Plausible Theism?

Tree of Life · Nov 26, 2016

To the atheists and agnostics.

I realize that theism is implausible to you, which is why you are an atheist or agnostic. But if there were a spectrum of plausibility how would you rank monotheism vs polytheism? In other words, do you find monotheism more plausible than polytheism, less plausible, or equally implausible?

Please explain.

Eight Foot Manchild · Nov 26, 2016

Equally implausible.

'God' is a vacuous non-concept to me. There is not even anything definitionally meaningful there. Zero times any number is still zero.

Nihilist Virus · Nov 27, 2016

Tree of Life said:
To the atheists and agnostics.

I realize that theism is implausible to you, which is why you are an atheist or agnostic. But if there were a spectrum of plausibility how would you rank monotheism vs polytheism? In other words, do you find monotheism more plausible than polytheism, less plausible, or equally implausible?

Please explain.

Theism is not implausible. There is just no evidence for it. The best argument is fine tuning but theists generally refuse to engage in an intellectually honest pursuit of the truth, so it is difficult for me to weigh theism in an unbiased manner. I have only my own honest views which carry a natural bias and I need the honest, yet biased, views of my opponents. All I ever get is dishonest appraisals from the opposing viewpoint. You contributed to this problem in the way that you danced around on my thread about complexity and design.

If you want to have an honest discussion, you can start by making some concessions. I concede that fine tuning gives me reservations about atheism, but I don't think you'll ever concede that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is a complete failure and for that reason these discussions melt into a puddle of pointlessness.

Tree of Life · Nov 27, 2016

@Nihilist Virus You were the one that gave up in our back and forth in the thread that you mentioned. You failed to show that your concept of "complexity" or your concept of "design" had any meaning outside of your own arbitrary designations.

Your argument in that thread amounted to: "I personally don't think that the world exhibits design; therefore the world does not exhibit design." It was more emoting than it was rational argumentation.

cloudyday2 · Nov 27, 2016

For me, it seems more plausible to start with a small number of gods (definitely less than 10). Maybe that is because I was raised as a monotheist, but it seems like the beginning of the universe should be simple, and that means only a few gods.

Nihilist Virus · Nov 27, 2016

Tree of Life said:
@Nihilist Virus You were the one that gave up in our back and forth in the thread that you mentioned. You failed to show that your concept of "complexity" or your concept of "design" had any meaning outside of your own arbitrary designations.

Your argument in that thread amounted to: "I personally don't think that the world exhibits design; therefore the world does not exhibit design." It was more emoting than it was rational argumentation.

The relevant dialogue seems to have been deleted from that thread and I'm not sure why. And you misrepresent my argument from that thread.

In any case, are you prepared to concede that the Kalam Cosmological Arguement fails utterly? If not, why?

Tree of Life · Nov 27, 2016

Nihilist Virus said:
The relevant dialogue seems to have been deleted from that thread and I'm not sure why. And you misrepresent my argument from that thread.

In any case, are you prepared to concede that the Kalam Cosmological Arguement fails utterly? If not, why?

I've never defended the Kalam Cosmological Argument because I don't know what it is.

Nihilist Virus · Nov 27, 2016

Tree of Life said:
I've never defended the Kalam Cosmological Argument because I don't know what it is.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

quatona · Nov 30, 2016

Tree of Life said:
To the atheists and agnostics.

I realize that theism is implausible to you, which is why you are an atheist or agnostic. But if there were a spectrum of plausibility how would you rank monotheism vs polytheism?

Which particular monotheistic god concept and which particular polytheistic gods concept am I supposed to compare in terms of their plausibility?

Uber Genius · Dec 2, 2016

Eight Foot Manchild said:
Equally implausible.

'God' is a vacuous non-concept to me. There is not even anything definitionally meaningful there. Zero times any number is still zero.

As is your comment.

What exactly don't you believe in?

Does the God you don't believe in have a body? Is it personal or a force? All-powerful?

If you have an argument by all means share. But propaganda? What are you 12?

You then follow with a false analogy. Your batting 100% here. Your about to get the Richard Dawkins award, which is strangely similar to the Darwin Award only the individual recipient only dies intellectually, not physically.

Uber Genius · Dec 2, 2016

Tree of Life said:
@Nihilist Virus You were the one that gave up in our back and forth in the thread that you mentioned. You failed to show that your concept of "complexity" or your concept of "design" had any meaning outside of your own arbitrary designations.

Your argument in that thread amounted to: "I personally don't think that the world exhibits design; therefore the world does not exhibit design." It was more emoting than it was rational argumentation.

We get a lot of a priori fallacies from Nihilist. He has been trained at the feet of the. New Atheists no doubt.

"What design in 3.2billion lines of genetic code? "

"What fine-tuning for life in the universe?"

"What do you mean there can't be an infinite number of previous causes?"

"Hey that guy Larry Krauss say the universe came form nothing. Of coarse it took him several chapters to describe all the attributes of "nothing."

These are the ramblings of someone setting their skepticism way up for certain inferences and then turning it way back down for things like "how do we know we aren't trapped in the matrix, ...we just do dude! "

A priori fallacy.

Eight Foot Manchild · Dec 2, 2016

Uber Genius said:
What exactly don't you believe in?

Does the God you don't believe in have a body? Is it personal or a force? All-powerful?

There are a great many god concepts I don't believe in, any number of which could have one or more or none of those characteristics.

Uber Genius said:
If you have an argument by all means share. But propaganda? What are you 12?

'Propaganda'? 'Argument'?

The OP asked a question of me, and I answered according to my own position. You seem to be thoroughly confused about what is happening here.

Uber Genius said:
You then follow with a false analogy. Your batting 100% here.

Firstly, in what sense is it false? All gods are vacuous non-concepts to me. As such, it makes no difference whether you propose one or ten or a thousand. That is what I meant by zero times any number is still zero.

Secondly, it's called 'batting 100', not 'batting 100%'. You follow an accusation of 'false analogy' with a misquoted metaphor, and a misused 'your'. Real smooth.

Eudaimonist · Dec 4, 2016

Tree of Life said:
if there were a spectrum of plausibility how would you rank monotheism vs polytheism?

On the same level, or very close. I can't imagine why one would be significantly more plausible than the other. It's not like one option holds some kind of special key to plausibility.

I can't be more specific without an example to consider.

eudaimonia,

Mark

zippy2006 · Dec 22, 2016

cloudyday2 said:
For me, it seems more plausible to start with a small number of gods (definitely less than 10). Maybe that is because I was raised as a monotheist, but it seems like the beginning of the universe should be simple, and that means only a few gods.

So you would say that, due to the complexification of the universe over time, the universe would likely begin with few gods and that the number of gods would gradually increase as time goes on?

zippy2006 · Dec 22, 2016

Tree of Life said:
To the atheists and agnostics.

I realize that theism is implausible to you, which is why you are an atheist or agnostic. But if there were a spectrum of plausibility how would you rank monotheism vs polytheism? In other words, do you find monotheism more plausible than polytheism, less plausible, or equally implausible?

Please explain.

Your question neatly unlocks the secret fact that few atheists even understand what is meant by the Christian God--ipsum esse subsistens. For the Christian monotheism is about God and polytheism is about gods, and they are two completely different things. An atheist who doesn't know what God is isn't much of an atheist at all, is he? I'll count that as good news.

cloudyday2 · Dec 22, 2016

zippy2006 said:
So you would say that, due to the complexification of the universe over time, the universe would likely begin with few gods and that the number of gods would gradually increase as time goes on?

That seems sensible to me, because that is how it works for other types of life. I don't have a strong opinion.

quatona · Dec 23, 2016

zippy2006 said:
Your question neatly unlocks the secret fact that few atheists even understand what is meant[...]

Actually, if anything his question would neatly reveal that he doesn´t understand what is meant...

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