Against Agnosticism - or - God is Provable

As far as I can tell, God is necessary only for resolving our lack of knowledge about the nature and origin of the universe. Knowing everything, the problem of free will is much more problematic for him than for us.

 

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You're just rambling now. First you say reason alone can disprove God, then you say there is evidence out there that can prove it...which is it? Is it evidence or reason?

And again, I beg you to tell me in what way God can be proven or disproven by reason.There simply is no way to do it.

 

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Spidergoat:

To postulate it as a problem, we first have to come to give reasons for its existence: Do you have a good argument for how free-will can exist?

 

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er, say that in English please

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Good vocabulary, but a bit over my head.




And technically free will does NOT exist. Our brains already have a quite rigid set of direction in which they will act, or influence our concious mind to act. Free will is an absolute impossibility.

 

JDawg:

You misconstrue my words.

The evidence would be in intellectual argumentation. For instance, Epicurus' paradox has virtually destroyed the notion of God's omnibenevolence for the last 2000 years. That would count as "evidence either which way".

God is either omnipotent or not, for instance. Omnipotence depends on there being a logical extention to power (clearly "all power excluding that which can create a contradiction" is both meaningful and possible). Then we resolve from that to show whether or not it is actual. Et cetera, et cetera. This has what theology has been attempting to do (with notable successes both ways on various issues) for 2500 years.

 

Norsefire:

Basically: If God is necessary, this necessity can be found out by rational, not empirical, processes. We're talking about philosophical arguments and logical deductions and such. We're not going to find God by peering into space or digging into the ground, but we will by thinking about it, or find proof positive that he isn't possible.

Our evidence will be in our arguments and reasoning, not in finding Mount Olympus, in essence. But it is something which we'll find out eventually one way or another: It is knowable, contra-Agnosticism.

I agree.

 

No it wouldn't. There is a difference between philosophy and science. Philosophy cannot prove or disprove anything, and can provide no evidence for anything, either. Yes, philosophy has an important role, but it is not science. It is based on assumptions, not evidence. I can't put it any more plain that that.

I like to think of myself as a creative guy. I write, I like music, I'm big on movies and books...I dig the conversation, man. I think it's stimulating to have a philosophical debate on the existence of God. But what you have to understand is that philosophical debate cannot result in proof. In order to have these discussions, you must first assume a lot. You must assume that a god would require omnipotence, or be supernatural. You must assume that a god isn't just a race of hyper-intelligent beings that arrived to that state through natural evolution. You have to assume that the universe either requires or doesn't require a creator. You see? Yes, it's thrilling to discuss this stuff, but stop pretending that it's science. It isn't.

 

I would not think so. It is difficult to PROVE something by reason alone or even deduction with reasoning. That is because, first, you must find some set of ground, something, some frame of point, in order to base your reasoning upon. This is impossible in the sense that God is impossible to prove or disprove, and therefore reasoning is not reasoning, but rather a narrow discussion about things we cannot hope to comprehend.

It is like attempting to reason how stars work (let's assume we don't know) without even knowing what elements or atoms or gravity is.

 

JDawg:

LOL.

Science can prove things? Tell that to Karl Popper. Science is the history of spectacular failures to grasp the universe. If anything, philosophy has a far better track record. We have found undoubtable facts in philosophy, such as the Laws of Thought.

But you are sadly mistaken. The proper way to phrase what you wanted is that "science is not philosophy". Yes, science isn't - thank God, or we wouldn't be certain about anything. Philosophy can and does prove truths and find things that are so. Hell, philosophy CREATED the concept of proof!

There is no assumption at all needed in discussion of God. We are discussing a being which is construed as necessary, deducing from there, and then seeing whether that is coherent and fits the picture of reality rationally. You're discussing off-the-wall theories concerning what a creator of a universe could be. Sure, the universe (by which I mean a finite universe and not existence as a whole) could be created by super intelligent aliens. But that isn't God. God is a hypothetical being with certain rational attributes.

 

JDawg

Very well said, this is exactly my point. We can not reason out the existence of god, because we have no premise to reason with.

 

Norsefire:

One need only find one undoubtable truth to begin that reasoning.

I'll give you one:

A = A (the law of identity as commonly given). Or to write it out: A thing must be itself in order to be itself and cannot ever not be itself while still being itself.

 

I hate to do this to you, but that statement right there proves you don't belong in this discussion.

But how can you deduce something you have no evidence for? How can you apply rationality to the irrational? You can assume such things, but again, there's no proof.

 

But this is based on logic. It does not require evidence.

To prove a Creator would require evidence. Logic can't solve that problem because we have no premise to use logic.

 

Because it's only a first order system. Can you prove or disprove god's existence using only first order logic?

Logic is just one branch of mathematics.

But you can't prove them without assumptions (axioms). You can't prove anything without assumptions.

 

Think of it like an algebraic equation: you can't solve it without first knowing the variables. In essence, we cannot prove or disprove a creator without first knowing what we are dealing with.

 

Not all algebraic equations are solvable.

No integer x satisfies
2x = 3
No real x satisfies
x[sup]2[/sup] + 1 = 0
No complex x satisfies
x = ln(0)

 

That makes them mathematical impossibilities. For all that happens, it is a possibility obviously, and some things that don't. I am dealing with possibilities.

God is a possibility, but we have no real knowledge of anything at all pertaining to such a possibility, no understanding of the concept, and therefore you could say the equation is there, and solvable, but we don't know the integars. We need to learn and understand more before we can attempt to prove or disprove the theory of intelligent design. Otherwise we are only wasting our time and will get no where; in essence, this makes atheism a belief. Not believing in God means you believe that there is no God.

 

JDawg:

Do tell me what the current status of Lamarckian evolution, Caloric, and the Myasmic theory of illness?

Oh right, they were all held to be true at one time, now clearly absurd. Hmmm.

Oh, let's add to that Newtonian mechanics (disproven by Einstein), the Aether Theory of Light Propogation, the current dichotomy between General Relativity and QM, the spectacular failure of String THeory to produce even one meaningful statement in nearly fifty years of theorizing...

Do not speak to me of science proving anything: Karl Popper is right when he affirms that science proves nothing. It gives possibilities, explanations, but no proofs.

"No evidnece for"? We have existence. Existence has certain logical perfections to it - these are what we call the attributes of God. If we can figure out a way to reconcile them properly and conceive of them in the right light, we'll either prove or disprove God.

 

Zephyr:

The history of theology has mostly been confined to first order logic when dealing with issues of pure philosophy.

Actually, it is was thought to be the other way around: Mathematics was supposed to be a branch of logic. Mathematics, however, has been shown to not be able to be a logically consistent and complete system by Godel. As such, the two are two different things.

To disprove the laws of thought are to use them and to therefore prove them. Furthermore, we can discuss the absurdities of the opposites of the laws of thought.

They are axioms in a double strong sense: They are both foundational and unchallengable.

 

Sure. Given lack of evidence, admitting there is no proof makes the most sense. It comes down to terminology. Most atheists if pressed will say they cannot prove there is no god. When they say they don't believe in god they really mean they don't pray to or worship any gods.

You could say that makes them agnostics, but they probably think of agnostics as people who are so unsure either way that they pray sometimes just in case.

In the end it's just an argument over terms and definitions.