Proof of the existence of God

Why believe one point of scripture and not another?

 

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And the universe, our existence, can possibly be here without God or anything ultimately causing us.
Do you understand now?
You happily accept it in the analogy, given your statements here, but you undoubtedly won't accept it with regard God and our existence. And therein lies your difficulty here.

Eh? What are you going on about??

There was no hissy-fit. It seemed you italicised to make a point of spelling, only getting it wrong. I was merely puzzled by that. You see that as a hissy-fit? If you weren't highlighting what you thought of as an incorrect spelling, then for what purpose? (Ooh... more hissy-fitting!

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It makes the rock's location dependent upon The Gardener, by the very definition of The Gardener (as The Man Who Put The Rock There).

Exactly! And it is just as easy to imagine our existence without God - such as our existence needing no Original Cause. This is the root of your issue. You can't do this. Why? Because you are beholden to an a priori assumption of being contingent upon God - aka: God existing as defined.

No - the rock is not The Gardener (and please, adhere to the correct capitalisation as given in the analogy, so as to differentiate from what you might otherwise think of as a gardener). The location of the rock is merely dependent upon The Gardener placing it there, as per the definition of The Gardener.

There is no implication of that in what I have said. It is merely an analogy that demonstrates that your inability to imagine God not existing is due to you holding an a priori assumption that God exists.

So you don't see a difference between The Gardener and God?? I am merely using an analogy where something is defined as dependent upon something. You are reading far too much into it. Not sure why.

I haven't said that The Gardener is a location. Where on earth have you picked up that nonsense from??? Please stop raising such ridiculous strawmen.
As noticed before, you are clearly reading far more into the analogy than is there. We've already hit upon where your issue lies (your inability to imagine that we are not contingent upon God - see earlier) so the analogy has done its work. There's really not much left to be said on the matter.

I do accept the definition. I have no issue with THE definition that you have insisted upon here. I can imagine God (as defined) existing. I can imagine God (as defined) not existing. Why can't you?

 

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Saying that the universe can possibly here without God, is a broad statement, not an imagination. Because within your so called imagination, you simply make a broad statement ''God does not exist'', something you do in reality. Nobody can imagine a world where God does not exist, unless you believe that God does not exist.
Do you understand now?

I know the definition of man, I know the definition of a rock, so it's easy to imagine the man not putting the rock there.

If I was to ask you what this existence where God does not exist looks like, you would say just like the world is now. Right? At least that was the conclusion of the trojan horse, which you seemed to agree with. So how is it imagination?

Harry T said, if he imagined a world where God existed, it would be a heavenly place. That's imagination. He is basically an atheist, where he doesn't believe in God (as defined).

So the location is relying on the gardener to put the rock there?
So in this little exercise we are to imagine the location to be something that is able to depend on someone?

You've given a location, abilities (it relies on the gardener). That is utter nonsense.
It was all nonsense.

God has a definition, that definition can only be attributed to God .
God, means, it's definition/attributes. It is not it's name.
To imagine the original cause/creator to not exist, while we are still living our lives as normal, is to simply not accept the definition by affirmation. Then the game changes, you are no longer accepting God, as per definition, but as something else. Which is what you do anyway, in order to be atheist.

You are asking me to imagine, so I can approach it how I like. You've approached how you liked.
In my line of work, I rely on my imagination, so I've gotten used to using it.

If I want to write a song about God, there has to be some reference to God, that makes it known I am writing about God, and not an ordinary person. That's defining God.
If I were to write a song, where it implies that God does not exist, I would still have to define God, in some way, then go on to say God does not exist.
Every other song that does not refer to God, is not a statement that God does not exist.

You can't say ''I imagined a world with God not existing, and low and behold it was exactly the same as this world''. That is just another way of saying God doesn't exist.

If you imagined a world where God doesn't exist, and that world wasn't the same as this world, that would be a more honest approach (especially regarding how you define your position).

So if you're using God as defined, in your imagination. And God is defined as the original cause/creator. How can the imagined world be like this world, if the origin of the world does not exist?

If the origin of the world does not exist, but the world is still here. Then doesn't that mean, you saying there is no God (origin of the world). Because the world is still here despite God (definition).

Aren't you guilty of what you accuse me of (using a priori assumption)?
I'll answer that for you. Yes you are.

jan.

 

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I'm not sure that I do.
Maybe you can shed light.

jan.

 

As is saying that the universe can only be here with God. You're trying to argue one side of the coin without accepting the truth of the other.

I understand what you're saying - and you are wrong: I can imagine God exists, and I can imagine God does not exist.

But you are not using the definition of The Gardener. You accuse others of potentially not using the correct definition of God, and now you are guilty here of the equivalent within this analogy. Please don't do it.

Imagination doesn't need the outcome to be any different to be considered "imagination". One can simply imagine the workings that led from that which was imagined to the outcome.
Imagine someone painted the Mona Lisa other than Da Vinci. Can you do that? It still looks like the Mona Lisa - the end point is still the same. Similarly some of us are capable, irrespective of belief (or lack thereof), to imagine something giving rise to our existence other than what we might believe (or lack belief) in.

That's a rather colourful imagination based on his understanding of God that goes rather beyond "Original Cause". There is nothing within "Original Cause" that would logically lead one to conclude that it would be a "heavenly place" - unless of course he thinks the current world is a "heavenly place".
But what he imagines is also irrelevant to what is necessary for something to be imagined. Something merely needs to be conceptualised. That is all. To require more than that, especially to require the eventual outcome of what one imagines to be different than it is now, is pure drivel.

No, simply that the location of the rock is dependent upon The Gardener, as per the definition of The Gardener.

I have given the location no such ability other than to exist, contingent upon where the rock is placed. Where the rock is placed, that is the location of the rock. What do you not understand about this?

The Gardener has a definition, that definition can only be attributed to The Gardener.

The Gardener means its definition/attributes. It is not its name.

No, its to assume that it is true/exists. The definition does not make it true/exists. This is your a priori assumption.

As explained, the definition of God is intact. It still applies to God. If God does not exist then the definition applies only to a fiction, an imagined thing, and to nothing in reality. But the definition still applies to the realm in which God exists - and does not apply to anything where God does not exist.

And you are simply proving that which you have already stated, that you are unable to imagine what I have asked. I don't have an issue with that inability, I really don't. I'm just getting to the bottom of what is causing it, and it is your inability to remove the a priori assumption that God exists.

Yes - to talk about God meaningfully one needs to define God. We/you have done that. It has been accepted.
Noone has said that not referring to God is a statement that God does not exist. Noone has said anything that can be implied as saying that. It is a strawman.

No it's not the same. At all.
It's saying that this world, the way it looks, can not be used as evidence either for or against the existence of God.
If path A leads to X and path B also leads to X, standing at point X is itself no evidence of having taken a specific path. One can believe they have taken path A and not B (analogous to theism). They might believe they have taken path B and not A (analogous to strong atheism). Or they might say that they don't know, but from a practical point of view live their life as though they travelled along path B to get there.

No it wouldn't. It wouldn't be honest at all. To conclude that would be inconsistent with my position of agnosticism.
Only a theist could conclude that such a world (without God) would be different - because they would see a difference between our world (where they believe God to exist, and thus to them God does exist) and the world they imagine (where God does not exist).
I am an agnostic atheist - I see nothing in this world, no evidence, no experience, that leads me to be able to answer the question of what brought us about. As far as I am aware God could have done it, or God might not exist - but either way we are where we are, and thus either of those options leads us to where we are now.
So no, what you suggest would be one of the more dishonest things I could say in that regard.

Because one imagines that that which is defined as God is simply a fiction. It is defined as the original cause/creator - but in the same way that any fiction is given a definition.

Yes.

No, I'm not guilty of it - because I make no claim as to which was the route our existence took - God or no-God. I don't know the answer to it. I am an agnostic. I don't believe either option as being true (I am a weak atheist).
Sure, from a practical point of view I adopt the no-God path - I don't assume existence of something until I have to in order to make sense of things. And thus practically I must assume non-existence. But this isn't a discussion about what we do at a practical level (which I'm sure we've covered in other threads and I have no desire to rehash it here) but what we are capable of intellectually. Imagination is an intellectual task - not a practical one (although clearly can fuel, guide and inform the practical). Even these forum discussions are intellectual, not practical.

 

I'm asking about your epistemology. How do you decide what to believe about god and what not to?

 

Apologies for the length...

Nobody said the universe can only be here with God.

God is the definition of the origin of the universe. So to imagine God, is to imagine that.

Such a definition not existing, mean the universe would not exist. You cannot imagine a universe where the origin of the universe doesn't exist unless you change the definition.

Then you shift the goalposts.

No you can't. You simply hold a mental image in your mind, and you say either God exists, or not. That is not imagining.

I know what a gardener, and gardening is, and I know that by adding caps, creating a title, and/or adding importance,( The Gardener), makes no difference. And if it does, you have to spell it out.


The Original Cause/Creator of the material world, is totally unambiguous, it means just what it says, despite belief or not. So if one is going to imagine God (as asked), that has to be a factor, otherwise what are we talking about.

Then you are simply replacing God with The Gardener. Because outside of your parameters we know what a gardener is.

We know that a gardener is someone who is paid (or not) to take care of a garden.

The Gardeneras described in your analogy is simply doing what we expect a gardener to do. So we should, when imagining God to be how He is defined. Not turned into something totally outside of that.

I'm not saying that the definition makes it true, I'm saying that if you change the definition of something (be it fact or fiction), then you're not talking about that thing. Unless you are talking about that thing, because that is how you see

Da Vinci is man (definition), who paints (practical application).

There are other men who paint (personal observation).

I don't know Da Vinci, I have no idea what he looked like other than images. It is very easy for me to imagine that Da Vinci didn't paint that picture. Heck I can imagine myself painting it. All the components are there, and all I need to do is shift the goalposts.

God (definition), the origin of the material world (practical application), there is no other God who can claim to be the origin of the universe (logical observation).


I don't know God, I have no idea what He looks like other than images. I can't create a material world, neither is it possible for me to imagine someone else doing it. I sure as heck can't imagine myself doing it. Unless I shift the goalposts to creation how I imagine it to be. Then I have changed it to me, calling myselfGod. That was not the request that was made.

Simply saying that you've imagined it is not enough, given your explanation.


God exists because the world exists
God doesn't exist because the world exists.

The former explains how God is defined, regardless of whether or not you accept it.

The latter is simply a mirror of the former. It has no basis, or explanatory power. Yet that is what you using as the methodological basis or you imaginings. How is it that the world can exist without having been created, because that is the definition of God, whom we are asked to imagine.


If were to ask you to imagine what I look like. I'm quite sure that you would base your imaginings on what I've written, because that is what you know of me. You couldn't put anything you don't know of me, and still maintain that you are imagining what I look like, or you could but it would be pointless.

Plus you would have violated the terms of the request.

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So you accept the definition?

Yet you can imagine a world where it is a fact that, such a definition does not exist, without changing the definition? So that world simply exists by denying the definition of God? Where is that any different than the real world. How is it using your imagination, as opposed to simply visualising your existing world?

Yes, if you deny the definition of God.

If you accept the definition, then this world could possibly be evidence of God.

If you don't accept the definition, then there's no point to trying to imagine.

You're accusing me of using a priori assumptions by sticking to the definition, when in reality that accusation should be leveled at you because you are denying the definition.

I don't get the point you're trying to make.

Yet you know, and allegedly accept the definition of God.

So given the definition of God, would this world exist if God didn't exist?

IOW you simply deny the definition?

How does that differ from your worldview?

You claim that there is no evidence for God, but you have no idea of would constitute objective evidence, and you don't accept subjective evidence, or scripture. Where does that leave you? In a place where you don't have to accept God. That is entirely your choice.

But you have failed to use your imagination. You have to label it a fiction (which is what you basically do), then apply different attributes to that fiction. You're the one using apriori assumptions, not me.

Intellectually you may be in turmoil, but practically you are an atheist. So you can make a claim based on your practical day to day life. For you God does not exist (in reality)

You cannot escape the practical level. That is your true expression. We can intellectualise all we like, but it boils down to how we live our lives. If you're an atheist, you're an atheist, despite what you may think, or ponder on.

Until we are asked to express ourselves practically. Imagining is a practical thing, and we use what we know. So our imagining must express some of our practical life.


jan.

 

I can't decide to believe anymore than I can fly a spaceship because I decide I can.

jan.

 

No need.

No. No. No.
As soon as you say "Such a definition not existing, mean the universe would not exist." is to assume existence in that which you have defined, yet you have accepted already that to define something is not to mean it exists.
And not only that but that sentence goes against the first... i.e. if you commit to the third you are saying precisely (by logical implication) that "the universe can only be here with God".

So now you're insisting what it means to imagine something??
If I imagine God exists I imagine that everything had a start-point, other than God.
If I imagine God does not exist I imagine that everything has always been, that there was no Original Cause to it all.
It's really need be no more taxing than that.

I did spell it out. I defined The Gardener. This is no different than you making sure we all work from The definition of God as opposed to simply god (lower-case "g"). So please desist with these petty tactics of obfuscation.

And if we are talking about The Gardener - it is unambiguous that he is the Man Who Put The Rock There.

No, I'm not. I have mentioned nothing about The Gardener being the cause of the rock, he is merely the Man Who Put The Rock There. The location of the rock is thus, by definition, dependent upon The Gardener.

I have defined The Gardener. Please use it - or it is you who is guilty of moving the goalposts in this analogy.

In the analogy I couldn't care less what other gardeners do. I have defined The Gardener.
But when imagining God, yes, we should be imagining God doing what He does. But that doesn't mean He necessarily exists. So when asked to imagine that He does not exist, we simply ignore God, we can ignore the definition of God as applying to anything real, as God is imagined not to exist.

Whether something is real or not does not alter how we have defined it. So noone has changed the definition of God when we imagine God not to exist; we simply do not apply that definition to anything, because nothing in what we have imagined fits the bill.
Can you still not see that this stance you are taking is the holding of an a priori assumption of existence due to the definition of God?

There may be no other God but there are alternatives to God, just as there are alternatives to Da Vinci painting.

Yet you are excluding the option of noone creating it - of it always existing - and our manifestation is just part of an endless cycle - i.e. no Original Cause.

What would suffice?

We're asked to imagine God not existing. We're not asked to imagine that God exists and is as defined, and then to remove God from that scenario... which seems to be what you're doing because you start with the a priori assumption. We're asked to imagine God not existing. That means taking the definition of God and imagining that this God is, was and never will be part of our reality. No a priori assumption requested, none used.
Yes, we should have a definition that can still be applied to the concept of that which does not exist (in our imagined scenario) - but to use that as you have been, as meaning we would not exist, is simply to introduce God's existence as an a priori assumption.

All that's happening now is we're going round in circles of you trying to explain your position but with explanations that continue to show that you hold this assumption.

The point being...? Are you now saying that God is more than The definition you have given us, and that simply imagining that definition is inadequate? If so, who is shifting the goalposts now? If not, what does this have to do with anything?

 

Yes. Never had an issue with the definition, even when I first heard it, even back when I remember believing in God... although the definition I was believing in was rather more embellished.
But The definition, when expressed as succinctly, has never been an issue for me. But I am still agnostic about whether even that God (i.e. sans further embellishment) exists or not.

Yes. I simply don't apply it to anything within the imagined reality.

Whatever the path our existence has taken to get here (God or no-God) it culminates in where we are now. What would be the point in imagining a different world as the end-point, as to do so would be an a priori assumption that God exists: i.e. I'd be saying "If God exists, the world is as it is; if God does not exist, the world would be different. Thus, because the world is as it is, God exists."

No. You don't need to deny the definition. You simply don't apply the definition to anything until you know it is applicable, warranted, necessary to do so.

Matched by equal weight of evidence possibly in favour of no-God. I consider that to be no evidence at all.

I do accept the definition, I am not denying the definition at all. But one does not need to apply that definition to anything, does not need to stick the label of God (as defined) onto anything, if one is imagining that the label of God can not be applied to anyone (aka imagining if God does not exist).

We exist, and our existence was brought about either due to God (as the Original Cause) or to another notion, which we can call no-God.
The only thing we know is that we are where we are. Whichever of God or no-God got us here, it did get us here. Thus us being here is no evidence in support of one over the other.
This is why, if you have no a priori assumption, you can not say "well, if God is true then I'd be here... but if no-God is true then I'd be somewhere else" as that necessarily assumes that God is true.

Yes: if God didn't exist (does not, has never, will never exist) then it is a logical truth that the no-God alternative would get us here. Because we are here.
This is simply using The definition of God as Original Cause, and the possibility of an alternative where there is no Original Cause (which I have referred to as no-God for simplicity). Is such a possibility? I don't know. If I knew it wasn't possible then I would know God, as defined, does exist. But I don't know.

No. I merely apply it to a fiction.

"I can't decide to believe anymore than I can fly a spaceship because I decide I can."
It leaves me where I am, Jan. An agnostic atheist capable of imagining God existing as well as God not existing.

I have applied the same definition to that fiction - but it remains a fiction. There is no a priori assumption there.
Are you adding into The definition of God that it is not a fiction? Or are you simply arguing existence due to the definition?

If God does exist - i.e. I knew that there was no alternative (i.e. no possibility of no-God) - my life would not change at all. I would simply be that much better informed not only of how things started but that they did actually start somewhere. The definition of God you gave and that we have been using adds nothing to our practical lives. Maybe the other definitions that are added by religions and/or scriptures might do so, but I would still lead my life as I do now. After all, either God exists or he doesn't - and me knowing one way or the other won't change that. Me believing one way or the other won't change that.
So this is purely an intellectual matter, at least to me. And there is no turmoil.

Convince yourself of that, Jan, if it makes you sleep better at night.

Who is asking us to express ourselves practically? Sure, in many ways, as said, it can inform, advise our practical life. But it needn't - especially thought experiments... sorry, the Trojan Horse... such as was raised. True, I'll struggle to put a coherent visual picture together about something I have little/no experience of, but one can imagine novel abstract concepts if one is given a definition to work from.

 

True, but how do you decide what is true, so that you end up believing it?

 

No-God + God = God.

Self - reference = self-reference with God.

 

Why not? If in your mind the word 'God' means the reason why reality exists at all, the reason there is something rather than nothing, then one can imagine the possibility that there is no answer. It's also possible to think of logical difficulties arising when hypothetical existent beings are being called upon to explain the fact of existence itself. (We would seem to be faced with circularity or infinite regress.)

It's possible to do that without committing one's self to the proposition that existence doesn't have an explanation. I don't have a clue what the answers are to the big cosmological questions. I don't know whether they even have answers. Nor do I know what form the answers might take. I'm very much an agnostic when it comes to metaphysics and the big cosmological questions of natural theology.

Yes. The existence that comprises us and everything that we find around us is the given, the great fact that needs to be explained. Its reality stands, regardless of what explanations we spin out of our heads in hopes of accounting for it.

Dictionaries don't contain divine revelations of cosmic mysteries. Dictionaries report on contemporary word usage, typically among the lay public. (Things like the Oxford English dictionary also report on historical changes in how words are used, and specialized dictionaries report on scholarly usages.) If there are philosophical or other scholarly issues associated with a word, reading a dictionary definition won't resolve those problems.

Which you seem to assume that you already know (somehow). You seem blissfully unaware that you are begging big-time theological questions when you do that. The whole question of whether the essence of God can be captured in a set of attributes, and whether those attributes can even be known by human beings, has been hotly debated for thousands of years. It's all associated with the issue of God's transcendence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology

Or maybe it is. If it's impossible to capture God in a definitive set of attributes perhaps all that human beings can do is refer to God by ostensive definition. By pointing in other words, "I don't have a clue how to describe it, but what I'm talking about is that". This idea is often associated with the world's "mystical" traditions where various practices are thought to offer contact with the ineffable Godhead. The tendency can be observed in the Christian contemplative traditions, in Sufism and in the Upanishads. And in a more mythic way, it can be seen in the story of Moses on Sinai (where God is too holy to look upon and no human can gaze upon his face and live. So it's possible for Moses to point towards God, and identify God as that being over there, even if he wasn't precisely sure what God looked like and what his visual attributes were.)

Supposing that people believe that reality itself has an explanation or an initial cause, what difference do you imagine that belief would make in their normal lives? The idea of the astrophysical big-bang hasn't been particularly transformative. How would renaming it 'God' change anything?

If we take your favored definition seriously, you seem to be dangerously close to being an atheist yourself.

What you seem to me to be doing is importing the traditional connotations of the word God into your thinking, without acknowledging that you are doing it, and despite the fact that those connotations aren't included in your favored definition. God is personal and concerned with us individually, so we can enter into personal relationships with the ultimate cosmological principle. God is the ultimate essence of Goodness. God is intelligent and purposive, so the seemingly fortuitous events of life happen for a larger ultimately benign purpose. And God holds out both the threat of judgment and the promise of salvation.

If those things were true, the world might arguably be different than it would be if they weren't. But the physical universe merely having a temporal origin? Not so much. The arguments between big-bang cosmologists and steady-state cosmologists wasn't really an argument between theists and atheists.

 

Nothing + God = Nothing.

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Fun with math.

 

Taken in context, no it doesn't.
If asked to imagine John Picard from Star Trek, defining him as his character, does not mean
I'm assuming he exists. The same with the definition of God.

Q..Imagine living in a world where the day before it was destroyed by nuclear weapons.
A..Yes, and the world is exactly as it is now.
Q..How so?
A..Because everyone and everything was totally not affected by the weapons, and carried on as though nothing happened.

jan.

 

Faux pas! It's Jean Luc Picard.

 

Yet everything you say leads to the conclusion that you do not adhere to this understanding, that this is only lip-service to it. You assume God exists, or at least is necessary, from the outset which is why you can not imagine as was initially posed. (And yes, assuming something is necessary is to assume that the thing exists.)

Is this seriously an attempt to mimic my argument?
Seriously???

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'Cos if so it is utterly laughable in how woeful it is - as if it in any way resembles what I have posted.
You're better than just throwing out such flawed drivel, aren't you, Jan? Or maybe that is truly how you see my explanations, in which case there is little point in continuing.

 

Taken in context, no it doesn't.
If asked to imagine John Picard from Star Trek, defining him as his character, does not mean
I'm assuming he exists. The same with the definition of God.

You corrected me on it. That works in my favour.
Does John Picard Jean Luc Picard exist?

jan.

 

And if so, does Jan Luc Picardena exist?