D'rok
Free Barbarian on The Land
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You had a subjective, emotional experience that convinced you certain logical arguments were correct?
Proof of God
- Thread starter Dustin Kesselberg
- Start date
You had a subjective, emotional experience that convinced you certain logical arguments were correct?
I already did; belief in god or gods.
So, you've changed your mind regarding the statement "One wonders how Christians or Jews can call Islam or other religions that condone such things barbaric when it's promoted by their God himself in the Old Testament."?
Mashuna
Ovis ex Machina
I thought you were leaving?
I think his intentions are sincere, but badly misplaced.
His idea of 'proof' is all together different from what all of us classify as 'proof.'
And as long as it remains like that...this thread is a dead end.
Foster Zygote
Dental Floss Tycoon
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I only needed to get as far as the giant, thesaurus augmented run-on sentence to reach that conclusion.
Complexity
Philosopher
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I can't - this is a black hole of silliness.
As long as silly people believe in superstitious things, especially sky ghosties, my work is not yet done.
Dustin revels in his epiphanic 'proof', persuading himself though no one else. Just another fundy apologist. He's made enough false, uneducated, foolish, and objectionable remarks to warn casual visitors away.
He doesn't understand this, of course - that's part of his charm.
He's done everything but put up the 'Quarantine' sign. Future tours of young children will have him pointed out and will run, screaming, to the next exhibit.
Some of his fellow travellers will find him admirable, of course.
They are wrong.
I just wanted to say that this made me laugh out loud, seriously this was hilarious.
KingMerv00
Penultimate Amazing
ARRGH! I started to respond and hit "back" accidently. AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!
Why does the OP have to be so long? It will take forever to respond again. I'm taking a break.
Why does the OP have to be so long? It will take forever to respond again. I'm taking a break.
Marquis de Carabas
Penultimate Amazing
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andyandy
anthropomorphic ape
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God moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes he's a real bugger.
thaiboxerken
Penultimate Amazing
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It's so very long and only has maybe 3 arguments within it.
The ontological argument is outright silly. "God is positive and positive things exist, so god exists." How lame is that?
The ontological argument is outright silly. "God is positive and positive things exist, so god exists." How lame is that?
CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
I think Z gets it as well.
A friend of mine is a retired Anglican vicar, and he hates this kind of crap with a quiet fury. He understands that religion is about feelings, not dogma or lists of instructions or scientific "proofs". It's about communities, mutual concern, shared rituals that give us a sense of comfort that need not be subject to anthropological analysis. (Which is an interesting subject, but's that in the scientific realm, the realm of Logos. Religious feeling is in the realm of Mythos.)
As large and complex societies we need logos, in communities some mythos is, to my mind, a good thing. It doesn't have to be religious in the strict sense, but that's the most established variety. Good religions reflect their communities and reinforce their better aspects.
Dustin should give unto logos what belongs to logos.
(I'm drawing strongly on Karen Armstrong here, I've recently re-read The Battle For God about the nature of fundamentalism. An excellent book, of course.)
andyandy
anthropomorphic ape
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agreed - it's the whole "I've proved God" nonsense that really annoys me - that Dustin has the audacity to claim to have achieved what no one else has achieved in the history of mankind. But if someone wants to be a Christian, and doesn't try to force their beliefs onto anyone else then that's fine with me.
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CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
What journal reviewed by your peers did you get your argument published in? Your peers aren't scientists, they're Philosophers. Who have journals aplenty, and always a need for copy.
Your OP, which you apparently regard as a tautly-argued proof, contains a "Perhaps". Tautly-argued proofs lack that attribute, by definition. So you're wrong about it being tautly-argued; might you not be as wrong about it being a proof? A smidgen of doubt must surely have crept in, no?
At the very least you'll have to tighten it up to work without the "Perhaps" before you present it to serious Philosophers. They're your peers, remember. That means they're not on your side.
Z
Variable Constant
Exactly.
In my own opinion, having faith is fine - as long as the thing you have faith in hasn't been actively disproved with empirical evidence and sound reasoning. So having faith in a God is fine, but having faith that the Moon is made of Green Cheese is not fine.
But the moment someone steps forward claiming that they can PROVE an article of their faith to be TRUE - they've got a very hard uphill battle - especially if they are lacking empirical evidence and sound reasoning.
Now, even if I assume for a moment that Dusty actually has laid out sound reasoning in the OP - which every indication says he has NOT done - he still has no empirical evidence, and as a result, no proof at all.
If he had just come forward and said, "I had an epiphany, and now I believe in God", and left it at that - he'd have been fine. But he's claiming now to have PROVEN the necessary existence of God - sorry, no dice. It'll take a lot more than shoddy reasoning and misused logic to convince anyone sensible of the existence of God.
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Ditto!
As long as proof that hell doesn't exist holds up, any gods that may be out there can deal with their existence/non-existence on their own. Live and let live, I say.
CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
Better minds than Dustin's (by the evidence) have struggled with this one and not claimed success. Haven't given up, but were honest enough - respect - to go out still working on it. Logical Calculus was created by an 18thCE Anglican bishop of a mathematical bent with the express purpose of proving god. Name escapes me, I'm terrible with names. Anyhoo, he created a marvellous tool that still couldn't make what he wanted.
The problem these days is the way that so-called religion is muscling-in on territory it has no place in. The brutal - gotta love it - counter-attack by scientists is just that, a defensive reaction. And punitive. Which is good. I have a visceral reaction to invasions of my turf by barbarians. I don't just want them driven off. I want them littering the ground and hanging from trees.
Wow. That got away from me.
I'm OK with believers, some of my best friends, yada-yada, nice people with a nice religion. They enjoy it, it does them no harm, what's not to like? None of them are preachy, of course, and accept me as nice people too.
Sad, credulous fools ...
They are wrong...you are right.
Great.
Now would you kindly leave...and troll elsewhere?
Complexity
Philosopher
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I've been thinking that Dustin's efforts to enlist reason to support his religious beliefs result from his insecurity regarding those beliefs.
He also has the zealotry of a convert. He feels obligated to attempt to solidify and validate his new realm while trying to punish and obliterate his old realm.
He also has the zealotry of a convert. He feels obligated to attempt to solidify and validate his new realm while trying to punish and obliterate his old realm.