Atheism - based on faith?

[pmprcv]

So this is something I have been thinking for quite some time, and I'd like to know what you think about this.

I'll start with saying that the proposition "God exists" can only be either true or false. The two other optionsare obviously excluded: that "God exists" is both true and false and that "God exists" is neither true nor false. So we are left with two positions, that can be translated as 1) God exists and 2) God doesn't exist. They are mutually-exclusive.

Regarding any argumentative position (called X), one can either a) assert X, b) deny X or c) be neutral. Being neutral doesn't mean that one both asserts and denies X; it merely means one does not commit either way or doesn't want to pursue any of the options. So applying this to the initial 2 positions, the only options one has are:

1) Assert that "God exists" is true and "God doesn't exist" is false.
2) Assert that "God exists" is false and "God doesn't exist" is true.
3) Neither assert nor deny either one.

3) is not a position; it is "empty" of arguments, opinions and assertions. 3) is the lack of position regarding the issue. Because one makes no assertions, one needs not justify his "position".

1) Is a position based on faith.

How about 2)? Well, the way I see it, one can justify an intellectual position (one that makes assertions about the objective reality) by 3 ways: logic, evidence (or the "scientific method") or faith. So if position 2) isn't justified with logic or evidence, then it is based on faith.

Logic is out of the question. Logic cannot be used to make assertions about a subject that, by definition, transcends logic - which means that He isn't necessarily bound by the laws of logic. Logic is a human construct, and God is by definition above humanity and above our capacity to understand. This means that logic produces incertain conclusions regarding God. Some conclusions about God that rely on logic may be true, while others may not.

Evidence has never been found to prove the non-existence of God. In fact, most people that assert the position 2) admit that finding evidence for the non-existence of something is impossible - which is mostly true, and is definitely true in the case of God. So as far as I'm concerned, there is no evidence or scientific proof that positively proves the non-existence of God.

Please note that the non-existence of positive evidence for X doesn't necessarily mean that X isn't true. Basically, lack of evidence for X doesn't mean X is false, and lack of evidence against X doesn't mean that X is true.

So, position 2) can only base itself on faith. Since there is no logic that can, with certainty, prove the necessity for the non-existence of God, nor is there any positive scientifical evidence for the non-existence of God, isn't it true that this position is based on faith just as much as position 1)?

It is important to define "faith" in this context as "subjective personal experience".

As in, I believe in God because, in my subjective personal experience, I have learnt to find Him in signs around me, and built a personal and intimate relation with Him, etc. But John doesn't believe in God because his subjective personal experience gives him no signs of God.

Is this wrong? How and why? Do you stand on position 2) and base it on evidence or logic rather than faith? What evidence or what logic is that?

Please not that the point is not to validate the legitimacy of faith in its use to discover the truth, but to show that both positions 1) and 2) are based on faith.

[Johannes]

[Replying to post 1 by pmprcv]

I think many atheists put forward something like the following argument:

A1. It is reasonable not to believe in the existence of something for which insufficient evidence exists.
A2. There is insufficient evidence that God exists.
A3. Therefore, it is reasonable not to believe that God exists.

Let's modified the A2 just slightly. "There is insufficient OBJECTIVE evidence to show God exists". I am sure that if you asked most atheists, they will say agree to that modification. That means, that evidence has to be 'public' evidence. When examples are given, it is either the logical fallacy of 'argument from personal belief', entirely subjective, testimonial, or emotional. None of it passes the 'How do you know it's God' question, or 'show me'.

In absence of the ability of the theist to meet the 'show me' challenge, it is reasonable to assume that these claims are based on personal belief rather than fact.

It is hard to take piece of 'logic' or argument seriously in absence of real world data in which to examine and test. That is the standard for acceptable evidence.

It has to pass the 'show me' test..and you have to be able to explain the reason that something IS evidence for God. Yes, it's a high standard, but 'God' is a very extraordinary claim.. with nothing that has passed the 'Show Me' test yet.

This is an example of what I mean by disagreement about what counts as evidence. You are demanding a certain kind of evidence that is inappropriate to the matter at hand.

There are many kinds of things that cannot pass the "show me" test: the existence of minds other than one's own, for example, or logical or mathematical truths, or of course this one:

"No one should believe anything that does not pass the 'show me' test."

Are you prepared to show me, all of us, that this is objectively, empirically true?

I honestly see no possible way that you or anyone could do this, although if you can, I'd love to see it. What sort of experiment or empirical observation could possibly establish the epistemological principle that "All claims require empirical evidence before being accepted"?

You have painted yourself into the same philosophical corner as the verificationists did, when they maintained that PV: "Only propositions which are logically analytically true or propositions which are empirically verifiable are meaningful." (They did a bit better than you, since they recognized purely formal, logical truths. It's a bit hard to dispute the truth of things like "All prime numbers are numbers.")

The problem, of course, is that PV itself is neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable, with the delightful consequence that, if it is true, it is meaningless, and therefore neither true nor false, and therefore not true.

Of course, PV can still be (and is) false. I foresee the same fate for your 'show me' principle.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

The thing with the subjective evidence, two questions have to be asked. 1) How do you know that the evidence you claim is not self generated emotional response from within yourself.. and two. .. how do you know your interpretation of your experience is correct.

That is the difference between the 'private' evidence and the 'public' evidence. With public evidence, those issue can be addressed. With the 'private' evidence, a person might be convinced,.. but they can't show that they are right.

One thing that can be verified is that.. well, people fool themselves, and that the senses are subject to error.

It seems to me that people who reject the principle of 'let's check it out and see if our assumptions are correct' tend to want to promote 'faith'.

The bar for reasonable evidence is set much high for the average atheist. There is the logical fallacy of equivocation about what is evidence here, because objective evidence, which the atheists uses when it makes that line of argumentation, is a much different beast than the subjective evidence for the theist.

So you aren't going to try to show us that the 'show me' principle is reasonable?

How about this: Can you show that your principle of objective evidence is an objective principle, and not just a subjective preference on your part?

I'm all for the principle

CIO: "let's check it out and test our assumptions,"

so long as that's what you really want to do. But if by this you mean "My assumptions about which assumptions are sound need not be checked, but only yours do," then no. And if you mean "Let's check it out, but only by the means that I have approved by fiat", then also no.

You have done a nice job of sabotaging a logical statement by embedding it in an epistemic context. From the sociological fact that many or most atheists "set the bar" at such and such, it does not follow that the theist is somehow at fault for not meeting this bar. The proper question, of course, is where the bar ought to be set depending on the matter at hand.

For example: Are you honestly in doubt that you have a mind and that in this mind you have thoughts?

It is trivially obvious, as Descartes pointed out centuries ago, that this fact, my awareness of my own existence as a thinking being, is far more certain than any empirical matter ever could be, even in principle--since my existing and having a mind capable of having experience at all is necessarily logically prior to any experience I may or may not have.

Thus, although it is true that there is no "public" evidence of the existence of my mind, it is not irrational for me to believe I have one. In fact, any attempt on my part to believe that I do not exist is logically contradictory, and so, irrational and insane.

It may be an unfortunate truth that not all truths are objective in the way in which you desire, but reality is under no obligation to conform to your desires.

Here's your argument, as best I can tell:

1. I like evidence of the public kind, since it has the advantage of being check-able by many people.
2. Some things cannot be made evident by the public kind of evidence I like.
3. Therefore, these things cannot be known.

I like public evidence too. Public evidence is good when we can get it, but sometimes we can't.

But to conclude that where we cannot get it, we cannot have a warranted or rational belief is false. A single counterexample of something that cannot be made publicly evident but nevertheless can be known with certainty suffices to show this. And I have provided such a counterexample: My justified and certain belief in the existence of my own consciousness.

But worse for you, your argument is not only invalid, but entirely irrelevant, since I (at least) was not arguing that the existence of God ought to be proven by private evidence.

I think the existence of God can be made evident by public, objective evidence.

I do not think, however, that this can be made evident by sense experience, which is what you seem to mean by "objective."

Of course, this also is not correct. "Objective" has no necessary connection with the senses or sense experience. It has a historical connection in that one school of philosophical thought (or loose cluster of schools), namely empiricism, holds that sense experience is the only possible source of objective knowledge.

Of course, empiricism in any form will fall prey to the same contradiction: the claim that only sense experience can provide objective knowledge is not a claim that can be grounded in sense experience, and so must be, by its own terms, merely a subjective belief, and therefore not (objectively) true.

It might help if you defined your terms, particularly "objective" and "subjective."

After all, all knowledge is "subjective" in the sense of requiring there to be subjectivity, that is, a mind, present. Knowledge seems not to exist apart from the mind. Similarly, all knowledge is "objective" in the sense that it has an object: knowledge is intentional: knowledge is always "knowledge of ...", to know is to know something.

The terms "objective" and "subjective" are terminally vague unless further specified, and so next to useless in serious discussions, unless defined carefully.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

[Johannes]

If God exists, He defined us, not the other way around. Can you even conceptualize what you don't believe in?

I think the question should be, "Can you believe in what you cannot even conceptualize?" Theists claim to believe in the existence of God, yet they cannot provide a coherent definition of what it is that they claim to believe in. They seem to play semantic games defining the word God to mean something which is incomprehensible. Whenever theists resorts to terms like: infinite, transcendent, unknowable, being outside of space and time, all they are doing is obscuring God into a meaningless concept which is incoherent. If God is unknowable, then our conversation has ended. I don't know anything more about the unknowable God than anyone else does.

You are making the error common to all rationalists. Let us call it the Principle of Conceivability (PC): "Whatever cannot be conceived of, cannot be known."

Now, if this meant no more than, "Whatever cannot be conceived of because it is self-contradictory and whatever is self-contradictory cannot be" then there would be no problem.

But it is false that I cannot have knowledge of something of which I have no concept, by its effects if by nothing else. For example, before the discovery of microorganisms, no one had any clear concept of bacteria or viruses -- and yet they knew perfectly well that they were sick and that something was the cause of the sickness. So in a way, such people did have a very limited concept of bacteria, namely, the concept "something which is the cause of my sickness, whatever it may turn out to be like."

Nor do I need to have a concept of a baseball bat to be knocked senseless by one.

No one has an adequate concept of "nature" yet, since many things in nature have yet to be understood and some may never be. By your argument, one would have to hold that, since we do not have a final concept of nature, necessarily we have no knowledge about nature.

But it is simply false that not having an adequate conceptual grasp of the essence of a thing entails that one has no knowledge whatever of that thing, its properties, or its effects.

There is nothing logically problematic about holding:

1. The essence of God is not known to any but God.
2. The existence of God can be known without knowing the divine essence.
3. Many attributes of God can be known without knowing the divine essence.

The reason that speech about God seems unusual is not that theists are trying to avoid playing by the normal rules of discourse, but that the normal rules of discourse break down when reason approaches certain limits.

This phenomenon is not unique to God. It is also found, to give to obvious examples, in speech about being and non-being. Any attempt to speak about non-being runs into this difficulty: how can one speak meaningfully about that which is not?

This led Parmenides to assert "Non-being cannot be said or thought." Which is an unusual thing to say.

Plato used this to present a wonderful argument that any sophist may use to prove that he is not a sophist:

1. The sophist is the one who says that which is not.
2. But that which is not cannot be said.
3. Therefore, there are no sophists.
4. Therefore, I am not a sophist.

But really, the contradiction is on your side. You are asking the theist to do the impossible, namely to DE-FINE that which is IN-FIN-ITE. To define a thing is to make it definite in speech as to what it is and is not, but marking off its boundaries and limits. But that which is infinite has no boundaries or limits. It follows that the infinite (necessarily, logically) cannot be defined.

There are only two ways one can speak about God properly, although each falls short of saying what God is: one can speak apophatically (negatively), wherein one says what God is not (e.g. not finite, not limited, not in space or time, not mortal not a body); or analogically, wherein one says 'what God is like' without saying what He is in Himself, e.g. when we say "God is wise", or "God is a Father", we speak analogically.

I understand your point, that it looks like the theist is "cheating" when he insists that God is not comparable to anything else--but since the theist's whole claim is that God is not comparable to anything else, there is no reason to think that speech about God should play by the same rules as speech about normal things.

Which is not to say that we cannot speak about God. Only that we have to be very careful in our speech, and not be surprised when we run into problems or even when we reach a point where speech entirely breaks down. And this is in itself not unreasonable. It is really not different than to note that, while it is usually reasonable to demand a logical argument in support of a claim, it is not always reasonable; for example, it is unreasonable to demand that one demonstrate the reliability of logic by means of a logical argument. This is not to impugn logic (God forbid!) but merely to note that, like definition (which is properly part of logic), logic has limits. I don't think this should be very controversial.

I see no reason to think "anything we cannot adequately put into speech necessarily does not exist." I cannot put my love for my mother adequately into speech, nor can I translate my favorite painting adequately into speech, nor can I put exactly how my lower back pain feels into speech, nor any sensation, and so on. It seems manifestly unreasonable to hold that our powers of reason, speech, definition, and conceptualization are such that they dictate what can and cannot be.

The problem is that you have taken the true principle "We should always give precise definitions for our terms whenever necessary and possible" and shortened it to "We should always give precise definitions of our terms," probably by way of the false premise "Everything that is, can be defined." But this is to demand more of our power of definition or conceptualization than it can supply. Again, it is like demanding that logic "prove" itself, which it cannot do, on the grounds that other things can be proven by logic, so logic too must be one of the things that logic can prove. But this extension of logic beyond its proper power, while understandable, is not reasonable.

Any definition of God is necessarily going to be either 1. negative, 2. analogical, or 3. false.

It is not even correct to say that "God is," except analogically. God is not some definite, concrete being among other beings that just happens to be in a really impressive way. God is, as Plato put it, "beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power."

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

[Goat]

[Replying to post 1 by pmprcv]

I think many atheists put forward something like the following argument:

A1. It is reasonable not to believe in the existence of something for which insufficient evidence exists.
A2. There is insufficient evidence that God exists.
A3. Therefore, it is reasonable not to believe that God exists.

Let's modified the A2 just slightly. "There is insufficient OBJECTIVE evidence to show God exists". I am sure that if you asked most atheists, they will say agree to that modification. That means, that evidence has to be 'public' evidence. When examples are given, it is either the logical fallacy of 'argument from personal belief', entirely subjective, testimonial, or emotional. None of it passes the 'How do you know it's God' question, or 'show me'.

In absence of the ability of the theist to meet the 'show me' challenge, it is reasonable to assume that these claims are based on personal belief rather than fact.

It is hard to take piece of 'logic' or argument seriously in absence of real world data in which to examine and test. That is the standard for acceptable evidence.

It has to pass the 'show me' test..and you have to be able to explain the reason that something IS evidence for God. Yes, it's a high standard, but 'God' is a very extraordinary claim.. with nothing that has passed the 'Show Me' test yet.

This is an example of what I mean by disagreement about what counts as evidence. You are demanding a certain kind of evidence that is inappropriate to the matter at hand.

There are many kinds of things that cannot pass the "show me" test: the existence of minds other than one's own, for example, or logical or mathematical truths, or of course this one:

"No one should believe anything that does not pass the 'show me' test."

Are you prepared to show me, all of us, that this is objectively, empirically true?

I honestly see no possible way that you or anyone could do this, although if you can, I'd love to see it. What sort of experiment or empirical observation could possibly establish the epistemological principle that "All claims require empirical evidence before being accepted"?

You have painted yourself into the same philosophical corner as the verificationists did, when they maintained that PV: "Only propositions which are logically analytically true or propositions which are empirically verifiable are meaningful." (They did a bit better than you, since they recognized purely formal, logical truths. It's a bit hard to dispute the truth of things like "All prime numbers are numbers.")

The problem, of course, is that PV itself is neither analytically true nor empirically verifiable, with the delightful consequence that, if it is true, it is meaningless, and therefore neither true nor false, and therefore not true.

Of course, PV can still be (and is) false. I foresee the same fate for your 'show me' principle.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

The thing with the subjective evidence, two questions have to be asked. 1) How do you know that the evidence you claim is not self generated emotional response from within yourself.. and two. .. how do you know your interpretation of your experience is correct.

That is the difference between the 'private' evidence and the 'public' evidence. With public evidence, those issue can be addressed. With the 'private' evidence, a person might be convinced,.. but they can't show that they are right.

One thing that can be verified is that.. well, people fool themselves, and that the senses are subject to error.

It seems to me that people who reject the principle of 'let's check it out and see if our assumptions are correct' tend to want to promote 'faith'.

The bar for reasonable evidence is set much high for the average atheist. There is the logical fallacy of equivocation about what is evidence here, because objective evidence, which the atheists uses when it makes that line of argumentation, is a much different beast than the subjective evidence for the theist.

So you aren't going to try to show us that the 'show me' principle is reasonable?

How about this: Can you show that your principle of objective evidence is an objective principle, and not just a subjective preference on your part?

I'm all for the principle

CIO: "let's check it out and test our assumptions,"

so long as that's what you really want to do. But if by this you mean "My assumptions about which assumptions are sound need not be checked, but only yours do," then no. And if you mean "Let's check it out, but only by the means that I have approved by fiat", then also no.

You have done a nice job of sabotaging a logical statement by embedding it in an epistemic context. From the sociological fact that many or most atheists "set the bar" at such and such, it does not follow that the theist is somehow at fault for not meeting this bar. The proper question, of course, is where the bar ought to be set depending on the matter at hand.

For example: Are you honestly in doubt that you have a mind and that in this mind you have thoughts?

It is trivially obvious, as Descartes pointed out centuries ago, that this fact, my awareness of my own existence as a thinking being, is far more certain than any empirical matter ever could be, even in principle--since my existing and having a mind capable of having experience at all is necessarily logically prior to any experience I may or may not have.

Thus, although it is true that there is no "public" evidence of the existence of my mind, it is not irrational for me to believe I have one. In fact, any attempt on my part to believe that I do not exist is logically contradictory, and so, irrational and insane.

It may be an unfortunate truth that not all truths are objective in the way in which you desire, but reality is under no obligation to conform to your desires.

Here's your argument, as best I can tell:

1. I like evidence of the public kind, since it has the advantage of being check-able by many people.
2. Some things cannot be made evident by the public kind of evidence I like.
3. Therefore, these things cannot be known.

I like public evidence too. Public evidence is good when we can get it, but sometimes we can't.

But to conclude that where we cannot get it, we cannot have a warranted or rational belief is false. A single counterexample of something that cannot be made publicly evident but nevertheless can be known with certainty suffices to show this. And I have provided such a counterexample: My justified and certain belief in the existence of my own consciousness.

But worse for you, your argument is not only invalid, but entirely irrelevant, since I (at least) was not arguing that the existence of God ought to be proven by private evidence.

I think the existence of God can be made evident by public, objective evidence.

I do not think, however, that this can be made evident by sense experience, which is what you seem to mean by "objective."

Of course, this also is not correct. "Objective" has no necessary connection with the senses or sense experience. It has a historical connection in that one school of philosophical thought (or loose cluster of schools), namely empiricism, holds that sense experience is the only possible source of objective knowledge.

Of course, empiricism in any form will fall prey to the same contradiction: the claim that only sense experience can provide objective knowledge is not a claim that can be grounded in sense experience, and so must be, by its own terms, merely a subjective belief, and therefore not (objectively) true.

It might help if you defined your terms, particularly "objective" and "subjective."

After all, all knowledge is "subjective" in the sense of requiring there to be subjectivity, that is, a mind, present. Knowledge seems not to exist apart from the mind. Similarly, all knowledge is "objective" in the sense that it has an object: knowledge is intentional: knowledge is always "knowledge of ...", to know is to know something.

The terms "objective" and "subjective" are terminally vague unless further specified, and so next to useless in serious discussions, unless defined carefully.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

Well, without the ability to test, how do you know if something is even provisionally true? I can demonstrate that people make claims.. and I can also demonstrate that most often, when someone comes up with an idea or new concept, if it can be tested, is usually wrong.

A. J Ayer said that if a proposition can't be tested, then it has no real meaning. I can't falsify that attitude. Can you?

Can you show that the claims of the theist is meaningful if it can't be tested?

[Artie]

So, the evidence you give us to believe that faith is based only on authority,

My quote doesn't say that faith is based only on authority but on for example authority, revelation or inspiration. Did you read it?

Are you saying you believe this by faith? Or do you just want us to accept your appeal to authority?

Do you understand what an appeal to authority is? An appeal to authority is if you claim that something is true because a god says so. I don't say it's true because Princeton says so, Princeton says so because it's true. See the difference?

[Ooberman]

If God exists, He defined us, not the other way around. Can you even conceptualize what you don't believe in?

I think the question should be, "Can you believe in what you cannot even conceptualize?" Theists claim to believe in the existence of God, yet they cannot provide a coherent definition of what it is that they claim to believe in. They seem to play semantic games defining the word God to mean something which is incomprehensible. Whenever theists resorts to terms like: infinite, transcendent, unknowable, being outside of space and time, all they are doing is obscuring God into a meaningless concept which is incoherent. If God is unknowable, then our conversation has ended. I don't know anything more about the unknowable God than anyone else does.

You are making the error common to all rationalists. Let us call it the Principle of Conceivability (PC): "Whatever cannot be conceived of, cannot be known."

Now, if this meant no more than, "Whatever cannot be conceived of because it is self-contradictory and whatever is self-contradictory cannot be" then there would be no problem.

But it is false that I cannot have knowledge of something of which I have no concept, by its effects if by nothing else. For example, before the discovery of microorganisms, no one had any clear concept of bacteria or viruses -- and yet they knew perfectly well that they were sick and that something was the cause of the sickness. So in a way, such people did have a very limited concept of bacteria, namely, the concept "something which is the cause of my sickness, whatever it may turn out to be like."

Nor do I need to have a concept of a baseball bat to be knocked senseless by one.

No one has an adequate concept of "nature" yet, since many things in nature have yet to be understood and some may never be. By your argument, one would have to hold that, since we do not have a final concept of nature, necessarily we have no knowledge about nature.

But it is simply false that not having an adequate conceptual grasp of the essence of a thing entails that one has no knowledge whatever of that thing, its properties, or its effects.

There is nothing logically problematic about holding:

1. The essence of God is not known to any but God.
2. The existence of God can be known without knowing the divine essence.
3. Many attributes of God can be known without knowing the divine essence.

The reason that speech about God seems unusual is not that theists are trying to avoid playing by the normal rules of discourse, but that the normal rules of discourse break down when reason approaches certain limits.

This phenomenon is not unique to God. It is also found, to give to obvious examples, in speech about being and non-being. Any attempt to speak about non-being runs into this difficulty: how can one speak meaningfully about that which is not?

This led Parmenides to assert "Non-being cannot be said or thought." Which is an unusual thing to say.

Plato used this to present a wonderful argument that any sophist may use to prove that he is not a sophist:

1. The sophist is the one who says that which is not.
2. But that which is not cannot be said.
3. Therefore, there are no sophists.
4. Therefore, I am not a sophist.

But really, the contradiction is on your side. You are asking the theist to do the impossible, namely to DE-FINE that which is IN-FIN-ITE. To define a thing is to make it definite in speech as to what it is and is not, but marking off its boundaries and limits. But that which is infinite has no boundaries or limits. It follows that the infinite (necessarily, logically) cannot be defined.

There are only two ways one can speak about God properly, although each falls short of saying what God is: one can speak apophatically (negatively), wherein one says what God is not (e.g. not finite, not limited, not in space or time, not mortal not a body); or analogically, wherein one says 'what God is like' without saying what He is in Himself, e.g. when we say "God is wise", or "God is a Father", we speak analogically.

I understand your point, that it looks like the theist is "cheating" when he insists that God is not comparable to anything else--but since the theist's whole claim is that God is not comparable to anything else, there is no reason to think that speech about God should play by the same rules as speech about normal things.

Which is not to say that we cannot speak about God. Only that we have to be very careful in our speech, and not be surprised when we run into problems or even when we reach a point where speech entirely breaks down. And this is in itself not unreasonable. It is really not different than to note that, while it is usually reasonable to demand a logical argument in support of a claim, it is not always reasonable; for example, it is unreasonable to demand that one demonstrate the reliability of logic by means of a logical argument. This is not to impugn logic (God forbid!) but merely to note that, like definition (which is properly part of logic), logic has limits. I don't think this should be very controversial.

I see no reason to think "anything we cannot adequately put into speech necessarily does not exist." I cannot put my love for my mother adequately into speech, nor can I translate my favorite painting adequately into speech, nor can I put exactly how my lower back pain feels into speech, nor any sensation, and so on. It seems manifestly unreasonable to hold that our powers of reason, speech, definition, and conceptualization are such that they dictate what can and cannot be.

The problem is that you have taken the true principle "We should always give precise definitions for our terms whenever necessary and possible" and shortened it to "We should always give precise definitions of our terms," probably by way of the false premise "Everything that is, can be defined." But this is to demand more of our power of definition or conceptualization than it can supply. Again, it is like demanding that logic "prove" itself, which it cannot do, on the grounds that other things can be proven by logic, so logic too must be one of the things that logic can prove. But this extension of logic beyond its proper power, while understandable, is not reasonable.

Any definition of God is necessarily going to be either 1. negative, 2. analogical, or 3. false.

It is not even correct to say that "God is," except analogically. God is not some definite, concrete being among other beings that just happens to be in a really impressive way. God is, as Plato put it, "beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power."

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

You assert, however, that God is Infinite. This a wonderful claim, but since I am not aware of God, then there is a place, physical and metaphysical, where God is not.

If there is one thing that God isn't, then God isn't infinite.

[Johannes]

If God exists, He defined us, not the other way around. Can you even conceptualize what you don't believe in?

I think the question should be, "Can you believe in what you cannot even conceptualize?" Theists claim to believe in the existence of God, yet they cannot provide a coherent definition of what it is that they claim to believe in. They seem to play semantic games defining the word God to mean something which is incomprehensible. Whenever theists resorts to terms like: infinite, transcendent, unknowable, being outside of space and time, all they are doing is obscuring God into a meaningless concept which is incoherent. If God is unknowable, then our conversation has ended. I don't know anything more about the unknowable God than anyone else does.

You are making the error common to all rationalists. Let us call it the Principle of Conceivability (PC): "Whatever cannot be conceived of, cannot be known."

Now, if this meant no more than, "Whatever cannot be conceived of because it is self-contradictory and whatever is self-contradictory cannot be" then there would be no problem.

But it is false that I cannot have knowledge of something of which I have no concept, by its effects if by nothing else. For example, before the discovery of microorganisms, no one had any clear concept of bacteria or viruses -- and yet they knew perfectly well that they were sick and that something was the cause of the sickness. So in a way, such people did have a very limited concept of bacteria, namely, the concept "something which is the cause of my sickness, whatever it may turn out to be like."

Nor do I need to have a concept of a baseball bat to be knocked senseless by one.

No one has an adequate concept of "nature" yet, since many things in nature have yet to be understood and some may never be. By your argument, one would have to hold that, since we do not have a final concept of nature, necessarily we have no knowledge about nature.

But it is simply false that not having an adequate conceptual grasp of the essence of a thing entails that one has no knowledge whatever of that thing, its properties, or its effects.

There is nothing logically problematic about holding:

1. The essence of God is not known to any but God.
2. The existence of God can be known without knowing the divine essence.
3. Many attributes of God can be known without knowing the divine essence.

The reason that speech about God seems unusual is not that theists are trying to avoid playing by the normal rules of discourse, but that the normal rules of discourse break down when reason approaches certain limits.

This phenomenon is not unique to God. It is also found, to give to obvious examples, in speech about being and non-being. Any attempt to speak about non-being runs into this difficulty: how can one speak meaningfully about that which is not?

This led Parmenides to assert "Non-being cannot be said or thought." Which is an unusual thing to say.

Plato used this to present a wonderful argument that any sophist may use to prove that he is not a sophist:

1. The sophist is the one who says that which is not.
2. But that which is not cannot be said.
3. Therefore, there are no sophists.
4. Therefore, I am not a sophist.

But really, the contradiction is on your side. You are asking the theist to do the impossible, namely to DE-FINE that which is IN-FIN-ITE. To define a thing is to make it definite in speech as to what it is and is not, but marking off its boundaries and limits. But that which is infinite has no boundaries or limits. It follows that the infinite (necessarily, logically) cannot be defined.

There are only two ways one can speak about God properly, although each falls short of saying what God is: one can speak apophatically (negatively), wherein one says what God is not (e.g. not finite, not limited, not in space or time, not mortal not a body); or analogically, wherein one says 'what God is like' without saying what He is in Himself, e.g. when we say "God is wise", or "God is a Father", we speak analogically.

I understand your point, that it looks like the theist is "cheating" when he insists that God is not comparable to anything else--but since the theist's whole claim is that God is not comparable to anything else, there is no reason to think that speech about God should play by the same rules as speech about normal things.

Which is not to say that we cannot speak about God. Only that we have to be very careful in our speech, and not be surprised when we run into problems or even when we reach a point where speech entirely breaks down. And this is in itself not unreasonable. It is really not different than to note that, while it is usually reasonable to demand a logical argument in support of a claim, it is not always reasonable; for example, it is unreasonable to demand that one demonstrate the reliability of logic by means of a logical argument. This is not to impugn logic (God forbid!) but merely to note that, like definition (which is properly part of logic), logic has limits. I don't think this should be very controversial.

I see no reason to think "anything we cannot adequately put into speech necessarily does not exist." I cannot put my love for my mother adequately into speech, nor can I translate my favorite painting adequately into speech, nor can I put exactly how my lower back pain feels into speech, nor any sensation, and so on. It seems manifestly unreasonable to hold that our powers of reason, speech, definition, and conceptualization are such that they dictate what can and cannot be.

The problem is that you have taken the true principle "We should always give precise definitions for our terms whenever necessary and possible" and shortened it to "We should always give precise definitions of our terms," probably by way of the false premise "Everything that is, can be defined." But this is to demand more of our power of definition or conceptualization than it can supply. Again, it is like demanding that logic "prove" itself, which it cannot do, on the grounds that other things can be proven by logic, so logic too must be one of the things that logic can prove. But this extension of logic beyond its proper power, while understandable, is not reasonable.

Any definition of God is necessarily going to be either 1. negative, 2. analogical, or 3. false.

It is not even correct to say that "God is," except analogically. God is not some definite, concrete being among other beings that just happens to be in a really impressive way. God is, as Plato put it, "beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power."

You assert, however, that God is Infinite. This a wonderful claim, but since I am not aware of God, then there is a place, physical and metaphysical, where God is not.

If there is one thing that God isn't, then God isn't infinite.

Your awareness exists. Therefore, God is present in it as its ground. Yours too. Since nothing can be apart from being, nothing that actually exists can be apart from God.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

[Goat]

Your awareness exists. Therefore, God is present in it as its ground. Yours too. Since nothing can be apart from being, nothing that actually exists can be apart from God.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

It that true? Can you show me why anything is God? I mean, do you have anything that can tell me WHY that this is so, other than argument from personal belief?

[Sweet~T]

What if I argue that god exists but.not because of faith? I say god exists based on logic because logically speaking he has to.
When a building pops up in your hometown do you supppse no one built it?
When you buy a book at the store do you suppose no one wrote it?

Furthermore, science hasn't really done a whole lot to disprove god, I don't think. In my mind all science has done is proven god's intelligence. As we are tje living proof of god's design.
So in all this what are we lpgically left with?
The universe is a child of intelligent design.

If you need proof then look around at this miraculous world, and if that isn't enough proof look deep into the night amd just try to comprehend the infinitely complex universe we live in. We cannot comprehend its entirety, but wouldn't you suppose that an omnipotent abd omniscien god would be able to not only comprehend it but design it and build it and set himself up noce in the timeless spaceless vpid of pre big bang. Why do science and religion have to be at war?

Plus if the history of the universe didn't play out in such detail we would not exist. Minus even one moon from another galaxy and gravitational balance is thrown off and our planet. never forms life because it's too close to the sun.

All science does is explain why every religion is wrongbut not why gpd doen't exist. And just like innoce.t until proven guilty, real until proven as falsehood.

Although do not mistake this as my actual belief, I merely play devil's advocate to argue for a god that won't speak for herself.

[Ooberman]

Your awareness exists. Therefore, God is present in it as its ground. Yours too. Since nothing can be apart from being, nothing that actually exists can be apart from God.

ζητειτε,
_Johannes

1. You are asserting God at the Ground. Why can't Existence be at the Ground, and then God? I see no reason to assume one or the other.

2. Also, does Evil exist? Is God at the ground of Evil too?

3. I find your position to be impotent. It's an admission that you can't prove God, so you simply assert God is Existence, Existence Exists, therefore God exists.

But I already knew Existence exists. It's absurd to think otherwise, and inserting God into the mix isn't necessary.

4. Also, if our knowledge is finite, and God is infinite, then our lack of knowledge of God is - by definition - infinite.

That is, no matter how much we learn about God there is still an infinite amount we don't know. This is absurd.

5. God, the whole concept, is absurd and asserting the existence of God simply makes it more absurd.

6. And as the previous post alludes. If you have just proved the existence of God, then you have demolished Faith and we are all robots.

[Hatuey]

What if I argue that god exists but.not because of faith? I say god exists based on logic because logically speaking he has to.
When a building pops up in your hometown do you supppse no one built it?
When you buy a book at the store do you suppose no one wrote it

We know of only one universe and we don't know if it is the result of any thinking mind.

We know of thousands of buildings and millions of books and we DO know that they were all made by human minds and hands.

A reasonable scientist sees no way to conclusively compare a universe with books and buildings; thus, logically, we can only say that we do not know how the universe came to be.

Furthermore, science hasn't really done a whole lot to disprove god, I don't think.

Science doesn't attempt to disprove any beings who cannot be detected or measured in any way. Unicorns, like gods, are not currently detectable by any method of measurement. Science hasn't done anything to disprove unicorns or gods.

In my mind all science has done is proven god's intelligence. As we are tje living proof of god's design.
So in all this what are we lpgically left with?
The universe is a child of intelligent design.

Science hasn't proven anything about god. Science has shown the universe to be amazingly complex in scale and function and "fractally," but just because the universe is really cool and there's a lot we don't yet know doesn't mean we should assume that an invisible and undetectable "god" must have done it.

If you need proof then look around at this miraculous world, and if that isn't enough proof look deep into the night amd just try to comprehend the infinitely complex universe we live in. We cannot comprehend its entirety, but wouldn't you suppose that an omnipotent abd omniscien god would be able to not only comprehend it but design it and build it and set himself up noce in the timeless spaceless vpid of pre big bang. Why do science and religion have to be at war?

Science and religion are at war like astronomy and astrology are at war: they aren't. Science doesn't deal with what cannot be detected and measured; science doesn't comment on religion or god except to show where religion makes scientific claims that it has no right to make (The earth is 6-10k years old).

Plus if the history of the universe didn't play out in such detail we would not exist. Minus even one moon from another galaxy and gravitational balance is thrown off and our planet. never forms life because it's too close to the sun.

That statement is astoundingly incorrect. Whole galaxies could be eliminated from the universe and it wouldn't affect our Milky Way or Solar system in the slightest.

Also, nobody has any idea what kind of life can exist. Many extremophiles could exist if the earth had a completely different orbit (closer in or further away from the sun) and even if the chemical composition of the earth were toxic to all mammals.

All science does is explain why every religion is wrongbut not why gpd doen't exist. And just like innoce.t until proven guilty, real until proven as falsehood.

Science does not "explain why every religion is wrong." Science doesn't directly comment on religion at all.

Although do not mistake this as my actual belief, I merely play devil's advocate to argue for a god that won't speak for herself.

A being or thing which cannot be detected is irrelevant.