An Argument FOR the Existence of God (or at least Agnosticism)

I long ago decided that God or no God, whether I believed in God or not isn't likely to matter much. I agree with themnax, lets focus on this world and what we can do here and now to help move towards the kind of world we can all live harmoniously in. For example, we could, if we wanted to, end the current death toll of starving children, which at last count was about 29 000 kids starving to death daily, 365 days a year. We could end that tomorrow. But the nations of the world spend a trillion dollars a year on their militaries. How much of that would it take to feed 29 000 kids? I think we would still have more than enough left over to build lots of expensive, high tech machines to kill each other with. Or why don't we work on agreeing to let each other choose their own faith and accept them as equals, and live like family.

‘Children, Mother does not say that you should believe in Mother or in a God in heaven. It is enough to believe in yourself. Everything is there in you.’ Mata Amritanandamayi

 

I can’t see how anomalies in mathematics equate to the existence of God. Every time humans don’t understand something it gets thrown in the God category. Arithmetic is just a language written by man to help understand numbers. It was as essential in our development as opposable thumbs. It’s a great tool for building an industrial world and polluting the planet with our technology and weapons of mass destruction but we are far from being able to model the universe. The universe is far too vast and complex for the human brain to comprehend. We can only best guess the nature of our universe. Scientific understanding of things is always changing and evolving. Do you thing the periodic table of elements is absolute? No, it just our best guess “to date” model of our current understanding of elemental structure.



Maybe if humans can manage to evolve their intellect for 12 million more years, they might be closer to understanding the universe with more sophisticated math models and languages. Right now humans need to survive their own delusions of spiritual immortality and focus on the advancement of their species instead of destroying it.

If anything, the human race is de-evolving right now because we can’t get past our weaknesses and flawed priorities. We’re more interested in spending billions of dollars securing the ruins of an old pre-medieval temple in the middle of a war torn hellhole all because of some insane religious belief that Jesus will return and save the deserving.



That’s like if the ants in my yard thought they needed to build me a little dirt pile to worship me on and the ants were killing each other over who gets to occupy the dirt pile. The truth is that these stupid ants are destroying my damn property and I hope they all die!



We are destroying this planet with our religious nonsense!! If we are to evolve any further as a civilized human race, we need to abolish religion.

 

Relaxx

No..to abolish is to give it power.

Ignor..is the word to use.

To have religion completely ignored in modern society would be its end.
It cannot exist without media attention.

And one simple extra law for all peoples. No-one can hawk any belief door to door.
Or on the street..Just as none can sell a product in such a way.
Thus bringing commercial and religious aims together unde law.
For both wish to sell a product.

Occam

 

First I need to ask you, what definition of A Priori are you implying in this argument...

A priori =

1. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive.
2. 1. Derived by or designating the process of reasoning without reference to particular facts or experience.
   2. Knowable without appeal to particular experience.
3. Made before or without examination; not supported by factual study.

Secondly, I need to ask you to define god. Because without any definition of "god" it is meaningless to even discuss it. Are we talking about a scriptural god (christian/jewish/islamic)? A Deity? Panentheisitic God? Pantheistic God?

The only reason Goldbachs Conjecture isn't "proven" is because its impractical and/or impossible to add any two primes to infinity. The empirical evidence of Goldbachs conjecture does say that it is true on the mere fact that any two primes we can think of does result in an even number "as far as we can tell". It's kind of like gravity, we know it exists, there are even Laws of gravity that say "this is how gravity works" "every place that we can see". It's impractical/impossible to look at every conceivable place in the universe where gravity may not work like we have described. So if we use this line of thought, as far as we can see, god is non existent depending on the definition of god.

 

Itsdarts

No.. god is non existant depending on our complete inspection of
the observable universe. [ not achieved ]
Existance cannot be qualified by a definition..[a deduction in this case
based appon VERY limmited observation]

Occam

 

True, if we don't define god in some fashion, for instance if we are just talking about A god in general, with no attributes given to it. If he's undefined, what is the point of discussion? If there is no interaction with us, why call it god?

If you're going to discuss a god, it is pointless, per above, to discuss one without any attributes... e.g. Tri-omni god, Elephant god, Zeus, Mythra, all have attributes and can be proven with high confidence, not to exist. These types of gods have been claimed to interact with our world, anything interacting with our world, will leave some evidence behind. We should be able to detect these types of gods, and we haven't. I am an atheist to defined gods of various scriptures, I am agnostic to some deity we haven't defined yet or to some deity who may have ignited the big bang, but then left the universe alone to develope into what it is today. I just don't know.

 

Isdarts

Those attributes are things from religion.
Religious definitions are a great source of humor.
Devils and angles and burning in hell never cease to make occam
laugh at the naivity of humans

A 'direction' in reality can or has directed the fundamental laws that
result in our 'observable universe.
This is the 'definition' occam applies.
It is a very loose definition.

Seems reasonable tho...
Considering what we are learning about the immense ballance and
complexity of the universe using the scientific method

Occam

 

to me, the whole point is that 'god' (or 'gods'/'goddesess) IS/ARE "undifined.

how can they possibly be both greater then ourselves and at the same time otherwise?

i'm not saying anything can't exist, nor even that anything doesn't.
what i AM saying is: don't expect whatever does to resemble whatever you think you 'know' about it.

and also of course that not even our selves 'have to'
which is also precisely the point
that if we don't stop destroying everything, nothing we can will continue to,
and while that may not likely include god or gods (should they choose to exist)
or the rest of the universe the tangable universe (who'se existence we CAN observe)
it certainly does include ourselves (and the ability of our surroundings
to continue to sustain that existence of ourselves).

=^^=
.../\...

 

Sorry for not responding sooner. I've been busy.

I'm using the term "a priori" in the sense of (2), but it seems to me that (1.2) expresses the same thought.

I think that any of those definitions will do. But I had in mind the Judeo-Christian God, omnipotent, omniscient, etc.

There are plenty of proofs about infinity. Mathematical induction, which is not a true form of induction, can yield knowledge about infinity. I think that you need the concept of infinity to prove the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem, for example. But concrete cases aside, if what you said was true, then there would be no proof of almost anything in mathematics. Any algebraic proof would fail because you can plug in any number at all for variables.

I don't think that qualifies as empirical. Sure, I can empirically demonstrate that 14 books is the sum of seven books and seven books. I think that that would be empirical. But I don't think you were talking about 14 books but about 14 in itself, and 14 in itself is an abstract entity. And how can an abstract entity be empirical?

Well, that depends on your conception of physics. If you think that physics is an impure (empirical) science, then your point stands. However, I don't think it's satisfying to say that the laws of gravity apply "as far as we know." To say that makes the laws of physics seem contingent; it gets rid of the element of necessity that we're supposed to have in theories about theoretical physics.

But I think that physics is a pure (a priori) science, and there's really a lot of evidence to back this up. In addition to the many philosophers who agree with me (Kant, for one), the fact that Einstein proved special relativity without conducting a single experiment seems to back up my claim.

 

The original post seems to follow a thread in this forum where someone who believed in god argued incorrectly that atheists wanted a form of mathematical proof of god - this is total rubbish - there is no mathematical proof of god since people arent arguing that god is anything like a mathematical equation - they are arguing that god is an actuality, a being a person - ust for the record I doubt this person could prove the existence of anything that actually did exist so I'd like to see the proof by this person that humans exist - cuz if that speil about the ontological nature of numbers is supposed to be real then tell me what relevence does it have to the physical existence (proof of the physical existence) of a tree? If you
cant explain that youve got no hope using it to explain god

You have a wrong concept of what it is to know something apriori it merely means that we can know the object before being presented with the object IE to have a knowledge before the facts. IE that when the facts present themselves they will not differ in any way to what we already know

Only because infinity exists as a mathematical consequence - it ignores the fact that there is a possibility infinity does not exist oiutside mathematics

Not true since to prove it true you would have to test the theory to infinity and that is impossible - you can merely say for certain that it has a defined mathematical basis for it being true. To the extent theres no reason to suppose its not true becuse any theory that said its not true would be based on the same evidence that theorised that it is true - unless someone had tested this number theory nearer to the point of infinity than previously tested and found that all prior evidence was true up to a point at which the laws of mathematics break down

Theres no reason to support it either for the opposite reason given above - that it is only supportable and verified if the number sequence holds out to infinity

 

Columbo said a lot here. So, I'm going to have to take it slow.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the argument, but, on a side note, I never read that post.

I'm a little confused about this, and I think it might have resulted from some misconception of what I said. What I'm confused about is your use of the term "actuality." Here's why:

The propositions of math are necessarily true, meaning that they are true in all possible worlds, including the actual one. If my proof is valid, then it is true a priori, meaning that it is necessarily true. If that is the case, then it should show that God is a necessary being. Perhaps by "actuality" you meant "existent." If that is the case, then I agree with you that there is no Platonic realm of forms, including mathematical objects. But that is not to say that there is no objective, third realm of propositions, or even a realm containing (some) abstracta. The argument is not so far fetched. It has been expressed by Bolzano, Meinong, Frege, and probably others.

Do you mean prove that humans exist a priori? Because if so, that is impossible. But, of course, I don't need to prove a priori that people exist because the existence of people is empirically verifiable. Analytic, a priori arguments are only needed for abstracta. There are many different ideas to what, exactly, abstracta are. But I've always thought that they are objects that exist outside of space and time. So, I think you can see now how numbers are related to God.

Of a tree? An a priori proof of impossible. Of God? Perhaps it is possible. I think you can see now that the distinction is non-arbitrary.

Umm... not exactly, no, that's not what "a priori" means. But even if you were right, I don't see how that hurts my argument. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "fact," but if you mean "empirically verifiable," then your definition is plainly wrong because, if that were the case, we could have no knowledge of any universal, including math, physics, etc.

Even if that's true, I could just throw it back at you and say that you're denying the possibility that infinity does exist outside math without evidence. Besides, I think there is some good evidence to show that infinity, as a concept, can be found in areas other than math. Physics is an example. The temporal sequence, another. Regions of space, physical or conceptual.

I don't know why so many people are having trouble with the idea that you can prove things about infinity. I assure you that we can for the same reasons I gave in my last post. If you couldn't, then you couldn't prove the consistency of math. But it's been done. If you couldn't, algebra would be impossible. But it is possible. If you couldn't, then mathematical induction would be useless. But it's very useful.

Whoa, hold on. The sequence of numbers certainly goes on to infinity. If it didn't, we'd be in a whole lot of trouble.

Yes, that's true. But remember, there's a difference between the existence of objects and the objectivity of a class of sentences.

Actually, that's the definition of "analyticity," assuming that geometry is analytic.

So you do know your Meinong! Or at least your Kant!

But hey, don't take it so personally. I'm fairly sure that the proof doesn't work anymore. But for none of the reasons you laid out. I do think that you're on the right track, however.

 

If there was a God, especially the common perception of the all knowing creator of heaven stereotypical God, there is no way whatsoever, that our little conception of mathematics even remotely models a Gods mathematics. Our math would not even compare to Gods math so much as a baby’s burp compares to English language. Our math can’t represent 10 divided by 3 let alone understand and model the universe.

We always presume we know more than we do, and it reflects in this thread. If anything, at least to me, it enforces my belief of how implausible the idea of God really is. If we had anything close to “Gods” math, our kids would be turning sunlight into solid Gold just for fun.

 

Colombo might be saying that to know something a priori, you must KNOW that it exist, ie. if I say that beethowen wrote 9th symphony, it is a fact as far as we know who beethowen is and what 9th symphony is. we cannot say that god could exist a priori because we do not know who or what god is. your proof comes close to define a god, give him realm to exist in.

 

I have to admit I agree with many that if we are looking for tools to prove God, we aint gonna find them.. because no law holds. afterall, its God we are talking about.

 

Occam believes an infinity exists in reality..
That being the duration of reality.

Reality has 'always existed' and always will.

No human logic/reason/faith can show this belief to be invalid. While the
very persistent duration of reality as science observes.. Supports it.
Some 14 billions of years of it...just a single tick of a clock that never runs down.

Reality has no beginning.
Think hard on this.
And remember that beginings and ends are only states of being in our observable universe. Humans, planets, stars.. are born and die.
But the mater energy they are made of does not.
Even the projected heat death of our observable universe is but
a state.. where mass is coalesed in dark stars and collapsars and radiant engery is shed totally into the curve/klien bottle of space. Not mater energy is 'destroyed'. Entropy is the seperation of the two.. not the destruction of anything.

Thus the closed system called our obsevable universe.
Looses no energy..and can be reabsorbed into the totallity of reality
when all dynamic activity ends. Maybe to be re-peated through dynamic insertion with slightly modified parrameters.
[depending on previous results]

BANG

Occam

 

First of all, common sense, let me remind you of something Wittgenstein said in Tractatus, his conclusion is - you may recall : "whereof one cannot speak, therof one must be silent".
I believe his advice towers above your conversation like a gift from a god of philosophy. I will show you why.

As I said before - all this can mean is that you believe propositions about god will prove the existence of god, and the whole point of everything I said in that post above is that you cannot prove the existence of anything by merely fiddling about with logical propositions - mathematics does not exist except in propositional form - that is a far cry from the idea that you can prove existence through a form of propositional logic. It is true that you are bluffing people if you are saying anything that could be relevent outside of the mere semantics. logical propositions, or theories of your propositions
Whatever your conclusions about god - in the style of argument you propose - would be trivial - like a 3d computer game of war compared to the real thing. This is why

I cannot say here what you mean, your writing seems logically gobbledy gook - I have read Frege - not Bolzano, or Meinong, but the point is I can certainly garauntee that Frege comes to the argument that arithemetic is reducable to logic, However he still acknowledged that If you assume an object does not exist and then you derive from it a contradiction, one still has not found the object and therefore not proved its existence. In other words - if you are trying to assert existence or non-existence by the mere usage of propositional logic - then contradiction of logic is still not equal to contradiction of existence.
Just because you can show that the logic of these statements:
"There is a world
There must have been a beginning to the world
God therefore must exist"
are invalid - that does not mean you disprove the existence of god - so you really must be making a lesser conclusion than that or your efforts are trivial
you can only show the validity of the logic true or false but prove nothing outside of that

It is existence which sometimes precedes logic and defines logic - but never the other way around so let me just remind you how this post started

That is basically what Wittgenstein made of propositional logic. In other words - there are some things that we cannot know logically. Sometimes a picture of the world will not do - we need the world itself. Mathematics and logic are only pictures of the world rather like musical notes on paper are a picture of some music but that picture is not the truth of the music itself. They are in relation to each other but not the same

Just because you prove the logic that god exists or does not exist - that only means you have found logical consistency such to the effect that
Aristotle is a man
All men are mortal
therefore Aristotle is mortal
It need not preclude the existence or non existence of aristotle
Aristotle might not exist and yet your logic is still correct

mnugamumf is a brockaborg
all brockaborgs are terrifol
mnugamumf is terrifol
a=b
b=c
therefore a=c

well that is precisely what it means if you have a different definition of what it means to have "prior knowledge of" something the philosophical world will be all ears.

FROM WIKIPEDIA

 

"There is a world
There must have been a beginning to the world
God therefore must exist"

Invalid premis

"There must have been a beginning to the world"
sounds like a cry of desperation/preconditioning.

To support "God must therefore exist"

Beginnings and ends.. are not the stuff of arguement that wishes
to resolve.
Reality is. WHAT it is, is what is important. Work out what it is..
By the method of science/psychology/paranormal or spiritual.

And u can make it

Occam

 

Patently - obviously it is false- but if you put it in context you will see I am not trying to assert that statement - RTFM
I am asserting the status of propositional logic as laid before us by minds such as Frege - Wittgenstein - Bertrand Russel etc etc etc etc

Dont just choose a sentence read the whole thing

 

Are u on now.. hopefully

What status of propositional logic are u asserting?
RTFM.?....There IS NO MANUAL

Those people u mention are no smarter than you or i.
Remember they lived before mass information..

Occam has a 140+ iq and expects u do as well.. lets speak
without deception.

Occam