Debate 12 discussion: Does God Exist?: Philosophy Forums

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Debate 12 discussion: Does God Exist?

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Debate 12 discussion: Does God Exist?

aletheist
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Posted 04/21/09 - 06:18 PM:	#41
Wosret wrote: this supposes that there is evidence for the supernatural, or a god, which I certainly do not agree with at all. I believe that we have been down this road before. If there were really no evidence whatsoever for the supernatural, or for the existence of God, then no reasonable person would believe in such things. Many reasonable people do hold and have held such beliefs. Therefore, there must be at least some evidence supporting such a conclusion--unless you are claiming that every theist is unreasonable, which is something that I think you would need to argue, rather than just assert. Wosret wrote: alethiest wrote: So, do you think that evidence is compelling, such that if God were to provide enough of it, we would have no rational choice but to believe that he exists? Yes. Then, if God did that, we would have no free will to disbelieve. This was the whole point of my very first post in this thread--perhaps our free will is more important to God than our believing that he exists. Wosret wrote: Just everyday circumstances. The standard of evidence that is required in everyday life. That seems like a pretty low bar. Do you really think that all theists are irrational to this extent? "Everyday circumstances" routinely involve trusting other people in areas where we do not have direct experience or adequate expertise. "Everyday life" includes court proceedings where human testimony is accepted as perfectly valid evidence, especially when it is provided by multiple corroborating witnesses. Wosret wrote: This is just bald assertion, that you seem unwilling to give a single reason for why it is beyond your say so. No more so than the argument to which I was responding. If God exists, is eternal and unchangeable, and created everything else that exists, then his nature is the only possible standard for what is good; what alternative could there be? No one has answered this question yet. It seems to me--and maybe I am missing something; it would not by any means be the first time--that you can only deny the conclusion by denying one or more of the premises; but then you would no longer be talking about the same concept of God as the typical theist. Wosret wrote: I could similarly serve as the moral standard, and it could be objectively ascertained what based fell in line with my moral opinions, but that doesn't render me, the standard, a an objective standard. Yes, it would--if you were the eternal and unchanging creator of everything else that exists, and the standard is grounded in your essential nature. The fundamental mistake here is equating morality or goodness with an "opinion" of God, which is not at all what I am suggesting. Wosret wrote: If what is "good" is merely defined as what god is, then it is meaningless, and I certainly reject such an arbitrary definition. How is it meaningless? How is it arbitrary? If God exists, then what other definition of "good" makes any sense? Wosret wrote: I want a reason for why god is good, and the standard by which good be judged. If God exists, what else could he be but good? Who would be in a position to challenge this? Wosret wrote: I thought that this was a philosophy forum, where philosophy is done, which involves arguments, reason, justifications, discourse, and logical syllogisms. Not an excercise in baseless, and bald assertion. If you think that this is how philosophical disscusion is had, then don't bother replying to this post. Calm down. I agree with your characterization of what is supposed to happen in this forum, and I welcome sincere and thoughtful criticism of anything that I post here. I hope that this sentiment goes both ways.
"Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)

J. Random Hacker
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Posted 04/21/09 - 06:25 PM:	#42
aletheist wrote: If God exists, what else could he be but good? Who would be in a position to challenge this? The Old Testament of the Bible.

aletheist
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Posted 04/21/09 - 06:28 PM:	#43
J. Random Hacker wrote: Miracles are extraordinary to me but why would they be a problem for a creature with unlimited power? By extraordinary, I mean "out of the ordinary", not "hard to do". Or do you think that God owes a miracle to every single person on the planet? If so, why? J. Random Hacker wrote: Quasars and quarks have scientific evidence to back them up. So, you have no problem believing in some things that you cannot directly experience, as long as there is evidence to support their existence. Why do you have a different standard for believing in God? What counts as "scientific" evidence, and why do you consider it reliable? Have you seen the evidence for quasars and quarks firsthand, or do you rely on the testimony of scientists who have seen (and interpreted) such evidence? What about past events and other minds, which you did not address yet?
"Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)

aletheist
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Posted 04/21/09 - 06:37 PM:	#44
J. Random Hacker wrote: aletheist wrote: If God exists, what else could he be but good? Who would be in a position to challenge this? The Old Testament of the Bible. How so? Please elaborate.
"Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)

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Posted 04/21/09 - 06:56 PM:	#45
aletheist wrote: By extraordinary, I mean "out of the ordinary", not "hard to do". Or do you think that God owes a miracle to every single person on the planet? If so, why? If God wants me to believe then I need evidence. If God doesn't care if I believe then nothing is owed. Either way is fine with me. aletheist wrote: So, you have no problem believing in some things that you cannot directly experience, as long as there is evidence to support their existence. Why do you have a different standard for believing in God? I would accept scientific evidence for God as well. aletheist wrote: What counts as "scientific" evidence, and why do you consider it reliable? I'm not going to explain the scientific method as that would take too long and take us too far off topic. aletheist wrote: Have you seen the evidence for quasars and quarks firsthand, or do you rely on the testimony of scientists who have seen (and interpreted) such evidence? I've seen the evidence and worked things out for myself. aletheist wrote: What about past events and other minds, which you did not address yet? Past events are taken conditionally and with a grain of salt. This very discussion presupposes the existence of other minds.

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Posted 04/21/09 - 07:00 PM:	#46
aletheist wrote: The Old Testament of the Bible. How so? Please elaborate. If I drowned a kitten in a bathtub you'd call me a monster. According to the Old Testament, God drowned every animal on the planet save a handful in a leaky boat. What does that make him? If you want to know more read http://www.evilbible.com/ or just read the Bible.

aletheist
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Posted 04/21/09 - 07:46 PM:	#47
J. Random Hacker wrote: According to the Old Testament, God drowned every animal on the planet save a handful in a leaky boat. What does that make him? There are at least three problems with this, as I see it. (1) You are appealing to a particular religious text/belief in a philosophical thread about whether any theistic God exists. (2) You are presupposing that goodness is something external that can be imposed on God (by you, no less); I thought that this was one of the questions still on the table, albeit in the other thread. (3) Where does it say that the boat was leaky?
"Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible." - Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)

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Posted 04/21/09 - 08:26 PM:	#48
There were so many troubling things in this post that I just had to pitch in. Paul wrote: Do you realize what you're saying? A 99.999% rational argument which rests one choice to not care about truth (as you are making, declaring that pragmatism is more important than truth) is not any more likely to be true than a 1% rational argument. An argument is either entirely rational or it's worthless. In symbolic logic, if you assume P & ~P you can conclude anything in the universe you want with perfectly logical steps from the premise. 'An argument is either entirely rational or it's worthless' - This sounds like a George Bush approach to philosophy. Aside from the rather obvious objection that most interesting, sophisticated and seminal arguments in the history of philosophy are not entirely rational, this statement seems to miss the point of philosophy. If an argument is entirely rational, it has worth only as a formula - for it is then a tautology. Most of the interesting ideas in philosophy stem from the tension between irrational, lived experience, and rational or metaphysical systems of thought. Paul wrote: At any rate, to me, by far the strongest argument for atheism is the fact that the primary concern of the religious is indeed pragmatic rather than about reality. As if there were an opposition between pragmatism and reality! One could argue that pragmatism is the only kind of reality worth pursuing, being as it based on tangible experience. What reality you yourself have in mind I have no idea, but perhaps you are thinking of the world outside Plato's cave (which in any case is swapping the abstract ideal of religion for another). Paul wrote: One of the easiest tests of the truth of anything is whether people who don't want it to be true still believe it. You'll notice only people who want religion to be true ever become religious. Whenever someone stops wanting it to be true, they inevitably turn to atheism. This could only be said by someone who generalises about religion from within their bourgeois Western experience. As a matter of fact, there are a whole bunch of people out there who would rather their religions not be true - the terrified people of the Peruvian pueblo whose 'good god' Pachamama shatters the ground they live on but one example. Of course, if you are arguing that religion fulfills a psychological need, this is a different argument. But not one that gets you very far, since you'll find both atheists and theists and everyone else fulfilling their psychological needs quite dutifully. Paul wrote: If the majority of adherents have a twisted concept of morality which holds back progress and attempts to suppress human freedom -- as I would say is certainly true of religion -- then that does make it wrong. In virtually every society, religion is the force of convervativism fighting to prevent people from being allowed to make their own choices -- whether that be fighting homosexuals and abortions today, or women not long ago, or people of other religions in much of the world. This line about preventing people 'from being allowed to make their own choices' sounds like a political slogan for a rally. Almost every person in the world believes in limiting human actions to those that do not harm wider society. The issue is not so much about suppression, but about which actions harm society. In this respect, religion is usually the slogan-bearer of tradition, but it is nonsense to pretend, as your post seems to, that letting more people do more of what they want more of the time somehow leads us all down the magical path to Progress. The real issue, apart from views of progress, which may or may not hold, is whether the lawmakers, and the religious leaders who influence them, are being rational in their decisions (hint: they're not!). I would like, finally, and as a more general point, for all members of PF to be aware of the many different ways religion can be discussed. For religion is not just a philosophical or theological debate, it is also a sociological and anthropological one as well. If you're going to make claims about humans who practice religion, or how religion 'works' in the real world, you'd do best not to follow philosophers, nor theologians, nor attention seekers such as Dawkins, Hitchens at al. in completely ignoring all the serious work done on religion in the social sciences - you'd do best to actually read the works of Weber, Frazer, Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, etc. and see what at least other people have thought about religion as a social phenomenon. I get a very large impression that most people here who make such claims do not.
One of the greatest weaknesses in human nature is to be dogmatic about issues of which we are ignorant. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Incision
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Posted 04/21/09 - 08:46 PM:	#49
Shades of Plantinga. Isn't SnoopDoug's (1) question-begging? Given the modal logic he's working in, (2) and (3) are logical truths, so the argument could be abbreviated (1) Possibly necessarily x exists (4) Therefore, x exists. Clearly, (1) is a giveaway premise. An atheist could argue (1') Possibly necessarily x does not exist (4') Therefore, x does not exist.
The only leaf it drops goes wide, Your name not written on either side. — Robert Frost, "On Going Unnoticed"

kNoctis
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Posted 04/21/09 - 11:28 PM:	#50
Snoopdoug wrote: 1. It is possible that a necessary being explains the contingent universe. 2. If something is possibly necessary, then it exists in all possible worlds. 3. Whatever exists in all possible worlds exists in the real world. 4. Therefore, a necessary being exists in the real world. I think premise 2 is false. If x is possibly necessary, then x is also possibly not-necessary. Therefore, there are possible worlds where x is not-necessary, and so just because something is possibly necessary doesn't mean it exists in all possible worlds. Additionally, just because something is possible doesn't mean it exists in all possible worlds, because the actual world is a possible world, and there are many things that, although are possible, do not actually exist. I also think Snoopdoug equivocates "exists" in premise 3. To say something exists in a possible world is different than saying something exists in the real world. For existing in a possible world isn't an actualized existence unless the possible world is actualized. However, whatever exists in the real world is always an actualized existence. 180 Proof's opening statement argued that a god that isn't transcendent is no god at all, because the attribute that distinguishes the concept of god from the concept of non-god is that a god is claimed to be transcendent. SnoopDoug has responded that the god he is defending is not transcendent in an ineffable sense, but transcendent in the sense that god exists beyond the material universe. He's also proposed that "immaterial, indivisible, simple, bodiless, and so forth" are more applicable identifying attributes of a god than ineffability. I think SnoopDoug's semantic analysis is more accurate when surveying the history of the term 'god' in religions throughout human history, and I'm looking forward to reading 180's response.

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