wild ox

Philosoft and Koy,

Koy first,

Man, your posts are loooong!

I will concede the fact that concepts like “love” cannot be compared to concepts of beings like “God.” You win!

I will try to restate my primary thesis to accommodate your reasoning.

If the existence of God may be possible and cannot be factually disproved by logic or science, then an individuals own experience is a reasonable and justifiable basis to decide whether or not God exists.

How’s that? No ambiguity.

Philosoft,

QUOTE:
“I am asking, "what are the properties of this thing so that I may create my own concept?" You are assuming that by saying you have a concept, you actually have a concept. You are simply assuming what I am asking you to show. The upshot of this whole thing is you cannot have a concept of something that has no physical properties.”

I think that all theists probably attribute quite diverse and extensive properties to their concept of God. It is irrelevant to my argument whether or not YOU can have a concept of something YOU call god. It is also irrelevant whether or not anyone can demonstrate to YOU that they actually have such a concept.

All I am claiming is that, in light of the fact that the “tools” of logic and science cannot positively affirm or deny the existence of any concept of God, “immediate sensory or memorial experience” is a sufficient basis to DECIDE, not to KNOW or PROVE, just to DECIDE whether or not God exists.

Philosoft

So if every theist has a different concept of God, how do you propose to tell if they are all thinking of the same guy?

<strong> Well, if God is a real, physical thing, he/she/it will be represented by a real concept. The only concepts I know of are concepts of things that are physically real or potentially physically real. Somehow, you want to have a real concept of a non-physical (or potentially physical) thing. I maintain that this is not possible.

<strong> At the risk of repeating myself, the reason logic and science can't affirm the non-existence of God is because 'God' is a poorly defined concept. What you are actually saying is, "Because 'God' is a poorly defined concept, a person is justified in believing in God." I don't think you want to argue the reasonability of that statement.

wild ox

Philosoft,

QUOTE:
“So if every theist has a different concept of God, how do you propose to tell if they are all thinking of the same guy?”

I never claimed to be able to tell if they are the same guy.

QUOTE:
“Well, if God is a real, physical thing, he/she/it will be represented by a real concept. The only concepts I know of are concepts of things that are physically real or potentially physically real. Somehow, you want to have a real concept of a non-physical (or potentially physical) thing. I maintain that this is not possible.”

Almost correct! If God is a real, physical thing, then He could be represented by a real, PHYSICAL concept.

I am claiming that it may be possible that non-physical things with non-physical properties exist.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you have an underlying assumption that “ONLY PHYSICAL THINGS EXIST.”

What is your basis for this assumption?

QUOTE:
“At the risk of repeating myself, the reason logic and science can't affirm the non-existence of God is because 'God' is a poorly defined concept. What you are actually saying is, "Because 'God' is a poorly defined concept, a person is justified in believing in God." I don't think you want to argue the reasonability of that statement.”

Good one!

Let’s state exactly what the situation is. The reason that logic and science can't affirm the non-existence of God is that they deal with established facts and tested hypotheses. The existence of God is not an established fact nor can it be scientifically tested. THAT is why it cannot be proved or disproved by these methods.

No matter how clearly and specifically one defines God, as long as one includes the attribute of being non-physical, His existence can never be disproved.

Koyaanisqatsi

Sorry, Wild, but now you've gone light years in the wrong direction.

We'll stop right here, for a brief moment, just to point out that this is already question begging, but back to your syllogism:

Also begging the question as well as an invalid premise, but onward christian soldiers...

Non sequitur (i.e., an invalid conclusion that cannot be derived from the premises).

Let's break it down into a formal syllogism.

Since it is a double negative (which results in a positive) to say something cannot be factually disproved, let us correct P2 for the proper terminology:

As you can see, the conclusion (C) is still not derived from the premises, since you're missing several steps, so let's break it down and see where we go, yes?

First, let's derive a valid conclusion from P1 and P2:

That's where you've been trying to go all along, but your misapplication of terminology, IMO, clouded the view.

So, now let's take that conclusion and plug it into the next syllogism to see if we can derive your original conclusion:

Ok. We're close. Three more should do it, but we’ll need to rearrange things a bit to follow more closely the train of thought (it's been a while since my college Logic and Language days):

Well, that's as close as we can possibly get.

Now, however, one must look to this final conclusion (C) and determine if it is
<ol type="a">[*] Valid (is it properly derived?), and[*] Salient (does this conclusion offer anything of notable significance to the discussion?).[/list=a]

It is valid, finally, in that the conclusion can in fact be properly derived from the premises.

Before you jump in the air, however, just because a conclusion is valid does not necessarily make it salient (i.e., relevant).

The conclusion states: An individual's own experience is a reasonable and justifiable basis to decide whether or not God possibly exists.

Nope! Not salient at all, since, again, no one here is concerned with whether or not an individual can (or cannot) personally decide whether or not "God" possibly exists; i.e., whether or not an individual is justified in believing (not proving, just believing) a God exists!

The only relevant and/or salient question is, "Can you prove that God exists?"

The answer is no. Therefore, what you do or do not believe is utterly irrelevant, just as my believing that Vishnutimmy is the One True God has any relevance either.

Believe whatever the hell you want to believe since belief has no meaning.

Act on those beliefs and attempt to force those beliefs onto others and prepare to submit to a higher standard of scrutiny.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

wild ox

Koy,

I am truly humbled by your knowledge of philosophy and skill in debate. I finally understand where you are coming from! I am pretty slow sometimes. I am only trying to demonstrate that Christians are justified in BELIEVING in God. You seem to agree!

Whether these beliefs are relevant or not is not the point. They are justified.

Koyaanisqatsi

Masochism, WJ? How unbecoming...

I just don't understand what is wrong with your reading abilities. You seem to be able to at least write English, but for some bizarre reason, you are incapable of reading it.

No, I demonstrably concluded that statement.

You obviously do not understand/comprehend/can figure out what that necessarily entails.

I would look into that if I were you.

Wild Ox? In case you were wondering, that's a perfect example of childish declarations and the thought processes of a child.

He's just said, in essence, "Nu unh!" and stomped his foot.

Please read my posts.

No. I have never been "trapped." What the hell are you talking about?

What planet do you live on? Seriously, I'm asking.

You're like a drunken Alzheimer's patient with cognitive Tourette's.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

No, actually, the relevance is the most important part.

Anybody is "justified" in believing the supidest things imaginable. By your reasoning, Nazis were "justified" in their beliefs simply because they felt they were justified to believe the way they did, but that doesn't mean they were "right" or that their justification was ultimately legitimate to prove to the world that they should have been allowed to continue to force their beliefs onto others!

That's the only thing that is relevant here, not whether or not people are justified to delude themselves about anything they damn well please.

You keep missing the important matters in favor of misapplying the intended meaning of words, like "justification."

Anybody can state, "I am justified in my belief because I say so," which is precisely what you just did, but has that pointless declaration actually justified their beliefs in the sense of them acting upon them or forcing them onto others?

No!

The only "justification" established is the pointless and irrelevant justification of being able to say, "I believe what I want to believe and don't need to prove it to you."

In other words--and I mean this descriptively--a childish declaration of self-justification.

For the twentieth time, no one cares about someone saying, "I believe what I want to believe."

It only becomes an issue when that same person tries to force their beliefs onto others or through their belief, their actions impact others.

Understand?

wild ox

Koy,

Great point! I am really intimidated and actually feel sort of like a child, this being my first post.

I will not keep bringing up the same points again.

I do have a question for you:

Since you do not posses all of the knowledge of what is real, and have not experienced each Christian's personal experience of God, are you justified in making any sort of ABSOLUTE claim that Christians are (fools, idiots, etc...) simply because they believe in an idea of God that they claim to have experienced?

If so, what is the exact, logical (P1,P2,C) method for achieving YOUR justification?

Philosoft

You are willing to stipulate to the very real possibility that there are 3+ billion different god concepts on this planet? You are an interesting sort, I'll say that.

<strong> No, I deliberately avoided this language because concepts are not physical things. When you grasp this, your task will be much easier.

<strong> Naturally.

<strong> I can make no other assumption. These words have clear definitions. In order for something to exist, it must occur within the universe (self-evident). Things that occur within the universe are all composed of physical matter. QED.

<strong> We're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't know how else to say this; you are wrong about "exactly what the situation is." The only way you can even write the above paragraph is to act as if words with multiple meanings actually mean the same thing.

<strong> *Sigh* <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

You haven't been paying attention. Attributes can only describe physical things. A non-physical thing cannot be described as large, red or opaque. You can have a god that is either non-physical or has attributes but not both. Please tell me you understand why this is so.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

hinduwoman

This simply means that all gods are valid, because their devotees claim to have experienced them.