God caused or uncaused?

Rob, The point is that you don't know god did not have a beginning, you merely assert it & attempt to use it as a premise in your argument. Evidentially vacuous premises ultimately lead to evidentially vacuous conclusions that can be discarded.But you also apply a design inference to complex things & conclude they were designed. Applying this to god concludes he was designed by another bigger, better god, & so on. In other words using your own logic, the god you assert is everything, isn't.Either the design inference is valid, or it isn't. If you refuse to apply it to god then you are guilty of special pleading & hypocricy.But to return to your topic title, asking such questions is meaningless until you first demonstrate at least one god exists. Only then can you fill your boots with logical fallacies.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, You have no evidence god exists at all, that's why religions are called faiths. But, knock yourself out & present some, I guarantee logical fallacies. You do, nothing you have said has made any difference to the FACT that you do not know that god had a beginning, or not. Baseless assertion & special pleading. God can make non-physical things, he's omnipotent, right? Baseless assertion. Whaaaaat? Science has not confirmed the existence of god! Baseless assertion.The fact remains that:1/ There is no evidence that god exists;2/ Therefore the question, "is something we have no evidence of caused or uncaused is moot;3/ Applying the design inference to god results in a "designed" conclusion.4/ Any attempt to avoid this results in hypocritical special pleading.Nothing you have said has changed this, just saying "god IS reality", or "god is a spirit" is meaningless, evidentially vacuous nonsense that you use as evidentially vacuous premises to come to evidentially vacuous conclusions.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, That god is all reality is still a baseless assertion. Just because a dictionary defines Zeus, Jupiter, Vishnu etc. doesn't mean they exist. You are having real problems with logic, reason & reality here, mate. Yes, that's right. Otherwise I have to accept all gods & goddesses regardles of whether they are mutually contradictory, or not. Yup, because you keep saying things you want to be true without evidence. You think this unfair? One has evidence & one doesn't. And yours is appalling. For example, you think a dictionary definition is support for god not only existing but is also all reality! That is a lie. None of your posts have provided evidence for your position. The EVIDENCE is your previous posts available for the perusal of all, ergo, my statement is an assertion with an evidential basis. You should try it.Rob mate, you're a waste of time, & you have the balls to tell me how important logic is. Embarrassing.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, But I do, you seem to assume the god being alluded to is YOUR god. This is why you keep saying god is everything. This simply doesn't have to be the case. Gods could exist that aren't everything. There is no logical prerogative to assume that god is 1/ yours, & 2/ the only one.I've been in discussions with members of other religions & they expect me to accept their assertions with no more evidence than you provide, ie. none. Their assertions contradict yours. The only way I can tell between them is with empirical evidence. You can make up fantasty-land stories that are internally consistent & therefore internally logical all day long. But that logic won't help anyone get to the truth, only evidence can do that. I can't give an example of something that doesn't exist, which is rather the point. No, you are believing an account that is (& even that isn't the case)internally consistent. So what? No evidence = no acceptance.Just because a statement is internally coherant doesn't make it true!The rabbit god El Ahrairah is the prince with a thousand enemies, he & his trusted lieutenant, Rabscuttle, & his rabbit folk wreak havoc with other peoples & animals lives & food supplies. They were given white fluffy tales by Frith the sun god to make them easier to see.This is a logically consistent statement, it is the word, therefore, according to you, it must be true.Cobblers. Just like you I would be accepting without evidence. You can play silly philosophical word games for the rest of your life to sooth yourself. Why not? Other religions do exactly the same, come to contradictory conclusions, & their conclusion is as good as yours; evidentially vacuous.No evidence = no deal.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, Whatever characteristics you aspire for your god, I'd like to see those characteristics in action.Make a new living species under laboratory conditions. Create a planet whilst we watch, part the red sea on command. That kind of thing.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, No, if god did it, not us. I'm not talking about genetic manipulation, I'm talking about going "allakazam" & pop, there is a completely & unambiguously new organism in front of us, by magic.I'd allow he/she/it to use dust, but it would have to be on the spot created ex nihilo dust .Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Arach,I'd expect some gymnastic philosophism that makes it all consistent even though it obviously isn't, but perhaps that's off topic.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, You're not listening.The big bang didn't have to have god light the blue touch paper. But to have acceptable evidence that a being exists that can create universes, I want to see it, or anything else that is attributed to god.Having something happen doesn't mean god did it.You asked what evidence I would accept, & the answer is to see under lab conditions a being do things attributed to god. The mythical acounts, you mean? Or what about the "Historical" accounts of other religions that contradict yours? Logic again.But back to the topic in hand. In order to ask the question whether god is caused or uncaused? We must first have evidence of gods existence, or we may as well be asking what colour unicorns eyes are.We don't know god exists, so the question is moot.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, Did god do it in a lab with credible witnesses & recording equipment? If not, no. But apply the same design inference to god & by your own logic he must be designed. It goes to show that at least one account is wrong, it does nothing to show that one of them is right, or that even one of them is right. Watership Down with talking rabbits is internally consistent, that doesn't stop it being fiction. Most fiction is set against a historical or contemporary (at the time of writing) setting. Doesn't make it true. As mentioned, Watership Down is set against a latter half of the twentieth century setting in England. Complete fiction. Exactly, neither is god. Baseless assertion. As far as you are concerned it is perfectly possible for reality to exist without god. Reality is everything, therefore it is uncaused. Your logic, not mine.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, But it is, I have given you a standard of empirical evidence that I & science would accept as valid evidence of god. There could be evidence of god, there just isn't. ID as it stands just doesn't meet the standard.You are confusing methodological naturalism with metaphyshical naturalism. The former merely requires physical evidence, the other rejects the supernatural.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, Baseless assertion. I repeat, it is perfectly possible for reality to exist without god, this has as much evidential support as "god is reality". You seem to choose the latter over the former, the only thing that can inform you of which is better is evidence, & there is none.No evidence = no deal.My logic is as good as yours, ie. baseless. My evidence & logic is as good as yours, it is internally consistent & therefore MUST be true, according to you. This is why you are illogical, you are inconsistent in how you apply logic, inconsistency is illogic. No, I am saying exactly the opposite, reality can potentially be known. But if thewre is no evidence, then we can't have evidentially supported premises in order to infer evidentially supported conclusions. It's your bad if you come to conclusions based on evidentially vacuous premises.That said, something may be beyond our ken at the moment. But that's tough on us. Yes, we see an effect called gravity & call it gravity. We don't leap to ridiculous conclusions as to the cause without evidence. No, it's the exact opposite with god, without any evidence whatsoever you assert the cause is god. When scientists associated gravity with mass, they did so without any leap of faith, they used evidence.As for the moral realm, killing people because they just happen to try to convince you of another religion isn't moral, nor is stoning people to death for trivial reasons such as working on the sabbath, or executing children for cursing at their parents. Exhorting the Israelites to murder, rape & slave taking isn't moral, either. Job's trials weren't moral, they were nasty & vindictive. The new testament is hardly better, where we are supposed to be grateful that god required the torture & grisly execution of his only son. Why would a loving god require an execution at all, let alone for something he could snap his vaporous fingers together to achieve. Sick bastard. I would be leery of making any claims of your gods morality, if I were you. 1/ Who said science can prove anything? The process of science provides evidence that reduces the tentativity of a proposition. If there is no evidence available of something that is actually true, then it can't even do that, as it should be. Leaping to conclusions without evidence is not the answer.Technically speaking, an experiment can be repeated 100 times with the same result, but since we can't 100% rule out human or equipment error in all 100 cases, we can't be absolutely sure that the result is the correct one. In other words, there will always be a level of tentativity about a conclusion, no matter how small.2/ You can't provide any evidence for your claims, let alone enough to be considered "proof". Bollocks, coming from someone who thinks a dictionary definition is evidence of the fact that god is everything is just too rich.Empirical evidence is the only way to get closer to reality, your particular brand of baseless & vacuous premises only leads to baseless & vacuous conclusions.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, If you have two equally valid (or invalid) contradictory propositions, how else will you tell between them?MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, Nope, logically invalid arguments can have correct conclusions, logically valid arguments can have false conclusions. You need to lose the idea that logic transcends evidence, the evidence suggests otherwise.For example:1/ I have a booklet of paper on my desk that is both entirely green & entirely red at the same time. I conclude that it is yellow.2/ I have a booklet that is entirely red on my desk, since it can only be entirely one colour at one time, it must be red.The logically correct argument #2 is false, the logically invalid argument #1 is correct.Since the bible contains contradictions & Watership Down contains none, the bible is false & watership Down with its talking rabbits is true. Have it your way.A logically invalid argument is one that lacks enough logical support to be considered valid, one that is valid has the required level of logical support, but that still doesn't make it right.The only way you can tell is with evidence.You can quote philosophical metaphysics all day long, but the fact is that you enjoy the life you do because lots of scientists used evidence & not philosophical bullshit to improve our lives. This conclusion is so crashingly obvious that I don't even know why you're arguing the point.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, So why did you say in your last post?: In NO case do I give the correct colour beforehand.What I did was to give evidentially vacuous premises & flawed inference to demonstrate that a logically valid argument can be wrong & an invalid one can be right. This scuppers the argument that "the one with the most philosophical coherence must be assumed to reflect reality".I repeat; "Since the bible contains contradictions & Watership Down contains none, the bible is false & watership Down with its talking rabbits is true. Have it your way."The only way we can begin to tell what is reality & what isn't is with evidence. You seem to agree: This contradicts your claim that something that is philosophically coherent must represent reality. The pink unicorn is internally consistent yet wecannot accept it without empirical evidence.Are we done, then?Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Rob, So your observation of the bible is not evidence it exists?Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't