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doomhammer
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God is mercy and justice. Some people like to forget the latter. To go to heaven you must desire heaven. Someone who does not desire God can not be saved. Nobody is saved against his own will.
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doomhammer
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Wrong. Reason and Faith do not collide. Both come from God. Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith (1870): “The same Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the source and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason: ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.”
It is clear: God’s existence can be known by human reason. You have Aristotle there. But, you can not reach by reason alone the mysteries of faith. And you have Tertullian there. And you have St. Paul there: “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” But, as Atheists are by definition blind, they see nothing. St. Paul 1 Cor. 1, 25: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
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LatinCat
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That would be pretty much correct. I have never seen an argument for atheism that is rational. Every argument that I have seen for atheism is usually based on some emotional appeal, and not on rational analysis or valid deductive reasoning.Yes… are you implying that you’ve never come across any reasonable argument for atheism? ()
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EnterTheBowser
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Ever heard of the argument from physical minds?
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LatinCat
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A fellow Mathematician. How Fun! The problem with using empirical datat to “prove” truth is the problem of induction. In science, we begin with specific events and devlope universal rules/laws from those specific events or experiments. Thus we reason from the specific to the universal. The problem with such reasoning will become very clear: Let us say there is a man and he sees a flock of white ducks. It is the only flock of ducks he ever sees. The next day he sees another flock of white ducks. This happens several times a year for this man. He has the same repeated experience. So naturally, he assumes that all ducks are white. You see, through induction he has reasoned that because of his specific experience, the universal law/reality must be that all ducks are white. However, this is wrong. His induction has lead him astray. So, in sense, induction is really one big logical fallacy. Deduction, on the other hand is not prone to this problem because in deductive logic we argue from the universal to the specific. For example, the universal law is that all men are mortal. I am a man. My specific conclusion is that I am then mortal. Good reasoning. Now I do not suggest that we pick or premises to begin our arguments out thing air. That would be nothing more than axiomatic reasoning. But I suggest that we begin the reasoning process with INESCAPABLE premises. For example: The law of noncontradiction. It is impossible to escape such a premise: Something cannot be A and not A at the same time and in the same relationshiop. Even a denial of the law of non-contradiction affirms the law of non-contradiction. If I say that the law of non-contradiction is invalid, I exclude the law non-contradiciton from being valid. But if contradictions can be true, and the law of non-contradiction is false, then it is also true, because the contradictory statement: the law of non-contradiciton is invalid and valdid must also be true. Thus the law of non-contradiction is true. But wait, didn’t we say it was false. But being false, it is true. Hmmmmm. The law of non-contradiction is an inescapable premise. If you affirm it or deny it you end up affirming it. So it is an inescapable premise that is a good place to start the reasoning process from.I am not sure what you mean, and want to avoid another mistake of rendering premature judgment.
Formal logic is also unable to find absolute truths. The syllogisms you speak about are also of the form "If ‘a’ is true and ‘b’ is true then ‘c’ is true, or a variant thereof (there are many). We can arrive at formally true statements which are not true in the empirical sense. Formal logic is just a great tool to arrive syntactically true statements, without being concerned whether those statements are also semantically correct.
In the real world only empirical proof counts, and precisely that kind of proofs are missing. The point I am making still holds: why does God take away free will when we shall have empirical proof of his existence?
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LatinCat
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please do share. that would be fasinating.
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EnterTheBowser
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It’s an inductive argument; if, as your last post indicates, you’re an inductive skeptic, I doubt it will convince you.
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LatinCat
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I would like to retract something. I shouldn’t have said that empericism is completely invalid. Emperical data can be very helpful. However, it simply does not prove truth. It only gives evidence of ideas, where as deductive reasoning is much better determiner of trurth than inductive.
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LatinCat
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Read my new post. I would like to be a bit easier on induction than I was before, while still maintianing a bit of sketicism about the inductive process. So please do share.
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EnterTheBowser
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“Since all known mental activity has a physical basis, there are probably no disembodied minds. But God is conceived of as a disembodied mind. Therefore, God probably does not exist.”
It’s a stronger argument if one is a materialist regarding the mental, as I am, but it works for dualists as well. There’s a lot more information on the argument here. but I don’t mean to just post a link; I’ll debate it here.
It’s a stronger argument if one is a materialist regarding the mental, as I am, but it works for dualists as well. There’s a lot more information on the argument here. but I don’t mean to just post a link; I’ll debate it here.
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john_doran
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EnterTheBowser said:
since all pains perceived by me occur in my body, all pain is probably such that it is experienced by me.
since all mental activity experienced by me occurs in my mind, probably there are no minds other than mine.
and so on…
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LatinCat
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EnterTheBowser said:
I think its a pretty week argument. We do not know that all mental activity has a physical basis. All we know is that all mental activity has physical actions related to them, but that does not show that those mental activities are based on those physical actions. You are making the error or uncertain causality coming from correlational data. So your premise is invalid. Next, even if all know mental activity did have a physical basis, which you have still not shown, that does not mean that there are not unkown mental activities without a physical basis, as in the case of God. This argument that you present, although interesting to think about, is weak at best. However, thank you for being kind enough to share it with us.
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Philthy
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My take is that** you couldn’t handle the heat on our last free will thread** so you abandoned it and created another one to divert everyones attention! :tsktsk:
Your logic was flawed on that thread and I expect more of the same.
In fact, you demonstrated an inability to comprehend the difference betweed free will and knowledge - has your understanding grown at all? Do you yet understand why your “Grandfather paradox” is irrelevent to the discussion of free will?
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doomhammer
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with this kind of arguments it is easy to understand “the Decline of the West”…
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Philthy
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EnterTheBowser said:
As a theist, I find it comforting to know that you consider this a strong argument for atheism. It seems desperate, at best, to me.
And I did check out the link. The first argument they offered actually seems stronger, but it also neglects one possibility which renders it useless: human thought being a composite of the brain and soul. Elimination of either could render thought impossible, and that limits the argument considerably.
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LatinCat
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The link provided by our materialist friend provides the following arguement:
“If a nonphysical mind (rather than the brain) does our thinking, then altering the brain (say by lobotomy) should have no effect on one’s ability to think. But, in fact, altering the brain does (often dramatically) affect one’s ability to think. Therefore, thinking is probably not something done by a nonphysical mind, but rather something that the brain does. And since the brain is destroyed by death, thinking–or one’s mind as a whole–is probably destroyed by death too.”
I would like to start out by laughing.
. My goodness, if this is the best that aethism has to offer, then Theism has no need to fear. You see the physical brain is the medium through wich the mind affects the body. We can think of the mind as a driver and the brain as a car. If a car is altered in certain ways it can improve the drivers ability to control the car. If the car is altered in other ways in can have a dibilitating effect on how the drive can control the car. The same is true of our minds and brains. If the brain is normal and healthy, it is very easy for the mind to use to brain to produce normal and healthy physical behaviors. If the brain is damaged in some way it may make it more difficult for the mind to use that damaged brain as a means of producing healthy or normal behaviours. Thus, your so called “proof” for aethism falls flat on its face. Lobatomy need not prove materialism. It just illustrates that to produce normal and healthy physical behaviors, the mind needs a prooperly functioning tool.
“If a nonphysical mind (rather than the brain) does our thinking, then altering the brain (say by lobotomy) should have no effect on one’s ability to think. But, in fact, altering the brain does (often dramatically) affect one’s ability to think. Therefore, thinking is probably not something done by a nonphysical mind, but rather something that the brain does. And since the brain is destroyed by death, thinking–or one’s mind as a whole–is probably destroyed by death too.”
I would like to start out by laughing.
. My goodness, if this is the best that aethism has to offer, then Theism has no need to fear. You see the physical brain is the medium through wich the mind affects the body. We can think of the mind as a driver and the brain as a car. If a car is altered in certain ways it can improve the drivers ability to control the car. If the car is altered in other ways in can have a dibilitating effect on how the drive can control the car. The same is true of our minds and brains. If the brain is normal and healthy, it is very easy for the mind to use to brain to produce normal and healthy physical behaviors. If the brain is damaged in some way it may make it more difficult for the mind to use that damaged brain as a means of producing healthy or normal behaviours. Thus, your so called “proof” for aethism falls flat on its face. Lobatomy need not prove materialism. It just illustrates that to produce normal and healthy physical behaviors, the mind needs a prooperly functioning tool.
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LatinCat
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john doran:
VERY good points
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doomhammer
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This is the only ”free will” man has: to be what he wants to be. Can be an atheist or can be a believer. Can deny Christ or can accept Christ. Can live in vain or can live for God. Can worship himself or can worship the true God. Can follow his own will or can follow the Truth. Choices, consequences. Simple like that. Like Adam, hear God or hear the serpent, so us. Choices, consequences.
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BillP
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This is exactly the OP’s point. He freely acknowledges this. He also accepts the truth of this:
His question is WHY should it be so?
Why does an “infinitly merciful” God choose such a system?
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john_doran
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because he’s also (infinitely) respectful of the freedom of his creatures: as merciful as he is, he won’t offer it where it’s not wanted, and if you die without sanctifying grace, you don’t want anything to do with god. so god lets you walk away.
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