You and ONISION need to go visit the spam history museum and then attempt to dissect the multiplying villainies of nature from a theological view point, and try to figure out how this has led to a dramatic paradigm shift within the hipster douche bag community as a whole BECAUSE IT HAS!!!
This is for people like seanhall2006 : Why is "if P then N, therefore if N then P" - not a "law of logic" , while "if P then N, therefore if not N then not P" - IS a "law of logic? Genuinely address this question. Go ahead and give it a good think. Now, if you happen to encounter some difficulty providing with a satisfactory answer, is it because you refrain from calling upon some mythological deity? Is that what stands in your way? Would something like that make for "good philosophy"?
@Ramatganski "the Law of Identity" then "Law of Logic", does not mean that if "law of logic" then "law of identity". But if "law of identity" then "law of logic" then not "law of logic" therefore not "law of identity".
I am formerly seanhall2006 and only just came across that comment
@SwiftyMcVeigh100 Was this a serious attempt at explaining what things are supposed to be appropriately regarded as being "the laws of logic", in what sense or senses and why? Because a serious explanation of what logic is supposed to be about requires more then mere formal logic. Oh, and what about the whole point of a lack of relevance of "god willing" in all this (Jehovah, Krishna or what have you), which is - After all - what my comment was all about?
@SwiftyMcVeigh100 Well, my question consisted of two parts: one in which an invitation was made to address the subject of what logic and such things as "it's laws" are supposed to be about , and the other was to observe that while such an inquiry would probably have a lot to do with rational thought, representation, imagination, denotation, symbols and language, convention, perception, conception and all manner of things mental/epistemological/phenomenological, it wouldn't call for any deities.
"There is no content to Atheism" 2:25, thats probably why its so weak. There is nothing offered, no answer to lifes big question. Thats prob why its so easy to refute and debate "Atheists. You should watch The Great Debate between Greg Bahnsen and George Stein, you might get an understanding of the transcendental argument. "The fool has said in his heart there is no God."
@JPBuysjr Defeat me! for I am a "weak" "fool". So defeat me - do your duty as a soldier for some powerful cult. As a religious person you are stronger than me, this is the most important thing. As a secular atheist I am weaker than you - which is the worst possible thing. It is "easy to debate with" me - oh, how horrible for me! You would WIN a debate - HURA! while I - alas - would loose one. THESE are the most important things in life and we learn them from the cults and mega-cults(religions).
Excellent video, the key point you are missing is the religious obsession with magical thinking. They think that if the right thoughts are in your mind, then one thing will happen, and if you dont 'believe' the right thoughts, bad things will happen. Scientists dont give a kwrap what you believe, what matters is what you understand! Understanding leads to insight, and prediciton, and APPLICATION: technology, medicine, agriculture, engineering....
@MrHobiecat .. and the difference is VITAL. In science, if you dont know the answer to a question, that is an important area of research and investigation. Pretending you do know the answer gets you nothing. What you believe to be true is irrelavant. But to the religious, if at any point you are not 'believing' in the right things, your imaginary soul is in eternal peril, so you MUST be convinced to think the right thoughts, right NOW! That is why they are obsessed with the best "explaination"..
@MrHobiecat because in the magiacal thinking mindset the best explaination leads to the most popular, the most feel-good religion, and that is ALL they care about. This is why religion held europe in the death grip of the dark ages for 1500 years, people didnt care about understanding, all they cared about was what people believed, and how well they behaved their christian overlords.
An atheist can choose to believe in Nihilism, or can choose not. Either way, he is not being honest with himself about the pure irrationality of atheism. This is not meant in any way to be an ad hominem attack on anyone, but atheism is intellectualy bankrupt. It is against the philisophical life.
In his video PWNED: TAG, peter seems to be saying that the Laws of Logic are not absolutues but just the product of the cognitive process of logic in our minds. Not only is this easily refuted, but in this video he is contradicting himself. He says that they are absolutes, but instead of trying to use reason to come up with an explanation for them, he suggests that we should plead ignorance. This is a poor way to do philosophy.
but everything needs logic to explain it. Having intellectual humility and admitting you don't know something is fine, but we have to try and come to the best conclusions possible or else what is the point of logic in the first place?
For me, TAG not only provides an explanatory basis for truth, but for value. In youre 2009 debate with together for peace, you spoke about how atheism does not and should not prevent you from appreciating the value of things. This to be simply helps the case for theism. Things have objective value and we all know it.
"you simply cannot explain logic with something which in tern requires logic to explain it." Surely if that was the case we would never have an explanation for logic?
Have you considered you may be creating battles to defend your "nonfaith" (i guess would be the phrase) to give direction and define your own life? Which would be fine if be the case. but things do branch of one another you wont be arguing faith forever. Or Will you?
Im sure you have covered this in a prior video. You explain almost everything (only bc there will always be things that are newly developed) about what not having beliefe or answers intail and are defined as. And i believe is it very much alright to not have answers. But I dont see how it is possible to not be insearch for any. I feel through edjucation, exposure to the world, and at the very least most of our unrelenting egos, we conciously search for something to identify ourselves.
Is believing something for no good reason (therefore meaning that even if you're right, you can't know so) better than not believing? If your answer is yes, then I suppose you just defined theism.
Not a bad video. The problem is that the atheist camp claims to have all the answers as much as the religious camp does. Going further they make claims to the mantle of rationality denying it to believers as they think there is a "magical man in the sky." It is the onus of the atheists to prove that reality exists and that this is not all some illusion ala the Matrix where we are effectively just brains in a bottle. Or it is just my brain is real and the rest of you are just figments.
It would be much appreciated if you would actually quote or cite the scholarly sources of those defending TAG. For instance, take on Van Till (theist) and Michael Martin (atheist), rather than assert so many emotive claims without rational support! You seem like a reasonable guy, go back to your classes on logic and particularly, the lectures/chapters on 'informal fallacies.' Straw-man arguments will get you know where.
I think this particular video was inspired because someone presented something that science cannot explain. It was and still is paraded by the catholic church as proof of the existence of God.
"why can't we just dispose the tools on arbitrary bases"
Because we don't invoke them arbitrarily. It's like asking about how we've come up with a PC for communicating on the internets, why can't we abandon it and use a compass instead? We could call your PC the "law of broadband equivalency" or something.
You're all hung up on these labels and assigning them more significance than they are due.
It's exactly as irrational as saying "Leprechauns didn't do it".
You could make a solid case for the irrationality of holding to that position with absolute certainty (this is true for most positions), but it would be more rational to assume the noninterference of leprechauns than to infer their existence based upon no evidence.
I see why people might think the at first glance. The simple answer is, not knowing does not give one the right to insert an answer and simply reply, "I don't know" and then dilligently look for the answer. To simply say 'goddidit' is intellectual laziness.
Agnosticism refers to knowledge of whether or not God(s) exist. Atheism refers to belief of whether or not God(s) exist. Since knowledge =/= belief, one can be an agnostic and atheist.
While I agree that a presuppositional approach sucks, you don't seem to understand the basic philosophical arguments that have been historically offered.. You seem to be confusing a cultural Christians lame arguments with traditional philosophical arguments from church fathers and apologists. How is it NOT self evident to say that to have a correct knowledge about reality or a particular thing is more rational than not having correct knowledge? A-Theism is NOT lack of belief.
Did you not get his counterexample of him rooting all absolutes in the flying spaghetti monster? Making stuff up doesn't make it real. If a made up claim of absolutes is actually false, of what value is it? Zero.
Anyway, if making stuff up is allowed, it's perfectly possible to root logic in metaphysical naturalism, but the pragmatic approach of the scientific method(i.e. demonstrable reliability) would still be vastly superior, given that we know humans are in fact fallible in many ways.
erm. its not that having an answer for (x) is more rational, it's that if you are depending on trust in the laws of rationality to arrive at your atheistic conclusion, those laws demand a certain level of justification. Why trust them? Are they internal? Convention?
And there may be many worldviews that begin with the atheist premise, but they are still worldviews. You can't simply isolate just one facet of your worldview and defend it in that state, while attacking the entire body...
Our understanding of them has. If an object casts a shadow when it eclipses a light source, is it necessary to say "God created the law that an object will cast a shadow when it blocks the photons from passing through it."? Or maybe that just happens because it makes sense and doesn't need a supernatural explanation. Therefore, the existence of fields and the natural laws surrounding them might just be the consequences of things no more mystical than events that cause shadows.
therefor laws by nature cannot evolve, as laws are unchangeable. but laws must come about instantly. immediate in there creation themselves as you cannot grow a law ??? food for thought
Food for thought? You're repeating your first point and not addressing mine. It's not healthy to eat the same meal over and over. I'll try to clarify what I meant. The natural laws are not laws in the sense that someone passed legislation to make them happen. They are just tools to help us understand what is happening. It makes no more sense to say they were created anymore than it does to say they evolved.
Explain how what came into being? Natural laws? This is now the third time I've addressed this. These laws are just tools we've created to help us understand what is happening. If we didn't know why things have shadows, we'd probably invent some natural law with a mathematical constant to understand its behavior.
"These laws are just tools we've created..." if the laws are just "tools" that we have "created" then why can't we just dispose the tools on arbitrary bases?
Maybe we will "dispose the tools" when and if we acquire more information about their causes unless they remain useful for calculations or for explaining to people who don't understand them. For example, I had to explain the law of energy conservation to someone who misunderstood how the oceans absorb heat from the sun, even though conservation of energy doesn't, in my opinion, require a divine creator.
Romans 1:19-20 are followed by a warning and speaks to those who, despite having seen clearly seen these things, still deny them and worship instead the created thing instead of He who created them, and it tells of the end of this foolishness also for they join all those, 'Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.' Romans 1:25, and God will 'give them up.' They are 'without excuse.'
"Well it got a reaction from you" --- Of course it did, it was inane and patronising.
"im fishing for soles to save them from certain distruction" --- I'm guessing from your spelling that you are very young. When you have more life experience you may realise that condescending down to people by seeing them as soul-carriers that need to be saved, really isn't the way to relate to them.
God knew he would do it (die on the cross) from before the world was made
Bless you and all
rember he made and sent jesus that was him to die for us so he died god himself
he did try the moses law but man faild he set up the new testement Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father,but by me.
it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
First off, the laws of logic assertion that somehow allows validity for the TAG is fallacious. At least three classical logics were developed outside of a Christian context (Aristotle's Organon, Nagarjuna's tetralemma, and Avicenna's temporal model logic) therefore the arguments fails historically. Frege's work and Boole's work were developed in Europe while Christianity still had a lot of power to wield.
Lets suppose Christians actually do have the answer for the laws of logic, first cause, and uniformity of nature. Does that give them any advantage? Does that help them? No, it doesn't. Because the devil is in the details. Christians are notorious for infighting among themselves about truth. They may all agree that God exist but beyond that they disagree about everything else. It is a hollow victory. I know because I've been there and done that.
Very good point. Having a reasonable, logic, rational, explainable, provable answer WOULD be better, more rational, but first we'd need to have that kind of answer. There is no such thing, therefore the agnostic view (agnostic atheists included) is the more accurate: we don't have a proper answer therefore we don't know.
@MotionFur Guess it's better to not have an answer than a wrong answer or at least an answer you can't support with a rational argument. Like sometimes it's better for one to shut up to not seem stupid x)
Link doesn't work here for some reason, so search these youtube videos: "REINCARNATION, past life evidence" (2 parts) and "REINCARNATION, past life on proof positive." and tell what you think. I have so bad english that I probably not going to discuss very much about this, but I think this topic is intresting. I put this here because I think you may be open-minded thinker. I also put this to some other similar channels.
It may be that my dissatisfaction in other explanations is the result of revelation that is greater than that which is common to all people. This revelation is not the result of anything I've done or deserved, it is God's grace to me, for which I am eternally grateful. If you are truly satisfied with the other answers and dissatisfied with God as an explanation, then I suppose that there is nothing I can do for you. God has to work in you to make you dissatisfied with anything other than him.
Standing with Occams Razor on the side of Reason against crazy ideas looms an even larger blade of truth we might call Sanitys Machete: Always expect a natural explanation. This should apply to cosmology as much as to every other scientific gap in history from thunder and lightning to the evolution of your curiosity. Only if the wider universe of everything that ever existed in any form in any space-time popped into existence from nothing natural, then would we have a super-natural creation.
As for "Sanity's Machete," this is nothing more than excluding the possibility of the supernatural. I think that it can be denied easily by saying that there are at least two kinds of causes, material and personal. If I see a pot of water boiling on the stove, I might think that it's boiling because the flame of burning gas heats the pot heating the water until it boils, or I might think that my sister is making hot chocolate. Both explanations are true, one is material, the other is personal.
Nope I can't let you have that one. Your sister exists in nature as a possible natural cause of other natural events. I remain unconvinced (until there's evidence) that there really are any super-natural causes ever. And do such ideas have any useful content as explanations, i.e. the how and why type of content? One of their deficiencies that inclines me to the Machete is that they are always magic and mysterious. You can explain all things that way and yet nothing in particular in about them.
"Your sister exists in nature as a possible natural cause of other natural events." - JayHK
Actually, I can't just let that one go. I myself am quite convinced that sentience is a supernatural quality. It is not explained merely by the fact that chemical reactions are occurring in my brain. Matter and energy alone do not equal personality. My sister is indeed in nature, but her actions are not determined by nature alone, but by the immaterial realities of her mind and her affections.
"And do such ideas have any useful content as explanations, i.e. the how and why type of content?" - JayeHK
Well, they might explain how we exist instead of not existing, and they may explain how a Man who died on a Roman cross rose from his grave, as well as other useful things. And they may explain exactly why we exist.
"And note also you're smuggling in a design argument...." - JayeHK
"One of their deficiencies that inclines me to the Machete is that they are always magic and mysterious." - JayeHK
Is that a problem for you?
"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
On your giant pizza, if we're standing there looking at it, then it's not the universe, if the universe is everything that exists. Or even if the universe is just everything that exists in space-time. We have no evidence of anything outside the universe or any creation of the universe or any alternative universe. Maybe it's necessary; maybe not. It seems there was a point from which space-time expanded, but no reason to believe that it did not begin naturally from conserved energy and matter.
As for the giant pizza analogy, I suppose that if you want to take the example as literally as you seem to be taking it, then imagine you are one of the pepperonis.
You say that we have no experience of anything outside of the universe. That is exactly what I am denying on the basis of revelation. I believe we experience God all the time.
So let's suppose for the sake of argument that space-time did come from some kind of point of "conserved energy and matter" (which is not very unlike the Theistic claim, except that the Theist claims that whatever this source of power was is personal, exceedingly intelligent, and that it has freedom of volition). How did the point blow up into a universe capable of sustaining life? Why didn't it just stay a point instead of blowing up into a universe?
That's on a long list of an ongoing questions for astro-physics. But note that they've gone back this great distance in time only by pursuing natural explanations. There's no reason to abandon nature now. And note also you're smuggling in a design argument and creating God in Man's image. Intelligence, volition and personality are very rare, late evolved characteristics, largely irrelevant in the universe we know. More likely the first cause was a super-natural rock than a super-natural person!
"But note that they've gone back this great distance in time only by pursuing natural explanations." - JayHK
Assuming they're even right...
"... and creating God in Man's image." - JayeHK
Actually, I'm pretty sure God created man in His image. He has what are called communicable (like love, holiness, joy, and intelligence) and incommunicable attributes (like omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence).
"Intelligence, volition and personality are very rare,... characteristics, largely irrelevant in the universe we know." - JayeHK
Hmm, that reminds me of something the Psalmist said.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
Yes, this worldview is behind a lot of this, that the universe is all about is, was created for us, that its creator cares about is and will tell us how to live and what to think and handle all those frightening adult responsibilities.
You're in deep man, real deep, and you're offering me Psalms. (I guess I should be grateful you didn't go with Revelations or Deuteronomy.) Anyway, you seem happy with it and we've discussed it politely.
Thank you, JayeHK, for an enlightening and invigorating discussion. I appreciate your cool-headedness and tolerance. It's nice to have a discussion about these kinds of things without being called a "dumb shit" or being accused of murdering the Native Americans. Unlike some other exchanges I've been part of, this one has been most enjoyable.
As you know, my argument here has been simply that God has revealed Himself without the help of scientists or philosophers and therefore there is no place for pride for the Christian. I do not believe that the arguments I or any other Christian apologist have presented are in any way coercive. All they do is reveal the propositions that a person must reject in order to deny Theism.
gondor, we must place faith and revelations to one side and focus on arguments (but I think those things drive your new P5). P1, 3 and 4 suffer from lack of imagination. We don't know the explanation and we don't know that it's unknowable. Calling it God does not make it an explanation. An explanation for everything that has no details (how, why, etc) explains nothing. For now I just want to confirm nothing else but your need for some explanation behind existence is what makes God "necessary".
"An explanation for everything that has no details (how, why, etc) explains nothing." - JayeHK
For the how and the why you must look at the rest of the Revelation, and by Revelation, I mean the Bible. There's no way to explain these things in just 500 characters, but if I could sum it up in as few words as I can they would be that the All-Powerful God spoke the world and everything in it into existence to display the glorious love that exists between the persons of the Trinity.
To be sure, the easiest premise to deny here is P4. But what else other than God would have made me want to know why I exist and why am I dissatisfied with any other answer?
1. God is knowable only if He reveals himself. I think I explained that earlier in this thread.
4. I know of no undirected material/natural process that can produce something immaterial/personal such as human intelligence. That an all-powerful, personal God made me for His glory has explanatory power, nothing else does, thus premises 1, 3, and 4.
5. Actually, no. P5 is only an observation. P5 without P4 or some other revelation apart from this argument simply makes me a dissatisfied agnostic.
6 is the conclusion. It is not a non-sequitor. It follows from premises 4 and 5. You can deny the premises, but if the premises are true, the conclusion is true also.
As for the idea that 1 is a false dichotomy, I don't think that it is. If God is not the explanation, then the explanation cannot be grasped by the human mind, for to know the explanation of everything would require knowledge of everything, which is not possible for finite minds, or at least for minds as finite as ours.
To deny P4 is one thing. To provide an alternative explanation is another. So far, no alternative to P4 with much explanatory power has been suggested. What tooltime has essentially done in his video is deny that P5 is true for him. That's fine, if tooltime doesn't care what the explanation for his existence is, no one can force him to. But I'm not tooltime. I care why I'm exist. It sounds like you do too, so your only options are to believe an alternative to P4, become a Theist, or stop caring.
In fact, tooltime goes so far as to say that God will always have more explanatory power than any alternative. I think he's right, because for every natural process you can observe, there will be some unknown driving force or principle behind that process and you can always say that God put that principle in place. So there will never be any explanation with more explanatory power than God. No natural cause can satisfy the need for a personal cause. I think you can see why he denies P5.
But I think that anyone who denies P5 is kidding himself. At the very least, I can't deny it without lying to myself and to others. It also seems to me that when people spend as much time as they do thinking about these kinds of things and when they deny it as passionately as they do they only betray the fact that they really do care. People might be able to pretend that they don't care why they exist and they might be really good at it, but I think they really do care.
At this point, some people say that if we have our explanation already in God, this leaves us with no motivation to do science. But this is simply to ignore the vast number of Christians in the sciences both in history and today who say that they love science because they feel that it brings them closer to God in that they are looking into the mind of God and seeing His hand at work when they observe and attempt to understand the natural phenomena. God is our motivation to do science.
Similarly, TAG starts by saying that if logic is describing some absolute truth, then it can't depend on the mind that's thinking it. So it must have an alternative special source, which is that ... it depends on the mind of God! "Reflects the mind of God" is offered as the mysterious explanation of logic and, by its necessity, as proof of God's existence. Yes folks, God is necessary to invent the logic already being abused to prove God is necessary. I think this is worse than all the others.
gondor, the TAG is distinct from the PSR argument. (TAG says logic needs God, a bit like the argument that morality needs God). PSR is cosmological and all these bad arguments are special pleadings. They start with one grand premise (e.g. everything needs a cause or beginning or explanation) and then rapidly conclude the total opposite (my special solution is uncaused, timeless, necessary). Hence, Bertrand Russell called them uniquely awful arguments.
"They start with one grand premise (e.g. everything needs a cause or beginning or explanation) and then rapidly conclude the total opposite (my special solution is uncaused, timeless, necessary)." - JayeHK
Actually, the arguments do not conclude the opposite of the premises if the premises are properly stated. That's why P1B is "either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause" and why in the case of the Kalam Cosmological argument the clause "that begins to exist" is inserted.
God does not begin to exist; hence, the frequently repeated idea that "Well, if everything has a cause, then God must have a cause" is incorrect. The argument is that everything that begins to exist has a cause, but God never began to exist, so He doesn't need a cause.
In the case of the argument I gave, everything has an explanation, including God, whose explanation is the necessity of his nature, since God is perfect.
God is not the only thing that is necessary. Logic is necessary. Mathematics is necessary. There are other things that I, as a Christian, think are also necessary, like morality, but I don't expect to find common ground with you about that if you presuppose that such things don't exist.
Now allow me attempt to illustrate why the universe needs an explanation. Now, it can't actually be proven that the universe needs an explanation any more than it can proven that anything needs an explanation.
If you were walking along the road, and you found a pizza on the ground, you would simply assume that the pizza got there somehow. Now you might not care how it got there, but I doubt that you would think that it just popped into existence there out of nothing. Now imagine if the pizza were the size of a planet, or a galaxy. Would you assume that it popped into existence uncaused? Now imagine the pizza is the size of the universe. Could it have popped into existence uncaused? Of course not!
So how could a universe capable of sustaining life - something far more complex and specific to our needs as finite beings than just a big pizza - have popped into existence uncaused? If the universe is not necessary and perfect like mathematics and logic. Only things that are timeless, unchangeable, and infinite (like numbers and logic) can be necessary. The universe is not timeless, infinite, unchangeable, or perfect, so the universe cannot exist by necessity of its own nature.
Now, P1 posits that everything has an explanation for its existence, either in the necessity of its nature or in an external cause. I believe I have illustrated that some things, like logic, exist by necessity of their own nature, and that all things that are not necessary things, which would include all material objects like pizzas and the universe, have an external cause.
Now at this point, one might argue that some necessary entity other than God is the explanation for the universe. Then posit, I say! Is it logic? Logic doesn't cause anything. Neither does math. Maybe something else? Like what? It seems to me that to deny P1 is simply to agree with P2.
But to deny P1 without also denying the universe's existence is to illustrate the truth of the transcendental argument, that is, that logic can only exist if God exists.
(Comments not appearing in order under the one they replied to.) However, let's stick to necessity. Glad you think logic is necessary. I think it is self-evident and needs to antecedent source, making TAG a bad argument as well as a flaky explanation.
You started with "perfect" and now you are adding more adjectives! Why is a timeless, infinite, unchangeable idea necessarily existing in reality?
Again, I think that things like math and logic are "timeless, infinite, unchangeable, perfect." It seems to me that those words are all different ways of saying the same thing.
Good discussion. Need to unpack your last sentence. God is perfect (by our abstract definition, as opposed to some other reason or evidence?) and what's perfect is necessary. I don't get how is what's perfect necessary? I hope this isn't the purely semantic ontological argument (existing is greater than imaginary).
"God is perfect (by our abstract definition, as opposed to some other reason or evidence?)" - JayeHK
Sorry, I suppose I should have said "If God exists, He is perfect." Not that I don't like the ontological argument, byt he way, its just that I don't think it's persuasive.
The honest version of Kalam premise 1 is that Everything that begins to exist has a natural cause that forms the new thing from existing matter and energy.
I note that the other thing these bad cosmo arguments all do is extrapolate some things from the natural/temporal to the supernatural and timeless but not others. Cause of the temporal from the non-temporal but no cause of the non-temporal. Intelligence and complexity (smuggling in the design argument) but no need for their evolution.
But to define P1 of the Kalam like that is simply to exclude the possibility of God's existence, or at least of the possibility that He might be able to act in the natural world, which is begging the question.
It's not rephrased deliberately to exclude the possibility of God's existence, which might be proved some other way (like if the silent under-achiever would just show up for once and stop wasting our time). It's to be more honest about the only causes and explanations we've ever observed so far and thus should be making up rules about for use as premises in arguments. However, let's stick to necessity, since tooltime was discussing TAG and design rather than Kalam.
You've now said God is perfect if he exists. Not exists because perfect. I'm still missing the necessity that eliminates the first "If". What about his nature makes his existence necessary and unarguable?
"What about his nature makes his existence necessary and unarguable?" - JayeHK
Well because we wouldn't exist if there wasn't something that caused us to exist. In other words, if anything anything exists, then something necessarily exists. I exist. Therefore something necessarily exists. I do not exist by necessity of my own nature, therefore I must find the explanation for my existence in an external something. The question is, what is that something?
Now, I could either say that I don't care what that something is, and live my life trying to think of excuses for why I don't think that that something exists. But I can't do that. I say that for me, not for everyone. I can't live my life without trying to figure out why I am here. Maybe that's unreasonable. But if you think so, then,
I'm all ready for you on morality and meaning and purpose and you won't like it - let's leave that for another video and stay friendly on the same page here.
If God is necessary only because you feel the need of a creator, then are we left with only Kalam? All that "perfect" stuff doesn't prove anything? He's not necessary by nature or by definition, but only because of the first cause argument?
So if we are going to rephrase the P1 of Kalam without excluding the possibility of God and thus begging the question, shouldn't we rephrase it like this?
Everything that begins to exist has either a natural cause that forms the new thing from existing matter and energy or a supernatural cause that creates the new thing out of nothing.
OK, that's fine (re your Kalam P1 comment). It's also more honest because it explicitly distinguishes the two types of cause, one of which is familiar and natural, one of which is totally unknown, totally unexplained, totally without content (i.e. how?) and may or may not be possible. So it unpacks the smuggling of the wild and woolly in with the familiar and reasonable.
But if the new P1 is true, then the question remains as to what caused the universe to begin to exist. I still don't think that it could have had a natural/material cause, because nature/material is exactly what came into existence. That leaves us with the supernatural cause.
Ah, but it's only unknown and unexplained if whatever this supernatural cause is does not reveal itself to us, which is exactly what my original claim on this thread was, that is, that God has revealed Himself to us. He has done this in nature (or in our existence instead of our non-existence), in our conscience, in His Word, and in His incarnate Son.
I certainly affirm P1. I might not be able to prove it absolutely to you, but I'd die before I stopped believing it or proclaiming it. All other arguments are supplemental for me.
Which brings us back to my original point in the thread, that the kind of pride that tooltime was talking about in his video is impossible in the "argument from revelation." God has revealed himself to me, not on the basis of any merit or intelligence within me, but solely by His grace.
Everybody on the net knows how Slick behaves when cornered with his TAG torn to pieces in front of him.
Now search for this video CARM Debate 2008 Does God Exist (Part 14)
and see a GIRL rip Slick to SHREDS and expose the liar that he is, when Slick pretends not to understand her question cause she cornered him. He even had his YouTube friends show up in the debate and try to stump the atheist, but to no avail. Now someone prove to me this guy is a Christian! What a charlatan.
Now, this is a logically valid argument, so in order to avoid the conclusion without being irrational you must deny one of the first three premises. I'm curious to know which one you would deny.
Oh, and just so you know, the God of the Bible considers denial of His existence to be a sin. That may sound unfair to you, but how can a sinner dictate his standards of fairness to a holy and perfect God?
Now you may say, who does this gondorking86 guy think he is? By God's grace, I'm His child because He saved me, but otherwise, I'm nobody. The real question is, who is this God?
His name is Jesus Christ, you can read about Him in the Bible.
He was miraculously born of a virgin just over 2000 years ago, lived a sinless life, died on a cross to bear the wrath of God for your sin - including the sin of unbelief - and give you His righteousness, if you by God's grace repent and trust in Him alone for your salvation; and today He sits at the right hand of God the Father in glory.
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gears5336 2 months ago
Proponents of TAG do not say that any answer is better than no answer
SwiftyMcVeigh100 7 months ago
Which premise of TAG states that "to have an explanation is more rational than to not have one"?? I must have missed that one.
What is your argument against TAG that has caused you to reject it? Not what part don't you like--but what part is illogical or irrational.
trishazurlo 9 months ago
"Convincing yourself that you have all the answers is the height of hubris."
Is that your answer, and are you convinced by that?
zmode82 11 months ago
@Tooltime, great delivery! Nice command of vocabulary and reasoning.
semasiologistics 11 months ago
This is for people like seanhall2006 : Why is "if P then N, therefore if N then P" - not a "law of logic" , while "if P then N, therefore if not N then not P" - IS a "law of logic? Genuinely address this question. Go ahead and give it a good think. Now, if you happen to encounter some difficulty providing with a satisfactory answer, is it because you refrain from calling upon some mythological deity? Is that what stands in your way? Would something like that make for "good philosophy"?
Ramatganski 1 year ago
@Ramatganski "the Law of Identity" then "Law of Logic", does not mean that if "law of logic" then "law of identity". But if "law of identity" then "law of logic" then not "law of logic" therefore not "law of identity".
I am formerly seanhall2006 and only just came across that comment
SwiftyMcVeigh100 11 months ago
@SwiftyMcVeigh100 Was this a serious attempt at explaining what things are supposed to be appropriately regarded as being "the laws of logic", in what sense or senses and why? Because a serious explanation of what logic is supposed to be about requires more then mere formal logic. Oh, and what about the whole point of a lack of relevance of "god willing" in all this (Jehovah, Krishna or what have you), which is - After all - what my comment was all about?
Thanks anyways.
Ramatganski 11 months ago
@Ramatganski
I dont get what youre saying. I responded to youre question in a way I felt was satisfactory without talking about God.
SwiftyMcVeigh100 11 months ago
@SwiftyMcVeigh100 Well, my question consisted of two parts: one in which an invitation was made to address the subject of what logic and such things as "it's laws" are supposed to be about , and the other was to observe that while such an inquiry would probably have a lot to do with rational thought, representation, imagination, denotation, symbols and language, convention, perception, conception and all manner of things mental/epistemological/phenomenological, it wouldn't call for any deities.
Ramatganski 11 months ago
@Ramatganski
At what point did I start talking about deities? You asked me a very straightforward question and I responded to it. Au revoir.
SwiftyMcVeigh100 11 months ago
"There is no content to Atheism" 2:25, thats probably why its so weak. There is nothing offered, no answer to lifes big question. Thats prob why its so easy to refute and debate "Atheists. You should watch The Great Debate between Greg Bahnsen and George Stein, you might get an understanding of the transcendental argument. "The fool has said in his heart there is no God."
JPBuysjr 1 year ago
@JPBuysjr Defeat me! for I am a "weak" "fool". So defeat me - do your duty as a soldier for some powerful cult. As a religious person you are stronger than me, this is the most important thing. As a secular atheist I am weaker than you - which is the worst possible thing. It is "easy to debate with" me - oh, how horrible for me! You would WIN a debate - HURA! while I - alas - would loose one. THESE are the most important things in life and we learn them from the cults and mega-cults(religions).
Ramatganski 1 year ago
Excellent video, the key point you are missing is the religious obsession with magical thinking. They think that if the right thoughts are in your mind, then one thing will happen, and if you dont 'believe' the right thoughts, bad things will happen. Scientists dont give a kwrap what you believe, what matters is what you understand! Understanding leads to insight, and prediciton, and APPLICATION: technology, medicine, agriculture, engineering....
MrHobiecat 1 year ago
@MrHobiecat .. and the difference is VITAL. In science, if you dont know the answer to a question, that is an important area of research and investigation. Pretending you do know the answer gets you nothing. What you believe to be true is irrelavant. But to the religious, if at any point you are not 'believing' in the right things, your imaginary soul is in eternal peril, so you MUST be convinced to think the right thoughts, right NOW! That is why they are obsessed with the best "explaination"..
MrHobiecat 1 year ago
@MrHobiecat because in the magiacal thinking mindset the best explaination leads to the most popular, the most feel-good religion, and that is ALL they care about. This is why religion held europe in the death grip of the dark ages for 1500 years, people didnt care about understanding, all they cared about was what people believed, and how well they behaved their christian overlords.
MrHobiecat 1 year ago
I don't think theism has ANY explanatory power at all. How is labeling an unknown in a different way an 'explanation'?
Skindoggiedog 1 year ago
(0:48) As Aristotle said, nature does nothing in vain. If there was any kind of truth that we were incapable of discovering, we would not have logic.
seanhall2006 1 year ago
An atheist can choose to believe in Nihilism, or can choose not. Either way, he is not being honest with himself about the pure irrationality of atheism. This is not meant in any way to be an ad hominem attack on anyone, but atheism is intellectualy bankrupt. It is against the philisophical life.
seanhall2006 1 year ago
You have issues with your father don't you tt? Well, he may have been correct. You might want to reconcile before it is too late.
Iamajanitor01 1 year ago
In his video PWNED: TAG, peter seems to be saying that the Laws of Logic are not absolutues but just the product of the cognitive process of logic in our minds. Not only is this easily refuted, but in this video he is contradicting himself. He says that they are absolutes, but instead of trying to use reason to come up with an explanation for them, he suggests that we should plead ignorance. This is a poor way to do philosophy.
seanhall2006 1 year ago
@seanhall2006 "seems to be saying that the Laws of Logic are not absolutues"
then you simply misunderstand me.
I did not plead ignorance. you simply cannot explain logic with something which in tern requires logic to explain it.
tooltime9901 1 year ago
@tooltime9901
but everything needs logic to explain it. Having intellectual humility and admitting you don't know something is fine, but we have to try and come to the best conclusions possible or else what is the point of logic in the first place?
seanhall2006 1 year ago
@seanhall2006 I agree, but what is your point? are you trying to say god is the best answer, because he is not.
tooltime9901 1 year ago
@tooltime9901
For me, TAG not only provides an explanatory basis for truth, but for value. In youre 2009 debate with together for peace, you spoke about how atheism does not and should not prevent you from appreciating the value of things. This to be simply helps the case for theism. Things have objective value and we all know it.
seanhall2006 1 year ago
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@tooltime9901
"you simply cannot explain logic with something which in tern requires logic to explain it." Surely if that was the case we would never have an explanation for logic?
SwiftyMcVeigh100 7 months ago
How is "goddidit" an explanation anywho?
Daruqe 1 year ago
Have you considered you may be creating battles to defend your "nonfaith" (i guess would be the phrase) to give direction and define your own life? Which would be fine if be the case. but things do branch of one another you wont be arguing faith forever. Or Will you?
Yukapa13 1 year ago
Im sure you have covered this in a prior video. You explain almost everything (only bc there will always be things that are newly developed) about what not having beliefe or answers intail and are defined as. And i believe is it very much alright to not have answers. But I dont see how it is possible to not be insearch for any. I feel through edjucation, exposure to the world, and at the very least most of our unrelenting egos, we conciously search for something to identify ourselves.
Yukapa13 1 year ago
So according to you: atheism is stubborn, unreasonable unbelief. Good to know.
yellomoth 1 year ago
there is no biological reason for a man to have long hair.
Treefrogs2 1 year ago
@Treefrogs2 there is no biological reason for a lot of things humans do. whats your point?
tooltime9901 1 year ago
@Treefrogs2 its warmer
keggerous 1 year ago
@Treefrogs2 Hair grows. That's a biological process. It gets long, unless cut. What is the biological reason for cutting hair?
tml4873 1 year ago
@Treefrogs2
Well, yeah, 'cause it's biologically programed to keep growing...
Daruqe 1 year ago
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. ” ~ Voltaire
RahRy444 1 year ago 4
Is believing something for no good reason (therefore meaning that even if you're right, you can't know so) better than not believing? If your answer is yes, then I suppose you just defined theism.
RafaelEnvoy 1 year ago
What's the old saying, "'Faith is the philosophical blank check people write themselves when they have no rational reason for what they believe."
Freethinker7718 2 years ago
Not a bad video. The problem is that the atheist camp claims to have all the answers as much as the religious camp does. Going further they make claims to the mantle of rationality denying it to believers as they think there is a "magical man in the sky." It is the onus of the atheists to prove that reality exists and that this is not all some illusion ala the Matrix where we are effectively just brains in a bottle. Or it is just my brain is real and the rest of you are just figments.
steve0281 2 years ago
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@steve0281
"The problem is that the atheist camp claims to have all the answers as much as the religious camp does."
No it doesn't.
"It is the onus of the atheists to prove that reality exists"
If you perceive a reality too, the onus is equally yours. Use of brain wanted.
Aaberg123 2 years ago
It would be much appreciated if you would actually quote or cite the scholarly sources of those defending TAG. For instance, take on Van Till (theist) and Michael Martin (atheist), rather than assert so many emotive claims without rational support! You seem like a reasonable guy, go back to your classes on logic and particularly, the lectures/chapters on 'informal fallacies.' Straw-man arguments will get you know where.
patparks1 2 years ago
I think this particular video was inspired because someone presented something that science cannot explain. It was and still is paraded by the catholic church as proof of the existence of God.
stevepalmerssolid 2 years ago
Then why can't a christian ALSO say, "I don't know." ?
vbfl920 2 years ago
"why can't we just dispose the tools on arbitrary bases"
Because we don't invoke them arbitrarily. It's like asking about how we've come up with a PC for communicating on the internets, why can't we abandon it and use a compass instead? We could call your PC the "law of broadband equivalency" or something.
You're all hung up on these labels and assigning them more significance than they are due.
rrpostalagain 2 years ago
Isnt "God didnt do it" just as irrational as saying "God done did it". Especially when the subject is of things everyone doesnt understand.
MMAwesome 2 years ago
It's exactly as irrational as saying "Leprechauns didn't do it".
You could make a solid case for the irrationality of holding to that position with absolute certainty (this is true for most positions), but it would be more rational to assume the noninterference of leprechauns than to infer their existence based upon no evidence.
BrianTheGoldfish 2 years ago 2
I see why people might think the at first glance. The simple answer is, not knowing does not give one the right to insert an answer and simply reply, "I don't know" and then dilligently look for the answer. To simply say 'goddidit' is intellectual laziness.
Freethinker7718 2 years ago
the answer = 42
I R rashonul
DanielCriticalMX 2 years ago
why do you call yourself an atheist, when everything you say in this vid sounds like agnostisim???
ScrapGoldBass 2 years ago
Agnosticism refers to knowledge of whether or not God(s) exist. Atheism refers to belief of whether or not God(s) exist. Since knowledge =/= belief, one can be an agnostic and atheist.
damasta00138 2 years ago
While I agree that a presuppositional approach sucks, you don't seem to understand the basic philosophical arguments that have been historically offered.. You seem to be confusing a cultural Christians lame arguments with traditional philosophical arguments from church fathers and apologists. How is it NOT self evident to say that to have a correct knowledge about reality or a particular thing is more rational than not having correct knowledge? A-Theism is NOT lack of belief.
Dominick7 2 years ago
Atheism is definitely a lack of a belief.
An atheist however, can believe in lots of things, but not necessarily, an atheist can easily say 'I'm not believing in anything, that includes god'
It's taking a stance against taking faith in things, holding them as truth without evidence.
BaileysBeads 2 years ago
Did you not get his counterexample of him rooting all absolutes in the flying spaghetti monster? Making stuff up doesn't make it real. If a made up claim of absolutes is actually false, of what value is it? Zero.
Anyway, if making stuff up is allowed, it's perfectly possible to root logic in metaphysical naturalism, but the pragmatic approach of the scientific method(i.e. demonstrable reliability) would still be vastly superior, given that we know humans are in fact fallible in many ways.
Gnomefro 2 years ago
My best wishes for a new face---------
camelhawk 2 years ago
thats the wonder of GOD he came as a man lived as a man
the second created Adam a new species not related to the old
no death penalty on him yet was killed
now he is owed compensation because his blood line was killed with him
so he can adopt us into his family acording to the law
he bankrupted the universe on the cross
The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
valu777 2 years ago
there is the real christians
then the antichrist system
rome the pope controls the world (anti christ system)
jesiut order is the army stelth
secret societies all controled this way the masons skull bones ect
Islam Mormans new age all controled by the popes system
all these systems Kill the real christians
get saved while you can
valu777 2 years ago
No True Scotsman Fallacy + delusional ravings = failure
FirstResponder911 2 years ago
my disrespect to you
ROFL at y comet
you should have no other gods
the first commandment
the wages of sin =death
valu777 2 years ago
erm. its not that having an answer for (x) is more rational, it's that if you are depending on trust in the laws of rationality to arrive at your atheistic conclusion, those laws demand a certain level of justification. Why trust them? Are they internal? Convention?
And there may be many worldviews that begin with the atheist premise, but they are still worldviews. You can't simply isolate just one facet of your worldview and defend it in that state, while attacking the entire body...
jdoe933 2 years ago
of your opponent's worldview.
jdoe933 2 years ago
what abot the laws of nature did they evolve ?
valu777 2 years ago
Our understanding of them has. If an object casts a shadow when it eclipses a light source, is it necessary to say "God created the law that an object will cast a shadow when it blocks the photons from passing through it."? Or maybe that just happens because it makes sense and doesn't need a supernatural explanation. Therefore, the existence of fields and the natural laws surrounding them might just be the consequences of things no more mystical than events that cause shadows.
albatross1977 2 years ago
that may be the case.
therefor laws by nature cannot evolve, as laws are unchangeable. but laws must come about instantly. immediate in there creation themselves as you cannot grow a law ??? food for thought
valu777 2 years ago
Food for thought? You're repeating your first point and not addressing mine. It's not healthy to eat the same meal over and over. I'll try to clarify what I meant. The natural laws are not laws in the sense that someone passed legislation to make them happen. They are just tools to help us understand what is happening. It makes no more sense to say they were created anymore than it does to say they evolved.
albatross1977 2 years ago
well explain how they came into being
valu777 2 years ago
Explain how what came into being? Natural laws? This is now the third time I've addressed this. These laws are just tools we've created to help us understand what is happening. If we didn't know why things have shadows, we'd probably invent some natural law with a mathematical constant to understand its behavior.
albatross1977 2 years ago 2
not the description of them how the laws came to be (i know you cant answer it never mind)
valu777 2 years ago
(i know you don't want to admit that your question is based off a false assumption so never mind)
albatross1977 2 years ago 5
"These laws are just tools we've created..." if the laws are just "tools" that we have "created" then why can't we just dispose the tools on arbitrary bases?
ahmarsidd 2 years ago
Maybe we will "dispose the tools" when and if we acquire more information about their causes unless they remain useful for calculations or for explaining to people who don't understand them. For example, I had to explain the law of energy conservation to someone who misunderstood how the oceans absorb heat from the sun, even though conservation of energy doesn't, in my opinion, require a divine creator.
albatross1977 2 years ago
truth , justice, and the american way... I sense a Superman religion
anonforuz 2 years ago
Psa 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
valu777 2 years ago
Romans 1:19-20 are followed by a warning and speaks to those who, despite having seen clearly seen these things, still deny them and worship instead the created thing instead of He who created them, and it tells of the end of this foolishness also for they join all those, 'Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.' Romans 1:25, and God will 'give them up.' They are 'without excuse.'
valu777 2 years ago
Did you really think that atheists have never had this quoted at them?
Did you think that this would convert people the moment they heard it?
Did you think cut n' pasting a bible quote with no comment from yourself frames the quote in enigmatic mystique?
Did you think your bible would tell you what to believe, and then tell you that if you don't want to believe... that's okay too?
cfytcf 2 years ago
Well it got a reaction from you
and you are my mind reader knowing what i think
You need to be born again
and im fishing for soles to save them from certain distruction
valu777 2 years ago
"Well it got a reaction from you" --- Of course it did, it was inane and patronising.
"im fishing for soles to save them from certain distruction" --- I'm guessing from your spelling that you are very young. When you have more life experience you may realise that condescending down to people by seeing them as soul-carriers that need to be saved, really isn't the way to relate to them.
cfytcf 2 years ago
God knew he would do it (die on the cross) from before the world was made
Bless you and all
rember he made and sent jesus that was him to die for us so he died god himself
he did try the moses law but man faild he set up the new testement Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father,but by me.
it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
valu777 2 years ago
Oh, the irony.
cfytcf 2 years ago
First off, the laws of logic assertion that somehow allows validity for the TAG is fallacious. At least three classical logics were developed outside of a Christian context (Aristotle's Organon, Nagarjuna's tetralemma, and Avicenna's temporal model logic) therefore the arguments fails historically. Frege's work and Boole's work were developed in Europe while Christianity still had a lot of power to wield.
mathgeek37 2 years ago
Lets suppose Christians actually do have the answer for the laws of logic, first cause, and uniformity of nature. Does that give them any advantage? Does that help them? No, it doesn't. Because the devil is in the details. Christians are notorious for infighting among themselves about truth. They may all agree that God exist but beyond that they disagree about everything else. It is a hollow victory. I know because I've been there and done that.
Entropy56 2 years ago
Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator.
nmac121 2 years ago
Basically, the less-rational human mind sees a rational universe.
Therefore the universe is more rational than a human is.
TheColaGoodfellow 2 years ago
this video should be titled: I don't have the answers
LOL
DebunkThunderf00t 3 years ago
Is it better to have no answer, or just any answer?
MotionFur 3 years ago 7
Very good point. Having a reasonable, logic, rational, explainable, provable answer WOULD be better, more rational, but first we'd need to have that kind of answer. There is no such thing, therefore the agnostic view (agnostic atheists included) is the more accurate: we don't have a proper answer therefore we don't know.
montrealpsycho 3 years ago
@MotionFur Guess it's better to not have an answer than a wrong answer or at least an answer you can't support with a rational argument. Like sometimes it's better for one to shut up to not seem stupid x)
Maatt28 1 year ago
@MotionFur
we have to try and come to the most logical conclusions possible, or else whats the point of logic in the first place?
seanhall2006 1 year ago
@MotionFur
TAG is not any answer is it better to make no comment or just any comment?
SwiftyMcVeigh100 7 months ago
Link doesn't work here for some reason, so search these youtube videos: "REINCARNATION, past life evidence" (2 parts) and "REINCARNATION, past life on proof positive." and tell what you think. I have so bad english that I probably not going to discuss very much about this, but I think this topic is intresting. I put this here because I think you may be open-minded thinker. I also put this to some other similar channels.
Taaplari 3 years ago
Well, you are correct that an atheist can't explain anything.
Otherwise, you're just making a straw man arguements.
"Atheist on an open-ended search"??? Nice lip service, but I'll bet that God isn;t part of that search.
Sorry, same crap from a different mouth.
Mike82ARP 3 years ago
It may be that my dissatisfaction in other explanations is the result of revelation that is greater than that which is common to all people. This revelation is not the result of anything I've done or deserved, it is God's grace to me, for which I am eternally grateful. If you are truly satisfied with the other answers and dissatisfied with God as an explanation, then I suppose that there is nothing I can do for you. God has to work in you to make you dissatisfied with anything other than him.
gondorking86 3 years ago
I can say, though, that the more God reveals Himself to me, the more satisfied I am in Him and the less satisfied I am with the status quo.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Standing with Occams Razor on the side of Reason against crazy ideas looms an even larger blade of truth we might call Sanitys Machete: Always expect a natural explanation. This should apply to cosmology as much as to every other scientific gap in history from thunder and lightning to the evolution of your curiosity. Only if the wider universe of everything that ever existed in any form in any space-time popped into existence from nothing natural, then would we have a super-natural creation.
JayeHK 3 years ago
As for "Sanity's Machete," this is nothing more than excluding the possibility of the supernatural. I think that it can be denied easily by saying that there are at least two kinds of causes, material and personal. If I see a pot of water boiling on the stove, I might think that it's boiling because the flame of burning gas heats the pot heating the water until it boils, or I might think that my sister is making hot chocolate. Both explanations are true, one is material, the other is personal.
gondorking86 3 years ago
In other words, a natural explanation does not exclude the possibility of a personal or supernatural explanation.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Nope I can't let you have that one. Your sister exists in nature as a possible natural cause of other natural events. I remain unconvinced (until there's evidence) that there really are any super-natural causes ever. And do such ideas have any useful content as explanations, i.e. the how and why type of content? One of their deficiencies that inclines me to the Machete is that they are always magic and mysterious. You can explain all things that way and yet nothing in particular in about them.
JayeHK 3 years ago
"Your sister exists in nature as a possible natural cause of other natural events." - JayHK
Actually, I can't just let that one go. I myself am quite convinced that sentience is a supernatural quality. It is not explained merely by the fact that chemical reactions are occurring in my brain. Matter and energy alone do not equal personality. My sister is indeed in nature, but her actions are not determined by nature alone, but by the immaterial realities of her mind and her affections.
gondorking86 3 years ago
"And do such ideas have any useful content as explanations, i.e. the how and why type of content?" - JayeHK
Well, they might explain how we exist instead of not existing, and they may explain how a Man who died on a Roman cross rose from his grave, as well as other useful things. And they may explain exactly why we exist.
"And note also you're smuggling in a design argument...." - JayeHK
What? Do you want me to apologize?
:-P
gondorking86 3 years ago
"One of their deficiencies that inclines me to the Machete is that they are always magic and mysterious." - JayeHK
Is that a problem for you?
"The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
(Deuteronomy 29:29)
gondorking86 3 years ago
On your giant pizza, if we're standing there looking at it, then it's not the universe, if the universe is everything that exists. Or even if the universe is just everything that exists in space-time. We have no evidence of anything outside the universe or any creation of the universe or any alternative universe. Maybe it's necessary; maybe not. It seems there was a point from which space-time expanded, but no reason to believe that it did not begin naturally from conserved energy and matter.
JayeHK 3 years ago
As for the giant pizza analogy, I suppose that if you want to take the example as literally as you seem to be taking it, then imagine you are one of the pepperonis.
You say that we have no experience of anything outside of the universe. That is exactly what I am denying on the basis of revelation. I believe we experience God all the time.
gondorking86 3 years ago
So let's suppose for the sake of argument that space-time did come from some kind of point of "conserved energy and matter" (which is not very unlike the Theistic claim, except that the Theist claims that whatever this source of power was is personal, exceedingly intelligent, and that it has freedom of volition). How did the point blow up into a universe capable of sustaining life? Why didn't it just stay a point instead of blowing up into a universe?
gondorking86 3 years ago
That's on a long list of an ongoing questions for astro-physics. But note that they've gone back this great distance in time only by pursuing natural explanations. There's no reason to abandon nature now. And note also you're smuggling in a design argument and creating God in Man's image. Intelligence, volition and personality are very rare, late evolved characteristics, largely irrelevant in the universe we know. More likely the first cause was a super-natural rock than a super-natural person!
JayeHK 3 years ago
"But note that they've gone back this great distance in time only by pursuing natural explanations." - JayHK
Assuming they're even right...
"... and creating God in Man's image." - JayeHK
Actually, I'm pretty sure God created man in His image. He has what are called communicable (like love, holiness, joy, and intelligence) and incommunicable attributes (like omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence).
gondorking86 3 years ago
"Intelligence, volition and personality are very rare,... characteristics, largely irrelevant in the universe we know." - JayeHK
Hmm, that reminds me of something the Psalmist said.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
(Psalms 8:3-5)
gondorking86 3 years ago
Yes, this worldview is behind a lot of this, that the universe is all about is, was created for us, that its creator cares about is and will tell us how to live and what to think and handle all those frightening adult responsibilities.
You're in deep man, real deep, and you're offering me Psalms. (I guess I should be grateful you didn't go with Revelations or Deuteronomy.) Anyway, you seem happy with it and we've discussed it politely.
JayeHK 3 years ago
Thank you, JayeHK, for an enlightening and invigorating discussion. I appreciate your cool-headedness and tolerance. It's nice to have a discussion about these kinds of things without being called a "dumb shit" or being accused of murdering the Native Americans. Unlike some other exchanges I've been part of, this one has been most enjoyable.
gondorking86 3 years ago
As you know, my argument here has been simply that God has revealed Himself without the help of scientists or philosophers and therefore there is no place for pride for the Christian. I do not believe that the arguments I or any other Christian apologist have presented are in any way coercive. All they do is reveal the propositions that a person must reject in order to deny Theism.
gondorking86 3 years ago
gondor, we must place faith and revelations to one side and focus on arguments (but I think those things drive your new P5). P1, 3 and 4 suffer from lack of imagination. We don't know the explanation and we don't know that it's unknowable. Calling it God does not make it an explanation. An explanation for everything that has no details (how, why, etc) explains nothing. For now I just want to confirm nothing else but your need for some explanation behind existence is what makes God "necessary".
JayeHK 3 years ago
"An explanation for everything that has no details (how, why, etc) explains nothing." - JayeHK
For the how and the why you must look at the rest of the Revelation, and by Revelation, I mean the Bible. There's no way to explain these things in just 500 characters, but if I could sum it up in as few words as I can they would be that the All-Powerful God spoke the world and everything in it into existence to display the glorious love that exists between the persons of the Trinity.
gondorking86 3 years ago
To be sure, the easiest premise to deny here is P4. But what else other than God would have made me want to know why I exist and why am I dissatisfied with any other answer?
gondorking86 3 years ago
Try this argument on for size:
1. God is the only possible knowable explanation for my existence.
2. I exist.
3. Therefore, either God exists or it is impossible to know why the universe exists.
4. Only God could have made me to want to know why I exist and caused me to be dissatisfied with any other answer.
5. I want to know why I exist and I am dissatisfied with any explanation other than God.
6. Therefore God exists.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Haha.. this reeks of false assumptions.
1: How is he/she/it knowable? (Also, false dichotomy).
4: Please justify your assumption.
5: So because no other explanation suits you, you assume you are right. Are you fucking kidding me?!
5: Non-sequitur.
Aaberg123 3 years ago
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gondorking86 3 years ago
1. God is knowable only if He reveals himself. I think I explained that earlier in this thread.
4. I know of no undirected material/natural process that can produce something immaterial/personal such as human intelligence. That an all-powerful, personal God made me for His glory has explanatory power, nothing else does, thus premises 1, 3, and 4.
5. Actually, no. P5 is only an observation. P5 without P4 or some other revelation apart from this argument simply makes me a dissatisfied agnostic.
gondorking86 3 years ago
6 is the conclusion. It is not a non-sequitor. It follows from premises 4 and 5. You can deny the premises, but if the premises are true, the conclusion is true also.
As for the idea that 1 is a false dichotomy, I don't think that it is. If God is not the explanation, then the explanation cannot be grasped by the human mind, for to know the explanation of everything would require knowledge of everything, which is not possible for finite minds, or at least for minds as finite as ours.
gondorking86 3 years ago
To deny P4 is one thing. To provide an alternative explanation is another. So far, no alternative to P4 with much explanatory power has been suggested. What tooltime has essentially done in his video is deny that P5 is true for him. That's fine, if tooltime doesn't care what the explanation for his existence is, no one can force him to. But I'm not tooltime. I care why I'm exist. It sounds like you do too, so your only options are to believe an alternative to P4, become a Theist, or stop caring.
gondorking86 3 years ago
In fact, tooltime goes so far as to say that God will always have more explanatory power than any alternative. I think he's right, because for every natural process you can observe, there will be some unknown driving force or principle behind that process and you can always say that God put that principle in place. So there will never be any explanation with more explanatory power than God. No natural cause can satisfy the need for a personal cause. I think you can see why he denies P5.
gondorking86 3 years ago
But I think that anyone who denies P5 is kidding himself. At the very least, I can't deny it without lying to myself and to others. It also seems to me that when people spend as much time as they do thinking about these kinds of things and when they deny it as passionately as they do they only betray the fact that they really do care. People might be able to pretend that they don't care why they exist and they might be really good at it, but I think they really do care.
gondorking86 3 years ago
At this point, some people say that if we have our explanation already in God, this leaves us with no motivation to do science. But this is simply to ignore the vast number of Christians in the sciences both in history and today who say that they love science because they feel that it brings them closer to God in that they are looking into the mind of God and seeing His hand at work when they observe and attempt to understand the natural phenomena. God is our motivation to do science.
gondorking86 3 years ago
I'm an atheist, not omniscient.
Vegasgodless 3 years ago
Similarly, TAG starts by saying that if logic is describing some absolute truth, then it can't depend on the mind that's thinking it. So it must have an alternative special source, which is that ... it depends on the mind of God! "Reflects the mind of God" is offered as the mysterious explanation of logic and, by its necessity, as proof of God's existence. Yes folks, God is necessary to invent the logic already being abused to prove God is necessary. I think this is worse than all the others.
JayeHK 3 years ago
gondor, the TAG is distinct from the PSR argument. (TAG says logic needs God, a bit like the argument that morality needs God). PSR is cosmological and all these bad arguments are special pleadings. They start with one grand premise (e.g. everything needs a cause or beginning or explanation) and then rapidly conclude the total opposite (my special solution is uncaused, timeless, necessary). Hence, Bertrand Russell called them uniquely awful arguments.
JayeHK 3 years ago
"They start with one grand premise (e.g. everything needs a cause or beginning or explanation) and then rapidly conclude the total opposite (my special solution is uncaused, timeless, necessary)." - JayeHK
Actually, the arguments do not conclude the opposite of the premises if the premises are properly stated. That's why P1B is "either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause" and why in the case of the Kalam Cosmological argument the clause "that begins to exist" is inserted.
gondorking86 3 years ago
God does not begin to exist; hence, the frequently repeated idea that "Well, if everything has a cause, then God must have a cause" is incorrect. The argument is that everything that begins to exist has a cause, but God never began to exist, so He doesn't need a cause.
In the case of the argument I gave, everything has an explanation, including God, whose explanation is the necessity of his nature, since God is perfect.
gondorking86 3 years ago
God is not the only thing that is necessary. Logic is necessary. Mathematics is necessary. There are other things that I, as a Christian, think are also necessary, like morality, but I don't expect to find common ground with you about that if you presuppose that such things don't exist.
Now allow me attempt to illustrate why the universe needs an explanation. Now, it can't actually be proven that the universe needs an explanation any more than it can proven that anything needs an explanation.
gondorking86 3 years ago
If you were walking along the road, and you found a pizza on the ground, you would simply assume that the pizza got there somehow. Now you might not care how it got there, but I doubt that you would think that it just popped into existence there out of nothing. Now imagine if the pizza were the size of a planet, or a galaxy. Would you assume that it popped into existence uncaused? Now imagine the pizza is the size of the universe. Could it have popped into existence uncaused? Of course not!
gondorking86 3 years ago
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gondorking86 3 years ago
So how could a universe capable of sustaining life - something far more complex and specific to our needs as finite beings than just a big pizza - have popped into existence uncaused? If the universe is not necessary and perfect like mathematics and logic. Only things that are timeless, unchangeable, and infinite (like numbers and logic) can be necessary. The universe is not timeless, infinite, unchangeable, or perfect, so the universe cannot exist by necessity of its own nature.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Now, P1 posits that everything has an explanation for its existence, either in the necessity of its nature or in an external cause. I believe I have illustrated that some things, like logic, exist by necessity of their own nature, and that all things that are not necessary things, which would include all material objects like pizzas and the universe, have an external cause.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Now at this point, one might argue that some necessary entity other than God is the explanation for the universe. Then posit, I say! Is it logic? Logic doesn't cause anything. Neither does math. Maybe something else? Like what? It seems to me that to deny P1 is simply to agree with P2.
But to deny P1 without also denying the universe's existence is to illustrate the truth of the transcendental argument, that is, that logic can only exist if God exists.
gondorking86 3 years ago
(Comments not appearing in order under the one they replied to.) However, let's stick to necessity. Glad you think logic is necessary. I think it is self-evident and needs to antecedent source, making TAG a bad argument as well as a flaky explanation.
You started with "perfect" and now you are adding more adjectives! Why is a timeless, infinite, unchangeable idea necessarily existing in reality?
JayeHK 3 years ago
(needs no antecedent source, that should have said)
JayeHK 3 years ago
Comments not appearing in order under the one they replied to. - JayeHK
Sorry, that's because I respond to my own comments so that my thought will be seen in order.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Again, I think that things like math and logic are "timeless, infinite, unchangeable, perfect." It seems to me that those words are all different ways of saying the same thing.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Good discussion. Need to unpack your last sentence. God is perfect (by our abstract definition, as opposed to some other reason or evidence?) and what's perfect is necessary. I don't get how is what's perfect necessary? I hope this isn't the purely semantic ontological argument (existing is greater than imaginary).
JayeHK 3 years ago
"God is perfect (by our abstract definition, as opposed to some other reason or evidence?)" - JayeHK
Sorry, I suppose I should have said "If God exists, He is perfect." Not that I don't like the ontological argument, byt he way, its just that I don't think it's persuasive.
gondorking86 3 years ago
The honest version of Kalam premise 1 is that Everything that begins to exist has a natural cause that forms the new thing from existing matter and energy.
I note that the other thing these bad cosmo arguments all do is extrapolate some things from the natural/temporal to the supernatural and timeless but not others. Cause of the temporal from the non-temporal but no cause of the non-temporal. Intelligence and complexity (smuggling in the design argument) but no need for their evolution.
JayeHK 3 years ago
But to define P1 of the Kalam like that is simply to exclude the possibility of God's existence, or at least of the possibility that He might be able to act in the natural world, which is begging the question.
gondorking86 3 years ago
It's not rephrased deliberately to exclude the possibility of God's existence, which might be proved some other way (like if the silent under-achiever would just show up for once and stop wasting our time). It's to be more honest about the only causes and explanations we've ever observed so far and thus should be making up rules about for use as premises in arguments. However, let's stick to necessity, since tooltime was discussing TAG and design rather than Kalam.
JayeHK 3 years ago
You've now said God is perfect if he exists. Not exists because perfect. I'm still missing the necessity that eliminates the first "If". What about his nature makes his existence necessary and unarguable?
JayeHK 3 years ago
"What about his nature makes his existence necessary and unarguable?" - JayeHK
Well because we wouldn't exist if there wasn't something that caused us to exist. In other words, if anything anything exists, then something necessarily exists. I exist. Therefore something necessarily exists. I do not exist by necessity of my own nature, therefore I must find the explanation for my existence in an external something. The question is, what is that something?
gondorking86 3 years ago
Now, I could either say that I don't care what that something is, and live my life trying to think of excuses for why I don't think that that something exists. But I can't do that. I say that for me, not for everyone. I can't live my life without trying to figure out why I am here. Maybe that's unreasonable. But if you think so, then,
...
well, I'm a Christian, I shouldn't say that.
Something about absolute morality.
:-)
gondorking86 3 years ago
Furthermore, I believe that that Reason has revealed Himself to me. How can I turn away from Him? How can I help but try to tell others about Him?
gondorking86 3 years ago
I'm all ready for you on morality and meaning and purpose and you won't like it - let's leave that for another video and stay friendly on the same page here.
If God is necessary only because you feel the need of a creator, then are we left with only Kalam? All that "perfect" stuff doesn't prove anything? He's not necessary by nature or by definition, but only because of the first cause argument?
JayeHK 3 years ago
"He's not necessary by nature or by definition...?" - JayeHK
That God is perfect by nature and definition is exactly what the Christian believes. I say "if" to further discussion.
gondorking86 3 years ago
So if we are going to rephrase the P1 of Kalam without excluding the possibility of God and thus begging the question, shouldn't we rephrase it like this?
Everything that begins to exist has either a natural cause that forms the new thing from existing matter and energy or a supernatural cause that creates the new thing out of nothing.
gondorking86 3 years ago
OK, that's fine (re your Kalam P1 comment). It's also more honest because it explicitly distinguishes the two types of cause, one of which is familiar and natural, one of which is totally unknown, totally unexplained, totally without content (i.e. how?) and may or may not be possible. So it unpacks the smuggling of the wild and woolly in with the familiar and reasonable.
JayeHK 3 years ago
Good, I'm glad you're OK with the reformulated Kalam P1. Actually, I'm very grateful for your pointing that out to me.
gondorking86 3 years ago
But if the new P1 is true, then the question remains as to what caused the universe to begin to exist. I still don't think that it could have had a natural/material cause, because nature/material is exactly what came into existence. That leaves us with the supernatural cause.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Ah, but it's only unknown and unexplained if whatever this supernatural cause is does not reveal itself to us, which is exactly what my original claim on this thread was, that is, that God has revealed Himself to us. He has done this in nature (or in our existence instead of our non-existence), in our conscience, in His Word, and in His incarnate Son.
gondorking86 3 years ago
You might call it the argument from revelation.
1. God has revealed Himself.
2. Therefore God exists.
I certainly affirm P1. I might not be able to prove it absolutely to you, but I'd die before I stopped believing it or proclaiming it. All other arguments are supplemental for me.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Which brings us back to my original point in the thread, that the kind of pride that tooltime was talking about in his video is impossible in the "argument from revelation." God has revealed himself to me, not on the basis of any merit or intelligence within me, but solely by His grace.
gondorking86 3 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Everybody on the net knows how Slick behaves when cornered with his TAG torn to pieces in front of him.
Now search for this video CARM Debate 2008 Does God Exist (Part 14)
and see a GIRL rip Slick to SHREDS and expose the liar that he is, when Slick pretends not to understand her question cause she cornered him. He even had his YouTube friends show up in the debate and try to stump the atheist, but to no avail. Now someone prove to me this guy is a Christian! What a charlatan.
fasterthan24 3 years ago 2
Is science possible if P1 is untrue?
gondorking86 3 years ago
You really are talking shit.
TheDebate1 3 years ago
That said, the argument you shot down sounds like a mutated form of the argument from contingency, which, properly stated goes as follows:
1 Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence, either in the necessity of its nature or in an outside cause
2 The universe has no explanation for its existence if atheism is true
3 The universe exists
From 1 and 3 it follows that:
4 The universe has an explanation
From 2 and 4 it follows that
5 Atheism is untrue, i.e. there is a God
gondorking86 3 years ago
Now, this is a logically valid argument, so in order to avoid the conclusion without being irrational you must deny one of the first three premises. I'm curious to know which one you would deny.
gondorking86 3 years ago
Oh, and just so you know, the God of the Bible considers denial of His existence to be a sin. That may sound unfair to you, but how can a sinner dictate his standards of fairness to a holy and perfect God?
Now you may say, who does this gondorking86 guy think he is? By God's grace, I'm His child because He saved me, but otherwise, I'm nobody. The real question is, who is this God?
His name is Jesus Christ, you can read about Him in the Bible.
gondorking86 3 years ago
He was miraculously born of a virgin just over 2000 years ago, lived a sinless life, died on a cross to bear the wrath of God for your sin - including the sin of unbelief - and give you His righteousness, if you by God's grace repent and trust in Him alone for your salvation; and today He sits at the right hand of God the Father in glory.
gondorking86 3 years ago
I would deny P1, which in philosophy is called the principle of sufficient reason.
tooltime9901 3 years ago
Got it, that's what I thought you would say. Thanks.
So do you think that anything that exists has an explanation for its existence?
gondorking86 3 years ago
Also, how can you deny P1 without presupposing God's non-existence?
gondorking86 3 years ago
I can because causation is not as well defined or understood an idea as PSR would lead us to believe.
tooltime9901 3 years ago