How can God not exist?

[SciWriter]

One more time: it is not a self-contradiction because that contradiction relies on "god" being a being just like us. Which is not the case claimed.

One last time: No being can be fundamental, whether like us or not. It's specific constitution matters not. Believers must now show how.

 

[SciWriter]

For the sake of discussion let's assume there is a god.
What next?

Even more fantasy.

 

[Dywyddyr]

One last time: No being can be fundamental

So you're simply back the argument that god is not god.
Well done.

 

[SciWriter]

So you're simply back the argument that god is not god.
Well done.

That's right, for not anything can be God; however, I can't say any more since I said "One last time".

I am a rare medium well done.

Let's wait and see the reasons for God to be God.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Dywyddyr,

Blatantly wrong. As shown you are pre-supposing your conclusion as part of your argument.

Granted. In my response to Signal, which has now been amended.
Otherwise I have made no conclusion other than God has always existed, if only in the conscious mind. The question ''how can God NOT exist'' asks how can God not exist at all, if he exists in the conscioius mind. IOW, how can a mind invent God when we have no previous idea or experience of Him.
So it is NOT a conclusion, but a question.

Please show where I have been dishonest.

For a start you insist that I have pre-supposed the conclusion, that God exists. In the ''atheist religion'' scenario, you purposefully ignored the parts where I stated ''atheist religion'' does not apply to all atheists.

Wrong again. You do NOT follow a chain of logic.

Where?

And you're assuming again.

Well maybe if you gave explanations instead of ''wrong'', ''supposition'', etc, I wouldn't have to make assumptions.

Also wrong. I call "liar" because you lie.

Way to go with the explanation.
The one attempted explanation you did give, made no sense.

No explanation again?

jan.

 

[SciWriter]

IOW, how can a mind invent God when we have no previous idea or experience of Him.
So it is NOT a conclusion, but a question.

Jan. my younger brother, Dywyddyr, I, and others have already answer this question, and I for one am not going to keep on repeating it, but rather show that you don't respond to answers, even multiple times. Look back.

 

[birch]

there is an unrealistic notion that the concept of god can create with nothing or it has no bounds of it's own.

if there is a creator, it would have to use the materials that are available or of what it's comprised of to create. otherwise, how could it?

how do you create with nothing?

 

[Dywyddyr]

Otherwise I have made no conclusion other than God has always existed, if only in the conscious mind.

Incorrect. You DID make that assumption regardless of your later edit.

For a start you insist that I have pre-supposed the conclusion, that God exists

Since I actually quoted the portion where you had pre-supposed this would be another lie on your part.

In the ''atheist religion'' scenario, you purposefully ignored the parts where I stated ''atheist religion'' does not apply to all atheists.

Which statement came several pages/ posts later. AFTER all of the other posts where it was explicit that everyone, including you, didn't mean it in that limited sense. More dishonesty.

Well maybe if you gave explanations instead of ''wrong'', ''supposition'', etc, I wouldn't have to make assumptions.

Since I quote the portion of your post that is an assumption how much of a clue do you need?

Way to go with the explanation.
The one attempted explanation you did give, made no sense.

Wrong. You changed your argument part way through, reducing it to mean "some atheists" which was not how the statement had been used by you or anyone else up until that point. And then when you thought you had found something that supported your (new) limited definition even that was incorrect, yet you still pushed it.

No explanation again?

You claim that the argument has ceased but still keep reiterating variations of it.

 

[SciWriter]

there is an unrealistic notion that the concept of god can create with nothing or it has no bounds of it's own.

if there is a creator, it would have to use the materials that are available or of what it's comprised of to create. otherwise, how could it?

how do you create with nothing?

God used parts of his infinite self that were not needed, just as Adam could live without a rib.

 

[SciWriter]

God used parts of his infinite self that were not needed, just as Adam could live without a rib.

Not really (applicable), for God has not been shown. Plus it makes God material, but all such notions are immaterial, anyway, as imagined, so here not comes the Judge. Goodnight all.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

My own version of The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God would be like this:


1. We have ideas of many things.
2. We are dependent beings.
3. We cannot actually create anything on our own, we can only use and rearrange what is already available (both physically and mentally).
4. One of the ideas we have is the idea of God.
5. This idea could not have been caused by ourselves, because we know ourselves to be limited and imperfect, and we cannot actually create anything on our own.
6. Therefore, the idea must have been caused by something outside us.
7. Therefore God himself must be the cause of the idea we have of him.
8. Therefore God exists.


Between 6 and 7, we could add that aliens or demigods have caused us to have an idea of God, but that just relegates the question to what their nature and position is; but unless we define those aliens or demigods to be God, we're back to God being the originator of the idea of God (even in a scenario of a deist god who "set the whole thing in motion (and gave the aliens and demigods instructions to give us the idea of God) and then retreated").

Signal,

#3 has problems. We can truly create things, even if we use pre-existing matter or concepts to do so. Ex nihilo (from nothing) is not the only kind of valid creation.

#5 is invalid. Part of the reason for this is the weakness of #3, but even if #3 were correct, one simply can point out that we arrive at our idea of God from an a posteriori process by which we see the created world and reason back to the role of the creator. Hence, in some way our knowledge of God comes from our senses and what our mind does with the concepts derived from sense data. The idea of God is not created ex nihilo in our minds, but is an idea that we arrive at through an active process on our part.

There really is no valid argument to prove God's existence from the Idea of God alone. St. Thomas essentially demonstrates this in his refutation of Anselm's Ontological argument at the beginning of the Summa, and his explanation of true epistemology.

 

[wynn]

#3 has problems. We can truly create things, even if we use pre-existing matter or concepts to do so. Ex nihilo (from nothing) is not the only kind of valid creation.

Please explain.
If we agree with no. 2 - that we are dependent - then this means we cannot really do anything on our own.

#5 is invalid. Part of the reason for this is the weakness of #3, but even if #3 were correct, one simply can point out that we arrive at our idea of God from an a posteriori process by which we see the created world and reason back to the role of the creator. Hence, in some way our knowledge of God comes from our senses and what our mind does with the concepts derived from sense data. The idea of God is not created ex nihilo in our minds, but is an idea that we arrive at through an active process on our part.

Except that I think that our mind and our senses are not really our own; they are not our own in the sense that we cannot fully control them.
We are dependent on our mind and senses, and they are dependent on other factors.

There really is no valid argument to prove God's existence from the Idea of God alone.

I doubt it is even possible to prove (or disprove) God.

St. Thomas essentially demonstrates this in his refutation of Anselm's Ontological argument at the beginning of the Summa, and his explanation of true epistemology.

I'll have to look this up, thank you for the reference.

 

[wynn]

First - what is the "idea of God" that you are considering?

Anything anyone says about, intends about or does in relation to what they consider to be God, is a reflection of their consciousness about God.

The crucial premises in my argument are 2 and 3:
2. We are dependent beings.
3. We cannot actually create anything on our own, we can only use and rearrange what is already available (both physically and mentally).


Many (attempts of) proofs (or disproofs) about God are focused on having the correct/right/adequate idea of God.
I contend for a much broader understanding of the issue, hence Anything anyone says about, intends about or does in relation to what they consider to be God, is a reflection of their consciousness about God.

 

[wynn]

Using the word "god" confuse me, because this word is quite clearly described in different forms in different religions.
It would not be more correct to use "an entity" and we try to define this "entity"?
From my point of view to your question, I would respond:
I do not know, I have not sufficient evidence to make a decision and say "There is a god" or "There is no God".

Of course, the definition of "God" is a problem.
I think many (attempts of) proofs or disproofs of God are essentially exercises in how to formally arrive at certainty about something that remains undefined - like trying to solve an equation with three variables where we would define two, but leave one undefined.

Conversely, accepting a definition of "God" inherently makes proof redundant.

 

[wynn]

And the source could be our brains and imaginations.

Then we have to explain where they come from, and back to the original source.

There is no requirement that this source is external or omniscient.

As long as we agree that we have not created ourselves from nothing, we have to agree that our source is external.

 

[Sarkus]

1. I did, but put the emphasis on the source of the ability.

2. I did, but as God means different things to different people,
I put emphasis on the source.

3. God is understood to be omniscient, omniscience is the source of ideas,
we have the ability to form ideas, therefore the source of ideas exist.

jan.

Jan, you missed the point of my post... in that you basically assume the existence of God in the "proof" and thus conclude that God exists... along the lines of "If God exists then I conclude that God exists".
I.e. it is a meaningless proof.

That's not my argument.
My question is, ''how can God NOT exist?''
Or in answer to the contentions, ''how can the finite mind conceive of the infinite''?

Yet your means of asking was to post various "proofs" of God's existence... and thus the question "how can God NOT exist?" is thus taken as an emotional plea, along the lines of "how can you NOT see that God must exist?"
Especially when your original opening post lauded Anselm's argument as "brilliant". :shrug:

 

[Sarkus]

Anything anyone says about, intends about or does in relation to what they consider to be God, is a reflection of their consciousness about God.

How can it be otherwise? This holds true for anything one wishes to discuss.

The crucial premises in my argument are 2 and 3:
2. We are dependent beings.
3. We cannot actually create anything on our own, we can only use and rearrange what is already available (both physically and mentally).

What do you mean by "dependent"? That we can not do anything on our own? We can not seemingly create or destroy energy, but everything else is up for grabs, surely.
I think you will need to further expand on your meaning of "dependent", though, if you wish to rely on it - or even have the same understanding as you.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Jan. my younger brother, Dywyddyr, I, and others have already answer this question, and I for one am not going to keep on repeating it, but rather show that you don't respond to answers, even multiple times. Look back.

Why do you think your answer is the last word
on the matter?
I don't agree with your answer, just as you don't agree with me.

jan.

 

[Jan Ardena]

there is an unrealistic notion that the concept of god can create with nothing or it has no bounds of it's own.

if there is a creator, it would have to use the materials that are available or of what it's comprised of to create. otherwise, how could it?

how do you create with nothing?

Actually no scripture supports that notion.

jan.

 

[YoYoPapaya]

Jan I would like you to consider if it's a paradox that God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster can exist at the same time. Both are omnipotent.

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=107449