A Philosophical Argument for the Existence of God

[TheChristianEgoist]

This argument is different from many others (including the Kalam argument on this forum) in that it does not require (or really tolerate) the minutia of various theories of the special Sciences (like physics). It thoroughly anticipates and dismisses most major objections in the structure of the argument, itself.
You can find a full post of my argument, along with many clarifying comments and objections answered here: http://thechristianegoist.wordpress.com ... ble-mover/

1) Things can only act according to their natures. This is the law of causality.

2) Regarding action, the nature of a thing is either purposeful or accidental – meaning that an action is either purposeful or un-purposeful, intentional or unintentional. This is the law of the excluded middle applied to the nature of action.

3) Accidental actions are necessarily the result of some sort of interaction – which means that every accidental action necessitates a prior action of some kind.

4) There cannot be an infinite regress of accidental actions. An infinite regress of a series cannot exist because a series must have a beginning in order to exist.

5) There must have been an action which triggered the beginning of accidental action (3 & 4), and this ‘trigger’ action could not, itself, have been accidental (3).

6) If the beginning to accidental action could not have been accidental, then it must have been purposeful (2).

7) A purposeful action is a volitional action and volition presupposes a mind and values.

8) An actor with mind, values, and volition is a person.

9) A personal actor began all accidental action in the universe.

[olavisjo]

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Rules and laws are not the same thing.

What would be the difference between the rules of logic, the laws of logic and the principles of logic?

There are no laws of logic. None that I am aware of.

You avoided the question, please answer it or tell me that you do not wish to answer it.

As far as my research goes, I have only found 3 rules of logic. I do not know if there are more, there may be and there may not be. But instantc says there are more. So, I am asking HIM how does he know this.

Did you understand what he said in this post...

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 581#605581

[JohnA]

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Rules and laws are not the same thing.

What would be the difference between the rules of logic, the laws of logic and the principles of logic?

There are no laws of logic. None that I am aware of.

You avoided the question, please answer it or tell me that you do not wish to answer it.

As far as my research goes, I have only found 3 rules of logic. I do not know if there are more, there may be and there may not be. But instantc says there are more. So, I am asking HIM how does he know this.

Did you understand what he said in this post...

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 581#605581

How do you want me to answer your question when your premise of your question is wrong?
You can look up the definition of rule, law and principle yourself. I would suggest you to use something like Bing or Google search is you have no hard copy of a dictionary. As they say, ask a busy person when you want something done.


On the instantc claim.
Does he claim those are laws of logic? Really? He refers to the rule of non-contradiction as a law, and then go on and offer Discrete Mathematics as laws of logic. Sure math is part of logic, but instantc is conflating rules of thought with proof in math. What I do know is that Filthy Tugboat moped the floor with him, instantc refuses to answer my questions, and you are trying your best to straw man me.

Now, can you please stop avoiding my question and answer that (here it is again):
I can guess what you are trying to do. You are trying to straw man me. Keep trying please. My prediction is that you will revert to slander similar to what instantc does when he can not meet his burden or you will go away and practice your fallacies on someone else. Are you happy with that?

[olavisjo]

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How do you want me to answer your question when your premise of your question is wrong?
You can look up the definition of rule, law and principle yourself. I would suggest you to use something like Bing or Google search is you have no hard copy of a dictionary. As they say, ask a busy person when you want something done.

You know that there are no laws of logic, but you don't know what laws of logic are. How does that work?

On the instantc claim.
Does he claim those are laws of logic?

He did say...

Here are some other laws of logic,

I don't understand what he posted so I would hope that he would explain the post before we conclude that there are no laws of logic. I did assume that you understood it since it is in direct contradiction to your claim that 'there are no laws of logic' and you did not ask for clarification.

[JohnA]

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How do you want me to answer your question when your premise of your question is wrong?
You can look up the definition of rule, law and principle yourself. I would suggest you to use something like Bing or Google search is you have no hard copy of a dictionary. As they say, ask a busy person when you want something done.

You know that there are no laws of logic, but you don't know what laws of logic are. How does that work?

On the instantc claim.
Does he claim those are laws of logic?

He did say...

Here are some other laws of logic,

I don't understand what he posted so I would hope that he would explain the post before we conclude that there are no laws of logic. I did assume that you understood it since it is in direct contradiction to your claim that 'there are no laws of logic' and you did not ask for clarification.

If I know there are no laws of X. Then, if someone writes there are laws of X I need to ask them what this is. Maybe I am wrong when I thought I knew there we no laws of X, or maybe the claimant is wrong or using linguistics to confuse the audience.


I see you extract only the bits of my post that you use to formulate your fallacies. That is sweet, I like that. And you are still refusing to answer my questions. You avoided it, please answer it or tell me that you do not wish to answer it.
I also see that you rely on assumptions and authorities. So, why do you need instantc to assert again that there are laws of logic, for you to accept it, if he already asserted it?

You can not be too busy since you are not wanting to learn yourself via self-research. Wonder why is that.

Oh and I did ask instantc for clarification on what laws of logic is:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 285#605285

Now, can you answer my questions?


I can list them again:
How do you want me to answer your question when your premise of your question is wrong?
I can guess what you are trying to do. You are trying to straw man me. Keep trying please. My prediction is that you will revert to slander similar to what instantc does when he can not meet his burden or you will go away and practice your fallacies on someone else. Are you happy with that?
Why do you need instantc to assert again that there are laws of logic, for you to accept it, if he already asserted it?

[scourge99]

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You say its possible (I.E., it has a greater than 0% probability) that you can roll an 18 with an unknown number of dice in a bag.

I open the bag and reveal 1 die. The probability is 0%. Its not possible to roll an 18. But before you said it was possible but now its not possible. That seems like a contradiction.

I would agree with your answers if i said "i put a random number of dice in a bag". But i didn't. There is an unknown number if dice in the bag. Not a random amount if dice in the bag. I think that makes a difference.

Consider the Monty Hall problem. There is a prize behind one of three doors and a goat behind the other two doors.

Is it possible for the prize to be behind door number 1? Yes.
Is it possible for the prize to be behind door number 2? Yes.
Is it possible for the prize to be behind door number 3? Yes.
Is it possible for the prize to be behind more than one door? No.

Did I just contradict myself by saying the prize can be behind three doors and also only one door? No. I am only using the word possible to refer to two different concepts.

In the first three statements, the possible refers to probability, there is a 33% possibility that the prize is behind any of the three doors.
In the fourth statement, possible refers to the logical possibility of the prize being behind more than one door.

I agree people can mean different things by "possible". And i can agree with the example you gave above. But you haven't addressed the problem of not knowing which i brought up in the post you are responding to.

The only reason you can calculate the probability of a prize being behind a door is because you make certain ASSUMPTIONS. You ASSUME that a prize must be behind at least one door and you ASSUME the door is random (random = each door has an equally likely probability of having a prize behind it)

What happens if we remove these assumptions? What is the probability that a prize is behind door number one if you know nothing about the likelihood of a prize being behind any door? That is, if the probability is unknown and we can't assume that a prize must be present or is random, does that make it "possible" that there is a prize behind any door? What sense would it make to say that "a prize is possible behind door number 1"?

In your example, there is an unknown number if dice in the bag, it is possible to roll an 18. Here the word possible is used to convey that there is no logical reason why there can't be 3-18 dice in the bag, so it is possible.

Sure. If you mean to say its not logically impossible. But that's a pretty low bar. For example, its not logically impossible that a 50 ton magic flying elephant is perched on my shoulder.

I still think that we are just talking behind the language barrier, the word possible just conveys too many meanings.

No one has successfully taken up my challenge to explain what sense it makes to say something unknown is "possible" if we know nothing about it.

[instantc]

Olavisjo,

Obviously there are more laws of logic apart from the three fundamental ones, you can read about some of them here, for example, http://www.cs.um.edu.mt/gordon.pace/Tea ... s/Laws.pdf Even if there weren't, that wouldn't affect my point in anyway, since what I said was that one cannot show that something is logically possible unless he shows that he has exhaustively listed all the laws of logic.

One thing I have learned here is that anyone can type 'LOL I win you contradict yourself!', and not everyone is worth having a discourse with. This guy has a way of rejecting lots of commonly known facts, what's the point of debating him? Ten bucks says I'm contradicting myself again in this post, probably begging the question too and my above link is an argument from authority. All of these together comprise "circular self-promoting".

[olavisjo]

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I see you extract only the bits of my post that you use to formulate your fallacies. That is sweet, I like that.

My brain can not deal with too many things at one time, so I have to resolve things slowly. One thing at a time. We have a lot of time, so we can go slow so that we don't miss anything.

Oh and I did ask instantc for clarification on what laws of logic is:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 285#605285

Okay, you did ask him, and he has now answered here...

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 135#606135

Would you now say that what he presents are "laws of logic"?

but you also asked him...

What makes these 'laws' laws, why not just principles or rules?

I don't see a significant difference between these three, but you do, so you need to explain why these are different to you. Otherwise there would be no point in debating if something is a law, principle or rule.

I think this is enough, if we can find some common ground on these point, then we will go back and cover the questions you asked.

[olavisjo]

.

You say its possible (I.E., it has a greater than 0% probability) that you can roll an 18 with an unknown number of dice in a bag.

I open the bag and reveal 1 die. The probability is 0%. Its not possible to roll an 18. But before you said it was possible but now its not possible. That seems like a contradiction.

I would agree with your answers if i said "i put a random number of dice in a bag". But i didn't. There is an unknown number if dice in the bag. Not a random amount if dice in the bag. I think that makes a difference.

Consider the Monty Hall problem. There is a prize behind one of three doors and a goat behind the other two doors.

Is it possible for the prize to be behind door number 1? Yes.
Is it possible for the prize to be behind door number 2? Yes.
Is it possible for the prize to be behind door number 3? Yes.
Is it possible for the prize to be behind more than one door? No.

Did I just contradict myself by saying the prize can be behind three doors and also only one door? No. I am only using the word possible to refer to two different concepts.

In the first three statements, the possible refers to probability, there is a 33% possibility that the prize is behind any of the three doors.
In the fourth statement, possible refers to the logical possibility of the prize being behind more than one door.

I agree people can mean different things by "possible". And i can agree with the example you gave above. But you haven't addressed the problem of not knowing which i brought up in the post you are responding to.

The only reason you can calculate the probability of a prize being behind a door is because you make certain ASSUMPTIONS. You ASSUME that a prize must be behind at least one door and you ASSUME the door is random (random = each door has an equally likely probability of having a prize behind it)

What happens if we remove these assumptions? What is the probability that a prize is behind door number one if you know nothing about the likelihood of a prize being behind any door? That is, if the probability is unknown and we can't assume that a prize must be present or is random, does that make it "possible" that there is a prize behind any door? What sense would it make to say that "a prize is possible behind door number 1"?

In your example, there is an unknown number if dice in the bag, it is possible to roll an 18. Here the word possible is used to convey that there is no logical reason why there can't be 3-18 dice in the bag, so it is possible.

Sure. If you mean to say its not logically impossible. But that's a pretty low bar. For example, its not logically impossible that a 50 ton magic flying elephant is perched on my shoulder.

I still think that we are just talking behind the language barrier, the word possible just conveys too many meanings.

No one has successfully taken up my challenge to explain what sense it makes to say something unknown is "possible" if we know nothing about it.

[JohnA]

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I see you extract only the bits of my post that you use to formulate your fallacies. That is sweet, I like that.

My brain can not deal with too many things at one time, so I have to resolve things slowly. One thing at a time. We have a lot of time, so we can go slow so that we don't miss anything.

Oh and I did ask instantc for clarification on what laws of logic is:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 285#605285

Okay, you did ask him, and he has now answered here...

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 135#606135

Would you now say that what he presents are "laws of logic"?

but you also asked him...

What makes these 'laws' laws, why not just principles or rules?

I don't see a significant difference between these three, but you do, so you need to explain why these are different to you. Otherwise there would be no point in debating if something is a law, principle or rule.

I think this is enough, if we can find some common ground on these point, then we will go back and cover the questions you asked.

Once again, you did not answer any of my questions.

Clearly, Instantc is confused between the rules of thought and Discrete Mathematics.
And somehow he thinks they are not only the same, but he presents both these as laws of logic.
Why only Discrete Mathematics, and not any other branch of mathematics, or other branches of logic?
There are no laws of mathematics, there are some 5 axioms of arithmetic which can be used for almost any mathematical proof.
Instantc is offering outside baseline thinking, pure illogical dogma invention. Con men sell to fools all the time. You would realise that he refuses to answer my questions, all he can offer is snide personal remarks, refusing to address his fallacies. That is called an ad hominem.


The word 'Law' does not really have one acceptable definition. But is is probably a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social or government institutions to govern behavior and penalized when not. or you could say it is a the system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties.
Once definition of 'Rule' would be one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity.
A definition of 'Principle' could be: a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.
A definition of an 'Axiom': a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.

Now, since you are too lazy to find the above yourself, you are probably asking me to explain basic English as well.

Laws are i) enforced by an institution and ii) can have penalties associated if you break them. Rules, principles or axiom do not have these two things (i.e. i) and ii) as mentioned). Also, rules, law , principles, and axioms are all spelled different, so they can not be the exact same thing.

Do you agree that instantc is missing the boat? I already pointed out that you rely on assumptions and authorities. So, you have no choice to accept instantc's nonsense, unless you do not rely on assumptions and authorities.


When will you answer my QUESTIONS?

I can list them again:
How do you want me to answer your question when your premise of your question is wrong?
I can guess what you are trying to do. You are trying to straw man me. Keep trying please. My prediction is that you will revert to slander similar to what instantc does when he can not meet his burden or you will go away and practice your fallacies on someone else. Are you happy with that?
Why do you need instantc to assert again that there are laws of logic, for you to accept it, if he already asserted it?
Do you agree that instantc is missing the boat?

[otseng]

This guy has a way of rejecting lots of commonly known facts, what's the point of debating him?

Clearly, Instantc is confused ...
Con men sell to fools all the time.

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