yguy

Objective is one thing - generally recognized is quite another.

On what basis is detectability by such a device to be made the benchmark for God's existence? A thousand years ago, gamma rays were undetectable. Did they only come into existence because we developed a way to detect them?

garthoverman

Your God is neither.

One thing that objectively existing entities share is the ability to be detected by an inanimate device. Are you claiming that such a device can be built to detect your God? If so, please describe its mechanism.

Yours,
Garth

Nowhere357

Why? Because you say so? This seems to be the sum total of your argument.

Add in your complete evasion here, and what do we have?

Nothing plus nothing is approximately worthless, don't you think?

yguy

Where do you get that idea?

Nowhere357

Holy cow, yguy, he said (paraphrase) if something exists, it can be detected.

After all, if something exists yet doesn't affect reality, it is EXACTLY THE SAME as if it didn't exist!

And if something affects reality, we can detect it! That's what the words mean!

You have completely failed to support your view, and your typical tactics are wasted here. Your noncommital, evasive "answers" are entirely pointless.

Back it up, or just bail, or even concede you need to think about this some more - but you are hurting your credibility by continuing on the same line.

yguy

Then gamma rays didn't exist a thousand years ago, because they couldn't be detected then. Right?

What reason is there to believe that anything which affects reality can be detected with an inanimate device? How could you possibly know that without having complete knowledge of everything in the universe?

Ever heard of dark matter and dark energy? Are they detectable?

Family Man

Actually, that hits his argument in a nutshell.

yguy: You can't conceptual God.
us: Why not?
yguy: Because I say so.

Basically, the whole thing is designed so yguy can stick his head in the sand and believe regardless of what anyone else says.

This has been fun, but I'm going away for a few days. I'm sure that yguy won't mind.

Nowhere357

Wrong.
Did I say that things don't exist until they are detected?

What reason is there to believe that something can exist yet not be detected?

Simply by understanding the meanings of the words we use.

I already know how little you value empirical data - by your admission in another thread.

It's becoming clear you also hold little value in word definitions.

Only if they exist! Hard to detect them if they don't!

Holy cow, yguy, if something exists, it can be detected.

After all, if something exists yet doesn't affect reality, it is EXACTLY THE SAME as if it didn't exist!

And if something affects reality, we can detect it! That's what the words mean!

This is BASIC REALITY 101 stuff. Are you just being contrary and stubborn, or are you really unaware of this?

Theli

Including "impossible to conceptualize", or is that an exception?
If this is true what you wrote above, then you agree that nothing you have said about god is true, so why should this be?
My parents are a concept to me to, I can describe them using simple words. If I couldn't conceptualize them, I couldn't call them "parents" anymore. And everything that exist is reality for us. I'm not sure what you meant by that anyway...
Scraping the bottom of the barrel here? If you are saying that god is infinite then that is a concept also. "The infinite god".
Who said that computers can conceptualize anything? And if we wish to assign a name or a word to anything we have observed that is real, we must first identify it and form a concept. This is what you have done all along, you have used several attributes to describe what you call god.

Theli

Well, if we wan't to get technical about it...
If noone were to discover and identify gamma rays they would never have been "gamma rays". It's not as if the word "gamma ray" was printed on the side of them.