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That's not a stupid question. It's our limited minds that cause us to assume that nothing is the default state. That's never been proven, and it may not be true.
The logic doesn't matter if the original assertion that the argument is based on is wrong. For example:
It's a cheap tactic that people use when they're losing an argument. He's trying to rope me into an argument about Richard Dawkins to take that focus off of his reasons for believing in God. Either that, or he's secretly in love with Dawkins and can't stop talking about him.
That's a gross oversimplification of what I said at best, and a blatant lie at worst. Here's what I actually said:
No fair minded person will read what I actually said and think that what you said is an accurate representation of it. So congratulations. You just made yourself look like a liar in the eyes of every fair minded person who reads this thread.
I don't think I could ever be fully convinced that God exists, but on the other hand I don't think I could ever be fully convinced that the world exists either. There is always an alternate explanation. Any supposed acts of God could just be some super powerful being (like Q from Star Trek), or maybe just some physical/technological phenomena that I don't know about yet. Similarly, I don't know that the world is real because I could just be dreaming or in the Matrix or whatever.
Yes, this is what you are going to get when you advocate a completely unfalsifiable object. Or, rather, as referring to the god of the bible, self-contradicting. And furthermore, you asked Miracle, not god. I think it's reasonable to assume that there is some form of god that created the universe. Assuming anything beyond the fact that something made the universe happen, however, such as that he's still interested in our day-to-day affairs, that heaven/hell exist, that any gospel whatsoever is correct... Is ridiculously faulty. Sorry, but when you argue something that can't even be proven in principle, you set yourself up to lose. And you WILL lose.
Who accepts that? We don't know if anything in this universe is necessarily finite. We know that matter cannot be created or destroyed, and it seems logical to assume that is infinite.
Where is the programmer then? We can always expand our definition of universe to include everything that exists.
Oh look the whole burden of proof thing. Fun fact: even if the new testament is correct, even if the gospels are 100% accurate, even if jesus did perform miracles up the ***, that's no reason to assume the god of the christian bible exists. You still have the burden of proof, and what a coincidence, what you're trying to prove is unfalsifiable. The moment you start arguing for something that is unfalsifiable, you are getting into an argument you cannot win.
The programmer is outside of the program. Also, if you were to expand the definition of the universe to include God, it wouldn't really be the same, as it would include spiritual, non-physical and eternal things that the normal definition does not. Similarly, if you were to expand the definition of the program to include the programmer, that definition would change drastically.
This is a misuse of the term burden of proof. You might claim that you have won the argument unless we counter your claims, but the burden of proof is still on you to show that something exists or something happened. It is difficult to give evidence that something didn't happen, or that something (logically conceivable) doesn't exist. Usually at best we can say that it is unlikely to have happened, or unlikely to exist, because we don't have any evidence for it. Since you are the one making the claim, the burden of proof is on you to bring evidence and reasoning.DRE makes a good point.
2+2 = 4 is unfalsifiable because it's true.
Therefore, something being unfalsifiable doesn't mean it can't be true.
And BPC, if someone claims to be supernatural instead of an ordinary human, and DOES in fact do miracles and stuff impossible for an ordinary human, doesn't it make sense to believe him? When someone's given THAT much evidence for his claims, I believe the burden of proof falls on you guys.
The usual definition of the universe is "all things that exist". There's nothing wrong with including God as part of the universe, as if he exists, he has to exist on some level of reality, just like the programmer. My purpose in bringing it up was really just a veiled "Who created God?" argument though.
No it wouldn't. If we could prove that Jesus was a prophet, would you assume that the Muslim version of Yahweh was correct?
What is the logic for God's existence? It can't be refuted at all until you provide something to refute.
Do you have another way of proving God's existence?
No we didn't. Science was around long before we started calling it science. If a caveman stuck his hand in a fire and got burned, thus learning that fire was hot, he did that using science. If I think that my glass has Dr. Pepper in it, and I taste it to see, I've just used science.
Falsifiable means that you can test something to determine whether it is false or not. It doesn't mean that it has to be false. 2+2=4 is falsifiable because we can test it. Saying that there is a purple giraffe on the planet Zeblatron is unfalsifiable, because we can't test it.
No. That's the kind of thinking that causes people to be fooled by so-called "psychics" like John Edward. There may be a natural explanation for their "miracles" that we don't yet know of.
No it doesn't, because we have no reason to think that these supposed "miracles" even took place to begin with.
Stop saying "scientific" as if you have another kind of evidence that I'm refusing to accept. If you did, you would have provided it by now. Arguments built from baseless assertions are not another form of evidence.
Seriously. Every time I stop in here and read a religion argument, I hear this along the way. I hear the Phoenix Wright style "Guilty until proven innocent." The bible is true unless you can prove it false. Here's a tip:
I spend two paragraphs laying out the logic for a premise, for you to dismiss it as baseless, without even explaining why.
I already explained twice that the logic is meaningless if the original claim is false. I gave you two specific examples and you completely ignored both of them. Your claim that I haven't given you an explanation is either a lie, or you haven't even bothered to read my responses. Either way, any fair minded person who goes back and reads my responses will see that I gave you an explanation and you chose to ignore it.
1) I'm having some difficulty discerning which two instances constitute the "examples" that you are referring to in the argument. Hopefully, the "Asians can't fly" principle isn't one of them.
2) In addition, you advocate that logic is meaningless if the original claim is false. Reviewing your previous posts, however, I couldn't find anything except your repeated insistence of evolution simply being a combination of natural selection favoring favorable genetic mutations in a sample set population. Even though evolution gives us a theory on how organic life developed, it does not explain how organic life began.freeman123 said:
You misunderstand me. BPC was claiming that "Even if Jesus did those miracles, it's possible he was an alien or something". I'm claiming that "If Jesus did those miracles, it's logical to assume that he is what he claimed to be."
*Shrug* I just use Occam's razor for that. Unless I come upon real evidence that I'm dreaming/in the matrix/whatever, it makes sense to suppose
Nope. They could account for the miracles on their own, but you forget the prophecy of Jesus's virgin birth, which is something the time travellers couldn't control. Jesus was indeed born and raised in that time period, so there's no way it could be a time traveller.
Easy. Greek mythology claimed Zeus was responsible for thunder and lightning by chucking his thunderbolts down from Mt. Olympus. Science has proved that lightning is merely a discharge of electrons. QED.
Something has to have existed eternally. Else you're just saying "Once upon a time, there was a beginning. Nothing caused it, there was no good reason, but all of a sudden BANG! and the universe was created."
Not if he's merely the first cause, no. The only way you could get those is if God himself told us those qualities. Like through the Bible.
Really? Those things are clearly meant to be physical. For example, in the story of Hercules (actually it's Heracles in the original greek, but that doesn't really matter), he searches the earth until he finally finds a passage to the underworld, where he dog-naps Cerebus. Also, Bellaphron (a guy on a pegasus) got stricken blind when attempting to fly up to mount olympus. When dealing with this sort of stuff, unless it's completely obvious that the author meant it to be symbolic, you're supposed to take it literally. Maybe Darwin meant evolution as symbolism, to demonstrate how life adapts to almost any situation.
Yes. It is. Why is that not valid? It's a perfect example of how, if the original assertion is inaccurate, then the logic following it is irrelevant.
I never claimed that evolution explains how life began. What does that have to do with anything, and how does that refute my point that arguments made from a false premise are logical fallacies?
I have no idea how life began in the first place. Why would I have to explain that?
As I've already pointed out to you, the Bible says that the earth is flat, and science has proven that the earth is round. You can deny that the Bible says this all you want, but I can just as easily deny that the Greeks ever said that lightning came from Zeus. Denying reality doesn't make it less true.
1048576 used the same exact argument in order to refute the existence of a monotheistic entity except he used unicorns and George Washington wearing a wig. The argument is not valid because you are comparing something that is already known, "Asians can't fly" and comparing that to something that is not known, "The existence of a Christian deity." The original assertion that "Asians can't fly" is not true because you've met Asians and learned via observation that they cannot fly. Comparatively speaking, you cannot meet the Christian Lord or observe his patterns like you could as an Asian. In other words, the comparison you are using is inaccurate and doesn't demonstrate a relevant correlation. For instance, if Asians could fly, this does not necessitate the existence of a Christian deity. The two are completely independent events. Inaccuracy can be applied to the notion that "Asians cannot fly" due to a posteriori conditioning. However, a posteriori conditioning is not possible when it comes to the monotheistic ruler of the Christian faith.
I'm not refuting you. I'm simply clarifying. In order for Evolution to occur, it required DNA, cells to develop, and variety of other prerequisites before concepts such as mutation, inheritance, and natural selection could occur. And if you don't know how that ribose/deoxyribose, phosphate, nitrogenous base, and cellular organisms came into fruition on a primordial Earth, then I don't understand the strong assertion that it couldn't have been the result of an intellectual entity.freeman123 said:
Luke 6:30 & 32, "Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise... And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same."Nicholas said:
No, I'm not. You're completely missing the point. Dre makes statements like "Two existing beings must be relational...", and then builds arguments off of those statements without ever giving any explanation as to why the original statement is true. If it's not true that two existing beings must be relational, then any argument following that statement is wrong.
I don't know where my keys are. Does that mean that I can't assert that they aren't on the moon?
Could you please post the source that undoubtedly confirms this? Does the passage itself make it perfectly clear that your interpretation is the correct one?
So, show that two independent beings can exist.
No, I wouldn't agree with that. What have I said that leads you to assume that I would agree with that? How is it simpler to think that life came from some intelligent being? That's just further complicating things, because where did that thing come from?
Mathew 4:8-9 says that the devil took Jesus to the top of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. How could you see all the kingdoms of the world from one mountain top unless the world is much smaller than it actually is, and also flat?
The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Dre was claiming that two gods can't exist, so there has to be one god. It would be ridiculous for me to try to argue that two gods can exist, since I don't believe that any gods exist. However, if one god could exist, I see no reason to assume that other gods couldn't exist also.
Is there something faulty with my logic?
Maybe it was metaphorical and was just saying the mountain was really tall, or that it had one heck of a view. You could compare it to a person saying that they had to repeat what they had said "one million times." Obviously, the hyperbole is a bit of a stretch on the actual truth, but it gets the message across.
I don't intend to answer for Dre., but I will make a case here that God would have to encompass and "be" existence, so splitting it into two entities would make them carry shattered components of existence; they would therefore not be able to exist because they would be incomplete in essence.
And Freeman posted a Bible section where God is physically walking with Adam and Eve as well. Maybe the Greek Gods are nonphysical but can manifest physically, like God can apparently.
That’s not building an argument of the original premise that you can’t have co-existing self-necessary beings, that’s explaining how I concluded the original premise of the impossibility of self-necessary being co-existing.
What do you mean by "simple"? Dre was making a similar argument, but his definition of God was an omnipotent being that was capable of thinking. Something that's intelligent and capable of doing anything it wants can't be simple. In fact, something that could do anything would easily be more complex than anything known to exist.
If it is meant to be taken metaphorically, then that doesn't come across very well. You'd think God would have better writers.
It sounds like you're making a case for pantheism. Pantheism, if you don't know, is the belief that the universe is God. If your god is the universe, then I agree that your god exists; I just don't call it God. I see no reason to call the universe God. We have a name for it already; it's the universe.
Your double standards amaze me. First off, the greek gods were clearly meant to be physical, as shown by the battles between them and the titans. (If they were primarily non-physical, why would the battles have been fought on the physical plane? They wouldn't have been.)
Dude, just because they can assume physical forms doesn't mean they were meant to be physical. God had appeared in physical forms several times (such as a burning bush), yet you say he was meant to nonphysical.
And....
There is no official book for greek mythology. However, it's irrelevant
How do we know the people who wrote the bible aren't lying
I now apply that to the bible. get@me.
See above.
Like what? Your new testament thread didn't convince me at all.
"Treat others the way you want to be treated"
The law of conservation of energy is not necessarily true. It's just something that we have observed time and time again, and with so many observations demonstrating that energy can't be created or destroyed, scientists have codified this into a scientific law. However, it's possible that tomorrow some scientist will discover a situation that violates conservation of energy and then that law will be scrapped. So I don't find this a convincing argument.
I'm the one with double standards? You always give the Bible the most favorable interpretation, but you are nitpicking the Greek Gods instead of giving them a favorable interpretation as well. The Gods could be both physical and non physical, the Titans might be the same, they could have fought in both the physical and nonphysical realms, Mount Olympus might be on a different plane of existence, the Gods might be hiding Mount Olympus from us,
How would it be more complex if it has the power perform infinities? Isn't an infinite essence of existence much more simple than a defined, limited, existence-dependent material object?
My personal opinion is that God is the creator of the universe and its laws and exists outside of our limited space-time, being perfect in every regard that can be tied to existence and the recursive knowledge of itself. He actively participates in our young world and will judge us when the day comes.
The hard fact is that they didn't have minimum wage back then, so they had to work for free. God can't really make money, since money is the root of all evil (absence of God) and God is good. It's one of the let-downs that comes with omnibenevolence.
That happened though; it has a factual basis in reality. How else would you explain the number of witnesses alive during Jesus' time who had undoubtedly laid their own eyes on his crucifixion and resurrection?
No, I'm not making a case for pantheism.
The core trait that all of reality shares is existence, and existence is the only thing that can exist by itself, since even the color red has to depend on the presence of existence. If you wanted more than one deity, then you would end up with two separate entities that only half-exist, and since you cannot start a chain with interdependent objects (a necessitates b and b requires a,) it makes sense that only one existential entity can exist.
How would you explain the evolution of language, if the Tower of Babel event never happened (which is what you are claiming?)
