The hiddenness of God

[ekim]

In what way then is God hidden?

If there is God and this advice from the Bible is pertinent 'Be still and know that I am being', then it could be hidden by all the distractions created by an unstill mind.  All you are aware of are mental forms and forces including a 'God' form if you have created one.

[Gordon]

Feser of course.
But if you are prepared to hang around I can go through the objections to the objections to Feser.

I am doing a you a favour Gordon since we don't know what your beliefs are.

I recall the Feser stuff: is that the best you can do?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I recall the Feser stuff: is that the best you can do?

It was never properly refuted.
Also during the debates my opponent disappeared as did Gonnagle's.

As I said if anybody thinks they have a refutation of Feser or cares to appeal to that Hume I am more than willing to discuss it with them.

[Stranger]

There is Feser the refutation of whom is summarised as a delusion in those who think they have bested him.

See: #26368 in "Searching for GOD..." for a link to a Feser video and subsequent discussion of its self-contradiction and laughably contrived arguments.

To return to this topic - even if we accept for a moment and for the sake of argument (I'm not conceding it) that hidden in the depth of a philosophical argument, there is a reason to think a god of some kind might exist, then god and its message is still well hidden.

If the message is important and the god just and fair, why is it hiding? Why is this god and its message not plain to everybody?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

See: #26368 in "Searching for GOD..." for a link to a Feser video and subsequent discussion of its self-contradiction and laughably contrived arguments.

To return to this topic - even if we accept for a moment and for the sake of argument (I'm not conceding it) that hidden in the depth of a philosophical argument, there is a reason to think a god of some kind might exist, then god and its message is still well hidden.

If the message is important and the god just and fair, why is it hiding? Why is this god and its message not plain to everybody?

Atheism and particularly antitheism has a poor record in philosophy.
I am willing to discuss which points you think you have refuted Feser on.
Arseclenching triumphalism like you present here helps no one.

[floo]

Yes but if you claim something is false you need to show falsification I would have thought.
If you say God does not exist you similarly need to show falsification.

The default position is ''not proven/demonstrated physically.''

We are still left with the lack of justification for why ''God doesn't exist'' is the default position.

The Biblical god is as credible as any other mythical creature, which is why its existence is in doubt. As has been pointed out so many times, it is for those who proclaim god exists to produce verifiable evidence to substantiate its existence.

[Stranger]

It was never properly refuted.
Also during the debates my opponent disappeared as did Gonnagle's.

Nonsense - you spent most of the discussion totally ignoring the counterarguments, then lost track of it entirely, and then, shortly afterwards, disappeared from it: #26426.

Not sure what you mean about Gonnagle but he joined in with some entirely different points and stopped talking to me after I mentioned Russell's "fecking" teapot.

I am willing to discuss which points you think you have refuted Feser on.

It's all in the previous discussion - if you think you've something new to say, then do so. However, this thread is about the hiddenness of god and you've ignored my point about that...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Nonsense - you spent most of the discussion totally ignoring the counterarguments, then lost track of it entirely, and then, shortly afterwards, disappeared from it: #26426.

Not sure what you mean about Gonnagle but he joined in with some entirely different points and stopped talking to me after I mentioned Russell's "fecking" teapot.

It's all in the previous discussion - if you think you've something new to say, then do so. However, this thread is about the hiddenness of god and you've ignored my point about that...

You see this is the trouble. If you have a refutation or an argument you should be able to repeat it at a moments notice instead of giving us a theatrical critique on who performed and how.

[Gordon]

You see this is the trouble. If you have a refutation or an argument you should be able to repeat it at a moments notice instead of giving us a theatrical critique on who performed and how.

To speed things up then: you'll have, at the drop of the proverbial hat, and momentarily, a cogent argument for 'God' that we can all get stuck into?

[Stranger]

You see this is the trouble. If you have a refutation or an argument you should be able to repeat it at a moments notice instead of giving us a theatrical critique on who performed and how.

Pot, kettle, black. If you have an argument for god, you should be able to repeat it at a moment's notice instead of referring us to Feser, asserting that it wasn't "properly refuted" and falsely claiming that people "disappeared".

The fact is that Feser's main tactic seems to be to bore us into submission - he takes 30 minutes just to get to the point, his argument is then comically contrived and self-contradictory.

And once again, you've totally ignored the point relevant to this thread (about hiddenness) which is that even if such a convoluted, contrived argument did give us reason to think there might be a god (which it doesn't) - it would still mean that god and its message are hidden.

[Maeght]

Fair Do's

can you say what your disagreement is.

That there is no evidence for God. There is none that I know of.

[Maeght]

Yes (and a proper definition of 'god') - but I do not know of anybody who is making that positive claim, rather than the claim that there is no reason to think that any of the many gods on offer exist.

People have said that the default position is that there is no God.

[Stranger]

People have said that the default position is that there is no God.

See #104.

[Maeght]

See #104.

Seen it. There is a difference though between saying that the claim that there is a God is not shown to be true to saying there is no God isn't there?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Steve H,

I didn't avoid them; I just couldn't be arsed to answer them. This is what usually happens on these threads - the nerdy antheistic obsessives bang on and on relentlessly, spouting their dribs and drabs of philosophy, until everyone except themselves is bored stiff and gives up for the sake of their sanity, then proclaim themselves the winners.

Translation: “Oh-oh – there he goes with his ideas and arguments and stuff that I can’t rebut, so I’ll try an ad hom/pejorative language combo instead and hope no-one notices while I make good my escape.”

Just to be clear, Reply 74 wasn’t “philosophy” so much as some basic logic that undid you. If you won’t or can’t respond to it then fair enough, but throwing mud at it in the hope that some sticks is very poor.

[floo]

No one can say for sure there is no god, but it doesn't seem likely humans are in communication with it.

[Stranger]

Seen it. There is a difference though between saying that the claim that there is a God is not shown to be true to saying there is no God isn't there?

It's the Russell's teapot situation: if the suggestion has no evidence or reasoning to support it, you would not believe that it was true even if you couldn't falsify it.

IIRC the point was that the default position was to assume no gods (and remain open to arguments or evidence). It's why atheism is often described as a lack of belief in gods, rather than a belief in no gods.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gordon,

To speed things up then: you'll have, at the drop of the proverbial hat, and momentarily, a cogent argument for 'God' that we can all get stuck into?

Vlad provide an argument for “God”? Well, that’d be novel I suppose.

Seems unlikely though given his preferred method of naming authorities he thinks agree with him, then when their arguments are refuted just lying about or ignoring the refutations, then weeks or months later claiming the refutations weren’t produced at all. That and just flat out lying about what people like Neil DeGrasse Tyson actually say of course. As that’s his comfort zone why would he risk ever actually making an argument for something?

[Maeght]

It's the Russell's teapot situation: if the suggestion has no evidence or reasoning to support it, you would not believe that it was true even if you couldn't falsify it.

IIRC the point was that the default position was to assume no gods (and remain open to arguments or evidence). It's why atheism is often described as a lack of belief in gods, rather than a belief in no gods.

Yes, I am fully aware of the burden of proof and of the celestial teapot scenario, but it is the statement that the default position is that God doesn't exist with which I have issue. To me the default is that we don't know either way.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Stranger,

It's the Russell's teapot situation: if the suggestion has no evidence or reasoning to support it, you would not believe that it was true even if you couldn't falsify it.

IIRC the point was that the default position was to assume no gods (and remain open to arguments or evidence). It's why atheism is often described as a lack of belief in gods, rather than a belief in no gods.

But that’s the big, fat, fur-lined, 240 carat, ocean-going lie Vlad, Sword and occasionally some others here rely on – that “atheism” is the claim that gods don’t exist. And in Vlad’s case he invents an entire lexicon of personal re-definitions (“scientism”, “methodological materialism” etc) to support the lie.

Hilariously when he references Wiki for authority it almost invariably blows up in his face too, but that’s another matter.

[Grace of God]

Flop has kind of agreed to me setting this thread up subsequent to a post suggesting the hiddenness of God.

So to kick off ,many theists would say that is not their experience.

I know people who on finding God admit to Goddodging, knowing that God was there but not knowing God well, finding what they were looking for..............all hardly hidden.

In what way then is God hidden?

God is hidden by life, consumerism, wrong living, science to a degree, attitude, money, anything that keeps our focus on us and our needs..

[Stranger]

Yes, I am fully aware of the burden of proof and of the celestial teapot scenario, but it is the statement that the default position is that God doesn't exist with which I have issue. To me the default is that we don't know either way.

I don't believe that there is an orbiting teapot and I see no reason to take the idea seriously, so "we don't know either way" doesn't (to my mind) express the situation adequately - even though I can't falsify the idea.

The same goes for gods. I also object to the singular phrase "God doesn't exist" because it implies that we have only one alternative to no gods, which also isn't the case.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Maeght,

Yes, I am fully aware of the burden of proof and of the celestial teapot scenario, but it is the statement that the default position is that God doesn't exist with which I have issue. To me the default is that we don't know either way.

Actually the “default before the default” is that it’s for the person proposing “God” to tell us what he means by it in a coherent manner. No-one to my knowledge ever has, so the primary logical response is ignosticism – ie, “I have no idea what you’re talking about and nor have you, so your white noise “God” isn’t truth apt in any case”.

For practical reasons most discussion on matters religious skips this stage (ie, we just assume for now that “God” had been given a coherent meaning), which leads us to the second stage default. That second stage, absent any prior knowledge, must be either that everything that can be imagined (and indeed everything that can’t) does exist, or that everything that can be imagined (and indeed everything that can’t) doesn’t exist. As for the former is incoherent, we have to continue on the basis of the latter not as a statement of absolute epistemic truth but rather as the only practical basis on which to proceed.

And once we do that we can move from “probably not true” to “probably true" on a case-by-case by investigating the claims using the only tools available to us – reason and evidence.

And that’s where the claim “God” (and for that matter “leprechauns”) always collapses because no such tools are ever forthcoming that would enable a disinterested observer to investigate them (which is why Vlad et al always run away when asked for some).

[Stranger]

God is hidden by life, consumerism, wrong living, science to a degree, attitude, money, anything that keeps our focus on us and our needs..

So if there is a just and fair, omniscient and omnipotent god, who has an important message for us, why isn't it making itself more obvious?

[floo]

God is hidden by life, consumerism, wrong living, science to a degree, attitude, money, anything that keeps our focus on us and our needs..

Far better to focus on reality rather than fantasy!