Why it is irrational to believe in god (ritual, testimony)

[Charity]

Originally Posted by Suraj

The infinite regress argument of atoms has been disproven long ago. There are atoms(indivisible units of matter) we simply haven't detected them yet. The first logicians to prove the existence of atoms were the Hindu vaiseshika school(literally, school of physics) they were able to show that matter must consist of atoms through pure rational arguments.

If matter was continuous, i.e., you could split up into infinite parts. Then there would be no difference in the size of a grain and a size of a mountain, as both are made of infinite parts. You could split the grain into infinite parts and then from those parts make a mountain, which is absurd. Therefore there must be atoms. These atoms(paramanus in sanskrit) are infinitesimal and cannot be detected.



There is no need for any 'I am god' because before 'am god' there is only I. I will accept nothing less than 'I' and I am sticking with it. There is no god, there is only I.

[Storm]

Originally Posted by Suraj

The infinite regress argument of atoms has been disproven long ago. There are atoms(indivisible units of matter) we simply haven't detected them yet. The first logicians to prove the existence of atoms were the Hindu vaiseshika school(literally, school of physics) they were able to show that matter must consist of atoms through pure rational arguments.

If matter was continuous, i.e., you could split up into infinite parts. Then there would be no difference in the size of a grain and a size of a mountain, as both are made of infinite parts. You could split the grain into infinite parts and then from those parts make a mountain, which is absurd. Therefore there must be atoms. These atoms(paramanus in sanskrit) are infinitesimal and cannot be detected.



There is no need for any 'I am god' because before 'am god' there is only I. I will accept nothing less than 'I' and I am sticking with it. There is no god, there is only I.

[methylatedghosts]

Originally Posted by Suraj

The infinite regress argument of atoms has been disproven long ago. There are atoms(indivisible units of matter) we simply haven't detected them yet. The first logicians to prove the existence of atoms were the Hindu vaiseshika school(literally, school of physics) they were able to show that matter must consist of atoms through pure rational arguments.

If matter was continuous, i.e., you could split up into infinite parts. Then there would be no difference in the size of a grain and a size of a mountain, as both are made of infinite parts. You could split the grain into infinite parts and then from those parts make a mountain, which is absurd. Therefore there must be atoms. These atoms(paramanus in sanskrit) are infinitesimal and cannot be detected.

Not sure if you've checked - but there isn't nearly enough parts within a grain of sand to make a mountain

It's the different between a car and a motorbike - same tiny parts - only... rearranged differently - and of course, a car has more atoms than a bike

So - a hydrogen atom is made up of one electron, one proton, and one neutron. Each neutron and proton has quarks (and something else - not sure of numbers) which make it up. So - what makes up those quarks?

And I'm thoroughly confused as to how you got from infinitely decreasing to - "size of sand = size of mountain..."

There is no need for any 'I am god' because before 'am god' there is only I. I will accept nothing less than 'I' and I am sticking with it. There is no god, there is only I.

Clearly, you are not understanding what I'm trying to say. Surely you must recognise that it's a possibility that Self = God, that Self = All, and therefore that All = God?

[Rolling_Stone]

There is no need for any 'I am god' because before 'am god' there is only I. I will accept nothing less than 'I' and I am sticking with it. There is no god, there is only I.

Originally Posted by Storm

I think Sri Aurobindo would have the same response to Suraj's arguments, his solipsism and the paradox.

[Charity]

Speaking of irrational

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Suraj

I feel like I talking to religious fundamentalists now. Rather than replying to huge chunks of text, and "laughing" have the decency to highlight what you are finding laughable. Seriously, in a proper academic discussion, none of these fallacies would be permissable. This is reflecting very poorly on your education.

I suspect that the amusement stems from the idea that 'I am' is 'God' (as the Hebrew one indicated in the Bible, when asked by Moses what his name is).

[Surya Deva]

I feel like I talking to religious fundamentalists now. Rather than replying to huge chunks of text, and "laughing" have the decency to highlight what you are finding laughable. Seriously, in a proper academic discussion, none of these fallacies would be permissable. I highly doubt when you wrote your term papers in school, you would evaluate arguments by putting laughing icons underneath. Not only does it not engage the point the opponent is making, it is actually very disrespectful and immature.

This is a comparative relgion discussion board, not the believers board. I would understand if this was the believers board, that me coming in and challenging your beliefs would be inflammatory. However, as this is the comparative religion discussion board, you should be able to show respect for other positions, even if they are atheistic.

I have made arguments, please engage those arguments, rather than engaging the one making the arguments(adhominem).

[Dunemeister]

Originally Posted by Suraj

I am not arguing for idealism, as you have presumed. I am speaking purely from a rational point of view which recognises a subjective and objective dichotomy. The world within and the world outside. It may well be true that none of this really exists and all thats exists is ONE or Self, but this is not within the realm of my experience. What is within the realm of my experience is SUBJECT WORLD and OBJECT world.

Therefore physical objects exist.

On what basis do you claim that there are external objects? (My goodness, I feel like David Hume!) Your experience of external objects are all internal to you, and for all you know, you're the only thing that exists, enjoying a long and complicated dream.

It is illogical to attribute the cause of the experience to an external being. The cause of the experience is from within itself. Are you familiar with the functionalist mode?

INPUT --- REALIZER --- OUTPUT

The INPUT of the lcandle light enters our eye, is sent via the optic nerve to the brain, REALIZED, and OUTPUT is the image of the candle. The Modus Operandi here is the REALISER and that REALISER is only within us, not external. It is irrational to attribute this to god.

I don't attribute it to God. I attribute my experience of the divine to an external agent (the INPUT). God's the INPUT, my mind is the realizer, and my OUTPUT is worship. As far as I can tell, things are okee dokee logically.

Some of your perceptions do not have external sources e.g., when you are dreaming the source of your perception is from within itself, not from outside.

Agreed. Presumably, you take my experiences of God to be similar. But you haven't produced any argument to that effect.

TWO cannot exist without ONE. If there are two worlds: Heaven and Earth, then they themselves must subsist in another world which encompasses both. This is a logical necessity. So if you are saying there is soul and there is god and they are distinct, then I say soul and god must subsist in something greater than both.

So you say. Where's your argument? And even if that's true, so what? How does it bear on the veracity of my experiences of God?

No, this is known as the interaction problem; two dissimilar entities cannot interact. You cannot have contradictions in logic. An object that is light, cannot interact with dark; an object that is infinite cannot interact with finite; an object which is perfect cannot interact with imperfect; an object which is material cannot interact with immaterial. They have to be the same.

Okay, fine. Let's say this is the argument. I've heard the argument but remain unconvinced. I just don't see why the spiritual cannot interact with the physical. Nothing in logic demands this lack of interactivity. Perhaps your metaphysical assumptions get in the way, but perhaps that's just so much for your assumptions.

Metaphysically, why can't we argue that "heaven" and "earth" are flip sides of the same coin rather than two separate and distinct coins, as it were? Perhaps then God could function as the ONE that encompasses the TWO, heaven and earth.

There are beings and then there is being. I am adding pure to being to indicate the universal sense of being i.e., it is not just being, it is being of all beings.

Increasing the mumbo-jumbo doesn't make the original mumbo-jumbo more understandable. I still don't know what "being" means the way you're using it. And a "universal sense of being" is weirdness on skates.

I think you mean idealist. No I am not an idealist. I suggest you do not criticise me for believing in Self, because then it's ironical that you criticise me for believing in something as rational as my Self and something I can prove, and yet you choose to believe in something as irrational as god which you can't prove. Tread carefully.

No, I mean solipsist. A solipsist argues that we can only really know that "I" exist. Apart from that, I know nothing. And if you don't believe this, that's because your are (wisely) resisting the logical force of your own argument. Thus I think you'd better re-examine your argument.

[Dunemeister]

Originally Posted by Suraj

I feel like I talking to religious fundamentalists now. Rather than replying to huge chunks of text, and "laughing" have the decency to highlight what you are finding laughable. Seriously, in a proper academic discussion, none of these fallacies would be permissable. I highly doubt when you wrote your term papers in school, you would evaluate arguments by putting laughing icons underneath. Not only does it not engage the point the opponent is making, it is actually very disrespectful and immature.

This is a comparative relgion discussion board, not the believers board. I would understand if this was the believers board, that me coming in and challenging your beliefs would be inflammatory. However, as this is the comparative religion discussion board, you should be able to show respect for other positions, even if they are atheistic.

I have made arguments, please engage those arguments, rather than engaging the one making the arguments(adhominem).

This isn't a university, Suraj. You're bound to hear what we really think, without sugar coating. And although the horse laugh isn't a logically weighty response, it's rhetorically powerful. If your arguments receive such responses (from theists and non-theists alike), you may want to consider yourself answered. Besides, your arguments HAVE been answered. Your premises lead to idealism at least and solipsism at worst. You've denied both, and that shows wisdom. Your gut is not letting you follow your arguments where they lead. So perhaps that in itself ought to be a prompt for you to reconsider your premises.

[Surya Deva]

As I have been kept in the dark on what exactly what so laughable. I am going to have to guess which points caused such amusement:

Atom argument

This shouldn't cause amusement unless people are finding the existence of atoms amusing? is actually a valid argument given by the Hindu Vaseshika school in 600BCE, which I think you have not even tried to understand, or simply cannot understand. Logicians consider this to be an ingenious argument to prove the existence of atoms.

If matter was infinitely indivisible, then there should be no difference between the size of a mountain and a size of a mustard seed. You would be able to split the seed into infintie parts, and then from that make a mountain. Which is impossible. Therefore matter must be made of atoms(indivisble units)

Do you want in the words of the school itself, but be warned, it will go over your heads:

1 Thereof of an atom an effect or product, a water-pot or
the like, is the mark of existence. Accordingly the aphorism of
Gautama, From the evolved is the production of the evolved, on the
evidence of perception. Thus is the sequence of integrant and
integrate wholes. If this series were unlimited there would be no
difference hi size between mount Mern and a grain of mustard seed,
for they would both be indifferently originated by an infinity of
parts. Nor can it be argued that the difference depends on an ag-
gregation of extensions, for without a difference of number they
would be impossible. If it be said that annihilation may be the
limit of the series of integrant and integrate bodies, we object that
there existing indivisibility in some ultimate element, annihilation
is impossible, for it is only disjunction of its constituent parts or
decomposition that can destroy matter. Nor is disjunction the
limit, for it is impossible that it should reside in a single object. A substance, therefore, without parts, must be the limit, and this is an atom. A mote is not the limit, for a mote has magnitude and is
composed of substances more than one, being a visible substance.
For magnitude is a condition of visual perception, only as it presup-
poses multiplicity of substance. Else magnitude would not exist,
and what would be the cause ? Nor are the constituent parts of a
mote atoms, for we must infer that those constituent parts as
originative of a substance possessing magnitude, are composed of
parts, like threads, or the halves of water-pots. Therefore what-
ever is a generated substance IB composed of parts, and whatever
is composed of parts is a produced substance. In whatever part,
then, there ceases to be the nature of a product, there ceases
also to be that of containing parts ; and this is the proof of the
existence of invisible atoms. U.
1 Thereof means of the primary cause ; the effect, a mote or
other produced substance ; the mark, that which determines an in-
ference. If the series of integrant and integrate wholes were end-

(Source: Kannada(600BCE). The Vaiseshika aphorisms of Kannada: translated by ARCHIBALD EDWARD GOUGH, B. A.(1873). LONDON : TRUBNER & CO.)


The school then goes onto argue that its aggregates of atoms that form the various substances known in the world. These aggegates begin as binary pairs of atoms, then triple pairs and so on to the various substances we know.

'I am god' argument

Again I am not sure why this argument caused any amusement. As modern psychology tells us, especially psychoanalysts that the first concept that we know when we are born is the concept of ego or 'I'
The child when it is born does not have an identity. It is the process of socialisation that gives it an identity, a name, status, a self-image.

I suggest you read the theory of the mirror-stage by Lacan. The child never gets to really know its real identity, because it misidentifies itself as the world out there.

Therefore the very first concept that forms is 'I' everything else comes later name, beliefs etc. This is why I am saying what is the need of the term god, when it's all that 'I' anyway. There was no god in the beginning, there was only just 'I'.

So when terms like god are conflated with being or Self I have an objection.

You will now explain to me where this concept of god first arises. Where is this knowledge produced? The world already knows the answer from religion. Otherwise, prior to religion, there is no such thing as a god concept. Period. If there was no religion, you wouldn't know anything called god. Fact.