possible
dict
I'm using 2. Most people hold logic above all things--I'm one of those people. In general, almost everything that is logically possible, I would hold to be possible.
Almost everything? Can you give an example of a logically possible impossible thing? Anyone, if you're using (2), there's no problem. God "may be true" or "may be the case", as we have no evidence to the contrary.
probable
dict
I'm using 3, "affording ground for belief."
This is not as clear as Merriam. What do they mean "ground for belief"? That there is just enough evidence to make something believable? Merriam has a better definition of probable: "supported by evidence strong enough to establish presumption but not proof".
That latter definition goes to the heart of claim of whether belief in God is rational or irrational. Going by this definition, it's going to depend on the person whether the subjective spiritual experiences people have are evidence for God or just delusions. You can rationally go either way on it.
For the FT argument, we have God is
possible, God may or may not be though of as
probable. To avoid bias, an agnostic value should be used.
plausible
dict
I'm using 1, "having an appearance of truth or reason; ... credible; believable". I'm not sure your definition is standard--it sounds more like possible definition 2.
Again, this will depend on the person. For me, God is credible and believable. If someone thinks God is unbelievable, they should either have evidence or a good reason to support their view.
Reflected in my contention that God is possible. It's a mistake, however, to assume that when I contend something is possible, you have your foot in the door
. That doesn't happen until you get to probable.
And whether we're at probable or not will depend on the metaphysical views of whatever person you're asking. You can't prove an idealist or materialist wrong, and one is likely to think God is very probable while the other will think God is very improbable.
I don't quite contend this, but I don't take the other position either. It's almost cheating. When using the term "god" as a name, you're referring to a specific monotheistic entity.
Generally, but not necessarily.
In general, any god that is the singular theistic entity that exists would meaningfully be able to be referred to by name as God in my book, and there's no evidence that such entities do not exist.
Again, this goes back to the claim I made earlier: A supporter of a multiverse theory certainly doesn't have to provide a specific defintion of the universes they believe in. A supporter of E.T. life doesn't have to describe the aliens which they believe exist. I'm fine with God as supernatural being(s). Some people would go further: God as very powerful supernatural being, just as a supporter of E.T. life may go further by claiming aliens are carbon-based life-forms (in fact, I bet many supporters of E.T. life would claim just this thing: if they think alien life may not be carbon-based, not only are they in the realm of pure speculation, they're going against all known biological evidence).
However, until you tell me more about which of these hypothetical entities you are referring to by name, I can't say for sure whether or not I agree there's no evidence against his existence.
Then just go with God as powerful supernatural being. There is no evidence against that, just as there is no evidence against the claim carbon-based E.T. life exists (as opposed to E.T. life exists).
Evidence can't be post hoc. A hypothesis or theory about the evidence can be post hoc (which I think is what you're trying to say). My claim is that certain subjective experiences are evidence for God. These experiences themselves can't be post hoc, because that would mean they happened after they happened.
Post hoc itself simply means "after the event". Every prosecutor in the world tries to convict with
post hoc theories. What, you think people are arrested
before they commit crimes? A crime is comitted, a theory is developed that best explains the evidence. In the same way, a person has an experience that they believe is best explained by God.
Ah, you lucky devil. You happened to have stumbled on the only thing I've heard to date that I even give the slightest credence to for theists. I must point out exactly why... this actually stems from an a posteriori observation--a legitimate, ontological entity's existence is being used to support the existence of a deity rather than a mere a priori assertion. Given all of the other apologetics that I've been exposed to over the years, this particular argument stands far above the rest--which merely sound like pure sophistry.
Stumbled? Hypnosi and I must have used this dozens of times in another thread about why idealism is more parsimonious than materialism: God is an extrapolation from what we know exists (mind). Matter can't even be called an extrapolation. There is zero evidence that external objects made of some physical substance exist. There is sense data, but that sense data is consistent with non-materialistic models of reality, and therefore, can't be considered to be evidence for the existence of physical objects. Anyway, that is the gist of the argument Hypnosi and I were making.
The only issue with it, however, is that it requires a bit too big of a leap of extrapolation--it's not merely a matter of scale that makes us different than God, it's a matter of fundamental character. God's transcendent--we work using brains. God creates universes ex nihilo... we only transform matter from one form to another.
I started off agreeing with you, but now I'm not so sure. Suppose we think other universes actually exist (a rational belief). Do we know anything at all about these universes? We don't even know what kinds of physical laws they have. Is it possible there's a force we can't even conceive that exists in these other universes? Is it possible that some don't have gravity at all?
But let's assume that God requires a greater degree of extrapolation. "God exists", as a theory, has an advantage over "E.T. life exists". "God exists" has greater explanatory power than "aliens exist". "Aliens exist" explains nothing because there is no evidence to be explained. "God exists" explains a number of interesting phenemena:
Veridical NDE accounts
Subjective spiritual experiences
Anecdotal supernatural experiences
Children's accounts of living past lives
(I would normally include the precise life-permitting values of the physical constants, but that is the argument in question, so it's off limits for now).
I'm not claiming that "God exists" explains these completely, or is the only theory on the table, but it
is a competing theory to the naturalistic accounts. "Aliens exist" is pure spculation which explains nothing. Yet the belief in alien life is rational, but the belief in God is irrational?
Not impossible, but definitely implausible. God, recall, is of an entirely different class of entities than us. "Intelligent life" is pretty much a description of the class of entity we are. The two aren't the same... in fact, put it this way. "God" is intelligent, right? And alive too? We could realistically grant him extra-terrestrial status since he doesn't originate from our planet as well.
So essentially, you're comparing extra terrestrial intelligent life, with extra terrestrial intelligent life that is transcendent, that can create universes ex nihilo, etc. Comparing the two is something like a conjunction fallacy on steroids.
Except that one theory has no explanatory power and the other theory does. The point here is that God is possible and logically coherent, there is evidence for God, and God explains certain phenemona that science has a hard time with. Unless you have a very good reason, or compelling evidence, there is no reason to assign Pr("God exists") an arbitrarily low value. That would just reveal an atheistic bias.
