/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13738004]

What is your best argument for God?

[Anonymous No.13738008]

>>13738004
love

[Anonymous No.13738009]

Cosmological argument.

[Anonymous No.13738012]

>>13738008
I don't know if you're trolling or this retarded, either way you should leave /lit/.

[Anonymous No.13738017]

fear of death

[Anonymous No.13738033]

>>13738009
That argument forgets that causality is what causes time. So anything that supposedly happened "before" the first cause is not casual in the same way we understand making the argument say nothing.

Even if we assume the argument makes sense it is not evidence for a sentient god, and most certainly not evidence for the Abrahamitic god more than any other all-powerful god.

[Anonymous No.13738054]

hierarchy

[Anonymous No.13738055]

>>13738033
Sentience and personification are simply methods we use to try to understand God. We can only truly comprehend what God isn't because of our limited material perspectives. Of course, that's just what I think of it as a serial God-personifier and all religious belief involves taking a leap of faith and wholeheartedly loving and trusting in what you cannot comprehend. You should check out "The Cloud of Unknowing."

[Anonymous No.13738060]

>>13738033
all arguments for God are simply "fingers pointing to the moon" as they would say in zen. They will never force you into the conclusion with absolute certainty.

I don't really need an argument I just reflect on my own existence, how could I come about in this world? Who or what would know how to make me and sustain me, as a conscious, moral and purposeful entity?
Could dumb nature do this? Dumb blind nature? Evolution? It's retarded, rocks aren't smart, the wind doesn't know me, atoms are just tiny retarded rocks/waves/wind colliding into each other.

My parents didn't create me, they didn't pick me, and I didn't create myself, really the only thing that could create me would be God, some conscious and personal entity with a will and telos, not some dumb-impersonal-force or rocks banging into each other.
We have rationality, will power, consciousness, love, morality, none of these things. You can believe these things come about just by accident because lots of rocks collided with each other, but that's frankly retarded. And if we're just atoms colliding into each other then our whole world and selves become absurd, incoherent, everything melts into gibberish.

[Anonymous No.13738061]

When there's a god, you can tell a woman to be your gf because god wills it, and she'll have no choice but comply.

[Anonymous No.13738068]

>>13738060
>We have rationality, will power, consciousness, love, morality, none of these things.
ooops* none of these things could come about by chance in a materialist world. A materialist world itself could not come about by itself or simply exist as a "brute fact".
Materialism is mental poverty.

[Anonymous No.13738074]

>>13738004
chocolate anime girls

[Anonymous No.13738095]

>>13738033
>That argument forgets that causality is what causes time
t. has never read Augustine or Aquinas

[Anonymous No.13738111]

>>13738060
Ok, you don't understand, so god.
Good one.
>>13738095
Another good argument.

Causality is what causes time, and entropy is what decides in which way the arrow of time points.
Time is an emergent phenomenon and can not exist on its own.

[Urantia No.13738116]

>>13738004
102:7.7.If science, philosophy, or sociology dares to become dogmatic in contending with the prophets of true religion, then should God-knowing men reply to such unwarranted dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the certainty of personal spiritual experience, "I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM." If the personal experience of a faither is to be challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible Father may reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his actual sonship with the Universal Father.
102:7.8.Only an unqualified reality, an absolute, could dare consistently to be dogmatic. Those who assume to be dogmatic must, if consistent, sooner or later be driven into the arms of the Absolute of energy, the Universal of truth, and the Infinite of love.
102:7.9.If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist or the philosopher.
102:7.10.Of God, the most inescapable of all presences, the most real of all facts, the most living of all truths, the most loving of all friends, and the most divine of all values, we have the right to be the most certain of all universe experiences.

[Anonymous No.13738120]

>>13738111
>Ok, you don't understand, so god.
Sure, I can't understand the world without believing in God. I don't think I'm alone though, atheist/materialist worldviews self-implode on deeper inspection.

It's like trying to understand the world without presupposing causality.
Or trying to understand human behaviour without presupposing purposeful and voluntary action is possible.

Do you think causality is something you prove? I think it's something you believe in in order to make sense of phenomena. Read Hume and Kant to know what I mean.

[Anonymous No.13738124]

>>13738111
>Time is an emergent phenomenon and can not exist on its own.
Yes, exactly what Augustine and Aquinas point out

[Anonymous No.13738131]

>>13738004
I don't need an argument for god. Believe whatever you wish.

[Anonymous No.13738134]

Given that God is self evident, isn't it up to Atheists to prove everyone is mistaken?

[Anonymous No.13738140]

>>13738131
This is correct as well, we don't need to do mental gymnastics to believe in something as fundamental as God.
But I take the presuppositional route and experiential route. I presuppose God because without him the world and my existence become absurd and incomprehensible.
I take the experiential route because I believe I've been close to him at times and experienced the 'light of God' so to speak and reading the bible and prayer have added to these experiences.

[Anonymous No.13738150]

>>13738140
>I've been close to him at times and experienced the 'light of God' so to speak
Apparently these experiences don't count, and only the Atheist's experiences have any weight in this argument

[Anonymous No.13738151]

>>13738120
>Sure, I can't understand the world without believing in God. I don't think I'm alone though, atheist/materialist worldviews self-implode on deeper inspection.
You can't understand it more with your belief in god either, you only feel like you do. It's self deception.

>Do you think causality is something you prove? I think it's something you believe in in order to make sense of phenomena. Read Hume and Kant to know what I mean.
Science and as a consequence most structured of modern society are, at least in part, based on our understanding of causality.

Just because it can't be proven metaphysically means nothing.
Either we assume it is real or we can't trust anything, not even our thoughts.
If we shouldn't believe in anything we experience discussion, and thought is meaningless.
If we instead assume our conscious experience has some connection with reality then empiricism and Bayesian statistics is the only thing that can truly make us understand it better.

>>13738124
Then the argument says nothing and is moot.

[Anonymous No.13738159]

>>13738151
>the argument says nothing and is moot
The strawman cosmological argument you want to be the one being made is moot yes. But unfortunately that's not the argument that has been made

[Anonymous No.13738169]

>>13738159
I did not mean to strawman so please tell me what you mean.

As I am sure you've understood by now I don't generally read the books of people such as St. Aquinas so I am not familiar with his work more than the arguments he's proposed and a few quotes here and there.

I mean no disrespect though and I highly value many Christian thinkers such as Hobbes and Adam Smith.

[Anonymous No.13738170]

>>13738151
>Just because it can't be proven metaphysically means nothing.
>Either we assume it is real or we can't trust anything, not even our thoughts.
Yes you have to assume causality and something like 'induction/regularity in nature' to begin to make sense of phenomena.
Nevermind science, we need to assume this to simply comprehend our actions in the world and interact with objects in a coherent way. Likewise we need to assume people have minds/intensions/will-power to make sense of social interactions/morality/etc.

The same applies to God in relation to ourselves and the world; God, who is more fundamental and important than causality or other human minds, provides starting point for coherence and binds together all these metaphysical categories we take for granted (logic, causality, time, other minds, morality, etc) Without God we can't begin to make sense of the world in an honest way.

[Anonymous !P45fr4QSwk No.13738175]

>>13738033
time is infinite and has no beginning or end

[Anonymous No.13738181]

>>13738175
time is not matter, time is not love, time is not a mind, hence time is not infinite because it is limited by many things it is not.

only one thing is infinite, and that is God. everything else that exists is created by him.

Learn philosophy asap.

[Anonymous No.13738185]

>>13738004
The universe had to either have had a beginning or is infinite in which case the universe is itself god. If the universe had a beginning it is logical to believe that an immaterial all powerful thing i.e. god had to create it.

P.s. really drunk right now fuck atheists and fuck christians

[Anonymous No.13738186]

>>13738175
>>13738181
time is a flat circle

[Anonymous !P45fr4QSwk No.13738187]

>>13738181
can you prove time isn't any of those thong
time facilitates matter
time facilitates love
without time those could not exist, thus matter and love are part of time

[Anonymous No.13738190]

>>13738175
Blatantly false, unless you use your own definition of time in which case it is a worthless definition.

>>13738170
>Yes you have to assume causality and something like 'induction/regularity in nature' to begin to make sense of phenomena.
>Nevermind science, we need to assume this to simply comprehend our actions in the world and interact with objects in a coherent way. Likewise we need to assume people have minds/intensions/will-power to make sense of social interactions/morality/etc.
granted

>
The same applies to God in relation to ourselves and the world; God, who is more fundamental and important than causality or other human minds, provides starting point for coherence and binds together all these metaphysical categories we take for granted (logic, causality, time, other minds, morality, etc) Without God we can't begin to make sense of the world in an honest way.
Exactly how does believing in the concept of god help with these problems?
To me it seems it adds just another layer.

[Anonymous !P45fr4QSwk No.13738199]

>>13738190
name something before time

[Anonymous No.13738212]

Can we solve this mess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics#Comparison
Before we start arguing about metaphysics again? God can wait a century or so if God is to be found.

[Anonymous No.13738218]

>>13738199
the land before time. Littlefoot, Ducky, Petrie etc.

[Anonymous !P45fr4QSwk No.13738225]

>>13738218
prove that existed

[Anonymous No.13738236]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fR1vSxNEQ

[Anonymous No.13738243]

>>13738190
>Exactly how does believing in the concept of god help with these problems?
>To me it seems it adds just another layer.

It unifies existence in the First Cause, allowing for Mystery, the paradox of the Infinite Being creating finite reality (Unmoved Mover); a Creation without a Creator is illogical-- mathematics is just a random accident or the result of a Master Mathematician?

[Anonymous No.13738245]

>>13738212
>God can wait a century or so if God is to be found.
God can wait forever, but your lifespan is short and your soul needs clarity.


>Can we solve this mess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics#Comparison
that can wait.

[Anonymous No.13738250]

>>13738225
https://www.putlockers.me/movie/the-land-before-time-2451.html

[Anonymous No.13738253]

>>13738199
Time is an emergent phenomenon and it has already been discussed in this thread.

The arrow in time points towards increased entropy so going backwards in time everything goes towards more order. When maximum order is achieved, going backwards that is, nothing can be seen before that.
If that means nothing happened before then or if that was the first event is irrelevant to our universe.
Further still time, as you know it, is not global and is slowed down or accelerated depending on a lot of factors, such as relative velocity and mass. At the event horizon of a black hole time is standing still and from a photons perspective they traverse any distance instantaneously even though we can observe a photon that will never arrive anywhere but from its viewpoint it's are already there.

If you spent your life on the event horizon of a large black hole in an instant the universe would age a literally unmeasurable amount of time and when you black hole evaporated you would be greetet with a completely black universe. For you no time elapsed and for someone with a relative velocity of 0 to your black hole and of low mass several billion billions of years might have passed.

You don't even know what time is.

[Anonymous !P45fr4QSwk No.13738256]

>>13738250
you win

[Anonymous No.13738261]

>>13738243
It seems to me acknowledging ones ignorance is better than assigning value to what we can't understand.

[Anonymous No.13738272]

>>13738261
What do you mean?

[Anonymous No.13738283]

>>13738272
You assign value to the belief in god thinking it give some reconciliation in ones mind for the things one can't know or can't understand.
For me saying I don't know without adding more concept seems to be more intellectually honest.

[Anonymous No.13738293]

>>13738261
Not that guy but you would never say the same thing to other metaphysical presuppositions you make, like causality, morality, other-minds, regularity of nature, existence of the past, laws of logic, etc. These are metaphysical entities we don't verify empirically but instead of we accept axioamtically or via assumption, we presuppose they exist in one way or another to make sense of the world.

If someone shoots himself in the head and dies, you don't just say "I don't want to presuppose causality or that the events were related, I'd rather acknowledge my ignorance"

It would be better for you to presuppose God and understand the world, rather to remain willfully ignorant and renounce rationality in favour of radical skepticism.

[Anonymous No.13738297]

>>13738293
I would agree if I could see the utility on believing in god or in which way it actually helps me understand the world better or more consistently. Alas I don't.

[Anonymous No.13738317]

>>13738297
the utility is you gain a coherent worldview that can account for all those metaphysical categories (causality, morality, laws of logic, regularity of nature, other-minds, etc) and much more. the utility is you will change how you live your life for the better, if you take the belief seriously and grow as a person you will start asking better questions: "what is right/true/just" instead of "what can I utilize?"
Coherence, understanding, spiritual/personal growth.

An atheist worldview were everything is decaying and death is oblivion is meaningless and incoherent. It can't account for those immaterial/transcendent categories, it can't account for the laws of logic for the self/will/consciousness for morality or causality, etc....it can't say why we should be honest and rational instead of dishonest and deceptive. It lacks meaning and purpose. Why care about utility instead of happiness or eugenics or some other idol? Why trust your own thoughts? If you are just the product of evolution and random particles colliding together in a meaningless space you have no guarantee that your thoughts are truthful instead of just prudent illusions for the sake of reproduction....etc

[Anonymous No.13738326]

>>13738317
I really don't see how belief in god would change any of that nor how it would help me gain a coherent world view.
To me it rather seems like it would make my worldview less coherent since I try to not believe things there are not needed and there's no significant evidence for.
A belief in god is not needed nor is there any significant evidence, which I can see, for any god.

[Anonymous No.13738363]

>>13738326
> I try to not believe things there are not needed and there's no significant evidence for.

let's say you believe in right and wrong, good and evil on some basic level. Somethings are objectively good (helping poor children) somethings are objectively evil (raping and killing poor children).

If you believe in God then you have a way to ground this belief in an objective and eternal foundation. For example, we know it's objective because morality is an expression of God's unchanging nature, man has a divine nature as well, man is made in the image of God and we have intrinsic worth, we know morality because God wrote these laws in our hearts as Paul said and because revelation backs it up via the commandments. God's nature is good so he wills what is good for man, God does not change, God is not just an appearance or transient phenomena, or an impersonal relative standard, but the realest entity there is, he is personal and has intentions, etc. So you see we can have a coherent morality in this worldview, even a simple farmer can understand.

If you ignore God then you lose your way to account for morality. But not just morality but even things like the laws of logic, regularity of nature, causality, existence of other-minds, existence of the past, meaning and purpose to life, etc. For similar reasons as morality, all these things presuppose an unchanging, immaterial "entity" to be grounded in that isn't out to deceive and trick mankind. That isn't a changing/shifting contingent material phenomena, that isn't an illusion or purely subjective and relative to some cultural standard.

If you already believe in immaterial transcendentals like causality, morality, purpose, laws of logic, numbers, etc....then you already believe in some sort of divine Platonic realm, but it's disjointed and at odds with itself, so the way to resolve the tension is through unity, unity in one God who is personal and those transcedentals exist in his "mind" so to speak and as expressions of his will. Otherwise they have no place in a purely materialist world and are just illusions or nominal word games.

[Anonymous No.13738393]

>>13738363
>let's say you believe in right and wrong, good and evil on some basic level. Somethings are objectively good (helping poor children) somethings are objectively evil (raping and killing poor children).
I don't believe this. I don't believe this nor anything else close to objective morality.

>If you already believe in immaterial transcendentals like causality, morality, purpose, laws of logic, numbers, etc....then you already believe in some sort of divine Platonic realm, but it's disjointed and at odds with itself, so the way to resolve the tension is through unity, unity in one God who is personal and those transcedentals exist in his "mind" so to speak and as expressions of his will. Otherwise they have no place in a purely materialist world and are just illusions or nominal word games
I think therefore I am is all that I can be sure of, this I know.

From there if I want to try to know more, which I know I can never truly do, I would need structures, and they need to be as objective as possible. This is why I trust in logic, empiricism and Bayesian statistics. They follow rigid structures and they make as few assumptions as possible.

It takes no belief from my part to go there. I know I can't trust it but if I want to try to know anymore than that I exist this is the best I can do, adding more only complicates things, as does a belief in a god.

[Anonymous No.13738398]

>>13738017
based

[Anonymous No.13738409]

>>13738134
cringe

[Anonymous No.13738431]

>>13738393
>I think therefore I am is all that I can be sure of, this I know.
The very start of this syllogism presupposes an abiding "self", which is what it is trying to prove.
At most it can only assert that "thinking" occurs, bu it can't prove that some "self" is some unified entity doing the act.

> they need to be as objective as possible. This is why I trust in logic, empiricism and Bayesian statistics. They follow rigid structures and they make as few assumptions as possible.
What? Laws of logic are not empirically verifiable, they are presupposed as axioms, to make thought coherent. Much like mathematics.

>bayesian statistics
Bayes was a christian minister. His theorems aren't purely empirical, they require prior beliefs to operate and no one runs probability distribution functions in their head to make decisions or view the world. Not sure why you appeal to them, do you have autism?

>I don't believe in right and wrong or anything close to objective morality
then your worldview is absurd and there's no objective reason to prefer rationality over irrationality or judge whether your leading a good life or if someone is leading a harmful life.

[Anonymous No.13738461]

>>13738431
>The very start of this syllogism presupposes an abiding "self", which is what it is trying to prove.
>At most it can only assert that "thinking" occurs, bu it can't prove that some "self" is some unified entity doing the act.
Indeed, I can't be sure of the self but thinking does occur. I did not mean to imply anything more.
>What? Laws of logic are not empirically verifiable, they are presupposed as axioms, to make thought coherent. Much like mathematics.
Correct, I try to make as few assumptions as possible that does not mean I can have meaningful beliefs not relying on axioms.
It does not take away from that things only get worse by adding more axioms or other assumptions.

>Bayes was a christian minister. His theorems aren't purely empirical, they require prior beliefs to operate and no one runs probability distribution functions in their head to make decisions or view the world. Not sure why you appeal to them, do you have autism?
It is not relevant if Bayes was Christian or not nor if his theorems are empirical or not.

The beauty of his ideas is that one can pick arbitrary prior beliefs and assign arbitrary values to them, as long as one updates them according to what is observed one will come closer to what is as times goes on. On can of course not assume beforehand that one prior beliefs hold any significant value, although if one is a good guesser less iterations should be necessary.

Also, I do have autism.

>then your worldview is absurd and there's no objective reason to prefer rationality over irrationality or judge whether your leading a good life or if someone is leading a harmful life.
So because I don't believe in objective morality there is no reason for me to prefer a world view that can be used to understand the world over one that says nothing? How is that not a non sequitur?

> judge whether your leading a good life or if someone is leading a harmful life.
This I agree with, I make such judgements every day but they are only from my viewpoint and are not inherent to the universe or whatever objective morality is even supposed to mean.
I prefer artificial systems of morality that lead to a more prosperous society but they are artificial and not inherent to any objective morality.

[Anonymous No.13738475]

>>13738461
>So because I don't believe in objective morality there is no reason for me to prefer a world view that can be used to understand the world over one that says nothing? How is that not a non sequitur?

The idea that you ought to be rational or ought to have one worldview over another is a moral injunction.
You can't get ought from -is-, as you know. So why ought you be rational, or just, or honest, or seek understanding? No reason in an atheist world, or any reason you can poop out, like reasons of power or pleasure or domination or whatever, but none of it matters or is objective and true, it's simply a function of whatever whims or desires seem to dominate you in the moment.
You will soon fall into nihilism and if you sought a worldview that is coherent you would presuppose God instead of presupposing materialism/atheism or whatever you believe in, which offers no objective ground for logic, but reduces it to mere phantasms of the mind that could change and shift at any moment like other social constructs or natural phenomena.

[Anonymous No.13738501]

>>13738475
>You can't get ought from -is-, as you know
I agree.
>The idea that you ought to be rational or ought to have one worldview over another is a moral injunction.
I never implied this, I never assigned objective value to my world view. I've been talking about how I see things for myself. I do think others should view the world like this, but I don't think it's necessarily objectively the best way.

>You will soon fall into nihilism and if you sought a worldview that is coherent you would presuppose God instead of presupposing materialism/atheism or whatever you believe in, which offers no objective ground for logic, but reduces it to mere phantasms of the mind that could change and shift at any moment like other social constructs or natural phenomena.
No, I am past that. As I've already explained I want to try to make sense, as much as I can of world but I can't accept only existing. So I try to make sense from assuming my senses have some correlation with the real world and make as few assumptions as possible. This is why I do this.

I also value a lot of things and have moral system I follow, but I view them as subjective.
This does not mean I can't prefer other people to have them too, it only means I don't see them as objective.

One thing I value is utility and solipsism has none of that. I guess I am both a existential and moral nihilist, but it is generally unproductive to talk about and certainly unproductive to talk to most people about it so it's not something I care about too much.

Also just because I am an existential nihilist does not mean I can't have goals for me and humanity and value them, subjectively.

[Anonymous No.13738516]

>>13738501
Eventually you will want to know what is actually true, good and right, not simply what aligns with your thinking/subjectivity/utility for the time being.

[Anonymous No.13738526]

>>13738516
I only care about what is true, that is why I make as few assumptions as possible.
Saying x is true does not make it so.
Saying god exists does not make it so.
It is nothing but self deception.

[Anonymous No.13738555]

>>13738526
saying God is not true doesn't make it so.
ignoring the truth doesn't make it false.

>I only care about what is true, that is why I make as few assumptions as possible.
That's why you should investigate your assumptions more carefully. God is not an extra assumption, but a precondition necessary for the possibility of coherence and rationality itself. You don't have a coherent worldview as I've already shown and you've admitted it's nihilistic at times, relativist at others, subjectivist here and there, you can't account for the "self" or morality properly...thigns like causality, other-minds, laws of logic and the other transcendentals are mysteries that elude empirical investigation and just exist inexplicably for you...
Poverty of thought.

[Anonymous No.13738594]

For those adhering to Occam's Razor (fewest assumptions is usually correct), can you explain why this is rational?
What makes it probably true? (I think I have an idea myself but am curious as to what your take is)
When it comes to using Occam's Razor to infer the nature of the universe, perhaps it is that there is an underlying pattern, namely that the universe's design is elegant, so of course Occam's Razor would make sense in that regard..

[Anonymous No.13738608]

>>13738555
>saying God is not true doesn't make it so.
>ignoring the truth doesn't make it false.
No, but assuming something exists is an assumption.

I don't assume god does not exist I withhold judgement, therefore no assumption is made.

>That's why you should investigate your assumptions more carefully. God is not an extra assumption, but a precondition necessary for the possibility of coherence and rationality itself. You don't have a coherent worldview as I've already shown and you've admitted it's nihilistic at times, relativist at others, subjectivist here and there, you can't account for the "self" or morality properly...thigns like causality, other-minds, laws of logic and the other transcendentals are mysteries that elude empirical investigation and just exist inexplicably for you...
Poverty of thought.
Assuming the existance or non-existance of god is an assumption. I guess I'll repeat my self again.
I do make assumptions, but I try to do as simple ones as possible and as few as possible. I try only make the ones necessary to achieve some coherence.
Assuming god does not help with this, especially not if one tries to define god.
For example the cosmological argument does not define god, it doesn't even state if god is a being, a force or even if it is sentient.

[Anonymous No.13738635]

>>13738009
>the universe began
>implying

[Anonymous No.13738646]

>>13738594
probability makes it true
the complex is derived from the simple
one over many

[Anonymous No.13738647]

>>13738594
If you have two hypothesis.
A -> B and A ^ C -> B then for the first one only A has to be true, for the second one both A and C has to be true. If both manage to explain B equally well then there is never a reason to use the second one. Even if C is very likely true it is still less likely the second idea is true because one can never be completely sure C is true but one can always know A is true if either hypothesis hold true.

>When it comes to using Occam's Razor to infer the nature of the universe, perhaps it is that there is an underlying pattern, namely that the universe's design is elegant, so of course Occam's Razor would make sense in that regard..
Occam's razor does not help in inferring the nature of the universe. It does help in choosing what paths are worthwhile to first investigate in the search for the nature of the universe.

[Anonymous No.13738649]

>>13738555
>self
no such thing
>morality
human invention
nothing to account for
>thigns like causality, other-minds, laws of logic
when you invoke god to explain these you're not providing any evidence for it, there is no difference between that and the multiverse theory, both lack evidence. Although God seems ridiculous when you consider the waste of space argument, the randomness of evolutionary processes, the problem of evil, etc.