Does God exist? (13 Viewers)

[Cookie182]

Whyere did you get it? I haven't been able to find it anywhere.

Just linked it there dude.

Click.

Its an embedded google video file.

Enjoy!

 

[BradCube]

@BradCube, re: Arguing for non-existence.

I have two main problems:

a) Many things are claimed to exist for which no 'evidence' could be said to be evidence for,
or which we do not know of a possible evidence for (yet).

You're going to have to restate what your problem is here as I'm not sure what you mean. I think it's just a grammatical typo which seems to be making this nonsensical? Some examples might help clear this up?

b) And this is strongly related, we will never in my opinion be in a 'good epistemic position' to
search and examine for the evidence for many claimed things which may exist... such as say a russell teapot.

If we truly lack a good epistemic position then I would ask how you know "x" doesn't exist? On Russell's teapot I would guess that people don't believe it exists for two reasons. 1. We see no good evidence for believing that a celestial teapot does exist and 2) It seems highly improbable that a device created and crafted from human hands would be the splitting image of a deity that created them (not mention problems of transcendence between a timeless state and a physical universe).

Failing this, if we truly are in a bad epistemic position to assess the existence of Bertrand Russell's celestial teapot, then I would claim that we are justified in no more than "lack of belief".

It seems you try to get around (B) by placing the burden of deciding whether you're in a good enough position on yourself - However imo this makes your entire schema redundant. You may as well just say "If you feel it doesn't exist, you are warrented in doing so".

On the contrary, I feel that ones epistemic position should be open to debate and that all people should bound by the same level of justified belief. My claim is not that if one feels they are in a good epistemic position, then they can believe whatever they feel to be true. My claim is that if they are in a good epistemic position then they can properly asses the existence of entity x.

Certainly some introspective analysis will come into play (eg "I can know x because of y"). However, if you are asking how does one know that they know x because of y, then you are addressing the very issue of epistemology and knowledge itself - quite a different topic. For our purposes, I don't think that it is necessary to get caught up on how we can know that we know vs. feeling that we know.

From my perspective, I could never believe I am in a 'good epistemic position' to believe that anything does not exist from the evidence I gather, other than from a practical standpoint - Practically though something not existing is the same as not knowing whether it exists or not, so why bother with the 'non-existant' label?

I'm not quite sure what you are saying here. Do you honestly believe that you can't know that something doesn't exist? For example if I told you, "There is a 4cm redback spider on your keyboard", I would think you could validly search your keyboard (being in a good epistemic position to do so) and conclude that that spider does not exist, and I was incorrect.

If your move is to then say that I can't know for sure that a redback is not on my keyboard since I could be seeing an illusion, then again, I think we come back to the nature of knowledge itself - and specifically properly basic beliefs.

I would disagree that "practically something not existing is the same as not knowing whether it exists or not". This seems to be confusing ontology with epistemology. Another example: Suppose I told you that your monitor has 5 red capacitors in the back of it. You may not know this to be true or not, but how does your lack of knowledge at all affect whether or not they actually exist?

I would perhaps even go so far to say that to me there is no middle ground logically. This is to say (though imo it's only a symantical difference) that there are either only things which exist
and don't exist, or things which exist and we don't know exist. To say that you don't know whether something exists is to say that it doesn't exist in your known reality, this is all that you could meaningfully say 'non-existence' ever means without going too abstract.

I've highlighted what I feel to be the relevant section. Our known reality is the issue here. It seems to me that what constitutes our current known reality doesn't represent all of actual reality.

For example, my known reality may not include the existence of a child that has just died of starvation in Africa, but this doesn't mean that that child never existed. I think you understand this which is why you mention "known" reality in the first place. In our case though, we are looking at what should be the requirement for justified belief which joins a portion of actual reality with our known reality.

My brain is feeling a bit like mush at this hour. It would probably be helpful if you could restate the above and clarify further what you mean

 

[SylviaB]

Just linked it there dude.

Click.

Its an embedded google video file.

Enjoy!

-_-

Stupid me, thanks.

 

[Enteebee]

You're going to have to restate what your problem is here as I'm not sure what you mean. I think it's just a grammatical typo which seems to be making this nonsensical? Some examples might help clear this up?

For example, say my God cannot be found through an evidence based approach and I maintain it requires faith. No evidence I could produce would be evidence proving/disproving the existence of this god.

1. We see no good evidence for believing that a celestial teapot does exist

Just because there is no good evidence for something's existence doesn't mean it does not exist.

2) It seems highly improbable that a device created and crafted from human hands would be the splitting image of a deity that created them (not mention problems of transcendence between a timeless state and a physical universe).

That isn't even a part of the thought experiment... the teacup isn't meant to be a diety. It's just an everyday object that somehow, unexplained has landed up in space. No evidence can really prove that it is not there, unless you rely on the lack of evidence for its existence... which goes against your rule that we must be in a strong epistemic position to find evidence. Which we just aren't, we aren't in a strong position at all to find evidence for/against celestial teacups.

Failing this, if we truly are in a bad epistemic position to assess the existence of Bertrand Russell's celestial teapot, then I would claim that we are justified in no more than "lack of belief".

Yes and I get to this.

On the contrary, I feel that ones epistemic position should be open to debate and that all people should bound by the same level of justified belief. My claim is not that if one feels they are in a good epistemic position, then they can believe whatever they feel to be true. My claim is that if they are in a good epistemic position then they can properly asses the existence of entity x.

Then you don't get past (b) and as such I really don't think you move as anywhere as far as arguments about God are concerned. I saw your example of for instance:

- If the christian god existed there would be no suffering
- There is suffering
- The christian god does not exist.

This truly would disprove this one incarnation of God... but it's really a strawman of any God I've ever seriously thought about.

Do you honestly believe that you can't know that something doesn't exist? For example if I told you, "There is a 4cm redback spider on your keyboard", I would think you could validly search your keyboard (being in a good epistemic position to do so) and conclude that that spider does not exist, and I was incorrect.

No what I would think, putting my philosophical hat on, is that I have no evidence of the spider - but nor do I have any evidence the spider is not there.... it could perhaps be there, but my mind is having a hard time comprehending it for some reason or another.

If your move is to then say that I can't know for sure that a redback is not on my keyboard since I could be seeing an illusion, then again, I think we come back to the nature of knowledge itself - and specifically properly basic beliefs.

I think it's naive to assume that your senses correspond with actual reality, yes.

To me anything which could possibly exist very well may and if I have no evidence of its existence then this means that I do not know whether it exists - Absense of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Suppose I told you that your monitor has 5 red capacitors in the back of it. You may not know this to be true or not, but how does your lack of knowledge at all affect whether or not they actually exist?

Because existance is only a product of my knowledge, and anything which could possible be imagined to exist outside of this may as well not... I would dare to say that out there in 'ultimate reality' (which I do believe in) there are probably things which I could not begin to comprehend, much like a blind man cannot comprehend 'colour'...

I've highlighted what I feel to be the relevant section. Our known reality is the issue here. It seems to me that what constitutes our current known reality doesn't represent all of actual reality.

Actual reality is something we need not bother ourselves with, as we cannot ever know it. Anything which exists beyond our knowledge of reality we can't even make a good guess about... you have infinite possibility and only the imagination of a human.

For example, my known reality may not include the existence of a child that has just died of starvation in Africa, but this doesn't mean that that child never existed.

For sure, but this is all just a thought experiment in your reality unless you really know.

In our case though, we are looking at what should be the requirement for justified belief which joins a portion of actual reality with our known reality.

And I'm saying there's no way to do this and that all we have is our known reality - and our known reality will only be made up of things which we feel we 'know' exist (at least within our reality) from whatever epistemology we've constructed and things which we do not know of, and thus may as well not exist as their existence is only in a world we cannot really reach known as "actual reality".

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

The Bible also says judge not, dont cast stones, look at the plank in your own eye etc. God is love and if people of other faiths are connected to this love, theyre doing pretty good. Obviously, if theyre not involved with a Christian church, it's likely that theyre not living through Christ, but who are we to judge otherwise good people? You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God. All that we do must be rooted in love. This is stronger than evil; it has defeated death; it is really the only way to convert sinners.
I love hindus, muslims and jews . On questions of fundamental justice, like, eg, jihad, I will fight for universal values and this attack will be strong, but I have nothing against anyone who has found love in their life; they have found God.

Good to see some fucking sense from some of the religious people in this thread. I salute you.

 

[KFunk]

The Bible also says judge not, dont cast stones, look at the plank in your own eye etc. God is love and if people of other faiths are connected to this love, theyre doing pretty good. Obviously, if theyre not involved with a Christian church, it's likely that theyre not living through Christ, but who are we to judge otherwise good people? You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God. All that we do must be rooted in love. This is stronger than evil; it has defeated death; it is really the only way to convert sinners.
I love hindus, muslims and jews . On questions of fundamental justice, like, eg, jihad, I will fight for universal values and this attack will be strong, but I have nothing against anyone who has found love in their life; they have found God.

Please tell this to Zimmerman. Thanks.

 

[BradCube]

For example, say my God cannot be found through an evidence based approach and I maintain it requires faith. No evidence I could produce would be evidence proving/disproving the existence of this god.

Then I would say, per the schema I outlined, that your affirmation/disaffirmation of God x is unjustified. Without reason or evidence, what is the origin of this blind faith? I would say that in these cases you should take the middle ground with agnosticism and confess, “ I don’t know whether God x exists”, or even before that “I lack a belief in God x”.

Just because there is no good evidence for something's existence doesn't mean it does not exist.

Sure, but I think you may have misunderstood what I was doing. The reason I mentioned this is to first take us to a point of agnosticism and then in point 2. Lean us on the atheistic side.
Things would be more complicated if we had both evidence for and against the existence of a celestial teacup since we would have to weigh the probability of both sides and then come to a conclusion. As this is not the case, (from point 1) we don’t have this concern.

That isn't even a part of the thought experiment... the teacup isn't meant to be a diety. It's just an everyday object that somehow, unexplained has landed up in space. No evidence can really prove that it is not there, unless you rely on the lack of evidence for its existence... which goes against your rule that we must be in a strong epistemic position to find evidence. Which we just aren't, we aren't in a strong position at all to find evidence for/against celestial teacups.

My apologies, I’m thinking of celestial teacups more in terms of “the flying spaghetti monster” etc. In the case as you’ve outlined it above, I think we can still find some reasons that would lean us on the side of atheism – ie, it seems highly improbable that a teacup could find its way out into space knowing the obstacles it would have to face along the way (eg gravity).

However, even if these sorts of reasons are shown to be fallacious, I would think we are left with no more than a lack of belief in celestial teacups.

Then you don't get past (b) and as such I really don't think you move as anywhere as far as arguments about God are concerned.

Why don’t we get past (b)? I’ll restate the whole schema again for simplicities sake:

1) e is such that if it existed then we would expect to find evidence (or any other epistemic grounding for belief) of e's existence
2) x, believes they are in a good epistemic position to search and examine for such evidence
3) x finds no such evidence, evidence contrary or evidence improbable with regard to the existence of e

In premise (2) x’s belief in their epistemic position is not the same as saying they feel they are in a good position. This is because beliefs can be demonstratively false, and as such are open to argumentation and debate. Possibly it would help if (2) was modified to “x, justifiably believes they are in a good epistemic position to search and examine for such evidence”?

I saw your example of for instance:
- If the christian god existed there would be no suffering
- There is suffering
- The christian god does not exist.

This truly would disprove this one incarnation of God... but it's really a strawman of any God I've ever seriously thought about.

Whether the argument is a strawman or not is irrelevant as all I wanted to show was a type of argument that would positively demonstrate the non-existence of God. I’m glad that you think the actual argument is a bad one – I do too!

No what I would think, putting my philosophical hat on, is that I have no evidence of the spider - but nor do I have any evidence the spider is not there.... it could perhaps be there, but my mind is having a hard time comprehending it for some reason or another.

So what you have done now is to do away with any “properly basic” beliefs. That is you no longer think you can trust your physical perception of the world, nor your mental ability in dealing with such perceptions. I can’t see how this doesn’t undermine your entire argument or even your entire existence. How can you positively assert anything if you don’t trust that which is allowing you to even comprehend what you’re asserting?

For example how do you know you’re not a Boltzmann brain? Or how do you know that you and all your memories weren’t created 5 minutes ago?

I much prefer to think that we should take some beliefs as true by default. Ie- that the physical world exists, logic is logical, our physical perceptions can generally be trusted etc. Without this stepping stone it seems we are reduced to absolute meaningless from which we cannot assert anything.

I think it's naive to assume that your senses correspond with actual reality, yes.

I think I’ve dealt with this in the above, so I will simply ask, on what you are basing this naivety? Why is someone who trusts their physical and mental perceptions anymore naive then you?

To me anything which could possibly exist very well may and if I have no evidence of its existence then this means that I do not know whether it exists - Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Sure, unless you find lack of evidence where evidence would have existed had entity e existed (as per premise (1)).

Because existance is only a product of my knowledge, and anything which could possible be imagined to exist outside of this may as well not...

But this is clearly not the case in the example with the capacitors in your monitor! Their existence is not a product of your knowledge. Your knowledge of them might be a product of their existence, but not the other way around.

Possibly you meant your belief in their existence is a product of your knowledge? Certainly this may be the case (although one also wonders whether knowledge can be born as the product of belief).

Also consider your claim “anything which could possible[y] be imagined to exist outside of this [your knowledge] may as well not...”. Does this really work with the capacitor example? As I understand it, you have acknowledged that you don’t have knowledge of these capacitors, and so then claim that they “may as well not”. But surely those capacitors can’t be dismissed with “they may as well not” since their very existence is the reason you have a functional monitor and are able to read the text in front of you!

I would dare to say that out there in 'ultimate reality' (which I do believe in) there are probably things which I could not begin to comprehend, much like a blind man cannot comprehend 'colour'...

Sure, and we will justifiably “lack a belief” in such possible things. Whether they are probable or not is a different issue. Surely to measure probability you need some evidence to weigh with?

Actual reality is something we need not bother ourselves with, as we cannot ever know it.

Well under your world view we can’t know anything since you have done away with any properly basic beliefs. For me (and I would guess most people) actual reality is something we very much must bother ourselves with as we interact with it every day.

Anything which exists beyond our knowledge of reality we can't even make a good guess about... you have infinite possibility and only the imagination of a human.

Why can’t we make a good guess about things which don’t know to be true in reality? For example I can make what I think is a good guess that no one has broken the land speed record within the last half hour even though I don’t know this to be true.

Edit: Re-reading the above, my example may be flawed as it doesn't address the existence of an entity but the existence of a particular record.

For sure, but this is all just a thought experiment in your reality unless you really know.

But that’s the entire point – that my thoughts or knowledge of an entity aren’t the cause of its existence/non-existence. How is a thought experiment any different to my knowledge in regard to the ontological status of an entity?

For And I'm saying there's no way to do this and that all we have is our known reality - and our known reality will only be made up of things which we feel we 'know' exist (at least within our reality) from whatever epistemology we've constructed and things which we do not know of, and thus may as well not exist as their existence is only in a world we cannot really reach known as "actual reality".

And how do you make a claim about the actual state of our known realities without knowing something about actual reality? If you are truly blind about the way actual reality is, how do you know that you’re blind to the way actual reality is?

 

[Iron]

1. Prove syllogistically that natural rights exist

2. Give the fundamental reason why usury is wrong

3. What is the difference between soul and mind?

4. Give and explain a definition of Sacrifice



pls answer guys

 

[Cookie182]

It's unfair the theists are winning 109 v 102.

But they have God on their side...

 

[Iron]

the cavalry charged
the indians died

 

[gibbo153]

It's unfair the theists are winning 109 v 102.

But they have God on their side...

God's vote is probably worth at least 10.

such a cheater

 

[Iron]

"Caritas in veritate" - Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Benedict XVI

XVI's new Encyclical is out. Human development in Charity and Truth. Deals with how Catholics should respond to globalisation. Have not read it yet myself, but will by tonight.
I dont know about anyone else, but there's something about the German Shepherd's writing style that is so attractive and easy for me; very clear minded, structured, full of examples etc. His other encys, Faith and Hope and (esp) God is Love are amazing examples of this.
Anyway, should be a great read. Enjoy!

 

[SylviaB]

The vatican talks about charity and what Jesus would do.

meanwhile, they live like kings in palaces of inestimable cost.

LOL.

 

[Iron]

Charity is deeper than mere financial benifits. The core of it is loving others, which is often a free gift.
Man cant live by bread alone, communist.

The beautiful places our leaders live in are merely testament for those on earth of God's beauty and magnificence; when they became priests, nuns etc, they took vows of poverty and most likely lived many decades as poor servants of the church. Their opulence is for you

 

[SylviaB]

And how, pray tell, does the church give the gift of love?

By telling the poor, afraid and desperate masses to follow what they teach, lest they spend eternity receiving punihsment?

 

[Iron]

The whole message of Christianity is of love. Sorry if you didnt get the memo. All are not only welcome but are called by their creator to be at one with us

 

[SylviaB]

The whole message of Christianity is of love. Sorry if you didnt get the memo.

How does HELL existing constitute love?

...but are called by their creator to be at one with us

Allegedly.

 

[bigboyjames01]

Christianity is to love as Islam is to peace.

 

[Silent_Sniper]

And how, pray tell, does the church give the gift of love?

By telling the poor, afraid and desperate masses to follow what they teach, lest they spend eternity receiving punihsment?

Agree!

 

[rant]

off topic

AdelaideNow... Kevin Rudd right to lobby Pope about Mary MacKillop - MP

the IMPORTANT issues!

Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott has criticised Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, saying he cannot influence a canonisation in the same way a nation bids for the soccer World Cup.