Proove, Proof, and Persuade.
Offline Prove, proof, and persuade. In the context of a conversation about "God" in this forum, how do you use these words?
My impression is that some use these words as if they have some sort of objective standard, even without qualifiers, e.g., logically prove or scientific proof. Would you agree that this is the case here? in general? is such a use of the word necessitated by the definition? by reason?
To answer some of my own questions, I think it is not necessitated by the definition nor by reason. First, as I see it, the purpose of a conversation about "God" in this forum is one of two things: (1) to persuade the listener that the believer is not unreasonable in his belief or (2) to persuade the listener that "God" exists.
Time and effort is unnecessarily wasted because, I believe, some tend to conflate these two purposes when each purposes might be better served by different uses of the word. "By conflate the purposes," what I mean to represent is that some assume that one who does not require the same type of proof that he/she does to be persuaded of something is unreasonable. For example, a person who does not require scientific or logical proof to believe in the existence of something is unreasonable. This creates a problem because one person may be trying to persuade the other of the reasonableness of a belief through logical proof, while the other side is seeking to be persuaded that God exists through scientific proof. The confusions plays out as follows:
A: A belief in X God is reasonable.
B: No it's not. There is no proof that X God exists.
A: A belief doesn't need proof to be reasonable.
B: Of course it does.
Better way to proceed?
A: A belief in X God is reasonable.
B: No it's not. There is no proof that X God exists.
A: I do not seek to prove God exists, I seek to persuade you that a belief in X God is reasonable.
B: You can't persuade me that a belief in X God is reasonable without proof.
A: I will use a logical proof.
B: Logical proof won't convince me that God exists because logical proofs are sometimes demonstrably wrong.
A: I do not seek to persuade you that God exists, I seek to persuade you that a belief in God is reasonable.
B: I reject your offering of a premise.
Thoughts?
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Offline The question of a belief in God should be secondary to a higher-level question: do you believe in the supernatural? This is not a question that involves complexity, nuance, or proof. Unlike the concept of God, the supernatural does not hide its existence behind a requirement of faith, which is a dynamic of the relationship between deities and mortals which explains why God does not reveal Himself unequivocably. He doesn't want humans to believe based on proofs, He wants it to be based on faith.
Disagreed.. but will continue.
The supernatural, on the other hand, is not a faith system -- it is not a promise of eternal life, it is not a moral code or behavioral roadmap, not even spiritual. It is simply phenomenological -- it is the assertion that physics as we understand it, is only a stage setting, a veil, and that certain things are able to happen that blatantly violate those physics.
Yet nobody can cite a single credible example of something illustrating this assertion. Nobody.
My understanding of supernatural is that it is something that exists beyond the natural world. Since I can only observe the natural world, the word supernatural has no meaning really. If I see it, then it, by definition for me, is natural
Beyond that, "credible" infuses your subjective bias into this discussion and it'll just roll out of control if I discuss further. For example, if I told you 200 million people have recorded or would attest to seeing some sort of event (whether it be ghost or god like miracle), would you seek a "natural" explanation or except this as a "credible example of something illustrating" the supernatural?
Of course you would look for the natural, because you presume (rightfully so) that things observed must have natural explanations.
Either God is natural, or he is unobservable, IMO. The fact that we may refer to him as "supernatural" only denotes are inability to explain it in natural terms because of lack of observation.
Ah, but you say "credible" is the key word -- it's just one person's interpretation versus another's.
Hey.. I read this after I wrote the top. Awesome.
Ok, so you can tell me that you found a penny on the ground and that it was left there by the spirit of your dead grandfather, as a sign, a little hello from heaven. Fine -- but nothing supernatural actually happened. You found a penny, that's all. Penny's fall to the ground via gravity all the time, and people use their eye-brain connection to see them and their muscle-brain connection to pick them up. Nothing supernatural there in what actually happened, but it was accompanied by an imaginary cause. You could say, what about all the people who prayed, and then escaped the Twin Towers on 9/11? At the elevations below the impact, one can speculate that just about everyone prayed, and some escaped and some did not -- that is to be expected. Above the impact, where people were cut off from the lower floors and the supernatural would have really come in handy, it was totally absent and nobody survived. Both cases, and virtually any case in which documented facts are known, only provide evidence of a natural world, not a supernatural one.
I understand what your saying, at the same time, observation of the "supernatural" goes much further than that--for instance, "I saw a ghost." Now, if someone presented you with this observation, would you accept it as credible (assuming all things being equal) or would you immediately presume delusion or some other natural observation.
Once again, I would point to what I said above, we presume natural, and rightfully so, IMO.
If there's no supernatural, there's no God.
Disagreed. See above.
You may want to describe the supernatural as physics we just don't understand.
Man.. you are awesome.
Like, we don't totally understand the physics of black holes. Some things, actually most things probably, are beyond our current understanding. But not knowing something, or not understanding it, is not evidence that it is supernatural.
Agreed. My statement is that supernatural is a term that some use to describe certain things some don't understand. It's not the same thing as saying those things that we don't understand are supernatural.
All doves are white does not mean all white birds are doves.
Uncertainty is just the natural outcome of a lack of complete knowledge about something. Scientists don't proclaim they've reached the limit of knowledge and beginning of the supernatural at the edge of black holes. There's no headlines declaring we've found the outer boundary of the natural world on the other side of black hole horizons. Scientists, instead, just keep chipping away at what they don't know.
Agreed.
You might even say then, that God is a natural phenomenon whose presence lives in that realm of physics always beyond our understanding -- that it's just a semantic argument about what is meant by natural or supernatural because we can't conceive of His natural physics from the primitive perspective of our knowledge about such things.
To say that God may always be beyond are *complete* understanding, and thus might be described as supernatural, is not the same thing as saying he will always be outside our understanding. The universe, I believe, will always be beyond our *complete* understanding, does not mean I cannot understand a portion of it (and continually grow in that understanding).
Fine, I'd say -- if God is a natural phenomena, then the best way to know Him is through the practice of science -- which studies natural phenomena and follows evidence to conclusions, not the other way around. You can pursue that course as an atheist, and under that definition of God there's really no difference between an atheist and a theist.
Disagreed. Unless you are using "science" in the broad sense as "that mindset that moves from evidence to conclusion." Is that what you mean?
As stated by a fellow poster above, "Scientific proof is the idea that something can be demonstrated to be reasonable not only as an idea but also by considering evidence which an observer can show to the whole world." That's how I understand science. If that is your definition, I reject your statement. My mom is a natural phenomena. It does not mean the best way to "know" her is through the practice of science.
If you are using the broader definition, then I would agree. But "evidence to conclusion" is really broadly defined. Ask any Christian if they have evidence of God's existence and they might try to use "scientific evidence." Push harder, you might see all they really have is "personal experience/evidence." Whatever the source, the observable fact (x) may be a personal observation (a) or a universal observation (b), whatever the case, how one uses (a) or (b) determines it's status as evidence--and you cannot say it's an incorrect use of evidence without inserting your own subjective thoughts as to what is appropriate types of evidence.
But why *a* should determine what is appropriate evidence for *b* in determining belief *x* is beyond me, unless *x* somehow affects *a*. If that's the case however, the problem is with the action, not the belief.
If you believe the universe is natural, then you cannot believe in the Christian God or any supernatural god. If you believe the universe is supernatural, then you're just making stuff up.
Interestings...
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Offline Hey, Rhad. Yeah, been a while. Life, you know how it is.
Yeah. This is my first time on in.... heck I don't even know. Two years? A year? Something like that.
Unless you have evidence of something that cannot be explained without adding the previously unobserved 'God' to the data, then God is unnecessary.
I'm a lawyer. Everything can be explained by anything.
Unless there is some direct observation or indirect inference of 'God', then God is not in evidence.
Still misunderstanding you. "In evidence" is a legal phrase I often hear, referring to the introduction of evidence through formal means during litigation.
Assuming I'm understanding you, I would have to disagree. "God," is a conclusion based upon evidence, not evidence himself.
Sidenote:I don't think the "fact" of God's existence is a salvational issue. Whether you believe he exists or not does not matter.
If there is no evidence of something that cannot be explained without adding 'God' to the data, then claiming indirect inference of God when other causes can be shown to exist is premature.
Evoluntionary evidence can be explained through a theory I deem, aliens did it. It's thus premature to refer evoluntionary theory as fact or true.
My issue is your use of the word necessary and unnecessary. Life is a game of balancing. Evidence may support two or three things. But as a whole, presented to you in a particular way, and then filtered through your personality, lead a person to a single conclusion.
Jury trials.
Unreasonable in an objective (which is not necessarily the same as 'absolute', as 'absolute' would rule out subjective, as well) sense. Specifically: until there is a demonstrated need to add any unobserved element to the data, there is no reason to add that element.
If there is no reason to add that element, adding that element is 'unreasonable'.
...
Then I look forward to your response
What objective standard are you using to set "until there is a demonstrated need to add any unobserved element to the data, there is no reason to add that element" as your standard for reasonableness?
Brushing aside phrases like "demonstrated need to add," I will concede your standard itself is objective. But the decision to assign that as the standard for reasonableness is not. It's personal preference.
I could just as easily create the objective standard of "whether it rains on the day you make your statement determines whether your statement is false or true."
In the sphere of these type of discussions, you must agree on a standard to measure. If you create a standard like "until there is a demonstrated need to add any unobserved element to the data, there is no reason to add that element" for reasonableness, it necessarily infuses elements like "what is a demonstrated need?" into the discussion and, assuming I know your predispositions, locks out the possibility of ever accepting the other person's god belief as reasonable.
Me, knowing this, will reject your standard. I think it neither necessary nor helpful in determining the reasonableness of someone's belief.
By same pitfalls, I was referring to christians "tendency" to assume the bible (or some other standard) is the objective standard by which others should review the reasonableness of their beliefs. Objective standard. Subjective selection.
[edit] Actually bit more broader. I think the problem is presuming their is an objective standard as to the reasonableness of a belief and others MUST accept it (objective/absolute) or otherwise be themselves unreasonable.
In terms of a god belief (or any belief really), I think this is an impossible position to defend. Beliefs are personal. To measure their reasonableness is personal. And to determine how you review other people's beliefs in terms of reasonableness is personal.
Does the mean logic is pointless in this area? No. Because you can use logic within the construct of their own standards to change particular beliefs or the belief in its entirity, depending on their standard.
Thinking their is an objective/absolute standard in this realm leads to nothing but unnecessary judgment and notions of elitism, on both sides, in my opinion.
Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.
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Offline You cannot prove that something exists purely through logic.
Agreed.
You can prove that it might possibly exist, if you can demonstrate that the definition does not conflict with empirically know attributes of reality.
Agreed.
You may be able to logically prove that something cannot exist, if its definition entails some logical contradiction.
Agreed.
So you are making a false dichotomy - you need empirical/scientific evidence to prove that anything exists, period.
Whether something actually exists or not has no bearing on whether the belief that something exists is reasonable or not. IMO, you have conflated the two purposes of conversations common in this forum as well.
Logic by itself is simply not adequate, it needs to be applied to evidence and already established knowledge.
Adequate for what? To prove God exists? Agreed. To establish a belief as reasonable? Disagreed.
EDIT: When it comes to arguing the issues with a Theist, there are a whole raft of psychological issues to consider - pure logic and reason are nowhere likely to be adequate, unless the person is already close to the threshold of abandoning their beliefs.
Not sure if this is an insult or just an observation. Nice beard.
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Offline As to (y) It is a vacuous statement unless it is defined and only logical.
I must admit, your writing style confuses me. To the extent I misinterpret, please forgive.
If it is a condition other than god then god is not omnipotent.
I addressed this earlier. Omnipotence must be qualified with "logically possible," otherwise the word means nothing and a discussion about him means nothing.
If it is an attribute of god then it is not defined by you and is likely to be a conflict of the attributed omnipotence and therefore not a real property or omnipotence is not a real property.
You are the one that attributed the "god" as a "good being." Your attribute. Not mine. One that I happen to accept. Does this conflict with the omnipotent attribute?
It is not that god (x) would actualize "onto (q)" Which you state he would choose (p) instead of (q). If he does not then he chooses evil and suffering and is not all good.
As previously stated, "good being," or as you stated now, "all good," necessarily requires input. Your understanding of it probably does not allow for the creation of "free will," or perhaps you do not think "free will" leads to the conclusions I previously stated. Whatever the definition you use, you must define "all good," set forth a premise, to get any further with me by using your logical progression.
If he can not then omnipotence fails.
Depends on whether being a "good being" requires conduct that would make it logically impossible to eliminate suffering and evil at his will.
Your proposition (y) then entails that god is not all good and is capable of evil and producing a world of suffering; or That god is limited by (y) to choose other than the good and therefore not omnipotent.
To reiterate, because I thought I made it clear before but possibly not, omnipotence MUST BE qualified with "logically possible." Characteristic "good, which you have attributed as a premise, must be further premised. Depending on your premise, it may or may not allow or even require (p).
To state that an all good entity is capable of evil and suffering is either to state that he is capable of doing evil and suffering instead of good and there for did an evil act in (q) and is no longer all good qua god or that good is whatever god does as in the Divine Command Theory. If so whatever whim god could have would be good defeating the idea of good and god as god.
Depending on how you understand good, the fact that evil and or suffering may arise from creation (p) of god (x) does no way mean that that he is capable of evil and suffering.
Actually.. want to know what.. I can't respond to all of this until we at least agree one some basics.
Omnipotence. def. (1) capable of doing anything or (2) capable of doing only those things logically possible.
I choose 2. Only one that makes sense IMO.
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Offline Quote:Unless you have evidence of something that cannot be explained without adding the previously unobserved 'God' to the data, then God is unnecessary.
I'm a lawyer. Everything can be explained by anything.
If everything can be explained without God, then God does not need to exist. If God does not need to exist, then his existence must be demonstrated before assigning belief can be reasonable.
Still misunderstanding you. "In evidence" is a legal phrase I often hear, referring to the introduction of evidence through formal means during litigation.
In this context, it has a similar meaning of 'has been directly observed'.
Evoluntionary evidence can be explained through a theory I deem, aliens did it. It's thus premature to refer evoluntionary theory as fact or true.
And at this time, it cannot be demonstrated that aliens didn't do it. But the evidence appears more supportive of modern (note: not purely Darwinian) evolutionary theory.
My issue is your use of the word necessary and unnecessary. Life is a game of balancing. Evidence may support two or three things. But as a whole, presented to you in a particular way, and then filtered through your personality, lead a person to a single conclusion.
And presented in another way, may lead you to a completely different conclusion.
That said, 'necessary' is precisely what I mean. God has not been directly observed. Therefore, God is not part of the set of observed data. If God is not part of the set of observed data, then in order to add God to the set of inferred-and-believed-true data, there must be something that requires the existence of God. Without that requirement, God can only be considered to be a potential explanation. He may be a potential explanation that you would very much like to be true, but to assign belief at that point is premature.
until there is a demonstrated need to add any unobserved element to the data, there is no reason to add that element.
This remains the case.
What objective standard are you using to set "until there is a demonstrated need to add any unobserved element to the data, there is no reason to add that element" as your standard for reasonableness?
Simply put, to add an unobserved element to the data before that element has been shown to be necessary in order to explain the observed data is not only premature, but it introduces an element that cannot be taken as 'true', and so casts into doubt all conclusions drawn about the observed data after the introduction of that data.
When seeking the truth, knowingly adding an element that cannot be reliably taken as 'true' is directly counter-productive.
To do that whch is directly counter-productive to one's own goals without compelling reason is unreasonable.
In the sphere of these type of discussions, you must agree on a standard to measure.
I think the more fundamental standard is to define "Reasonable".
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
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Offline Quote:So you are making a false dichotomy - you need empirical/scientific evidence to prove that anything exists, period.
Whether something actually exists or not has no bearing on whether the belief that something exists is reasonable or not. IMO, you have conflated the two purposes of conversations common in this forum as well.Quote:Logic by itself is simply not adequate, it needs to be applied to evidence and already established knowledge.
Adequate for what? To prove God exists? Agreed. To establish a belief as reasonable? Disagreed.
Logic is just a tool to check for the minimum requirements for coherent discourse.
For something to be 'reasonable', we must have some context. This would have to include whatever scientific laws are applicable to the concepts being discussed. IOW something can be perfectly 'logical', ie coherently defined and internally consistent, but impossible to exist in any Universe consistent with the known fundamental Laws of Physics.
EDIT: 'Supernatural' is just a label for something not currently having a explanation. 'Supernatural' explanations are not explanations at all, they amount to wild hypotheses/speculations. Once you are prepared to go completely outside current knowledge, anything goes.
'God' is not a logical or reasonable concept, especially if 'defined' to have the various omni- attributes, which are not coherent. If you want to say 'of vast power', ok.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline Quote:As to (y) It is a vacuous statement unless it is defined and only logical.I must admit, your writing style confuses me. To the extent I misinterpret, please forgive.
TGBAKER: No problem. I have a 2 year old and other things going on so it is always a rush to post anything of any length or depth.
Quote:If it is a condition other than god then god is not omnipotent.I addressed this earlier. Omnipotence must be qualified with "logically possible," otherwise the word means nothing and a discussion about him means nothing.
TGBAKER: I agree.
Quote:If it is an attribute of god then it is not defined by you and is likely to be a conflict of the attributed omnipotence and therefore not a real property or omnipotence is not a real property.You are the one that attributed the "god" as a "good being." Your attribute. Not mine. One that I happen to accept. Does this conflict with the omnipotent attribute?
TGBAKER: assumed it was your position and was right. Sorry if you feel I should not.
Quote:It is not that god (x) would actualize "onto (q)" Which you state he would choose (p) instead of (q). If he does not then he chooses evil and suffering and is not all good.As previously stated, "good being," or as you stated now, "all good," necessarily requires input. Your understanding of it probably does not allow for the creation of "free will," or perhaps you do not think "free will" leads to the conclusions I previously stated. Whatever the definition you use, you must define "all good," set forth a premise, to get any further with me by using your logical progression.
TGBAKER: Actually my concept of a limitless good or a perfectly benevolent being does not conflict with freewill. I do not believe freewill leads to evil or the fall or corruption of the physical universe.
You state:
This conclusion is not necessary and may be demonstrated as such by the question: would a good being create free willing beings?
Whether the answer is no or yes doesn't matter. Christians, I imagine, would say yes (y). Others, would say no. But no matter the answer, one cannot logically, or otherwise, prove the premise.
As Christians would, I imagine, say yes, they would reject this portion of your argument because (q) no longer flows from (x) or the (p)s. Stated another way, a Christian might say "it may be possible for a world of only well-being to exist, but it may only exist at those times that those God created to exist in it, choose, through their free will, to actualize it. That time is not now."
TGBAKER: I am uncertain what you mean by the last sentence but also I do not see what your question about would a good being create freewill beings have to do with it or how that in anyway deems the conclusion unnecessary.
If he can not then omnipotence fails.Depends on whether being a "good being" requires conduct that would make it logically impossible to eliminate suffering and evil at his will.
TGBAKER: Given that the Being is posited by theism and that system also posits perfect worlds wherein freewill creates reside such as Heaven.
Quote:Your proposition (y) then entails that god is not all good and is capable of evil and producing a world of suffering; or That god is limited by (y) to choose other than the good and therefore not omnipotent.To reiterate, because I thought I made it clear before but possibly not, omnipotence MUST BE qualified with "logically possible." Characteristic "good, which you have attributed as a premise, must be further premised. Depending on your premise, it may or may not allow or even require (p).
TGBAKER: TO reiterate.....Granted that omnipotence or anything else should be qualified as logical possible. The good need not be premised further in that it is the god that all ready created a perfect actual world called Heaven with freewill and will replace supposedly the corrupted world with a world of eternal life that is perfected. So it is a possible world according to the system that entails your god that freewill and perfect well-being can exit.
Quote:To state that an all good entity is capable of evil and suffering is either to state that he is capable of doing evil and suffering instead of good and there for did an evil act in (q) and is no longer all good qua god or that good is whatever god does as in the Divine Command Theory. If so whatever whim god could have would be good defeating the idea of good and god as god.Depending on how you understand good, the fact that evil and or suffering may arise from creation (p) of god (x) does no way mean that that he is capable of evil and suffering.
TGBAKER: As stated it does in that if god can choose to create a world that does not have evil and suffering (p)... that is a world of well-being that entails freewill. Unless you wish to discuss the possibility that Heaven or the Kingdom Come or Eschaton is without freewill.
Actually.. want to know what.. I can't respond to all of this until we at least agree one some basics.
Omnipotence. def. (1) capable of doing anything or (2) capable of doing only those things logically possible.
I choose 2. Only one that makes sense IMO.
TGBAKER: I am glad that you chose 2). As pointed out the claim of freewill and a world of perfect well-being is logically possible according to the very systems that posit the idea of god. And of course I only see (2) as realistic. SO the premise is simple enough there is a possible world ( in fact several) of only well-being. It is already defined as well as god is in the belief system of which god is presented.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
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Offline Hi, TG,
I have tried to clean up that post. Hope I haven't got the quotes too scrambled - it was not quite clear in some places which text applied to which person.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline Omnipotence is not a coherent concept. Even with the qualifier 'logically possible', it still doesn't define unambiguously what can or cannot be done.
To use the classic, 'can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?':
EITHER, he can create rocks of any weight, OR he can lift any rock. Accepting either of these options removes the contradiction, but on what basis do we 'know' which one applies?
It gets worse as more complex combinations of options are considered.
The problem is that not all conceivable individually possible 'capabilities' are going to be mutually compatible, logically, and this problem is inevitable because 'omnipotent' is not a positive definition of capabilities.
The omni-attributes are simply not coherent, they do not constitute a meaningful definition, so the traditional definition of God is not 'reasonable'.
'Reasonable' also must be relative to the knowledge and understanding of the person speaking about the subject. If they are very naive/ignorant/deluded/misinformed, then anything may be 'reasonable' from their perspective.
If you don't take into account the Laws of Conservation of Matter/Energy, or the Law of Gravity, or the Laws of Motion, then flying horses, fire-breathing dragons, flying to the moon on horse-back and splitting it in two, walking on water, etc, etc, may all be perfectly 'reasonable'. The standard dodge here is to posit that some being exists outside the realm where these laws apply, or even beyond the laws of logic, but is this 'reasonable'? Or can you say anything meaningful about something that can violate all the basic laws that we use to make sense of existence?
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline Hi, TG,
I have tried to clean up that post. Hope I have got the quotes too scrambled - it was not quite clear in some places which text applied to which person.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
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Offline Omnipotence is not a coherent concept. Even with the qualifier 'logically possible', it still doesn't define unambiguously what can or cannot be done.
To use the classic, 'can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?':
EITHER, he can create rocks of any weight, OR he can lift any rock. Accepting either of these options removes the contradiction, but on what basis do we 'know' which one applies?
It gets worse as more complex combinations of options are considered.
The problem is that not all conceivable individually possible 'capabilities' are going to be mutually compatible, logically, and this problem is inevitable because 'omnipotent' is not a positive definition of capabilities.
The omni-attributes are simply not coherent, they do not constitute a meaningful definition, so the traditional definition of God is not 'reasonable'.
'Reasonable' also must be relative to the knowledge and understanding of the person speaking about the subject. If they are very naive/ignorant/deluded/misinformed, then anything may be 'reasonable' from their perspective.
If you don't take into account the Laws of Conservation of Matter/Energy, or the Law of Gravity, or the Laws of Motion, then flying horses, fire-breathing dragons, flying to the moon on horse-back and splitting it in two, walking on water, etc, etc, may all be perfectly 'reasonable'. The standard dodge here is to posit that some being exists outside the realm where these laws apply, or even beyond the laws of logic, but is this 'reasonable'? Or can you say anything meaningful about something that can violate all the basic laws that we use to make sense of existence?
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
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Offline Going to try to break down my posts a bit in the interest of time and, hopefully, efficiency. No need to speak if can't agree on basic premises.
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Offline That said, 'necessary' is precisely what I mean. God has not been directly observed.
I would venture to say people would disagree. What you mean by "directly" is "generally observable," in the scientific sense, so that it can be tested, reobserved, and other explanations eliminated.
I think the more fundamental standard is to define "Reasonable."
Simply put, to add an unobserved element to the data before that element has been shown to be necessary in order to explain the observed data is not only premature, but it introduces an element that cannot be taken as 'true', and so casts into doubt all conclusions drawn about the observed data after the introduction of that data.
When seeking the truth, knowingly adding an element that cannot be reliably taken as 'true' is directly counter-productive.
To do that whch is directly counter-productive to one's own goals without compelling reason is unreasonable.
I must completely disagree with your assertion regarding what should be the fundamental standard for reasonable. It is vague and ambiguous as to the terms/phrases "unobserved element," "shown to be necessary in order to explain the observed data," and "all conclusions drawn from the observed data."
To the extent I understand "unobserved element" as "not generally observable"; "shown to be necessary in order to explain observed data" as "that the observed data cannot be explained in any other way"; and "all conclusions drawn from the observed data" to mean "anything logically flowing from the observed data"; then I feel this definition to be too broad.
x = unobserved element = not generally observable = I imagine chickens when I red
y = observed data = generally observable = I bock like a chicken whenever I see red
I am unreasonable in my belief that I bock like a chicken whenever I see red because I think of chickens.
My bocking can be explained for any number of reasons. Maybe I'm thinking about barns. Maybe I a roosters headfeathers. Maybe it's subconscious reflex. Whatever the reason, I don't think people would consider my belief regarding it's cause as unreasonable just because it's not a necessary explanation for what I am doing and is generally observable.
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Offline Logic is just a tool to check for the minimum requirements for coherent discourse.
For something to be 'reasonable', we must have some context. This would have to include whatever scientific laws are applicable to the concepts being discussed. IOW something can be perfectly 'logical', ie coherently defined and internally consistent, but impossible to exist in any Universe consistent with the known fundamental Laws of Physics.
Agreed. And if one accepts the laws of physics and acts consistent with that belief, then I would venture to say that they are being unreasonable in a belief that does not account for the impossibility.
EDIT: 'Supernatural' is just a label for something not currently having a explanation. 'Supernatural' explanations are not explanations at all, they amount to wild hypotheses/speculations. Once you are prepared to go completely outside current knowledge, anything goes.
'God' is not a logical or reasonable concept, especially if 'defined' to have the various omni- attributes, which are not coherent. If you want to say 'of vast power', ok.
Okay. "Of vast power."
Also, on a sidenote, "supernatural" as an explanation, is not an explanation. "Supernatural" as an adjective, is not meant to be an explanation, merely a descriptor.
E.g., "how did God did that when X says this?" "Magic." cf. "I worship a supernatural God."
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Offline TGBAKER: I agree.
It's rare that people agree with me. I appreciate it.
TGBAKER: Actually my concept of a limitless good or a perfectly benevolent being does not conflict with freewill. I do not believe freewill leads to evil or the fall or corruption of the physical universe.
I do not it believe it necessarily leads to evil or corruption, but it must allow for the possibility, otherwise not free will, as I understand the term.
TGBAKER: I am uncertain what you mean by the last sentence but also I do not see what your question about would a good being create freewill beings have to do with it or how that in anyway deems the conclusion unnecessary.
Your conclusion that a evil and corrupted world could not exist with an all-powerful, though limited by logic, "all-good God" if an "maximum well being world" could exist.
I am saying your conclusion requires a few premises to be accepted: (1) that an "all good God" would not create free willing beings or (2) that the existence of free willing beings would not make it logically impossible to actualize the maximum well being world at this particular moment.
Maybe this would be better spoken in the affirmative: I believe an "all well being" world may exist, lets call it heaven. I do not believe it can exist now because people choose to toe the line between good and evil. I believe one day people will choose good over evil, or evil over good, in toto. I do not believe God can actualize "heaven" now without eliminating free will. I believe an "all good" God would create free willing beings. Thus, an all good God may exist who cannot actualize heaven now.
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Offline Omnipotence is not a coherent concept. Even with the qualifier 'logically possible', it still doesn't define unambiguously what can or cannot be done.
I think it does.
To use the classic, 'can God create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?'
Assuming God can create, and that creating a rock or lifting a rock are seperably logically possible, then the answer is "God can create a rock infinitely large and can lift a rock infinitely large."
I guess we can argue that "infinite" is not a coherent concept. Whether coherent or not, however, the concept allows for discussion in this context, and mathematics in another.
EITHER, he can create rocks of any weight, OR he can lift any rock. Accepting either of these options removes the contradiction, but on what basis do we 'know' which one applies?
As you said earlier, logic does not reveal truth, it reveals coherence and consistency. I would venture to say that my explanation above is coherent.
It gets worse as more complex combinations of options are considered.
The problem is that not all conceivable individually possible 'capabilities' are going to be mutually compatible, logically, and this problem is inevitable because 'omnipotent' is not a positive definition of capabilities.
The omni-attributes are simply not coherent, they do not constitute a meaningful definition, so the traditional definition of God is not 'reasonable'.
See infinite
'Reasonable' also must be relative to the knowledge and understanding of the person speaking about the subject. If they are very naive/ignorant/deluded/misinformed, then anything may be 'reasonable' from their perspective.
Ignorant/misinformed have very different implications than naive/deluded. Naive and deluded imply a judgment as to reasonableness. IMO.
If you don't take into account the Laws of Conservation of Matter/Energy, or the Law of Gravity, or the Laws of Motion, then flying horses, fire-breathing dragons, flying to the moon on horse-back and splitting it in two, walking on water, etc, etc, may all be perfectly 'reasonable'. The standard dodge here is to posit that some being exists outside the realm where these laws apply, or even beyond the laws of logic, but is this 'reasonable'? Or can you say anything meaningful about something that can violate all the basic laws that we use to make sense of existence?
As I mentioned earlier, assuming one accepts the basic laws of physics explicitly through their words or implicitly through their conduct, they may not discount them in a discussion about God.
Out of curiousity.. do you believe in free will? Thought crossed my mind. Physical laws suggest, perhaps necessitates, predictability. Although we may not predict something perfectly does not eliminate that they are necessarily so accepting the premise that things within the natural world act predictability, according to the natural laws. From billiard balls hitting one another, to electronical charges sent down neurons.
If that be the case, how can one accept that "free will" exists? Free will necessarily implies something that is not predictable, that controls itself, albeit within certain limitations, but certainly not absolute limitations as physical laws suggest.
Quantum physics, which imply some randomness does not solve this problem in my mind.. because randomness, as much as predictability, eliminates the idea of control, which defines free will.
Thoughts?
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A: where is your evidence
B: thats what I thought
I have always disliked this silly question answer if x = y then y = stupid mode.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
There's also the part where the skeptic points out that your arguments can be used just as easily to show that it's rational to believe in dragons, unicorns, underpants gnomes, etc.
B: A logical proof will not convince me that your belief is reasonable, because the logical proof will invariably fail to address the core premise: Belief in God is unreasonable, as there is no evidence which requires God to exist in order to be explained. Adding an unnecessary and not-in-evidence item to the data without compelling independent observation is not reasonable.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Hey bm, long time no see. Two things. First, to what do you refer with "unnecessary and not in evidence item." Second, "not reasonable to you"; or "not reasonable" in some absolute/objective sense? To clarify, my issue has never been that some people personally believe my belief to be unreasonable. Rather, my issue is when people consider my belief to be unreasonable on some absolute/objective sense when really there's no way to reach that conclusion, IMO, without falling victim to the same pitfalls that these people accuse the religious.
1) There is a possible world of only well-being (p).
2) A capable limitless good being (x) knowing of this world (p) would actualize (necessarily) it over possible worlds with evil and suffering (q).
3)x necessarily would not allow q
4)p--> not q
5) It is possible that god is x
6)q --> not p
7) Our world=q therefore not p
8)not p
9)not p--->not x
10)not x
11)god= not x
Our world entails there is no capable limitless good being. If there is a god he is not that being.
Our world entails there is no capable limitless good being. If there is a god he is not that being. Also a world of limitless well being would necessarily exist in all possible worlds. Since it does not do in ours then it is not necessary and therefore is a choice of many worlds. A limitless good entity, god or such would choose the best to create. Since we do not live in that world no limitless good being/god actualized our world.
The argument at least places the question as to whether our attributes of god in conflict with themselves show that they are really in conflict with his actual properties and therefore invalid or simply relative compliments of worship that are not literal but poetic.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
Not "per se," it does. If the reasoning a person uses to assert the belief in god is reasonable can be applied to unicors, gnomes, giant goldfish from planet scaleon and everything else we can't disprove, then it is reasonable to believe that anything we can't disprove exists. Arguments that boil down to "you can't disprove it, therefor it is reasonable" just seem senseless to me. I'm not even bothered by god belief in its pure form, you want to believe in god, go ahead, don't use the "can't disprove it" thing as a good reson for believing in it, I just find these arguments to be so bla. I would find it strange if someone held the strong position that vampires or unicorns exist, no I can't disprove it with 100% certainty, but honestly are we going to go down the infinite list of things that could exist I can't currently disprove. If there is a reasonable god, he probably thinks this argument that his existance can't be disproven therefor believing in him is reasonable stinks.
-You can't disprove we are not all living in a computer generated matrix world, and attached to robots sucking our life from us in the real world, therefor it is reasonable to believe this is true.
-You can't disprove the rest of the world is not all playing a giant role for you on a intergallactic comedy show for giant goldfish from planet Scaleon, therefor it is reasonable to believe this is true.
-You can't disprove the world is not a figment of your imagination, a 30 year coma perhaps, therefor it is reasonable to belief this is true.
I mean we could go all day.
I think the real definition that needs to be addresses here is not "proofs/persuation", but what is reasonable.
For example, is it reasonable to believe travelling at the speed of light or even time travelling is possible? As a laymen I admit to not fully understanding the specifics of the subject, but as far as I know either time itself might get messed up even "stop", or we might get a very big boom. We very well might never travel at the speed of light, it might even be "impossible" to propell a human at light speed. But when do we know it is impossible? When we have failed10 times, 20 times, 100000000 times. Could it still be possible to achieve after failing so many times, perhaps, when does it become "unreasonable" to believe it is possible. When we have scientific evidence it is impossible? When we have hard core mathmatical evidence it is impossible? After 10 people have tried it?
I guess what I'm getting at is belief in gods and light speed time travel and such things should be taken lightly, like... "could be, I don't now forsure, it might be, but I'm not going claim any truth about it, we should keep searching for more facts/evidence on the matter..." They shouldn't be claimed true, or said to be a reasonable beliefs unless they come with more than "you can't disprove it."
Just reminding all the science buffs of my laymanism, I'm sure there are some good reasons to believe light speed travel is possible, it is just an example, remove the facts and evidence supporting it and the point is it is not reasonable to believe it just because it has yet to be or can't be disproven, it needs to come with more than that or else every such claim holds the same ground including giant goldfish from planet Scaleon.
Then we are agreed, me and him, apparently.
Okay...
That's because I did not wish to make an epistemological start. Rather, my purpose was to start a discussion about people's thoughts as to how we use words on this forum, present my thoughts on how I think we use words, and suggest maybe there is a better way.
This is exactly the type of discussion I was trying to avoid.. but, as I have a moment, will respond, as I do consider myself a theist and perhaps have some reasonable response. To start off, I must admit my ignorance in terms of any standards of definitions regarding you use of the symbols (p), (x), (q), etc... I will respond to them to the best of my knowledge.
As with most of these arguments, they are built upon a series of premises that, if accepted, lead to a conclusion. If the premise is not self-evident or necessarily accepted due to some other reason, then it may either be accepted or rejected. (p).
Agreed.
First, I am having trouble understanding (x). By definition, a limitless being is capable. I am reading into this the statement the necessary premise that this limitless being is capable of doing only those things that are logically possible (p).
Fair enough? If not, I would argue that any discussion about a god that need not follow the rules of logic would be self-defeating. You could not prove that he could not do something through logic, and I could not prove that he did.
(q) is where we reach our first roadbump.
The conclusion that (x) necessarily would actualize (p) onto worlds with evil or suffering (q) if knowing of this world (p), only comes about if a "good being" (x) does not require (y) that would make (q) logically impossible to actualize at any particular time of his choosing.
This conclusion is not necessary and may be demonstrated as such by the question: would a good being create free willing beings?
Whether the answer is no or yes doesn't matter. Christians, I imagine, would say yes (y). Others, would say no. But no matter the answer, one cannot logically, or otherwise, prove the premise.
As Christians would, I imagine, say yes, they would reject this portion of your argument because (q) no longer flows from (x) or the (p)s. Stated another way, a Christian might say "it may be possible for a world of only well-being to exist, but it may only exist at those times that those God created to exist in it, choose, through their free will, to actualize it. That time is not now."
See above. This depends on (y).
See above. This all depends on (y).
This, I agree.
This, I would disagree with.
To be continued.
Well, rather than the “go on all day” part, let me start by addressing the original question.
It seems to me that you have an idea that the concept of proving something can be mixed up in ways that lack a certain clarity. However, if clarity is lost in the process, then how do we even know what we are discussing in the first place?
Given that, let me offer a couple of definitions and see if they can stick for you Rhad:
Philosophical/logical proof is the idea that something can be demonstrated to be reasonable within the framework which is offered.
Scientific proof is the idea that something can be demonstrated to be reasonable not only as an idea but also by considering evidence which an observer can show to the whole world.
Are you with me so far?
At this point, I would rather not get into any specific definition of god but rather look at definitions for god in a more general sense. That being said, let me offer a definition for the purpose of kicking it around and seeing what comes of it.
Let's say that god is a particular shade of the color blue. OK great, we can develop that that much exists. However, it does not address the larger concepts that are often associated with god. Seriously, the color blue did not create the universe, nor does it care if I rent a hooker.
I could come up with any number of other nonsensical ideas of god but they get us nowhere. So let me go with something else and see where that goes.
God is some dude who cares whether I get busy with hookers. OK, too bad for me. Perhaps he has the ability to send me to a prison of his making. Again, suck to be me. However, that fails to address the creation of the universe.
Perhaps god is the guy who made the universe. So hookers were his idea then. Really, if he knows the fate of every particle in the universe, then he must know about me and hookers. So he made the universe and he is fine with everything that happened there. Hookers might piss off a few fundies but they were also part of what god made. Deal with it.
I will get on to scientific ideas later if you wish. For now:
=
It does not.
You're doing what I have asserted is done in this forum, conflating the purposes of a conversation: (1) to prove a belief is reasonable and (2) to prove it exists.
I stated that a certain logical proof that establishes a belief in God is reasonable would necessitate that the person not label someone's belief in unicorn as unreasonable per se, because that other person might be using the same logical proof.
The issue of proving something to actually exist is something entirely different. I need not prove something exists to prove my belief in something existing is reasonable.
This has nothing to do with "you can't disaprove it." I never made the argument nor was I considering this type of argument when I made my statement. "You can't disaprove" inappropriate shifts the burden in my mind.
If a person believes in vampires it may be perfectly reasonable in toto based upon whether that person rational for that belief is internally consistent, considered in toto.
Agreed.
Okay..
"I believe in it because it hasn't been disproven" is an unsatisfactory explanation.
I like this response.. but might take me awhile to get to it. Work week is starting again..
The question of a belief in God should be secondary to a higher-level question: do you believe in the supernatural? This is not a question that involves complexity, nuance, or proof. Unlike the concept of God, the supernatural does not hide its existence behind a requirement of faith, which is a dynamic of the relationship between deities and mortals which explains why God does not reveal Himself unequivocably. He doesn't want humans to believe based on proofs, He wants it to be based on faith. The supernatural, on the other hand, is not a faith system -- it is not a promise of eternal life, it is not a moral code or behavioral roadmap, not even spiritual. It is simply phenomenological -- it is the assertion that physics as we understand it, is only a stage setting, a veil, and that certain things are able to happen that blatantly violate those physics.
Yet nobody can cite a single credible example of something illustrating this assertion. Nobody.
Ah, but you say "credible" is the key word -- it's just one person's interpretation versus another's. Ok, so you can tell me that you found a penny on the ground and that it was left there by the spirit of your dead grandfather, as a sign, a little hello from heaven. Fine -- but nothing supernatural actually happened. You found a penny, that's all. Penny's fall to the ground via gravity all the time, and people use their eye-brain connection to see them and their muscle-brain connection to pick them up. Nothing supernatural there in what actually happened, but it was accompanied by an imaginary cause. You could say, what about all the people who prayed, and then escaped the Twin Towers on 9/11? At the elevations below the impact, one can speculate that just about everyone prayed, and some escaped and some did not -- that is to be expected. Above the impact, where people were cut off from the lower floors and the supernatural would have really come in handy, it was totally absent and nobody survived. Both cases, and virtually any case in which documented facts are known, only provide evidence of a natural world, not a supernatural one.
If there's no supernatural, there's no God. You may want to describe the supernatural as physics we just don't understand. Like, we don't totally understand the physics of black holes. Some things, actually most things probably, are beyond our current understanding. But not knowing something, or not understanding it, is not evidence that it is supernatural. Uncertainty is just the natural outcome of a lack of complete knowledge about something. Scientists don't proclaim they've reached the limit of knowledge and beginning of the supernatural at the edge of black holes. There's no headlines declaring we've found the outer boundary of the natural world on the other side of black hole horizons. Scientists, instead, just keep chipping away at what they don't know. You might even say then, that God is a natural phenomenon whose presence lives in that realm of physics always beyond our understanding -- that it's just a semantic argument about what is meant by natural or supernatural because we can't conceive of His natural physics from the primitive perspective of our knowledge about such things. Fine, I'd say -- if God is a natural phenomena, then the best way to know Him is through the practice of science -- which studies natural phenomena and follows evidence to conclusions, not the other way around. You can pursue that course as an atheist, and under that definition of God there's really no difference between an atheist and a theist.
If you believe the universe is natural, then you cannot believe in the Christian God or any supernatural god. If you believe the universe is supernatural, then you're just making stuff up.
roseweed
_______________________________________________
Everything that happens, happens somehow.
Hey, Rhad. Yeah, been a while. Life, you know how it is.
God.
Unless you have evidence of something that cannot be explained without adding the previously unobserved 'God' to the data, then God is unnecessary.
Unless there is some direct observation or indirect inference of 'God', then God is not in evidence.
If there is no evidence of something that cannot be explained without adding 'God' to the data, then claiming indirect inference of God when other causes can be shown to exist is premature.
Unreasonable in an objective (which is not necessarily the same as 'absolute', as 'absolute' would rule out subjective, as well) sense. Specifically: until there is a demonstrated need to add any unobserved element to the data, there is no reason to add that element.
If there is no reason to add that element, adding that element is 'unreasonable'.
Then I look forward to your response.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
You cannot prove that something exists purely through logic. You can prove that it might possibly exist, if you can demonstrate that the definition does not conflict with empirically know attributes of reality.
You may be able to logically prove that something cannot exist, if its definition entails some logical contradiction.
So you are making a false dichotomy - you need empirical/scientific evidence to prove that anything exists, period. Logic by itself is simply not adequate, it needs to be applied to evidence and already established knowledge.
EDIT: When it comes to arguing the issues with a Theist, there are a whole raft of psychological issues to consider - pure logic and reason are nowhere likely to be adequate, unless the person is already close to the threshold of abandoning their beliefs.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
One could argue that if god sees something good for a reason rather than his arbitrary will (whim) then god is relative to reason. ( The Divine Command Theory). But if the good of god is a whim then god is not really god. His act is not even really good it is accidental and deemed good by the relative state of the recipients impression. If god on the other hand has no reason for his will then his will is not subject or relative to reason and is arbitrary and not really an act of will. It is simply a random act. But if his will is subject to reason and then judgment then these properties are limiters to god and he is relative to standards apart from himself. If these reasons or will on the other hand are situational ( derive from god's reaction or action to creation) then he again is relative to creation and the situation. To say god experiences our world is to make him relative to our world in that his perception is dependent on what occurs in the world and our "freewill" acts. The only workable concept of an absolute god that I know of is Aristotle's which is only self aware and has no experience of the imperfect things that orbit around him attempting to obtain perfection. So even if there were a god everything would be relative or it would have no contact or awareness of our universe.
If this type of theological analysis is valid then we see several of the dangers that manifest from morality based on theism. To maintain that god is absolute scripture is typically viewed as Divine Command and propositional statements. The conclusion that whatever is good is at the whim of god does not bother hard core Calvinists. Many other believers simply are not aware of the implication. Obviously the relativizing of the morality in the bible is done by various hermeneutics whether dispensational, progressive replacement by the commands of Jesus or what have you. But many others take the commands as they understand them literally. We all know such examples.
Those who assume reason is a transcendent or logical state from which god derives his thoughts decisions and actions also take a deontological view or a rigid form of legalism which often leads to a casuistry as convoluted as that morality based upon scripture. And often the definition of reason is still biblically based. If not then humanity can arrive at a moral answer situationally through empirical judgment.
This and the additional arguments or defeaters of the freewill defense of an a limitless god seems to me to be an unexpected argument against the existence of a Judeo-Christian god. The idea of a panentheism is also unwarranted in that it is an unneeded hypothesis that does nothing above and beyond natural selection in the origins and development of morality. But then that is just me.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
http://atheisticgod.blogspot.com/ Books on atheism
Cool.
Exactly.
Cool.
Accepted.
Accepted.
Yes.
Agreed.
I could come up with any number of other nonsensical ideas of god but they get us nowhere. So let me go with something else and see where that goes.
God is some dude who cares whether I get busy with hookers. OK, too bad for me. Perhaps he has the ability to send me to a prison of his making. Again, suck to be me. However, that fails to address the creation of the universe.
Perhaps god is the guy who made the universe. So hookers were his idea then. Really, if he knows the fate of every particle in the universe, then he must know about me and hookers. So he made the universe and he is fine with everything that happened there. Hookers might piss off a few fundies but they were also part of what god made. Deal with it.
This all seems a bit off topic. One topic would have been, should we need to distinguish between scientific and philosphical proof at the start of a conversation? I would suggest we do because, IMO, a discussion whose purpose is to establish reasonableness of personal belief, then philosphical proof is all that is required. On the other hand, if I am trying to convince others, than either philosphical or scientific proof may be required, depending on what the listener requires.
In response, however, to your statement, and putting aside the implicit statement that one cannot care about what something will do when he/she/it knows everything that something will do and actually created it knowing it would do so, I would state:
God only knows what he can logically know. Either God knows (in the technical sense of certainity) what you will do or free will exists. If free will exists, then God may only predict based upon his knowledge.
Do you still feel the same way thoughts apply in this context?
Also... I actually like West Side Story. Good movie.