Why not believe in Thor or Leprechauns?

[Nearly Sane]

Vlad,

“Other faculties” eh? What “faculties” would they be then – how for example would you determine whether something had been “revealed” rather than imagined?

And if there are other 'faculties' then it's still observation which makes god, according to Vlad's logic, contingent.

[Gordon]

Jesus is both Man and God. His material humanity is therefore contingent I.e there was a time when Jesus the man wasn't.

You really need to learn to stop digging, Vlad, since when you do you invariably end up tying yourself in knots - and Houdini you ain't.

If, as you say, Jesus is both Man and God then anyone observing Jesus was observing both these aspects containing in the one package, so to speak. Therefore, according to your logic, and as NS pointed out, 'God' must be contingent.

If there is a wrong tree to bark up then you are sure to find it and commence yapping.



 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You really need to learn to stop digging, Vlad, since when you do you invariably end up tying yourself in knots - and Houdini you ain't.

If, as you say, Jesus is both Man and God then anyone observing Jesus was observing both these aspects containing in the one package, so to speak. Therefore, according to your logic, and as NS pointed out, 'God' must be contingent.

If there is a wrong tree to bark up then you are sure to find it and commence yapping.



 

But Gordon there is nothing about Jesus being both Man and God that isn't mainstream Christianity..

Jesus is of course the great mystery and unknown being both God and Man with no blending and no loss
Of either humanity or divinity.

You are just trying to circumvent necessity. That is the hole you are digging.

[Dicky Underpants]

But Gordon there is nothing about Jesus being both Man and God that isn't mainstream Christianity..

Jesus is of course the great mystery and unknown being both God and Man with no blending and no loss
Of either humanity or divinity.

You are just trying to circumvent necessity. That is the hole you are digging.

You're just quoting dogma again. I know it's hard to keep flogging doctrines that were worked out by committee centuries ago, but your approach is hardly going to gain any believers. One minute you claim you're using logic and philosophical proofs, the next you just fall back on dogmatic beliefs. Of course the latter have been considerably undermined since the 19th century by many who would choose to call themselves christians (not that these doctrines ever held universal attraction, what with Arianism and Unitarianism et al).

Remember that text from Phillippians "Christ, who though being in the very form of God, thought not to seek equality with God, but emptied himself....."

So we are expected to believe he was not equal to God, yet he was; that he was still God, but also human, that he was unchanged and eternal, and yet he died. Give us a break.

[Nearly Sane]

But Gordon there is nothing about Jesus being both Man and God that isn't mainstream Christianity..

Jesus is of course the great mystery and unknown being both God and Man with no blending and no loss
Of either humanity or divinity.

You are just trying to circumvent necessity. That is the hole you are digging.

and ergo by your 'logic' your god is contingent

[Walt Zingmatilder]

and ergo by your 'logic' your god is contingent

I suggest as a humian your grasp of logic is impaired. I do not worship the material of Jesus, I recognise I suppose his perfection in the Socratic sense and am impressed by it and I worship his divinity...which is untouched by contingency.

I think you are merely trying for an argument that avoids anything being categorically necessary for the universe.

[Dicky Underpants]

I suggest as a humian your grasp of logic is impaired. I do not worship the material of Jesus, I recognise I suppose his perfection in the Socratic sense and am impressed by it and I worship his divinity...which is untouched by contingency.

I think you are merely trying for an argument that avoids anything being categorically necessary for the universe.

And I suggest that are now trying to shift the argument away from the absurdities of "high Christology", realising that you are indeed tying yourself in knots, to the simpler argument of whether there is a first cause or not.

[Nearly Sane]

I suggest as a humian your grasp of logic is impaired. I do not worship the material of Jesus, I recognise I suppose his perfection in the Socratic sense and am impressed by it and I worship his divinity...which is untouched by contingency.

I think you are merely trying for an argument that avoids anything being categorically necessary for the universe.

Your avoidance of your own logic is boring.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Of course it is cultural - the reason why you and AM ended up as christians rather than muslim, jewish, hindu etc is because you were brought up within a christian tradition and culture.

As I have shown a tiny, tiny proportion (so small to be insignificant) of people who are current christians were brought up within a different faith tradition. People simply do not convert from one religion to another to any significant degree and the reason why is that unless you are brought up in a particular faith tradition that faith simply seems odd, alien, and, frankly, unbelievable. Had you been brought up within a muslim culture and tradition, say in Karachi, your hunger would have been almost certainly been for islam and the koran.

Religions realise this, which is why they spend so much effort ensuring that children are brought up in their faith - they know that unless they do this the likelihood that they will come to that faith as adults is close to zero.

I think a quarter of those raised Muslim leaving Islam is quite a sizeable number and shows some thought before people identify a preference or disinclination for any particular organised belief. This is from the Pew Research survey from 2014:

About a quarter of adults who were raised Muslim (23%) no longer identify as members of the faith..........the share of American Muslim adults who are converts to Islam also is about one-quarter (23%)

And from 2017: A 2017 Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Muslims, using slightly different questions than the 2014 survey, found a similar estimate (24%) of the share of those who were raised Muslim but have left Islam. Among this group, 55% no longer identify with any religion, according to the 2017 survey. Fewer identify as Christian (22%), and an additional one-in-five (21%) identify with a wide variety of smaller groups, including faiths such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, or as generally “spiritual.”

I'm a Muslim despite the traditions seeming odd, alien and frankly unbelievable. That's part of Islam's mystery and the appeal - it can be so many different things to so many different people.

People are different and many people find the different appealing. It would be boring if everyone thought the same and everyone had the type of personality where they craved the comfort and security of the familiar or were too intellectually or spiritually lazy to look at other sides to the issue of faith.

I think this would be a more interesting discussion if we were less dismissive of the experiences of those that say they did think about and question the values they have been brought up with, rather than generalise that everyone who has not left the religion they were culturally familiar with is an adherent because they have not thought deeply about why it appeals to them compared to other religions they have come across or compared to not having any belief in some form of supernatural concept or organised religion. 

[Gordon]

But Gordon there is nothing about Jesus being both Man and God that isn't mainstream Christianity..

Smashing - but they still need to show how they know this (as opposed to just asserting it).

Jesus is of course the great mystery and unknown being both God and Man with no blending and no loss
Of either humanity or divinity.

So, if the two states are separate, where the 'man' bit is temporary due to death, then you need to explain how someone can be both 100% human and 100% divine at the same time, and also how both states can be separately identified (since it seems they are mutually exclusive) by an observer of Jesus while he was alive and both where states would be extant.

According to you, since Jesus is being observed, then both these states (the 'man' and the 'god') are contingent so I think also you need to show your workings here (without resorting to the likes of special pleading). 

You are just trying to circumvent necessity. That is the hole you are digging.

Stop lying - I'm not digging: I'mjust asking questions of you.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Indeed, and there is no requirement not to sent children to jewish scripture classes or islamic madrassa classes. It is pretty hard to argue that parents choosing to send their children to any religious instruction classes are doing it other than because they'd like their child to have religious instruction within that religion.

If children were brought up in a cultural vaccum here in the UK when out in society, there might not be as much of a demand for schools that teach other cultures from those parents who come from other cultural backgrounds. I would say the demand for religious instruction classes is often caused by parents trying to fight against the cultural "indoctrination" their children are exposed to in mainstream British society and schools.

I think it's normal for parents to want to pass on their particular flavour of cultural identity and values to their off-spring but of course children have their own thoughts, and depending on the amount of freedom of thought allowed in the society they live in, children will express and act on those thoughts.

[jeremyp]

My mistake, I should have said there is nothing in the observed universe that hasn't been observed.

That's a tautology. Since the observed Universe is defined as the things we have observed, it's an empty statement.

As for the unobserved universe there cannot definitionally be evidence for it

Of course there can. There's evidence for dark matter and dark energy even though we cannot observe either. The number of planets we have found in our galaxy is strong evidence that there also planets in the Andromeda galaxy even though we've never observed any.

Two things, I think you are beginning to react to your revelation of the concept of the necessary entity but you are still clinging on to the melting iceberg that it must be like a contingent thing.

I've no idea what that means.

Secondly, What is it about the universe that is necessary?

It could be the Universe itself that is necessary. But you're barking up the wrong tree here. I don't know if the Universe is necessary or if there is something else on which it is contingent. I'm not taking a position one way or the other: I'm admitting I don't know.

there is no evidence for that which is not observed.

So on what basis can you infer the existence of any kind of god? Things would go far better if you just admitted your position is based only on faith.

[Stranger]

You are just trying to circumvent necessity.

ROTFLOL!

Nobody needs to circumvent it, your 'argument' for it is so full of holes it's actually more hole than argument. I suggest that it's you who is trying to divert away from your complete inability to address its many problems.

After all these posts you've achieved virtually nothing with regard to this supposed 'argument':

• You haven't demonstrated that anything is necessary.
• You haven't said how necessity is defined in this context (there have been two definitions used here).
• You haven't shown how necessity is a logically coherent possibility.
• You haven't shown that there must be only one necessary entity.
• You haven't shown what a necessary entity's characteristics would be (just asserted some).
• You haven't shown that the universe can't be necessary.
• And now, the characteristics you've just asserted must be those of a necessary entity conflict with the Christian ideas of god.

[Outrider]

I suggest as a humian your grasp of logic is impaired. I do not worship the material of Jesus, I recognise I suppose his perfection in the Socratic sense and am impressed by it and I worship his divinity...which is untouched by contingency.

I think you are merely trying for an argument that avoids anything being categorically necessary for the universe.

I think you're attempts to not contradict orthodoxy have you trying to tie yourself in knots to have a god that is both contingent (i.e. human) and necessary (i.e. divine), which is just a new iteration of the fundamental problem Christianity has always had trying to maintain ideas of perfection and eternality for the divinity of a god whilst conceding to it manifesting a human avatar. The two ideas are irreconcilable, logically, I suspect you need to have faith in the magic to be able to accept both premises as possible for a being that can break the rules at will.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That's a tautology. Since the observed Universe is defined as the things we have observed, it's an empty statement.

It's the only universe we have evidence for your argument for the universe being the necessary entity seems to be based on an unobserved unevidenced other part.

Of course there can. There's evidence for dark matter and dark energy even though we cannot observe either. The number of planets we have found in our galaxy is strong evidence that there also planets in the Andromeda galaxy even though we've never observed any.

Then you have a flexible definition of the word evidence. Is a theory evidence? I'm not sure.

 

It could be the Universe itself that is necessary.

I think you have yet to explain how, in other words your reason for believing that and what evidence you have since it seems to lie in an unevidenced part of the universe.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think you're attempts to not contradict orthodoxy have you trying to tie yourself in knots to have a god that is both contingent (i.e. human) and necessary (i.e. divine), which is just a new iteration of the fundamental problem Christianity has always had trying to maintain ideas of perfection and eternality for the divinity of a god whilst conceding to it manifesting a human avatar. The two ideas are irreconcilable, logically, I suspect you need to have faith in the magic to be able to accept both premises as possible for a being that can break the rules at will.

O.

First of all I think you are confusing the properties of time and eternity, contingent and necessity and now you are throwing perfection into the mix. The key issue here for your argument against a being which is divine and human is that all a human being is or can be is physical and mechanistic. Any warrant for that is wholly derived from materialism.

The question is can you be two different things at the same time? The answer I would say is yes. So Bill Clinton was both president of the united states and a saxophonist,
Richard Feynman was a great scientist and a bongo player, Hawking was a towering mind and severely physically disabled and so on and so forth. That 1960's carpet cleaner that beats as it sweeps as it cleans

That God can be in something or all things panentheism is a metaphor. we easily confuse that which does not take up any space with that which does. For instance  a hand cannot be a glove but we can have an entity called a gloved hand which is a recognise entity but two things.

The other point is that that which is different doesn't mix. Since one's properties have no counterpart in the other.

We might ask, what then is the unifying thing in Jesus the wholly divine and the wholly perfectly human? The answer is that which is shared is the perfection and spiritual or eternal aspect.

I see no broken rules just ignorance of process.

[Stranger]

I think you have yet to explain how...

Yet again, the burden of proof sails about 30,000ft over Vlad's head. Nobody has to explain anything. You are making a claim, so it's up to you to rule it out. Well, it would be if you'd even got as far as demonstrating that something has to be necessary and what that would actually mean.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yet again, the burden of proof sails about 30,000ft over Vlad's head. Nobody has to explain anything. You are making a claim, so it's up to you to rule it out. Well, it would be if you'd even got as far as demonstrating that something has to be necessary and what that would actually mean.

No if say Jeremy believes the universe could be necessary he has a reason for saying it which I have a right to enquire of.

[ProfessorDavey]

No if say Jeremy believes the universe could be necessary he has a reason for saying it which I have a right to enquire of.

Could be implies also could not be - a position of uncertainty. I don't think there is a burden of proof on someone who is not making a definitive claim as to whether the universe is or is not necessary.

You, on the other hand, have made definitive claim after definitive claim e.g.

The is a necessary entity
That necessary entity is a necessary being
That necessary being is the christian god

Burden of proof is on you Vlad - and of course if you fail to provide proof for the first claim the second and third are simply moot until or unless you do.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

But Gordon there is nothing about Jesus being both Man and God that isn't mainstream Christianity..

Jesus is of course the great mystery and unknown being both God and Man with no blending and no loss
Of either humanity or divinity.

Ok - it's an interesting concept. But it sounds as meaningless as saying a man with a penis could be a woman. Once the words "man" and "woman" stop meaning anything because the people who use the words say they can mean whatever anyone wants them to mean and the words defy an agreed definition, then it's not surprising that people who like the words they use to mean something just dismiss words like "humanity", "god" and "divine" as meaningless as they are indifferent to abstract concepts that cannot be cannot be understood with the intellect because they cannot be objectively defined.

"humanity" and "divinity" as you have used it here just seem to be subjectively understood social constructs similar to "gender". The concept of "humanity" is that by definition it is physically and mentally imperfect and fallible because humans are  imperfect and fallible. If your concept of "divinity" includes the characteristic of perfection, something cannot be both perfect and imperfect at the same time.

With concepts such as Thor, Allah, God, Jesus there is nothing objective to pin any agreed or shared meaning onto in order to construct an intellectual argument that would convince someone else that any or all of these are divine, which is probably why no one has successfully constructed an intellectual argument for any divine entity. A divine entity (whatever each person means by that term) just remains a possibility as much as some nebulous, undefined concept of gender is a possibility.

It's also a possibility that the universe is a necessary entity (whatever each person means by that term) - I don't think anyone is arguing on here that the universe is a necessary entity - they are just saying they can't rule out the possibility. Some people latch onto possibilities and mentally and emotionally run with it to create subjective abstract concepts, others presumably have different hobbies. 

[Outrider]

First of all I think you are confusing the properties of time and eternity, contingent and necessity and now you are throwing perfection into the mix.

If I am, I'm in the good company of the history of Christian Theologians.

The key issue here for your argument

I wasn't making an argument, I was pointing out flaws in yours, but go on...

...against a being which is divine and human is that all a human being is or can be is physical and mechanistic.

If I were making an argument, I'd agree, but my thoughts aren't what's relevant. You're holding to the idea that divinity is necessary, and material is contingent, and that the two are mutually exclusive (definitionally), whilst trying to reconcile that with the idea that god is, at one and the same time, divine and human. It only works by the special pleading of 'but my god's magic' and therefore rules like 'mutually exclusive' are selectively allowed to be bypassed.


[quote[Any warrant for that is wholly derived from materialism.[/quote]

It's your argument, so if you say so. I'd actually phrase it that, in the absence of any evidence for anything else, we have no warrant to presume anything other than the demonstrable material element.

The question is can you be two different things at the same time? The answer I would say is yes. So Bill Clinton was both president of the united states and a saxophonist,
Richard Feynman was a great scientist and a bongo player, Hawking was a towering mind and severely physically disabled and so on and so forth. That 1960's carpet cleaner that beats as it sweeps as it cleans

Set theory establishes quite clearly that any number of 'things' can be members of any number of sets simultaneously - that's, not controversial. However, you're wanting to put your god into two sets with an intersection that is a null set. Contingent and necessary are mutually exclusive properties, by definition, yet you want to your god to be both.

That God can be in something or all things panentheism is a metaphor. we easily confuse that which does not take up any space with that which does. For instance  a hand cannot be a glove but we can have an entity called a gloved hand which is a recognise entity but two things.

And it can be pink, and putrid, and punching, and paltry. But it can't also be a pancreas.

The other point is that that which is different doesn't mix. Since one's properties have no counterpart in the other.

We might ask, what then is the unifying thing in Jesus the wholly divine and the wholly perfectly human? The answer is that which is shared is the perfection and spiritual or eternal aspect.

Is Jesus human, and therefore contingent? By your argument, yes. Is your god necessary? By your argument, again, yes. Can something be both contingent and necessary? No. Therefore, either Jesus is not god, or one of your presumptions about contingency and necessity is flawed.

I see no broken rules just ignorance of process.

Well, maybe you can see a little more clearly, now?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

ROTFLOL!

Nobody needs to circumvent it, your 'argument' for it is so full of holes it's actually more hole than argument. I suggest that it's you who is trying to divert away from your complete inability to address its many problems.

After all these posts you've achieved virtually nothing with regard to this supposed 'argument':

• You haven't demonstrated that anything is necessary.
• You haven't said how necessity is defined in this context (there have been two definitions used here).
• You haven't shown how necessity is a logically coherent possibility.
• You haven't shown that there must be only one necessary entity.
• You haven't shown what a necessary entity's characteristics would be (just asserted some).
• You haven't shown that the universe can't be necessary.
• And now, the characteristics you've just asserted must be those of a necessary entity conflict with the Christian ideas of god.

Any contingency depends on a necessity, In terms of a beer belly, copious quantities of beer are necessary. Therefore necessity is a logically coherent possibility.
There is nothing in the observed universe that does not demonstrate contingency. The dictionary definition of which is ''dependent on , conditioned by.''

If the observed universe is conditioned and contingent we are entitled to ask ''on what, what is it which is necessary for the universe?''.
we observe contingency in the universe. Therefore to impute necessity into the universes parts is to commit the fallacy of division. I think then that is game over for the universe as the necessary entity. There could be something IN the universe which is necessary for the contingent part of the universe but that doesn't help you.

You have made a fatal contradiction in your argument since you say I haven't shown the universe cannot be  necessary. It is foolish I think to argue that the universe as we observe it is not contingent.

If you accept that and suggest it is ALSO NECESSARY then you are not opposing the idea that Jesus can be both contingent man and necessary human. That renders your last objection contradictory.

[Spud]

God created this reality, knowing what would happen - any 'sacrifice' in there is meaningless, because God chose that reality when he founded it, if you accept the tale - time is entire, it all exists, it's our sense of it that is limited. If god created everything, that includes time, and if god is outside of time then he can see - and foresee - it all. Ergo, if Adam 'sinned', it's because God chose to create that reality; Jesus 'sacrifice' was part of the plan.

O.

Yes, but that would be possibly the most effective way of demonstrating his love to mankind, would it not? John 3:16.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If I am, I'm in the good company of the history of Christian Theologians.

Dream on

I wasn't making an argument, I was pointing out flaws in yours, but go on...

If I were making an argument, I'd agree, but my thoughts aren't what's relevant. You're holding to the idea that divinity is necessary, and material is contingent, and that the two are mutually exclusive (definitionally), whilst trying to reconcile that with the idea that god is, at one and the same time, divine and human. It only works by the special pleading of 'but my god's magic' and therefore rules like 'mutually exclusive' are selectively allowed to be bypassed.


Set theory establishes quite clearly that any number of 'things' can be members of any number of sets simultaneously - that's, not controversial. However, you're wanting to put your god into two sets with an intersection that is a null set. Contingent and necessary are mutually exclusive properties, by definition, yet you want to your god to be both.

And it can be pink, and putrid, and punching, and paltry. But it can't also be a pancreas.

Is Jesus human, and therefore contingent? By your argument, yes. Is your god necessary? By your argument, again, yes. Can something be both contingent and necessary? No.[/quote] Therefore if the universe is contingent it cannot also be the necessary entity

Therefore, either Jesus is not god, or one of your presumptions about contingency and necessity is flawed.

Can Jesus fleshy kidney be divine. no. Can it mix with divinity no (what is there to physically mix with)
Can Jesus body be divine no
What were the Kidney and body? Material.
Is jesus human spirit divine no, is it empirically observable no, is it eternal yes.
Is God Necessary yes. Can his necessity mix with human spleen physically, No, what is there to mix with?
Is God spirit, Yes
Is He eternal Yes
If God is necessary then he is at the base of all heirarchies.
If God determines the outcome of those heirarchies then he can determine the heirarchy on which Jesus humanity depends on. He can be in on Jesus or as we say incarnated as Jesus.

Is a watering can physical yes, is there any necessity to it no. It is wholly contingent.

[Stranger]

Any contingency depends on a necessity, In terms of a beer belly, copious quantities of beer are necessary. Therefore necessity is a logically coherent possibility.

So you're defining it in relative terms, then. This directly contradicts many of the claims you've made before and the definition in the version of the argument you referenced earlier. It also immediately rules out a single necessary entity because pretty much everything is necessary for something else. The universe is full of necessary entities.

There is nothing in the observed universe that does not demonstrate contingency. The dictionary definition of which is ''dependent on , conditioned by.''

If the observed universe is conditioned and contingent...

Straight into the fallacy of composition.

...we are entitled to ask ''on what, what is it which is necessary for the universe?''.

To which the answer is a resounding "don't know" and it might be nothing at all.

...we observe contingency in the universe. Therefore to impute necessity into the universes parts is to commit the fallacy of division.

It wouldn't, but, according to your definition of necessity above, pretty much everything is necessary in some way for something.

I think then that is game over for the universe as the necessary entity.

Again, according to your definition above, the universe is necessary for everything in it and we have no idea if we can extrapolate further.

You have made a fatal contradiction in your argument since you say I haven't shown the universe cannot be  necessary. It is foolish I think to argue that the universe as we observe it is not contingent.

Just calling something foolish isn't an argument. 

If you accept that and suggest it is ALSO NECESSARY then you are not opposing the idea that Jesus can be both contingent man and necessary human. That renders your last objection contradictory.

I was using what you'd previously claimed were properties of a necessary entity. Now you've moved the goalposts and anything can be necessary, so you really need to make up your mind.

You've made things worse for yourself, not better.