The Theist Position

[o_mlly]

Intelligence is defined as the capability to store and process digital data. It is not important to the argument that one agree with that definition unless one thinks intelligence is less that the two capabilities described.

Hypothesis – intelligent beings require intelligent causes. Easily falsifiable; show verifiable evidence of an intelligent being begot by non-intelligent causes.

A correlative hypothesis: Since all living beings have DNA/mRNA, all living beings have intelligence. Easily falsifiable; show verifiable evidence of a living being begot by non-living beings.

No negating evidence offered.

Therefore, using Darwinian logic of vera causa, we observe that all intelligent (as defined) beings have intelligent causes. Specifically, we see that all living things and [the Watson concession] in some non-living things (computers and the like) that posses digital data and the instructions to act on that data are caused only by intelligent beings.

They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases ( Darwin’s The Origin of Species)

Intelligent design presents us with the only causally adequate explanation for the origin of beings with intelligence.

 

[Bradskii]

Then, presumably, the “default” you were talking about previously was “logically prior” to taking evidence into account.

So, what is the religion in question?

Bradskii:

And if different religions claim a personal connection with the supernatural, again, who should I listen to? Either all of them are wrong or just one group has it right.

Not necessarily.

If someone claims to have had a personal supernatural experience, there are several options:

1. It was a direct experience of God.
2. It was an experience of some other spirit on behalf of God.
3. It was an experience of some other spirit (probably a demon), not on behalf of God.
4. It was not really a personal supernatural experience, but the witness mistakenly thinks that it was.
5. The witness is lying.

I see no reason to rule out any of those for non-Catholic Christians. And even for non-Christians, at least option 3 is possible.

And what do judges and the police have to do with listening to people’e evidence?

Seriously?

Their job is to make decisions using, among other things, witness testimony. And witnesses can be lying.

So, do you know what techniques they use? Would you like to find out? Have you ever tried to do so?

All religions have their own personal God.

Um, no. For example, Buddhists have no personal God.

Was all your investigation so worthless?

All religions have their own personal God. Which you would reject because you would claim that yours is the true God.

Would we? For example, as you might note from the threads in this forum, a significant part of Catholics think it is at least arguable that we worship the same God as Muslims.

Again, was all your investigation so worthless?

To take these points in order to save me cutting and pasting:

Yes, my personal default position ‘I believe in a personal God’ was prior to any investigation of the evidence.

The religion is, obviously I would have thought, Chritianity.

I’m not sure that a Hindu or Native American would claim that his/her personal God was the same as yours. They would be (and certainly are) completely different. Unless you think that Shiva, for example, is God in another form. So the choices would be:
They are right.
They are wrong.
They are lying.
And those are the three choices for any given Christian as well.

And I am not determining if someone is lying. I very seriously doubt if anyone would lie about such a matter. So the choices are really that they are telling the truth or they are mistaken (the same choices for claims by any other religion).

I never included Buddhism because it has no personal god.

The fact that Islam and Christianity share the same personal God does not make the statement ‘All religions have their own personal God’ incorrect. I think you are looking for an argument rather than addressing the points.

 

[Calliope]

I was trying to get you to do a proper investigation - at least to do a short simple search.

I’ve done my own investigation. I have a life. I have obligations. I had plans for the weekend (spiritual retreat) and had committments to fulfil towards that and my family. So I don’t have time to put my life on hold and spend time finding links to satisfy a stranger online who is trying to prove that I’m ignorant.

I’m done conversing with you.

 

[niceatheist]

Trying to make me accept a double negative is an interesting game of semantics that I’ll try not to take as mockery.

To put a better description of my atheism out there, I’ll state it is because I do not see the necessity of God.

 

[catholicray]

You’re mistaken it is not a double negative grammatically.

I do not not believe = I believe

Notice the word not is acting on one word believe.

However,

I do not believe that god does not exist, is not a double negative grammatically.

The word not is acting on believe once and the word not is acting on the word exist once.

 

[niceatheist]

It is not the same as “lacking belief”. It’s bad grammar and certainly not a meaningful critique of my position

 

[catholicray]

It’s exactly the same and there is nothing wrong grammatically.

Here let me show you:

I lack belief that god does not exist. Breaking it down then:

I lack belief (a statement in and of itself)
God does not exist (a statement in and of itself)
Both function grammatically in and of themselves.

Then as a compound statement:
I lack belief that God does not exist

 

[niceatheist]

But it could just be framed “I believe God exists”

 

[catholicray]

No that is a different statement entirely.

 

[niceatheist]

At best it could be an awkward way of restating agnosticism.

 

[catholicray]

That would also be inaccurate. Agnosticism deals with “gnosis” (knowing). It has nothing to do with believing.

i.e.
I do not know God exists
I do not think I can know God exists
I know God god does not exist

 

[Lion_IRC]

Trying to make me accept a double negative is an interesting game of semantics that I’ll try not to take as mockery.

To put a better description of my atheism out there, I’ll state it is because I do not see the necessity of God.

You are not being mocked friend.

It’s not a double negative for me to say I disbelieve the claim that there is no God. It’s not a double negative when I dispute the atheists claim that evidence for God is not evidence. Disputing the atheist position is not tantamount to asserting a double negative.

God yes?
God no?
God maybe?

Which one of those categories describes your POV?

 

[catholicray]

God yes?
God no?
God maybe?

Which one of those categories describes your POV?

Their conclusion would be the same as their first premise. “I lack belief that God exists” It’s logically possible but they had to had to gamble their soul to get there. Of course I don’t think all atheist actually understand the gamble necessary to conclude that “I lack belief that God exists”. I think a lot of them would not have culpability.

 

[LateCatholic]

Disbelief in God is another matter. There are philosophical arguments for God, one may find them unconvincing, but one cannot deny they exist. In addition, we have not evidence that God does not exist.

Your argument is valid but you are avoiding the point. There is no difference between “disbelief in BigFoot” and “disbelief in (a) God”. It is simply a matter of definition. When you defend the existence of God, you first have to define the entity.

For example, if you want to defend the existence of the “God of the Bible”, such as a supreme being that got lonely, created the universe 6000 years ago, interacted with his creation for those 6000 years, killed almost all of said creation with the Flood, had a ‘son’ that became human that was really himself, died and rose to satisfy his own requirement for redemption, turns wine into blood every Sunday through his priests, etc etc. … then you ARE talking about the same thing as disbelief in “BigFoot”.

However, if you are talking more of belief in a “Deist” type entity, one that exists in conjunction with the universe that could have had a part in its initial creation, but is not necessarily “all-powerful”, then your point about philosophical foundations existing is correct.

The problem with Christians arguing with Atheists is that the discussion almost always degrades such that Christians end up arguing the Deist position, and Atheists argue against the Christian position. In the end, whomever ‘wins’, hasn’t really proven anything.

 

[LateCatholic]

Atheist will say that the Theist position is that God exists therefore we shoulder the burden of proof. This is false.

The Theist position is that we do not believe in the non-existence of God/s. Whereby, if we are following the rules of atheism, we are not making a claim at this level and zero evidence is necessary for our “unbelief”.

Any first year philosophy student will disagree with the above, purely on a logic basis. If you maintain anything ‘exists’, you must justify it.

Regardless, I find the above position troubling. It seems as if you are throwing in the towel from the start. I have always despised these arguments. You are giving Atheists the win before even starting.
Arguments such as:

1. My worldview says God exists, therefore he does
2. I presuppose God exists, so there is no need to prove it
3. Burden of proof is on you not me
4. and so on

These are not constructive, and only strengthen the Atheist position. If you want to take on the challenge, take it on directly. Theism is nearly impossible to defend, but Deism is not so easily dismissed.

 

[catholicray]

Any first year philosophy student will disagree with the above, purely on a logic basis. If you maintain anything ‘exists’, you must justify it.

Are you up for a conversation on the point? I haven’t thrown in the towel. I can logically get to the God of Abraham no matter which position I start from. I’ll start from the atheist position if you like? There is also a neutral position if you care for that?

I’m not saying God exists in my 1st premise btw

My 1st Premise is I do not believe in the nonexistence of God

 

[Lion_IRC]

There is also such a thing as presuppositional atheism.
And I expect such atheists to justify their default belief with respect to the existence of God.

If I claimed Abraham Lincoln never existed or the Moon Landing never happened, I would be expected to justify my LACK of belief.

 

[catholicray]

If I claimed Abraham Lincoln never existed or the Moon Landing never happened, I would be expected to justify my LACK of belief.

Be careful here. When you make a claim you do need to provide evidence. Instead the position would be “I lack belief in the existence of Abraham Lincoln”.

 

[LateCatholic]

I lack belief that God does not exist

You are not making any progress with the argument. Consider the possible worlds the above statement outlines:

1. A world where I have no knowledge of the concept of “God”
   1a) God exists in this world
   1b) God does not exist in this world
2. A world where I DO have knowledge of the concept of God.
   2a) God exists in this world
   2b) God does not exist in this world

Let’s define “belief” as “strong conviction of placing oneself in one of the above worlds”. For example:

• An atheist is in world 2b.
• A theist is in world 2a
• An agnostic is in world 2, but will not place himself in either 2a or 2b.

All you are saying with the statement “I lack belief God does not exist” is that you simply are not in a position to commit to world 2b. You haven’t even stated you are in 2a. All you have said is basically “I’m not sure I’m an atheist”. And you certainly haven’t moved anyone to world 2a, which is what you are trying to do.

 

[JosephJohn]

I think the answer here is even simpler.

In debate almost anyone will admit that it is a valid technique to ask “why?” In response to your opponents assertion. The opponent has two options. They can assert a more basic truth which necessitates their original claim being true or they can claim that their original assertion is axiomatic- an eternal transcendent uncaused truth- necessary but necessary for no reason. I would say broadly speaking this is what people philosophically mean by a god. This part of the proof permits polytheism and gods which are not persons but just principles. Nonetheless we have proved the theist position to all but the nihilists. Stop reading here if you aren’t worried about or interested in the rest of the argument

I think most nihilists would agree to my argument above but object to me calling axioms gods. I’d say this is merely a difference in terms if we are making strictly logical proofs. Further, axioms have all of the same properties atheists object to about God - if it’s a true axiom you simply cannot convince someone to abandon it except for a better one. There is by definition no evidence, etc. if you believe in self awareness, and you can’t answer me why you do you have made self awareness a god- in fact a personal god. This is closer to where we want to be.

Worshippers of the true God have 2 additional steps to take. We first have to say there is only 1 God- that is you can ask why to literally anything and expect another thing as the answer- save one thing. This must be true because either the ‘gods’ live in harmony and one might ask “why” the harmony exists- in doing so you’ve made either the harmony or the cause of the harmony a higher god… or no harmony exists and the universe is inconsistent chaos and we are back to nihilism or worse. The LORD is the only necessary thing which is necessary without a reason. He is indescribable and unknowable but he is means of being itself. We must also say that since we know we are conscience we can understand that if we are not God- which is fairly self evident by our lack of omniscience- that God must be the cause of self awareness and must himself be self aware. So if you are not a nihilist a satanist or a true polytheist - then a single God who could truthfully call himself “I AM” exists and exists alongside no one like him.

There is one other possibility which David Hofstadter Laid out. But no group I know of endorses that view and it is a view which Christians can answer also.