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

[Boss]

Rawlings, we are not too far off from one another. My argument is the human conception of "sentience" and how that applies to God. We are incapable of thinking beyond sentience, if that makes any sense. Our human minds can reason sentience and understand how that applies to human beings because... we're human beings. God has no 'need' for anything, including sentience. All the things we understand and comprehend as applying to humans, God is already above those things, God created those things for humans. All the complex and difficult to decipher philosophical arguments pertaining to logic and reason... God is ABOVE that.... = No need for it.

 

[amrchaos]

Careful Hollie

Boss concepts are not following the more modern notions of the Judeo-Christian God.

I hope I don't need to say anything else

Well, I don't know what "the more modern notions of the Judeo-Christian God" means, but his notions are not biblical, and in my opinion they are not rational. Also, I need to repost a couple of revised posts below, edited to make a few things clear.

,
OK, he's all yours

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I did not say a being has to be physical. I said this is the Atheist perception because they cannot comprehend anything but a physical being. Spiritual beings do not exist to an Atheist, the concept of such is beyond their comprehension.

God is not "sentient" because God doesn't have to be. God is universal everything. God doesn't have to be aware, that is a human attribute. God doesn't have any use for feelings. These are human attributes, things that humans need, things that make humans better. God is perfect.

Since we are humans, we are incapable of fully comprehending God. We assign variables to God based on our understanding of how humans function, what the universe is like from a human perspective. Words like "conscious" or "sentient" or "aware" are human concepts. God is The Creator of all these things. It's not that God lacks the capability, it's that these capabilities don't apply to God, there is no purpose for God to have them or need them. They are human attributes for humans, not for God.

Boss!

Sentience is not, in and of itself, self-awareness, metaphysically; rather, it's the foundation of self-awareness for finite beings and finite beings only! Non-technical definitions sometimes throw in the term aware, but this does not pertain to self-awareness, but to the awareness (more at the experience) of subjective impressions or feelings.

For humans, these subjective impressions include the experiential sensations/perceptions elicited by exterior phenomena.

Of course the idea of God necessarily asserts that God would be self-aware and universally other-aware of everything that exists without any gaps in His knowledge. Humans become aware. God would be eternally aware.

You’re making a distinction between divine awareness and knowledge that makes no difference. They are one and the same thing!

Further, you’re confounding an abridged definition of sentience that only applies to finite beings. The unabridged philosophical definition of metaphysics is the only one that matters universally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

I already shared this.

Pay particular attention to the following:

In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia".[1] This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts "about" something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which is otherwise commonly used to collectively describe sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.​

The universal essence of sentience is interiorly subjective experiences of mental impressions and emotions.

You've put me in a position where I find myself agreeing with the atheists against you, as you’re not making any sense here, except in Amrchaos' case, as he thinks the possibility of divine sentience doesn't necessarily adhere to the idea of God in terms of first principles, which is patently false.

The possibility that God would be fully sentient cannot be logically ruled out. It's arguably a logical necessity for a fully conscious being of personhood, mortal or divine, to have emotions. In fact, I'd like someone on this thread explain to me how an omniscient God would not necessarily have emotions.

Think about that.

The Seven Things demonstrate that one cannot rationally rule out the possibility that we are finite expressions of God's consciousness. Your argument that the objective facts of human cognition (for there's no humans as such projecting) anthropomorphize God via the possibility that God has sentient impressions and feelings is bogus. There's nothing in the laws of organic human thought that precludes this possibility, and of course divine sentience wouldn't apply to divinity in the exact same way that applies to humans.

God doesn't become aware, and His interior sentience would be purely mental impressions and emotions.

However, an all-knowing God would be able to experience precisely what we experience (the mental sensations, perceptions and emotions) via the contents of our minds, would He not? He would necessarily know and understand everything we're thinking or feeling. Ah! So it looks like He must have emotions, logically, in order to know what emotions are and how they are experienced/felt!

Finally, there seems to be some misunderstanding regarding the expressions of God's sentience in the Bible.

First, the Bible most certainly does assert that God is sentient, Boss. That cannot be denied. You are mistaken.

Second, the authors of the Bible don't mean that God literally hears, sees, smells, tastes or feels things in the sense that humans do as if he had physical ears, eyes, a nose, a tongue or a dermis. They're speaking metaphorically. They knew that the actual means of God's sentience and the higher cogitations thereof would have to be intellectual in nature, an operation of His divine omniscience, not literal, sensory transmissions or sensory data; and neither Jews nor Christians hold that the biblical construct of divine consciousness is an anthropomorphism. Nonsense! The Bible holds that we were created in God's image, that our consciousness is what it is because He made us in His likeness. We are finite expressions of His consciousness.

To the atheists on this thread: go on contradictorily presupposing God's existence as you necessarily do when you declare to know something about an existing God that the rest of us mere mortals cannot logically rule out!

Keep doing it. I dare you. I double dare you.

LOL!

No one escapes The Seven Things.

 

[amrchaos]

I did not say a being has to be physical. I said this is the Atheist perception because they cannot comprehend anything but a physical being. Spiritual beings do not exist to an Atheist, the concept of such is beyond their comprehension.

God is not "sentient" because God doesn't have to be. God is universal everything. God doesn't have to be aware, that is a human attribute. God doesn't have any use for feelings. These are human attributes, things that humans need, things that make humans better. God is perfect.

Since we are humans, we are incapable of fully comprehending God. We assign variables to God based on our understanding of how humans function, what the universe is like from a human perspective. Words like "conscious" or "sentient" or "aware" are human concepts. God is The Creator of all these things. It's not that God lacks the capability, it's that these capabilities don't apply to God, there is no purpose for God to have them or need them. They are human attributes for humans, not for God.

Boss!

Sentience is not, in and of itself, self-awareness, metaphysically; rather, it's the foundation of self-awareness for finite beings and finite beings only! Non-technical definitions sometimes throw in the term aware, but this does not pertain to self-awareness, but to the awareness (more at the experience) of subjective impressions or feelings.

For humans, these subjective impressions include the experiential sensations/perceptions elicited by exterior phenomena.

Of course the idea of God necessarily asserts that God would be self-aware and universally other-aware of everything that exists without any gaps in His knowledge. Humans become aware. God would be eternally aware.

You’re making a distinction between divine awareness and knowledge that makes no difference. They are one and the same thing!

Further, you’re confounding an abridged definition of sentience that only applies to finite beings. The unabridged philosophical definition of metaphysics is the only one that matters universally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

I already shared this.

Pay particular attention to the following:

In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia".[1] This is distinct from other aspects of the mind and consciousness, such as creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness, and intentionality (the ability to have thoughts "about" something). Sentience is a minimalistic way of defining consciousness, which is otherwise commonly used to collectively describe sentience plus other characteristics of the mind.​

The universal essence of sentience is interiorly subjective experiences of mental impressions and emotions.

You've put me in a position where I find myself agreeing with the atheists against you, as you’re not making any sense here, except in Amrchaos' case, as he thinks the possibility of divine sentience doesn't necessarily adhere to the idea of God in terms of first principles, which is patently false.

The possibility that God would be fully sentient cannot be logically ruled out. It's arguably a logical necessity for a fully conscious being of personhood, mortal or divine, to have emotions. In fact, I'd like someone on this thread explain to me how an omniscient God would not necessarily have emotions.

Think about that.

The Seven Things demonstrate that one cannot rationally rule out the possibility that we are finite expressions of God's consciousness. Your argument that the objective facts of human cognition (for there's no humans as such projecting) anthropomorphize God via the possibility that God has sentient impressions and feelings is bogus. There's nothing in the laws of organic human thought that precludes this possibility, and of course divine sentience wouldn't apply to divinity in the exact same way that applies to humans.

God doesn't become aware, and His interior sentience would be purely mental impressions and emotions.

However, an all-knowing God would be able to experience precisely what we experience (the mental sensations, perceptions and emotions) via the contents of our minds, would He not? He would necessarily know and understand everything we're thinking or feeling. Ah! So it looks like He must have emotions, logically, in order to know what emotions are and how they are experienced/felt!

Finally, there seems to be some misunderstanding regarding the expressions of God's sentience in the Bible.

First, the Bible most certainly does assert that God is sentient, Boss. That cannot be denied. You are mistaken.

Second, the authors of the Bible don't mean that God literally hears, sees, smells, tastes or feels things in the sense that humans do as if he had physical ears, eyes, a nose, a tongue or a dermis. They're speaking metaphorically. They knew that the actual means of God's sentience and the higher cogitations thereof would have to be intellectual in nature, an operation of His divine omniscience, not literal, sensory transmissions or sensory data; and neither Jews nor Christians hold that the biblical construct of divine consciousness is an anthropomorphism. Nonsense! The Bible holds that we were created in God's image, that our consciousness is what it is because He made us in His likeness. We are finite expressions of His consciousness.

To the atheists on this thread: go on contradictorily presupposing God's existence as you necessarily do when you declare to know something about an existing God that the rest of us mere mortals cannot logically rule out!

Keep doing it. I dare you. I double dare you.

LOL!

No one escapes The Seven Things.

I think we need to make sure Boss is on the same page first.

Don't you think that is more important, MD?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Rawlings, we are not too far off from one another. My argument is the human conception of "sentience" and how that applies to God. We are incapable of thinking beyond sentience, if that makes any sense. Our human minds can reason sentience and understand how that applies to human beings because... we're human beings. God has no 'need' for anything, including sentience. All the things we understand and comprehend as applying to humans, God is already above those things, God created those things for humans. All the complex and difficult to decipher philosophical arguments pertaining to logic and reason... God is ABOVE that.... = No need for it.

And I'm arguing that of course human sentience and divine sentience would not be exactly the same.

Sentience does not necessarily assert "a becoming aware." That component of sentience would apply to finite minds only; more at, that would be, arguably, the first principle of sentience in finite minds. God would by definition be eternally aware.

Hence, the metaphysically universal construct of sentience = mental impressions and emotions and nothing else!

Most, though not all, of our sentient impressions and feelings are attached to sensory apparatuses. God's wouldn't be. That's all.

It does not follow that God would not necessarily need or want mental impressions or emotions.

Whaaaaaa?

Certainly, He would have the interior mental impressions of sentience by necessity of His omniscience, and how is He going to know everything about us without knowing everything about our mental states, including the intimate details of our subjective sensations, impressions, perceptions and their emotional content if He does not have sentient impressions or emotions?

But let us suspend that question and its apparent ramifications for the moment and simply cut to the chase: there is no rational justification for the assertion that the logical possibilities of human cognition are anthropomorphizing God, as we readily recognize the possibility that we might be finite expressions of God's consciousness. Moreover, there is no rational justification for the charge that divine perfection and the mental impressions and emotions of sentience are mutually exclusive. Non sequitur.

I hold that the case for divine sentience in its fullest sense trumps the argument against it, for God’s omniscience appears to require it, and in truth the notion that a divine sentience akin to our own constitutes an anthropomorphism presupposes to know something that cannot be logically ruled out at all: that we are, once again, finite expressions of His consciousness. With all due respect, I say folks are unwittingly pulling a little intellectual hocus pocus on themselves.

I can almost hear God laughing and saying: "Children, it's the other way around. I theologized you."

However, I suppose that an argument can be made that divine sentience insofar as emotions go is not a logical necessity for God, but merely a logical possibility, though that seems a little weird in the face of the imperative that He would at the very least have sentience in terms of the mental impressions of the construct of the eternal now due to His omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Why leave the emotional aspect of sentience out? That strikes me as utterly arbitrary.

Look, I've never thought the emotional aspect of divine sentience out in terms of logical necessity. As this moment I can't put my finger on how it wouldn't be necessary in the face of omniscience, the necessity that nothing is hidden from Him, including the entirety of our mental states, and you certainly have not provided any coherently convincing objection.

But I will give it more thought as there is something niggling at the edge of my mind regarding my impression about the logical necessity of emotional sentience for God. I do, of course, believe the Bible, that God does in fact have emotions of love and joy, for example, as well as anger and hatred for evil, just for starters. . . . But can I assert this on the basis of what the objective facts of human cognition divulge regarding the problems of existence and origin?

Well, until I can put my finger on what's niggling at the edge of my mind, for now I'll just hold that emotional sentience cannot be logically ruled out, for that much is objectively indisputable.

 

[BreezeWood]

.
No one escapes The Seven Things.


3. The idea that God exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that God exists cannot be logically ruled out!

- and is the flaw for the above biblical quote that is adhered to by mdr and would always preclude a syllogism by mdr to be flawed by his flawed "hardwired" interpretation of what he is trying to define as being God based on that document.

what exists in your mind about the "creator" is not the same as what is a partial concept to a more formal understanding including concepts necessary for an extended existence that God may have arbitrary rule over but is itself dependent on other factors that itself may not control - the Everlasting.

because in the end you are basing your TST on the precepts of an errant document as your source for your knowledge of God there can not be any other conclusion but a misconception of the truth your syllogism is attempting to prove.


TST = Bible =/= God

.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

.
No one escapes The Seven Things.


3. The idea that God exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that God exists cannot be logically ruled out!

- and is the flaw for the above biblical quote that is adhered to by mdr and would always preclude a syllogism by mdr to be flawed by his flawed "hardwired" interpretation of what he is trying to define as being God based on that document.

what exists in your mind about the "creator" is not the same as what is a partial concept to a more formal understanding including concepts necessary for an extended existence that God may have arbitrary rule over but is itself dependent on other factors that itself may not control - the Everlasting.

because in the end you are basing your TST on the precepts of an errant document as your source for your knowledge of God there can not be any other conclusion but a misconception of the truth your syllogism is attempting to prove.


TST = Bible =/= God

.

So now you write this after I just told you TST don't assert anything you ascribed to me or them, and don't necessarily preclude your notion of discrete or universal spirituality . . . though #4 divulges a logical paradox for a universal spirituality as it is asserted by pantheism. Why am I not surprised? BreezeWood, you have got to back out of your paradigm and view TST from an objective standpoint. Though the objective facts of human cognition regarding the problems of existence and origin are consistent with biblical scripture, there's nothing overtly biblical in TST themselves! The only "document" they're based on are the three laws of organic/classical thought.

Whether or not, objectively speaking, the things you're going on about, which I can't understand half the time because you don't coherently express them or premise them on anything discernibly concrete, are ultimately true or not: you cannot rationally or empirically demonstrate them to anyone else on the basis of justified true belief/knowledge, for they don't even line up with the organic laws of thought in any objective fashion. In other words, if they are true within the subjective range below the only objectively apprehensible and defensible standard of divine attribution, how could any of us know that without direct revelation from God?

And frankly I'm done with these posts of yours. The laws of thought negate hard pantheism anyway, demonstrate that there's no real practical difference between it and atheism. As for the form of pantheism you're going on about. . . . Frankly, I don't buy it. I don't believe that God would give us the order and rationality of the laws of human thought pointing in one direction when all the while the truth is your esoteric, pantheistic mumbo jumbo that could mean virtually anything with the kitchen sink thrown in. You make some mysterious distinction between the Everlasting and God, a distinction that makes absolutely no difference but one of semantics. It's ridiculous. A mystery religion. God is intentionally confusing us? Misleading us? Lying to us? Expecting us to guess our way past the universal sign posts into this incoherency of yours?

The fundamental laws of human thought affirm all of TST, and science affirms #1, #2 and #5, as well as a number of extrapolations that can be objectively derived from the TST. Your ideas don't have anything like that! There are logical possibilities, but no logical necessities apart from those that already agree with some of TST. There are a few scientific hypotheticals, but nothing that has yet to be verified by science or even appears to be scientifically verifiable. Dude!

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

.
No one escapes The Seven Things.


3. The idea that God exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that God exists cannot be logically ruled out!

- and is the flaw for the above biblical quote that is adhered to by mdr and would always preclude a syllogism by mdr to be flawed by his flawed "hardwired" interpretation of what he is trying to define as being God based on that document.

what exists in your mind about the "creator" is not the same as what is a partial concept to a more formal understanding including concepts necessary for an extended existence that God may have arbitrary rule over but is itself dependent on other factors that itself may not control - the Everlasting.

because in the end you are basing your TST on the precepts of an errant document as your source for your knowledge of God there can not be any other conclusion but a misconception of the truth your syllogism is attempting to prove.


TST = Bible =/= God

.

So you will not back out of your paradigm? Your religion strikes me as being something fragile, something cultish, something fearful and dogmatic, a mantra shaking in its boots before the very thought of objectivity. Why, everything might collapse. You strike me as a man clinging to something with a white-knuckled grip.

Hence, I will now come at you directly from my paradigm, especially given the fact that by your own words you put yourself down for TST, but just blithely go on and disregard the implications.

There is a spirit loose in this world that is evil, at enmity with God, a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, to kill and destroy. He is the god of incoherent mumbo jumbo that blinds and binds and bombs in the end. That's the everlasting you're talking. He's your god. A lie, utter nonsense. You are deceived and lost.

Repent! Humble yourself before the true God of your salvation. You are a sinner, guilty before God and condemned. Christ died for you, to redeem you.

Surrender now to that truth, for today is the day of salvation.

For God gave His only begotten Son that none should perish, but have everlasting life in Him: Christ Jesus, the only light in a world of darkness.

 

[Hollie]

Rawlings, we are not too far off from one another. My argument is the human conception of "sentience" and how that applies to God. We are incapable of thinking beyond sentience, if that makes any sense. Our human minds can reason sentience and understand how that applies to human beings because... we're human beings. God has no 'need' for anything, including sentience. All the things we understand and comprehend as applying to humans, God is already above those things, God created those things for humans. All the complex and difficult to decipher philosophical arguments pertaining to logic and reason... God is ABOVE that.... = No need for it.

And I'm arguing that of course human sentience and divine sentience would not be exactly the same.

Sentience does not necessarily assert "a becoming aware." That component of sentience would apply to finite minds only; more at, that would be, arguably, the first principle of sentience in finite minds. God would by definition be eternally aware.

Hence, the metaphysically universal construct of sentience = mental impressions and emotions and nothing else!

Most, though not all, of our sentient impressions and feelings are attached to sensory apparatuses. God's wouldn't be. That's all.

It does not follow that God would not necessarily need or want mental impressions or emotions.

Whaaaaaa?

Certainly, He would have the interior mental impressions of sentience by necessity of His omniscience, and how is He going to know everything about us without knowing everything about our mental states, including the intimate details of our subjective sensations, impressions, perceptions and their emotional content if He does not have sentient impressions or emotions?

But let us suspend that question and its apparent ramifications for the moment and simply cut to the chase: there is no rational justification for the assertion that the logical possibilities of human cognition are anthropomorphizing God, as we readily recognize the possibility that we might be finite expressions of God's consciousness. Moreover, there is no rational justification for the charge that divine perfection and the mental impressions and emotions of sentience are mutually exclusive. Non sequitur.

I hold that the case for divine sentience in its fullest sense trumps the argument against it, for God’s omniscience appears to require it, and in truth the notion that a divine sentience akin to our own constitutes an anthropomorphism presupposes to know something that cannot be logically ruled out at all: that we are, once again, finite expressions of His consciousness. With all due respect, I say folks are unwittingly pulling a little intellectual hocus pocus on themselves.

I can almost hear God laughing and saying: "Children, it's the other way around. I theologized you."

However, I suppose that an argument can be made that divine sentience insofar as emotions go is not a logical necessity for God, but merely a logical possibility, though that seems a little weird in the face of the imperative that He would at the very least have sentience in terms of the mental impressions of the construct of the eternal now due to His omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Why leave the emotional aspect of sentience out? That strikes me as utterly arbitrary.

Look, I've never thought the emotional aspect of divine sentience out in terms of logical necessity. As this moment I can't put my finger on how it wouldn't be necessary in the face of omniscience, the necessity that nothing is hidden from Him, including the entirety of our mental states, and you certainly have not provided any coherently convincing objection.

But I will give it more thought as there is something niggling at the edge of my mind regarding my impression about the logical necessity of emotional sentience for God. I do, of course, believe the Bible, that God does in fact have emotions of love and joy, for example, as well as anger and hatred for evil, just for starters. . . . But can I assert this on the basis of what the objective facts of human cognition divulge regarding the problems of existence and origin?

Well, until I can put my finger on what's niggling at the edge of my mind, for now I'll just hold that emotional sentience cannot be logically ruled out, for that much is objectively indisputable.

Jeebus. These cranks are just a bunch of Benny Hinn wannabes.

 

[Boss]

Look, I've never thought the emotional aspect of divine sentience out in terms of logical necessity. As this moment I can't put my finger on how it wouldn't be necessary in the face of omniscience, the necessity that nothing is hidden from Him, including the entirety of our mental states, and you certainly have not provided any coherently convincing objection.

But I will give it more thought as there is something niggling at the edge of my mind regarding my impression about the logical necessity of emotional sentience for God. I do, of course, believe the Bible, that God does in fact have emotions of love and joy, for example, as well as anger and hatred for evil, just for starters. . . . But can I assert this on the basis of what the objective facts of human cognition divulge regarding the problems of existence and origin?

Well this is probably where we differ on our views. The Bible doesn't say God is a "sentient being" and we have already established this fact. Now you want to define something called "divine sentience" but that term frankly makes no sense to me. I am not a Christian follower of the Bible, so we have a difference in what we conceptualize as God. My concept doesn't negate or interrupt your Seven Things argument in the least.

Humans are wholly inadequate creatures to try and comprehend God, even though we are intrinsically aware that God exists. The thing that is God is so far from anything we are capable of imagining that we simply don't have words to describe it. In absence of words. we attempt to apply the words we are familiar with in human context. We build God in the image of ourselves because that's what we can relate to and understand. Therefore, God has sentience, love, anger, caring, etc. Actual God has no reason or purpose for human characteristics. God is beyond any of that. These are characteristics God designed for humans and relate to humans and their interaction with a physical material universe. Think about that... God made sentience!

 

[amrchaos]

Just goes to show that each individual concept of God need not be the same!!

Boss is in agreement with you, M.D. Just that his concept of God is different from your concept.

Also, I do agree with you on this point, M.D.--Boss concept of God is not Biblical. At least not in the Classical sense. It sounds like non-theism, but it may be another form of the "Modern" take on what God is.

Once we start talking about non-theist notions of God, my atheism may become irrelevant. I may be more accepting of their definition than I am of the Biblical sense.


Remember, when I talked about the nun that claimed "God is love"? If that is true, then I can not claim atheism under that definition! Understand why?.

 

[Boss]

It sounds like non-theism...

Pretty much, which is probably why my Christian sister refers to me as her "atheist brother." I am not keen on organized religion because I believe human religions are all as flawed as the humans who created them. I am a Spiritualist who believes very much in a Spiritual God. My God doesn't have human attributes, doesn't "care" what you do or don't do. It's illogical to me to conclude God "wants" or "doesn't want" things because God is Supreme, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent. There is no "want" or "don't want" when it comes to God. There is no "desire" from God, because God has the power to make anything reality. If God wished for you to worship Him, it would be something you'd do intuitively without thought... When you woke in the morning, before going to pee or make coffee, you'd inexplicably hit the floor on your knees and worship God as he wished, and there would be nothing you could do about it. But God doesn't care what you do.

So what is the purpose of spiritually acknowledging God? Why does it matter? It doesn't matter to God. It matters to US... We do it for US, not for God. The Spiritual Energy force coursing through our universe can be ridden like a surf wave, enhancing our experience in this universe, enabling inspiration and discovery, enabling love and benevolence. All this benefits US, not God. Likewise, there are counter forces to the Spiritual Energy, they seek to interrupt the flow, to disrupt the energy, creating all kinds of problems and suffering in our universe.

 

[Hollie]

Look, I've never thought the emotional aspect of divine sentience out in terms of logical necessity. As this moment I can't put my finger on how it wouldn't be necessary in the face of omniscience, the necessity that nothing is hidden from Him, including the entirety of our mental states, and you certainly have not provided any coherently convincing objection.

But I will give it more thought as there is something niggling at the edge of my mind regarding my impression about the logical necessity of emotional sentience for God. I do, of course, believe the Bible, that God does in fact have emotions of love and joy, for example, as well as anger and hatred for evil, just for starters. . . . But can I assert this on the basis of what the objective facts of human cognition divulge regarding the problems of existence and origin?

Well this is probably where we differ on our views. The Bible doesn't say God is a "sentient being" and we have already established this fact. Now you want to define something called "divine sentience" but that term frankly makes no sense to me. I am not a Christian follower of the Bible, so we have a difference in what we conceptualize as God. My concept doesn't negate or interrupt your Seven Things argument in the least.

Humans are wholly inadequate creatures to try and comprehend God, even though we are intrinsically aware that God exists. The thing that is God is so far from anything we are capable of imagining that we simply don't have words to describe it. In absence of words. we attempt to apply the words we are familiar with in human context. We build God in the image of ourselves because that's what we can relate to and understand. Therefore, God has sentience, love, anger, caring, etc. Actual God has no reason or purpose for human characteristics. God is beyond any of that. These are characteristics God designed for humans and relate to humans and their interaction with a physical material universe. Think about that... God made sentience!

"Humans are wholly inadequate creatures to try and comprehend God, even though we are intrinsically aware that God exists."

I thought the above was interesting in that your incomprehensible gawds are defined by you in explicit terms.

 

[BreezeWood]

The fundamental laws of human thought affirm all of TST. Dude!

only conceptually, the same as - - 3. The idea that Zeus exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that Zeus exists cannot be logically ruled out! -

as requested previously what is the distinction for "God" in your TST that is not the same as Zeus or the Easter Bunny - that makes it a meaningful concept.

You make some mysterious distinction between the Everlasting and God, a distinction that makes absolutely no difference but one of semantics.

sorry for you, the Everlasting does more than exist in our minds it is a verifiable concept without which it is your TST that would become meaningless and conceptually is a distinct variable of the cosmological order that is not created and is included as a buffer by religious scriptural documents - Dude!

Frankly, I don't buy it. I don't believe that God would give us the order and rationality of the laws of human thought pointing in one direction when all the while the truth is your esoteric, pantheistic mumbo jumbo that could mean virtually anything with the kitchen sink thrown in.

pointing in one direction - really, where - your bible ?

.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Well this is probably where we differ on our views. The Bible doesn't say God is a "sentient being" and we have already established this fact. Now you want to define something called "divine sentience" but that term frankly makes no sense to me. I am not a Christian follower of the Bible, so we have a difference in what we conceptualize as God. My concept doesn't negate or interrupt your Seven Things argument in the least.

Humans are wholly inadequate creatures to try and comprehend God, even though we are intrinsically aware that God exists. The thing that is God is so far from anything we are capable of imagining that we simply don't have words to describe it. In absence of words. we attempt to apply the words we are familiar with in human context. We build God in the image of ourselves because that's what we can relate to and understand. Therefore, God has sentience, love, anger, caring, etc. Actual God has no reason or purpose for human characteristics. God is beyond any of that. These are characteristics God designed for humans and relate to humans and their interaction with a physical material universe. Think about that... God made sentience!

Boss, I've always understood the foundation of your position, which is this: you believe The Seven Things and a number of their apparent ramifications to be logically true/valid from the objectively universal standpoint of the bioneurologically hardwired laws of human thought, but you do not believe/know these things to be ultimately true as they are necessarily premised on the bioneurologically hardwired laws of human thought, namely, the law of identity, the law of contradiction and the law of the excluded middle.

You have also made statements that concur with some of the logical ramifications/extrapolations, but you have also made statements that do not concur with the logical ramifications/extrapolations.

Hence, you have hinted at beliefs about the idea of God that cannot be rationally or empirically demonstrated to anyone else on the basis of anything that would arguably constitute justified true belief/knowledge. In other words, you have hinted at beliefs about the idea of God that would necessarily be premised on some subjectively esoteric standard of divine revelation contrary to the imperatives of organic logic and, therefore, not accessibly knowable by your fellow mortals.

Now that the issue of sentience has come to the fore, as I suspected, the point at which your unjustified, utterly arbitrary rationale diverges from the bioneurologically hardwired imperatives of human thought is clearly delineated.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Just goes to show that each individual concept of God need not be the same!!

Boss is in agreement with you, M.D. Just that his concept of God is different from your concept.

Also, I do agree with you on this point, M.D.--Boss concept of God is not Biblical. At least not in the Classical sense. It sounds like non-theism, but it may be another form of the "Modern" take on what God is.

Once we start talking about non-theist notions of God, my atheism may become irrelevant. I may be more accepting of their definition than I am of the Biblical sense.


Remember, when I talked about the nun that claimed "God is love"? If that is true, then I can not claim atheism under that definition! Understand why?.

False on all counts, save one: Boss' concept of God is not biblical. Mine is. It's not clear to me that Boss' concept is nontheistic at this point in the classical sense, but it clearly is not theistic in the biblical sense. Mine is on both counts. Where you got this notion of yours regarding my personal view is anyone's guess, as I have only shared a very small number of my personal views on this thread, and they most certainly are theistically classical and biblically orthodox.

Notwithstanding, the biblical facts as such are not relevant to the OP, and Boss' notions are simply not rational.

 

[emilynghiem]

He's just pretending that logic doesn't prove or negate things again, abusing formal terms and conventions.

I'm just showing you how apparent the ridiculousness is of your entire thesis here.

"I can prove god logically but not ultimately" is what you said verbatim.

If your idea of a logical proof doesn't prove something ultimately (which real logic does because in real logic, its an ultimate proof when the premises are absolutely true) -----then you're exercising futility. What you're doing is fucking useless, ASIDE from begging the question and calling things axioms that are NOT universally accepted.

Saying "I can prove something, but not ultimately" like you've said is a dog chasing its damn tail. Gluck with all of that.

Dear GT:
M.D. Rawlings DOES believe the logistical approach covers the essentials,
and reaching agreement on this will address and solve all the other levels.

What he doesn't seem to get is what "demonstrating anything in science or real life"
has anything to do with a logistical proof.

I compare him to the Calculus professor who knows that all the math
works out in the numbers and symbols on the page. And YES this applies
to ALL APPLICATIONS of calculus in real life.

But in the process of teaching and learning Calculus,
it turns out all the PHYSICS students in the class understand and explain the Calculus
better to other math students. Why? Because the Physics students use Calculus
every day in their Physics and Real World Applications.

I ran into this phenomenon in college.

My Physics friends ended up being better tutors and scored higher on
Math on the GMAT exams, because they had to apply the same Math
to Real Life problems that the math students only practiced on the page.

It's the same math.

But the Physics students were applying it daily and had a broader
grasp "in context" of how these symbols and equations/relaitons
applied in the real world so they understood on a deep level than the theoretical mathematicians
who understood the global patterns but didn't "specialize" in specific applications in the real world.

MD is right, although my three criticisms are
1. he doesn't get that some people may not relate to his
opening assertions equating God with knowledge or Creator
2. He doesn't get how working with science and real world apps
will help demonstrate and resolve issues PREVENTING people from getting this logistic proof
3. He doesn't seem to acknowledge that 98% of the work
IS RESOLVING people's issues with #1 and #2.
His proof serves as the first and last step:
A. identifying which people relate, or which people have issue #1 to be resolved
like BreezeWood believes in God but believes this is contrary to the Christian God in MD proof.
or ID which people have issues like #2 that may require science and experience to resolve
B. after the resolution process is successful, then people with issues #1 and #2
will be better able to FORGIVE the flaws with MD proof so we can agree that
God "includes" God = Creator or God = knowledge, but that is not the only definition

It still works in terms of God = something that people agree exists and serves that role

MD proof is not perfect but can still be used to reach agreement.

It is not his job to deal with #2 although he seems to be interested
in resolving #1 with people who believe in God but have issues with his proof.

#2 is not his specialty as he is not a process person.
He is like the prof who just wants students to get the right answer
and does not give a flip what "process" they have to go through to resolve their
issues with either the material content, the symbols used to express it,
or his way of presenting it, or his way of interacting or failing to with the class.

He doesn't get that 98% of the population needs to address those issues
to be on the same page. It is actually the larger reason why we don't agree yet,
all that processing he doesn't think has anything to do with the proof on the page that makes sense already
and doesn't require anyone understanding it in order to be true. It is still true, so he doesn't see
why bother with "idiots" who are "lying to thmeselves" and not getting it.

He says he understands fundamental religionists are the worst,
but apparently does not specialize in dealing with them either.
Boss has to work around MD's biases in order to communicate
so maybe MD can learn from Boss and Breezewood how to
work with fellow theists who take exception to his proof.

I see MD has ZERO ability to deal with nontheists or atheists who don't follow his proof.
So I can help with that part, if Breeze and Boss can help MD get over his issues with fellow theists over this approach.

This is a good process, but until we get through to the resolution at the end
MD doesn't seem to comprehend the larger process going on AROUND the proof.

What he doesn't seem to get is what "demonstrating anything in science or real life"
has anything to do with a logistical proof.
I compare him to the Calculus professor who knows that all the math
works out in the numbers and symbols on the page. And YES this applies
to ALL APPLICATIONS of calculus in real life.
But in the process of teaching and learning Calculus,
it turns out all the PHYSICS students in the class understand and explain the Calculus
better to other math students. Why? Because the Physics students use Calculus
every day in their Physics and Real World Applications.


You're full of shit. I recently explained the essence of calculus on this tread in its own right and explained current physics in terms of calculus. You don't know what talking about. I'm learned on both sides of that equation. Show me where I'm wrong and be sure to quote me on these topics.

Emily is not talking about your proof. In fact, I think emily is down with all 7 points!!

She is referencing how you deal with people that ask questions or criticize aspects of your proof!!

That's weird. I don't care what she's talking about. She's full of shit and so you. They're not mine. These facts of human cognition belong to us all.

OK Dr. M.D. Rawling, M.D.
Into the BULLRING with you
if you claim "She's full of shit"

The PROCESS of human perception is a key part of the interactions here.

I'm willing to bet you 10 million dollars that
FORGIVENESS is the key to resolving issues with this proof.

That's NOT BS that's human psychology.
Human nature.

YES I AGREE with you the proof works, that if you define God to be X, then
of COURSE you are going to run into contradictions logically if you turn around
and make some conflicting claim or denial about God that goes against X by definition.

That is like saying, hey, let's define God to be something infinite
and therefore slapping some label on God that is finite is going to contradict God being infinite.

I AGREE with you "dumbass"!!!!

What I am ADDING to your proof is what you seem to be missing with people.

You don't get people like Boss and BreezeWood who believe in the Supreme/Almighty
but take issues or exceptions to your FINITE definition of God for the purpose of the logical proof.

What's sad MD is that you are BOTH RIGHT, you are ALL correct.
and you're only flaw is trying to make each other wrong, when you all have valid points.

INTO THE BULLRING WITH YOU

I can't believe I AGREE WITH YOU and have to challenge you to
bullring for you to stop this nonsense that I'm talking nonsense!

When I AGREE WITH YOU. WTFFFFF?????

Projection, perhaps?
Meet you in the Bullring if you really want to set up this online
10 million dollar bet that a consensus on God and Jesus
can be reached, where the "proof process" involves demonstrating
a pattern with forgiveness/unforgiveness correlating with success/failure
in reconciling between people of diverse views that don't have to change
as long as people forgive their differences.

That's NOT BS. That's the key to the whole puzzle.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Look, I've never thought the emotional aspect of divine sentience out in terms of logical necessity. As this moment I can't put my finger on how it wouldn't be necessary in the face of omniscience, the necessity that nothing is hidden from Him, including the entirety of our mental states, and you certainly have not provided any coherently convincing objection.

But I will give it more thought as there is something niggling at the edge of my mind regarding my impression about the logical necessity of emotional sentience for God. I do, of course, believe the Bible, that God does in fact have emotions of love and joy, for example, as well as anger and hatred for evil, just for starters. . . . But can I assert this on the basis of what the objective facts of human cognition divulge regarding the problems of existence and origin?

Well this is probably where we differ on our views. The Bible doesn't say God is a "sentient being" and we have already established this fact. Now you want to define something called "divine sentience" but that term frankly makes no sense to me. I am not a Christian follower of the Bible, so we have a difference in what we conceptualize as God. My concept doesn't negate or interrupt your Seven Things argument in the least.

Humans are wholly inadequate creatures to try and comprehend God, even though we are intrinsically aware that God exists. The thing that is God is so far from anything we are capable of imagining that we simply don't have words to describe it. In absence of words. we attempt to apply the words we are familiar with in human context. We build God in the image of ourselves because that's what we can relate to and understand. Therefore, God has sentience, love, anger, caring, etc. Actual God has no reason or purpose for human characteristics. God is beyond any of that. These are characteristics God designed for humans and relate to humans and their interaction with a physical material universe. Think about that... God made sentience!

Now you make a series of astonishingly false and contradictory claims:


1. "The Bible doesn't say God is a 'sentient being' and we have already established this fact."

Who is this we you're going on about? There is no we. There's just you making a claim about the Bible that is literarily, texturally, hermeneutically, doctrinally, theologically, philosophically, historically and, therefore, patently false.

The Bible emphatically and indisputably holds that God is a sentient Being. Even the atheists on this thread know that to be true. Even Hollie knows this to be true, though she, being the mindless, reactionary robot that she is, had to be disabused by Amrchaos of the notion that divine sentience is your position.

Your denial of this objectively and empirically demonstrable academic fact on the implied basis of mere semantics is not worth a second glance: a rose is a rose by any other name. The Bible also emphatically and indisputably holds that God is much more than just a sentient Being. Hence, any further discussion of your fantasy would be pointless.


2. "Now you want to define something called 'divine sentience' but that term frankly makes no sense to me."

This is simply not true. In spite of you're personal biases, you're perfectly capable of stating what the classical and the biblical views of God are. In fact, you just did in the above as you elaborated, albeit, inaccurately, on those things that distinguish the classical/biblical view of God from your view of God.

You're perfectly capable of understanding the universal metaphysics of sentience, what this conceptual existent's essential nature is: the experience of mental impressions and emotions. You're perfectly aware of the fact that humans are sentient beings. You know that at the very least all other mammalians are sentient beings, that avialae are arguably sentient beings, all of whom experience mental impressions and emotions that varying in nature and are experienced at varying degrees of sophistication, respectively.

Hence, you do in fact apprehend, via the law of identity, what the universal essence of sentience is, what divine sentience would be, how it would necessarily differ from that of human beings, as you yourself have already made those very distinctions, and that the possibility of the existence of what would necessarily be the perfect and infinitely greater experiences of divine sentience cannot be logically ruled out. Your protestations to the contrary are ridiculous.


3. "I am not a Christian follower of the Bible, so we have a difference in what we conceptualize as God."

Misleading. The possibility that divine consciousness includes sentience cannot be logically ruled out due to the axiomatically self-evident imperatives of organic logic. I didn't drag the Bible into this. Others did, and the allegation that the Bible does not hold that God's consciousness includes sentience came to the fore. I merely rejected that nonsense: not on the subjective grounds of personal belief, but on the objective grounds of the empirically verifiable academics of the matter—the literary, textual, hermeneutical, doctrinal, theological, philosophical and historical facts.

My personal beliefs are irrelevant. The objective facts of human cognition regarding the problems of existence and origin are imperviously indifferent to our personal biases. They shrug their shoulders and defy your pronouncements. They indisputably demonstrate, once again, that the possibility that divine consciousness includes sentience cannot be logically ruled out!

Neither the biblical facts nor your hermeneutically mysterious and contradictory allegation regarding the biblical construct of divine consciousness is of any significance whatsoever to the OP's false allegations and its rhetorical challenge.


4. "My concept doesn't negate or interrupt your Seven Things argument in the least."

I know that and I agree.

So why do you veer off the path of the objective facts of human cognition regarding the problems of existence and origin laid out by the imperatives of organic logic into the following, self-negating incoherencies?

Humans are wholly inadequate creatures to try and comprehend God, even though we are intrinsically aware that God exists. The thing that is God is so far from anything we are capable of imagining that we simply don't have words to describe it. In absence of words, we attempt to apply the words we are familiar with in human context. We build God in the image of ourselves because that's what we can relate to and understand. Therefore, God has sentience, love, anger, caring, etc. Actual God has no reason or purpose for human characteristics. God is beyond any of that. These are characteristics God designed for humans and relate to humans and their interaction with a physical material universe. Think about that... God made sentience!​

 

[Boss]

Boss' concept of God is not biblical.

I'm not arguing that my concept is or isn't biblical, but do you say it's not because it doesn't conform to your interpretation of biblical God or because the scripture says God is this sentient being you imagine? OR maybe you mean my interpretation is not a Christian interpretation?

I don't think my God contradicts the biblical concept, although it may not conform to man's interpretations of the biblical concept.

 

[emilynghiem]

Just goes to show that each individual concept of God need not be the same!!

Boss is in agreement with you, M.D. Just that his concept of God is different from your concept.

Also, I do agree with you on this point, M.D.--Boss concept of God is not Biblical. At least not in the Classical sense. It sounds like non-theism, but it may be another form of the "Modern" take on what God is.

Once we start talking about non-theist notions of God, my atheism may become irrelevant. I may be more accepting of their definition than I am of the Biblical sense.


Remember, when I talked about the nun that claimed "God is love"? If that is true, then I can not claim atheism under that definition! Understand why?.

False on all counts, save one: Boss' concept of God is not biblical. Mine is. It's not clear to me that Boss' concept is nontheistic at this point in the classical sense, but it clearly is not theistic in the biblical sense. Mine is on both counts. Where you got this notion of yours regarding my personal view is anyone's guess, as I have only shared a very small number of my personal views on this thread, and they most certainly are theistically classical and biblically orthodox.

Notwithstanding, the biblical facts as such are not relevant to the OP, and Boss' notions are simply not rational.

Dear MD and Boss CC: BreezeWood and Justin

For God's meaning to be Universal, such a God would satisfy
* BreezeWood's references to the Almighty
* Boss's concept of God as not limited to just the Christian Bible but not contradictory to that either
* Your points and proof
* Mine and Justin's and everyone else

So if you and Boss don't agree yet, then this isn't
a perfect painting of God yet.

BreezeWood also does not feel the Christian painting of God
is capturing the full essence of the Almighty.

May I suggest we all keep working as MD/Boss are working out their issues.
And when we come to a consensus that satisfies and includes all our
understanding of God, that bigger picture would be closer to the Universal God
than any of our individual perceptions/perspectives and angles.

God would be greater than the sum of the parts,
because God represents something infinite
and each of us only holds a finite piece or perception of the infinite Almighty/Eternal that is God.

So it takes putting ALL our pieces together to paint the Bigger Picture of the greater God
that still exceeds even our closest understanding. God is still greater, being infinite and beyond us.

MD I agree we can REPRESENT God consistently
but to do so for all the population requires translating
your same proof into terms that each person understands as God Almighty.