Another version of ontological argument.

[Link]

Are you telling me I am a necessary being? If not, how can your analogy hold?

Ciao

- viole

The thing is you know you exist, how? You see yourself experiencing and it's impossible for you to conceive yourself non-existing by definition. With God, you can see it living, but the ontological argument leave all that aside, from it's necessary trait, you know it exists and can't see it not existing.

While it can be that you didn't come to existence and possible worlds without you, I'm using it as analogy regarding detecting existence of something.

 

[ratiocinator]

Claims are claims, by definition, a Necessary being exists if it's not impossible/incoherent.

False. If it's not impossible or incoherent for it not to exist, then there is no reason to suppose that it does.

 

[viole]

The thing is you know you exist, how? You see yourself experiencing and it's impossible for you to conceive yourself non-existing by definition. With God, you can see it living, but the ontological argument leave all that aside, from it's necessary trait, you know it exists and can't see it not existing.

While it can be that you didn't come to existence and possible worlds without you, I'm using it as analogy regarding detecting existence of something.

Well, If that is a problem, I can provide you with evidence for the existence of something. A mosquito has just bitten my hand, that should suffice to prove mosquitos exist, right?

Otherwise, Are you trying to make an argument for the existence of God based on my personal experiences?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Redemptionsong]

View attachment 56907

Isn't truth also circular?

 

[Redemptionsong]

Many parts of The Bible do not stand up to scrutiny either. Easy examples are God realizing the Hebrews had it tough as slaves of the Egyptians, coming to their aid to free them from slavery, and then a few paragraphs later (literally) The Bible describes that the Hebrews themselves kept slaves. All hunky dory apparently. Or wait... no... that's a double standard if I have ever seen one. The 10 commandments are several parts junk. Jesus basically said nearly nothing of import in "The Beatitudes" at the Sermon on the Mount - just fluff and nonsense almost without directly calling on anything of substance. These things are directly put forth in The Bible as if they are profound and very serious matters. It is just plain strange.

Let's remember you only a paragraph ago criticizing the Qur'an for "[relying] on The Bible for its authority". Christianty does the same thing... relying on Jewish texts. Jesus is YOUR add-on, exactly like Muhammad is the Islamic add-on. I see no difference in how these things played out. None.

The only thing I feel you have going for you here is that a person who markedly decides to turn their life in a different direction can do just that, and that it helps to have an "icon" to look to for inspiration. It also apparently helps to believe that someone is watching your every move. Otherwise, you can't literally tie any change that has happened in your life directly to the actual Jesus. You can't. The best you can do is tie the change to the ideas you have in your head about Jesus. That's all.

Please demonstrate this reality. And believe me - it is gong to have to be something more than people speaking gibberish, people bowing their heads down on dirty carpet, people trying to push one another over during healing-prayer sessions, people falling on the ground and going into apoplectic fits, etc. That's just people being wacky. Demonstrate to me the actual "Holy Spirit." Not the supposed effects on people who can't be trusted to even understand even the basest sort of a standard of evidence.

Can you tell me what upon you was healed? Was it a visible malady? Some wound that miraculously sealed up and disappeared? I've heard these types of things before, of course. You know, I was once in a congregation where whispers were going around that a person's missing finger grew back the night before at a prayer meeting they had held. This was basically all the rage (in whispers) among the parishioners present that morning. Then, when the pastor got up to talk to the crowd, do you know who he brought forward to demonstrate the results of the miraculous feats of healing that had gone on the night before? An older woman, bent in half sideways, physically unable to stand straight. And do you know what was supposedly "healed" the night before? Her back. How the people around me were just eating this crap up I have no idea. It was plain the woman still had terrible problems with her back. If anything, the pastor should have been embarrassed to even claim that anything had been done in service to this woman by his "almighty" buddy in the sky. But no... belief trumps embarrassment, I have found. People are willing to do all sorts of things they should be patently ashamed of "in the name of God."

Point 1. Did you not know that we are all slaves until redeemed?
Point 2. Muhammad believed that God cannot have a Son. Jews and Christians accept the idea of the Son of God. See Psalm 2:7. Jews and Christians differ over who the 'son' refers to.
Point 3. The changes brought about by the Holy Spirit are not self-improvements.
Point 4. The Holy Spirit is, first and foremost, a subjective encounter with Jesus. The fact that there is commonality in the experiences of believers, as at Pentecost, allows the body of Christ to function as one. The powers that manifest themselves as the gift of Holy Spirit are within the control of the believer, and there is no need for there to be excesses. Paul encouraged the Church to do things 'decently and in order'.
Point 5. My own healing was from lower back trouble. l could not bend down. A simple prayer was said and hands were laid on me. No fuss, no drama, just immediate relief from pain and freedom to move. That was over 20 years ago, and the problem has not recurred.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Point 1. Did you not know that we are all slaves until redeemed?

I would guess you probably think it sounds profound or interesting. I do not.

Point 2. Muhammad believed that God cannot have a Son. Jews and Christians accept the idea of the Son of God. See Psalm 2:7. Jews and Christians differ over who the 'son' refers to.

And? What has this to do with my ultimate point? That the Christians borrowed "less" from Jews than The Muslims did? Is this supposed to compel me to believe that any given one of them describes truth?

Point 3. The changes brought about by the Holy Spirit are not self-improvements.

This at least seems correct. I would definitely not consider things that I have seen brought to bear and described as workings of "the Holy Spirit" using the term "self improvements."

Point 4. The Holy Spirit is, first and foremost, a subjective encounter with Jesus. The fact that there is commonality in the experiences of believers, as at Pentecost, allows the body of Christ to function as one. The powers that manifest themselves as the gift of Holy Spirit are within the control of the believer, and there is no need for there to be excesses. Paul encouraged the Church to do things 'decently and in order'.

Yeah - "decently and in order" would be better than a lot of what I have seen - and the word "subjective" is key here, I think.

Point 5. My own healing was from lower back trouble. l could not bend down. A simple prayer was said and hands were laid on me. No fuss, no drama, just immediate relief from pain and freedom to move. That was over 20 years ago, and the problem has not recurred.

I am happy for you. Truly.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A necessary being is a possible coherent concept.
Necessary if conceived as possible, would mean it also exists (this comes with the definition).

What definition?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Claims are claims, by definition, a Necessary being exists if it's not impossible/incoherent.

And have you established that God is not impossible? If you have, I didn't see it.

 

[Clara Tea]

A necessary being is a possible coherent concept.
Necessary if conceived as possible, would mean it also exists (this comes with the definition).
Therefore a Necessary being exists.
If a Necessary being lacked any existence amount in any form of existence or any existence can exist without it, it would not be a Necessary being.
Absolute life by definition can only be one being since it is absolute comprehensive (and nothing can be beside or can it miss or exist without it).
Therefore there is only one Necessary being possible and it's absolute in terms of magnitude of life.
Therefore there is one and only one Necessary being in actuality and it's God (absolute life).

Why couldn't a trinity be a necessary being?

 

[Link]

Why couldn't a trinity be a necessary being?

God is absolute in life, and so there can't be more than one as that would split the amount. Life all stems from him and is not separate from him, but as for the source, it can only be one.

 

[Link]

Well, If that is a problem, I can provide you with evidence for the existence of something. A mosquito has just bitten my hand, that should suffice to prove mosquitos exist, right?

Otherwise, Are you trying to make an argument for the existence of God based on my personal experiences?

Ciao

- viole

So here is the thing:

"how do you know you aren't a figment of your imagination?", you can reply all sorts of reasons, as to why this is impossible.

Now, Atheists say "people imagine God", cool.

The ontological argument is saying, we know we aren't imagining him, because he is the necessary being.

How do we attach "necessary" to God though and why can't I just attach to a pink unicorn and then pink unicorn exists?

It's due to the fact God is defined (when imagining per Atheists) to be the Greatest being. In terms of greatness, Anselm rightly pointed out, it's greater to be necessary then not to be and hence if you have non-existing God it's less great then the existing one (which is proven to exist by being necessary). Hence you know it exists.

Another way is to see it as a type of perfection as Descartes explained.

Or if you can think of possible worlds and existences, and know God's amount mathematically is big to the extent nothing is absent from it in terms of possible or existing, then it's proven by pigeon hole principle it exists and that's it the necessary being.

Another way to go about it, is to start with the premise existence is the default state. Either existence is necessary or just possible but not necessary. How do we know which one? To me, existence in it's purest form and self-existing form has none of nonexistence. This itself shows the Necessary being exists.

Then we can say how do we know this not energy, etc, well it's eternal by definition in this sense. It same form in all possible worlds. It includes all possible life and forms in it somehow, it is everything and yet nothing in particular.

And being necessary, would mean, there is no possible life that can existence independent of it, making it absolute in amount. This is God for sure.

 

[Link]

And have you established that God is not impossible? If you have, I didn't see it.

By showing God is coherently the necessary being which I have in many threads.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

By showing God is coherently the necessary being which I have in many threads.

So now you think "necessary" implies "possible"?

I remember a while back, you said that "necessary" things were either impossible or must exist. Did you change your mind?

 

[Link]

So now you think "necessary" implies "possible"?

I remember a while back, you said that "necessary" things were either impossible or must exist. Did you change your mind?

There is 5 categories.

1. Impossible to exist.
2. Does not exist.
3. Exists
4. Existence Necessarily (necessary).
5. Possibly Exists.

When we say possible existence, it can be 2 or 3 usually. If it's 1, it's definitely 2. If it's 4, it's definitely 3. Just as 1 cannot be 3, 4 cannot be 2. 5 can be all except 1.

Why God is 4, is because it's Greater to be from viewpoint of Anselm, a perfection from viewpoint of Descartes, and sheer size from my own argument. There is nothing incoherent about absolute life and it's existence, I've shown how coherently it is possible.

There is nothing incoherent about Necessary being in itself. It's rational, and there is no "contradiction" showing it impossible.

 

[Link]

Did you change your mind?

I'm saying the only way to refute the argument would be to show God or the Necessary being is impossible (paradox). Sorry I was unclear with that.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm saying the only way to refute the argument would be to show God or the Necessary being is impossible (paradox). Sorry I was unclear with that.

If you've left the door open to this or any other refutation of your argument, then you haven't demonstrated your conclusion.

 

[Link]

If you've left the door open to this or any other refutation of your argument, then you haven't demonstrated your conclusion.

The only way to show it wrong I'm saying is to show it's virtually impossible to be a necessary being. You would probably have to show it to be a paradox. William Lane Craig does the same thing, he shows the argument, then says the only way to refute would be to show God is impossible and incoherent. And then says why this is not the case.

 

[Link]

@9-10ths_Penguin I made a thread: Is God an incoherent concept (impossible?)? | Religious Forums, there I pose 3 arguments as to why God is incoherent concept (don't believe them myself).

This would be a refutation to the ontological argument, and the only way to disprove in my view.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The only way to show it wrong I'm saying is to show it's virtually impossible to be a necessary being.

Your argument doesn't only fail if it's shown wrong; your argument fails even if it's unclear whether you're right.

As long as there's the slightest questionas to whether God is impossible, your argument for God's existence doesn't work.

Before any argument for God, we could say "maybe God exists and maybe he doesn't." If you can't absolutely exclude the possibility that God is impossible, then even if your argument was perfect in all other respects (which it isn't, but for argument's sake) we're still left with "maybe God exists and maybe he doesn't"... IOW, you've made zero progress from where we were before you even made your argument.

You would probably have to show it to be a paradox. William Lane Craig does the same thing, he shows the argument, then says the only way to refute would be to show God is impossible and incoherent. And then says why this is not the case.

William Lane Craig is a crap apologist who relies on confident delivery as a substitute for reasoned argument.

 

[Jeremiah Ames]

Okay, I will use Rene Descartes.

Imagine you are sitting in a chair by a fireplace and wondering if you are awake or dreaming. Since you are a skeptic, it occurs to you that the world could be lying to you and it is all a dream.
Here it is:
The world causes you to really be in the chair
The world causes you to dream you are in the chair.
The problem is that there is no way to decide which is the case.

So that is how we in the end, end up with this for science:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science#Current_approaches

Proper science doesn't claim that the world is natural. It believes it is natural.
The technical difference is the difference between philosophical and methodological naturalism. The former is no different that the claim that it is true, that God exists in the end. The latter says I don't know what the world really is, but I treat it as natural.

I don’t get it.

If the world is not natural, is it unnatural?