(the refernces to Matty are from the Thomas Reid Project:quotes from G.J. Matty, Philosphy, UC Davis)
My argument is that I have met my Prima facie burden in any one of my God arguments, so it now becomes the atheist's burden to prove that these are inadaqute.
Note on Prima Facie;
Prima Facie Justification.
Mattey again:
"
Far from concluding that our senses are "fallacious," Reid placed them on the same footing as memory and reason, though they are "undervalued" by philosophers because "the informations of sense are common to the philosopher and to the most illiterate. . . . Nature likewise forces our belief in those informations, and all the attempts of philosophy to weaken it are fruitless and in vain."
"Reid pointed out that when we fall into error regarding the objects of sense, we correct our errors "by more accurate attention to the informations we may receive by our senses themselves." So the "original and natural judgments" that are made on the basis of our constitution lose their original justification in the presence of additional information. Contemporary philosophers call this kind of justification "prima facie," a term from law which describes an initially plausible case that could prove to be entirely implausible given further evidence. A belief of common sense, then, is justified "on the face of it."
"According to the doctrine of prima facie justification, one is justified in accepting that things are the way they appear, when
* it does appear to one that they are that way, and
* there is no reason to think that something has gone wrong.
[Ibid]
"But if there is such a reason, one's justification is "defeated." Thus prima facie justification is "defeasible."
"For Reid, our beliefs about physical objects are justified by sense-experience, which he took to be a product of the interaction between the senses and physical objects. Twentieth-century philosophers have been somewhat more cautious, however, and have followed more closely the account of perceptual knowledge given by Reid's predecessors such as Descartes, Locke and Hume: that what justifies our beliefs about physical objects is a mental state such as:
* looking like something is red
* a sensation of red
* seeing red-ly"
"For example, what justifies a person in believing that he sees something red is that it looks to him as though there is something red. The mental state of that person is one in which there is an appearance of red, and just being in this mental state is enough to give prima facie justification to the belief that he really sees something red. On the other hand, what confers justification might be a belief about how things appear."
Anyone of my arguments establishes it. I have 40 and they have not been ansered.
(1) Arbitrary necessity:
I put this up the other day all anyone could do to it was to deny the basci N/c dichotomy, which is irratioanl because these are basic modal opporaters.
(2) Transcendental Singifier argument
The attacks on this argument went no where. I proved that God functions as the TS and that we cannot escape having a TS if we expect to communicate ratinoally.
(3) Ground of Being
this argument was zapped because I was mistaken about the number of threads i could do.
That's ok but it's been argued so many times. All anyone can do si act offended by the termenology, but no one ever comes to terms with the argument:
(a) the distinction between the infinite nature of being as an absract concept__________________
vs. t he finitude of human being evokes the sense of the numinous.
(b)
evokotion of the numinous is a genuine religious experince
(c) thus
being being itself evokes religious expeirnce and thus is a valid object of
religious devotion.
Oddly enough no one has really tried to address the premise that the burden of proof can be reversed. They seem to accept hat easily enough, but continue to say the same old things about the arguments. It really doesn't matter of the arguments one uses. I have 40 of them and any of them will do. I used these three because the seem to me to be deductive a priori and absolute such that one could almost abandon the ploy of only arguing for "rational warrant" and say "this is proven, QED, however that would be unwise.
Here is a quick summary of what atheists are saying to these arguments now:
(1) Arbitrary necessity
The most infuriating practice is the rejection of the dichotomy. After much wrangling, with a certain atheist saying "I don't recognize the premise" (which is that there is a distinction between necessity and contingency) and myself saying "it's the basis of modal logic, these are modal operators," finally admits it's formally true, but trivial and not important. To me this is just the proof of living in denial. These are the basis of modal logic, to say "this is only trivial" is like saying all evidence is trivial. I'm sure he would probably says that. He once said "speak for yourself" when a Christian said "well can't just believe in nothing?"
Their only defense against the argument is to merely deny the dichotomy even though its' at the center of logic. Another atheist argues that God is an arbitrary necessity, but he shows his confusion because his reason for saying so is no better than saying "God just happens to exist for no reason." Again, an arbitrary necessity is not just something that exists without a reason, it's a contingency that is used as a necessity to plug up a hole in naturalistic cosmology. A good example would be the ICR, a string of causal regressing going back infinitely. Most such examples are dependent upon using naturalistic phenomena such as the oscillating universe. Thus the universe, a contingency is drafted to perform the work of a necessity, something not contingent. The problem is not that "I can't think up a sexy reason why it should exist" but that it shouldn't be eternal because it's contingent. making an endless string of them doesn't help because it's an endless string of contingencies which is being used as necessity.
Now I can see the objecting coming, fallacy of complsition. The whole whole is not necessairly made up of its' parts. The fact of contingencies as parts doens't make the whole contingent. Yes, it does. The fallacy of composistion is crap. .Logicians argue that if all the parts are the same the whole is made of the parts and is the same of as the parts. Thus a wall made of brick is a brick wall. A palne made of steele is a steele plane. It is not a fallacy to say that a wall made of bricks is a brick wall. Robert Koons (UT) argues that wholly contingent sitautions are caused. The universe is wholly contingent, and so it must be caused.
(2) Transcendetal Singifer
This argument has them in fits. you can see the argument in its entirity here
Preliminary Observations:
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(1) Any rational, coherent and meaningful view of the universe must of necessity presuppose an oranizing principle which makes sense of the universe and explains the hierarchy of conceptualization.
(2) Organizing principles are summed up in a single first principle which grounds any sort of metaphysical hierarchy, the Transcendental Signifier (TS)
(3) It is impossible to do without a Trancendental Signifyer, all attempts to do so have ended in the re-establishment of a new TS. This is because we caannot organize the universe without a princinple of organizing.
(4)TS functions Uniquely as Top of The Metaphysical Heirarchy.It's function is mutually exclusive.
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Argument:
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P1) TS's function is mutually exclusive, no other principle can superceed that of the TS since it alone grounds all principles and bestows meaning through orgnaization of concepts.
P2)We have no choice but to assume the relaity of some form of TSed since we cannot function coherently without a TS
P3) We have no choice but to assume the reality of some form of TSed since the universe does seem to fall into line with the meaning we bestow upon it.
P4) The logical conclusion would be that There must be a TSed which actually creates and organizes the Universe.
P5) The sifnifier "God" is one version of the TS, that is to say, God functions in the divine ecnomy exacly as the TS functions in a metaphysical hierarchy.
P6) Since "God" is a version of the TS, and since TS and God concept share a unique function which should be mutually exclusive, the logical conculusion is that: God and TS share identity.ie "God" concept is descrition of the Transcendental Signified.
P7)Since the TS should be assumed as real, and TS and God share identity, we should assume that God is the Transcendental Singified, and thus is an actual reality.
rational warrent for belief in God's existence.
There is always knee jerk reaction that I'm crazy, that this is nonsense, these words don't mean anything. In the last discussion a Christian said I was driving people to atheism by thinking about grand thought are too big be delved into, he kept talking about productive people who live valid lives and hold down jobs and get thing done. They don't waste their time with bs like this. Then the informs me he has to go prepare to teach his Sunday school class. I'm sure he will prepare the kiddies to be proper little borgeois know nothings and to hate learning. The atheist is reaction is often just as irrate.
Only one time has a skeptic ever pointed out that my argument is the reverse of Derrida. Good spotting, because I call the argument "the Reverse Derrida Argument." I am reversing Derrida, although he and I agree on the same preimise, that there is a TS and that God is a perfect example of the TS. But where Derrida wants to destroy the TS by undermining hierarchies, I say his own words and those of Heidegger indiate that this is impossible. We cannot communicate without the TS or without metaphysics because all Metaphysical ideals are grounded in coherence and language and coherence and language are both examples of hierarchies with transcendental signifiers.
Thus in the finest tradition of the North African philosopher himself, the point of contrudiction undermines the heirarchy of meaning he has set up and his whole chemeatta becomes reversable, that is just the way Derrida himself would do it.
for the most part other atheists argue (although they tacitly admit to the argument by trying to reason about it) say that there are many possible versions and that abstract ideals have no effect upon concrete reality. But I argue that most of the possibilities boil down to just one idea for a TS, an organizing principle, and that is pretty much reason. Which, by the way, would also answer the argument "how do you know God is 'personal?'" Because to identify God with reason, one must understand God as a mind, because minds contian reason. Reason is not dismbodied it has to be held in a mind. As for the idea that concretet realityis not effected by abstractions; concete thins can funciton as absract concepts all the time. A leader of a nation state is head of state. That is an abstract concept and a title, and the notion f a nation state is istelf an abstraction.
(3) The Ground of Being.
HRG on CARM still thinks his three partical universe is the defeat of this concept. he says if a unvierse existed consisting of nothing but three particals it would be to simplistic to be created by God. Thus here is an example of a universe that is uncreated and meaningless. This is just beging the question, since we don't have a three partical universe to examine, and really I consider the concept imposible. I don't think a three partical universe would have enough gravity to contain more particals than subatomic. It would not form a universe. Be that as it may, if it did it would be an example of being and thus not the defeat of the ground of being arugment. there would be a ground for the being. He's never answered this argument.
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