Neither science nor logic can disprove God?
Why is it that neither science nor logic can disprove God?
What's the bedrock belief here that overrides one's reasons or lack thereof, of or for believing in God in face of no empirical evidence to attest to his existence.
Is it really the argument from nothing, that something was created that backs everything God related up?
What's the bedrock belief here that overrides one's reasons or lack thereof, of or for believing in God in face of no empirical evidence to attest to his existence.
Is it really the argument from nothing, that something was created that backs everything God related up?
Comments (264)
They don't? I would say that belief in such an incoherent notion was pretty much ruled out by science and logic. Of course there are plenty of ad hoc arguments in his favour, but they are far from convincing.
Ontological shock, such as surprise that there is a world, can only be honestly met with recognition that such issues are intractable.
It's not convincing if you assume the supposition that God exists. Following from this everything I say is moot.
So, what's the justification for this bedrock belief?
Quoting tim wood
Indeed.
It's an asserted proposition to say that God exists, no?
So, what's the reason for believing so despite science and logic?
Yes, isn't this an asserted proposition then to assume that God exists when presented with science or logical arguments?
No systematic approach can disprove the existence of god because there is no universally recognized definition of god. The best we can do is refute different formulations of god. What god are we talking about?
Scientific investigation cannot do so because the question of deity lies outside of if scope of inquiry. Science deals with the natural universe, and claims of the existence of deity are, by their very nature, supernatural claims.
Logic cannot positively disprove claims regarding deity, but it can provide a rational basis for not believing therein. The rationale for this was stated most succinctly, as far as I know, by Bertrand Russell. I paraphrase: "the acceptance of supernatural claims requires supernatural proofs". This means, of course, that in the absence of a supernatural manifestation giving proof of the existence of God, it is irrational to believe in such an existence, and the claim should be met with a "provisional skepticism", which does not categorically deny the existence of deity, and yet refuses to accept it.
Well, this is what I was attempting address in regards to ex nihilo arguments, when they are raised by inquiry. This is what Stephen Hawking wrote about that science can prove that something out of nothing need not be true to render the asserted proposition that God exists as true.
Hope that made sense.
But I don't...?
I understand that. But, just as Wittgenstein told Russell that there might be a rhinoceros in the room, and you couldn't disprove it, so too is the God argument when consider God's existence as an asserted proposition, no?
Well, to the extent that God is made up we can proceed down the following path:
I'll not go over the "flying spaghetti monster" argument, but let's say that I believe there's a Goddess not a God. My neighbor believes that there is a cosmic turtle. My other neighbor thinks we are in the dreams of giant. My friend thinks that there is a supreme number, which rules over all numbers, etc.
But then, who is right? They all claim to believe as strongly as anyone in the planet, and all have had profound experiences that reveal such truths to them.
So we can postulate an infinite amount of God(s), with the same legitimacy as the God of the Christians. The thing is, we cannot disprove things, we can say at most that they're extremely unlikely. I can't disprove we aren't in The Matrix, nor that the whole world came into existence 5 seconds ago. Why? Because they could be the case.
But if the "original God" is as likely as anything else I've said, then I don't think you should assign a good likelihood such a being exists at all.
So here's the thing. Believers will keep believing even if science and logic could disprove god/s.
Or they can reformulate "god" (utilizing theology) to evade logic and science.
I agree with your analysis and seem to be stuck on the referent that X exists. X being, as you said, a Turtle, Goddess, or in a farfetched dream of a giant.
So, it's an assumed proposition to say that God exists. Hence from this one cannot assume that God doesn't exist even when confronted with facts or scientific theories denying his existence.
Well, if you define God as that which cannot be disproven by science or logic, then there you have it.
If science or logic say there is nothing they cannot disprove, then they have their work cut out for them.
Yes. I mean, part of the problem is that if you "what is God? And please, don't give me the All Wise, All Noble argument." What they usual say, in my experience, are very, very, very nebulous ideas, that verge on not being meaningful at all.
Like the people who say "I believe in a Higher Power." "Ok, but what is that?" "Something bigger than me and you." "Uh, yeah, many things are bigger than me, what do you have in mind?" "Something beyond us", etc.
So yeah, something very nebulous, very weird and very big may exist. It doesn't make sense.
I mean really. The opposite of an all good being.
Maybe the persistence of the idea does not come from a set of convictions but a response to experience. I am not causing everything that happens but I do cause some things to happen. Do those disparate observations catch a glimpse of what is going on or not? The question starts from a poverty far removed from explanations of sufficiency.
A proposition of mathematics can be proved in the terms accepted at the beginning as definitions. Very little else is like that, even the technical systems that drive our world. Some models work better than others for a specific purpose. Is the question of the divine supposed to be approached the same way?
Well, once you shout out that there's an elephant in the room, one can argue, perhaps persuasively, that it is there. But, this doesn't address the psychological importance of believing itself.
Moore said a lot about common sense, no?
Again, as per the OP, I believe the importance is the ex nihilo argument that something came from nothing. Yes?
It seems common sensicle to believe in God; but, when one is confronted with questioning his existence the issue isn't hard to make it likewise common sensicle.
Why is that?
I'm just saying that it qualifies as a assumed proposition to assume God's existence, no?
The alternative to the ex nihilo argument is equally not self evident. To accept the alternative would mean what seems like a new form of life is actually just a repetition of what was already expressed. Perhaps all of the Creation stories are trying to move away from that conclusion.
Edit to Add:
Oh crap. I just remembered I have left the Forum. Pardon the interruption.
Because they start from axioms. Empiricism, for instance, starts from the requirement that whatever is posited is discernable by sense-experience, or is mathematically provable with reference to such evidence, as a matter of course. Logic starts from axioms and rules, such as the law of identity and the law of the excluded middle, whereas the first principle of reality is not so bound.
I think, furthermore, that modern culture on the whole has become so alienated from the framework within which the idea of God is intelligible, that it literally doesn't make the kind of sense that it will understand. I notice, for instance, that in respect of the question of the reality of abstract reals, such as number, the question that is invariably asked is whether they're 'out there,somewhere'. But if such abstracts are real, they are transcendent, in that they are not situated in time and space. But if they're not situated in time and space - not 'out there somewhere', then, for empiricism, they can't be real. This is a deep and permeating issue in modern philosophy.
(I am saying this, not as one committed to defending a specific doctrinal idea of God, but as one who is convinced of the inadequacy of naturalism to present a meaningful philosophy. )
I'd say an assumption is an assumed proposition.
I see lots of people throw the word "God" around when that term, that concept, has not first been defined in the discussion.
See this review of David Bentley Hart's 'Experience of God'
I believe that at the very first of the issue is the Principle of Sufficient Reason. To assume something exists means there must have been a cause for it, either intelligent or supernatural. Hence X exists to explain the phenomenon.
Distancing from the Principle of Sufficient Reason is not necessarily wrong; but, isn't what science or logic can deal with. Is this really at it's stripped down core the issue?
I was not born believing in God (some may be, but not I). And it seemed far from common sense to think he existed until I encountered a proof.
An assumed proposition is similar to question begging in asking for no doubt to be utilized in face of a supposition like argument about X to be held as true.
I mention that it can seem just as plausible to believe in Gods existence as the lack of his existence and no amount of empirical evidence would support either conclusion.
It's just a belief.
I think the only response to this would be question begging for the existence of God in any discussion.
One first has to assume what does it mean to say that God exists, and I don't mean this in the traditional sense.
Well we can know a holy God doesn't exist, because God is said to be the necessary ground of everything and would be the necessary ground for all horrible things in the world (rape, ect). So a holy God can't be a part of that
He can't be perfectly "simple" because if he created the world than that adds a thought to his simplicity and he is no longer perfectly simply. So that's out of the way
Holiness and simplicity are essential for a traditional Western view of God.
You will encounter in various schools of philosophy, the assertion that God is 'beyond being'. What this means, in my understanding, is 'beyond existence'. In Buddhist philosophy, it refers to that which does not come into or go out of existence, that which is 'always so'. And that tradition doesn't speak in terms of 'God' at all, nor is the Buddha supposed to be a 'creator God'. (You find a comparable idea at the origin of Western metaphysics, specifically in the fragmentary sayings of Parmenides. Both the Buddha and Parmenides are said to be exemplars of the 'axial age' of philosophy.)
So this, to me, points to the way the question has to be framed. The transcendent nature of the first cause is such that it is not encompassed by discursive reason nor by objective analysis. You might say that the only other option is faith - to believe without knowing - but I think the way is actually through the deep kind of 'un-knowing', the doorway to which is meditation or contemplation.
You have to realise that God preserved in the dessicated relics of tradition was created for a purpose, keeping the flock within the paddock, so to speak. But a philosophical awareness of the nature of question is what is needed to approach the question analytically, which is what I'm trying to do here. And it's considerably more radical than conventional theology. (I noticed this book a couple of years back.)
There's a column I often point to in this respect. It's by a Bishop of the European Episcopal Church, and it's called God does not Exist.
Well, I'm not addressing the, identification of the Westernized Abrahamic God in terms of his historical or descriptive attributes. I'm more leaning towards treating the existence of God as the sole factor here.
What I found out is interesting.
1) The Principle of Sufficient Reason is necessary for endowing God with an existence in the world, otherwise it's 'woo'.
Does anyone agree with 1)?
Like X = X?
This is where language goes on holiday. I believe that with dispensing the Principle of Sufficient Reason, that science and logic so heavily rely on, one is committing oneself to the supernatural or creationism.
I think there shouldn't be any dispute about this, or is there?
You have cut to the bone of the issue. You may or may not agree with Spinoza but he tried to answer your challenge. Moving the arguments past whether something existed or not to what is a cause.
More like:
Assume X,
Therefore, X
See the response immediately prior to yours...
Glad your still around.
That quote sounds pretty accurate to me. For instance, many folks add "good" to the definition of God. I never understood that. It certainly doesn't factor into my understanding of God. I'd also have to agree about the "lack of any coherent sense at all" when it comes to my own understanding God.
Got it. Thanks.
No, it's where philosophical theology exceeds your grasp. Don't take that as a pejorative. But there is a definite and real method here if you're patient enough to try and grasp it.
Quoting Shawn
That's a telling objection. Today's culture will always posit this question as a conflict between 'secure, rational science' and 'obscure, superstitious mysticism'. They are the horns of the dilemma.
Yes that's true, but then you have to ask if God is immanent in us or not. It's the next immediate question
There's no reason to argue with him if he's going to accept well known fallacies.
How do science and logic rely on the Principle of Sufficient Reason?
I wold have though it somewhat anachronistic. I've seen no mention of it in studies of scientific methodology nor formal logic.
Am I mistaken?
Read the rest of the post. I instantiate that everything in this world has a cause and effect, per the PoSR. Therefore, if you assume that something came out of nothing, as per the only reason why God can possibly exist according to science (which science labels as intelligent design, assuming that you believe that God exists), then that's how the argument unfolds according the the PoSR.
He did. But common sense is not easy to tease out.
I think believing in God at one time during our evolutionary history made sense and was even rational. It's an attempt at an explanation for existence. Now those arguments aren't nearly as persuasive or good.
So early belief is in some respects easier to think about than modern belief in terms of what one uses to explain certain phenomena.
In logic, it's called material implication, in science it's called a cause for every effect.
If you subscribe to the PoSR, then God only makes sense if something came out from nothing. But, to attribute this to God is called creationism or more commonly intelligent design.
Do you agree with this?
Yes, and here the PoSR has it's strength in assuming that everything has a reason for it's phenomenon or more modernly, cause. Otherwise you incur supernaturalism or revelation or some such. A religious person would say that this is where faith is needed, because belief can only be scrutinized so much.
I advise the PoSR to anyone considering any assumed proposition. Why? Logic and sound reasoning demands so.
That may be why no one argues with me. My definition of God (what I call All, or simply A) is so broad that it defies logic. A = A and -A at the same time. I honestly can't fathom a God that does not. Anything less is certainly no God as I define it.
The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason, cause, or ground. This simple demand for thoroughgoing intelligibility yields some of the boldest and most challenging theses in the history of philosophy. In this entry we begin by explaining the Principle and then turn to the history of the debates around it. We conclude with an examination of the emerging contemporary discussion of the Principle.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/#PSRContPhil
It's just game. He's just playing games.
:up:
So, I take it your not a fan of the PoSR?
But what if God is purely an internal thing and is not above, below, alongside, and in any sense outside the world. The sufficient reason isn't outside things. Science can explain just fine how the world came to be (Hawking's hypothesis, ect)
Along this line of reasoning, if one assumes that God is the World, then it seems to me that the definition logically becomes that God is Nature.
So, I leave it up to you to decide whether God has to exist in everything that we call the World or just utilize what science empirically explains as the phenomenon of Nature, etc.
How did this purely internal thing come to be? If it is separated from all the other stuff, when did that happen? And if one is to accept such a possibility, why bother trying to make sense of other things that are not like that if the internal thing is primary?
Quoting Shawn
That's it?
Quoting Shawn
Hmm. that strikes me as a stretch. It would require that "everything in this world has a cause and effect" is the very same as p?q ? ~p v q. I can't see how that would work.
Quoting Shawn
Well, every cause has an effect simply because what we mean by effect in such cases is simply something that has been caused. Better to claim that science thinks "everything in this world has a cause and effect"
But I don't see that as a scientific principle. Indeed, it is not hard to find uncaused events.
I tend to agree. We seem to demand everything have a causal explanation. But what if something just don't have any? For example:
That something can come from absolutely nothing. We cannot conceive of how this could be possible, but it may.
But this would move us from your OP.
Principle of Sufficient Reason falls apart at the atomic and sub-atomic level. Events happen randomly with no prior cause. Particles randomly pop into existence out of of nowhere. These events do follow certain statistical laws/patterns, but each individual event has no prior cause or reason. There is no cause & effect at the quantum level.
Yes, I agree.
Quoting Banno
I believe that Quantum Mechanics, which you allude to, isn't a sufficient reason to do away with the PoSR altogether. It's a powerful tool in estimating the soundness of beliefs subject to reason.
Am I mistaken on this?
The world makes little sense without a center. Call it Brahmin or Spinoza's God. In fact if I remember correctly Spinoza says in the Ethics that God created the world through us. At least that's how the post-Kantian idealist understood him.
I seem to think that even with this fact considered, there are grounds for believing that what Hawking meant with his estimation that God need not be invoked to account for the fact that there is something rather than nothing is intriguing. So, additionally, the ex nihilo argument seems satisfied if there are indeed uncaused events ascribed to Nature.
We don't know
Quoting Valentinus
The mystical side of life offers view answers that can be expressed with certainty
Quoting Valentinus
Well we are bodies. God is in our consciousness, which has a mystical side
Yes true. But that's one instance where the definition of the PoSR was not fully fulfilled.
Well, going down that path, many people believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe or that the sun orbited the Earth. Strange and ungrounded beliefs.
I understand those answers but will ask if that means you have no interest in causes, as discussed in the thread.
Well, let's explore.
PSR = everything in this world has a cause and effect
Now this clearly falls into the logical category of haunted-universe doctrines. It can't be proved, because we are incapable of examining every instance of an effect. Nor can it be disproved, since if we come across an example of an effect for which we cannot find a cause, we might conclude not that there is no such cause but only that we have not yet found it.
SO it's not an empirical notion.
Is it a methodological notion? Does it tell us what we might do, is we are to act in a scientific fashion? In that case, isn't it too strong? We might indeed look for a cause for any event, but we cannot assume ahead of our investigations that there must be one... Nor need we assume that there must be a cause in order to look for a cause. It is open to us to look without such an expectation.
Hence it seems to me that PSR is not needed for either science nor for logic.
But, when encountering all encompassing beliefs of notions such as God, it seems necessary to attribute the PoSR to explaining the notion that God is not needed to explain why there is something rather than nothing or ex nihilo arguments alike.
I side with the materialists who that science can explain the world on an empirical level.
Look at general relativity. It explains the world as interactions of reference frames. But what connects one consciousness to another is the spiritual side of us, otherwise GR leads to solipsism
Well, there seems to be nothing that causes an individual electron to veer right or left on egressing a slit. SO there is that.
But also, and apart from quantum, which it is always a bad sigh to see in a thread, there is reason to think classical physics is not determinate.
Now I want to be very careful with the argument I am presenting. It is not necessary to present an example of an uncaused event to carry my case. That there are scientific considerations which do not rely on PSR is sufficient to show that PSR is not a principle on which science relies.
The PoSR is not an empirical notion, you say?
So, what methodology would you propose instead of assuming the PoSR in science?
Either way, if you assume that Nature has uncaused events such as the birth of the universe, then it doesn't seem logical to assume the existence of a creator.
Subjective experiences are not evidential, not admissible in the Court of Mikey as evidence; the only evidence which is admissible is objective in nature, and perceptible by those other than the claimant. If an objectively perceptible proof is manifested that any God exists, then that proof must be phenomenologically physical by definition, meaning that the phenomenon cited as proof must obey the laws of physics (that is, by the laws of mechanics) and be measurable by instrumentation, and so natural, which would then render this hypothetical God a natural being...something which exists in the realm of nature. (Now, how's that for some stream of consciousness shit?)
I am familiar with pursuits of causes that become too enmeshed with circumstances to separate one influence from another. Are you suggesting something else? Things happen because of agents we do not understand but outside of that sort of causality?
I'm not sure what this says.
Are you now arguing that while PSR is not needed for logic nor for science, it is needed for god?
Then do away with god.
I'm not quite interested in invoking unique theories to rationalize away. It's not of concern to me that QM is not subject to scrutiny under the PoSR.
I'm more concerned with working methodologies for examining the phenomenon whether God is necessary to explain existence itself.
The argument for PSR is, as I understand it, that it is necessary to assume PSR in order to do science. My purpose is to question that argument.
This would be the beginning of the path to disprove God, that 'Nothing' cannot be, making the base something not to be an option but mandatory, it having no alternative or opposite; thus, no supernatural magic is required.
Yes, I agree. But, at a more fundamental level logic relies on the PoSR, doesn't it?
How? If material implication is PSR, then
Quoting Banno
Wouldn't it be just the same as mathematics working in physics? In math doesn't work in physics then what's the point of physics at that point?
I agree that logical applies to the world (nothing comes from nothing, everything has a cause), but this doesn't prove an external God imo
I agree.
Many people do not. You hear people speaking of "my truth" or "it's true to me" all the time. Yeah, such statements aren't suitable for logic, given the context. But people will continue to use it as evidence.
Quoting Michael Zwingli
Yes.
If there is a God it would have to be a natural and/or physical being.
But, that is not to say that every phenomenon is purposeful, just that it is caused.
What? I'm not following that.
Out of my dealing with reading a little of Spinoza and his necessitarianism or Schopenhauer and his haunted world, it seems to me that the PoSR is a hinge proposition upon which beliefs are better scrutinized, especially when confronting notions of God's existence.
Please keep in mind that just because nature might not obey the PoSR, actually implies that our understanding of it is imperfect. But, science has done very well with assuming that there is a cause and effect for every phenomena in nature and at the heart of it that's just human intelligibility at it's core. Unless, we come up with a better way (if intelligible to deal with how we rationalize things in the World).
Well when we say that this weighs as much as that we are assuming that math really works in describing reality. Yet, is it really different when it comes to logic? The world has to make logical sense, such that this can weigh more and less than that at one time. The PoSR to me just means that we can makes sense of the world
I think I've shown that this is not an assumption of science.
Quoting Banno
What would a purposeless thing look like?
Your right. I think I'm running in circles.
Here is what I should have said:
Quoting Banno
Yes, it's a methodological notion.
Yes, it is too strong. So, what?
Do we? Isn't it rather that we find that it works rather than assume it? Quoting Gregory
If it didn't, wouldn't we simply adopt a different logic?Of course the world makes logical sense - logic is just what we do to make sense of the world.
Are you surprised when a Philips head screwdriver just happens to fit a Philips head screw?
A perfect example of this is the absurd and embarrassing Catholic phenomenon (I was raised Catholic, and was always embarrassed by this) of the various "apparitions of Mary" (you know...Our Lady of this, Our Lady of that). People fallaciously accepting the (drug induced? faith induced? is there a difference?) subjective experience of one or two individuals as proof that "Mary the mother of God" is visiting her blessings upon the world. At least to it's credit, the Vatican has been wise enough never to overtly endorse these absurdities.
I don"t know much about that application of the principle enough to differentiate present methods of science. I have read the Leibniz introduction of the idea as a model for understanding proposed theories.
Is that a distinction without a difference for you?
Like our universe, which has no purpose, but rather just happened.
That's a disconnection from God and truth
? Please elaborate.
So back to:
Quoting Shawn
So where does that leave you? We do not need PSR to do logic and science. Hence we are not committed to the supernatural or creationism?
And back tot he OP: without PSR, can't we now dispense with god?
They've been toning it down as of late, it's more difficult to defend absurd claims in light of the evidence.
Well to speak from my own experience, thinking my inner life is only brain matter gives me a headache and I no longer associate with truth. The point of the PoSR is that truth, when realized, is in accord with reality. The world makes sense to me but if you are to say that world doesn't make sense and you are only matter, than you yourself would no longer make sense
Then how do we have laws in science then? If I drop two balls at the same time and they fall at the same rate and do this again and again, the principle of sufficient reason says I now know a law. Does not Hume's problems become our own when you reject PSR in science?
No, we do not.
Quoting Banno
But, that's a conclusion that addresses the very human need to justify God's existence (according to physicists like Hawking).
Quoting Banno
Ok, so your saying that the PoSR enables one to consider God as an actual existent in this world? Im somewhat different here and consider the PoSR and Spinoza's Nature as God as true (without the necessitarianism or hard determinism).
We'd have to fill that out. We have: "If I drop two balls at the same time and they fall at the same rate and do this again and again"; what is added by including PSR? We have that the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8ms^-1. How does PSR help us here?
Because the reason for what is happening is in our reach. Our minds are sufficient to sufficiently understand a sufficiently understandable world
PSR is relied on by those who insist god is needed to explain all sorts of things. Drop PSR, drop those arguments.
I don't see that PSR is needed for a pantheistic deity to be the case. That is, one might do away with PSR and still venerate the universe.
We need PSR to conclude this?
I think it evident in every interaction I have. No, evident is the wrong word. It's manifest. The world is comprehensible.
It would seem rational to do so. But, consider that the reasonableness of the PSR shouldn't be swiped aside. It's a very useful tool in how we should think, even if QM or physicalism stipulates that in every instance the PSR isn't necessarily true.
I disagree. I think I've shown that it is misleading. That's because it demands more than is needed.
The next step in the analysis would be to have to use the same principle of 'The Necessary Existent' for God having to be, as the mandatory Existent, again because there can be no opposite; thus the principle is sound!
You can figure what's coming next… I'm stretching it out in the hope that responders will notice it amid so many other responses.
We know existence can't come from non-existence without a power or some kind of action happening and nothingness cannot act. Nothingness is an empty category in our minds and is not anything at all. So the world either always existed or we can adopt Hawking's hypothesis (or something similar). But once we no longer believe in "something from nothing" the material world no longer makes any sense as a sole reality.
The PSR is implied in the above
So, the added scrutiny of believing that everything in the world has a cause and effect is not good for how one ought to reason?
Let look at this historically. Never has anyone used the PSR in a manner that would legitimize God's existence, but rather to scrutinize it rationally.
In essence, what's wrong with rationalism?
Hahaha, I think I've made less and less sense as time has gone by...
Quoting Gregory
Though I agree that reality is the essence of truth, I don't see that as having much to do with the PoSR. The PoSR simply states that every aspect of the natural universe must have a cause underlying it's existence. I agree. The universe is composed of energy and matter, which are mutually interchangeable. Before our universe existed (disregarding that there may be other "universes" distant from ours), all was pure energy. For this energy to have existed, there must have been some happenstance or situation which caused it to exist. This, however, is in no way determinative of the existence of deity. In order for the fact of the original energy from whence our universe to show a deity, that energy must be shown to have been purposeful, rather than arbitrary, which it has not displayed.
Quoting Gregory
I'm not sure what we're talking about in this sentence. "Making sense" is an entirely subjective perception.
Isn't this question begging if you can't provide a better methodology?
Do you expect a monkey to come out of your computer right now? You don't because the world is understood by you to be rational
But, ex nihilo and something from nothing doesn't have to be true, doesn't it, and we rely on the PSR through science to prove this!
Do we? I've not seen a good argument to that end. What I have seen are theologians struggling with ideas they misplace. For a start, the arguments treat existence as a first-order predicate; it isn't - or at best it's debatable.
Quoting Gregory
Why? Will my kettle suddenly disappear if I stop believing in PSR?
Again, why not just admit that these issues are intractable?
Are you suggesting that the only way for any object in the universe to appear rational is for it to have been "created with purpose", or for any occurrence in the universe to appear rational is for it to be purposeful?
In a nutshell, it doesn't rule out enough. Observation is also needed to rule out the unicorns - to choose the actual from the merely possible.
How?
thanks. Yes, as I'm noting that 'Nothing' cannot be productive, much less be or even be meant; Thus this is the sufficient reason for the eternal base existent of necessity which both the God case and the non God case have to employ.
In the non God case, it is simple, such as the 'vacuum', but in the God case it is not just a lot more than simple but infinitely more and thus infinitely impossible because not even any composite or complexity can be First.
For further confirmation, we look to our universe and see that the lesser evolved to the greater over 14 billion years of Cosmic and Biological evolution.
How much is enough?
I'm just going to lay this out as I see it. The PSR is the bedrock upon which rationalism stands on, so why do away with it especially when it comes down to refuting the notion that ex nihilo doesn't 'obtain' when scrutinizing God's existence with respect to the PSR and scientific thought.
All I'm saying is that people are persuaded by the PSR due to its inherent reasonableness. The methodology of the PSR is sound even if the validity can be put into doubt.
Doesn't science come after the PSR anyway?
Because no one can define 'God'. I've yet here a coherent expression of what anyone means when they say 'God'. People generally don't know what they mean when they speak though so it's not entirely surprising.
It's enough to say God created the universe by using His Mind.
Seriously, No. It's not enough to say something like "Him the be ending up the start" and say that suffices as a coherent remark.
It's still the minimum common basis of the notion of the Creator.
The idea of nothing doesn't refer to anything. So it can't produce anything. It's just a word
Notice that at crucial junctures in these debates, Banno always ends up with these quotidian examples - such as coffee cups, whether they really are in the cupboard when it's closed, spoons, whether there really are five if nobody counts them, and kettles, which might dissappear if I stop believing in its reason for existence.
Quoting Shawn
I haven't studied it at length, although I'm interested in Schopenhauer's version of it. But ask yourself this question. According to naturalist accounts of the origin of life, it can't have come about by anything other than chance, if the only other alternative is by design. Now I don't want to lean towards intelligent design, as my philosophical approach is not biblically-oriented, and certainly nothing like Protestant fundamentalism, which is what drives a lot of ID theory. But at the same time, I can't see how the belief that life exists for no reason or that there is no cause for it to exist avoids nihilism. The belief seems to be something like the 'million monkeys' trope - given enough time, and a big enough universe, then it will simply happen - as if this amounts to any kind of understanding.
Quoting Shawn
The point about science since Galileo, is that it has eschewed the idea of formal and final causation, which in the broader sense provide the rationale for why anything exists. In modern thinking, the reasons why anything happens are given by its antecedent causes, in the sense of material and efficient causes. But that doesn't touch the larger question of why anything exists at all.
I recall a televised debate between Richard Dawkins and a bishop. I noticed this exchange:
So, the question 'why are we here?' which I take to be a fundamental and basically intelligible question in philosophy, is 'not meaningful' according to Richard Dawkins. But he won't be able to see why someone with his kind of philosophical commitments must see it that way; lacks the self-awareness, I would say.
It's not 'minimum' it's meaningless and empty. I cannot 'disprove' something that has no substance or bounds within experience.
OR I can simply say that I create things therefore I am a God. I'm okay with that and don't require that anyone (dis)prove my existence.
Yeah, it does. It's what's in my pocket.
And stuff like that. Philosophy made from ill-chosen metaphors.
You say that like it was a bad thing.
Just keeping it real. :wink:
That's only within the universe. With regard to cosmology nothing refers to no thing
And there you have stepped outside of the uses of "nothing" that we understand and set off up the garden path. Have fun.
There's nothing special about life and it's origins. The building blocks of life are here on earth as well as on Mars. I don't think it will come off as a surprise in the near future that Mars was once habitable for life, and actually had life.
The PSR lays the groundwork where Spinoza's God seemed to make sense to Einstein and others around him. It just seems as of late that science disproves the necessity that everything has a cause and effect. Which, to me, seems to imply that if you take the cause of the universe as a sufficient reason from the PSR, then a creator wasn't necessary. For all I know according to membrane theory two membranes might have collided or somesuch.
Ok, but if there is first nothing then there would be no action and so no beginning. I believe time starts with the first motion and so there is nothing before the big bang but by "nothing" I don't express a real thought. There is no beginning to universe, just a first motion. See the work of Adolf Grünbaum
Right. Which is why some famous philosopher predicted nihilism (and its various offspring, relativism and subjectivism) would become ascendant in the 20th Century. Not that it actually disproves such an idea, so much as simply lost sight of it.
It can be touched by noting that the Something is, so either its alternative could not be here instead of it or it has no alternative; thus, it cannot not be, which is the first attribute we can get out of it.
Second, since it has to be, it is the eternal existent.
Third, what never begins or is timeless can't have any specific direction or design put into it.
Fourth?
1. The nonscientfic relation between existence and physical:
If X is physical then X exists.
2. The scientific relation between existence and physical:
X is physical if and only if X exists.
As you can see,
from 1, if X is nonphysical it doesn't follow that X doesn't exist (denying the antecedent/inverse fallacy). God, a nonphysical entity, can exist.
from 2, if X is nonphysical then X doesn't exist. God, in science, doesn't exist.
The problem: For science, the nonphysical = nonexistence. For religion the nonphysical [math] \neq [/math] nonexistence.
God doesn't exist for science. If scientists believe God exists then they're using relation 1 (vide supra) between the physical and existence.
Logic can disprove God if God entails the truth of certain propositions which can then be assessed for consistency with other known to be true propositions.
I think we are all well aware that believers are a heterogeneous group. I wasn't thinking of you and whatever arguments you have for your belief - and I have no idea what those are. My point is believers (whatever the belief - Scientology, moon landing skeptics, Muslims) are often incapable of recognising when that their arguments have been refuted. I am sure you feel that way about atheists.
Yes. There are dogmatists who are uninterested in what reason has to say until or unless they think reason supports their own view. It's kind of pathetic.
Yes, I think that may be the same point I am making. The problem with reason is everyone thinks they are using it correctly and often as a kind of cudgel with which to whack about the others.
That is a very vague question that can be interpreted in so many ways.
What is your definition of God?
How would you describe God? As a person who lives in the sky, consciousness being without a body or a sentient Universe or sentient reality?
Reason for me asking is because my perception of God may be different than yours and it various based on the individual.
To prove or disprove something you must elaborate on the question. And describe the kind of God your speaking of.
Than the next thing that comes to mind, why ask the question, what is the purpose for the question and what is your motive for knowing the answer.
Than the question “Is there a God?” A very multidimensional question that can be interpreted in numerous ways.
Similar to asking “What does salt taste like?” Or “What does the color red looks like?”
Is an experience that cannot be validated but we inheriting know is real based on mutual shared experience.
We all shared the experience of tasting salt but yet we struggle to describe how salt taste like. So we take for granted that you had the experience of tasting salt. So we simply say it taste salty to describe the experience of its flavor. But if you encounter someone who never had the sense of taste how would you describe the experience of tasting salt?
That is God, God being the salt and the non-believer is someone without sensation of taste. And a believer having been blessed with the sensation of taste.
Only someone who has a shared mutual experience will understand the philosophy of faith. And those who never had the experience will never understand.
This premise is false. Physics deals with force and energy as well as matter, and these are non-physical, yet assumed by physicists to exist. Your statement would pertain truly to the "life sciences", though, but only if taken in isolation (meaning, I'm sure that Biologists and Chemists believe that force and energy exist, even though considerations thereof do not generally pertain to their work).
Heheh, but it is really false to consider that the instantaneous existence any paticular objective quality is dependent upon a subjective qualia. We must assume that in the absence of some natural change, the physical qualities which have the capacity of producing particular subjective experience as we regard them, continue to exist after we have ceased to regard them. To consider any differently is to consider the universe as being irrational. I agree it's fun to play the devil's advocate, though. The foregoing, of course, does not pertain to the consideration of the existence of God, though, since that involves neither subjective qualia, nor objective quality, but rather appears to involve imagination only.
You're selling I see. Unfortunately, I'm not buying.
Pray tell. At your leisure, of course (it is quite early where I am...dealing with a bit of insomnia).
Matter, force, and energy non-physical? They are as physical as it can get! And existent.
:party:
Quid sapere debeam, in re eius causae?
Extstent and physical, agreed.
Quoting GraveItty
Existent, but surely not physical. Hold out a piece of force for me to examine... These thing appear able to influence physical objects, while not being physical themselves. I think that we are using "physical" in differing senses: you as meaning "pertinent to the study of (mechanical) physics", and I as meaning "materially objective" (or perhaps "objectively material"?).
It is true that science and logic cannot disprove God, but, on the other hand, science and logic cannot prove God's existence. There was Anselm's ontological argument, but it probably falls short of its' claim because all it really shows is that God is an idea in the human mind. If it logic was followed, it would be possible to argue that all possibilities conceived by humans exist independently of the human mind.
Aahm..."What is it that I should know concerning this matter?"
I can hold a bottle of photons in front of you, or a magnet. Force fields are virtual particle fields. Though virtual, very real. A photon is a real manifestation of its virtual vacuum state. A real charged particle is surrounded by a virtual cloud of force mediating particles (don't confuse virtual with non-real though). These virtual surrounding fields can get real when real charged particles interact with other charges particles. Like real photons.
Yes but your incoherent notion is only one description of such an entity. Of course science and logic have discredited a giant bearded man flying around in the clouds. However there are many more scientific/ philosophically intuitive versions of the concept of “god”. For example things in physics that are indestructible, the properties of energy, the logic and order inbuilt into how the universe functions, the existence of consciousness, emotions etc. I’m not saying god must be a person but it’s not unreasonable to imagine that consciousness and the universe are the same thing or that it is a fundamental quality of existence. And if it does turn out the entire universe is a conscious, self- emerging, auto-evolving system that defines and refines its own laws, constantly creates and destroys ...then I would say that’s pretty godly.
Um... Virtual - (1) In effect or essence, if not in fact or reality; imitated, simulated; (2) Having the power of acting or of invisible efficacy without the agency of the material or measurable part; potential.
Is "real" synonymous with "physical"? More to the point, is "physical" not synonymous with "material"?
As for a photon, it is a quantum of electromagnetic energy which may be, and is useful to physicists when considered as a particle, but is in actuality not a particle of matter. A photon has no "rest mass". You could not hold a bottle full of photons, because photons would not be contained by the bottle, and in fact, there are no actual things called photons to be contained by the bottle. A photon is but a measure of energy. In this, holding a "bottle of photons" would be akin to holding a "bottle of inches".
I mean virtual in the sense of opposite to real particles. Real particles have a fixed energy momentum relation, as in classical mechanics Virtual particles lack this property. Giving rise to the strangeness of QM. In a sense all particles are virtual, hence real.
A photon is pure potential energy. It has no mass indeed, but so can matter particles, possessing real non-potential energy. That is, kinetic energy. Realized by the potency of the photon.
Haha, this may be above my pay grade.
Prove in what sense? Don't you think the very existence of existence is proof?
In a sense...the consideration of "God" both scientifically and logically proves the existence of God as an idea, but no more...certainly not of God as a real entity.
Don't laugh! I'm serious...
:smile:
Yes, um...well said.
I only laugh because you may have just exceeded my understanding of Physics, is all. Even so, I still maintain that ["physical" = "material"] ? "real". There exist real things which are immaterial, and which are material to our discussion for their being real. :grin:
That's exactly what I think. This immaterial stuff resides inside of matter. It's it charge, of which physicists, like myself have absolutely exactly and positively zero understanding. No physicist can explain to you what electric charge or hyper color charge is. You can say that it's a vibration of strings, of closed ones (gravity and mass) or open ones (the other 3 forces and 7 charges) in an abstract 6D Calabi-Yau manifold (by string physicists wrongly claimed as a curled up extension of the wide 3d space). Or however, but you will always shift the question. Concluding that basically it's immaterial. Charge settles on the inner. A kind of duality indeed. But hey, aren't there two realities? A mental one and a physical one? United by means of our bodies? The last beings basically our identity?
The real material we are talking here consists of the immaterial content of matter and the potentiality of the mediating fields, which contains no charge (though in the color charge domain, the mediating potential, the gluons can itself contain charge, so mental and matter are one at the base level of physics), as photons are charge neutral, not possessing it.
Now, my lack of a college education (I suppose) is coming into play. Indeed, "...photons are charge neutral, not possessing it" is the only of your statements which I know and understand.
Em, sorry to be arguing Physics with a physicist, BTW...kinda like arguing slapstick comedy with this guy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curly_Howard
I can hear myself now: "Look, Jerry, all the 'nyuk nyuk nyuk' stuff is just never gonna fly..."
Indeed. I don't think, as is here assumed, and more general in the Bible, Tora, and Khoran, that God is infinite in all three qualities, power, knowledge, and Goodness. Giving rise to a kind of disturbing picture.
I thought more physicists would be present here. It's kinda frustrating.
It's not that hard to craft a definitional proposition so that both the proposition and its negation are compatible with all evidence. Like a difference that makes no difference (except Bateson used that phrase differently).
With the garage dragon, Sagan alluded to a simple procedure by which claims can be counter/evidence-immunized, converging on such propositions. With the invisible gardener, John Wisdom expressed something similar. Say, when the Olympians were nowhere to be found once people started looking (and could), the deities became "relocated" to some "otherworldly" realm.
The immunization procedure.
Thus, Tillich, Eagleton, and Whalon learned from the best, and now declare "God does not exist", yet in the same breath also declare "I believe God is". :D If we take existence to include reality, fictions/imaginations (fictions exist too, they're just not real), thinking (might occur when reading the forums), whatever, then their strange verbiage leads to "God" as "something" of which nothing much can be said. Neither here nor there, a ghost of bewitching language.
I guess you could show something, and then identify that as "God", which hence exists, or come up with a definition and determine that it refers to something real, just what you were looking for, "God". Just have to keep in mind that definitions are ours — there are no running elephants in dictionaries/encyclopedias, though we might find evidence of a stampede out there.
The God notion flunks for other reasons too. The universe is full of unintelligent design; a big rock caused the Permian extinction that made the opening for mammals to evolve. There were other extinctions too, and perhaps another is coming.
What, then is Fundamental instead of 'God'?
The 'Existence Principle' that says that something has to be, with no option not to be, is applicable to what is the least, not to the greatest, as to what ever is as partless and continuous as the one Permanent thing made only of itself.
Why does it spawn temporaries such as the universe, us, and 'particles' rather than not, it just sitting there not doing anything?
Philosophically and scientifically, we note that it doesn't sit still; therefore it can't remain still, and so it is energetic.
How does it form the temporaries, given that it can only be itself and not change into anything different than itself?
It thus can only rearrange itself, as it must, being energetic, into the temporaries that come and go, some of them lasting for quite a while, as events, not things.
Many proposed Fundamentals have fallen by the wayside, such as Newton's Absolute Time and Space and the idea of Absolute elementary 'particles' as themselves producing fields. What is left are quantum fields that produce the elementaries at stable rungs of energy quanta at those specific levels of excitations.
We note this happening along with the upward progression of the universe from the simple unto the more complex doing what was supposed as God's job, naturally only, this necessarily taking almost 14 billion years up to now, with no magic therein, even at causality's great speed that is the speed of light, and still the continuing existence of humans is precarious.
RIP Notion of 'God'; It was never going to wash that the lesser had to be created by the greater, and so forth, ad infinitum…
Hey! There you are again! What happened to the poems you posted in a thread about philosophical poems? Why did you delete it? :sad:
Why has that notion of God flunked out. Can't there be an eternal first and Fundamental divine world? Why not? All properties of our observable (and non-observable) universe can be projected on them. You might ask, then what's the sense in creating a similar universe?
It's not deleted; they moved the thread to the lounge area.
The lounge area?
It's under categories to the left of this screen. Lounge stuff doesn't show up here.
Life going on in our universe is the Soap Opera Channel for the Divine Guys.
AN incoherent notion is perhaps not a description of anything. Of course one can change one's idea of god to fit whatever one likes; but in the end that's one of the problems with the very notion of god - no one is quite sure what it is, so it can be anything.
My preference is Sol invictus.
Then you should have no trouble first showing us what god is and then providing said proof.
That looks reasonable at first blush. But folk twist the aspiration into religion.
Apophatisism and negative theology are not 'an immunisation procedure'. It's not as if it is a rhetorical dodge designed to win arguments against unbelievers or defend against atheists. For many believers, these ideas are atheist, and many times in history their exponents have been tried as heretics. Nobody burns heretics nowadys, but Tillich was accused of atheism on more than one occasion.
What the 'negative insight' depends on is a realisation of there being degrees of reality. But that, for us, is an impossible thing to concieve of, because, for us, only things are real, and the only things that exist are phenomenal things, 'out there somewhere', those things detectable by sense, including the augmentation provided by scientific instruments.
This is why I return again and again to the reality of intelligible objects. By this I mean something like, but not only, platonic ideas and forms. But the scope of the intelligible world comprehends many other elements, like natural numbers, geometric forms, principles and laws, and so on. At least some of all these possible forms are real - but in what sense? Where do they exist? They are not 'out there somewhere' but are discernable only by reason. Their reality is implicit, implied, they do not exist in the sense that teapots and rocks exist, but they are nevertheless real. In fact they represent the structural level of reality, the formal tissue of reality itself. They comprise the 'formal realm' which science depends on but [s]does not see[/s] sees only indirectly.
So the ontological status of laws, principles, numbers, and the like, are a clue to the reality of the non-physical. Nobody can dispute the laws of physics, when it comes to their deployment, but there are plenty of disputes, as to for example whether it is really accurate to call them 'laws'. Whereas I understand the contemplation of first principles to be the original intent of metaphysics proper:
[quote=Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics]if happiness consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect [nous], or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already that this activity is the activity of contemplation.[/quote]
So the error of modernity is to assign reality to only what exists on the horizontal plane discoverable by sense experience, through extroversion and objectification. This leads to the erroneous conception that 'proof' of the reality of God can be obtained through empirical disclosure. But seeing through that itself requires a kind of conversion, a metanoia, change of outlook or understanding. That is the direction in which the 'negative theology' of Tillich et al needs to be sought, but it is a very difficult thing to fathom, as it goes against the current of modern thinking.
Some refs
Russell's Leaky Teapot, Re-visited, Bill Vallicella
Hegel's God, Robert M. Wallace
Augustine on Intelligible Objects
God as Ground of Being
The Golden Template employed above had to be thrown out through the stain-glass window after its one and only attempted usage for showing 'God'.
The Permanent’s the one and only thing,
As the ‘vacuum’, whose zero-point energy
Isn’t zero, its point values tugging
On each other and thus being quantum fields.
We decompose it into harmonic
Oscillators though a Fourier-transform,
Each as a quantum harmonic oscillator
Whose energy comes in quantized units.
The lowest energy state is not zero.
When we sum for all possible values
We get an infinite result.
When a theory is renormalizable,
There’s a mathematically sensible process
To discard the unwanted infinities
But still account for finite differences,
Which are responsible for observables;
We may sum energies to some finite cutoff value,
And use it to compute observable values;
In the limit of the cutoff going back to infinity,
The physical prediction doesn’t change.
That depends on whether one believes in God or not.
Consider 2 persons, one believes in God, the other does not.
One which believes in God is struggling with "what if there is no God?"
Other one which doesn't believe in God is struggling with "what if there is God?"
Doubt is inevitable regardless of whether one believes in God or not, therefore it takes prudence to make your decision, so it's all about risk as follows:
1. If I don't believe in God then what risk do I run to start believing in God if there is no God?
2. If I do believe in God then what risk do I run to stop believing in God if there is God?
What risks you refer to? I can't see what kind of risk one runs if he make a change in belief. You say the are no risks. But what risks there could be? Not having arrived at the truth?
The question isn't exactly a logical one.
Why imagine God as oppose to ancient people, civilization before the universe?(What I'm suggesting here is that imagination could be more logic-attuned).
How did God attain such power? Is there a logical lock that prevents power reaching the wrong hands?(A logic question based on an imaginary scenario).
In same or similar way one could question the question of any of the great questions.
But does that actually make sense?
Just because there is no answer to great questions that doesn't mean the question is invalid or that it should be undermined.
Quoting DecheleSchilder
I'm suggesting to use reason rather than faith(or lack of it) to weight risks of 2 choices where each choice has equal chance of probability.
Agnosticism is not an option.
The positions don't seem to be equiprobable. 'God' is not even close to having been established; Genesis in being wrong shows divine inspiration to be lacking; a composite, such as Mind or a proton cannot be First and fundamental, for its parts would have to be more so; the universe is full of unintelligent design and its progression is seen to be purely physical, from the simple to the more complex.
"God", undefined and vague, is not even an idea, just a cipher (i.e. mental crutch) outside the remits of both science and logic.
Childhood indoctrination. Mostly. In general, IME, people acquire habits of believing long before they habitualize thinking and even longer before, if they ever do, unlearn bad habits which block or impair thinking well for themselves.
I don't understand this question.
When reading sparingly Hawking, the idea of a creator is embodied with the first cause. In other words from nothing, something came to be. Therefore, God must have been the cause of everything that had proceeded from his choice for genesis of the universe.
Yes, if you care @jorndoe elaborated on this if that's what you care to discuss.
I'm closer to the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
What do you mean?
Its just a principle that has ramifications for either proving or disproving the existence of God.
Funny that it manifests in exploring (N)ature when trying to investigate God's workings.
That's the gist of it. We don't entirely know what caused a non-zero-sum in antimatter and matter result; but, it's interesting to think that an observation was made during the annihilation. Was it God or an alien?
So, God reduces to Nature whenever invoking the PoSR?
As a scholar of Spinoza, how do you reconcile the PoSR with Spinoza's necessitarianism given quantum mechanics?
:roll: This doesn't follow from or address what I've written:
Quoting 180 Proof
Therefore, "God" doesn't have anything to do with anything.
I don't reconcile them (that would be a category mistake). Spinoza proposes a modal-ontological metaphysics (i.e. "PoSR") and QM is fundamental physics (e.g. "Uncertainty Principle"). That said (my best guess), Spinoza's substance (i.e. natura naturans) seems analogous to the vacuum that consists necessarily in structured symmetries which in turn necessarily generate – cause – conservation laws (re: Noether's theorem).
An idea that Hawking always resisted.
[quote=New Scientist, 11 Jan 2012]You could call them the worst birthday presents ever. At the meeting of minds convened last week to honour Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday – loftily titled “State of the Universe” – two bold proposals posed serious threats to our existing understanding of the cosmos.
One shows that a problematic object called a naked singularity is a lot more likely to exist than previously assumed. The other suggests that the universe is not eternal, resurrecting the thorny question of how to kick-start the cosmos without the hand of a supernatural creator.
While many of us may be OK with the idea of the big bang simply starting everything, physicists, including Hawking, tend to shy away from cosmic genesis. “A point of creation would be a place where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God,” Hawking told the meeting, at the University of Cambridge, in a pre-recorded speech.[/quote]
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328474-400-why-physicists-cant-avoid-a-creation-event/#ixzz7AwO09KDU
:party:
Whether science and logic will do that, is not a question of debate. It is a question of empirical evidence. You must not make a judgment that it can't or that it can... only the actual creation of the proof will determine its own existence. Then again, you can't rule out that it will happen... you don't know what will happen.
This can only be interpreted this way because you are not familiar with the theory, and you grossly dress it up with your own assumptions which are actually not true.
I imagine this is your assumption, roughly: At the moment of the big bang material formed from nothing.
The way the actual theory states it: At the moment of the big bang and before, all the matter of the known universe was concentrated in the volume of a few cubic centimetres.
If you read the stupid theory right, you can't help but notice that THERE IS NO CREATION OF MATTER, only a transformation of its form of existence occurs.
The theists grossly and invalidly misrepresent the theory's wording, and nod their heads meaningfully and quietly (or vocally) agree that creation has happened a the moment of the big bang, and that the atheists, anti-theists and materialists are all god-fearing individuals who just don't know it.
We are not talking about that god. We are talking about the other god. Get with the program. :-)
There can't be 2 Gods therefore you 2 (presumably atheists) mutually exclude each other but not God :sweat:
What is God?
I exist. So 180 does not. If he exists too, then there could be two gods. Nobody says there has to be only one. That is an assumption that can't be substantiated.
That's for god to know, and for us / me / you to find out.
That depends on whether or not "God" is a proper or common noun.
Right.
However. My first name is Peter. (Not my real name.) Am I the only Peter in the entire history of the world? Are there other Peters aside from myself?
Sure, but when we ask if God exists we're not just asking if there exists someone or something named "God"; we're referring to a specific individual and asking if that individual exists. There cannot be two of that individual.
You can't refer to a specific individual of whose personal characteristics you know nothing. For instance:
Human A: "We have an individual that we know nothing about. He never said a word, never showed himself in human company. We have scriptures that mention him, but the scriptures are pure fiction, fantasy, when it comes to describe this individual. You need faith (blind belief) to accept him how the scriptures describe him, and that is fully optional. He is in effect and to all factual knowledge, unknown to us, in all his personal aspects. The one we talk about is this very individual that we know nothing about."
Human B: "But... but... but there could be any number of individuals that we know nothing about... how do we know you and I are talking about the same individual of whom we know nothing?"
Aside from my argument, this what you said is very anti-Christian.
Does Christianity have something to do with @Shawn's question? Is he asking if science or logic can disprove Yahweh? I wasn't sure if he was referring to Yahweh or Allah or Amun-Ra or Angra Mainyu or the Demiurge or someone or something else, hence why I asked him what God is.
I think, it can be supposed that the monotheistic God of the Abrahamic tradition is sufficient.
Which one? Yahweh (Christianity), Allah (Islam), and the Monad (Gnosticism) don't seem to be the same person.
I'm hesitant to say YHWH, because it seems to me that some will laugh at Genesis and pass it off.
What do you think?
You're the one asking the question. I don't know who – or what – you're referring to when you ask if logic or science can disprove God. You have to tell me.
Then, assume YHWH, then.
Something is Yahweh iff it is the being that created the world as described in Genesis. Science has proved that the world wasn't created as described in Genesis. Therefore, nothing is Yahweh. Therefore, Yahweh doesn't exist.
I respectfully oppose that idea.Quoting Michael
Your proposition, Shawn, would be discriminatory and religionist. Michael has resptectfully proposed that there could be a great number of gods to choose from. I am not only on his side on this important issue, but I expand the possible number of gods to infinity in individual count.
this is precisely what it is. Belief in the scriptures is optional. Fully. You can't attach an argument to the truth of the scriptures, as it is though widely accepted, at the same time it is widely rejected, as a source of truth.
I don't know what you mean by this.
right, and my theory supports my theory, but destroys yours.
No. I just made a side remark. Not fully pertinent to the topic. But so is not the opinion that we must choose YHWH to be the person we talk about. That is even less relevant.
Excluding other religions on the basis of a bias.
Quoting god must be atheist
I honestly don't understand what you're getting at here. I just want to know who – or what – @Shawn is referring to when he asks if logic or science can disprove God. If he's referring to Zeus then I have something more meaningful to address. He's clarified that he's referring to Yahweh, so I'm now able to answer his question.
Yeah, I anticipated this one.
If refuting God was so easy you'd wonder why so many people still take it as true. (Genesis and God)
Mind you, I didn't come into this thread as a religious person.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/614606
Quoting Michael
Following on from this, assume that some deity exists. What does it take for that deity to be Yahweh as opposed to some other deity like Allah or Angra Mainyu or Zeus? Claims of miss-attribution only get you so far. Eventually you're not talking about Yahweh but about something else. If the world was created according to the Mandé creation myth then it's Mangala that exists, not Yahweh. You'd be hard-pressed to argue that Christians and the Mandé are referring to the same God but that the Christians just got everything about him wrong.
So if you want to argue that Yahweh can exist even if Genesis is wrong then you need to clarify the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be Yahweh.
Because so many people are unreasonable. Or because they’re don’t believe in Yahweh but some other God.
Quoting Shawn
Then why only consider one religion’s God? Do you have in mind some God that isn’t tied to a specific scripture?
yeah, I anticipated this one. My guess is that you wanted to hear from atheists that it is impossible to prove atheism.
In a way you went about it the long way to see what truly is. Atheists can't prove atheism to be true. But theists can't prove theism to be true, either.
There is also the POV, it is even harder to prove atheism right in terms of relgious doctrines and harder to prove theism right in materialist views.
You hadn't noticed? We did not refute the existence of a god. Of any god. (Other than YHWH's. It's either your way, or the Yahweh. -- Paul Spenser.) Because it is not easy-- it is in fact hard, if not impossible. It has not been done to this day.
So I would paraphrase your lament to "since god's existence is so hard to refute, you wonder why so many people reject the notion of a make-belief authority figure creating the world and wielding absolute power over it, who nevertheless never ever ever has manifested itself to mankind."
I only have experience with fundamentalists from the Christian tradition in defending God's existence. I don't think I would be able to have a peaceful conversation about Allah's existence with an Islamic fundamentalist.
Something unscientific and illogical about God perhaps. That is to say what is unscientific is illogical and that which is illogical is unscientific. Materialism triumphs. Cui bono?
Not illogical. The faith in god is unassailable by logic.
But unscientific, yes. Science is based on evidence. There is no empirical evidence of god. If you are a faith-bearer, yes, even the grass and the stars and the orgasms in this world can be evidence of God. Actually, not to all faithful, but to some. But if you have no faith in god, then there is no evidence. And to a lot of god-fearing people, even orgasms and grass and stars are not evidence to the existence of a god.
I can't seem to parse this sentence. What do you mean "faith in god is unassailable by logic"? In my book it means "faith in god" is illogical and that's why it is, in your words, "unassailable by logic"!
Quoting god must be atheist
That's not completely on point is it?
I'd like to know how you prove that randomness isn't actually orderly. Really you're just postulating an equally imaginary thing: a lack of anything.
What begs Occam's razor is just a matter of opinion. What's more complicated: true chaos or true order, and is there really a difference?
How would someone who identifies themselves as a person ever be able to distinguish true chaos from order, and why can't God be true chaos?
Hm. So it isn't.
Quoting TheMadFool
There are two ways to be not logical: 1. By committing a logical error, for instance, saying that the cat is both alive and dead in the box. (Contradicting the law of excluded middle). This is illogical. 2. By not explaining by logic. "My cancer went into remission because of an act of god." Here, there is no logical error; it is not illogical to say this, while it at the same time is most likely not true.
The idea is that logic is a formal system, that can be violated or not. Some things that are not true are not violating logic. However, they may be outside of logic; not dependent on logic; not being a function of logic. Such is the faith in god. You can't logically argue that there is no god. (Much like you can't logically argue that there is god.) It's all in the set of basic assumption, and this assumption can't be shown to be true or else false. It is a question of belief, of faith.
I hope to have clarified my position to your understanding.
I classify thinking in the following way:
1. Logical (consistent) [e.g. moral]
2. Illogical (inconsistent) [e.g. immoral]
2. Alogical (neither consistent nor inconsistent) [e.g. amoral]
A statement is either logical or illogical. Alogical could be things like "blue" (the word), orgasm (the feeling), basically anything that's not a statement.
"God exists" is...
The more we talk to nature using a scientific approach the more we realize nature doesn't care about "us" and the more the idea of "God" loses any importance at all.
Whether we look at the macro or the micro, we realize we're a "collateral consequence" not the product, intention, of any kind of God.
You should try talking to nature through the scientific approach of enactivism. Its pragmatic grounding requires nature to care about us , given that the nature we encounter is partly a result of our own constructions and behaviors. This pragmatism is far removed
from a God centered thinking.
So you say that enactivism considers "us" outside nature? Another kind of dualism? That is not what enactivism is about.
That’s right. That is not what enactivism is about. Enactivism is about the reciprocal coupling between organism and environment in which the organism has a certain autonomy in its functioning in the world. This autonomy gives our perception of reality a normative dimension. We experience nature relative
to our pragmatic goals and aims, just as any organism isn’t just shaped by its environment , but in turn shapes and ‘produces’ that environment.