Why is god Not Self Evident?

"big thinker" had a thread on CARM "if God exists why is he not self evident?"

The question as by BT on his own thread is loaded and distorted to reflect his bias. Because he thinks there's one form of knowledge, the fortress facts, he thinks of self evidence as one thing only; a guy in a while lab coat says "this is fact."

There may be forms of self evidence. It may self evident logically that there are no square circles but it's not self evident by empirical fact. You can't see that there are no square circles you have to think about it logically. BT doesn't' allow logical thought to get in the way of his disbelief because he takes the pseudo attitudes cultivated in atheist circles that science is the only form of knowledge and that science is only empirical observation and "fact."

Empirically God is not "obvious" and there's a perfectly understandably reason why. God is transcendent because he's the basis of reality. Nothing that is the basis of reality is observable empirically. We can't see mathematics. The whole universe can be described mathematically but we can't look at nature and see the math.

God could be self evident in some ways, such as the logic of the modal argument, not in others (such as empirically). Of course even evidence can be disputed if one refuses to accept it. Nothing drives this point home better than HRG's refusal to understand the word "being." He has to believe that the word being is just an idea philosophers made up.

when I say "being = existence," Hans says existence doesn't' exist. Whatever one takes a word to mean it doesn't mean that if the other guy doesn't want it to. I say "I use this operationally." Now in real logic this should mean "this is how I use i don't care how others you use it, it's my argument, you must deal with my usage." In HRG that means "this is the excuse you want to distort my meaning and make up your own."

God is obvious by practical logic. The modal argument is probalby self evident. Even self evidence can be doubted. anything can be doubted if one wishes to doubt.

when first year philosophy students learn Descartes's cogito, I think therefore I am. they often assume it's absolute this is self evident. When they learn that more advanced philosophers (Sartre) have ways of doubting they can't believe it. By the time they become reductionists and take up the brain/mind issue they think Descartes is crap. They are not the only one's who are disatisfied with Descartes. The continental tradition departed from his way also. The phenomenoloical crowd blames him for starting the "metaphysical" tradition. This is metaphysics in the Heideggerian tradition, grouping reality under a single rue brick and herding sense data into preconceived categories, in that sense scinece is metaphysics.

As HRG's thread tells us some things that were considers self evident are no longer. That just means that if God is not self evident ti should be constructed as a big deal. Here we have the contradiction in HRG's way of thinking. HRG, for those who don't read regularly, is an mathematician form Austria, guru to carm atheists, and my Nemesis for about ten years now. Nemesis and friend.

Originally Posted by HRG

You cannot "know" ontology or metaphysics. You can only invent your own, or adopt someone else's inventions.

Christian defender Occam responds:

This post has a great many ontological assumptions buried in it. For example, take the claim that some beliefs count as knowledge, and other beliefs are inventions. This claim only makes sense if your mind exists, there is an objective external world to which a belief in your mind can correspond or fail to correspond, and there is a particular process that you have to perform in order to get your beliefs to correspond to the truth (the end result being "knowledge"). It appears, then, that you're pulling on an ontology containing claims like "I exist," "reality exists," and "truth exists."

The irony here is that HRG has called Thomas S. Kuhn a "windbag" for saying the very same thing about socially constructed knowledge. He said it of scinece so Hans defends scinece as "truth" ala correspondence theory. Here and elsewhere he rejects the correspondence theory. If we take him as a some kind of spokemen for the atheists they don't have a stable theory of truth.

Examples of formerly self evident knowledge include:

Euclidean geometry
Geocentrism
Absolute time
Infinite speed of light
"Miasma" as origin of diseases
Impossibility of cutting a 3-D ball into pieces which, when joined together in a different way, make a sphere of twice the original size (Banach-Tarski paradox)
Existence of a greatest conceivable entity


my response to him:

you have evidence or reason for believing that the last one is not self evident. I have basically proved it is by the TS.

you are still arguing from analogy. you are going "some things have disproved therefore everything is disproved." You have given no proof that any of those were ever self evident.

Conclusion:

The validity of self evident knowledge is an open question and depends upon one's metaphsyical theories and epistemological theories. I accept the category of self evidence in terms of deduction and include the existence of God in that category. I think what the original poster ("Big Thinker") meant to say is that God is not empirically obvious. I examined why he should not be: Because the basis of reality that puts him "off scale."

Atheists Hide in the Gaps 2

 The epistemic gap that will always exist in miracle hunting is the same gap that will always exist in any sort of causation. As Hume says we do not see the causes. We don't see the causation at work. All we see is one billiard ball stop and the other start up. We infer cause and effects from the correlation. That's exactly what is being done, we are inferring cause form a correlation. Of cousre we can't always infer cause form correlation, it has to be a really tight correlation and there has to be a mechanism to explain it. Even a mechanism is established through correlation. In miracle hunting the gap is always going to be that we can't see God at work.  We must have a reason to infer a miracle. Because this gap always exists the atheist is always going to claim the miracle can't be proved, there's always a gap to hid in. The best we can do is to eliminate all other possibilities and have a really good reason for inferring that God is involved. At Lourdes the rules are set up to do this.

They don't take Lukemia cases for ten years. Lukeimia has a high rate of remission. In ten years it's most likely a remission will have reversed itself and the patient will be sick again. Another way the rules are set up to achieve is is that the patent can't have taken a drug and the only factor different from the ordinary situation is the prayer. That way the only possible alternate cause is the prayer, that we know of. It's never going to be fool proof but few things are and it's probably as good as most things we pretend to understand that we really don't understand, like the origin of the universe.

Miracles are not the only issue involved in this point of hiding in the gaps. Here are some more things atheists have said in the thread:

A New version of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty First Century on PBS "Mystery," the Watson character says "no one has arch enemies in real life." Watson has never been on an apologetics message board. On message boards we do have them. This one is mine, HRG on CARM.

Originally Posted by HRG

Not at all. It is a fact that some people think that miracles at Lourdes have been confirmed statistically. It is also a fact that their method (not counting the "failures" at Lourdes, and not counting the "successes" elsewhere) is invalid.

 It doesn't matter what people think. The fact is Lourdes miracle are not judged by statistics.

 Meta:

that is entirely ludicrous. how it possibly be invalid? it's the only valid method there is you saying that just proves to me you don't know anything about any of this. nothing could be more valid than before x-ray shows broken leg, after x-ray shows no trace of broken leg, and one day apart. what could be better proof? No Lourdes is not statistical. Statistical method would not prove crap about healing.

statical assumes God is like a drug and must work automatically. it does not allow for will. God is not a drug he's not an automatic process. So your study design is totally invalid..That's because you don't care about truth you are not trying to understand belief, you want to show your great ego and how brilliant you are.

HRG:

I have never supported liberal politics because I thought it was true; that would be like thinking that Schubert's Trout Quintet (which gave me a few transcendental seconds this morning ) is "true". I support liberal politics because of my secular humanism. 

Meta:

right, you don't have the sense or the honesty to see that that is ideological. nothing more than sheer ideology! But if you don't think humanism is true what do you do you think? It flatters your ego. your only truth is your ego. total selfishness then you are too deaf to hear God saying "hey that's not right, that's going to land you in trouble." you don't listen.

Stunning admission that he doesn't believe liberal politics are "true," but I do. Calling  political stands "true" or "false" is a bit problematic, but I do think my political views are based upon what I feel I feel is true. He grounds his politics in what he feels is true, although he doesn't believe in truth, so this is just more obfuscation on his part, for which he is famous.


HRG:

But your God cannot be proven beyond a substantial doubt either. And when I believe something for which there is no proof beyond any rational doubt, I'm aware that the proof is not 100% - and that I may be wrong (this is not even a humbling thought). 

 Look at how nuanced his answer, so that for his burden the requirement is not 100%, even though he claims to be humble about it, but for my belief the burden is 100% in his view. Why can't mine be less than that too since my argument only claims Rational Warrant and not proof!??

My answer in the thread:

That's not the point! you are hiding in the gap. that's so funny you do exactly what i predict you will do then you act like it's big triumphal gesture.

you are basically admitting to the whole concept. you can't furnish 100% for your world view either, but with that you don't care. you use that as a deceptive device to foster disconnect with bleief but you don't care how hypocritical your argument is.

HRG:

Just like you may be wrong about the existence of your God.

 Meta:

that's what hiding in the gap is. you are hiding. I say "I have to make a leap of faith." like any leap it could go wrong. But I have ot make it.you want to pretend you don't have leap to make and yous ay "O any kind of leap is no good, we can't ever leap" but you are just living a pretense because you have to make one for your own views.

HRG:

BTW, I firmly believe in the truth that there are infinitely many primes, and that the Earth is not flat.

Meta:

That's just another guilt by association fallacy. I don't believe the world is flat either and you know that. but you try to evoke the pretense of all knowing scinece verses backward superstition. when the reality is you work by bait and switch, bad fallacious arguments, egotism and hiding in the gap.

He accepts mathematical truth but can't apply it to anything else. While accepting mathematical truth proves my argument about hte transcendental signifier so his view is still supporting a God argument but he doesn't understand that. Perhaps because he didn't think of it.


Originally Posted by Penguin_Factory

The problem here is that the answer you're proposing doesn't work,

 Meta:

Yes sure does. that's what the 200 studies document.

there's a brilliant argument, "it doesn't work." why didn't I think of that?

PF:

nor does it fit any criteria by which we judge reality.

Meta:

yup does that too:

regular
consistent
inter-subjective
navigation

those are the criteria why which we judge reality, I can demonstrate every one.

PF:

Assuming some basic facts about the nature of reality- eg that it exists in a state separate from our subjective impressions and operates according to a set of rules that can be uncovered and which do not vary - is necessary not only to understand the Universe, but to interact with it in any sane way. 

Meta:

How do we know when we have that? When it fits the criteria. Most of my criteria are in the things you just named: "Assuming some basic facts about the nature of reality-" That is epistemic judgment. that's my basic assumption about the criteria, that it can't prove reality, we have to use it instead of proof because you can't get proof. so we use that criteria that enable epistemic judgment. What said confirms my point.

PF's criteria:
operates according to a set of rules that can be uncovered and which do not vary -

My answer
you mean like "regular" and "consistent?" that's why I said. that''s my criteria!

but to interact with it in any sane way

in other words. to make an epistemic judgment. that's why I call my argument "argument form epsitemic Judgment."

I just showed that all the criteria he uses fit the criteria I lay out in my argument. All he's done is prove my argument.

PF:

A deity, on the other hand, is a different assumption completely. When you add an undetectable supernatural aspect to the universe you are simply piling on complexity with no additional explanatory power. 

Meta:

We are not doing that. It's not undetectable. that's what the studies prove. we can tell the presence of God by our experience of the divine (mystical experience) and we know it works due to the M scale so we can detect it. We cant' control it, which is what scinece really wants to do. but we don't have to control we can prove we can trust it. That's what faith is. Faith is not believing things without evidence, it's confidence in trust. We can prove we can trust God, because the experiences have postiive effects and do so time and time again (200 studies).

Because we can detect it by it's effects using the M scale, it's not undetectable. We can sort out phony from true mystical experience, and by effect it can be demonstrated. Super natural is the experience. That's what term the originally meant. The experience of God's presence, the sense of the numinous and mystical experience

PF:

Assuming that reality is as it appears to be acts as a springboard to further understanding, while assuming the existence of God either achieves nothing or (as most often seems to be the case) retards understanding by attempting to posit God as the ultimate explanation for everything. 

Meta

that's nothing more than ideological slogaism. it's been disproved by the empirical studies. let's break it down:

PF

Assuming that reality is as it appears to be acts as a springboard to further understanding,

Meta

200 studies show that reality appears to be divine, that's the basis of mystical experience, it's all one thing,undifferentiated unity. You have 0 studies on the other hand none at all that disprove god or show there's no God.

Notice how selective he's being about what it means to say "assuming reality is as it appears." Reality appears to be divine to the mystic. He's assuming that's not true appearance so he's actually not wiling to willing to assume reality is as it appears when it doesn't appear as we wants it to!



PF

while assuming the existence of God either achieves nothing

Meta:

since the 200 studies demonstrate that God makes your life better that disprove what you said. That also disproves the earlier statement by paradoxical that just having your life made better isn't proof. If we are supposed to hide in the gap by assuming belief doesn't do anything for us, and yet that's disproved empirically, then obviously it does matter if it makes your life better. Your idea of a negative argument contradicts that dictum anyway because you are truth upon how it affects your life.

PF

"or (as most often seems to be the case) retards understanding by attempting to posit God as the ultimate explanation for everything..."

Meta:

Right like Newton was held back from his theories about the universe because he believed in God or like the whole Royal society who were all Christians, every single one of the, didn't contribute to modern scinece because their religious belief got in the way, learn some history of scinece! what you are saying is obviously empirically disproved by history. Belief in God has spurred scinece, invention, exploration, higher thinking all the way through human history.

My commentary upon PF's over all approach:

this what I said before, a selective self serving mythology based upon slogans and ideology. That's atheism.

That is exactly hiding in the gap!

PF

By way of an analogy, let's say come across a red cube and decide to study it. It could be that my perception is completely jacked up and the cube really has 10 sides instead of 6, or it's actually blue and not red. However, in the absence of any compelling reason to think either of those things assuming that the red cube is in fact a red cube is a fairly rational thing to believe. 

 Meta:

 But of cousre when the mystic's red cube is found, in the form of the sense of the Holy or the sesne of the numinous it's exactly the same. The world appears to be based upon the divine to me because that's' the way ti strikes me in my experience of God's presence. The content of the experience is the sense of the divine just as the content of the experience of finding a red cube is seeing a red cube. With the cube that he likes it's rational to assume the world is as it appears. When the cube is not the cube he wants its' irrational to proceed with appearances.

PF

What's not rational is assuming that the cube possesses some sort of extra quality which cannot be detected or interacted with in any way but which is, for some reason, vital to understanding and interacting with it. 

 If that's the way it appears why is that any less rational than yours?


Meta

Analogies are not proof. The proper use of analogy is to clarify concepts. Your analogy obscures concepts because it's based upon begging the question by assuming your ideologically driven prejudices about religion. The evidence disproves those prejudices.

At every hand's turn they basically confirm what I'm saying. They see hiding in the gap as a virtue. Atheists world view is based upon the idea of talking only the surface of being, thins exist as one dimensional things on the surface, what appears is all there is and even that has to be selected for the appearance we like. It's a shallow and hypocritical view. If one says "there's more to reality that that" they say, that's just philosophy and philosophy is stupid." Why is philosophy stupid? Primarily because it doesn't give them the appearance they want. Philosophy is the antithesis of hiding in the gap. Philosophy says "dig deeper." The Atheism says "give me an appearance I like and I'll stick with it because anything else requires traversing the gap in knowledge," they don't want to traverse the gap.

see third and final segment on friday

Play the "Prove I Exist" game

This is a little game I paly now and then on CARM when atheists get too cocky with their "we have the facts" mentality.


First I'm going to say this and you need to read the whole thing to see what i mean: God is not adding a fact to the universe. Belief in is God is not just a belief in one more entity but is a belief in an aspect of being, that of necessary eternal being.


let's settle the BS about "proof is only for mathematics." But if that's the case then atheists have to stop saying "there's no proof for your God" because God is not mathematics. You also miss the point of that expression becuase it means you can't expect any scientific data to be proof of anything. So then say "There's not scientific data that proves God" and expect that o be a big deal is a total contradiction to this concept that proof is only in mathematics.

When non mathematicians use that expression "proof" they really mean a very tight collation. Scientists will speak of "proof" which not math and call it proof and they mean more than just correlation. They also mean a mechanism. But epistemologically speaking even the inclusion of a mechanism is part of the correlation becasue nature doesn't come with labels telling us what the causes are. The analysis that decides what is a mechanism for a cause is also a correlative result.

So the upshot is we have two choices, we can either use the term "proof" in a less strict since, an "informal" sense of really strong warrants, or we can admit that its' silly to want proof of God since God is not a mathematical construct.

For those who chose the former, you are not out of the woods yet. I have often made a point that we take many things for granted which are not provable by science, not even in the informal sense of the term. For example basic epistemic judgments about other minds have to be made by a judgment or leap of faith, they cannot be settled by scientific data becuase any scientific data could be part of the illusion.

That means 2 things:

(1) It's false to say that we can't believe something without proof because we believe things without proof all the time, and in fact we could not live a coherent rational like without making assertions of these things which cannot be proved.

(2) This means there has to be a method for making such judgments that does not involve math or scientific data and that is only available to us Logically. Descartes tried to supply that method with the cogito (I think, therefore I am?)

That method is found generally in various forms of philosophy especially existential and phenomenological but also deductive reasoning.


Because God is not merely adding a fact to the universe but really consists of coming to an understanding of some facet of being, the theist and the atheist live in different worlds. We have totally different ways of understanding the nature of truth the nature of proof the importance of logic and the basic epistemological set up.

What that means is it is absurd to make claims such as "there's no proof for God" because it's meaningless to expect proof for something that is not a matter of contingency but underpins the whole nature of existence; it also means that the demand for scientific data is absurd. Scientific data is only avaible where one has contingencies and where one can make observations. We can't make first hand observations about the basic nature of reality, and that's what the idea of God is, it's a concept about reality.

To believe in God is to believe in one's own contingency. That's why Tillich says if you know being has depth you can't be an atheist. That means if you realize there's more to being than just contingent things, and you realize you are contingent and there must be some necessity that these contingencies are pinned upon, then you can't be an atheist because that is a priori the definition of God.



The good little soldiers did their ideological duty and spouted a bunch of canned answers but did not answer the argument:

You claim atheism is based upon facts, and there not facts that stick up for belief in God. You also claimed the only form of knowledge is empirical scientific data, which of cousre the atheist ideology thinks that atheism has in abundance.

the upshot is the atheist ideological propagandist dictum that one cannot believe without proof.

I said two things:

(1) alleged factual basis of atheism is totally selective, it includes only facts that seem to bolster the ideology but ignore those facts that speak against it.

(2) You believe things all the time that cannot be demonstrated in empirical scientific data. You take for granted the necessity of epistemic judgment and you make such judgments all the time.

These are not "facts" that can be demonstrated objectively but you assume them as fact all the time and never consider the flimsy nature of proof concerning them.


A. The existence of your own mind

B. the existence of a world external to your own mind

C. The existence of other minds not dependent upon your imagination.

I have a huge list but this will do for now. No evidence at all of any kind has been presented yet to demonstrate the factual nature of these beliefs.

you are believing you exist in a real world with real other minds based upon 0 empirical scientific data capable of proving these assertions. To accept them as "facts" you must assume them as judgments.

upshot: demonstration of the necessity to use philosophy and logic in discursive reasoning to understand the reality of the world rather htan proving it by empirical scientific means.

Discussion with Daedalus part 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by daedalus2.0 View Post
We all know the Ont. argument. I won't repeat it, but something occurred to me.

The most perfect, excellent or greatest Being I can imagine would be one that would offer me all the joys of Heaven, and my family and friends, despite what I believe, since it is a given that such a great being can think on such a higher level than I, that it would be impossible for me to understand what it is and how I could come to believe in it.

This effectively disproves the Christian God.

After all, the Christian says that the greatest being they can imagine is one that tortures infidels for eternity. But since it is greater to forgive (a clear Christian doctrine), a forgiving God - despite a persons acceptance of Jesus - the Christian god MUST be forgiving to be the greatest being imaginable.

It is a clear contradiction that requires us to disbelieve that the Christian God can exist.
you are attacking the version that was going about in the middle ages. Why don't you try dealing with the modern version, the modal argument?

(1) If God exists, he must exist necessarily, if God does not exist his existence is impossible.

(2) Therefore, God is either necessary or impossible.

(3) God can be conceived without contradiction

(4) therefore, God is not impossible

(5) Since God is not impossible he must be necessary.

(6) Since god is necessary he must exist.
__________________

[QUOTE=daedalus2.0;5546783]It's word play. It doesn't define God other than an assumption that God=Necessary.[/qutoe]


Not word play. the defining thing is not an issue. you are misunderstanding the nature of definitions of God.

This argument ws revived by Norman Malchom and two major philosophers made their reputations on defending it. By the turn of the 20th century the OA was considered a thing of the past, an artifact of a by gone era in philosophy one that would never come back. But by the end of he 20th century all the major philosophers who revived it had become major based upon their defense of it (Hartshorne and Plantinga, Purtil to some extent and Maclum who was already famous and respected but the became more so).

"definition" of God is the big hairy atheists think it is. There are four or five options.

Quote:

Change "God" with "Alpha-Condition". (The definition of Alpha-Condition is "the Necessary, ever-existing State of Affair that is able to create a Universe. It Necessarily exists without a God. It is a priori and non-contingent.")

that argument is reversible. it works both ways. you are just calleing God "whatever." In the end the point is it doesn't matter what you call him. There can only be one and he had to be the ground of being, so we know what we are talking about, it's just a question which tradition mediates best what he wants (if anything).

Quote:

that is, the argument smuggles in the presumption that the definition of "God" includes a necessary existence, and assumes that something like that exists.

The concept "G-0-D" refers to necessary existence. That's just the definition of what "God" is. That doesn't mean the argument is defining God as "that which exists" because it's either or, god either exists necessary or is impossible."

So there's no resting premise on conclusion because there are two possible outcomes. then its' just a matter of eliminating one of them.

Quote:

Then, it does a little bait and switch and plays on "Well, if it isn't impossible, it must be not only possible, but Necessary! Voila!"

what makes that a bait and switch? The bait and switch means you change one thing for another, not that that you eliminate one of two alternatives. That's process of elimination.

example of bait and switch is where reductionists say consciousness is brain function, then they go on to show that brain function is rooted in brain chemistry. But property dualist don't believe that consciousness = brian function.

The modal argument is not saying impossibility is the same as necessity. But that they are two possible alternatives and the argument is won by which ever one is not eliminated logically through process of elimination.

Quote:

so, i don't see how the term "god" means anything, since it is undefined in this argument, and even if so, it can only be defined enough to make it true... defining God into existence.

God arguments don't have to supply definitions of God within the logic of the argument. All they have to do is be compatible with whatever definition one things fits the argument. you can use the model argument for standard theistic view of God.

My move is to not argue for the existence of God but for the idea that belief is ratinoally warranted. Then you are not talking proving that God exists. Thus Ground of being could be argued for this way even though Tillich nixed doing so.

Quote:

And, then, the leap from if it "can be concieved without contradiction, it's possible, which means it's Necessary" isn't warranted.

the argument turns on that move, yes, but it is a valid move. Because due to the concept of necessity vs contingency there can't be a mere possibility of a necessity. Possibility becomes necessity in the sense that iff (if and only if) you are dealing necessity anyway, there are only two options, necessity or impossibility.

Quote:

So, here is my argument for a Godless Universe(s): Still convinced by the argument? I'm not. Not until one can prove the definition is accurate!

prove that tables are things to put things on?

let's say I have a table, a level surface on four "legs" or columns. I say "this is a table, it' function is to put things on.I use the term "table" to mean this."

you say "prove it's really a table."

"that's what table means it means this thing here."

"you are just defining it into existence."

"but it does exist, here it is. I'm just telling you want I call it."

"no no! it can't exist becuase you are confusing the name of it with the quality of its existing."

but actually I'm not. I'm just telling what I call something that exists.

you might say "but this is an argument." Yea but it's an argument for something the logic of the augment prove this "something" exits, and I choose to call it "God." I could call it birdy birdy nam nam if I wanted to that doesn't really matter. The fact is the logic proves it exists.


the confusion arises from the atheist failure (no offense) to grasp what necessity really implies. atheits tend to think of God in terms of contignent localized personalities. They think "the God of Christianity" they thin of a big man in the sky.

They can't see the big man and the personality as the metaphor and the reality that points to as "an aspect of being" or as "primordial being" rather than a big man.

that's why the name doesn't matter and "which big man" is not an issue. There is no big man, there is only this one aspect of relaity and anything that fits it is it.

__________________
Metacrock

Zaveric: "To be sure, things that make real things pop into existence require an explanation beyond "They don't require explanation".."