Wanted: posters to talk on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

[KingCoil]

Design and order prove nothing. I have seen magnificent and complex designs formed only by running water. Your belief in a God, my belief in a God are products of faith…and quite often faith in what other human beings have said.

You may not see wind…just add a little smoke and you will. You can also clearly see the results of its existence. In all my years I have not seen a single thing that I could attribute only to a god of some sort.

You are seeing with a myopic eye, as on a grain of sand and you stop there on its surface; but there in the sand is a whole universe.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

Logic does not suffice. For it lacks content. Apparently, you may desire reason which contains content. Logic and reason both deal with rules of thought, but former fails in regard to content, while the latter embraces it.

Content considers the subjective condition of reason in regard to perspective. And this standpoint of perspective is conditioned on habit and requires law to bind such to objectivity and thus understand with the right questions which obtain understanding.

The concept of questioning as a link to understanding- excellently embraces prayer. By prayer we become partners with the fundamental perspective that giveth light.

In order to more fully understand this, you would have to question me, and that would be reasonable, for thereby you obtain content. And that is my point. You need to question the reality, and thus content is obtained. For we cannot create our own meaning, meaning is always received.

I say all the time, intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

Don’t forget facts, on which unless you apply logic on them they don’t make no sense to you.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

QUOTE=Bahman;12092287 ]

QUOTE

Originally Posted by KingCoil
God is the creator of the universe, that is inferentially certain on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

I look forward to exchange thoughts with posters here on this idea, that God as creator of the universe is inferentially certain, on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

UNQUOTE

I change your argument slightly.

God is the creator of the universe, that is inferentially certain on intelligent thinking grounded on pure logic which is independent of any facts. It has to be like this since fact by definition is an inexplicable thing that is indisputably the case otherwise our logic is biased by the fact. Is there any fact from God perspective or that is just our limitation?

/QUOTE ]

Thanks but no thanks for your purported assist.

You see, you always say things without reasoning on logic and facts and that is the gist of intelligent thinking.

Here, I will show you that I am correct with my judgment of your non-intelligent-thinking and writing…

You say:It has to be like this since fact by definition is an inexplicable thing that is indisputably the case otherwise our logic is biased by the fact.

You did not all the time as you write keep aware of whether you are talking gratuitously or you can defend every word with facts.

So, I ask, did you in FACT make a survey on what is the concept of fact among literate people, or at least you in FACT made a survey of dictionaries?

If not, then you cannot at all say: “fact by definition is an inexplicable thing.”

Pray, whose definition?

That is what I notice all the time with posters here, they talk all the time gratuitously without any support from facts for what they are dishing out.

KingCoil

 

[a_priori]

Logic is irrelevant. Logic is necessarily grounded inside spacetime. It cannot be used to conclude anything about a reality OUTSIDE of spacetime where God “exists” any more than a pepperoni pizza can pick up the BBC.

 

[oldcelt]

Logic is irrelevant. Logic is necessarily grounded inside spacetime. It cannot be used to conclude anything about a reality OUTSIDE of spacetime where God “exists” any more than a pepperoni pizza can pick up the BBC.

Kind of convenient isn’t it? Faiths determine things that we dare not question because God and logic are incompatible. Then how did any of them arrive at their conclusions…having never met God.

 

[Servant19]

Here is my submission:

God is the creator of the universe, that is inferentially certain on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

I look forward to exchange thoughts with posters here on this idea, that God as creator of the universe is inferentially certain, on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

I had already met some posters here, but they have taken off; and my thread on How certain are we that God exists, has been closed down.

I don’t know why.

Wanted: new posters who are interested to talk on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts on my submission, namely, God creator of the universe exists, that is certain inferentially from intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

KingCoil

This is flawed logic from the very start dear friend.

If God is eternal, and was, is and will be the Creator of everything, then creation is similarly eternal. There is no beginning and there is no end.

God’s creation is an emanation of His active attributes. What we see in the visible universe are a “manifestation” of those attributes.

.

 

[Bahman]

Thanks but no thanks for your purported assist.

You see, you always say things without reasoning on logic and facts and that is the gist of intelligent thinking.

Here, I will show you that I am correct with my judgment of your non-intelligent-thinking and writing…

You say:It has to be like this since fact by definition is an inexplicable thing that is indisputably the case otherwise our logic is biased by the fact.

You did not all the time as you write keep aware of whether you are talking gratuitously or you can defend every word with facts.

So, I ask, did you in FACT make a survey on what is the concept of fact among literate people, or at least you in FACT made a survey of dictionaries?

If not, then you cannot at all say: “fact by definition is an inexplicable thing.”

Pray, whose definition?

That is what I notice all the time with posters here, they talk all the time gratuitously without any support from facts for what they are dishing out.

KingCoil

Could two logical systems which are based on different facts, such as materialism and idealism, reach to any level of agreement?

 

[GaryTaylor]

I am highly dubious that anyone could present any facts.

There won’t be any coming forward on the non existence of God either. Thats a “fact”.

 

[a_priori]

Kind of convenient isn’t it? Faiths determine things that we dare not question because God and logic are incompatible. Then how did any of them arrive at their conclusions…having never met God.

“Convenience” has nothing to do with it. Faith doesn’t exhaustively determine anything. To avoid questioning one’s faith is laziness.

 

[KingCoil]

Thanks everyone for your participation.

The thread is an invitation to all readers, “Wanted: posters to talk on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.”

And the OP goes like this:
http://i60.tinypic.com/bdk592.jpg

Let us first work together to concur on what we mean by intelligent thinking, what by logic, and what by facts.

Here is my idea of intelligent thinking: very broadly, it is the process of the mind to work out a solution to a problem.

What do you guys say about my idea of what is intelligent thinking?

In the present thread, the problem is the question Does God exist or not?

KingCoil

 

[polytropos]

This is flawed logic from the very start dear friend.

If God is eternal, and was, is and will be the Creator of everything, then creation is similarly eternal. There is no beginning and there is no end.

God’s creation is an emanation of His active attributes. What we see in the visible universe are a “manifestation” of those attributes.

.

I am not interested in defending KingCoil’s God concept. I am, indeed, unclear on what his God concept is. (Though you may not have been responding to anything he said in particular, anyway.)

However, I think your argument is unsound, either because you are concealing a false premise or you are working with a faulty conception of God’s eternity or causality.

To say God is eternal is to say that God exists outside of time. It is not to say that God exists through an infinite past or infinite future. It is not (directly) to say that God exists at all times, even, though it would be most natural to define “x exists at t” to be true for all eternal entities. This doesn’t imply that they exist at that time.

Because God is simple, he is identical with his will, and his creative act is a single eternal act. This does not imply that there is one effect of God’s will, however. (You and I are effects of his will for example.)

We could draw a distinction between God’s primary will and God’s secondary will. God’s primary will is identical with God and provides the identity conditions for his will (and himself); his primary will is a willing of his own good, which is the only thing that he does necessarily (for any other act of will, the willing of a goodness immeasurably lesser than his own, could not compel him). So his secondary will, which is contingent, consists of the various objects that he wills (again, like you or I). But we are changeable entities who differ over time and indeed come into and go out of existence. So the propositions “polytropos exists” and “Servant19 exists” are not well-defined (unless we take their present-tensedness to imply a time specification). To be well-defined, they require time specifications: “Servant19 exists at t1” or “Servant19 exists from t2 to t3”.

A rough (though incomplete–it requires qualification) account of omnipotence might be that God has states of affairs under his power. And a standard (though probably in need of qualification as well) account of states of affairs is that they are described by propositions. So a clarification of God’s causing the world will be will be to say that God causes natural substances to exist at times. So even though God is eternal and has one eternal willing, it doesn’t follow* that creation is eternal**.

• This account also doesn’t exclude the possibility. I am not arguing that the past is finite, just that it could have been finite, and that would be consistent with God’s being eternal.

** I suspect when you use eternal (which, at least in philosophy discussions where the distinction is relevant, means “outside of time”), you really mean sempiternal (ie. existing forever, through an infinite past and infinite future). It is clear that creation is not eternal, for creation changes over time, which is what is denied of God. Creation might be sempiternal, if Christian revelation is false.

Given this robust account of God’s eternity, there are other dilemmas, such as whether creaturely freedom is compatible with divine omniscience. I believe it is, and I believe the eternity conception actually helps resolve the dilemma. But that’s another topic.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Another fact is that nothing is raised from a state of potential to a state of actuality except by something outside it which already possessed actuality.

Except if that something is a thing we can’t explain called God?

 

[KingCoil]

I am not interested in defending KingCoil’s God concept. I am, indeed, unclear on what his God concept is. (Though you may not have been responding to anything he said in particular, anyway.)

…]

My concept of God is that He is the creator of the universe, I have said that nth times already.

You are unclear about God in concept being the creator of the universe?

Let you and me talk about how you are unclear with my concept of God as the creator of the universe.

Tell me, what is unclear with this statement from me:

God in concept is the creator of the universe.

I am trying to get people to do intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts, and as I practice intelligent thinking, I submit that my concept of God is the most intelligent idea about God in the Christian faith.

So, what is unclear for you that God in concept in the Christian faith is the creator of the universe?

You will say that it is not saying anything about God being all good, all just, all intelligent, all omnipotent, etc.?

But have I ever said anything against God in concept being all good, all just, all intelligent, all omnipotent, etc.?

Is that why you say that you are unclear about my concept of God as the creator of the universe?

Now, I ask you, isn’t the best thing we can say about God in the Christian faith founded on logic and facts, is that He is the creator of the universe?

Isn’t that the first and foremost idea of God in Genesis and in the Apostles’ Creed?

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. – Genesis 1:1
I believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth. – Apostles’ Creed verse 1

Let me read what is YOUR concept of God in the Christian faith.

KingCoil

 

[polytropos]

My concept of God is that He is the creator of the universe, I have said that nth times already.

You are unclear about God in concept being the creator of the universe?

Let you and me talk about how you are unclear with my concept of God as the creator of the universe.

Tell me, what is unclear with this statement from me:

God in concept is the creator of the universe.

This ratifies my point. “God in concept is the creator of the universe” is underdetermined as a God concept. For example, it does not specify whether God is eternal, sempiternal, or (perhaps) something else. One might take it to imply that God is either eternal or sempiternal, but there are philosophers in both camps who all believe that God is the creator of the universe. So the concept is underdetermined.

What it means to be a “creator” is also underdetermined. If I build a chair, then I might be called a creator. God is a creator in a stronger sense. But on the theistic spectrum, one will find people who agree on that point, but disagree about what creation is. The minimalist deist would hold that he creates the world and “lets it go.” Someone might qualify as a theist if he held the deist position but also believed that God intervenes in the world periodically (in public revelation, for instance, and perhaps in minor miracles, in response to petitionary prayers, and in the dispensation of grace). Then someone else might take a very strong view of creation, whereby it is an act that not just brings the universe into being but is required to hold it in being at every moment at which it exists. That view might be termed “mere conservationism” (by Alfred Freddoso). “Mere” suggests that there is a still stronger view: concurrentism, on which God “concurs” with the activities of natural substances in addition to merely sustaining them.

Without a position on an issue like this, “God is the creator of the universe” is undetermined. I am a concurrentist. You (if I recall correctly) endorse the kalam cosmological argument, but I don’t believe the kalam cosmological argument can get you all the way to concurrentism (though it does not rule it out).

That is not a full account of my own God concept. I think it would be pretty fully fleshed out by including eternity (which I defined above in my response to Servant19) and a robust doctrine of divine simplicity (on which God is non-composite and identical with his existence and non-existential properties), as well as standard attributes… absolute goodness, omniscience, omnipotence. There are non-trivial accounts to be given for these as well, but what they will look like should be more or less clear given divine simplicity.

The Bible and Creeds underdetermine God’s nature as well. (The Creeds, since they were generally formulated in response to specific heresies.)

 

[ManOnFire]

I’m surprised there are so many logical and educated people who think that the Big Bang Theory is logical and grounded in science. Gravity magically popped into existence from absolutely nothing?? With no scientific theory to support “nothing to something” when absolutely nothing else exists? What could be less logical and scientific than that? And few people asking what existed to create the gravity? It’s not a matter of modern science “some day” finding the answer. The First Mover argument has no logical, science-only solution, permanently, by definition. A more logical non-God explanation is to assume that “something” has always existed, until one realizes that science then permanently has no theory to explain why the cosmos exists, which is illogical if God doesn’t exist. Big Bang is Hope and Faith in an illogical and unscientific theory, mostly by people who claim to be logical and true to science. Strange, and somewhat hypocritical. The progressives are pimping this illogical and unscientific theory to influence unsuspecting minds. They have been using the Big Bang theory for decades to promote selfishness and hedonism which reduces deep love, marriages, and population growth.

 

[polytropos]

I’m surprised there are so many logical and educated people who think that the Big Bang Theory is logical and grounded in science. Gravity magically popped into existence from absolutely nothing??

The Big Bang Theory is logical and grounded in science. The logical and educated scientist who proposed it was a Catholic priest. But the Big Bang Theory does not state that the universe (or gravity, or anything else) popped into existence from absolutely nothing.

 

[ManOnFire]

The Big Bang Theory is logical and grounded in science. The logical and educated scientist who proposed it was a Catholic priest. But the Big Bang Theory does not state that the universe (or gravity, or anything else) popped into existence from absolutely nothing.

What non-god entity created the singularity? It’s a question without an answer if God doesn’t exist.

 

[runningdude]

Here is my submission:

God is the creator of the universe, that is inferentially certain on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.
…
Wanted: new posters who are interested to talk on intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts on my submission, namely, God creator of the universe exists, that is certain inferentially from intelligent thinking grounded on logic and facts.

KingCoil

Your request is impossible. God is ultimately a matter of faith.

God’s death and resurrection are a matter of historical record; but even for this, we must trust that our ancestors accurately preserved the history of the Lord.

 

[polytropos]

What non-god entity created the singularity? It’s a question without an answer if God doesn’t exist.

My point is that the Big Bang theory does not purport to answer this question one way or another.

 

[runningdude]

What non-god entity created the singularity? It’s a question without an answer if God doesn’t exist.

You are looking at this from a distinctly Christian perspective. There is no inherent need for there to be a beginning.

Science has inferred that the universe must have “begun” at some point from the
the second “law” of thermodynamics , as in infinite timeline would have dissolved the universe due to entropy already. However, it is also possible that the second law is wrong, and that there is simply an infinite cycle of decay and rebirth.

As Christians, we understand the universe to have a distinct beginning because this is divinely revealed doctrine. We must be cognizant of the origin of this teaching, and not mistake current scientific theories as definitive corroboration. New evidence may reveal the existence of the universe before the “Big Bang”, but this would only mean means the that either the beginning of creation was earlier, or possibly that creation occurred in "both’ directions, such that the beginning is not visible to scientific inquiry.

Science and faith are two distinct domains. Both can reveal truth, and truth uncovered from both sources cannot contradict each other, nor can it corroborate each other.