On Proving God

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What I'm getting at is, what makes it superior or different to the rest of mankinds history?

It can't be proved via denial.

It also can't be proved via the opposite.

So maybe the very word could just be defined as that which we can not define?

Anyway so two people spawned all of us in a little garden and got kicked out for eating some apples?

Surely some of it has to be metaphor.

No matter what I still can't base my life on it, it just doesn't apply in my life, yes I've always understood that giving to people is good, but I can't be judgemental and claim that all sodomy is wrong.

My dilemma is if it was the word of god, the word of all that was and ever shall be, it would resonate with every single one of us, not some of us.

And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?"

They replied,"You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the
ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed."

And Jesus replied, "What?"

lol

The above is brilliant!



Oh and people were really short in those days, so imagine as you say it to him he's about just over waist height.

True if you assume Capriccio meant "if" to mean the same as in formal logic. In natural language, "if" can also mean "if and only if", and you can only work out whether that is the intended meaning from the context.

For example, imagine I had lent you money, you were late in paying it back, and I said "If you don't pay me immediately, I'll take you to court". You pay me immediately, so we have Not P. You expect Not Q, that I don't take you to court. If I sue you anyway, you'll be upset, because you expected that my "if" was an "if and only if", and then from the premises "if and only if P then Q" and "not P" follows "not Q".

If (and only if) I thought it were possible to prove the existence of God, I would appreciate seeing that proof, but none of the attempts at proof I have seen came even close to being persuasive. I have no objections to people looking for a proof unless they act as if they already had a proof when they don't.

Personally, I believe in God, but I don't believe in religion at all. I think it's all one god, and I do not think he requires something as blind as "faith", I think he/she/it wants us to ask questions and logically find our evidence of it. I do not believe god is a dictator-like figure as religions make him out to be either, but at the same time he/she/it can be stern, but it is a good god. God wants free thinkers, self sufficient people, and the real way to do good by him/her/it is to NOT conform, be an individual. This is, of coarse, the entire reason why we humans were given a chance to make it into the next realm, because of our ability for sentient thought and compassion, which is now being erased through propaganda by the elites (the "beast"). Religion is something the beast put out to control people and lead people astray, and in religion people often forget the basics of what it is to be human. This is just my opinion on the matter.

Formal logic can formulates arguments from common language.

Statement by Capriccio was "If......why",which is implication.
A---->B
"If and only if" is relation of equivalence.

"If...why and why...If" would be equivalence if he formed his argument in this manner,but he didn't.
In logic class you learn to formulate sentences from ordinary into formal language,to see their logical validity.

(A--->B and B--->A) is equivalence,or (A<----->B) in short.



If you say "If you don't pay me immediately(!P), I'll take you to court(Q)".
!P Q
This is !P---->Q

You pay me immediately, so we have P.

You have different antecedent,so you cannot draw conclusion Q(as you have formulated).

Entire formulation is incorrect,so you cannot draw any conclusion from it.

If you have !P---->Q and P

You cannot draw !Q from it.

Only if you negate Q you can draw negation of P (modus tollens).

Your entire argumentation is flawed.



There are proves for existence of God,therefore it is possible to prove him.




So,you have actually seen attempts to prove God,while in above argument you said "I would appreciate to see that proof".You deny first with second.


Because you are not being persuaded,by the proves,therefore there are no proves.
This is fallacy "Argument from personal belief".

There are proves,and therefore it is possible to prove God.
If someone disagree with those,that's another issue.



It's quite vane to think,because you disagree with proves,therefore they are not proves.
You generalize your own personal conviction,which is again fallacious.

Alright!

No matter how riled up we all may get, we should think of it as a beautiful thing that we can actually discuss things like this.

If I try this with my family or few remaining friends it generally goes straight over the top o their heads.


No matter what I've learned to me god is still motion, without motion you have no existence. Maybe even all existence is just different frequencies and vibration.

Motion is everywhere and nowhere is it not?

Hmmn.

Witt:
I think the point about natural language stands; definitions in math are frequently phrased as conditionals, but biconditionals are always intended.

Nonetheless, I think you bring up an interesting point about the meaning of "proof". In its simplest form, a proof implies that one ought to believe its conclusion. Belief <=> proof is not only unnatural, it demands much stronger claims about the nature of belief.

I will agree with what others have said on not needing Christians to prove His existence (also, I do not want to be limited by a Christian description of the Lord).

He is not something you can easily put your finger on. It is not something you can touch, that can be easily thought of. It is the most complex yet simplest of all reason, at least for me. What most consider Him He is not, and what He is many will never understand.

When you begin to explain, you begin to create. He becomes something. He becomes limited by human definitions. He, instead of being love, becomes hate; instead of being powerful, becomes weak. You have just created a personal Idol. You have just fashioned a Lord unto yourself.



|I am deeply motivated by my belief to the point that I refuse to speak of Him in certain situations, lest I do so vainly|

..... I personally think blind faith is ret*d, (no offense), but I do agree that a religious description of god is un-necessary. I believe in god just not religion. But I don't think god requires blind faith, I think god wants you to seek your own evidence.

I find a belief in Gd and not religion to be oxymoronic. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, and other groups are belief-systems or ways of life, at least from how I understand Religion to be defined.

I feel researching all has benefit to someone who is really interested in what everyone thought, what many think, what many feel with enough feeling to die for.

If its metaphor, some metaphors are so powerful I can be humbled and awed by them.

To me motion is God.

I have to respect all others.

That would be Not P.


I don't know what you mean here. My argument is this: The implication of Not P depends on whether the "if" is meant to be the plain logical if or the "if and only if". In natural language, "if" often means "if and only if", especially in the case of a threat. You only have reason to act on the threat if Not P implies Not Q. If I take you to court no matter what you do, then the threat should make no difference to your actions. A threat only makes sense if it's logical formulation is "iff P then Q". The example illustrates that the translation of the natural language "if" into formal logic is context dependent.


I make a distinction between attempts at proof, and an actual proof. I have also seen attempts to prove the non-existence of God. Do you suggest I should accept them just because their authors call them proofs?


No. I said I was not persuaded rather than that the arguments were definitely invalid to mark this as my personal opinion, not to imply that my personal opinion is an infallible guide to logical truth or falsehood.


I see I should have written "if" instead of "when". To clarify again, this was intended to be a short statement of my opinion that because many people happily harm others for the sake of what they consider an absolute political or religious truth, it would be good if those claims of absolute truth were examined with a bit more skepticism. Can we agree on that?

I find the ontological argument problematic because it is based on the notion of perfection. When I look at how that has been applied to the Christian God whose existence Anselm was trying to prove, I come across claims of omniscience, omnipotence, and a perfectly good being. Many people have pointed out that in the presence of widespread suffering, you can have any two out of the three, and be logically consistent, but you can't have them all. The counterargument is usually that humans can't comprehend the mind of God. But if we can't understand perfection, and the notion of perfection implying existence is a necessary step in the ontological proof, I wonder how good Anselm's proof is. Several other related arguments about the logical inconsistency of the idea of perfection as applied to God can be made.

A Wikipedia entry on the ontological argument mentions that Gasking used an analogous link between perfection and non-existence to argue for the non-existence of God:

I am not persuaded by that attempt at a proof either, but before you criticize me again, I acknowledge that it may nevertheless be true, or show up the ontological proof as paradoxical.

God isn't a way of life, god is a supreme force. The very fact that people can't devise right and wrong on their own accord without some guide post to tell them what to think or how to act says they won't make the rapture. God chose to give us a chance BECAUSE we were free thinking, sentient creatures, capable of having a soul (key word there is capable).

Uhmm? Religion, at least how I've come to understand it, means to unite or to bring back...to G-d. That is why I find it contradicting to deny religion and accept the Lord. You can devise any form of belief-system, it will not give proof to Him.


I disregard free will. G-d and free-will cannot co-exist in my opinion.

Oh, and I believe everything in this universe has a soul. If it moves, consumes, lives and dies...it has a soul.

Actually it's quite easy to prove god, what's not easy is to know that it's a "god" in a personal or human sense, not some remote abstract omni-vector kind of energy. The only possible argument for god would be that existence itself is god. That would be an inpenetrable argument, since if you derive you self-awareness from a prior existence, then ultimate existence all symmetry of all existents are derived from that one existence (god, the first mover, whatever you want to call it).