/lit/ - Literature

>>10283586
That's not an extraordinary claim though.

>>10283586
The sun, the trees, the cosmos, you, me, this day, this night, the sleeping, the wandering, the soon to be born, the soon to die, love, beauty, goodness, truth, pain, suffering, each atom, each hair on your head.... all within this intelligible creation is extraordinary.

>>10283586
Actually a negative affirmation also requires proof. The idea that it would be possible for God not-to-exist is preposterous.

>>10283605
Imagine just for a moment, a single moment, how extraordinary it is that it all came out of pure accident and flourished in all those creative forms of Nature that you see around you.

>>10283586
Thomas Aquinas btfo atheism forever 700 years ago.

>>10283612
>imagine you created yourself out of nothing, by accident, that would be extraordinary
Sure, I imagine that would be extraordinarily impossible.
I don't believe I made myself, neither did the tree make itself, nor the sun, nor the cosmos, nor any atom make itself, nor any law in the universe write itself into existence.
Only by the grace and speech of God do I exist, and the sun and the moon exist, and the grass and the laws of order and disorder.

I ask you OP: where did the idea of God come from?

>>10283659
If you try to prove the existence of God by anything other than your own faith you're as stupid as a televangelist.

>G-god doesn't exist!

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your move.

>>10283687
You can't ever prove or disprove God. But why is it stupid to find evidence that supports his existence?

>>10283586
>t. brainlet

>>10283608
Why?

>>10283699
Is he the smartest man of all time?

>>10283592
It really is though

>>10283703
same reason a positive affirmation requires proof. I mean, if we're engaging in dialectic and rhetoric with other people, there's no difference between affirming X exists or affirming X does not exist. Burden of proof is equally applicable in both cases, whoever makes the affirmation is obliged to support it.

>>10283731
Go back far enough and you either have to reason that everything came from nothing at all. Which is irrational, or that God exists.

The natural laws of reality are so incredibly precisely defined and are constant. This which implies order and order tends to come from order. This suggests some sort of creation from which the universe is derived from.

>>10283586
>Extraordinary
>>10283586
>claims
>>10283586
>require
>>10283586
>evidence

kys liberal

>>10283767
>Everything has a cause
>except muh uncaused cause

>>10283735
>requires proof.
how many spooks to you have in your brainlet body?

>>10283813
You misunderstand the point. God doesn't need to be caused because God is timeless. He exists by necessity. Any other explanation you have an infinite regression of what caused it and so on except for God.

>>10283586
>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

That's an extraordinary claim.

>>10283846
He's just going to dismiss this problem which has puzzled every great philosopher for a millenium because Analytic Liberalism told him he shouldn't think about this

>>10283851
Not really, it follows quite sensibly that if ample evidence suggests something then ample evidence will be required to refute it.
If I said your mother sucks BBC every weekend because she listens to Lionel Richie you would want a bit more evidence than that

>>10283860
>you would want a bit more evidence than that
another extraordinary claim

>>10283869

>>10283860

The claim that gravity exists is an extraordinary one, but it doesn't require extraordinary evidence. The existence of gravity can be proven by letting a rock fall on the ground. The idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is absurd because there's no evidence that such a claim is true and there's good reason to think it isn't. There's no rational link between the extraordinariness of a claim and the evidence required to prove it true.

Why is the default assumption that he does not? To claim that God's existence is an extraordinary claim it must be very obvious that God does not

>>10283880
>The existence of gravity can be proven by letting a rock fall on the ground

No it absolutely isn't. If we're imaging its our first time on solid ground gravity only becomes proven when that same observation is seen over and over and over again

>>10283813
>Heh what caused God to exist, huh?

I'm still yet to here of any good response to Aquinas' prime mover argument desu. I don't think there's any way of knowing (beyond faith) what the qualities of this "God" are and whether He is a personal God, but it seems like a logical fact that He must exist.

>>10283952
There is none of yet, its still a question that is taken very seriously in Philosophy today.
It requires a serious ontological re-establishment before one could even begin to engage with a rebuttal.

>>10283846
You misunderstand the point. The universe doesn't need to be caused because the universe is timeless. It exists by necessity. Any other explanation you have an infinite regression of what caused it and so on except for the universe.

>>10283976

So you're a pantheist that believes the universe is god.

>>10283976
This is a silly re-arrangement. God can be argued to exist by necessity as one of his qualities but what reason do we have to say the universe should exist by necessity?

>>10283983
This is a silly re-arrangement. The universe can be argued to exist by necessity as one of its qualities but what reason do we have to say God should exist by necessity?
Think before you post

>>10283976

>the universe is timeless

No it isn't, you absolute brainlet.

>>10283991
Except it absolutely could be

>>10283986
>The universe can be argued to exist by necessity as one of its qualities

You're not even trying. Its easy to imagine that if the Universe exists it might ought not to, the same can be said of God

>>10283993
Existence itself created time and space. So one can assume that as long as the universe exists so will time/space. How can two things so massively related not be simultaneous? That's my argument. The Universe cannot exist outside of time, therefore it cannot be timeless.

>>10283993
not according to science, logic and observation.

timeless universe would mean infinite past, infinite past would mean there would never be enough time for the universe to assume its current configuration. Just like you can never reach the end of an infinite future, you can never reach "now" from a timeless past.

>>10284000
*not be said of God

>>10283986
The reason we have that God should exist by necessity is because there is something rather than nothing as was just explained.

>>10284012
That assumes there was once nothing, and that something was created from nothing; God is then inserted to overcome this logical leap.
There can be something, but it must have always been. There is no necessarily a God simply because there is something.

>>10283952
The whole "prime mover" argument is flawed in it's premise. Our ideas about causality and the passage of time are valid for the events that occur within the universe, because the universe evidently follows specific rules of causality -- but when speaking about what "started" the universe, you are speaking about something necessarily "outside of" the universe, meaning our notions of causality and time itself are no longer applicable, since those didn't exist until after the existence of the universe. Therefore there doesn't necessarily need to be a "prime mover," and it's totally possible that the first "movement" in the universe happened all on its own.

Your move.

>>10284042
>Your move.

No move needs to be made. If you're making reference already to this "Thing outside the Universe" you're already making reference to the same thing the Theologians are, you're simply not calling it God

>>10283586

Go to a haunted house at nighttime with all the lights off then take a large dose of DMT and tell me god aint real son

>>10284053
All that'll prove is that Satan is real.

>>10284042
>the first "movement" in the universe happened all on its own.
that would be inside the universe tho

>>10284063
You'll wish God were real
But he won't hear your pagan prayers

>>10283952

1. It relies on a common sense understanding of cause-and-effect

When actually studying the effect (the universe), things work in a way that is unintuitive to our common sense understanding (e.g. light acting as both a wave and a particle; all of quantum mechanics). There's no reason to assume an everyday understanding cause and effect must work for something as exotic as the origin of the universe itself.

2. If all the premises are true, it only proves an uncaused cause and tells us nothing about its properties

A semantic trick is usually employed, where it's assumed the uncaused cause can only be described by the word God, and a further one where the word God can only refer to an intelligent creator deity, and further that said intelligent creator deity can only refer to the Christian understanding of an intervening triune God who inspires scripture.

3. The Bible does not describe creation ex nihilio, rendering it moot as evidence for Biblical Christianity

Genesis 1:1-2:3 describes the world being organised from a primordial ocean (the deep, the waters), in line with other Ancient Near Eastern creation myths such as Enuma Elish, where the world is made from the body of Tiamat, who represents saltwater ocean.

>>10284154
>Quantum mechanics proves cause and effect doesn't real

>>10284154
I didn't go so far as to state that this unmoved mover, which some people call 'God', is necessarily the Christian God. I can't prove that, and as things currently stand, I don't believe that myself. I don't think those sorts of conclusions can be reached by pure logic, they need 'faith'.

The fact that the universe seems to operate in a way that is incomprehensible to our understanding is only more evidence for the existence of some 'thing' which contains at least some of the properties which we attribute to God.

>>10284154
Your understanding of religion, aristotelian metaphysics and even science is pretty laughable desu

You should just post on reddit and watch neil degrasse tyson vids for the rest of time

>>10284170
>The fact that the universe seems to operate in a way that is incomprehensible to our understanding is only more evidence for the existence of some 'thing' which contains at least some of the properties which we attribute to God.
Explain how that follows.

>>10284154
This is not even an argument for scripture or the christian God. That's all mythology.

>>10284180
Well, alongside the context of the prime mover argument, it suggests that there is some 'thing' which is (a) infinite, (b) the 'creator' of the universe, and (c) incomprehensible to human understanding.

>>10284180
Because if it were the case it breaks down the clockwork universe, that it leads one to assume there is some other organizing force

>>10283809
this post gave me AIDS

>>10284208
That is simply logos, which was devised before the Christian God and attributed to it after the fact. I do not see how we must term this God any more than we term Goodness God or Love God.

>>10283767
>Go back far enough and you either have to reason that everything came from nothing at all
No you don't. It's pretty dishonest to claim, as a human being in our current age, that there's only two possibilities for the origins of everything and that you're somehow privy to all of the possibilities.

How long did it take all of you to realize that we are empirically cut off from the antediluvian world by changes in the fundamental operations of the universe, such that we cannot make uniformitarian observations of the distant past (which began about 6,000 years ago)?

>>10284230
Because God is, in part, semantically identical to the Logos
Putting aside the question of God's existence I don't see it as possible to render the Christian God as seperate from the Logos

>>10284053
>being afraid of haunted houses past the age of 12

>>10283586
>Everything is an accident with a 1^(-999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999) chance of happening

Whose claim is extraordinary?

>>10284202
I don't buy the first two. The universe being difficult to comprehend doesn't imply the cause is necessarily infinite. I'm guessing 'creator' means an intelligence? I don't see how that necessarily follows either, you could argue that being comprehensible would support a creator mind, since an intelligence would have created an ordered universe, and order allows comprehension.

>>10284230
Good point! There are many views of an ultimate essence or principle (logos, brahman, tao etc.), none of which are Christian or Jewish in origin. Logos was applied to Jesus partly due to an accident of geography and history, Christianity arose in a region dominated by hellenic philosophy.

>>10284244
That's not true at all, according to Philo the Logos is the first creation of God, similar to Sophia in Wisdom of Solomon. It's entirely possible to understand the Logos as separate from God. They're not identical by necessity.

If God wasn't real, religious ideas would have died off by now due to darwinian pressures.

>>10284255
>That's not true at all, according to Philo the Logos is the first creation of God, similar to Sophia in Wisdom of Solomon. It's entirely possible to understand the Logos as separate from God. They're not identical by necessity.

Yeah but I'm not talking about the assfucking rapist Hellenic God's, I'm talking specifically the Abrahamic God is identified as identical to the Logos

>>10284267
Philo was a faithful Jew you dolt

>>10284255
>The universe being difficult to comprehend doesn't imply the cause is necessarily infinite

But how would it have come into being from nothingness if it was finite? Either there's something that brought it into being that's infinite, or the universe itself is infinite - either of those possibilities exhibit at least some of the properties of 'God'.

>I'm guessing 'creator' means an intelligence?

No, that's not what I'm arguing. I don't think that can be determined logically, one way or the other

>>10283846
Meanwhile aliens in different galaxies already have thousands of much more likely and scientifically backed explanations for existence that isn't a God figure and doesn't lead to infinite regression because they aren't restricted to dumb ape brains.

but no, we somehow have all the possible answers and God HAS to be the only correct one.

>>10284271
You're right, I should clarify I mean the Christian God in particular. Jews have a view of God as arbitrary and offensively seperate to the Logos

>>10284281
The Christian God implies Logos but Logos does not imply the Christian God.

>>10284280
God has to be the only correct one because of the regression problem. Whatever it is that is the uncaused caused may as well be God. Since whatever it is created our logical and ordered reality.

>>10284280
>you're wrong because aliens know better

any alien no matter how much more brainpower they have is still limited by the laws of our reality. Cause and effect is the same for them as for us.

>>10284280
>W-well aliens probably figured it out so you're wrong
So this is the power of atheist argumentation...

>>10284295
Why is it necessary for the driving force, or forces, of creation to be a conscious?

>not realizing that God is an abstract concept instead of an omnipotent singular being
>not realizing that the combined multiverse, time, and all concepts included is God itself
>not realizing that all living beings have the potential to become supreme as they come to understand, and manipulate all possible variables

species exist to combine, one singular being can never become omnipotent and supreme, but a combined ultimate consciousness possesses the chance

>>10284280
That's a pointless hypothetical.

>>10284281
That's not true either, nontrinitarian Christians see the Logos as identical to Jesus, but not God. And for trinitarian Christians, only one hypostasis of the godhead is the Logos: Jesus. Granted, Jesus is fully God, but The Father is also fully God and is not the Logos. John 1:14 is clearly referring to Jesus, not the entire godhead.

>>10284274
By infinite you mean eternal then? I can agree with that.

>No, that's not what I'm arguing. I don't think that can be determined logically, one way or the other
In that case I'm not sure what you mean.

>>10284295
>may as well be God
It may as well be the Tao as well, simply calling it a name doesn't tell us anything more.

>>10284327
>dude pantheism lmao
I've got some energy crystals to sell you.

>>10283910
>>10283813
>>10283767
>>10283731
>>10283731
>>10283592
>>10283586

Everyone who has this debate is irritatingly smug.

Just accept that our understanding around the beginning (if there is one) of the universe/multiverse and the limits of physical law sort of asymptote towards meaninglessness like the results of an analytical geometrical function. Stop trying to use tired platittudes to insist you're right.

Yes. Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. And yes, people making a positive claim are more required to present proof than people making a negative claim.

BUT WHY MAKE EITHER?

The people who think God exist too often use that conclusion to draw more unsupportable conclusions (i.e. not only does God exist, but it's YHWH, and Jesus, and the universe was created for you to save your soul with a very oddly specific oath of fealty to a blood sacrifice that happened during the early Roman empire, blah blah blah).

Just... stop being rude and smug about your claims, guys. Try to poke holes in your OWN reasoning rather than other people's ask yourself before opening your mouth "Are there limits to my approach?"

Thank you. PSA over.

>>10284320
>to be conscious?*

>>10283586

Any given thing consisting of multiple parts possesses the qualities of any of its individual parts to a greater extent than that single part.

For example, a human hand possesses all the qualities of a single finger to a greater extent than that single finger.

Human beings are an organic part of the universe that evolved over time. If humans, who are only a tiny part of the universe, possess the qualities of reason, logic, and self-consciousness, then the universe has a whole possesses those qualities to a greater extent than we do.

QED, there is a higher power than humans.

>>10283586
Newton's Flaming Laser Sword.
Fuck off, [pick the accurate one] dickhead/troll/actual idiot.

I've had this daydream fantasy a few times and it always made me smug as fuck, it went like this:

>humans 100 years from now are so fucking brilliant they somehow invent a time machine and start pulling humans from the future back in time to answer question
>finally pull a human from 100 million years into the future and ask him if God exists or not. The human appears ascendant and is at times impossible to comprehend due to his supremely evolved persona.
>"I don't know, that question hasn't been answered yet"

Then I laugh as the faggots collectively shit bricks.

>>10283694
Positive claim: Something invisible, immaterial, sentient, and infinitely beyond your reach exists and created everything.


Counter: prove it

Negative claim: I don't think that there is anything invisible, immaterial, sentient, and infinitely beyond my reach which created everything.

Counter: P-p-prove it!

How? You can't hold a negative claim to that level of proof. The person claiming God exists usually does it for a political reason, and expects everyone around him to change their morality to that of some very specific religion (which requires way more proof than just God itself).

The person claiming God doesn't exist simply doesn't want to be held to the standards of some spook morality which was obviously created to control people.

>>10284348
Agnostic master race

>>10284335
Pantheism, simply put, is the belief that God resides in everything. Any pseudoscientific holistic medicine bullshit you find attached to it is courtesy of individual Pantheists, not pantheism as a doctrine.


Seriously: Conflating pantheism with pseudscientific medicine is like conflating theism with Christianity.

Theism is simply the belief in God. it doesn't have to be a specific God, or specific doctrines surrounding that God

don't be so intellectually lazy

Science, Reason & Faith
Find resolutions to the perceived conflict between faith and reason

https://www.magiscenter.com/science-reason-faith/

Are faith and science in conflict? Actually there has never been a better time to unite the two. Contemporary science is giving us the tools to test our reasons to believe, and is leading us to some surprising conclusions.

>>10284348
Read Asimov's "The Last Question"
and "The Egg" by Andy Weir

>>10284357
I'm as likely to click that link as I was to click pic related. Go shill somewhere else.

>>10284346
>i hate thinking about hard questions!

Abort yourself you charlatan reductionist :^)

>>10284329
Non-trinitarians aren't Christians
Anyway thats what I've been saying, the Logos is identifiable with God though God is more than the Logos

>>10284357


Evidence of God from Contemporary Science & Philosophy

https://www.magiscenter.com/evidence-of-god-from-contemporary-science-philosophy/

Some of the contents of this chapter are quite technical, but this is an unavoidable consequence of discussing the scientific and philosophical evidence for God.
A less technical presentation could fall prey to criticisms about the probative nature of the evidence for God given below. If readers find this daunting, you may want to return to the summaries of the evidence given in another volume (the second layer of this web page).

First Topic:

Table of Contents

The Scientific Evidence of an Intelligent Creator -3
The Big Bang -6
The Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Proof of a Beginning of Physical
Reality -10
Evidence from Entropy for a Beginning of our Universe -18
Something, Nothing , and Creation - 20
Fine Tuning and Implications of Supernatural Intelligence -23
Conclusion -28

Second Topic: Contemporary Philosophical Evidence of God -29

1. A contemporary Thomistic metaphysical proof of God -29
2. A Response to Richard Dawkins -45
3. Bernard Lonergan’s contemporary proof of God -49

>>10284365
You said
>the Abrahamic God is identified as identical to the Logos
Which I think we can both agree is wrong, since there's more to the trinity than Logos, so they're not identical.

>>10284367
>Christian (Protestant) """Science"""

Kindly fuck off

>>10284381
You're right, I was incorrect and should have chosen my words better

https://youtu.be/qqJXa3o1Rqo

The Remarkable Evidence of a Transcendent Soul: Responding to the Myth of Metaphysical Materialism - 2016 Napa Institute Conference

I'm not religious but if I were, I don't see why I would need any evidence: it's called faith for a reason.

>>10284357
>Not only does God exist according to LE SCIENCE but it's ACTUALLY MY GOD

>That's RIGHT the entire universe was created so you could make an oath of fealty to a random blood sacrifice that happened during the Roman Empire

>>10284387
No problem :)

>>10284364
Can't even punctuate his sentences.
A brainlet charlatan is you.

>>10284408
Ad hominem. :^)

daily reminder that Kant disproved all the proofs of god.

>>10284439
>Kant was probably the greatest philosopher that ever lived and he is an obsession, but I think the whole thing is based on a mistake – that you can’t have a direct knowledge of things in themselves. You can. I’m looking at a desk and I see a thing in itself.

>>10284346
>>>/r/atheism

https://youtu.be/N93T-DppU6U

The Shroud of Turin and New Scientific Evidence
2017 Napa Institute Conference

>>10284443
God that's fucking retarded. Analytics are such hacks

Robert J. Spitzer, S.J. is a Jesuit priest, educator, author and speaker. Former President of Gonzaga

Uploaded by Gonzaga University

Faith and Reason

Part 1
https://youtu.be/mJBLp7cOt90

>>10284443
>You can. I’m looking at a desk and I see a thing in itself.

>>10284336
Nobody in this thread has claimed that reasoning God exists means that is the same christian God. So I don't know why you even bring that up.

>>10283767
>you either have to reason that everything came from nothing at all. Which is irrational, or that God exists
which is even more irrational

>>10284527
Go on.

>>10283586
cause and effect you simpleton.

>>10284439
Kant wasn't an atheist you retard.

>>10284559
No but he did show that you can't prove the existence of God. He considered faith a different category of knowledge.

>>10284530
>how can we explain this fact that apparently breaks our idea of cause and effect?
>surely it had to be the work of a superbeing who also breaks everything else we know about the universe. That's a good explanation.

>>10283632
>>10283699
>>10283706
You do realize Thom did come up with any of the 5 proofs, nor did he claim to. They all belong to older theologians, some go as far back as Aristotle. I mean his magnum opus is called the Summa not the "super cool new ideas I have" for a reason

>>10284568
You have a better explanation?

>>10284568
Again read the thread, we're not talking about a "superbeing" here so much as a Thing outside cause and affect

>>10284439
Daily reminder that Kant then proceeded to formulate a new proof of God's existence.

>>10284595
The absolute madman

>>10284345
Maybe higher level of cognition yeah, but is that the same thing as a God? Are we Gods compared to worms? Or just more highly developed, neurologically?
>Implying a higher power would be bound by the psychological structures of logic & reason

Reason and logic and self-consciousness are all the result of the evolutionary pressures present on the planet Earth; they're common to the aspects of the psychology of humans as a species - people always assume "higher reasoning" is some intangible abstract quality when it's really just a series of beautifully coordinated biochemical factors which gather sensory data and construct a reality to provide a basic context for all ur biological urges.

>>10284621
Indeed, going by his logic we can only infer that is legitimate to say the Universe is *at least* as intelligent as humans but I find such pantheistic identification to be distasteful

>>10284345
>using the fallacy of composition as an explicit premise

>>10284633
>dude if I call it a fallacy it is a fallacy lmao

>>10284685
Is the set of real numbers a real number?

>>10284716
it is not. it possesses the quality of real number however

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality
Simulated reality has been populary recently, and something would've created the simulation; so, what would you call this creator of the simulation who exists outside it?

I agree with this man.
God does exist.
Deus Vult.
Am I on the wrong board?

>>10284742
What?

>>10284443
>I’m looking at a desk and I see a thing in itself.
please tell me that's not his actual argument

>>10284749
Pure shite man

Why is it that the only argument for God here is simply being awestruck at whats around you

What if Im awestruck at how shitty every thing is

>>10284774
some quality is transcendent of its parts. A natural number has a same non-negative quality as its set

>>10284792
you missed the point. The universe is infinitely complex, to say that everything is created out of some randomness is insane. The most humane approach is to admit that everything started with a cause

>>10284810
>The universe is infinitely complex, to say that everything is created out of some randomness is insane.
>not being awestruck

>>10284800
if you are the OP I greentexted to, I want to clarify that not all qualities of part are possessed by the multiple parts which the frog poster failed to point out

>>10283586
God: a controlling power.

To say no gods exist is to say there are no powers in control. Is that what you're saying?

>>10284816
>being awestruck at the universe being complex
I couldn't give less of a shit life is

>>10284810
It works without that assumption

>>10283586

>>10284816
>I've seen random things do shit for no reason

Ok, and?

>>10284877
>>10284824

you missed my point

>>10284810
>The universe is infinitely complex

No it isn't. Your puny, inferior brain being unable to grasp reality doesn't mean it's infinite.

>>10284355
>don't be so intellectually lazy

look who's talking

>>10284877
>I've seen random things do shit because Yahweh told an iron age prophet that he'd attack a neighbouring country
Woah.. so this.. is the power of Christianity

>>10284336
The laws of physics, our understanding of the early universe, science in general, all have nothing to do with this discussion. It's about logic and metaphysics. Reality is a big black box, and anything could be inside of it; it needs an explanation. Quit being so smug about your inability to take a stand.

>>10284819

He wasn't me, and you misread me.

Not all parts posesses the qualities of one individual part. All of the parts taken as a whole do though.

>>10284329
>In that case I'm not sure what you mean

Just that I'm agnostic about whether this higher power has what we might call an 'intelligence' or 'will'. I don't think you can arrive at that conclusion through logic, only faith.

>>10283586
Saved pic, disregarded bait.

This thread was moved to >>>/his/3706222