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You are so easily triggered, Arq and you never fail to congratulate yourself on your supposed sussing or debunking. Quite the trip! I said to talk of them as EXPLANATIONS is bogus. They explain nothing because they themselves are unknowns. We have no idea what the hell they are or why they are or where they came from. As actual EXPLANATIONS of what our Reality is comprised of, they are useless. How they work is very useful and is what enables the wonderful advances of our modern world, but what they are or why they are or where they came from remains unknown, period. No explanations.
Mystic, your Theistic faith makes you so dishonest. This is what you said "But that there is a source of everything that exists is indisputable fact. " (1)
This is not about what term or label we use for known and explained forces - it is about the reality you claim is behind those forces that means that 'natural' is a 'bogus' term to use and 'God' is the correct term. You know and i know and we all know that your argument is trying to slap the 'God' label on a reality that - so far as anyone can show - has no 'God' in it (as we both know that a cosmic intelligence is what merits the 'God' -label and just 'why we are here' - never mind 'unexplaineds' - does not. That is Mere Trickianity). `
Nobody is more 'easily triggered' than you, Mystic. One only has to start a thread before your hair trigger goes off and you are posting your beliefs as facts and hi-jacking thread after thread, and I have to debunk them in order to curtail this shameless derail of thread after thread for your own Opinions. The 'sussing' is obvious to everyone, including you, I think, which is why you have to be crafty, tricky, dishonest and denialist and lot of other things that don't make much of an advertisement for this 'Agape Love' you keep banging on about.
(1) if it crossed your mind to be tricky and say 'is there not a source of everything, then?' don't even think about it. Yes, it is (so far as anyone can demonstrate with valid science (not your 'analogy' of it) or sound logic (not your 'God's logic',which stands on its' head)'Nature' and not 'God'.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-06-2019 at 07:20 PM..
The phase natural forces is bogus as an explanation of anything. We do not and can not know what the hell "natural forces" actually are, how or why they exist, and what their source is, but ANY claim that nothing is the source of everything that exists is pure sophistry.
I agree with the first...definitely.
Regarding the second...define nothing. I remember watching an Isaac Asimov Annual Memorial debate in which they had multiple people arguing about what "nothing" actually was. The philosopher, I believe, argued that it was a hypothetical concept...which I found to be about the most useful of the explanations, but that didn't translate well to the reality we live within.
Is nothing empty space? People talk about higher dimensions we can't detect. In one of those higher dimensions, empty space may not be so empty.
I'm willing to hypothesize that there's no such thing as true nothing...just an infinite string of somethings. Similarly, there could be just an infinite string of somethings rather than any one thing responsible for existence...which is one reason I'm critical of a claim that there is a source of all things...emphasis on A source...as well as, I suppose the word SOURCE which could imply some starting point.
Naturalism, which is the ruling paradigm of modern science, postulates that EVERYTHING can be explained in material, naturalistic terms. When a branch of science so much as suggests that this is not the case, as quantum physics and neuroscience do, this is potentially FATAL to the ruling scientific paradigm. The fall of naturalism opens the door to the possibility of God, a door that is locked, bolted and nailed shut under the ruling paradigm. Which is why the keepers of the ruling paradigm go to such absurd lengths to protect it, precisely as Thomas Kuhn described.
Oh, yes, we and the keepers of the ruling paradigm know very precisely what "naturalism" means. It does NOT preclude the existence of "stuff with mysterious properties." It postulates that EVERYTHING consists of and is explainable in terms of material "stuff." Quantum physics and the evidence from other fields suggest that this is NOT the case. Scientists at the highest echelons of quantum physics will tell you flatly that it is NOT the case, that quantum physics disproves naturalism.
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "Naturalism" is much more vague than you claim:
So understood, “naturalism” is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized—that is, they would both reject “supernatural” entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the “human spirit”. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
I'm fairly positive what a "naturalist" really is to most naturalists is just someone who doesn't believe in things they don't believe they have evidence for.
Undoubtedly there are aspects of our universe that are beyond logic...or at least I don't know why there wouldn't be...but that's not a real explanation anyway, which is no doubt another reason research into the "supernatural" is discouraged. If I, or God, snap my fingers and create a goat...you're probably going to be more confused than if you never knew me, or God, snapping my fingers had anything to do with it. Even if they find out God did it...I don't know how they'd prove that and I wouldn't see that as much of an answer anyway. On top of that...God is frequently used as a placeholder for knowledge we lack. If we don't understand it, we often claim God did it...and that can just shut down avenues that would lead to greater understanding.
There's just no reason why people with minds of worth would assume everything can be understood...so I think you're making a straw-man argument. There's good reason to try to understand it, but I don't know why anyone would assume everything can be understood.
Also, you need a clear definition of "material stuff" before it's even worthwhile to say people believe everything is made of "material stuff." I very much doubt "material stuff" is a term used very often in philosophy.
In that webpage I linked...one of the first paragraphs that come up deals with "Ontological Naturalism" that argues that "there is nothing more to the mental, biological and social realms than arrangements of physical entities."
But what do they really mean by that? Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett likes to say "Consciousness is an illusion." I don't know what he means by that exactly...but I know illusions still exist. Mirages, like other illusions, exist...just not as the swimming pools in the middle of a dessert we see them as.
We need to give our fellow human beings some credit and try to translate their views in a way that depicts them somewhat sensibly.
I have a sorta distrust of philosophy. I especially distrust it when it starts making pronouncements about the realm that belongs to science - like 'matter'. I was astonished to find out that while to scientists 'naturalism' is the scientifically demonstrated working of matter, biology and physics and anything else is unknown (methodological naturalism), in philosophy it is an assertion that nothing can or does exist but matter (and no supernatural by definition- metaphysical naturalism).
This was such a logically untenable claim that I had to consider that philosophical definitions of anything within the purview of science were definitely suspect. There were a couple of times Theist apologists who do the semantic fiddlerery they call 'Philosophy' (1) in order to prove that science knows nothing for sure and hope thereby that makes 'God' a more feasible proposition (it doesn't it just means that no evidence for God is of any value) tries to wrongfoot "atheist sciencism" by forcing on it the Philosophical definition of naturalism, which is as inapplicable to scientific naturalism as the Stanford entry on atheism is applicable to atheism.
Maybe i'll explain to you why consciousness (indeed everything) is an illusion (for us - it has its' own reality apart from our perceptions) but here isn't the place. Or indeed this was maybe explanation enough for you.
(1) our pal Vic and his argument from 'Evidentialism is dead'. Evidentialism is in philosophy an assertion that anything and everything can be understood by or though evidence (or something like that) and apparently this claim has been discredited or rejected in Philosophy. He then implied that this somehow invalidated all evidence and though he could not deny that evidence is regarded as valid in science, courts of law and indeed in religion (if it can be used to support their beliefs), he kept repeating this 'evidentialism is dead' mantra as though it proved something.
The phase natural forces is bogus as an explanation of anything. We do not and can not know what the hell "natural forces" actually are, how or why they exist, and what their source is, but ANY claim that nothing is the source of everything that exists is pure sophistry.
Natural forces are an inevitable consequence of existence itself, because anything that exists must have properties and behaviors. So no god is required to explain them.
Which leaves the godofthegapists with the burden of explaining how an unnecessary god would actually exist, what they would be made of when nothing allegedly existed, how they knew anything, and how they stored this knowledge.
I did ask you this before and never received an answer.
Trans has blocked you, remember? He can not read what you are writing, so you are wasting your time responding to him.
This is just for information, there is no need for a response.
Thank you. I have to trust the punters to know that few people are 'authorities' here, and indeed not even authorities are beyond question. The pronouncements of the experts certainly deserve respect, but that does not mean that those who use what they say in debate are to be disregarded just because they aren't 'experts in the field'. It's clear that Arach is not only not an authority in any field, he does not seem to understand his sources and i have to trust that the browsers are too smart to be fooled by Arach's sniping.
You are so easily triggered, Arq and you never fail to congratulate yourself on your supposed sussing or debunking. Quite the trip! I said to talk of them as EXPLANATIONS is bogus. They explain nothing because they themselves are unknowns. We have no idea what the hell they are or why they are or where they came from. As actual EXPLANATIONS of what our Reality is comprised of, they are useless. How they work is very useful and is what enables the wonderful advances of our modern world, but what they are or why they are or where they came from remains unknown, period. No explanations.
Yes science explains the how and not the why the universe operates.
Your entire God is the Universe not only does not answer the why but not the how either.
How does God did it and in any understanding of the Universe when there is no attempt to understand this God is the Universe.
And for some if us the how it works is the fascinating question. One that we can explore and come up with the best models to explain that regards of the country or language one is from.
The question why is already so clouded by where we come from that talk the Gods including yours are in reality nothing more than thought experiments. What good is pondering on bias thought experiments that can all be ignored with the I don't know, let's spend our effort in exploring what is possible to explore.
Exactly why al I sitting on my deck drinking a cup of tea and posting a response to you? God is the Universe answers nothing.
The phase natural forces is bogus as an explanation of anything. We do not and can not know what the hell "natural forces" actually are, how or why they exist, and what their source is, but ANY claim that nothing is the source of everything that exists is pure sophistry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
Natural forces are an inevitable consequence of existence itself, because anything that exists must have properties and behaviors. So no god is required to explain them.
It is ironic how frequently you use the very arguments that you decry when they are used to defend God - "it just exists" and the like.
Quote:
Which leaves the godofthegapists with the burden of explaining how an unnecessary god would actually exist, what they would be made of when nothing allegedly existed, how they knew anything, and how they stored this knowledge.
I did ask you this before and never received an answer.
Then you are not paying close enough attention. For one thing, you miss the essential feature of my view that our Reality exists in the consciousness field of God = unified field. Existing in consciousness means that God's imagination is the mechanism by which our little reality exists within God's consciousness. To paraphrase Sir James Jeans - our reality is more like a great thought than a physical mechanism. I have confidence you can extrapolate from there.
Thank you. I have to trust the punters to know that few people are 'authorities' here, and indeed not even authorities are beyond question. The pronouncements of the experts certainly deserve respect, but that does not mean that those who use what they say in debate are to be disregarded just because they aren't 'experts in the field'. It's clear that Arach is not only not an authority in any field, he does not seem to understand his sources and i have to trust that the browsers are too smart to be fooled by Arach's sniping.
lmao ... and when you arent sure .... just run away.
yeah, they know. thats why believers in something will always out number your sect of atheism followers.
its also why you ran away. you know, when we put your claims next to mine ... the "smart lurker" may just begin to understand that denying everything isn't what atheism is about.
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Mystic, your Theistic faith makes you so dishonest. This is what you said "But that there is a source of everything that exists is indisputable fact. " (1)