Doubting your disbelief?

[Quavergirl]

Arguments and evidence

Arguments are not evidence.

Aquinas wrote startingly long arguments in his summa theologicae. Logically consistent, thorough, detailed, and organized arguments they were. As an almost random example:

"On the contrary, the Apostle says, 'the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made' But this would not be unless the existence of God could be demonstrated through the things that are made; for the first thing we must know of anything is whether it exists.

I answer that, Demonstration can be made in two ways; One is through the cause, and is called "a priori," and this is to argue from what is prior absolutely. The other is through the effect, and is called a demonstration 'a posteriori"; this is to argue from what is prior relatively only to us. When an effect is better known to us that its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from the every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us; because since every effect..."

And so on.

Much of medieval thinking focused on the proof of what was already "known". What was known was obvious and arguments were designed to support the known revealed truth. Almost as an afterthought, a few examples from the natural world might be shown. Brilliant but deductive thinking all around. 'We know what is true, this argument proves the truth, and this example demonstrates the truth."

Inductive reasoning was quite contrary to medieval thought. The method of initial observation of the natural world, followed by the organization of these observations, thinking/reasoning about them, and then inducing conclusions about natural reality is not a method whereby medieval thinkers came to their reality.

Deductive reasoning makes it easy to look at the Grand Canyon USA and "see" the effects of an ancient mediterranean flood.

Q

 

[Apathia]

Excellent post, Q!

A belated welcome to the Forum.

 

[triadboy]

I have been reading about and thinking of numerous arguments in support of a God, specifically the God of Abraham and they simply aren't your old run of the mill easily refutable arguments and are highly sophisticated and convincing to even the most critical and prudent of people which I consider myself.

Please share some of these convincing arguments.

I can't believe you are looking at global theistic arguments for gods - and settling on the God of Abraham! He was a colossal twit! You can do better!

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Dustin, the biblical god is simply absurd. Instead of telling me to read books to find out what arguments you think might be impressive, why don't you simply post the arguments in the thread? I'm sure the fallacies will be quickly pointed out. In short, there is no valid, sound, logical argument for the existence of the biblical god.

Well I didn't start this thread for arguing atheism vs theism though. I don't want to muddy the thread with off topic material.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Arguments are not evidence.

Why?

Aquinas wrote startingly long arguments in his summa theologicae. Logically consistent, thorough, detailed, and organized arguments they were. As an almost random example:

"On the contrary, the Apostle says, 'the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made' But this would not be unless the existence of God could be demonstrated through the things that are made; for the first thing we must know of anything is whether it exists.

I answer that, Demonstration can be made in two ways; One is through the cause, and is called "a priori," and this is to argue from what is prior absolutely. The other is through the effect, and is called a demonstration 'a posteriori"; this is to argue from what is prior relatively only to us. When an effect is better known to us that its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from the every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us; because since every effect..."

How does this deductively prove God?

And so on.

Much of medieval thinking focused on the proof of what was already "known". What was known was obvious and arguments were designed to support the known revealed truth. Almost as an afterthought, a few examples from the natural world might be shown. Brilliant but deductive thinking all around. 'We know what is true, this argument proves the truth, and this example demonstrates the truth."

Inductive reasoning was quite contrary to medieval thought. The method of initial observation of the natural world, followed by the organization of these observations, thinking/reasoning about them, and then inducing conclusions about natural reality is not a method whereby medieval thinkers came to their reality.

Deductive reasoning makes it easy to look at the Grand Canyon USA and "see" the effects of an ancient mediterranean flood.

Q

However when inductive reasoning fails us we're left with pragmatism and deductive reasoning.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Arguments are not empirical evidence.

Fixed it.

It's just an expression of the anti-rationalism of science, which places heavy emphasis on empiricism. I am not criticizing science for that. After all, the project of science is to explain the world as we "perceive" it, which is an inherently empirical project. However, it is important that other realms of knowledge have different standards of knowledge. For instance, deductive and inductive arguments are the meat and potatoes of mathematics. A theorem is not considered true until it can be proven for all cases, which makes it impossible to find empirical evidence that infinitely cases are true, because the universe itself is finite. Theology may be another one these cases. What cannot be claimed however is that God/gods have been scientifically proven, since no empirical evidence of such a entity has been presented.

 

[andyandy]

snip for usual bluster.

when are you going to give this most prudent and critical evaluation of the argument for God?

 

[The Great Hairy One]

Hi Dustin,

I've been an atheist all my life, and whilst I have engaged in literally thousands of theological discussions, I have never once encountered a theist who could present evidence for the existence of their particular deity.

I've read C. S. Lewis and a host of other christian apologists, and generally their arguments can be boiled down to the very well known and very well countered "argument from incredulity", "Pascal's wager" and/or "argument from inheritance".

I've not read Spinoza, but know of his arguments, and he's not stating that a personal idea of a god exists, but that the universe itself is a form of a god. This is very, very different to the christian idea of a god.

I believe that disbelievers/unbelievers are simply missing the forest through the trees. We are examining each tiny aspect of our universe while not looking at the "big picture" to see how it all comes together in a way which contradicts our world view.

Could you explain this further? I am not fully sure what you mean here.

I have been thinking about some arguments supporting a theistic world view for a while now and there are quite a few of them which don't fit into your typical theistic arguments but are quite convincing.

I'd like to see these arguments you are talking about here. I've encountered pretty much all of the arguments theists use to support their beliefs, and generally, all of them can very quickly be discarded through logic and critical analysis. If you have something new, I'd love to hear it.

Furthermore, you really need to come up with a concise and exacting definition of what you mean when you say "god". What, exactly, does the term "god" mean to you?

Cheers,
TGHO

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

when are you going to give this most prudent and critical evaluation of the argument for God?

I don't see the point. It's not relevant to this thread.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Could you explain this further? I am not fully sure what you mean here.

Basically looking at the world from a purely positivist or empirical stance while ignoring the other logically valid world views such as pragmatism or deduction. Basically it's pretty easy to look at all of the arguments for a God if they are presented in a specific philosophical Worldview. However if another worldview is built up from equally valid axiomatic or logical consistencies then we could see new and valid arguments in support of Christian Theism.

I'd like to see these arguments you are talking about here. I've encountered pretty much all of the arguments theists use to support their beliefs, and generally, all of them can very quickly be discarded through logic and critical analysis. If you have something new, I'd love to hear it.

That's the point. What form of "logic" can you discard them with? Deductive? Mathematical? Inductive? What axiomatic postulations do you have about your world view prior to examining them?

I thought I had seem all of the arguments for Theism before I started looking at the bigger picture and stopped examining the individual trees and started to see the marvelous forest.

Furthermore, you really need to come up with a concise and exacting definition of what you mean when you say "god". What, exactly, does the term "god" mean to you?

God-[SIZE=-1]The supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions. Specifically Yahweh or [/SIZE]Eloah,[SIZE=-1] the God of Abraham described in the holy bible.[/SIZE]

 

[mijopaalmc]

God-[SIZE=-1]The supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions. Specifically Yahweh or [/SIZE]Eloah,[SIZE=-1] the God of Abraham described in the holy bible.[/SIZE]

Isn't that a bit "Eurocentric"?

 

[The Great Hairy One]

Basically looking at the world from a purely positivist or empirical stance while ignoring the other logically valid world views such as pragmatism or deduction. Basically it's pretty easy to look at all of the arguments for a God if they are presented in a specific philosophical Worldview. However if another worldview is built up from equally valid axiomatic or logical consistencies then we could see new and valid arguments in support of Christian Theism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "worldview" here. Are you talking about how we interpret reality? How we interact with it? Or rather are you talking about different theological views? Different philosophical views?

That's the point. What form of "logic" can you discard them with? Deductive? Mathematical? Inductive? What axiomatic postulations do you have about your world view prior to examining them?

The form is immaterial.

I thought I had seem all of the arguments for Theism before I started looking at the bigger picture and stopped examining the individual trees and started to see the marvelous forest.

You're going to have to present these "new" arguments here before I can discuss them.

God-[SIZE=-1]The supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religions. Specifically Yahweh or [/SIZE]Eloah,[SIZE=-1] the God of Abraham described in the holy bible.[/SIZE]

There are no arguments which can be used to prove the existence of the christian god-concept. The christian god-concept is such a contradiction in terms that it basically vanishes in a puff of logic whenever it encounters reality. It requires magic to exist, and magic does not exist in this universe.

Cheers,
TGHO

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I'm not sure what you mean by "worldview" here. Are you talking about how we interpret reality? How we interact with it? Or rather are you talking about different theological views? Different philosophical views?

Here's an example from modern popular culture:

Think of the movie The Matrix. In the movie all humans are living inside of a computer generated reality and they are unaware of it. Now think of the differences in interpretation of events that someone who is aware that they are living in a computer generated reality opposed to someone who isn't. Someone who is aware will see their world totally different. A cookie won't simply be a cookie and a oven won't simply be an oven. They see the bigger picture and as a consequence interpret evidences and proofs differently.

Now obviously this is just an example however it gives an idea of how seeing the "bigger picture" in life and not missing the forest through the trees is very important to correctly interpreting evidence.

The form is immaterial.

It's a rhetorical question.

You're going to have to present these "new" arguments here before I can discuss them.

Well we're not really discussing the arguments themselves here. I don't want to get off topic.

There are no arguments which can be used to prove the existence of the christian god-concept. The christian god-concept is such a contradiction in terms that it basically vanishes in a puff of logic whenever it encounters reality. It requires magic to exist, and magic does not exist in this universe.

I used to think that too. I used to see all of the logical inconsistencies and fallacies apparent in the monotheistic concept of God that it was laughable. The fallacies of omnipotence, omnipresence, omni-whatever. The problems with genesis, the problem of evil, the problem of the 'lack of evidence', etc.

 

[The Great Hairy One]

Here's an example from modern popular culture:

Think of the movie The Matrix. In the movie all humans are living inside of a computer generated reality and they are unaware of it. Now think of the differences in interpretation of events that someone who is aware that they are living in a computer generated reality opposed to someone who isn't. Someone who is aware will see their world totally different. A cookie won't simply be a cookie and a oven won't simply be an oven. They see the bigger picture and as a consequence interpret evidences and proofs differently.

Now obviously this is just an example however it gives an idea of how seeing the "bigger picture" in life and not missing the forest through the trees is very important to correctly interpreting evidence.

The Matrix is just an extension of Zhuangzi's philosophical discussion around a man dreaming he is a butterfly. It's further examined by Descartes in his "Meditations on First Philosophy".

What you are presenting is nothing new, it's been discussed by philosophers for thousands of years. Whilst an interesting philosophical discussion, it has no bearing on the existence or non-existence of a god like creature. The arguments for the existence of a god-creature do not change regardless of how one experiences reality, or what reality actually is.

Well we're not really discussing the arguments themselves here. I don't want to get off topic.

I think it's certainly on topic to present these arguments.

I used to think that too. I used to see all of the logical inconsistencies and fallacies apparent in the monotheistic concept of God that it was laughable. The fallacies of omnipotence, omnipresence, omni-whatever. The problems with genesis, the problem of evil, the problem of the 'lack of evidence', etc.

Well, if you don't think that any more, what arguments changed your mind?

Cheers,
TGHO

 

[nescafe]

I'm talking about Yahweh I.E. the God of Abraham here specifically. Have you read Spinoza, Kant, Aquinas or C.S. Lewis and their arguments in support of a God? I have been reading about and thinking of numerous arguments in support of a God, specifically the God of Abraham and they simply aren't your old run of the mill easily refutable arguments and are highly sophisticated and convincing to even the most critical and prudent of people which I consider myself. Have you actually read these philosophers and their actual books?

I wouldn't really consider Aquinas or C.S Lewis to be philosophers.

Aquinas was a decent theologian, but his "proofs" of the existence of god are absurd on several levels.

C.S Lewis was your basic academic Christian apologist. Most of his works are of the "preaching to the choir" sort.

Kant is quite interesting -- I have not had much opportunity to really get in to his works, but i would expect his views on theology to be about as relevant as Issac Newton's.

If you think that Spinoza's conception of god is anything like that overblown tribal diety we know as YHVH, you are going to be sorely disappointed. You do know that he was declared herem by the Jewish authorities in Amsterdam over 400 years ago, and that declaration is still in place, right?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

The Matrix is just an extension of Zhuangzi's philosophical discussion around a man dreaming he is a butterfly. It's further examined by Descartes in his "Meditations on First Philosophy".

Oh, I'm very familiar with Descartes.

What you are presenting is nothing new, it's been discussed by philosophers for thousands of years. Whilst an interesting philosophical discussion, it has no bearing on the existence or non-existence of a god like creature. The arguments for the existence of a god-creature do not change regardless of how one experiences reality, or what reality actually is.

On the contrary, Perhaps in our not looking outside of the box, of not seeing the forest through the trees, we could not possibly come to the conclusion that a God exists simply due to our limited perspectives. As I pointed out, someone who is aware of "The Matrix" will interpret proofs and evidences totally different from someone unaware.

I think it's certainly on topic to present these arguments.

I disagree. I don't even feel like getting into a debate about them anyway.

Well, if you don't think that any more, what arguments changed your mind?

I've never really been a very articulate person and I doubt I could even put some of the logical arguments into words though some people have come very close. However I would like this topic to stay on the course of doubting world views and not into detail about why.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I wouldn't really consider Aquinas or C.S Lewis to be philosophers.

It's all about semantics.

Aquinas was a decent theologian, but his "proofs" of the existence of god are absurd on several levels.

I agree.

C.S Lewis was your basic academic Christian apologist. Most of his works are of the "preaching to the choir" sort.

But still very fascinating.

Kant is quite interesting -- I have not had much opportunity to really get in to his works, but i would expect his views on theology to be about as relevant as Issac Newton's.

Hardly, Issac Newton wasn't a vivid philosopher.

If you think that Spinoza's conception of god is anything like that overblown tribal diety we know as YHVH, you are going to be sorely disappointed. You do know that he was declared herem by the Jewish authorities in Amsterdam over 400 years ago, and that declaration is still in place, right?

Do Jews still do that? I have now a new life's goal!

 

[The Great Hairy One]

On the contrary, Perhaps in our not looking outside of the box, of not seeing the forest through the trees, we could not possibly come to the conclusion that a God exists simply due to our limited perspectives. As I pointed out, someone who is aware of "The Matrix" will interpret proofs and evidences totally different from someone unaware.

Why would they? How would the theological arguments differ?

I disagree. I don't even feel like getting into a debate about them anyway.

I don't see how the discussion here will go much farther then. You'll have to present these arguments at some point.

I've never really been a very articulate person and I doubt I could even put some of the logical arguments into words though some people have come very close. However I would like this topic to stay on the course of doubting world views and not into detail about why.

We're very quickly coming to an impasse then.

Cheers,
TGHO

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Why would they? How would the theological arguments differ?

It depends totally on which specific theological argument you're referring to.

I don't see how the discussion here will go much farther then. You'll have to present these arguments at some point.

I'll have to?

We're very quickly coming to an impasse then.

Possibly so. Let's get back to the original topic.

 

[The Great Hairy One]

It depends totally on which specific theological argument you're referring to.

Give some examples then.

I'll have to?

I think at some point those new arguments will have to be added to this discussion, yes.

Possibly so. Let's get back to the original topic.

We've not left the original topic as yet. You're claiming that an altered view of reality changes the theological arguments proving the existence of the christian god-concept. You're going to have to provide some concrete examples at some point.

Cheers,
TGHO