Proof of the existence of God

#2 is illogical.

 

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Aren't those equivalent?

It's true that if God is eternal and has no beginning, then God wouldn't seem to need an 'efficient' or physical cause. But wouldn't a physical cause be irrelevant in the case of God anyway, since God supposedly isn't a physical object?

Assuming the existence of an eternal no-beginning God, we would still need an explanation (not a cause) for why there is an eternal God instead of nothing at all.

If we assume that God is somehow the reason for his own existence, we are basically back at your #1.

Interestingly, we face similar problems when we consider things like the laws of physics or the principles of mathematics and logic. These aren't physical objects subject to physical causation, they don't seem to have any obvious beginning in time, yet we can still ask why they exist and are what they are.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you are suggesting the possibility that our space-time-matter universe isn't all of natural reality, and that there may be some kind of existence (a multiverse or something) distinct from our universe that accounts for it, my reply is sure, that's possible, perhaps even likely.

We should recognize that this kind of hypothesis, that there is something existing outside our continuum that accounts for its existence, doesn't really answer the most fundamental question - 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'

This is basically the same problem we faced with 'God' up above.

That's possible too, but it doesn't explain why there is an eternal beginningless universe rather than nothing at all.

We are still faced with the fundamental ontological question - 'Why does existence exist?'

The most intelligent and mature alternative to your four possibilities is to admit that we simply don't know what the answer is. Assuming that an answer exists at all, it's most likely something that we humans have never thought of.

 

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The difficulty with exchange of ideas with web atheists is that they to my impression are very resistant to accept any mutual effort to come to concurrence on concepts, not even for the sake of an exercise in thought.

Take this suggestion and see what is their reaction.

Dear atheists, do you have an idea of God in relation to the universe and man?

Looking back all my years of interacting with web atheists that has always been the one insurmountable obstacle from their part.

So, dear atheists, just for the sake at least of an experiment in thought, what is your concept of God?

Owing to this insurmountable resistance on their part, the web atheists will resort to flippancy of all kinds except coming up with an agreement to work together to accept mutually worked out concepts on anything at all.

But in particular on the concept of God.

 

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Non-existent.

A made up fairy tale, lacking any evidence or substantiation whatsoever.

 

Feel free to address this question anytime.

 

Pachomius, what is your concept of Santa Claus? I realize that you don't believe that Santa Claus exists but what is your concept of this person who doesn't exist?

 

Yeah, because we don't think there is one. How can we agree on a concept? Your concept is flawed, and all the others are flawed. If we agreed a certain concept was valid, we wouldn't be atheists.

 

Agreed, in as much as the term validity is being used to refer to scientific validity rather than logical validity.
Logically a concept can valid yet entirely untrue: all rats are dogs, all dogs are mice, therefore it is valid to say that all rats are mice, since the conclusion follows logically from the propositions one began with.
But logically the conclusion is unsound: the propositions are patently untrue and do not reflect reality.

It gets confusing, though, as in science the term "validity" is the extent to which a concept matches reality which one would think would be a matter of soundness rather than validity if one used the term as logicians do.
The way I consider it, though, the term is consistently used once you accept that science has as an underlying and fundamental proposition that the conclusion matches reality.

Given that Pachomius bleats on about "thinking on facts and logic" I would tend to think he would understand the term "valid" as a logician rather than a scientist.
But he has actually shown he has no real understanding of logic either, so I am doubtful he even knows himself what he means by the term "valid".

Anyhoo - from a scientific point of view, I'd agree with you, spidergoat, but just caution your use of the term in so far as it is taken to be logical validity, where I think many concepts of God are logically valid, but unable to be shown to be sound.
And it is that lack of logical soundness that I think is why many atheists are such. They can accept the logical validity of concepts, but simply see nothing to support the soundness of that concept in favour of any number of others.

 

You asked a question in post #310. In post #322, I responded to it. It would seem to be you who is resisting any mutual effort to discuss the issues you raise.

Who are you addressing? You act as if you are showing somebody else what you think are deficiencies in how atheists argue. So who are you talking to? (Yourself apparently, obviously not us.)

There's something odd about how you interact on the board, Pachomius. (Or more accurately, how you fail to interact.) Are you autistic?

 

I hesitate to apply a diagnosis to other people, but he sure seems to exhibit rigid thinking patterns.

And no, it isn't factual to apply physics lessons based only on personal observation (the nose on your face) to the rest of the physical world.

 

I'm not a theist, so there isn't really any particular concept of God that I embrace. I basically just react to the ideas about God that theists present.

But I know enough about religion to have some feeling for the diversity implicit in the 'God' concept, for the different ways that theists use the word.

At one end of the spectrum there are the cosmological functions: first-cause, sustainer-of-being, and so on. As I suggested in post #322, I don't have a clue what, if anything, performs these functions. I don't believe that anyone knows. I'm basically an agnostic regarding these cosmological sort of God-concepts.

At the other end of the theistic spectrum are the highly individualized and personalized ideas of God: The Biblical Yahweh, The Quran's Allah, the Gita's Krishna. These God concepts imagine God as a psychologically human-like personality, with emotions and purposes, capable of love and wrath. This kind of God is universally imagined as being somehow better than humans (and not just more powerful), as having a legitimate claim on our loyalty, as being in a rightful position to command us, what the bible calls: 'Lord'. (The word 'Islam' means 'submission' to God.) God deserves our worship and is the proper and suitable object for that worship.

This kind of God is often imagined as the creator and sustainer of moral values, and as being somehow the embodiment of absolute good. God is an object of longing for many people, who seek to merge with him or bask in his beatific presence. God is often associated with salvation, with a promised rescue from all the pains and imperfections of real life, and particularly from death.

As for me, I'm essentially an atheist when it comes to these more traditional personifications of God. I don't believe that they correspond to anything in reality.

Your own 'creator and operator of everything with a beginning' sounds like it leans towards the cosmological concepts. There may be a hint of personification in the words 'creator' and 'operator' though, since they seem to suggest some kind of intelligent agent.

As I mentioned to you in another thread, your concept of God seems to be seriously deficient to me, because it seemingly leaves out and ignores precisely the features that most theists feel are most important about God.

There you go, addressing your imaginary audience again, instead of talking to us.

I just wrote a detailed response to your question. Please try to reply to it thoughtfully (if you can).

 

When will the proof of the existence of god be irrelevant ?

Gods are real

Read about the ancients , Sumerians etc. Its then becomes not hard to fathom for those people at that time and place think that the ancients were gods .

Would we think the same way now , with what we know now , upon the same experience ?

Billions perhaps would , but billions wouldn't

Gods are a relative concept , people

Hello knock - knock whos there ....

 

Really?

What "ancients"?

 

I just came to the suspicion that guys like Krauss and now Hawking are into flippancy: the one with his insistence that something can come from nothing, and the other waxes more eloquent with his declaration that since there is a law of gravity the universe can create itself without God.





Now, I have to resist replying to your ideas because it would be to engage also in flippancy.



When Copleston and Russell were into their historic debate on God and morality and evil, both of them were serious as to start with the mutual information on the concept of God, but then toward the end of part 1 on the existence of God, Bertrand lapsed into flippancy by declaring that he does not accept the concept of necessary beings; and Copleston ever the gentleman and religious person to boot, generously conceded to him the permission to discontinue further on the existence of God, since Bertrand does not accept necessary beings -- not accepting the concept of necessary beings, that is an instance of flippancy in intellectual matters.





So, oh atheists, will you be above flippancy, and tell me what is our concept of God?

 

You seem to be avoiding this question.

Why is that?

 

Like Russell, I would accept your concept for the purposes of debate, if we were still debating. Further conceptualizing on my part is unnecessary. Russell was not a believer, he never did accept that Copleston's concept of God was truthful, and it wasn't necessary for him to do so. Like Russell, I also do not find sufficient reason to believe in a necessary being. After all, what was the cause of such a being?

 

No need for flippancy. God or gods are whatever we choose to define. In our past we have defined thousands of them, all with quite different characteristics. Gods are man made concepts limited only by our imagination.

 

First you accuse atheists of being "into verbosity in aid of vain pomposity and/or obfuscation by vain verbosity", and now you accuse of flippancy?

Or you simply have no rebuttal to make? And instead just wish to turn your wheel, and reset your questioning when it suits you?

Are you serious??
First, have you actually listened to that debate, or even read a transcript? You claim that Russell declares "he does not accept the concept of necessary beings" and does so toward the end of their discussion in the existence of God?
In reality (and that is where we like to base ourselves, Pachomius) They agreed on the working definition of God (for purposes of debate) and then agreed Copleston would start with his metaphysical argument.
It was after his opening comments and explanation that Russell did not declare that he does not accept the concept of necessary beings, but that he felt of the word "necessary": "The word 'necessary' I should maintain, can only be applied significantly to propositions. And, in fact, only to such are as analytic - that is to say - such as it is self-contradictory to deny."
This was part of his initial reply on the matter, certainly not "toward the end".
So please stop misrepresenting the truth of the matter merely to forward your agenda of poisoning the well against the atheist position.

Furthermore, Russell did not simply dismiss the concept as you claim, but argued quite rationally (as did Copleston) as to why he could not accept the use of term "necessary" as Copleston wished to apply it.
There was no flippancy, nothing but well argued, justified, debate from the two.
And ultimately, on this section of their debate, they both realised that it was pointless to continue as they agreed that Russell's reasoned position was that "it's illegitimate even to ask the question of the cause of the world". But his position was not one of flippancy but of valid reasoning. Copleston had different reasoning, but it was a mutually achieved and recognised impasse.

But perhaps you could point out the flippancy in his remarks? Explain to us all where his flippancy lay?


Otherwise perhaps you could stop misrepresenting things, take off your blinkered glasses, and actually try to have a discussion? You've been posting for some 210 posts on this site, so you should by now be capable of such, even if your previous posts indicate otherwise.

As has been answered already, not just by spidergoat recently but by others (myself included, if I recall), while we have no concept of our own, we are happy to work with the one you put forth.
This is, after all, your attempt to prove the existence of God, so you must put forth your concept that you are trying to prove exists. It is for us to peer review your argument. We need necessarily have no concept of God ourselves in order to see if you can prove the existence of what you claim.
This is what Russell did: peer-reviewed Copleston's argument. Perhaps you think that accepting a concept of god for purposes of debate is to accept the truth of the existence of that God?
Russell accepted Copleston's concept, but in trying to prove the existence of that concept he had to claim necessity, and that is where Russell, still in keeping with the original concept of God agreed upon, could not agree.

So get on with it.
No more evasion, avoidance, misrepresentations or drivel.


- source of quotes: www.biblicalcatholic/apologetics/p20.htm[/I]

 

It is really tedious to reply to you atheist folks, because you are into what I call intellectual flippancy, nothing serious but everything is stubborn anti-knowledge founded on non-thinking on facts and logic; and you only read one book which you do not understand that the author is also as anti-knowledge as you are, but you all share the same arrogance of knowing nothing except your feeling so smug, from asking petty questions which are not worthy of persons who think on facts and logic.



Let me try this on you, what is your ultimate explanation for the nose in your face not falling off uncertainly?



You will resort to flippancy and as a last instance of flippancy state with great phoney humility, you don't know, all of which are founded on stubborn refusal to think on facts and logic.



Okay, it takes the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning to keep the nose in your face from falling off uncertainly.



Anyway, I will try again, think on facts and logic and tell me what is your ultimate explanation for the existence of the universe and also of the nose in your face which is not falling off uncertainly.

 

Okay fine. My concept of God: Exactly the same as your concept of God.

So, what's *your* concept of God?