Of course not. Why would I? Because people can tell convincing stories?

Hi, LockLow34.

If the story is convincing, then believing them would be the rational choice.

For example, juries often base their verdicts on which side has told the most convincing story.

You have laid out an argument for why you want the atheist or deist worldview to be false. What you have not done is make an argument for why it actually is false. Don’t get me wrong; if it gives you comfort and hope to believe in God, then great. I wish you well. I am not a militant atheist. Others are free to choose what they believe. However, when it comes to actual arguments in favor of your worldview, they are either weak or nonexistent.

Just wanting something to be true does not make it true. You will have to do better than this to convince anyone who is not already a believer. There is no logical or rational reason that “Things just happen without any reason” cannot be a true statement. Personally I find the notion that suffering just happens for no reason comforting, or at least more so than the notion that there is an almighty deity that could prevent that suffering but chooses not to do so. The notion that this deity allows children to starve, women to be raped, innocent civilians to be killed in war zones and the like, all because someone tens of thousands of years ago disobeyed his orders does not really seem all that comforting to me. Besides, I thought that he ended that whole “man must be punished for his sins” stuff a bit over 2000 years ago. Why are we still being punished instead of being forgiven? Why is there still all this suffering? Is your God just sadistic? Sorry, but to mr I find the notion of random suffering far more palatable than a deity that likes to torture us and see us suffer.

Of course I could be wrong — wishing it so doesn’t make it true.

Your example of absolute truth contained in it's first premise the context that limits its truth (to a specific time period). Yes, you actually declared something to be true regardless of context, while also providing the context required that makes it true.

What you described was objectively true, not absolutely true.


Absolute: independent of context.
Relative: dependent on context.
Objective: independent of individual opinion.
Subjective: dependent on individual opinion.


I am delighted to provide the following free resource so you can learn to think critically: Click Here (from WLC)







PS Reading your posts, lagtight, feels like being in Groundhog Day.

Rohr, from inside the church, dissects this fall of Scholastic Philosophy as~~ "degenerating into the need for answers, and preferably certain answers, and preferably absolute answers, and preferably about everything, so that fundamentalism hijacks the very purpose of religion." This is a beautiful expose of the bullshyt "absolute" garbage. It hijacked it so badly that this propensity for just wishing absolutism into being became the motive of monotheism, as a bastardization of the principle of wonder inherent to spiritual inquiry.

Hi, BF. Hope you are doing well.

With the possible exception of tautologies, everything requires a context required to make it true.

The statement, "On 12 May 2022 Sacramento was the capitol of California" certainly is not a necessary truth or a tautology. It is therefore, a contingent statement.

Given my earlier stipulative definition of Absolute Truth as "a statement true for everyone, everywhere at all times", I would argue that my example is both absolute and objective.

Just for giggles and grins, suppose I remove the time condition: Sacramento is the capitol of California. Based on your classification scheme, how would you classify this new (if not improved) version?

Thanks for the link, BF! A good read!

Well, I'm nothing if not predictable!

Be well.

Hi, stembra70. Are you familiar with at least some of the many arguments that I have presented in this Forum? If not, I can give you some links.

I don’t need any links. I was responding to your current posts, not anything you have posted in the past. You were claiming that the absence of a deity means that suffering “just happens”, and that we can better understand why sufferering happens and make more sense of it if we believe in a deity. Basically we wish to understand why something is happening, the presence of a deity allows us that understanding, ergo a deity must exist. That is simply a weak argument, based on wishful thinking.

If that is not what you are arguing then by all means make some posts to clarify. I would be glad to read them and consider your actual argument if I have misunderstood what you are saying.

If there is no deity, then there is no meaning to anything. The universe is either intentional/planned (created for a purpose) or accidental/fortuitous (always existed, or came into existence by chance).

There is no meaningful discussion even possible until we agree that the universe is intentional/planned (non-accidental).

Fair enough but you are guilty of a false dichotomy, and even weÂ’re that not the case, it still is nothing more than an argument from wishful thinking in favor of a deity. It is a false dichotomy because meaning can derive from sources other than a deity. Meaning could simply be assigned by human consciousness. Things mean whatever we think they mean. There is certainly nothing inherently contradictory about that proposition.

Even if you reject that idea (and I am pretty sure you do), the lack of meaning without a deity is not a good argument in favor of a deity. After all, there is no reason that there must meaning at all. We only wish it to be true that there is meaning in the universe. As I have stated before, wishing does not make it so. Maybe none of this actually means anything and the universe actually is just more or less random happenstance.

A middle ground can obviously be had here though. To all appearances, the universe is not a random, chaotic system, but one that has regularities that are apparent upon observation. We can call these regularities scientific laws, and find reasonable explanations for them, which we refer to as scientific theories. To the extent that these theories and laws correspond well with objective observations, we consider them as likely true, and we can use these truths as a basis to derive meaning in our discourse. None of this requires the existence of a deity, only understandable regularities in the behavior of the universe.

BTW, we need not be talking about highly technical laws and theories here. Much of what I am referring to are things that are regularities of the universe that we just do not typically consider because they seem so obvious and we just take them for granted. An example is that if one object is occupying a certain location in space, no other object can occupy that same location. Another is that if a system is behaving in a certain way now, then absent any changes to it, it will behave in that same way tomorrow, next week, next year, etc. A third example is that if a system behaves in a certain way in say New York City, then I move it to Boston, Los Angeles, Paris or Tokyo, again assuming that it is not changed, it will have the same behavior in all locations.

None of these regularities require a deity. (In fairness none rule out a deity either). They simply are properties of the universe. What they do, though, is allow us to make objective observations about the universe. They allow us to find agreement with others. They lead to the type of truth, namely absolute, immutable truth, that you think requires a deity to achieve. For example if I create a system that moves in a regular, periodic way, (and I call that a clock), I can tell you what objects I used to create that system and how I assembled them. You can be sure based on the properties of the universe given above that if you assemble the parts the same way I did that the parts will fit together the same way they did for me, that the finished clock will behave at your location in the same way it does in mine, and that your clock will behave in the same way as mine even though you built yours later than I built mine.

We can similarly create a system called a ruler, where we mark a rigid object at regular intervals. We can now use these tools to investigate things and find truths. For example, I can use my ruler to measure the height of my house. I can drop an object from my roof and use my clock to measure how long it takes to fall to the ground. I can drop my object from other heights and I might be clever enough to determine that the time and height are always related by the formula h = 4.9*t^2.

I have confidence that this represents a truth about (our local part of) the universe because the basic properties of the universe given above allow you to do the same measurements and derive the same relationship. This represents a source of truth and meaning independent of any deity. You may not care for this notion of truth or meaning, but that does not really matter. Your wish that a deity exists does not make a deity exist. Perhaps what I have outlined above is all we can really mean when we discuss ideas like “truth” and “meaning”, but the notions I have outlined are sufficient to allow meaningful discussion, even in the absence of a deity. Ideas under discussion are meaningful to the extent that they have observable consequences that correspond to actual objective observations.

Was the above post composed on purpose, or was in merely an accident?

If the former, then the universe itself had to have been purposefully created. If the latter, then this whole conversation is meaningless. Something being a "meaningful accident" is akin to something being a "round square."

addendum: I will start a thread tomorrow which will flesh out the above a bit.

Correction: if there is no deity, then there is perhaps no supernatural, absolute, universal, handed-to-me in authoritarian style meaning ... and since I am insisting on this kind of meaning just as a wish, I will now act like it is a fundamental necessity. Because I'm stuck. I'm stuck right at: meaning has to be handed to you from the supernatural omniscience or there is no meaning. If life is an existential mystery, fundamentalism cannot tolerate this uncertainty and anxiety and wishes an absolute, supernatural solution into existence, eschewing and sacrificing all agency in the process.

So if I torture and murder someone's daughter in my basement, I don't have any idea whether this is right or wrong, good or evil, unless from some supernatural realm some omniscient being, hopefully a man, tells me. I have totally sacrificed my agency to the superstition of people who also believed that kissing a donkey cured illnesses.

"Give me the perfect, absolute, versions of calculus from the supernatural realm. There should be no human figuring it out, making mistakes, learning about it ... it should be decreed from some supernatural place. Give me the perfect and absolute versions of medicine; no learning and figuring it out by trial and error... just gifted by the supernatural. Give me the perfect and absolute version of astrophysics ... not the learning and progressing on the subject the human way ... we want it gifted in perfect, ultimate form from the supernatural."

Hello. How rational is that? Why would it be presumed that morality and meaning is any different than everything else under the sun? We learn about it, we improve our understanding, we use our minds for this task (like with all the other subjects). The blind, dogmatic, presumption that morality and meaning comes from some other realm is just superstition. Nothing more.

Rather than start a new thread, I'll post the following excerpt in this one.

What follows is an except from an unpublished article written by Russ Manion. (I have his permission to post a portion of his article here.) Manion is the co-founder and moderator of a SoCal philosophy discussion group called Dialogue that began in 1980 and continued until about three years ago when he moved to NorCal.

This is an excerpt from an article he shared at his Dialogue group. It is titled, My Take on "Seeing Through Revelation"* & Why I Am A Christian:

People are theists for same reason they are atheists, it is how they make sense of the world. But theists believe the world makes sense specifically because they believe there actually is an explanation for it. For theists the idea that the world makes sense and the idea that there is an explanation for it, in a very deep sense, are the same idea. In that deep sense theism just is the belief that the world makes sense. Atheists sometimes think that if they can point out a problem with some particular way theism is expressed, that theists should give up theism. But from the theist's point of view, they are being asked to believe that the world does not make sense after all, simply because there is a problem with the way they expressed their theism. Given the choice, theists will generally just rethink the way they expresses [sic] their theism. No theist is tempted to believe in a world he thinks is meaningless. Atheists respond to such challenges in the exact same way. This is all "Seeing Through Revelation" would amount to even if it did not have the problems itemized above [earlier in the article not quoted in this except].

It is this "deep sense" which gets to the heart of why I am a Christian. I am absolutely convinced the world is utterly rational, but that is the oppose of accidental. Christianity answers the deep questions, the hard questions. But I do not believe it just because it answers the questions, but because if it is not the answer, then there are no answers, and there is no sense of the world to be made. My reasons can be summarized in just three statements:

1. Only if God exists is it even possible that the world is meaningful.
2. Only if God revealed this to us, could we know it.
3. Only in the historical person of Jesus do we have reason to think God has done this; for it is only there that the precondition of rationality identified in the second statement appears to be actualized.


*This article is a critique of a book critiquing Christianity titled Seeing through Revelation.

(to be continued....)

I understand that without the context of my presentations of the last few years, these statements might be too succinct, and consequently a bit cryptic, but hopefully the following challenges will provide a bit of that context. As these three statements encapsulate my reasons for belief, the following are the responses I would need if I were to stop believing.

1. Explain how things such as rationality, evidence, truth, knowledge, will, consciousness, and morality, conceived as accidents, can even possibly be accidentally meaningful. To be clear I am not asking for an actual detailed account of meaning, that would be asking for too much. Rather, I am asking for a reconciliation of the contradictory claims that the world is both accidental and meaningful. If this question cannot be answered, then theism is a necessary condition for rational human experience and the non-theist has nothing to contribute to the discussion. I must confess, however, that the challenge here is not completely sincere, for to understand this challenge is to understand that it cannot be answered.

2. Understand David Hume's critique of perception and the post-modern critique of modernity, then explain how it is even possible to get past perception and past fictional constructs to a picture of the real world.

3. Demonstrate, on the theistic assumption, that there is no evidence that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

It is important to note that the first two challenges only have to do with epistemology as a possibility, not an actuality; for if it is not meaningful to talk about a thing as being simultaneously an accident and a signifier, then an accidental world evidences nothing, and the third challenge must be addressed on the theistic assumption, as it would be meaningless to address it as natural or neutral.

An old post of mine from another thread:


Here is a simple test to find out if someone is an atheist or a theist/deist:

Question: Do you believe that the President's faces currently at the side of the mountain at Mount Rushmore were the result of some sort of natural geologic process?

1. If you answered "Yes", then you are an atheist. You're also an idiot. The fool has said in his heart that there is no God. (Psalm 14:1) I don't believe that my claim that a person sincerely answering "Yes" to that question is a moron would be particularly controversial.

2. If you answered "No" to that question, then presumably you understand that the faces on Mount Rushmore were designed and engineered by human beings (or Lizard People, or Martians or ???) who knew exactly what they were doing, and were very good at. As such, you are a theist or a deist.

3. If you believe that any activity in the universe is purposeful, then you are a theist/deist. The universe as a whole was either planned or was fortuitous. Purposefulness doesn't arise from accidents. (If there is an unambiguous case to the contrary, I'm all ears!)

4. Here's Romans 1:18-21:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath showed it unto them.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

Rejection of God is rooted in sin, not in rationality. Anyone who can clearly see the intricate, purposeful design of a computer, and yet at the same time cannot see the intricate design of the people who designed and constructed the computer, love their sin so much that they are blind to one of the most obvious realties.

Another post of mine from another thread:


Here is a passage from the book The Bible has the Answer, by Henry M. Morris and Martin E. Clark (p.14):

The very essence of the scientific method, in common with all human experience, involves the basic principle of "cause and effect." That is, no effect can be greater than its cause. "From nothing, nothing comes!" There must therefore be a First Cause of all things which has at the very least all the characteristics which are seen in the universe which has been produced by it.

Thus, the First Cause must have intelligence, because there are intelligent beings in the universe, and the universe itself is intelligible, capable of being studied and described intelligently: It is an "effect" which must have an adequate "cause," and such a cause must therefore have intelligence in such a high degree as to practically be called "omniscient" (all-knowing).

Here's a tougher one. Who sculpted this image? Man or nature?

I can't tell. Could go either way. It could also be a hoax like Nebraska Man.

Having said that, here's another one:

Who designed the camera that took a picture of that image? Man or nature?

Who designed the brain of the person who took the picture? Man or nature?

The point is that in some cases it is nearly impossible to tell if some complicated object was designed and created by an intelligent being or simply came about by some natural process. The stone hedgehog here is an example. If you aren't sure:

I agree it is sometimes impossible to tell. So what? Sometimes it is as "easy as pie" to tell. (Or, if you're a math guy, it is as "easy as pi" to tell. )

Now let's try these questions:

1. What designed the camera that was used to take the picture? Man or Nature?

2. What designed the brain of the person who used the camera to take the picture? Man or Nature?

Yes God bless

youre not supposed to be able to tell. its called faith




Amen

Really? Natural processes are controlled by Gos? Your evidence for this is what exactly? Natural processes seem to be quite explicable without any reference to a deity. Do you seriously believe that God moves each atom into place when a natural formation such as the one shown develops? A snowflake is a regular, symmetrical system. Does it require a God to place the atoms exactly in the right spots? Please realize that the equations governing the electromagnetic force and quantum mechanics predict that ice will crystallize in the way we see it actually happen when a snowflake is formed. No need for divine intervention.

Now if you want to make an argument that God created the universe and put in structure that results in the regularities that we observe, that is an entirely different proposition. That isn’t one that has a scientific refutation, but it leads you right down the path of deism. A deity that creates the world but does not intervene in its operation in any observable way certainly is a proposition that cannot be refuted by observation of the universe. However, it isn’t exactly what theists have in mind when they talk about God is it?

Personally I think it might be interesting that we are nothing but the byproduct of some deity’s equivalent of a long-forgotten eighth grade science project that has been collecting dust in some shed for the last 14 billion years or so. It makes no difference in how we understand the universe, though, and it is a completely untestable idea. There is absolutely no difference between a deity-created “hands off” universe and one whose structures arose from natural development that had nothing to do with any deity. Occam’s Razor seems applicable here.

you need to go back and read jacob's ladder the angels are ascending and descending

God stands at the top directing traffic meaning He is an active God constantly involved with creation every day