From existence to the existence of God

"From existence to the existence of God"

What do you all honest intelligent and productive thinkers, shouldn't we all first work together as to concur on what we mean by the words: existence, prove, and God?

Mariue wrote:"From existence to the existence of God"

What do you all honest intelligent and productive thinkers, shouldn't we all first work together as to concur on what we mean by the words: existence, prove, and God?

Let's add to that... empty space, before and after Creation.

I am only interested in truth. So, let's throw the other side a bone. I thought someone on the other side would at least support something similar to Quantum foam. But nobody really wants a real discussion.

We are all nitpicking so I may as well continue it.
The comment that "not one Christian has defected to your side" is plainly incorrect.
I was raised as a High Church, Church of England member. Basically a Catholic that responded to Canterbury rather than Rome. Latin masses and all.
Being sent to a church boarding school was an epiphany for me. Massively cruel acts led me to question what I had been indoctrinated in. I subsequently went on to be a biochemist, and a non Christian. Throughout a long life I have met many more people with similar stories.
Looking around my extended family, I have been to dozens of "naming day" parties, but only two baptisms in the past few decades.

cthia wrote:I am only interested in truth. So, let's throw the other side a bone. I thought someone on the other side would at least support something similar to Quantum foam. But nobody really wants a real discussion.

What would the "real" discussion be?

You believe in a creator god. You also believe that the mechanisms of the universe that we uncover through scientific inquiry are all things created and/or used by that creator entity to shape the world into what it is today.
So if I say "quantum foam interactions may have provided the impetus that led to the big bang", or if I find a paper to that end, your next response will, inevitably, be "Yes, this is what god did!".

You're still hung up on the idea that the scientific method will, eventually, deliver a proof of god, a proof that there was some sort of intent or will behind creation, and any negative result it gets along the way is just evidence of how subtly your god has acted.

See, the simple fact of the matter is that you cannot accept the idea of there not being a creator entity, whereas I am happy to accept anything as truth that is supported by documented experimentation and proven hypothesises. In other words, if you can show me an experiment I can perform, or that can be performed repeatedly given enough ressources, that shows that god exists I will happily concede the matter.
The same isn't true in reverse though, is it.

Mariue wrote:
"From existence to the existence of God"

What do you all honest intelligent and productive thinkers (say), shouldn't we all first work together as to concur on what we mean by the words: existence, prove, and God?

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No, I have not seen anyone here whom I would want to consider to be an honest intelligent productive thinker, not one at all.

Why are you guys so afraid to concur with me that first and foremost we must work together: as to arrive at agreement on what is existence, what is it to prove something to exist, and what is God?

Anyway, I will start acting honest intelligent and productive with my proposal of what is existence, here in very few words:

"Existence is the object of man's experience." ( 7 words )

"We must work together?" Sorry, but I don't see that imperative, for us to publicly debate stuff that is an internal personal view that I had sorted fifty years ago.
One take on it is "If a married man makes a statement in a forest, and his wife doesn't hear him say it, is he still wrong?"

This is the only thing you've said that had something at all to discuss. Everything else you've said was generic statements and/or overly broad conclusions.

The way you've chosen to communicate your topic and then the way you've chosen to attack *literally* everyone on this forum does not leave me inclined to engage you in any sort of discussion.

Mariue wrote:Mariue wrote:
"From existence to the existence of God"

What do you all honest intelligent and productive thinkers (say), shouldn't we all first work together as to concur on what we mean by the words: existence, prove, and God?

--------------------------


No, I have not seen anyone here whom I would want to consider to be an honest intelligent productive thinker, not one at all.

Why are you guys so afraid to concur with me that first and foremost we must work together: as to arrive at agreement on what is existence, what is it to prove something to exist, and what is God?

Anyway, I will start acting honest intelligent and productive with my proposal of what is existence, here in very few words:

"Existence is the object of man's experience." ( 7 words )

Mariue wrote:No, I have not seen anyone here whom I would want to consider to be an honest intelligent productive thinker, not one at all.

Question, what does "honest intelligent productive thinker" mean? Cos I get the impression that it means "person who agrees with me".

Why are you guys so afraid to concur with me that first and foremost we must work together: as to arrive at agreement on what is existence, what is it to prove something to exist, and what is God?

Because, as I will demonstrate later on in this post, this is quite impossible. We are posters on a dead internet forum, not philosophers; any common definition we could come up with (assuming, for the moment, that such a thing is possible) would be flawed and any statements arising from that definition would be flawed as a result.

Anyway, I will start acting honest intelligent and productive with my proposal of what is existence, here in very few words:

"Existence is the object of man's experience." ( 7 words )

Right, now here's my objections to that.
You define "existence" only in relation to "man". Meaning that, in just seven words, you have separated "man" from "existence", elevated "man" in relation to it, elevated the act of "experiencing" over the act of "existing".

This is quite consistent with traditional dualist thought: In a dualist worldview, there is a separation between the physical world and the world of minds; there's your body and your soul, and although the two are related and interact with each other (in some acausal way), they are fundamentally distinct and separate.

Now, me, I'm a materialist. I believe that existence is restricted to just the physical: That every single interaction, regardless of scale, is governed by a set of fundamentally knowable rules acting on a discrete set of physical entities. If you know the complete initial state of a system, and you know all the rules governing the behaviour of that system, then you are able to predict that system into eternity. Now, this is obviously impractical and there are fundamental limits to how knowable a system is (see: Heisenberg's Unschärferelation), but there is nothing that happens in the world that cannot be explained in purely physical terms.

One of the things that fall out of this is that there can be no acausal behaviour: We can explain every interaction we can observe; there is nothing happening without cause. This has an impact on the question of whether or not god(s) exist: Either they do, and their actions are thus on some level traceable, or they don't.

The materialist position, in contrast to yours, doesn't have priviledged entities in it. There is no fundamental difference between the cloud of atoms that constitute me and the cloud of atoms that constitute the desk I'm sitting at; the desk's existence is not predicated on me "experiencing" it and vice versa.
Another flaw in your statement is that, from a materialist position, your definition is circular: "Existence" is the object of man's perceptions, but man is part of Existence, so Existence is ... what?

So, in conclusion: Attempting to boil down heavy philosophical topics that humanity as a whole has been debating about for as long as there has been a humanity to pithy 7-word sentences is doomed to failure. It's not an attempt at discussion, it's an attempt of ending one before it starts; it is the height of arrogance to believe that any single one of us, or even us as a group here in this forum, can manage to do what millions of people before us haven't been able to.

Now, if this were a group of fellow believers discussing things, it would be easier for you to establish this common ground you seek: we aren't, so it isn't.


PS:
I will now engage my patented powers of post prediction and predict that your (or cthia's) response to this will contain insults to my intelligence and will include vehement denials that materialism is a valid worldview.

Daryl wrote:We are all nitpicking so I may as well continue it.
The comment that "not one Christian has defected to your side" is plainly incorrect.
I was raised as a High Church, Church of England member. Basically a Catholic that responded to Canterbury rather than Rome. Latin masses and all.
Being sent to a church boarding school was an epiphany for me. Massively cruel acts led me to question what I had been indoctrinated in. I subsequently went on to be a biochemist, and a non Christian. Throughout a long life I have met many more people with similar stories.
Looking around my extended family, I have been to dozens of "naming day" parties, but only two baptisms in the past few decades.

I struggled with posting this because it may seem insensitive.

At any rate, I don't count christians who have developed a personal vendetta or grudge against the church through no fault of God's. This would include the people or their loved ones who have been mishandled by the clergy (nuns, preachers, teachers, staff, etc.), like the kids and adults who have been sexually, physically, and emotionally abused, mishandled and mistreated. Or any one of a plethora of emotional reasons that may turn a believer away. If ones toddler dies of cancer, wife dies giving birth, or any number of other horrible things that may happen in life, these are not the reasons I was referring to. Defection with the brain and not with the heart.

God is constantly being blamed for man's sins. People simply do not understand the notion and scope of free will.

At any rate, I was referencing the more learned scientists and physicists who have a vested interest in finding the truth, regardless of whether the wife ran off with the butler, or their place of worship has become soiled by sin.

Do forgive me for my bluntness.

cthia wrote:

Daryl wrote:We are all nitpicking so I may as well continue it.
The comment that "not one Christian has defected to your side" is plainly incorrect.
I was raised as a High Church, Church of England member. Basically a Catholic that responded to Canterbury rather than Rome. Latin masses and all.
Being sent to a church boarding school was an epiphany for me. Massively cruel acts led me to question what I had been indoctrinated in. I subsequently went on to be a biochemist, and a non Christian. Throughout a long life I have met many more people with similar stories.
Looking around my extended family, I have been to dozens of "naming day" parties, but only two baptisms in the past few decades.

I struggled with posting this because it may seem insensitive.

At any rate, I don't count christians who have developed a personal vendetta or grudge against the church through no fault of God's. This would include the people or their loved ones who have been mishandled by the clergy (nuns, preachers, teachers, staff, etc.), like the kids and adults who have been sexually, physically, and emotionally abused, mishandled and mistreated. Or any one of a plethora of emotional reasons that may turn a believer away. If ones toddler dies of cancer, wife dies giving birth, or any number of other horrible things that may happen in life, these are not the reasons I was referring to. Defection with the brain and not with the heart.

God is constantly being blamed for man's sins. People simply do not understand the notion and scope of free will.

At any rate, I was referencing the more learned scientists and physicists who have a vested interest in finding the truth, regardless of whether the wife ran off with the butler, or their place of worship has become soiled by sin.

Do forgive me for my bluntness.

Ah, a No True Scotsman argument. Nothing says "My position is a load of garbage" better than needing to resort to that sort of thing.