Also noteworthy in this debate w/ WLC is he admitted that even if Wolpert disproved his (WLC's) talking points, he would still be a believer! So there you have it- WLC doesn't care about facts or evidence. 1 of the primary reasons WLC gave for belief in god was his own personal experience! So anyone who has a personal experience with the god of their religion proves that their god is true (according to WLC's argument). WLC is a slick debater & great at verbal slight of hand. I'll give him that
@Wittgensteinism in response to my earlier comment, I was implying that you are actively misrepresenting and misunderstanding Craig's argument. Thats what happens when you cut the video off at 5 mins. Gotcha clips are not logical rebuttals.
@r3ggi3000 "What does he mean by "personal? How did he arrive at these conclusions?"
Good questions. Craig uses "deductive" arguments, which means doesn't "arrive" at any conclusions at all. Rather, he starts with his conclusion e.g. God exists, and deduces premises that necessarily follow from that, using very stipulative definitions to give the specific meanings he needs to support his predetermined conclusion. By "personal" he means whatever it needs to coicide with his definition of "God".
@kidasterorig111 "I watched the whole thing and not just the video that you provided but the whole thing"
Good job, but i provided all the relevant content in the clip.
"Craig was just pointing out the flaw in the other guy's analogy of GOD and the computer."
Which is???? Craig pointed out why Wolpert's computer fails, and then says his computer is equivalent to God, so by syllogism, Craig shows why God fails, for all the same reasons that Craig lists.
@kidasterorig111 You have to keep in mind that what Craig is defending here in particular is a PERSONAL God; a God that "must be a personal being" to use his very words. The point of Wolpert's computer (even though he apparently forgot it) was to demonstrate that this "timeless, spaceless, immaterial" cause, by Craig's logic, could equally be a computer instead of a person.
Craig counters with "Computers have design, require time and are physical". But exactly the same can be said about persons
Craig does have a personal GOD but remember he is also defending the christian faith. His GOD is the christian GOD or he wouldn't be called a christian defender and he certainly wouldn't defend christianity if he had his own GOD.
No, a self making pc would still need a designer, someone to think about how it would be able to assemble itself before allowing it to assemble itself.
@kidasterorig111 "Craig does have a personal GOD but remember he is also defending the christian faith."
Yyyyyeeeaa, ya know, i know that's what he SAYS n' all, but i'm not actually buying it. The God Craig argues for e.g. with Kalam argument, is not really the Christian God. Hate to break it to you, but the Biblical God is most certainly physical and temporal. Especially the Hebrew God. God wrote the Ten Commandments with his finger! Metaphysical, YES; but non-physical? Certainly not.......
@kidasterorig111 .....and God supposedly created the earth, and then all the life therein. That certainly sounds like a God functioning with time. Is the Biblcal God non-temporal, or METAtemporal. This is where Craig gets it all wrong, and quite ironically i must add.
The ONLY way Craig is able to get away with these "deductive arguments" for the existence of God, is by reducing God to a definition of what he IS NOT, which just so happens to include every aspect of existence we can conceive of.
@kidasterorig111 "GOD, as you said functions with time. So I should just probably trust you on that."
Good. That means God couldn't have created the universe because the universe (according to Craig) came into being WITH time, and if God is within time, then God couldn't have existed until the universe existed.
Either way you're fucked, because if God DOESN'T exist in time, then he couldn't have created the universe because it exists in time and any act of creating it would also require time
Of course you are; everyone is. You're just making things more difficult than they have to be. Just think about the question "Was there a time before time?"
It's a paradox. Anything "before time" would be a moment in time. The truth is, we have no way whatsoever of imagining anything "outside of time".
That's why we ultimately need the concept of eternity. It's nonsense to say "time began".
Yes, there is a time before time but they really don't have part of the second, minute thing if you know what I mean.
You are just pointing to the "before time" era. For example the "before nothingness"( I know horrible analogy but what else can I say).
Time started at one point and trying to point to the part of history which didn't have time with it won't make that part a part of time, do you understand my explanation?
@kidasterorig111 Once again i'll just repeat myself, because there's only so many ways to say the same thing with different words.
"Before time" is nonsense.So your entire analogy, and everything you've said about "before time", is literally meaningless. As far as i can tell, you've done nothing more than to call some arbitrary point in time "the beginning", even though you include many events (represented by the multiple O's) before this "beginning", thereby defeating any notion of a beginning
@kidasterorig111 ....In other words, Craig has to define God as essentially non-existent in order to make a valid argument for THAT God to exist.
Well, unfortunately, this nebulous, virtually nonsensical definition of God as a "timeless, spaceless, immaterial" being, IF it can be applied to things like "beings" and "persons" then it can equally be applied to ANYTHING i.e. computers, jump ropes, Higgs bosons, etc.
There's absolutely no reason to call this definition of "God" a "Personal Being".
LOL Craig totally destroyed this guy, i wish more people would upload this vid, then we might not have any Atheists left, you really have helped Christianity this day. XD
@Intellectual4God Your comment perfectly demonstrates how hopelessly ignorant Christians like you truly are. If you don't see why Craig refuted his own arguments in this video then nothing can help you see the light.
@Wittgensteinism And your video perfectly demonstrates how hopelessly ignorant Atheists like you are. All your doing is attacking straw men, rather than Craig's actual position, you seem like your making a point but in reality your not. For example your point in reference to humans "beings are also designed by genes" Yes we are designed which would merely prove we cannot be the creator, God doesnt have parents therefore is not designed by genes, you pointed out a point that is in fact pointless
@Intellectual4God In case you didn't notice, Craig is the only one making arguments in this video, so if anyone is "attacking strawmen" its Craig---an odd claim since they would be his own arguments.
As for genes, they demonstrate that every being we know is designed by genetic reproduction. If God doesn't have a designer i.e. genes like humans, then it's meaningless to call God a "being". THAT'S the point. It's nonsense to define God as being "Personal" if he lacks the attributes of persons
@Intellectual4God Perhaps you're confused on the issue at stake here.
The issue is the attributes of God. Craig wants to call God personal yet deny this "Personal God" every attribute that persons have i.e. spatial, temporal, material existence.
You take away those qualities and God becomes just another word like "computer".
Such is the case with design. Craig says God can't be a computer because computers are designed, but so are personal beings, so it follows God can't be Personal either
@Wittgensteinism Personal as opposed to natural merely means a living entity or mind with the will and thought to make decisions, God is a disembodied mind.
A being is merely something that exists as opposed to not existing it doesnt need to have spatial/temporal qualities to be a being.
Lets not forget the first cause HAS to be personal so yes God is personal, its the only way a non temporal cause could give rise to a temporal effect such as the Universe
Do you have any examples that you give of a "disembodied mind", besides God of course (since that's what you're attempting to establish)?
If not, then that phrase is literally meaningless.
Likewise with spatial/temporal qualities---unless you can give me an instance of anything non-spatial and non-temporal, these are literally senseless qualities.
Existence as we understand it requires space and time, to posit otherwise is to posit pure nonsense.
So if you assume nothing transcendent of nature as we know it can exist then pray tell what created the Universe? How about you give ME an example of something non spatial/temporal/material/personal/uncaused other than God that could have created the Universe?
I'm not saying it has to be God, only that some being transcending nature as we know it containing these qualities could create the Universe.
@Intellectual4God Again you misunderstand me. I didnt claim that "nothing transcendent of nature as we know it can exist", i said that to even SPEAK about non-spatial/temporal existence is pure nonsense. It's equally nonsensical to say timeless things exist as it does to say they don't because such words as "timelessness" and "spacelessness" are entirely meaningless as attribtues of existence
Thus, i can't give examples either since existence as we know it necessarily requires space and time
This comment perfectly illustrates the point that i am making. It amounts to saying "Before time", which if you cannot tell, is self-contradictory.
If there was "no time" BEFORE* the universe, then you're saying there was a time BEFORE time. Time is logically eternal, since to posit a point in time when time didn't exist is blatent contradiction, which is what you've done.
You simultaneously posit and negate time to argue for your God
@Wittgensteinism Actually time being time and all we can posit the first moment of time especially since we know the Universe began a finite time ago, hard to believe anything can be eternal into the past within time, but i dont think time existing before the Universe would be plausible for God....then infinite regress would become a fairly large issue but that would also apply to other things.....so unless we accept there is a first uncaused cause you must accept infinite regress as logical...
@Intellectual4God Your comments are becoming less coherent and thus harder to respond sensibly to, but let me give it a shot.
"we know the Universe began a finite time ago"
Actually we DON'T know that. If you're talking about the Big Bang, you've been misinformed. The Standard Model of cosmology says nothing about what, if anything, came before the initial expansion. The BB, like evolution, only explains what happened to space, time, and energy once it was already here, not where it came from
@Wittgensteinism 3 things. Actual infinites lead to absurdities such as infinity - 3 = infinity, many self contradictions would lead us to believe actual infinite quantities of anything are impossible including past events
Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem implies any Universe in a state of expansion had a beginning (look into that)
By 2nd law of thermodynamics and being doomed to universal fate of heat death, if Universe was eternal that means it already had infinite time for this to happen
@Intellectual4God 1st, what are the calculations you think justifies the claim that "infinity - 3 = infinity"? What meanings of the word "infinity" leads you to believe it is even something which can be subtracted from?
2nd, as for the Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem, once again you've been misinformed, and i think i could guess by whom. coughcraigcough. The GBV actually only refers to a beginning of inflation, not a beginning of the universe itself--only its expansion.
@Intellectual4God (continued...) Furthermore, the BGV has no supportive evidence in its favor. It's just one among many cosmogonical theories that are purely speculative in terms of observable data. So it's not the Standard model, which is the only real criteria we ought to be judging our arguments against since it's the only one with overwhelming supportive evidence. Cherry picking one cosmogony theory (which is equal to all the rest) to support your God is not intellectually honest
@Intellectual4God Seeing as how Witt took care of those first two, I'll explain why your third contention is false as well. The second law pertains to a heightened sense of disorganization in a closed system as time goes on. However, what you fail to take into consideration is the expansion and eventual implosion of the universe itself. As the universe expands, the entropy within is given a larger space, and once it collapses, entropy will be infinite and within that singularity again...
@Intellectual4God So basically, since the universe is constantly expanding and shrinking in a neverending cycle (as far as logic and science is concerned), there is an ever shifting amount of space the entropy of the universe can occupy, meaning that the infinite time of the universe's existence does not indicate that the universe would "die". It's actually quite the opposite. This cycle of entropy ensures the existence (or the matter and energy) of the universe and its CONTINUED existence.
@Wittgensteinism The self contradiction in terms was the self causing not the functionality of the computer. You pressuppose there is nothing outside space and time which now you would have to explain where space and time come from. Wolperts computer wasn't a computer because he robbed it of its necessary qualities. I thought this was going to be a good vid...
OP, you aren't clever, you aren't original, you aren't even informative. Possibly before you embarrass yourself again in the future, you will research the arguments of the person you attempt to mock.
@Liodegrance That's funny, because i simply pointed out the fact that Craig critiqued his own argument by rebutting Wolpert's analogous argument.
If you like, Wolpert simply repeated Craig's arguments to posit God as a non-personal cause, and Craig only rebutted the premises in Wolpert's argument that were used by Craig himself in his own arguments.
Thus, Craig disproved his own arguments by knocking down Wolpert's argument, since as Craig admits, Wolpert's argument was for God
@Liodegrance Any "misunderstanding" you accuse me of, should actually be directed towards Craig, because i'm deriving a conclusion that Craig himself states, namely, that Wolpert's computer is a contradiction in terms and yet also equal to God.
E.g. the charge against "timelessness" as equalling "non-functioning" equally applies to a computer as much as it does a 'person', or anything else for that matter because "function" is a temporal word.
@Wittgensteinism "Accuse" is too strong a word: "there is no wrong deed where there is no wrong intention"
...and why would i be upset? It is Wittgenstein's name and memory youshow contempt for. You are clearly not a philospher and yet you adopt the name of a philosopher and choose to slander philosophers.
@Liodegrance Lol. Your comments display nothing but the utmost ignorance when speaking about "Wittgenstein's name" or philosophy in general.
You made a claim about my understanding or lack thereof regarding the "matter discussed", and so far have offered up no justification for it, even in the face of my apology for the video. You have an actual Reason why it's superficial or misguided? Or can all you say is "derr, you dishonor Wittgenstein"?
And it's not superficial to be concise for YouTubers
@Wittgensteinism: Listen to the sentence: the actual words in it: "A *computer* has to function, it takes time." Then Mr. Wolpert ascribes to this computer a number of attributes traditionally associated with God: effectively he has shifted the argument from "Does God exist?" to "What is God like?" That you hadn't spotted this is why i infer you are not trained in philosophy.
@Liodegrance Listen to the actual words in THIS sentence: Functionality is a temporal word, so for *anything* to function, it takes time (including a God).
As for "shifting the argument to defining God", that would only be true insofar as you believe God can be defined as an impersonal object or force. If so, then i guess the word God is truly without any solid meaning and can be used for literally ANYTHING, in which case Craig still disproves God. If not, then what Wolpert posits ISN'T God.
(1) Who sais functionality is a temporal word? surely that depends on the function. In a temporal universe function is going to be temporal
(2) Yes, i suppose the word *God* could mean literally any trans-temporal self-existant first cause, but in order to discuss what God is like all you need is a language: whether an impersonal principle might fall into the scope of discussion (as it does with Velleius's discourse in Cicero's De Natura Deorum) would be part of the debate
@Liodegrance 1) I say funtionality is a temporal word, and i'll demonstrate that by simply challenging you to use the word in a sense which is non-temporal---meaningfully that is. Or better yet, give me an example of something that functions without time.
2) I like how you qualify God as a trans*-temporal cause, rather than a non-temporal cause. There is a very big difference here. Transcendence implies a higher* form of time, not the absence of it.
2)I wasn't qualifying [the word] God, i was highlighting the flaw in your rhetoric: my point is that to discuss a matter does not require any sort of belief in the matter
@Liodegrance f(x)=2x is not a function, sorry (maybe you're being facetious or purposefully dense?)
What you gave was an equation, a tautology, and if it can be said to have a function at all it would be to communicate its meaning to the mind of the reader...which needless to say, all happens within time; a process that can only occur in the presence of one moment followed by a progressive series of moments.
And yes, you certainly DID qualify God to evade the consequences of being WITHOUT time
@Liodegrance Futhermore, your equation (even it it WERE a non-temporal function, which it's not) does not satisfy my challenge at all. The challenge was to Use The Word "Function" in a non-temporal sense, and to do so meaningfully. As far as your equation goes, it's literally without meaning unless you define your variables.
Unless you'd like to have another go at it, i think we can safely say you've failed miserably.
@Wittgensteinism It's a simple mapping function: it maps each number in one set to one in another. Mathematical functions are so called because they function: as they operate on abstract concepts they do not operate in time. If nothing can function without time then nothing can begin to function and the universe itself does not exist.
@Liodegrance You are fundamentally confused about the grammar of such words as "function" and "time" and now "operation".
Of course mathematical functions are called functions because they function---i never disagreed with that (nor could i). The issue is what the word functions MEANS; how it's USED.
2nd, your claim that "nothing can begin to function and therefore the universe doesn't exist" assumes that there was a time before time (a self-contradiction). Time is necessarily eternal
@Liodegrance Furthermore, i would also take issue with you calling mathematical operations as operating on "abstract concepts". 1st, even if they do operate on abstract concepts, this in no way leads to the conclusion that therefore they do not operate in time (abstract concepts operate in time as does everything). And 2nd, a mapping function is far from being abstract; it is one of the most concrete concepts that exists.
I'm tired of people saying math is abstract. Nothing could be less true!
@Wittgensteinism I'm not confused: this is an ontological point that you are trying to turn into a semantic argument. As for concrete concepts, could you explain how that works? Concrete is concrete: the concept of concrete is abstract.
@Liodegrance 1st, the distinction between "ontological" and "semantic" (kudos to Craig on that) is a false distinction, since by defining a word we also determine its ontology. When we define a word we determine what that word means; what it IS i.e. what is the nature of its Being. So we're both talking ontologically and semantically.
2nd, concrete and abstract are diametrically opposed, so if "concrete is concrete" and "concrete is abstract" then you've said a contradiction. Congrats on that!
@Wittgensteinism Your confusion seems to be a failure to distinguish between words and the things they signify: it is not the ontology of the word "universe" that is under discussion, but of the universe itself. Likewise it is the "concept" of concrete that is abstract. I can see how this would be a little difficult to understand, but perhaps this will help: when you read the word "concrete" you think of a white rocky substance used in construction. (cont.)
@wittgensteinism ...you don't need the material to be present, nor do you need a different name for every separate example of concrete: the 1 word stands for the substance. This is the sort of thing that we meen when we talk about concepts. Do you follow me so far?
@CoryTheRaven True, I know we must use other knowledge to gain understanding of the world around us philosophy, science, mathematics, history. But I think philosophy is somewhat biased today with a majority being theists, that and a lot of our understandings of the universe and other concepts are an incomplete puzzle.
I think where your reading of WLC fails is that you are only selectively quoting from it, thus missing key points.
First, WLC is deriving the existence of a cause for the universe from its logical necessity. The universe had a beginning and therefore must have had a cause. The only fundamental way to disprove WLC's argument is to disprove that the universe has a cause, and so far WLC has not done that...
@CoryTheRaven ...He then derives from the condition of the universe what characteristics this cause must have. WLC argues that this cause must be necessary (i.e.: uncaused) because a cause that is contingent just creates irresolvable infinite regress, that it must be spaceless and timeless because space and time are conditions of the universe, and that it must be personal because it is capable of innovative acts like creating a universe whereas it did not before...
@CoryTheRaven ...Now you argue that such an entity could not exist because you cannot conceive of a being that functions outside of the conditions of the universe: all known beings are contingent and operate through space and time. This is where your argument falls apart. WLC is deducing an original class of being that must not be contingent and must not operate through space and time. Why? Because such a being is required of a cause and a cause must exist...
@CoryTheRaven ...Admittedly we have no physical evidence of such a being, but we also CANNOT have physical evidence of it by its very nature, so that is a non-objection. Such an entity whose existence has been deduced by logic must in turn be disproven by logic. At some stage in the chain of reason you must demonstrate that either the universe does not need a cause or that the cause is not required to have the characteristics WLC has ascribed to it. WLC has not done this task for you here...
@CoryTheRaven ...What he did do is call out Wolpert's bullshitting. All Wolpert tried to do is object to WLC's convinction in the Judeo-Christian God by ascribing to his Amazing Computer all the characteristics of that God. First WLC tried to say that a computer does not fit the description of God, and when Wolpert persisted, he just came right out and said that Wolpert is just using a different term for God...
@CoryTheRaven ...Now you seem to be saying that "being" does not fit the description of God either, but that doesn't logically disprove how WLC defined God. He has defined God as a necessary (non-contingent), personal, spaceless, timeless entity that caused the universe. You can call it whatever you like, a being, a computer, a god, whatever. But does this entity exist? You would have to demonstrate otherwise through logic that it does not.
@CoryTheRaven "First WLC tried to say that a computer does not fit the description of God and when Wolpert persisted he just came right out and said that Wolpert is just using a different term for God"
So does the description fit or not?
You just dug urself a hole. If the description fits, then everything Craig said about how the "timeless computer can't function, etc." is equivalent to saying God can't function etc.
If the description doesn't fit, then he's not "just using a different term"
@Wittgensteinism One of the two of us is failing to understand the other's argument, and I'm not sure which. WLC outlined his requirements for a cause of the universe: an uncaused, noncontingent, personal entity that is outside of space and time. This he calls "God". Wolpert was trying to be a funny guy by replacing the word "God" with the word "computer". Haw haw...
@Wittgensteinism ...WLC pointed out that this is silly because either A) a computer does not match the description of the cause of the universe that logic requires, or B) if you say that this computer does match the description of the cause of the universe that logic requires, then this computer IS God. The two are identical. Far from WLC disproving God, he caught Wolpert arguing hypothetically FOR the existence of God by any other name.
@Wittgensteinism I failed to understand your "straightforward" question, which is something I advised in my reply. I think what you're trying to get at is an equivalence between the ordinary functioning of a computer and the ordinary functioning of a being as we know it. However WLC isn't proposing the existence of a being as we know it. If Wolpert is not proposing the existence of a computer as we know it, then really what happening is that he's saying the computer IS God.
@Wittgensteinism I should also mention that I don't debate in PM. Anything I need to say can be said publically and anything someone else has to say to me should be said publically.
@CoryTheRaven I prefer that as well so as to make the humiliation public, but for the sake of efficiency and clarity between issues, a PM is obviously better.
If you don't actually care about whether your claims have validity or not, then go ahead and ignore the full on rebuttal i've already posted to your inbox. Unfortunately due to the inanity of your comments, brevity isn't on my side, so that's why a PM is obviously better for handling larger amounts of information needed to resolve this..
@Wittgensteinism My sympathies on your case of Atheist Tourette's. I mean, it's endearing that you're apparently incapable of carrying on a discussion with people whose views differe from your own without a clinical, compulsive need to insult them too, but it's also a little tiresome and silly. If you have a grown-up point to make, then make it without informing me that I will get humiliated (Really? What is this, WWE?) or that I'm a stupid poohead.
@CoryTheRaven What's childish is your excuse for not being able to read 6 paragraphs when you've been trolling my page with comments on the logic of my video.
If you don't have time to read my respond that hasn't been reduced to 500 characters, then you're wasting my time, because had you just read the PM, you'd realize how much of this discussion has already been addressed.
I care about efficiency because i don't have infinite amounts of time to search for every comment of your's and respond
@Wittgensteinism I understand your frustration. 500 characters forces you to make a choice between making a rational argument and issuing a string of petty insults. I imagine that must be a very difficult choice for you to have to make. If you did care about efficiency I would recommend just dropping the inults, but I'm guessing that they are utterly intrinsic and necessary to your worldview and sense of identity.
"If you did care about efficiency I would recommend just dropping the inults"
Hey, funny guy. WE CAN READ. Wittgensteinism made clear his frustration at you results from your non reading of his private message. Don't try to save face when you have no grounds, you dishonest sophist.
And the most amusing part is the way you go into full 500 character posts of nothing but winning and insult to isolated words questioning your competence.
@uvauva2 I know that saving face amongst atheists is a non-starter, given the attitudes that most tend to have towards people with differing opinions. I was just pointing out that he could save a great deal of time and effort by simply chosing not to insult me all the time (unless my inferiority is so intrinsic to his argument that he should only do that). I personally don't have any worry about efficiency, so I'm fine responding to things with as much care as they require.
@uvauva2 I thought I made it clear that my issue was with the unaccountable privacy of the message, not the time constraints. I don't debate people in PM. I never have, I never will.
In a public discussion, both parties are accountable to what they say and both are speaking to who actually matters, being everyone listening in. Besides, why would I want to deprive you of a perfectly good opportunity to call a theist some names? You people totally get off on that shit.
"Besides, why would I want to deprive you of a perfectly good opportunity to call a theist some names? You people totally get off on that shit."
Because we're not all the same, and not conversations are the same. I've had plenty of "calling people names" conversations myself, and I've add a few serious ones, and those certainly work far better in PM. And quite simply, it is only for the former that this format is adequate. (...)
@uvauva2 No, you're not all the same. But the cliches are common enough to fill a bingo card. You've already got "dishonest" and "sophist" off on me. Next I think you should call me "irrational" and "superstitious". Don't forget to reduce any viewpoint different from your own to "belief in a magically sky-daddy", whether or not it is even a theistic belief. I'm sure that if you even went so far to compare me to Hitler, it would make you feel very good about yourself.
@Wittgensteinism "Are you saying you don't believe in a magical sky daddy?"
That is correct. I don't believe that God is magical according to the definitions of magic used by people who claim to practice magic, nor that He lives in the Earth's atmosphere, nor that She is a biological male...
@CoryTheRaven So you don't like a strawman use of the word magic.
How about magic defined as Supernaturalism? Do you believe God is supernatural? I would consider that equivalent to magic e.g. the ability to create things from literally nothing as opposed to conjurer tricks. And "sky" is often used to refer to the space "above us", so do you not consider God to be above us?
And since you seem to be using She as a more accurate description, then do you think God is female? A Magic Sky Mommy?
@Wittgensteinism If that's how you want to define "magic", then sure. However I would point out that amongst people who claim to pratice magic (or "majick" or however many extra consonants they add) actually see a much more natural, cause-and-effect relationship in what they do than in what traditional monotheists believe.
I use "He" and "She" interchangably when speaking of the transcendent person of God because it doesn't have genitals.
@Wittgensteinism I forgot about the sky... I don't believe that God is "above" us in any geographic sense. If you mean an abstract sense synonymous with "transcendent" then I suppose, but it's a pretty limited metaphor and not really a good hatstand for a strawman insult (actually, I guess it WOULD be a good straw hatstand since by definition a strawman is a weak and silly slur built on nothing).
@Wittgensteinism ...I believe that God is Love, which is a poetic way of summarizing a personality that transcends being a being to being Beingness itself, the force of union that maintains the fabric of reality, which exists necessarily but is internally contingent (because Love is a relational term, not an emotional term) and patterned the universe it is in the process of creating on itself...
@CoryTheRaven "God is love" is a poetic way of saying you don't actually believe in God (colloquially and traditionally defined). If God = love, then i'm not an atheist since i believe love exists (if that's all God is).
As for "a personality trait that transcends being a being", that self-contradictory, for personality traits are attributes of beings, particularly, beings that are persons, hence the term 'personality". Why not just skip that go directly to "existence itself"?
@Wittgensteinism Well, John's epistles repeated state "God is Love", so I guess by your definition, either you are not an atheist or the Bible is an atheist book. I'm more comfortable with you not being an atheist though, so let's go with that.
I'm fine with calling God "existence itself" so long as we don't exclude God's qualitative identity or "Godality" (I guess we can call it that... the personality-like traits of God).
@CoryTheRaven Furthermore, even if you want to say God = Love, then you're unjustified in calling that the "ground of all being" for love is certainly not the ground of all being.
If it were, love would be omnipresent just as existence itself is omnipresent.
This would mean things like rape, torture, famine, George Bush's tax cuts for the rich, are themselves expressions of love, or grounded in love.
Love is obviously not the operating quality of the universe. If anything, indifference is..
@Wittgensteinism I think you're confusing Beingness and Existence with accidents of what happens to beings that exist. I'm saying that Love is the fabric of the universe, proasically described as a set of coherent laws working in unison to create a universe in which everything is contingent upon everything else (that is, everything exists in relationship and that relationship is fundamentally harmonious or else it wouldn't sustain itself)...
@Wittgensteinism ...rape and torture and George Bush are things that happen, but I don't believe that the fundamental fabric of reality is built on them. But now we're getting into theodicy, and theodicy must be argued in an evolutionary context. What is the PROCESS of creation and how is or isn't God in the PROCESS of creating a universe without evil?
@CoryTheRaven You restated my claim about your position backwards. It's not that the fundamental fabric of reality (being 'love') would be built on rape, torture, etc., but rather that rape, torture, etc., are built upon the fundamental fabric of reality (according to your definition of God, love, and reality anyhow).
I'm pointing out the flaw in your claim that love is the fundamental fabric of reality, which is that it would amount to calling these things manifestations of that fabric---love.
@Wittgensteinism That would be true if we defined evil as an coherent expression of Reality rather than an accidental distortion or violation of Reality. I opt for the latter definition. For me, "good" is whatever is most coherent with Reality and "evil" is whatever is most incoherent with Reality. So acts of love, charity, compassion, understanding, tolerance, etc. are good while acts of hate, cruelty, rape, violence, etc. are evil.
@CoryTheRaven If evil is "an accidental distortion or violation of Reality", wouldn't that make evil non-existent?
Anything that doesn't violate the laws that reality abides by i.e. physics, is in accords with the fabric of reality; love, would makes things like rape, murder, George Bush, expressions of love since they are in perfect harmony with what the laws of nature allow (otherwise they wouldn't exist).
Furthermore, why isn't evil the fabric and love the distortion?
@Wittgensteinism It seems that you are working from an interpretation of reality as "whatever happens". That is not the definition I am using. I am speaking of what I called that "fundamental fabric of reality", its deepest and most essential structure that forms the nature of what our universe is and allows it to exist. That does not preclude accidental distortions or violations of that fundamental fabric. Variance from optimum performance is possible in any system...
@CoryTheRaven "It seems that you are working from an interpretation of reality as 'whatever happens'."
Yes. I define existence/reality as what IS; what happens to BE.
However, i don't define good and evil this way, otherwise i'd have to commit myself to calling everything either good or evil, which in itself is contradictory being good & evil are defined by contrast with each other.
I use a much more unproblematic definition for good & evil, love & hate, that isn't just "reality itself"
@Wittgensteinism I grant that I have conflated my definition of reality with my definition of good (i.e.: moral good is activity most coherent with reality). It's what I feel to be the most parsimonious definition of good, as it dismisses the whole theory of Divine Command as well as the endless failed attempts to construe a subjective morality as an objective one. I would be interested in hearing your definitions, which you describe as "unproblematic".
@Wittgensteinism ...Yes that is a moral judgement as well an an intellectual one, but I believe that it is justified. If the universe can only exist through harmonious contignency, then it is our moral good to act in harmonious contingency with those around us. Presumably you are in good enough stead to consider rape, torture and George Bush wrong, even though those things are part of "whatever happens"...
@CoryTheRaven "If the universe can only exist through harmonious contignency, then it is our moral good to act in harmonious contingency with those around us."
In what sense do you mean harmonious? For isn't that itself a subject value judgement?
For an objective "harmony" would simply mean "that which is able to exist by abiding by the laws of nature", which would include everything, including rape.
For a subjective definition of "harmony", the universe is far from being harmonious...
@Wittgensteinism It may be subjective, but I don't think it is. My definition of harmonious has to do with ideas of optimum performance, efficiency, and in the human realm, quality of life for the greatest number of people. Suboptimum performance, distorted valuations and so on are possible, but as I said, they are accidents. I think what seems to be happening here is that you're contrasting a quantitative "it's possible" vs. my qualitative "possible but not optimal".
@Wittgensteinism ...As for why love and not evil, that goes back to what I am defining as Love: this contingency, this union, the capacity for Beingness, etc. If drawing together, being in healthy relationship, etc. is "good", then the opposite is "evil" and a universe formed on evil would not be able to exist. It would rip itself apart as everything reacts disharmoniously to everything else. Nuclear bonds would not be able to form, gravity wouldn't work, and so on.
@CoryTheRaven You're just digging your own hole even deeper.
1st, you cannot simply define into existence the very thing we're seeking to establish, namely that love is the ground of being and not evil. The question is WHY you define love to be the ground of being, not IF you do.
2nd, the universe will eventually rip itself apart according to modern cosmology, and stars and planets are only stable temporarily, which too will end in disarray
3rd, without nuclear bonds rape wouldn't be possible
@Wittgensteinism 1) I thought that's what I was telling you. The thing is, this conclusion of mine is deductive. I looked at the world around me and interpretations of it, finding the one that best fit. God is Love is it.
2) According to modern cosmology now, and even then it's still in debate. But at this point we're starting to get into issues of apocalypticism: will there be a universal death, and if so, what if anything comes after it?
Observations that contributed to my views include having studied science at an undergrad level, and in particular the incredible coherence and contingency of the natural world, and the maximized happiness of humans as fully integrated and socialized creatures (I saw that's an observation because, y'know, nerd), and the prevailing theme of unity throughout high level mystical literature, in particular that deriving from the Judeo-Christian tradition
@Wittgensteinism I also have deeply personal reasons for believing this, which fall under experience rather than observation, so I'll let that go.
I would consider myself a Christian, specifically a Lutheran, but I'm not sure that YOU would consider me a Christian, so I'll suffice it to say that I simply believe what I believe however it may or may not cohere with specific orthodoxies and orthopraxies.
@CoryTheRaven "Well, John's epistles repeated state "God is Love", so I guess by your definition, either you are not an atheist or the Bible is an atheist book."
Sure, in that sense of the word God i'm not an atheist.
However, equally true, is that in my sense of the word, the colloquial use of the word God (the meaningful use which doesn't just switch the traditional definition of God to some other word with a well established definition of it's own), you're not a theist.
@Wittgensteinism Colloquial usage of the term "God" is not the same as the specific definitions of God utilized by different theistic religions and different theological schools therein. "God is Love" for instance, is directly out of the Christian Bible. As it stands, you're chatting with me right now, not the populum who may or may not be assuming any particular definition of God.
@Wittgensteinism ...Other people use terms like "Ground of All Being" and "Ultimate Reality", but I find that too-easily dispenses with a qualitative assessment of God's identity. I think those terms are summarized in the aphorism "God is Love" while being imbued with the quality of who God is. Everything else about God - Her omni-characteristics, how exactly She engages this unvierse, etc. - are simply attributes deriving from Her identity as Love.
@CoryTheRaven If you're simply defining God as existence itself aka "Being" then i'm not an atheist in that sense either since i obviously believe in existence
Here's your dilemma. Either God is defined Anthropomorphically or not. If "she" is (which is the only justifiable way for giving God personal attributes i.e. gender, a will, etc.) then you have the problem of explaining why you believe such a anthropic being exists. If not, there's no real practical reason for calling that definition God
@Wittgensteinism Like I said, I'm comfortable with you not actually being an atheist.
I don't believe that it is an either-or on the issue of existence and reality and beingness being contingent on an entity that can be described in personal terms because that is OUR frame of reference for a sentience. To me it's more of a language barrier than a logical conundrum.
@CoryTheRaven "Like I said, I'm comfortable with you not actually being an atheist."
And i'm comfortable with you not actually being a theist in any meaningful sense of the word.
As for the issue of defining God as being a language barrier, great! That means that to even speak about an inconceivable God is nonsense in it's purest form---pure meaninglessness.
For to even call God inconceivable is to attempt to conceive of "her" as inconceivable.
@Wittgensteinism If you want to say I'm not a meaningful theist, go for it. You might then have to derive a class of "theist-like" person for me who believes that a personal entity is the foundation of reality.
I never said that God is inconceiveable. I have no problem conceiving of a sentience that is unlike anything existing in this universe. I've been going on and on about it. The problem of inconceivability may be yours, which may be more of a linguistic issue.
@CoryTheRaven " me who believes that a personal entity is the foundation of reality"
Wait a minute. When did God suddenly become a person for you again?? I thought God = Love. And i thought that Love = fabric of reality. Where in all this do you get "personal from"? You specifically said your God doesn't have genitals. So in what meaningful sense of the word can you now refer to God as 'personal'?
And yes, you absolutely admit God is inconceivable by saying it's beyond space & time
@Wittgensteinism God never stoped being a sentient entity for me. I've stressed that several times, and specifically stated that I think the idea that God is both an entity and a force is coherent. If you wanted some kind of logical pathway to it, I suppose I could argue that the type of relationship called Love moves beyond simple coherent natural law into something that could be called Love when it involves intentional, sentient beings...
@Wittgensteinism ...Therefore saying that God is Love is implicitly a statement that God is a being of sentience and intention. Of course I did say that God went beyond being to being Being itself, but that also implies that God includes and transcends what we would consider being. Ergo, in order to be Being She must be capable of being.
As for making "beyond space and time" = "inconveivable", I think that is more your conceptual problem than mine.
@Wittgensteinism I'm amazed that you have yet to clue into the fact that stuff like this is exactly what apologists and theologians do, and what I specifically have been doing with you. The only problem is that when we use sentences that do describe this entity we call "God" - both directly and metaphorically - you complain that since it is outside of space and time it is therefore beyond your personal conception and set of defintions and therefore cannot possibly exist.
@CoryTheRaven "you complain that since it is outside of space & time it is therefore beyond your personal conception and set of defintions and therefore cannot possibly exist."
Actually, my claim is much worse than that. If it's beyond conception and any set of definitions, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist nor does exist. What is means is that it's nonsense to say anything at all about it, let alone whether it exists or not. If you cannot use meaningful words to describe it, it's meaningless
@CoryTheRaven And you're right. It is a linguistic issue, which means it's a logical issue.
What we cannot think, we cannot say.
The limits of our language mean the limits of our world.
You cannot speak about the existence of things unlike anything in the universe without literally speaking nonsense. And by "nonsense" i mean specifically you're speaking about things with no possible connection to our senses, our perceptions, of the world. Any such description would be perfectly meaningless
However it does not compute that not being able to say it means that we are not able to think it. That is whole key of ineffability: that which is not capable of being expressed. The thing with ineffability is that it is a surprisingly mundane experience. The ineffable happens all the time, and in its truest sense may be one of the pities of the human condition...
@CoryTheRaven "However it does not compute that not being able to say it means that we are not able to think it"
You sure about that? How else do you think except through words?
If you cannot say something (in principle, not merely in practice e.g. where you have a physical disability that prevents you from saying something) then you cannot think it either. The reason for this is because both use the same system---language. It's language itself that is meaningless without a Sense*; experience.
No, to be fair, I guess that's really a question of whether or not you're actually capable of having experiences that overwhelm the capacity for adequate explanation of the experience. I dunno', maybe you are the sort of person that would have to itemize a list of why you like your partner.
@CoryTheRaven "that's really a question of whether or not you're actually capable of having experiences that overwhelm the capacity for adequate explanation of the experience"
Either that, or someone is personallly incapable of expressing the experience. That's why i made the distinction between personal capacity/handicap to express complex thoughts (in practice), and ineffability in principle--things that cannot even be thought.
It's one thing to experience it and another to think about it
@Wittgensteinism ...There is no reason at all to think that the experience or an idea or a viewpoint is nonexistent because it cannot be expressed in the language or vocabulary available to a certain person at a certain time.
As for the lack of connection to sense, etc., that sounds more like you're reverting to the debate between ratinality and empiricism: is it possible to know things that do not derive their evidence from physical sense experience?
@CoryTh..."There is no reason at all to think that the experience or an idea or a viewpoint is nonexistent because it cannot be expressed in the language"
Technically ur right! No reason at all to think an idea or viewpoint is nonexistent because it cannot be expressed, but also no reason at all to think it does exist either. In fact, if it's inexpressible, then it it's literally meaningless to attempt to say anything about it. If we cannot talk about it, we're forced to remain silent on it
@Wittgensteinism We can and do talk about it. It's just that whenever we do, you start saying that we're doin' it wrong. For example, I have been describing a sentient entity outside of space and time all along but apparently that doesn't count because "outside of space and time" does not qualify as a description of an entity that is outside of space and time. I dunno', would you like me to get into abstract notions of "a state of perpetual nowness"?
@CoryTheRaven We can try*, but it doesn't mean we are. And it's not that we're "doing it wrong" for that assumes that there is a RIGHT way to speak nonsense.
E.g. "I have been describing a sentient entity outside of space and time"
This is pure nonsense. You nor i have ever experienced anything spaceless or timeless, so to use such words could have no association with anything that makes sense to us. If i asked you to define sentient entity, you'd have to use space and time in your description
@Wittgensteinism "You nor i have ever experienced anything spaceless or timeless,"
And that is exactly where simple non-belief turns into a dogma. Instead of just saying that you have not experiened anything spaceless or timeless, you have to assert that because you have not, neither has anyone else. That is an utterly indeffensible point of view, because you're not in anyone else's head.
Also noteworthy in this debate w/ WLC is he admitted that even if Wolpert disproved his (WLC's) talking points, he would still be a believer! So there you have it- WLC doesn't care about facts or evidence. 1 of the primary reasons WLC gave for belief in god was his own personal experience! So anyone who has a personal experience with the god of their religion proves that their god is true (according to WLC's argument). WLC is a slick debater & great at verbal slight of hand. I'll give him that
utubepunk 5 days ago
Clean and easy thanks, for further exposing this retard craig.
buktomsin 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism in response to my earlier comment, I was implying that you are actively misrepresenting and misunderstanding Craig's argument. Thats what happens when you cut the video off at 5 mins. Gotcha clips are not logical rebuttals.
Squatch347 2 weeks ago
What does he mean by "personal"? How did he arrive at these conclusions?
r3ggi3000 2 weeks ago
@r3ggi3000 "What does he mean by "personal? How did he arrive at these conclusions?"
Good questions. Craig uses "deductive" arguments, which means doesn't "arrive" at any conclusions at all. Rather, he starts with his conclusion e.g. God exists, and deduces premises that necessarily follow from that, using very stipulative definitions to give the specific meanings he needs to support his predetermined conclusion. By "personal" he means whatever it needs to coicide with his definition of "God".
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
non-existence is black? that's racist.
eleutheromaniac 1 month ago 2
@eleutheromaniac haha! That's great
Wittgensteinism 1 month ago
@Wittgensteinism
I watched the whole thing and not just the video that you provided but the whole thing.
Craig was just pointing out the flaw in the other guy's analogy of GOD and the computer.
kidasterorig111 3 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 "I watched the whole thing and not just the video that you provided but the whole thing"
Good job, but i provided all the relevant content in the clip.
"Craig was just pointing out the flaw in the other guy's analogy of GOD and the computer."
Which is???? Craig pointed out why Wolpert's computer fails, and then says his computer is equivalent to God, so by syllogism, Craig shows why God fails, for all the same reasons that Craig lists.
Craig says the analogy is VALID
Wittgensteinism 3 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 You have to keep in mind that what Craig is defending here in particular is a PERSONAL God; a God that "must be a personal being" to use his very words. The point of Wolpert's computer (even though he apparently forgot it) was to demonstrate that this "timeless, spaceless, immaterial" cause, by Craig's logic, could equally be a computer instead of a person.
Craig counters with "Computers have design, require time and are physical". But exactly the same can be said about persons
Wittgensteinism 3 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
Craig does have a personal GOD but remember he is also defending the christian faith. His GOD is the christian GOD or he wouldn't be called a christian defender and he certainly wouldn't defend christianity if he had his own GOD.
No, a self making pc would still need a designer, someone to think about how it would be able to assemble itself before allowing it to assemble itself.
kidasterorig111 3 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 "Craig does have a personal GOD but remember he is also defending the christian faith."
Yyyyyeeeaa, ya know, i know that's what he SAYS n' all, but i'm not actually buying it. The God Craig argues for e.g. with Kalam argument, is not really the Christian God. Hate to break it to you, but the Biblical God is most certainly physical and temporal. Especially the Hebrew God. God wrote the Ten Commandments with his finger! Metaphysical, YES; but non-physical? Certainly not.......
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 .....and God supposedly created the earth, and then all the life therein. That certainly sounds like a God functioning with time. Is the Biblcal God non-temporal, or METAtemporal. This is where Craig gets it all wrong, and quite ironically i must add.
The ONLY way Craig is able to get away with these "deductive arguments" for the existence of God, is by reducing God to a definition of what he IS NOT, which just so happens to include every aspect of existence we can conceive of.
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
GOD, as you said functions with time. So I should just probably trust you on that.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 "GOD, as you said functions with time. So I should just probably trust you on that."
Good. That means God couldn't have created the universe because the universe (according to Craig) came into being WITH time, and if God is within time, then God couldn't have existed until the universe existed.
Either way you're fucked, because if God DOESN'T exist in time, then he couldn't have created the universe because it exists in time and any act of creating it would also require time
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
I'm not really knowledgeable about time.
Although here's my take on this.
The universe exists in time I can agree, but GOD made the universe and everything else. GOD acts outside of time.
I did a horrible job didn't I, i'm not really knowledgeable on time.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 "i'm not really knowledgeable on time."
Of course you are; everyone is. You're just making things more difficult than they have to be. Just think about the question "Was there a time before time?"
It's a paradox. Anything "before time" would be a moment in time. The truth is, we have no way whatsoever of imagining anything "outside of time".
That's why we ultimately need the concept of eternity. It's nonsense to say "time began".
Time necessarily exists "for all time".
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
Yes, there is a time before time but they really don't have part of the second, minute thing if you know what I mean.
You are just pointing to the "before time" era. For example the "before nothingness"( I know horrible analogy but what else can I say).
Time started at one point and trying to point to the part of history which didn't have time with it won't make that part a part of time, do you understand my explanation?
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
OOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
O-Before time
P-During time
Now when I try talk about "before time" would that mean that the P would just engulf all the O? I don't think so.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 Once again i'll just repeat myself, because there's only so many ways to say the same thing with different words.
"Before time" is nonsense.So your entire analogy, and everything you've said about "before time", is literally meaningless. As far as i can tell, you've done nothing more than to call some arbitrary point in time "the beginning", even though you include many events (represented by the multiple O's) before this "beginning", thereby defeating any notion of a beginning
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 To clear this whole matter up, why don't we define our terms.
What are you defining "Time" to be?
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
Time is the second, minutes and all that stuff. If you want to personally add something then feel free, I guess.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 "Time is the second, minutes and all that stuff".
**SIGH**
Okay, and what is a "second" and a "minute"? How do we measure what 'minute' or a 'second' IS??
....You really have no working definition of time at all do you?
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
Nah, I can't just say it very well.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
Also I just did many O so its easy to point at.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 I don't know why you keep prefacing every single comment you make with "LOL".
Are you laughing at how ridiculous you sound??
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
:D
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
@kidasterorig111 ....In other words, Craig has to define God as essentially non-existent in order to make a valid argument for THAT God to exist.
Well, unfortunately, this nebulous, virtually nonsensical definition of God as a "timeless, spaceless, immaterial" being, IF it can be applied to things like "beings" and "persons" then it can equally be applied to ANYTHING i.e. computers, jump ropes, Higgs bosons, etc.
There's absolutely no reason to call this definition of "God" a "Personal Being".
Wittgensteinism 2 weeks ago
@Wittgensteinism LOL
No, GOD made us and designed matter and how it works. Would the creator be the design? Very unlikely.
kidasterorig111 2 weeks ago
Bill Gates I fucking knew it
inconsp1cuous1515 1 month ago
Comment removed
inconsp1cuous1515 2 months ago
LOL Craig totally destroyed this guy, i wish more people would upload this vid, then we might not have any Atheists left, you really have helped Christianity this day. XD
Intellectual4God 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God Your comment perfectly demonstrates how hopelessly ignorant Christians like you truly are. If you don't see why Craig refuted his own arguments in this video then nothing can help you see the light.
May God have mercy on your soul.
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Wittgensteinism And your video perfectly demonstrates how hopelessly ignorant Atheists like you are. All your doing is attacking straw men, rather than Craig's actual position, you seem like your making a point but in reality your not. For example your point in reference to humans "beings are also designed by genes" Yes we are designed which would merely prove we cannot be the creator, God doesnt have parents therefore is not designed by genes, you pointed out a point that is in fact pointless
Intellectual4God 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God In case you didn't notice, Craig is the only one making arguments in this video, so if anyone is "attacking strawmen" its Craig---an odd claim since they would be his own arguments.
As for genes, they demonstrate that every being we know is designed by genetic reproduction. If God doesn't have a designer i.e. genes like humans, then it's meaningless to call God a "being". THAT'S the point. It's nonsense to define God as being "Personal" if he lacks the attributes of persons
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God Perhaps you're confused on the issue at stake here.
The issue is the attributes of God. Craig wants to call God personal yet deny this "Personal God" every attribute that persons have i.e. spatial, temporal, material existence.
You take away those qualities and God becomes just another word like "computer".
Such is the case with design. Craig says God can't be a computer because computers are designed, but so are personal beings, so it follows God can't be Personal either
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Personal as opposed to natural merely means a living entity or mind with the will and thought to make decisions, God is a disembodied mind.
A being is merely something that exists as opposed to not existing it doesnt need to have spatial/temporal qualities to be a being.
Lets not forget the first cause HAS to be personal so yes God is personal, its the only way a non temporal cause could give rise to a temporal effect such as the Universe
Intellectual4God 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God "God is a disembodied mind"
Do you have any examples that you give of a "disembodied mind", besides God of course (since that's what you're attempting to establish)?
If not, then that phrase is literally meaningless.
Likewise with spatial/temporal qualities---unless you can give me an instance of anything non-spatial and non-temporal, these are literally senseless qualities.
Existence as we understand it requires space and time, to posit otherwise is to posit pure nonsense.
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Oh reeeeaaaallly now then? :)
So if you assume nothing transcendent of nature as we know it can exist then pray tell what created the Universe? How about you give ME an example of something non spatial/temporal/material/personal/uncaused other than God that could have created the Universe?
I'm not saying it has to be God, only that some being transcending nature as we know it containing these qualities could create the Universe.
Before Universe: NO time/space/matter
Intellectual4God 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God Again you misunderstand me. I didnt claim that "nothing transcendent of nature as we know it can exist", i said that to even SPEAK about non-spatial/temporal existence is pure nonsense. It's equally nonsensical to say timeless things exist as it does to say they don't because such words as "timelessness" and "spacelessness" are entirely meaningless as attribtues of existence
Thus, i can't give examples either since existence as we know it necessarily requires space and time
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God "Before Universe: NO time/space/matter"
This comment perfectly illustrates the point that i am making. It amounts to saying "Before time", which if you cannot tell, is self-contradictory.
If there was "no time" BEFORE* the universe, then you're saying there was a time BEFORE time. Time is logically eternal, since to posit a point in time when time didn't exist is blatent contradiction, which is what you've done.
You simultaneously posit and negate time to argue for your God
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Actually time being time and all we can posit the first moment of time especially since we know the Universe began a finite time ago, hard to believe anything can be eternal into the past within time, but i dont think time existing before the Universe would be plausible for God....then infinite regress would become a fairly large issue but that would also apply to other things.....so unless we accept there is a first uncaused cause you must accept infinite regress as logical...
Intellectual4God 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God Your comments are becoming less coherent and thus harder to respond sensibly to, but let me give it a shot.
"we know the Universe began a finite time ago"
Actually we DON'T know that. If you're talking about the Big Bang, you've been misinformed. The Standard Model of cosmology says nothing about what, if anything, came before the initial expansion. The BB, like evolution, only explains what happened to space, time, and energy once it was already here, not where it came from
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God "hard to believe anything can be eternal into the past within time"
I think adding the "within time" is a bit superfluous, since eternality already implies 'within time'---it is a temporal word.
But why is it hard to believe? Because you don't like what it means for your God?
"i dont think time existing before the Universe would be plausible for God"
Another equally baseless, and quite meaningless sentence. What exactly are you defining "the universe" as?
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Wittgensteinism 3 things. Actual infinites lead to absurdities such as infinity - 3 = infinity, many self contradictions would lead us to believe actual infinite quantities of anything are impossible including past events
Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem implies any Universe in a state of expansion had a beginning (look into that)
By 2nd law of thermodynamics and being doomed to universal fate of heat death, if Universe was eternal that means it already had infinite time for this to happen
Intellectual4God 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God 1st, what are the calculations you think justifies the claim that "infinity - 3 = infinity"? What meanings of the word "infinity" leads you to believe it is even something which can be subtracted from?
2nd, as for the Borde Guth Vilenkin theorem, once again you've been misinformed, and i think i could guess by whom. coughcraigcough. The GBV actually only refers to a beginning of inflation, not a beginning of the universe itself--only its expansion.
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God (continued...) Furthermore, the BGV has no supportive evidence in its favor. It's just one among many cosmogonical theories that are purely speculative in terms of observable data. So it's not the Standard model, which is the only real criteria we ought to be judging our arguments against since it's the only one with overwhelming supportive evidence. Cherry picking one cosmogony theory (which is equal to all the rest) to support your God is not intellectually honest
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God Seeing as how Witt took care of those first two, I'll explain why your third contention is false as well. The second law pertains to a heightened sense of disorganization in a closed system as time goes on. However, what you fail to take into consideration is the expansion and eventual implosion of the universe itself. As the universe expands, the entropy within is given a larger space, and once it collapses, entropy will be infinite and within that singularity again...
Con't
LucasI3434 2 months ago
@Intellectual4God So basically, since the universe is constantly expanding and shrinking in a neverending cycle (as far as logic and science is concerned), there is an ever shifting amount of space the entropy of the universe can occupy, meaning that the infinite time of the universe's existence does not indicate that the universe would "die". It's actually quite the opposite. This cycle of entropy ensures the existence (or the matter and energy) of the universe and its CONTINUED existence.
LucasI3434 2 months ago
@Wittgensteinism The self contradiction in terms was the self causing not the functionality of the computer. You pressuppose there is nothing outside space and time which now you would have to explain where space and time come from. Wolperts computer wasn't a computer because he robbed it of its necessary qualities. I thought this was going to be a good vid...
rizzumz 2 months ago
@rizzumz "Wolperts computer wasn't a computer because he robbed it of its necessary qualities"
And God isn't a "personal being" because he robbed it of its necessary qualities.
The same necessary qualities that Craig says about computers also apply to personal beings. I thought you would've got that point.
"The self contradiction in terms was the self causing not the functionality"
No, Craig said the contradiction was that computers need time to function (again, so do 'beings"). Play it back
Wittgensteinism 2 months ago
Very true... but once again.. Craig's showmanship glosses over it all.
Roper122 2 months ago
He really disproved God lmao
Metal1998 3 months ago
Comment removed
Metal1998 3 months ago
This video is a spot of brilliance showing how those that think like craig can perform double think
TheAlphaPyro 3 months ago
OP, you aren't clever, you aren't original, you aren't even informative. Possibly before you embarrass yourself again in the future, you will research the arguments of the person you attempt to mock.
arglebargle42 3 months ago
@arglebargle42 Lol. Funny. Was that meant to be ironic, seeing as how that exact same accusation could easily be made about your comment?
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
The author of the video clearly misunderstands the term "design" when he argues that any effect is designed by its cause.
Squatch347 3 months ago
@Squatch347 1st of all, i didn't argue that "any effect is designed by its cause", and 2nd of all, i'm not making an argument at all; Dr. Craig is.
If you had payed attention to the video you'd realize the only one making arguments in the clips addressed is Craig.
So, insofar as you accuse me of "misunderstanding the term 'design'," you're actually accusing Craig.
Furthermore, would you care to be specific about how the term 'design' is being misused?
Without that, your comment is pretty empty
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
Good breakdown uploader. Seems sound to me.
Tribefull 3 months ago
Your critique of Craig's argument shows a superficial understanding of the matter discussed. you dishonour the name of Wittgenstein
Liodegrance 4 months ago
@Liodegrance That's funny, because i simply pointed out the fact that Craig critiqued his own argument by rebutting Wolpert's analogous argument.
If you like, Wolpert simply repeated Craig's arguments to posit God as a non-personal cause, and Craig only rebutted the premises in Wolpert's argument that were used by Craig himself in his own arguments.
Thus, Craig disproved his own arguments by knocking down Wolpert's argument, since as Craig admits, Wolpert's argument was for God
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Liodegrance Any "misunderstanding" you accuse me of, should actually be directed towards Craig, because i'm deriving a conclusion that Craig himself states, namely, that Wolpert's computer is a contradiction in terms and yet also equal to God.
E.g. the charge against "timelessness" as equalling "non-functioning" equally applies to a computer as much as it does a 'person', or anything else for that matter because "function" is a temporal word.
If you're upset about that logic, blame Craig
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism "Accuse" is too strong a word: "there is no wrong deed where there is no wrong intention"
...and why would i be upset? It is Wittgenstein's name and memory youshow contempt for. You are clearly not a philospher and yet you adopt the name of a philosopher and choose to slander philosophers.
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@Liodegrance Lol. Your comments display nothing but the utmost ignorance when speaking about "Wittgenstein's name" or philosophy in general.
You made a claim about my understanding or lack thereof regarding the "matter discussed", and so far have offered up no justification for it, even in the face of my apology for the video. You have an actual Reason why it's superficial or misguided? Or can all you say is "derr, you dishonor Wittgenstein"?
And it's not superficial to be concise for YouTubers
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Wittgensteinism: Listen to the sentence: the actual words in it: "A *computer* has to function, it takes time." Then Mr. Wolpert ascribes to this computer a number of attributes traditionally associated with God: effectively he has shifted the argument from "Does God exist?" to "What is God like?" That you hadn't spotted this is why i infer you are not trained in philosophy.
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@Liodegrance Listen to the actual words in THIS sentence: Functionality is a temporal word, so for *anything* to function, it takes time (including a God).
As for "shifting the argument to defining God", that would only be true insofar as you believe God can be defined as an impersonal object or force. If so, then i guess the word God is truly without any solid meaning and can be used for literally ANYTHING, in which case Craig still disproves God. If not, then what Wolpert posits ISN'T God.
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Wittgensteinism
(1) Who sais functionality is a temporal word? surely that depends on the function. In a temporal universe function is going to be temporal
(2) Yes, i suppose the word *God* could mean literally any trans-temporal self-existant first cause, but in order to discuss what God is like all you need is a language: whether an impersonal principle might fall into the scope of discussion (as it does with Velleius's discourse in Cicero's De Natura Deorum) would be part of the debate
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@Liodegrance 1) I say funtionality is a temporal word, and i'll demonstrate that by simply challenging you to use the word in a sense which is non-temporal---meaningfully that is. Or better yet, give me an example of something that functions without time.
2) I like how you qualify God as a trans*-temporal cause, rather than a non-temporal cause. There is a very big difference here. Transcendence implies a higher* form of time, not the absence of it.
WLC advocates for the non-temporal version
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Wittgensteinism 1)Here is a non-temporal function: f(x)=2x
2)I wasn't qualifying [the word] God, i was highlighting the flaw in your rhetoric: my point is that to discuss a matter does not require any sort of belief in the matter
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@Liodegrance f(x)=2x is not a function, sorry (maybe you're being facetious or purposefully dense?)
What you gave was an equation, a tautology, and if it can be said to have a function at all it would be to communicate its meaning to the mind of the reader...which needless to say, all happens within time; a process that can only occur in the presence of one moment followed by a progressive series of moments.
And yes, you certainly DID qualify God to evade the consequences of being WITHOUT time
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Liodegrance Futhermore, your equation (even it it WERE a non-temporal function, which it's not) does not satisfy my challenge at all. The challenge was to Use The Word "Function" in a non-temporal sense, and to do so meaningfully. As far as your equation goes, it's literally without meaning unless you define your variables.
Unless you'd like to have another go at it, i think we can safely say you've failed miserably.
But that how we learn is it not? Keep trying!
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Wittgensteinism It's a simple mapping function: it maps each number in one set to one in another. Mathematical functions are so called because they function: as they operate on abstract concepts they do not operate in time. If nothing can function without time then nothing can begin to function and the universe itself does not exist.
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@Liodegrance You are fundamentally confused about the grammar of such words as "function" and "time" and now "operation".
Of course mathematical functions are called functions because they function---i never disagreed with that (nor could i). The issue is what the word functions MEANS; how it's USED.
2nd, your claim that "nothing can begin to function and therefore the universe doesn't exist" assumes that there was a time before time (a self-contradiction). Time is necessarily eternal
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Liodegrance Furthermore, i would also take issue with you calling mathematical operations as operating on "abstract concepts". 1st, even if they do operate on abstract concepts, this in no way leads to the conclusion that therefore they do not operate in time (abstract concepts operate in time as does everything). And 2nd, a mapping function is far from being abstract; it is one of the most concrete concepts that exists.
I'm tired of people saying math is abstract. Nothing could be less true!
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I'm not confused: this is an ontological point that you are trying to turn into a semantic argument. As for concrete concepts, could you explain how that works? Concrete is concrete: the concept of concrete is abstract.
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@Liodegrance 1st, the distinction between "ontological" and "semantic" (kudos to Craig on that) is a false distinction, since by defining a word we also determine its ontology. When we define a word we determine what that word means; what it IS i.e. what is the nature of its Being. So we're both talking ontologically and semantically.
2nd, concrete and abstract are diametrically opposed, so if "concrete is concrete" and "concrete is abstract" then you've said a contradiction. Congrats on that!
Wittgensteinism 3 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Your confusion seems to be a failure to distinguish between words and the things they signify: it is not the ontology of the word "universe" that is under discussion, but of the universe itself. Likewise it is the "concept" of concrete that is abstract. I can see how this would be a little difficult to understand, but perhaps this will help: when you read the word "concrete" you think of a white rocky substance used in construction. (cont.)
Liodegrance 3 months ago
@wittgensteinism ...you don't need the material to be present, nor do you need a different name for every separate example of concrete: the 1 word stands for the substance. This is the sort of thing that we meen when we talk about concepts. Do you follow me so far?
Liodegrance 3 months ago
How can anyone speak of knowledge of beings beyond our realm if they haven't been observed,tested, or by any other means?
Requiemxtoxinnocence 4 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence
"How can anyone speak of knowledge of beings beyond our realm if they haven't been observed,tested, or by any other means?"
Given how many people do, they certainly can TALK about them.
uvauva2 4 months ago
@Requiemxtoxinnocence It's the "by any other means" that is in dispute.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven True, I know we must use other knowledge to gain understanding of the world around us philosophy, science, mathematics, history. But I think philosophy is somewhat biased today with a majority being theists, that and a lot of our understandings of the universe and other concepts are an incomplete puzzle.
Requiemxtoxinnocence 4 months ago
I think where your reading of WLC fails is that you are only selectively quoting from it, thus missing key points.
First, WLC is deriving the existence of a cause for the universe from its logical necessity. The universe had a beginning and therefore must have had a cause. The only fundamental way to disprove WLC's argument is to disprove that the universe has a cause, and so far WLC has not done that...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven ...He then derives from the condition of the universe what characteristics this cause must have. WLC argues that this cause must be necessary (i.e.: uncaused) because a cause that is contingent just creates irresolvable infinite regress, that it must be spaceless and timeless because space and time are conditions of the universe, and that it must be personal because it is capable of innovative acts like creating a universe whereas it did not before...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven ...Now you argue that such an entity could not exist because you cannot conceive of a being that functions outside of the conditions of the universe: all known beings are contingent and operate through space and time. This is where your argument falls apart. WLC is deducing an original class of being that must not be contingent and must not operate through space and time. Why? Because such a being is required of a cause and a cause must exist...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven ...Admittedly we have no physical evidence of such a being, but we also CANNOT have physical evidence of it by its very nature, so that is a non-objection. Such an entity whose existence has been deduced by logic must in turn be disproven by logic. At some stage in the chain of reason you must demonstrate that either the universe does not need a cause or that the cause is not required to have the characteristics WLC has ascribed to it. WLC has not done this task for you here...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven ...What he did do is call out Wolpert's bullshitting. All Wolpert tried to do is object to WLC's convinction in the Judeo-Christian God by ascribing to his Amazing Computer all the characteristics of that God. First WLC tried to say that a computer does not fit the description of God, and when Wolpert persisted, he just came right out and said that Wolpert is just using a different term for God...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven ...Now you seem to be saying that "being" does not fit the description of God either, but that doesn't logically disprove how WLC defined God. He has defined God as a necessary (non-contingent), personal, spaceless, timeless entity that caused the universe. You can call it whatever you like, a being, a computer, a god, whatever. But does this entity exist? You would have to demonstrate otherwise through logic that it does not.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "First WLC tried to say that a computer does not fit the description of God and when Wolpert persisted he just came right out and said that Wolpert is just using a different term for God"
So does the description fit or not?
You just dug urself a hole. If the description fits, then everything Craig said about how the "timeless computer can't function, etc." is equivalent to saying God can't function etc.
If the description doesn't fit, then he's not "just using a different term"
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism One of the two of us is failing to understand the other's argument, and I'm not sure which. WLC outlined his requirements for a cause of the universe: an uncaused, noncontingent, personal entity that is outside of space and time. This he calls "God". Wolpert was trying to be a funny guy by replacing the word "God" with the word "computer". Haw haw...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...WLC pointed out that this is silly because either A) a computer does not match the description of the cause of the universe that logic requires, or B) if you say that this computer does match the description of the cause of the universe that logic requires, then this computer IS God. The two are identical. Far from WLC disproving God, he caught Wolpert arguing hypothetically FOR the existence of God by any other name.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven You failed to answer my straightforward question.
And i send you a PM since obviously an adequate reply is going to take more than 500 characters...
If you're going to respond further, i'd prefer it be in the PM for efficiency's sake..
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I failed to understand your "straightforward" question, which is something I advised in my reply. I think what you're trying to get at is an equivalence between the ordinary functioning of a computer and the ordinary functioning of a being as we know it. However WLC isn't proposing the existence of a being as we know it. If Wolpert is not proposing the existence of a computer as we know it, then really what happening is that he's saying the computer IS God.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I should also mention that I don't debate in PM. Anything I need to say can be said publically and anything someone else has to say to me should be said publically.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven I prefer that as well so as to make the humiliation public, but for the sake of efficiency and clarity between issues, a PM is obviously better.
If you don't actually care about whether your claims have validity or not, then go ahead and ignore the full on rebuttal i've already posted to your inbox. Unfortunately due to the inanity of your comments, brevity isn't on my side, so that's why a PM is obviously better for handling larger amounts of information needed to resolve this..
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism My sympathies on your case of Atheist Tourette's. I mean, it's endearing that you're apparently incapable of carrying on a discussion with people whose views differe from your own without a clinical, compulsive need to insult them too, but it's also a little tiresome and silly. If you have a grown-up point to make, then make it without informing me that I will get humiliated (Really? What is this, WWE?) or that I'm a stupid poohead.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven What's childish is your excuse for not being able to read 6 paragraphs when you've been trolling my page with comments on the logic of my video.
If you don't have time to read my respond that hasn't been reduced to 500 characters, then you're wasting my time, because had you just read the PM, you'd realize how much of this discussion has already been addressed.
I care about efficiency because i don't have infinite amounts of time to search for every comment of your's and respond
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I understand your frustration. 500 characters forces you to make a choice between making a rational argument and issuing a string of petty insults. I imagine that must be a very difficult choice for you to have to make. If you did care about efficiency I would recommend just dropping the inults, but I'm guessing that they are utterly intrinsic and necessary to your worldview and sense of identity.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven
"If you did care about efficiency I would recommend just dropping the inults"
Hey, funny guy. WE CAN READ. Wittgensteinism made clear his frustration at you results from your non reading of his private message. Don't try to save face when you have no grounds, you dishonest sophist.
And the most amusing part is the way you go into full 500 character posts of nothing but winning and insult to isolated words questioning your competence.
uvauva2 4 months ago
@uvauva2
there's a "respond to" missing from the last comment, as should be obvious.
uvauva2 4 months ago
@uvauva2 I know that saving face amongst atheists is a non-starter, given the attitudes that most tend to have towards people with differing opinions. I was just pointing out that he could save a great deal of time and effort by simply chosing not to insult me all the time (unless my inferiority is so intrinsic to his argument that he should only do that). I personally don't have any worry about efficiency, so I'm fine responding to things with as much care as they require.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven
"(unless my inferiority is so intrinsic to his argument that he should only do that)"
The inferiority I know not about, but from the few comments I have read the dishonesty certainly seems to be. As exemplified by this:
"I personally don't have any worry about efficiency, so I'm fine responding to things with as much care as they require."
If you had indeed no such concern, you would read the damn private message to start with, instead of making excuses.
uvauva2 4 months ago
@uvauva2 I thought I made it clear that my issue was with the unaccountable privacy of the message, not the time constraints. I don't debate people in PM. I never have, I never will.
In a public discussion, both parties are accountable to what they say and both are speaking to who actually matters, being everyone listening in. Besides, why would I want to deprive you of a perfectly good opportunity to call a theist some names? You people totally get off on that shit.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven
"Besides, why would I want to deprive you of a perfectly good opportunity to call a theist some names? You people totally get off on that shit."
Because we're not all the same, and not conversations are the same. I've had plenty of "calling people names" conversations myself, and I've add a few serious ones, and those certainly work far better in PM. And quite simply, it is only for the former that this format is adequate. (...)
uvauva2 4 months ago
@uvauva2 No, you're not all the same. But the cliches are common enough to fill a bingo card. You've already got "dishonest" and "sophist" off on me. Next I think you should call me "irrational" and "superstitious". Don't forget to reduce any viewpoint different from your own to "belief in a magically sky-daddy", whether or not it is even a theistic belief. I'm sure that if you even went so far to compare me to Hitler, it would make you feel very good about yourself.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven " But the cliches are common enough to fill a bingo card."
Just because something's cliche, doesn't mean it's inaccurate though.
Are you saying you don't believe in a magical sky daddy?
Then exactly what (if anything) do you define God to be?
Presumably it's somewhat anthropomorphic, and if not, then i would hardly call you a theist.
If you think you have a case for your God, then let's first start with how you're even using the word "God".
What does it mean to you?
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism "Are you saying you don't believe in a magical sky daddy?"
That is correct. I don't believe that God is magical according to the definitions of magic used by people who claim to practice magic, nor that He lives in the Earth's atmosphere, nor that She is a biological male...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven So you don't like a strawman use of the word magic.
How about magic defined as Supernaturalism? Do you believe God is supernatural? I would consider that equivalent to magic e.g. the ability to create things from literally nothing as opposed to conjurer tricks. And "sky" is often used to refer to the space "above us", so do you not consider God to be above us?
And since you seem to be using She as a more accurate description, then do you think God is female? A Magic Sky Mommy?
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism If that's how you want to define "magic", then sure. However I would point out that amongst people who claim to pratice magic (or "majick" or however many extra consonants they add) actually see a much more natural, cause-and-effect relationship in what they do than in what traditional monotheists believe.
I use "He" and "She" interchangably when speaking of the transcendent person of God because it doesn't have genitals.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I forgot about the sky... I don't believe that God is "above" us in any geographic sense. If you mean an abstract sense synonymous with "transcendent" then I suppose, but it's a pretty limited metaphor and not really a good hatstand for a strawman insult (actually, I guess it WOULD be a good straw hatstand since by definition a strawman is a weak and silly slur built on nothing).
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...I believe that God is Love, which is a poetic way of summarizing a personality that transcends being a being to being Beingness itself, the force of union that maintains the fabric of reality, which exists necessarily but is internally contingent (because Love is a relational term, not an emotional term) and patterned the universe it is in the process of creating on itself...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "God is love" is a poetic way of saying you don't actually believe in God (colloquially and traditionally defined). If God = love, then i'm not an atheist since i believe love exists (if that's all God is).
As for "a personality trait that transcends being a being", that self-contradictory, for personality traits are attributes of beings, particularly, beings that are persons, hence the term 'personality". Why not just skip that go directly to "existence itself"?
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Well, John's epistles repeated state "God is Love", so I guess by your definition, either you are not an atheist or the Bible is an atheist book. I'm more comfortable with you not being an atheist though, so let's go with that.
I'm fine with calling God "existence itself" so long as we don't exclude God's qualitative identity or "Godality" (I guess we can call it that... the personality-like traits of God).
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven Furthermore, even if you want to say God = Love, then you're unjustified in calling that the "ground of all being" for love is certainly not the ground of all being.
If it were, love would be omnipresent just as existence itself is omnipresent.
This would mean things like rape, torture, famine, George Bush's tax cuts for the rich, are themselves expressions of love, or grounded in love.
Love is obviously not the operating quality of the universe. If anything, indifference is..
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I think you're confusing Beingness and Existence with accidents of what happens to beings that exist. I'm saying that Love is the fabric of the universe, proasically described as a set of coherent laws working in unison to create a universe in which everything is contingent upon everything else (that is, everything exists in relationship and that relationship is fundamentally harmonious or else it wouldn't sustain itself)...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...rape and torture and George Bush are things that happen, but I don't believe that the fundamental fabric of reality is built on them. But now we're getting into theodicy, and theodicy must be argued in an evolutionary context. What is the PROCESS of creation and how is or isn't God in the PROCESS of creating a universe without evil?
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven You restated my claim about your position backwards. It's not that the fundamental fabric of reality (being 'love') would be built on rape, torture, etc., but rather that rape, torture, etc., are built upon the fundamental fabric of reality (according to your definition of God, love, and reality anyhow).
I'm pointing out the flaw in your claim that love is the fundamental fabric of reality, which is that it would amount to calling these things manifestations of that fabric---love.
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism That would be true if we defined evil as an coherent expression of Reality rather than an accidental distortion or violation of Reality. I opt for the latter definition. For me, "good" is whatever is most coherent with Reality and "evil" is whatever is most incoherent with Reality. So acts of love, charity, compassion, understanding, tolerance, etc. are good while acts of hate, cruelty, rape, violence, etc. are evil.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven If evil is "an accidental distortion or violation of Reality", wouldn't that make evil non-existent?
Anything that doesn't violate the laws that reality abides by i.e. physics, is in accords with the fabric of reality; love, would makes things like rape, murder, George Bush, expressions of love since they are in perfect harmony with what the laws of nature allow (otherwise they wouldn't exist).
Furthermore, why isn't evil the fabric and love the distortion?
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism It seems that you are working from an interpretation of reality as "whatever happens". That is not the definition I am using. I am speaking of what I called that "fundamental fabric of reality", its deepest and most essential structure that forms the nature of what our universe is and allows it to exist. That does not preclude accidental distortions or violations of that fundamental fabric. Variance from optimum performance is possible in any system...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "It seems that you are working from an interpretation of reality as 'whatever happens'."
Yes. I define existence/reality as what IS; what happens to BE.
However, i don't define good and evil this way, otherwise i'd have to commit myself to calling everything either good or evil, which in itself is contradictory being good & evil are defined by contrast with each other.
I use a much more unproblematic definition for good & evil, love & hate, that isn't just "reality itself"
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I grant that I have conflated my definition of reality with my definition of good (i.e.: moral good is activity most coherent with reality). It's what I feel to be the most parsimonious definition of good, as it dismisses the whole theory of Divine Command as well as the endless failed attempts to construe a subjective morality as an objective one. I would be interested in hearing your definitions, which you describe as "unproblematic".
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...Yes that is a moral judgement as well an an intellectual one, but I believe that it is justified. If the universe can only exist through harmonious contignency, then it is our moral good to act in harmonious contingency with those around us. Presumably you are in good enough stead to consider rape, torture and George Bush wrong, even though those things are part of "whatever happens"...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "If the universe can only exist through harmonious contignency, then it is our moral good to act in harmonious contingency with those around us."
In what sense do you mean harmonious? For isn't that itself a subject value judgement?
For an objective "harmony" would simply mean "that which is able to exist by abiding by the laws of nature", which would include everything, including rape.
For a subjective definition of "harmony", the universe is far from being harmonious...
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism It may be subjective, but I don't think it is. My definition of harmonious has to do with ideas of optimum performance, efficiency, and in the human realm, quality of life for the greatest number of people. Suboptimum performance, distorted valuations and so on are possible, but as I said, they are accidents. I think what seems to be happening here is that you're contrasting a quantitative "it's possible" vs. my qualitative "possible but not optimal".
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...As for why love and not evil, that goes back to what I am defining as Love: this contingency, this union, the capacity for Beingness, etc. If drawing together, being in healthy relationship, etc. is "good", then the opposite is "evil" and a universe formed on evil would not be able to exist. It would rip itself apart as everything reacts disharmoniously to everything else. Nuclear bonds would not be able to form, gravity wouldn't work, and so on.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven You're just digging your own hole even deeper.
1st, you cannot simply define into existence the very thing we're seeking to establish, namely that love is the ground of being and not evil. The question is WHY you define love to be the ground of being, not IF you do.
2nd, the universe will eventually rip itself apart according to modern cosmology, and stars and planets are only stable temporarily, which too will end in disarray
3rd, without nuclear bonds rape wouldn't be possible
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism 1) I thought that's what I was telling you. The thing is, this conclusion of mine is deductive. I looked at the world around me and interpretations of it, finding the one that best fit. God is Love is it.
2) According to modern cosmology now, and even then it's still in debate. But at this point we're starting to get into issues of apocalypticism: will there be a universal death, and if so, what if anything comes after it?
3) Nor would the universe. So what?
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven " this conclusion of mine is deductive"
No, actually what you describe is induction, but we'll ignore that for now.
"I looked at the world around me and interpretations of it, finding the one that best fit. God is Love is it"
(the fact that there are ones that fit better than others, displays the inductive aspect)
Yea, i got that. But what exactly were the obversations that caused you to conclude that God = Love = fabric of reality?
Btw, what are you---Christian?
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Perhaps I stand corrected.
Observations that contributed to my views include having studied science at an undergrad level, and in particular the incredible coherence and contingency of the natural world, and the maximized happiness of humans as fully integrated and socialized creatures (I saw that's an observation because, y'know, nerd), and the prevailing theme of unity throughout high level mystical literature, in particular that deriving from the Judeo-Christian tradition
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I also have deeply personal reasons for believing this, which fall under experience rather than observation, so I'll let that go.
I would consider myself a Christian, specifically a Lutheran, but I'm not sure that YOU would consider me a Christian, so I'll suffice it to say that I simply believe what I believe however it may or may not cohere with specific orthodoxies and orthopraxies.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "Well, John's epistles repeated state "God is Love", so I guess by your definition, either you are not an atheist or the Bible is an atheist book."
Sure, in that sense of the word God i'm not an atheist.
However, equally true, is that in my sense of the word, the colloquial use of the word God (the meaningful use which doesn't just switch the traditional definition of God to some other word with a well established definition of it's own), you're not a theist.
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Colloquial usage of the term "God" is not the same as the specific definitions of God utilized by different theistic religions and different theological schools therein. "God is Love" for instance, is directly out of the Christian Bible. As it stands, you're chatting with me right now, not the populum who may or may not be assuming any particular definition of God.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...Other people use terms like "Ground of All Being" and "Ultimate Reality", but I find that too-easily dispenses with a qualitative assessment of God's identity. I think those terms are summarized in the aphorism "God is Love" while being imbued with the quality of who God is. Everything else about God - Her omni-characteristics, how exactly She engages this unvierse, etc. - are simply attributes deriving from Her identity as Love.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven If you're simply defining God as existence itself aka "Being" then i'm not an atheist in that sense either since i obviously believe in existence
Here's your dilemma. Either God is defined Anthropomorphically or not. If "she" is (which is the only justifiable way for giving God personal attributes i.e. gender, a will, etc.) then you have the problem of explaining why you believe such a anthropic being exists. If not, there's no real practical reason for calling that definition God
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism Like I said, I'm comfortable with you not actually being an atheist.
I don't believe that it is an either-or on the issue of existence and reality and beingness being contingent on an entity that can be described in personal terms because that is OUR frame of reference for a sentience. To me it's more of a language barrier than a logical conundrum.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "Like I said, I'm comfortable with you not actually being an atheist."
And i'm comfortable with you not actually being a theist in any meaningful sense of the word.
As for the issue of defining God as being a language barrier, great! That means that to even speak about an inconceivable God is nonsense in it's purest form---pure meaninglessness.
For to even call God inconceivable is to attempt to conceive of "her" as inconceivable.
You cannot even SPEAK about God in that case...
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism If you want to say I'm not a meaningful theist, go for it. You might then have to derive a class of "theist-like" person for me who believes that a personal entity is the foundation of reality.
I never said that God is inconceiveable. I have no problem conceiving of a sentience that is unlike anything existing in this universe. I've been going on and on about it. The problem of inconceivability may be yours, which may be more of a linguistic issue.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven " me who believes that a personal entity is the foundation of reality"
Wait a minute. When did God suddenly become a person for you again?? I thought God = Love. And i thought that Love = fabric of reality. Where in all this do you get "personal from"? You specifically said your God doesn't have genitals. So in what meaningful sense of the word can you now refer to God as 'personal'?
And yes, you absolutely admit God is inconceivable by saying it's beyond space & time
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism God never stoped being a sentient entity for me. I've stressed that several times, and specifically stated that I think the idea that God is both an entity and a force is coherent. If you wanted some kind of logical pathway to it, I suppose I could argue that the type of relationship called Love moves beyond simple coherent natural law into something that could be called Love when it involves intentional, sentient beings...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...Therefore saying that God is Love is implicitly a statement that God is a being of sentience and intention. Of course I did say that God went beyond being to being Being itself, but that also implies that God includes and transcends what we would consider being. Ergo, in order to be Being She must be capable of being.
As for making "beyond space and time" = "inconveivable", I think that is more your conceptual problem than mine.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "beyond space and time = inconveivable, I think that is more your conceptual problem than mine."
Then could you describe in words how you conceive of something beyond space and time---something that doesn't exist in space or within time?
You obviously couldn't give me any example of something timeless and spaceless that i would recognize could you?
For what would such an example even be? And what could the words describing it even mean?
What would we associate it with?
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism I'm amazed that you have yet to clue into the fact that stuff like this is exactly what apologists and theologians do, and what I specifically have been doing with you. The only problem is that when we use sentences that do describe this entity we call "God" - both directly and metaphorically - you complain that since it is outside of space and time it is therefore beyond your personal conception and set of defintions and therefore cannot possibly exist.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "you complain that since it is outside of space & time it is therefore beyond your personal conception and set of defintions and therefore cannot possibly exist."
Actually, my claim is much worse than that. If it's beyond conception and any set of definitions, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist nor does exist. What is means is that it's nonsense to say anything at all about it, let alone whether it exists or not. If you cannot use meaningful words to describe it, it's meaningless
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven And you're right. It is a linguistic issue, which means it's a logical issue.
What we cannot think, we cannot say.
The limits of our language mean the limits of our world.
You cannot speak about the existence of things unlike anything in the universe without literally speaking nonsense. And by "nonsense" i mean specifically you're speaking about things with no possible connection to our senses, our perceptions, of the world. Any such description would be perfectly meaningless
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism "What we cannot think, we cannot say."
However it does not compute that not being able to say it means that we are not able to think it. That is whole key of ineffability: that which is not capable of being expressed. The thing with ineffability is that it is a surprisingly mundane experience. The ineffable happens all the time, and in its truest sense may be one of the pities of the human condition...
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "However it does not compute that not being able to say it means that we are not able to think it"
You sure about that? How else do you think except through words?
If you cannot say something (in principle, not merely in practice e.g. where you have a physical disability that prevents you from saying something) then you cannot think it either. The reason for this is because both use the same system---language. It's language itself that is meaningless without a Sense*; experience.
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism You... you talk to yourself in your head??!
No, to be fair, I guess that's really a question of whether or not you're actually capable of having experiences that overwhelm the capacity for adequate explanation of the experience. I dunno', maybe you are the sort of person that would have to itemize a list of why you like your partner.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven "that's really a question of whether or not you're actually capable of having experiences that overwhelm the capacity for adequate explanation of the experience"
Either that, or someone is personallly incapable of expressing the experience. That's why i made the distinction between personal capacity/handicap to express complex thoughts (in practice), and ineffability in principle--things that cannot even be thought.
It's one thing to experience it and another to think about it
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism True. Thought may indeed be the more inferior class of exercise.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism ...There is no reason at all to think that the experience or an idea or a viewpoint is nonexistent because it cannot be expressed in the language or vocabulary available to a certain person at a certain time.
As for the lack of connection to sense, etc., that sounds more like you're reverting to the debate between ratinality and empiricism: is it possible to know things that do not derive their evidence from physical sense experience?
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTh..."There is no reason at all to think that the experience or an idea or a viewpoint is nonexistent because it cannot be expressed in the language"
Technically ur right! No reason at all to think an idea or viewpoint is nonexistent because it cannot be expressed, but also no reason at all to think it does exist either. In fact, if it's inexpressible, then it it's literally meaningless to attempt to say anything about it. If we cannot talk about it, we're forced to remain silent on it
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism We can and do talk about it. It's just that whenever we do, you start saying that we're doin' it wrong. For example, I have been describing a sentient entity outside of space and time all along but apparently that doesn't count because "outside of space and time" does not qualify as a description of an entity that is outside of space and time. I dunno', would you like me to get into abstract notions of "a state of perpetual nowness"?
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago
@CoryTheRaven We can try*, but it doesn't mean we are. And it's not that we're "doing it wrong" for that assumes that there is a RIGHT way to speak nonsense.
E.g. "I have been describing a sentient entity outside of space and time"
This is pure nonsense. You nor i have ever experienced anything spaceless or timeless, so to use such words could have no association with anything that makes sense to us. If i asked you to define sentient entity, you'd have to use space and time in your description
Wittgensteinism 4 months ago
@Wittgensteinism "You nor i have ever experienced anything spaceless or timeless,"
And that is exactly where simple non-belief turns into a dogma. Instead of just saying that you have not experiened anything spaceless or timeless, you have to assert that because you have not, neither has anyone else. That is an utterly indeffensible point of view, because you're not in anyone else's head.
CoryTheRaven 4 months ago