The Ultimate Ground of God is Psychological.

Your premises are about what theists say about God. The premises are not actually about God. The premises are not about features of the world/universe.

Therefore your conclusion is not about what exists but rather it’s about what theists say exists.

And even that is debatable because I don’t think theists are saying what you claim that they are saying. Lots of posters here agree with me and they have told you so.

Obviously all words and statements are only thoughts which exist in the mind.

If your premises are not verified and justified as being real, then your conclusion cannot be real.

This is how it works in a syllogism :

P1 Stuff which has been witnessed.
P2 Other stuff which has been witnessed.
C Conclusion which logically follows from P1 and P2.

The conclusion need not be witnessed, verified, demonstrated empirically but it reflects reality. It may be verified in the future but that’s a separate process and it’s beside the point.

Note, the default to objective knowledge is as follows;

  1. Present a rational hypothesis from abduction, etc.
  2. Gather evidence, verify and justify hypothesis is true.
  3. If proven true, then hypothesis is accepted as a true objective knowledge {justified true beliefs].

Yes my premise 2 is about what theists claim, i.e. God is a possibility and real absolutely perfect Being. I have explained how despite claims of lesser Gods, all claims of God are ultimately directed towards an absolutely perfect Being.

My purpose is to show the theists claim cannot even qualify for stage 1 above, i.e. as a rational and probable hypothesis.
If the claim of God cannot even be a proper hypothesis, then there is no grounds to proceed to stage 2 to establish whether God is a possibility and is real.
Therefore the theists’ claim ‘God exists’ is moot, a non-starter, thus an impossibility.

I have stated this impossibility of God is like claim a square-circle exists, i.e.

  1. All contradictions are impossible [logically, empirically]
  2. A square-circle is a contradiction
  3. Therefore a square-circle is an impossibility

Note again, the above stages 1-3 to arrive at real objective knowledge.
The claim “God exists?” cannot even qualify to be a rational hypothesis.

I have presented the alternative theory of how the idea of God arose within the consciousness of humans in this OP, The Ultimate Ground of God is Psychological.
I have given SOME [more in mind] details and evidences to explain my claim the idea of God is psychological.
It is because the idea of God is grounded on the psychological that the belief in a God is generally accepted as based on faith [belief without proof nor refined reason].

“Objective knowledge” means “knowledge of the objective” and “of the objective” means “of the ONE, common Reality”.

Your first premise was false (and actually undefined). And, as phyllo told you before (as have others before), even proving that God could not be absolutely perfect does not disprove God’s existence, rather merely that God is not as absolutely perfect as they thought…

Your syllogism is logically invalid and would not disprove God even if it was valid.

Strawman.

Theists have not claimed that if God is not absolutely perfect, then God does not exist.

Your hypothesis is that if God exists, God must be absolutely perfect (your strawman). Your reasoning is that since absolute perfection is impossible, God is impossible.

Again, a Strawman.

“All contradictions are impossible” is not the same as “Absolute perfection is impossible”. The latter is an undefined phrase as well as being simply not true.

Your analogy is incorrect. Your premises have to be accepted as true, and your’s was not.

Yes, merely a “theory”. Hume never proved anything. But literally everything can be said to be “psychological” thus it is pointless to make the claim except to insult and demean.

You are inventing your own meaning of ‘objective.’

The following is what is generally accepted as objectivity in philosophy;

The above has no substance worth my time, and note this point;

Aminius and Phyllo had raised the above points but I have countered effectively their superficial arguments. Have you read the responses I had given and do you have any counters of substance to them?

I had provided evidences of how the idea of God arose in the brain and mind of some people.
For some they are cured of the idea of God oozing out of the brain by medicines, avoidance of drugs, brain damage is repaired, etc.

The basis of theism is psychological.
In the future humanity will have the knowledge and technology to understand fully the neuro-psychological mechanics and processes that drive theism with its good and evil elements. Then one will be able to switch off or inhibit the psychological impulses [re theism] via other non-theistic fool proof methods to deal with the same inherent unavoidable existential crisis within.
At present non-theistic Buddhism and other spiritualities without any negative baggages are already doing that.

Gotta love strong metaphysical claims like this one above…anyway Kant:

What is the reference or link to the above?

Most of the above is a misrepresentation of Kant’s view.
The only provision for God in Kant’s philosophy is that or a reasoned-God within Morality as the pivot of the highest good. Kant never accept God as a real thing within empirical-rational reality.

I do not agree with Kant’s use of the term ‘God’ within his Philosophy of Morality.
The term ‘God’ can lead to many of its misinterpretations.
There is another term to God which Kant used, i.e. the Ens Realisimum.

What’s your beef? Ens Realisimum = “the most real being” = God

The ultimate ground of God is the self-aware experiences of biological evolution, which indicate teleology. One again–God is a verb, not a noun. God is a force, not a thingy.
"The force that though the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age… ."Dylan Thomas

Confirmation bias jumping in. This is one reason why theism is psychological.

The Ens Realisimum which is non-thestic is still an impossibility within the empirical-rational reality.

Ens Realisimum can be equivalent to the idea of God but is more of philosophical idea rather than a heavily theological based idea with its negative baggage.
It is necessary to bring in the idea of Ens Realisimum [not God] with discussing the Philosophy of Morality and Ethics.

If such is based on self-aware experience, it has to be empirically-based.
But as I had demonstrated the idea [non empirical] of God is not empirically possible, i.e. it is impossible within an empirical rational reality.

The idea of God is only a mental thought/idea within the mind only. Such an idea is driven by psychological factors within the brain/mind. I have given evidences for this.

If “it” it is a force is may not be a physical object, but nevertheless it is still a thing-in-general.
Kant has demonstrated a thing-in-itself [like the idea of god] do not exists in empirical rational reality except as a thought with the brain/mind of theists.

Kant was unaware of the discoveries of Darwin and Mendel. This makes much of his psychology abstract and impractical. If the brain/ mind were incapable of discovering something of reality in things outside the body, we would not survive. Brain/mind seeks nourishment in the complementation of chemical elements. We eat those chemicals and their compounds that are identical to those that compose our physical body. It was not though trial and error that we learned what not to eat; it was though the accuracy of our senses that we learned what was edible and nourishing. The “thing in itself:” is a fun bit of philosophical mysticism that has nothing to do with here and now, practical ideas. Without biology, there is no psychology; without biologically grounded psychology, there is no need for theism. This has little or nothing to do with theism as being caused by existential angst.

Kant may not be informed of genetics but he was not far from the basis of the evolution of the species.

My point with reference to Kant has nothing to do with the psychological factors yet.
What Kant presented is from reason not psychology.
It is like logically a square-circle is an impossibility.
Along this line of logic and sense, the idea of God [God-in-itself] is an impossibility.
Thus the question of whether God exists as real is irrelevant.

The idea of God is only relevant for a personal psychological reasons to soothe the existential angst. It is like a tranquilizer to soothe one’s stress and anxieties which cannot be pinpointed to a specific spot.

I have argued; for something to be known, it must be empirically possible, i.e. it must be empirically based.
For example, scientists will discover new germs and bacteria, new kinds of food, etc. and all these must be empirically verified and justified with evidence.
It is even possible for human-liked aliens to exists somewhere in the Universe but this is very slim and can be easily confirmed if there are available evidences that can be verified and justified.

It is also possible for an empirical-based anthropomological God like the “bearded man in the sky” like the image below [this is empirically based thus possible] to exists but obviously that is very slim awaiting evidence if any. Such a God is inferior to the ontological God.

Now the standard God that is believed by most theists is the ontological God [an absolutely perfect Being] which is an impossibility because it has no empirical elements but it is a fully mental idea only - equivalent to a square-circle.

That is the point, your argument;

  • with biology [empirical] there is theism [empirical].
    If the conclusion is empirically based, then it has to be empirically verified and justified. But since the idea of God first emerged there is no empirical evidences to justify the existence of a God [as defined].

The existential angst is related to biology and from there arise theism to soothe the existential angst. If you refer to the Abrahamic religions, it is very obvious the central driver is existential, i.e. salvation from physical existential mortality to eternal life in heaven. It is the same with all other forms of theism albeit more subtle.

OMG #-o

Existential angst may have been the drive to believe in God by primitive man; but the history of theism does not prove that this is the case. It is more likely that the drive is prompted by something like a hunger for fulfillment, a drive to be whole. As is true of any natural appetite, inner need is not without outer fulfillment. God is inside and outside. The Humean/Kantian idea of senses being unable to reveal anything of things in themselves is a philosophical conundrum. Of course there are things in existence which the senses cannot fathom. God is not one of these and cannot be compared to them. God is as real as hands and feet.

The basic drives [sex, hunger, security] that are embedded deep in the brain and they do not change significantly even within millions of years. The hunger and sex drives we have is fundamentally [essence] the same as the primitive people and even the same with other animals as it was million of years ago. It is only the forms that is changed, e.g. the ways we produce and take in our food.

The existential angst manifests from the existential drive which is more deeper than the sex, hunger and security drives.
Throughout history, there is no change in the evil manifestations of the existential angst when it is threatened or the impulse to sustained it.

In fact, the existential angst and its manifested theistic-based evils are more threatening comparing to the past due to the evil prone theists getting access to greater technologies and more advanced weapons.

Note the existential drive and angst is embedded in ALL humans and active in most which drive them to the easiest solution, i.e. theism. But it also drive other humans to non-theistic measures, such as non-theistic spirituality and also the negative like drugs, etc.

It is not a philosophical conundrum for Kant who has demonstrated the position of the thing-in-itself as an impossibility within the empirical world. Where the thing-in-itself is believed as God [as real], that is illusory.

Where the senses cannot fathom, whatever is conceived as real has to be empirically possible and justified to be true. God cannot be fathom by the senses and it is not empirically possible, i.e. it is an impossibility.

If God is as real as empirical hands and feet, where is the empirical evidence for God?

“Existential angst” is philosophy, a belief, not psychology. One could just as easily and justifiably say all religions stem from the experience of the numinous.

Angst is culturally dependent to an incredible degree and it is most pronounced in Western societies and in civilization in general. and then your use of ‘evil’??? Why would what you consider an unchanging natural drive or reaction be evil, especially to a secular person?

It seems to me the main access to nuclear weapons is not by theists, even if on the US side presidents must pretend they are theists.

I agree.

As I had stated the existential angst from an existential crisis is not directly cultural but manifested from how our DNA is structured. It is Nature not Nurture.

Besides theism and theology, the existential crisis is expressed in many aspects of life. One of this is tribalism in the secular perspective. The basic responses of “tribalism” is an initial sense of existential threat from another group of humans who are different- the us versus them instinct. This generate existential angst [feeling of threat, anxieties] and if the other group is more aggressive or dominant, then there will be terrible fears.

In the initial clash of two different groups, there could be fightings & wars and thus the evil of killing each other or even genocide.
If two tribes manage to live in village near to each other, there will be clashes that involved evil acts, stealing, killings, raping, violence etc.

Isn’t the above is the truth of what was has been going on within the history of mankind.

The same as been going on with theism as driven by the existential crisis and its angst.

Looking into the future it not difficult for a rogue Islamic State to acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction and Nukes [lots of blackmarket activities] just like how North Korea sneaked through with their nuclear power.

As far as the evil prone believers of the Religion of Peace are concern, the destruction of the human species is not an issue because regardless of what happen they are assured of a place in Paradise [with virgins thrown in]. According to their holy texts, if they exterminate the human species [and all their perceived ‘vermins’ therein] they will get greater rewards.

As for the nuclear threat secular, there is at least MAD to rely on. Nevertheless all such threats must be addressed but it [secular matters] is off topic here.