Silmarien, theism actually means “people believing in a God or gods.” That’s what the word means. If you had, however, specified that this was a personal definition of your own, then we could have discussed your reasons for thinking that, instead of wasting time.
This is completely false. Theism is a metaphysical claim; it cannot be defined as an observation that people believe certain things, because if theism were the claim that there were people who believed in God, then it would be self-evidently true.
I do not have a personal definition of theism. I adhere to the classical one, hence my citing Ratzinger. If you wanted to discuss reasons for holding to the classical understanding of God, you could have asked for clarification instead of jumping straight to abuse, so you are the only one wasting time here.
Although there are many different gods and goddesses and ideas about what “god” means in different religions, “God” is a thing with a well-understood meaning. Again, all we need to do is check a dictionary. A god is “the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe”.
Definition of GOD
The dictionary is not a good source on metaphysical questions, since its aim is not exactly encyclopedic. You might as well take the dictionary definition of "evolution" and wield it against any biologist trying to explain to you precisely what it means.
I’m not particularly convinced by this argument for God. Not being familiar with this way of forming an argument I can’t say for certain; but the refutation sounds plausible. It would certainly follow the pattern for other apologetics arguments of trying to define God into existence, and failing due to a logical fallacy.
How does it try to define God into existence?
It’s true, there is “evidence”, technically. There are oral history stories. There are accounts in the Bible. There is corroboration of some of the events in the story. But these are very weak forms of evidence, which Christians themselves routinely dismiss when they appear in non-Christian religions, and so non-Christians can dismiss them in the Jesus story. Would you believe, for example, that a Greek god brought a worshipper back to life, just because an ancient historian recorded it as having happened?
Potentially, yes, though it would depend upon the ancient historian. Some are more trustworthy than others. Still, I see no reason to dismiss out of hand the thesis that miracles actually were a commonplace occurrence in antiquity. I think denying the possibility of any miracle aside from the Resurrection is primarily a Protestant tendency.
That said, the only other major religion that makes historical claims in the same way that Christianity does is Islam. In both of these religions, the records date back to the same generation as the alleged events, whereas the origins of most religions (including Judaism) are effectively lost in the mists of time. I don't think you have to accept either religion on historical grounds, but you should recognize that they possess a different type of evidence that can be assessed than most religions.
I’m not. But I am familiar with Pascal’s Wager and its many flaws.
Perhaps you ought to clarify: what do you mean when you say you accepted Pascal’s Wager, and why did you do so?
I thought you were only interested in arguments for the existence of God?
That sounds reasonable. Wouldn’t that be your reaction if you were told that there was someone who you couldn’t see, but who loved you and wanted to talk to you, and who could hear all the things you said to him…but who never answered you?
Wouldn’t you, at this point, think “Maybe the reason I can’t see him and he never answers my calls is that he doesn’t exist.”
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am a Prophet who gets regular messages from God. I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.
In order to say that, you have to accuse cvanwey of being a liar. He told you that he had been seeking earnestly, and had failed to find God, but you say “we cannot know if this is true”.
Because we don't know if it's true. The claim is psychologically untenable--we don't have the sort of perfect self-knowledge that would be required to know precisely what our motives are about anything. We are masters at self-deception, and that needs to be taken into account whenever claims like this are made.
If God existed, then you’d be correct. And cvanwey would be in good company, if you’ve ever read what Bertrand Russell said he would say if he met God.
But if you’re using “blame” in the emotional sense, saying that cvanwey is angry or bitter against God, then I can’t understand you. He’s already told you he isn’t. Don’t you believe him?
I’ll add my voice to his. I don’t blame God for not giving me evidence of his existence, any more than I blame Darth Vader for destroying Alderaan. Of course, if I did die and meet God, then I would consider him to blame for my not knowing He existed. But that's not what we’re talking about, is it?
Actually, this is precisely what I'm talking about. I am first and foremost an existentialist, and I see in statements like this a prime example of what Jean-Paul Sartre called
mauvaise foi (bad faith). We are all ultimately responsible for our own decisions, and shouldn't be shifting blame in other directions. The failure to take responsibility is actually one of the things that Sartre, despite being an atheist, associates with hell in
No Exit, and I think there's some validity to that.
If someone's reaction on a hypothetical Judgment Day is immediately "It's you're fault I was wrong!" rather than simply, "Wow, I guess I was wrong," then I see a pretty serious problem there. Serious enough, in all honesty, that it was what first led me to wonder if there might be some truth to the way Christians look at damnation.
No, they don’t. It’s not the atheists who end up looking silly here.
I’d better explain the purpose of the FSM.
No, the actual purpose of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was as an argument against teaching Creationism and Intelligent Design in schools. The idea was that if we wished to teach religious ideas in public schools, all religions should be on equal footing, and that would have to include ridiculous made up ones.
For that purpose, I think the FSM is successful. As a criticism of theistic arguments, though, it is woefully ignorant. And your presentation of it is bordering on the hysterical, so I would recommend dialing it back a bit.
And so, if you think that’s ridiculous – and you should, it is – then show me how. Prove that the FSM did not create the universe. Take the cosmological argument, and prove that the FSM could not have been the thing that caused the universe to begin. Because pasta can’t create universes? Ah, but this is magical pasta. Because the FSM was invented only a few years ago? That’s what people think, but I tell you that I’ve talked to Him, and feel the truth in my heart. Because most people don’t believe in the FSM? So you’re saying that if lots of people did believe in Him, you would too? Because it’s not up to you to disprove the FSM, it’s up to me to prove it? Strange, you didn’t say that when you thought the cosmological argument proved God.
First and foremost, if you have actually talked to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, something you referred to several paragraphs earlier as a ridiculous, made-up cartoon, then I would suggest psychiatric help. If you're engaging in rhetoric, however, then it's not impressive. Anyone who does not actually have mystical experiences involving the FSM can hardly claim personal experience as a reason to think it might exist.
Secondly, I am intrigued by your notion of magical, universe-creating pasta. One of the strengths of theism is that it circumvents the need for an appeal to magic--at its heart is the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the claim that things do not come into being uncaused. With the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we have a physical, complex entity, and as such are stuck wondering how it came to exist. Does the existence of magical pasta that predates the universe imply the reality of something like Plato's Realm of Forms, since the idea of spaghetti is clearly no longer dependent upon us, and does this ultimately open up a path from a realm of abstract truths to the mind of God?
Even if you wanted to take the Flying Spaghetti Monster seriously, the complications involved could still be used to support genuine theistic arguments.
1) Why is there something instead of nothing? I don’t know. And until you have some evidence to back up your answer, I suggest you not invent answers.
I wasn't presenting an argument. I was offering a cursory example of the sort of chain of reasoning that I think these sort of discussions should start with, since the old Socratic method of asking questions and heading towards some sort of solution works better than immediately positing God and then trying to shoehorn an argument into that definition.
You are welcome to adhere to a strongly agnostic approach to the question, though it's at odds with your hysterical insistence that everything to do with theism is completely ridiculous.
Now it looks like I’m spoiling your party, interrupting your philosophical musings with an irreverent and ridiculous fairy tale about a plate of flying pasta. But that’s the point. The FSM could be the answer, and you can’t prove that He couldn’t, because the logic that you use works just as well for Him as it does for God. Or for an infinite number of other possible causes.
And that is why the arguments for God fail.
Which argument fails? The Gale-Pruss, that you couldn't respond to because of the heavily logical language involved, or the Thomistic argument that you attempted to refute by posting from a website that misinterpreted everything Aquinas said?