I think most would agree that the universe is a rationally intelligible system. We can discover structures, patterns, laws and symmetries within the system. Things that happen within the system seem to be related to those laws too. So given all this is it not at least reasonable to form the view that it is the work of an intelligent source? Isn't it at least as reasonable or arguably more reasonable to assume that as it is to assume it just so happens to exist with all these laws, patterns just there, with all that takes place in the universe just being fluke?
If we take some of the laws of physics too, we can write these down very succinctly using mathematics, indeed mathematics seems to be a language that is superb for describing things in the universe, a fine example being Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field. Theoretical physicists often say they feel that they are discovering these laws too:
So if the universe can be described in a language like mathematics doesn't that too strongly suggest an intelligent source? much as we'd infer if we stumbled upon clay tablets with writing on them or symbols carved into stone? Doesn't discovery of something written in a language, more or less prove an intelligent source?
So isn't this all reasonable? is there anything unreasonable about this position?
Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #371[Replying to DrNoGods in post #370]
As long as you are stuck on the idea that God is something like Zues, you will not find him.
That reasonable man turns to philosophy. There, he will not find Zues or Odin and the such. You can find good arguments for the being that is necessary, which is existence itself. His essence is his existence. You can argue for a metaphysical world and a metaphysical necessary being. You will find no arguments for Zues.
So why even bring up such low concepts?
As long as you are stuck on the idea that God is something like Zues, you will not find him.
That reasonable man turns to philosophy. There, he will not find Zues or Odin and the such. You can find good arguments for the being that is necessary, which is existence itself. His essence is his existence. You can argue for a metaphysical world and a metaphysical necessary being. You will find no arguments for Zues.
So why even bring up such low concepts?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #372[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #371]
I made no comparisons to Zues or any specific god ... just pointed out that humans have invented thousands of gods over the millennia with all kinds of definitions and characteristics. They can't all be correct.As long as you are stuck on the idea that God is something like Zues, you will not find him.
Just another arbitrary definition of what gods are (or presumably a single god as you used "his"). If you buy into such philosophical arguments go for it. Many people do for various reasons. It doesn't prove the existence of gods in any way.You can find good arguments for the being that is necessary, which is existence itself. His essence is his existence.
I didn't bring up "such low concepts." You put words into my mouth that I never said then made an argument based on your own "bringing up" of Zues-like gods. A strawman.So why even bring up such low concepts?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #373I'm curious to know why Zeus is a "low concept", as it implies some other god/s ain't.
Are we getting the, "You should respect my god / religion" argument?
Are we getting the, "You should respect my god / religion" argument?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #374[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #373]
I wasn't sure if Zues was an actual god (thousands that have been invented after all and I'm sure I haven't head of most of them) or if he meant Zeus the Greek god. But I think the probability that either exists is equally likely.I'm curious to know why Zeus is a "low concept", as it implies some other god/s ain't.
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #375But you did bring up the low concept of gods. The gods cannot be necessary beings because when you look at the arguments for a necessary being there can be only one, do to Leibniz Law of Indesernables.DrNoGods wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 10:52 am [Replying to AquinasForGod in post #371]
I made no comparisons to Zues or any specific god ... just pointed out that humans have invented thousands of gods over the millennia with all kinds of definitions and characteristics. They can't all be correct.As long as you are stuck on the idea that God is something like Zues, you will not find him.
Just another arbitrary definition of what gods are (or presumably a single god as you used "his"). If you buy into such philosophical arguments go for it. Many people do for various reasons. It doesn't prove the existence of gods in any way.You can find good arguments for the being that is necessary, which is existence itself. His essence is his existence.
I didn't bring up "such low concepts." You put words into my mouth that I never said then made an argument based on your own "bringing up" of Zues-like gods. A strawman.So why even bring up such low concepts?
If it is said of more than one thing that they share all the same properties, then we are not talking about many things but one and the same thing.
For example, some physicists think there is just one electron because electrons have the same properties. Others say, well, no there is more than one electron because they differ specially.
However, when it comes to the necessary being, it has no spacial properties, so if there were more than one, they could not differ specially. If you look at what the necessary being is, which is existence itself, there are no properties to say one necessary being has that the other doesn't, thus there could only be one.
If the gods are necessary beings, then they must be just one being, thus there are no gods. If the gods are not necessary beings, then it is not that big a deal if they do or do not exist. They would be aliens or something like that.
So the conversation should be about the necessary being and not probable lesser beings.
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #376A hypothesis must be testable. An untestable idea is mere speculation.Jose Fly wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:53 pmI'll repeat....assume and hypothesize all you like....no one will stop you. But if you're hoping to have an impact in the world of science you'll have to do more than that.Sherlock Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:35 am So isn't this all reasonable? is there anything unreasonable about this position?
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #377[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #375]
I brought up ALL god concepts that humans have invented ... not just the "low" concepts (whatever that actually means). There have been thousands of them over time, from the human-like versions to those that are nonphysical of all kinds.But you did bring up the low concept of gods.
Reading a description of this "law" (eg. from Here), it seems to apply primarily to "substances." Only some god concepts are a "substance" (a material thing) while others are not. Arguments for a "necessary being" fail to prove the "necessary" part of the problem beyond philosophical musings.The gods cannot be necessary beings because when you look at the arguments for a necessary being there can be only one, do to Leibniz Law of Indesernables.
The "necessary being" is existence itself? What properties could such a thing have (other than the fundamental one of existence)? Anything that exists ... exists by definition. So if multiple gods are proposed, each with different properties (again, there have been thousands), and all are claimed to exist, then what determines whether some do exist and some do not? It seems to boil down to simply whether or not someone believes in a particular god.If you look at what the necessary being is, which is existence itself, there are no properties to say one necessary being has that the other doesn't, thus there could only be one.
Exactly ... so the big hurdle to clear is showing that any god (or gods) is a "necessary being." That hurdle hasn't been cleared yet apart from philosophical arguments that aren't conclusive.If the gods are not necessary beings, then it is not that big a deal if they do or do not exist.
OK ... ignore the "lesser beings" and focus on the "necessary being", which you claim there is only one. What are the properties of this being? Where does it exist? What evidence is there that it does, in fact, exist?So the conversation should be about the necessary being and not probable lesser beings.
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #378[Replying to DrNoGods in post #377]
Here is a time stamped part of a video that will explain why other god concepts are not really God unless it is the God of classical theism, divine simplicity. https://youtu.be/OvdGw8IbFng?t=1588
I started it here- To deny that God is simple or non-composit is implicitly to deny his uniqueness and ultimacy. Insofar as such a denial makes of God a mere instance of a genus, it reduces him to the status of a member of a pantheon of gods, and it does so even if we think of him as a unique member.
After all, the nature of a Zues or Odin would not change even if they became the sole occupants of Olympus or Asguard respectively.
From your link, which is a good source, BTW. When the philosopher Leibniz talks of things this include metaphysical things. In metaphysics, there are things that exist and substances even. Metaphysical substances such as God. You are thinking of the word substance and things and stuff as it might be used in physics.
Science cannot prove necessity so what other field would you expect it to fall under besides philosophy?
What do you think change is exactly? What position do you hold? Whatever position you hold, there will be logical consequences.
Many take the I do not care attitude. They just are not concerned with what reality is in itself. That is fine, but then they haven't any thing to offer those that accept a necessary being, unless they can demonstrate that the arguments for one is false. This hasn't been done. For example, with the modal arguments for necessary being, there seems to be a stand still among philosophers. Those that believe in metaphysical naturalism like Graham Oppy are happy to believe in spontaneous existence and thus are not persuaded by a necessary being as that leads to God.
So in the very least, it is extremely reasonable to believe in a necessary being, especially if the alternatives offered are things like spontaneous existence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-80lQOlNOs&t=16s Here is one of their debates.
What it ended up boiling down to is if there can exist things that have existential inertia. Ed Feser argues as to why the defense for this view is circular. Oppy is content to believe that simples just spontaneously come to be and that they come to be with the power to exist in and of themselves. That is the alternative attack against Feser's argument.
I have no idea how an intelligent person can honestly be content with the idea of 1. spontaneous existence and 2. of a magical property of existential inertia.
God is self existent but this is not an arbitrary thing said of God as it is said of Oppy's simples. Oppy offers no reason as to why they ought to exist as such. But Feser's argument leads to a being that is purely actual, is existence itself. It must by its nature have existential inertia, but simples do not need to have this. They very well could have spontaneously come to exist without said power, but the purely actual being could not exist any other way other than having the power to self-exist. It is necessary to its very nature.
They are all the lower creature kind unless they are the God of classical theism, which is that God is existence itself. Any other god has parts and thus is a composited being. It is just saying, here is a person but without our limitations. We don't see this as God at all.I brought up ALL god concepts that humans have invented ... not just the "low" concepts (whatever that actually means). There have been thousands of them over time, from the human-like versions to those that are nonphysical of all kinds.
Here is a time stamped part of a video that will explain why other god concepts are not really God unless it is the God of classical theism, divine simplicity. https://youtu.be/OvdGw8IbFng?t=1588
I started it here- To deny that God is simple or non-composit is implicitly to deny his uniqueness and ultimacy. Insofar as such a denial makes of God a mere instance of a genus, it reduces him to the status of a member of a pantheon of gods, and it does so even if we think of him as a unique member.
After all, the nature of a Zues or Odin would not change even if they became the sole occupants of Olympus or Asguard respectively.
The Identity of Indiscernibles is a principle of analytic ontology first explicitly formulated by Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz in his Discourse on Metaphysics.Reading a description of this "law" (eg. from Here), it seems to apply primarily to "substances." Only some god concepts are a "substance" (a material thing) while others are not. Arguments for a "necessary being" fail to prove the "necessary" part of the problem beyond philosophical musings.
From your link, which is a good source, BTW. When the philosopher Leibniz talks of things this include metaphysical things. In metaphysics, there are things that exist and substances even. Metaphysical substances such as God. You are thinking of the word substance and things and stuff as it might be used in physics.
Science cannot prove necessity so what other field would you expect it to fall under besides philosophy?
These composited creatures, that you are calling gods, might or might not exist. It has no baring on the topic of the God of classical theism, which I hold to. Nothing else is God. Everything else called God or gods is a composited being.The "necessary being" is existence itself? What properties could such a thing have (other than the fundamental one of existence)? Anything that exists ... exists by definition. So if multiple gods are proposed, each with different properties (again, there have been thousands), and all are claimed to exist, then what determines whether some do exist and some do not? It seems to boil down to simply whether or not someone believes in a particular god.
I wouldn't word it that way. It is not to show that any god is a necessary being, but to show that a necessary being makes more since than any alternatives. What alternative do you hold to? For example, concerning the question why does anything exist at all, because there is something eternal or because spontaneous existence?Exactly ... so the big hurdle to clear is showing that any god (or gods) is a "necessary being." That hurdle hasn't been cleared yet apart from philosophical arguments that aren't conclusive.
What do you think change is exactly? What position do you hold? Whatever position you hold, there will be logical consequences.
Many take the I do not care attitude. They just are not concerned with what reality is in itself. That is fine, but then they haven't any thing to offer those that accept a necessary being, unless they can demonstrate that the arguments for one is false. This hasn't been done. For example, with the modal arguments for necessary being, there seems to be a stand still among philosophers. Those that believe in metaphysical naturalism like Graham Oppy are happy to believe in spontaneous existence and thus are not persuaded by a necessary being as that leads to God.
So in the very least, it is extremely reasonable to believe in a necessary being, especially if the alternatives offered are things like spontaneous existence.
It has no properties as properties would mean it is a metaphysically composited being. There are many arguments for it, such as the modal ontological arguments, or my argument from the best possible explanation of why there is anything at all, or the Aristotelean argument, which is discussed in a high way between Graham Oppy (atheist philosopher) and Ed Feser (Catholic Philosopher).OK ... ignore the "lesser beings" and focus on the "necessary being", which you claim there is only one. What are the properties of this being? Where does it exist? What evidence is there that it does, in fact, exist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-80lQOlNOs&t=16s Here is one of their debates.
What it ended up boiling down to is if there can exist things that have existential inertia. Ed Feser argues as to why the defense for this view is circular. Oppy is content to believe that simples just spontaneously come to be and that they come to be with the power to exist in and of themselves. That is the alternative attack against Feser's argument.
I have no idea how an intelligent person can honestly be content with the idea of 1. spontaneous existence and 2. of a magical property of existential inertia.
God is self existent but this is not an arbitrary thing said of God as it is said of Oppy's simples. Oppy offers no reason as to why they ought to exist as such. But Feser's argument leads to a being that is purely actual, is existence itself. It must by its nature have existential inertia, but simples do not need to have this. They very well could have spontaneously come to exist without said power, but the purely actual being could not exist any other way other than having the power to self-exist. It is necessary to its very nature.
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #379[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #378]
Postulating the existence of gods, or "necessary beings", and the like is also just speculation. There's no empirical evidence to support the existence of any of these things, and also no proof that they do not or cannot exist, so these also fall in the realm of the unknown ... questions that cannot yet be answered. I see no problem with the prospect, for example, that some kind of quantum fields may have pervaded space (or spacetime) at one point, and some natural event set things into motion to create matter, etc. Whether the "Big Bang" hypothesis is correct, or whether something else comes along to replace it, a purely natural series of events without the input of any gods or necessary beings cannot be ruled out. That makes the most sense to me, given the lack of evidence for the existence of any gods or necessary beings.
As for "why" we are here (humans), there doesn't need to be any reason for that other than we evoloved from a great ape ancestor, which itself evolved from earlier mammals, etc. back to the first microbial life forms ... whatever those were (another thing we don't know yet). I don't see the need for any particular reason for life to exist in any of its forms (humans included) ... it began by some mechanism that we don't yet know the specifics of, and once it did take hold it diversified into the variety we see today, and will continue to diversify long into the future barring some catastrophe that might destroy life on Earth.
We humans (so far) have existed for just a miniscule slice of the 4.6 billion years that planet Earth has been around, and we evolved a complex and capable brain beyond anything else so far, so we have the capacity for abstract thought and the ability to ponder the existence of gods and necessary beings, as well as Big Bang scenarios. But we've not solved either problem ... yet. A "necessary being" may not be necessary at all.
I hold to the very simple position that we don't yet know how the universe came into existence so all we can do is speculate on superior beings of some sort being responsible, or (my choice) follow what science has been able to discern about how this universe may have arisen. What (if anything) was before that, or what may come after, or whether our universe is the only one, etc. are all in the realm of the unknown at this point. I see no need to force an explanation when we don't actually know the answer ... keep studying the subject and try to learn more about how it all did happen.What do you think change is exactly? What position do you hold? Whatever position you hold, there will be logical consequences.
Postulating the existence of gods, or "necessary beings", and the like is also just speculation. There's no empirical evidence to support the existence of any of these things, and also no proof that they do not or cannot exist, so these also fall in the realm of the unknown ... questions that cannot yet be answered. I see no problem with the prospect, for example, that some kind of quantum fields may have pervaded space (or spacetime) at one point, and some natural event set things into motion to create matter, etc. Whether the "Big Bang" hypothesis is correct, or whether something else comes along to replace it, a purely natural series of events without the input of any gods or necessary beings cannot be ruled out. That makes the most sense to me, given the lack of evidence for the existence of any gods or necessary beings.
As for "why" we are here (humans), there doesn't need to be any reason for that other than we evoloved from a great ape ancestor, which itself evolved from earlier mammals, etc. back to the first microbial life forms ... whatever those were (another thing we don't know yet). I don't see the need for any particular reason for life to exist in any of its forms (humans included) ... it began by some mechanism that we don't yet know the specifics of, and once it did take hold it diversified into the variety we see today, and will continue to diversify long into the future barring some catastrophe that might destroy life on Earth.
We humans (so far) have existed for just a miniscule slice of the 4.6 billion years that planet Earth has been around, and we evolved a complex and capable brain beyond anything else so far, so we have the capacity for abstract thought and the ability to ponder the existence of gods and necessary beings, as well as Big Bang scenarios. But we've not solved either problem ... yet. A "necessary being" may not be necessary at all.
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Re: Is it reasonable to assume a creator?
Post #380[Replying to DrNoGods in post #379]
Okay, let me ask you this because you said we do not have empirical evidence.
Do you think married bachelors can exist?
What about a 2D shape that simultaneously has 3 sides and 4 sides?
If not, why not? Do you have empirical evidence these things cannot exist or do you rely on reasoning alone?
Okay, let me ask you this because you said we do not have empirical evidence.
Do you think married bachelors can exist?
What about a 2D shape that simultaneously has 3 sides and 4 sides?
If not, why not? Do you have empirical evidence these things cannot exist or do you rely on reasoning alone?