Philip Osborne

Has anyone seen this site:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1019/Thorn2.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1019/Thorn2.html</a>

This site is for "Objectivist Atheology," dedicated to atheism from the perspective of a follower of Rand's Objectivism. It advocates the "Argument From Existence."

1. If God exists, then the "primacy of consciousness" is true (i.e. reality is dependant upon some form of consciousness).
2. The primacy of consciousness is false (i.e. Reality is not dependant upon consciousness).
3. God does not exist. (By modus tollens)

From the writings on the site, it seems that the primacy of consciousness is argued against on the basis that there is an external world independant of our perception of it; reality is not dependant upon how we perceive it. But this does not seem to lead to the desired conclusion. Consider the following pair of premisses:

1. Object x is dependant upon a consciousness.
2. Object x is dependant upon a conscious God.

(1) uses "dependance" in the sense argued against above. (2) uses it in a metaphysical sense, in the way that music is dependant upon instruments and the musicians playing them. In order to hold that disproving (1) also disproves (2), one must equivocate on the meaning of dependance; the falsehood of (1) does not preclude the possibility of (2). x may exist independant of whether or not anything perceives it, yet may be metaphysically dependant upon God in the same sense as the music-instrument example.

What do you think?

-Philip

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Philip Osborne ]</p>

Kent Stevens

I am not religious but the above argument is not sound because it has false premises. Our perception of reality depends on our mind. This is true whether God, Krishna, Yetis, or Father Christmas exist or do not exist.

Reality is independent of our existence. But our perception of reality is only an imperfect copy of it.

Automaton

I've seen that site. As a whole it makes some good points, but the central argument ("from existence") as referenced above does not appear to be sound. However a similar argument, which is better formulated, appears <a href="http://www.philoonline.org/library/mccormick_3_1.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

Doubting Didymus

I don't agree with premise one. God could be the creator of the universe without the universe depending on the conciousness of god for its existence. In short: if god hypothetically died, the universe might still exist afterwards, thus being compatible with primacy of conciousness metaphysics.

To play devils advocate: I suggest that the theistic argument might be that the metaphysical findings of primacy of conciousness have thus far only been applied to humans and other mortals, and can not be extended to a being so incomprehensible to us as god (his might not be a 'concious mind' as we know it, etc.)

Atheistic arguments like this one annoy me a little. I just don't think they are neccesary. The only real reason for regecting the god hypothesis is that there is no evidence FOR a god. I don't think that there is such a thing as evidence against god, as the hypothesis is unresricted. God simply cannot be disproved by anything at all. Evil? part of gods unknowable plan. Conciousness metaphysics? not applicable to the unknowable god. Unrestricted hypotheses can never be disproven, and the burden of proof is thus on the advocators of that hypothesis.

Therefore, in my opinion, the only reason to disbelieve in god is because no evidence exists.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Philip,

Yeah this may be a little heavy handed but if God exists then point 2 could easily be false.

It would be a Fallacy of Composition to assume that because reality is not dependant on
my conscience then it must not be dependant on God's conscience either.

SOMMS

Synaesthesia

SOMMS,
That’s the fallacy of composition if you’re a pantheist.

Otherwise it would be mistaking INduction for DEduction. Not sure what that fallacy’s called. (It should have a name if it doesn’t.)

All the same, I think logical proofs of God’s non-existence are as futile as any logical proof of the Cartesian Demon’s non-existence. Get it through your heads atheists and theists, there is no way to logically contradict God.

I think these sorts of syllogisms distract from the more fundamental epistemic issues with which we can establish a truth-preference regarding God’s existence. (Primarily parsimony and related issues.)

Regards,
Synaesthesia

lcb

doubting didy: your argument ad lapidem "no evidence" doesnt cut the mustard with theists who have experiential evidence coupled with evidence of fulfilled prophecy and intelligent design evidence. "some" evidence trumps "no" evidence.

randomsyllable

Open staements like these make my day.

Please, enlighten me.

What evidence exists?


-random

lcb

no, you enlighten me! 1. prove there is no evidence of some degree of intelligent design 2. prove to me that there is no evidence that the israel restoration prophecies were fulfilled 3. prove to me that the drive to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and defend the oppressed in the name of Jesus, even in the face of persecution and martyrdom (consistently and throughout generations is to a logical and mathematical certainty- a self-generated/non-spiritual drive. 4. prove to me (to my personal level of proof requirement , that my personal, experiential evidences of the supernatural are self-created) 5. prove to me that the sea fossils found on the tops of mountain ranges couldnt have gotten there in a flood of sea water. 6.prove to me that Hitlers holocaust wasn't a pre-figuration of anti-christs goal to destroy the jewish people to prevent the messiah from redeeming mankind 7. prove to me that you have stopped beating your wife.....

Automaton

As usual, SOMMS demonstrates little, if any, grasp on logic. That's nice. Can you think of a non-circular objection to the argument?
You've got your fallacies mixed up. God's consciousness (conscience is something different entirely) is not a composition of human consciousness, therefore it would not be the "true of the part, therefore true of the whole" fallacy. It's more like the fallacy of projection ("true for me, therefore true for you"). Plus, this is not a representation of the actual argument, but rather a representation of some other argument that you have thought up yourself. The argument is not "reality is not contingent on my thought, thus it is not contingent on God's thought", it is that thought in principle cannot metaphysically preceed other existence.