The only two reasonable positions on the existence of God?

[ThePainefulTruth]

Atheism and Deism? From our standpoint, those two philosophies are indistinguishable. All others can be dismissed on the basis of reason/science since other theologies inevitably have to resort to faith (blind faith) to justify ignoring reason and logic.

[Cathar1950]

How can you show what is in any 'possible world' without real world data.

That doesn't make any sense.

It's all find to yak about 'possible word', but how can we tell if any world is actually possible?

By definition, a possible world is any world without a logical contradiction.

That is a screwed up definition.

Your beef isn't with me. I hadda learn that lingo in order to refute Plantinga. You don't have to use it at all. Just don't go there. But to use it and complain about it is like complaining to Parisians that their idea of the French language doesn't accord with how you would have designed it.

Just because there are no 'logical contradictions' doesn't mean it is possible.

Again, by definition, that is exactly what it means.

Little things like.. reality get in the way.

The only possible world that has to do with reality is Kronos, the actual world.

Of course,this reinforces the concept to me that philosophy is not interested in reality, but rather fancy word games that quite often are meaningless.

I don't understand why you're in this conversation. Would you complain to mathematicians that they call some numbers "irrational" but use them anyway?

Because, the thread was specifically about 'Are there more than two reasonable positions about God', which was a false dichotomy. I pointed out several other reasonable positions, although I don't hold those positions. Those positions, and the initial two positions about God say nothing about the fluff and nonsense of 'possible worlds', and other pseudo intellectual pieces of nonsense.

I agree, it is a false dichotomy and only on one proposition concerning the existence of "God" which is first about meaning. I don't feel that comfortable at times even using the term as it is loaded with many meaning, feelings and varying conceptions, some worse that others.
The metaphysical "God", divine or deity, I learned it as natural theology through process thought and in my studies on novelty, creativity, change as it related to science and theology or religion in general.

What I often find missing in these threads is an adequate history or even historical understanding held by those making claims about such things and are usually 100 years behind the philosophy that was behind the science for the last 100 years or so.
It isn't just the theist or more properly "classical theist" but also many of the atheist that rightly reject the meaning of "God" held by the classical theist but accept it for argument while the classical theist begs the question for theirs by using poorly understood metaphysics and what it can and can not say about the existences of any gods.
I think the idea of "God", or whatever they might mean nonsense and all, is the issue and the meaning pretty much settles the arguments.
The weak argument concerns "God" as greatest conceivable existence or "being'.
The intelligent argument against this definition concerns the conceivability of "God"
Can "God" even be conceived and what does greatest even mean?
Anselm assumed everyone knew the meaning of "God" and has been proven wrong.
Of course "greatest" must at the very least be all inclusive, at least in conception.

All he managed to show is that the atheist that argues the possibility of "God" yet rejects "God" because there is no empirical evidence is wrong as "God's" existence was necessary and not empirically proven nor disproven, he also showed that his concept of God was nonsense as his concept of "God" was the unmoved mover with his other argument that "God" was unsurpassable.
Process thought, metaphysics or natural theology see "God" as all inclusive and unsurpassable except "God" can surpass "God" with the value received from creation making "God" the ultimate unsurpassable creature related socially to the all encompassing existence or being.
The same events, experiences, data, facts or concrete reality are our tools and the method is about meaning and analysis, the universal is an abstraction and a postulate that all actualities have in common in which each particular represents creating successions of novel events. Theists and atheists alike are in the same mental and physical boat that is mental.
But I have spent much time looking at the philosophy of science and some forms of metaphysical ideas have been found useful as we discover even more odd and complex phenomena. But we need to make sure we are not mislead by there poor metaphysics and sophisms.

[wiploc]

How can you show what is in any 'possible world' without real world data.

That doesn't make any sense.

It's all find to yak about 'possible word', but how can we tell if any world is actually possible?

By definition, a possible world is any world without a logical contradiction.

I find that an unacceptable definition

Then make up your own language. In possible-world speak, that is the definition.

I am not making up my own definition,

I'm not accusing you of that. I'm suggesting that you you don't like this language (possible-world speak) then you shouldn't use it. You should use some other language that has definitions that you approve of. There's no point in speaking French if you don't like saying "oui," and there no point in using possible-world speak if you object to the meaning of "possible world."

you seem to be confusing the definition as without contradiction is the goal of any definition or system.

I've read it over and over, and that does not appear to make sense. Perhaps you can rephrase?

What is it that is suppose to be non-contradictory, the possible world?

If a world contains a contradiction, it is an impossible world. Plantinga gives the example of a godless world that is created by god. Any world without logical contradictions is a possible world.

I am not a fan of Plantinga

Nor am I.

and it has been many years since I have read any of his work, like Craig I tend to see him as more apologist than philosopher, Craig being worse.

Craig is a charlatan.

I recall one poster that made the claim that Craig was one of the top 25 philosophers,

Top 25 salesmen, maybe.

I tend to think he might be one of the 25 worse as he is a sophist and where it counts falls back on faith as he knows his arguments fail and reassures his reader that even if all his arguments fail then they too can fall back on faith.

Plantinga does that too.

What is being stressed is that a necessary existence or Being would be true for all possible worlds,

Which can't be true because some possible worlds don't have necessary beings.

I also disagree with the idea of a greatest conceivable existence,

Greatness is undefined.

possible world, Conception of a total way the universe might have been. It is often contrasted with the way things actually are. [emphasis added]

Sure. But for a world to be a possible world, as opposed to an impossible world, it has to be possible. It has to be a way the world might have been (all women are young and horny, and you are the only man) as opposed to a world that cannot have been (bachelors are married, circles have corners, the world is both godless and made by god).




Here's Wikipedia: "Impossible propositions (or necessarily false propositions) are those that are true in no possible world (for example: "Melissa and Toby are taller than each other at the same time")."

That is to say, a possible world is one without impossibilities.

[enaidealukal]

That is a screwed up definition. Just because there are no 'logical contradictions' doesn't mean it is possible.

Logically possible, yes, that's exactly what it means. "Possibility" is a technical term in logic that doesn't mean exactly the same thing as it does in colloquial discourse- so the problem lies on your end. Possibility, in logic, is a way of talking about internal consistency.

Of course,this reinforces the concept to me that philosophy is not interested in reality, but rather fancy word games that quite often are meaningless.

Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it meaningless or unconnected to reality. Possible-world semantics, and modal logic generally, are useful because they allow us formalize (and thus rigorously evaluate and represent) claims about modality, which is a basic and essential aspect of our ability to talk about/represent the world.

the fluff and nonsense of 'possible worlds', and other pseudo intellectual pieces of nonsense.

The dismissal of an entire academic field on the basis of ignorance /misunderstanding strikes me as a far better fit for the label of "pseudo intellectual piece of nonsense"... But that's just me.

[enaidealukal]

Atheism and Deism? From our standpoint, those two philosophies are indistinguishable.

Well, not necessarily. Obviously Deism is distinguished from atheism insofar as deism posits a creator-God; and its quite plausible that a supernatural creation event would entail certain sorts of evidence that would uniquely imply this event. In other words, a universe which was created by a Divine Clockmaker (as deism pictures God) would arguably look different than a universe that was not- there would be data which could not be accounted for purely in naturalistic terms ("irreducibly complex" structures perhaps?).

If, however, the existence of a deistic God doesn't have any unique evidentiary implications, then it has no discernible truth-conditions and is, from an explanatory standpoint, entirely vacuous. There wouldn't appear to be any rational basis which would warrant belief in deism as opposed to some other position. Indeed, the belief which distinguishes deism would be merely a difference which makes no difference at all.

In any case, RE the thread title: given that all of the arguments for the existence of God (ontological, cosmological, teleological, etc) are either invalid or question-begging, and given the glaring absence of the necessary evidence (evidence which, to our best understanding, could not fail to exist if the event in question actually occurred) for the minimal truth-claims of any extant form of theism, and given that the conception of a transcendent creator-God is incoherent, there is no rational basis for theism. Nor does there appear to be any rational basis for deism. Agnosticism would also appear to be out the window, since it certainly looks like the propositions "God exists" or "one can know that God exists" are decidable. The only rationally warranted position on the existence of God would appear to be atheism.

[ThePainefulTruth]

Atheism and Deism? From our standpoint, those two philosophies are indistinguishable.

Well, not necessarily. Obviously Deism is distinguished from atheism insofar as deism posits a creator-God; and its quite plausible that a supernatural creation event would entail certain sorts of evidence that would uniquely imply this event. In other words, a universe which was created by a Divine Clockmaker (as deism pictures God) would arguably look different than a universe that was not- there would be data which could not be accounted for purely in naturalistic terms ("irreducibly complex" structures perhaps?).

But we have no data at all either way about what initiated the universe. And anyway, couldn't an all powerful God create a universe so that there was no way to tell. That's exactly what I believe God would have done if God did it--in order to maintain It's undetectability and thus maintain our free will....if God exists.

If, however, the existence of a deistic God doesn't have any unique evidentiary implications, then it has no discernible truth-conditions and is, from an explanatory standpoint, entirely vacuous.

From our standpoint, yes, exactly. If there's no evidence, there can be no evidentiary implications.

There wouldn't appear to be any rational basis which would warrant belief in deism as opposed to some other position. Indeed, the belief which distinguishes deism would be merely a difference which makes no difference at all.

Within this natural universe, true. And there is as much of a rational (or irrational) basis for believing in God as in no-God. There is no evidence for "creation" either way within this universe, so there's no rational basis for believing atheism or deism. But the universe is there (here), and those are the only apparent options.

In any case, RE the thread title: given that all of the arguments for the existence of God (ontological, cosmological, teleological, etc) are either invalid or question-begging, and given the glaring absence of the necessary evidence (evidence which, to our best understanding, could not fail to exist if the event in question actually occurred) for the minimal truth-claims of any extant form of theism, and given that the conception of a transcendent creator-God is incoherent, there is no rational basis for theism. Nor does there appear to be any rational basis for deism. Agnosticism would also appear to be out the window, since it certainly looks like the propositions "God exists" or "one can know that God exists" are decidable. The only rationally warranted position on the existence of God would appear to be atheism.

I'm not arguing for or against the existence of God, or the proof/reasonableness of It's existence. I'm merely putting up the possibilities for how the universe came to be, and deism/atheism are the only two that aren't based in hearsay evidence, which makes the "revealed" religions dismissible out-of-hand.

A Christian agnostic, or example, is a logical impossibility. You can't say you have faith that Jesus Christ is your lord and savior and then turn around and say you aren't sure if God exists. Actually the title of this thread should have been, the only two reasonable positions on the existence of God are agnostic deism and agnostic atheism.

[wiploc]

A Christian agnostic, or example, is a logical impossibility.

Then why are there so many of them?

You can't say you have faith that Jesus Christ is your lord and savior and then turn around and say you aren't sure if God exists.

Isn't that why they call it faith, because they don't have proof? At least that's what they often say when you ask them to justify their belief.

My mother said she struggled with her belief every day. She was a Christian, but she wasn't gnostic; she was an agnostic Christian.

When people want to use a strawman argument to make atheism seem impossible, they say you can't be an atheist unless you know god doesn't exist. You presumably don't have that motive, but your move seems analogous.

[ThePainefulTruth]

A Christian agnostic, or example, is a logical impossibility.

Then why are there so many of them?

Calling themselves something that's self-contradictory doesn't change the contradiction. There are people that call themselves Christian deists--same thing.

You can't say you have faith that Jesus Christ is your lord and savior and then turn around and say you aren't sure if God exists.

Isn't that why they call it faith, because they don't have proof?

That's half of it. They accept that they don't have proof, but by faith they accept it as proven anyway.

My mother said she struggled with her belief every day. She was a Christian, but she wasn't gnostic; she was an agnostic Christian.

Faith means they believe in spite of not having proof and the doubt that lack of proof brings. Now if she were to say that she no longer accepted the resurrection, the Apostle's Creed or whatever, or that Jesus died for her sins, then she would have rejected or lost her faith, and would no longer be a Christian as defined by all the Christian churches I know of. She would be an apostate and her former fellow Christians would say, "Well, she never really was a Christian to begin with anyway then".

My mother told me "I believe because I want to believe". That was an incredibly honest answer, but there was another shoe. The reason she wanted to believe is because she was afraid not to believe.

When people want to use a strawman argument to make atheism seem impossible, they say you can't be an atheist unless you know god doesn't exist. You presumably don't have that motive, but your move seems analogous.

How so? The burden of proof is on anyone that claims certainty. Plenty of atheists and even a few deists claim it anyway. Due to the rising popularity of deism or belief in a laissez faire God, there are myriad hyphenated deists today--and they are encouraged by the same influence seeking charlatans that are always there at the start of any organized religion.

[enaidealukal]

But we have no data at all either way about what initiated the universe.

Not only that, we don't have any indications the universe was "initiated" at all.

And anyway, couldn't an all powerful God create a universe so that there was no way to tell.

Perhaps, but then the existence of such a being would be something which could not reasonably be held, seeing as it was indistinguishable in every respect from the alternative.

If there's no evidence, there can be no evidentiary implications.

Not exactly. The other way around- the absence of any evidentiary implications doesn't follow from the mere absence of evidence, but the absence of evidence follows from the absence of any evidentiary implications.

Within this natural universe, true. And there is as much of a rational (or irrational) basis for believing in God as in no-God.

Well, no, unfortunately. There are evidentiary implications to atheism, which turn out to be consistent with the evidence we do have, i.e. the absence of any evidence uniquely accounted for by the causal agency of (any) God. To the extent that theism has evidentiary implications, they turn out to not obtain. And then there are the conceptual/logical problems with even minimal forms of theism- if theism is logically incoherent, as it looks like, then theism cannot be rational.

There is no evidence for "creation" either way within this universe, so there's no rational basis for believing atheism or deism.

The absence of any necessary evidence for divine creation is itself evidence against theism/deism. The fact that a supernatural creation event is unintelligible is further evidence against such a thing.

A Christian agnostic, or example, is a logical impossibility.

I don't know that I buy that. If one can be a Christian atheist, who's to say one couldn't be a Christian agnostic? I don't see anything contradictory about saying "I don't believe we can know whether God exists, so I'm going to have faith in Christ just in case".

You can't say you have faith that Jesus Christ is your lord and savior and then turn around and say you aren't sure if God exists. Actually the title of this thread should have been, the only two reasonable positions on the existence of God are agnostic deism and agnostic atheism.

Unfortunately, neither are especially reasonable, given that agnosticism is unwarranted in light of theism's minimal truth-claims, and the incoherence of the sine qua non properties of theistic gods generally.

[ThePainefulTruth]

And anyway, couldn't an all powerful God create a universe so that there was no way to tell.

Perhaps, but then the existence of such a being would be something which could not reasonably be held, seeing as it was indistinguishable in every respect from the alternative.

Of course it can. It's as reasonable as saying there is no God.

If there's no evidence, there can be no evidentiary implications.

Not exactly. The other way around- the absence of any evidentiary implications doesn't follow from the mere absence of evidence, but the absence of evidence follows from the absence of any evidentiary implications.

Within this natural universe, true. And there is as much of a rational (or irrational) basis for believing in God as in no-God.

Well, no, unfortunately. There are evidentiary implications to atheism, which turn out to be consistent with the evidence we do have, i.e. the absence of any evidence uniquely accounted for by the causal agency of (any) God.

And we're back to square one, God could have well set it up that way, and for good reason. And what evidentiary implications? And something caused it. If it was a spontaneous creation, that would be the causal agency. In any case, we have absolutely no evidence of anything "before" or "outside" of the Big Bang.

To the extent that theism has evidentiary implications, they turn out to not obtain. And then there are the conceptual/logical problems with even minimal forms of theism- if theism is logically incoherent, as it looks like, then theism cannot be rational.

Non-laissez-faire theism, yes.

[enaidealukal]

And we're back to square one, God could have well set it up that way, and for good reason.

I guess. But this could hardly be counted as a "reasonable" position, given that the very claim which distinguishes this position is something which, by definition, would have any (and no) truth-conditions, and thus be indistinguishable from a fiction- a perfect example of a difference which makes no difference.

And what evidentiary implications? And something caused it.

Evidentiary implications of what? Something caused what? I don't know what you're referring to.

Non-laissez-faire theism, yes.

Well, no. For one thing, as above, I'm not sure how a position which is distinguished by a factual claim with no truth-conditions whatsoever (and so cannot meet really ANY epistemic standard for justification) can be considered rational or reasonable. If such a belief is reasonable, then most any belief that isn't explicitly self-contradictory could probably be counted as reasonable. But any form of theism which includes claims about a transcendent creator (intervening or not) has a very tough row to hoe, because the concept of a transcendent agent simply looks incoherent- a transcendent agent creating the physical universe presupposes an atemporal causal event (i.e. a "time before time") and a non-existent causal agent/antecedent state of non-existence. And even if these concepts aren't simply incoherent, lacking any possible referent (they sure look like it), I certainly see no basis for regarding them as being at all probable.