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Merged A Proof of the Existence of God / Did Someone Create the Universe?

Buddha said:
<Complete nonsense snipped>
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You said you had an empirical proof that god exists. You said that "god" was a being who could do anything he wanted. In the welcome thread, you said you believed in the god of the New Testament (with some wiggle room about the nature of the divinity of jesus).

You haven't provided any sort of proof of any of these things.

So far, you've stated that the universe had to have a creator. You then took a huge detour into a polemic about the philosophy of science. The one thing you haven't done is submit the proof that you claimed to have.

Stop stalling and state your argument.

Or, alternatively, admit that you have no argument.
 
Why, (clutch the pearls) I don't believe he is coming back. Someone fan me and fetch some lemonade. I may not be able to withstand the shock. I simply must lay down and take some air on the veranda or I shall surely swoon.
 
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1. God is a being who can do anything he wants.

2. Rocks exist, therefore by definition they have the quality of being, therefore they are beings.

3. Rocks are inert, lacking cognition.

4. Beings that lack cognition cannot experience or desire.

5. Therefore rocks want nothing.

6. It is a vacuous logical truth that anything, regardless of its capabilities, that wants nothing can do anything it wants.

7. Therefore, every rock is God.

8. Therefore, God exists.

9. I can write a paper presenting the preceding argument.

10. Paper covers rock.

11. Therefore, I win.

12. God hates scissors.
 
Myriad said:
1. God is a being who can do anything he wants.

2. Rocks exist, therefore by definition they have the quality of being, therefore they are beings.

3. Rocks are inert, lacking cognition.

4. Beings that lack cognition cannot experience or desire.

5. Therefore rocks want nothing.

6. It is a vacuous logical truth that anything, regardless of its capabilities, that wants nothing can do anything it wants.

7. Therefore, every rock is God.

8. Therefore, God exists.

9. I can write a paper presenting the preceding argument.

10. Paper covers rock.

11. Therefore, I win.

12. God hates scissors.
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Blessed are the secateurs, for they shall permit running without sin
 
Myriad said:
1. God is a being who can do anything he wants.

2. Rocks exist, therefore by definition they have the quality of being, therefore they are beings.

3. Rocks are inert, lacking cognition.

4. Beings that lack cognition cannot experience or desire.

5. Therefore rocks want nothing.

6. It is a vacuous logical truth that anything, regardless of its capabilities, that wants nothing can do anything it wants.

7. Therefore, every rock is God.

8. Therefore, God exists.

9. I can write a paper presenting the preceding argument.

10. Paper covers rock.

11. Therefore, I win.

12. God hates scissors.
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Oh, yeah? Well, what about Pet Rocks™?

Ha! Betcha didn't think of that! You lose, petrotheist!
 
Myriad said:
1. God is a being who can do anything he wants.

2. Rocks exist, therefore by definition they have the quality of being, therefore they are beings.

3. Rocks are inert, lacking cognition.

4. Beings that lack cognition cannot experience or desire.

5. Therefore rocks want nothing.

6. It is a vacuous logical truth that anything, regardless of its capabilities, that wants nothing can do anything it wants.

7. Therefore, every rock is God.

8. Therefore, God exists.

9. I can write a paper presenting the preceding argument.

10. Paper covers rock.

11. Therefore, I win.

12. God hates scissors.
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You win the award for the closest thing to an actual proof of God on this thread.
 
Myriad said:
1. God is a being who can do anything he wants.

2. Rocks exist, therefore by definition they have the quality of being, therefore they are beings.

3. Rocks are inert, lacking cognition.

4. Beings that lack cognition cannot experience or desire.

5. Therefore rocks want nothing.

6. It is a vacuous logical truth that anything, regardless of its capabilities, that wants nothing can do anything it wants.

7. Therefore, every rock is God.

8. Therefore, God exists.

9. I can write a paper presenting the preceding argument.

10. Paper covers rock.

11. Therefore, I win.

12. God hates scissors.
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Nice work. You rock.

Dave
 
Myriad said:
8. Therefore, God exists.
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Now you've done it. You gave Buddha what he was waiting for...someone else to come up with the proof for him. You can expect to see his presentation at the next major conference on physics: "God didn't create the universe with strings, he used pure logic!"
 
JayUtah said:
Well, in various philosophical traditions the observer can be hypothetical so that he can observe things that otherwise wouldn't be directly observable, such as an Einsteinian "observer" that can right light waves. What they mean in most cases is that there just has to be something to observe. But you're onto something. Buddha's scenarios are carefully contrived to have the exact mix of hypothetical allowances and practical limitations to make his proof seem like it works. Hypothetically speaking, the evidence showing the origin of the universe is set to be analogous to a videotape, limited in other words to sequential playback and subject speed but magically capacious enough to hold all the evidence. Then the punchline of his proof is that such a volume of evidence would be too much for the human observer to review in a lifetime. Now all of a sudden the human observer's limitations become important. The modeling and encapsulation of the evidence can be as hypothetical as it needs to be, but the observer modeled to be able to digest it in the contrived form suddenly has limitations, and those limitations -- i.e., properties of the model, not of the thing being modeled -- are what his proof hangs on. So yes, he's begging the question in a sense, because he's built his thought experiment to have exactly the properties it needs in order to make his proof come out the way he wants.

In the immortality thread Jabba tried to hide his begged questions in math he hoped no one would understand well enough to refute him. Buddha is hiding his begged questions in esoteric philosophy he hopes no one understands well enough to refute him. That's I think why he's clinging so desperately to the gaslighting ploy of making sure his critics know he's so much smarter and better read that they, and that he doesn't have time to go into as much depth as they have.

Now if I remember correctly, in some prototypical forms of positivism the observer was literally limited to the human senses. But for obvious reasons that doesn't lead to a model of knowledge that has much use outside of coffeehouse musings. It's why I asked whether it would take 50 years to prove someone's claim to be 50 years old. In the least useful philosophical models that's what would have to happen. The only way someone could prove he's 50 years old is to cause his entire lifespan to be continuously observed from his birth. In that model, it would be impossible for someone who's only 30 years old to know -- the way these models define knowledge -- that anyone was 50 years old. It would then have to use some sort of testimonial or propositional evidence, which strict positivists reject as a basis for knowledge. This may be what Buddha means when he says not everyone will accept his proof. We would reject it because it relies on the all-too-apparent limitations of the dark dusty corners of some brands of philosophy. And why he correctly notes that some later philosophers have rejected them. To accept such a philosophy to its furthest extent would have to conclude that all modern science is incapable of knowing anything, which is sometimes what claimants at ISF are trying to prove.

And the notion that a proposition is false if it that cannot be verified according to those limitations falls pretty flat. The truth value of the propositions are what those philosophies seek as a matter of knowledge. When knowledge is modeled as only what can be verified by some empiricism, asserting the falsity of an empirically unverifiable proposition is an error. They correctly say that the truth value of such propositions cannot be known -- in effect that the propositions should be regarded meaningless as knowledge. This is what Phiwum and others were trying to get Buddha to see as a contradiction in his proof. The effect of empiricism varies in his proof depending on what role he needs to to play so that it comes out right.

And in the broadest sense this makes Buddha's proof fall into the standard pattern of fringe claimants. They want to prove something they know they can't prove directly. So they try to prove it indirectly by deducing what "must" (or can) hold if the prevailing narrative cannot hold. Then they propose to refute the prevailing narrative by one contrived method and standard of proof, making sure not to hold their desired conclusion to the same standard. A different standard, if any, is proposed instead. Buddha contrives a method to disprove competing explanations for the origin of the universe, but then when we try to hold his deduced finding -- a created universe -- to the same standard, he handwaves it away with some pseudo-philosophy mumbo jumbo he insists his critics aren't smart enough to understand. Then he says "further" proofs are necessary, tailored only to that conclusion.
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This is the most interesting post so far, so I'll take time answering it.
The remark to the math seems strange to me because I haven't used any so far.

Majority of the atheists and creationists make the same mistake -- they try to use natural sciences to prove or disprove that God exists. But these sciences were not designed for this purpose. Everything goes back to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern sciences. His was a deeply religious man. However, his religion didn't enter his scientific works, he never put forward the goal of proving that God exists. This is how the science developed afterwards. There is no God in it as it should be. The science is neither atheistic nor theistic.

Another founder of modern science was Aristotle, who is considered to be the father of modern mathematical logic. Apart from mathematics his goal was to prove that the Creator (in his view it was god Zeus) exists. Thus the logic was developed in such way that it could be used to prove or disprove the existence of the Creator.

As far as I know Buddha was the first philosopher who proved that the Creator exists (in the Buddhist texts the Creator goes under the title Adi-Buddha). Buddha's proof is based on the concept of reincarnation. To accept it you would have to accept the reincarnation (which I did).

Archbishop Berkely was a western philosopher who also proved existence of God. His proof is very complicated and not everyone would understand it. I did, and I didn't find logical mistakes it.

The other proofs that God is real failed due to logical errors, except for mine of course.

Of course people tried and will try again to use science to prove resolve this topic. But this is akin to attempts to apply quantum mechanics to social sciences because it was not designed for this purpose. All these attempts look like intellectual onanism to me.
 
Buddha said:
This is the most interesting post so far, so I'll take time answering it.
The remark to the math seems strange to me because I haven't used any so far.

Majority of the atheists and creationists make the same mistake -- they try to use natural sciences to prove or disprove that God exists. But these sciences were not designed for this purpose. Everything goes back to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern sciences. His was a deeply religious man. However, his religion didn't enter his scientific works, he never put forward the goal of proving that God exists. This is how the science developed afterwards. There is no God in it as it should be. The science is neither atheistic nor theistic.

Another founder of modern science was Aristotle, who is considered to be the father of modern mathematical logic. Apart from mathematics his goal was to prove that the Creator (in his view it was god Zeus) exists. Thus the logic was developed in such way that it could be used to prove or disprove the existence of the Creator.

As far as I know Buddha was the first philosopher who proved that the Creator exists (in the Buddhist texts the Creator goes under the title Adi-Buddha). Buddha's proof is based on the concept of reincarnation. To accept it you would have to accept the reincarnation (which I did).

Archbishop Berkely was a western philosopher who also proved existence of God. His proof is very complicated and not everyone would understand it. I did, and I didn't find logical mistakes it.

The other proofs that God is real failed due to logical errors, except for mine of course.

Of course people tried and will try again to use science to prove resolve this topic. But this is akin to attempts to apply quantum mechanics to social sciences because it was not designed for this purpose. All these attempts look like intellectual onanism to me.
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LOL. The real world doesn't apply to my "special" rules.
 
Dr.Sid said:
If the universe was created by someone, wasn't this someone simply part of the universe ? How does the idea 'universe was created by someone' solve the problem of the origin .. we still have to find out, how the 'someone' got to be. The concept is just redundant.
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One way to solve this paradox is to say that someone who created OUR universe abided in his own universe.

Another way to solve it is to say that the phrase "part of the universe" cannot be used in reference to something that didn't exist.
 
halleyscomet said:
Deism. It's called Deism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

A person claiming they can prove the universe was created by a deity, and who claims they can prove said deity is real, doesn't know what deism is.

To go back to my Star Wars analogy, this is a bit like a Real Star Wars FanTM who doesn't know who Han Solo is.



And even less comprehension.
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Thank you for reminding the name of that philosophical system. I am not a fan of it so my memory gap is understandable. There are other theist philosophical systems whose names I also forgot because they are of no interest to me. I follow the one developed by Buddha.
 
halleyscomet said:
Buddha’s own philosophy means they cannot prove to us that they are not a dog.

Let’s take three possibilities:

1. Buddha is a talking dog.

2. Buddha is a dog but they can only speak, not type.

3. Buddha is a regular dog who can neither speak nor type.

According to Buddha’s framework we can verify that #2 and #3 are false because we’ve read words that appear to have been typed. Therefore Buddha, by his own logic MUST be a dog.

Of course we cannot allow for the possibility that #2 is accurate but Buddha uses speech to text software without having observed Buddha dictating their past posts.
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You excluded all other possibilities. You should have added "Buddha is a cat" along with a few more.
 
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