74x12
Well-Known Member
I don't follow your logic on that conclusion.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
An Ontological Proof that God Does Not Exist
- Thread starter Tiberius
- Start date
PureX
Veteran Member
1. I am here. (self-evidential agency)
2. You are here. ('other'-evidential agency)
3. Here is here. (the medium of our mutual recognition)
"God" refers to the agency responsible for "here", as you and I are not.
Scolopendra
Member
Yes but because I wouldn't know how they are doing it
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
1: God does not exist
2: Scoffers spend insane amounts of time on forums proving a non-existent being does not exist
3: Scoffers may be insane
Interesting argument. It feels fallacious, but I'm having trouble specifying a fallacy. That's an interesting phenomenon. Why should anyone have an opinion that something is incorrect without knowing why? Is the mind doing some analysis not privy to consciousness that need to be made explicit in order to justify the intuition and call it a sound conclusion?
By this argument, the greatest possible being is the least gifted (most handicapped) deity that could build our universe. A nonexistent deity couldn't do that. We've weakened this god too much to say it "accomplished creation of the universe" or even that it is the "greatest possible being," since it doesn't exist and isn't a being.
A God creating the material universe would be a material process, so how a a God that does not exist objectively can create is a huge question.
However theologians made God immaterial not because it IS immaterial, and there is this known property of God, but because that is the only way they can claim it exists in some way that a reasoning mind can't dismiss conclusively. The "immaterial" part of the universe is the only place for God to hide.
Of course the question theists have is not "how do you know God exists?" but "how do you know the God I imagine doesn't exist?"
No God is known to exist, so attributing anything to a God you imagine exists is not acceptable as a true statement.
PureX
Veteran Member
The assessment of "greatness" is nonsensical gibberish. What does that word even mean? "Great" compared to what? And compared according to what standard?
"Bob is the greatest!" Until I shoot him in the foot. Then he becomes even greater than he was before I shot him by becoming less able than he was. It's just nonsensical sophistry.
PureX
Veteran Member
Existence exists. You and I know this because we know of each other's unique agency within it. We also know that our agency is limited to ourselves (it's how we identified each other). So there is a third existential agency at work, here. It's the agency of the shared medium within which we exist. Because it does exist, and we did not make it so, nor can we make it not so.
So in fact you DO know that "God" exists, because "God" is the word we use to refer to that mysterious third agency that is the medium through which any of us is able to know anything.
That's right. And if a mortal like you and me are going to acknowledge that something exists we need to be able to demonstrate how we know it. Thus far mortals have never been able to demonstrate how they can assert any God exists. Many mortals confuse their imagined God as a God existing.
You made up the third agency. You don't even bother to describe it, nor demonstrate any such thing exists outside of you imagining it.
False. It is neither a fact, nor is it anything I know.
And mystery? There you go again with your fuzzy and blurry ideas about anything so you can smuggle in your religious ideas. But you went too far with asserting there is a fact that is not a fact at all, and trying to force knowledge on me that I don't actually have. That is pretty desperate. Are you not self-aware enough to stop yourself when you do this?
This claim illustrates how certain theists can't comprehend fact and reality from their illusions, but you still try to debate.
It is true that no omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all powerful, almighty God is known to exist, not known to have created a universe.
However, in an universe of 100 billion galaxies, each galaxy with 100 billion stars and each star with multiple planets, there is almost guaranteed to be a species and a being superior in intellect as well as power to you and me. Then you can apply the same logic to that being. Once you go far enough up the chain, you essentially get pretty much a powerful God (not the omnipotent God) - such a God could create other species and perhaps even planets.
PureX
Veteran Member
I've already done that. We know existence exists by recognizing our own agency within it. It is the medium within which you and I exist, and are able to recognize each other's existence.
We don't have to. "God" is just a word we use to refer to whatever agency is providing us with this existential medium through which we can recognize ourselves, and act as individual agents. "God" is the soul of "here and now".
People often have difficulty with the process and idea of representation. Especially when the thing being represented is a profoundly unsolvable mystery.
It literally IS the world that you inhabit, in every possible way. We couldn't even be having this conversation without that third agency. You couldn't even know you exist without it.
But you're not going to understand any of this. Partly because you don't want to, and partly because you don't have the intellectual 'chops' for it. Philosophical existentialism isn't a party just anyone can drop in on and expect to meld.
Flawed assumptions here. Why assume there is any such possible being as what theists believe is a God?
If you took someone from the 17th century and brought them to today and showed them what we mere mortals have created, that person might presume we are like Gods, and that is only because of his perspective with limited knowledge and experience. We shouldn't make that same mistake.
No dispute. I do dispute your claim of a third agency. I suspect that you invented this third, non-existing agency from nothing as if you are a God yourself, but still unable to demonstrate to me or anyone else it exists outside of your mortal imagination.
Thus far it is an imagined agency, not anything existing outside of human imagination.
Well you keep trying to to understand your faulty thinking.
God isn't an unsolvable mystery. It is a large set of ideas that are best explained as humans trying to answer questions about nature that couldn't be addressed with facts and knowledge. Gods have held on due to cultural tradition, but have lost explanatory power as science rises as offering the best answers.
This is your claim. Where are the facts? None. Just a claim. So we throw it out.
Nice insult. I can't understand something YOU claim is true, but that YOU fail to demonstrate IS true. So there is nothing to understand about what you are claiming here. You believe it, but that isn't fact, nor is it knowledge to understand. That's on you if you can't provide facts that your beliefs are true. It has nothing to do with me.
You don't have to believe in a God. But if you believe that you (or any human being) is the most superior creature (intellectually, physically, spiritually) in the Universe, you are kidding yourself!
So, if there is a single species more superior, in this vast universe, there are probably more. You don't have to call them a 'God', but they can perform a lot more actions that probably seem to you like miracle.
But isn't that just your subjective opinion?
PureX
Veteran Member
Of course you do, because you are envisioning gods with beards and bad attitudes. But the term "agency" does not imply any of that. It simply refers to the fact that existence is an expression of some sort of agency because the lack of any sort of agency would logically result in nothing. Non-existence. Such that existence, existing, is an expression of agency. Just as my existence is an expression of my unique agency. And your existence is an expression of your unique agency. But existence, itself, the medium in which you and I express our agency and recognize each other's, is not an expression of yours or my agency. Therefor, it is an expression of some other, unknown agency.
You are confusing people's imagined representations of the mystery with the mystery they were invented to represent. And then you are trying to dismiss the mystery by claiming that it's only representation. It's really so silly and tiresome.
If the mystery doesn't exist, then you should be able to explain how and why existence exists. Or you should be able to explain why those questions are of no logical concern to anyone. And I am quite sure you can't do either.
Thanks you for that permission. But the reason I don't believe the claims by many theists that any of their lack of evidence. That's all.
It's a good thing I never claimed this.
It's possible there are beings somewhere in the universe that have more knowledge than us, and more advanced than us, but that is totally irrelevant to what theists claim about the gods, whether the god is perfect or flawed, it's irrelevant. There is nothing that we humans have in the way of evidence that corresponds to what theists claim is their god.
So, if there is a single species more superior, in this vast universe, there are probably more. You don't have to call them a 'God', but they can perform a lot more actions that probably seem to you like miracle.[/QUOTE]
They wouldn't be gods, they would just be more advanced that we humans.
Whatever atheists envision gods to be it is because it is how theists are describing their own gods. Atheists don't have any gods, but we do have a list provided by believers.
Theists create the gods, and atheists work with the gods theists talk about.
Agency is tied to working brains. That is where you are going off the rails. And of course you try to sell this third agency because that is how you shoe horn in your idea of God. But there is no observed third agency. You certainly have yet to describe it, and demonstrate it exists. You are guilty of anthropomorphism.
Agency refers to the human capability to influence one's functioning and the course of events by one's actions. There are four functions through which human agency is exercised. One such function is intentionality. People form intentions that include action plans and strategies for realizing them.
ALBERT BANDURA Agency | Psychologist | Social Psychology
So rocks have agency?
More word salad. You like to make claims but can't follow when you are questioned.
The mystery exists. Theists are exposed to atheists and their arguments against belief is gods. So the psychological tactic that some theists use is mystery. the more you confuse yourself and absorb yourself in abstract nonsense that more you can believe what you want to believe. You then blame non-theists for not understanding. We understand that you are confusing yourself so you won't have the clarity of mind to fully comprehend what atheists are saying to you.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber
How do we know? You've not even defined god beyond a creator, but have provided no reasons for it must stop at this creator and the creation.
I don't enough information or knowledge of this to make an informed conclusion. But to me, from my perspective, it seems life is a far greater creation that the Universe. The Universe is big, so big we can't even comprehend it. But without life we can't see take in the wonders of any part of it.
But why does that make it a greater achievement and not sentimental feelings? Based on what you've provided it seems nothing more than you placing a greater value upon the efforts of someone with a handicap.
This doesn't make any sense, at all. Not unless you want to base this entirely upon assigning value to the state of your own current existence. But even that is a philosophical and scientific can of worms.
It really looks to me you are substituting a lack of knowledge of logic with something that is entirely based upon giving extrinsic value to things you personally find of a greater value. Like efforts performed by those with a handicap. There is no objective, concrete way to demonstrate why this is so or that is must be true. It can just as easily be argued the non-handicapped efforts are superior because they are more efficient, require less accommodation and still achieve the same end result. And indeed this view is found in society, like how in America where it is legal for employers to pay handicapped workers far below the minimum wage.