Is There One Sound/valid Syllogistic Argument For The Existence Of God?

[sealybobo]

"God is the source of knowledge" is not objective.

Dear GT and Sealybobo:
Are you OK with God's truth = sum or collective set of all knowledge and laws in the universe?

Is that neutral enough, to talk about the collective set of all truths = universal truth?

I'm ok with Truth it's when you call it God's truth that I have a problem. Stop putting god in the sentence and we can discuss these truths. What are they?

 

[sealybobo]

He's actually right, and this is where you and I differ.

Think about those terms... logically proven or logically disproven. What does that mean? It is our human prejudice of understanding logic which prevents realization of truth. We assume proof through logic, both of these are concepts we've defined and they conform to our comprehension of them.

"Logical proof" is a wholly inadequate criteria to place on God because we simply do not know what that means with regard to truth. We can assume that if something is "logically proven" it means something, but it may not. It may not be logical or proven, that could simply be our prejudiced perception.

Right. It's best we abandon logical connections and rational approaches to examination of natural processes. In fact, we need to abandon a great many conventions of reason and rationality to accept magic, supernaturalism and spirit realms.

Just believe what I tell you is true. I'm here to help, protect and guide you. Really, I am. And for your belief (plus a monetary gift that will allow me and the gods to look favorably on you), I can guide you to everlasting salvation and "heaven".

You just need to "believe".

Hollie yes and no.
1. we use the proof system that MD presents to deal with that level of logic
2. we use the scientific proof to address what we can prove, such as
a. spiritual healing using the very methods taught in Christianity
b. healing effects on political and religious institutions in the real world
this CAN be proven to work
c. proof of the correlation between forgiveness in healing and reconciliation
and the correlation between unforgiveness and inability to heal or reconcile

Hollie, where "faith" steps in
A. in order to SEEK justice and carry it out,
one must BELIEVE it is possible first or you wouldn't try to establish justice

Another example: One must BELIEVE there is a right answer to a math problem
before you set out to get there; if you didn't BELIEVE a problem could be solved,
you wouldn't bother in the first place. So of course you'd never solve it!

But TECHNICALLY you do not always KNOW or PROVE it can be solved
until AFTER you solve it and show the answer.
But you couldn't get that answer if you waited on proof it existed first
before you took the steps to prove it! You would go in circles!

B. For forgiveness
Even though it has been SHOWN That forgiveness allows healing and correction,
each case is different.

In each case that someone forgave first, so they could solve the problems afterwards,
they had to act on FAITH that the forgiveness would work and would not be abused.

They couldn't know this in advance, before they chose to forgive.
If the forgiveness is "dependent" on the condition that X Y or Z results,
it doesn't work. it is conditional forgiveness and not real forgiveness and letting go.
So it will fail.

All the cases I have seen that worked
the person took a Leap of Faith and forgave in advance,
for the sake of healing in itself, and then got the answers afterwards.

They did not get the answers first, and then forgive afterwards.
so it is not always logical but can seem backwards or
counterintuitive!

They forgave first, restored their peace of mind,
and then used that higher state of letting go
in order to solve the problems "after they forgave"

So forgiveness takes a leap of faith.
We have to believe it is the better step to take
in order to ask for it; and then afterwards
we see the reasons and logic that follow from there.

Because it seems backwards or counterintuitive
that is why it requires some faith
to even try this step to see if it helps!

Emily. Please stop being so gawd-damn nice. It's pissin' me off!

Firstly, We clearly don't use the "pwoof" system used by M. Pompous Rawling. Those are not pwoofs at all but as admitted to by his pom pom flailing groupie, explicit admissions of promoting fundamentalist Christian dogma. If you have read through the Pwoofs of gods offered by M. Pompous Rawling, you'd see pretty quickly it's question begging ad absurdum. Begging the question already destroys the argument, because one must demonstrate the existence of the supernatural before one can appeal to it to supply a rationale for something to be in effect.

In clear and sharp contrast to regurgitating fundie dogma, It is precisely our ability to reason that brings the mysterious to understanding. You may have eternal "faith" in the sun rising and travelling around the vault of the sky, but one would be wrong eternally; it is science and reason that pulled the curtains from our eyes and showed us that it is the earth that turns, not the sun that tracks.

This brings us to the next level of the fundamentalists' argument, which is that truth is arbitrary in any event-- ultimately, one must have faith in a particular, partisan version of god(s) to have knowledge, or ability to perceive knowledge in the first place.

Rebutting the latter assertion is easy, because no one can claim with any hope of being taken seriously that there is ultimately no such thing as knowledge. The assertion itself contradicts its own premise, since if it's true, then it becomes knowledge, and the assertion dies. If it is not true, then it needn't be considered.

What is comically tragic about the lies and deceit furthered by the two, primary apologists in this thread is the twisted and skewed basis for their claims to magic and supernaturalism. Many apologists have grappled long and hard on the issue of faith, and ultimately none of them have worked out the inherent dilemma that faith is, in fact, the acceptance of assertions regardless of factual evidence. What they have done instead is focused on the possible versus the probable, and this has confused the issue to a degree that many philosophers, both theists and rationalists, can no longer define the difference.

There has long been the argument that unless we have a totality of knowledge (i.e., omniscience), we cannot know for sure whether their is a god or not, or whether there are realms of existence other than our own. Are such things possible? Well, since we don't have omniscience, we are forced to say, "yes, they are possible." The question is not whether something as irrational as god is possible, but is it probable? Given the evidence of all of nature that surrounds us, the answer is no.



Lastly, I think you trample the divide that separates faith and trust. What we must understand about faith is that it is often confused with trust. The theist usually argues that we have faith in things all the time; for example, we have faith that gravity will keep us from flying off the planet, or we have faith in friends, or doctors, etc. We do not have faith in these things, we have trust in them, and we have trust in them as long as they continue to warrant that trust.

Hi Hollie: Thank you for your reply. I think you hit the nail on the head with the TRUST issue.
If we can even overcome TRUST issues here, that process is enough to unravel these other knots we've tied
up and entangled ourselves in.

A. RE: Emily. Please stop being so gawd-damn nice. It's pissin' me off!
If I'd rather make you mad for that reason, rather than offend you for other reasons.
If I offend you for any reason, will you please point out specifically so I can correct the problem.

I would like to be as specific as possible, and not this business of just blaming angry Christians in general
which does address where and what is going wrong. I really do want to address and correct each point.

BTW as long as we can connect on this level, talking personally one to one,
I think that is good enough.
I think anything else can be addressed within that connection.

We won't agree on a lot of things, but if there is anything that CAN
be corrected, it will be by connecting on a personal level where we really hear each other.
thanks for this!

B. as for TRUST issues
how can we help MD to TRUST the process
and TRUST people to be following along and working out the steps.

Hollie can you find some points in MD lists that you CAN agree to address,
even one, and just focus there? If he practices talking with you on something
you both agree with, maybe start with that before taking on other points more complicated.

He and also Justin "don't trust" that you intend to follow any logic or something like that.
And I know you don't trust them except to push their agenda.

Can we start with something we DO trust is true and a universal point of focus?

Even if it is just a commitment to answer and address each other SPECIFICALLY
and not go off on calling people derogatory adjectives.

MD is still doing that, so obviously he still needs to vent before being objective!
He is not completely neutral himself if he has to attach negative remarks.
This is why I cannot understand why he can't get that other people need to vent too!

Why is it okay for HIM to vent off topic, but if other people do that,
something is wrong with those people!

obviously some processing going on....

Hollie can I ask you to look past that, and find just 1-2 points
that you agree with. Even GT and PercySunshine's point that
God can neither be proven nor disproven. Are you okay with that,both ways, not just can't be proven
but ALSO cannot be disproven.

If we can even agree with MD that God cannot be Disproven that's better than nothing.

I'd even go further than that. I think gods are very definitely real things. It's just a question of accurately perceiving their nature.

Folks like MD and Justin seem to be looking for enemies and I don't get that.

Maybe because they see how "they" use god to manipulate and keep the masses down? Or how they use it to divide us.

And you THINK they are definitely real "things"? You don't seem so sure to me.

And do I have to believe or go to hell? If not no big deal that I don't believe in gods, right?

Your reply is exactly the level of thought most people who believe in generic god put into it. No different from our primitive superstitious and uneducated ancestors who made it up in the first place.

Then "they" took the concept of god and formed churches and wrote books full of lies to use on us and they have been successful for thousands of years.

Maybe we do view religions as the enemy. That's why we attack the source of their stupidity.

 

[Treeshepherd]

We've talked a bit about Logos and Mythos. Logos could be described as creative will, order from chaos, Providence, destiny,etc.

Mythos would be cosmology.

The third element would be Oikos. The is where we derive the prefix -eco, as in 'ecology' and 'economy'. Literally, Oikos is home, but much more than just a location, or place to stash our stuff. Oikos pertains to having a sense of place, and belonging, deep identification, something sacred, as represented by The Shire in the LotR.

Logos is connected to Oikos, which is connected to Mythos and each of these 3 elements have a simultaneous relationship with the other two.

Absolute truth 'exists', unmanifest, in Logos. In the manifest realms of Oikos and Mythos, truth is not absolute, nor relative, but relational.

In the nativity story, we have the diviners of mythos, the wise men, and also the tenders in the wilderness, the shepherds, all of them following the star of Bethlehem, becoming witness to the Word Incarnate. That story describes this vertical truth I'm getting at.

The linkage between Logos, Oikos and Mythos, we call the Great Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, or The Force if you're some kind of badass Jedi.

Is that a syllogistic argument? It isn't a proof. There is no proof. There is faith and experience. There is knowledge, which is merely a tool for predicting what will happen if I add 2 and 2, or iron and oxygen. Knowledge deals with making predictions in the profane world, and Mythos deals with what we can say about the sacred.

 

[dblack]

If we can even agree with MD that God cannot be Disproven that's better than nothing.

I'd even go further than that. I think gods are very definitely real things. It's just a question of accurately perceiving their nature.

Folks like MD and Justin seem to be looking for enemies and I don't get that.

Maybe because they see how "they" use god to manipulate and keep the masses down? Or how they use it to divide us.

And you THINK they are definitely real "things"? You don't seem so sure to me.

I'm not. What's your point?

And do I have to believe or go to hell? If not no big deal that I don't believe in gods, right?

Yep. No big deal.

Your reply is exactly the level of thought most people who believe in generic god put into it. No different from our primitive superstitious and uneducated ancestors who made it up in the first place.

Exactly?

Maybe we do view religions as the enemy. That's why we attack the source of their stupidity.

Seems that way.

 

[sealybobo]

If we can even agree with MD that God cannot be Disproven that's better than nothing.

I'd even go further than that. I think gods are very definitely real things. It's just a question of accurately perceiving their nature.

Folks like MD and Justin seem to be looking for enemies and I don't get that.

Maybe because they see how "they" use god to manipulate and keep the masses down? Or how they use it to divide us.

And you THINK they are definitely real "things"? You don't seem so sure to me.

I'm not. What's your point?

And do I have to believe or go to hell? If not no big deal that I don't believe in gods, right?

Yep. No big deal.

Your reply is exactly the level of thought most people who believe in generic god put into it. No different from our primitive superstitious and uneducated ancestors who made it up in the first place.

Exactly?

Maybe we do view religions as the enemy. That's why we attack the source of their stupidity.

Seems that way.

My argument isn't with people like you.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.

Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.

The only thing that can know truth is God.

No. I understand you perfectly. I always have. So you figured wrong. I'm able to be objective. Your beliefs are held in sincerity, with a good heart and a good intent. But many of them are still wrong, especially this notion of yours that I reject your idea that "individuals have individual perspectives", that different people "believe 'proof' in different ways", though your expression of the latter idea is unclear. People routinely regard alleged proofs differently, due to any number of factors, including ignorance: a lack of understanding, a lack of thought, a lack of information, a lack of intellectual honestly. Also, they might be.

Individuals believe/understand things in different ways, but that does not mean that we don't also recognize the very same, objectively self-evident imperatives regarding the problems of existence and origin. These imperatives are universally understood because we all do in fact have the same fundamental understanding of these things and many other things via objective logic, evidence and proof, which overturns the bulk of what you have been mistakenly arguing on this thread!

We all recognize and hold that the intuitive, fundamental axioms and tautologies of human cognition are necessarily true. Don't tell me that's not true. It is true. That is a fact of human cognition: for example, 2 + 2 = 4.

It doesn't matter whether you or anyone else imagines that this idea is not ultimately true outside of our minds. That is not the issue and never has been!

That's why even the atheists on this thread are looking at you cross-eyed, wondering what in the world is wrong with you, even though they themselves lose sight of this pertinent distinction about virtually everything else.

It doesn't matter if you or anyone else imagines that when one puts two apples in a basket in the world one believes to exist outside one's mind and then puts two more apples in that same basket and sees that one now has four apples in that same basket that none of this is ultimately real or not. What we all know to be necessarily true is that 2 + 2 = 4 in our minds every time we think it, whether we like it or not; i.e., we cannot escape that belief, and that unshakable belief is knowledge about the human condition, something we know to be true about human cognition!

That is just one of the innumerable convictions of human consciousness that is universally held to be objectively true as based on the very same foundation of logic, evidence and proof.

The fact of the matter is that this latest post of yours more accurately describes the reality of things than the others who have written so far.

It is not correct to equate logic with knowledge, is it? Logic is a tool, something used to extract knowledge. Logic is not the knowledge extracted.
The apprehension of the laws of thought is knowledge. However, the idea that knowledge and logic are the same thing is false, which is something you had been saying/thinking in the past, and this thinking confused your understanding of things.

Nevertheless, this false notion of yours that we can only believe truths, but not know truths, remains nonsensical and is in any event irrelevant to what matters to us.

To be continued. . . .

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Boss says it is because we have always believed in "something" that this something must be true.

Do you see how little evidence they need? Then he'll go off on basically a tangent that since we don't know everything, his wild and crazy theories have some merit. Yet Christians all disagree. They may agree with the overall premise that a god(s) exist, but they don't agree with anything he's saying. Boss can't even show me one site where someone other than him uses his logic.

Actually, what he's saying is that we can only believe truths; we cannot know truths. He's not saying that what one might believe about any given thing must necessarily be true just because it's true to one. I know in truth what he's trying to say, but the way he's thinking and expressing a certain truth is false and, therefore, incoherent and contradictory. This confusion is causing him to miss the totality of the truth he does rightly understand. Justin grasps the essence of Boss' logical error when he says that Boss is so very close to the realities of human cognition, yet misses the mark.

Ultimately, what Boss is really saying is that individual humans perceive or experience the various aspects of existence differently, that there is always a subjective element regarding the things experienced by all. Also, there are things that individuals have perceived or experienced that others have not. That is obviously true, ironically, something Boss not only believes to be true, but knows to be true!

We all believe and know this to be true!

See the problem? He remains confused: the obvious contradiction—the inherent and obvious negation!—in what he keeps saying.

This truth regarding the intimately subjective aspects of human experience from individual to individual does not negate the fact that there remains a host of things that we all believe and know to be objectively true: things that are absolutely and universally true, including the understanding that there is a subjectively experiential element of human cognition from individual to individual.

What is the essence of Boss’ confusion that Justin gets at a glance?

Boss tells us what it is in his own words: "The only thing [or person] that can know truth is God."

No. This is obviously not true. Boss is actually thinking God would be the only One Who could possibly know everything and this is why we, finite minds, often get things wrong. But we all believe and know that the reason this sometimes happens for us is not because our logic is necessarily wrong, but because our data is wrong or incomplete.

In other words, it does not follow that just because we don't know everything that we can't know anything. Non sequitur. For the fact that we know we don't know everything is proof positive that we do in fact know something: we know we don't know everything. That is something we all believe to be true and we all know to be true, and there are many, many other things we all believe to be trueand we all know to be true.

Boss, snap out of it! You’re freaking us all out. You know you're wrong about this. Just let it go, drop it. Be free of it. Put down that glass of Kool-Aid, and step away from that substance. Turn around and walk away. Instead, get milk. Drink that, unless you're lactose intolerant. If so, get water. Drink whatever you like, but don't drink that Kool-Aid anymore.

If in some unimaginably coherent way or another the things we universally believe and know to be true are, ultimately, not true, so what? We wouldn't know any better. That's just the way it is!

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Boss says it is because we have always believed in "something" that this something must be true.

Do you see how little evidence they need? Then he'll go off on basically a tangent that since we don't know everything, his wild and crazy theories have some merit. Yet Christians all disagree. They may agree with the overall premise that a god(s) exist, but they don't agree with anything he's saying. Boss can't even show me one site where someone other than him uses his logic.

I ignored the rest of your post about a claim you think can be easily dismissed without having any real knowledge about the historical or theological facts or without making a coherent counterargument. There are good reasons to believe that Jesus is the Christ, God incarnate, but for the moment that is not the material issue before us.

Your acknowledgement of the fact that the possibility of God's existence cannot be logically eliminated demonstrates that (1) you know the existence of the cosmological order is the pertinent evidence for God's existence, that (2) you know this is the basis for the idea of God that is in your mind, that (3) you know, though most atheists refuse to openly and honestly admit the obvious, that atheism is, therefore, an irrational assertion from the jump.

You think to deny that there be any substance behind the idea of God that's in your mind because of the cosmological order's existence with the very same logic that tells you why the potentiality of the substance behind this idea that is in your mind cannot be logically ruled out.

The atheist contradicts himself every time he asserts anything about the idea of God that is in his mind because of the cosmological order's existence, or absolutely asserts something about anything else for that matter. So the same logic atheists think to use, though incoherently, is the very same logic that negates the cogency of their premise. Got milk? Got "the derp-derp logic" (G.T.) of special pleading?

It is these obvious, logically derived truths of human cognition that makes dblack call me a "fucking idiot", not that I am, of course, rather, because he doesn't like the fact that his ultimate belief, as opposed to his beliefs about the idea of God and why it's in his mind, are based on something that is irrational; that is, I piss him off because I'm the guy who keeps pointing out to him that this obvious fact of human cognition is logically true, the thing he refuses to emphatically acknowledge sans all the evasive or dissembling rhetoric.

The atheist demands that we all abide by the imperatives of the fundamental laws of human thought (the principle of identity, comprehensively), just like you demand that Boss abide by them in the above, and rightly so, but refuse to emphatically acknowledge certain things accordingly.

This theist has no problem with emphatically stating what the fundamental laws of thought tell us as applied to the contents of human consciousness—wherever these things may lead, without bias—and, as you say, most Christians do not agree with Boss' notion that human consciousness has primacy over existence: so who are these they you're talking about? On the contrary, it would appear that they (atheists) don't require anything rational or any evidence whatsoever to support the notion that there is no real substance behind the idea of God that is in their heads.

 

[dblack]

If we can even agree with MD that God cannot be Disproven that's better than nothing.

I'd even go further than that. I think gods are very definitely real things. It's just a question of accurately perceiving their nature.

Folks like MD and Justin seem to be looking for enemies and I don't get that.

Maybe because they see how "they" use god to manipulate and keep the masses down? Or how they use it to divide us.

And you THINK they are definitely real "things"? You don't seem so sure to me.

I'm not. What's your point?

And do I have to believe or go to hell? If not no big deal that I don't believe in gods, right?

Yep. No big deal.

Your reply is exactly the level of thought most people who believe in generic god put into it. No different from our primitive superstitious and uneducated ancestors who made it up in the first place.

Exactly?

Maybe we do view religions as the enemy. That's why we attack the source of their stupidity.

Seems that way.

My argument isn't with people like you.

Fair enough, though I wouldn't say I'm necessarily on your 'side'. I've known 'born-again' atheists, and I'm sympathetic the anger and resentment that many of them feel. Especially if they've been raised with the arguably delusional beliefs of many modern religions.

But I think it's a mistake to write off gods and religious faith as fiction. At the very least, gods are powerful ideas that inspire and work their "will" in the minds of followers. That's not nothing.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Continued from Post #2186: http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/10009327/


Emily and Boss:

I have already proven what we all believe to be true, what everyone on this thread has acknowledge to believe regarding the problems of existence and origin: The Five Things! And these Five Things are as axiomatically true as 2 + 2 = 4.


1. We exist!
2. The cosmological order (the universe and all the things contained therein) exists!
3. The possibility that God exists and is the uncreated Creator of all other things that exist, including the cosmological order, cannot be logically ruled out!
4. The idea of God holds, by definition, that the Creator would necessarily be absolutely perfect in knowledge, power and presence.
5. However, science cannot currently verify whether or not God exists.

(Note: I have simplified the expression of The Five Things so as to make them more emphatically clear.)

The fact that virtually everyone on this thread has acknowledged that these Five Things are necessarily true, that they are among the first principles of existence, that these things are in fact universally known by all humans upon reflection or once they are properly presented to them: belies your claim, Boss, that there are no objectively absolute and universal beliefs that are held to be necessarily true about reality as knowledge.

The only item on that list that has raised some eyebrows is number 4, insofar as the details of divine attribution are concerned. While I have already demonstrated why number 4 logically holds, I'm step-by-step responding to Emily's concerns, beginning with the fact that God’s existence is proven by the organic/classical laws of thought! In other words, there does exist an absolute logical proof that is not merely an evidentiary proof predicated on the existence of the universe or on the axioms of modal logic, which is the logic of possibility and necessity.
.
All of the other classical proofs for God’s existence are evidentiary in nature. That does not mean that they fail as so many, including the OP, mistakenly believe. Even some theists, unaware of the incontrovertible nature of the Transcendental Argument, have assumed that these arguments fail just because the voices of the maddening crowd of popular culture say so. The understanding behind those voices is based on the misconception that only absolute proofs in terms of ultimacy matter. Wrong! Every one of the classical arguments are compelling evidentiary proofs that support the conclusion that God must be, and the Transcendental Argument is both an evidentiary proof and an absolute proof. It's the only one that is both. Hence, it is the most powerful.

That (1) God's existence cannot currently be verified by science, which is what some of you are actually thinking or actually mean when you say that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven, is not the same idea that (2) God's existence cannot be proven! This is an example of folks tricking themselves into believing something that is not necessarily true or does not necessarily follow.

The Transcendental Argument holds absolutely! It cannot be refuted or relegated to the status of an indirect or evidentiary proof!

It proves that God exists! Period. End of thought.

When some of you say that this is not an ultimate proof (as I have said in the past, in truth, in order to move some toward an epiphany they were not ready to embrace), what some are really saying is that (1) the absolute proof with an incontrovertible truth value in organic/classical logic is a fact of human cognition after all, just like 2 + 2 = 4, and (2) is a valid, albeit, might or might not be true proposition in constructive/intuitionistic logic, while (3) science is limited to the data of the phenomenal realm of being.

See how we sometimes talk ourselves into believing things that aren't really there?

(Of course, some are still telling themselves that it is I who has talked himself into believing something that's not true, in spite of the fact that the understanding that the TAG is an absolute proof in organic logic is a well-established doctrine in the literature and that they themselves could see why this is true if only they would allow themselves to think through!)

In other words, we know something organically that neither alternate-world forms of logic nor science divulges with absolute certainty. Yes, I know, folks want to scoff without bothering to think the TAG through to it's inescapable conclusion or contemplate on this fact of human cognition. But let us consider the implications for a moment. We don't merely have an organic impression about God as Creator that cannot be logically ruled out, but an organic axiom that God does exist!

Now onto concerns about infinity, perfection, eternity and so on. . . .

 

[Hollie]

Continued from Post #2186: http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/10009327/


Emily and Boss:

I have already proven what we all believe to be true, what everyone on this thread has acknowledge to believe regarding the problems of existence and origin: The Five Things! And these Five Things are as axiomatically true as 2 + 2 = 4.


1. We exist!
2. The cosmological order (the universe and all the things contained therein) exists!
3. The possibility that God exists and is the uncreated Creator of all other things that exist, including the cosmological order, cannot be logically ruled out!
4. The idea of God holds, by definition, that the Creator would necessarily be absolutely perfect in knowledge, power and presence.
5. However, science cannot currently verify whether or not God exists.

(Note: I have simplified the expression of The Five Things so as to make them more emphatically clear.)

The fact that virtually everyone on this thread has acknowledged that these Five Things are necessarily true, that they are among the first principles of existence, that these things are in fact universally known by all humans upon reflection or once they are properly presented to them: belies your claim, Boss, that there are no objectively absolute and universal beliefs that are held to be necessarily true about reality as knowledge.

The only item on that list that has raised some eyebrows is number 4, insofar as the details of divine attribution are concerned. While I have already demonstrated why number 4 logically holds, I'm step-by-step responding to Emily's concerns, beginning with the fact that God’s existence is proven by the organic/classical laws of thought! In other words, there does exist an absolute logical proof that is not merely an evidentiary proof predicated on the existence of the universe or on the axioms of modal logic, which is the logic of possibility and necessity.
.
All of the other classical proofs for God’s existence are evidentiary in nature. That does not mean that they fail as so many, including the OP, mistakenly believe. Even some theists, unaware of the incontrovertible nature of the Transcendental Argument, have assumed that these arguments fail just because the voices of the maddening crowd of popular culture say so. The understanding behind those voices is based on the misconception that only absolute proofs in terms of ultimacy matter. Wrong! Every one of the classical arguments are compelling evidentiary proofs that support the conclusion that God must be, and the Transcendental Argument is both an evidentiary proof and an absolute proof. It's the only one that is both. Hence, it is the most powerful.

That (1) God's existence cannot currently be verified by science, which is what some of you are actually thinking or actually mean when you say that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven, is not the same idea that (2) God's existence cannot be proven! This is an example of folks tricking themselves into believing something that is not necessarily true or does not necessarily follow.

The Transcendental Argument holds absolutely! It cannot be refuted or relegated to the status of an indirect or evidentiary proof!

It proves that God exists! Period. End of thought.

When some of you say that this is not an ultimate proof (as I have said in the past, in truth, in order to move some toward an epiphany they were not ready to embrace), what some are really saying is that (1) the absolute proof with an incontrovertible truth value in organic/classical logic is fact of human cognition after all, just like 2 + 2 = 4, and (2) is a valid, albeit, might or might not be true proposition in constructive/intuitionistic logic, while (3) science is limited to the data of the phenomenal realm of being.

See how we sometimes talk ourselves into believing things that aren't actually there?

In other words, we know something organically that neither alternate-world forms of logic nor science divulges with absolute certainty. Yes, I know, folks want to scoff without bothering to think the TAG through to it's inescapable conclusion or contemplate on this fact of human cognition. But let us consider the implications for a moment. We don't merely have an organic impression about God as Creator that cannot be logically ruled out, but an organic axiom that God does exist!

Now onto concerns about infinity, perfection, eternity and so on. . . .

M. Pompous Rawling also commands the French forces at Waterloo when he's not busy pwoofing gawds with the silly, and thoroughly discredited TAG argument.

 

[dblack]

All shall yield before the holy wrath of the five things!

 

[Justin Davis]

What I don't like about theists is they think I need to work something out when I don't. So I get the feeling maybe Daron is just fine. All he needs to do is stay away from churches. LOL.

What issues does Daron have? Please don't say he's angry or bitter because so are a lot of religious people.

And does Daron believe in god but just doesn't like organized religions? Many people say they are "atheists" but what they are is mad at god because someone in their family died or because their prayer wasn't answered.

I had some bad experiences with organized religions. I admit it helped me shape my belief or opinion that there is no god.

That's right righties I said it is my belief or opinion! Sue me. LOL.

But, sealybobo, surely you appreciate the problem with allowing irrelevant factors to shape a belief about such an important thing or about any thing for that matter.

 

[Justin Davis]

Continued from Post #2186: http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/10009327/


Emily and Boss:

I have already proven what we all believe to be true, what everyone on this thread has acknowledge to believe regarding the problems of existence and origin: The Five Things! And these Five Things are as axiomatically true as 2 + 2 = 4.


1. We exist!
2. The cosmological order (the universe and all the things contained therein) exists!
3. The possibility that God exists and is the uncreated Creator of all other things that exist, including the cosmological order, cannot be logically ruled out!
4. The idea of God holds, by definition, that the Creator would necessarily be absolutely perfect in knowledge, power and presence.
5. However, science cannot currently verify whether or not God exists.

(Note: I have simplified the expression of The Five Things so as to make them more emphatically clear.)

The fact that virtually everyone on this thread has acknowledged that these Five Things are necessarily true, that they are among the first principles of existence, that these things are in fact universally known by all humans upon reflection or once they are properly presented to them: belies your claim, Boss, that there are no objectively absolute and universal beliefs that are held to be necessarily true about reality as knowledge.

The only item on that list that has raised some eyebrows is number 4, insofar as the details of divine attribution are concerned. While I have already demonstrated why number 4 logically holds, I'm step-by-step responding to Emily's concerns, beginning with the fact that God’s existence is proven by the organic/classical laws of thought! In other words, there does exist an absolute logical proof that is not merely an evidentiary proof predicated on the existence of the universe or on the axioms of modal logic, which is the logic of possibility and necessity.
.
All of the other classical proofs for God’s existence are evidentiary in nature. That does not mean that they fail as so many, including the OP, mistakenly believe. Even some theists, unaware of the incontrovertible nature of the Transcendental Argument, have assumed that these arguments fail just because the voices of the maddening crowd of popular culture say so. The understanding behind those voices is based on the misconception that only absolute proofs in terms of ultimacy matter. Wrong! Every one of the classical arguments are compelling evidentiary proofs that support the conclusion that God must be, and the Transcendental Argument is both an evidentiary proof and an absolute proof. It's the only one that is both. Hence, it is the most powerful.

That (1) God's existence cannot currently be verified by science, which is what some of you are actually thinking or actually mean when you say that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven, is not the same idea that (2) God's existence cannot be proven! This is an example of folks tricking themselves into believing something that is not necessarily true or does not necessarily follow.

The Transcendental Argument holds absolutely! It cannot be refuted or relegated to the status of an indirect or evidentiary proof!

It proves that God exists! Period. End of thought.

When some of you say that this is not an ultimate proof (as I have said in the past, in truth, in order to move some toward an epiphany they were not ready to embrace), what some are really saying is that (1) the absolute proof with an incontrovertible truth value in organic/classical logic is fact of human cognition after all, just like 2 + 2 = 4, and (2) is a valid, albeit, might or might not be true proposition in constructive/intuitionistic logic, while (3) science is limited to the data of the phenomenal realm of being.

See how we sometimes talk ourselves into believing things that aren't actually there?

In other words, we know something organically that neither alternate-world forms of logic nor science divulges with absolute certainty. Yes, I know, folks want to scoff without bothering to think the TAG through to it's inescapable conclusion or contemplate on this fact of human cognition. But let us consider the implications for a moment. We don't merely have an organic impression about God as Creator that cannot be logically ruled out, but an organic axiom that God does exist!

Now onto concerns about infinity, perfection, eternity and so on. . . .

M. Pompous Rawling also commands the French forces at Waterloo when he's not busy pwoofing gawds with the silly, and thoroughly discredited TAG argument.

It is not pompous to point out objective facts of thought that belong to us all. It's as if you're saying he's claiming to be the cause of these things. I think it's pompous to imply that you are the creator of something that does not and cannot make these things go away.

 

[Justin Davis]

He's actually right, and this is where you and I differ.

Think about those terms... logically proven or logically disproven. What does that mean? It is our human prejudice of understanding logic which prevents realization of truth. We assume proof through logic, both of these are concepts we've defined and they conform to our comprehension of them.

"Logical proof" is a wholly inadequate criteria to place on God because we simply do not know what that means with regard to truth. We can assume that if something is "logically proven" it means something, but it may not. It may not be logical or proven, that could simply be our prejudiced perception.

Right. It's best we abandon logical connections and rational approaches to examination of natural processes. In fact, we need to abandon a great many conventions of reason and rationality to accept magic, supernaturalism and spirit realms.

Just believe what I tell you is true. I'm here to help, protect and guide you. Really, I am. And for your belief (plus a monetary gift that will allow me and the gods to look favorably on you), I can guide you to everlasting salvation and "heaven".

You just need to "believe".

Hollie yes and no.
1. we use the proof system that MD presents to deal with that level of logic
2. we use the scientific proof to address what we can prove, such as
a. spiritual healing using the very methods taught in Christianity
b. healing effects on political and religious institutions in the real world
this CAN be proven to work
c. proof of the correlation between forgiveness in healing and reconciliation
and the correlation between unforgiveness and inability to heal or reconcile

Hollie, where "faith" steps in
A. in order to SEEK justice and carry it out,
one must BELIEVE it is possible first or you wouldn't try to establish justice

Another example: One must BELIEVE there is a right answer to a math problem
before you set out to get there; if you didn't BELIEVE a problem could be solved,
you wouldn't bother in the first place. So of course you'd never solve it!

But TECHNICALLY you do not always KNOW or PROVE it can be solved
until AFTER you solve it and show the answer.
But you couldn't get that answer if you waited on proof it existed first
before you took the steps to prove it! You would go in circles!

B. For forgiveness
Even though it has been SHOWN That forgiveness allows healing and correction,
each case is different.

In each case that someone forgave first, so they could solve the problems afterwards,
they had to act on FAITH that the forgiveness would work and would not be abused.

They couldn't know this in advance, before they chose to forgive.
If the forgiveness is "dependent" on the condition that X Y or Z results,
it doesn't work. it is conditional forgiveness and not real forgiveness and letting go.
So it will fail.

All the cases I have seen that worked
the person took a Leap of Faith and forgave in advance,
for the sake of healing in itself, and then got the answers afterwards.

They did not get the answers first, and then forgive afterwards.
so it is not always logical but can seem backwards or
counterintuitive!

They forgave first, restored their peace of mind,
and then used that higher state of letting go
in order to solve the problems "after they forgave"

So forgiveness takes a leap of faith.
We have to believe it is the better step to take
in order to ask for it; and then afterwards
we see the reasons and logic that follow from there.

Because it seems backwards or counterintuitive
that is why it requires some faith
to even try this step to see if it helps!

Emily. Please stop being so gawd-damn nice. It's pissin' me off!

Firstly, We clearly don't use the "pwoof" system used by M. Pompous Rawling. Those are not pwoofs at all but as admitted to by his pom pom flailing groupie, explicit admissions of promoting fundamentalist Christian dogma. If you have read through the Pwoofs of gods offered by M. Pompous Rawling, you'd see pretty quickly it's question begging ad absurdum. Begging the question already destroys the argument, because one must demonstrate the existence of the supernatural before one can appeal to it to supply a rationale for something to be in effect.

In clear and sharp contrast to regurgitating fundie dogma, It is precisely our ability to reason that brings the mysterious to understanding. You may have eternal "faith" in the sun rising and travelling around the vault of the sky, but one would be wrong eternally; it is science and reason that pulled the curtains from our eyes and showed us that it is the earth that turns, not the sun that tracks.

This brings us to the next level of the fundamentalists' argument, which is that truth is arbitrary in any event-- ultimately, one must have faith in a particular, partisan version of god(s) to have knowledge, or ability to perceive knowledge in the first place.

Rebutting the latter assertion is easy, because no one can claim with any hope of being taken seriously that there is ultimately no such thing as knowledge. The assertion itself contradicts its own premise, since if it's true, then it becomes knowledge, and the assertion dies. If it is not true, then it needn't be considered.

What is comically tragic about the lies and deceit furthered by the two, primary apologists in this thread is the twisted and skewed basis for their claims to magic and supernaturalism. Many apologists have grappled long and hard on the issue of faith, and ultimately none of them have worked out the inherent dilemma that faith is, in fact, the acceptance of assertions regardless of factual evidence. What they have done instead is focused on the possible versus the probable, and this has confused the issue to a degree that many philosophers, both theists and rationalists, can no longer define the difference.

There has long been the argument that unless we have a totality of knowledge (i.e., omniscience), we cannot know for sure whether their is a god or not, or whether there are realms of existence other than our own. Are such things possible? Well, since we don't have omniscience, we are forced to say, "yes, they are possible." The question is not whether something as irrational as god is possible, but is it probable? Given the evidence of all of nature that surrounds us, the answer is no.



Lastly, I think you trample the divide that separates faith and trust. What we must understand about faith is that it is often confused with trust. The theist usually argues that we have faith in things all the time; for example, we have faith that gravity will keep us from flying off the planet, or we have faith in friends, or doctors, etc. We do not have faith in these things, we have trust in them, and we have trust in them as long as they continue to warrant that trust.

Hi Hollie: Thank you for your reply. I think you hit the nail on the head with the TRUST issue.
If we can even overcome TRUST issues here, that process is enough to unravel these other knots we've tied
up and entangled ourselves in.

A. RE: Emily. Please stop being so gawd-damn nice. It's pissin' me off!
If I'd rather make you mad for that reason, rather than offend you for other reasons.
If I offend you for any reason, will you please point out specifically so I can correct the problem.

I would like to be as specific as possible, and not this business of just blaming angry Christians in general
which does address where and what is going wrong. I really do want to address and correct each point.

BTW as long as we can connect on this level, talking personally one to one,
I think that is good enough.
I think anything else can be addressed within that connection.

We won't agree on a lot of things, but if there is anything that CAN
be corrected, it will be by connecting on a personal level where we really hear each other.
thanks for this!

B. as for TRUST issues
how can we help MD to TRUST the process
and TRUST people to be following along and working out the steps.

Hollie can you find some points in MD lists that you CAN agree to address,
even one, and just focus there? If he practices talking with you on something
you both agree with, maybe start with that before taking on other points more complicated.

He and also Justin "don't trust" that you intend to follow any logic or something like that.
And I know you don't trust them except to push their agenda.

Can we start with something we DO trust is true and a universal point of focus?

Even if it is just a commitment to answer and address each other SPECIFICALLY
and not go off on calling people derogatory adjectives.

MD is still doing that, so obviously he still needs to vent before being objective!
He is not completely neutral himself if he has to attach negative remarks.
This is why I cannot understand why he can't get that other people need to vent too!

Why is it okay for HIM to vent off topic, but if other people do that,
something is wrong with those people!

obviously some processing going on....

Hollie can I ask you to look past that, and find just 1-2 points
that you agree with. Even GT and PercySunshine's point that
God can neither be proven nor disproven. Are you okay with that,both ways, not just can't be proven
but ALSO cannot be disproven.

If we can even agree with MD that God cannot be Disproven that's better than nothing.

I'd even go further than that. I think gods are very definitely real things. It's just a question of accurately perceiving their nature.

Folks like MD and Justin seem to be looking for enemies and I don't get that.

You're playing shell games on yourself again, imagining things that aren't there. These objective truths of logic belong to all of us, not just to me. Saying that people are looking for enemies over things that belong to all of us just doesn't make any sense. How can we fight over things we all have?

 

[Justin Davis]

[Rawlings, you can put any kind of descriptor in front of logic... classical, formal, neo-classical, whatever... it is still a word which describes a concept of human belief and perception. Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.

This is not a matter of me wanting to continue being a cave-dweller. I understand your argument regarding human cognition and identity, and logic for that matter, and I have not disagreed with you on any of that. I have been treated as if what I had to offer posed some sort of threat to your ideas. I don't know why, other than hubris.

I have only pointed out that any discussion of "logic" or things like "evidence" and "proofs" are all highly subjective terms used by humans to define various human perceptions of the aspects in reality. Because YOU can see your argument as valid and apparent, doesn't mean that every perspective also sees the same thing. And even if they did, it doesn't mean it's the truth. Logic does not equal truth. We don't know truth, we believe truth.

Boss, I'm impervious to the false and immaterial innuendoes of hubris or insecurity. You are making claims about reality that are purely subjective as if they were absolutes from on high, while you provide absolutely no objectively discernible argumentation or evidence in support of the bald declarations. None. Your contention about logic, evidence and proofs is false and contradictory.

Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.

You cannot be objective or rational if you keeping inaccurately thinking and stating things. I've told you this before. It is self-evident that logic is not truth. Logic is a tool that divulges truth. Your statement is meaningless. Then you declare that we are incapable of knowing truth. How do you know that is true? Because you believe that is true? It’s not possible to believer a falsehood?

We, all of us, can see what is objectively true logically, and there is no justifiable or coherent reason to believe that what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges is not true. Is it possible that we can come to false conclusions even though we faithfully and objectively applied the principle? Sure.
But the reason we know that’s possible is the very same reason we know the fault would not be due to the logical principle, but due to apply it to a set of falsely apprehended data or do to a set of incomplete data.

But then that mostly happens when we are applying the principle to empirical data, not the rational data of axioms, postulates or theorems.

There's not a shred of evidence to support the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated is not true. How could there be? And the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated might not be true outside of our minds is useless, subjective mush. For whether that is the case or not, we wouldn't know the difference or be able to do anything about it. That's just the way it is for us, and commonsense and experience dictate that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness are at the very least reliably synchronized with the properties and the processes of the cosmological order.

There is no evidence or reason to believe that human consciousness has primacy over existence. On the contrary, all the evidence and the rational apprehensions of human cognition dictate that existence has primacy over human consciousness!

In other words, regardless of what the ultimate reality might be, that has absolutely no bearing on what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges every time we apply it. Wisdom dictates we go with what works rationally and empirically.

Bottom line: All you're really saying in the end is that what appears to be, might not be true. Okay. That’s nothing new, and it is in fact a useful thing to know, as we know that our data could be off. Also, this understanding allows us to imagine alternatives that we might not otherwise consider, but we must eventually be able to reconcile any extrapolations thusly derived to the real world in order for them to be of any practical use, and logic tells us that what might be via intuition and experimentation is dangerous to assume without always bearing in mind the exact nature of our premise. Otherwise, we're just blindly going with the flow of subjective mush, and it is people like me who are most capable of imaginatively regarding the variously apparent potentialities, not irrationalists or subjectivists, for they are in fact the most dogmatically closed-mind fanatics around.

Absolute logical consistency and objectivity reveal the complexities and potentialities of reality, not the ill-supported meanderings of subjectivist/relativist mush that presupposes that any given proposition isn't real, may not be real or can't real simply because its purely rational and not material. Ultimately, everything we believe is rational, not material in nature. Only closed-minded dogmatists ask the question of whether or not the nature of a thing is material or immaterial, or disregard the constructs of infinity, perfection, eternity, absoluteness, ultimacy . . . and accordingly confine the principle of identity and the logic thereof to the trappings of a one-dimensional reality. Hello! Folks were actually on this thread suggesting that I'm the closed-minded dogmatist because my way of thinking about things, actually recommended by the laws of thought, didn't make sense to them. Yeah. It didn't make sense to them because they are stuck in their one-dimensional world of subjective mush, which is not what logic is telling us about reality at all!

Logic is telling us that reality is infinitely more complex than that!

You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.

Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.

The only thing that can know truth is God.

Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?

I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?

P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.

And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.

Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.

More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.

There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

 

[dblack]

You're playing shell games on yourself again, imagining things that aren't there. These objective truths of logic belong to all of us, not just to me. Saying that people are looking for enemies over things that belong to all of us just doesn't make any sense. How can we fight over things we all have?

OK

 

[Justin Davis]

We've talked a bit about Logos and Mythos. Logos could be described as creative will, order from chaos, Providence, destiny,etc.

Mythos would be cosmology.

The third element would be Oikos. The is where we derive the prefix -eco, as in 'ecology' and 'economy'. Literally, Oikos is home, but much more than just a location, or place to stash our stuff. Oikos pertains to having a sense of place, and belonging, deep identification, something sacred, as represented by The Shire in the LotR.

Logos is connected to Oikos, which is connected to Mythos and each of these 3 elements have a simultaneous relationship with the other two.

Absolute truth 'exists', unmanifest, in Logos. In the manifest realms of Oikos and Mythos, truth is not absolute, nor relative, but relational.

In the nativity story, we have the diviners of mythos, the wise men, and also the tenders in the wilderness, the shepherds, all of them following the star of Bethlehem, becoming witness to the Word Incarnate. That story describes this vertical truth I'm getting at.

The linkage between Logos, Oikos and Mythos, we call the Great Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, or The Force if you're some kind of badass Jedi.

Is that a syllogistic argument? It isn't a proof. There is no proof. There is faith and experience. There is knowledge, which is merely a tool for predicting what will happen if I add 2 and 2, or iron and oxygen. Knowledge deals with making predictions in the profane world, and Mythos deals with what we can say about the sacred.

I can see the various themes you're talking about in the Bible, though it uncompromisingly puts all these things into God as the ground for the alignment of our logic with the happenings of the cosmos. God is the unifier, and the organic rules of thought do prove God exists. The only way someone can say they don't is to say that science can't verify what the rules of human thought hold to be true. Uh-oh. That doesn't work. That understanding about science doesn't tell us that what the rules of thought hold to be true isn't true or don't prove God's existence.

 

[Justin Davis]

It seems M. Pompous Rawling is getting quite desperate. If seems anyone who disagrees with his fundamentalist beliefs is suddenly the enemy.

So say the denizens of the one-dimensional reality, who apparently never really have anything of real interest to say about anything, just nasty things about those who don't conform to the trappings of their small, cramped minds. .

I find it comical that you denizens of magical spirit realms believe you're in a position to condemn those who reject your nonsensical claims to utterly unsupported supernaturalism.

I think that the problem you religious extremists have with rationality is that you perceive it doesn't address human intangible issues such as fear, emotions, superstitions, thus you feel reason is somehow inadequate. I take a very different view. The keystone of our perception of existence *must* be reason, otherwise, humanity would never have left Dark Ages thinking that people like you have never let go of.

I'm put in mind of the story of the Director of the US Patents Office under President Taft who declared in the early part of this century: "No more new patents need be issued; everything mankind can possibly invent, he already has." Of course, Taft fired him, because of course, that Director was wrong. You're like that. You're close-minded and ignorant and with little imagination, you're left to living in trembling fear of angry gawds.

I don’t see that accepting reason as the criteria for perception is stripping away anything. Human fears and emotions have always had their source in natural instincts. We simply have added a vast array of texture to emotions that simpler animals do not. So I don’t see that accepting rationality strips life of anything-- in fact, it enhances it. That you religious zealots choose to see existence as governed by magic and supernaturalism is an unfortunate throwback and a disservice to humanity.

Are you drunk? Never mind, of course you're are. Rawlings is using nothing but logic and you are reacting to that with nothing but emotion, as clearly you're not bothering to think about his posts at all.

 

[sealybobo]

[Rawlings, you can put any kind of descriptor in front of logic... classical, formal, neo-classical, whatever... it is still a word which describes a concept of human belief and perception. Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.

This is not a matter of me wanting to continue being a cave-dweller. I understand your argument regarding human cognition and identity, and logic for that matter, and I have not disagreed with you on any of that. I have been treated as if what I had to offer posed some sort of threat to your ideas. I don't know why, other than hubris.

I have only pointed out that any discussion of "logic" or things like "evidence" and "proofs" are all highly subjective terms used by humans to define various human perceptions of the aspects in reality. Because YOU can see your argument as valid and apparent, doesn't mean that every perspective also sees the same thing. And even if they did, it doesn't mean it's the truth. Logic does not equal truth. We don't know truth, we believe truth.

Boss, I'm impervious to the false and immaterial innuendoes of hubris or insecurity. You are making claims about reality that are purely subjective as if they were absolutes from on high, while you provide absolutely no objectively discernible argumentation or evidence in support of the bald declarations. None. Your contention about logic, evidence and proofs is false and contradictory.

Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.

You cannot be objective or rational if you keeping inaccurately thinking and stating things. I've told you this before. It is self-evident that logic is not truth. Logic is a tool that divulges truth. Your statement is meaningless. Then you declare that we are incapable of knowing truth. How do you know that is true? Because you believe that is true? It’s not possible to believer a falsehood?

We, all of us, can see what is objectively true logically, and there is no justifiable or coherent reason to believe that what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges is not true. Is it possible that we can come to false conclusions even though we faithfully and objectively applied the principle? Sure.
But the reason we know that’s possible is the very same reason we know the fault would not be due to the logical principle, but due to apply it to a set of falsely apprehended data or do to a set of incomplete data.

But then that mostly happens when we are applying the principle to empirical data, not the rational data of axioms, postulates or theorems.

There's not a shred of evidence to support the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated is not true. How could there be? And the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated might not be true outside of our minds is useless, subjective mush. For whether that is the case or not, we wouldn't know the difference or be able to do anything about it. That's just the way it is for us, and commonsense and experience dictate that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness are at the very least reliably synchronized with the properties and the processes of the cosmological order.

There is no evidence or reason to believe that human consciousness has primacy over existence. On the contrary, all the evidence and the rational apprehensions of human cognition dictate that existence has primacy over human consciousness!

In other words, regardless of what the ultimate reality might be, that has absolutely no bearing on what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges every time we apply it. Wisdom dictates we go with what works rationally and empirically.

Bottom line: All you're really saying in the end is that what appears to be, might not be true. Okay. That’s nothing new, and it is in fact a useful thing to know, as we know that our data could be off. Also, this understanding allows us to imagine alternatives that we might not otherwise consider, but we must eventually be able to reconcile any extrapolations thusly derived to the real world in order for them to be of any practical use, and logic tells us that what might be via intuition and experimentation is dangerous to assume without always bearing in mind the exact nature of our premise. Otherwise, we're just blindly going with the flow of subjective mush, and it is people like me who are most capable of imaginatively regarding the variously apparent potentialities, not irrationalists or subjectivists, for they are in fact the most dogmatically closed-mind fanatics around.

Absolute logical consistency and objectivity reveal the complexities and potentialities of reality, not the ill-supported meanderings of subjectivist/relativist mush that presupposes that any given proposition isn't real, may not be real or can't real simply because its purely rational and not material. Ultimately, everything we believe is rational, not material in nature. Only closed-minded dogmatists ask the question of whether or not the nature of a thing is material or immaterial, or disregard the constructs of infinity, perfection, eternity, absoluteness, ultimacy . . . and accordingly confine the principle of identity and the logic thereof to the trappings of a one-dimensional reality. Hello! Folks were actually on this thread suggesting that I'm the closed-minded dogmatist because my way of thinking about things, actually recommended by the laws of thought, didn't make sense to them. Yeah. It didn't make sense to them because they are stuck in their one-dimensional world of subjective mush, which is not what logic is telling us about reality at all!

Logic is telling us that reality is infinitely more complex than that!

You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.

Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.

The only thing that can know truth is God.

Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?

I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?

P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.

And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.

Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.

More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.

There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

There have been numerous claims of the supernatural, none of which have ever been demonstrated to be true. Furthermore, these claims are often mutually contradictory, and people who believe in one form of supernatural or paranormal activity will usually not believe in others due to cognitive bias and wishful thinking.

Proposing a non-physical explanation for an observed or imagined/fabricated phenomena is not a testable hypothesis and is therefore unworthy of serious consideration. It precludes any deeper insight or understanding and offers no means of distinction from any other possible supernatural claim.

There are many as yet unexplained phenomena and anomalies in nature. The scientific approach to these is to say “I don’t know yet” and keep on looking, not to presume an answer which makes us comfortable.

This claim often represents a deep discomfort with uncertainty or ambiguity, demonstrating a lack of critical thinking or poor understanding of a topic. It usually coincides with credulity, which is the tendency to believe in propositions unsupported by evidence.

Argument from wishful thinking. The primary psychological role of traditional religion is deathist rationalisation, that is, rationalising the tragedy of death as a good thing to alleviate the anxiety of mortality.

There is a truth and reality independent of our desires. Faith simply reinforces your belief in what you would like to be true, rather than what really is.

In order to better under understand this reality and discover the truth we must look for evidence outside ourselves.

Faith isn’t a virtue; it is the glorification of voluntary ignorance.