In the summer of 2007 I had a one-on-one debate (Licolin/Douglas) with Hans Richard Groome, HRG, a guy who claims to be a mathematician, and posts on CARM. That debate was mean to be a final show down which would once and for all shut his mouth on certain arguments that I feel are unfair, arguments which show that he does not understand the idea of Being itself and he isn't trying to. But Hans so badly muddled the arguments, the purposely gummed up the works so the debate was very hard to follow and thus resolved nothing. But one can see, if one takes the time to actually follow them, that his arguments don't' even come close to answering my basic premises.
This debate has been re-opened. Another atheist, one whose intelligence I have respected in the past, brought up on argument against it. The argument is an attempt to show that God is impossible because the being itself concept makes God impossible. It's a silly argument because its' central premise is that necessity can't produce contingency. Of course that's the major thing necessities do is produce contingencies. that's the whole idea of making the distinction in the first place!
I will get to that one latter. Hans chimed in asserting that he won our debate, so I just brought up the opening arguments and posted them on the general forum:
(1) Being = existence.
Even though Tillich makes a distinction between the two, I see now reason to make fancey distinction on this board. When I say "God is being itself" I am saying that God is the basis upon which all things exist.
*I am therefore saying that God is not contingent and all things that are "not God" are contingent upon God as their creator.
(2) The argument that necessary being is impossible cannot be true.
To say that God is necessary being is merely saying that God's existence is not contingent upon anything else and that all naturalistic things are dependent upon God for their existence.
To say that no form of existence can ever be non contingent (necessary) is to say that existence must have an ultimate begining with a clear demarkation between "nothingness" and "existence."
If this is the case then it would mean that existence emerged from nothingness. This is clearly an impossible state of affiars for two reasons:
(a) time is something and thus a true state of nothing would be a timeless state.
(b) physicists agree there can be no change in a timeless state. Thus nothing could ever come to be. thus something must always be and that means some form of existence must be eternal and not dependent upon anything else.
(3) Han's argument assumes we know all things.,
How can we possibly know that there cannot ever be a from of existence that is not contingent? there is no logical reason for this assumption.
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(4) mandates the irrational
To say that no form of existence can ever be non dependent upon some prior condition not only means we would have to know all forms of existence, but it means also having to mandate the irrational idea of Infinite causal regress.This is ethier so or it means something from nothing.
Either way ICR or something/nothing, this is irrational. I will demonstrate the ICR arguement in 2AC.
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(5) My view of God.
My view is essentially mystical. God is beyond our understanding and all our talk about God is basically beyond anything we can know. That means that God talk must be metaphor. It must be symbolic and analogical. God is for expericing first hand not for talking about.
But in speaking of metaphors God is not analogous to a man so much as to a law of physics or a dialectic or a set of rules of principles or something on that order. to try and limit this to our understanding say that it is impossible is arrogant beyond belief. Hans must know all things to make the claims he has made.
two issues Hans will raise.
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1) three partical universe.
he will say that his pipe dream of a three partical universe is proof there can't be necessary being becuase no God would ever make such a usless thing.
I say (a) no God has made such a thing, mere possibility proves nothing.
(b) 3 p u is still being, so it is not indication of no being itself. he has no answer. this is one of the reasons I wanted this debate, because he never answers these arguments which I have been making for years.
(2) no such thing as Yellowness
He says being is like the concept of yellowness and it doesn't exist it's just an abstraction.
yea! that has nothing to do with anything.
(a) being is an abstraction, to say God is being itself is not an argument to prove God exits, it's an illustration of what God is like.
(b) I say being = existence. it is not some big mysterious thing that we can't understand. it is simple.
God is being itself just means God is the primary form of existence and that upon which all things dependent for their existence.
If he wants to say that existence is just an abstraction then he has to show how it is meaingful for an atheist to say "God does not exist."
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Now he has responded to my post:
Please cease the claim that I have no answers to your arguments.
clearly he has not. let's look at his arguments:
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Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
(1) Being = existence.
Fine. Both are abstract concepts, not actual entities which can be basis for anything.
One of the major features of this debate, Hans denied that the concept of existence has any meaning. So there is no difference between a thing existing and not existing. these meaningless alternatives, and yet he still wants to tell us God doesn't exist!
If atheists don't accept the meaningful distinction between existence and on existence then they cease to be atheists and become solipsists. I always had a sneaking suspicion that atheism led to solipsism.
Quote:Meta
Even though Tillich makes a distinction between the two, I see no reason to make fancey distinction on this board. When I say "God is being itself" I am saying that God is the basis upon which all things exist.
Hans:
And why should any thing need a basis in order to exist ? Even if it did, why should it be the same basis for all things.
This is an old argument that he's brought up a great deal. It shows a real lack of understanding about the basis of materialism in history. Obviously whatever is the foundation of reality is the basis for all things. If that "foundations" is nothing more than a level of several causes taken together then that' s the basis and that's what it is. Why should anything need a foundation is a rather stupid question, and the reason it shows ignorance of the history of atheist thought is because early nineteenth century atheism was predicated upon cause and effect. The idea that science guaranteed a realm of naturalistic cause and effect and explained everything nd made appeal to God unnecessary was the basis of Laplace's attack on religion. That was the big cutting edge move of nineteenth century atheism, as just quantum theory is today. As Alfred North Whitehead observed, this leaves atheism wide open for the big contradiction at its heart; it can account of all causes along the chain of being not the whole., and not the origin.
There should be a basis to all things because things have a basis. This spelled out clearly in the materialists attack; their rejection of Supernatural has to assume a naturalistic cause for all things or they have no basis upon which to reject the supernatural. Most modern materialists, such as Quinne, are willing to accept circular reasoning in exchange for reduction of reality to the empirical. This is a totally irrational move. let us not be afraid to call a spade a spade.
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*I am therefore saying that God is not contingent and all things that are "not God" are contingent upon God as their creator.
You are saying it. Fine. I'm saying that the existence of not-contingent entities is highly dubious, and that you again confuse contingency-1 (logic) with contingency-2 (causation).
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(2) The argument that necessary being is impossible cannot be true.
Quote:MetaObviously we can and should reason about causality. He wants us to think that the universe comes with pre given labels that say "this is a cause." Clearly causality is as much a cultural construct as being or existence. but it is a highly meaningful one, and one upon which modern atheism was founded, and one upon which modern science was founded.
To say that God is necessary being is merely saying that God's existence is not contingent upon anything else and that all naturalistic things are dependent upon God for their existence.
Hans:You are again mixing logic and causality. Who says that a contingent-1 thing has to be contingent-2, too ? And who says that all things depend on the same god for their existence ? Maybe Ahura Mazda has made all fermions, and Ahriman has made all bosons.
Notice two things here:
(1) the use of the superfluous distinction between what he labels "contingent 1" and "contingent 2" is dealt with else where. I have showen that the two kinds of contingency are dependent and collapse into one.
(2) his appeal to different God is of no avail.
First, because the mythological figures that he sties are in their own mythologies not the creators not being itself, but produced by a prior source. More importantly it is my contention that all religions are based upon the same reality that stands behind them all, the thing that makes them different is cultural constructs. It is reasonable to assume that being itself is a prior and universal ontology that a collection of localized deities based upon big "guys in the sky."
His bringing that up is a cheap diversionary tactic that he employs on almost every issue.
Quote:Meta
To say that no form of existence can ever be non contingent (necessary) is to say that existence must have an ultimate beginning with a clear debarkation between "nothingness" and "existence."
Hans:Non-sequitur. And "existence",as a philosophical concept, began when philosophers began thinking about it.
Non-sequitur he says! It only undermines his whole position. He loses the whole debate right there because his entire case depends exclusively on this one point; the impossibility of necessary being. I just argued that if he wins he loses because to demonstrate the impossibility of necessity is to demonstrate the necessity of distinction between being and nothing.
He's just playing a word game because he uses the erm "existence" meaningfully when he says "God does not exist." The distinction is certainly cogent scientifically. But he excludes philosophical statement even though it would be the same statement as a scientific one. "There is no X such that X does not exist." "Bigfoot does not exist." Is that a scientifically true statement? But philosophically as a philosophical statement its just garbage? that's idiotic because they mean the same thing! He is just employing his old friend and chief tactic truth by insisting he's right!
Hans:It is perfectly consistent that there never was an ultimate beginning, and at any time some thing has existed.
Quote:Meta
If this is the case then it would mean that existence emerged from nothingness
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Hans:Non-sequitur, as shown above.
shown above! You mean asserting above without support and ignoring the argument previously given. That's one of his main tricks. to just insist that he's "shown something" when he merely asserted it by stipulation. You can't say there is no definite beginning without recognizing the distinction between that and a definite beginning. You can't do that without recognizing the distinction between being and nothingness.
Meta:This is clearly an impossible state of affairs for two reasons:
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I1) How can we possibly know that there cannot never be a from of existence that is not contingent? there is no logical reason for this assumption.
Hans:For contingency-1, there is a logical reason: the 3-particle universe.
Ok look at this, the logic is absolute. what is contingency 1? It is this:
a thing can cease or fail to exist.
contingent 2? this:
a thing requires a prior condition, or prior thing, either temporally prior or ontologically "prior" (its cause) to exist.
Now why would a thing cease or fail? (definition of c1) ? Because the conditions that brought it about might have failed. Such as, your parents never met, then would you not exist. Therefore, you an contingent upon your parents meeting.
Now notice. this is also the definition of c2! So the answer for the question about c1 is the point of the definition in c2. Therefore, c2 is the basis in logic of c1. Thus they are the same thing, thus the distinction is meaningless.
How does this effect his argument? It destroyed it because his argument is predicated upon the assumption that my use of contingency is confused and that is based upon the idea that c1 and c2 are totally independent of each other.
the remark "for c1 there's the 3 p u" is totally irrational and has no meaning. c1 is a is contingent if it could cease for fail. He merely asserts without basis that a 3pu could exist w/o ceasing or failing. that is a total issue of thought experiment in argument. That's nothing more than asserting facts in not in evidence.
and the second reason that the notion of no definite beginning is illogical
(2) Quote:Meta:
To say that no form of existence can ever be non dependent upon some prior condition not only means we would have to know all forms of existence, but it means also having to mandate the irrational idea of Infinite causal regress.This is ethier so or it means something from nothing.
Calling an ICR irrational only shows that you have not understood the negative integers.
In other words the concept of no beginning mandates the use of illogical contradictory concept of the ICR.
Quote:MetaMy view is essentially mystical. God is beyond our understanding and all our talk about God is basically beyond anything we can know. That means that God talk must be metaphor. It must be symbolic and analogical. God is for experiencing first hand not for talking about.
Hans"Tractatus logico-philosophicus 7: ("What you cannot talk about, you must remain silent about")
Here's a real priceless tidbit. I just got through saying we have to experince God, we can't talk about him directly so we must speak in analogical language. So the brilliant one, Earnestine's replacement says "Of that which we cannot speak we must remain silent."Yea that's what I just said chicken pie. but look at what he is not silent about.
Yet Earnestine's replacement speaks of the ultimate origin being impossible, Earnestine's replacement speaks of no ultimate begining , when he cant' give a logical cow turd to prove it. He speaks as though he knows all things and yet has no evidience and offers none.
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he will say that his pipe dream of a three partical universe is proof there can't be necessary being becuase no God would ever make such a useless thing.
Hans:Bad prophet. I have never given this reason.
he did too
Quote:MetaThat is no excuse. It does not give you license to assert matters not in evidence. That is an empirical matter not a logical question. Look he's asserting that if a 3pu existed it would prove God is not necessary, because no god would make a 3pu. But that is clearly fallacious because hes asserting he knows what God would do. and cine no such universe exists to our knowledge it's uses an argument because it just depends up on th reality of a e33pu which he can't prove.
I say (a) no God has made such a thing, mere possibility proves nothing.
Hans:It does, since we are in the domain of logical necessity.
Then he wants to just assert that in the realm of logical necessity we can just make up anything we want. that is no way to reason.
Quote:Metabut that response is dependent upon his assertions above about being/existence is not a meaningful concept. Yet he still wants to assert God does not exist. So he ias to be meaningful in someway. Now his response here is totally arbitrary; no minds to form the concept of being, that assumes that the concept of bing is just a world philosophers use and has no referent. I've already answered that in the OP.
(b) 3 p u is still being, so it is not indication of no being itself.
Hans: No, it isn't. There is no "being" in the 3PU, because there are no intelligent minds to form that concept
He has no evidence or logic to show that being, the existence of any given existent is contnigent upon mind. existence is still being whether its mind or not.
completely misses the point that the 3pu is an empirical matter so its non existence means it is not a meaningful argument.
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he has no answer. this is one of the reasons I wanted this debate, because he never answers these arguments which I have been making for years.
Hans:I have an answer to all your postulates. That you do not recognize them as answers cannot change this fact.
they are illogical assertions without evidence.e your truth by stipulation does not change that fact.
Quote:Meta
(2) no such thing as Yellowness
He says being is like the concept of yellowness and it doesn't exist it's just an abstraction.
Hans:Great Cthulhu! You have described what I really have been saying!
Quote: Meta
(a) being is an abstraction, to say God is being itself is not an argument to prove God exits, it's an illustration of what God is like.
(b) I say being = existence. it is not some big mysterious thing that we can't understand. it is simple.
Hans:Doesn't change that "being" is a concept which has to be created by an intelligent mind.
Its' a concept that has a referent in the world. its' meaninful to use it and if it is not than means you can't be an atheist. You can't say "God doesn't exist" if existence ha no meaning.
Quote:Meta
God is being itself just means God is the primary form of existence and that upon which all things depedend for their existence.
Hans:Maybe so, but what if there is no primary form of existence onto which all other things depend for their existence ? You still think that a definition can replace an existence proof.
Obviously there is, since I've written into the argument the statement that ti doesn't matter what it is. even if it ICR that's still it. Anything you can assert would fit the definition .s o you cant' assert anything you lose. you acquiesced you are wrong. you just lost.1 don't you get it?
Look what he just did. I say Being itself means God is whatever is there that produces the world, he says "maybe so" (In other words. I can't answer this but I'm say something anyway) but if there's no primary form....but you have given no reason to assert there wouldn't' be, and even if there isn't that's still god! So God is the state of no beginning, so what? You lose either way.
Of course I don't believe that's what God is, because it's total BS. ICR is impossible and then to assert "it was always here" with no reason and no evidence is no more than a flight from reality.
IN effect he has no argument. he is saying nothing more than "I am right anyway even though I can't answer."
Quote:Meta
If he wants to say that existence is just an abstraction
The term "existence" is an abstraction.
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then he has to show how it is meaingful for an atheist to say "God does not exist."
Hans:Easy. "There is no X such that X fulfills a particular definition of 'God' ".
ahjahaah you just lost again man! You really don't get any of this do you? you can't do that "there is no X" if the concept of existence has no referent. Can't you understand that? It makes no sense at all to say "ther si no..." if there being no is not meaningful. don't you see that?
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