The only two reasonable positions on the existence of God?

[ThePainefulTruth]

Atheism and Deism? From our standpoint, those two philosophies are indistinguishable. All others can be dismissed on the basis of reason/science since other theologies inevitably have to resort to faith (blind faith) to justify ignoring reason and logic.

[wiploc]

As usual, the argument is against the theism of revealed religion, the easy target.

You'd rather have us argue against a secret (unrevealed) religion that we're not familiar with?

And that unicorn argument is so tired.

It's no more tired than the arguments that it effectively refutes.

God would be Truth whatever form that might be, even the absurd pink unicorn, as opposed to nothing.

A couple of posts ago, you were saying there's no evidence about god, but now you are dictating his characteristics. How do you justify that?

The only thing we have to explain is the universe, for which there is not the first tidbit of evidence.

I've seen it myself.

[Cephus]

As usual, the argument is against the theism of revealed religion, the easy target. And that unicorn argument is so tired. God would be Truth whatever form that might be, even the absurd pink unicorn, as opposed to nothing.

The only thing we have to explain is the universe, for which there is not the first tidbit of evidence. The only question is whether the force that created it is conscious, or not. It's surprising, though maybe it shouldn't be, that the Big Bang is such a perfectly efficient firewall.

Nope, doesn't work that way. Besides, all religions are "revealed" religions, otherwise they would be demonstrable. There has to be some way to get the information about the gods, either the gods can be demonstrated to be factually existent or the "truth" has to be "revealed" in some way. If you have some other option, please let us know.

Besides, who says that we have to explain the universe? Trillions of people have lived and died without ever explaining the origin of the universe. You might WANT to explain it, that doesn't mean you HAVE to explain it and not having an explanation does not grant you license to just make something up because you're emotionally uncomfortable with not having an answer. In fact, we have tons of evidence about the origins of our universe and every bit of it, without exception, points to a natural, not a supernatural, explanation. Will our understanding ever be complete? Maybe not. We may never be able to see back farther than Planck time and if that's the case, we need to accept that reality and move on. It doesn't give you permission to just invent imaginary gods out of whole cloth because you want them to be true. You need to actually come up with objective evidence to support their factual existence or be branded irrational.

[ThePainefulTruth]

As usual, the argument is against the theism of revealed religion, the easy target.

You'd rather have us argue against a secret (unrevealed) religion that we're not familiar with?

And that unicorn argument is so tired.

It's no more tired than the arguments that it effectively refutes.

God would be Truth whatever form that might be, even the absurd pink unicorn, as opposed to nothing.

A couple of posts ago, you were saying there's no evidence about god, but now you are dictating his characteristics. How do you justify that?

The only thing we have to explain is the universe, for which there is not the first tidbit of evidence.

I've seen it myself.

So, you didn't even bother to read what I wrote, just swept it into a pile under the rug of arrogance and sarcasm. Have a nice day, unless that's not on your list of cherries to pick.

[Zzyzx]

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So, you didn't even bother to read what I wrote, just swept it into a pile under the rug of arrogance and sarcasm. Have a nice day, unless that's not on your list of cherries to pick.

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[Ooberman]

I don't presume to DEFINE God; that's all.

You seem to say that as if it is something noble. God, being who he is, should not be subservient to mere humans, how dare they presume to limit or define him.

I find that rather surprising coming from you. That's rather a LOT of words to stuff into my mouth at the same time.

I did not intend to metaphorically stuff words into your mouth. What I intended to express was my own perhaps emotional response to what you had said. The choice of words not to presume implies, to me, a kind of I'm-above-that attitude, whether or that was your intended message.

Wrong. "Presumption" here refers to presuming to know things about God that one does not. Some rabbis of old even regarded attempts to define God as a sort of idolatry -- making a "mental image" of God which would then be worshipped as if it were God itself. Considering the arguments here on this forum about what God supposedly likes and hates, that seems a very valid concern to me.

I appreciate you saying this, because it's been a rather strident point I have often tried to make - that there is, obviously and logically, a problem if someone claims to speak for God. We have no known process that tells us if a person speaks for a God.

But, I'd go even further than you suggest: how do we know God also doesn't contact us, but still exists in some other form? Or, what if God does exist in the most fundamental sense, and you and I, are simply too sinful to understand? Our hearts hardened.

It seems to me, these represent two vastly different, but logically consistent - whether we like it or not - worlds. You and I may no like a Fundi World, but there seems to be no way of knowing this version of reality is true, or if God isn't speaking to us.

That this extreme difference is true, and we have no reliable method of determining which one God created, it seems to me the perfect marker of a myth - in toto.

That is, even the entertaining of what God may or may not want does nothing but express what we want. That in itself can be valuable, but not pretending there is a God to actually nail down.

My point is that even sensible talk about God becomes nonsensical if there is no God. It would be no different than discussing the qualities of unicorn hair, and we simply do not have the same reverence for people who debate the silkiness of unicorn hair, how many angels can dance on a pin, and whether Mary was a virgin, or her son rose from the dead. Or, if God flooded the Earth, spoke to anyone, or even exists at all.

There is no "wacky, Fundi, literal" talk of God. There is no strawman. There are no "cartoon versions" of a God debate.


They are ALL wacky and Fundi because the question is constantly begged: if God doesn't exist, then we are reading signs in tea leaves, and pretending it's important.

It's not searching for the Great White Whale, but a mythical sea creature.


So, it gets back to the comment that struck me in Mc's post: "You seem to say that as if it is something noble."

It's possible, though we both agree unlikely, that your position is not noble, but in fact your pride speaking - and actually stopping you from understanding God as a Fundi does.

As I said, the problem isn't that we both have many reasons to think that option is remote, but ALL other options of God are equally remote or possible. God could be ANYTHING, which is a problem for the hypothesis in the first place.

How do you know God isn't one thing and not another? We can't glean anything from our existence, our past, our present, the people who speak for God, Nature to speak for God, etc... It's as if there isn't anything to talk about, except our common Ethos.

If all of this makes it just as likely there is no God, and there is no way of talking about God - even crowing (used lightly) about how one doesn't presume anything about God - without assuming something that has no merit other than the experience of your own mind.

I can touch a stone, and touch water and explain with decent accuracy which is colder. You can confirm it. Those are things we can talk about. We can talk about logic, but it has it's roots in physicality. It must. It must make sense in all possible worlds. That's what Logic is.

God simply doesn't have a starting point.

You say " the God who is unlike anything in this Universe or anything that we know." But this must continue:

" the God who is unlike anything in this Universe or anything that we know, or may not exist at all."

It's the presumption that a God might exist, when there is no evidence for one in the first place. All cultures spoke about their Gods, and they have all been wrong. As smart as the Jews were/are, that alone does create the best description of a non-extant Being.

There is no "better" description of a real unicorn. There are only better descriptions of a unicorn in each story. Talking about God is like talking about unicorns - except, as I point out, as a way to talk about your own beliefs.

So, I think the further debate point of your religious/culture view that you have a better system to talk about God - even if God doesn't exist. As vague and open-ended Judaism is, it isn't objectively correct. It may be individually pleasing, but it's no better than Fundi religions: they both hope to establish a base line for all thought. They may have had a number of interesting ideas, but for my money, no different from the Greeks, and in many ways, they were inferior.

[Cathar1950]

Modal logic ... seems to be showing us that the existence of God is either Necessary or Impossible ...

It doesn't show that. That's just an assumption made at the beginning of the argument, a contrivance used to jump start an absurdity.

You might be preaching to the choir and I might not be clear as to the nature of metaphysics. But you are wrong as to what it can or can not show. The Divine or Ultimate existence is either Necessary or Impossible if we take seriously modal logic as it relates to the Necessary, Possible and Actual, actual being the concrete reality.
As a Process thinker we take becoming rather than being as a quest and as it relates to Classical Theism I agree, it is an absurdity, nonsense or impossible.
Anselm's argument was more of a proposal as to the meaning of the Divine. He presents two main definition or meanings as to the existence of "God". One was the that "God" is idea that the Divine was the greatest conceivable being the other that the Divine was unsurpassable and while he did show that those Atheists that claimed "God" was possible were wrong, unfortunately for his argument he showed that the Divine was either Necessary or Impossible and that his own idea of "God" was absurd. But the argument only deals with the way the Divine exists and say nothing about the Divine actuality. Aquinas after regrinding the Medieval through Neo-Platonic or Aristotelian grinder and while his system was shipwrecked upon the rocks of contradiction he left us good charts of those rocks. Unfortunately our Classical Theists tend to stand on those rocks, sometimes called paradox or mystery, and wave others directing them to the same rocks as if they were profound or meaningful with the same unmoved mover outside of time and space.

I tend to see the metaphysics of classical theism as it is usually presented here as not much more than begging the questions as it relates to the empirical nature of "God" questions with poor metaphysical understandings.

Atheism and Deism? From our standpoint, those two philosophies are indistinguishable. All others can be dismissed on the basis of reason/science since other theologies inevitably have to resort to faith (blind faith) to justify ignoring reason and logic.

Atheism and Deism are not philosophers but rather theologies and I can't help wonder what he even means by "our standpoint", what is their actual standpoint and who is "us"?

[wiploc]

Modal logic ... seems to be showing us that the existence of God is either Necessary or Impossible ...

It doesn't show that. That's just an assumption made at the beginning of the argument, a contrivance used to jump start an absurdity.

You might be preaching to the choir and I might not be clear as to the nature of metaphysics. But you are wrong as to what it can or can not show. The Divine or Ultimate existence is either Necessary or Impossible if we take seriously modal logic as it relates to the Necessary, Possible and Actual, actual being the concrete reality.

The only way the modal ontological argument shows that god is either necessary or impossible is by defining him that way at the outset. IF we define god that way, THEN we discover that god (thus defined) exists in either every possible world or no possible world.

Thus, the modal argument is at best circular and at worst self-defeating. (Both, as it turns out.)

Atheism and Deism? From our standpoint, those two philosophies are indistinguishable. All others can be dismissed on the basis of reason/science since other theologies inevitably have to resort to faith (blind faith) to justify ignoring reason and logic.

I repudiate this quotation: I didn't say this. By putting this in a single set of quote tags (after quoting me in a single set of quote tags), and quoting it without attribution, you accidentally made it look attributable to me.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 75 by Cathar1950]

It is not known to be possible that a maximally great being (MGB) could exist, though many may consider it plausible. By plausible, I mean its possibility is conceivable, or that it may be a concept that many easily believe to be possible.
However, plausibility does not correspond to possibility. We cannot assert the possibility of an MGB.

Furthermore, and my main objections, MGB is defined in such a way that an MGB is defined as necessary.
You cannot define a noun in such a way that it is either necessary or having some property entailing necessity, because that defines a noun to be extant in reality.
The modal ontological argument would work for ANY OBJECT assigned necessary existence.
Not only that, but the modal ontological argument is pointless. The moment you say that an MGB is necessary is the moment you've shown its existence. If your definition of MGB entails necessity, then it exists by definition.



A simple objection to the modal ontological argument can be written as follows:
1. (Premise) It is possible that a maximally great being does not exist
2. If it is possible that a MGB does not exist, then an MGB does not exist in some possible world
3.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 75 by Cathar1950]

It is not known to be possible that a maximally great being (MGB) could exist, though many may consider it plausible. By plausible, I mean its possibility is conceivable, or that it may be a concept that many easily believe to be possible.
However, plausibility does not correspond to possibility. We cannot assert the possibility of an MGB.

Furthermore, and my main objections, MGB is defined in such a way that an MGB is defined as necessary.
You cannot define a noun in such a way that it is either necessary or having some property entailing necessity, because that defines a noun to be extant in reality.
The modal ontological argument would work for ANY OBJECT assigned necessary existence.
Not only that, but the modal ontological argument is pointless. The moment you say that an MGB is necessary is the moment you've shown its existence. If your definition of MGB entails necessity, then it exists by definition.



A simple objection to the modal ontological argument can be written as follows:

1. If it is possible that a MGB exists, then a MGB exists in some possible world.
2. If a MGB exists in any possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
3. If an MGB does not exist in every possible world, then it does not exist in any possible world.

(Premise) It is possible that an MGB does not exist

4. If it is possible that an MGB does not exist, then an MGB does not exist in some possible world
5. If an MGB does not exist in some possible world, it does not exist in every possible world
6. If an MGB does not exist in any possible world, an MGB is impossible and does not exist in the actual world
7. A maximally great being does not exist.


Now, either it's impossible that an MGB doesn't exist, or it's necessary that he doesn't.
So, in order to counter this argument and justify the ontological argument, you need to show that it is impossible for an MGB not to exist.

In other words, you need to prove an MGB exists necessarily so that you can use your argument to prove an MGB exists.

[ThePainefulTruth]

As usual, the argument is against the theism of revealed religion, the easy target. And that unicorn argument is so tired. God would be Truth whatever form that might be, even the absurd pink unicorn, as opposed to nothing.

The only thing we have to explain is the universe, for which there is not the first tidbit of evidence. The only question is whether the force that created it is conscious, or not. It's surprising, though maybe it shouldn't be, that the Big Bang is such a perfectly efficient firewall.

Nope, doesn't work that way.

What doesn't work what way?

Besides, all religions are "revealed" religions, otherwise they would be demonstrable. There has to be some way to get the information about the gods, either the gods can be demonstrated to be factually existent or the "truth" has to be "revealed" in some way. If you have some other option, please let us know.

If there is a method to get information about God, based on what is available, the only way is through 100% hearsay. As you said yourself there's nothing demonstrable about any of the revealed religions/philosophies concerning God. There are only two [strike]religions[/strike] philosophies that rely only on reason about God, atheism and deism. From our standpoint there's no difference between the two since for both, there is no evidence (other than hearsay) for or against God.

Besides, who says that we have to explain the universe?

You don't, unless you want to consider the possibility of God. You can be a materialist or a nihilist if that makes you happy....or unhappy, whatever you want.

In fact, we have tons of evidence about the origins of our universe and every bit of it, without exception, points to a natural, not a supernatural, explanation.

We don't have the first scrap of evidence of any kind for what caused or preceded the singularity. All we have is what followed it.

Will our understanding ever be complete? Maybe not. We may never be able to see back farther than Planck time and if that's the case, we need to accept that reality and move on. It doesn't give you permission to just invent imaginary gods out of whole cloth because you want them to be true. You need to actually come up with objective evidence to support their factual existence or be branded irrational.

I didn't invent an imaginary God, I merely propose that, a super-consciousness, as one of two possibilities to explain the universe. But the real kicker is that both God and spontaneous creation are irrational--or at least there's no rational evidence to support either.