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

[Justin Davis]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

First it must be determined what you mean by "existence" here. If you mean a physical existence, then there is no evidence that God physically exists. Now, what other types of "existence" do you acknowledge? If you can't acknowledge spiritual existence, then there is no way to show you evidence of God.

The syllogistic argument for God is simple. Time, space and a physical universe exist. Something had to create the physical. It's illogical that it created itself. Something had to create it because the universe has entropy, it is not perpetual. So until you can provide a syllogistic argument for how "physical" came to exist, we have to assume something beyond "physical" must have created it.

Now... Atheism is still justified. Atheism is a faith-based belief that God does not exist. The simple fact that God does not physically exist is enough to justify Atheism. This doesn't validate Atheism, but it is justified.

I disagree. Atheism is not justifiable in the formal sense at all because the assumption of it is contradictory to the fact that the possibility of God's existence cannot be logically denied. Atheism is purely faith-based without a justifiable argument to back it at all. We have existence. That's it. How is it that we have existence? Something must have always existed because how do you get something from nothing? So either some material thing has always existed or some immaterial thing has always existed, and the immaterial thing can be intelligent. To say that anyone of these things is impossible is to say that you know something that you can't possibly known is true. Atheism is not logical whether it's true or not. You can say that God is or must be though without such a contradiction.

 

[Justin Davis]

MD.R., can you explain the spontaneous thing in better detail?

f(x) = lim (1/x) = 0.
x --> ∞


This means that the function f systematically increases the value of x toward the limit of infinity, so that 1 is divided by the systematically increased value of x, which equals an ever-smaller number approaching 0. This function yields an infinite set of increasingly larger numbers (or divisors) for x tending toward ∞ and an infinite set of ever-smaller numbers (or quotients) approaching 0. In other words, = 0 actually means "near 0" as the division of any whole is not the process of making it fade into nonexistent. The whole is still "there." It's just divided into an unknown number of pieces. We don't actually know what happens when we get to infinity as infinity in terms of a specific number is undefined. Rather, infinity is simultaneously all the numbers there are unto infinity.

Hence, the input-output portion of the function's expression can be expressed as "(1/x) = n approaching 0."


Let D = the infinite set of increasingly larger divisors tending toward x --> ∞ of function f.

Let Q = the infinite set of ever-smaller quotients approaching 0 of function f.

Thus, for example:


lim
x --> ∞ ∈ D
___________
1
10
100
1000 . . .



(1/x = n approaching 0) ∈ Q
___________________________________
1.0
0.1
0.01
0.001 . . .


Also:

D = {1, 10, 100, 1000 . . . }; Q = {1.0, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001 . . . }


Now many won't care about this, but if you copy and paste this, and take some quality time to contemplate the various aspects of the concept and the results in the light of the perfect attributes of God, including things like love and justice, you may see dimensionally new things about Him that will blow your mind and demolish any number of preconceived notions that routinely get in our way as finite minds trapped in a perceptually three-dimensional construct within the dimensional construct of time from seeing just how incredibly and awesomely unlimited He is. You can't grasp all of it, of course, not even close, but you can get a feel for it as never before this way.

I will try this. Actually, a pastor I know told me about this same contemplation exercise though without this I wouldn't have know where to start. Three things jump out at me right away. Both ends of the process in some sense "meet in the middle" of infinity. The contemplation of infinity as it relates to the rules of logic is essentially set logic in terms of concepts that are simultaneously an infinite number things. You don't actually divide by infinity, but you see the infinite possibilities of existence if you look at it in terms of God's infinite ability to create anything anyway He pleases.

 

[Justin Davis]

If you want to know what is most likely just ask an agnostic atheist who is also a scientist. You'll get the most logical/rational/probable answer.

Agnostic atheists do not exist, how is anyone supposed to ask them anything?

Are you asking a human if they know for sure there is a god? 100% sure? No human could honestly answer you yes.

Agnostic means not sure. Agnostic Atheism means, at least to me, that we can't say for sure 100% there is not god. That's the agnostic part of us. But we see zero evidence so don't believe there is a god. That's our atheist part.

I'm at 1% there is a god and 99% there isn't one.

No human could honestly answer "yes"? Where do you get these ideas?

 

[Boss]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

First it must be determined what you mean by "existence" here. If you mean a physical existence, then there is no evidence that God physically exists. Now, what other types of "existence" do you acknowledge? If you can't acknowledge spiritual existence, then there is no way to show you evidence of God.

The syllogistic argument for God is simple. Time, space and a physical universe exist. Something had to create the physical. It's illogical that it created itself. Something had to create it because the universe has entropy, it is not perpetual. So until you can provide a syllogistic argument for how "physical" came to exist, we have to assume something beyond "physical" must have created it.

Now... Atheism is still justified. Atheism is a faith-based belief that God does not exist. The simple fact that God does not physically exist is enough to justify Atheism. This doesn't validate Atheism, but it is justified.

I disagree. Atheism is not justifiable in the formal sense at all because the assumption of it is contradictory to the fact that the possibility of God's existence cannot be logically denied. Atheism is purely faith-based without a justifiable argument to back it at all. We have existence. That's it. How is it that we have existence? Something must have always existed because how do you get something from nothing? So either some material thing has always existed or some immaterial thing has always existed, and the immaterial thing can be intelligent. To say that anyone of these things is impossible is to say that you know something that you can't possibly known is true. Atheism is not logical whether it's true or not. You can say that God is or must be though without such a contradiction.

I understand what you are saying and I agree, Atheism is not valid for the reasons you mentioned. Still, it doesn't have to be valid to be justifiable. If an Atheist is unable to realize spiritual existence and all they are aware of is physical existence, then to not believe in God's existence is simply to not believe in God's physical existence. I believe that is justified because God is metaphysical and doesn't physically exist.

Atheists are spiritually illiterate. They have no concept or understanding of spiritual nature at all. Any talk of "existence" can only mean in a physical state of existing, they have no knowledge of any other kind of existence. Therefore, their sentiments are justified, given their illiteracy of spiritual nature.

 

[Foxfyre]

We'll have to just accept that we have a friendly disagreement on that one. I do not subscribe to the Calvinist doctrine and while I do believe God has a grand master plan, I don't pretend to be privy to why he calls who he call to implement it. And my mind cannot conceive of free will and a future that is already set in granite. Once the movie is in the can, the actors cannot alter it in any way. I just don't see us an actors in some kind of cosmic movie being played out for all of what we call eternity.

But the failure to consider the unlimited possibilities or modes of existence due to God's unlimited power is the sort of thing that lets fuzzy thinking jam Him into a box in my experience, not the a careful definition of these implications. If God can do anything but something that would contradictorily deny Himself then what stops Him from being totally omnificence and there being total free will at the same time? What I'm getting from you and Q.W. is that you flatly reject that possibility base on our conception of time.

I don't see how my concept limits God in any way. I base my perceptions on what God has revealed of himself to me personally, however limited that may be. That I do not require God to be this or that is not coercive of God nor does it restrict him to any particular character or state of being, but it is simply what I believe he has revealed to humankind. To insist that God MUST be this or that seems to me to be much more coercive.

To insist or to know from what God Himself has revealed? Once again, it is not I or Justin, as far as I can tell, who is putting God in chains around here. Though, admittedly, I haven't been able to read all of his posts.

I'm sharing with you what's self-evident to all from the general revelation (the cosmological order beginning with our own reflections upon the problem of existence and origin) should they take the blinders off and open up their minds. These are the very same things asserted about God in the Bible, and the Bible tells us they are self-evident from reflection on the contents of our minds relative to the principle of identity too. There in the Bible! The Bible tells us they may be seen without scripture, but scripture backs what I'm telling you.

I have nothing to do with what is being revealed. I have nothing to do with stamping the Image God on your mind. I'm sharing with you the universally apparent attributes of God in terms of their entire upper range without limitations of any kind whatsoever, save one: God will not and cannot violate the principle of Identity, as He is the ultimate Principle of Identity: God = NOT-God for obvious reasons cannot be.

That's coercive? That's requiring Him to be something He's not or must be? I don't know what your imaging, but that's the only limit I'm talking about. There is no other limitation on Him or full, unrestrained expression of His attributes whatsoever.

For example, Foxfyre, there is no reason to believe that absolute omniscience and free will cannot coexist. The Bible utterly rejects that contention! That restraint. That length of chain. God does not have to limit His knowledge in any sense whatsoever for free will to thrive.

The principle of identity does not tell us that's impossible and neither does the Bible. Illusion. That's not a movie in the can--your chain on Him. Illusion. QW is wrong. I just falsified his notion that existents cannot be two or more things simultaneously according to the principle of identity. False. The principle of identity readily and coherently apprehends such things with no problem at all.

Perhaps if you were to take a look at that fact, you'd realize that it's you who are believing something that originated, by the way, from secular philosophers making baby talk, trying to put God into their models of being.

I have looked at that fact and still draw my own conclusions with the reason and logic that God gave me. You obviously have been very well educated in theology and I do not question your motives or intentions here. But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments, and not always charitably or without insult, and sometimes I think that weakens your own arguments. Is it possible that you have adopted one particular theory of theology and have closed your own mind to other possibilities? One thing I have learned about God is that anytime we think we have God all figured out, we are most likely to have it wrong.

From where I'm standing I'm seeing a lot of claims being made that can't be objectively backed by rational experience of by the Bible. I'm a young Christian, new to the faith but I'm not new to the Bible. I was raised in a Baptist church that my mother attended with us kids. I just went along but I do know the Bible as I had to do all those Bible studies for years. Of course reading the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit is a whole other level of understanding from just the intellectual level. The idea that the basic attributes of God are known from the act of thinking about the possible ultimate source of existence being intelligent and spiritual rather than being material, that humans can perceive what that would mean in the highest sense is biblical. David, Moses, the prophets and the apostles talk about that and why God did that to our minds constantly. Some of the best affirmations of this are found in the Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Daniel, Job, the epistles and the gospels. The very things that can be known about God by thinking about the issue of origin are specifically named by the inspired writers also. I have no problemfollowing what M.D.R. is saying. What he calls the "imperatives of the problem of origin" that come to our minds when we think about the idea of God without the Bible are in the Bible. The Bible teaches that these things can be seen without the Bible and what they are. I don't get what arguments you think he's rejecting out of hand. I still don't really know what you're saying about free will. All I can get out of what you said is that you believe free will happens. M.D.R. believes free will happens. I believe free will happens. I believe the same way he does that total omniscience and free will can be at the same time. You seem to be saying that these two things can't happen at the same time but you don't really say why that can't be, except that for some reason you think that means everything is mapped out.

If you were given limited omniscience that allowed you to see every second/minute/hour of what you would be doing, thinking, speaking, believing, hoping during the next 24 hours, is not that 24 hours already determined? There is nothing you can do to change it. It is fixed already in time in that the past/present/future already exists. How then do you have free will within that concept? For what purpose is this existence if your present has no ability to alter or change your future?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I only went by what it appeared you were saying. Sometimes you have to ask in some way or guess something in some way to elicit from the other person what he means. That's all. I really wish I'd seen this post before posting to Foxfyre, so please look at that post because it's important to this (1294). I strongly disagree. One of the first bible studies I did after becoming a Christian was on God's attributes. This was my own study using a concordance. The ideas about these things in the philosophy I've read are different from the Bible. Then I compared my notes to a couple of books on biblical doctrine and theology. I was seeing the same thngs. In my opinion, the only thing that can be taken from Aristotle, for example, is the idea that God is indivisible and unchangeable in His being. The rest of his stuff doesn't work very well with the Bible. The Bible overwhelming talks about God's attributes in the most perfect or complete sense there is. I have no idea what verses you could be talking about that contradict this. I know that Descartes, Plato and Kant talk about God in the most perfect sense but the problem with those guys is that you end up with a philosophy of pure subjective introspection with ideas of perfection about everything else. Why should that be I ask myself? Once you get past the objective things that can be seen in the highest sense about God's attributes from thinking about the idea of God from the problem of origin, these guys need to stop and get over themselves. Lots of the other stuff they go on about past the objective things that can be known about God from reflection is not in the Bible about God or other things.

You should use Nave's Topical Bible to study topics, it helps a lot.

I have a reading schedule that takes me through the entire Bible 4 times a year, and have read every translation I could find. I even learned Greek so that I could read the Septuagint and the New Testament in Greek. Over many years my view of God changed from what I first learned, but I also learned that New Christians are the most dogmatic about their beliefs. I can tell you that, if you continue to just read the Bible, and study things that you discover in that process, you will eventually learn that most of the stuff you now see as unquestionable is entirely questionable. God will reveal Himself to you on a personal level in a way that I cannot explian, and you will realize that you cannot explain Him to anyone else anymore than you can explain your best friend, you simply do not have the time.

I said all of that to explain why I am not willing to go into everything on this forum. It would take months just to build a foundation for you to understand the many shortcomings you have in your understanding of God. Being a Disciple is a lifelong journey, it took me years to get to where I am, and I have barely scratched the surface.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Agnostic means not sure. No one can know for sure unless you are a god yourself right? So that's the agnostic part of us. Atheist because your Jesus and Mohammad stories are completely bullshit!

Get it now?

It's like being a bi sexual man who likes women a lot more than you do men. You may lean more towards hetero but you're a fag too. See how you can be a blend of both?

I get it, you think you can redifine words to fit your beliefs, and the rest of us just have to go along because everyone knows you are right. If we continue to insist that reality proves you wrong you will behead us and crow that it is proof that truth is on your side, just like all the other religious fanatics.

Come and get me, asshole.

 

[sealybobo]

Well I thought you believed in free will but that God wouldn't be completely omniscient in some sense because we couldn't have free will if He was. That suggested to me that you would be going on the way we commonly experience time, past, present, future, nothing heavy duty. But I admit that I apparently still don't really understand why you see it that way then. I'm not talking about God in the philosophical sense as the idea that He exists in the eternal now and is the God of infinite possibilities is biblical, though I suppose some philosophers have inferred that from thought. I don't know. But the only persons I know who have rejected this biblical understanding of God are philosophes for the reason I thought you were expressing. I think there's a misunderstanding here. There are things that can be known about God from the general revelation or from the creation itself through thought without the Bible. The Bible tells us this and even tells us what those things are. Philosophers have seen these things too. I've got no use for the things some have "seen" past these universals. Every philosopher I've looked at gets some if not most of these universals right and then go off and start making all kinds of claims that in my opinion don't follow and definitely aren't biblical.

Never fall into the trap of thinking you know what other people believe unless they express that belief.

I have no idea how we experience time. Many people believe we see it is linear, yet people often have an experience we call a flashback were they experience a past event in the present. Do they experience time differently than other people? How can anyone be sure of the answer to that question?

By the way, if you want to learn about the omniscience of God I suggest you clollect all the verses in the Bible that contradict our concept of God as all knowing and figure out how to reconcile them with your view that God knows everything. Like I said before, the omniscient, omnipotent, perfect, and ever present God most people understand is entirely a product of philosophy.

I only went by what it appeared you were saying. Sometimes you have to ask in some way or guess something in some way to elicit from the other person what he means. That's all. I really wish I'd seen this post before posting to Foxfyre, so please look at that post because it's important to this (1294). I strongly disagree. One of the first bible studies I did after becoming a Christian was on God's attributes. This was my own study using a concordance. The ideas about these things in the philosophy I've read are different from the Bible. Then I compared my notes to a couple of books on biblical doctrine and theology. I was seeing the same thngs. In my opinion, the only thing that can be taken from Aristotle, for example, is the idea that God is indivisible and unchangeable in His being. The rest of his stuff doesn't work very well with the Bible. The Bible overwhelming talks about God's attributes in the most perfect or complete sense there is. I have no idea what verses you could be talking about that contradict this. I know that Descartes, Plato and Kant talk about God in the most perfect sense but the problem with those guys is that you end up with a philosophy of pure subjective introspection with ideas of perfection about everything else. Why should that be I ask myself? Once you get past the objective things that can be seen in the highest sense about God's attributes from thinking about the idea of God from the problem of origin, these guys need to stop and get over themselves. Lots of the other stuff they go on about past the objective things that can be known about God from reflection is not in the Bible about God or other things.

What are god's attributes? See the problem with your thinking

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

First it must be determined what you mean by "existence" here. If you mean a physical existence, then there is no evidence that God physically exists. Now, what other types of "existence" do you acknowledge? If you can't acknowledge spiritual existence, then there is no way to show you evidence of God.

The syllogistic argument for God is simple. Time, space and a physical universe exist. Something had to create the physical. It's illogical that it created itself. Something had to create it because the universe has entropy, it is not perpetual. So until you can provide a syllogistic argument for how "physical" came to exist, we have to assume something beyond "physical" must have created it.

Now... Atheism is still justified. Atheism is a faith-based belief that God does not exist. The simple fact that God does not physically exist is enough to justify Atheism. This doesn't validate Atheism, but it is justified.

I disagree. Atheism is not justifiable in the formal sense at all because the assumption of it is contradictory to the fact that the possibility of God's existence cannot be logically denied. Atheism is purely faith-based without a justifiable argument to back it at all. We have existence. That's it. How is it that we have existence? Something must have always existed because how do you get something from nothing? So either some material thing has always existed or some immaterial thing has always existed, and the immaterial thing can be intelligent. To say that anyone of these things is impossible is to say that you know something that you can't possibly known is true. Atheism is not logical whether it's true or not. You can say that God is or must be though without such a contradiction.

If something MUST HAVE or HAD TO create us what created our creator? Why MUST something have created us but not your imaginary friend?

 

[Foxfyre]

I only went by what it appeared you were saying. Sometimes you have to ask in some way or guess something in some way to elicit from the other person what he means. That's all. I really wish I'd seen this post before posting to Foxfyre, so please look at that post because it's important to this (1294). I strongly disagree. One of the first bible studies I did after becoming a Christian was on God's attributes. This was my own study using a concordance. The ideas about these things in the philosophy I've read are different from the Bible. Then I compared my notes to a couple of books on biblical doctrine and theology. I was seeing the same thngs. In my opinion, the only thing that can be taken from Aristotle, for example, is the idea that God is indivisible and unchangeable in His being. The rest of his stuff doesn't work very well with the Bible. The Bible overwhelming talks about God's attributes in the most perfect or complete sense there is. I have no idea what verses you could be talking about that contradict this. I know that Descartes, Plato and Kant talk about God in the most perfect sense but the problem with those guys is that you end up with a philosophy of pure subjective introspection with ideas of perfection about everything else. Why should that be I ask myself? Once you get past the objective things that can be seen in the highest sense about God's attributes from thinking about the idea of God from the problem of origin, these guys need to stop and get over themselves. Lots of the other stuff they go on about past the objective things that can be known about God from reflection is not in the Bible about God or other things.

You should use Nave's Topical Bible to study topics, it helps a lot.

I have a reading schedule that takes me through the entire Bible 4 times a year, and have read every translation I could find. I even learned Greek so that I could read the Septuagint and the New Testament in Greek. Over many years my view of God changed from what I first learned, but I also learned that New Christians are the most dogmatic about their beliefs. I can tell you that, if you continue to just read the Bible, and study things that you discover in that process, you will eventually learn that most of the stuff you now see as unquestionable is entirely questionable. God will reveal Himself to you on a personal level in a way that I cannot explian, and you will realize that you cannot explain Him to anyone else anymore than you can explain your best friend, you simply do not have the time.

I said all of that to explain why I am not willing to go into everything on this forum. It would take months just to build a foundation for you to understand the many shortcomings you have in your understanding of God. Being a Disciple is a lifelong journey, it took me years to get to where I am, and I have barely scratched the surface.

I think that's why I get rather bored once more going through the intense theological studies these days. I did the work for years and years, learned all the terminology, concepts, and arguments, went through the theological perspectives of all the church fathers from New Testament times into the Renaissance and Reformation and the spread of the church and its doctrines into the New World. And I was blessed with a broad spectrum of 'teachers' ranging from Roman Catholic to Anglican/Episcopal to the more protestant mainline churches from the most fundamentalist to the most liberal so I wasn't restricted to one perspective.

And while none of that was without value and I learned a great deal and significantly expanded my own perspectives, ultimately it comes down to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and our relationship with God as to what we believe in our hearts. If we latch onto the theological arguments/doctrines as the way it is and refuse to see it any other way, we are limiting it all to one person or one group of people's belief and teaching. And I am convinced that no one person or group of people have God all figured out any more than I do.

So these days I prefer to discuss it all in more universally common language with other believers and those who are curious or seekers. And like you I know I have barely scratched the surface.

 

[Boss]

If something MUST HAVE or HAD TO create us what created our creator? Why MUST something have created us but not your imaginary friend?

This has been explained to you before. We are dealing with your illiteracy of spiritual nature. When we use words like "create" and "exist" it generally means in a physical sense. This is because all things physical must have been created if they exist and have entropy. There is no other logical explanation. The question is, what created these physical things with entropy?

Now spiritual things do not have entropy. That is an attribute of physical nature. Spiritual things do not have physical existence or they would be physical things. So, since they don't have physical existence and don't possess entropy, there is no logical reason they would require creating. The spiritual simply exists as spiritual, not physical. God is eternal, there is no beginning or end, the Alpha and Omega.

When we talk about what God created, we mean created in a physical universe with physical attributes in a physical state of existence. Since God has none of these physical constraints, there is no "create" when it comes to God, there is no purpose for it. Your problem is your illiteracy of spiritual nature and failure to understand the difference between a physical and spiritual existence. Because of your mental disability, you can't rationalize what "spiritual existence" means and so you try to apply what you know about physical existence, but this doesn't apply to spiritual nature.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

MD.R., can you explain the spontaneous thing in better detail?

f(x) = lim (1/x) = 0.
x --> ∞


This means that the function f systematically increases the value of x toward the limit of infinity, so that 1 is divided by the systematically increased value of x, which equals an ever-smaller number approaching 0. This function yields an infinite set of increasingly larger numbers (or divisors) for x tending toward ∞ and an infinite set of ever-smaller numbers (or quotients) approaching 0. In other words, = 0 actually means "near 0" as the division of any whole is not the process of making it fade into nonexistent. The whole is still "there." It's just divided into an unknown number of pieces. We don't actually know what happens when we get to infinity as infinity in terms of a specific number is undefined. Rather, infinity is simultaneously all the numbers there are unto infinity.

Hence, the input-output portion of the function's expression can be expressed as "(1/x) = n approaching 0."


Let D = the infinite set of increasingly larger divisors tending toward infinity of function f.

Let Q = the infinite set of ever-smaller quotients approaching 0 of function f.

Thus, for example:


lim
x --> ∞ ∈ D
___________
1
10
100
1000 . . .



(1/x = n approaching 0) ∈ Q
___________________________________
1.0
0.1
0.01
0.001 . . .


Also:

D = {1, 10, 100, 1000 . . . }; Q = {1.0, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001 . . . }


Now many won't care about this, but if you copy and paste this, and take some quality time to contemplate the various aspects of the concept and the results in the light of the perfect attributes of God, including things like love and justice, you may see dimensionally new things about Him that will blow your mind and demolish any number of preconceived notions that routinely get in our way as finite minds trapped in a perceptually three-dimensional construct within the dimensional construct of time from seeing just how incredibly and awesomely unlimited He is. You can't grasp all of it, of course, not even close, but you can get a feel for it as never before this way.

I will try this. Actually, a pastor I know told me about this same contemplation exercise though without this I wouldn't have know where to start. Three things jump out at me right away. Both ends of the process in some sense "meet in the middle" of infinity. The contemplation of infinity as it relates to the rules of logic is essentially set logic in terms of concepts that are simultaneously an infinite number things. You don't actually divide by infinity, but you see the infinite possibilities of existence if you look at it in terms of God's infinite ability to create anything anyway He pleases.

(By the way, this should read: Let D = the infinite set of increasingly larger divisors tending toward infinity of function f. I see that I wrote it out and then pasted the symbolic expression redundantly, but you probably figured that out. But just in case it caused confusion.)


That's great. But when you do it, think about the biblical ideas about God's attributes, beginning with the universally apparent attributes, which some are claiming are not in the Bible too just so, as if Saint Paul, for example, were just pulling on our legs when he wrote:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man. . . .​

Some folks have mistakenly taken this passage to be a cosmological argument when in fact it's essentially the same transcendental argument asserted in the Book of Job by Moses, whom tradition holds to be the author. Paul clearly has that argument from Job in mind because he begins it and ends on the very notes as Moses did in Job.

We can readily perceive contradiction via the organic principle of identity. We "hold the truth in unrighteous". The essence of sin is embracing contradiction and acting on it.

We can't know the more intimate truths about God from reason alone. We need direct revelation to know those kinds of things. But we can know from contemplating the problem of origin that He must be. We are compelled to account for our existence, and the idea of God jumps up!

Also, the attributes of God at the conceivably highest degree of being are objectively and universally apprehensible. It's not necessary to go into a tediously detailed definition of divine perfection as philosophical theists tend to do. What is the very highest order of origin? Sentience. What is the very highest degree of perfection in any one of the categories of attribution? Eternal, infinite, indivisible and immutable. Why must this be? It's very simple really. Because God by definition is the unsurpassedly supreme being. It's not rocket science. And what is the other pertinent factor that we may safely assert? The organic principle of identity by which we ascertain these things must universally apply to all of existence as grounded in God.

Now does this mean that God couldn't by His own volition "compartmentally" reduce the capacity of any given aspect of His being in order to accomplish some purpose or another? I don't see why not, but then I don't see why He would have to do that either. In any event, how in the world would I know anything about that without further revelation? The objectively apparent imperatives regarding the issue of origin only tell us so much, and no more. And I've had to strike some things I imagined I saw listed among the generally revealed knowledge in our minds that I unwittingly inserted from deeper revelation in the past. Oops.

God designed it that way. Eventually one must take the leap of faith to get past the barrier between reason and the arms of God. At least that seems right to me, though some philosophers and theologians have claimed that the proofs are absolute in the ultimate sense. Hmm. I don't see how that's right. The only argument that gets close to something like that in my opinion is the transcendental argument. It just seems to me that God does two things. He gives us all the evidence we need and then some, both rational and empirical, but it is by faith that we please Him. I know that both of these ideas are biblically supported. As for the idea that reason absolutely bridges the gap, I don't see where that's biblically supported and I don't think that's what Paul is saying. He's after something more intimate where the gap is concerned.

The problem with purely philosophical theists is that they invariably take these divine attributes of absolute perfection and think to imposed them in some sense on the essences of material things, which are of a lower order of being, or think to denigrate them without justification to make them work anthropomorphically in some sense relative to humanity's dimensional sense of reality, albeit, in violation of the very same principle of identity from which they delineated the various attributes and established the necessary degree of supremacy. Neither of these things necessarily follow. So you end up with subjective mush, mere speculation.

From there consider things like divine love, justice, mercy, grace . . . as defined by the Bible! That may seem weird, but it's okay. Just don't go alone. Take God's hand and go along with Him in pray. In other words, If He permits, go with the Holy Sprit and take the Word with you.
_________________________________
P.S. Yes. You never actually divide by infinity as such, because, while infinity is defined in this case as "every existent or potential existent simultaneously" or as "every number that exists simultaneously," any number divided by infinity is undefined. We mathematically intuit what happens as we approach infinity or zero respectively. I'll give one thing that God gave me. The infinity end gives you God and all other existents. The zero end gives you the Triune God who stands and stays "before" and apart from all other existents.


Oh, by the way, in the above, I didn't mean to imply that the Son did not empty Himself of full divinity in His humanity. He did of course, but He was never disconnected from the Father. Remember Christ still knew all things immediately pertinent via that connection . . . well, except in that horrible moment when He took our sins upon Himself. Imagine His anguish. You know I don't think it was the prospect of the physical torture He knew He would have to endure for our sake, though no doubt that was part of his anguish in the Garden. Rather it was the knowledge that He would be separated from His Father in that instance on the cross in order to complete His mission. Whoa!

 

[sealybobo]

If you want to know what is most likely just ask an agnostic atheist who is also a scientist. You'll get the most logical/rational/probable answer.

Agnostic atheists do not exist, how is anyone supposed to ask them anything?

Are you asking a human if they know for sure there is a god? 100% sure? No human could honestly answer you yes.

Agnostic means not sure. Agnostic Atheism means, at least to me, that we can't say for sure 100% there is not god. That's the agnostic part of us. But we see zero evidence so don't believe there is a god. That's our atheist part.

I'm at 1% there is a god and 99% there isn't one.

No human could honestly answer "yes"? Where do you get these ideas?

Why did god ever talk to you?

 

[sealybobo]

If something MUST HAVE or HAD TO create us what created our creator? Why MUST something have created us but not your imaginary friend?

This has been explained to you before. We are dealing with your illiteracy of spiritual nature. When we use words like "create" and "exist" it generally means in a physical sense. This is because all things physical must have been created if they exist and have entropy. There is no other logical explanation. The question is, what created these physical things with entropy?

Now spiritual things do not have entropy. That is an attribute of physical nature. Spiritual things do not have physical existence or they would be physical things. So, since they don't have physical existence and don't possess entropy, there is no logical reason they would require creating. The spiritual simply exists as spiritual, not physical. God is eternal, there is no beginning or end, the Alpha and Omega.

When we talk about what God created, we mean created in a physical universe with physical attributes in a physical state of existence. Since God has none of these physical constraints, there is no "create" when it comes to God, there is no purpose for it. Your problem is your illiteracy of spiritual nature and failure to understand the difference between a physical and spiritual existence. Because of your mental disability, you can't rationalize what "spiritual existence" means and so you try to apply what you know about physical existence, but this doesn't apply to spiritual nature.

Everything has entropy, no? Maybe a rock doesn't but even a rock will eventually die when this world expires. So everything you see will be gone one day if it isn't already gone. NOTHING lives forever. Nothing we know about YET anyways.

 

[sealybobo]

I only went by what it appeared you were saying. Sometimes you have to ask in some way or guess something in some way to elicit from the other person what he means. That's all. I really wish I'd seen this post before posting to Foxfyre, so please look at that post because it's important to this (1294). I strongly disagree. One of the first bible studies I did after becoming a Christian was on God's attributes. This was my own study using a concordance. The ideas about these things in the philosophy I've read are different from the Bible. Then I compared my notes to a couple of books on biblical doctrine and theology. I was seeing the same thngs. In my opinion, the only thing that can be taken from Aristotle, for example, is the idea that God is indivisible and unchangeable in His being. The rest of his stuff doesn't work very well with the Bible. The Bible overwhelming talks about God's attributes in the most perfect or complete sense there is. I have no idea what verses you could be talking about that contradict this. I know that Descartes, Plato and Kant talk about God in the most perfect sense but the problem with those guys is that you end up with a philosophy of pure subjective introspection with ideas of perfection about everything else. Why should that be I ask myself? Once you get past the objective things that can be seen in the highest sense about God's attributes from thinking about the idea of God from the problem of origin, these guys need to stop and get over themselves. Lots of the other stuff they go on about past the objective things that can be known about God from reflection is not in the Bible about God or other things.

You should use Nave's Topical Bible to study topics, it helps a lot.

I have a reading schedule that takes me through the entire Bible 4 times a year, and have read every translation I could find. I even learned Greek so that I could read the Septuagint and the New Testament in Greek. Over many years my view of God changed from what I first learned, but I also learned that New Christians are the most dogmatic about their beliefs. I can tell you that, if you continue to just read the Bible, and study things that you discover in that process, you will eventually learn that most of the stuff you now see as unquestionable is entirely questionable. God will reveal Himself to you on a personal level in a way that I cannot explian, and you will realize that you cannot explain Him to anyone else anymore than you can explain your best friend, you simply do not have the time.

I said all of that to explain why I am not willing to go into everything on this forum. It would take months just to build a foundation for you to understand the many shortcomings you have in your understanding of God. Being a Disciple is a lifelong journey, it took me years to get to where I am, and I have barely scratched the surface.

I think that's why I get rather bored once more going through the intense theological studies these days. I did the work for years and years, learned all the terminology, concepts, and arguments, went through the theological perspectives of all the church fathers from New Testament times into the Renaissance and Reformation and the spread of the church and its doctrines into the New World. And I was blessed with a broad spectrum of 'teachers' ranging from Roman Catholic to Anglican/Episcopal to the more protestant mainline churches from the most fundamentalist to the most liberal so I wasn't restricted to one perspective.

And while none of that was without value and I learned a great deal and significantly expanded my own perspectives, ultimately it comes down to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and our relationship with God as to what we believe in our hearts. If we latch onto the theological arguments/doctrines as the way it is and refuse to see it any other way, we are limiting it all to one person or one group of people's belief and teaching. And I am convinced that no one person or group of people have God all figured out any more than I do.

So these days I prefer to discuss it all in more universally common language with other believers and those who are curious or seekers. And like you I know I have barely scratched the surface.

At least you admit you don't know.

I too find value in talking to Jehovas, Catholics, Chaldeans, Baptists, Lutherans, Presyterians, Non Demon, Born agains, Mormons, Muslims, Greek Orthodox, Jews, Buddas, Hindus & every other religious type. It has helped enlighten me.

 

[sealybobo]

But the failure to consider the unlimited possibilities or modes of existence due to God's unlimited power is the sort of thing that lets fuzzy thinking jam Him into a box in my experience, not the a careful definition of these implications. If God can do anything but something that would contradictorily deny Himself then what stops Him from being totally omnificence and there being total free will at the same time? What I'm getting from you and Q.W. is that you flatly reject that possibility base on our conception of time.

I don't see how my concept limits God in any way. I base my perceptions on what God has revealed of himself to me personally, however limited that may be. That I do not require God to be this or that is not coercive of God nor does it restrict him to any particular character or state of being, but it is simply what I believe he has revealed to humankind. To insist that God MUST be this or that seems to me to be much more coercive.

Ever in the middle of sex all of the sudden decide you want to change positions? Can't god change direction at any time he wants?

Hell, he may even have multiple universes where he can play out infinite different versions all at the same time.

To insist or to know from what God Himself has revealed? Once again, it is not I or Justin, as far as I can tell, who is putting God in chains around here. Though, admittedly, I haven't been able to read all of his posts.

I'm sharing with you what's self-evident to all from the general revelation (the cosmological order beginning with our own reflections upon the problem of existence and origin) should they take the blinders off and open up their minds. These are the very same things asserted about God in the Bible, and the Bible tells us they are self-evident from reflection on the contents of our minds relative to the principle of identity too. There in the Bible! The Bible tells us they may be seen without scripture, but scripture backs what I'm telling you.

I have nothing to do with what is being revealed. I have nothing to do with stamping the Image God on your mind. I'm sharing with you the universally apparent attributes of God in terms of their entire upper range without limitations of any kind whatsoever, save one: God will not and cannot violate the principle of Identity, as He is the ultimate Principle of Identity: God = NOT-God for obvious reasons cannot be.

That's coercive? That's requiring Him to be something He's not or must be? I don't know what your imaging, but that's the only limit I'm talking about. There is no other limitation on Him or full, unrestrained expression of His attributes whatsoever.

For example, Foxfyre, there is no reason to believe that absolute omniscience and free will cannot coexist. The Bible utterly rejects that contention! That restraint. That length of chain. God does not have to limit His knowledge in any sense whatsoever for free will to thrive.

The principle of identity does not tell us that's impossible and neither does the Bible. Illusion. That's not a movie in the can--your chain on Him. Illusion. QW is wrong. I just falsified his notion that existents cannot be two or more things simultaneously according to the principle of identity. False. The principle of identity readily and coherently apprehends such things with no problem at all.

Perhaps if you were to take a look at that fact, you'd realize that it's you who are believing something that originated, by the way, from secular philosophers making baby talk, trying to put God into their models of being.

I have looked at that fact and still draw my own conclusions with the reason and logic that God gave me. You obviously have been very well educated in theology and I do not question your motives or intentions here. But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments, and not always charitably or without insult, and sometimes I think that weakens your own arguments. Is it possible that you have adopted one particular theory of theology and have closed your own mind to other possibilities? One thing I have learned about God is that anytime we think we have God all figured out, we are most likely to have it wrong.

From where I'm standing I'm seeing a lot of claims being made that can't be objectively backed by rational experience of by the Bible. I'm a young Christian, new to the faith but I'm not new to the Bible. I was raised in a Baptist church that my mother attended with us kids. I just went along but I do know the Bible as I had to do all those Bible studies for years. Of course reading the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit is a whole other level of understanding from just the intellectual level. The idea that the basic attributes of God are known from the act of thinking about the possible ultimate source of existence being intelligent and spiritual rather than being material, that humans can perceive what that would mean in the highest sense is biblical. David, Moses, the prophets and the apostles talk about that and why God did that to our minds constantly. Some of the best affirmations of this are found in the Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Daniel, Job, the epistles and the gospels. The very things that can be known about God by thinking about the issue of origin are specifically named by the inspired writers also. I have no problemfollowing what M.D.R. is saying. What he calls the "imperatives of the problem of origin" that come to our minds when we think about the idea of God without the Bible are in the Bible. The Bible teaches that these things can be seen without the Bible and what they are. I don't get what arguments you think he's rejecting out of hand. I still don't really know what you're saying about free will. All I can get out of what you said is that you believe free will happens. M.D.R. believes free will happens. I believe free will happens. I believe the same way he does that total omniscience and free will can be at the same time. You seem to be saying that these two things can't happen at the same time but you don't really say why that can't be, except that for some reason you think that means everything is mapped out.

If you were given limited omniscience that allowed you to see every second/minute/hour of what you would be doing, thinking, speaking, believing, hoping during the next 24 hours, is not that 24 hours already determined? There is nothing you can do to change it. It is fixed already in time in that the past/present/future already exists. How then do you have free will within that concept? For what purpose is this existence if your present has no ability to alter or change your future?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I kept it simple. That's as simple as it gets. The Bible asserts the following things: (1) God exists in the eternal now, (2) God is omniscient; (3) creatures have free will; (4) God predestines history/historical figures. The Foreknowledge view is the best way that I know of to square all these things.

We'll have to just accept that we have a friendly disagreement on that one. I do not subscribe to the Calvinist doctrine and while I do believe God has a grand master plan, I don't pretend to be privy to why he calls who he call to implement it. And my mind cannot conceive of free will and a future that is already set in granite. Once the movie is in the can, the actors cannot alter it in any way. I just don't see us an actors in some kind of cosmic movie being played out for all of what we call eternity.

But the failure to consider the unlimited possibilities or modes of existence due to God's unlimited power is the sort of thing that lets fuzzy thinking jam Him into a box in my experience, not the a careful definition of these implications. If God can do anything but something that would contradictorily deny Himself then what stops Him from being totally omnificence and there being total free will at the same time? What I'm getting from you and Q.W. is that you flatly reject that possibility base on our conception of time.

I don't see how my concept limits God in any way. I base my perceptions on what God has revealed of himself to me personally, however limited that may be. That I do not require God to be this or that is not coercive of God nor does it restrict him to any particular character or state of being, but it is simply what I believe he has revealed to humankind. To insist that God MUST be this or that seems to me to be much more coercive.

To insist or to know from what God Himself has revealed? Once again, it is not I or Justin, as far as I can tell, who is putting God in chains around here. Though, admittedly, I haven't been able to read all of his posts.

I'm sharing with you what's self-evident to all from the general revelation (the cosmological order beginning with our own reflections upon the problem of existence and origin) should they take the blinders off and open up their minds. These are the very same things asserted about God in the Bible, and the Bible tells us they are self-evident from reflection on the contents of our minds relative to the principle of identity too. There in the Bible! The Bible tells us they may be seen without scripture, but scripture backs what I'm telling you.

I have nothing to do with what is being revealed. I have nothing to do with stamping the Image God on your mind. I'm sharing with you the universally apparent attributes of God in terms of their entire upper range without limitations of any kind whatsoever, save one: God will not and cannot violate the principle of Identity, as He is the ultimate Principle of Identity: God = NOT-God for obvious reasons cannot be.

That's coercive? That's requiring Him to be something He's not or must be? I don't know what your imaging, but that's the only limit I'm talking about. There is no other limitation on Him or full, unrestrained expression of His attributes whatsoever.

For example, Foxfyre, there is no reason to believe that absolute omniscience and free will cannot coexist. The Bible utterly rejects that contention! That restraint. That length of chain. God does not have to limit His knowledge in any sense whatsoever for free will to thrive.

The principle of identity does not tell us that's impossible and neither does the Bible. Illusion. That's not a movie in the can--your chain on Him. Illusion. QW is wrong. I just falsified his notion that existents cannot be two or more things simultaneously according to the principle of identity. False. The principle of identity readily and coherently apprehends such things with no problem at all.

Perhaps if you were to take a look at that fact, you'd realize that it's you who are believing something that originated, by the way, from secular philosophers making baby talk, trying to put God into their models of being.

I have looked at that fact and still draw my own conclusions with the reason and logic that God gave me. You obviously have been very well educated in theology and I do not question your motives or intentions here. But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments, and not always charitably or without insult, and sometimes I think that weakens your own arguments. Is it possible that you have adopted one particular theory of theology and have closed your own mind to other possibilities? One thing I have learned about God is that anytime we think we have God all figured out, we are most likely to have it wrong.

Who have I insulted but the likes of Jake or Hollie who always try to derail/terminate discussions about God with their antics? I said what I said to them to get them off this thread.

"But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments."

Judge others? Wow. Seriously?

Methinks that you think I've never heard of the various arguments being asserted on this thread before, that I've never objectively or exhaustively considered them before. Or perhaps you think I don't understand them. Perhaps you think I don't understand QW's arguments regarding the nature of logic, for example. Au contrair. I too am learned in the various forms of logic above the level of nature's logic.

Methinks that you're not really reading or thinking about my posts because you keep attributing attitudes to me that I don't have. You keep imagining that I think I have God all figured out when in fact my posts are one concession after another that I don't.

Methinks you have closed your mind to those objectively and universally apparent potentialities of divine attribution relative to the problem of origin, which I obviously did not cause to exist.

All I'm doing is reporting on them in terms of their totally open-ended, conceivably highest degree. Unlike some, who, ironically, do not grasp what they're actually doing, I don't pretend to know in terms of ultimacy whether or not they are volitionally constrained to some lesser degree in order for free will to persist. And unlike some, I certainly don't claim that in terms of ultimacy the intrinsically organic laws of logic do not universally apply to existence. I leave that sort of "philosophical bullshit" to others.

Methinks, in fact I know, that at the very least the major premise of the transcendental argument cannot be refuted, let alone falsified, without presupposing it to be true, which of course defeats the counterargument. As for the implications of that fact of human cognition relative to what is ultimately true, I leave that for other's to decide for themselves.

QW is still trying to defeat it, in spite of fact that I have incontrovertibly shown that contrary to what he has claimed on this thread the organic laws of logic do in fact coherently encompass actual rational existents that are two or more things simultaneously and coherently anticipate the potentiality that any given material existent could be two or more things simultaneously.

And guess what?

Today, we know that things like the Majorana particle exist! Such things do not violate any one of the organic laws of logic! Rather, the discovery of these things affirms the cogency of the organic laws of logic!

Can I get a witness?

Amen, brother!

Thank you.

QW's error in this instance as I have shown is false predication, which demonstrates that he did not understand what the organic laws of logic comprehensively entail.

Now, he is asserting that an alternate-world-construct of logic, namely, intuitionistic/constructive logic, which I understand very well, mind you, refutes or challenges or overturns the organic laws of logic.

That's false!

And I will show why that’s false too. Just like his logical error of false predication regarding the law of the excluded middle, he's asserting something that on the face it looks right, but is in fact wrong once the matter is comprehensively expounded. In the meantime, there's one or two other assertions he's made that are not accurate either, including his mischaracterization of Aristotle's error regarding geocentricism.

I don't have any personal agenda here, but I will defend the Principle of Identity as it is imprinted on our souls as the internal signpost that points to God.

That's no small thing!

 

[sealybobo]

We'll have to just accept that we have a friendly disagreement on that one. I do not subscribe to the Calvinist doctrine and while I do believe God has a grand master plan, I don't pretend to be privy to why he calls who he call to implement it. And my mind cannot conceive of free will and a future that is already set in granite. Once the movie is in the can, the actors cannot alter it in any way. I just don't see us an actors in some kind of cosmic movie being played out for all of what we call eternity.

But the failure to consider the unlimited possibilities or modes of existence due to God's unlimited power is the sort of thing that lets fuzzy thinking jam Him into a box in my experience, not the a careful definition of these implications. If God can do anything but something that would contradictorily deny Himself then what stops Him from being totally omnificence and there being total free will at the same time? What I'm getting from you and Q.W. is that you flatly reject that possibility base on our conception of time.

I don't see how my concept limits God in any way. I base my perceptions on what God has revealed of himself to me personally, however limited that may be. That I do not require God to be this or that is not coercive of God nor does it restrict him to any particular character or state of being, but it is simply what I believe he has revealed to humankind. To insist that God MUST be this or that seems to me to be much more coercive.

To insist or to know from what God Himself has revealed? Once again, it is not I or Justin, as far as I can tell, who is putting God in chains around here. Though, admittedly, I haven't been able to read all of his posts.

I'm sharing with you what's self-evident to all from the general revelation (the cosmological order beginning with our own reflections upon the problem of existence and origin) should they take the blinders off and open up their minds. These are the very same things asserted about God in the Bible, and the Bible tells us they are self-evident from reflection on the contents of our minds relative to the principle of identity too. There in the Bible! The Bible tells us they may be seen without scripture, but scripture backs what I'm telling you.

I have nothing to do with what is being revealed. I have nothing to do with stamping the Image God on your mind. I'm sharing with you the universally apparent attributes of God in terms of their entire upper range without limitations of any kind whatsoever, save one: God will not and cannot violate the principle of Identity, as He is the ultimate Principle of Identity: God = NOT-God for obvious reasons cannot be.

That's coercive? That's requiring Him to be something He's not or must be? I don't know what your imaging, but that's the only limit I'm talking about. There is no other limitation on Him or full, unrestrained expression of His attributes whatsoever.

For example, Foxfyre, there is no reason to believe that absolute omniscience and free will cannot coexist. The Bible utterly rejects that contention! That restraint. That length of chain. God does not have to limit His knowledge in any sense whatsoever for free will to thrive.

The principle of identity does not tell us that's impossible and neither does the Bible. Illusion. That's not a movie in the can--your chain on Him. Illusion. QW is wrong. I just falsified his notion that existents cannot be two or more things simultaneously according to the principle of identity. False. The principle of identity readily and coherently apprehends such things with no problem at all.

Perhaps if you were to take a look at that fact, you'd realize that it's you who are believing something that originated, by the way, from secular philosophers making baby talk, trying to put God into their models of being.

I have looked at that fact and still draw my own conclusions with the reason and logic that God gave me. You obviously have been very well educated in theology and I do not question your motives or intentions here. But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments, and not always charitably or without insult, and sometimes I think that weakens your own arguments. Is it possible that you have adopted one particular theory of theology and have closed your own mind to other possibilities? One thing I have learned about God is that anytime we think we have God all figured out, we are most likely to have it wrong.

Who have I insulted but the likes of Jake or Hollie who always try to derail/terminate discussions about God with their antics? I said what I said to them to get them off this thread.

"But methinks you are sometimes too quick to judge others and reject their arguments."

Judge others? Wow. Seriously?

Methinks that you think I've never heard of the various arguments being asserted on this thread before, that I've never objectively or exhaustively considered them before. Or perhaps you think I don't understand them. Perhaps you think I don't understand QW's arguments regarding the nature of logic, for example. Au contrair. I too am learned in the various forms of logic above the level of nature's logic.

Methinks that you're not really reading or thinking about my posts because you keep attributing attitudes to me that I don't have. You keep imagining that I think I have God all figured out when in fact my posts are one concession after another that I don't.

Methinks you have closed your mind to those objectively and universally apparent potentialities of divine attribution relative to the problem of origin, which I obviously did not cause to exist.

All I'm doing is reporting on them in terms of their totally open-ended, conceivably highest degree. Unlike some, who, ironically, do not grasp what they're actually doing, I don't pretend to know in terms of ultimacy whether or not they are volitionally constrained to some lesser degree in order for free will to persist. And unlike some, I certainly don't claim that in terms of ultimacy the intrinsically organic laws of logic do not universally apply to existence. I leave that sort of "philosophical bullshit" to others.

Methinks, in fact I know, that at the very least the major premise of the transcendental argument cannot be refuted, let alone falsified, without presupposing it to be true, which of course defeats the counterargument. As for the implications of that fact of human cognition relative to what is ultimately true, I leave that for other's to decide for themselves.

QW is still trying to defeat it, in spite of fact that I have incontrovertibly shown that contrary to what he has claimed on this thread the organic laws of logic do in fact coherently encompass actual rational existents that are two or more things simultaneously and coherently anticipate the potentiality that any given material existent could be two or more things simultaneously.

And guess what?

Today, we know that things like the Majorana particle exist! Such things do not violate any one of the organic laws of logic! Rather, the discovery of these things affirms the cogency of the organic laws of logic!

Can I get a witness?

Amen, brother!

Thank you.

QW's error in this instance as I have shown is false predication, which demonstrates that he did not understand what the organic laws of logic comprehensively entail.

Now, he is asserting that an alternate-world-construct of logic, namely, intuitionistic/constructive logic, which I understand very well, mind you, refutes or challenges or overturns the organic laws of logic.

That's false!

And I will show why that’s false too. Just like his logical error of false predication regarding the law of the excluded middle, he's asserting something that on the face it looks right, but is in fact wrong once the matter is comprehensively expounded. In the meantime, there's one or two other assertions he's made that are not accurate either, including his mischaracterization of Aristotle's error regarding geocentricism.

I don't have any personal agenda here, but I will defend the Principle of Identity as it is imprinted on our souls as the internal signpost that points to God.

That's no small thing!

See? Right there. Can I get a witness? And everyone all in a frenzy yells AMEN? What the fuck did they just witness? Nothing but a bunch of god damn fools wishful thinking together.

I notice every time us atheists make a good point I notice none of you ever reply back.

Oh you'll argue in circles all night about bullshit but point out why your religion is made up or how those dead sea scrolls don't prove nothing and I hear crickets chirping.

 

[Boss]

Everything has entropy, no? Maybe a rock doesn't but even a rock will eventually die when this world expires. So everything you see will be gone one day if it isn't already gone. NOTHING lives forever. Nothing we know about YET anyways.

Nothing physical. That's the point. You cannot argue physical things never required creation if physical things have entropy. So we know because of entropy, physical things must have started somewhere, they must have had a beginning, something must have created them.

Logic tells us that nothing physical is capable of creating itself. It may be able to reproduce itself or regenerate itself, but it cannot create what it isn't here to create to begin with.... following me? So if physical nature couldn't create physical nature, and physical nature must have been created because it has entropy, then what could have created physical nature? The only rational explanation is something not physical in nature, something metaphysical, or spiritual.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

QW is still trying to defeat it...

Actually, I am not trying to defeat anything, all I have done is show you that the Law of Thought is not applicable to the universe outside our thoughts. I then proceeded to show you that, despite your assertion that these laws are universally held to be axiomatic, there are actually different types of logic that do view them as axioms.

In other words, all I have done is show you your errors.

 

[sealybobo]

Everything has entropy, no? Maybe a rock doesn't but even a rock will eventually die when this world expires. So everything you see will be gone one day if it isn't already gone. NOTHING lives forever. Nothing we know about YET anyways.

Nothing physical. That's the point. You cannot argue physical things never required creation if physical things have entropy. So we know because of entropy, physical things must have started somewhere, they must have had a beginning, something must have created them.

Logic tells us that nothing physical is capable of creating itself. It may be able to reproduce itself or regenerate itself, but it cannot create what it isn't here to create to begin with.... following me? So if physical nature couldn't create physical nature, and physical nature must have been created because it has entropy, then what could have created physical nature? The only rational explanation is something not physical in nature, something metaphysical, or spiritual.

Something may have very well created everything you see. We could have come from another black hole. But I see what you are saying. What created the black hole or all the matter, planets and stars? Something can't come from nothing. I know what Hawkins says but he hasn't convinced me yet.

I like your point though and I do get it finally. Pretty deep. I know you've been trying to explain it to me for awhile and I finally get it. I'll have to think about it more and do some research on the idea that nothing physical is capable of creating itself.

Is something non physical capable of creating itself? I'm thinking about how clouds are made and how they create lightening.

I still don't think this creator gives a rats ass about you or me and there is no heaven unless frogs and goats get to go too. Just like when a star dies that's it, same for you and me. What happens to your spirit? Nothing. It dies with you, I believe.