter of Genesis was slightly different and it would be like this: There was a BIG BANG and god came into being. He was almighty and omniscient and had many ideas about morality, but somehow he felt lonely. So he created Earth, plants and animals and finally mankind....

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Hi Haudegen,

The proof I've given for God makes no reference to Biblical Tradition, not is it dependent on it. It is based on the logic of perfection as first demonstrated by the Greeks. God's necessity is considered part and parcel of the very concept God. God indicates perfection. This means not only the maximalization of all positive qualities, but also an ontic independence. What is necessary being in logical terms has being independent of any other act, actor or temporal consideration. A God who was dependent on another thing or is temporally bound (there was a time when it was not) in any degree would by that same degree be less than the maximal standard required for the designation God. In simple terms: a God created by a Big Bang or any other factor could not be God.

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Originally Posted by Kanamori

Pindar,

Just what qualities do you suppose that God necessarily has, and what leads to say that it has those qualities?

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God has all the qualities entailed in the idea of perfection. This is because to be God under any rational rubric means to be perfect.

Thanks for the response, Pindar. I´m not at all familiar with the logic of perfection. Perhaps you have a link for me? Googling myself didn´t help. :oops:


Right now I ask myself (and you ~:) ): Why should I accept that there is one being that is perfect in every way? In fact I think all beings in the world have specialised in some aspects and perform poorly in other areas. Perfection can nowhere be found in nature.

1) God is perfect
2) The universe is not perfect
3) Therefore god did not create the universe

??

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Originally Posted by Kanamori

Reenk Roink,

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You got back to me. :beam: :smiley:

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Originally Posted by Kanamori

Reason is inevitable. Any conclusion assumes its own rightness and the correctness of the means used to get there. It is contrary to any point we would wish to make to say that we cannot make a point. Organizing our understanding is an attempt to perfect what we must use.

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Exactly, but you have just admitted that we cannot escape circularity. And with circularity, we can prove anything.

You are essentially giving the "reason works" answer, am I right?

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Originally Posted by Kanamori

In the experience of humans so far, the scientific method of testing conclusions against our environment has been more successful than simply tossing the dice and coming to contradictory beliefs.

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Now there is one big (I would say fatal) objection to this. I posted it earlier on the thread.

I suggest reading the whole article, though the spoiler parts contain the important snippets if you're short on time.

I'll put it bluntly and allow Prof. Salmon to expound the point:

There is no reason why we should prefer the scientific method over crystal gazing, astrology, or dice throwing.

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Originally Posted by Pindar

See the proof.

The former is an event the latter is a being.

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My apologies but which page is the proof on?

Also if the proof relies on a prime mover it is like so 19th century and just can't handle the heat. :sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Haudegen

Thanks for the response, Pindar. I´m not at all familiar with the logic of perfection. Perhaps you have a link for me? Googling myself didn´t help. :oops:

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I don't know about what Google has to offer. The Logic of Perfection is the rational rubric that attended Greek Thought on the question of the Absolute. This is seen from Parmenides through to Plotinus. It is also the rational standard adopted by a Hellenized Christianity and Islam. The former assuming a Neo-Platonic model the latter an Aristotelian one.

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Right now I ask myself (and you ~:) ): Why should I accept that there is one being that is perfect in every way?

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Should suggests some kind of ought: questions of prudence are not my concern here. I have been focused on the rational and irrational elements behind theistic and atheistic stances.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

1) God is perfect
2) The universe is not perfect
3) Therefore god did not create the universe

??

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This doesn't follow. Neither is it related to the existence or non-existence of God.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

My apologies but which page is the proof on?

Also if the proof relies on a prime mover it is like so 19th century and just can't handle the heat. :sweatdrop:

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I think the first reference is on page four, post 120. The proof is a model of an argument that is much much older than the 19th Century. It is millennia old in its scope.

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God has all the qualities entailed in the idea of perfection. This is because to be God under any rational rubric means to be perfect.

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What this means isn't clear to me. This, along the notions of "being" and that the universe couldn't have caused itself, seems a little vague. If you're interested in spending the time, I'd like to see a fairly detailed description of this portion of the proof.

Could the being shown in the proof not have perfection pulled from the ideas that make it up? Why can there only be one god? Why must we not be a part of this being? My organs are probably not aware of me, and it could be argued that we are processes, so we may be simply be lacking conciousness of some entity that we belong to.

Along with that, I've been thinking about conciousness and whether or not we can really be beings that continue to exist through time. Most of our body's cells do not stay with us for all of our lives, and the cells that do stay with us -- nerves I think do -- change and are never the same for all our lives, not to mention that the fact that I never actually remember existing, I just have memories.

Also, there are empirically based theories that say that the universe could have just always existed; relativity can go along these lines, I think. As in, time does not exist without spatiality, and without spatiality there is no matter.

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You got back to me.

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I only had time to make it a daydreaming project.

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Exactly, but you have just admitted that we cannot escape circularity. And with circularity, we can prove anything.

You are essentially giving the "reason works" answer, am I right?

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No, I'm not so audacious as to say that I know reason works, only that I am forced to assume that it does. Any statement, inlcuding "reason doesn't work," rely on us thinking that our thinking can be right; rightness and wrongness are judgments coming from evaluation. Denying reason is trying to deny pointedness that thinking is. Trying to deny the thinkning is just a trick of the words that are used as representations. (I know I'll have to expound on this later...)

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I'll put it bluntly and allow Prof. Salmon to expound the point:

There is no reason why we should prefer the scientific method over crystal gazing, astrology, or dice throwing.

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After hearing about a person gitting run over by a car, I think that it is in my best interestto avoid putting myself in the way of cars. The same methodology has resulted in more expansive and testable theories about our environments.

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Originally Posted by Kanamori

No, I'm not so audacious as to say that I know reason works, only that I am forced to assume that it does. Any statement, inlcuding "reason doesn't work," rely on us thinking that our thinking can be right; rightness and wrongness are judgments coming from evaluation. Denying reason is trying to deny pointedness that thinking is. Trying to deny the thinkning is just a trick of the words that are used as representations. (I know I'll have to expound on this later...)

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Very astute point. I thought of it myself in a bit different way. I guessed that one possible objection would be "But Reenk, are you not yourself presupposing the validity of reason simply by using it to show that it is an unwarranted assumption?".

I would have to concede the point, but also reply with two of my own:

1) I am using reason simply because it is the only method that would be convincing to my audience (you). It would be more effective to use a crystal ball prediction to convince someone who holds crystal ball predictions as the epistemic foundation of knowledge, and the same is true in our case.

I could very well argue:

fripalu :hippy: iu-yoi

...but somehow, I don't think you would be as convinced...

2) It still runs in to the problem of circularity.

I have heard people criticize the argument of:

"I believe in God because the Bible says so, and I believe in the Bible because it is from God".

...and yet would not any justification of reason would run into the same problem?

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Originally Posted by Pindar

Should suggests some kind of ought: questions of prudence are not my concern here. I have been focused on the rational and irrational elements behind theistic and atheistic stances.

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Well, I consider myself open for rational arguments. Therefore I feel like I should believe something if it seems rational to me. ~:)

But I´m still struggling with this idea of perfection. I assume perfection means "the best that can possibly be". When you say that one aspect of perfection is non-contingency, I would argue that I simply don´t know whether non-contingency is possible at all, and I doubt that anyone (except god, if he exists) can know for sure. If I remember correctly you said earlier that a non-contingent being was necessary because otherwise there would be an infinite regress. Well, IMHO the infinite regress has the same problem: I don´t know if it´s possible, and probably nobody can know for sure. So in my view one has theses choices here:

1) Assume that non-contingent beings are possible. In this case the proof would probably convince me that there is a god.
2) Assume that an infinite regress is possible. In this case the proof would be faulty.
3) Concede that there is not enough information available to give a definite answer.

I´ll pick #3.