Well said, I agree with the above.
Kant used the idea of noumenon to contrast phenomenon, and therefrom demonstrate how the absolutist are duped from their crude reason to extrapolate without grounding to the thing-in-itself [ding-an-sich] and falsely reify it as a ‘real objective thing’ when in fact, that is merely an illusion.
Just like perfection, there are two perspectives to the infinity, i.e.
Here is the Kantian view, why infinity, infinite as absolute is merely an illusion.
My point is the infinity, infinite that you claimed as Absolute [i.e. God] is impossible to be real empirically nor philosophically.
Note, absolute = totally unconditional from everything including human beings.
Where your God is claimed to absolute and absolutely-perfect, there is in principle an unbridgeable-gap. Thus there is no possibility of knowing such a God as real by any human being.
As implied earlier, when you insist your infinity/Infinite [God] is absolutely absolute, it is no difference from the claim God is absolutely-perfect as I had demonstrated in the OP.
This is hasty generalization given merely based on two atheists so far.
At present, so far, Aegean and me have similar thoughts.
Note what counts is whether there are rational counter-arguments to my arguments grounded on critical thinking.
How many disagree with me via their subjective feelings without counter arguments is not critical.
God, as these nihilists have defined the concept, implies an absolute state - a singularity, i.e., immutable, indivisible.
This contradicts our experience of reality, which is continuously mutable, and infinitely divisible - for reasons I will not get into here, but has to do with how the mind translated dynamic interactivity into singular abstractions.
There is no underlying, beyond, to validate this mono-god, because we can use similar strategies to validate any absurdity, i.e., by claiming that it exists in some alternate reality, ro in a occult realm, or in some beyond time/space plane of existence.
If someone shows me, not tells me, but shows me a singularity, I’ll conceded the point and pray to the Abrahamic one-god, until then I will believe ni gods, as representations of natural forces.
My point was that infinity is unknowable. If “the absolute” refers to the infinite, it is unknowable. Infinity/absolute taken as totality is an illusion. That’s clear from what I stated in the missile thought experiment. The problem is that your statement that infinity and/or is impossible to be real empirically, conflates epistemology and ontology. It is impossible for infinity to be known empirically. My riff on your “missile shot from a space shuttle” illustrates exactly that point. Kant’s critique of pure reason is a work of epistemology not ontology. Read his other works. He never gave up on God as a possibility. You seem to be making scientific empiricism into a closed system which it ain’t.
Ontology and epistemology meet in a negative definition, definition of what can not be -
an infinitely great totality.
It is useful to look at Anaximander and his notion of Apeiron, by which the infinity of God can be replaced.
Prismatic,
This is an unnecessary detachment, because it assumes that subjectivity does not involve critical thinking and/or rationality, and that subjective arguments are not valid in response to your claims. Not on the basis of their content, but because of their nature. As if when discussing things like God and perfection our personal beliefs are not relevant or do not influence our thinking.
There is no “one” god other than the reintegration of mankind’s collective will. It is a force, it is wisdom, both absolute and infinite, continuous growth of contextual questions after every answer, wisdom never stops. It is all good, all powerful and all knowing, that is what wisdom is and this god that has been Mis-interpreted.
The singularity is the nothingness of which something spawned…
That is the point;
because we can use similar strategies to validate any absurdity
It exists right now without any absurdity, it’s wisdom and I’ve already proven it. It is one thing that does not spawn out of imagination, only if you give it form outside of existence does it.
I do not get your exact point above.
However ‘ontology’ in the theistic sense, is not tenable, feasibly or possible to be real.
In your case, you are relying on the ontology of God which has attribute of absolute-perfection.
I have argued in this thread, such an ontological God is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
Btw, to the Abrahamic, God has to be real to the extent of listening and answering prayers, creating and sustaining the universe, grant eternal life in heaven, etc.
Such a God is impossible to be real in the above sense.
Kant CPR ultimate focus is about metaphysics and ontology where he demonstrated metaphysical-ontology are impossibility as contrasted to Mathematics and Science.
Yes, Kant is a deist and did align with the idea of God [I do not agree with Kant on this] but only for moral reasons not as a reality within the empirical world.
Actually the ‘absurdity’ refers to the one who made the claim ‘God exists’ without any groundings nor arguments.
In the above you are making claims after claims but provide no justifiable evidence nor arguments at all.
There are many schizophrenics over history who claim they ‘know’ God with certainty where that God commanded them to kill people and they followed that command to the ‘t.’
Surely you would want evidence and arguments to support such a claim - in any case no evidence will be probable from the schizo.
Point is one cannot simply make claims without justifiable evidence nor arguments at all. If so, there will be many absurd claims.
And of course, rational counterarguments have been made, and these were not adequately responded to. His idea of response is a combination of appeals to authority, dismissing via unsupported judgment, and restating his position. IOW he writes this as if he responds to couterarguments in a rational way, but he does not. Once I get this kind of response a few times, I move over to simply being critical and pointing out patterns of interaction. So, he’ll focus on this, as if he has not gotten other types of response also.
The argument has already been made, in threads and here. Your dismissal of it does not mean it was not made. The only whom has argued against it is you and not even in the correct context. Because you can’t argue against it, it’s a purely logical and reasonable version of the idea that is god.
You’re the schizo here guy, look at your thread and how many philosophers are against your mundane misinterpreted ideas of god, which isn’t even being argued for anyways. Look at how many are in my thread god being a possibility, except you. Should tell you who the schizophrenic is
I made a whole thread disproving this one, where I set the parameter of what god is and the idea I am defending and he still arrived there arguing the misinterpreted version of it, the literal man in the sky, which is NOT the correct INTERPRETATION of the fucking GOD that was spoken of. If he can’t change his view then it’s his own issue. He bases his entire argument off of a misconstrued idea of god then says he wins, how utterly nonsensical.
Where are your arguments that I have not countered?
Don’t simply make claims.
If you can point your arguments I had not effectively countered, I will show you I have done so. It had happened in many other cases.
KT,
This is why I also become critical of him. After pages and pages of people presenting rational counter-arguments, he has reduced everything that others have said to “subjective feelings” which is clearly not the case. Valid points have been made in abundance, but he has not recognised them. He believes that he has successfully countered everyone’s arguments, that he has proven God is an impossibility and even that his argument is ironically, perfect. Given this, I don’t see how he would recognise any valid counter-arguments (which he hasn’t) and if he did, would he even acknowledge them? In the other thread where we were discussing instincts, he dismissed Maslow’s ideas out of hand, which disagreed with what he was claiming. And when I asked him for evidence related to his claim, he implied I was too dumb to interpret it. I don’t believe that he gives serious consideration to counter-arguments or points, when they contradict what he is claiming. He just sees them as entities that need to be countered, never mind how it makes him appear.
Despite Prismatic’s big brain, I believe this is what it comes down to with him, in his response to Artimas;
He simply won’t tolerate the possibility that different ideas to his can have any validity. I don’t want to criticise him excessively, as I have my own flaws, I don’t know him personally and I acknowledge that he is a bright person, but I have never encountered anyone with such an unyielding view of their own correctness; more so extending into so many different fields. Even the most educated people I’ve encountered seemed to accept their own fallibility and did not take themselves so seriously outside of their professions. I don’t know what qualifications he holds, but if he is self-taught, it would not be right for him to be so dismissive - no matter how naturally intelligent he is.
No I am not relying on “an ontology in which God has the attribute of absolute perfection”. I doubt human beings are capable of knowing what that is. If you were only saying that it is impossible for God to be known rationally or empirically as a totality or an absolute certainty that would make sense to me. But to say that it’s impossible for God “to be real empirically’ suggests that empiricism is closed system which it isn’t.
To Kant God was unknowably transcendent. Kant maintained that neither human reason nor the empirical world could give any direct or unequivocal indication of divine reality. He refuted the rationalistic arguments for the existence of God. But Kant left open the possibility of faith in the transcendent God and belief in the soul’s freedom and immortality. It seems to me you’re trying to use Kant to refute Kant.
A religious tradition that recognizes that God is ultimately unknowable didn’t start with Kant. It has a long history in Christianity. According to this way of thinking whatever qualities the human mind attributes to God cannot be considered ultimately valid for if they are humanly comprehensible they must be limited to the finitude of human understanding which can’t possibly comprehend the infinite nature of God. Kant’s philosophy of God is consistent with this perspective. Yours isn’t.
I did not state I agreed with Kant totally, not where he kept the term ‘God’ in the deistic sense. Note deistic not theistic.
Kant’s argument is the idea of God is an illusion if claimed to be empirically real, i.e. to the extent of a God that listens and answers prayers, plus created and sustaining the Universe.
The only provision by Kant for the idea of God is for the purpose of morality where God is absolute [not real].
Note:
Kant: God is a Transcendental Illusion
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=195263
To Kant, the idea of God should never be reified as real, but merely adapted for the purpose of morality and absolute moral laws.
Perhaps you are banking on the following quote;
For in order to arrive at such insight it must make use of Principles which, in fact, extend only to Objects of Possible Experience,
and which, if also applied to what cannot be an Object of Experience, always really change this into an Appearance,
thus rendering all Practical Extension [i.e. morality] of Pure Reason impossible.
I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.
-Bxxx -Kant in CPR
The above is merely a point in the Preface. The details of the above statement do not provide for any belief i.e. God exists as real. The term ‘deny’ ‘faith’ are not the direct translation of their German equivalent.
The main purpose in this case is to make room for the Practical [i.e. Morality] which has nothing to do with any real God but merely with an ontological God [illusion] with the attribute of absolute perfection.
Your use of the term “real” above continues to suggest that you are conflating Kant’s epistemology with ontology. Kant abandons objective anthropomorphism and possibility of knowing God absolutely or as God as God is in God’s self. He does not give up the possibility of Supreme Being as he elucidates here:
When we connect the command to avoid all transcendent
judgments of pure reason with the apparently conflicting
command to proceed to concepts that lie beyond the domain
of immanent (empirical) use, we become aware that the
two commands can subsist together, but only right on the
boundary of all permitted use of reason—for this boundary
belongs equally to the domain of experience and to that of the
creations of thought [= Ideas]. And through that awareness
we also learn how these Ideas, remarkable as they are, serve
merely for marking the boundaries of human reason. On
the one hand they give warning •not to go on extending
our empirical knowledge with no thought of boundaries, as
though nothing but sheer world remained for us to know,
and yet on the other hand •not to overstep the bounds of
experience and want to make judgments about things beyond
them, as things in themselves.
But we stop at this boundary if we limit our judgment
merely to how •the world may relate to •a being whose very
concept lies beyond the reach of any knowledge we are
capable of within the world. For we don’t then attribute to the
supreme being in itself any of the properties through which
we represent objects of experience, and so we avoid dogmatic
anthropomorphism; but we attribute those properties to the
supreme being’s relation to the world, thus allowing ourselves
a symbolic anthropomorphism, which in fact concerns only
language and not the object itself.
When I say that we are compelled to view the world as
if it were the work of a supreme understanding and will,
I actually say nothing more than that a watch, a ship, a
regiment, are related to the watchmaker, the shipbuilder, the
commanding officer in the same way that the sensible world
(or everything that underlies this complex of appearances) is
related to the unknown; and in saying this I don’t claim to
know the unknown as it is •in itself, but only as it is •for me
or •in relation to the world of which I am a part Such knowledge is knowledge by analogy. This doesn’t
involve (as the word ‘analogy’ is commonly thought to do)
•an imperfect similarity of two things, but rather
•a perfect similarity of relations between the members
of two quite dissimilar pairs of things.13
By means of this analogy we are left with a concept of the
supreme being that is detailed enough for us, though we
have omitted from it everything that could characterize it
absolutely or in itself ; for we characterize only its relation
to the world and thus to ourselves, and that is all we need.
Hume’s attacks on those who want to determine this concept
absolutely, taking the materials for doing so from themselves
and the world, don’t affect my position; he can’t object
against me that if we give up the objective anthropomorphism
of the concept of the supreme being we have nothing left.
Prolegomena, Immanuel Kant, pgs 66-67
earlymoderntexts.com/assets … nt1783.pdf
And here:
Thus I see before me order and design in nature, and need not resort to speculation to assure myself of their reality, but to explain them I have to presuppose a Deity as their cause; and then since the inference from an effect to a definite cause is always uncertain and doubtful, especially to a cause so precise and so perfectly defined as we have to conceive in God, hence the highest degree of certainty to which this pre-supposition can be brought is that it is the most rational opinion for us men. * On the other hand, a requirement of pure practical reason is based on a duty, that of making something (the summum bonum) the object of my will so as to promote it with all my powers; in which case I must suppose its possibility and, consequently, also the conditions necessary thereto, namely, God, freedom, and immortality; since I cannot prove these by my speculative reason, although neither can I refute them.
Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Practical Reason (p. 113). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
In the latter quotation, Kant admits he can’t refute the possibility of God as you argue you have done.