|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 64 (9164 total) |
| |
ChatGPT | |
Total: 916,890 Year: 4,147/9,624 Month: 1,018/974 Week: 345/286 Day: 1/65 Hour: 0/1 |
Thread ▼ Details |
|
|
Author | Topic: I Know That God Does Not Exist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1.61803 Member (Idle past 1532 days) Posts: 2928 From: Lone Star State USA Joined: |
Our knowledge, however, of what does exist - is based on what we've rationally tested in reality. Is this not tautologous?"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8563 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 4.7 |
I see rational/irrational to be very situationally dependent. (Something could be irrational to you, based on the information available to you... but rational to me, based on the information available to me... and rational/irrational does not imply correct/incorrect with reality...) In the context of this discussion about a god premise I contend that right/wrong cannot even be determined because the premise is irrational. It is irrational for all. It is irrational because there is not sufficient evidence to show *any* level of efficacy in the premise (other than 0) and thus the premise has no logic value, let alone truth value, in this universe. (At this time. With what we presently know right now. Future mileage may very.) Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
That has nothing to do with what I said. The general (and universal) principle that logic does not depend on its inputs for rationality can not be overruled by any specific case(s) in which the inputs are invalid.
Just because "an idea" can be rational against a certain set of general logic has no bearing on "the same idea" being rational against the set of logic we currently use to best identify existence of things (rational testing - links between imagination and reality... measurements or observations or inferences from existing/working models...) Stile writes:
We can also say, "We are Napoleon," and we'd be wrong about that too. What we should say is, "according to the information available to us, we do not know that God exists." And if we look for God within all the information available to us and don't find God... then we can say "according to the information available to us, we know that God doesn't exist.""Come all of you cowboys and don't ever run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns" -- Woody Guthrie
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
You have it backwards. You need a rational reason for assuming that God is not hidden by dark matter before you can claim to "know" He doesn't exist.
What is the rational reason to suggest that God may exist behind dark matter? Stile writes:
And it seemed that the Northwest Passage would not be up this river or that inlet - but that conclusion was both wrong and based on irrational thinking.
It seems that the rational/logical/pattern-following conclusion is that God will not exist behind the dark matter, either. Stile writes:
It's not an irrational search. Claiming you "know" something doesn't exist before you finish the search is irrational. The search is essential, not "irrational". Why would you think an irrational search should affect a rational conclusion before the results are in?"Come all of you cowboys and don't ever run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns" -- Woody Guthrie
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9512 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
AZP writes: I'll let the science decide. Me too, but science, as yet, has nothing to say about god. It certainly does not say that god does not exist or have any opinion at all. It awaits evidence.
Oh, Tangle, my man, I've been telling philosophs that since before the internet was nothing but dial up bulletin boards. Sure me too. But being wrong is not necessarily being irrational. The arguments *are* rational. They're just not scientific.
So true. But when it is I'm here to let 'em know that too. Fill your boots. Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
1.61803 writes: Is this not tautologous? No. There was a time where "human knowledge" was based upon "whatever the witch doctor says."Or "whatever the priest says he recieves from God." Now - our knowledge is based on rationally testing against reality.As it gives us our best-known-way for identifying reality. It's not tautologous, it's a description of our currently-best-method.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
AZPaul3 writes: n the context of this discussion about a god premise I contend that right/wrong cannot even be determined because the premise is irrational. It is irrational for all. I am contending that right/wrong is irrelevant when discussing what we know. "What we know" is (basically) "our best guess at what is right/wrong based on the information available to us."..what is actually right/wrong is our goal, but not knowable if we ever reach it. Or even if it's reachable. It is irrational because there is not sufficient evidence to show *any* level of efficacy in the premise (other than 0) and thus the premise has no logic value, let alone truth value, in this universe. (At this time. With what we presently know right now. Future mileage may very.) This, I agree with.As long as we agree the context for "It is irrational..." aligns with "...according to our best understood method for 'knowing things.'"
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
ringo writes: The general (and universal) principle that logic does not depend on its inputs for rationality can not be overruled by any specific case(s) in which the inputs are invalid. Okay. I agree with this.Where would you like to go with it? What we should say is, "according to the information available to us, we do not know that God exists." Why would we say that?Everything about the information available to us tells us God doesn't exist. Not only is there no God in the information available to us... we have grown our information (in limited ways)... but every time we've grown, we confirm that God still doesn't exist. That rationally should lead you to see that the information available to us is telling us that God does not exist.Therefore - we know that God does not exist.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
ringo writes: You need a rational reason for assuming that God is not hidden by dark matter before you can claim to "know" He doesn't exist. I have such a rational reason. 1. God doesn't exist in any currently known information.2. When our information has expanded before - God was never found in any of the expanstions. 3. This has been confirmed for thousands of years.s This sets a pattern: When our information expands - if anyone searches for God - they still don't find Him. That is a rational reason to assume that God is not hidden by dark matter.
And it seemed that the Northwest Passage would not be up this river or that inlet - but that conclusion was both wrong and based on irrational thinking. Right... before it was found, it was rational to say "I know the NWP does not exist."You yourself are adamant that there was no rational reason to suggest that the NWP existed. After it was found, it was irrational to say such a thing. Currently, it's rational to say "I know that God does not exist."
It's not an irrational search. Of course it is.Searching for something when there's no rational reason to search for it is irrational. How can it be anything else?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
That's why. We don't have enough information to say we do know. So we say we don't know.
ringo writes:
Why would we say that? What we should say is, "according to the information available to us, we do not know that God exists."Everything about the information available to us tells us God doesn't exist. Stile writes:
There was no Northwest Passage in the information available to us, until there was. Every time we looked, we confirmed another place that the Northwest Passage didn't exist. But it was always wrong - and irrational - to claim that we "knew" the Northwest Passage didn't exist. Not only is there no God in the information available to us... we have grown our information (in limited ways)... but every time we've grown, we confirm that God still doesn't exist."Come all of you cowboys and don't ever run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns" -- Woody Guthrie
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8563 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 4.7 |
It certainly does not say that god does not exist or have any opinion at all. It awaits evidence. Agreed. But there does come a point where the millions of null results of our examinations become millions of data points in the decision process. Think of the luminiferous aether, a no show since 1887. No one seems to have a problem claiming the aether probably doesn't exist (pending future developments if any). Adding the aether to our equations without cause would be irrational. Yet god, a no show since forever, gets some special pass on rationality? No. Until someone can show some evidence of efficacy the use of a god premise is irrational for the same reason as the aether.
But being wrong is not necessarily being irrational. They are separate things indeed since irrational is not even wrong just unusable as in non-existant (holding in abeyance a vanishingly small possibility and pending future developments if any).
Fill your boots. I was in service. I've done that. I would take this as some kind of well deserved English insult except I'm not really sure I've gotten the full enjoyment of it since I'm not familiar with its use. What that mean?Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Stile writes:
That isn't rational. I have such a rational reason. 1. God doesn't exist in any currently known information.2. When our information has expanded before - God was never found in any of the expanstions. 3. This has been confirmed for thousands of years.s Not finding something in the past is not an indicator of not finding it in the future. And since we didn't know about dark matter at all until very recently, your "thousands of years" are worthless. You've been looking on the wrong menu.
Stile writes:
By the same logic, we will never find the Northwest Passage.
This sets a pattern: When our information expands - if anyone searches for God - they still don't find Him. Stile writes:
What? There certainly was a rational reason to think the Northwest Passage existed.
You yourself are adamant that there was no rational reason to suggest that the NWP existed. Stile writes:
But there's always a rational reason to search: If you don't search, you won't find anything. That's the foundation of science. Searching for something when there's no rational reason to search for it is irrational."Come all of you cowboys and don't ever run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns" -- Woody Guthrie
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8563 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 4.7 |
As long as we agree the context for "It is irrational..." aligns with "...according to our best understood method for 'knowing things.'" Well that goes for everything so ... agreed.Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
If God exists in our heart and is found by those who seek Him with all of their hearts, it would only make sense that He would never be found by someone merely looking for objective evidence on an electric meter or an instrument designed to detect energy. Moreover, if the ones who search have already personally concluded that they don't need God...that they don't need to commune with this alleged character....except on equal terms and the way *they* imagine God *should behave*...they wont find Him.
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity.In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9512 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Phat writes: ... God exists in our heart and is found by those who seek Him with all of their hearts If you change the silly use of the word 'heart' to 'mind', you have it right and it sounds rather different doesn't it?Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024