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Old 09-08-2015, 02:56 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
The ultimate God is the Ontological God, i.e.
God is a Being than which no greater can be conceived - St. Anselm and others.

All other definitions of 'God' are inferior to the above.
That's actually quite handy. It sorta gives us the cosmos -sized mind or perhaps the Thinking cosmos. The ides of creating everything is really inherent there. That is really what we have in mind without without personally -intervening gods.

In a way it is the best, most useful and even most probable of the definitions of "God". In another way, it is the most useless, most meaningless and most irrelevant definition. We don't know the difference between this god and a reality of matter and its inherent physical properties. It doesn't matter to use, other than academically, whether this "God" exists or not. It tells us nothing about gods, religions or the way we should live.

Like Pascal's wager, it only works when there is one possible god under discussion and one religion which that god approves and, by implication, we have something to lose or gain because of this god and its religion. If not, then it is not only academic but unimportant.
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Old 09-08-2015, 03:18 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
Note the following;

P1. ALL contradictions [e.g. squared-circle] are an impossibility and do not exists.
P2. God is a contradiction
C3. Therefore God is an impossibility and do not exists

What we need to justify is P2, i.e. in what manner is God a contradiction, thus an impossibility.

What I am proposing is we can come up with a Critical Philosophical Framework and System based on all available knowledge to support P2.

If we present the above based on knowledge and grounded justifications, there is no basis to accuse of any one as 'know it all.'
This is really based on the idea of a testable god - that is one with testable claims.

Even with the most "Ontological" God, the idea of a planned creation is inherent. If it isn't planned,call it 'nature' not "God". So what does the creation show as a cause - planning/design or evolution and natural causes? In fact, the evidence all points to evolution and natural causes. The 'design' argument and even the Goldilocks argument, while having some compelling points, falls down simply because of some irrefutable (though one can simply deny it) evidence (extinctions) that it was not planned.

With the idea of a managing god of some kind, again, evidence of intervention should be there. Really it isn't. Really, the 'evidence' that there is an intervening god is based on self -delusion and efforts to delude others. Really.

The contradiction really comes up when definite claims are made. The most obvious one is factual. The Bible says such and such happened. We get good reasons to believe that it didn't and right away we get a contradiction.

Not 100% -it never is. But right away the reliability of the Bible is gone. More and more claims go down the tube and the credibility crumbles. And the other Abrahamic religions crumble with it (1). The most interesting logical contradiction is of course the claim that God is good. Not just good, but perfectly good. Absurd claims are made that such a god cannot co -exist with evil. This is patently a logical contradiction, (2) since that would either mean a severely limited god or one who lives with evil all the time. The utter contradiction comes when this god does things that are demonstrably not good.

It is always amusing to see the rhetorical wriggling apologists make trying to explain away acts of evil, by trying to pass it off as not really evil, not this god's doing or just refusing to consider the matter (an apologetics favourite (3) or by biting the bullet and saying that whatever God does is good - even if it looks bad to us.

That is the logical contradiction, because good as given to us by this god and good as done to us by this god are different moral codes - and the one we have seems to be better, every time.

So, like the creation argument, the evidence - while 100% certainty is not possible - is so strongly in favour of the argument that best fits it, which is that it all came about through natural means. We evolved and we evolved consciousness, reasoning and a system of morals that is better today than it was when the Bible was written.

I don't want to get into the argument of pointing to all the evil that modern man does, but let's consider three. Fighting gay rights, blowing up soft targets. Paedophile rape. All linked closely with authoritarian and unreasoning religions. I rest my case.

(1) Yes. Islam, too. Quite apart from some serious scientific fallacies, it references the Bible, new and OT. And it does not tell what I reckon is evidently true. The Eden and Flood scenario did not happen. It argues about the theology of the crucifixion but does not set the record straight about what must really have happened. Thus the Quran - whoever wrote it - was not the word of God but the word of men, even if I cannot write 10 chapters of poetry like it. If it agrees with the OT and the OT is wrong, the Quran is wrong too. QED, game set and match and last orders, please.

(2) which you can only get around with the Mystery Card. "There is some explanation that we cannot imagine'. This is effectively an appeal to uinknowns and - while we cannot be 100% sure - it is no explanation because it doesn't explain. Just as Goddunnit doesn't explain anything about cosmic or life origins. Material Naturalism at least explains some of it.

(3) Let us remove all doubt about this: Faith is not a good reason for believing something; it is a bad reason for not disbelieving something.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-08-2015 at 03:49 AM.. Reason: turning in a proper little thesis, this, foopnotes and all
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Old 09-08-2015, 04:37 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,825 posts, read 13,361,179 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
The ultimate God is the Ontological God, i.e.
God is a Being than which no greater can be conceived - St. Anselm and others.

All other definitions of 'God' are inferior to the above.
Except that there could be a Being greater than which you are capable of conceiving. Maybe you are intellectually insufficient, or have a failure of imagination. Of course in that event you have an irrelevant god.

A god who is absent, indifferent, or unknowable is the same for practical purposes, as no god at all. None of those gods can be engaged with in any meaningful way that would alter the quality of your existence or satisfy some demand that god might place upon you. If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck ... it's a duck. If god looks / acts like he doesn't exist ... he doesn't.
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Old 09-08-2015, 04:47 AM
 
Location: Not-a-Theist
3,440 posts, read 2,632,759 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA View Post
This is really based on the idea of a testable god - that is one with testable claims.

Even with the most "Ontological" God, the idea of a planned creation is inherent. If it isn't planned,call it 'nature' not "God". So what does the creation show as a cause - planning/design or evolution and natural causes? In fact, the evidence all points to evolution and natural causes. The 'design' argument and even the Goldilocks argument, while having some compelling points, falls down simply because of some irrefutable (though one can simply deny it) evidence (extinctions) that it was not planned.

<snip>
Noted your points which are mostly from the perspective of looking at an external world independent of yourself and humanity, and studying its various independent variables.

However there is one interesting perspective of understanding reality by combining yourself, others [theists and atheists] and humanity into the mix.

Science started with an independent external world.
Then we have an inkling of the interaction of the human variable via the Observer's Effect, Theory of Relativity and now we have the incorporation of the human factor in the wave function collapse, schrodinger's cat.

Actually long ago there was Protagoras' "Man is the measure of all things",
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras

Since God encompass all things, and 'Man is the measure of all things,'
it possible for 'Man is the measure of God'.

If man is the measure of God, then God cannot be an independent existing entity but more likely an invention of man.

Why then did man invent God?
There are keys to open a Pandora box to this concept.
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Old 09-08-2015, 04:56 AM
 
Location: Not-a-Theist
3,440 posts, read 2,632,759 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
Except that there could be a Being greater than which you are capable of conceiving. Maybe you are intellectually insufficient, or have a failure of imagination. Of course in that event you have an irrelevant god.

A god who is absent, indifferent, or unknowable is the same for practical purposes, as no god at all. None of those gods can be engaged with in any meaningful way that would alter the quality of your existence or satisfy some demand that god might place upon you. If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, quacks like a duck ... it's a duck. If god looks / acts like he doesn't exist ... he doesn't.
Wtf, that is not my definition.

If you have an idea on the evolution of the debates of 'God exists' between theists and atheists since humans started to debate or deliberate about God's existence, you would not have posted the above.

The point is,
no mater how the best definition theist can come up with to define God, it will not pass the reality test.
This is why my proposal '100% certainty God do not exists in the real world' is more plausible than the best of the theist's definition and their proof of God's existence.
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Old 09-08-2015, 07:05 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
Reputation: 5927
Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
Noted your points which are mostly from the perspective of looking at an external world independent of yourself and humanity, and studying its various independent variables.

However there is one interesting perspective of understanding reality by combining yourself, others [theists and atheists] and humanity into the mix.

Science started with an independent external world.
Then we have an inkling of the interaction of the human variable via the Observer's Effect, Theory of Relativity and now we have the incorporation of the human factor in the wave function collapse, schrodinger's cat.

Actually long ago there was Protagoras' "Man is the measure of all things",
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras

Since God encompass all things, and 'Man is the measure of all things,'
it possible for 'Man is the measure of God'.

If man is the measure of God, then God cannot be an independent existing entity but more likely an invention of man.

Why then did man invent God?
There are keys to open a Pandora box to this concept.
I have got to admit that I never quite grasped the ideas behind Schrodinger's cat or the observer effect. The only one that seems to have any practical relevance in the observed proton experiment. As for human bias (which is what seems to be implied in most arguments of this kind) reality is what it is and what is going on at quantum level is irrelevant to the reliable results of predictable reality. As I have said before, the ongoing unexpectedness of life is evidence that it is not solipsistic. So the solipsism idea I regard as mere water - muddying in order to provide a lurking -place for gods.

Humans are notoriously prone to misperception and delusion, which is why 'common sense' is not a reliable way of coming to conclusions, revelations and vision are totally worthless as a way of coming to conclusions and in fact the reliability of the scientific method, designed to eliminate this bias, the results that have been confirmed, backed up and verified in everything from the Heliocentric system to evolution -theory, makes it the only valid method of assessing data.

As I said to a JW who asked me about what was my Truth. I said there was only the Truth - what actually is. And all we can do is to try to find out (using the best reliable methods) what it is.

That is why we goddless bastards use it, not because it is some article of faith with us. It is - like humanist morality, all you have when you take the supernatural out as anything worth a damn. Believe me, if the supernatural could be verified and validated, I would welcome it with open arms, as another piece of validated date and information.

It would of course have become natural and science in the process, but what is so bad about that?

We might discuss Shrodinger's cat and alive and not alive at the same time but as I told Gaylen and Mystic on the Hard Question discussion, I am a practical man, (it comes from having a ditchwater -dull imagination and mediocre IQ) and I had to step back and say that I could not accept that a human simalcrum (zombie) could logically be without sensory experience and could not logically be without limbs. And if philosophy said that was the case, there was something wrong with philosophy. A suspicion confirmed when I realized the irrational claim that nothing existed (or could exist) that could not be explained in physical terms was Philosophical naturalism whereas the logically correct position (metaphysical naturalism) is that we have as yet no good reason to believe that there is anything we know of as existing for which the physical is not the best explanation.

The latter is a relief to work with and the former may be useful in Philosophic mind -games, but is a damn' hindrance in rational reasoning.

P.s why did man invent gods? I see the subject as pointless: a digression into speculations about myth and superstition and the individual and social spiritual steroid effect of Faith, which is why (I am strongly inclined to suppose) we evolved it.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-08-2015 at 07:15 AM..
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Old 09-08-2015, 07:20 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,825 posts, read 13,361,179 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
Wtf, that is not my definition.
What I stated was not a definition, it's a practical observation about definitions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
If you have an idea on the evolution of the debates of 'God exists' between theists and atheists since humans started to debate or deliberate about God's existence, you would not have posted the above.
I actually have an idea, but whatever ... kudos to your magnificence then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
The point is, no mater [sic] how the best definition theist can come up with to define God [sic], it will not pass the reality test. This is why my proposal '100% certainty God do not exists [sic] in the real world' is more plausible than the best of the theist's definition and their proof of God's existence.
If you say the words "I am 100% certain god does not exist" that is all they will hear and they will take it literally and not listen to whatever nuance may be behind the statement. You are falling into the theist stereotype of the "arrogant atheist" who is making an unwarranted and unjustified and unsupportable knowledge claim rather than a belief claim.

Good luck with your project.
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Old 09-08-2015, 07:41 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
Wtf, that is not my definition.

If you have an idea on the evolution of the debates of 'God exists' between theists and atheists since humans started to debate or deliberate about God's existence, you would not have posted the above.

The point is,
no mater how the best definition theist can come up with to define God, it will not pass the reality test.
This is why my proposal '100% certainty God do not exists in the real world' is more plausible than the best of the theist's definition and their proof of God's existence.
I'm rather with Mordant here. True, there can be something greater that the greatest that we can imagine though arguably, we thought of that greater-greatness too. This is just mid -games of no real use (1) and only have use in trying to define a god that exists.

Before we even know that there is one. It is as pointless as asking a Mod on my former board (AN ) who spoke of the donut -mining mice of Jupiter: "What color are they?"

The point that the idea of treating the claim: "God does not exist" with great caution is a good one is... a good one. It sounds such an extravagant and irrational claim that it just invites attempts to prove atheism irrational and therefore (by some implication )it cannot exist. Efforts to explain that there are caveats - we are talking about a specific personal god; we mean that 'so far as we know'; we also say 'Santa does not exist' without being called on it - are dismissed as back - pedalling, trying to wriggle out of it and of course there is NO way theists are going to give up such a fine stick to beat atheism with.

There may be an ArqAxiom in there, but one had to hedge anything one says around with carefully worded caveats, ever since I was told that crappy evidence still qualified as Evidence.

(1) the fact is that reason and logic have moved on and people like Aquinus and Anselm, like Blaise Pascal, are simply too passe to be of any real value in the debate.
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Old 09-08-2015, 08:42 AM
 
Location: Not-a-Theist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA View Post
I'm rather with Mordant here. True, there can be something greater that the greatest that we can imagine though arguably, we thought of that greater-greatness too. This is just mid -games of no real use (1) and only have use in trying to define a god that exists.

Before we even know that there is one. It is as pointless as asking a Mod on my former board (AN ) who spoke of the donut -mining mice of Jupiter: "What color are they?"

The point that the idea of treating the claim: "God does not exist" with great caution is a good one is... a good one. It sounds such an extravagant and irrational claim that it just invites attempts to prove atheism irrational and therefore (by some implication )it cannot exist. Efforts to explain that there are caveats - we are talking about a specific personal god; we mean that 'so far as we know'; we also say 'Santa does not exist' without being called on it - are dismissed as back - pedalling, trying to wriggle out of it and of course there is NO way theists are going to give up such a fine stick to beat atheism with.

There may be an ArqAxiom in there, but one had to hedge anything one says around with carefully worded caveats, ever since I was told that crappy evidence still qualified as Evidence.

(1) the fact is that reason and logic have moved on and people like Aquinus and Anselm, like Blaise Pascal, are simply too passe to be of any real value in the debate.
Btw, I not arguing for that ontological definition at all.

You asked me what I meant by 'God' in an earlier post.
To cut short all the stories about 'God' I stated the theist's best bet is the 'ontological' definition.
This is a very refined definition emerging out of the 'God exists' debates over the ages since the days of God as the giant man with the beard up there.

However this 'best' definition from the theist will not get through my '100% certainty God do not exists as real' Framework and System.
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Old 09-08-2015, 09:47 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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I did, did I? Well, it is a question that needs to be asked every time a God -(or not) debate comes up.

I recall an Austin atheist call -in where one caller argued that it was invalid of atheists to say they did not believe in something they could not define. It struck me that if you could not even define what "God"was, that was a pretty good reason not to entertain the claim at all.

At the same time, one can start from the other end and argue that something must have started It All off and then try to add some concepts onto that.

The problem about this approach is that this origin of everything looks rather remote an alien, like the god of Einstein, and in fact it looks very much like it is no more than physical processes anyway.

What was before matter is really wide open, and I can think of a number of possibilities that don't involve a planning mind. God -believers of course try to force the issue by waving away anything but a planning mind and saying that all naturalistic explanatory mechanisms are without real evidence.

True, but irrelevant as that is a heap better than no mechanism other than (Jedi wave) "Be!" And even if the command to exist was credited, that only gets us as far as the "Which God" question, to which I only ever got one reply. "There is only One". Which simply begs the question: 'Which one - and which religion, if any..and why?"

Which of course, brings us back to what the debate is really about - Personal gods and religions and the claims of the Bible.

Ontological and first cause and Kalam gets us precisely nowhere. Though it must be conceded that it would be a nice cheat to get SOME sorta "God" concept accepted logically and then just imagine all the associated Theist baggage that we would be asked to accept as true until 100% disproven.

That is why sortagod has to be fought tooth and nail, even though in itself it doesn't matter a damn'.
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