Proof of the existence of God

Not true, and certainly not self-evident.
In maths, for example, 1 - 1 = 0. The whole (zero) is certainly not greater than any of its parts.
In sets, the set of numbers that = 1 is a set containing just one number, even if there are multiple ways of expressing that number. This set of one number IS the whole and can thus not be greater than any part of it.

What is self-evident, and perhaps what you meant, is: the sum of the parts is the same as, or greater than, the whole.
But maybe if you actually could think on facts and logic you would know that your statement was not an example of self-evidence.

Finally you say something sensible.

Try it yourself for a change.

And please just MOVE ON WITH YOUR ARGUMENT.

You are now stonewalling, attempting to get people to agree that your proposition is self-evidently true, rather than just stating it as a proposition and moving on with your argument.
Whether we accept the proposition or not should not stop you posting the rest of your argument, for which we have been waiting in antici... (say it!)... pation for far too long.

Or is your argument: "it has a beginning, and thus a cause... so what do you think that cause is? God!" as you tried to argue with regard virtual particles.

Remember, Pachomius, just think on facts and logic.
And please, no more turning of your Wheel of Drivel; it is tiresome to come back to this thread to find that all you have done is repeat yourself.

 

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Thanks, atheists, for your posts.



Allow me to invite you to exchange thoughts with me on this theme.



Is this a valid thought, God exists? Or this one, God does not exist.



You will ask me, what is a valid thought?



A valid thought is composed of parts which are consistent and coherent among themselves.



For example, this thought is a valid thought, Barack Hussein Obama II exists, while the contrary is not a valid thought, Barack Hussein Obama II does not exist.



{quote]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama



Barack Hussein Obama II (Listeni/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn ɵˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000.



In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007 and, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his election, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.



During his first two years in office, Obama signed into law economic stimulus legislation in response to the Great Recession in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other major domestic initiatives in his first term included the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as "Obamacare"; the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. In foreign policy, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in the Iraq War, increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In January 2011, the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives as the Democratic Party lost a total of 63 seats; and, after a lengthy debate over federal spending and whether or not to raise the nation's debt limit, Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.



Obama was re-elected president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney, and was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013. During his second term, Obama has promoted domestic policies related to gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and has called for full equality for LGBT Americans, while his administration has filed briefs which urged the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 and California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. In foreign policy, Obama ordered U.S. military involvement in Iraq in response to gains made by the Islamic State in Iraq after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, and has sought to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba.



{/quote]

 

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Right. One of God's biggest problems is 'being timeless'.

That means nothing.

'Timeless cause' is not coherent.

I don't think things like cosmological arguments are just useless garbage but I don't think they help us do more than focus on basic terms/concepts forming the limits of human understanding.

* Time
* Cause
* Being

There are quite literally so many things wrapped up in those concepts it extends to the entirety of language and human understanding.

Now we want to do what? Use the limits of what we can know and say to prove more than what we can know and say?

I'm not really buying that. I understand it will appear real encouraging to people of various religious mindsets as some kind of 'supporting mechanism' or whatever.

But I don't get it. I'm looking to see what's happening here and I'm seeing spinning wheels.

 

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This is frustrating to read and difficult to understand.

May I ask a question in turn to help further the conversation?

'What is God?'

So I've been reading a lot of people talking about God and trying to understand how this term/placeholder is used semantically. The best, general, explanation I have found so far is this:

Whatever metaphysical principles cause/and/or sustain existence itself == God

^^ Given the above, I think most atheists are OK probably with that 'God' existing. It's just something describing what is.

There's not really any conversation to be had at this level. We all know that existence...does, exist...providing the sort of 'God' I just mentioned 'whatever it is'.

I feel there is something in this area which can further the discussion but it's difficult to put my finger on it. I'm thinking there's a stepping off point here where we can delineate philosophy from religion, and everything over a certain point is talking about the 'invisible person' nobody has a good reason to suspect exists...and everything before that point is fair game for philosophy/theoretical physics/linguistics in terms of discussing what we know does and must exist.

 

If you are using the term "valid" in a logical context then you are wrong. Both thoughts could be valid as validity is with reference to the propositions you start with.
What you seem to be referring to is soundness, which is with reference to the veracity of the propositions.
If you're going to insist that others "think on facts and logic" then at least attend Logic 101 at whatever educational establishment you go to when you eventually grow up.

God exists, and God does not exist, might therefore both be valid statements and thoughts. But given that they are mutually exclusive only one can be sound.
However the issue, which you have so far failed to address with anything approaching thought "on facts and logic", is in establishing the veracity of the propositions upon which the valid thoughts / statements / conclusions are based.
When you get round to addressing that aspect of your argument, let us know ‘cos you're still just turning your tiresome wheel.

 

Validity and soundness are properties of arguments, not properties of propositions (or of 'thoughts', as you put it).

A valid argument is an argument whose logical form is such that if all of the argument's premises are true, the argument's conclusion must be true as well.

A sound argument is a valid argument where all of the argument's premises are actually true (and where the argument's validity ensures that the conclusion must therefore be true).

http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

As far as I can see to this point, you have failed to present an argument.

Perhaps what you are trying to get at is something like 'not self-contradictory'.

I'm inclined to think that neither of your propositions, 'God exists' and 'God does not exist' are self-contradictory in the way that 'four sided triangle' or 'married bachelor' would be. (The medieval philosopher Anselm might disagree.)

 

Statistics is not logical, because the premises and the conclusions can both exist and not exist; based on odds. It creates fuzzy logic because the data point are fuzzy balls based on uncertainty. God exists and God does not exists is normal in statistics.

For example, if you smoke you have the risk for various diseases. Yet many people, who have smoked for years, don't get any of the diseases that were promised via the risk. In the rational world, no disease by the end of the experiment means no risk was even there. Yet in the statistical world they had risk, while not having any rational risk. In the world of chaos and casino math God can exist while not existing, just like the smoker with risk who does not get sick.

The age of reason tried to do away with this paradoxical conjuring, but it has made a return. The reason for its return, is it allows you to manipulate people much easier than reason. If we assign risk to all, even if there is no risk for many, the ambiguity tricks people to act out of fear seeking countermeasures, even for what may not exist. The person who never gets the disease promised, still buys products. Reason would not allow as much sales.

Government can also force behavior change, based on risk, that never appears to the many, thereby itself becoming criminal without being a criminal. The paradox of statistics messes up cause and effect allowing political divide since all the data is fuzzy dice that is or not. God can exist while not existing allowing both the faithful and the faithless to exist side by side in a statistical world governed by chaos.

 

Statistics is a necessary tool for science. Statistics are very logical. If you run experiments and do not use staticstics to analyze the results you can easily reach the wrong conclusion about the experiment. I speak from years of experience. Statistics help set set up the proper sample size and using statistics to analyze the results to determine if there are significant differences in the results. If a DOE (Design of Experiment) method is used and there are more than 3 factors it is essentially impossible to determine the experimental outcome with out a statistical analysis.

I would not even hazard a guess as to what that is suppose to mean.

This shows a profound misunderstanding of statistics.
Statistics tell us that if you smoke you are 23 times more likely to develope lung cancer that a nonsmoker. That is a statistical fact. Does that mean if you smoke and do not get lung cancer you have beat the odds. No it does not because statistics show use that even if you smoke statistically you probably will not get lung cancer. Statistic tell use that 99.6% of smokers will NOT get lung cancer. So the bottom line is most smokers will not get lung cancer, however most lung cancers are associated with smoking.
I use lung cancer as an example, there are plenty of other diseases that are caused by smoking.

 

So first you state that statistics is not logical, and then you state that it is (albeit fuzzy logic which is but one form of logic).
So all I smell here is nonsense.

Noone is promised the disease - they are merely advised that smoking increases risks of getting those diseases, which is borne out by the statistics.

So your issue with statistics is that when applied to an individual it doesn't necessarily hold up? Well ffs... I guess you should go away and understand what statistics mean, rather than fill this forum with drivel.

Your reason, perhaps not. But then you look at statistics, apply them to an individual rather than a statistically significant sample, and draw conclusions that it's all hocum. I'm surprised you haven't pulled out some analysis relating to 3-d, and the left and right hemispheres of the brain, as is your usual.

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Eh??
I guess by your thinking that all men are immortal... right up to the point they die?

There is no paradox. There is no "messing up of cause and effect". Feel free to support your notions, of course, but paradoxes don't exist in reality - things only appear paradoxical due to lack of information - and cause and effect has, as far as science is concerned, progressed serenely for the last 13.5 billion years or so.
So enough of your nonsense, please.

 

Great Old One asks, "May I ask a question in turn to help further the conversation? 'What is God?'"


Oh you great old one, I welcome you to dialog with me on God exists or not.


Are you sincere with your request for information, this late in the day?


Anyway, since I have discovered that atheists are ever into invalid thinking, it is useless to talk with them at all; as you are to me new here, so I will see whether you do valid thinking and speaking.


So, let us we two, you ancient of day and I a student of thinking of facts and logic, play this drama of dialog.

Granting though not conceding that you are after information because you do not have any on the concept of God, here is my concept of God:


In concept, God is the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning.

 

I'd say it's useless to talk to Pachomius, since he just repeats himself. If Pachomius receives an answer he doesn't like he hits the reset button.

 

Which God?

Why that God and not any of the hundreds of other Gods?

 

Pachomius, let's say that God is the creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning. Now what?

 

Woah! Steady there, Seattle!

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While we haven't even concluded that everything with a beginning needs a cause, the next step from where we currently are with Pachomius would be (as has been proffered previously but with not even a glimmer of acknowledgement by him) to accept (for purposes of forwarding the discussion) that everything with a beginning does indeed have a cause. And from there Pachomius would need to show how this cause is God rather than anything else.

After all, given his aptly demonstrated and self-proclaimed student-like (*) ability to "think on facts and logic", he would undoubtedly jump from your concession to "Thus god exists! QED!" due to the question-begging nature of the concession.


(*) By "student-like" I mean that he has the apparent capabilities with regard logic of an Arts student waking up after a 24-hr drinking binge and going to the wrong lecture, falling asleep in the back and only vaguely recalling the lecturer mentioning "facts" and "logic".

 

Unfair to Art students and drinkers, Sarkus.

 

I'm getting bored with this thread

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Obviously Pachomius thinks their is a God and that this God is the be all and end all of everything. Great. Next...

 

If the was a creator, that still wouldn't be proof of God's existence anyway. There is a lot of time since the big bang and now, and God could have gone out of existence during that time.

 

If we divided the fabric of space-time, that defines material references, into separate threads of space and time, one could follow a time thread and move in time without the restrictions of space. Such movement in time, would make one aware of the detailed history of everything in the universe, as you follow this time line. This attribute is called omniscience.

If we follow a thread of space and move in space without the restrictions of time, one could be all places at the same instant of time. This is called omnipresence. These two historical attributes of God, theoretically occur where space-time breaks down into separated time and space threads.This occurs in a speed of light reference.

 

You're touching upon Pascal's Wager. The answer, what we can lose, is much of our lives wasted waiting for an apparently non-existent God to effect something good for us. The belief does have a psychological effect on people though, and that affects their behavior--God not involved. People do things based on that belief, but a real, physically existing God hasn't any basis in reality.

Belief has different degrees and shades of meaning. What we mean in this thread is belief that a being who can directly affect our lives now or in the future exists. Since there isn't evidence that any supernatural intelligent being is doing anything in our collective human existence, there is no basis for much, if any, belief.

Yeah, everything has some uncertainty, even if very slight. But life can hardly be lived according to beliefs in very unlikely things.

 

Well, that's all fine and dandy, but are you actually going to show how it is in any way relevant to the discussion at hand?
Or are you just going to throw it onto the bonfire of this thread and wander off as usual?