God and an invisible friend

[Eucharisted]

I remember back in math class, my professor would teach us about philosophy. So one day he asked a really good question about God, and I wasn’t able to come up with an answer for it. The question was, “You think God is the cause of everything that happens in the Universe, but how do you know He isn’t just being used to explain the unexplinable?” He continued: “Let’s say a boy claims he has an invisible friend, and he says he is real because he closes doors, makes dishes fall in the sink, and other such random activities. How could you explain that this invisible friend isn’t real?” It’s meant to be a trick question, but I think I stumbled upon the answers to both questions while pondering them today.

To answer the second question: I could use logic and science to explain the random phenomenoms. For example, a wind might close the door, the dishes might be unevenly stacked, the forces of gravity and friction could be in play. Granted, the boy might not be old enough to understand science, so, I could use demonstrations to prove my point. Even still, this might not be convincing, so I could ask him to make his friend do something that would prove he exists, for example, lift an object or some such superhuman activity. If such an activity did occur, than it would be a matter of figuring who and what the friend is, and this would have no bearing on whether or not the friend actually exists. However, this is unlikely to occur, and in the likehood that it dosen’t, the various proofs - science, demonstration, self-evidence - would suffice to prove that the individual friend dosen’t exist outside the mind. Of course, even a stubborn heart can refuse proof, though this would have no bearing on the proof being sufficent.

To answer the first question: The first thing to understand is, God is not like an invisible friend: He isn’t a being that interacts with our world as a part of our world. Rather, He is super-natural and He uses secondary causes: For example, wheat is used to feed a man, earth is used as man’s home, and clothing is used to protect against weather and to express oneself. Because He uses secondary causes, He provides what is necessary for man, and because all these things are from Him and their existence sustained by Him, He is the Cause of them. Moreover, because He uses secondary causes, Christians call miracles “divine interventions”, because it is a case of God directly interviening in history as opposed to permitting - say - the body to heal by itself or the bread to become mold or so on. Furthermore, if God was simply a spirit and not a perfect spiritual being, than He would not be supernatural at all, and thus, could not be called God. Now, as to how God is known to exist, the above proofs can be used to explain Him. Science demonstrates that an infinite and incomprehensive something is the cause of the Universe; this matches up with God, save for a few attributes, which will bring us to the third proof. Demonstration would be along the lines of scientific experiments, observations, and thinking, which would show that only something infinite and incomprehensive could have started the Universe. Because this something is infinite and incomprehsive, that means two things: A finite being like man could never fully understand what it is, although he could know to an extent, and, man could never find out what it is on his own, although he could know it exists using reason. Thus, we come to self-evidence: Revelation and miracles. The former would be the something revealing itself to man, in as far as man can understand, and in a gradual manner, developing the understanding of itself to man, to the point where man would understand the thing in as far as he possibly could: This would be an example of God revealing Himself to man, gradually through history, culminating in the revelation of the inner life of God: The Holy Trinity (obviously some objections will be raised, such as the reliability of the Bible and the historicity of Jesus). The latter would be events which science cannot explain - instant healings, mutliplication of food, fire coming down from the sky, etc. - and thus would be scientifically inexplainable but theologically understood to be from God (obviously, objections will be raised, such as how Christianity is superior to other religions and the knowledge of the truth). Taken individually, each of these proofs would mount to nothing, but, taken altogether, the proofs would mount to evidence of God’s existene - like a picture: Each dot and line is nothing at all, but when you look at the whole image, you see it for what it is. Of course, just like a picture, it must make sense in order to be serious: You can’t draw a triangle and call it a square.

Feel free to contrique and discuss.

 

[wanstronian]

I remember back in math class, my professor would teach us about philosophy. So one day he asked a really good question about God, and I wasn’t able to come up with an answer for it. The question was, “You think God is the cause of everything that happens in the Universe, but how do you know He isn’t just being used to explain the unexplinable?” He continued: “Let’s say a boy claims he has an invisible friend, and he says he is real because he closes doors, makes dishes fall in the sink, and other such random activities. How could you explain that this invisible friend isn’t real?” It’s meant to be a trick question, but I think I stumbled upon the answers to both questions while pondering them today.

To answer the second question: I could use logic and science to explain the random phenomenoms. For example, a wind might close the door, the dishes might be unevenly stacked, the forces of gravity and friction could be in play. Granted, the boy might not be old enough to understand science, so, I could use demonstrations to prove my point. Even still, this might not be convincing, so I could ask him to make his friend do something that would prove he exists, for example, lift an object or some such superhuman activity. If such an activity did occur, than it would be a matter of figuring who and what the friend is, and this would have no bearing on whether or not the friend actually exists. However, this is unlikely to occur, and in the likehood that it dosen’t, the various proofs - science, demonstration, self-evidence - would suffice to prove that the individual friend dosen’t exist outside the mind. Of course, even a stubborn heart can refuse proof, though this would have no bearing on the proof being sufficent.

To answer the first question: The first thing to understand is, God is not like an invisible friend: He isn’t a being that interacts with our world as a part of our world.

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

Rather, He is super-natural and He uses secondary causes

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

: For example, wheat is used to feed a man, earth is used as man’s home, and clothing is used to protect against weather and to express oneself. Because He uses secondary causes

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

, He provides what is necessary for man

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

, and because all these things are from Him and their existence sustained by Him

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

, He is the Cause of them

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

. Moreover, because He uses secondary causes, Christians call miracles “divine interventions”, because it is a case of God directly interviening in history as opposed to permitting - say - the body to heal by itself or the bread to become mold or so on.

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

Furthermore, if God was simply a spirit and not a perfect spiritual being, than He would not be supernatural at all, and thus, could not be called God.

Assertion - where’s your evidence?

Now, as to how God is known to exist, the above proofs can be used to explain Him.

What proofs? All you’ve provided is assertions based on your personal view of what God is.

Science demonstrates that an infinite and incomprehensive something is the cause of the Universe

Does it? What’s your reference?

; this matches up with God, save for a few attributes, which will bring us to the third proof. Demonstration would be along the lines of scientific experiments, observations, and thinking, which would show that only something infinite and incomprehensive could have started the Universe.

Again, I’d like to see your source for this assertion.

Because this something is infinite and incomprehsive, that means two things: A finite being like man could never fully understand what it is, although he could know to an extent, and, man could never find out what it is on his own, although he could know it exists using reason.

No - he might be able to speculate, but he can’t know. Furthermore, you can’t reason without reasons.

Thus, we come to self-evidence: Revelation and miracles. The former would be the something revealing itself to man, in as far as man can understand, and in a gradual manner, developing the understanding of itself to man, to the point where man would understand the thing in as far as he possibly could: This would be an example of God revealing Himself to man, gradually through history, culminating in the revelation of the inner life of God: The Holy Trinity (obviously some objections will be raised, such as the reliability of the Bible and the historicity of Jesus).

Mass (by which I mean world-wide, multi-cultural) revelation would certainly be a clincher, but it would have to be a bit more specific than what you allude to, which seems to be, “humans learning more about some aspec of their environment.”.

The latter would be events which science cannot explain - instant healings, mutliplication of food, fire coming down from the sky, etc. - and thus would be scientifically inexplainable but theologically understood to be from God (obviously, objections will be raised, such as how Christianity is superior to other religions and the knowledge of the truth).

“…scientifically inexplainable but theologically understood to be from God…” Isn’t this just another example of “God of the gaps?” How does that count as evidence? Science doesn’t have an explanation, therefore it MUST be God!

Taken individually, each of these proofs would mount to nothing,

You got that right!

but, taken altogether, the proofs would mount to evidence of God’s existene

If any of them were proof at all, but they’re not.

• like a picture: Each dot and line is nothing at all, but when you look at the whole image, you see it for what it is. Of course, just like a picture, it must make sense in order to be serious: You can’t draw a triangle and call it a square.

Feel free to contrique and discuss.

There’s not much point is there? You have expressed your views and apparently don’t even recognise how baseless they are!

 

[Eucharisted]

Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?Assertion - where’s your evidence?What proofs? All you’ve provided is assertions based on your personal view of what God is. Does it? What’s your reference? Again, I’d like to see your source for this assertion. No - he might be able to speculate, but he can’t know. Furthermore, you can’t reason without reasons.Mass (by which I mean world-wide, multi-cultural) revelation would certainly be a clincher, but it would have to be a bit more specific than what you allude to, which seems to be, “humans learning more about some aspec of their environment.”."…scientifically inexplainable but theologically understood to be from God…" Isn’t this just another example of “God of the gaps?” How does that count as evidence? Science doesn’t have an explanation, therefore it MUST be God!You got that right!If any of them were proof at all, but they’re not.
There’s not much point is there? You have expressed your views and apparently don’t even recognise how baseless they are!

You want evidence? You got it!

vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

Start reading.

 

[Touchstone]

I remember back in math class, my professor would teach us about philosophy. So one day he asked a really good question about God, and I wasn’t able to come up with an answer for it. The question was, “You think God is the cause of everything that happens in the Universe, but how do you know He isn’t just being used to explain the unexplinable?” He continued: “Let’s say a boy claims he has an invisible friend, and he says he is real because he closes doors, makes dishes fall in the sink, and other such random activities. How could you explain that this invisible friend isn’t real?” It’s meant to be a trick question, but I think I stumbled upon the answers to both questions while pondering them today.

I don’t see the trick in the question. I think it’s a straightforward appeal to the problem of falsification in some beliefs. An “imaginary friend” is an unfalsifiable idea, much like God is. You can explain how the wind is actually a parsimonious explanation for how the door “closed by itelf”, but removing that circumstance from the “evidence for Chuck, my invisible friend” doesn’t falsify Chuck. Chuck still “exists” in all sorts of other unexplained/imagined happenings, and unless you can explain everything that happens, Chuck will be “alive and well”. Just like God.

To answer the second question: I could use logic and science to explain the random phenomenoms. For example, a wind might close the door, the dishes might be unevenly stacked, the forces of gravity and friction could be in play. Granted, the boy might not be old enough to understand science, so, I could use demonstrations to prove my point. Even still, this might not be convincing, so I could ask him to make his friend do something that would prove he exists, for example, lift an object or some such superhuman activity. If such an activity did occur, than it would be a matter of figuring who and what the friend is, and this would have no bearing on whether or not the friend actually exists. However, this is unlikely to occur, and in the likehood that it dosen’t, the various proofs - science, demonstration, self-evidence - would suffice to prove that the individual friend dosen’t exist outside the mind. Of course, even a stubborn heart can refuse proof, though this would have no bearing on the proof being sufficent.

This is an excellent statement of the principles that get applied to produce atheist conclusions. God, as imaginary friend, is unwilling or unlikely to demonstrate his own existence. Absent that, the parsimonious explanation is that God does not exist outside of the imagination.

To answer the first question: The first thing to understand is, God is not like an invisible friend: He isn’t a being that interacts with our world as a part of our world.

He doesn’t perform miracles, then?

Rather, He is super-natural and He uses secondary causes: For example, wheat is used to feed a man, earth is used as man’s home, and clothing is used to protect against weather and to express oneself. Because He uses secondary causes, He provides what is necessary for man, and because all these things are from Him and their existence sustained by Him, He is the Cause of them.

Well, here is where falsification becomes a problem for Christianity just like it is for Chuck, the imaginary friend. How would we discover such an idea you have here to be false, if it were false. If there were no God, and the food, materials and weather around us in nature are emergent properties of an impersonal universe, what would be different? What would a godless universe with all these things look like that is different that what we see now?

This maps to asking your friend:* if this invisible friend wasn’t real, but only imaginary, how would we know? What would the world look like if Chuck was just imaginary that is different than it looks right now?ˆ

*No matter how many “wind closing the door” demonstrations you do, there will always be phenomena around without ready explanation, leaving the door wide open for belief in Chuck.

Moreover, because He uses secondary causes, Christians call miracles “divine interventions”, because it is a case of God directly interviening in history as opposed to permitting - say - the body to heal by itself or the bread to become mold or so on.

In any case, a miracle seems tightly analogous to Invisible Chuck closing the door for us. That would be a miracle, too, no?

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Furthermore, if God was simply a spirit and not a perfect spiritual being, than He would not be supernatural at all, and thus, could not be called God.

Why would that be the case? Is a demon “supernatural at all”?

Now, as to how God is known to exist, the above proofs can be used to explain Him. Science demonstrates that an infinite and incomprehensive something is the cause of the Universe; this matches up with God, save for a few attributes, which will bring us to the third proof.

“Save for a few attributes”? Like being “personal”? That seems a pretty major gratuitous attribute to slip in there, if so. Science presents evidence that supports STEM, but it conspicuously fails to support anything personal there, or “omnimax” attrinbutes.

Demonstration would be along the lines of scientific experiments, observations, and thinking, which would show that only something infinite and incomprehensive could have started the Universe. Because this something is infinite and incomprehsive, that means two things: A finite being like man could never fully understand what it is, although he could know to an extent, and, man could never find out what it is on his own, although he could know it exists using reason. Thus, we come to self-evidence: Revelation and miracles.

Self-evidence? Neither of those are self-evident. Or more precisely, both of those are indistiguishable from fanciful imaginations. A “revelation” is no more self-evident than Invisible Chuck whispering some advise in your ear. If that counts as “self-evident” in an existential sense, Invisible Chuck is as real as God. Which, I think, is the case.

The former would be the something revealing itself to man, in as far as man can understand, and in a gradual manner, developing the understanding of itself to man, to the point where man would understand the thing in as far as he possibly could: This would be an example of God revealing Himself to man, gradually through history, culminating in the revelation of the inner life of God: The Holy Trinity (obviously some objections will be raised, such as the reliability of the Bible and the historicity of Jesus).

This sounds just like Invisible Chuck, revealing himself bit by bit to the child, through closed doors, dropped dishes, whispered bits of advice out of nowhere, an “alert” that notifies the kid of impending danger before he really should have had reason to suspect danger…

I know your goal is to distinguish God from Invisible Chuck, but here again, the experience of Chuck has clear parallels in terms of revelation.

The latter would be events which science cannot explain - instant healings, mutliplication of food, fire coming down from the sky, etc. - and thus would be scientifically inexplainable but theologically understood to be from God (obviously, objections will be raised, such as how Christianity is superior to other religions and the knowledge of the truth). Taken individually, each of these proofs would mount to nothing, but, taken altogether, the proofs would mount to evidence of God’s existene - like a picture: Each dot and line is nothing at all, but when you look at the whole image, you see it for what it is. Of course, just like a picture, it must make sense in order to be serious: You can’t draw a triangle and call it a square.

Feel free to contrique and discuss.

I think if we accept what you say here, we are similarly obligated to assent to the reality of Chuck’s existence.

-TS

 

[wanstronian]

You want evidence? You got it!

vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

Start reading.

Well, if it’s written in the CCC, I must be wrong and God undoubtedly exists.

 

[Eucharisted]

Well, if it’s written in the CCC, I must be wrong and God undoubtedly exists.

Nah, I just gave a quick reply because you kept asking for the same thing (evidence). So I gave you a good starting point. Be sure to check out the references in the Catechism, because that will help you better understand the Catechism.

runs off flailing his arms everywhere Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

 

[Eucharisted]

Why would that be the case? Is a demon “supernatural at all”?

No, angels and demons aren’t supernatural. They are natural. But they are higher than man, so some people call them “preternatural”.

 

[Touchstone]

No, angels and demons aren’t supernatural. They are natural. But they are higher than man, so some people call them “preternatural”.

Hmmm. Doesn’t the CCC say this at 1.2.1.5?:

“328 The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls “angels” is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.”

(emphasis mine)

If angels, fallen or no, are “spiritual, non-corporeal beings”, that seems quite supernatural. Just to check, I check with Webster on the defintion of “supernatural” to make sure I wasn’t confused:

1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

(emphasis mine)

It looks like I’m not confused, and that a demon would qualify under that definition – it’s right there in the definition (“spirit, or devil”).

-TS

 

[jmcrae]

I remember back in math class, my professor would teach us about philosophy. So one day he asked a really good question about God, and I wasn’t able to come up with an answer for it. The question was, “You think God is the cause of everything that happens in the Universe, but how do you know He isn’t just being used to explain the unexplinable?” He continued: “Let’s say a boy claims he has an invisible friend, and he says he is real because he closes doors, makes dishes fall in the sink, and other such random activities. How could you explain that this invisible friend isn’t real?” It’s meant to be a trick question, but I think I stumbled upon the answers to both questions while pondering them today.

I taught a session on this very subject in Youth Group one time - I have no idea where I got the lesson plan from, but anyway, the short definition is, an imaginary friend is a friend you have who is exactly how you think he is - that you can make stuff up about, and it’s true about him. An imaginary friend lives in our imagination, and we can make him be whoever we want him to be.

God, by contrast, is someone external to ourselves, who we learn about, and who remains who He is, no matter what we say about Him.

As an added twist, I said, “What about Christians who say things about God that aren’t really true, because they want those things to be true about God? Does that person actually believe in God, or does that person just have an imaginary friend named God?”

The kids got it, I think.

 

[Eucharisted]

Hmmm. Doesn’t the CCC say this at 1.2.1.5?:

(emphasis mine)

If angels, fallen or no, are “spiritual, non-corporeal beings”, that seems quite supernatural. Just to check, I check with Webster on the defintion of “supernatural” to make sure I wasn’t confused:

(emphasis mine)

It looks like I’m not confused, and that a demon would qualify under that definition – it’s right there in the definition (“spirit, or devil”).

-TS

Dictionaries are great sources of information, but they do not give exact definitions. For example, using the same dictionary, here is the definition of Jesus:

Main Entry: Je·sus
Pronunciation: \ˈjē-zəs, -zəz also -ˌzəs and -ˌzəz
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin, from Greek Iēsous, from Hebrew Yēshūaʽ
Date: before 12th century
1 : the Jewish religious teacher whose life, death, and resurrection as reported by the Evangelists are the basis of the Christian message of salvation —called also Jesus Christ
2 Christian Science : the highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man’s immortality

Now obviously this definition is someone’s opinion, because, Jesus is both God and Man. The interesting thing about the definition above is that it attempts to be political correct; by saying Jesus is a Jewish teacher and that he is the basis of Christianity, the dictionary is attempting to please both Christians and non-Christians at the same time. Unfortunately, political correctness pleases no one.

But let’s not get off-topic. The Church regards spirits as natural beings, because only God is above (super) nature (natural). Only God is above nature because only God is the Creator of all things. So spirits, while higher than man, who is in turn higher than the animals, are still natural, just like every created thing.

 

[Matthias123]

I don’t see the trick in the question. I think it’s a straightforward appeal to the problem of falsification in some beliefs. An “imaginary friend” is an unfalsifiable idea, much like God is. You can explain how the wind is actually a parsimonious explanation for how the door “closed by itelf”, but removing that circumstance from the “evidence for Chuck, my invisible friend” doesn’t falsify Chuck. Chuck still “exists” in all sorts of other unexplained/imagined happenings, and unless you can explain everything that happens, Chuck will be “alive and well”. Just like God.

This is an excellent statement of the principles that get applied to produce atheist conclusions. God, as imaginary friend, is unwilling or unlikely to demonstrate his own existence. Absent that, the parsimonious explanation is that God does not exist outside of the imagination.

He doesn’t perform miracles, then?
Well, here is where falsification becomes a problem for Christianity just like it is for Chuck, the imaginary friend. How would we discover such an idea you have here to be false, if it were false. If there were no God, and the food, materials and weather around us in nature are emergent properties of an impersonal universe, what would be different? What would a godless universe with all these things look like that is different that what we see now?

This maps to asking your friend:* if this invisible friend wasn’t real, but only imaginary, how would we know? What would the world look like if Chuck was just imaginary that is different than it looks right now?ˆ

*No matter how many “wind closing the door” demonstrations you do, there will always be phenomena around without ready explanation, leaving the door wide open for belief in Chuck.

In any case, a miracle seems tightly analogous to Invisible Chuck closing the door for us. That would be a miracle, too, no?

-TS

Touchstone what you and other atheists need to understand is that not all of objective reality is explainable by the principles of the scientific method. Some things cannot be falsified, because they are out of the ability of human reason. Furthermore, it is obvious that you cannot argue that God doesn’t exist to Christians, because Christians are not monists, and believe that there exists more then one substance then the universe, the existence of a “God” cannot be logically defeated by pure reason because the parts of the whole of the cosmic substance cannot gain any insight into other substances there might be. Fortunately there plenty of evidence in objective reality that tells us that God is necessary, and that he is responsible for the universe (or multiverse) by observing the natural order.

There are only a significant number of parallels between a childish belief in an imaginary friend, and a childish view of God. For an imaginary friend can explain some things to a child like a door closing, or something falling, however once the child reaches the age of reason this belief is abandoned because it is supplemented with more obvious knowledge through experience. It is eventually observed and understood that wind can close doors, and therefore it seems unlikely to conclude that an invisible friend will close it.

However there are things that God is necessary to explain, unless we are to go about and deem them beyond the human capacity to understand. In this case I would highly criticize because if someone has a logical explanation of something, it should always be preferred over no answer.

God is needed in order for anything to exist. We know that there exists the genus of being, and the maximum of any genus is the cause of everything that is in this genus. So the perfection of being must be the cause of all being in things. Now being per se, being the perfection of the genus, has to be purely actual because it is not fitting for being per se to contain a difference of being, or even at the further extreme an absence of being, known as non-being. So this purely actual ontological entity that possesses all the attributes that a purely actual entity would have by nature is what we call God, the cause of everything that exists. Next we understand that all agents without an intellect act towards a given fixed end. An agent without intelligence cannot act itself towards a fixed end; therefore it must be directed by some intelligence.

Next we need to explain the design in things. Now I am not even going to speak of complexity because I find it rather irrelevant to the discussion of design. We know that there exists formal causality, as in created things there are formal causes. Now whenever a sculptor creates a statue or of a block of marble, there is an efficient cause, (the sculpture creating a stature) a formal cause (the idea of “sculpture”), the material cause (block of marble), and the final cause (the good of beauty, or pleasant viewing, et cetra)

Now we see in things that we create something the essence or “idea” is the result of the formal cause. We see also however, essence in nature. For when we observe the natural world, the matter is viewed with our senses, and the idea is then abstracted from what we see. The is apparent in the way we categorize, as the shape/ configuration of matter is different in rocks of different shape and size, but we still categorize it as the species “rock”. So what is being referred when we think of, or speak about the species of “rock” is the idea of “rock”. Since we know it is fitting that essence comes about from a formal cause, we infer that there must have been a formal cause from which these substantial forms came into being.

Next I would assert that we must explain the origin of universals. For things such as betweeness, redness, and especially difference have always existed. There exists an impossibility of indifference, as in order for causality to function there needs to be an affect that provides the difference in cause and effect. The existence of things requires there to be a difference between existence and non existence, and the movement of something requires there to be a difference of location. Thus we need to explain the origin, and the nature of these universals.

Thus objective reality is much broader then the atheists think. The materialism explanation of the world is very pitifully incomplete, and God is required to explain many things. If nothing else, the atheist, if he wants to fully legitimize his notions, he needs to step into the world of metaphysics, and battle it out with over two thousand years of Christian intellectual reasoning. As of yet I have seen nobody attempt this, they only hide behind the veil of scientism.

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone what you and other atheists need to understand is that not all of objective reality is explainable by the principles of the scientific method.

Right, got that. Insert obligatory Gödel reference here.

Some things cannot be falsified, because they are out of the ability of human reason. Furthermore, it is obvious that you cannot argue that God doesn’t exist to Christians, because Christians are not monists, and believe that there exists more then one substance then the universe, the existence of a “God” cannot be logically defeated by pure reason because the parts of the whole of the cosmic substance cannot gain any insight into other substances there might be. Fortunately there plenty of evidence in objective reality that tells us that God is necessary, and that he is responsible for the universe (or multiverse) by observing the natural order.

I’m not aware of this evidence. What or where is this evidence?

Please don’t say “it’s obvious” – that’s just insulting people’s intelligence, and appealing to Thomist metaphysics is only slightly better, confusing man’s intuition with real knowledge, and evidential analysis.

If there is objective evidence for God’s existence you can unveil, you’ll be famous by friday! Seriously, I think you are way over-reaching in supposing what ever evidence you interpret to be indicative of God to be indicative in some objective sense (indicative to outside/disinterested observers, for example).

There are only a significant number of parallels between a childish belief in an imaginary friend, and a childish view of God. For an imaginary friend can explain some things to a child like a door closing, or something falling, however once the child reaches the age of reason this belief is abandoned because it is supplemented with more obvious knowledge through experience. It is eventually observed and understood that wind can close doors, and therefore it seems unlikely to conclude that an invisible friend will close it.

Hmmm. I have six kids, and several of them had invisible friends, one named, legendarily in our house, “Chuck”. We managed to explain many of Chuck’s alleged behaviors to natural processes, but we never succeeded in dispelling our son’s sense of “revelation” from Chuck, that Chuck was talking to him, in such a way only he could hear. We never were able to counter that. It only changed when he grew out of it. In that regard, Chuck seemed very God-like.

How do you suppose you’d show a friend the way to understanding an Invisible Chuck who your friend was convinced talked to him in a “still, small voice” was not real?

However there are things that God is necessary to explain, unless we are to go about and deem them beyond the human capacity to understand.

Sure, and this is a key feature of reason and wisdom: understanding the epistemic limits of the mind, and of human knowledge. There are many things we want to know, but do not, questions we crave answers to, but lack answers for. That’s our reality, and the temptation is stong in us, as a story-telling people, to paper over holes in our knowledge with fanciful stories that capture our imagination and sate our desire for answers.

In this case I would highly criticize because if someone has a logical explanation of something, it should always be preferred over no answer.

Well, the easiest person to fool is yourself, and human are notoriously vain in their acceptance of “logical” answers that match their desires. That’s what makes knowledge as a team sport compelling — it helps reduce the fudging on what is “logical” or not. Aquinas’ Five ways are a very good example of sophistry, man fooling himself about what is “logical” because it resonates with his intuition, because it matches what he “just knows”, pulled from his mental hat.

God is needed in order for anything to exist.

This is a vivid example of caprice and intuition passing itself off as logic! If, that is, if you contend this conclusion is a logical consequence of some argument or syllogism.

I can answer that with a perfectly good bit of caprice: impersonal STEM is needed for anything to exist, and nothing more. Now what? Dueling intuitions?

We know that there exists the genus of being, and the maximum of any genus is the cause of everything that is in this genus.

This is all fluff, words putting on airs of existential meaning. What, precisely do you mean by “genus of being”? I’ve read Aquinas, Scotus, Aristotle – I’m familiar. And that is why I ask, because these are completely self-indulgent ideas. Let’s press on “genus of being” and see if end up with ‘just knowing’ again (indulge, indulge!), or whether those concepts are derived and validated by semantics grounded in the real world.

So the perfection of being must be the cause of all being in things.

Fluff! Terms signifying nothing substantial, literally. What does “perfection of being” mean? What does it mean to “be”. All the scholastics nod and rub their beards at such phrases, and yet none of them can provide any semantic freight to the terms they throw around. It’s like a made up imaginary language, completely unattached to our reality.

Now being per se, being the perfection of the genus, has to be purely actual because it is not fitting for being per se to contain a difference of being, or even at the further extreme an absence of being, known as non-being.

Why? Is it fitting that quantum mechanics is so screwy in its behavior? Doesn’t matter what we think is “fitting”. What is, is. If reality has “unfitting” aspects to us, that’s our problem.

-TS

(con’t)

 

[Touchstone]

So this purely actual ontological entity that possesses all the attributes that a purely actual entity would have by nature is what we call God, the cause of everything that exists. Next we understand that all agents without an intellect act towards a given fixed end. An agent without intelligence cannot act itself towards a fixed end; therefore it must be directed by some intelligence.

 

[Touchstone]

Thus objective reality is much broader then the atheists think. The materialism explanation of the world is very pitifully incomplete, and God is required to explain many things. If nothing else, the atheist, if he wants to fully legitimize his notions, he needs to step into the world of metaphysics, and battle it out with over two thousand years of Christian intellectual reasoning. As of yet I have seen nobody attempt this, they only hide behind the veil of scientism.

It the “intellectual reasoning” is more than a euphemism, than it will bear out in the testing. Reasoning isn’t a beauty contest, it’s a brutal contest for performance. It’s hard work, and the great thing is, it’s self-adjudicating – performance prevails, and pretense and folly get shown the door. It’s put up or shut up, and Christian “intellectual reasoning” in term of “essences” and metaphysics do not put up. At all.

Science doesn’t need to hide at all. It’s only as “true” and as valuable as that which it can demonstrate, that which can be tested, and tested vigorously, and which stands up, regardless.

How would I establish that Christian metaphysics are any more credible than an astrologer’s metaphysics? That’s not a rhetorical question. As a matter of political conquest, Christianity has astrology beat, I grant. As a matter of performative knowledge, I think the comparison to astrology is dead on. If not, it should be easy to show the accountability of metaphysical knowledge to the rigors of that which it transcends.

In all of this, ask yourself: how would I reliably find out I was mistaken?

Knowledge that cannot even begin to answer this question is an impostor, anti-knowledge putting on airs.

-TS

 

[Spock]

Here’s a test: does “fleebishness” exist, and has it always existed?

Like “exists”, I suspect you have no clue what you mean when you say “nature”. What does “nature” mean here? This is an interlocking language, detached from the real world.

Don’t we need to explain our “auras”? It’s fitting that my aura fits with the essence of the spirit of humanity, is it not? Or is it?

-TS

In other words: “the emperor has no clothes”, and the crowd believing otherwise is adamant to postulate the beauty of the design, the smoothness of the fabric, the richness of the color - of those nonexistent clothes. Inventing pompous sounding and meaningless categories to cover up the poor naked emperor. Indeed, none so blind, who refuses to see.

 

[Matthias123]

How do you suppose you’d show a friend the way to understanding an Invisible Chuck who your friend was convinced talked to him in a “still, small voice” was not real?

The problem here is that you are confusing childhood nativity, with mature theistic thinking. You cannot convince me that God does not exist, not because he speaks to me in a still small voice, but because you cannot explain all of objective reality. My scepticism is that reality is as narrow as you say it is.

My position is that to the determined sceptic, using a cafeteria style of scepticism, where the person chooses different levels of scepticism depending on the notion being considered, there cannot be an acknowledgement of the existence of God.

Consider that person A is having a friendly conversation in a dinner with person B. After discussing world events, they start talking about metaphysical speculations. Of course they never called it that, but as people sometimes do, they ponder potential meaning in things. Person B goes on to state that he doesn’t believe other minds exist other then his own. Person A obviously acknowledging his own existence objects s to such a notion, and actually takes a fair bit of offence that his friend does not think he exists. Person A then goes to explain that the reality person B is observing is best explained by the notion that other minds exist. He then goes on to argue points from a position of substance dualism in the philosophy of the mind. Person B however wants nothing to do with it. Firstly he quotes William of Occam when he says that “entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity”, and since the reality he observes works fine without postulating the existence of other minds, he chooses to be an agnostic on this fact. Secondly he points out that, ideas, or matter itself, might not even actually exist, for it just might be a qualia of the mind.

My point is that taking an unreasonable level of scepticism can lead to many funny beliefs. In all honesty if I took a position of extreme scepticism you would not be able to give me sufficient reason to prove your own existence. Obviously we are not to be so open minded that our brains bleed out, but I assert to you that you should consider a reality much broader and spacious then you currently perceive.

Well, the easiest person to fool is yourself, and human are notoriously vain in their acceptance of “logical” answers that match their desires. That’s what makes knowledge as a team sport compelling — it helps reduce the fudging on what is “logical” or not. Aquinas’ Five ways are a very good example of sophistry, man fooling himself about what is “logical” because it resonates with his intuition, because it matches what he “just knows”, pulled from his mental hat.

Why is it that the atheists fail to demolish such illogical and foolish reasoning? Does he reject the entirety of metaphysics? For doesn’t he know that the scientific method is based on metaphysical assumptions? Such is the immutability of truth, and uniformity in nature?

In order to validate his beliefs, he needs to reject all of metaphysics, and most of objective reality. I am sorry but this is my primary intellectual obstacle to atheism. Honestly rejecting the metaphysics is like a creationist rejecting evolution – it is absurd.

 

[Matthias123]

In other words: “the emperor has no clothes”, and the crowd believing otherwise is adamant to postulate the beauty of the design, the smoothness of the fabric, the richness of the color - of those nonexistent clothes. Inventing pompous sounding and meaningless categories to cover up the poor naked emperor. Indeed, none so blind, who refuses to see.

 

[Touchstone]

The problem here is that you are confusing childhood nativity, with mature theistic thinking. You cannot convince me that God does not exist, not because he speaks to me in a still small voice, but because you cannot explain all of objective reality. My scepticism is that reality is as narrow as you say it is.

Reality may be broader than we can see. You don’t always know what you don’t know. But affirming that does NOT provide warrant for committing to something “beyond” that’s got no epistemic foundation.

A universal negative cannot be demonstrated without an exhaustive search, and there is no way to perform an exhaustive search for God. So we affirm that this negative cannot be proven, and understand that based on what we do know, and what evidence is available, we do not have warrant for concluding that such a being exists.

I haven’t ruled any of that out. There’s just no reasonable basis to go there, given what we have to evaluate.

My position is that to the determined sceptic, using a cafeteria style of scepticism, where the person chooses different levels of scepticism depending on the notion being considered, there cannot be an acknowledgement of the existence of God.

I think this obtains from a consistent, principled skepticism just as well. There could be an acknowledgement of God’s existence, if the evidence were different; if Zeus came down from Mt. Olympus, and spent millenia scourging the earth with his lightning bolts, the surviving humans would have lots of evidence for Zeus as god to document, test, chronicle that would pass any reasoned skepticism as to Zeus’ reality.

Consider that person A is having a friendly conversation in a dinner with person B. After discussing world events, they start talking about metaphysical speculations. Of course they never called it that, but as people sometimes do, they ponder potential meaning in things. Person B goes on to state that he doesn’t believe other minds exist other then his own. Person A obviously acknowledging his own existence objects s to such a notion, and actually takes a fair bit of offence that his friend does not think he exists. Person A then goes to explain that the reality person B is observing is best explained by the notion that other minds exist. He then goes on to argue points from a position of substance dualism in the philosophy of the mind. Person B however wants nothing to do with it. Firstly he quotes William of Occam when he says that “entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity”, and since the reality he observes works fine without postulating the existence of other minds, he chooses to be an agnostic on this fact. Secondly he points out that, ideas, or matter itself, might not even actually exist, for it just might be a qualia of the mind.

You missed the word “necessity” in Ockham’s razor. It’s necessary to apprehend reality as real, as at least partly intelligible, extramental (populated with other minds, for example). We are biological wired for that disposition, first, which makes it necessary in the most fundamental sense. We are unable to survive or function without accepting these metaphysical assumptions, beyond even what our biology compels us, too. So it’s “double necessary”.

Parsimony is preserved because those doubts cannot possibly be indulged. It is necessary – life and death necessary – that we accept them.

That’s principled skepticism. We doubt, and test, and realize that at the core, we are unable, physically and cognitively, to doubt these basic beliefs. We must embrace them to live. And we are wired to live.

This is not the case with an imaginary friend, or an imaginary god. Neither of these are biological or cognitive imperatives. These are gratuitous propositions.

My point is that taking an unreasonable level of scepticism can lead to many funny beliefs. In all honesty if I took a position of extreme scepticism you would not be able to give me sufficient reason to prove your own existence. Obviously we are not to be so open minded that our brains bleed out, but I assert to you that you should consider a reality much broader and spacious then you currently perceive.

It doesn’t lead to funny beliefs, as above. What’s necessary is necessary – reality as pure illusion is impossible to entertain for humans, lest one die. As I’ve said before, anyone who believes they have this power I invite to hold their hand over an open flame. See how necessary the commitment to reality is, then. It’s a doubt that is removed and dismissed by necessity. Belief in god or gods is not like that. One can doubt the reality of God or gods and manage a successful life just fine.

Why is it that the atheists fail to demolish such illogical and foolish reasoning? Does he reject the entirety of metaphysics? For doesn’t he know that the scientific method is based on metaphysical assumptions? Such is the immutability of truth, and uniformity in nature?

No, there’s necessary metaphysics we must embrace, and cannot help but embrace. Reality is real, and at least partially intelligible. That’s one totally unjustifiable metaphysical proposition in terms of logic, but it’s obligatory for humans. We cannot refuse that belief. There are a lot of metaphysical propositions man gets enamored of, and embraces without warrant or by necessity, though, and these really do produce all kinds of funny beliefs, beliefs that fail, and fail spectacularly when tested against the behavior of the real world.

In order to validate his beliefs, he needs to reject all of metaphysics, and most of objective reality. I am sorry but this is my primary intellectual obstacle to atheism. Honestly rejecting the metaphysics is like a creationist rejecting evolution – it is absurd.

It’s not possible to reject all of metaphysics. Can’t be done. That would be a thoroughgoing form of insanity which would get the bearer of such a mind killed, and probably sooner than later. Reason and skepticism serve to filter out gratuitous and fanciful metaphysics from necessary and transcendental metaphysics, though, and this produces a principled, responsible and conservative metaphysical paradigm that serves as a prophylactic to all sorts of ‘funny beliefs’ that get embraced apart from objective knowledge, and get justified on the basis of “funny” metaphysics.

-TS