Dear MakingMoves,

You ask me, "Or is your whole point of this thread, that something from nothing isn't possible, therefore something has always existed?"
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...4&postcount=72

Yes, that is my position.

Is the answer to the question relevant?

What is Neeel insisting? You'll have to quote just the relevant portion of his statement.

This is not tautological.

Suppose you consider the definition that was presented.

I submit that it is tautologically true that there are no false tautologies.

No.



No. If you want to come to anything using truths, facts, and logic, then you ought to at least get the basic logic part right.

Believe me when I say that I enjoy mocking people. You're continuing to give plenty of fodder.

Dear MakingMoves, I love your way of talking.

So, you don't say there is need for evidence in judging whether God exists or not., but you bring up the word evidence in a thread, that is into "How to come to God existing with thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas."

Suppose, if I may, why bother bringing up the word evidennce if it ain't intended by you to serve in any capacity for mankind to determine, whether God exists or not, on the basis that there is evidence sufficient at that or not.

But let me read again, your posts.

Okay, I must ask for your pardon, you did not say that for you evidence is needed to come to God existing, you are just saying that atheists have that demand.

Sorry, I read too fast and got carried away seemingly as on cue when the word evidence appears in a post, that the poster is into the demand for evidence - WRONG! my mistake.

You say further: "Being agnostic seems to be the only rational stance to take on god until we no [know] more."

I commend you for your what I might call investigative heart and mind.

Tell me, what is the direction you would like to take, aside from being agnostic perhaps indifferent agnostic, like do you think that there is a key to the resolution of the issue at all, like from my part, with the investigation of existence by thinkng on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas?

Dear Uke, if I may, I guess you find it irksome to you to have to yourself search and do a lot of thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas, to yourself answer your own questions:


My first proposal is that you read up on infinite regress in re God and causality, after that you can read up on one God or plurality of Gods, while keeping track of truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas.

And modesty aside in regard to my second proposal, read up on my writing in this forum; search for my threads and posts, with the search function of this forum. or by any way you know to come to the threads and posts of a registered member of the website here.
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Dear Aaron, please start a thread on what is a tautology.

Or choose one thing you want to bring up with me that is directly focused in re "How to come to God existing with thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas."

I propose we talk about what is existence or what is it for man to know and recognize instances of existence.


Happy thinking and writing?

It is directly relevant to your initial claim, so I'm going to address it here since your position is dependent upon it.

It is. It's directly related because it's your starting point.

I propose we talk about logic because you're talking about thinking on logic.

Always!

Its not? My claim is that "the default status of things in the totality of being is existence" is the same as "things that exist, exist" which is a tautology

Quantum physics tell us there is a limit to how well we know a state ("the uncertainty principle"), a principle described best by the "virtual particles" - calculated phenomena that pop in and out of existence, even in vacuums. They can even be measured. They violate the assumption of conservation of energy ("energy can neither be created nor destroyed"), but it is allowed because of the uncertainty principle.

So it would seem your default assumption ("let us think that the default status of things in the world is existence") is wrong, or rather a loose approximation. Rather it would seem that "existence" is a state, not the state.

I thought that they dont violate the conservation of energy, because the net energy use is 0, they "borrow" energy when they appear, and "pay it back" when they anhilate?

Yes, it is allowed within the confines of the "uncertainty principle". But (as I understand it) the implication is that even the principle of "conservation of energy" can only be held down to a certain limit of precision, and when we go beyond that it can (and will) break down.

I'm not a physicist, so my layman's understanding might be off. My point is merely that the kind of absolutes that OP wants to assume does not seem (to me) to be justifiable in modern physics.

I will not talk with posters here who want to talk about tautology.

And I will not talk with posters here who to my observation are into distracting people's concentration on the issue of this thread, which is into the question:

"How to come to God existing with thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas."


For posters who want to dwell on how to interpret my words, "The default status of things in the totality of being is existence," as to deviate from my thought, by which I have explained it already, please cease and desist already: because you are into to my observation distracting people's concentration on the the issue here.

If you do not understand my words, "The default status of things in the totality of being is existence," then I will dispense you altogether from having to interpret it to make it intelligible to yourselves, but it is not my thought.

Tell you what, posters who are to my observation into that sentence, and would not move on, then in place of that sentence, I will give you this one, for you to think on as to move on with me and everyone else, to come to God existing with thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas.

This is the sentence, The nose in our face exists.


If you insist on your digression to talk about tautology and your incapacity to understand the sentence, or you oppose my thought in it, “The default status of things in the totality of being is existence,” please start your own thread to absorb yourselves in your persistent digression.


Now, we only know some 4% of the totality of the universe, so let us talk about and within the 4% of what mankind to date knows about the universe.

Let us start with the nose in our face, which is certainly existing and more certainly existing, than virtual particles popping in and out of existence from literally nothing without cause.

Think on the nose existing in our face and it is not going to fall off uncertainly without our at least getting aware of its falling off, without any physical event impacting into it, think on that with your working reason and intelligence grounded on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas.

That will lead us to go forth into the universe even just though still within the 4% of the universe we are conversant with, to search for the presence of God, in concept as first and foremost the creator and operator of the universe and man and everything with a beginning.


I will be back tomorrow morning: posters who are to my observation into distracting people's concentration on the thread here - as this is a free forum for any member to start a thread, you can introduce a thread of your very own, to talk about tautology, and all posters interested in the sentence from me, “The default status of things in the totality of being is existence,” can drain your brain cells dry with exchanging thoughts on how or why or etc. etc. etc. the sentence which is a tautology to them is this and that and everything they have their heart and mind tuned to.

But I will not go there, because I will be busy with my thread here.


See you all tomorrow, and thanks everyone for your presence in this thread.

Your whole purpose of bringing up

"The default status of things in the totality of being is existence"

was, as I understood it, to use this to logically deduce that god exists. If its not clear what you mean by "The default status of things in the totality of being is existence", or if we dont agree with it, then I dont see how you are going to use it to logically deduce that god exists.

Although, I am interested to see how you logically get from

P) the nose on your face exists

to

C) therefore God exists.

This is a debate forum, not a blog. If you don't want to question the assumptions you want to base logic arguments on, that's your choice - but it tells me that you aren't willing to debate the soundness of your logic.

I mean, I can say "If birds sing, God doesn't exit. Birds sing => God doesn't exist". It's logically valid, but it is not logically sound. If I'm unwilling to discuss its soundness, any ensuing debate is meaningless.

Dearest Susmario, a fine suggestion! I am embarassed to say that it is 8:30am here in Ohio and I have yet to fall asleep. In my eagerness to respond to you I've spent the night reading, and thinking, on all that you have asked. Please remember that my skill in this matter is limited, which is why I am hoping you will be my guide here. But I have done what I can.

I have read up on the infinite regress, in particularly as it intersects with causality, gods and the plurality of gods. ALl of this i have done from the perspective of logic, facts, logic, truth, the history of ideas and logic. Further I have reread every post of yours ITT and in the priori thread. Perhaps I should note my admiration for your dutiful attempts to help people despite their stuborness and refusal.

Now to the matter at hand, after extensive study (and recall that this is only from my limited perspective) I believe I have found a small error in your argument that needs to be slightly adjusted. A linguistic shift, minor in appearance, but perhaps larger in consequence! You have surmised, as have many before you, the existence of something. This is well argued. The trick is, you have called this something an "entity", ignoring the possibility that the something is, say, a physical property, or 17 gods, and so on.

Please, I ask that you use your wisdom and experience contemplating logic and the nature of all of being and the default status thereof to help ellucidate what appears to be an error in your argument.

At the very least, I would suggest you read the totality of this article: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/co...-argument/#3.2 and report back after you have read every word and recalled the logic and definitions thereof.

Curious that the 'history of ideas" is incomplete. That is, one can reasonably infer that the literal historic state of ideas is much broader than what has been recorded in known history, which itself is also incomplete. So a default state of the history of ideas is incomplete.

If you take that specific interpretation, it's fine. But that's not how I read those words. I grant that Susmario's language usage is not very good, so that there are multiple difficulties here.

I claim that you're denying much of the content of the word "default" if you do that. It's also not clear that "the totality of being" is functioning in a way that's meaningful. There's a time dependence on the concept of existence that requires a significant amount of parsing, much of which I expect him to fail at.

Take, for example, his claim that it's tautological that I exist. There was and will be a time in which I don't exist. A tautology (despite his objections) is a statement that is true based on the structure of the statement. There will be a time at which I don't exist, and there was once a time in which I didn't exist. There are also possible universes in which I never existed. So the words "default" and "totality of being" both struggle to effectively encapsulate the concept of "existence."

Please explain how you have come to God existing by the nose on your face.

If I were killed and a dog came and ate the nose off my face, I think I would not be aware that my nose was missing from my face.

But what about logic? Do we leave logic behind when we go forth?

The irony of thanking everyone for their presence in this thread is that you also actively reject people's presence in this thread. I will choose to interpret this as an open welcome to continue engaging in the thread, since you are so thankful for my presence.

Dear everyone here, thanks for your presence.


If I may and forgive me, I will not entertain posters who are to my observation into distracting people’s concentration on the thread here which is into the following question:

"How to come to God existing with thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas."



Dear Uke, you are into the word entity:

The trick is, you have called this something an "entity", ignoring the possibility that the something is, say, a physical property, or 17 gods, and so on.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...4&postcount=89

I will help you, go to dictionaries and look up all the synonyms of the word entity, and think about entity and being and thing and reality and existence,,, okay?

I will not entertain you any further because you are falling into the trend of distracting people's concentration on this thread from yours truly.

Next time you write, please put at the top of your post, this inscription:

"Dear Susmario, this is my (see below) educated concept of entity."

Then I will read your post.



Happy thinking and writing!

Dear everyone here: first, thanks again for your presence.


Now, I am the author of this thread, and as such I owe the duty to everyone reading my thread to conduct the discussion in a systematic productive manner.

If anyone is not happy with the way I am conducting the discussion here, he can always appeal to the power that be in this forum.


The title of the thread is the following:

"How to come to God existing with thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the history of ideas."

So, I will invite everyone who has useful thoughts to contribute to the development and happy completion of the thread, to observe the following guidelines.

1. We will proceed from the reality of the existence of everything we know per our experience of things to be existing,

2. That means if anyone wants to proceed from the literally understood nothing-ness, then I will not entertain him: because he is not being realistic, he should not be here at all; you see, dear readers, he should first put himself out of existence, and then we will all no longer have to bear with his insanity of starting from literally understood nothing-ness, but still be around here in existence to distract our concentration on the issue of this thread, which is into existence of God from the existence of things in the totality of being.

3. Keep faithful to #1 and #2 guidelines above.



Happy thinking and writing!

Dear everyone here, let us rehearse how we experience the existence of the nose in our face.

Let you and me each touch and pinch our respective nose, and the nose of everyone else, then we will have ascertained the existence of the nose in our face; is that okay with everyone?



Happy thinking and writing!

dear Susmario, firstly I must apologize! Distracting the fellow readers of this thread from your offerings was the last thing on my mind! But I now see the error in my ways and will try to adjust accordingly. Please forgive me. Let me assure you my primary goal here is to come to God through the thinking of logic and the history of ideas and also of facts and of logic and most importantly reason. It was merely that I failed to understand the small detail of your argument and was hoping you could help me. Are you still willing?

If I may suggest this, perhaps it is best for YOU to provide the concept of entity. I only suggest this because after following your suggestion of reading many dictionaries and contemplating the reality of existence in conjunction thereof, I've decided that there is a wide array of meanings and I am not sure which one YOU are using in YOUR argument. I might suggest a definition, but then you mig be using a different meaning than the one I had in mind. Since the focus of this thread is , as it should be, you and your arguments, perhaps it is best that you try and elucidate this detail for our benefit.

Most regs here have a decent dabbler's understanding of logic, philosophy and theology. Many of them are even professionals in those very fields (and some in related fields).

You can present a final argument and they wouldn't be lost. There is no need to act like a Sunday school teacher for ten year-olds.

I touched my nose, its definitely there. I didnt go around touching anyone elses nose though, I probably would have got punched ( on the nose)

Thanks everyone for your presence.


Now, we have ascertained the existence of the nose in our face, by experiencing its presence with our touching it and pinching it: all of us the nose in our face and the nose in everyone else’s face.

That is a very good ascertainment of the truth and the fact of existence.

And that is one instance of the truth of the sentence, "The default status of things in the totality of being is existence."


Dear colleagues here, I ask all of ourselves active in this thread:

Do we want to continue experiencing additional instances of the experience of existence, experience by which we will come ultimately to the certainty of existence is the default status of things in the totality of being?

Or can we already proceed to seek to classify all the instances of the reality of the existence of all things?

What am I driving at?

I am driving at the truth and the fact that all things are into ultimately two categories, namely:

1. Things from themselves, and
2. Things from other things.

There, do you everyone concur with my finding that all things in the totality of being are either existing from themselves or existing from other things?


Happy thinking and writing!

No, I've not ascertained the presence of the nose on your face yet because I've yet to touch it and pinch it.

No, this says nothing about the "default" status of anything. If the default status of a light switch is off, but I happen to observe it while it's on, it would be false for me to claim that because I see the light is on that its default status is to be on.

The default status of my nose could be to not exist, but it just happens to exist right now. Much like the <insert racist label> can be observed to be white as a result of changing his default racial status.

I would caution strongly against a hasty generalization fallacy. Knowing something about my nose does not imply I know anything about other aspects of reality.

Do you reject the existence of things that come from nothing? Or do you consider nothing an "other thing"?

No.