Best Religious/Nonreligious Debate Ever

[_huckelberry]

Marg replies
"I haven't suggested any entity in reality exists and is omnipotent..so I don't understand what you are saying."

I understood from previous comments you have no belief in God. I was not disputing that.It is entirely possible to talk amount the meaning and form of the idea or theory of God without actually believing God exists.

In just that way you have stated that God must be really complex if God created heaven and earth. You did no explaination of why you said that.Odd as a response to a quoted explaination that God is understood to be simple from two of the most influention Christian thinkers in its 2000 year history. I understand that authority does not require you to believe in God but it does suggest that Christians understand God as simple. I can either throw up my arms and be silent or speculate on why you might have said God must be complex. . The word simple gets used in various voices. As simple minded it might mean dumb which doesn't fit the theory of God. The word might be used to mean simple as in easy to understand. I have never seen God described that way so God is not understood to be that kind of simple. It is on the other hand common to say God is Spirit. In that statement is the idea of Gods mind power and will is one substance, not the workings of a machine of various materials in a complicated combination as in the mind of humans. I sort of thought the quote from the theologians was clear the simple was being used in that sense.

The theory of God is that God is the foundation order upon which all complexity that exists developes from. In a sense that definition of God is guaranteed to actually exist. On that level the difference between theists and atheists is that the theist believes the basic order is mind and the atheist believes it impersonal. Either way it is the eternal simple that all complexity comes from.

[_marg]

In just that way you have stated that God must be really complex if God created heaven and earth.
You did no explaination of why you said that.Odd as a response to a quoted explaination that God is understood to be simple from two of the most influention Christian thinkers in its 2000 year history. I understand that authority does not require you to believe in God but it does suggest that Christians understand God as simple. I can either throw up my arms and be silent or speculate on why you might have said God must be complex. . The word simple gets used in various voices. As simple minded it might mean dumb which doesn't fit the theory of God. The word might be used to mean simple as in easy to understand. I have never seen God described that way so God is not understood to be that kind of simple. It is on the other hand common to say God is Spirit. In that statement is the idea of Gods mind power and will is one substance, not the workings of a machine of various materials in a complicated combination as in the mind of humans. I sort of thought the quote from the theologians was clear the simple was being used in that sense.

Yes the quote you used (I believe)was in the sense that the God claimed or hypothesized in Christianity is of a single substance hence in that way simple. And my response to you was

“I think Christians also appreciate when speaking of a or their God they are referring to an entity which must be enormously complex if it is able to have attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. Any entity with such attributes would by necessity be complex despite the claimed attributes of its material substance.

In other words substance is not the only attribute claimed about God (as that concept is generally perceived), but God’s abilities are also claimed, especially if God is deemed to be the creator of the universe. Now even if we regress back to a first God along with a first universe in case anyone suggests that the God of our universe was created by another God, then the initial God is assumed to be a creator. There is not areligious claim that I know of which claims the universe or any universe preceded a creator God. Dawkins discusses "function or abilities" is a vital component of the concept of complexity i.e. Things which have the appearance of design for a purpose..includes biological matter and machines made by biological entities..as opposed to the the raw physical material going into the entities..which do not have intricate working parts. And “complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone.” And a God creator would fit these parameters.

So addressing this comment of yours specifically "In just that way you have stated that God must be really complex if God created heaven and earth." I haven't said anything contrary to Dawkins. He writes in The God Delusion.." A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle n the universe cannot be simple. Of course I'm not arguing God created heaven and earth, nor is Dawkins, just that if such an entity existed, it would necessarily be considered complex in the way Dawkins' explains what he means by complexity.

That is his point, an entity with powers such as those commonly attributed to a God would entail being a complex entity, irrespective of whatever one wishes to claim God’s substance is and that the substance is of one kind therefore simple.

The theory of God is that God is the foundation order upon which all complexity that exists developes from. In a sense that definition of God is guaranteed to actually exist. On that level the difference between theists and atheists is that the theist believes the basic order is mind and the atheist believes it impersonal. Either way it is the eternal simple that all complexity comes from.

That may be a common ground between an atheist and theist, that life as we know it evolved progressively in stages from simple to the more complex. That does not guarantee the existence of a God entity as you claim though. While Dawkins acknowledges having no sound theory for how life began, the God theory makes a claim that God created life and the universe and the justification for that is that chances for life’s existence and our ability to reflect on it, are so improbable the universe must have been designed to support life as we know it. And God must have designed the initial event at a minimum, even if he backed off and let evolution take over. But the weakness in that theory is that if complexity and improbability are reasons to justify God then what reasoning supports the creation of a complex God capable of designing the universe and life?

Of course, one can always believe based on faith, but that’s another matter, faith requires no reasoning, evidence or justification. So the God theory doesn't offer a satisfactory explanation supported with good reasoning.

[_marg]

After reviewing this thread to try to determine what Huckelberry was referring to I noticed Stak's comment:

]marg wrote: "He specifically mentioned the conclusion entailed a probability."


Stak: PROBABILITY

Like I said before, probability doesn't change a thing. Modus ponens has a probabilistic analog, which is actually neatly demonstrated in one of Elliot Sober's papers

What Sober was referring to was probabilistic claims which have the element of being likely verifiable. The more observations verifying a particular argument/theory/claim the higher the probability that one can rely upon the theory being probably true. And of course this is the sort of reasoning for scientific theories. While theories may be treated as absolute for operational purposes, in actuality it is always recognized they are not deductive in an absolute sense, each observation verifying what is predicted by a theory/argument/claim increase reliance on the theory being true, but could potentially be shown false upon better reasoning and/or observational data.

That is not the sort of probability argument Dawkins presented. Dawkin's was presenting reasoning and not saying his argument could be verifiable. He was not saying that we will likely be able to observe and establish that no God exists or your symbol Stak of (-G), he was arguing that his reasoning warrants rejection of a claim of an initial creator God of the universe, or rejection of the argument for G, because the probability of G is not high.

[_huckelberry]

Marg,
I, along with many other Christians, believe God to be eternal unchanging and simple. I see no bridge over our impasse. You think of God as complex, very complex.

At least we appear to agree that a concept of God as complex is incoherent with the idea of God as creator so could not be both.

[_marg]

We obviously don't agree huckelberry . I think the concept of God which is given the attribute of design-with capabilities such as creator of universe would necessarily be complex. It is the end product of what that god is allegedly capable of producing which entails its complexity, as opposed to whatever material or non material it is supposedly made of. God is an assertion, and one can believe in a creator entity..but that is based on faith. There is logical justification to reject the claim of God. In Dawkins case his argument is that simplicity precedes complexity for designed entities..so a creator God by necessity complex is highly unlikely to have existed pre universe. And if evidence of design of life and the universe is an argument for a God's existence, that argument lack justification as it doesn't address how a God would have existed without it's own designer which regress infinitely.

Now where we can agree is that a God belief is based on faith.

[_Calculus Crusader]

I think Christians also appreciate when speaking of a or their God they are referring to an entity which must be enormously complex if it is able to have attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. Any entity with such attributes would by necessity be complex despite the claimed attributes of its material substance.

Allow me to quote to you your own words which followed this:

"If the justification by argument or reasoning of anything amounts to no more than mere assertion, then one is not presenting rational reasoning or any argument."

You need to demonstrate that "Any entity with such attributes would by necessity be complex." Oh, and provide a definition/metric for "complexity."

I won't hold my breath.

[_Calculus Crusader]

And your view of Dawkins is as meaningful to a thinking person as a dog's opinion of cat chow. Nobody gives a crap.

You aren't a thinking person, your delusions of adequacy notwithstanding.

[_Calculus Crusader]

But I'm afraid that you're incorrect in your assessment of the God Delusion. Just because it wasn't effective to you doesn't mean it's not effective to others. (Quit being so smug... heh)

I wrote the following in response to another vapid follower of Dawkins:

Actually, the counterarguments against Dawkins' arguments against Aquinas' "Five Ways" look very Courtier-like. "Oh, Aquinas is so very hard to understand. You need to read these philosophers' explications of what he really meant, instead of just what Aquinas wrote. You'll just get confused if you try and take it all at face value."

1. The Courtier's Reply is a form of pseudoargumentation.
2. Dawkins most certainly did not apprehend the classical arguments for God's existence, let alone refute them.

Here is a telling example:

Let me translate this infantile argument into the appropriate language, which is the language of the playground: 'Bet you I can prove God exists.' 'Bet you can't.' 'Right then, imagine the most perfect perfect perfect thing possible.' 'Okay, now what?' 'Now, is that perfect perfect perfect thing real? Does it exist?' 'No, it's only in my mind.' 'But if it was real it would be even more perfect, because a really really perfect thing would have to be better than a silly old imaginary thing. So I've proved that God exists. Nur Nurny Nur Nur. All atheists are fools.'

This is a textbook example of appeal to ridicule.

The very idea that grand conclusions could follow from such logomachist trickery offends me aesthetically...

But isn't it too good to
be true that a grand truth about the cosmos should follow from a
mere word game?

Dawkins' circumscribed intelligence is not Anselm's problem, nor is it the problem of anyone who has advanced and/or defended an ontological argument.

My own feeling, to the contrary, would have been an automatic, deep suspicion of any line of reasoning that reached such a significant conclusion without feeding in a single piece of data from the real world.

A foolish empiricism is the hobgoblin of little minds.

The most definitive refutations of the ontological argument are usually attributed to the philosophers David Hume (1711-76) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant identified the trick card up Anselm's sleeve as his slippery assumption that 'existence' is more 'perfect' than non-existence.

Ah, yes, the "existence is not a predicate" incantation. Unfortunately for the intellectually circumscribed ethologist, whether or not existence is a predicate, the modal status of something can be regarded as a property.

I've forgotten the details, but I once piqued a gathering of theologians and philosophers by adapting the ontological argument to prove that pigs can fly. They felt the need to resort to Modal Logic to prove that I was wrong.

Clearly, Dawkins is out of his league.

Moreover, Dawkins cited Norman Malcolm (and gave an internet source in the footnotes; the stupid ass cannot even be bothered to read some books or journal articles) but Malcolm's objection only applies to the version of the argument where existence is a property.

[_Some Schmo]

And your view of Dawkins is as meaningful to a thinking person as a dog's opinion of cat chow. Nobody gives a crap.

You aren't a thinking person, your delusions of adequacy notwithstanding.

I'm delusional?

You're the one who talks like your opinions of others' cognitive abilities hold any weight whatsoever. That's what's most amusing about every single one of your posts. Your head is a simple echo chamber, hollow as it is.

You could kill yourself and you wouldn't be smart enough to tell the difference between your life now and unconscious oblivion. In fact, I recommend you try it now, just for fun.

[_marg]

I think Christians also appreciate when speaking of a or their God they are referring to an entity which must be enormously complex if it is able to have attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. Any entity with such attributes would by necessity be complex despite the claimed attributes of its material substance.

Allow me to quote to you your own words which followed this:

"If the justification by argument or reasoning of anything amounts to no more than mere assertion, then one is not presenting rational reasoning or any argument."

You need to demonstrate that "Any entity with such attributes would by necessity be complex." Oh, and provide a definition/metric for "complexity."

I won't hold my breath.

Well this is the paragraph I wrote :

"In other words substance is not the only attribute claimed about God (as that concept is generally perceived), but God’s abilities are also claimed, especially if God is deemed to be the creator of the universe. Now even if we regress back to a first God along with a first universe in case anyone suggests that the God of our universe was created by another God, then the initial God is assumed to be a creator. There is not areligious claim that I know of which claims the universe or any universe preceded a creator God. Dawkins discusses "function or abilities" is a vital component of the concept of complexity i.e. Things which have the appearance of design for a purpose..includes biological matter and machines made by biological entities..as opposed to the the raw physical material going into the entities..which do not have intricate working parts. And “complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone.” And a God creator would fit these parameters."

So it's the "function or abilities" that a creator of a universe possesses which would make it complex. That's understood conceptually.