Some theists claim this. Some. And even scriptures give a more complicated message, at least in Judaism and Christianity where God is clealry not absolutely perfect. Polytheists and indigenous groups have all sorts of versions of deities. He just needs the claim to be that God is absolutely perfect. So, those who say that are ‘advanced’.
He ain’t gonna admit nuttin.
Though I admire your patience so far.
KT,
I agree. He has limited his scope to those most suited to his claim, and therefrom deduced a completely holistic claim.
Iknowright.
Thanks man. I’m trying to get there. He said he’s open to counters, intellectual integrity and so on, so I expect him to at least engage on the basis of these claims. As long as I engage with him strictly relating to his argument, I expect him to reply. I can’t help, but feel sneaky though.
I have recognised my own breaking point though. If he maintains that there are no justified counter-arguments, then I’m going to crack. Not solely because of my arguments, but because of the way he’s ducking the points, denying what he’s previously been adamant about and recanting without admitting it.
It is too tiring to go through the above all over again.
I am not attempting to disprove the existence of God.
What I an telling theists is,
if they theists insist God [similar to a square-circle] exists, then it a contradiction, as such it is a non-starter.
The point is, by default [of logic] a contradiction cannot be true.
I have mentioned what is held to be true range from opinion, belief and knowledge [justified true belief].
Faith is not justified true belief but range from blind belief [opinion] to personal conviction.
However, where one apply faith on a contradiction, e.g. idea of God as real, that is by default false and moot, thus a non-starter.
What you do here is merely complain, complain, and complain as if I am guilty of some intellectual crime. Hey, this is not a crime prone location.
What is not conducive is a ‘sneaky’ and ‘snarky’ attitude from those who counter.
What you lack here is sound counter arguments.
Prismatic,
I suppose, in all this, that you are just being true to yourself.
So only sound arguments can demonstrate that your perfect syllogism is incorrect? 
Prismatic,
Its not like that. I didn’t say that you had committed an intellectual crime. My point was that due to the claims that you’ve made about yourself, I expected you to engage in discussion related to your argument in a more open way. The reason I felt sneaky, was because I had to elicit answers from you or frame my questions in an indirect way, as you weren’t answering the direct questions, which I felt were important in relation to your argument and subsequent discussion.
For instance; I asked you if there was a recognised principle that supported your P1, and your reply was that you weren’t going to repeat yourself. But having an idea of how you debate, I believe that if there was, you would of stated/posted it with haste.
I also asked if you believed that God has to be absolutely perfect, but you did not reply.
And you had no trouble repeating this;
These kind of responses to what I believe are key questions, makes it seem as though you’re not willing to engage when a real test is put to your argument.
Real test??
I should know if there is a real test to my arguments.
Most of the point you raised I have already dealt with them earlier.
What is worst, my effort with any repetition is met with petty snarky remarks that is not contributing to the discussion.
Say what you like, I am exercising my discretion, I will not be responding until I see some significant counters to my argument.
It has not concerned him in the past when third parties point out that he has not countered specific counterarguments. IOW he presents a position, someone else presents counterarguments, and often his response is to reassert his original arguement and then comment on its strength, not quite realizing, it seems, that an appeal to one’s own authority - implicit in repeating how one has proved something - is even weaker than the run of the mill appeal to authority (where a third party is brought in, at least). When the first responder mentions how Prismatic has not responded to the counterargument, but merely dismissed it (if that), sometimes a third party or several will come in and repeat this. No, you did not respond to the counter argument. If one is lucky, one may get told that one’s counterargument is not sound. Though generally without any critique of the counter argument. His orginal argument’s repetition is seen, by him, as a response.
I mention this because not only does one find trouble getting an acknowledgement that one has even made an argument, let alone having it reacted to point by point, but…
even when third parties point out that this has happened,
one still gets, at best, simple dismissals that what one has assserted and argued for is not correct, and a repetition of his original position.
It is very hard to…hm…how shall I put this…hard to not treat other minds like our own.
So, when one is told one has not produced a sound counterargument it often seems like one has an actual responsibility to re-show whatever arguments one has made.
He must have read them. He must have wrestled with them. Perhaps he presented a critique I missed.
Because, hey, we would not simply dismiss an argument and label it unsound, without having spent time trying to show that. Taking some of its premises or logic (purported) apart to demonstrate the unsoundness.
So, there must be a glitch, and we wade into the tide again, re-presenting the ideas, perhaps in a new paraphrase. A new angle. Taking respnsibility for bridging the counterargument, when, in fact, no effort has been taken on the other side to bridge or even to understand.
It’s a fairly common experience on the internet, and i am sure I have done similar things, hopefully only in regard to portions of counterarguments, but who knows. _But some people ‘make their living at it’ to write metaphorically.
It’s the bread and butter of their approach to not responding and maintaining that they have proven something.
To be charitable: perhaps he thinks people have to demonstrate there is a God for there to be any problems with his ‘proof’. That’s also a common confusion. Unless one can prove X is the case, then -X must be the case. Which is not only not true, but not relevant to the soundness of his argument.
Prismatic,
Hmm. By saying “real test” I don’t mean to imply that no one else has raised valid counter points, its just that there is no recognised principle (that I am aware of) which supports your P1 - which is a real test for your argument.
Also. Whether you believe that God has to be perfect is important, because your argument seemingly does not solely pertain to the Abrahamic God, it applies to any and all positive claims about God in general. There are issues relating to this claim.
If you don’t want to answer these questions then fine. But I don’t believe you can do that, and then claim that there haven’t been any justified counter-arguments.
KT,
Brilliant.
He doesn’t seem to see the problem in asking for sound counter-arguments, to a sound argument. However, the problems associated with such an appeal have actually played out.
Can you argue an absolute when there is no arguable absolute certainty?
JTB has problems. Relatively justifiable, doesn’t make them True, just relatively justifiable. Spontaneous creation as an explanation of the universe seems to violate logic, where the absence of thing becomes thing without any addition taking place. At it’s simplest, a god acts as a function in the existence of a spontaneously created universe.
So going back to the original post.
Possibility? There is only ultimately one god (with many human contrived appearances) and therefore can not be inferior to itself?
P1 as a premise may not be true. What makes a hydrogen atom not an example of absolute perfection?
P2 as a premise may not be true. Only when you pit one version of a god against another. Maybe there is only one of them in the first place.
Therefore the conclusion draw given p1 and p2 may not be true.
In other words, it’s not a god problem… it’s a human one.
Generally,
Yes, there is no absolute certainty of absoluteness.
Certainty of Absoluteness is an impossibility to be real.
However theists claim their god is of absolute certainty.
Therefore the theists’ claim of God as absolutely real is moot and a non-starter.
If the above is your claim …??
Where is your proof for that ultimately one God?
Even theoretically, if a God cannot be inferior to itself, then it has be absolute.
But as demonstrated above and as you stated there is no absolute certainty to the above.
The certain knowledge of IT is impossible. That doesn’t preclude It as existing.
“i.e. god is a Being than which no greater can be conceived.?”
Well I sort of got that notion from you intro to P2.
That sort of sounds like there can be only one.
You have made a claim that a god is impossible, I don’t have to prove a god, I just have to argue a god is not impossible.
If we are incapable “as of now” of absolute certainty of anything? It seems odd that you would then claim a god is an impossibility, cause that sounds rather like there is no margin at all for the absolute lack of certainty and a reliance on relative justifiable beliefs.
Putting the two thoughts in conjunction, it sounds sort of like you are saying, “I can’t be certain that a god is an impossibility.” And more study in the matter should be engaged and we should be spending less time on the dogma of institution and believing in someone else’s mistaken wholeness of knowledge.
This might be a silly track and lately I’ve been told I’ve said some dumb things, I’ll risk sharing another thought. An other attribute that has described gods in all knowing. Certainty, absolutely. Given that perspective, you’d know if you were an impossibility or a being or were a being or will be, I mean you Know. Within the knowledge of knowledge I would think ‘all knowing’ would be certain.
I’m not claiming as a fact, with utter certainty, that a god Is all knowing, but neither can be anyone, yet that has not seemed to stop them all from trying to convince others regardless.
It’s a human thing not a god thing. Absolute perfection could exist in a spectrum of thought that we just haven’t been aware of in our observational capacity.
Note I argued
“God is impossible to be real empirically and philosophically.”
If you are countering my argument, then it has to be;
‘God is not impossible to be real empirically and philosophically’.
In that case, you have to show proofs God [ontological God] is possible to be real empirically and philosophically.
Note, the ontological God,
“god is a Being than which no greater can be conceived” - St. Anselm.
being absolutely perfect do not have any empirical elements at all.
If such a god do not have any empirical element, how can be possible to be real empirically and philosophically?
Note I presented the argument, but it is not me who is making a positive claim.
It is the theists who are making a positive claim of absolute certainty, i.e. God exists as real empirically and philosophically.
As previously mentioned, the theists’ claim is like ‘a square-circle’ which we can reasoned with certainty within the laws of logic, is impossible to be real empirically and philosophically.
Thus as with a square-circle, the absolute perfect God as real empirically and philosophically is a contradiction, thus is moot and a non-starter.
What you are claiming is like ‘it is possible for a square-circle’ to exist as real empirically and philosophically. This moot and a non-starter. This meant it cannot even qualify as a hypothesis.
As I had argued, why theists insist on their positive claim of God existing as real, when it is an impossibility as a non-starter, is due to their desperate existential psychology.
While I have argued it is an impossibility for the theists’ claim of God existing as real empirically and philosophically, you are making a provision/allowance, that the theists’ claim my be possible without proofs at all.
Why you are making this allowance of possibility is also due the same desperate existential psychology, albeit of a lower degree.
I would suggest you research more in depth into your own psychology [Know Thyself] to find out why in you are in such an agnostic position.
Cause we really don’t know these things. In every event there is the possibility that things go wrong, How ever finely tuned the process, accidents happen. This would be to us like the addition of something we thought nothing could be added too. Accidents. Will we ever be capable of producing a string of outcomes without accidents happening?
I have noted what you have argued and I have argue a counter position. You can’t be certain of a claimed impossibility because what ever the step forward imperialism and philosophy are, they fall short of getting beyond the certainty problem.
I have made a possible claim that argues your impossible claim.
You missed some critical point.
I have already stated, if theists claim their God is an empirical monkey-like-God [e.g Hanuman] or bearded-man in the sky, or whatever is empirical-based existing as real in a planet some n-light years away, I will grant this is an empirically possibility, because such a god is attributed fully with empirical elements.
The next step is for these theists to bring the empirical evidence of such a claim to be verified and confirmed.
While in theory this is empirically possible, the chances of such a god is not probable at all in practice.
But my argument in the OP is against an ontological God which has no empirical elements at all.
Because it has no empirical elements, it is impossible for such a God to be real empirically and philosophically.
If you live by that rule [which is wrong] how can your ‘possible claim’ be absolutely certain to be possible?
Point is you are conflating too many elements.
Note my ‘square-circle’ analogy.