God the middleman

[Nihilist Virus]

The Holy Spirit is needed by everyone but especially those who are prideful

Why would you want to be possessed by a spirit which will make you view facts differently?

 

[disciple Clint]

Your questions are loaded and require unpacking. If anyone’s arguing in bad faith, it’s you.

You rightly say that I have faith but there is nothing bad about it. I asked a simple question, I am not trying to trap you, if you want me to help you find God I need to know where you are at...it is just like if you ask me how to get to the post office, before I can tell you I need to know where you are.

 

[disciple Clint]

Why would you want to be possessed by a spirit which will make you view facts differently?

The Holy Spirit is God, I would love to be totally possessed by God and there is no doubt that I would see things differently. That same Holy Spirit is available to anyone who wants to believe in God.

 

[gaara4158]

You rightly say that I have faith but there is nothing bad about it. I asked a simple question, I am not trying to trap you, if you want me to help you find God I need to know where you are at...it is just like if you ask me how to get to the post office, before I can tell you I need to know where you are.

By “bad faith” I mean when you ask questions, you’re not genuinely looking for answers and when you read my responses, you’re looking for an angle of attack rather than a better understanding of my position, all while pretending this is not what you’re doing. I gather from your refusal to engage my objections to your loaded questions that you are indeed just looking to win an argument, not learn more.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I'm not sure how God could possibly know he is all-knowing. Anyone could be a brain in a vat. I'm not sure how he could know he is eternal either.

Exactly. If there are many different universes, each completely undetectable from other universes, and each ruled by its own God, how could a God possibly know about those other universes? No God could declare with certainty that he knows for sure there is nothing out there outside of his realm of detection.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I would love to be totally possessed by God and there is no doubt that I would see things differently.

How does that differ from being a remote controlled machine that is controlled by a remote intelligence?

 

[doubtingmerle]

What is the cause of everything that exists?

Could it be that "everything that exists" is the cause of "everything that exists"?

If it is possible to conceive of a God that is self-causing, why is it impossible to conceive of "everything that exists" as being self-causing?

 

[disciple Clint]

How does that differ from being a remote controlled machine that is controlled by a remote intelligence?

you can be filled by the spirit of God and still have free will

 

[disciple Clint]

Could it be that "everything that exists" is the cause of "everything that exists"?

If it is possible to conceive of a God that is self-causing, why is it impossible to conceive of "everything that exists" as being self-causing?

God is not self-causing, God has always existed, He is the uncaused cause

 

[cloudyday2]

How do you square this with the Münchhausen trilemma?

I would say that God knows all through experience or essence rather than through reason and proof. In other words, God doesn't discover truths by thinking; God is a being that emerges from the existence of truths.

What I'm imagining is a certain things that simply must exist if anything else is going to exist, and maybe certain truths are that way. The natural numbers are built on nil and sets, so maybe those are truths that are required for the existence of anything?

Here is a question that I've wondered about and you probably know the answer. Is some sort of time essential for reasoning/thinking? Not necessarily continuous time like typical in physics but simply "before"/"after" or "step 1 in the proof", "step 2 in the proof", ...? So maybe some sort of time is required for existence of any being (such as God) that is going to think? If people have a relationship with God as a person, then it seems he needs to change/react within our timeline.

 

[cloudyday2]

If God is truth (that is, His essential nature), then God is not contingent to an external truth. That is my position.

God needs to be more than simply truth, because God is a person. Saying "God is truth" means that that is all God is, and truth doesn't have a personality. (Can it?) My experiences of God (if they are legit) are like experiencing a person who occasionally responds to various needs. Of course atheists would rationalize that I am imagining to fulfill some psychological needs.

 

[Paulomycin]

This needs to be fleshed out. What is it about BB theory that necessitates a cause?

Because we're talking about the literal beginning of the entire universe.

Why must this cause be something other than natural forces?

Why must the forced dogma of naturalism be the only option?

Why does the cause of nature have to be circular reasoning to "nature?"

If you can answer these questions we’ll proceed to your second premise, with which I also take great issue.

- Nature doesn't account for nature. That's not logic at all.
- Steady state was the "eternal universe" model. <-- Once falsified, you can't go back.
- Eternal causal loops and infinite regress doesn't rationally answer anything either. After 40 some years of that garbage, one might notice something didn't rationally add up. But no, our confirmation bias of atheism is still satisfied. Nothing to see here; move along.

By ontic reality, I mean what the universe might actually be, in terms of either effect or non-effect. Both options are on the table.

Except that one was actually falsified and pronounced dead by 1965.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be true. It just means we can’t rationally understand it.

You accept irrational solutions? Seriously?

If it’s between question-begging the universe and question-begging God, I’m going to spend my time engaging with the thing I already know exists.

You don't "know" the universe exists, because you're too busy keeping it entirely ambiguous. You can't even settle on whether it's eternal or contingent. You obviously don't accept the scientific history on it.

I'm not a presuppositionalist, so there's no petitio principii going on here. If you claim I'm question-begging God, then it's on you to demonstrate it.

 

[gaara4158]

God is not self-causing, God has always existed, He is the uncaused cause

What does it mean to have always existed? If it means for all of time, then the universe has also always existed, since time begins when the universe begins. If it means something else, what?

 

[disciple Clint]

What does it mean to have always existed? If it means for all of time, then the universe has also always existed, since time begins when the universe begins. If it means something else, what?

How logical is it to say that noting existed prior to the universe? How would you account for the matter prior to the bb

 

[gaara4158]

Because we're talking about the literal beginning of the entire universe.

You’re assuming it must have a cause because it has a beginning. It’s the conclusion of the Kalam cosmological argument, and it’s your first premise. You have a whole other argument to run through before you can get to the argument you’re trying to run here.

You don't "know" the universe exists, because you're too busy keeping it entirely ambiguous. You can't even settle on whether it's eternal or contingent. You obviously don't accept the scientific history on it.

You do not understand the science you are referencing. You’re drawing conclusions from it that do not follow.

You accept irrational solutions? Seriously?

If I didn’t, I’d never be able to accept the ratio of circumference to diameter.

- Nature doesn't account for nature. That's not logic at all.

Natural forces account for natural phenomena all the time.

Why must the forced dogma of naturalism be the only option?

Why does the cause of nature have to be circular reasoning to "nature?"

It doesn’t. It’s your job to demonstrate that it can’t.

- Eternal causal loops and infinite regress doesn't rationally answer anything either. After 40 some years of that garbage, one might notice something didn't rationally add up. But no, our confirmation bias of atheism is still satisfied. Nothing to see here; move along.

You seem unable to articulate why things like infinite regress and causal loops are actually impossible. You’ll need to do better than intuitive dismissal to get past this point.

 

[gaara4158]

How logical is it to say that noting existed prior to the universe? How would you account for the matter prior to the bb

If there is no time without the universe, then “prior to the universe” cannot reference anything coherent. The duration of the existence of the universe and the full expanse of all time are equal.

 

[Paulomycin]

What's this got to do with the price of tea?

Awesome. Then we can abandon your speculation and move on

Here's what I currently understand your position to be:

1. God is omnipotent by definition.
2. Omnipotent beings must exist by definition.

No. Just #1 for now. Number two never happened, nor will it. No need to rush-forward in a defensive panic.

If you could define God and then provide the reason he exists, that would expedite things.

- An omnipotent being.
- Reason itself. <-- 700+ years worth of deductive proofs that have never been objectively refuted, and at least one inductive evidence that I know of.

No. Like I said you don't get it.

Or, maybe you don't get it, but you took your professor's word for it, and studied for the test anyway.

Got the following from philosophy stackexchange. . .

It used to be said that God could create everything, except what was contrary to the laws of logic. The truth is, we could not say of an “unlogical” world how it would look. -Wittgenstein

To present in language anything which “contradicts logic” is as impossible as in geometry to present by its co-ordinates a figure which contradicts the laws of space - Also Wittgenstein​

The whole thing is a great read, especially this little nugget:

Russells paradox is not a paradox, has absolutely nothing to do with the divine; and represents only the limitations of what was known about the construction of set theory in Russells time; it represents an obstacle by which theory must be modified otherwise it anulls itself. There may be more than one viable modification.​

One particular direction is to adopt a paraconsistent logic as done by Newton Da Costa for the foundations of set theory (rather than the first-order logic of Russells to a first approximation). Here a Universal set U and a Russell set R is given; and one can prove theorems like the union of every set in R is actually U.​

What this example also affirms is that we do not know logic as a complete mechanism of thought.​

So no, I don't believe that you must commit suicide in-order to prove you exist, and such similar arguments are absurd.

So you agree that God exists without cause, but yet there is a reason. Got it.

Basically, PSR: "If reason, then reasoner." Retroactively from reason itself ---> to the reasoner.

If the "god" of a particular religion is contingent to form, or a causal beginning, then that "god" is not omnipotent.

No, it isn't sophomoric because, as I explained, you and I can both do it. It stands to reason that some entity who can do anything we can do would be able to do it also. The only thing causing a problem is omnipotence, and that's not a surprise because it is not a well-defined notion.

The so-called "omnipotence paradox" can be expanded to demonstrate the contradiction embedded into the initial question, "Can an omnipotent being create a rock so heavy that said omnipotent being cannot lift it?" <-- The contradiction is between "omnipotent being" and "cannot." Therefore, the only answer is "no," because the question itself (as well as the one seriously asking it) is in error. Not due to anything on God's part.

Therefore, miserably sophomoric and pretentious.

And omnipotence is among the absurd.

When did your proof by assertion suddenly make statements magically come true?

 

[Tinker Grey]

Then your words begin and end at you alone. If there is no hope of objectivity, then why bother trying to communicate at all? Your posts are intellectually inconsistent.

Why hope for objectivity when we can hope for agreement however temporary.

What reality? You're taking your own claim here for granted, and without evidence at that. How can you possibly justify the claim of a purely secular "reality?"

Secular reality? What are you talking about? I'm talking rocks, trees, birds, and things. If I say, "I have a tree in my front yard" and we agree on what I mean by "I", "have", "a tree", "in", "my", "front yard", and then you drive my "my front yard" and see "a tree", then my statement is true. It's that simple.

We can't agree on meaning, because atheism has no meaning at all to speak of.

Non sequitur.

At best, all they can do is leech-off of a Westernized Judeo-Christian sense of meaning.

Oh please.

Then you have rejected meaning altogether. Again, welcome to existentialist anomie.

Wrong again.

 

[Paulomycin]

You’re assuming it must have a cause because it has a beginning. It’s the conclusion of the Kalam cosmological argument, and it’s your first premise. You have a whole other argument to run through before you can get to the argument you’re trying to run here.

I'm not appealing to Kalam, and so you can stop trying to strawman me with it. The 1st premise of Kalam is simply a reformatting of the law of causality. If one rejects it, then they're simply a misologist is all.

You do not understand the science you are referencing. You’re drawing conclusions from it that do not follow.

I quoted Hawking, who literally said it had a beginning, and you ignored it. Who's not following here?

If I didn’t, I’d never be able to accept the ratio of circumference to diameter.

Please stop equivocating irrational numbers.

Natural forces account for natural phenomena all the time.

But you can only inductively, and not ultimately conclude this. There is no naturalisitic evidence to support naturalism.

It doesn’t. It’s your job to demonstrate that it can’t.

Oh, so you're demanding that I prove a negative. Hello!

You seem unable to articulate why things like infinite regress and causal loops are actually impossible. You’ll need to do better than intuitive dismissal to get past this point.

Because I am being hopeful here, and simply expect you to "get it" the moment I say, "infinite causal loop" and "infinite regress." Because they don't actually answer anything. Question-begging the universe is fallacious.

 

[Paulomycin]

If there is no time without the universe, then “prior to the universe” cannot reference anything coherent. The duration of the existence of the universe and the full expanse of all time are equal.

"Prior to the universe" can be a logically coherent reference, even if time cannot be measured. Why? Because law of causality is not "time" dependent. Not in any Newtonian sense, anyway. And if you're using Leibniz's definition of time instead of Newton, then "time" isn't even a thing that's relevant to the discussion here.