Does God exist?

[KCfromNC]

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God

Circular arguments don't really help very much.

 

[createdtoworship]

Circular arguments don't really help very much.

there are four premises and one conclusion. They are sequential. Do you understand the logic behind debate? If not I can explain it in more detail.

 

[createdtoworship]

Pretty much every variety of cosmological argument has been done to death here.

and this would be the place for it, as it's in the O.P.

 

[createdtoworship]

The Cosmological Argument from Contingency William Lane Craig 1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause. 2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. 3. The universe exists. 4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3). 5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).


So the question is this: Which is more plausible—that those premises are true or that they are false? 1.1. Premise 1 “Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.” According to premise 1, there are two kinds of things: things which exist necessarily and things which are produced by some external cause. Let me explain. Things that exist necessarily exist by a necessity of their own nature. It’s impossible for them not to exist. Many mathematicians think that numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities exist in this way. They’re not caused to exist by something else; they just exist necessarily. By contrast, things that are caused to exist by something else don’t exist necessarily. They exist contingently.

above clip from and continued at:

The New Atheism and Five Arguments for God | Reasonable Faith

I believe some of you missed this post, reply as needed- thanks.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

and this would be the place for it, as it's in the O.P.

Yes, the OP, which is very broad.

 

[createdtoworship]

Yes, the OP, which is very broad.

so if the argument for God is discussed already, then why are we still here? I assume you think you won that argument, and am willing to revisit the arguments with a fine tooth comb, if you are willing to accept the challenge of the cosmological argument (contingency version).

secondly I did a search for "contingency version" and came up only with my latest posts on the issue, so apparently it has not been covered yet, so it's a good time to do so.

I provided my post here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7831498-2/#post65982237
what is your rebuttal?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

so if the argument for God is discussed already, then why are we still here? I assume you think you won that argument, and am willing to revisit the arguments with a fine tooth comb, if you are willing to accept the challenge of the cosmological argument (contingency version).

secondly I did a search for "contingency version" and came up only with my latest posts on the issue, so apparently it has not been covered yet, so it's a good time to do so.

I provided my post here:
http://www.christianforums.com/t7831498-2/#post65982237
what is your rebuttal?

I think you misread me, but then again, perhaps I've in turn misread the OP. What I mean to say is that the OP is broad enough to allow cursory discussion of these arguments, but non-specific enough to discourage a detailed consideration of each argument in this thread. If theists were to post every single argument for the existence of God that has ever been developed and demanded that atheists address all of those arguments in this thread, then this would either turn out to be the most epically large and long-running thread in CF's history, or it would descend into a set of increasingly disjointed exchanges that, although they bear some relation to the OP, have wandered into a different territory.

 

[createdtoworship]

I think you misread me, but then again, perhaps I've in turn misread the OP. What I mean to say is that the OP is broad enough to allow cursory discussion of these arguments, but non-specific enough to discourage a detailed consideration of each argument in this thread. If theists were to post every single argument for the existence of God that has ever been developed and demanded that atheists address all of those arguments in this thread, then this would either turn out to be the most epically large and long-running thread in CF's history, or it would descend into a set of increasingly disjointed exchanges that, although they bear some relation to the OP, have wandered into a different territory.

there are really only 5-10 major arguments for the existence of God, surely you exaggerate. secondly, if it is not to address the arguments for and against God's existence then what, pray-tell, is the thread for?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

there are really only 5-10 major arguments for the existence of God, surely you exaggerate.

Do you know how much time could be devoted to discussing each one of those arguments? At one point, I recall there being three separate threads devoted to a discussion of the moral argument. Those threads went on for pages and at least one, if I recall correctly, was spilt into another thread. Similarly, if you peruse the pages of this subforum you'll find whole threads devoted to the cosmological argument. A detailed consideration of a single argument seems to require multiple, long-ish posts, over many pages. Can you imagine what a single thread, devoted to 5-10 individual arguments, would look like?

Then again, perhaps I'm wrong. Martymer81 on YouTube dealt with all the majors arguments quite succinctly in just a few minutes. However, even on YouTube I think that's a rarity.

 

[createdtoworship]

Do you know how much time could be devoted to discussing each one of those arguments? At one point, I recall there being three separate threads devoted to a discussion of the moral argument. Those threads went on for pages and at least one, if I recall correctly, was spilt into another thread. Similarly, if you peruse the pages of this subforum you'll find whole threads devoted to the cosmological argument. A detailed consideration of a single argument seems to require multiple, long-ish posts, over many pages. Can you imagine what a single thread, devoted to 5-10 individual arguments, would look like?

Then again, perhaps I'm wrong. Martymer81 on YouTube dealt with all the majors arguments quite succinctly in just a few minutes. However, even on YouTube I think that's a rarity.

never mind your habit of dodging. Lets look at your reply:

the moral argument basically is summed up like this, real simple. How does an athiest account for morality? In other words, what makes a God who tortures babies for fun, evil? Or a God who loves babies, Good? Who or what law does an athiest adhere to to make that call? IT is the moral law. If the moral law does not exist, then we are forced to vote for morality in which the athiest is forced to declare that there is not proper moral ground to declare any act of God evil without evidence (as voting for morality is not empirical methodology).

even stanford encyclopedia of philosophy states this:

"the fact that we humans are aware of moral facts is itself surprising and calls for an explanation."

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-arguments-god/#ArgMorKnoAwa

I assume you may have one or two replies for this topic. That being said, this debate will last 6-10 post max. That is one of the 10 arguments at most, for the existence of God. it does not take that much time, if you know exactly what the argument entails.

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

never mind your habit of dodging. Lets look at your reply:

the moral argument basically is summed up like this, real simple. How does an athiest account for morality? In other words, what makes a God who tortures babies for fun, evil? Or a God who loves babies, Good? Who or what law does an athiest adhere to to make that call? IT is the moral law. If the moral law does not exist, then we are forced to vote for morality in which the athiest is forced to declare that there is not proper moral ground to declare any act of God evil without evidence (as voting for morality is not empirical methodology).

even stanford encyclopedia of philosophy states this:

"the fact that we humans are aware of moral facts is itself surprising and calls for an explanation."

Moral Arguments for the Existence of God (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I assume you may have one or two replies for this topic. That being said, this debate will last 6-10 post max. That is one of the 10 arguments at most, for the existence of God. it does not take that much time, if you know exactly what the argument entails.

To facilitate the discussion let it be known that he can only hold one of two positions regarding moral semantics:

1. Cognitivist theories hold that evaluative moral sentences express propositions (that is, they are "truth apt" or "truth bearers", capable of being true or false), as opposed to non-cognitivism.
2. Non-Cognitivist theories hold that ethical sentences are neither true nor false because they do not express genuine propositions. Non-cognitivism is another form of moral anti-realism. Most forms of non-cognitivism are also forms of expressivism, however some such as Mark Timmons and Terrence Horgan distinguish the two and allow the possibility of cognitivist forms of expressivism.

Regarding substantial theories, he is either:

1. A universalist
2. A relativist
3. A nihilist

Regarding justification theories, he is either:

1. If he is a cognitivist, then he holds that morality is justified by the moralist's knowledge of moral facts, and the theories to justify moral judgements are epistemological theories.

Most moral epistemologies, of course, posit that moral knowledge is somehow possible, as opposed to moral skepticism.

Amongst them, there are those who hold that moral knowledge is gained inferentially on the basis of some sort of non-moral epistemic process, as opposed to ethical intuitionism.

Under this one he is either:

1. An empiricist
2. A moral rationalist.

 

[PsychoSarah]

lol...

those who did such things were still committing crimes.

So what is your point?

They weren't punished, as far as the legal system they had in place the Native Americans weren't even people. We consider it to be a crime today, but in the past this wasn't the case.

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

They weren't punished, as far as the legal system they had in place the Native Americans weren't even people. We consider it to be a crime today, but in the past this wasn't the case.

You keep proving my point.

The issue was whether or not the indians were human beings, not that murder was wrong.

The people who killed the indians would agree with both you and I, if we were to ask them if the unjustified killing of human beings was wrong.

They would disagree with us about whether or not they were human beings!

So the difference is not about what is right or wrong, but about what constitutes a human being, a completely morally neutral matter.

 

[Received]

Yes, for me it is. Because when I made a statement using the word "authority" (initially I didn´t even use it, but used something like "external entity, deity") I didn´t make it to explore the semantics of "authority" - I meant to say something specific. Even if had used the word in an entirely wrong way, and your use of it would be the correct one, applying the correct definition to my statement would result in an assertion that I didn´t mean to make.
Now, of course, it´s up to you to either try to understand what I meant to say, or rather explore the semantics potential of the word. However, in the latter case I feel disrespected.

Thing is, you're already arguing over semantics, which is what you said you didn't think was relevant. Don't take it as disrespect that I necessarily project my own meaning of a word that you use differently, or that I think words have some degree of "objective" (not the best word to use) meaning, which makes quibbling about their meaning relevant to any discussion.

Well, firstly that wasn´t my point. At all.

My assertion doesn´t even require the use of the term "authority" (and initially, I didn´t even use it). I was talking about an allegedly powerful conscious entity that allegedly had dictated certain rules. I was talking about that which is commonly called an "appeal to authority" (which is not the same as an appeal to reality, to common sense, to intuition, to universally held convictions, to reason, to empathy, to that which everybody believes or feels anyway, or whatever else).

But, of course, if you are determined to think of our existence as a recreative competitive game with arbitrary rules, indeed it doesn´t make much difference whether you appeal to the documented authoritative rules or to the authority of the rule inventors.
However, nothing about a throw-in in soccer is immediately convincing, and needn´t be - because it is a game that consists of nothing but arbitrary rules.
Thus, the analogy completely ignores that which was at the core of my statement, namely that an appeal to either an authoritative rule-maker or to the rule that the rule-maker is necessary only if the rules are somewhat arbitrary, unintelligible, unreasonable, counter-intuitive, impossible to derive from within the reality of our existence (because if "what´s good to do" can be discerned by those faculties to our disposal - reason, intellect, empathy, intuition etc. - there either wouldn´t even be a controversy, or the discussion would employ those faculties, rather than resorting to "Well, that´s just the rules as decreed by the entity in power".)
Here´s my statement again (note: no use of the term "authority"):

The reason I spoke of divine command theory is that the second part of your last parenthetical statement is exactly this: we should just follow rules because a deity espouses them, rather than think about them according to some type of standard intrinsically applicable to the rules we're looking at.

My response is that having rules that aren't arbitrary (and in some sense, naturalistic evolution makes everything arbitrary, only in a sense, i.e., the random mutation aspect and not the adaptability part) doesn't mean that thinking of some sort of "authority" that has imputed them is useless, unless you're content to arbitrarily cut out the authority that put them there from the rules that were put there. Now, and here's clearly where we agree, when considering just the rules, phenomenologically speaking in the act of considering these rules, there is probably no need at all to consider the source. That's fine. This is why I appealed to "perspective".

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

Thing is, you're already arguing over semantics, which is what you said you didn't think was relevant. Don't take it as disrespect that I necessarily project my own meaning of a word that you use differently, or that I think words have some degree of "objective" (not the best word to use) meaning, which makes quibbling about their meaning relevant to any discussion.



The reason I spoke of divine command theory is that the second part of your last parenthetical statement is exactly this: we should just follow rules because a deity espouses them, rather than think about them according to some type of standard intrinsically applicable to the rules we're looking at.

My response is that having rules that aren't arbitrary (and in some sense, naturalistic evolution makes everything arbitrary, only in a sense, i.e., the random mutation aspect and not the adaptability part) doesn't mean that thinking of some sort of "authority" that has imputed them is useless, unless you're content to arbitrarily cut out the authority that put them there from the rules that were put there. Now, and here's clearly where we agree, when considering just the rules, phenomenologically speaking in the act of considering these rules, there is probably no need at all to consider the source. That's fine. This is why I appealed to "perspective".

“What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word? If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.” -G.K. Chesterton

 

[quatona]

The people who killed the indians would agree with both you and I, if we were to ask them if the unjustified killing of human beings was wrong.

Sure they would, that´s tautologically true (by virtue of the term "unjustified").
Just like "bad is negative". People just don´t agree what´s bad or what´s unjustified.

They would disagree with us about whether or not they were human beings!

So the difference is not about what is right or wrong, but about what constitutes a human being, a completely morally neutral matter.

So genocide is morally neutral - it´s just a definition problem??

Even if it were true that Indians weren´t considered humans back then, your argument remains a play on words.
The question "Is it right to kill him/this (pointing towards the Indian) over there?" (which is as moral a question as it gets) did have a different answer back then.

 

[createdtoworship]

To facilitate the discussion let it be known that he can only hold one of two positions regarding moral semantics:

1. Cognitivist theories hold that evaluative moral sentences express propositions (that is, they are "truth apt" or "truth bearers", capable of being true or false), as opposed to non-cognitivism.
2. Non-Cognitivist theories hold that ethical sentences are neither true nor false because they do not express genuine propositions. Non-cognitivism is another form of moral anti-realism. Most forms of non-cognitivism are also forms of expressivism, however some such as Mark Timmons and Terrence Horgan distinguish the two and allow the possibility of cognitivist forms of expressivism.

Regarding substantial theories, he is either:

1. A universalist
2. A relativist
3. A nihilist

Regarding justification theories, he is either:

1. If he is a cognitivist, then he holds that morality is justified by the moralist's knowledge of moral facts, and the theories to justify moral judgements are epistemological theories.

Most moral epistemologies, of course, posit that moral knowledge is somehow possible, as opposed to moral skepticism.

Amongst them, there are those who hold that moral knowledge is gained inferentially on the basis of some sort of non-moral epistemic process, as opposed to ethical intuitionism.

Under this one he is either:

1. An empiricist
2. A moral rationalist.

what does this categorization have to do with what atheists base their morality on?

secondly, how do you classify Darwin himself:

Evolutionists have no moral standard according to Darwin:

Charles Darwin understood this truth perfectly. He wrote: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added).

 

[PsychoSarah]

You keep proving my point.

The issue was whether or not the indians were human beings, not that murder was wrong.

The people who killed the indians would agree with both you and I, if we were to ask them if the unjustified killing of human beings was wrong.

They would disagree with us about whether or not they were human beings!

So the difference is not about what is right or wrong, but about what constitutes a human being, a completely morally neutral matter.

How is what we consider to be a person a morally neutral matter? It defines how one is treated, what is morally acceptable, etc. To think that somehow what we consider human doesn't matter morally is absolutely ridiculous. Sociopaths don't feel other people to really be people, thus it justifies killing to them, but obviously the Native Americans considered themselves to be human. Just because people justify their actions by any means doesn't make morality any less subjective.

 

[PsychoSarah]

what does this categorization have to do with what atheists base their morality on?

secondly, how do you classify Darwin himself:

Evolutionists have no moral standard according to Darwin:

Charles Darwin understood this truth perfectly. He wrote: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added).

No, we have morality dingus. Especially considering many "evolutionists" are Christians, you might want to rethink this. Just because evolutionary theory doesn't typically address morality doesn't mean it suggests there isn't any. Morality is philosophical, not scientific, thus you shouldn't expect a scientific theory such as evolution to cover a philosophical issue.

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

So genocide is morally neutral - it´s just a definition problem??

How does that follow from what I said?

Even if it were true that Indians weren´t considered humans back then, your argument remains a play on words.
The question "Is it right to kill him/this (pointing towards the Indian) over there?" (which is as moral a question as it gets) did have a different answer back then.

You are right in a sense, the answer was different depending on who you asked. If you were to ask a man who saw indians as subhuman savages he might say, well sure its right to kill subhuman savages to ensure the survival of the human race or something.

If you were to ask a man who saw indians as human beings then he might say, well no, its wrong to kill human beings just because they happen to be a different nationality.

But both men would not dare say that human beings should just treat human beings any old way they want to. They would both tell you that they believed murder was wrong.

That is my point.

The issue is not that the two men have different views on moral values and duties, but rather, the difference is on what constitutes a human being which is not a moral issue at all.