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God exists
Incision
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Posted 06/14/09 - 01:53 PM:
Subject: God exists
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#1
I haven't heard about Advocatus Diaboli this year; maybe that's why I missed it. But it's never too late to get into the holiday spirit.

First I'll offer a "C-inductive" argument: this is evidence that God exists, even if it isn't conclusive. To do this I just need to show that something is more likely with God than without.

It's surprising that our universe exists. That's because there are so many apparently possible universes, and so few that sustain life. If we could determine that one universe was more likely than another, this might not be a problem, but we could only do that by experiencing multiple universes. That's impossible, so we should regard all universes as equally likely.

And it's more understandable that the universe exists if God does too. In fact, there isn't any reason for God to create the universe, or any for him not to. If God is that than which no greater can be conceived, then God plus the universe is no greater than God alone, so why would he have any reason to bother? But that's not a problem: an arbitrary decision from God is still more likely than the universe's existing through chance. So things look brighter: life isn't the hand we were dealt; it's the way the coin landed.

Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does. What could cause the universe? Well, it needs to be outside the universe and intelligent, so it must be something like God. The standard response is to ask, "What caused God?" But I'll be a little bit Mormon and bite the bullet: yes, God has a cause. I'm not sure what it is, but so what? Atheism is still false.
coalclear
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Posted 06/14/09 - 10:21 PM:
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#2
Im new here so bear with me but I don't think I really understood your arguments..
"That's because there are so many apparently possible universes, and so few that sustain life." Do you mean possible alternate universes? When you say "so few that sustain life" what exactly do you mean? I'm not sure you have the privilege of ascertaining the probability of life on different "possible universes" Furthermore I'm not sure this would even be relevant for an argument for Gods existence.
"And it's more understandable that the universe exists if God does too." Why exactly? From your point of view? If God does not exist how does that make the universe any less "understandable".
"In fact, there isn't any reason for God to create the universe, or any for him not to." This ultimately implies that this universe is ultimately just a whim for God, which I believe is ridiculous.
"If God is that than which no greater can be conceived, then God plus the universe is no greater than God alone, so why would he have any reason to bother?" This implies that the universe is "great" to some extent, which is arguable.
"an arbitrary decision from God is still more likely than the universe's existing through chance." this is definitely arguable.
"So things look brighter: life isn't the hand we were dealt; it's the way the coin landed."
Ha! doesnt look brighter for me, according to you, this universe is just an arbitrary and meaningless impulse from God.
"What could cause the universe? Well, it needs to be outside the universe and intelligent." I suppose it would might have to be "outside the universe" but why must it be intelligent? You are avoiding the idea that the universe was created from a more scientific sort of reason. I think I get what you're trying to say, but trying to prove/disprove God is a highly difficult task, and to make more thought provoking/valid points I think you have to play your own devils advocate a lot more.

"Submerge yourself into what you love so much that it becomes you."
"The universe surrenders to your thoughts of it, that, is the ultimate power."
123savethewhales
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Posted 06/14/09 - 11:22 PM:
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#3
Incision wrote:
Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does. What could cause the universe? Well, it needs to be outside the universe and intelligent, so it must be something like God. The standard response is to ask, "What caused God?" But I'll be a little bit Mormon and bite the bullet: yes, God has a cause. I'm not sure what it is, but so what? Atheism is still false.

How does causality law even work without time?

If you are to go beyond the universe and space-time itself, you might as well not bring causality law into the equation.

Edited by 123savethewhales on 06/14/09 - 11:34 PM

Keep it simple.
mric
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Posted 06/15/09 - 02:24 AM:
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Your argument assumes that if there were a God he would be a) more likely to create a universe than not, and b) would be more likely to create a universe with life in than not.

If you can't show both of those, the prior probabilities do not change at all.  Indeed, if you take your point that a perfect God would have no reason to create a universe at all, the existence of any universe is in fact evidence that there is no God.

Edited by mric on 06/15/09 - 02:30 AM
swstephe
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Posted 06/15/09 - 05:57 AM:
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Incision wrote:
I haven't heard about Advocatus Diaboli this year; maybe that's why I missed it. But it's never too late to get into the holiday spirit.


What day is it celebrated? Was it approved? I thought it was like an extended April fools joke, wasting my time arguing against weak counter-arguments.

Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.
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Posted 06/15/09 - 06:25 AM:
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#6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5MytakLy8&feature=related

The Madman wrote:
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"


That aside--

Incision wrote:
something is more likely with God than without.


That which is "most likely" is a farcry from that which is certain. There is an infinite gap between 99 and 100 percent.

And it's more understandable that the universe exists if God does too.

[...]

But that's not a problem: an arbitrary decision from God is still more likely than the universe's existing through chance.


How so? And even if it is so, is human understanding the greatest arbiter of truth and untruth?

So things look brighter: life isn't the hand we were dealt; it's the way the coin landed.


How does the existence of a supernatural being make that which is natural, such as life, seem "brighter"? Surely, if anything, the existence of something beyond life only takes away from life's "brightness." If life is a mere step that we need to take in order to ascend to an eternally blissful existence then life doesn't seem that bright anymore; in fact, it seems positvely dull and worthless.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/zarathustra/section2.rhtml wrote:

Those who preach about an eternal life preach that life is suffering, but that it must be endured in preparation for the afterlife. As such, they are preaching a renunciation of this life, and so are preachers of death.


Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does.


Is that the definite truth or merely what you (firmly) believe? "Everything has a cause", are you sure? And even if this is so, can the Universe itself not be self-caused?
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Posted 06/15/09 - 07:46 AM:
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#7
Incision wrote:
First I'll offer a "C-inductive" argument: this is evidence that God exists, even if it isn't conclusive. To do this I just need to show that something is more likely with God than without.

It's surprising that our universe exists. That's because there are so many apparently possible universes, and so few that sustain life. If we could determine that one universe was more likely than another, this might not be a problem, but we could only do that by experiencing multiple universes. That's impossible, so we should regard all universes as equally likely.



But by that argument there's evidence that it's part of my pet hamster's plan that I live on the second floor. That's because there are countless possible universes in which I live on some other floor or don't manage to live at all, and far fewer in which I live on just this floor. So the probability of my living on the second floor is tiny. But, if my hamster planned my living arrangements, that would explain the whole thing. I didn't land on this floor just by chance. It was the rodent's will.

Now there is evidence that my hamster plans my life, even if it's not conclusive.

Something wrong, surely....??
TempletonEsquire
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Posted 06/15/09 - 03:10 PM:
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#8
Incision wrote:

First I'll offer a "C-inductive" argument: this is evidence that God exists, even if it isn't conclusive. To do this I just need to show that something is more likely with God than without.

Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does.


If God created this universe, with a scientific viewpoint of the universe, then there must be evidence showing that God created this universe. If we can observe the universe could we also observe the creator?

The universe was created in a specific location. Is not God over there still in history? Since we can only use light as an instrument of detection, and since light moves at a fixed speed, we only know what resulted after the creation. Yet since there are forces such as gravity which has an affect on time, and theoretically certain matter in the universe could possibly go back in time before creation, would the matter be with God?
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Posted 06/15/09 - 08:31 PM:
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>>It's surprising that our universe exists.

I'd argue that the Universe existing is quite obvious.

>>That's because there are so many apparently possible universes, and so few that sustain life.

This is vague. One could just as easily argue that the balance of physical laws and properties such as strong and weak nuclear forces are perfectly unique and that the Universe itself can only exist in one way.

>>And it's more understandable that the universe exists if God does too.

If the Universe itself is "surprising", or to re-phrase, if the existence of the Universe is improbable, wouldn't the addition of God only make the situation even more improbable? Now a Creator must occur spontaneously with the power to construct the Universe, a Creator that by necessity must be more complex than the Universe itself, and is therefor all the more surprising. If a system as complex as the Universe requires a Creator, then a system as complex as the Universe's Creator, through the same logic, also requires an intelligent Creator. Thus begins an infinite sequence of events. An elegant solution to this problem is of course to abandon this business of an intelligent Creator in the first place.

>>If God is that than which no greater can be conceived

I can conceive of a being that created God, which by necessity would be greater.

>>an arbitrary decision from God is still more likely than the universe's existing through chance

Arbitrary decision from God = Chance. Allow me to take liberties with the above sentence. This is my version: "An arbitrary decision from a statistically unlikely intelligent Creator is still more likely than the Universe arising from statistically unlikely events."

>>What could cause the universe? Well, it needs to be outside the universe and intelligent, so it must be something like God.

Does it need to be something intelligent? People have posited legitimate scientific theories for the origins of the Universe, a lot of it work done by people that begin with questions and seek out answers, rather than beginning with answers and seeking justification. How much time have you spent studying their theories?

>>Atheism is still false

It was never false to begin with. Doubt and uncertainty are good. If such qualities didn't reside in you yourself then you wouldn't have bothered with the post in the first place. Belief in God may very well give your life joy and meaning, and if it does then good for you. As a general rule however, any ideology you feel the need to justify outside the realm of rational thought is doing you more harm than good.

Incision
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Posted 06/17/09 - 03:10 PM:
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#10
I think I should get an award for the worst argument ever. If the replies' objections hold, then I committed roughly 2 errors per sentence of argument, over the course of three paragraphs. That's gotta be a record.

swstephe wrote:
What day is it celebrated? Was it approved? I thought it was like an extended April fools joke, wasting my time arguing against weak counter-arguments.

Advocatus Diaboli is celebrated on 4 June, except when I'm celebrating it, obviously. It's was Paul's idea, but I haven't heard anything about it this year, so I don't know if it's "approved."

Crackers wrote:
Is human understanding the greatest arbiter of truth and untruth?

I was just using "surprising" to mean "improbable." Likewise, "understandable" to mean "probable" (or "not improbable," to cover borderline cases).

mric wrote:
Your argument assumes that if there were a God he would be a) more likely to create a universe than not, and b) would be more likely to create a universe with life in than not.

Really? I thought it had the advantage of making no such assumption. I'm thinking that God has a 50-50 chance of creating a life-sustaining universe, which is only interesting because the universe's prior odds are worse.

Cuthbert wrote:
But by that argument there's evidence that it's part of my pet hamster's plan that I live on the second floor. That's because there are countless possible universes in which I live on some other floor or don't manage to live at all, and far fewer in which I live on just this floor. So the probability of my living on the second floor is tiny. But, if my hamster planned my living arrangements, that would explain the whole thing. I didn't land on this floor just by chance. It was the rodent's will.

Now there is evidence that my hamster plans my life, even if it's not conclusive.

Something wrong, surely....??

There's certainly something wrong with that argument, but I think it's a premise, not the reasoning.

Argument form:

(1) P(E) is low.
(2) P(E | H) is better.
(3) Therefore, P(H | E) > P(H).

Incision's argument:

(1') The probability of a life-sustaining universe is low.
(2') The probability of a life-sustaining universe given God is even.
(3') Therefore, there's evidence that God exists.

Cuthbert's argument:

(1'') The probability of these living arrangements is low.
(2'') The probability of these living arrangements given a hamster mastermind is better.
(3'') Therefore, there's evidence that a hamster mastermind exists.

I think (2'') is false: hamsters can't control people's lives (regular hamsters-- see below). Even if your hamster did have a plan, it couldn't execute it, so the probability of your living arrangements given a hamster mastermind is just what it normally would be.

Of course, I am committed to the argument's raising the probability that there's an omnipotent hamster mastermind. (What have I become?) But speaking seriously, I don't see a problem with that. There is, of course, no omnipotent hamster mastermind, but that's no so much for lack of explanatory power as intrinsic improbability. Maybe you think it's intrinsically improbable that God exists. If so, I guess I'll need another argument.
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