There is no God

[EnterTheBowser]

One last thing for the night: I recall some noise about how hope (?) and imagination are important parts of what it means to be human, along with reason. You’re right: they’re important parts of humans. And furthermore, imagination is very helpful at understanding the world. Reason might be able to rank hypotheses but imagination can come up with them, and we would hardly get anywhere without that. On the other hand, saying “I hope X is true” is never a particularly good reason for thinking X is true. And it’s probably a bad idea to believe that daydreams and fantasies are true. When it comes to knowledge, reason is the arbiter; it ranks, discards, and accepts various hypotheses. We don’t, or at least ought not to, resort to hope and imagination for these duties. They each have their proper place.

 

[thistle]

Read Peter Kreeft’s proofs for God’s existence.

www.peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm

 

[Alois]

thistle:

Read Peter Kreeft’s proofs for God’s existence.

www.peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm

Please target which specific ones you want to use, or would you like me to provide a refutation of them all?

 

[kev7]

EnterTheBowser:

Alright, kev7, is this your argument:
1-It is impossible to make a rational argument for either the existence of the nonexistence of God without knowing everything in the universe - “all forms of existence.”
2-Therefore one must take the existence or nonexistence of God on faith.

I wonder if you hold to the following (given that 1 is really just a specific instance of this more general statement):
1’-It is impossible to make a rational argument for either the existence or nonexistence of a thing without knowing everything in the universe

I would have to say that your statement is correct. You must first define the universal set of values for any logic problem… I submit that for any question of existance man can only make use of what he knows about the universe for his rational arguments. If the answer to a question requires more then we know then we can’t draw any conclusions. This is just simple logic.

I solve logic problems all day at work and I can tell you that when something is undefined it is not FALSE. It is undefined or null.

My understanding of logic tells me that the question Does God Exist ?is an undefined boolean variable at this current time.

I see no reason to declare that the question of Gods existance should be set to false. I don’t have to reject anything to say that the question of Gods existance is logically at this time undefined. The reason I say that is because it is logically possible for something to be undefined.

Now, this premise is immediately false. In the language of predicate logic, there are some sentences that are false in every structure. And some sorts of God probably fit into this category. But this probably isn’t enough to rebut the argument; maybe we can limit the premise to logically possible things.

I would have to disagree. We can only draw conclusions based on what we know of the universe. We can therefore only accept that if there is a question that requires an understanding of the universe we shouldn’t draw any conclusions (true or false). We have to keep the question in an undefined state for rational thought alone.

The reason I say that our understanding could very well be totally out to lunch. Mans conclusions are often proven wrong over time as our understanding of our environment expands.

Therefore I can’t put any faith in mans ability to define a logical universal set regarding the nature of existance. The understanding of our environment is transient.

However it is rather problematic, because it would seem to lead to the following conclusion:

2’- Therefore one must take the existence or nonexistence of a thing on faith.

I’m not saying you have to draw any conclusions. You don’t have to have any faith.

The problem is that faith and hope are part of human nature. We are not just rational logical robots. We are logicial, but we are also very illogical. This rejection of logic serves us well. It helps us deal with things that are unknown. It helps us take chances.

I will then conclude that it is part of our nature to have faith.

But this applies to everything, every single thing we want to consider. And the real problem is that faith can’t rank beliefs - there’s no reason to have faith in one thing as opposed to another.

I have no need to rank any belifes. I can only say that faith is very important to my life. The truth of God isn’t something that man can understand with logic. It is something that can only be experienced. In other words, you would have to follow Christs foot steps to draw a conclusion of importance and understand its truths.

For one, it is ought to be intuitively obvious that we do not, in fact, need to know everything in order to know some things - or at least to have reasonable certainty.

Yes you are totally right. We don’t need to know everything but we need to know what is possible do draw an assertion.

For example. If you don’t need to know that an apple is on top of a building to know that it could be up there . But you do need to know that the top of a building is a possible location.

That is problem with the question of existance. We would need to know that our material existance is the only form of existance.

We have do know have that information.

 

[kev7]

…

Again, in the language of logic, I do not need to know the entire structure to know if a sentence is true. For example, if we’re considering (N, <), I don’t need to know every single member of the relation < (and I can’t, seeing as how it’s infinite) to know that the following sentence is false: (for every)x(for every)y(x<y → y<x). I only need to know, for example, that 1<2 is a member of < and 2<1 is not. (Heck, if we want to consider a case other than the standard <, I don’t even need to know the general rule that the relation follows or all the members of the relation; if I know that 1<2 is a member of it and 2<1 is not, I can still conclude that the sentence is false)

This is all fine, but you can’t apply this to the question of existance. The problem is that as humans we only have one number to work with. We don’t know anything about any other digit. All we know is the number 1. To make matters worse we don’t even know if 1 is a number yet. To know that 1 is a number would entail that there are other numbers.

And that is my problem. It isn’t logical to assume that there are no other numbers just because we can only (currently) prove 1 form of existance.

If there are infinite forms of existance then you definitely can’t conclude that God does not exists.

In otherwords you can’t perform relational logic on existance without knowing if other possible forms of existance exists.

That being said, there are often good reasons for rejecting a hypothesis, even if we don’t know every single thing that exists. And even in the absence of positive arguments for the nonexistence of God, should all positive arguments for the existence of God fail, parsimony provides a strong incentive for rejecting the God hypothesis.

Anyways, I’ll stop arguing this point if you’ll state the following: there are no rational reasons for believing in your God.

Are you willing to state that there are no rational reasons for not believing in God?

I’m still not convinced that there are any logical reasons alone (apart from those gained through faith) to declare that proof of God is not undefined.

 

[kev7]

Alois:

We can only assume that a rock won’t drop because we know of enviroments in which it won’t drop. If gravity were uniform throughout the universe, we would assume that a rock drops uniformly across the universe. Your logic is backwards.

And if you applied your logic to the question of existance then you would make an assumption. That is the problem with man. he is always making assumtions based on what he currently knows. That is why his logic is transient.

How does lack of proof in Hindu gods prove that there aren’t Hindu gods? I hope you’re not eating beef if you continue down this path of logic.

It doesn’t. I never said that it does. I’m only saying that proof is relative to mans understanding of the universe which is always changing. There is no proof of or proof against God or even Gods for that matter. Those questions are questions of existance and as I’ve said all along NO assertions can be made my means of mans logic.

The catholic church teaches that we can’t say for certain if people of other faiths can be saved. We only come to know that we will be saved through christ when we have faith and experience his wisdom and truth by following his footsteps. If you don’t try to follow them and be christ like then these truths will remain hidden to you.

Exactly. Any open-minded person will keep any possibility open. We just assume that the possibility isn’t truth because we have no rational justification for it. I’m sure you don’t believe there’s an invisible rhino behind you, but the possibility is there.

Which is why I say that an atheist that makes the assertion that God does not exisits in’t open-minded.

I also never said that the possibility was truth. What I’ve said is that the possibility is an invitation for faith.

This is a “One True” logical fallacy. You assume that your Christian God is the “One True” God; where’s your proof of it?

I never said there is any logical proof for it. I don’t need a logical proof to realize that the possibility of God and thus eternal life is an invitation to faith. When I try to think as Christ did and try to follow the way of the Cross I come to know truths that are not born of mans logic.

There are two forms of faith: religous and rational. Religous faith demands that you always believe in something, no matter what. If you don’t, after all, you’re going to hell. (at least in the Christian faith) Rational faith is faith in gravity being constant, but at any time it might not be constant because of some unknown variable. Religous faith has no dobut, rational faith is all about doubt.

I can gladly say that the christian God does not demand ANYTHING from us. He does not demand our faith. He is only calling out for us. We have a choice to follow him or not.
You are also wrong that the Christan has no doubt. That is the purpose of forgivness in our religion. God is always willing to forgive us if we fall from the path. He is always willing to help us back up toward the goal of etneral life.

The possibility of eternal life is the chief motivator for my faith in Christ. I believe that through the path of Christ we can attain that goal.

 

[kev7]

kev7:

I would have to say that your statement is correct. You must first define the universal set of values for any logic problem… I submit that for any question of existance man can only make use of what he knows about the universe for his rational arguments. If the answer to a question requires more then we know then we can’t draw any conclusions. This is just simple logic.

I solve logic problems all day at work and I can tell you that when something is undefined it is not FALSE. It is undefined or null.

My understanding of logic tells me that the question Does God Exist ?is an undefined boolean variable at this current time.

I see no reason to declare that the question of Gods existance should be set to false. I don’t have to reject anything to say that the question of Gods existance is logically at this time undefined. The reason I say that is because it is logically possible for something to be undefined.

I would have to disagree. We can only draw conclusions based on what we know of the universe. We can therefore only accept that if there is a question that requires an understanding of the universe we shouldn’t draw any conclusions (true or false). We have to keep the question in an undefined state for rational thought alone.

This is the reason I say that our understanding could very well be totally out to lunch. Mans conclusions are often proven wrong over time as our understanding of our environment expands.

Therefore I can’t put any faith in mans ability to define a logical universal set regarding the nature of existance. The understanding of our environment is transient.

I’m not saying you have to draw any conclusions. You don’t have to have any faith.

The problem is that faith and hope are part of human nature. We are not just rational logical robots. We are logicial, but we are also very illogical. This rejection of logic serves us well. It helps us deal with things that are unknown. It helps us take chances.

I will then conclude that it is part of our nature to have faith.

I have no need to rank any belifes. I can only say that faith is very important to my life. The truth of God isn’t something that man can understand with logic. It is something that can only be experienced. In other words, you would have to follow Christs foot steps to draw a conclusion of importance and understand its truths.

Yes you are totally right. We don’t need to know everything but we need to know what is possible do draw an assertion.

For example. If you don’t need to know that an apple is on top of a building to know that it could be up there . But you do need to know that the top of a building is a possible location.

That is problem with the question of existance. We would need to know that our material existance is the only form of existance.

We have do know have that information.

 

[kev7]

kev7:

…

This is all fine, but you can’t apply this to the question of existance. The problem is that as humans we only have one number to work with. We don’t know anything about any other digit. All we know is the number 1. To make matters worse we don’t even know if 1 is a number yet. To know that 1 is a number would entail that there are other numbers.

And that is my problem. It isn’t logical to assume that there are no other numbers just because we can only (currently) prove 1 form of existance.

If there are infinite forms of existance then you definitely can’t conclude that God does not exists.

In otherwords you can’t perform relational logic on existance without knowing if other possible forms of existance exists.

Are you willing to state that there are no rational reasons for not believing in God? How do you know if you haven’t first tried understand the teachings of christ and then apply them to your life. I can tell you that the message of Christ is universal to everyone. They are not exclusive to those who are Christians.

I’m still not convinced that there are any logical reasons alone (apart from those gained through faith) to declare that proof of God is not undefined.

 

[kev7]

EnterTheBowser:

One last thing for the night: I recall some noise about how hope (?) and imagination are important parts of what it means to be human, along with reason. You’re right: they’re important parts of humans. And furthermore, imagination is very helpful at understanding the world. Reason might be able to rank hypotheses but imagination can come up with them, and we would hardly get anywhere without that. On the other hand, saying “I hope X is true” is never a particularly good reason for thinking X is true. And it’s probably a bad idea to believe that daydreams and fantasies are true. When it comes to knowledge, reason is the arbiter; it ranks, discards, and accepts various hypotheses. We don’t, or at least ought not to, resort to hope and imagination for these duties. They each have their proper place.

We are not “thinking” that X is true. That is my point. We first have faith that X is true. Then when we follow the path of X we come to know X, and through that we have hope for eternal life.

You can’t know God (X) untill you have tried to follow the path of Christ.

 

[kev7]

Alois:

I don’t see what this has to do with the debate at hand. You’re simply “saying so” instead of proving so. I can say a lot of things are true, but does that make them so?

This had much to do with the debate at hand because someone started to say that God does not love us. I wanted to make it clear what the christian God is like.

The problem is that athests don’t even try to understand what the christan God is like or what he teaches. They first reject God and then draw false conclusions.

As for proof. If you want proof then follow the path of Christ and you will get your proof. Until such time the truths of God will remain hidden to you.

The proof of God is not one of mans transient proofs. It is an experience that has a foundation on love.

 

[hurst]

Alois:

So you believe God exists because of existence itself?

More accurately, I recognize that God exists because of existence itself (since it is not a matter of faith, or of believing - though certainly, one can decide to “believe” in place of not recognizing).

Now, my recognition of God is based on existence itself, my own continued existence, and the existence of my ability to recognize existence. Any child may know what I am talking about. In fact, it was as a child that I first recognized it.

However, I can’t make someone else recognize this, anymore than I can make someone think a certain way who doesn’t want to reach the same conclusion.

hurst

 

[kev7]

As a man I can’t trust mans rational logic alone to explain my God.

The reason for this is simple

I am forced to acknowledge that mans rational logic is from the perspective of human understanding which is always transient, unsighted, and linier.

My God on the other hand is eternal, all knowing, and non-linier.

If God exists his existance can only be made known through things that are eternal and non-linier.

Those things are faith, love, and hope.

It is through hope that we are more then our physical nature that we hear his call. It is through love that we understand his truths. It is through faith that we gain etneral life.

 

[kev7]

EnterTheBowser:

Problem of evil responses:

1- Suffering is just a lack of God; if we all accepted Jesus, there would be no suffering.
2- Sin exists in the world and that is the cause of suffering.
3- God experiences all the suffering that humans experience.

3 doesn’t even make any sense. Is it okay for me to allow you pain if I also experience the same pain?

1. Even people who accept christ make mistakes and fall from the path. That is why christ showed us the importance of forgivness.
2. Sin is the cause of much suffering. The orginal sin is the cause of suffering as well. The knowledge of Good and evil.
3. Again, what you have to understand is that we belive that God did not want to force is love on us. That is why he gave us the choice of original sin. It is not him that is causing this pain it is us. The truth that christ showed us is that God experiences the pain that each of us goes through on a personal level. Gods loves and knows us on a very personal level and because of that he feels our pain.
   .

I’m not sure exactly what 2 means. Is this about original sin - things like muscular dystrophy exist because of the ancient sin of our ancestor?

Catholics don’t follow the literal interpretation of Adam and Eve as the protestants do. We put everything in context.
So no, this has nothing to do with an ancient sin of our ancestor

All things before this world and after this world are non-linier. God and eternal life is not subject to time.

Regarding 1: why, then, do people who do accept Jesus suffer, and who do those who do not prosper? Moreover, why doesn’t everybody know about Jesus?

Everyone in this world suffers in some way or another. People who do not accept jesus are no different.

When Christ returns we will all know about him. Furthermore, lack of knowledge regarding christ doesn’t mean that Christ will not grant them eternal life.

It hardly seems fair to let people suffer because they haven’t flipped a light switch that they don’t know is there.

We are all living in a world of suffering regardless of our faith or lack thereof.

I’m glad you agree that it isn’t fair to let people suffer. If that truly is something that bothers you then let truth of Christ be known.

Suffering is a product of man now that he has the knowledge of good and evil.

If you want to understand the water in your glass that is half full then don’t examine the empty part. You can only come to understand God through the works of good in this world.

And lastly, I am treating this argument with way more seriousness than it deserves. Suffering is not a lack of God. What in the world does the pain of pancreatic cancer have to do with Jesus?

Someone with pancreatic cancer can, through his suffering, change the hearts of many around him.

Some are called to be the person that needs help. Some are called to be the helpers. In fact we are most christ like when we need help. When we help those who are suffering we act as christ does regardless of the fact that we know him

As a Catholic I believe that when the time comes christ will ask us very simple questions.

“When I was hungry, did you feed me?”
"When I was sad, did you comfort me?
"When I was cold, did you offer me your coat?

That is the nature of Gods truth and it applies to everyone.

The suffering of this world won’t last forever. Christ will return and all will be known.

 

[AnAtheist]

kev7:

I’m sorry but I just don’t understand how lack of proof equals proof

It doesn’t. But lack of proof is a good reason not to believe the statement in question. When I tellyou I am 4 meters tall, would you believe that without proof?

Ok now you just made a totally different statement then the one you just made above. First you said that there is proof and now you are saying that it is a possibilty! It doesn’t sound like you are very sure of things.

First I sould be open to possibilities, then I *am *open to possibilities, and then it is wrong too. Oh yes, I should be opne to exactly one more possibility, right?

First you claim that is is possible for something like a god to exist (something that you can’t prove) and then you attack the christian God by saying it is impossible? Why is the christian God impossible and the the notion of ancient gods (that were replaced by the Christian God) possible?

:ehh: How about reading, what I said?
I said: The ancient gods are empirically impossible. Empirically by simply looking where they should reside. Then I said, the Christian God is logically impossible. As the Christian God is per definitionem undetectable (very convenient to dodge falsification), we can only reason about him. I haven’t shown any logical disproof here, I have done that elsewhere on this board, and you wouldn’t accept it anyway.
One common argument against logically disproove your God is to claim, he is beyond logic, he invented logic, etc. Personally I don’t accept that argument, but I can hypothesise if that was true, **then **your God is still highly improbable for various philosophical reason.

**

Lol… how can you claim to be an athiest and then claim that it is possible for NON christian Gods to exists?

**
I did not claim that, I was open to the possibility. Ever heard of the philosophical concept to gather knowledge by putting up a thesis, an antithesis and then conclude a synthesis. Or dialectics? Thought experiment?

 

[Mijoy2]

Alois:

Why should there be more? Why should there be a meaning? Just because you want something doesn’t mean it will be there.

Why should you be wishing for some being to take you into Heaven when there are so many things yet to be achieved here?

Because “here” is temporal. If without meaning…who cares?

 

[AnAtheist]

Mijoy2:

Because “here” is temporal. If without meaning…who cares?

We are here. That’s why we care, even without “meaning”.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

kev7:

I would have to say that your statement is correct. You must first define the universal set of values for any logic problem… I submit that for any question of existance man can only make use of what he knows about the universe for his rational arguments. If the answer to a question requires more then we know then we can’t draw any conclusions. This is just simple logic.

I solve logic problems all day at work and I can tell you that when something is undefined it is not FALSE. It is undefined or null.

My understanding of logic tells me that the question Does God Exist ?is an undefined boolean variable at this current time.

I see no reason to declare that the question of Gods existance should be set to false. I don’t have to reject anything to say that the question of Gods existance is logically at this time undefined. The reason I say that is because it is logically possible for something to be undefined.

As I noted later in my post, it is not necessary to define the entire structure in order to know that certain things are true and certain things are false. For example, I don’t need to know anything about the Andromeda Galaxy to run the argument from suffering.

I would have to disagree. We can only draw conclusions based on what we know of the universe. We can therefore only accept that if there is a question that requires an understanding of the universe we shouldn’t draw any conclusions (true or false). We have to keep the question in an undefined state for rational thought alone.

The reason I say that our understanding could very well be totally out to lunch. Mans conclusions are often proven wrong over time as our understanding of our environment expands.

Therefore I can’t put any faith in mans ability to define a logical universal set regarding the nature of existance. The understanding of our environment is transient.

First of all, it should be obvious that there are some statements which can be declared false - or true - without any knowledge of the particular structure - contradictions, or things with contradictory properties.

I also want to note: if your argument were correct, knowledge would in fact be impossible. If we can’t have reasonable certainty of one thing without knowing everything, we are either omniscient from the start or ignorant forever. But this is false; therefore your argument is false.

And lastly, in modern times, although the explanatory theories do change, the particular facts do not (eg Einstein’s equations almost exactly mirror Newton’s at slow speeds and low gravitiational fields).

I’m not saying you have to draw any conclusions. You don’t have to have any faith.

The problem is that faith and hope are part of human nature. We are not just rational logical robots. We are logicial, but we are also very illogical. This rejection of logic serves us well. It helps us deal with things that are unknown. It helps us take chances.

I will then conclude that it is part of our nature to have faith.

This has nothing to do with the statement of mine it attempted to respond to.

I have no need to rank any belifes. I can only say that faith is very important to my life. The truth of God isn’t something that man can understand with logic. It is something that can only be experienced. In other words, you would have to follow Christs foot steps to draw a conclusion of importance and understand its truths.

Yes, actually, you do need to rank various hypotheses. Will the door open when I turn the knob? Or have aliens glued it shut? Is there a jabberwock on the other side, waiting to devour me? Or not? According to you, our choices regarding any piece of knowledge are either faith it is true, faith it is false, and agnosticism regarding it. So how do I tell which hypothesis I ought to take as true?

Yes you are totally right. We don’t need to know everything but we need to know what is possible do draw an assertion.

For example. If you don’t need to know that an apple is on top of a building to know that it could be up there . But you do need to know that the top of a building is a possible location.

That is problem with the question of existance. We would need to know that our material existance is the only form of existance.

We have do know have that information.

I guess your argument here is:
1- We need to know if it is possible for the proposition “God exists” to be false in order to assert that it is false
2- We don’t know if it is possible for God not to exist
3- Therefore we can’t assert that God does not exist

Of course, 2 is an entirely unsupported premise. And frankly, if it is not possible for God to not exist, then God is somehow logically necessary. But the various ontological proofs of God are bunk, and there is no reason to suppose that it is impossible for God not to exist. So the argument fails.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

kev7:

This is all fine, but you can’t apply this to the question of existance. The problem is that as humans we only have one number to work with. We don’t know anything about any other digit. All we know is the number 1. To make matters worse we don’t even know if 1 is a number yet. To know that 1 is a number would entail that there are other numbers.

And that is my problem. It isn’t logical to assume that there are no other numbers just because we can only (currently) prove 1 form of existance.

If there are infinite forms of existance then you definitely can’t conclude that God does not exists.

In otherwords you can’t perform relational logic on existance without knowing if other possible forms of existance exists.

Are you willing to state that there are no rational reasons for not believing in God?

I’m still not convinced that there are any logical reasons alone (apart from those gained through faith) to declare that proof of God is not undefined.

There might indeed be infinite “forms of existence” which we cannot in any way have any contact with; which cannot affect our universe at all. But, as I previously argued, for all intents and purposes, such things do not exist. Moreover, it is actually meaningless to talk about these things - they are not well-defined.

In some of your other posts, I seemed to notice the idea that if I believe in Christ and walk the path of Christ and have faith in Christ, then I see the light of Christ and become a believer in Christ - or something like that. This is obviously true: if I believe in Christ, then I will, in fact, believe in Christ.

 

[Alois]

Again, what you have to understand is that we belive that God did not want to force is love on us. That is why he gave us the choice of original sin. It is not him that is causing this pain it is us.

Ridiculous. If you don’t accept Christ, your God sends you to hell. This is no different than someone putting a gun to your head and telling you to do something. It’s not free will at all, it’s brutal coercin. That doesn’t sound like a loving God to me.

 

[Alois]

This is all fine, but you can’t apply this to the question of existance. The problem is that as humans we only have one number to work with. We don’t know anything about any other digit. All we know is the number 1. To make matters worse we don’t even know if 1 is a number yet. To know that 1 is a number would entail that there are other numbers.

This is a false analogy. We know that other numbers besides 1 exist. We know 2 exists, we merely can’t “see” it in the situation you provide.

With existence, we only know that it exists. We know of no other form of existence that we can’t see, and under your definition, we could never see this “other” form of existence.