I got in a morality debate with an agnostic and now I can't sleep

[ThinkingSapien]

I think this is an important question.

I don’t think that it is. While I find the sociology of religion to be interesting I’ve pretty much have taken an apatheistic and an ignostic disposition with respect to the question of whether or not there is a god/God/gods.

If I could prove to you that God existed beyond any doubt. What would you think of God?

I don’t know, but as suggested by the reference to ignosticism there would be more work than just convincing me that the proposition “God exists” is true we’d have to have agreement on the god-concept being invoked in the discussion.

Also note conviction of the existence of a God doesn’t necessarily translate into conviction that the God is interactive/invasive, that it wants/demands to be worshiped, that a person is able to survive their own death and continue on in heaven or hell, or even that the Bible is an expression of that God’s will.

 

[josh987654321]

I don’t think that it is. While I find the sociology of religion to be interesting I’ve pretty much have taken an apatheistic and an ignostic disposition with respect to the question of whether or not there is a god/God/gods.

“Apatheistic” is your main problem, only those who seek truth will find it. you approach anything in life with apathy and your obviously not going to learn anything, so if you approach the most important and significant truth in life with apathy than of course your not going to find any answers. It’s a shame though, because if there is truth there (I know there is), than you will never find it.

You will just go through life flowing through the motions without meaning or purpose and in the end you will know the truth to find that many people had it here on earth and you were too apathetic to seek it.

The truth is Jesus Christ.

I don’t know, but as suggested by the reference to ignosticism there would be more work than just convincing me that the proposition “God exists” is true we’d have to have agreement on the god-concept being invoked in the discussion.

Also note conviction of the existence of a God doesn’t necessarily translate into conviction that the God is interactive/invasive, that it wants/demands to be worshiped, that a person is able to survive their own death and continue on in heaven or hell, or even that the Bible is an expression of that God’s will.

Lets say I could prove to you beyond any doubt that the Christian God exists and Jesus Christ is his only son, who was God in the flesh.

What would you think of the Christian God, of Jesus Christ?

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[ThinkingSapien]

“Apatheistic” is your main problem

While I know you see my position as problematic I don’t see it that way.

only those who seek truth will find it. you approach anything in life with apathy and your obviously not going to learn anything,

Not necessarily. But that’s another story.

But I think you’ve forgotten that I used to be a Christian. It’s not life long apathy. Rather, it’s a position that developed after failures to find justification for remaining a Christian after going through the seeking.

so if you approach the most important and significant truth in life with apathy than of course your not going to find any answers. It’s a shame though, because if there is truth there (I know there is), than you will never find it.

As mentioned above, my initial approach was not with apathy. Rather Christianity was a position in which I had been invested and at the time had hoped to remain. So this isn’t very applicable to me.

You will just go through life flowing through the motions without meaning or purpose

My existence has purpose and meaning to both me and the important people in my life. These people are important to me, and not necessarily important to you, so I don’t expect this to carry much weight with those outside my network of friends and loved ones. And that’s fine.

There is also where some of our concepts differ. “meaning” and “purpose” are expressive of relationships between an object and a mind. As I’ve seen these words used in this forum these words have been invoked with the explicit statement that there are no minds that are a part of this relationship (which is of no meaning to me. )

and in the end you will know the truth to find that many people had it here on earth and you were too apathetic to seek it.

Also not applicable.

The truth is Jesus Christ.

What is the meaning of “truth” in this sentence? it appears to mean something other than “a proposition that is evaluated as true.”

Lets say I could prove to you beyond any doubt that the Christian God exists and Jesus Christ is his only son, who was God in the flesh.

It would not need to be proof, only convincing (which may or may not lower the bar).

What would you think of the Christian God, of Jesus Christ?

He seems like a nice fellow, but sorry, I am afraid that I cannot predict what my behaviour would be.Though if there were a supernatural epistemology available I might have used it to validate what I believed.

 

[josh987654321]

I apologise if I offended you in my previous post, I just assumed some propositions to see if I could get a reaction out of any.

But I think you’ve forgotten that I used to be a Christian. It’s not life long apathy. Rather, it’s a position that developed after failures to find justification for remaining a Christian after going through the seeking.

What Justifications for remaining a Christian did you fail to find? What questions had unsatisfactory or unconvincing answers?

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I apologise if I offended you in my previous post…]

No worries.

What Justifications for remaining a Christian did you fail to find? What questions had unsatisfactory or unconvincing answers?

The justifications I received when asking others could be summarized (or categorized) as follows. This is non-exhaustive, so there may be other classifications that haven’t beem mentioned here.

I had a personal experience/revelation that let me know God exists
That’s fine for them. But I’ve not had that personal experience so it is left as hearsay for me.

Well I don’t really know, but I follow Christianity just in case. A Pascal’s wager variant (ex: I want to make sure I don’t burn in hell if it exists)
Doesn’t seem to be genuine conviction.

Tradition : your ancestors or other great people of the past were Christians
Imitation of previous generations doesn’t tell me of the truth value of Christian propositions.

I would become an outcast of my community/family if I were not a Christian
That can be a motivation to continue to behave as though one is a Christian (in some communities being an apostate makes one worthy of a social excommunication). Personal experience has shown me that people can be rather hostile once they find out you are not part of their in-group. Interesting from a sociology stand point. But this once again says nothing about the truth value of Christian propositions.

Some “logical” proof
None of the proofs that I’ve come across have been convincing to me. At best they are hypothetical projects dependent on some set of other untestable conditions being true.

Variants of arguments from ignorance: “You don’t there’s not a God.”/“How can you prove there is no God”/"If you don’t have an explanation you can’t say it’s not God"
I think that many don’t distinguish between someone not having knowledge that a certain proposition is true and some one declaring that a proposition is untrue.

Formal fallacies aside, Here are two propositions for which I cannot assign a truth value:

• There is life outside our solar system.
• There is no life outside our solar system.

I don’t defend either one of these propositions, but I don’t lend my support to any one that asserts either one of these. Similarly when a god-concept is interjected as an explanation for something I don’t declare that God had no involvement, but I don’t support assertions that God had involvement either. Neither proposition is convincing to me so I’m content to have an explanation without invoking a God until I find such a concept convincing.

 

[josh987654321]

The justifications I received when asking others could be summarized (or categorized) as follows. This is non-exhaustive, so there may be other classifications that haven’t beem mentioned here.

I had a personal experience/revelation that let me know God exists
That’s fine for them. But I’ve not had that personal experience so it is left as hearsay for me.

Well I don’t really know, but I follow Christianity just in case. A Pascal’s wager variant (ex: I want to make sure I don’t burn in hell if it exists)
Doesn’t seem to be genuine conviction.

Tradition : your ancestors or other great people of the past were Christians
Imitation of previous generations doesn’t tell me of the truth value of Christian propositions.

I would become an outcast of my community/family if I were not a Christian
That can be a motivation to continue to behave as though one is a Christian (in some communities being an apostate makes one worthy of a social excommunication). Personal experience has shown me that people can be rather hostile once they find out you are not part of their in-group. Interesting from a sociology stand point. But this once again says nothing about the truth value of Christian propositions.

Some “logical” proof
None of the proofs that I’ve come across have been convincing to me. At best they are hypothetical projects dependent on some set of other untestable conditions being true.

Variants of arguments from ignorance: “You don’t there’s not a God.”/“How can you prove there is no God”/"If you don’t have an explanation you can’t say it’s not God"
I think that many don’t distinguish between someone not having knowledge that a certain proposition is true and some one declaring that a proposition is untrue.

Formal fallacies aside, Here are two propositions for which I cannot assign a truth value:

• There is life outside our solar system.
• There is no life outside our solar system.

I don’t defend either one of these propositions, but I don’t lend my support to any one that asserts either one of these. Similarly when a god-concept is interjected as an explanation for something I don’t declare that God had no involvement, but I don’t support assertions that God had involvement either. Neither proposition is convincing to me so I’m content to have an explanation without invoking a God until I find such a concept convincing.

But what were the questions you asked that made them give you these responses?

And I don’t know how assigning a truth value to your two propositions would change anything, because if you assign a truth value to either of them you could still easily deny God’s existence.

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[ThinkingSapien]

But what were the questions you asked that made them give you these responses?

Memories fade over time, so I can’t remember the exact questions. But this is the best I can recall about questions I used to have before this got into the impossible game (youtube link) type situation.

Note: some of those replies came and continue to come without solicitation. I was and still continue to receive “information” and “advice” from people once they discover I am not a Christian (such as from random religious people that knock on my door or stop me in parking lots to promote their church). In those situations I’m not asking questions, but I am being asked questions.

Those questions started some ~18 years ago and ran for several years. I recall that it involved truthfully stating what my position was, stating that while I could see many social advantageous from being a member of the Christian in-group I didn’t have supportive justification for evaluating many of the central propositions of Christianity to be true and asked what justifications there were. I also asked people why they themselves were Christian, whether they had evaluated any of the other religious systems, what methods are available for knowing whether or not something stated about a spiritual matter is true, whether or not the person was confident that their God existed and if so why. Surprisingly I found many of those that I questioned didn’t have answers for these questions and stated sticking with it for tradition. I got the impression that most were not used to answering questions like these.

In general I tried to stick with people that presented themselves as religious leaders. Some people that were not religious leaders got a little scared or offended with the questions and I was trying to avoid shaking some one else’s confidence in their religion (for some people that’s their emotional support system, and I would rather not be responsible for the mess that follows if their confidence in their support system is damaged).

And I don’t know how assigning a truth value to your two propositions would change anything, because if you assign a truth value to either of them you could still easily deny God’s existence.

Quite right. Embracing the possibility that one could be wrong about everything is the position of the radical skeptic who has concluded that knowledge is most likely impossible (not to be confused with a “skeptic” in general, who can believe that knowledge is possible).

But I was using life outside the solar system as an example for a proposition whose veracity I cannot determine. Many of the god-concepts to which I have been introduced also fall into this category. I could have used the following propositions instead.

• A God with attribute set {x} exist.
• A God with attribute set {x} does not exists.

I would in general not be able to assign a truth value to either. Even if we employ truth values with lower levels of confidence (ex: “A God with attribute set {x} probably exists”) my ability to assign a truth value to it is unchanged and the proposition itself is of little meaning to me.

 

[josh987654321]

Memories fade over time, so I can’t remember the exact questions. But this is the best I can recall about questions I used to have before this got into the impossible game (youtube link) type situation.

Note: some of those replies came and continue to come without solicitation. I was and still continue to receive “information” and “advice” from people once they discover I am not a Christian (such as from random religious people that knock on my door or stop me in parking lots to promote their church). In those situations I’m not asking questions, but I am being asked questions.

Those questions started some ~18 years ago and ran for several years. I recall that it involved truthfully stating what my position was, stating that while I could see many social advantageous from being a member of the Christian in-group I didn’t have supportive justification for evaluating many of the central propositions of Christianity to be true and asked what justifications there were. I also asked people why they themselves were Christian, whether they had evaluated any of the other religious systems, what methods are available for knowing whether or not something stated about a spiritual matter is true, whether or not the person was confident that their God existed and if so why. Surprisingly I found many of those that I questioned didn’t have answers for these questions and stated sticking with it for tradition. I got the impression that most were not used to answering questions like these.

In general I tried to stick with people that presented themselves as religious leaders. Some people that were not religious leaders got a little scared or offended with the questions and I was trying to avoid shaking some one else’s confidence in their religion (for some people that’s their emotional support system, and I would rather not be responsible for the mess that follows if their confidence in their support system is damaged).

I think it’s great that your asking questions, I just think your not asking the right people.

I also asked people why they themselves were Christian

Put in it’s most simplest form, because it makes sense. Like C.S. Lewis said, I don’t believe in the sun because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else.

whether they had evaluated any of the other religious systems, what methods are available for knowing whether or not something stated about a spiritual matter is true,

Corresponding truthfulness with the coherence of a worldview. CompSciGuy explained it well - forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10846656&postcount=47 and Ravi Zacharias talks about it very well - youtube.com/watch?v=XBjtytBGh-8

whether or not the person was confident that their God existed and if so why.

Like I said, because without God, nothing makes sense. Most people who don’t believe in God will be quick to tell you there is evil and wrong in the world, yet how can you call a line crooked unless you have some idea of what a straight line is?

Quite right. Embracing the possibility that one could be wrong about everything is the position of the radical skeptic who has concluded that knowledge is most likely impossible (not to be confused with a “skeptic” in general, who can believe that knowledge is possible).

But I was using life outside the solar system as an example for a proposition whose veracity I cannot determine. Many of the god-concepts to which I have been introduced also fall into this category. I could have used the following propositions instead.

• A God with attribute set {x} exist.
• A God with attribute set {x} does not exists.

I would in general not be able to assign a truth value to either. Even if we employ truth values with lower levels of confidence (ex: “A God with attribute set {x} probably exists”) my ability to assign a truth value to it is unchanged and the proposition itself is of little meaning to me.

Even with these two propositions, you have to first conclude that there is a God and only then can you conclude which attribute set exists to him and we do this with finding corresponding truthful with the coherence of a worldview.

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I think it’s great that your asking questions,

Was asking (past tense). Currently I am now the one being asked.

I just think your not asking the right people.

So did some of the people that I was asking.

Put in it’s most simplest form, because it makes sense. Like C.S. Lewis said, I don’t believe in the sun because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else.

Had Lewis not ever seen the sun this might carry a little more weight.

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10846656&postcount=47

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and Ravi Zacharias talks about it very well - youtube.com/watch?v=XBjtytBGh-8

I read it earlier. There are what I think to be some biases being expressed in it, but I don’t want to go down the path of dissecting it now.

Like I said, because without God, nothing makes sense.

“Nothing” is a rather all-encompassing word. Unless you say otherwise I am going to interpret this to mean that “There are some things that don’t make sense without God being part of the explanation.” Either that or we have a different understanding of the phrase “make sense.”

Most people who don’t believe in God will be quick to tell you there is evil and wrong in the world, yet how can you call a line crooked unless you have some idea of what a straight line is?

In many cases I think people are using those words as label for how a scenario makes them feel or how they think it would make them feel if some given scenario happened to them self. Though I myself am also inclined to see this as an example of reification or the use of an adjective as a mass noun.

Even with these two propositions, you have to first conclude that there is a God and only then can you conclude which attribute set exists to him and we do this with finding corresponding truthful with the coherence of a worldview.

No, not if you are using a constructive definition in which case the word is defined by its attributes. This may only be a matter of semantics. There have been widely differing concepts labeled with the word “God” ranging from physical objects , non-physical, within the universe, outside the universe, existing as the universe, personal and invasive, non-personal and non-interactive, loving, emotionless, and so on. If one has concluded that God exists and hasn’t identified at least some of the attributes of which she is speaking, then what has she identified?