zamboniavenger

[QUOTE] Second, humans wrote Scripture.

Correct, and you (a human) wrote this, so I shouldn't believe it. Get real.

[/QUOTE
Slayer is not claiming to write the divine word of god either. BIG difference.

Theli

That's interesting, but you have not shown anything. If your paradox would have any meaning to this issue you will have to translate it. Meaning... replace the letters and numbers of the criteria in the text above with the criterias of the issue. How can god be able to create a rock so big he can't lift it, when he can lift anything?

To copy and paste a text from another site doesn't really help your point. It only confuses the issue. If you wan't to make a point with that paradox then change it so it comforms with the issue of god and the rock.

WWSD

Where did I assert my own infallability exactly? I believe that I simply outlined why I don't buy the reasons given to me to believe. At no point did I make a statment about infallabiltiy. I said, I have found no reason to believe, therefor I don't.
Perhaps you are thinking that I have not explored all of the possibilities, and that I am claiming to know all?
What I am claiming is that no one has ever given me any real evidence of a god's existence. No one. And I have heard many "evidences." Very many. I cannot accept any of them, not because I "choose" not to but because I found that they did not hold up under close scrutiny.

So there.

Devilnaut

I'm with Tercel on this one. The paradox of the stone always seemed a little silly.

All that it proves is that we haven't got a clear conception of what it means to be "all-powerful".. not that God does not exist.

In the worst case scenario (for theists), they would have to redefine God to a 'lesser' form of omnipotence, wherein he couldn't perform feats that would result in logical contradiction (as tercel said). I doubt any theist would have a problem with this.

devilnaut
edit to add:


I think he was referring to a logical proof, whereas you seem to be referring to evidentiary proof..

It doesn't take much to 'prove' that square circles do not exist, for example.

[ February 04, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

Tercel

It's true that many Christians believe without knowing the logical reasons for belief. But I suspect that an equally large number of people would believe in atoms or that the speed of light is approx 3.0 * 10^8 m/s without knowing the logical reasons for their belief other than "teacher said so". Have they been "indoctrinated" also?
So, I hope you see that just because a great number of Christians live in ignorance does not mean that the belief itself is unsupported.

True enough: Though as I mentioned above I have a problem with the word "indoctrinated". If you simply mean "others told them it is true" then you have a problem since a great part of what we "know" (approx 99%) comes from what many others have told us is true. Such "indoctrination" is not bad, but simply the way life works.

Indeed, many people would interpret events as a miracle by God when the more skeptical might say "coincidence". I hope you note though that neither side can prove their case. You might try to apply Occam's Razor and say you don't need God to explain it when you've got coincidence: I would agree that such events are never going to be proof for an unbeliever. But note that for someone who already believes in God, Occam's Razor doesn't suggest anything and thus they can interpret it reasonably as God or not as they see fit.

Well, there is Pascal's Wager: If you don't believe you get nothing, if you do believe and God does exist then good stuff happens - Therefore you are better off to believe. However, the obvious problem with the Wager is the Wrong Hell Problem - what happens if you become a Christian and it turns out the Muslim's were right and you end up in their Hell. On the other hand: If your decision is simply between Christianity vs Atheism then the Wager seems to be valid.

Pity, as there are quite a number of good arguments for rational belief. So I'll outline just a few of my favourite (there are plenty more):

* Personal Religious "feelings". (eg I felt God's presence while praying, or I heard God talking to me) Basically the person has some particular experience which felt very real to them. But generally such things sound rather unconvincing to any person hearing about them: However they seemed real to the person experiencing it - who are we to say "you didn't feel that"? Most Christian's probably can think of a time when they felt such things, and at least for them I think it counts as evidence for God's existence.

* Personal Testimony of miracles. (ie someone relates the facts about an event in their life which called for a miraculous explanation) This is where someone describes something more than a coincidence: which really and truely calls for a miraculous explanation if true. Of course the person could be lying (or even possibly hallucinating), so the appropriate steps need to be taken to establish the likelihood of that before the testimony can be taken as evidence. In my personal opinion, this is the single most convincing line of evidence for God. There are such great a number of people who make claims of the miraculous whom to me appear above reproach with regard to their honesty, integrity and sanity. If one of them was lying, I would be suprised... but are they all lying??? -After all, only one would need to be telling the truth for our purposes!

* Scientific Testimony of miracles. (ie diligent "scientific" investigation reveals that a miracle has occured - these are normally Healings of various sorts) This is normally the skeptics favourite type of proof since it involves science (and is therefore somehow magically more valid - according to the skeptic anyway). Anything from broken bones through Multiple Sclerosis has been known (and "scientifically" reasearch into) to heal instantly upon occasion by prayer. (Cancer is also one that happens more often than most, but that is generally not considered as counting since Cancer is known to sometimes vanish on its own. -Its the old "coincidence or miracle" dilemma again)

* Argument from the Resurrection. (ie From the known evidence about Jesus' supposed resurrection we can argue that the most likely explanation is that he really did rise from death) Many books and debates cover this argument, and it's not really my speciality or one that I personally find extremely convincing as it mostly depends on what your opinion is about the early Christian writings. We could of course go from "what the majority of scholars think" and proceed from there, but that's unlikely to convince any reasonably skeptical skeptic who assumes before starting that the New Testament is nothing but made up stories.

* The natural theology arguments. All of the above were generally arguments from revelation. (ie if God hadn't supposedly interfered with our world we wouldn't have known them) The other sort is natural theology: What anyone, anywhere could determine about God just by logic and studying the world. These arguments rather than arguing for Christianity itself, normally argue for some sort of personal creator, or timeless being etc. Which is generally identified as being God. Now there have been tons of these proposed over the past two and a half thousand years, so I'll simply touch on the most popular: The Cosmological arguments, Big Bang Cosmology (aka the Kalaam Cosmological argument), Fine-Tuning argument (aka Argument from Anthropic Coincidence), the Moral argument, Consciousness, and the Telelogical argument. Now there's far too many of them to explain carefully each one, so I'll merely outline what each attempts to prove and approximately how it works.

* The Cosmological Arguments. This is actually a title for a large group of slightly different arguements, but what they all have in common is asking "What is the first cause of everything?" (This is by far the oldest of the Natural Theology arguments for God, as it dates back to Aristotle in the 4th century BC) If we as "what caused that?" repetitively - what do we end up with? The first important question is, do events regress infinitely or do we actually end up with a "first cause"? (The argument will seek to prove that we do indeed end up with a "first cause") Second, what is the nature of that "first cause"? The argument suggests that this "first cause" is timeless, eternal, creative, and self-existent.

* Big Bang Cosmology. This looks at the scientific theory of the Big Bang and what implications it has for the nature and/or existence of the deity. Generally the argument will try to conclude that there exists a supernatural being who caused the universe. And such a being would be timeless, eternal and the creator.

* The Fine Tuning Argument. This argument notes that the universe contains intelligent life, and considers other possible universes posing the question "What exactly allows the universe to contain intelligent life, and how much could the universe be different to what it is and still contain intelligent life". Using modern scientific data we can answer the question: If one of any several basic aspects of the universe had differed by an all but infintismal amount to what they are, it would be impossible for intelligent life in any form we know or could imagine to exist in the universe since the universe would either have no stars (and thus have no heavier elements and be all but absolute zero in temperature) or have a lifespan so short it would not exist now. The argument points out that this renders an intelligent creator God a hugely more likely reason for the existence of intelligent life than chance is. (This is my favourite argument of all the Natural theology arguements because I think that formulated properly it is without fault) The atheist can escape the conclusion only one way: by arguing that there exist an large (at least 10^200) or infinite number of "alternate worlds" - other universes. It puts the atheist defending the existence of a huge number of invisible, undetectable entities, while the Theist is defending only one! (Not to mention that the theist can use further cumulative evidence from the other arguments for God, while the atheist has no further evidence for their many-many-world hypothesis)

* The Moral Argument. This argument notes that we all have a sense of "right and wrong" or "good and evil" and uses this to argue for a ultimate standard dictated by an intelligent supreme being.

* Consciousness. Like in the argument for the resurrection, the result of this argument varies greatly on what you personally already think - this time about the nature of consciousness. (I find this argument compelling, and it all but single-handedly converted one of my best friends, on the other hand people who don't hold the same view of consciousness legitimately stand unconvinced by this argument) The question is posed "Is consciousness fundamentally different to non-conscious matter"? I would answer: Yes, matter is just particles/waves moving according to basic mathematical rules, it is not self aware, and no matter how you slice and dice mathematical rules and put bits of unthinking matter together you do not end up with a self aware being. -It seems to me as absurd as suggesting that if you put lego together the right way you might produce a conscious being. -Something unconcious in itself cannot add up to something conscious no matter how you scramble it and put it together. -eg Computers aren't concious, they're simply complex machines designed to process set tasks according to the basic laws of how electricity moves.
Of course, someone else might answer that they think consciousness is not fundamentally different to matter or that consciousness is just an illusion. The argument itself moves from my affirmation of Dualism - that consciousness is fundamentally different, through to arguing for an ultimate consciousness responsible for the creation of all others.

* The Telelogical argument. This is quite similar to the consciousness argument, and questions whether either abstract ideas or meaning can be reduced to the unthinking movement of matter or whether they are fundamentally different and exist in their own right. And once/if Dualism is then affirmed, proceeds to argue beyond matter for the existence of transcendental concepts.


Anyway, I hope that enlightens you somewhat as to what rational arguments are actually out there for belief in God. Most Christians probably don't know very many of them, but they're still there.

Tercel

[ February 04, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Tercel

Russell's paradox is an accepted philosophical problem with regard to self-references in general. I gave a proof involving sets because that's the proof I learnt when I studied it at University.
As I pointed out, it doesn't really matter as we can trivially escape the problem by defining Omniscience differently: Say by disallowing self-referencing for starters.

It wasn't a copy and paste: I wrote it myself just now.

Tercel

eowynn

Actually, yes, that helps me greatly. These are much more convincing arguements than I have recieved in quite a while. Thanks for your reply. I am not saying I am convinced-there are a lot of other things that bother me about religion (i.e. Why does God answer some prayers and not others?), but it is the answer I have been looking for.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

The saddest case really.
I had a religious experience. The only thing that could scientifically explain it would be schizophrenia, and since I am already intimiately acquainted with THOSE particular voices, I could say that I know damn well it wasn't that.

Side note:
Medication starts today.
So? Selfish is what motivates the world.
A good reason to believe? Because it resonates within you. That's the ONLY reason that you should believe a religion. If it doesn't fit you, DON'T WEAR IT. It gets really uncomfortable, is generally to constraining, and quite often hurts.

Devilnaut

warning: this post is somewhat thorough =)

I've personally never met a Christian who converted to Xianity because of a 'logical argument for God'. I'm sure they exist, but these are, for the most part, ad hoc justifications. This is somewhat telling.

On with the post..

Of course it doesn't.

Drawing a comparison to commonly believed scientific facts is not valid, however, for a few reasons:

~ First and foremost, there is little to no risk involved in staking your belief in the speed of light or the existence of atoms. This itself has two implications. The first is that the triviality of the belief makes it less important to research and be able to justify your belief based on evidence. The second is that the triviality of the belief makes it far less likely that anyone would bother to lie about it, much less that there would be a global conspiracy to hide the fact that the speed of light or existence of atoms were false.

~ The second reason that your comparison is invalid is that science is self-correcting, and in general people are aware of this. They know that if something made it into a physics text book, it was probably tested and proven many times over, and they are right.

If they are not proof for an unbeliever, why should they be proof for a theist?

This is entirely misleading. You are speaking of miracles in the context of evidence for the existence of God. If you forego Occam's Razor because you already beleive in God, these miracles are no longer evidence for his existence!

Anyway, we'll give the God arguments Tercel outlined an honest shot, and see what they add up to. This won't be anything most here haven't read before though i'm sure:

Are 'feelings' a good indicator of truth? Most evidence (especially from the field of psychology) would say no. I remember my younger days when I interpreted my fear of the dark as ghosts lurking in the corners in my room. I was convinced that this was true. Is this evidence for the existence of ghosts? Some would say yes, I would say no.

As <a href="http://www.cygnus-study.com/arguments.shtml" target="_blank">this site</a> explains:

Due to the overwhelming desire of many religious people to experience the object of their worship, a subjective experience should not be relied upon as objective evidence for the existence of a god.

Lastly, the different experiences of people in different faiths would seem to indicate that it is precisely this desire which is producing the experiences.


I must confess that I've never heard such a tale. Please give an example of an event that occured (outside the bible) that 'truly calls for a miraculous explanation'.

They could also simply be mistaken. Thousands of years ago just about every single person on earth would've testified that the earth was flat. Remember, only one of them had to have been telling the truth for the earth to have actually been flat!

I've never seen such a thing. If you think you have, you may be correct to put scientific in quotation marks. I'd be interested in links, of course.

And when you suggest that skeptics think that science is 'magically more valid'.. what are you contrasting it to? Personal testimony? Does this suggest that you disagree that scientific investigation is a more accurate means for discovery than personal testimony?



That isn't the only, nor the most damaging, dilemma faced when trying to use miracles as proof of God.

For instance, why is it more likely that a God caused the instant healing, than that the great invisible healer faery covered the patient in her magical dust? Or that the person who prayed has telepathic healing abilities? Or that the victim has a strange ability to heal himself/herself? The answer, of course, is that it isn't. Especially considering that we see reported 'miracles' from all types of religions.

I strongly encourage eowynn to do her own research into the authenticity of the bible. I won't comment too much, because I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as some in these parts. =) It is worth noting, however, that biblical scholars cannot even agree on the existence of Jesus Christ, much less that he performed any miracles. Another thing worth noting is that there is no evidence for his miracles outside of the bible- which is somewhat odd, considering the nature of these wonderful feats.

Here is the argument:

1. Everything that exists has a cause.
2. The universe exists.

~3. The universe must have a cause.

some of the problems with this argument are as follows:

-It is not clear why there must be a first cause, as opposed to an infinite regression of causes. More specifically, if God can be timeless, why can't our universe be timeless?

-This argument says absolutely nothing about the nature of the first cause, other than the fact that it must have been capable of causing the universe. If we assume that time was created along with the rest of the universe (and is there a reason that this must be so?), we can also conclude that the first cause will have been outside time. This has some serious implications, most importantly how something that doesn't operate 'in time' is able to 'cause' anything.

-Of course, even if you believe that this argument proves that 'God exists', you are still left with the (insurmountable) problem of how God was caused. Left uncaused, God violates the first premise of the argument. There is no reason to accept that the first cause of our universe stops at "God", except that this is the theist's preferrable conclusion.

What the cosmological argument suggests is that we try apply our physical laws outside of our physical reality. This is quite obviously erroneous. Who is to say whether or not the law of cause and effect is intact outside our universe? Keep in mind that to be outside our universe, and indeed outside of the dimensions of time and space, is to be free of reality as we know it. If this is where God exists, maybe this is why he is so mysterious? ;p

See first cause argument, nothing new here.

This is blatantly false, as has been pointed out countless times on these boards. Further, we have absolutely no way of knowing what other types of life 'are possible'. Maybe if the universe's conditions had been only slightly different, even more amazing things would be present. This is an argument from incredulity and nothing more.

It is also not clear that these "basic aspects of the universe" even could be any different. There is much for science to learn about the laws of the universe, and "God did it" is a premature conclusion at best.

This argument also suffers from the same pitfalls as the cosmological one. Even if we were to accept this argument as valid, it says nothing about "God" other than the fact that he must have been sufficiently powerful to 'tune' the universe. Also, who 'tuned' God?

This argument is as follows:
1. Humans have morality (IE sense of right and wrong).
2. These morals could not exist without an objective standard of morality (IE God)

~3. God exists.

Well, it is easy to see how morals can have come about by natural means. Our sense of right and wrong seems to be entirely subjective, and bred into us since birth. This is strongly suggestive of the fact that morals are put in place by society, and not God.

Further, if God is our objective standard of morality, how do we account for the differences in morals across the globe and across time? Has god changed his mind? In my opinion this argument leads to evidence against God's existence.

You seem to have assumed your conclusion. If it is true that "no matter how you slice and dice .. you do not end up with a self aware being", then obviously conciousness is something more than mere matter.

Is "seeming absurdity" a legitimate reason for rejecting an explanation?

Many would argue (myself included) that we are more complex versions of the same principle process.

To conclude things, it is abundantly clear to me, as a skeptic, that none of the above is very good evidence for the existence of God, except to those who sincerely want to believe. They are good examples of the sort of top-down thinking that permeates religion (conclusion first, evidence second), and in this sense such arguments are antithesis of science. But don't take my word for it. I would encourage anyone curious about their beliefs to do their own research, and see what they can come up with. A critical mind goes a long way. Careful though- as some on this board are given to pointing out, finding answers in this fashion presupposes and atheistic viewpoint. If you are really attached to your religion, it is best to hold the answers first, and then look for the questions.


devilnaut


ps: a good start would be typing in any of the names of the God arguments Tercel presents into the secweb's search function and seeing what you come up with.


edited because I was bound to fark up my codes somewhere..

[ February 04, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

Theli

Tercel:
The question of god and the rock is a question without any real answer. That's why it might seem silly. It's not supposed to have an answer either, it just shows how the "Allpowerful" claim has flaws and contradictions.

Different fefinitions on allpowerful? Are you going to change the meaning of "everything" to everything but this and that"?
There is a better way to deal with the allpowerful claim. It is to see it as it is. Invented.