Is it Rational to Believe God Exists?

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Amandil said:
With the exception of Jesus and Mary; yes, everyone.

“…(A)ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

No one has ever loved perfectly their entire lives. No one has ever chosen innocence, ever.

Yet everyone acts as if they had innocence and yet lost it. We all act as we all had Eden and lost it, like beggar kings in rags searching for our lost thrones.
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Please explain how an infant child has chosen to sin?
 
Amandil said:
Not all sin is the result of a personal choice.

Original Sin is a state that we are all born into, not a personal act.
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That is what I said above that not everyone has chosen to sin. Post #377.
 
You are right Phil. logic and reason forces one to conclude that God exists. I recommend reading ‘The death of ignorant atheism’ by James duncan. You will never see the topic the same again 👍
 
glendab said:
Hello Miguel.

How to de-rail a thread in five easy lessons:

LESSON # 1 - Bring up the Rapture in any form and stand back and watch.

Glenda
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Hello Glenda. My Dad was always quoting W.C.Fields the great comedian and star from the early days of Hollywood. Here’s one from my parents fridge that seems to apply. “It was a woman who drove me to drink and I never had the decency to write and thank her.” Another quote also comes to mind…not sure of the source…“You can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” I know I’m annoying. Please pray for my wife.:rolleyes: God Bless Glenda!
 
JapaneseKappa said:
…In other words, in the absence of any actual evidence, we not only have to take God’s existence on faith, but on top of that we have to have faith that a certain set of properties describe God…
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As for evidence, we have the irrefutable philosophical proofs that St Thomas provided 800 years ago. St Thomas showed that the existence of God can be deduced with sound human reasoning apart from divine revelation. We also have divine revelation itself…in the recorded history of the Jewish people (i.e., God told us he exists in the burning bush…he even told us his name I AM (I exist)…followed by the miraculous rescue of the Israelites from their Egyptian enslavement…still commemorated each year by faithful Jews during the Passover, and we have the prophets whose prophecies were fulfilled)…and we have the person of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who proved he is really God by his amazing miracles and proved that he really loves us by bearing the penalty for our sins on the cross. What other evidence do you want? God Bless.
 
Tomdstone said:
The 5 arguments of St. Thomas are not irrefutable according to the following:
patas.co/articles/opinion/refuting-the-five-ways-of-aquinas/
vorpal.us/2007/10/the-five-ways-of-st-thomas-aquinas-are-all-dead-ends/
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These are awful.

Take for example, the supposed refutation by “Vorpal” of Aquinas’ third way…
Aquinis’ Third Way: Contingent and Necessary Objects
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which proceeds:
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Contingent beings are caused.
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Not every being can be contingent.
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There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.
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This necessary being is God.
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This argument is similar to the second: There must be an initial being that started everything. Unfortunately, this argument is tautological – it goes round and round without end, like the turtles comment above.
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The premise that some being caused the universe does not mean that that being is not a contingent being. :rotfl: Sorry, couldn’t contain myself] The Gnostic Demiurge myth confounds this argument.
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He completely misses Aquinas’ point. In fact, Aquinas would point out that it is precisely the Third Way that is necessary to prevent a tautology or infinite regress. It is either necessary to posit a necessary being or you end up with turtles without end. Pick your poison. The fact that this Vorpal character accuses Aquinas of ending up with an infinite regress means he completely misses the point of the Third Way.

The rest of his refutations are shallow mischaracterizations.

Spend some time on …

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/search?q=Cosmological+argument

… for a dismantling of caracatures such as these.
 
To be honest, I think it would be irrational to disbelieve in the existence of God.
 
Tomdstone said:
A lot of ad hominem arguments.
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Only to the untrained eye - which surprises me that you would make this claim.

You see, an “ad hominem” is committed when a person makes a disparaging remark and relies on that remark as sufficient to make a case that rebuts the opposing argument.

That is not what Feser does, however.

True, he does say disparaging things about people who should know better, such as calling Jerry Coyne an “ignoramus on the subject.” Feser would be guilty of committing an ad hominem if he had left it at that and tried to pass off that disparaging remark as his entire case against Coyne’s antitheism, but that is NOT what Feser does. He goes on to show that Coyne actually is an “ignoramus on the subject” by showing where he goes wrong point by point, AND demonstrating that he should have known better, thereby proving that Coyne has earned the title Feser has bestowed upon him.

The reason an ad hominem is a logical fallacy is that the mere fact that you are “an ignoramus on the subject” is insufficient to make you wrong on a logical point. You might, simply by chance, be correct on some abstruse matter in the same same way that a dysfunctional clock happens to show the correct time by happenstance. The same could be true, for example, of “an ignoramus on a subject” - they might happen to get it right from time to time, which is why relying on the fact that they are “an ignoramus on the subject” does not, by itself, prove they are wrong.

However, this is not what Feser is up to. He does make disparaging remarks, granted, but he does not end there. He goes on to prove that his interlocutors are, 1) in fact, wrong, 2) that they should have known better and, THEREFORE, 3) they are also “ignoramuses on the subject.”

To the untrained eye, it may appear that “ignoramus on the subject” is only a premise - the only premise, ostensibly - in Feser’s argument, and, thus, he relies on ad hominems; however, the actuality is that “ignoramus on the subject” is a conclusion arrived at by Feser only after the argument is laid out by him and only after he demonstrates that his argument is, in fact, the classical (and well-formed) one that should have been the version fairly addressed by any right-minded interlocutors, instead of the caricature of an argument they have scared up. That they have continued to conjure up straw men instead of the actual, historical, well-formed arguments, considering that they “should have” known better, is what leads Feser to his conclusion of “ignoramus on the subject” - especially where professional philosophers are involved.

You see, these are quite different from each other:
  1. making a disparaging remark (not an ad hominem,)
  2. passing a disparaging remark off as an argument (an ad hominem) AND
  3. arriving at a disparaging remark, in passing or as a conclusion, about a person who should have known better.
Now, you might attempt to downgrade your assessment of Feser’s guilt from “a lot of ad hominems” to “lacking social graces,” but then you would still need to address his arguments, instead of merely claiming that he “makes a lot of ad hominems,” - which, incidentally, IS an ad hominem if you are trying to pass THAT off as a response to his arguments.

In all fairness, if you miss the “Read More>>” link which expands the remaining portion of his article(s) you might be left with the impression that all he does is commit ad hominems in his writings, but that would be an oversight on your part, not his. You do have to "Read more>>” to see his entire case in almost every instance on his blog. Better still, read one (or more) of his books.
 
Peter_Plato said:
Only to the untrained eye - which surprises me that you would make this claim.

You see, an “ad hominem” is committed when a person makes a disparaging remark and relies on that remark as sufficient to make a case that rebuts the opposing argument.

That is not what Feser does, however.

True, he does say disparaging things about people who should know better, such as calling Jerry Coyne an “ignoramus on the subject.” Feser would be guilty of committing an ad hominem if he had left it at that and tried to pass off that disparaging remark as his entire case against Coyne’s antitheism, but that is NOT what Feser does. He goes on to show that Coyne actually is an “ignoramus on the subject” by showing where he goes wrong point by point, AND demonstrating that he should have known better, thereby proving that Coyne has earned the title Feser has bestowed upon him.

The reason an ad hominem is a logical fallacy is that the mere fact that you are “an ignoramus on the subject” is insufficient to make you wrong on a logical point. You might, simply by chance, be correct on some abstruse matter in the same same way that a dysfunctional clock happens to show the correct time by happenstance. The same could be true, for example, of “an ignoramus on a subject” - they might happen to get it right from time to time, which is why relying on the fact that they are “an ignoramus on the subject” does not, by itself, prove they are wrong.

However, this is not what Feser is up to. He does make disparaging remarks, granted, but he does not end there. He goes on to prove that his interlocutors are, 1) in fact, wrong, 2) that they should have known better and, THEREFORE, 3) they are also “ignoramuses on the subject.”

To the untrained eye, it may appear that “ignoramus on the subject” is only a premise - the only premise, ostensibly - in Feser’s argument, and, thus, he relies on ad hominems; however, the actuality is that “ignoramus on the subject” is a conclusion arrived at by Feser only after the argument is laid out by him and only after he demonstrates that his argument is, in fact, the classical (and well-formed) one that should have been the version fairly addressed by any right-minded interlocutors, instead of the caricature of an argument they have scared up. That they have continued to conjure up straw men instead of the actual, historical, well-formed arguments, considering that they “should have” known better, is what leads Feser to his conclusion of “ignoramus on the subject” - especially where professional philosophers are involved.

You see, these are quite different from each other:
  1. making a disparaging remark (not an ad hominem,)
  2. passing a disparaging remark off as an argument (an ad hominem) AND
  3. arriving at a disparaging remark, in passing or as a conclusion, about a person who should have known better.
Now, you might attempt to downgrade your assessment of Feser’s guilt from “a lot of ad hominems” to “lacking social graces,” but then you would still need to address his arguments, instead of merely claiming that he “makes a lot of ad hominems,” - which, incidentally, IS an ad hominem if you are trying to pass THAT off as a response to his arguments.

In all fairness, if you miss the “Read More>>” link which expands the remaining portion of his article(s) you might be left with the impression that all he does is commit ad hominems in his writings, but that would be an oversight on your part, not his. You do have to "Read more>>” to see his entire case in almost every instance on his blog. Better still, read one (or more) of his books.
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You make clear thinking fun. Thank you for starting my day with a laugh.:egyptian:
 
miguel said:
As for evidence, we have the irrefutable philosophical proofs that St Thomas provided 800 years ago. St Thomas showed that the existence of God can be deduced with sound human reasoning apart from divine revelation. We also have divine revelation itself…in the recorded history of the Jewish people (i.e., God told us he exists in the burning bush…he even told us his name I AM (I exist)…followed by the miraculous rescue of the Israelites from their Egyptian enslavement…still commemorated each year by faithful Jews during the Passover, and we have the prophets whose prophecies were fulfilled)…and we have the person of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who proved he is really God by his amazing miracles and proved that he really loves us by bearing the penalty for our sins on the cross. What other evidence do you want? God Bless.
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Except the Exodus never actually happened as described in the bible. Why should made up histories and prophecies constitute evidence?

Even if Aquinas’ a posteriori observations are reasonable, the best he can do is hypothesize that God exists. Early scientists could look around and say:
“Hey! In all this work we’ve done, there is this quantity called energy that has always been conserved.”
That would be a great observation, but they can’t just jump to the conclusion that the conservation of energy is a law of the universe. They can only hypothesize that there is a law of conservation of energy, and they have to set up tests that will specifically measure under what circumstances energy is conserved. This is exactly what they did; there are tests for the conservation of energy.

Unfortunately, I have never seen any rigorous tests for either Thomas’s a posteriori observations, or his conclusions.
 
Peter_Plato said:
Only to the untrained eye - which surprises me that you would make this claim.

You see, an “ad hominem” is committed when a person makes a disparaging remark and relies on that remark as sufficient to make a case that rebuts the opposing argument.

That is not what Feser does, however.

True, he does say disparaging things about people who should know better, such as calling Jerry Coyne an “ignoramus on the subject.” Feser would be guilty of committing an ad hominem if he had left it at that and tried to pass off that disparaging remark as his entire case against Coyne’s antitheism, but that is NOT what Feser does. He goes on to show that Coyne actually is an “ignoramus on the subject” by showing where he goes wrong point by point, AND demonstrating that he should have known better, thereby proving that Coyne has earned the title Feser has bestowed upon him.

The reason an ad hominem is a logical fallacy is that the mere fact that you are “an ignoramus on the subject” is insufficient to make you wrong on a logical point. You might, simply by chance, be correct on some abstruse matter in the same same way that a dysfunctional clock happens to show the correct time by happenstance. The same could be true, for example, of “an ignoramus on a subject” - they might happen to get it right from time to time, which is why relying on the fact that they are “an ignoramus on the subject” does not, by itself, prove they are wrong.

However, this is not what Feser is up to. He does make disparaging remarks, granted, but he does not end there. He goes on to prove that his interlocutors are, 1) in fact, wrong, 2) that they should have known better and, THEREFORE, 3) they are also “ignoramuses on the subject.”

To the untrained eye, it may appear that “ignoramus on the subject” is only a premise - the only premise, ostensibly - in Feser’s argument, and, thus, he relies on ad hominems; however, the actuality is that “ignoramus on the subject” is a conclusion arrived at by Feser only after the argument is laid out by him and only after he demonstrates that his argument is, in fact, the classical (and well-formed) one that should have been the version fairly addressed by any right-minded interlocutors, instead of the caricature of an argument they have scared up. That they have continued to conjure up straw men instead of the actual, historical, well-formed arguments, considering that they “should have” known better, is what leads Feser to his conclusion of “ignoramus on the subject” - especially where professional philosophers are involved.

You see, these are quite different from each other:
  1. making a disparaging remark (not an ad hominem,)
  2. passing a disparaging remark off as an argument (an ad hominem) AND
  3. arriving at a disparaging remark, in passing or as a conclusion, about a person who should have known better.
Now, you might attempt to downgrade your assessment of Feser’s guilt from “a lot of ad hominems” to “lacking social graces,” but then you would still need to address his arguments, instead of merely claiming that he “makes a lot of ad hominems,” - which, incidentally, IS an ad hominem if you are trying to pass THAT off as a response to his arguments.

In all fairness, if you miss the “Read More>>” link which expands the remaining portion of his article(s) you might be left with the impression that all he does is commit ad hominems in his writings, but that would be an oversight on your part, not his. You do have to "Read more>>” to see his entire case in almost every instance on his blog. Better still, read one (or more) of his books.
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I was hoping he would just give me the arguments. I am not interested in plowing through personal attacks.
 
Tomdstone said:
I was hoping he would just give me the arguments. I am not interested in plowing through personal attacks.
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Chalk it up to frustration with people who should know better than to trot out tired old “refutations” that have been dealt with ad nauseum.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
Except the Exodus never actually happened as described in the bible. Why should made up histories and prophecies constitute evidence?
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“Never actually happened” is a pretty strong claim given that your source only admits the “consensus of modern scholars” is that the archeological evidence to establish historicity is not available to us today. That does not, logically speaking, entail “never actually happened” except, perhaps, by the same magical incantation that could also effectively turn a toad into a prince.

“Can’t prove by archeological evidence” does not equal “never happened” especially since the archeological evidence doesn’t prove it “never happened.”
 
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