God the middleman

[Paulomycin]

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

Because this is supposed to be a search for truth, not forced ambiguity.

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.

You claimed reality without evidence; not me. I live in a purely theistic reality; you don't. "This is my Father's world," as the hymn goes.

What have you got? Ontological naturalism without any evidence to support it. Does this mean that I can be skeptical here and conclude that the positive claim of ontological naturalism is not necessary? Of course I can!

Non sequitur.

Really? If you claim "meaning" exists, then it's your burden of proof.

Oh please.

There is no 100% atheist sense of meaning. Not without circular reasoning, like say, Camus. <-- But he's an absurdist, and he's okay with that.

Wrong again.

Because you magically said so? I'll be waiting for you to take up that burden of proof on your claim of "meaning."

 

[Paulomycin]

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?

No, but rather "outside of time."

Eternity = timelessness.

We're not referring to spacetime, which (of course) is finite.

And even "time" is in danger of equivocation here, because there are at least two definitions of it: One Newtonian (where time is an actual thing), vs. Leibnizian, where time is simply the abstract relationship between two or more objects in-motion.

If we go full-Newton, then it leads to an insolvent and very messy paradox that creates far more questions than answers. Never go full-Newton.

I'm siding with Leibniz.

 

[Tinker Grey]

forced ambiguity.

What? Is that all you have, catch phrases?

Ontological naturalism without any evidence to support it.

Naturalism is the only position with evidence.

Really? If you claim "meaning" exists, then it's your burden of proof.

You said:

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

Let's add "non sequitur" to the list of expressions you don't understand.

It means "does not follow". It does not follow that because atheism has no meaning does not mean we cannot agree on meaning. Of course we can. I know Christians that agree with me on meaning. You're simply wrong.

There is nothing to prove about meaning. Meaning is assigned by sapient beings to events and objects. Meaning is inherently subjective. For example, you say "God is truth" is a meaningful statement. I say it is not. See. Subjective.

 

[Paulomycin]

What? Is that all you have, catch phrases?

I was being literal there, and I'm not putting it on a bumpersticker or TV sitcom, or anything.

Naturalism is the only position with evidence.

Great assertion (very confident), but I'd love to see some evidence of it. <-- j/k, there is no evidence to support this particular metaphysical position.

Let's add "non sequitur" to the list of expressions you don't understand.

You were the one throwing around the claim of "meaning" without evidence.

It means "does not follow". It does not follow that because atheism has no meaning does not mean we cannot agree on meaning. Of course we can. I know Christians that agree with me on meaning. You're simply wrong.

Such Christians (naively or not) allow you to steal their worldview for awhile, in-order to continue discussion, I guess. But I don't. IOW, if you agree with my definition of meaning, then you're agreeing with a purely theistic definition of meaning. I can't allow that for the sake of intellectual consistency.

There is nothing to prove about meaning.

So you're not even making the claim of any such thing. Good to know. So, from here on out, please stop referring to "meaning" as-if it existed.

Meaning is inherently subjective.

Which you stated as an absolute. Those emphatic "is" assertions always do that. Therefore, if it's absolute, then it's impossible for you to convey any objective meaning, nor account for it in your own life, or to justify your own existence. And that's just terrible.

But if it's not absolute, then there is at least some objective meaning, and it's not entirely subjective.

 

[gaara4158]

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.

The conclusion of Kalam is that the universe has a cause because it has a beginning. Your first premise is the universe has a beginning in the Big Bang, therefore it must have a cause. It is identical to Kalam’s conclusion.

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.

We’re engaging philosophical concepts here. You cannot just say “come on, you get it!” That’s not an argument.

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

You took on this burden when you endeavored to demonstrate that your argument from contingency actually works. Pretty silly thing to try, if you ask me.

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

Sure. And I don’t need to ultimately conclude naturalism. You need to eliminate it as a possibility.

Please stop equivocating irrational numbers.

It was tongue in cheek, since you equivocate rationality with intuition.

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

You have yet to demonstrate that beginning entails cause, metaphysically.

"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.

The relationship between the law of causality and time is immaterial to the incoherence of referencing anything prior to the Big Bang.

 

[Paulomycin]

The conclusion of Kalam is that the universe has a cause because it has a beginning. Your first premise is the universe has a beginning in the Big Bang, therefore it must have a cause. It is identical to Kalam’s conclusion.

Because both examples of "cause" in both cases refer to the law of causality. Kalam is just less direct (or maybe . Most people who listen to the 1st premise of Kalam fail to recognize it, and that's why WLC ends up eating their lunch as a result.

We’re engaging philosophical concepts here. You cannot just say “come on, you get it!” That’s not an argument.

But I don't want to be condescending. I really am giving you the benefit of the doubt for the brains and education you have here. You really should know that Turtles All The Way Down isn't a rational argument at all, and pretty much fails everywhere; not just in the category of religion.

You took on this burden when you endeavored to demonstrate that your argument from contingency actually works. Pretty silly thing to try, if you ask me.

I took on no burden to prove a negative. Naturalism is merely one epistemology out of many. It's far from the only option, and it's extremely narrow-minded to be dogmatic about it. Mostly because there's no evidence to support it.

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

It shouldn't. That's entirely my point.

Sure. And I don’t need to ultimately conclude naturalism. You need to eliminate it as a possibility.

I deductively did just that. Two different ways, in-fact. Are you even paying attention to the thread here? A "material cause" is a naturalistic assumption.

It was tongue in cheek, since you equivocate rationality with intuition.

No, rationality is deductively based; not "intuitively based." Swing and a miss. Only deduction yields rational certitude.

You have yet to demonstrate that beginning entails cause, metaphysically.

Must be due to the fact that you're embracing question-begging or rejecting law of causality. Probably both.

The relationship between the law of causality and time is immaterial to the incoherence of referencing anything prior to the Big Bang.

You clearly stated it was incoherent because of time. I ruled that out. Now you're just arguing from pure incredulity.

 

[gaara4158]

No, but rather "outside of time."

Eternity = timelessness.

We're not referring to spacetime, which (of course) is finite.

And even "time" is in danger of equivocation here, because there are at least two definitions of it: One Newtonian (where time is an actual thing), vs. Leibnizian, where time is simply the abstract relationship between two or more objects in-motion.

If we go full-Newton, then it leads to an insolvent and very messy paradox that creates far more questions than answers. Never go full-Newton.

I'm siding with Leibniz.

If you go full-Leibniz, then “outside of time” can’t reference anything meaningful, either, since using motion as the basis of time means anything outside of it can’t actually do anything. It cannot interact with the universe in any way, which is a problem for theists who aren’t deists.

 

[Paulomycin]

If you go full-Leibniz, then “outside of time” can’t reference anything meaningful, either, since using motion as the basis of time means anything outside of it can’t actually do anything.

With zero effect on logic, such as law of causality. <-- Problem???

It cannot interact with the universe in any way, which is a problem for theists who aren’t deists.

Theism was just the Deism of General Revelation before Special Revelation existed.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Which you stated as an absolute. Those emphatic "is" assertions always do that.

It's a question of definition. Statements of definition aren't about external reality. They are what I mean by something.

A circle is an infinite set of points equidistant from a reference point. This is a definition. If I say some object is a circle, I am only approximating truth, approximating what is true about reality. Why? Because we have no way to know that an object is a circle...only that to some arbitrary level of precision that the object is a circle.

Statements about what can be said or not said is a question of agreeing on definitions. They are not statements about external reality.

 

[Paulomycin]

It's a question of definition. Statements of definition aren't about external reality. They are what I mean by something.

Truth is an external reality.

Either your agenda is an honest pursuit of truth, or "merely approximating" truth, in which case, you've already pre-determined yourself to never get there to begin with.

If external reality does not truly exist, then how do I know you're telling the truth?

 

[Tinker Grey]

Truth is an external reality.

No. Truth is statements about reality. We say a statement is true if the words reflect what we see in reality.

Either your agenda is an honest pursuit of truth, or "merely approximating" truth, in which case, you've already pre-determined yourself to never get there to begin with.

If external reality does not truly exist, then how do I know you're tel"ling the truth?

Who said external reality does not truly exist? I'm saying that truth" are statements that accurately reflect what we see. If you see what you see and can say the words that I said and we agree what we mean by them, then you know I'm saying a truth.

 

[Paulomycin]

No. Truth is statements about reality. We say a statement is true if the words reflect what we see in reality.

Then how do you account for reality?

Who said external reality does not truly exist?

You keep asserting it without evidence.

I'm saying that truth" are statements that accurately reflect what we see. If you see what you see and can say the words that I said and we agree what we mean by them, then you know I'm saying a truth.

Is this a rule you just made up?

 

[gaara4158]

Because both examples of "cause" in both cases refer to the law of causality. Kalam is just less direct (or maybe . Most people who listen to the 1st premise of Kalam fail to recognize it, and that's why WLC ends up eating their lunch as a result.

You lean heavily on this “law” of causality, so I’m pasting an old rebuttal to shut it down now.

The 'law of causality' is an apologetic assertion (not even an argument) that assumes that physics is still classical. It is advanced in ignorance of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

It is not even original: it is a restatement of the demand for an Unmoved Mover or Uncaused Cause, demanding that the infinite regression of movement/causation be terminated in the past by an 'impossible' object not subject to the laws in action upon everything else, as specified by Aquinas. (Aquinas was making a serious argument, because at the time his ignorance was forgivable). That this exceptional object is a god, or the god of the Bible myths, is an automatic assumption smuggled in at the end; in a display of narcissism, many theists don't even feel the need to justify those steps, because they cannot imagine otherwise.

The LAC or UM/UC arguments could be used by primitive people only to suggest a very weird and exceptional object at the beginning of time - all else is typical conspiracy theory nonsense, turning mysterious sounds and footprints into 'proof of Bigfoot'. The specific choice of Jesus/Bigfoot to explain the mystery is never justified.

Much has been learned since Aquinas. In quantum mechanics identical experiments can have different outcomes; these differences are spontaneous or 'uncaused', and they are mundane patterns of scattering electrons and photons, not gods.

Einstein famously rejected this with his quote about dice, and sought to supplant QM with a theory that restores universal causality. In this view the experiments are not really identical, and if we only had access to these 'hidden variables' then determinism could be restored. But Einstein died with the task not finished, and since then Bell's theorem has ruled that there is no theory of local HV that can replicate all of the predictions in QM. The non-local HV theories that survive Bell seem to run afoul of Einstein's own general relativity by invoking superluminal phenomena.

Worse yet, GR can feature solutions in which an object encounters itself in the past, called closed time-like curves, which would also assault causality.

Causality may ultimately be a figment of human intuition rather than a feature of the universe; to assume universal causality is of similar ignorance to assuming absolute space or time, or assuming that the surface of the Earth is flat. Sufficient exploration has shown otherwise.

But I don't want to be condescending. I really am giving you the benefit of the doubt for the brains and education you have here. You really should know that Turtles All The Way Down isn't a rational argument at all, and pretty much fails everywhere; not just in the category of religion.

Don’t worry about seeming condescending. At the moment, you seem ignorant of the possible responses to infinite regress arguments such as infinitism. Perhaps you didn’t mean you could make your case for God as definitively as Sir A. C. Doyle after all. That’s fine, just don’t be so ambitious next time.

I took on no burden to prove a negative. Naturalism is merely one epistemology out of many. It's far from the only option, and it's extremely narrow-minded to be dogmatic about it. Mostly because there's no evidence to support it.

Naturalism isn’t an epistemology. I think I warned you against misusing philosophical jargon to dress up your pedestrian arguments. Clearly, though, this and your continued insistence that my rejection of your apologetic makes me a dogmatic naturalist indicates that you’re not paying attention. I don’t have much more time for this sort of thing.

No, rationality is deductively based; not "intuitively based." Swing and a miss. Only deduction yields rational certitude.

Your deductive arguments are not sound, which is why your appeals to rationality only amount to appeals to your intuition.

It shouldn't. That's entirely my point.

How do you manage to misquote me with a copy-paste tool?

 

[gaara4158]

With zero effect on logic, such as law of causality. <-- Problem???



Theism was just the Deism of General Revelation before Special Revelation existed.

Word salad.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

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.

Two spirits flicker before you. One is Satan and one is the Holy Spirit. They both offer to come into your body. They both perform wonders and show you things that are inconceivable and leave you in such awe that you drop to your knees and weep.

They both claim to be the Holy Spirit. How do you know which is which? What could you possibly ask that would split them apart? According to 2 Corinthians 11:14, Satan can transform himself into an angel of light.

But now imagine a scenario a bit more terrifying. Now there's only one Spirit flickering before you.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

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.

Are you saying that God knows certain things that he is unable to demonstrate?

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?

All you've done here is grasp one horn of the trilemma.

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.

I couldn't possibly speculate on the biology of an alien being, but even an alien being would be beholden to the laws of nature. You're asking me about the processes by which something truly alien operates - a creature that is not inside our universe. Literally any answer would be pure speculation.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Awesome. Then we can abandon your speculation and move on



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



- 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.

Let's try to put your position into tangible terms.

Consider a murder trial where a prosecutor puts forward an argument that the person on trial committed a murder. The reason for the murder is typically some kind of motive. The prosecutor collects evidence and uses reason to put forward an argument about the motive.

Is this a good summary?

If so, who cares? I could easily just modify the OP:

Christians say that this is a reasonable statement which explains existence:

The universe exists because it was created by a God who exists with no cause.

But that this is not a reasonable statement and it explains nothing:

The universe exists with no cause.

I could easily hijack your arguments for God's existence and apply them to the universe. With this modified OP, would you agree that Christians who hold this position are unreasonable? No, probably not. I'm wasting my time. This is the last post I'm giving you.

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.

Again, you don't understand the issue. Your universal set U is bounded. That is a strawman and has nothing to do with a set that represents God's omniscience. Any Russel set R in naïve set theory is not well-defined, nor would a set of all things be well-defined. That's the point. "Omni-" properties are not well defined. That is the whole reason we had to modify set theory. Set theoretical language with no limitations creates contradictions.

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.

Speculative statement ignored.

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.

It's omnipotence that is causing the problem. You don't understand set theory. You posted quotes that support my position and acted like you won. That's literally how confused you are.

Therefore, miserably sophomoric and pretentious.



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

Thank you for conceding the point, even though you clearly don't understand that you did.

 

[cloudyday2]

Are you saying that God knows certain things that he is unable to demonstrate?

Maybe. Being all-knowing does not necessarily mean that you can demonstrate how you know to another person or even to yourself.

Another approach might be to say that God knows all because God created all. If there is a rock somewhere it is because God created the causes for that rock to be where it is. To make this idea work God must know that his creation is the only creation. God can't have a long lost brother Baal creating an alternate world. Also the world must be deterministic from God's perspective even if it seems non-deterministic from the human perspective.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Maybe. Being all-knowing does not necessarily mean that you can demonstrate how you know to another person or even to yourself.

Why not? The demonstration should be something that is itself known.

Another approach might be to say that God knows all because God created all. If there is a rock somewhere it is because God created the causes for that rock to be where it is.

Creating the rules by which a system operates does not ensure that you know how the system will proceed to operate. If I personally create a SIMS-like game from scratch, and I'm the sole contributor to the project, that doesn't mean I know what state the game will be in after it simulates x amount of days.

To make this idea work God must know that his creation is the only creation. God can't have a long lost brother Baal creating an alternate world.

I don't see that either. If another person makes their own SIMS-like game, it won't interfere with what I do or don't know about my own.

Also the world must be deterministic from God's perspective even if it seems non-deterministic from the human perspective.

This could be true or false, depending on what precisely is meant by "random" - provided, of course, there are "random" aspects to the world.

 

[Paulomycin]

Word salad.

^ Argument from personal incredulity. I noticed you didn't even bother asking questions.