cannot make myself think in a way that is not what i'm now. — substantivalism

Indeed, sounds like another mystery associated with time and change.

apply further aspects of your worldview without elaboration as to how they do apply to me lest a straw-man is created. — substantivalism

I would never consider such nonsense :blush:

no i've just seen later examples of William Lane Craig in his arguments or snippets of debates along with external knowledge as to his character that haven't exactly made me appreciate him as much. Perhaps in years previous he wasn't as much so. — substantivalism

Okay, Aristotle too?

Alternatively, here's another interesting one for you:

Abandon hope of reason — tim wood

I agree for once, imagine that! Even angry atheists, every once in awhile, get lucky LOL

Fuck you, 3017. — tim wood

Just wondering, please don't take this the wrong way, but have you guys thought about an anger management course?

I mean, it does seem contradictory that an atheist would get so angry about something he/she thinks doesn't exist.

Please allow me to introduce you two nice people to each other.

@nyimislam - Apologies if I have misinterpreted you, but you seem to have some sort of theistic beliefs.
@3017amen - You certainly have theistic beliefs.

Assuming I'm correct in that nyimislam has some sort of theistic beliefs, how's about you folks talk amongst yourselves - have a side conversation just the 2 of you.. Here is the topic of conversation: "How can we coherently discuss God in a way that people of all faiths can agree on?"

Please get back to the rest of us when you have the answer.

Please get back to the rest of us when you have the answer. — EricH

Thanks EricH! I think we're going to be okay. After all, the title of this thread is "What are your positions on the arguments for God".

And just as an ancillary note, none of the angry atheists here have been able to successfully argue otherwise! In other words, you guys can't even explain how you got here; wassup widdat?

Questions, questions, questions!!!

Gosh, are you assuming Time is not in nature? Jeez, you atheists not only like to drop F-bombs (are angry), you're really unsophisticated too LOL! — 3017amen

I repeat: assuming time is in nature, how is it a paradox? Obviously its obvious to you to you but it is far from obvious to me. So far indeed that I'm pretty sure you have no idea. Maybe you do. Go for it.

Good stuff! I'll check it out!

I do, but I'll pass on sharing the information. You may want to study those videos a little bit, otherwise, you can study this one LOL



Be well Timmy!

I do, but I'll pass on sharing the information. You may want to study those videos a little bit, otherwise, you can study this one LOL — 3017amen

Evade, ignore, duck and cover. You are a disgrace.

Fuck you, 3017. — tim wood

Yep.

I'm considering putting you on notice that you need to make an honest reply. That means answering questions and being appropriately responsive instead of acting like an immature 14-year-old. You've made a habit of telling me I'm angry, LOL. Well, there's an excellent chance you're going to see how that works.

Third time: assuming time is in nature, how is it a paradox?

It will seem harsh, but given your style of discussion, it is actually just right: Fuck you, stupid! — tim wood

Fourth time: assuming time is in nature, how is it a paradox?

I'm afraid all that you and yours are worth is f*** you! And barely that. And I can remove the asterisks too. — tim wood

Fifth time: assuming time is in nature, how is it a paradox?

I'm afraid all that you and yours are worth is f*** you! And barely that. And I can remove the asterisks too.
— tim wood

It will seem harsh, but given your style of discussion, it is actually just right: Fuck you, stupid!
— tim wood

Fuck you, 3017.
— tim wood

You get into discussions and the you just play sick games. There's a whole trail of questions I and others have asked you that you run away from. Well keep on running.

Sixth time asking, in response to a claim that you made: assuming time is in nature, how is it a paradox? if you don't know, just say so. You might as well, because I'm nearly convinced by your evasions that you don't have a clue, that you do not even have any idea how to approach the question. and that your claim was just nonsense.

Perhaps then if you are interested in the dissolution of the Eternalist/Presentist debate you could read this. — substantivalism

Ironically enough... , come join the discussion over on the something v nothing thread. Metaphysician Undercoverer and other's are parcing the notion of time, change, eternity, timelessness, et.al.

You sure can be thick headed. His point in repeating that same thing in in response to your repeated question is his way of of saying “sorry Timmy, your use of “fuck you” has ended my desire to converse with you, Timmy”.
Its obvious he has retired even the small amount of cordiality he has in his responses to you. Should be obvious anyway, but you relentlessly carry on as if you haven't poisoned The well with 3017amen. Why do you do that?

Howd I do @3017amen? That pretty much sum it up?

Love you brother :cool:

Seventh time asking, in response to a claim that you made: assuming time is in nature, how is it a paradox? I'm just going to keep on asking.

Indeed, sounds like another mystery associated with time and change. — 3017amen

In my mind I find making such a distinction (between time and change) is rather dubious as I at least consider myself to be a relationist with respect to time.

Okay, Aristotle too? — 3017amen

What?

Alternatively, here's another interesting one for you: — 3017amen

While intriguing the metaphysics surrounding spacetime physics is a rather elaborate but perhaps misaligned one with respect to special/general relativity. We basically don't assume there is this nebulous external clock from which to compare to our clocks but not have them affect our clocks (even newton who held onto such a perspective admitted you couldn't experimentally measure it). Special/general relativity brings to the forefront the idea of important relative changes in clocks that is strongly influenced by the local spacetime structure. I haven't, however, seen a theory which foregoes the speed of light connection or other facts that lead to such theories being derived and focuses only on the relative changes (simpliciter) of objects themselves with respect to one another. Don't know if this would make a rather readily accessible mathematical theory though or if it would give any further foundational discoveries.

So I have recently studied a bit of mathematical logic and first order theories. A bit of background:

A first order theory is a very specific language used to describe mathematical 'things'. This is done by specifying axioms and inference rules, and proofs are done in a very disciplined/algorithmic way. One can view it as simple symbol manipulation with the intention of it meaning something. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_logic

Now a big result was that "a theory is consistent if and only if it has a model". A model is also a very specifically defined thing, but I am going to make myself guilty of popularizing a bit here. A model is basically a 'real' mathematical object. So your theory having a model basically means there is a 'real' mathematical object that all this mindless symbol manipulation describes. In other words the symbols/language have meaning.

Consistency means that your first order theory is contradiction free. You can not derive two contradictory statements from the axioms. Furthermore, if one can derive even one contradiction, then one can prove any statement in your theory.

One may have big philosophical discussions about reality of mathematical/abstract things, but what this result basically tells us that when dealing with first order theories, mathematicians view 'existence' equivalent to the language describing the 'thing' to be consistent.

Again, I am once again going to make myself guilty of generalizing, but I believe these ideas may carry over relatively intuitively to everyday life. If one speaks of 'real' objects, then one is not free to say what one wants to. Some statements are true and some statements are false. If anyone doubts us we just point to the object and verify it. So if one is talking about a real thing, then the language used to describe it is relatively 'consistent' or contradiction free. Now in mathematics (well the mathematics of first order theories at least) they also accept the converse: if we are consistent in describing this thing then it must exists. If we are not free to say what we want about this thing, then it exists.

Now this brings me to the question of existence of God. I am not a philosopher/logician or anything fancy like that. However, if one accepts what mathematicians do about existence, then one only needs to show that the dogmatic theory describing God is consistent.

Obviously this is an enormous undertaking, as human language is very dirty and complex and any human thought is absolutely riddled with contradictions. But if one day someone tries to 'clean up' language so as to remove all the contradictions built into it, and then proceeds to provide a consistent dogmatic theory about God, then do you guys think this will suffice as a proof for the existence of God, albeit only as an abstract concept similar to our concepts of numbers/mathematics today?

But if one day someone tries to 'clean up' language so as to remove all the contradictions built into it, and then proceeds to provide a consistent dogmatic theory about God, then do you guys think this will suffice as a proof for the existence of God, albeit only as an abstract concept similar to our concepts of numbers/mathematics today? — TrespassingAcademia

I think that is an excellent question. The philosophy of language, theories about language learning/acquisition and the nature thereof are quite broad and cover alot of ground. Perhaps you can steer us in the right direction on what about language poses the biggest challenges... ? In other words are you referring to language and cosmology (mathematical language/ToE) kinds of things?

If we are not free to say what we want about this thing, then it exists. — TrespassingAcademia

I have issues with the equivocation you did up to this point, but if you were correct, here is your proof against god. People are in fact free to say whatever they want about god and there is no evidence, nothing "real", to compare it to as a test. God's very "not-realness", its non-falsifiability, is plenty of reason to reject the concept as irrational and not correlated to the observable world.

:up:

True, but by this argument this is also a proof against evolutionary theory/ modern medicine/ any other modern science not formalized in this way. The facts generated in these fields are nonetheless considered to be true.

Would you reject the concepts of mathematics as irrational and not correlated to the real world? What I tried to do was explain that one may consider mathematical reality to be based solely on the fact that the language used to describe it is logically consistent. So my proposition is that if we can do the same for our language used to describe God, then this gives our concept of God as much 'reality' as mathematics.

This however does not yet prove the existence of a somewhat more 'platonic' God, but it does give us a sort of 'half' existence like mathematics/numbers/love etc.

So the language I was talking about was the 'language' of first order theories. Now this is a MUCH simplified model of language, simplified to the point where you can feed the axioms into a computed and it will just algorithmic-ally be able to crank out proofs. This is much too simple to describe anything we come across in our day to day lives, however it is strong enough for mathematics to be formalized in this way.

Now I am not a philosopher by any means, and also not a linguist. I am training to become a mathematician. These are just thoughts i have along the way.

This is some simple examples of some first order sentences we dealt with:

True, but by this argument this is also a proof against evolutionary theory/ modern medicine/ any other modern science not formalized in this way. The facts generated in these fields are nonetheless considered to be true. — TrespassingAcademia

You don't think evolution or medicine are evidence based and correlate to the real world? Are you a Trump voter?

Would you reject the concepts of mathematics as irrational and not correlated to the real world? What I tried to do was explain that one may consider mathematical reality to be based solely on the fact that the language used to describe it is logically consistent. So my proposition is that if we can do the same for our language used to describe God, then this gives our concept of God as much 'reality' as mathematics. — TrespassingAcademia

No. It is specifically correlated to the "real" (observable) world. Mathematics is internally consistent in a way that transcends language. There have been efforts to rest language on the solid foundation of mathematics (Russell for example) but I have never heard of someone trying to rest the reliability of math on the "consistency" of language. Language is not consistent. It is largely correlative, but it is agreement reality and fluid. God doesn't have nearly the evidence to support his existence as mathematics does, or even the less secure language.

This however does not yet prove the existence of a somewhat more 'platonic' God, but it does give us a sort of 'half' existence like mathematics/numbers/love etc — TrespassingAcademia

You are equating mathematics and love as concepts with the same level of justification? Wow. Where to start?

Math is reliable because it is predictable, and that predictability has been reliably transferable to the "real" world for thousands of years.

Love is a specious label that we've attributed to various brain states and as a (problematic) descriptor for interpersonal relationships. For example, the Greeks had seven different words for it. It's not scientific, but people use it because they'd like to believe in some of its more desirable outcomes.

God on the other hand, does not correlate to the "real" world, and is not reflected in human interaction. It is a concept that was invented to concentrate power in the hands of a few elites so they could maintain control of their tribes in the face of growing population numbers. Religion had a function historically, and allowed societies to increase their net security and stability to the point that the next step in human evolution, reason, could be developed. In the presence of reason, religion is not necessary and not even desirable.

God on the other hand, does not correlate to the "real" world, and is not reflected in human interaction. It is a concept that was invented to concentrate power — Pro Hominem

Couldn't be further from the truth. In Christianity Jesus had a conscious existence.

Just an observation, you seem to be conflating politics with something... ?

Love is a specious label that we've attributed to various brain states and as a (problematic) descriptor for interpersonal relationships — Pro Hominem

How is love problematic?