God is an Impossibility

Yes, that’s true. But there are the laws of physics, mathematical calculations, the logical rules of language etc… They are at our disposal and seem able to demonstrate any number of facts embedded in the either/or world that we live and interact with.

The fact of human interaction. The fact of human interaction that revolves around discussions/beliefs/behaviors related to the alleged existence of one or another of [so far] dozens and dozens of Gods.

And that’s just on this planet.

And it’s also true that I believe in the existence of many, many things – computer technology for example – that I would never be able to demonstrate to others why they function as they do.

But I’ll bet others can.

But who can demonstrate the existence of even a single God? Such that their argument takes us to this God. In the flesh as it were.

No, instead, the preponderance of religious folks fall somewhere between “I have faith in God” [more or less blind] and “I believe what I do about God in my head and that comforts and consoles me”.

But few folks are quite like you, James. You have managed to construct this gigantic intellectual contraption “in your head” that, through “definitional logic” has resulted in this equally gigantic “theory of everything” that somehow “in your head” manages to intertwine definitional logic with RM/AO with the Real God with…what exactly?

In particular as it relates to conflicting human behaviors derived from conflicting value judgments.

It seems to me that there are or process two ways to look at , or, define the understanding of how rationality, or rational use of language relate.

That they do relate inscribe the whole content of the adventure of being able to pose the problem of interaction between assumptions and their verification.

No problem up to here

Here comes.the clincher: why does on over examination any resolution depends on the level of generalization with an aim toward the degree of focus.

GOD as a certainty was based on a reductive logos-logic, where everything was caused by another cause, determining man ,his values and his actions. He was outward looking and assumed a rationality with a creationist foundation

The proof was in the pudding, absolutely, there was no need to look elsewhere, or to propose a belief, that anthropomorphic visuality need or has a potential to any reversal. Man was formed out of the image of God. Reversability never occured, because there never had a reason for it.

The distinction between certain knowledge, and the actions of man messing up the equation never took hold because, man’s soul , verified by the platonic sense , was reified up to the enlightenment. The logos was foolproof.

Then everything did not change overnight, but gradually eroded the basic assumptions. Not that the old assumptions were abandoned, but slowly created parallel patterns.

Even Kant held in to old assumptions and it is argued,.Nietzche as well. His nihilization was a tour the force, for public consumption based on how Nietzche understood how faith was on the wait. Privately, he saw the deeper meaning of proof, perhaps biased by his own father’s religious occupation

Reason failed for.the masses because their belief was based on shallow ground.

That is why inversion of logic called for a different logical system, inductive reason

This was the crisis which still betakes arguments up to now.

Where reason prevails depends on how it’s defined, says the positivist, or, how it interpreted say the reformed neo-Platonist, not realising their reasoning simply lost the absolute parallelism of their previous stance, and they don’t see the divergence or convergence from a removed vanishing point, depending on the hold an imminent or transcendent terrain has blinded their reason.they simply reduce divergence by nullification, denial, or, sustaining the categorical error.

This type of reasoning can be seen today, as extended.to a lesser authority in the present day.epistemic crisis surrounded or surrounding the Trump era.

As an afterthought, I hope I did not commit the very, or similar logical error, of which I was chastised a way back
But a retraction at this point lessens my own interpretation of how this forum is shaping , up to now. Guessing,.just trying to hold my own here.

I’m not building an edifice but inverting the inversion by seeking a new definition of God

Huh? I’m just asking you to define the meaning “rational” if someone were to ask you whether the OP is a rational argument.

I’m asking you to dissolve the mud such that all of us might be more in sync in evaluating how reasonable or unreasonable the argument is.

In other words, what you call “muddying the waters” seems to revolve around my attempt to make a distinction between saying that it is rational to argue that the OP does in fact exist here at ILP, and saying that in fact the argument either is or is not rational pertaining to efforts to establish the existence of God.

Alas, when you are reduced to this sort of “retort”, my respect for your intelligence does take a dent or two. After all, making me the argument doesn’t make my points go away.

I already presented what I see as the flaws/errors in Prismatic’s syllogism.

I will recap briefly:

He insists that theists demand that God be perfect. - This seems clearly false.

He insists that there are different types of perfection. - This seems to be an arbitrary division.

He presents a logic argument which is not based on any observed evidence. - This means that the conclusion does not necessarily reflect reality. The stuff that Feynman said about physics theories applies to this argument.

You’re a bright guy … you can figure out what that suggests about the OP.

We keep going round and round because you don’t have a reasonable concept of rationality. If you did, then we could move forward and make some sort of progress.

I have always been willing to commit myself to a definition of rationality based on observed evidence, logic and proven methods of reasoning.

We could examine a particular scenario and discuss whether something valid evidence or whether a particular line of reasoning is correct.

Except you can’t do that. You couldn’t do it for the “teaching Boris” scenario and you certainly can’t do in any thread where the word ‘god’ comes up.

I see. So you worship physicists as your priests. And thus anyone agreeing with modern physics is a “rational man or woman”.

… with Physics.

… with Psychology.

You should think it interesting that neither modern physicists, psychologists, nor me have your special dilemma, yet they are your reference for being “rational”.

Straw man!
I did not insist theists demand that God be perfect.
I stated SOME theists insist their God is absolutely perfect [as differentiated from relative perfection]. In addition I argued those who do not qualify their god is absolutely perfect, are ignorant and given the knowledge they [ have no choice] will rationally opt for an absolutely perfect God.

There is obviously a difference between,

  1. Subjective opinions of perfection - the perfect woman, beauty
  2. Empirical related perfection - e.g. perfect circle
  3. Absolute - perfection no greater can be conceived nor disputed

You are very lost here.

The argument for God which by default must be absolutely perfect is basically a non-empirical argument. Do you think theists can ever produce an empirical god for scientific testing?

What I have presented is a reasoned and rational argument to prove the falseness of a non-empirical claim. There is no need for evidence in this case because theists do not begin their claim with direct evidence.

phyllo

:-k This may not be a fair analogy here. We know that a man has been murdered. This is all we know. The evidence is there before us lying on the floor. Everything else is a total mystery.
Isn’t it possible to at least sense or intuit something of a First Cause through the Universe[s] or however someone would want to describe it without having any inkling whatsoever about it.
Does total mystery actually have to be completely ignorant of a God’s existence?

But we can never know if those conclusions actually hit the mark, can we? Can we? We see with eyes which can only interpret things according to the brains which we have now.
We call this God He, father, all powerful, all knowing, et cetera.

Which one of those to you would be the truest characteristics - supported by evidence?

In light of what goes on in this word, how could anyone even say that?
What is it that shows you this Power of a God?

Thank you but I actually was not beating myself up. I was reminding myself that I could be wrong. Better not to have said probably. Some would definitely hold that against me. :laughing:

I will not presume or assume here, but do you see me as arrogant? If so, within this thread where did you see it. An inquiring mind would like to know.
I had actually wondered if it would have been better much earlier on to name the characteristics which I saw as belonging to a God but I still like to hold to whatever it was which began all of this is still mystery. As to whether or not I can call it total mystery I am a bit more skeptical than I was before - but still…

Which came first, Phyllo?

Rigid, yes - brittle, I am not so sure of.
But R can build up insurmountable walls.
I am still learning how to be an agnostic and a skeptic.

Iambiguous wrote,

Perhaps one could ALSO define rational as having the wherewithal to Show Just Cause for such an argument?

Considering the fact that there would at least appear to be a Universe lol - arguing for a God NOT being a possibility would seem to be irrational - at least to me.

Wouldn’t the atheist at the very least first have to define what he/she means by God and what others mean by God?
Hmmm… :-k

Well, you have some idea about that first cause because it caused the universe and you know something about the universe.

You can say that about anything. Does any of our knowledge actually hit the mark? One assumes that it does. One would have to have a god’s-eye-view to actually know. And we don’t have that.

Humans are not thriving? Why is the population at 7 billion?

It takes some power to create the universe.

Anybody can be wrong in anything posted. It hardly needs to be written out.

I wasn’t referring to you. ILP is full of arrogant posters. Best not to become like them.

God in this case is ultimately the ontological God, i.e.
a being than which no greater can be 'conceived’ - St. Anselm.
For any quality attributed to any god, the ontological god is always greater.

I have stated the natural evolving trend is towards an ontological God, improving from polytheism and animism. This is why the majority of theists [>5 billion] at present believe in a monotheistic ontological god.

I think Arc has a point. An upward progress toward monotheism REFLECTS a simultaneous regress into its own foundation, satisfying its own contradiction.

It is trying to be a synthetic solution of that contradiction, Anselm may not have seen that coming, but he may have intuited it
That is within the remote possibility of reason. I said similar to that about 6 comments above. So inasmuch we may be talking about an ontogical deity, that ontology can work both ways, on basis of principles of universality. The question of.one God or many gods do have a primordiality, signifying opposing channels of thought, and that’s been the case pretty much through modern history of ideas.

But I would like to know the REAL one. …not the greater one…but the one which is hidden.
Do you see THAT?

I know that your response was in response to my post ~~ Wouldn’t the atheist…~~ but that tells me NOTHING, James. :blush: I was raised a Catholic.
This is why I think that being an agnostic is a far better feast than nibbling on a belief or wearing old hats. :angry:

Until one is able to demonstrate that a God, the God, my God does in fact exist – and that it is therefore entirely rational to state this – how would we go about determining/demonstrating that He is perfect?

Whether what he argues is true or what you argue is false is still just a conflict between what you both believe “in your head” is true/false, based it seems [in the absence of an extant empirical God], on the manner in which you define the meaning of the words you use in the arguments themselves.

And isn’t that “arbitrary” in the absence of a God able to close the gap here between your words and our world once and for all?

And how is your assessment that his logic is flawed based on any observed evidence? Evidence that does in fact establish the most rational [or the only rational] manner in which to construe God?

And then we’ll have James interject here with his “definitional logic” pertaining to the Real God. The Real Christian God?

Yes, but it is one thing to discuss a “reasonable concept of rationality” in a world of words, and another thing altogether to discuss it in a world where the existence of a God, the God has been established such that we can compare the arguments about God with the real thing.

Okay, we live in a world awash in natural disasters – great floods, earthquakes, super volcanoes, tornadoes, devastating droughts, viruses, epidemics, crashing asteroids, gamma ray bursts, CMEs, extinction events.

Now, if someone were to argue that “God is loving, just and merciful”, based on the your own “observed evidence, logic and proven methods of reasoning” would you say that this is a rational conclusion?

Note to others:

Go to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193464

Note that I had continued my exchange with Phyllo regarding Peggy and Boris. He is the one who abandoned it.

I don’t worship anyone. I merely note the extraordinary technological and engineering accomplishments that we take for granted here and now; accomplishments that would have been virtually unthinkable back when, say, Christ is alleged to have been born.

Physicists must know something rather objective about the world we live in, right?

And while you dispute many aspects of “modern physics” [re RM/AO and the Real God], you have not yet been able to demonstrate this much beyond your tiny presence here on the internet. In other words, when will you deconstruct the conspiracy they have mounted against you, such that you will begin to pop up on, say, Nova or the Science Channel?

Or [as no doubt you imagine] when will they come to you?

Instead…

Again, until you are actually able to reconfigure your premises/assumptions/definitional logic into a demonstrable model of the universe that we live in, I suspect you will remain but a tiny presence on the internet.

And that’s before we get to the manner in which you integrate your TOE regarding the either/or world into the world of is/ought.

Well, my own argument here does revolve around psychology. Remember this:

[b]1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life.

2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.

3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.

4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.

5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.

6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.

7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”.[/b]

And while this pertains to the “psychology of objectivism” in the is/ought world, it is probably true in turn regarding physicists assessments of the either/or world. Especially regarding…

1] the world of the very, very small
2] the world of the very, very large
3] the world that brings them both together seamlessly so as to explain Existence itself

And the parts we call “human reality”.

On the contrary, my “reference for being rational” is no less an existential contraption than I suspect that yours is. It’s just that with regard to the either/or world, it seems that “modern physics” has established an astounding accumulation of seeming facts about the world we live in.

My dilemma on the other hand pertains far more to the is/ought world. And, really, what do physicists [modern or otherwise] have to tell us definitively [even today] about that?

Until, pertaining to God, an understanding of rational is able to seamlessly integrate words and worlds – definitions and meaning with hard empirical fact/evidence – showing just cause remains as elusive [or even illusory] as ever.

That’s the wherewithal that piques my own interest. If such an integrated argument does manage to convince me, then my dilemma is dissolved. I would no longer believe in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that ends for all eternity in oblivion.

Polemics aside, I’m rooting for Phyllo and James here!!

And yet I recognize that even if I were to be convinced by any particular argument, there may well be an even better one out there — one that [once again] yanks God out from under me.

I will die. Then I will know. Or “I” will never know anything ever again.

That’s the profoundest mystery of all, of course. Why something instead of nothing? Why this something and not another? And given that something certainly seems to exist, God is clearly one explanation for it. But then we are back to the child asking, “Well, who created God?”

Do the theists here among us really have anything approaching a definitive answer for her?

Theists, atheists, deists, agnostics etc., all seem to be in the same boat here.

How can they not acknowledge the gap between what they think they know about all of this here and now and all that would need to be known in order to finally encompass/grasp Existence and Human Reality once and for all.

That’s why my own argument here tends toward the conjecture that God is more likely to be a manifestation of human psychology: the need for comfort and consolation given the “brute facticity” of what may well be an essentially absurd and meaningless world that ends for each of us one by one in oblivion.

I have to ask: Exactly who is “they”?? :confused:

Not that such is the grand concern you seem to think that it is, but in fact, I have demonstrated. But as it as been pointed out, there is nothing that can be demonstrated to everyone, especially those who can’t even find their way out of their self-imposed mental dilemma. Most of the things that you believe of science have only been demonstrated to a very few. And a great deal of what is demonstrated, is never revealed to you.

Same here, I would like to know the REAL one as well, but where is the evidence or even a thesis for its possibility?
Ever since the idea of God emerged into human consciousness from animism, polytheism to monotheism, no evidence has been produced to prove a REAL god exists. Why?

It is because it is so obvious that theists are unable prove God exists as REAL that they push the argument to one that is based on reason and subsequently more ‘sophisticated’ reason [cosmological argument, etc. ] culminating in an ontological God which is an impossibility.

A human-liked aliens in a planet billions of light years away is an empirical possibility, albeit very very low possibility. But God which must ultimately be an absolute perfect God is not even empirically possible, it is an absolute impossibility [as proven].

The idea of a God emerged out of crude primal reason as compelled by an inherent existential crisis and it is with finer reason itself that the God-idea is destroyed as an impossibility to be empirically real.

The alternative argument I have provided why people believe in a God is due and driven by subliminal psychological factors, e.g. an existential crisis, angst, and the likes is a more tenable and manageable thing. This is not a speculation but the various Eastern spiritualities has already instituted and been practicing such a non-theistic ideology since thousands of years ago.

The above presumed God exists somewhere and God is real.

The idea of God exists as real has always been merely a hypothesis.
Since the idea of God emerged into human consciousness [from animism, polytheism to monotheism], there has been no proofs that God is real.

It is so obvious that theists are unable prove God exists as REAL that they push the argument to one that is based on reason and subsequently more ‘sophisticated’ reason [cosmological argument, etc. ] culminating in an ontological God - an absolutely perfect God - which is an impossibility.

It is not rational to state the above because the hypothesis [God exists as real and ontologically] is not tenable at all in the first place. As such the question of the idea of a God as perfect [absolutely] is a non-starter and moot.
Therefore we do not have to ensure God exists as real [empirically] so that we can assess whether God is perfect or not.