Could some philosophers chomp at this bit with me?
Offline Hi again everyone,
It's been quite a long time since I've been to the forums. I haven't had much time outside of work recently to think about philosophy, but I thought of something in the shower this morning, and I'm hoping it marks my triumphant return. Also, Clinton-lovers, you'll REALLY like this.
Saying, "Jesus is God" is a fallacy of equivocation on the word "is". We can arrive at this by asking a few questions and then answering them. Is Jesus human? Yes. That means that Jesus is contingent. If Jesus is not human, then it's meaningless for him to "die for our sins", whatever that means. If Jesus is contingent, then what caused him to exist? Was it God? It cannot be God, for then, if Jesus IS God (in the typical sense of the word), God caused himself, and this contradicts the principle of sufficient reason (which is one thing that most "proofs" for God requires). But if it wasn't God, then we have a contingent being that was not caused by God, and there's no reason to believe that there might not be other things which were not caused by God. Another point is that if Jesus' father was God, then it's meaningless to say that Jesus IS God. The "father-son" relationship loses all meaning if Jesus IS God.
Is my own argument a fallacy of equivocation on the word "caused"? I guess I'm not sure. That's what I've been debating before I leave for work. If it is as I say, it would imply that God cannot cause himself to be contingent. This is such a vast statement that I worry about my argument (and it kinda smells of equivocation already because it deals with equivocation).
I guess I could use a little illumination here. Thanks for your help, whether to agree or disagree.
"Jesus -- the other white Moses" - Me.
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I just thought of a more succinct way to put this:
Jesus is God
Jesus is a human
God is a human
Now, if we claim that, "Jesus is both God AND human", then we've lost all meaning of the word "is".
"Jesus -- the other white Moses" - Me.
Now there you go again, applying logic to something intrinsically illogical. I don't understand why anybody applies formal logic to questions of faith. Faith is not based on a process of reasoning. It is based on emotions and experience. Even saying "I don't believe in god because doing so is illogical" is weird. Belief is not logic. I think this is where the idea of "lack of god belief" differentiates itself from "I don't believe in god".
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If you are attempting to claim faith as another method of gaining knowledge, then SOME laws must be applicable to it. This is why making an appeal to faith is always going to fall flat on its face. You can claim you have faith that god created the universe, and I can say I have faith that god did NOT create the universe. You have no way of knowing who's right, so what's the point of even having an argument?
In any case, this is not really applicable to your so-called belief (in particular). This is applicable to those people who believe that faith and belief in god are actually rational stances. I'm showing that they are inherently non-rational, just as you suggested. I'm trying to, anyway.
"Jesus -- the other white Moses" - Me.
My "so called" belief? Do I perceive a hint of scorn?
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@wavefreakBeliefs can be logical, unconditional beliefs and blind faith cannot. If you're suggesting that unconditional belief is somehow self-legitimating or valid despite lack of evidence and even evidence to the contrary, it's a bit like regarding something as without need of evidence because it's 'supernatural.' Anything that exists is natural, so there's not really a place for the proposition.
I have stated many times that I find invoking the supernatural unnecessary. I am not suggesting that unconditional belief is self legimating, only illogical. And fighting something illogical with the tools of logic is a fool's errand.
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Assuming that you believe that some illogical things are worth fighting against, how would you suggest fighting them?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Rhetorical and emotional arguments work well. It requires listening to a person closely and figuring out their emotional hot buttons. Then pushing the hot buttons in a way that forces them into a state of cognitive dissonance that persists after the conversation.
Or something like that.
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I agree with everything you've said, but I think that logic, rhetoric, and emotion are all helpful.
Each one of the three can be a catalyst for the others.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Absolutely. And logic can be very effective for somebody that is open to that approach. But many theists, especially fundamentalists, when confronted by logic retreat into their safety zone and call you the devil.
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Actually, countless theists, foundies and non-fundies alike, rely on this logical arguement, albeit in various forms, which was the first proof (of Five proofs) put forth by Aquinas some 700 years ago
1) Everything that exists has a cause
2) The universe exists
3) The universe has a cuase
4) That cause is God
Any monotheist who claims that their beleif is rational uses this arguement. Sometimes they change it around by saying . .
1) There is a bunch of energy in the universe
2) Something had to make this energy
3) Whatever made this energy has to be immensly powerful
4) Only God is this immensly powerful
5) God exists
So if they are going to rely on this tired fellacious arguemnt for God, any other claims such as "jesus is god" is and should be open to loigcal scrutiny. If they want to close off the arguement by claiming "God is not bound to the logic of man" then they just contradicted themselves in the most horrendous way since they just used man's logic to prove the existence of God meaning that their own proof bounds God to man's logic.
" Why does God always got such wacky shit to say? . . . When was the last time you heard somebody say 'look God told me to get a muffin and a cup tea and cool out man'?" - Dov Davidoff
I do not think it is a fallacy of equivocation since most Christians are very clear about what they mean by "Jesus is God". Of course this clarity leads them to beleive even more outragous claims such as "jesus was there at the moment of creation". Now, this is valid logic since they hold that Jesus is God, so of course jesus was there at the moment of creation becuase he is God and God was there at creation. However, this does not escape the problem you brought up with this claim making the death of Jesus meaningless since he did not actually die, which is a claim they also hold. So, I suppose, the real fallacy they have is the Fallacy of Divine Meaninglessness. Or it could also be the Fallacy of the Ultimate Redneck since, considering they want to hold on to the claim of Jesus also bieng God's son, Jesus is his own father. Kinda like in Futurama where Fry went back in time and had sex with his grandmother who gave birth to his own father, thus, Fry is his own Grandfather.
" Why does God always got such wacky shit to say? . . . When was the last time you heard somebody say 'look God told me to get a muffin and a cup tea and cool out man'?" - Dov Davidoff
Each can also be the catalyst that detonates the others, leading to poor ethics.
For example, if someone heard a voice in their head identifying itself as god and telling them to kill someone they would have to rationalize it someway. I believe that rationalization, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list of choices, would take the form of one of these:
1. It is not, in fact, god talking to me. Rather, it is some demon. Therefore I should not act.
2. It is god and, wanting everlasting life, I should do as god wills no matter the consequences of the law.
3. I have no way to know wether this is a "good" or "evil" entity speaking to me, therefore I will not act and hope that if I am wrong god will hold me indemnable for my dillema.
4. I have no way to know wether this is a "good" or "evil" entity speaking to me, therefore I will act and hope that if I am wrong god will hold me indemnable for my dillema.
The choice of 2 if one fundamentally follows the old testament. From there, things become wildly more varied. More than half of all people will experience some kind of hallucination during their life, running the full gamut of strength and realism, without having a mental disease.
Therefore, we can begin to see from the analogy how people who rely on spirituality for guidance are significantly more unpredictable than those who do not. Also, it seems there is no reasonable why to decide what is or is not moral from these, since emotinal experience is relative to the better speaker. Given the christian god's patently deceptive history, it is more likely that the more emotional argument comes from demonic sources; not so likely that one could rely on it. In a large enough random selection half the people would be damned no matter what choice they made!
Stateing that god forgives due to a higher moral ground is highly immoral with regards to society. All this combined, faith has such a high risk associated with it that it doesn't matter what you choose, you're just as damned either way.
To address the question of "is," it would indeed seem that god has no power over reason. Again it falls to the "free will" rebuttal so often trumped about - that somehow not providing evidence creates a choice. In actuality, belief has nothing to do with choice. Hence, if the logic, which works for every other thing we know of, worked for god as well we would certainly have to believe in god.
Wether we would worship or follow that god's commands would be a controversial issue. Instead, the assumption continues that everyone believes in god but chooses not to worship said god. Even among believers, there is still a percentage who choose not to worship but rather rebel against this entity. So there is still choice involved if belief is assumed.
If we are going to follow that false assumtion out to its bitter end, we come to the much greater problem that first God created the universe so that those who truely admired and studied what would be his work would likely not believe and those who did not study his creation would more likely believe. Therefore if god created the universe it must have been by mistake.
In summary, the questions of belief and worship are relative to evidence. The question of damnation or salvation if the entity exists, as mentioned previously, is pure chance.
If only all theists agreed, we'd have no problems...
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Impossible, seeing as 'god' is an incoherent term. The only way to make sense of it is to steal from the concept of naturalism.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I suppose that is where the real Equivocation lies .i.e. with the word "God". the OPs concern was with the use of the word "is" with the claim "Jesus is God". You are correct though. Christians expecially go back and forth from an Old testament conception of him, usually when discussing the Old Testament, to an almost new age conception of a natural force that guides us when disucssing God in present times to explain why God doesn't physically come down and harass us anymore. Christians who talk about both God and Satan almost have a bastardization of the eastern yin and yang philosophy.
" Why does God always got such wacky shit to say? . . . When was the last time you heard somebody say 'look God told me to get a muffin and a cup tea and cool out man'?" - Dov Davidoff
You probably do detect that. I said "so-called" because it's different from everything else that everyone else believes, essentially, so it barely counts as a real religious belief.
I did not actually mean to be offensive, though.
"Jesus -- the other white Moses" - Me.
Of course, I agree with you as far as that goes. I still have some questions about your stance, though, which I don't think were answered by your various articles. If I'm wrong about that, then forgive me; it's been a while since I read them.
My question comes down to basically this: So what? Of course they have to steal from naturalism in order to have words (if we consider them a natural thing, which I do). They have to do this, just like everyone has to in order to do anything or say anything. Given that, it makes sense that they should steal from naturalism in order to even attempt to describe their God. (I'm going to ramble for a bit here as I figure this out.)
So, I guess the problem is that there are no naturalist phrases to describe something which we cannot know exists. They can steal the words we use, but they apply to something in a nonsensical way, i.e. "omni"-pick-a-trait. Or, "God has existed forever." Those don't mean anything, since the term existed implies that it must have come into existence, by their own arguments, so we get the typical infinite regression.
Furthermore, since all "omni" traits can be turned into negative ontologies, "omni" traits are meaningless. They are "incoherent", by your words. Is this basically saying that you can't take an object and say what it IS by saying, "This is NOT an apple. This is NOT a pheasant. This is NOT a Turd Ferguson"? That makes a lot of sense to me, but it leaves theists in a bit of a bind.
How can they possibly even try to describe their God if they can't use naturalism to describe their basic beliefs? Can the sum of all naturalism be put together to get something that is supernatural? I think the answer to the latter is obviously not. That's much like saying (for you mathematicians) that you can add up any finite set of natural numbers and get a real number. This, of course, assumes that the universe is finite, though there's some ambiguity here.
I guess what I'm really asking is is what is your positive belief in naturalism? I think that's what I've been missing. I know your negative beliefs (Todangst, specifically) from the various articles we've read and times we've chatted a little concerning supernaturalism/theism, but what's your positive set for naturalism/atheism? I realize they're not synonymous, but for the purposes of this discussion, we could consider them to be, I think. Thanks.
"Jesus -- the other white Moses" - Me.
Heh.
OK. No harm no foul.
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