Do you believe in God?

[PaliRichard]

spilldig

 

I asked you a question here and repeated it here

 

You gave a (forgive me for saying so but it appeared somewhat throwaway) answer here to which I made the comment

 

That is not taught by all religions, varying degrees of killing are accepted in most of them[/Quote]

 

Would you like to either respond to this or expand on your original answer to my question please?

 

borderline

 

You appear to have blatantly ignored any attempts to answer my questions, for the sake of ease you can find them here please do me the courtesy of answering them.

 

Mr Fisk

 

I asked you three questions, you made an appaling attempt at sidestepping one of them and no attempt at answering the other two, so here they are again.

 

1. Why does the explanation of multiple Gods have to be 'harder' or more complex than the explanation of one God?

 

2. Why does the explanation of one God with seperate 'attributes' or personas like the Christian, or Hindu God have to be 'harder' or more complex than the explanation of one God?

 

3. Can you explain one God?

[janie48]

There's no insult there janie, there may well be a few uncomfortable truths yes but there's no way you can construe it as an insult. Your response however does you no credit.

.

That would depend on the opinion of what you consider to be truth.

It isn't of much concern to me whether other people regard my responses to be of no credit.

For the most part I pay no attention to some peoples put downs,but I am not prepared to always ignore peoples disparaging remarks.

Even when I respect a persons better qualified knowledge on some areas of a subject,i have my own views and am entitled to express them.

The responses i have given on previous posts on occasions have been a reaction to the radical atheist anti-Christian comments which appear to have the sole intention of aiming only to produce a demonization of Christianity in order to spread Atheism.

It is an easy position to gain when the person has the majority of support and holds that advantage.

I have never once denied the shameful periods in the long history of Christianity, or its failings on some issues related to present day events.

But what I haven't failed to notice is that with some of the more extreme atheists their only design is to only concentrate and focus attention on those bad parts, never to give any credit at all to the good parts, entirely dismissing any good in order to suit their own purpose.

Edited April 8, 2013 by janie48
missing word.

[Eater Sundae]

That would depend on the opinion of what you consider to be truth.

It isn't of much concern to me whether other people regard my responses to be of no credit.

For the most part I pay no attention to some peoples put downs,but I am not prepared to always ignore peoples disparaging remarks.

Even when I respect a persons better qualified knowledge on some areas of a subject,i have my own views and am entitled to express them.

The responses i have given on previous posts on occasions have been a reaction to the radical atheist anti-Christian comments which appear to have the sole intention of aiming only to produce a demonization of the Christianity in order to spread Atheism.

It is easy to position to gain when the person has the majority of support and holds that advantage.

I have never once denied the shameful periods in the long history of Christianity, or its failings on some issues related to present day events.

But what I haven't failed to notice is that with some of the more extreme atheists their only design is to only concentrate and focus attention on those bad parts, never to give any credit at all to the good parts, entirely dismissing any good in order to suit their own purpose.

 

Why is your default position to accuse anyone with a different view of being "insulting" or "disparaging"?

[Obelix]

That would depend on the opinion of what you consider to be truth.

It isn't of much concern to me whether other people regard my responses to be of no credit.

For the most part I pay no attention to some peoples put downs,but I am not prepared to always ignore peoples disparaging remarks.

Even when I respect a persons better qualified knowledge on some areas of a subject,i have my own views and am entitled to express them.

The responses i have given on previous posts on occasions have been a reaction to the radical atheist anti-Christian comments which appear to have the sole intention of aiming only to produce a demonization of the Christianity in order to spread Atheism.

It is easy to position to gain when the person has the majority of support and holds that advantage.

I have never once denied the shameful periods in the long history of Christianity, or its failings on some issues related to present day events.

But what I haven't failed to notice is that with some of the more extreme atheists their only design is to only concentrate and focus attention on those bad parts, never to give any credit at all to the good parts, entirely dismissing any good in order to suit their own purpose.

 

All very worthy sentiments I'm sure Janie.

 

It's not really that relevant to the statement I made though.

[Guest]

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Fisk

 

I asked you three questions, you made an appaling attempt at sidestepping one of them and no attempt at answering the other two, so here they are again.

 

1. Why does the explanation of multiple Gods have to be 'harder' or more complex than the explanation of one God?

 

2. Why does the explanation of one God with seperate 'attributes' or personas like the Christian, or Hindu God have to be 'harder' or more complex than the explanation of one God?

 

3. Can you explain one God?

 

I am not sidestepping PaliR- I do have a lot of things going on that does not always allow me time on forums!

 

Anyway, I will try to answer as best as I can- I do respect the fact you have shown an overall good approach to people and seem like a guy who is keen to debate, but in a good manner.

 

I don't think I made an appalling attempt for starters- perhaps I should have started from the beginning before going in to the concept of multiple gods being more complex.

 

1) It does become harder to explain and my example was not lame- everything we know of has a beginning (that which begins to exist).

My attempt was to try and show that there has to be a First Cause and that cause has to be UNCAUSED- because if you start to go in to gods then you will have to keep going and going-who created the cause that created the cause that created the cause = ad infinitum.

 

It is not hard to comprehend- apply Ockhams razor- as why make more assumptions, the easier explanation is the simplest IMO.

 

2 & 3) This may be linked to how the perception of God needs to be- if we establish the rational fact that things do not come in to existence by themselves-nothing = nothing, then my definition of God is a Being with a will (a will to create), Uncaused (as other wise it would not be God) who is not bound by time or space.

 

The cause or creator for the universe must be a single cause for several reasons. That leads back to Okham's razor-as you know this principle enjoins that we do not multiply entities beyond necessity. What this basically means is that we should stick to explanations that do not create more questions than it answers.

 

In the context of the cause for the universe we have no evidence to claim multiplicity.

 

Anyway- I hope that gives some answers, will try to log in now and again to try and stay on course with you.

[PaliRichard]

I am not sidestepping PaliR- I do have a lot of things going on that does not always allow me time on forums!

 

Anyway, I will try to answer as best as I can- I do respect the fact you have shown an overall good approach to people and seem like a guy who is keen to debate, but in a good manner[/Quote]

 

Thank you, that's very kind of you.

 

I don't think I made an appalling attempt for starters- perhaps I should have started from the beginning before going in to the concept of multiple gods being more complex[/Quote]

 

Both myself and fj clarified our points several times and you appeared, and I have to be honest it did appear to be a deliberate move on your part, to ignore the point we were making in order to push the point you were trying to make which was irrelevant to what you were being asked.

 

1) It does become harder to explain and my example was not lame- everything we know of has a beginning (that which begins to exist).

My attempt was to try and show that there has to be a First Cause and that cause has to be UNCAUSED- because if you start to go in to gods then you will have to keep going and going-who created the cause that created the cause that created the cause = ad infinitum[/Quote]

 

You have fallen into a very basic philosophical trap, let me try to explain. We are essentially dealing with three philosophical positions that are all equally as likely or unlikely as each other.

 

1. Everything we know comes from something, it has a cause, this repeats eternally.

 

2. There is a first cause which itself was not caused.

 

3. There is a first cause which had a beginning but before that was nothing.

 

1. This relies on an infinite regression, to assume this is not possible is to impose a rule on the philosophical notion (important here to note philosophical and not scientific - we'll come back to science in a wee while) There is absolutely no reason to impose this rule at the stage we are at - we have an idea we are exploring - imposing a rule that all the things we know are caused and this cannot be eternally regressive is self defeating, it limits our investigation. I see no reason whatsoever to do this unless you have a pre concieved notion you are trying to prove.

 

2. This is equally as possible, but no more so than option one - you are correct to say everything we know has a cause - but we can equally say that nothing we know is uncaused - so the idea that we are limiting option one but championing option two is, as I have already pointed out, putting a limit on one area of enquiry while for some bizarre reason not limiting an equally valid (or invalid - depending on your view) view is self defeating for genuine philosophical enquiry.

 

3. Philosophically this option is equally as valid as 1 and 2, but this option has the benefit of science supporting it. At this moment in time - and despite many, many other ideas of what could be - our current understanding and evidence points to this being the nature of things. Something was created, but we have no idea what caused the beginning, or if there was anything before it. So the evidence says we have a beginning but nothing before it (or no way of knowing what was before it, but philosophically speaking we can say this is equal to nothing - at most we can say if it isn't nothing it is not in favour of any of the other options presented)

 

It is not hard to comprehend- apply Ockhams razor- as why make more assumptions, the easier explanation is the simplest IMO[/Quote]

 

Ockhams razor is misused in this context, option two is not the simplest of the two positions - we know all things have a cause - we don't know of anything that is uncaused, therefore if we were to apply Ockhams razor it would rest on the infinite regression idea over the uncaused cause one.

 

I think though that applying that particular principle at all in this context is wrong because a) even if we were talking about the universe and no sentient being we lack enough evidence to reasonably apply it and b) we are talking about God, and as we have no evidence for God we have to look at all the suggested ideas of God and decide the most likely definition before taking this line of enquiry further - either way it is being misused.

 

2 & 3) This may be linked to how the perception of God needs to be[/Quote]

 

We have many perceptions of God, not all agree on the details, what we need to do is examine each perception on its own merits.

 

if we establish the rational fact that things do not come in to existence by themselves-nothing = nothing[/Quote]

 

You've made another philosophical mistake. Nothing doesn't equal nothing if something comes into existance by itself. If something comes into existance it is not nothing, the 'nothing' that existed before it is not necessarily the cause so saying this first nothing = something is not correct.

 

then my definition of God is a Being with a will (a will to create)[/Quote]

 

Where does this will suddenly come into it? Why do you assume that this will is bent on creation?

 

Uncaused (as other wise it would not be God)[/Quote]

 

In your opinion, there are many religions that believe in Gods that are caused, so we nbow have to ask why is your idea of God any more plausable than these other ideas of God? The questions are beginning to mount up and as I'm sure you know by now I will be pressing you for answers to them.

 

who is not bound by time or space[/Quote]

 

Again not a prerequisite of being a God so we need to go into why you think this.

 

The cause or creator for the universe must be a single cause for several reasons. That leads back to Okham's razor-as you know this principle enjoins that we do not multiply entities beyond necessity. What this basically means is that we should stick to explanations that do not create more questions than it answers[/Quote]

 

Again I think you are misusing Okhams razor here, we simply don't have the evidence to apply it to. Let's deal with the bold bit now - you have stated that the cause or the creator must be singular for several reasons but not actually given us any reasons, I implore you to expand.

 

In the context of the cause for the universe we have no evidence to claim multiplicity[/Quote]

 

Neither do we have any evidence to suggest that there was anything before the cause, by default citing evidence you are invalidating your own argument - the same lack of evidence for multiple causes is the same lack of evidence for anything before the singularity at the beginning of the universe.

 

I asked you three questions

 

1. Why does the explanation of multiple Gods have to be 'harder' or more complex than the explanation of one God?[/Quote]

 

You have tried to explain this - you have created far more questions than answers but most importantly you still haven't sufficiently touched on the question asked by both myself and fj - why is one uncaused God more likely than 5, or ten, or an infinite number of uncaused Gods?

 

2. Why does the explanation of one God with seperate 'attributes' or personas like the Christian, or Hindu God have to be 'harder' or more complex than the explanation of one God?[/Quote]

 

You haven't made any attempt to answer this question.

 

3. Can you explain one God?[/Quote]

 

You haven't made any attempt to answer this question.

 

Anyway- I hope that gives some answers, will try to log in now and again to try and stay on course with you.

 

I appreciate your lack of time but if you could try to answer direct questions instead of merely pushing the same argument it would be appreciated.

[Lockjaw]

That would depend on the opinion of what you consider to be truth.

It isn't of much concern to me whether other people regard my responses to be of no credit.

For the most part I pay no attention to some peoples put downs,but I am not prepared to always ignore peoples disparaging remarks.

Even when I respect a persons better qualified knowledge on some areas of a subject,i have my own views and am entitled to express them.

The responses i have given on previous posts on occasions have been a reaction to the radical atheist anti-Christian comments which appear to have the sole intention of aiming only to produce a demonization of Christianity in order to spread Atheism.

It is an easy position to gain when the person has the majority of support and holds that advantage.

I have never once denied the shameful periods in the long history of Christianity, or its failings on some issues related to present day events.

But what I haven't failed to notice is that with some of the more extreme atheists their only design is to only concentrate and focus attention on those bad parts, never to give any credit at all to the good parts, entirely dismissing any good in order to suit their own purpose.

 

No response to my post then?

 

No surprise.

 

No conviction.

[macmellus]

So... in combining about fifteen threads that are all on a similar topic, we have one megathread containing about a hundred conversations all going off at once. Nice and easy to read. Nice one mods, very logical.

[Phanerothyme]

That argument does not wash.

 

What if the set I'm working with is the numbers 1 - 1000.

 

Lets follow your reasoning, the subset of numbers within my set that are not exceeded in value is very small, only one number in fact. Similarly the subset of numbers that are exceeded in value by all the other numbers is very small, also only 1 number. By far the largest set is that of numbers that are neither. Thus the probability that there are numbers higher than 1000 in a set that does not include any numbers higher than 1000 is close to 100%.

I'm not starting with the universal set, but the set of sentient beings in the multi/universe. - which I hope you'll agree is a finite and bounded set. So in your example one subset contains the number 1, another 1000 and 2-998 in the third set.

Exactly the same argument.

 

Another objection: Your argument cannot possibly be true because it leads to infinite regression.

I don't think it does, it's not infinite regression. It's finite regression.You can't infinitely pro/regress through a finite set. You reach the end at some point.

Lets say for the sake of argument I concede that your argument does show that tit is highly likely that there are higher intelligences than us. It also shows that it is highly likely that there are intelligences higher than them, it also shows that it is highly likely that there are intelligences higher than them, it also shows...

And so on until you get to the beings who have no equal. There's a small possibility that that's us. There's a much larger probability it isn't us.

Not so! Humans and zooplankton are real!

It should be blindingly obvious that this is a comparitive illustration.

 

Here's the point again - there are humans and there are simple eukaryotes in the meta/universe. Are you asserting that it is impossible that there are beings at large in the meta/universe whose complexity and capacities exceed our own, by the same order of magnitude as ours exceed those of simple unicellular life, and if so, on what basis?

Edited April 9, 2013 by Phanerothyme

[megalithic]

To the OP.

No.