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Arguments for the existence of God

For topics that are more about faith, religion and religious organisations than anything else.
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lewist
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#661 Post by lewist » January 7th, 2011, 8:25 am

Latest post of the previous page:

philbo wrote:...As this thread went on, the more I got the impression that he lapsed into jargon as a way of avoiding being pinned down, or possibly to try and assert some kind of intellectual superiority which never really worked...
There's a phrase in my mind from somewhere in the Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy, to the effect that someone disappeared in a puff of logic.

The thread, started by Mick, was entitled Arguments for the Existence of God. After hundreds of posts, where are they?
Carpe diem. Savour every moment.

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animist
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#662 Post by animist » January 7th, 2011, 9:42 am

Mick, if he has gone, went out in a puff of logic, as Lewist said; I got the impression that he thought he was on a high, accusing the opposition of not understanding logic. What happened to Matt, I wonder? I ridiculed the Trinity in a post addressed to him, and he never replied - maybe he actually is the Holy Ghost!

philbo
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#663 Post by philbo » January 7th, 2011, 2:48 pm

thundril wrote:
philbo wrote:
animist wrote:Philbo, what better forum than this to advance his views - do you know of one?
Better? Probably not. I enjoy hanging out at this place, though.

[
This place semed like a vigorous debating arena at first glance, but reading the 'Join Us' piece, I think it's just some right-winger wanker wanting a forum entirely controlled by himself, rather like the 'debating opportunities' offered by radio stations completely controlled by the 'DJ'. (Also usually far rightists, eg Rush Limbaugh.)
Can I be arsed debating with anti-immigrant bigots? No thanks.
That is possibly one of the most inaccurate first impressions I've read. But nobody's forcing you to sign up, so I don't suppose it matters.
lewist wrote: that someone disappeared in a puff of logic.
That was God. Somehow appropriate for this thread :)

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animist
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#664 Post by animist » January 7th, 2011, 3:13 pm

philbo wrote:Better? Probably not. I enjoy hanging out at this place, though.
Philbo, I have now seen your avatar where you hang out and know that you are an experienced mass debater

philbo
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#665 Post by philbo » January 7th, 2011, 5:11 pm

Just realized I haven't set a profile pic for this place.. will try and find something a bit more up-to-date (that one's nearly a decade old now)

Vicky
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#666 Post by Vicky » January 7th, 2011, 5:58 pm

animist
"Philbo, I have now seen your avatar where you hang out and know that you are an experienced mass debater"

:hilarity:

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#667 Post by thundril » January 8th, 2011, 9:29 pm

philbo wrote:
thundril wrote:Can I be arsed debating with anti-immigrant bigots? No thanks.
That is possibly one of the most inaccurate first impressions I've read. But nobody's forcing you to sign up, so I don't suppose it matters.
Sorry if reading the home page of Mr Willet's site looks to me like a long string of anti-immigrant rants and anti-intellectual whinges. But that's just me.

philbo
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#668 Post by philbo » January 10th, 2011, 1:07 pm

thundril wrote:
philbo wrote:
thundril wrote:Can I be arsed debating with anti-immigrant bigots? No thanks.
That is possibly one of the most inaccurate first impressions I've read. But nobody's forcing you to sign up, so I don't suppose it matters.
Sorry if reading the home page of Mr Willet's site looks to me like a long string of anti-immigrant rants and anti-intellectual whinges. But that's just me.
It's just you - I can see how you might jump to the conclusion that an argument against "multiculturalism", or the setting up of enclaves of home in a foreign country, is "anti-immigrant" if you don't pay too much attention, but if you can point me to a single article on the site which could be considered "anti-intellectual", I'll quit the place.

It's one of the more un-anti-intellectual sites you might find. Even my father's contributed the odd article, and he's a bit more intellectually-inclined than I am.

There are a couple of (fairly) regular posters who do come a bit closer to fitting your prejudices about the site, but a) they're not the guy that runs it, b) they're not censored, either, and c) some of the arguments are kind of fun.

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#669 Post by thundril » January 10th, 2011, 4:15 pm

If you don't see the DU Home page the way I do that's your view. My position is simple, and it's this:
When you first offered the link to the site, I had a quick look, and responded by thanking you and saying something slightly positive about it. Having taken a second look, (this time at the home page) I would like to withdraw my inadvertent endorsement of a site run and controlled by a supporter of the English Defence League.
They are (just my opinion, this) a gang of racist thugs.

philbo
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#670 Post by philbo » January 10th, 2011, 4:24 pm

thundril wrote:If you don't see the DU Home page the way I do that's your view.
I'd be very interested to know what made you think that it was "anti-intellectual" - other than a knee-jerk reaction to something you didn't like reading, that is.
thundril wrote:a site run and controlled by a supporter of the English Defence League.
That would probably constitute slander.
thundril wrote:They are (just my opinion, this) a gang of racist thugs.
They may well be, but you're being prejudiced and intemperate in judging Martin to be a member.

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#671 Post by thundril » January 10th, 2011, 4:37 pm

philbo wrote:
thundril wrote:If you don't see the DU Home page the way I do that's your view.
I'd be very interested to know what made you think that it was "anti-intellectual" - other than a knee-jerk reaction to something you didn't like reading, that is.
His whinges about people who call him racist assumes we are all middle class intellectuals; a classic 'Strasserite'-style slur which I, as a working class man of very limited formal education, find extremely offensive. (Note, I have no problem with being offended; it's the constant misrepresentation that I challenge here.)
thundril wrote:a site run and controlled by a supporter of the English Defence League.
That would probably constitute slander.[/quote]
Perhaps, if he hadn't said explicitly that his ideas are close to those of the EDL, it would be insulting to him. But he does say so.
thundril wrote:They are (just my opinion, this) a gang of racist thugs.
They may well be, but you're being prejudiced and intemperate in judging Martin to be a member.[/quote]
I didn't call him a member, as he does not claim to be. I called him a supporter, on the basis of his mentioned the EDL's ideas as close to his own
I suggest you go to the DU homepage, scroll down to the last three articles, and reconsider my conclusions in the light of them.

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animist
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#672 Post by animist » January 10th, 2011, 7:18 pm

I notice he reserves the right to decide what is "dogma" and remove it, so I guess Muslims (and other theists) are not really that welcome, are they? He seems to think so-called moderate Muslims are self-deluded and he wants to make us think like him; he also seems to be some sort of nationalist, though not racist. I suppose his views (about which I agree a lot of the way with Thundril) don't matter too much if the forum really is free and "unlimited", but why set a tone which is in its own way dogmatic and somewhat offensive? TH, though it sounds more exclusive, is just much nicer, IMO.

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#673 Post by thundril » January 10th, 2011, 7:45 pm

I'm not sure what the nettiquette is concerning the discussion of one site within another, but in any case I think the discussion of DU in this thread is off-topic, as both sites, TH and DU, are agreed on the god-question, more or less.

Maybe the 'are there any moral facts?' thread would have been more appropriate. (Or am I just saying that because I've already made clear my attitude to debating with the far-right there?)

Sorry if my use of 'topic' 'thread' 'forum' and 'site' is a bit hazy!

mickeyd
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#674 Post by mickeyd » January 10th, 2011, 10:55 pm

Hi animist,
Mick, if he has gone, went out in a puff of logic, as Lewist said; I got the impression that he thought he was on a high, accusing the opposition of not understanding logic. What happened to Matt, I wonder? I ridiculed the Trinity in a post addressed to him, and he never replied - maybe he actually is the Holy Ghost!
Ah, but could the process be reversed my dear animist? If I have disappeared to non-existence, perhaps I could come from 'it' into existence again? :smile:

Cheerio,

Mick

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#675 Post by thundril » January 10th, 2011, 11:09 pm

Hello again, Mick! Your miraculous resurrection promises to drag this topic back into line with its title. You seem not to have noticed that we had wandered way off, but just on my last post, I was saying exactly that! Spooky or what?

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Alan C.
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#676 Post by Alan C. » January 10th, 2011, 11:11 pm

Mickey, you lost the god debate with thundril, animist, philbo et al, so why not try another topic? There are plenty on offer here.
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

mickeyd
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#677 Post by mickeyd » January 11th, 2011, 12:26 am

Philbo,
Yes - not only can they, they have been observed doing so. If your particular brand of logic says that this can't happen, it probably means that your starting axioms are wrong.
Okay, point me to just one text or link that demonstrates existence coming from non-existence. My Dad has a large volume of science texts so any popular book you name I can probably reference - or any web link obviously.
But that doesn't mean that you can use logic to specify what your axioms are. You've been busting a gut trying to prove your initial assumptions, when all you can manage is circular reasoning.
You're missing the point. Logic is axioms. In particular, the truth of the law of non-contradiction (TLNC) is beyond challenge for one very simple reason: any attempt to deny it requires using it. ("TLNC is false" is meaningful if and only if the law of non-contradiction cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense - but if this condition is met then the law is true - and if it is not met then the denial of the law is absurd on its own terms. Now for crying out loud guys, need I say more on this point? You can't challenge the unchallengeable. Forget it and move on!)

So does "existence from non-existence" violate TLNC? Absolutely yes, because there is nothing for existence to come from:

"from" —used as a function word to indicate the source, cause, agent, or basis (Merriam-Webster)

How can non-existence be a source, or cause, or agent, or basis??? Suppose you say "Well I don't know but that doesn't rule out anything" - well the trouble is it's not a temporary scientific gap in understanding but a permanent logical gap that is involved in "existence from non-existence". Even if (and I say 'even if' here to entertain a falsity to show it as a falsity) existence could come from non-existence you couldn't know it because it's inconceivable - no-one can mentally rehearse existence coming from non-existence because we can't think of nothing, of non-existence - there's nothing to think of. Whenever we think of 'it' we think of 'it' as a special something, a nothing-something, and that's why you guys are willing to entertain the notion of something from nothing - but look, nothing really is nothing! Let's be honest here. Even to say "nothing is the opposite of something" is true only in that it's the best that beings that cannot think non-being can do; the word "is" doesn't actually apply. We have no other concept, because we can only conceive, that's the point ("conceive" - "to take into one's mind", Merriam-Webster - but we cannot actually take non-existence into our minds nothing because there's literally nothing to take).

There is no experiment that can be conceived to test the hypothesis of something from nothing - which is one of the reasons why I frankly disbelieve any appeal to quantum physics and await anyone who can point me to a link or quote that demonstrates otherwise. What would 'constitute' 'nothing' 'in' a laboratory? In what 'vessel' would 'it' be 'contained'? Or in abstract mathematics? Remember, the empty set is a set, and is contained in all other sets - the mathematician cannot define nothing - there's nothing to define. The linguist and the philosopher cannot conceive of nothing, the scientist can neither conceive of 'it' nor experiment on 'it' (how can you experiment on nothing?).

Objection - mickeyd, don't you believe God creates out of nothing? Yes, but "God creates something out of nothing" is hardly equivalent to "something out of nothing". And as I've already said, all our talk of God's being and creative actions are necessarily mere analogies - the finite cannot contain the infinite. It's not as if there was once this other thing 'nothing' alongside God; rather, the expression is the best that can be done to say that God did not create out of himself (which would be absurd - whatever is created is time-conditioned contingency so could hardly be the Creator).

This brings us back full circle - either "God creates something out of nothing" or simply "something" - those are the only options.


Cheers,
Mick

mickeyd
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#678 Post by mickeyd » January 11th, 2011, 12:33 am

Hello thundril :smile: ,

Yes, I thought I'd pop back and keep you chaps on the straight and narrow! Haven't caught up with recent posts yet, been rather busy.

And Spooky indeed - now there's a subject, I wonder if this quantum physics lark has got more to do with existent ghosts than existence from good old non-existence.

Best,
Mick

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#679 Post by thundril » January 11th, 2011, 12:36 am

mickeyd wrote: This brings us back full circle - either "God creates something out of nothing" or simply "something" - those are the only options.


Cheers,
Mick
Oh, well done, Mick. Yes, what we are saying, (at least, what I am saying, and what I think Philbo and Animist are saying also) is that something does not 'come out of nothing', rather that, outside of the universe that exists, there isn't a 'nothing' for something to come 'out of'. Got it yet?

mickeyd
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#680 Post by mickeyd » January 11th, 2011, 12:43 am

Thundril,
Yes, what we are saying, (at least, what I am saying, and what I think Philbo and Animist are saying also) is that something does not 'come out of nothing', rather that, outside of the universe that exists, there isn't a 'nothing' for the universe to come 'out of'. Got it yet?
This is the "something" option right? The universe is all there is and it just is?

Mick

thundril
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Re: Arguments for the existence of God

#681 Post by thundril » January 11th, 2011, 12:47 am

Hmm, let me think....
Either the universe which we observe, or a god for which there is no evidence whatsoever..
Tricky decision, that.

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