Amaranth

This in no way helps your case that without the existance of uncause events there is no meaning to caused events. There is no opposite to water, and yet water is a meaningful concept. The logic only applies to judgements, and even then it's fairly iffy on a few points.

I hate having to point out that the idea behind that "chapter" was to let go of judgements, not to say that things do not have meaning without an opposite.

Meaningless. Atheists are not the arbiters of rationality, logic is. Thus, your continued efforts to compare your beliefs to others is pointless, as no amount of comparison will make them more logical.

You stated it, and had it smacked down (quite soundly, I might add). Regardless, this is merely another approach to the tu quoque argument you have been presenting.


I've yet to see a conclusion out of you that wasn't in direct contridiction to your premises, or a priori. I've noted such, often. You have, so far, refused to defend them. Thus, my conclusion stands.

Emphasis mine.

This is the third time I've had to nail you on this dodge. You stated that you believe there is a god, who did such and such. This is the xian belief as well. This is how the Nicean Creed states it. Stop attempting to equivocate "likely" with "is" - You are not fooling anyone, and it's frankly childish.

Oh, and you still haven't defined god.

Amaranth

BioBeing

What this sounds like to me is what Michael Shermer described as "Why smart people believe weird things". Danielius is obviously not stupid, but he seems to keep going round and round in circles trying to defend in a rational manner what is (IMO) not a rational supposition. Belief in any invisible, untouchable, unknowable friend simply cannot be rational. His "evidence" is probably not "'good' or 'substantial' or 'compelling'", and as such is not a solid foundation for a rational belief.

I'm finished rubbernecking this car wreck.

danielius

No, water is a meaningful concept because not everything is 'water'. But if there is nothing uncaused, then everything is caused, and therefore the concept of 'caused' is meaningless.

Actually, the point has already been made that external evidence is required for the claim of reasonableness. I'm fair in asking what constitutes 'reasonable', compared to what doesn't. If your world-view is telling you: 'Christianity is irrational', then you are using Christianity as your yardstick, and it's a loaded one.

Nope, and saying it won't make it so. Everyone has at least one premise that is unproven. You assume that I'm real, right? That I'm not just a figment of your imagination? Prove it.

In other words, premises that can't be proven but which are supported by some solid and amount of evidence are not necessarily 'irrational'.

Assertion and incorrect. A first cause, non-random universe, relational God and meaningful definition in context are arguments from logic that hold just fine and are based on at least some amount of evidence: Hoyle's formula/finite universe according to 'Big Bang' theory/non-contradictory God as Love/God as referent and self-referent (unlike universe).

Danielius

danielius

Except that Christianity says God is knowable.

Danielius

DMB

Danielius: since this thread is somewhat more on topic than it was, I don't want to pursue red herrings here. I am posting to tell you, however, that I have opened a thread on motherhood to dissent from the views you expressed earlier here.

Biff the unclean

No, water is a meaningful concept because not everything is 'water'. But if there is nothing uncaused, then everything is caused, and therefore the concept of 'caused' is meaningless.
Except the reason given for needing a God was that the universe HAD to have a cause. Now you are saying that's things like Gods don't need a cause. So the universe wouldn't need a cause either, making God unnecessary and more than a little silly.

If your world-view is telling you: 'Christianity is irrational', then you are using Christianity as your yardstick, and it's a loaded one.
Not at all. Christianity isn't being used as the yardstick, it is what is being measured by the yardstick of rationality--You are after all the one who started this thread to measure it. It fails miserably.

Everyone has at least one premise that is unproven. You assume that I'm real, right? That I'm not just a figment of your imagination? Prove it.
Standard Christian drivel. When I get this same piece of nonsense said to me in person I usually give the Christian a quick sharp poke in their belly. Not only does it prove the point it's very amusing to watch.

In other words, premises that can't be proven but which are supported by some solid and amount of evidence are not necessarily 'irrational'.
A premises that are not supported by any evidence at all, like yours, are irrational.

A first cause,
There is not possible leap that can get you from a "first cause" all the way to a primitive Semitic myth.
non-random universe,
Only pockets of the universe are non-random
relational God
In no way follows the other thoughts
In Genesis God creates the universe. But the universe he creates in the myth in no way shape or form resembles the actual universe. Showing the story to be a blatant lie.

But why do you hop around the point? Prove us wrong the way all of the conversations about whether or not something exists are solved. Put up or shut up...produce your God or stop claiming he exists

Amaranth

Hollow bullshit. Everything is natural, and the word natural still has meaning. Things are defined by what they are, not by what they are not.

This is getting repetitive. Again: There is a perfectly functional definition, in the English language, for what the words rational and reasonable represent. No amount of tu quoque logical fallacy will get you around this.

*sigh* The point of the discussion is supposed to be whether Christianity is rational, not whether it is more rational or as rational as other worldveiws. It's sad that I have to explain this to the very author of the question.

You have asserted this before. It was shown that you could not prove it. It is defunct.

I have evidence of your existance in your writing. As your existance is in no way an extraordinary claim, and in fact is a very exceedingly mundane one, I really need very little evidence to rationally support your existance on a nominal level. Also I have verified your existance by sharing some of your wonderful logic with some friends of mine.

The difference is the amount of evidence required. Your existance, for example, has evidence not only in your writing, but also in the fact that existance is a mundane and common thing. It's so common that it would be relatively irrational to deny someones existance without good reason. Your god concept, in theory (as it still needs to be defined), is unlike anything else in the known universe. Pretty extraordinary claim. Gonna need some pretty extraordinary evidence to prove it. Logic that contradicts itself just isn't going to cut it.

A well supported assertion, including historical arguments that I've reprinted and still not seen answered. Maybe I'll just start recopying my arguments until you actually answer them.

Utter horse shit. Your first cause argument has been kicked into the ground by myself at least three times, and by four other posters I can recall without looking back. To say it again (from memory, even): Your first and third premises are contradictory, and therefore your logic falls on its face.

Hoyle's formula is not the end-all, be-all, and is a relatively esoteric exception to common thoughts on the subject of the chance of life evolving from chance. The universe being infinite or not? Um...Yeah. Where did that come from, and why does it matter.

And lastly, my favorite - Your god junk. Your god as love argument falls flat on its face in veiw of the argument from evil, which I'll bother to print once you get past the logical failings in your cosmological argument. Your self-referent god stuff is based on an utterly hollow argument about yin/yang. Even if we suppose that the backwards line of logic is correct, it simply does not follow that because something cannot be defined it cannot exist.

Regardless, I've had my fun nailing your dodges and kicking over your inconsistant arguments, all the while laughing as you attempt to act blissfully ignorant of every hole put in your posts. I'm done playing, though. When you feel like actually trying logical debate, go ahead and define this "god" thing, and we'll get started.

Stephen T-B

Sorry, but there is no evidence of a god having caused the universe.
You say that the fact that the Universe exists is evidence of a god having caused it. Rubbish. It’s evidence that it exists. No more, no less. Or perhaps you are going to refute that its exists, or suggest that atheists are gullible for assuming it does? Well, Samuel Johnson dealt with that nonsense very effectively over 200 years ago.
I think you’re suggesting that “Faith” is required in order to interact with other human beings, and the physical world around us. Frankly, I do not need Faith in the reality of my wife, children, the people I work with and those I see on the streets. When I stand up, if all I had had was Faith in my legs’ ability to stop me falling flat on my face, it would be expunged immediately by certain knowledge.

The Trinity only became a Trinity after the birth of Christ. Or perhaps you know of a passage in the Old Testament which refers to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost? If you do and can provide it, I will bow to your greater scholarship.

“... were God to exist at all, we would reasonably expect His nature to be that described by trinity. God as Love must needs be a relational God. A unitarian god or any number of individual god-beings does not fit logically.”

This logic, so compelling to you, completely escapes every other religious doctrine which Man has devised. If it were so logical, why have they not all reached the same conclusion?

“...a thing is always meaningfully defined by something else.”

I still don’t get this. Are you saying that a meteorite whizzing through space 42 million miles from Earth is not meaningful because it cannot be defined by anything else? Are you saying that an orphaned human child, brought up by baboons in the Serengeti (?) and unknown to any other human beings, is meaningless because it cannot be defined? I consider a thing to be made meaningful by virtue of its existence. A book is a book whether anyone is around to read it, or call it as such. The Earth was meaningful when it was just a molten lump. OK: we “lend” things meaning so that we may comprehend them, but this does not add to their intrinsic meaningfulness. The Universe was meaningful before human consciousness apprehended it, and it will be meaningful after human consciousness has ceased to apprehend it. “Human consciousness” amounts to what, in terms of the life of the Universe - a nano-second?
I don’t think we have much meaning, and I don’t think the gods we create in our heads have very much, either.

emotional

Carry on, atheists, and Daniel will soon realise there's nothing reasonable about his worldview. And then maybe he'll embrace atheism, or maybe he'll choose pure, blind faith instead, like I've done.

I really don't know why Christians invest so much time and effort in showing how their worldview is reasonable and supported by evidence. I guess it's like I used to think in the past, that faith is stronger if it is backed by reason and evidence. Not so! If you have reason and evidence you really don't have faith! And if you have real faith, it is independent of reason and evidence, so that no attacks of reason or evidence against it could possibly matter.

danielius

Not everything is natural, else we wouldn't have the concepts for 'unnatural' and 'artificial'. That's why the word 'natural' has meaning. My original point stands.

But it is all on the premise that everything that happens is not just in your imagination. Thus you base your world-view on premises that are unproven (and probably unprovable).

I clarified the argument:

1. Every finite thing has a cause
2. The universe, finite, has a cause
3. The universe's cause is a cause of a cause of a cause... or...
4. The universe's cause is uncaused/infinite

No, just a little thing called logic. Nothing to do with yin/yang (?) The universe is a meaningless concept if it is everything. We already have a concept for everything: 'everything'. Every thing that exists must reach outside of itself for context to provide it with meaningful identity. The Christian conception of God, by contrast, has God as in His nature relational, and therefore self-referent.

I've had my fun too

Trinity is a Christian concept, and the concept says that God's nature is described as trinity. According to the concept, God's nature has *always* been One in Three. As I have already said, Christ made it very clear that He existed before He was born a man: 'Before Abraham, I am.'

That trinity only appeared as the doctrine of God's nature after Christ is no surprise: Christianity says that Jesus was God's unique self-revelation to this world.

Because Christianity says that trinity was not devised by any man, but was part of God's self-revelation through Christ.

As for why other religious people (non-Christian) do not accept the logic of trinity, you will have to ask them not me. But I can say for certain that most people just aren't well informed on the Christian concept of trinity.

The meteorite has the sky it is whizzing through or the universe to meaningfully define it.

A book is a book because there exist things outside of a book which provide context and definition- the book is truly something because it isn't everything.

Nothing, at least in the universe, is intrinsically meaningful.

Danielius