Debate thread here
Enjoy
Debate thread here
Enjoy
IN VINO VERITAS
IN CERVESIO FELICITAS
Under the patronage of The Lizard King
Patron of Narf and Starlightman
I like 13's posting style (yeah I think 13 looks better than XIII ).
I just want to say one thing about his first debate post : if your first assumption is wrong, then your conclusion will be wrong, however correct the reasoning might be, here is an example :
1. All that is rare is expensive.
2. A cheap Ferrari is rare.
3.A cheap Ferrari is expensive.
The reasoning is correct but since the first assumption is wrong, the conclusion is wrong. (works also for any other assumption, like the second or a possible third).
On the whole of the debate itself, I think that a "Existence of God" debate is a purely atheistic debate and that both sides cannot be anything else than atheistic.
As a theistic person, you have faith in the existence of God, you believe in God. You can only believe in something if you know that there is a change of you being wrong. If you have no choice but to be right, then you no longer believe, you know.
Let me give you a few examples : I know that the air we breathe is about 30% oxygen and 70% nitrogen, I know that the Earth is roundish, I believe that there is at least one other form of life in the Universe, I believe that today's theory of evolution is correct. I am sure about what I know, I can be wrong about what I believe but if I prove beyond any doubt that any of my beliefs are true, then I wouldn't believe in them anymore I'd know. If I meet and alien tomorrow, I will no longer believe that there are other forms of life in the Universe, I will know there are.
So proving the existence of God makes you go from believing in God to knowing that God exists. If you know God exists, you don't believe in Him anymore. So by wanting to prove that God exists you only prove one thing, that you don't want to believe in God and thus that you don't believe in God.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle shows us that there is no such thing as absolute certainty, Nyxos.
Nobody, knows anything for sure, not in the way you are using the word, i.e knowing 100% for sure.
We all can only believe, and at certain levels of certainty, but never absolute, never truly knowing.
Hence why you are wrong in thinking this argument is pointless for the reasons you stated. It's pointless only because there is no right or wrong. Not because one side is wrong from the start.
There is no fact being argued here, just two opinions.
You can argue that simply believing in God, makes him something as you have a concept of what God is, and thus you make God exist.
Look at something like Love in the same way, it's not something you can put your hand on, touch, or prove is truly real, but for the simple fact that you have a concept of love, what it is etc, that makes it something and make its exist, makes it real.
I don't believe in God. But the fact of the matter is nobody will ever prove he doesn't exist, and nobody will ever prove he does.
Quantum physics doesn't apply well to a macroscopic environment.
I must agree with .Mitch. Setting aside Heisenberg's principle (which actually does apply, albeit to a lesser degree of magnitude, to the macroscopic world; we can imagine, for instance, people being biased in Gallup polls by previous questions), there has been proof after proof against certainty in the history of philosophy. Descartes famously had his, which most philosophers like, and yet those almost all of those same philosophers (including myself) could not disagree more with his solution to it.
My favorite, however, belongs to 11th century Islamic theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Firstly, he shows that sense can be doubted (obviously), as there are numerous occasions when we can be decieved by what we sense (he gives the example of looking at a star and sensing it to be the size of a coin); this is a pretty common argument against sense. His argument against knowledge based on reason, however, is fantastic. He says that, like a man who thinks only in his senses and finds it absurd for someone to claim otherwise with reason, we all might not be advanced enough intellectually to understand the level of thinking which trumps reason. Of course, al-Ghazali would find certainty in Mysticism, but his questions are much more important than his answers.
Unfortunately, every amount of "knowledge" we possess is belief. However, all the arguments against reason as a method of acquiring knowledge depend upon an assumption; if there is a way to trump reason, we don't know if 2+2=7 or 8, because we can't comprehend that reason. Therefore, the best way to try to have knowledge is to depend on the things we can. Reason should be regarded as more credible than sense-knowledge, but the latter accepted in the numerous fields in which reason cannot apply. However, everything must be held with a strong level of doubt. The vast majority of scientific knowledge we have now is likely to be proven wrong in centuries of the future, but it works decently well for the time being.
So...how exactly should we define "belief" then? Because although I recognize, again, that all science and reason are subject to doubt, I cannot get myself to say "I believe in Evolution.", because, to me, it seems like Evolution simply does not require belief.
Is there really "moral knowledge"?
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
-Betrand Russell
The topic is far too broad.
One of the reasons debating the question "Does God Exist?" makes such a mockery of discussion and conversation (especially when they're done orally) is because while the initial arguments might be easy to lay out, actually searching for their flaws (and alternatively, the opponent defending the flaws) is a monstrous task.
Take just one of XIII's arguments (or well, actually WLC arguments since he's parrotting his arguments anyway): the resurrection of Jesus. It might only take a few paragraphs to propose it, but actually having a useful, informative and engaging debate on all that needs to be discussed (Jewish eschatological beliefs especially among apocalypticists, what Jesus did or did not claim, textual criticism of the gospel and their chronology, historical epistemology and the psychology of apocalyptic cults) would require several essays if not several books just to set up the necessary causal chain for debunking it.
And you'll never get to such an extensive discussion for each of the three friggin' arguments.
So I'm sorry to say, but I can only predict that this debate will be nothing but superficial "Nuh-uh" from either side. Actually voicing the points in conflict will just take too long, and you've taken too many subjects to be able to discuss in detail.
My advice would be taking it one argument at a time and actually extensively work on it. I'll be surprised if you guys will be able to do that for even one.
Good luck nonetheless.
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath
--- Mark 2:27
Atheism is simply a way of clearing the space for better conservations.
--- Sam Harris
I undersign yours and Ney's statements (with some reservations).
Ironically, it was skepticism in excess in regards to the gnoseological problem that lead me to belief in God. We can say that the most convincing arguments for belief are not rooted in positive and exact statements, but in uncertainty, almost to a mistifying degree; "Faith and Reason" is not an antithesis in its fundamental degrees, and have never been such.
And therefore, I can safely conclude that Al-Ghazali was a thinker of a much better caliber than Aquinas and anyone who tries to invent formal proofs for the existence of God. I don't ultimately found my belief in any of these, of course. And, that the via negativa necessarily trumps the others in all aspects.
Last edited by Marie Louise von Preussen; June 16, 2011 at 11:28 PM.
"Romans not only easily conquered those who fought by cutting, but mocked them too. For the cut, even delivered with force, frequently does not kill, when the vital parts are protected by equipment and bone. On the contrary, a point brought to bear is fatal at two inches; for it is necessary that whatever vital parts it penetrates, it is immersed. Next, when a cut is delivered, the right arm and flank are exposed. However, the point is delivered with the cover of the body and wounds the enemy before he sees it."
- Flavius Vegetius Renatus (in Epitoma Rei Militari, ca. 390)
yes but not as christians,muslims,jews etc think.The hellenic gods exist because they r humanised forms of nature,zeus is the thunder,afrodite is love,poseidon is the ocean and so on....so as long as the things they sumbolise exist(eart as we know it) the gods exist.They can not be one god named giaoube or allah or anything else who is the creator and curator of the world and wants to help their believers only it is too egoistic by people to think that and it is irrational
What you're talking about is spiritualism, which was practiced by some civilizations including the Native American tribes, but not the ancient Greeks. Their gods were causes, not things. Zeus was not thunder, he was the cause of thunder.
Besides, how do you know reality exists anyway?
IN VINO VERITAS
IN CERVESIO FELICITAS
Under the patronage of The Lizard King
Patron of Narf and Starlightman
I'd agree with this. I don't find the debate about the existence or none existence of God that productive anyway, I think arguments about how the belief in God influences and informs the philosophy and beliefs of the deist/theist more interesting (for instance why Christianity, since there seems no rational reasons to pick one over another).
I applaud science in showing the way of the Lord, instead of this push that the Earth was created by no one rather just math equations, it points towards that it was created by something, there was something before nothing. God and his power created this fine Earth and we have science to thank us for showing that!
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
-Betrand Russell
Both of these debaters seem really well matched. There posts are just the right length that I can read them without getting bored.
Last edited by Tehmuffin19; November 25, 2011 at 09:27 PM.
The Greeks came up with the saying, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth". But the Greeks also built the Trojan Horse. Coincidence? I think not...
Zeus is electromagnetism. Poseidon is tectonics. Hades is entropy or something. Demeter is Abiogenesis. Etc.
Zeus was the thing that made the thunder and the lightning. Poseidon made the ground shake and the seas boil. Whatever you want to call it. They were the forces working behind the scenes.
Zeus wasn't just a guy in the clouds who shot lasers at people who got on his nerves. He was as immaterial as any modern religion claims their Gods to be. If I recall correctly when he finally gave into the nagging of a lover to show her his real form (I guess she was tired of bestiality) she burst into flames from his divine awesomeness (Zeus let her have a drug called Charlie Sheen) and win. If he was then Yahweh is a War God whose father or uncle El Elyon lived on a mountain in a palace of lapis lazuli and screwed around with his sister/daughter/wife or something.
You'd be hard pressed to convince a Jew or Muslim that's what they worship. Allah being related to Elaha and El Elyon was the father/uncle guy, they aren't even the same person in the old religion. Platonic Zeus is effectively the modern Allah, which makes the whole Julian the Apostate thing kind of ridiculous. He just thought it was stupid people were worshiping this eccentric Jewish Jesus fellow who claimed to be some sort of savior. It's not like he was worshiping Bacchus or something sinfully delicious. Radicals have no respect for conservatives. Rome was over seven hundred years old thanks to Zeus. Kind of like saying Bob Dylan was crap because he couldn't sing as nice as Justin Timberlake. Who was this Jesus guy anyway?
Last edited by Col. Tartleton; November 26, 2011 at 01:43 AM.
The Earth is inhabited by billions of idiots.
The search for intelligent life continues...
These debates always end in a Status Quo Ante.
Some interesting talk (quite similar to this one) here on pages 11 - 15+ (and also 1 - 10; but I started to participate on page 11):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...445960&page=11
These debates always end in a Status Quo Ante.
Yeah. BTW - wouldn't it be better to wait for those several dozen years until we die and we will all know if God exist or not?
Instead of interesting, but quite pointless, internet debates?
Last edited by Domen123; November 27, 2011 at 03:25 PM.
Stop posting. There's a reason why the debate is in the archives.