God is an Impossibility

I see the problem with your views is you are assuming there is a gap between

  1. X - which is empirical and rationality and
  2. a presupposed Y [all there is & God] that exist - which is only in thought and by pure reason.

One point of logic is you cannot conflate P1 and P2 because they are stated in different senses and thus this would be a fallacy of equivocation.

To make a valid sylllogism both premises must be in the same senses, i.e. in this case ‘empirical’.
The problem here is how can you be sure Premise 2, i.e. y [God and all there is] is even empirically possible.

Therefore in this case, your idea of a Gap is a non-starter because your P1 and P2 are in different ‘senses’ [not re sensual btw].

From the above I am not in the same boat as the theist.
The theist conflate and equivocate two different senses [in this case re ‘existence’] within his/her syllogism.
I am only sticking to what is empirical and the empirically possible.

The above point is not relevant to the non-theist.
The theist makes a presupposition God exists without being able to prove it within empirical-rational reality.
The non-theists stance is indifferent to the idea of God or existence of God. As far as the non-theists is concern the question of existence do not arise at all. IF there is no question of ‘existence’ at all, why should the non-theist bother.

Why the non-theists bothered with theism are the real consequences of evils from theists arising from the belief in an illusory God. Note innocent non-theists are being killed for merely not agreeing with the theists’ belief in an illusory God.
This is why for me, the question of God is redirected to the related psychological factors driving theist to believe in an illusory God.

Anyone can speculate on anything, what matters is the evidence and proofs.

Not in terms of logic and rationality.
As I had shown above the hypothesis ‘God exists’ is a non-starter due to the fallacy of equivocation in conflating premises of difference ‘senses’ thus cannot deductive.

My OP is not an existential contraption.
It is a syllogistic argument with sound deductive conclusion, i.e. God is an Impossibility, and thus a non-starter to deliberate within an empirical-rational reality.

This is like a battle between ‘reason’ versus ‘reason’, albeit pure primal reasoning versus refined higher cortical reasoning.

Per Kant, the idea of God arose from the very Nature of Reason and they are sophistications of Pure Reason. The idea of a God is due to very subtle sophisticated ‘deception’ of the mind [for a desperate psychological reason] to lead the theists to believe God is real when it is actually an illusion.

Kant has used the higher refined higher cortical reasoning to outwit the above primal pure reason to prove God is an illusion.
There is a saying in Buddhism, ultimately reason [higher cortical] must kill reason [lower primal] itself so that one can actualize the truth.

So mine is not a whatever-contraption but rather a sound deductive argument to overcome the pseudo-deductive argument of the theist re God exists.

Note Kant’s System of Morality & Ethics is not expected to achieve results immediately.
Kant’s Kant’s System of Morality & Ethics will produce results when certain conditions are met.
One main condition is the average Moral Intelligence [MQ] of humanity must be at least say 100 times the current Moral Intelligence where the average person will rational adopts Kant’s system.
For example if the average IQ of humanity at present is say 90, imagine what humanity will be able to achieve if the average IQ of humanity is say 300! [> Einstein’s].

The question is, it is possible to increase the average Moral Intelligence of humanity 100 times the current MQ. Based on another thesis on this question, I am optimistic this is possible within the next >100 >150 >200 years but we have to lay the foundation at the present and thus such discussion.

One point about Kant is he is very thorough and he laid down many other conditions to ensure his Moral and Ethics System will be effective.

I do not agree it is an intellectual contraption.
It is nevertheless a hypothesis that is very feasible based on rational arguments and empirical clues.
I have given example of the moral practice of the banning of slavery by ALL Nations. There are many other examples of a smaller scale along the principles of Kant’s model that is being practiced and progressing.

The question is how to get to the apply Kant’s Morality and Ethics Model to all aspect of humanity’s morality and ethics.

As I had stated Kant’s Morality and Ethics System targets to increase simultaneously the MQ [Moral Intelligence] of the average human 100 time greater than the current average.

As such there should be a project of humanity that addresses ALL evils from the whole spectrum of humanity including religious-based evil I had been discussing here. This will include addressing the problematic sociopaths, and others who are evil prone.

All humans will in the future co-operate based on good shared values naturally and spontaneously without being forced or coerced into it.

Note my earlier argument in the first of this series re you cannot presuppose there is a God, until you have proven God exists. But as I had proven God is an impossibility and a non-starter.
In addition, note Meno’s Paradox where you cannot take for granted there is something unknown to be known, it is more problematic for an unknown without empirical possibility.

Note the thread I raised on ‘What is Dasein?’ I am interested what is your conception of ‘Dasein’. I have read a lot on Heidegger but do not have a good grasp of his philosophies.
If I am not mistaken Heidegger’s view is humans are ‘thrown into’ existence. Such a view can lead to problems because the implied metaphors [Lakoff and Johnson] like the ‘container’ metaphor where things are thrown “into” some container. This naturally to lead to linking ‘existence’ with some thing, but the reality is there is no thing in the first place. It is only this default metaphor [thus psychology] that compel one to relate to some thing ending as a reified thing from no thing.

Thus philosophically one should not be overly insistence with ‘God exists’ or ‘God do not exists’ but rather faced “reality” as an emergence that unfold interdependently with the subject-as-no-thing.

Kant will not tell them anything other than declaring there is a potential to avoid such a mess in the future when his Morality and Ethics System in put into practice progressively.

From Kant’s POV of view, what we can do at present is to do the best and prevent the worst evils wherever possible. If we cannot then we have to accept whatever the outcome.

What Kant will be asking is, how can we prevent such existing evils in the future and his solution would be to start establishing the foundation now with the expectation of effective progressive results to come in 50, 100, and to plateau within 200 years.
This is done without having to believe God exists as real within an empirical-rational reality.

Yes, it only seems to you.
There is no Universal standards at present, but it not very difficult to establish universal standards and progressively improve on it.

First we need to produce a full list of all known and possible evils acts of humans.
Re degrees of evilness, if we rate genocides at the highest at 99/100, murder at 80/100 and petty crimes at 5/100, it is not too difficult to rate those acts of evil in between the highest and the lowest to arrive at a first draft for further deliberation to arrive at sufficient consensus. Note this is within the midst of a continual progressive trend in the increase of average Moral Intelligence and other intelligences within humanity.

What was Kant’s conclusion regarding his own morals?

“In other words, belief in a God and in another world is so interwoven with my moral sentiment that as there is little danger of my losing the latter, there is equally little cause for fear that the former can ever be taken from me.” — Immanuel Kant

This seems to blow a hole in Spectrum’s — I mean Prismatic567’s — reasons for idealizing Kant.

Wow. I would really like to see that list.
You should start a thread on it.

Re the above, there is no reference to Kant’s book.
I have mentioned many times Kant believed God is a possibility on moral grounds [not the common moral argument for God btw] and this is one point I do not agree with Kant.

The major point of Kant’s CPR is it is impossible for God to exists as real within an empirical-rational reality. In this sense, God is illusory.

Note this which I had quoted very often [mine].

I have already done that but have not organized it efficiently yet.

Note my main project is ‘Islam is Inherently Evil’ and my thesis would be very empty if I do not do a thorough research on what I meant by ‘evil’ for that thesis.
In addition I have to dig into more details [related neuropsychology, neurosciences, etc.] for each of the critical evils, e.g. genocides and the likes.
For literature review purpose I have to exhaust all research and views that are accessible to me.

And of course ignore the ones that don’t agree with you.

And of course ignore or discredit the ones that don’t agree with you.

The point is, he undermines his own philosophy and therefore yours. The quote I cited is from Critique of Pure Reason , quite fittingly near the end of the book. Is it not odd that critics of religion, like you, argue like Kant is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but ignore his conclusion?

The religious folks, however, can argue much the same thing about God. He is imagined in the minds of mere mortals here and now and one day His existence will become manifest. It’s just that for most of the faithful this manifestation occurs in the Kingdom of Heaven.

All I can do here [yet again] is to note this as a “general description”. What particular contexts in which Buddhists make claims of benefits. And you can bet there will be any number of folks lining up to argue that, on the contrary, we will benefit all the more if we think like they do, feel like they do, behave like they do.

If Buddhism “works” for someone, fine. But [from my frame of mind] it doesn’t make dasein, conflicting goods and political economy go away. And mere mortals of either the Eastern or the Western persuasion are still confronted with connecting the dots between the behaviors that they choose on this side of the grave and their imagined fate on the other side of it.

That doesn’t go away either. And we know for a fact there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of contexts in which those behaviors come into conflict.

And all the self-development and meditation in the world doesn’t seem to putting much of a dent into that.

If God is the cause of change how then does this allow for human autonomy?

And how have you in fact demonstrated that this is true beyond merely asserting it is in sync with RM/AO?

Again: How is it manifested in your day to day interactions with others?

Is it even possible to express this more abstractly? Note a particular context in your own life that would allow us to grasp this more clearly.

Note to others:

Again, what am I missing here? What is he telling us about the Real God that we might all be able to grasp in turn? What are you able to grasp and then convey to us more substantively?

This is like something that we might get from a horoscope: so numbingly vague that almost anything can be said to be in sync with it.

You actually do believe that it does, don’t you James?

Sure, that may well be a demonstration of God’s existence.

And if that is all that is necessary in order for you to believe in the existence of God, fine.

But why does that have to be all that it is necessary for others to believe, in turn?

And, if God, why your God? Why not James’s Real God? Why not uccisore’s ultra-conservative God? Why not Ierrellus’s all forgiving God?

And you know me: if your God, how then do you connect the dots between the behaviors that you choose on this side of the grave and your imagined fate on the other side of it?

And with so much at stake here wouldn’t any actual extant God make it abundantly clear what that crucial righteous path is? Instead, we have hundreds and hundreds of conflicting narratives all laying claim to the one true God.

Explain that. :laughing:

You ask of me how it relates. I explained how it relates. You did not ask to prove it to you. I am not interested in proving anything to you in particular because that would be even more futile than trying to prove anything to Prism. Truth and logic don’t count at all. You merely incessantly preach whatever you want others to believe.

But you don’t think that it is a demonstration. And you don’t explain why.

I didn’t say that it is “all that is necessary”. You put that in.

I didn’t say that it has “to be all that is necessary for others”. What I find interesting is that it is entirely dismissed as “no evidence” and “no demonstration” by many atheists. There are hundreds of posts on these kinds of forums where atheists declare that “there is no evidence/demonstration” of God. They don’t even phrase it as “insufficient evidence/demonstration” or “unconvincing evidence/demonstration”. :laughing:

You’re getting ahead of yourself. Why discuss the nature of God if God does not exist?
For the atheist, these are just different fictions presented by various storytellers. You want to pick your favorite one? What does that do for you? Entertainment?

Again this deals with the nature of God. Maybe God is completely indifferent. Maybe God died when She birthed the universe. Maybe God made it as clear as is necessary.

Step one is determining if God exists or not. Step two is determining the nature of God.

If the result of step one is that God does not exist, then there is no point to moving to step two.

That’s pure assumption. There is empirical evidence to suggest there’s more to it than that.

The problem with many of Prismatic’s criticisms is that he does not distinguish between the Ground of existence (what many theists call “God” and things that have existence.

As usual, in any reading one has to take the point in its whole context. Note the point you highlighted, Kant included the term “moral.” In the whole context of Kant’s philosophy the only consideration he allowed for ‘God’ is only within the ‘morality’ perspective and only under certain conditions not in general terms. If you research into Kant’s morality, you will be VERY surprised how he related God to humans [in a totally unexpected manner as how theists relate to God].

Based on the many polls, Kant is recognized as one of the greatest Western philosopher of all times. I have high respect for Kant’s philosophy but I do not agree with EVERYTHING he proposed, and for whatever I agree with Kant, I ensured it is justified soundly.

One critical point. On finer consideration, there is a difference between imagination, conception and idealization.
What can be imagined must be empirical possible.
Something that is purely in thoughts only or contradictory like a square-circle is impossible to be imagined.
God is purely a thought and based on pure primal reason without any empirical possibility at all, i.e. impossible.

That is why the consideration of the possibility of whether God exists is moot and a non-starter as far as empirical-rational reality is concern.

The hope of the theists is only in thought and pure primal reason, and as far as thought-only is concern, anything goes.

One critical point, again [I have explained in detail above], my proposals re Buddhist philosophies is NOT for application in our present state, but only when certain conditions are met in the future.

It is not the case of ‘Buddhism “works” for someone.’
What I stated was, the core principles and the more refined levels of practices Buddhism has great potential to contribute to World Peace.
As I had stated, many of the claims are already justified by empirical research by various scientists in tons of research and findings. Example;

Brains of Buddhist monks scanned in meditation study
bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-12661646

The Buddhist and the Neuroscientist, What compassion does to the brain
theatlantic.com/health/arch … on/397706/

Note I am only using Buddhism as an example, there are benefits and potentials from other non-theistic Eastern philosophies.

What is needed to be done is for humanity to look into the above potentials in great details and extract whatever for adoption [voluntarily] towards progress in whatever problems [say X*] you raised above.

Frankly I am not clear on what you mean by ‘dasein’ in this case.
*But let say your ‘dasein’ represent whatever potential problem to the individual and mankind, i.e. we label this ‘X’

Note the core principles of Buddhism, i.e. the Four Noble Truths and Noble 8-Fold Paths.

  1. The truth of suffering (dukkha)
  2. The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
  3. The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
  4. The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)

Thus whatever problems you intend your ‘dasein’ to involve, we can label it as ‘X.’
Input ‘X’ into the above 4NT model [see link below] and the problem will be solved subject to the required conditions.

Buddha’s 4NT-8FP -A Life Problem Solving Technique
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=187395&p=2516030&hilit=4NT#p2516030

You are lost here.
Isn’t this very obvious.
I have not made an assumption.
It is a fact that the idea of God is based on thoughts.
I have added ‘pure primal reason’ besides merely thoughts alone.
No way, you can disagree on this?

The most credible empirical evidence to prove God exists is for God to appear empirically.
If I say, this such and such apple exists, all I need is to produce the real physical apple for empirical verification. But since [>10,000 years] the idea of God [illusory and psychological] emerged there is no evidence to prove God empirically.

If you want to infer [lower degree of credibility] God exists based on empirical evidence, then God must at least be an empirical possibility. As I had proven, the idea [idealized] of God is not even an empirical possibility at all.

Example, it is observed there are creations within the Universe, I can infer there is a creator [s] but these creators or one creator must be at least empirically possible. I can speculate all things are created by an empirical based human-liked aliens who are 1 million time intelligent than humans from a planet billions of light years away. This is empirically possible because the whole context is within empiricism and rationalism. In this case, the next possible question is who created the creator[s] who created all things in the Universe. This lead to an infinite regression.

The problem is theists are compelled by subliminal psychological compulsion to hastily stop the infinite regression and jumped to the conclusion [based on faith] to insist God is the final cause which is a leap beyond the empirical. Such a God that stopped infinite regression can never be an empirically possible God at all, but is merely based on thoughts and pure primal psychological reasons.

God - More to it?
This is merely speculation and wishful thinking to cover and soothe the psychological angst pulsating from the deep chasms of the psyche.

What I am grounded on is truth, i.e. verifiable truths.
What I have proven is ‘God is an Impossibility’ based on logic, reason and argument.
As such, in terms of truth, it is moot and a non-starter even to raise the question of whether God exists or not as real within an empirical-rational reality.

The ‘idea of God’ emerged into human consciousness merely as a thought to soothe the inherent unavoidable existential angst, i.e. for psychological reasons and never for consideration whether it is real or not.

Theists must be mindful and responsible that when they insist God is ‘real’, they are directly and indirectly contributing to an emergence of an ideology that is a double-edged sword that bring good and terrible evils.
This supposedly real God as claimed also deliver real holy texts [via messenger] that include evil laden elements that compel and inspire evil prone believers to commit terrible evils and violence upon non-believers.