Back to basics: Give me an argument as to why a god exists

[FaerieStories]

Hi, I'm new here and I see a lot of active topics on specific concepts where users are already heavily engaged in debate, making it a little hard for me to join in. So to test the waters a little (and to help me decide whether or not to stick around here), let's go back to basics and have a debate about the most fundamental question at hand here: does a god exist?

As a non-believer, I have yet to discover any convincing reason as to why I should believe in a god. So, if a Theist would like to get the ball rolling by giving me a reason why god exists, that would be great.

(PS: unrelated question: what is the general breakdown of belief/non-belief on these forums? Is it an even mix of believers and non-believers, or is there- as tends to happen on the internet- a larger proportion of atheists to Theists?).

[Dantalion]

faith (f th) n. 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. 4. often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. 6. A set of principles or beliefs.

My point, thank you
I'm studying for my exams now and it's obviously taking a toll on my ability to put my thoughts into words.

[theopoesis]

Theopoesis,

I am very impressed with your line of reasoning. But I am curious. On what basis do you go from a belief in God to Trinitarianism?

Hi Kayky,

Usually if you're impressed, you're going to want to stop and make sure you understood me correctly.

The Trinity is indispensable for me in two ways. I've been suggesting that to evaluate a thing presuppositionally I take into consideration experience and whether an argument is self-defeating.

The Trinity has become a powerful way of interpreting my religious experience. I'll quote from something earlier in the thread: "My fundamental understanding of religious phenomenology is Trinitarian. I experience myself as sinner, and therefore God as against me in the Person of the Father (prior to faith). But I also experience myself as made in the image of God, and therefore God as for me in the Person of the Son, who is the great high priest who advocates for me in heaven. I experience God as absent, distant, incomprehensible. And therefore, there is the Person of the Father, transcendent and ineffable. But I also experience God as with me daily, and therefore there is the Person of the Spirit, at work within me. I believe the actions of Jesus Christ are demonstrative of his divinity, and therefore there is the divine Person of the Son. But I see that the Son praises his Father as God, and therefore I adopt the spirituality of the divine Jesus and have faith in the Person of the Father. But I also recognize that something had to be at work within me to recognize the Son as divine, though he was in the form of a human, and therefore there is the Person of the Spirit by whom I am able to believe." I find it easier to make sense of the paradoxes between God-as-for-me and God-as-against-me, God-as-distant and God-as-close to be the result of me experiencing different persons in the Godhead rather than to be the result of me experiencing one very parodoxical person: the distant/close God, the propitiated/wrathful God, and so forth. I don't really know how to relate to such a paradoxical single Person.

In terms of the self-defeating component, I find the Trinity to be an important way to overcome many of the criticisms of post-modernity that result in modern secularism collapsing. In this thread, I've mentioned the work of postmodern linguistics (Derrida). I tend to mention him because he was the first to get me thinking this way, and Christian theologian Kevin VanHoozer's work is the first I read to respond to postmodernism in a Trinitarian fashion, so I share my starting point with you. Derrida and others basically argue that there is no connection between the author, the text, and the reader. The author cannot be the source of meaning, because once the words are out there, he or she has no control over them. The text cannot be the source of meaning, because there is always infinite ambiguity in the words on the page, and we can always find new interpretation. The reader does not discover any real intended meaning, because there are no tools to adequately guide the reader in his or her interpretation. (Derrida makes huge arguments to back each of these points up). The reader is actually the creator of meaning, and when we read, we create new meaning in the text. Most of the reason why our interpretations share similarities with others is that we, as readers, have similar backgrounds/cultures/experiences as others. But ultimately in writing, communication doesn't happen. It's just an opportunity for the reader to be inventive. (Now I should note here that I think Derrida is incorrect. I think communication does happen. But I also think that his arguments are pretty solid. When I try to find the way to overcome them, the best approach I've found is to change the starting point so that it is Trinitarian.)

Ultimately, the problem that Derrida has identified is one example of the lack of unity in diversity. (In some ways that's the entire problem of postmodernism. They don't know how to tie the particulars in with the universal, so there is no universal). There is no connection between the author and the text, or between the text and the reader, so there's really no way to get meaning from the author to the reader. The Trinity, when considered as an act of communication, overcomes this hurdle. Jesus Christ is the "word of God." To use theological language, Jesus is the ultimate theophany, the ultimate self-communication or self-revelation of God. Jesus is the "text" of God. But unlike other authors and other texts, there is a connection between the two. They share the same divine being. Moreover, the Scriptures suggest that when someone believes in Jesus as the communication of God, they do so by the power of the Holy Spirit. So here we have a connection between the text and the interpreter. The Spirit, by whom we interpret, is connected to the Word and to the Author because the Spirit shares the same divine being. Therefore, the insurmountable separation that Derrida argues exists is overcome. In divine revelation, the Author, Word, and Spirit who Receives are all connected, and so there is a way for unity in communication to transcend the diversity of author/text/reader.

I hope that makes some sense. It's pretty complicated when you flesh it out, but hopefully I reduced it sufficiently to make it clear.

Anyway, once you establish the possibility of real divine communication, you open the door to rehabilitate all communication. It's a long, winding road that I'll spare you.

Communication is just one example. I find the Trinity indispensable in overcoming the problem of whether morals exist. (You can see my thoughts on this in the head-to-head forum with Ionian_Tradition.) I find the Trinity essential to preserving the idea of a human person (I have a thread here that discusses this I can send you if you like). I find the Trinity to be tremendously helpful in addressing certain questions of history, and how we can overcome historical contingency to know absolute truth. In short, without the Trinity, I can't figure out how to make it past the self-defeating aspects of secularism. If our ultimate principle is unity, then we cannot make sense of diversity. If it is diversity, we can't make sense of unity. But if diversity-in-unity, then I can sort much of it out.

Plus, I think there is Scriptural warrant and philosophical warrant for the idea of the Trinity.

I hope that helps.

[FaerieStories]

Nor is it a huge leap to suggest that a God who wanted to allow free will wouldn't force others to believe in him.

Well no. But then, that wasn't the sort of hypothetical god I was stipulating, was it?

Scientism is simply the belief that science, and only science, can explain everything in the world

I have heard no actual scientist make such an assertion. They say- as do I- that science is the best method we currently have to understand the world.

I apologize, and did not mean to put words in your mouth. In what way would a non-physical entity be subject to testing from science?

I feel I am repeating myself. If this entity has in any way interacted with the physical universe- in any way at all- then he is capable potentially of being investigated through the scientific method.

Again, I did not mean to put words into your mouth. I'm talking worldviews here. Secularism would be the worldview which uses secular knowledge, secular methodology, and secular approaches to reach conclusions, which should presumably buttress its support of its initial secular premises.

That's a ridiculous distinction to make. You are making it sound like secular schools of thought like history or science have some kind of agenda not to find information that would be considered supernatural or religious. This is not the case at all. There is no agenda. The methods may be secular, but they are not pushing some kind of agenda to 'avoid finding god' or anything silly like that.

I find this whole dichotomy completely pointless. Science and history are tools to find things out about the universe. It doesn't matter what it may find out. Sub-atomic particles, evolution, quantum red-shift, gods, pixies- whatever. Anything is fair game to be potentially discovered, so long as it actually exists in the first place.

You're arguing semantics here, but then skipping the bulk of what I had to say in this paragraph. Fine. Let's reword it, try again. You're saying communication can be explained secularly with tools such as sociology, but I'm saying that many of the leading thinkers using these secular tools argue, conclusively in my opinion, that given this secular starting point, communication doesn't occur. Think Jacques Derrida or Stanley Fish. So I'm saying I studied secularism, I studied secular thinkers, and ultimately, based on their secular starting point, they've gone pretty close to proving that communication doesn't happen. But communication does happen, therefore they went wrong somewhere in their argument. I believe it is with their secular starting point. Therefore, I am not a secularist. My starting point is God.

In other words:

"Their method did not lead them to correct conclusions therefore god".

Yeah, this is absurd logic. You cannot just start with god and work from there. This is such a typical religious mentality: thinking of a conclusion and then trying to fit an argument around it.

Also you haven't even explained how communication cannot be explained secularly. All you've just done is thrown some names at me and told me they didn't find any good answers. What exactly do you mean by communication? I am communicating with you right now. A biologist could explain the brain's connection to the fingers which allow me to type the language in this post. A philologist could explain why the language conveys the message that it does. A computer science expert could explain how the digital message is able to be transmitted across cyberspace. There is nothing remotely religious or supernatural about any of this. How is this not a secular issue?

David Hume was a very important scottish philosopher of the 17th century. Hume put forward a brand of skepticism regarding cause and effect. The idea of cause and effect suggests that there is a necessary connection between the cause and the effect. Every time the cause happens in an identical fashion, we get the same effect. However, we have no way of actually experiencing, of actually seeing the necessary connection. All we observe is a series of subsequent events. Technically, our idea of the cause could simply be the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, "after, therefore because of." There's no reason why we couldn't, at some point in the future, learn that our "cause" doesn't actually cause anything at all. Our idea of cause and effect is merely the "constant conjunction" of two phenomena.

So, Hume argues, you don't actually see the cause. You don't actually experience "cause." You just experience two subsequent events. But science has to accept cause and effect as an axiom. If it doesn't allow for causation to exist, then it can't make sense of the world scientifically. It has to accept it as true a priori. It cannot accept it a posteriori, that is as a result of experience. Now this a priori acceptance can happen two ways. There are two kinds of a priori truths. The first is true by definition. It is (1) analytic. So, "bachelors are single." The word "bachelor" contains in it the idea of single. It's a necessary truth, and an analytic one. You can look at the sentence and immediately know that it is true. Now you can look at the phrase "every effect must have a cause" and it is not true analytically. But you must still accept it as true a priori, that is independent of experience (remember, you can't experience "cause"). Therefore, we say it is (2) synthetic. It's a synthetic a priori truth.

Now, of course science works. Of course science built my computer. Of course medicine has cured diseases. Of course we have built cars and planes, discovered cells and stellar nebulae. But my point is simply that all off these successes of science depend upon the acceptance of the cause/effect relationship as a synthetic a priori truth. There are certain things that science must assume as an axiom, a presupposition, before it can even begin to work its success.

Now, back to our original point. I'm saying that faith in God is a similar synthetic a priori truth.

But that's a grossly unfair comparison. Science's 'a prior truth' is firstly one that is incredibly minor and nitpicky, much like Descartes' observation that we cannot actually know anything but that we personally exist, and secondly it is one that we can demonstrably prove to be a correct assumption because of the simple fact that science works. Faith on the other hand is just a straightforward massive leap of logic and vast intellectual dishonesty. To the best we can know anything, we know that cause and effect happens. No-one is claiming absolute knowledge of that, but then, because of Descartes, no-one can claim absolute knowledge that a wall exists. Yet we can still say with some very large degree of certainty that the wall does exist and so running into it headfirst will hurt. This is nothing like faith. Faith is just a massive logical leap with absolutely no reason or evidence behind it- just a will to prove true the conclusions the individual might want to be true.

You can't look at the sentence "God exists" and say it is a necessary truth. (The ontological argument tried that and failed, in my opinion). You can't deduce God from experience alone (though I believe I have experienced Him, I can always question this). But, if you don't accept God as real as a presupposition, if you choose the course of secular modernism, then you will eventually run the course of postmodernism and truth, reason, morality, experience, and communication will all come unraveling underneath you. That seems to be what I am seeing happen as I read secular books in the secular world. And therefore, I believe in God.

It's still a hypothesis until you find proof for it, or can test or observe it in some way. That's all you've got. A hypothesis. And a very bad one at that, as it throws up the absolutely massive question of being able to actually prove this god is even there in the first place.

Let's try this in a syllogism:

(1) I have purported experiences of God
(2) My experiences either are of God, or they are not of God
(3) My having these experiences depends upon my ability to experience
(4) My wondering whether these are experiences of God depends upon my ability to reason
(5) My knowledge that it would be bad to accept these experiences as being of God if they are not comes from my ability to understand true morality
(6) My experiences would not be of God if God did not exist.
(7) If God does not exist, then I must take a secular approach to the world.
(8) The best secular approaches to the world that I have read today ultimately conclude that experience, reason, and morality are unreliable, illusory, or non-existent (depending on which one you are talking about).
(9) If experience, reason, and morality are illusory, unreliable, or non-existent, then I cannot trust my conclusions that God does not exist.
(10) If experience, reason, and morality are illusory, unreliable, or non-existent, then I cannot even be thinking these things reliably.
(11) I am thinking these things, and I appear to be thinking reliably. In fact, I must assume I am thinking reliably in order to be able to think successfully at all.
(12) Therefore, I reject the null hypothesis that God does not exist.
(13) If God does exist, and I think I am experiencing God, and the existence of God allows me the potential of accurate experience and reason, then I have no basis for doubting that my experiences are from God.
(14) therefore, I will continue to believe.

Yeah yeah, it's the same deal again. You word your arguments in an incredibly convoluted way for whatever reason, but it all boils down to: "I can't think of any better explanation so therefore god". God of the gaps. Holds absolutely no water. At best it is a hypothesis, as I have said, and shall remain so until you can prove it.

Please feel free to present to me a worldview of your choice. Be sure to include its views on ontology, epistemology, morality, existence, nature, progress/time, human identity and personhood, purpose, society, communication, and praxis. Then we can assess whether it truly is not self-defeating. While you're busy with that, I'll just note that I have studied secular existentialism, Marxism, scientism, humanism and have concluded that each is self-defeating. So you'll have to avoid using those examples, or at least defeat my counter-arguments.

I have no interest in your constant references to your credentials, to your overcomplicated lists of your studies. As far as I am concerned, you appear very much to be attempting an argument from authority, or at best from verbosity. Constantly repeating which professors you've read or met, how much you have studied something or how much more intelligent you are than me is not in any way relevant to the purposes of this debate. The strength of your argument should come from its own merits, not a constant need to reinforce your position by insecurely assuring me that you have done your homework all the time. Also there is a certain skill, by the way, in being able to present your arguments in such a succinct way that they can be digested immediately by your listener.

In any case, maybe you and I are not on the same page concerning what a 'worldview' is. I would not have said it has to include every one of those areas, but it seems you think otherwise.

In fact, I have yet to be successful in helping you to understand the sort of logical proposition that I am putting forward so that you can properly assess it: synthetic a priori.

I am not saying gap in knowledge therefore God. I am not saying unprovability therefore God. This is, for the last time, not a "God of the gaps" argument.

And yet it is. You keep repeating that, then you just rephrase it in an equally convoluted way- yet it always boils down to 'I cannot explain X, Y and Z secularly therefore I will start with god and work from there'. And as I say: this is called a hypothesis. The entire crux of your 'worldview' is based on something you cannot even prove exists, that you just assume must be there because you can't think of anything better, but yet you conviniently ignore all the massive baggage that comes with making such a colossal assertion. That is not a stable worldview.

[dianaiad]

<snip to here>

Faith is no different when it is religious faith; it's still being willing to behave as if what one believes to be true is true. The only difference is in the quality of evidence one puts one's faith in. You don't like the evidence others use for their belief in God. They do.

Please do not use 'faith' as if it were a swear word, then...we all, every single one of us, live our lives by it.

To be honest dianaiad, the difference between religous faith and the faith I will get my paycheck is that the latter faith is based on something that is demonstrably true.

I said that. Didn't I just say that? (looking) yep, I actually said that. Or rather, I said the same thing, essentially; the difference between religious faith and any other sort of faith is in the nature of the evidence accepted. "Faith" and 'trust" are indeed synonyms. YOU believe that you will get your paycheck based upon something 'demonstrably true.."

But it isn't. You are putting trust (faith) in something happening in the future because you have received pay for work in the past. However, many other people have also trusted that they will be paid, using the evidence that they have been paid before...and been greeted by a 'closed' sign on the business one morning, with no paycheck forthcoming. You don't know that you will be paid until you HAVE been paid.

Yes, the evidence for thinking you will be may be very strong....but until you actually have the money in your hands, it's still faith.

Now me...I might know something about the guy you work for that you don't. Perhaps I know that he's about to file bankruptcy and have to close his doors. Tomorrow. In that case, would I be right in dismissing your trust that you will get paid as 'only faith..' meaning that your faith is without foundation?

Here's the thing; evidence and faith in that evidence are two entirely different things; you cannot say that someone has, or does not have, faith because YOU don't accept the evidence he does...and 'faith' is not a stand alone noun; you always have to have faith IN something, and everybody does.

I mean, the word faith in that meaning is better replaced by 'trust'. And earned trust at that.

And people who have faith in their religion do not trust in it? They do not feel that their faith and trust is earned?

I think you should ask a few of 'em before you decide that one. Something tells me that most, if not all, of 'em would give you very funny looks if you told them that their faith is some nebulous thing out there that does not involve trust that their beliefs are 'true,' or that they have good reason to have that faith (i.e...'earned')

Trust that, if broken, I can take legal action against.

REALLY?

There are hundreds of thousands of people living on the side of Mt. Vesuvius, and in the path of any pyroclastic flows (and Vesuvius tends to run toward those) trusting (having faith) that it's not going to erupt and wipe 'em all off the planet today. Someday that trust WILL be broken.

You think that the survivors are going to be able to sue the volcano and get some satisfaction therein?

Man, I know this is a litigious society, but dang....

Your 'faith' analogy would only be correct if the company would keep telling people they'll get paid, without proof that any of those payments are actually taking place.

You are confusing the trust people put INTO something with the evidence they put their trust in.

Now I also know someone who buys a lottery ticket twice a week. That's $104 a year that she hands over to the state of California. Now the odds of her ever winning the lottery are pretty low; millions to one. But she buys the tickets anyway.

Doing so is unreasonable; if she put that in a savings account, even at today's lousy interest rates, she'll be far better off. That's what good evidence says. However, she has faith. She buys the tickets.

Frankly, I figure that my faith that God exists is based on far better evidence than any that she has regarding her chances to win the lottery...but again, that's an opinion on the quality of the evidence. you have the right to have an opinion regarding the evidence, m'friend...but to claim that someone else's trust in evidence they accept is 'just faith' as if that trust is somehow ickier than YOURS in evidence YOU like?

Now that's just wrong.

Inaccurate, too.

So faith is not the correct word here. If my friend tells me that he's going to pick me up at 8, I have 'faith' (better:trust) in him because I can demonstrate that every time he claimed he would be there, he actually was, and as a friend he has earned some degree of my 'faith' (trust).

And what makes you think that those who have religious faith don't consider that THEIR trust is equally valid, for the same reason you trust your friend? Who are YOU to decide whether they have, or have not, had evidence sufficient to prompt their trust?

Suppose that your friend...the same friend...told me that he would pick ME up at 8. Would the fact that I don't have the level of assurance (trust/faith) that he will actually do it mean that you are wrong to have faith in him?

There really is a big difference bewteen religious faith and the thing you (imho wrongly) call faith in your previous post.

No, there isn't. The FAITH is the same. It means trust...people trust that the evidence they see is valid, and they act on it. YOU are confusing that trust with the evidence they trust in.

Just because you don't trust it doesn't mean others cannot, or that faith is the wrong word to use for either one of you.

So could you give another example of 'faith' that I would have that really could be likened to religious faith ? (as in not based on validated trust)

You still don't get it.

ALL faith is based upon "validated trust." Yours, mine, scientific or religious. The difference doesn't lie in the trust/faith, but in the evidence used.

My son jumps off of cliffs. He has a great deal of trust (faith) in his ability to make it to the ground safely, after he's flirted with the wind awhile first. He considers his faith to be perfectly validated.

I don't. That is, fine, he can jump off cliffs and get his 'hang-4' whatever the heck that is, to qualify for hang-gliding in Yosemite and off the Australian coast, but I don't care how good the statistics are, you aren't getting ME to do it. Not now, not ever. I have no faith at all in all the evidence in which he trusts. Ain't gonna happen. Nope. Not ever.

I have faith in the evidence I have seen that God exists. It's personal, subjective, not empirical...but to me, solid for all that. When I pray, I get answers. When I do what I believe God wants me to do, I have a better life than when I don't. I'm happier, more at peace, deal better with myself and others, have more joy in life...and the evidence is clear that when I step away from my beliefs, things go south in a hurry. The principles of living given by my belief system WORK for me.

Ergo, my faith in them is validated. You don't believe in the things I do. You don't accept the evidence I do...but that does not mean that those beliefs are invalid FOR ME.

And it's all faith.

[FaerieStories]

"Faith" is yet another term that means different things to different people. To some, it is simply a synonym of 'trust'. To others, it means something different- it means believing something without reason just because you want to.

[dianaiad]

faith (f th) n. 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. 4. often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. 6. A set of principles or beliefs.

You notice that the definition you highlighted is definition number TWO, right? One among others...and that the others, the majority of them, in fact, do not require that the belief not 'rest on logical proof or material evidence?"

What you are doing here is called a fallacy of composition...that is, you are claiming that because one possible definition has this attribute, all definitions do, and that's patently silly when the other definitions do not require such a thing, and indeed quite definitely allow for faith in empirical evidence and logical thought.

[FaerieStories]

Wait, are you saying that to me? Uh, I just said there were multiple definitions.

[theopoesis]

Scientism is simply the belief that science, and only science, can explain everything in the world

I have heard no actual scientist make such an assertion. They say- as do I- that science is the best method we currently have to understand the world.

Two brief points here. First, I pointed you to a very important scientist and a very important book where this assertion was made: EO Wilson's Conscillience. Second, you didn't describe science in this way the first time around in our conversation. At first, it wasn't the "best method", it was the "perfect method" that can "discover anything." ....

The tools of science are absolutely perfect and demonstrably reliable for discovering anything that exists.

If it exists, science has the capacity to find it.

Can science perfectly discover everything that exists? (keeping in mind that existing, by your definition, is to actually be in this universe and not a product of imagination). In reading back through the posts, I now see in your responses to kayky that you clearly stated:

Science is by no means the only method of human understanding, but it is demonstrably the best we have. Science is responsible for almost everything we know about the universe.

I'm just not sure where this leaves us. I guess you think science isn't the only way of understanding, but that there is nothing you can understand that you can't also learn from science? I guess that's just a hair short of scientism. But you do seem to say to Mithrae that you'll only take "observable, testable, repeatable, demonstrable evidence", which is basically scientific evidence. So even though you're telling me that there are other ways of understanding the truth about these things, you're also seeming to tell me and others that science is the only way. See?...

IIf so, would you mind clarifying which methodological criteria you use in evaluating information from others, and which you would exclude as invalid or highly dubious? For example one criterion required by the natural sciences is that an observation must be repeatable by all other people with the inclination and equipment to see it, but this is a much less stringent criterion in the life sciences and especially the social sciences.

Right, exactly. In that case I need something observable, testable, repeatable, demonstrable. Anything less will not do

For my part, I plan to just drop the entire scientism thing. I think it's a bit of a peripheral point now anyway.

You are making it sound like secular schools of thought like history or science have some kind of agenda not to find information that would be considered supernatural or religious. This is not the case at all. There is no agenda. The methods may be secular, but they are not pushing some kind of agenda to 'avoid finding god' or anything silly like that.

I do not claim that there is any agenda. I am simply claiming that a holistic worldview which starts with a presupposition is inevitably shaped by those presuppositions. Again, in this response you sidestepped my argument and suggested that I am claiming they push an agenda. No, I am saying their conclusions undermine their premises.

In other words:

"Their method did not lead them to correct conclusions therefore god".

Yeah, this is absurd logic. You cannot just start with god and work from there. This is such a typical religious mentality: thinking of a conclusion and then trying to fit an argument around it.

Question for you: How would you feel if I said the following: "typical secular mentality... fail to understand something and then call the other person ignorant" ? Just a word of warning: we've got a pretty sharp moderating team, and too many times of calling the other view "intellectually dishonest" and you'll wind up getting warned or banned. It's generally also best to steer clear of the generalizations. Feel free to think I am intellectually dishonest, but please don't say so publicly. If you leave, I'd rather you do so of your own volition than because you got kicked out because of a discussion with me.

Also, I've tried extensively to show why this is not "absurd" logic, but is in fact a very precise school of logical thought, one quite common among logicians and philosophers. And I think I'm done trying to explain, if all you're going to do is insult me over and over again.

Also you haven't even explained how communication cannot be explained secularly. All you've just done is thrown some names at me and told me they didn't find any good answers. What exactly do you mean by communication? I am communicating with you right now. A biologist could explain the brain's connection to the fingers which allow me to type the language in this post. A philologist could explain why the language conveys the message that it does. A computer science expert could explain how the digital message is able to be transmitted across cyberspace. There is nothing remotely religious or supernatural about any of this. How is this not a secular issue?

First of all, please note again that I am not saying that communication does not happen. Rather, I am suggesting that secular modernism is developing arguments that communication does not happen, arguments which seem to follow from the premises, and arguments which therefore, in light of our communicating, suggest that the initial secular premises are wrong.

By communication, I mean "the transfer of meaning from one person to another."

Also, when I cite names, I do not intend to sound arrogant as much as to not plagiarize. Furthermore, in giving you a widely known name, I am giving you the opportunity to look them up yourself on Wikipedia. Since I'm not using my own arguments exclusively, this evens the playing field by giving you the chance to google for the ideas of people that would disagree with Derrida and others.

Furthermore, in point of fact, I have explained this on several occassions throughout this thread. I'll paste them again for your convenience:

The Trinity allows for the possibility of communication against the challenges of postmodern criticism. The postmodern argument can be ridiculously simplified as saying that there is no real connection between the reader, the text, and the author, and so ultimately "meaning" is just a projection of the reader's beliefs, always open to new meanings and forms of play. The Christian response (again quite simplified) suggests that in Christ, the Word and definitive communication by the Father (the author), there is ontological unity with the Author and with those who receive the word by the power of the Spirit. In other words, the same ontological vacuum that leads to postmodern criticism is compelling argument for the necessity of an ontological unity-in-diversity such as the Trinity. This is the basis for the connection between author, text, reader, and therefore the basis of true communication.

In terms of the self-defeating component, I find the Trinity to be an important way to overcome many of the criticisms of post-modernity that result in modern secularism collapsing. In this thread, I've mentioned the work of postmodern linguistics (Derrida). I tend to mention him because he was the first to get me thinking this way, and Christian theologian Kevin VanHoozer's work is the first I read to respond to postmodernism in a Trinitarian fashion, so I share my starting point with you. Derrida and others basically argue that there is no connection between the author, the text, and the reader. The author cannot be the source of meaning, because once the words are out there, he or she has no control over them. The text cannot be the source of meaning, because there is always infinite ambiguity in the words on the page, and we can always find new interpretation. The reader does not discover any real intended meaning, because there are no tools to adequately guide the reader in his or her interpretation. (Derrida makes huge arguments to back each of these points up). The reader is actually the creator of meaning, and when we read, we create new meaning in the text. Most of the reason why our interpretations share similarities with others is that we, as readers, have similar backgrounds/cultures/experiences as others. But ultimately in writing, communication doesn't happen. It's just an opportunity for the reader to be inventive. (Now I should note here that I think Derrida is incorrect. I think communication does happen. But I also think that his arguments are pretty solid. When I try to find the way to overcome them, the best approach I've found is to change the starting point so that it is Trinitarian.)

Ultimately, the problem that Derrida has identified is one example of the lack of unity in diversity. (In some ways that's the entire problem of postmodernism. They don't know how to tie the particulars in with the universal, so there is no universal). There is no connection between the author and the text, or between the text and the reader, so there's really no way to get meaning from the author to the reader. The Trinity, when considered as an act of communication, overcomes this hurdle. Jesus Christ is the "word of God." To use theological language, Jesus is the ultimate theophany, the ultimate self-communication or self-revelation of God. Jesus is the "text" of God. But unlike other authors and other texts, there is a connection between the two. They share the same divine being. Moreover, the Scriptures suggest that when someone believes in Jesus as the communication of God, they do so by the power of the Holy Spirit. So here we have a connection between the text and the interpreter. The Spirit, by whom we interpret, is connected to the Word and to the Author because the Spirit shares the same divine being. Therefore, the insurmountable separation that Derrida argues exists is overcome. In divine revelation, the Author, Word, and Spirit who Receives are all connected, and so there is a way for unity in communication to transcend the diversity of author/text/reader.

See, the argument was right there in the first post.

Science's 'a prior truth' is firstly one that is incredibly minor and nitpicky, much like Descartes' observation that we cannot actually know anything but that we personally exist, and secondly it is one that we can demonstrably prove to be a correct assumption because of the simple fact that science works. Faith on the other hand is just a straightforward massive leap of logic and vast intellectual dishonesty. To the best we can know anything, we know that cause and effect happens. No-one is claiming absolute knowledge of that, but then, because of Descartes, no-one can claim absolute knowledge that a wall exists. Yet we can still say with some very large degree of certainty that the wall does exist and so running into it headfirst will hurt. This is nothing like faith. Faith is just a massive logical leap with absolutely no reason or evidence behind it- just a will to prove true the conclusions the individual might want to be true.

I just mentioned one a priori truth in science to demonstrate that such things were necessary. There are many of such truths in science and in any human endeavor.

If you follow my line of argumentation, I'm not having faith in God as "a massive logical leap with absolutely no reason or evidence behind it." Rather, I am doing so with numerous reasons and pieces of evidence, because I believe there are numerous truths that are blatantly obvious in the world that depend upon God to exist as they seem too.

I'm suggesting that God is the root of all knowledge. This is both Biblical (think proverbs) and within the historical tradition (think Anselm of Canturbury). I'm not just making stuff up to justify my conclusions. Not doing it to make me feel better about what I already believe. I wasn't even raised in a Christian home, I converted.

It's still a hypothesis until you find proof for it, or can test or observe it in some way. That's all you've got. A hypothesis. And a very bad one at that, as it throws up the absolutely massive question of being able to actually prove this god is even there in the first place.

Round and round we go. Hypothesis. Test. Observation. That's all science speak. I'm using a priori philosophy. Sometimes you say science isn't the only way to discover truth, but it seems you are insisting that I provide you with scientific proof. I can't. I won't. It's not possible. If that's all you want, you might as well stop responding to my posts. But if you are willing to look at things a different way, then I we can talk in other threads. I'm still not sure I'll keep discussing here. It might be best to make this my last post to you on this thread, and give you a chance to have the final word when you reply to it.

Yeah yeah, it's the same deal again. You word your arguments in an incredibly convoluted way for whatever reason, but it all boils down to: "I can't think of any better explanation so therefore god". God of the gaps. Holds absolutely no water. At best it is a hypothesis, as I have said, and shall remain so until you can prove it.

Let's take the sentence: "That tree has leaves." It requires by necessity the statement: "That tree exists." After all, if that tree doesn't exist, it can't have leaves. Now, suppose I know beyond a doubt that "that tree has leaves" is a true statement, and I have two possible presuppositions I can accept: (1) "that tree exists"; and (2) "that tree does not exist." If I accept claim #2, then the statement that I know is true, namely "that tree has leaves", cannot possibly be true. It would be false. But I know it is true, and therefore I reject presupposition #2.

Would you say that my acceptance of the statement "that tree exists" is a result of "tree of the gaps"? That it's because I can't find another reason to explain how the tree could could have leaves? Or would you say that the existence of the tree is necessarily implied in my accepting the truth of the statement: "that tree has leaves"?

I'm trying to do the same thing with God. I'm not saying "there is a lack of another explanation." I'm saying, "God is a logically necessary explanation."

Please feel free to present to me a worldview of your choice. Be sure to include its views on ontology, epistemology, morality, existence, nature, progress/time, human identity and personhood, purpose, society, communication, and praxis. Then we can assess whether it truly is not self-defeating. While you're busy with that, I'll just note that I have studied secular existentialism, Marxism, scientism, humanism and have concluded that each is self-defeating. So you'll have to avoid using those examples, or at least defeat my counter-arguments.

I have no interest in your constant references to your credentials, to your overcomplicated lists of your studies. As far as I am concerned, you appear very much to be attempting an argument from authority, or at best from verbosity. Constantly repeating which professors you've read or met, how much you have studied something or how much more intelligent you are than me is not in any way relevant to the purposes of this debate. The strength of your argument should come from its own merits, not a constant need to reinforce your position by insecurely assuring me that you have done your homework all the time. Also there is a certain skill, by the way, in being able to present your arguments in such a succinct way that they can be digested immediately by your listener.

No, seriously, man. Step up to the plate. Put your money where your mouth is. You promised that you could put forward hundreds of worldviews that weren't self defeating. Do it, big man (or woman, depending on which you are). I dare you. I challenge you. Bring it. I've already said that I won't even respond to you again in this thread. I'll let you have the last word. So all you have to do is be able to present a worldview period. I won't even bother to critique it.

You accuse me of intellectual dishonesty repeatedly. You claim that I am arguing from authority. You claim that I am illogical and absurd. In point of fact, I've spent several hours yesterday and today trying to get you to understand a basic principle of philosophy. I've tried to explain it in five or six different ways. Perhaps I don't have the gift of teaching. So be it. But I do feel as if I've been very patient. And I do find it a bit unfair for you to insult me because you can't seem to wrap your head around a basic principle of philosophy.

I didn't intend to try to wow you with big lists of names. I've only met one person I've mentioned, and I pointed out that he called me an idiot. That was me trying to add levity to a discussion where you continue to insult me. I mention a source so as not to plagiarize. Much in the same way that KayKy cited a website, or that you quoted from Carl Sagan. I bring up an argument from David Hume, so I say it's from David Hume so you don't think I made it up. If you've got a problem with that, I can just dumb down my arguments and say "the Bible says God exists. So there." Otherwise, deal with it. If you don't know who the person is and you plan to spend some time here, suck it up and use Wikipedia. This isn't rocket science. Most of the people I debate with here know these things. Aki, McCulloch, Mithrae are three in this thread alone that I'm sure are aware of most of the people I've mentioned. Make an effort to learn. Contribute to the forum. But I'm one long standing member whose patience you've worn thin.

Best of luck to you here. It's someone else's turn to deal with you now.

[FaerieStories]

Two brief points here. First, I pointed you to a very important scientist and a very important book where this assertion was made: EO Wilson's Conscillience. Second, you didn't describe science in this way the first time around in our conversation. At first, it wasn't the "best method", it was the "perfect method" that can "discover anything." ....

If I used the word perfect I regret it, because perfect is not a useful word to describe anything. I meant "very very very good". And I still hold by that science has the potential to discover anything that exists.

I'm just not sure where this leaves us. I guess you think science isn't the only way of understanding, but that there is nothing you can understand that you can't also learn from science? I guess that's just a hair short of scientism. But you do seem to say to Mithrae that you'll only take "observable, testable, repeatable, demonstrable evidence", which is basically scientific evidence. So even though you're telling me that there are other ways of understanding the truth about these things, you're also seeming to tell me and others that science is the only way. See?...

You took the last one out of context. I said I wanted "observable, testable, repeatable, demonstrable evidence" for the specific purpose of finding a god. Not for 'everything and anything'. I don't require scientific evidence for my mum claiming to have met her friend while at the shops.

I do not claim that there is any agenda. I am simply claiming that a holistic worldview which starts with a presupposition is inevitably shaped by those presuppositions. Again, in this response you sidestepped my argument and suggested that I am claiming they push an agenda. No, I am saying their conclusions undermine their premises.

I am sorry, I'm not trying to sidestep anything. Maybe I just misunderstood your argument. Can you clarify what you mean by 'their conclusions undermine their premises'? I don't understand.

Question for you: How would you feel if I said the following: "typical secular mentality... fail to understand something and then call the other person ignorant" ?

I don't believe I ever said the same about you. Who is calling anyone ignorant? I stated that what you said strongly reminded me of the very typical religious mentality of taking the conclusion and trying to fit the argument around it. That's what being an apologetic is.

Just a word of warning: we've got a pretty sharp moderating team, and too many times of calling the other view "intellectually dishonest" and you'll wind up getting warned or banned. It's generally also best to steer clear of the generalizations. Feel free to think I am intellectually dishonest, but please don't say so publicly. If you leave, I'd rather you do so of your own volition than because you got kicked out because of a discussion with me.

Would you agree that believing something because you want it to be true and not because you have found it to be true is an intellectual dishonesty? If that is your position (and I am not sure yet if it is or not), then yes, what can I call it other than intellectual dishonesty? That's simply what it is. If you don't think the above is intellectually dishonest, say why please.

First of all, please note again that I am not saying that communication does not happen. Rather, I am suggesting that secular modernism is developing arguments that communication does not happen, arguments which seem to follow from the premises, and arguments which therefore, in light of our communicating, suggest that the initial secular premises are wrong.

I am still at a complete loss as to how you can just label these into a category 'secular'. If we had a word for 'not being to do with football' we could label it that also. It would be just as irrelevant. If reasoning is coming from religion then it is valid to call it religious reasoning because religion is an actual specific 'thing', so to speak. But something being secular, is simply 'not being from religion' and so labeling it such does not tell us anything about it. To me, your argument seems like saying that because a certain thinker's argument is unworkable, and because it is not to do with communism, we must therefore have to embrace it with communism in mind.

because I believe there are numerous truths that are blatantly obvious in the world that depend upon God to exist as they seem too.

Ah. Now this is something else. Can we please break down and look at a specific one?

Round and round we go. Hypothesis. Test. Observation. That's all science speak. I'm using a priori philosophy.

Right. Well in that case I don't think your a priori philosophy quite cuts it here. As you said yourself, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And as I have explained earlier in this thread (not sure whether it was to you or not)- we cannot prove the existence of something through logic alone.

Sometimes you say science isn't the only way to discover truth, but it seems you are insisting that I provide you with scientific proof.

It isn't. But it is what we need if you're going to assert something so major as a supernatural creature exists.

Let's take the sentence: "That tree has leaves." It requires by necessity the statement: "That tree exists." After all, if that tree doesn't exist, it can't have leaves. Now, suppose I know beyond a doubt that "that tree has leaves" is a true statement, and I have two possible presuppositions I can accept: (1) "that tree exists"; and (2) "that tree does not exist." If I accept claim #2, then the statement that I know is true, namely "that tree has leaves", cannot possibly be true. It would be false. But I know it is true, and therefore I reject presupposition #2.

Would you say that my acceptance of the statement "that tree exists" is a result of "tree of the gaps"?

Well no, because in your hypothetical example, you know beyond a doubt that 'the tree has leaves'. But I don't know beyond a doubt that 'god has leaves' (for want of a better parallel), so the analogy is flawed. Now maybe YOU know personally beyond a doubt that god exists, but obviously stating that's not something that can convince me or anyone else, which is the whole point here.

I'm trying to do the same thing with God. I'm not saying "there is a lack of another explanation." I'm saying, "God is a logically necessary explanation."

Why thought? Why god? Sorry if I'm being thick, but I don't remember you ever explaining exactly why. Your argument has always seemed to be, 'it's not this so it must be that'. 'It's not 'not-god' so it's god.'

No, seriously, man. Step up to the plate. Put your money where your mouth is. You promised that you could put forward hundreds of worldviews that weren't self defeating. Do it, big man (or woman, depending on which you are). I dare you. I challenge you. Bring it. I've already said that I won't even respond to you again in this thread. I'll let you have the last word. So all you have to do is be able to present a worldview period. I won't even bother to critique it.

Well as I said in my last post, I'm not sure what my understanding of what a 'worldview' is will satisfy you. But ok, sure: here's a worldview: we live in the Matrix. Can you prove we don't live in the Matrix? Nope. Does it explain a lot about the universe and our lives? Yes. Does it make logically consistent sense with itself? Yes.

But here's the point: this still means nothing without any evidence for it[i/]

You accuse me of intellectual dishonesty repeatedly.

Well no, I explain that the position of faith is an intellectually dishonest one and I point out that to me, that's what your argument is sounding like.

You claim that I am arguing from authority.

I claimed that you might be arguing from authority, I said I wasn't sure.

You claim that I am illogical and absurd.

No, I've said that a few of your arguments have been illogical and absurd. That doesn't mean you are in general, that would be a rather dramatic and inaccurate observation to make of someone from reading a few posts of theirs on a forum.

[kayky]

Science is the best way of understanding things in the natural world.

But it cannot explain the purpose for there even to be a natural world.

We will never have evidence for the supernatural, because when evidence is found for a phenomenon previously thought to be supernatural, it cease to be 'supernatural' and becomes a part of the natural world.

And this reveals only the limitations of science. Science can neither prove nor disprove God.

We can't make any claims about any supernatural entities whatsoever.
Yet religion insists on doing this, without any means to back up their claims.
but unlike their supposed deities, religion IS a part of the natural world, and like it or not, it IS man-made.

Only if you are blinded by scientism. And of course religion is man-made. What is the significance of that?

There is not any reason to consider the claims these religions make to be anything but wishful thinking or potenitally dangerous means of controlling our fellow man.

It's funny how many billions of people in the world do consider the claims of religion. I guess they didn't get the memo.

There is not one good argument that can exclusively lead to the existence of one particular God. The ones that claim there is, will sooner or later be exposed by manner of pointing out various logical fallacies, an absolute refusal to display intellectual honesty, or any other means, and they all have.

It seems to me that you are the one making exclusive claims here.

You can't scientifically prove 'God'

Totally true.

You can't logically deduct 'God'

Totally untrue.

The only thing any of us can do at best is hope/feel/think there is a God, and that's why I am an atheist

Well, as long as you have found a worldview that works for you, that's the important thing.

Theists have got nothing. No argument that hasn't been refuted.
not in any 'official' debates, not on any of these sites.

Refuted by what standard? Your scientism?

The only question is how long people are willing to cling to these myths.

This sounds more like the rejection of a specific religion than a rejection of God. Many stories have been written about God. They have nothing to do with whether or not God exists.