Does God exist?

[jlay]

BTW,
Loving the dialogue on your blog, but man is it ever hard to read with that dark background and font color.

[Echoside]

I think what we are saying here if truth is clearly Darwinistic, if there are no absolutes, if consciousness evolved, our ideas evolved, our definition of what’s real, your truth is different from mine, there is no good, there is no real right, it’s just whatever idea has survived to most and out reproduced the other ideas. So then the definition of survivability becomes the definition of what’s true.

It gets even worse. I haven't even addressed ethics yet, but from a pure, naturalistic point of view, there is no difference between a genocidal dictator and a person who sprays weed killer on his lawn.

Yes but what is your point? It sounds bad? This is an appeal to emotion/consequences/fear.

Ultimately it comes down to atomic particles assembling and programming into hardware and software with the caveat being, 'just give it enough time.'

GMan is correct. The problem with the computer analogy is that computers need to be assembled and programmed. Computers don't exist in "nature" so to speak, nor do they obtain any real "knowledge".

When you arbitrarily draw the line of what you consider nature at humans and the "creations" of humans, yes you could interpret it that way. However, the position is that humans themselves are part of nature, and were formed exactly in the same way as the sun, black holes, whatever exists in nature. The random movement of cosmic dust to create the earth was just as much a programmer as a person creating a computer. You cannot exempt humans from the list of natural causes to amplify the position that it's absurd that a computer would just "happen." As to not obtaining any real "knowledge" in the sense you are using it, you are correct.



I'll be reading "the knowledge of god part 2" in a second so i haven't addressed that yet.

[Gman]

Yes but what is your point? It sounds bad? This is an appeal to emotion/consequences/fear.
.

That everything becomes self generated. History becomes our invention, morality becomes our invention, knowledge becomes our invention. You just transfer your authority to your own knowledge, your own experiences, etc..

Once you believe you have an ultimate source of truth, and you get rid of the Biblical God, there is no clear definition of good, the rationale for good is gone, so basically you replace God with your own god, your own belief system, your own origin of life, and your own meaning of life devoid of any supernatural God that created you…

[puritan lad]

BTW,
Loving the dialogue on your blog, but man is it ever hard to read with that dark background and font color.

Are you talking about mine? Looks easy to read to me. Anyone else having trouble?

[Canuckster1127]

I just looked at both the links in you sig PL and they both look fine (in terms of visual contrast ) to me.

[puritan lad]

Yes but what is your point? It sounds bad? This is an appeal to emotion/consequences/fear.

No. It is proof by modus tollens that God is the precondition for human dignity and ethics. Granted, I wouldn't start a discussion this way for fear of losing my intended audience from the getgo, but the argument is still valid.

When you arbitrarily draw the line of what you consider nature at humans and the "creations" of humans, yes you could interpret it that way. However, the position is that humans themselves are part of nature, and were formed exactly in the same way as the sun, black holes, whatever exists in nature. The random movement of cosmic dust to create the earth was just as much a programmer as a person creating a computer. You cannot exempt humans from the list of natural causes to amplify the position that it's absurd that a computer would just "happen." As to not obtaining any real "knowledge" in the sense you are using it, you are correct.

That is the point. There would be no real knowledge, or even right or wrong opinions, only different arrangements of star dust.

[jlay]

When you arbitrarily draw the line of what you consider nature at humans and the "creations" of humans, yes you could interpret it that way. However, the position is that humans themselves are part of nature, and were formed exactly in the same way as the sun, black holes, whatever exists in nature. The random movement of cosmic dust to create the earth was just as much a programmer as a person creating a computer.

So basically there is no knowledge or truth. Our thoughts, beliefs are just an arranging of that dust.
Your position arbitrarly assumes that nature will exist and should exist. As do the things (such as people) within it.

Your equating random movement to intelligence, which just doesn't follow. We know not only that a computer exist, but why and how a computer exist. We know that it was intelligence that conceived and designed it. And we don't ever have to physically see the designer or the design to recognize that it is such. You can't ascribe those qualities to random chance and dust. Yet, you are the one comparing us to intelligently designed things. It's like coming upon Mt. Rushmore and crediting it to the powers of erosion. It denies the obvious (intelligence) to embrace the absurd.

[Seraph]

Time to play the devil's advocate.

What Echoside is saying though is that something having horrible consequences doesn't mean it isn't true. It would be unfortunate if the thing we think of as "knowledge" was just worthless arrangments of stardust, but can you prove that this isn't the case? As long as this hasn't been disproven, it hasn't yet been proven that God is the precondition of human knowledge. It could still be the case that knowledge is worthless, sad as it would be.

[MarcusOfLycia]

Time to play the devil's advocate.

What Echoside is saying though is that something having horrible consequences doesn't mean it isn't true. It would be unfortunate if the thing we think of as "knowledge" was just worthless arrangments of stardust, but can you prove that this isn't the case? As long as this hasn't been disproven, it hasn't yet been proven that God is the precondition of human knowledge. It could still be the case that knowledge is worthless, sad as it would be.

One reasonable response to that is this:

All we can ever be sure about is our own thoughts and our own self (and consciousness). We are trapped within our senses and our own minds and bodies, and therefor have to assume that such things are real (even, for instance, if we were a computer simulation, our own self would have to exist for any formulation of ideas about the world). Should we not actually exist (should knowledge, consciousness, etc be illusions), we have no ability to determine anything based on knowledge.

It kind of boils down to accepting reality as truly real or as an illusion. If it is an illusion, you can't actually deduce squat about the universe. If it is real, you have already declared knowledge and reason to be real, and that leads by argument to God's existence.

[Seraph]

Isn't it still a concievable possiblity though, that knowledge is purely naturalistic/materialistic without God as it's origin, yet is still a valid way of making sense of the world? Even if it was stardust arrangements, knowledge has shown itself to be able to make predictions which shows that there is value to it.

[MarcusOfLycia]

Granted, but -we- couldn't ever even tell that. -All- we know for sure as that we exist. It is the fundamental assumption. In a purely naturalistic universe, we don't exist. Computers exist in the form of very complex organic components. But since we do exist (again, fundamental assumption we have to make to make any sense of anything) it lends to the fact that knowledge, morality, reason, logic, etc are real. Such concepts might work as tools for computers, but the caveat is that we exist within our own minds... its our only thing to go off of.

A bit of this comes from Descartes' meditations, if you want some more in-depth perspective.

[Seraph]

I'm going over Descartes' Meditations in my philosophy class now.

[Canuckster1127]

I'm going over Descartes' Meditations in my philosophy class now.

I stink, therefore I am. ~Pepe LePew

[Echoside]

That is the point. There would be no real knowledge, or even right or wrong opinions, only different arrangements of star dust.

I agree

So basically there is no knowledge or truth. Our thoughts, beliefs are just an arranging of that dust.
Your position arbitrarly assumes that nature will exist and should exist. As do the things (such as people) within it.

Your equating random movement to intelligence, which just doesn't follow. We know not only that a computer exist, but why and how a computer exist. We know that it was intelligence that conceived and designed it. And we don't ever have to physically see the designer or the design to recognize that it is such. You can't ascribe those qualities to random chance and dust. Yet, you are the one comparing us to intelligently designed things. It's like coming upon Mt. Rushmore and crediting it to the powers of erosion. It denies the obvious (intelligence) to embrace the absurd.

And your position arbitrarily elevates the creations of humans and humans themselves above the rest of the universe. A computer exists because a human created it. Applying this evenly across the naturalistic universe you could also say "The planets exist because of the stardust that created them" and the statement is essentially the same thing. The random movement of stardust is the creator, and bears -no- difference from the human as it is equally as worthless in value.

Your example with Mt. Rushmore is flawed because I would never make the claim that erosion did it, even in a naturalistic universe. It would be more accurate to say it was (most likely) formed by matter that has tendencies to shape other matter in that specific fashion. When you use words like "intelligence" and "designer" it seems as though it is heavily biased in favor of your worldview as they imply inherent traits that DO make humans more special than the rest of the universe, whereas these same words appplied to a naturalistic universe have far less (none at all) special meaning.


Also, I am by no means a fervent naturalist, I agree there are some issues that can arise with the idea. But I do believe a lot of off base assertions can be made about a naturalisitc universe in an attempt to discredit it, that do not necessarily logically follow.

[puritan lad]

Time to play the devil's advocate.

What Echoside is saying though is that something having horrible consequences doesn't mean it isn't true. It would be unfortunate if the thing we think of as "knowledge" was just worthless arrangments of stardust, but can you prove that this isn't the case? As long as this hasn't been disproven, it hasn't yet been proven that God is the precondition of human knowledge. It could still be the case that knowledge is worthless, sad as it would be.

And my point would be that if this were true, then you would have no basis for claiming it to be true, or for arguing with someone who disagreed. How could you "know" this to br true? It's a self defeating argument, ie. "I know objectively that we cannot really know anything objectively". Any attempt to obtain objective truth about anything would be futile, including the "truth" that we cannot know truth.

So back to my proof.

P1: If the human mind can obtain knowledge, then God exists, since God is the precondition of human knowledge.
P2: The human mind can obtain knowledge.
Conclusion: God exists.

Even our atheist friend conceded that this proves the case for God's existence provided that P1 is proven, which I have done via "denying the consequent". What your argument essentially does is challenge P2, that the human mind may obtain knowledge (in any meaningful sense of the word). However, in doing so, you would have to forgo any basis for even forming an argument. The fact that all people (even skeptics) acknowledge the truth of P2 (though they may deny it in theory, they cannot possibly live that way) shows that they know God. All people live in God's universe, and cannot even function without acknowledging Him in some way.