Searching for GOD...

[Stranger]

One starts with something and ends with the explanation why there must be a necessarily existing entity.

Except that you haven't. What is this explanation? All you've done is assert that there must be one (while ignoring the alternatives) and then can't give sufficient reason why it exists (other than "it's magic").

No, Aquinus describes the nature of the necessary being and says ''this we call God'' and unfortunately something which is self directing, sovereign, and creative is a better fit for the abrahamic god than any other model of divinity and certainly isn't natural

Except that all of this is just a string of totally unjustified assertions.

It has sufficient reason...

What is this reason? You've never once said.

Also the question why something rather than nothing demands a reason when we have come to this reason that's it...

What is this reason? You've never once said.

You seem to be saying that there must be such a reason, then just made a whole string of totally baseless assertions about it, that attempt to turn it into your god.

Then, despite total failure on your part to provide anything remotely like sufficient reason for this made up magical entity, you then accuse others of not following the principle of sufficient reason. So we can add hypocrisy to all the endless logical failures.

[Dicky Underpants]

  No, Aquinus describes the nature of the necessary being and says ''this we call God'' and unfortunately something which is self directing, sovereign, and creative is a better fit for the abrahamic god than any other model of divinity and certainly isn't natural .

Since there are at least six different versions of "the Abrahamic God" in the OT, and three or four in the New, this is obvious bollocks.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Don't think so one STARTS with contingent things with the argument FROM contingency and ends with that, One starts with the idea of simulated universes then progresses to a cause other than the universe, One starts with something and ends with the explanation why there must be a necessarily existing entity.

But you haven’t done that at all. An assertion isn’t an explanation, no matter how many times you repeat the assertion. As I assume you don’t actually have an explanation at all (otherwise why would you have kept it a secret all this time?) assertion remains all you have here.

It's true that because a brick wall is made of small bricks that doesn't mean the wall is small but then it's true that if it is made from red bricks the whole wall will be red

Which still doesn’t get you off the fallacy of composition remember? Where’s the logic that takes you from “all the stuff I observe seems to have been caused by something else, therefore the universe itself must have been caused by something else too”?

Again, as I assume you don’t actually have any such logic at all (otherwise why would you have kept it a secret all this time?) assertion remains all you have here.

No, Aquinus describes the nature of the necessary being and says ''this we call God'' and unfortunately something which is self directing, sovereign, and creative is a better fit for the abrahamic god than any other model of divinity and certainly isn't natural

Yes, I see the unqualified assertions. How do you propose to go about justifying them though?

It has sufficient reason Brute facts, infinite regression of entities do not although it would as far as we are concerned not matter if it had. Also the question why something rather than nothing demands a reason when we have come to this reason that's it, there cannot be any pertinent question beyond this. The reason exists therefore necessarily

Which is as good a definition of special pleading as any I’ve seen. You’ve installed “god” as a (supposed) brute fact, but have also decided that there “cannot be any pertinent question beyond this”. Why not? Why not stop at “there cannot be any pertinent question beyond the brute fact of the universe itself” rather than install an entirely superfluous deity that has no explanatory usefulness at all and then transfer to the same claim to that deity?     

That statement isn't the equivalent of what I have put forward so you are talking bollocks.

Yes it is. The term “mystery” is epistemically the same as “it’s magic innit”. That’s why they’re equally “bollocks”.   

Probably more than could be humanly dealt with in one session.

   

Possibly, but as you’ve never shown any indication of understanding anything much here (aside from anything else, your pathological lying hides any glimmer of understanding even that you might have), clearly you wouldn’t be the person to deal with it.

So now we’re clear, your argument is indeed as I set it out then.

Thought so.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Since there are at least six different versions of "the Abrahamic God" in the OT, and three or four in the New, this is obvious bollocks.

Describe those six versions and outline the key points and the three or four in the NT and say where they contradict self direction, independence from the creation, creativity.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Except that you haven't. What is this explanation? All you've done is assert that there must be one (while ignoring the alternatives) and then can't give sufficient reason why it exists (other than "it's magic").

Except that all of this is just a string of totally unjustified assertions.

What is this reason? You've never once said
What is this reason? You've never once said.

You seem to be saying that there must be such a reason, then just made a whole string of totally baseless assertions about it, that attempt to turn it into your god.

Then, despite total failure on your part to provide anything remotely like sufficient reason for this made up magical entity, you then accuse others of not following the principle of sufficient reason. So we can add hypocrisy to all the endless logical failures.

My Goodness I've given the reason why it there is a necessary entity, because contingency makes no sense without it and because there is a reason behind why there is something rather than nothing and this reason is necessarily God like. There is therefore something rather than nothing, the explanation of which is the final entity which must exist.
And I think you realise that.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Describe those six versions and outline the key points and the three or four in the NT and say where they contradict self direction, independence from the creation, creativity.

You were the one accusing Outy of caricaturing Christianity remember? Do you not think it should be your job therefore to explain where, in your opinion, he went wrong (ideally without collapsing into the no true Scotsman fallacy)?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

You were the one accusing Outy of caricaturing Christianity remember? Do you not think it should be your job therefore to explain where, in your opinion, he went wrong (ideally without collapsing into the no true Scotsman fallacy)?

This was in response to Dicky not Outy and it is a positive assertion. Secondly I think with a response you haven't grasped what Dicky is saying  nor why i'm asking him for some clarity as to what he is talking about.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

My Goodness I've given the reason why it there is a necessary entity, because contingency makes no sense without it and because there is a reason behind why there is something rather than nothing and this reason is necessarily God like. There is therefore something rather than nothing, the explanation of which is the final entity which must exist.
And I think you realise that.

No you haven’t.

First you need to demonstrate why the universe must be contingent on anything at all rather than just assert it to be so.

Second, if you think “there is a reason behind why there is something rather than nothing” what is that reason for your faith claim “god”?

Third, “God like” only works if you choose to define “god” as “that which is capable of universe creation”.

Fourth, even if you could mount an argument to justify the claim “god” at best you’d have deism, so you’d have no way to show the supposed deity to be your rather than any other god.

Fifth, your ‘therefore” is a non sequitur.

Apart from all that though…

[Stranger]

My Goodness I've given the reason why it there is a necessary entity...

No you haven't. You haven't even explained how such a thing is even possible.

...because contingency makes no sense without it...

That's not an argument, it's an assertion. What's more, even if I accept that not everything can be contingent, that just means that something (or some things) are not contingent. That doesn't mean that there is something necessary in the sense that it couldn't have failed to exist.

...and because there is a reason behind why there is something rather than nothing...

None of what you said gets anywhere close to explaining that. All you're effectively saying that there must be such a reason and then just making up shit about it and pretending it's an argument.

...and this reason is necessarily God like.

You really, can't be serious! Even if I accepted all of the illogical nonsense that gets you to a 'necessary entity", the connection to it being god-like is just absurd.

There is therefore something rather than nothing, the explanation of which is the final entity which must exist.

This is just silly. "There is something rather than nothing, therefore there's a magical magic something that I can make up shit about."

[bluehillside Retd.]

Tell you what Vladdo, as you insist on ducking and diving still rather than answering the question I'll make it easy for you:

"Assertion: the universe must have been caused by something other than itself.

Justification: this assertion is true because..."

There you go. All you have to do now is to complete with an argument that isn't invalid the part that comes after the dots.

Good luck!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No you haven’t.

First you need to demonstrate why the universe must be contingent on anything at all rather than just assert it to be so.

Second, if you think “there is a reason behind why there is something rather than nothing” what is that reason for your faith claim “god”?

Third, “God like” only works if you choose to define “god” as “that which is capable of universe creation”.

Fourth, even if you could mount an argument to justify the claim “god” at best you’d have deism, so you’d have no way to show the supposed deity to be your rather than any other god.

Fifth, your ‘therefore” is a non sequitur.

Apart from all that though…

I don't think that's the point. ''The question is on what is the contingent part of the universe contingent on'' to go along with that another question is why is it that all we observe is contingent?'' I have made it clear, time after time not that the universe cannot be necessary but asked what it is about the universe which is necessary? Answer comes their none.

If we are into the fallacy of composition then you acknowledge this is about the composition of the universe.

So I will say this once again regarding it. If the big wall made of tiny bricks analogy the argument you are making, I have to tell you this

. The size of the wall and the brick is your argument for how the things in the universe could be contingent but the universe is necessary.
But that would mean that the necessity is due to and dependent on the contingency.....rendering it contingent rather than necessary.

A better argument is that the bricks are red and that makes a red wall so the components of the universe are contingent and the universe is contingent and then we have to ask on what.

This is not just saying or asserting Hillside this is giving reasons for why something is necessary either for or about the universe.

Why Deism does not fit the bill. This is because it assumes that the universe is now independent ontologically from God and ignores the possibility of it's having a maintained existence. It appeals to a temporally linear view and ignores vertical instantaneous heirarchies of dependence, It limits god to a rule of non intervention, but definitionally the necessary entity is self directing.

Even if there was a deist God how does it help atheism? 

[Outrider]

You still haven't said why you think the doctrine of the trinity is the same as a pantheon of multiple Gods.

I did - because they both have multiple gods in them. I could drag in the history of Yahweh as a Storm/Warrior deity in the loosely affiliated pantheon of Canaanite deities, and the plethora of angelic 'demigod' beings as further evidence of a polytheistic origin which has been conveniently forgotten or overwritten (largely by the Judaist tradition before the Christians tried to re-reinvent it).

I don't have to account for Satan, Angels, Demons, the Nephelim etc because  as i've said they are not divine in Christianity.

Except that they fulfil the same role in that mythology as the lesser deities and nymphs and the like do in Greek myth. You can say that they're not divine, but you've still failed to explain on what basis you make a judgement on what is or is not.

They are not minor deities , you seem to think they are and I am asking why?

Because they're magical supernatural beings with a place in the mythology - making up claims about particular natures for particular segments of stories doesn't justify the arbitrary claim that Calliope is divine but Metatron is not because of a need to cleave to the idea that Christianity is somehow fundamentally different.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I don't think that's the point. ''The question is on what is the contingent part of the universe contingent on'' to go along with that another question is why is it that all we observe is contingent?''

Yes it is the point. You can’t go straight to “on what is it contingent?” without establishing first that it’s contingent at all. That’s the a priori question you keep running away from.   

I have made it clear, time after time not that the universe cannot be necessary but asked what it is about the universe which is necessary? Answer comes their none.

You haven’t “made it clear” at all – you’ve just asserted it. Whenever you’re asked to justify your assertion though you vanish. That’s the only “answer comes there none” here.

If we are into the fallacy of composition then you acknowledge this is about the composition of the universe.

Nope, no idea what you’re trying to say here. Yet again, the fallacy of composition here is your assumption that a property seen within the universe (causality) must also apply to the universe itself. 

So I will say this once again regarding it. If the big wall made of tiny bricks analogy the argument you are making, I have to tell you this

. The size of the wall and the brick is your argument for how the things in the universe could be contingent but the universe is necessary.
But that would mean that the necessity is due to and dependent on the contingency.....rendering it contingent rather than necessary.

A better argument is that the bricks are red and that makes a red wall so the components of the universe are contingent and the universe is contingent and then we have to ask on what.

This is just incoherent. It's white noise. Static on the TV after the national anthem has ended. Yet again: how do you propose to justify your claim that a property seen in components of the universe must also apply to the universe as a whole?

Why do you keep running away from this simple question? 

This is not just saying or asserting Hillside this is giving reasons for why something is necessary either for or about the universe.

No, it’s exactly just asserting. And your reasons for the assertion are – so far at least – something you cannot or will not set out.

Why is that? 

Why Deism does not fit the bill. This is because it assumes that the universe is now independent ontologically from God and ignores the possibility of it's having a maintained existence. It appeals to a temporally linear view and ignores vertical instantaneous heirarchies of dependence, It limits god to a rule of non intervention, but definitionally the necessary entity is self directing.

Are you using some kind of random word generator here? Even when I try to pick out some sense from this car crash of a paragraph I can tell that it rests on your usual tropes of straw manning, arse-backwards thinking, conflating the possible with the probable etc.

If you really want to persist with this nonsense could you at least give your head a wobble first, try to compose sentences in recognisable English and god help us try at least to eliminate your standard reasoning howlers.   

Even if there was a deist God how does it help atheism?

It wouldn’t (not “doesn’t”), but the point was that even if you could finally resolve the mistakes and problems with your attempt at the cosmological argument, still all it would give you at most is deism. Your problem though is that you haven’t resolved them at all (nor even for that matter tried to) so even deism is as yet way beyond your reach.

Even by your dismal standards this is a grim effort Vlad.

[Stranger]

I don't think that's the point. ''The question is on what is the contingent part of the universe contingent on'' to go along with that another question is why is it that all we observe is contingent?'' I have made it clear, time after time not that the universe cannot be necessary but asked what it is about the universe which is necessary? Answer comes their none.

Actually I have answered that, several times. The whole space-time manifold does not appear to be contingent on anything (at least not obviously). And you still have not shown how what you're describing as 'necessary' is even a logically self-consistent concept.

This is not just saying or asserting Hillside this is giving reasons for why something is necessary either for or about the universe.

False. You haven't given one single, solitary reason why there must be something necessary (at least in your latest usage of the word), nor, as I said before, made the slightest coherent attempt to provide sufficient reason for it and so distinguish it from a brute fact.

You seem to be basically using a circular argument. Stuff exists, and, so goes your claim, there must be something that's 'necessary', and then just asserted that it answers the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't. You'd also have to show that there was some reason why it had to exist, and that it not existing, it being different in some way, or even something entirely different, was impossible. You've basically made its existence contingent on all the other stuff existing.

You've actually got a dodgy argument for a brute fact that you're simply asserting is an argument for a 'necessary entity'.

...but definitionally the necessary entity is self directing.

Bullshit. You haven't made the slightest attempt to properly define this supposed 'necessary entity', show how it is possible, or how we can deduce what it might be like. The idea that it might be "self-directing" seems to be nothing but wishful thinking and actually contradicts some of the other baseless claims you've made about it.

[Alan Burns]

This is just creationism, nothing more. Science reveals that species come into being through a process of evolution and we have known this since Darwin's time. All species are related through their DNA, there is no evidence of 'already complex lifeforms' being created ex-nihilo and then fine tuned. Do you imagine that todays megafauna - horses, elephants, buffalo etc are nothing more than 'fine tuned' dinosaurs perhaps ?

Of course I do not deny our common ancestry.
What I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way.
Natural selection from truly random mutations can never achieve more than a bit of fine tuning.

[Nearly Sane]

Of course I do not deny our common ancestry.
What I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way.
Natural selection from truly random mutations can never achieve more than a bit of fine tuning.

Show your working

[Alan Burns]

Except that we become consciously aware of it after we've already come to the decision, our subconscious leads our conscious not the other way around.

O.

If ever you needed evidence for our human capacity to consciously think up reasons to defend our own corner - just read this thread. 

[Stranger]

Of course I do not deny our common ancestry.
What I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way.
Natural selection from truly random mutations can never achieve more than a bit of fine tuning.

Another baseless assertion and/or personal incredulity.   

[Stranger]

If ever you needed evidence for our human capacity to consciously think up reasons to defend our own corner - just read this thread. 

You really don't understand what 'evidence' means, do you? Since nobody denies that we are able to think up reasons to defend our positions, it can't possibly be evidence for anybody's point of view over anybody else's.

The exact role of consciousness is currently unknown, and in any case totally irrelevant to your nonsensical, self-contradictory version of 'freedom'.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Of course I do not deny our common ancestry.
What I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way.
Natural selection from truly random mutations can never achieve more than a bit of fine tuning.

Your misunderstanding of evolution is showing again. Mutations happen randomly, but are passed on to succeeding generations when they confer advantages by reference to their environment.

And in any case, “what I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way” is just an unqualified assertion. What reasoning or evidence would you propose to justify this claim?     

[Outrider]

If ever you needed evidence for our human capacity to consciously think up reasons to defend our own corner - just read this thread. 

Never had reason to doubt that we did it, just had sufficient to realise that it's not free of prior conditioning.

O.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Your misunderstanding of evolution is showing again. Mutations happen randomly, but are passed on to succeeding generations when they confer advantages by reference to their environment.

And in any case, “what I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way” is just an unqualified assertion. What reasoning or evidence would you propose to justify this claim?     

I am constantly accused of not understanding the theory of evolution whenever I cast doubt on the feasibility of it all happening by the unguided, aimless forces of nature.
You can of course presume that every one of the billions of mutations involved in the transition from single cell to human being were generated by random events.
You can of course presume that each one of these billions of mutations had sufficient survival benefit to be passed on by natural selection.
You can of course presume that whenever there was a change in environment, there were sufficient randomly generated beneficial mutations produced at the right time and place to ensure the survival of our ancestral species.
You can of course presume that God had nothing to do with it.

You can presume that my doubts concerning the feasibility of the evolutionary process being entirely driven by random events are entirely unfounded.

And you can presume that all these presumptions are just the end result of cause and effect reactions which began at the beginning of time.

And you can presume that your end reactions are somehow superior to my end reactions - even though all our reactions must be defined by forces of nature which are innocent of any bias.

Or you can use your God given freedom to conclude that you are more than just a cog in a material universe driven entirely by unavoidable physically driven reactions.

[torridon]

Of course I do not deny our common ancestry.
What I am saying is that the transition from single cell to human brain could not occur without some form of intelligent guidance along the way.
Natural selection from truly random mutations can never achieve more than a bit of fine tuning.

And your evidence for this baseless assertion is ... ?

Hint: incredulity is not a form of evidence.

[torridon]

If ever you needed evidence for our human capacity to consciously think up reasons to defend our own corner - just read this thread. 

There is no evidence however that such thoughts have no derivation, no origin, no triggers.  Conscious thoughts are the outcome of the non conscious processes that give rise to them.  You still don't understand this ?  Really ? Anyone the subject of random thoughts arising for no reason would be locked up in a secure unit for their own safety.

[torridon]

You can of course presume that every one of the billions of mutations involved in the transition from single cell to human being were generated by random events.
You can of course presume that each one of these billions of mutations had sufficient survival benefit to be passed on by natural selection.
You can of course presume that whenever there was a change in environment, there were sufficient randomly generated beneficial mutations produced at the right time and place to ensure the survival of our ancestral species.
You can of course presume that God had nothing to do with it.

Given we have no evidence to date of some divine being secretly generating targeted genetic mutations there is no reason to imagine the idea plausible.  And anyhow, why would said god bring about his design intentions by disguising his interventions as completely natural occurrences ? Why cover his tracks so that no one would suspect the hand of a designer was in play ?