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Proof of God

DarthPedant said:
Statistically speaking, you are probably right. I like to pretend people can, occasionally, surprise me, though. I would say that this is wishful thinking and very illogical on my part, except that once, just once, I did manage to convince a creationist to take a closer look and read some better sources. Whether all the effort is worth the very rare reward is, I suppose, a value judgment. If I were to think carefully on that, I probably would bail.

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There is always hope.
 
DarthPedant said:
Good. So you can, perhaps, imagine how tedious it is that you argue what you wish evolution 'predicted' rather than anything it actually predicts.



I have noticed many theists cannot parse hypotheticals or analogies. I never said you said anything about young earthism, I was trying to illustrate how useless it would be to argue against something that wasn't even your position. I cannot tell if this recurring theme represents a reading comprehension problem or if this obtuseness is just a tactic.



Except that birds and mammals are more diverse now than they were in the fossil record during the time of the dinosaurs. They fill many more ecological niches and have many more body plans, etc. That they are more diverse seems hard to argue against. But the name of the game is just to deny evolution had anything to do with it, yes? So really, complaining that your expectations for the fossil record are not met is disingenuous when you'll never admit any fossil evidence as evidence for evolution.



I don't think you are as polite as you keep claiming; I think the deliberate obtuseness and jr high debate tactics are not how reasonable, honest, respectful people have a conversation. And, of course, we have covered the calling people liars and brainwashed etc. in another exchange.

You have said you don't care about any evidence for evolution that doesn't directly address this one point. But this is just rigging the game. And I'm not that interested in your rigged game.

Is there any use in explaining genetic evidence for common ancestry? The shared and conserved genes required for nature's experiments with complex body plans being found in the 'phyla' that appeared in the Cambrian? I doubt you'd allow genetic evidence. Seems like a waste of my time.

You have already dismissed any concerns that your entire argument is based on too small a sample size, and you don't care about the geological forces involved that make it unlikely that we will, in our lifetimes, find the millions of sites that would be needed to paint a complete picture of our early evolution, and are content to pretend that the few snapshots we have found represent the whole story.

You have already dismissed the entire precambrian record as it stands. I can point to sources that predate the ediacaran and burgess shale finds that predicted radial symmetry evolved before more complex symmetries, and sure enough, we were lucky enough to find precambrian sites with jellies and sponges. And of course, the various trees of life suggested single celled life predates multicellular life, and we find that in the fossil record, too. But again, your rhetoric allows you to dismiss everything in support of the theory.

Which is why it doesn't make sense to answer your rigged question. Because any evidence for natural speciation at all is evidence that the evolutionary paradigm is likely on the right track. So you'll deny it all.

The very fact that all the life we have found so far uses the same genetic code is evidence of common ancestry. Of course, you can pretend after the fact that this is just the signature of the same intelligent designer, but that is just post hoc rationalizations. Consider how having the same genetic code makes it so easy for viruses to hop species. Having multiple genetic codes would have served as a viral firewall.

Indeed, if I were playing your game, I would assert that intelligent design predicts multiple genetic codes, and is therefore falsified. And then, using your playbook, I wouldn't worry myself that intelligent design made no such prediction (it cannot predict anything): I would just bang this one drum over and over, and accuse you of being a coward if you refused to engage my rigged argument, while calling myself 'polite' for doing so.


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Sherlock Holmes is not polite.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
Yes I do actually.



It doesn't matter who you were responding to, ad hominem is ad hominem.



No, you were using perceived characteristics of the poster in an argument rather than something the poster actually wrote.

e.g.



and



and



and



and



None of this is relevant to his argument, Angel's motives are immaterial, whether he plays what you term "word games" is immaterial, whether he is honest or not is immaterial, and whether he wants to "control" anything is also immaterial.

Even if these were all true it does not prove in any way that his thesis is wrong or his arguments invalid.
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Yes, thanks for pointing out my factual observations of what Angel does even though it is none of your business.
 
Sherlock Holmes said:
Yes it is, disagreement and alternative opinions are driving forces of scientific inquiry.



My dear fellow, evidence is often subject to interpretation, we are not dealing with an exact discipline like mathematics here, ambiguities and uncertainties abound.

In the cases we're discussing there is no evidence that the Cambrian phyla arose as a result of evolution so why do you believe they did?



How do you determine this "scientific status"? how do you resolve issues where even evolutionists disagree?
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Scientific theory is different than scientific inquiry. A scientific theory is not open to interpretation, it is open to further evidence and testing. Science is not about beliefs, it is about facts. Facts are things that are known, not believed.
 
What I find most difficult to understand about this thread, and others like it, is the obsession to retain a belief founded solely on belief(s)..
Can ANY factual evidence at all be produced which would confirm the existence of supernatural beings/entities or a single such being called a God?

The conversation about evolution would be much more interesting, but greatly more complex taking into account the evolution of the Universe, Earth, and prevailing conditions presented for life to occur, evolve, multiply, and survive over the billions of years since everything began to exist.

Whatever exists, can exist. (Out of chaos, order.)
 
Argument One
​
Angel's Empirical Argument For God

The experience of the person I am in the world—my consciousness, my life, and the physical world in which my conscious life appears to be set—these phenomena comprise a Stupendous Given. There's no getting around them and no getting outside them and no accounting for them from within the phenomena themselves. These phenomena point to something beyond themselves. The attempt to account for these phenomena from within the phenomena themselves has given rise to science, art and religion and the whole cultural adventure we call "civilization"—the long human struggle for purchase on the Stupendous Given. In the end, however, the only account that accords with reason is the account that infers to a Stupendous Giver. In sum, from the existence of consciousness, the existence of life, and the existence of the physical universe, the inference to the best explanation is God.
 
Argument Two
​
William Paley's Argument from Design

THE WATCH AND THE WATCHMAKER

STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT​
​

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place.... For this reason, and for no other; viz., that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose...
Read more here:
https://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/rjohns/paley.pdf
 
Argument Three​

The Argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason

1. If nothing happens without a reason, then the event that started the universe has a reason.
2. If the event that started the universe has a reason, then the reason for the event must lie outside the universe.
3. If the reason for the event that started the universe must lie outside the universe, then that reason is super-universal.
4. We call that super-universal reason God.
 
Argument Four​

The Argument from Contingency

1. A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed or could cease to exist) exists.
2. This contingent being has a cause of or explanation[1] for its existence.
3. The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
4. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide a completely adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
6. Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists.
8. The universe is contingent.
9. Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe.

Read more here:
Cosmological Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
 
Argument Five​

Angel's version of a modal ontological argument in plain English

1. Whatever exists, can exist. (axiom: actuality implies possibility)
2. Whatever must exist, exists. (axiom: necessity implies actuality)
3. Whatever must exist, can exist. (axiom: necessity implies possibility)

4. If God exists, God must exist. (definition)

5. Either God must exist or God must not exist. (law of thought)
6. It is not the case that God must not exist. (negation of impossibility)
7. Therefore, God must exist. (from 5 and 6)

8. If God must exist, then God can exist. (from 3 and 7)
9. If God can exist, then God exists. (from converse of definition and 1)
10. God can exist. (from 3 and 7)
11. Therefore God exists. (from 9 and 10)
 
Argument Six​

A Modal Ontological Argument

1. If God does not exist, his existence is logically impossible.

2. If God does exist, his existence is logically necessary.

3. Hence, either God’s existence is logically impossible or else it is logically necessary.

4. If God’s existence is logically impossible, the concept of God is contradictory.

5. The concept of God is not contradictory.

6.Therefore, God’s existence is logically necessary.[/B]

The Necessity of God’s Existence: Ontological Arguments Worth Considering
 
Argument Seven​

A Cosmological Argument

1. If the universe were eternal and its amount of energy finite, it would have reached heat death by now.

2. The universe has not reached heat death (since there is still energy available for use).

3. Therefore, (b) the universe had a beginning.

4. Therefore, (c) the universe was created by a first cause (God)[/B]

The Necessity of God’s Existence: Ontological Arguments Worth Considering
 
Argument Eight​

Angel's Argument from Judgment (a Heuristic)

Contrary to 2500 years of philosophy and natural philosophy and 400 years of modern science, as well as the last 15 years of militant atheism, the existence of God is not something to be known; it is not a matter of knowledge, the existence of God. No, the existence of God (to be distinguished conceptually from the nature of God, which is the province of religion and properly so) -- the existence of God is a matter of judgment, of discernment. The existence of God is a value, a value discovered in and through the things of the world. God, the existence of God, is the value discovered in the world by unclouded percipience.

1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The eye of the beholder sees Beauty in a thing.

2. The eye of a second beholder may miss seeing the Beauty in the thing that the first beholder sees, but sees Beauty in another thing.

3. Both see the Beauty of things, but in and through different things.

4. The eye of a third beholder may miss the Beauty of the things seen as Beautiful by the first and second beholders, and yet see Beauty in a third thing.

5. All three see the Beauty of things in different things.

6. The Beauty they see is as Real as the things they see Beauty in.

7. A fourth beholder sees Beauty in nothing. His eye is deficient: his eye is purblind.

8. Beauty is as Real as the world in which Beauty is seen. Do you have an eye for Beauty?


9. God is in the eye of the beholder. The eye of the beholder sees God in the world. God is as Real as the world in which God is beheld.

10. Do you have an eye for God?
 
Argument Nine​


Angel's Argument from Semiotics. ("All things point to God.")

Thesis

1. Meaning is the key to understanding. This is self-evident. If you don't understand the meaning of something, you don't understand it.

2. Mystery is understanding deferred. This also is self-evident.

3. The universe, life on Earth, and consciousness are the fundamental existential mysteries of the World. The World Riddle. Also self-evident.

4. What is the deferred meaning of the the World Riddle?

5, Answer: God.


Argument

6. A sign is something that indicates or points to the existence of something else which is the meaning of the sign.

7. A sign is meaning deferred -- one must recognize the sign as sign and understand its meaning.

8. A sign means something, and the meaning of a sign is that which the sign indicates or points to.

8a. Do you understand the meaning of the following signs?

अति सर्वत्र वर्जयेत्

9. Probably not. And yet these signs possess a meaning.

10. And that meaning exists in and through those signs whether or not you understand the signs or their meaning.

11. The meaning lies hidden in the signs and only those who recognize and understand the signs are able to read the signs for meaning.

12. The universe is a sign.
13. Life is a sign.
14. Consciousness is a sign.

15. Can you recognize and understand the deferred meaning of the universe, as sign?
16. Can you recognize and understand the deferred meaning of life on Earth, as sign?
17. Can you recognize and understand the deferred meaning of consciousness, as sign?

18. Question: What do these mysterious signs indicate? What do they point to?

19. Answer: God exists.

20. To understand the deferred meaning of the World Riddle is to understand that God exists.

Conclusions

21. The mystery of the World has a meaning and that meaning is God.
22. The World means God.
23. God is the meaning of the World.
24. Atheism is symptomatic of not being able to "read" the World for meaning.
 
Argument Ten​

A Heuristic

Terms
Real = existing
Ideal = of the mind
Experience = of the senses

1. The world is Real. (Naive Realism)
2. The world as experienced is Real. (Empiricism)
3. The world as experienced is Ideal. (Idealism)
4. The world is the Ideal in the Real.

5. Beauty is Ideal.
6. Beauty is experienced in the Real.
7. Beauty is the Ideal in the Real.

8. God is Ideal.
9. God is experienced in the Real.
0. God is the Ideal in the Real.

The world, Beauty, and God all enjoy the same ontological status.

"My heuristic arguments for God are intended to help those struggling with their personal agnostic demons, to help them understand what they have so far failed to understand, and in so far forth to ward off the despair of atheism."
Angel Trismegistus​
 
Same old illogical garbage and still no proof of God
 
0/10
Grade = E for effort.
 
DarthPedant said:
Good. So you can, perhaps, imagine how tedious it is that you argue what you wish evolution 'predicted' rather than anything it actually predicts.



I have noticed many theists cannot parse hypotheticals or analogies. I never said you said anything about young earthism, I was trying to illustrate how useless it would be to argue against something that wasn't even your position. I cannot tell if this recurring theme represents a reading comprehension problem or if this obtuseness is just a tactic.



Except that birds and mammals are more diverse now than they were in the fossil record during the time of the dinosaurs. They fill many more ecological niches and have many more body plans, etc. That they are more diverse seems hard to argue against. But the name of the game is just to deny evolution had anything to do with it, yes? So really, complaining that your expectations for the fossil record are not met is disingenuous when you'll never admit any fossil evidence as evidence for evolution.



I don't think you are as polite as you keep claiming; I think the deliberate obtuseness and jr high debate tactics are not how reasonable, honest, respectful people have a conversation. And, of course, we have covered the calling people liars and brainwashed etc. in another exchange.

You have said you don't care about any evidence for evolution that doesn't directly address this one point. But this is just rigging the game. And I'm not that interested in your rigged game.

Is there any use in explaining genetic evidence for common ancestry? The shared and conserved genes required for nature's experiments with complex body plans being found in the 'phyla' that appeared in the Cambrian? I doubt you'd allow genetic evidence. Seems like a waste of my time.

You have already dismissed any concerns that your entire argument is based on too small a sample size, and you don't care about the geological forces involved that make it unlikely that we will, in our lifetimes, find the millions of sites that would be needed to paint a complete picture of our early evolution, and are content to pretend that the few snapshots we have found represent the whole story.

You have already dismissed the entire precambrian record as it stands. I can point to sources that predate the ediacaran and burgess shale finds that predicted radial symmetry evolved before more complex symmetries, and sure enough, we were lucky enough to find precambrian sites with jellies and sponges. And of course, the various trees of life suggested single celled life predates multicellular life, and we find that in the fossil record, too. But again, your rhetoric allows you to dismiss everything in support of the theory.

Which is why it doesn't make sense to answer your rigged question. Because any evidence for natural speciation at all is evidence that the evolutionary paradigm is likely on the right track. So you'll deny it all.

The very fact that all the life we have found so far uses the same genetic code is evidence of common ancestry. Of course, you can pretend after the fact that this is just the signature of the same intelligent designer, but that is just post hoc rationalizations. Consider how having the same genetic code makes it so easy for viruses to hop species. Having multiple genetic codes would have served as a viral firewall.

Indeed, if I were playing your game, I would assert that intelligent design predicts multiple genetic codes, and is therefore falsified. And then, using your playbook, I wouldn't worry myself that intelligent design made no such prediction (it cannot predict anything): I would just bang this one drum over and over, and accuse you of being a coward if you refused to engage my rigged argument, while calling myself 'polite' for doing so.


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I'm afraid your posts are exhibiting more and more strawman tendencies, the above is a laden with accusations about me which serve no purpose in a debate/discuyssion.

"I cannot tell if this recurring theme represents a reading comprehension problem".

"deliberate obtuseness and jr high debate tactics".

"I'm not that interested in your rigged game"

"I doubt you'd allow genetic evidence"

"if I were playing your game"

"using your playbook".

This is the hallmark of someone who cannot argue their case, I am more than happy to discuss genetics, the precambrian fossils and any other aspect that you care to.

The fact remains you have steadfastly refused to answer polite questions, you should be able to provide straightforward answers if you had any.

It is you who has shown a desire to steer the discussion away from these questions, you are striving to defend your beliefs by raising subjects that you feel help you but they do not, the fact that you cannot answer basic reasonable questions is all the evidence I need that you are out of steam.
 
devildavid said:
Yes, thanks for pointing out my factual observations of what Angel does even though it is none of your business.
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Your welcome and this is a public forum and we are all equally at liberty to respond to any post that we choose, if you want a private conversation with Angel just ask him.
 
devildavid said:
Scientific theory is different than scientific inquiry.
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Stating the obvious again.

devildavid said:
A scientific theory is not open to interpretation, it is open to further evidence and testing.
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But what constitutes a scientific theory? Unless you define that your remark above is of no value.

I also actually wrote that "evidence" is open to interpretation so please re-read my post as it's likely you misread it.

For example the absence of credible fossils for Cambrian ancestors is interpreted by evolutionists as something attributable to poor conditions for fossilization but (as I argue) it might equally well be attributable to there being no ancestor to fossilize.

devildavid said:
Science is not about beliefs, it is about facts. Facts are things that are known, not believed.
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Everything is about beliefs including science, for example one must believe in the scientific method in order to attach value to it.

I've explained this to you many times, you have no grasp of what an axiom is, you claim to rely on "facts" yet fail to grasp that every claim that "X is a fact" must itself be provable as true or self evidently true but all proofs rely upon axioms, this is inescapable.

The only way out of this is faith, trust, belief.

We touched upon this with solipsism, you reject it not because you can prove it to be wrong but because the world view it leads to is uncomfortable for you, it "leads nowhere" as you put it, but this is therefore a belief based on personal expectations for what reality is, in other words you believe solipsism is false much as a person addicted to opium believe the world has more meaning for them when they're stoned.
 
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Sherlock Holmes said:
Stating the obvious again.



But what constitutes a scientific theory? Unless you define that your remark above is of no value.

I also actually wrote that "evidence" is open to interpretation so please re-read my post as it's likely you misread it.

For example the absence of credible fossils for Cambrian ancestors is interpreted by evolutionists as something attributable to poor conditions for fossilization but (as I argue) it might equally well be attributable to there being no ancestor to fossilize.



Everything is about beliefs including science, for example one must believe in the scientific method in order to attach value to it.

I've explained this to you many times, you have no grasp of what an axiom is, you claim to rely on "facts" yet fail to grasp that every claim that "X is a fact" must itself be provable as true or self evidently true but all proofs rely upon axioms, this is inescapable.

The only way out of this is faith, trust, belief.

We touched upon this with solipsism, you reject it not because you can prove it to be wrong but because the world view it leads to is uncomfortable for you, it "leads nowhere" as you put it, but this is therefore a belief based on personal expectations for what reality is, in other words you believe solipsism is false much as a person addicted to opium believe the world has more meaning for them when they're stoned.
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No, everything is not about beliefs. Stop playing word games with the word belief. And stop trying to figure out what motivates me or makes me uncomfortable because it is a form of ad hominem. Address the topic and leave your uniformed opinions about me out of it. I am asking you politely.
 
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