Reply to Re: Religion
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To me there is no significant difference between being 'impossible' and being '99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%' unlikely and to even dwell on such is far beyond splitting hairs...it is madness!
There's a HUUUUUGE difference. Impossible is impossible, 99.~~ is possible.
I say that God is impossible. You say he is just 99.999999999999999999999999999% unlikely. If I see some evidence that he is not impossible, I will change my mind and say he is...to whatever degree probable.
If you're ready to change your mind then you're not completely sure to begin with, right?
So you are again just hiding behind semantics here. Neither of us are going to live our lives with the consideration that there may be such a thing in existence so this is a rather moot point.
I'm not "hiding behind semantics", that's just the point I've been trying to make! A fair amount of text on a single word, but at least that miscommunication seems to be clear now.
Straw man.
You cannot hide nonsensical postulations behind the constructed straw man of some self-important guy who thinks his ideas are "flawless" and such because that has no bearing on MY case.
That is what you've been coming across as.
And either the case you are("You" in general, not you specifically) putting forth(or halfheartedly defending) is rational or it is IRRATIONAL. If it is irrational then dodging behind the above straw man does not make your case any more rational than it was when you started.
I haven't argued that god's existence is a rational thing to believe in, just that it's not impossible.
Like it or not, the universe operates by certain laws and some things are just not possible. By the evidence and knowledge we have I feel I can safely say that SOME specific claims are impossible. Cheetahs that get further away as they move towards you, automobiles made entirely of fog and the Judeo-Christian God are some of these.
I will happily eat crow if you can make a contrary case but until you do, I stand by these.
Knowing that you're at least open to possibilities, I have no objection with that.
Not at all. You are trying to assign a probability to an event retroactively and that is a no-no.
I said: "Doesn't the birth of the world itself go against the law of non-contradiction? Something can't just start existing from nothingness, this also means it couldn't have always existed." The previous sentece was there to support the latter, I didn't say anything about probabilities.
Wrong on the second count. Existence DOES happen in infinite regress. There was no 'beginning' to existence itself(only to our specific universe at best). Think about it...your first assertion above is what proves your second assertion false! You correctly ascertain that an existence of complete 'nothingness' cannot at any point produce 'something' and this means that there always had to be 'something'(whether some sort of sub-atomic nano-existence or what have you) in order for 'other things' to come about.
I figured those assertions would contradict each other, but you're right on this one. So, either the egg or the chicken must have always existed.
Long answer made short: That which exists STILL must do so in a way that makes sense. Reality cannot be if every time you add 2+2 you are able to get a random answer ranging from '4' to '9,376' to 'spaghetti sauce'.
I'm just not sure the logic you can apply to every day life will apply everywhere.
Yep. Let me know when that occurs. I think we both know it will not.
Stay tuned!
Objection! Relevance...?
Free will doesn't necessitate ability to ponder.
False analogy. I am not omniscient. AM omniscient personality could not ponder or make any decision. He either KNOWS with his Godly certainty that he will drink free beer at a pub(and does so) or he is not omniscient. There are no other options here.
I used that analogy to drive the point that you don't even need to be omniscient to not ponder things. There's free beer, dawg! At no point do you ponder "to go or not to go", you just go. If you know enough (it doesn't even need to be all) of the variables, you don't weigh different possibilities, you know what you will do. You can't do contrary to what you will do either because that would go against your character. To use another example, you could take a knife and stab the first person you walk by on the street. But having the option to do that is an illusion, because you're not someone who randomly stabs people.
Not relevant. Either he can make a decision to create humans(or not) OR he knows, one way or the other whether he does or not. The mistake you are making is you keep limiting "God" to HUMAN(non-omniscient) limitations. Of course a HUMAN can make decisions and not be a robot. But for God this would be impossible.
Pondering is a non-omniscient limitation. It's just a tool to determine the best course of action when the amount of known variables is limited. What we do is hard-wired to our personality, character, ego, whatever.
EXACTLY! And therefore he could not make such a choice. In order for his previous omniscient knowledge to remain 'True' he MUST do as said foreknowledge dictates. You are trying to fudge the decision to occur before the omniscience but that cannot be for an omniscient and eternally existent being. No matter how far you go back to place that decision, his knowledge supersedes.
Are you arguing that he can't have free will because he has always been omniscient? If I suddenly attained omniscience, for example, that would not strip me of free will? Or just that in order to have free will you need to make a superficial choice at some point?
You are welcome to your beliefs. I have no use for such in my life but I certainly do not go around trying to discourage or bar others from such.
But I will drag out Gould's Contingency theory here to point out that it is not necessarily so that you, being able to hypothetically rewind the tape of life would do exactly as you have done this life. In fact it is highly unlikely.
To complex for this thread but there are just too many variables that go into creating 'Butterfly effects' in such a hypothetical.
I said: "That's of course under the assumption being omniscient is possible; there are no random chances and such." For things to go exactly as they go now would necessitate these variables to be fixed. I even went out of my way to say this is not my belief.
And being "humble" has nothing to do with this. You seem to be taking unwarranted jabs at me here. I am as humble as they come but I have noticed that when someone holds a view that most common folk disagree with(be it about belief in God, time travel, ghosts etc.), it is almost guaranteed they will be attacked as being 'conceited' or 'not humble'.
Being too humble isn't a good thing. Like if you were sure you must be wrong because others disagree with your opinion. But being so sure that you don't even consider the possibility they MIGHT be right isn't a good thing either. You have explained that isn't really the case, but it's how your posts, at least and especially the first few, came through.
False. You are welcome to go try and find one of these though(good luck with that!)!
I didn't say they have good proof, just proof on par with "god can't exist because omniscience cancels free will." A large part of my posts has gone into contesting that statement, so by disproving your proof, that's what I have been doing by proxy.
A good rule of thumb to have when considering the worth of evidence: If that same evidence could be offered in support of uncountable claims you yourself would NOT assent to, then that evidence is worthless. Saying that existence itself is evidence of God is right up there with saying it is evidence of 'world fairies', 'genies', That we are all just figments in the imagination of a sleeping child, ad infinitum.
And your "proof by contradiction" is right down there with "god can't exist because there is evil in the world! If he is all-powerful and good, how could he let this happen?"
In order for evidence to be worthwhile for a claim it must DIRECTLY infer said claim's veracity and we must be able to apply Ockham's razor to the whole thing.
Right, right. About Occam's razor, though, while it's a nice principle, even if you CAN'T apply it to a theory that doesn't mean the theory must be wrong.
Someone allegedly witnessing someone else telekinetically lift a couch and spin it in the air is, by itself worthless. Someone telekinetically lifting and spinning a couch under proper controlled conditions while scientists observe and record the event DOES count as good evidence.
Not that good though. If someone suddenly did that, a lot of scientists would be seeking "logical explanations" for how it was done for decades to come, even if the experiment was reproduced multiple times.
With good reason too, since there are records of scientists having been fooled by common parlor tricks, until another magician came along and showed how the trick is done. Just saying again that truth isn't simple to distinguish.
I have no grounds to say that logic and science CANNOT explain everything(remember that "has not yet" does NOT = "CAN NOT EVER").
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I agree, but as I said in the part of my post that you didn't quote, the default position should be neutral, not negative. You may be as open-minded as you say but plenty of skeptics, scientists and researchers wouldn't accept proof at odds with their opinions if it was branded into their foreheads.
There's a HUUUUUGE difference. Impossible is impossible, 99.~~ is possible.
I say that God is impossible. You say he is just 99.999999999999999999999999999% unlikely. If I see some evidence that he is not impossible, I will change my mind and say he is...to whatever degree probable.
If you're ready to change your mind then you're not completely sure to begin with, right?
So you are again just hiding behind semantics here. Neither of us are going to live our lives with the consideration that there may be such a thing in existence so this is a rather moot point.
I'm not "hiding behind semantics", that's just the point I've been trying to make! A fair amount of text on a single word, but at least that miscommunication seems to be clear now.
Straw man.
You cannot hide nonsensical postulations behind the constructed straw man of some self-important guy who thinks his ideas are "flawless" and such because that has no bearing on MY case.
That is what you've been coming across as.
And either the case you are("You" in general, not you specifically) putting forth(or halfheartedly defending) is rational or it is IRRATIONAL. If it is irrational then dodging behind the above straw man does not make your case any more rational than it was when you started.
I haven't argued that god's existence is a rational thing to believe in, just that it's not impossible.
Like it or not, the universe operates by certain laws and some things are just not possible. By the evidence and knowledge we have I feel I can safely say that SOME specific claims are impossible. Cheetahs that get further away as they move towards you, automobiles made entirely of fog and the Judeo-Christian God are some of these.
I will happily eat crow if you can make a contrary case but until you do, I stand by these.
Knowing that you're at least open to possibilities, I have no objection with that.
Not at all. You are trying to assign a probability to an event retroactively and that is a no-no.
I said: "Doesn't the birth of the world itself go against the law of non-contradiction? Something can't just start existing from nothingness, this also means it couldn't have always existed." The previous sentece was there to support the latter, I didn't say anything about probabilities.
Wrong on the second count. Existence DOES happen in infinite regress. There was no 'beginning' to existence itself(only to our specific universe at best). Think about it...your first assertion above is what proves your second assertion false! You correctly ascertain that an existence of complete 'nothingness' cannot at any point produce 'something' and this means that there always had to be 'something'(whether some sort of sub-atomic nano-existence or what have you) in order for 'other things' to come about.
I figured those assertions would contradict each other, but you're right on this one. So, either the egg or the chicken must have always existed.
Long answer made short: That which exists STILL must do so in a way that makes sense. Reality cannot be if every time you add 2+2 you are able to get a random answer ranging from '4' to '9,376' to 'spaghetti sauce'.
I'm just not sure the logic you can apply to every day life will apply everywhere.
Yep. Let me know when that occurs. I think we both know it will not.
Stay tuned!
Objection! Relevance...?
Free will doesn't necessitate ability to ponder.
False analogy. I am not omniscient. AM omniscient personality could not ponder or make any decision. He either KNOWS with his Godly certainty that he will drink free beer at a pub(and does so) or he is not omniscient. There are no other options here.
I used that analogy to drive the point that you don't even need to be omniscient to not ponder things. There's free beer, dawg! At no point do you ponder "to go or not to go", you just go. If you know enough (it doesn't even need to be all) of the variables, you don't weigh different possibilities, you know what you will do. You can't do contrary to what you will do either because that would go against your character. To use another example, you could take a knife and stab the first person you walk by on the street. But having the option to do that is an illusion, because you're not someone who randomly stabs people.
Not relevant. Either he can make a decision to create humans(or not) OR he knows, one way or the other whether he does or not. The mistake you are making is you keep limiting "God" to HUMAN(non-omniscient) limitations. Of course a HUMAN can make decisions and not be a robot. But for God this would be impossible.
Pondering is a non-omniscient limitation. It's just a tool to determine the best course of action when the amount of known variables is limited. What we do is hard-wired to our personality, character, ego, whatever.
EXACTLY! And therefore he could not make such a choice. In order for his previous omniscient knowledge to remain 'True' he MUST do as said foreknowledge dictates. You are trying to fudge the decision to occur before the omniscience but that cannot be for an omniscient and eternally existent being. No matter how far you go back to place that decision, his knowledge supersedes.
Are you arguing that he can't have free will because he has always been omniscient? If I suddenly attained omniscience, for example, that would not strip me of free will? Or just that in order to have free will you need to make a superficial choice at some point?
You are welcome to your beliefs. I have no use for such in my life but I certainly do not go around trying to discourage or bar others from such.
But I will drag out Gould's Contingency theory here to point out that it is not necessarily so that you, being able to hypothetically rewind the tape of life would do exactly as you have done this life. In fact it is highly unlikely.
To complex for this thread but there are just too many variables that go into creating 'Butterfly effects' in such a hypothetical.
I said: "That's of course under the assumption being omniscient is possible; there are no random chances and such." For things to go exactly as they go now would necessitate these variables to be fixed. I even went out of my way to say this is not my belief.
And being "humble" has nothing to do with this. You seem to be taking unwarranted jabs at me here. I am as humble as they come but I have noticed that when someone holds a view that most common folk disagree with(be it about belief in God, time travel, ghosts etc.), it is almost guaranteed they will be attacked as being 'conceited' or 'not humble'.
Being too humble isn't a good thing. Like if you were sure you must be wrong because others disagree with your opinion. But being so sure that you don't even consider the possibility they MIGHT be right isn't a good thing either. You have explained that isn't really the case, but it's how your posts, at least and especially the first few, came through.
False. You are welcome to go try and find one of these though(good luck with that!)!
I didn't say they have good proof, just proof on par with "god can't exist because omniscience cancels free will." A large part of my posts has gone into contesting that statement, so by disproving your proof, that's what I have been doing by proxy.
A good rule of thumb to have when considering the worth of evidence: If that same evidence could be offered in support of uncountable claims you yourself would NOT assent to, then that evidence is worthless. Saying that existence itself is evidence of God is right up there with saying it is evidence of 'world fairies', 'genies', That we are all just figments in the imagination of a sleeping child, ad infinitum.
And your "proof by contradiction" is right down there with "god can't exist because there is evil in the world! If he is all-powerful and good, how could he let this happen?"
In order for evidence to be worthwhile for a claim it must DIRECTLY infer said claim's veracity and we must be able to apply Ockham's razor to the whole thing.
Right, right. About Occam's razor, though, while it's a nice principle, even if you CAN'T apply it to a theory that doesn't mean the theory must be wrong.
Someone allegedly witnessing someone else telekinetically lift a couch and spin it in the air is, by itself worthless. Someone telekinetically lifting and spinning a couch under proper controlled conditions while scientists observe and record the event DOES count as good evidence.
Not that good though. If someone suddenly did that, a lot of scientists would be seeking "logical explanations" for how it was done for decades to come, even if the experiment was reproduced multiple times.
With good reason too, since there are records of scientists having been fooled by common parlor tricks, until another magician came along and showed how the trick is done. Just saying again that truth isn't simple to distinguish.
I have no grounds to say that logic and science CANNOT explain everything(remember that "has not yet" does NOT = "CAN NOT EVER").
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I agree, but as I said in the part of my post that you didn't quote, the default position should be neutral, not negative. You may be as open-minded as you say but plenty of skeptics, scientists and researchers wouldn't accept proof at odds with their opinions if it was branded into their foreheads.
