Sidewalker

SkepticalOne wrote:

If it seems I’m not taking you very seriously,

I dont care if you got your feelings hurt because I didn't reply with bullet points on some other thread. Most of what you quoted wasnt even addressed to me.

LOL, I didn’t get my feelings hurt, I couldn’t give a rat ass about your childishness, I’m just letting you know why I don’t take you seriously. You can deflect with bullshit about “bullet points”, but the question was, and is, what do you mean when you say, “God doesn’t exist”. If you don’t even know what you mean then your contention that you have proof, is not serious.

When it comes to definitions of god(s), I typically use a default definition that applies to my former beliefs (ie. The Christian god), but I can also work with a deistic definition (an omni god) and other god concepts. I am happy to defer to believers definition of god so long as it is consistent and coherent. Generally, one of the above works.

OK, if you were a Christian, if Theism is a “former belief”, then you must have heard the words “faith” and “transcendence” a lot. It’s not just Christians by the way, almost all religious adults claim belief is a matter of “faith”, and almost all that involve a God, conceive of that God to be “transcendent”, this idea of it being a matter of “faith” and “transcendence” is not really a secret. Atheists who pretend they don’t know that these two principles are fundamental to the discussion are either hopelessly uninformed about the subject matter, or they have an agenda and this deliberate misrepresentation is nothing but a tactic.

In this thread,

Oh please, you are still deflecting, you started two threads claiming a proof that God doesn’t exist, this thread was an extension of those, and you know it. The discussion is about your contention, and you refuse to tell us what your argument is actually about.

I asked you directly for your definition since it was pertinent to the conversation. What does "god" mean to you?

Of course, the discussion is about your contention that you can prove that God doesn’t exist, so your definition is what’s important, but hey, I’ll play along. I think for the purpose of this discussion, my definition essentially lines up with yours close enough. I think belief in God is a matter of “faith”, and I believe the word “God” is referential to a transcendent realm of existence, typically referred to as “spiritual”. Let’s accept that we agree with these two fundamental characteristics of the subject matter.

Do you want to answer so everyone can determine if "God did it" really is one assumption as you claim?

LOL, that comment was sarcasm, I’m mocking your ridiculously uninformed idea that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis that Occam’s razor could apply to. The theistic conclusion in no way seeks to be a rival to scientific explanation but rather its role is to complement scientific explanations by setting them within a wider and more profound context and understanding. The choice is not between science and theism; it is a choice to align our scientific understanding with an experiential reality that includes the discernment of qualities, values, meaning, and purpose.

Given that theism is a matter of faith, which is to say it is a choice one is free to make, and given that the word God refers to a transcendent reality, usually referred to as outside of time and space, then what you mean when you say God does not "exist", it is pertinent to know just how you mean that statement.

If you mean God is not real in the sense that material objects are real, then of course not, if your position is that there is nothing that transcends the four-dimensional frame of reference of science, then that is an extraordinary claim that requires an extraordinary argument, certainly more than your "God doesn't exist because he didn't do things the way I would if I was God.

So, are you serious, do you actually know what you mean when you say, "God doesn't exist", if so, please elucidate so we can have a real conversation about it.

Double_R wrote:

No, the default position is that God is unknown.

That’s not a default position.

When it comes to what we believe about a proposition, you can hold one of three options; for, against or neutral. When it comes to your approach and your actions, there’s only two; for or against. Natural doesn’t exist.

Think of any scenario in real life where the word default comes in; like the settings on your phone. Notice how when you go to reset, default doesn’t mean “duh I don’t know”… instead it means we’re going to choose certain settings for you and you can adjust them if you want.

In the course of everyday life we have to choose how to live. Whether to pray before we go to sleep, whether to go to church on Sundays, whether to burden ourselves with knowing what the Bible says. There’s no neutrality there. You either do or you don’t. If you don’t, you align yourself with god’s nonresistance. If you do, then the opposite.

So you can claim to be neutral, but when you live every aspect of your life as if he doesn’t exist, there’s no meaningful distinction.

Science has never found a single non-spiritual society of human beings anywhere or at any time in history, everywhere and always, the vast majority of human beings have made belief in a transcendent, reality commonly referred to as spiritual, as an orienting part of how they engage reality.  Consequently, the experience of the sacred, the common experiential reality of human beings we refer to as Spiritual, is common to all peoples in all times, and it appears to have been reached independently among peoples and cultures that did not have contact with one another. This certainly leads one to logically conclude that a Spiritual orientation is the natural state of human beings.

If we are innately spiritual and if it is the case that spirituality is the natural orienting response to the human experience, then the rational conclusion to reach is that it is the default state.

SkepticalOne wrote:

Many atheists, like myself, are former believers who found their beliefs unwarranted after seriously evaluating them. The mature approach would be to accept a nuanced view of atheists rather than naively strawmanning their position.

If it seems I’m not taking you very seriously, there’s a reason for that, at the very beginning I told you if you wanted to be taken seriously, you need to tell us what you mean when you say, “God does not exist”, is it possible that you don’t actually know what you mean?

In my very first reply I asked for clarification, regarding what you mean when you say, “God does not exist”, if you claim you can prove it, you should be able to tell us what exactly you are proving. It’s a fair question, if you want us to know what you mean, you should be able to articulate it.

Here are the questions from my very first reply.

What do you mean by the terms “God”, “perfectly loving” and especially “exists”. How do you define “exist” as it would apply to God? Do you mean physically exist? Conceptually? Exist in what form?

I tried to clarify what I’m asking in my second reply with these comments:

I’m serious about this line of questioning, it’s a sincere attempt to understand.

In the unlikely event that you guys want to be taken seriously, you need to clarify what you mean when you use the term “exist”

Are you saying you do not believe in the existence of other dimensions of reality, are you arguing that there is nothing that falls outside of our understanding of four-dimensional reality?

Do you think "space" exists, how about "time", "mathematics", "consciousness", in what way do these things exist.

What are the characteristics that something that exists must possess, that God does not possess?

From the beginning the question has been "what do you mean", and you still haven’t answered. Do you want to be taken seriously or not?

Do you know what you mean? If so, please tell us so we can actually have a rational discussion about it.

SkepticalOne wrote:

How is this relevant to the conversation?

You claim "god did it" requires one one assumption, but "God" (the term) comes loaded with an assortment of massive assumptions.

You mean assumptions like "invisible", "in the sky", and "grants wishes to people that pray"?

I think it’s common for young children to see the Bible as a story book and to have a childish understanding of God as an invisible man in the sky that grants wishes to those who pray. Of course, as children age and mature their conception of God and their understanding of faith develops and matures beyond such childish ways of understanding things.

But apparently, that isn’t always the case. There seems to be a select group of very vocal Atheists whose conception of God and faith did not mature as they got older and who spend a lot of time ranting about how much more intelligent, rational, and mature they are than people of faith because they now reject this childish idea of God. They apparently don’t understand that no adult Theist believes in the God they don’t believe in and yet, they really seem thrilled with themselves for their intellectual achievement It just seems that they are using the faith discussion to brag about how they are all grown up now and so they don’t believe in God anymore, and when I read those posts I can’t help but recall the image of a little child I saw on vacation a few years back who was clinging to the wall of the hotel pool next to the three foot sign yelling “Mommy, mommy, look at me, I’m swimming in the deep end just like a grown up”. I’m sorry, but this type of Atheism just doesn’t appear to be all that grown up to me, and clinging to such childish ideas about God and faith isn’t what I’d call “deep”.

SkepticalOne wrote:

God did it" is a pretty simple explanation, only one assumption, do you really want to invoke Occam's razor?

"God" is defined as a being with infinite aspects (omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc) and is an infinite assumption.

If true intelligence is mental expansion, which is to say, it involves the ability to view and understanding widely different things from multiple different perspectives, an aptitude for grasping a wide range of truths, relationships, and meanings, and the capacity for abstract and symbolic thought, then it follows logically that the contention that one can reduce reality to only one of its modes, to know it completely in only one of its forms, is an unintelligent claim.

It is often presented as "scientific", but it is not a scientific claim. Science does not contend that reality can be reduced to a single ontological level, on the contrary, science asserts that reality is in fact, multileveled, it asserts that the four dimensions of existence that we call reality, are contingent and relative to a greater reality of more dimensions, of which we cannot have certain knowledge, and which can only be expressed metaphorically.

SergeantLynch wrote:

In so much as the fundamental basis of universality is materialism...Fast forwards and therefore hence philosophy, whereby answers are somewhat thin on the ground.

What?

FLRW wrote:

How to Argue God Doesn’t Exist

1. It is impossible to prove God exists, so it follows that there’s no reason to believe God is real.
2. If God is good and omnipotent, why does evil exist? God either must not be all-powerful or purely good. In either case, they shouldn’t be worshipped.
3. Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is often the most likely. Is a magical deity in charge of everything really the best way to explain life?

"God did it" is a pretty simple explanation, only one assumption, do you really want to invoke Occam's razor?

linate wrote:

He's not completely terrible

OK, now I'll tear you a new one.

Fuck you, he is completely terrible. Take it back and apologize.

and I do abide by some conservative principles

What's that got to do with it, Trump is not a conservative, I was a Republican most of my adult life, Trump isn't a Republican either.

Mag1cman wrote:

Rape forum

(RemyBrown containment zone)

LOL, brilliant!

Trump didn't sign it, must have read my post.

Yeah right, if Trump was reading my posts, seal team 6 would have fragged my ass by now.

linate wrote:

Didn't you tear me a new one, when I made this proposal not long ago? That's now being passed by a large bipartisan majority

I don't think I tore into you, but I did say why I think it's a bad idea that won't work.

The fact that Trump is signing it validates my objections in my opinion, Trump is the king of bad ideas that won't work.

In the end it will make it harder for Americans to get into a new home. The assumption is that eliminating the investors will cause excessive supply which will drive prices down. But builders monitor demand on a monthly basis, builders that overbuild don't survive, holding real estate inventory is prohibitively expensive, if anything, the tendency is to under build. Cutting demand will be followed very closely by cutting supply. At the same time the Fed is going to raise interest rates, the effective cost of buying a new home will go up, and fewer families will qualify.

In 2007 the collapse of the subprime mortgage market popped the US United States housing bubble, 50% of the home builders went bankrupt, the rest shrunk to about 10% of thier former size. When COVID and sub 3% mortgage rates created an unprecedented explosion of demand for single family homes, a smaller construction industry couldn't build fast enough and yes, as a result prices went up dramatically, investors exacerbated the problem, but that perfect storm is over, the builders grew and caught up with the imbalance and are back to building to demand, only more careful than before, inflation has hit construction materials very hard, so costs to build are up, builders are not going to build too much supply, the reduced demand will be met by reduced building, prices don't go down, interest rates go up, fewer families achieve the dream of home ownership.

I have applicable experience and strong opinions about it, I don't mean to be laying into you, it's just my take on how the industry will respond, eliminating investors will have the opposite of the intended effect in my opinion.

SkepticalOne wrote:

Sidewalker wrote:

SkepticalOne wrote:

It doesnt help to summarize the thread absent responses to your arguments. Ive explained why your understanding is mistaken. Knowledge of existence doesnt thwart free will. If it did, then ...no one tell the Christians what Jesus did to them! 😉

"Just because she's tied up in the basement, doesn't mean she doesn't love me" - RemyBrown

Deflection.

You are an atheist that knows the mind of God, no point in arguing with that.

You're really good at that logic thing LOL.

SkepticalOne wrote:

It doesnt help to summarize the thread absent responses to your arguments. Ive explained why your understanding is mistaken. Knowledge of existence doesnt thwart free will. If it did, then ...no one tell the Christians what Jesus did to them! 😉

"Just because she's tied up in the basement, doesn't mean she doesn't love me" - RemyBrown

SkepticalOne wrote:

You claimed no one believes in a god like in the OP. You were presented with an obvious undeniable group of believers in such a god. What's the issue?

It's one thing to have people not understand what you wrote, it's something completely different that you don't understand what you wrote.

I tried to be clear when I claimed that, let me try to dumb it down far enough for you to understand.

The God of the OP "would ensure that all non-resistant individuals believe in Him".

As far as I know, there are no people that believe that God has ensured that everyone believes in him.

You claim a loving God would create people without free will, I don't know of any believer that thinks that is an attribute of God.

Yes, there are people who argue that God is love, please explain why they would be making an argument if they thought that everyone believed in God.

Also, please explain why people who argue that "God is love" don't believe that God would want people to have free will?

I must tell you, I think your ideas about love are pretty fucking creepy.

I mean, sure, every once in a while, you do read about someone who thinks the person they love should not be able to choose to not love them back, but the main reason we can read their story is because it has been discovered that they have a woman tied up in the basement, or buried in the back yard, something like that.

I don't think you know anything about the subject matter of your post. There's only about a million books about comparative religion and/or theism, maybe you could read one, you know, to find out what theists actually believe.

SkepticalOne wrote:

That's a non-sequitur and a nonsense statement.

Not at all. It nullifies the claim that no one believes in a perfectly loving god and OP is trying to 'define god out of existence'.

Oh, so it's one of those magical nonsense statements, like an incantation that creates logic out of thin air?

Cool, please explain how that works.

Shoresy wrote:

You agree with all 7? Don't you feel the slightest urge to question a single one?

You deny all 7? Don't you feel the slightest urge to consider a single one?

You should change your user name.

You should change your meds.

Before, there was a column of newest threads and a column of active posts, which is now "trending". Newest threads has been replaced with a list of the latest posts per category, which often makes new threads difficult to find.

I keep coming across threads I missed because someone created the thread and then someone commented on a thread in the same category, and the new thread is hidden. I'd like to see new threads come back. The first thing I do when I come on is see if there are any interesting new threads, it's impractical to look at each category to see if there are any new threads.

testing

SkepticalOne wrote:

This is still just the flip side of the Ontological Argument, the Ontological Argument tries to "define" God into existence, the Divine Hiddenness Argument tries to "define" God out of existence.

I am certain folks arguing "God is love" are not trying to define their god out of existence.

That's a non-sequitur and a nonsense statement.

I could go on but there’s no point, 

So can I, my friend, for the same reason...

Double R forgot to add Insurrectionist Dictator who denies the validity of our electoral process.

Fauxlaw forgot Hunter's Laptop, Hilary's emails, and Biden's great Mr. Potatohead Scandal.

SkepticalOne wrote:

If God exists, He is perfectly loving.

If a perfectly loving God exists, He would desire a personal relationship with every individual capable of such a relationship.

If God exists and is perfectly loving, He would ensure that all non-resistant individuals believe in Him.

There are non-resistant individuals who do not believe in God.

Therefore, a perfectly loving God does not exist.

This is still just the flip side of the Ontological Argument, the Ontological Argument tries to "define" God into existence, the Divine Hiddenness Argument tries to "define" God out of existence.

Neither semantic parlor game is logically valid. Just because one can create the definition of a concept in their mind, it does not mean that concept has an objective correlate in reality.

SkepticalOne wrote:

So, what your proof comes down to is, “If you were God, you’d make it so everyone believes in you, everyone does not believe in God, therefore God must not exist”.

A perfectly loving god would desire a personal relationship with humanity. Relationships require all sides to know each other. It stands to reason, such a god would want humanity to know it exists.

OK, I stand corrected, the argument is “If you were God you would want humanity to know you exists, everyone does not believe God exists, therefore God doesn’t exist?” I think you are working backwards, you are starting with your conclusion and then defining the subject accordingly.  

I saw where this was going in my initial reply, “nobody believes in the God you don’t believe in”.

No one believes in an omnibenevolent, omnipotent god? That's certainly not true.

You are postulating a God that makes everyone believe in his existence, I’m not aware of any person, or any religion in which that is the God of their understanding. As far as I know, nobody believes in the God you don’t believe in.

If your argument is that an “omnibenevolent, omnipotent god” would not want human beings to have free will, OK, but you haven't made that argument. It certainly doesn’t “stand to reason” that a loving God would want a relationship in which the person was not free to choose to be in that relationship.

Once again, I’m not aware of any religion or individual in which that is the God of their understanding.

Yes, an NDE is an experience that people report having, as such, of course the reports “are heavily influenced by cultural and religious backgrounds and vary widely”. That is the case with all experiences, isn’t it?

What I mean is that the experiences vary widely. If your argument is that NDEs are evidence for a particular deity, then you would need to discount many other deities reprsented in the expeirences. You would also need to discount experiences where no deity is represented.

If a person that has an NDE interprets the experience as evidence of the God of their understanding, I don’t think they have any obligation to discount other interpretations or other experiences, as you said, it’s heavily influenced by their cultural and religious background.

You aren’t challenging the fact that these people actually had the near-death-experience, are you?

No, why would I? I dont consider it to be evidence of the supernatural though.

OK, and your conclusion is heavily influenced by their cultural and religious background.

It could be individuals are glimpsing many, many other realms, but it seems much more likely to be the result of a brain in some sort of trama. Occams razor favors the latter.

I think how it is interpreted is a matter of the individual's prior metaphysical assumptions, different assumptions, not necessarily fewer assumptions, so Occam’s razor isn’t applicable.

A lot of people apply a materialistic yardstick to argue against the existence of certain concepts, with an argument that tries to present a contradiction and in so doing, claims that it is proof that the concept in question doesn’t exist. This argument can also be applied to the existence of light, along with everything else considered to exist in the materialistic framework.

Let’s consider light, it manifests the mutually exclusive qualities of particle and wave. Temporally speaking, a wave has periodicity, and spatially, it is spread out in space, a particle cannot have a periodicity, nor can it be spread out in space. A particle has a discrete location in time and space; a wave does not. A wave has amplitude and a frequency, it exhibits the phenomena of diffraction and diffusion, a particle does not. According to most of the materialistic arguments on these boards, these logical contradictions would mean the existence of light is impossible.

Much about light is inconceivable in a materialistic framework, its speed is constant no matter what frame of reference it is measured from, which is bizarre, nothing else behaves like that, and it violates any normal definition of logic and rationality that can materialistically be applied to movement and speed.

Light has no mass, and it moves at the speed of light in a vacuum (of course), but according to theory, the length of an object dilates as you approach the speed of light until you reach the speed of light, when its length becomes zero, zero length means it has no spatial existence.

Relativity theory also says that time slows to zero at the speed of light, so time doesn’t exist from the frame of reference of light.

Light is therefore completely inexplicable, in the end we have “something” that has no mass, no dimensional existence in space, and no existence in time. It’s hard to say something like that exists, it certainly defies any materialistic definition of existence, and yet we know it is “something”, but at the same time, it has none of the materialistic characteristics of existence.

How can a materialist argue that light exists?

FLRW wrote:

Who argued God's existence?

Jesus?

I've read the reference document, but I must have missed where that is argued, do you have a chapter and verse so I can take a look?

SkepticalOne wrote:

Is it possible that a perfectly loving God might be ambiguous in his existence?

I dont find that very plausible. A loving parent doesn't walk away if it can be helped.

So, what your proof comes down to is, “If you were God, you’d make it so everyone believes in you, everyone does not believe in God, therefore God must not exist”. Not really a very compelling argument.

I saw where this was going in my initial reply, “nobody believes in the God you don’t believe in”.

Also I know it gets crickets a lot but I think near death experiences very reasonably point to god existing.

This is a tangent, but NDEs are heavily influenced by cultural and religious backgrounds and vary widely.

Yes, an NDE is an experience that people report having, as such, of course the reports “are heavily influenced by cultural and religious backgrounds and vary widely”. That is the case with all experiences, isn’t it?

I personally do not find NDEs a compelling argument for deities or the 'great beyond'.

Your statement is heavily influenced by your cultural and religious background too; experiences occur within a context. If you have never had an NDE, then of course you wouldn’t find it “compelling”.

You aren’t challenging the fact that these people actually had the near-death-experience, are you?

linate wrote:

Science and religion concur that there are realms of being that transcend our four-dimensional frame of reference, both refer to the existence of realms of being whose nature isn’t known. Are you saying you do not believe in the existence of other dimensions of reality, are you argueing that there is nothing that falls outside oh our understanding of four dimensional reality?

Why do you say there is science that says there are realms outside our four dimensions?

I agree but I wonder how you'd answer it

There are many examples, I’ll touch on a few.

First, science tells us straight up that our four-dimensional reality of matter and energy is roughly 5% of the Universe, the other 95% is made up of dark matter and dark energy. This would be matter and energy that we cannot interact with, and which has none of the characteristics of what we know to be matter and energy in our four-dimensional reality. Consequently, 95% of the Universe exists as a region of being that transcends our four-dimensional frame of reference.

Cosmologists also tell us the Universe is expanding, this raises the question of what it is expanding into, this implies that greater reality in which our Universe has it’s being.

Science tells us the Universe is temporally finite, roughly 14 Billion years old, matter, energy, time, and space came into being at this time, there must be a realm of existence that transcends time and space, and in which the Universe came into being.

Implicit in science’s fundamental law of cause-and-effect states that everything that exists or occurs has its cause in what came before. Nothing can come about that did not already exist in some extremely attenuated way. The potential for all things that have occurred or will occur inherently exists in the structure to begin with. There is a transcendent realm of existence in which the Universe came into being and what happened over time was an unfolding of the inward properties of the universe that were inherent in the background structure from the beginning. That is explicitly implied in science’s fundamental premise of cause and effect. Without that premise, the entire intellectual construct of science falls apart, and the shoe is on the other foot, it is science that doesn’t exist.

These are just a few of the examples where “science says there are realms outside our four dimensions”

Robert Frost likened scientific knowledge to a clearing in a forest, the greater the clearing the more contact we have with the unknown, it seems the more information we obtain through natural explanations, rather than less, the mystery of true reality becomes greater.

The contention that there are no levels of reality except for those of science is not itself a scientific truth.

SergeantLynch wrote:

My wife is related to Isaac Newton.

He invented gravity.

Previously apples fell upwards.

It was Intelligent Falling.

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory - The Onion

SatanLucy wrote:

FLRW wrote:

The adult human brain contains an estimated 86 billion neurons (the cells that transmit electrical and chemical signals). Additionally, there are roughly 86 billion glial cells—the non-neuronal cells that support, protect, and nourish your neurons—bringing the total to approximately 170 to 172 billion brain cells.

Hmmmm, what could go wrong?

A lot. It's reason why people with 70 IQ are as unequal as it gets to others. Low IQ isn't a choice not even one bit, but it sure as hell makes life of a person much worse and even makes person's decision making much worse, so despite person being able to choose, person is not able to choose with any high level of thinking. It's like a cat trying to figure out how TV remote works.

Life Is Hardest When You're Dumb

linate wrote:

I think reasonable unbelief could occur even with a perfectly loving god. Of course we might disagree with how a perfectly loving god might manifest. And if there's a way for a perfectly loving god to manifest while slowing reasonable unbelief, that could disprove the premises

I’m serious about this line of questioning, it’s a sincere attempt 2to understand.

Declaring that God does not exist is very popular, trendy even, all the kewl kids are doing it, but whenever I ask what exactly they mean by that statement, I never get any answer beyond “it means I’m smarter than believers”.

In the unlikely event that you guys want to be taken seriously, you need to clarify what you mean when you use the term “exist”. If you mean, doesn’t exist as an object, well duh, believers don’t believe that either, if you mean you don’t believe in an invisible bearded man in the sky that grants wishes, well duh again, believers beyond grade school don’t either.

Science and religion concur that there are realms of being that transcend our four-dimensional frame of reference, both refer to the existence of realms of being whose nature isn’t known. Are you saying you do not believe in the existence of other dimensions of reality, are you argueing that there is nothing that falls outside oh our understanding of four dimensional reality?

Do you think "space" exists, how about "time", "mathematics", "consciousness", in what way do these things exist.

What are the characteristics that something that exists must possess, that God does not possess?