Arguments for the existence of God[W:740] (1 Viewer)

[devildavid]

No, it would make god(s) a necessary condition, which it is, truly.

But if gods are only conditions, they can be explained physically.

 

[devildavid]

What is the condition necessary for there to be gods?

 

[zyzygy]

What is the condition necessary for there to be gods?

Early humans faced with volcanoes, earthquakes and thunder?

 

[RAMOSS]

One has to pick all the cherries.

No, in that case, it wasn't cherry picking. It was the fact that smaller sample sizes can are more prone to variation due to random chance, and they basically repeated the experiment with a larger sample size to eliminate that possibility. The 'cherry picking' would be to concentrate on the first study, and ignore the fact that the second study by the same group of people found no correlation.

 

[Visbek]

I'm sure this has been covered, but...

1. There must be a first principle of all if there is to be an explanation of why the world exists.

OK then

"Something exists, because nothingness is logically impossible."
or
"Existence exists, because existence exists."

Voila. First principle. No deity required. Donezo. You're welcome.

2. If the first principle of all were composed of parts, then those parts would be ontologically prior to it.... etc

Someone hasn't read Plato's Parmenides

You can't have a concept of the "One" without a concept of the "Many." They are mutually entailed. Assuming those two need to arise at all, they must arise together.

Thus, it really shouldn't matter if your first principle is a One or Many. Neither concept is ontologically "prior" (first or more fundamental) than the other.

I'd also say that defining a deity as the "One," or a thing without parts, doesn't make sense. That definitely doesn't work for the concept of the Trinity in Christianity.

What is meant by a “first principle” in step (1) is, essentially, a bottom level explanation of the world, something that explains everything else without needing an explanation itself.

Yeah, thing is? No such thing exists.

For example: Any First Principle must be consistent, otherwise it will be irrational, unintelligible, and cannot be used in any proof. This means you need to develop a framework for consistency and logic in order for your First Principle to work.

Not to mention that you had to use a proof (which has all sorts of supporting frameworks) to claim that you need a First Principle.

And of course, it doesn't end the questions. E.g. "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is not answered by "Because The One." Or, "Why does The One exist?" is not answered by "Because The One."

Accordingly, this premise is at least implicitly accepted by the atheist no less than by the theist, at least insofar as the atheist regards scientific explanations as terminating in a most fundamental level of physical laws that determine all the rest – whether this takes the form of a “Theory of everything” or instead a conjunction of several physical theories left unreduced to some such single theory.

The TOE does not fit your description of a First Principle.

It isn't a fundamentally or absolutely simple concept, without parts. It requires entire systems, including mathematics and physics, to operate.

I.e. materialists don't need to accept a need for a fundamental concept, in the sense you're discussing.

 

[Angel]

I don't escape scientific explanation for how I came to exist. Science only deals with how, not why. Why is irrelevant. You can call why a miracle and I can call why random chance. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. We are still left with the bottom line that all we truly know and experience is totally dependent upon physical existence. The only explanation for my existence is how. There is no explanation of why. Why is a blank space that people like to fill in with whatever pleases them. Physical reality just is. It is independent of a why.

You introduce the Why, not I. I'm talking about the How. Science has no explanation of How for the Big Bang, Life on earth, or Consciousness.

 

[Angel]

But if gods are only conditions, they can be explained physically.

Conditionality is a logical relationship.

What is the condition necessary for there to be gods?

This is a different question.

 

[devildavid]

You introduce the Why, not I. I'm talking about the How. Science has no explanation of How for the Big Bang, Life on earth, or Consciousness.

Positing god is not an explanation of how.

 

[Angel]

That is a very loaded argument though.

First off, let's define the term miracle. Miracle: An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.

Therefore the presumption in your argument is that the existence of life on earth and the conditions on this planet that support it are not explainable by natural and scientific laws and thus require a supernatural explanation. That presumption is false. There is no evidence that life or the conditions for it require any explanation outside of the known physical universe. You are making a classic "God of the gaps" argument in that we don't know everything about how the first single celled life forms came into existence therefore it must be a supernatural cause - God. We don't know whether any other planet harbors life or how many do in our universe, therefore God.

The second argument doesn't even logically follow, but you seemed to make it just the same.

Fair points.
First, dictionary meanings are records of usage, and the inclusion of divinity in the first dictionary meaning just records the inference that has been made down the ages, whereas the original Latin miraculum -- before it entered Church discourse -- just referred to an object of wonder. By miracle I hark back to the original meaning and intended it in the second sense recorded in the dictionary, namely an extraordinary phenomenon for which there is no natural explanation.

Second, the "classic" God of the Gaps argument -- long before it was adopted by the new atheism -- was made by ancient theologians to counter the tendency to think that God was only at work in extraordinary phenomena. It was used to argue that God is always at work, not just in the gaps. My argument appears to be a God of the Gaps argument because I'm trying to convince interlocutors who do not see divinity outside the gaps. To my mind, everything that exists is "evidence" of God, but since I'm addressing those who hold science to be the last word on reality, I point to those glaring omissions in scientific explanation to make my argument.

Third, as to my use of another life-bearing planet as a counter-example to the argument for the existence of God, I had in mind something like this: another life-bearing planet would tilt the evidence toward a naturalistic explanation of life on earth, rather than a supernatural explanation. My point at any rate was that the God hypothesis is falsifiable by empirical evidence. A scientific explanation of the Big Bang, Life on earth, or Consciousness would work as well to make this point.

 

[Angel]

Positing god is not an explanation of how.

I am not positing; I'm inferring. God certainly is an explanation of How -- think of the Unmoved Mover of ancient philosophical thought. How did the whole thing get started? Your Why implies teleology, and teleology is not part of my argument.

 

[devildavid]

Conditionality is a logical relationship.


This is a different question.

Logical conditionality in word games is meaningless. Conditionality in physical reality is entirely different.

What it the answer for the necessary conditions for gods?

 

[devildavid]

I am not positing; I'm inferring. God certainly is an explanation of How -- think of the Unmoved Mover of ancient philosophical thought. How did the whole thing get started? Your Why implies teleology, and teleology is not part of my argument.

The unmoved mover does not explain how a god made something from nothing nor does it explain how the god was there in the first place. It simply avoids the hard question and fills in the blank with a concept without a shred of physical evidence.

 

[Angel]

Logical conditionality in word games is meaningless. Conditionality in physical reality is entirely different.

What it the answer for the necessary conditions for gods?

You're just being dismissive if you reject logical conditionality. And lest we start dancing in circles as of old -- only one of us views physical reality as exhaustive of reality.
The necessary condition for God is, as I pointed out to you already, a different question from the question we are mooting. Moreover, coming from you, it is a disingenuous different question inasmuch as you ask for the condition of something you don't recognize as existing. And third, asking for the conditionality of divinity is non-nonsensical since divinity is Conditionality Itself.

 

[Angel]

The unmoved mover does not explain how a god made something from nothing nor does it explain how the god was there in the first place. It simply avoids the hard question and fills in the blank with a concept without a shred of physical evidence.

It does not have to explain any of this business you ask for. All of physical reality is evidence of God.

 

[devildavid]

It does not have to explain any of this business you ask for. All of physical reality is evidence of God.

Everything depends on how you define god and why we should even consider that the concept of god carries any special consideration.

 

[devildavid]

You're just being dismissive if you reject logical conditionality. And lest we start dancing in circles as of old -- only one of us views physical reality as exhaustive of reality.
The necessary condition for God is, as I pointed out to you already, a different question from the question we are mooting. Moreover, coming from you, it is a disingenuous different question inasmuch as you ask for the condition of something you don't recognize as existing. And third, asking for the conditionality of divinity is non-nonsensical since divinity is Conditionality Itself.

Logical word games are not reality except that they exist as logical word games. You can't simply define something into existence.

 

[Cephus]

I am not positing; I'm inferring. God certainly is an explanation of How -- think of the Unmoved Mover of ancient philosophical thought. How did the whole thing get started? Your Why implies teleology, and teleology is not part of my argument.

But you really can't do that. All you can say is that based on our current level of understanding, something might have happened. You cannot get from "something" to your specific god. It simply cannot be done. You can't even get to *A* god. You can only get to something unspecified.

 

[Cephus]

It does not have to explain any of this business you ask for. All of physical reality is evidence of God.

All physical reality is evidence of invisible universe-creating pixies. Makes every bit as much sense as your unsupported and unjustified claim.

 

[zyzygy]

All physical reality is evidence of invisible universe-creating pixies. Makes every bit as much sense as your unsupported and unjustified claim.

No, universe creating four dimensional super goblins. Don't ask me to prove it. Believe.

 

[William Rea]

Fair points.
First, dictionary meanings are records of usage, and the inclusion of divinity in the first dictionary meaning just records the inference that has been made down the ages, whereas the original Latin miraculum -- before it entered Church discourse -- just referred to an object of wonder. By miracle I hark back to the original meaning and intended it in the second sense recorded in the dictionary, namely an extraordinary phenomenon for which there is no natural explanation.

Second, the "classic" God of the Gaps argument -- long before it was adopted by the new atheism -- was made by ancient theologians to counter the tendency to think that God was only at work in extraordinary phenomena. It was used to argue that God is always at work, not just in the gaps. My argument appears to be a God of the Gaps argument because I'm trying to convince interlocutors who do not see divinity outside the gaps. To my mind, everything that exists is "evidence" of God, but since I'm addressing those who hold science to be the last word on reality, I point to those glaring omissions in scientific explanation to make my argument.

Third, as to my use of another life-bearing planet as a counter-example to the argument for the existence of God, I had in mind something like this: another life-bearing planet would tilt the evidence toward a naturalistic explanation of life on earth, rather than a supernatural explanation. My point at any rate was that the God hypothesis is falsifiable by empirical evidence. A scientific explanation of the Big Bang, Life on earth, or Consciousness would work as well to make this point.

So, in summary, standard apologetics.

 

[William Rea]

You're just being dismissive if you reject logical conditionality. And lest we start dancing in circles as of old -- only one of us views physical reality as exhaustive of reality.
The necessary condition for God is, as I pointed out to you already, a different question from the question we are mooting. Moreover, coming from you, it is a disingenuous different question inasmuch as you ask for the condition of something you don't recognize as existing. And third, asking for the conditionality of divinity is non-nonsensical since divinity is Conditionality Itself.

Then produce your immaterial.

 

[Quag]

Quite right.

Then why are you still trying to make arguments for God?

 

[OldFatGuy]

There have been many studies by third parties without an ax to grind. Per example: https://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/spiritual-interventions

This isn't to say that these studies always show a positive result for those who believe in prayer, or that other factors may or may not be in effect. The Harvard study cited is one of many, but like food studies, beware of those with underwriting from the food industry like the Wisconsin Cheese Association study released this past year which cited eating cheese as good for the heart.

And it is not that people who pray do better when recovering from surgery, it is when others pray for those going through such surgeries. That's what makes it interesting. It's easy to understand how any positive psychological self action could benefit the ill, but not so easy to understand how quality expressions from others not witnessed by the beneficiary can influence healing.

On the other hand there is that infamous story of the man who attended a tent revival healing, entering the tent with a deformed, twisted hand, crying out "Lord, Lord, please make this hand like my other one!" And he left the tent with two deformed twisted hands.

 

[Angel]

Then why are you still trying to make arguments for God?

As George Mallory memorably said, "Because it's there."
("It" refers to Everest in the quote.)

 

[OldFatGuy]

You're assuming life exists only as we know it today, in our physical world. Harry Houdini may not have gotten back to us, or at least by a method we can recognize, but that doesn't mean he isn't trying.

Healthy skepticism is healthy, but it is also a two way street.