JWeinCom said:
WolfpackN64 said:
Going to respond to two at once since I finally feel like I'm reaching the end of my point in the entire thread here.
At first, the "proof" I put forward of God's existance is revelation (can be anything from ancient to modern day revelation), even thrown in a mention of personal experiance. Since that does not suffice for most people (and I understand that) and they want arguments to justify the believe in our portrayel of God, the most paramount question is whether such a being even exists at all. Hence my repeated defense of the cosmological argument.
Having reached the point where the cosmological argument is doubted, but still stands, we have now come full circle to the question: "But why is this necessary being God?". The awnser is, given the argument, we know it must be God through... revelation.
And here we have the crux of the real Christian argument. Tradition founds itself on Rational Theology, which explains that what it has learned is God through... Tradition. Just as the Atheïst critique is Empirical towards tradition, it must lean on Skepticism against Rational Theology, and eventually ends up back at Empiricism asking for proof.
We are seemingly both stuck with circular reasoning. However, the astute philosopher will see we're both arguing on Coherentist lines (in which beliefs can support each other and end up circular, but this does not have to be the case) and neither has build up any conclusive arguments to knock the other off of his foundations.
So we are both stuck without proof, our "truth" in our definition of knowledge, but we can both have justified beliefs in our arguments, which I certainly have as I have put them forward here.
At this point we can recognize the matter of God's existence is a great deal more complicated then many people brashly claim or we can dig ourselves in again and return to our trench warfare.
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Uhhhhhhh... no...
That's just not how it works.
An argument does not simply stand because it has not been disproved. I can create literally thousands of arguments that are unfalsifiable. That doesn't mean they're true.
You have to demonstrate the premises of your arguments. And when you're asked to demonstrate them, you just kind of repeat them.
The only premise you've even attempted to justify is the last one... and you did so with... revelation? In that case why even waste time with the cosmological argument? If you believe in revelation (which is not justified), then you believe in god. If you don't believe in revelation, then the cosmological argument (in the form you presented) is invalid.
Your argument isn't just circular, it's utterly useless. It can literally only prove your god to people who already believe in your god.
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I did demonstrate them. People asked to elaborate them and I explained further. I see no problem here.
People asked me to show them why a Christian God would follow from the argument, which is outside the scope of the cosmological argument, so I bring them back to revelation (every case of which can be justified or not, usually determined by external authority).
And of course everyone who actually uses the cosmological argument and rational theology believes in revelation. The argument is often used because people ask further justification for the existance of God.
I could go even deeper into the cosmological argument to show why it would end in monotheism, but a singular argument for the existance of a Christian God doesn't exist. That would require a whole coherentist build up of arguments leading into an entire worldview, at which point I'd be writing a book, not posting in a thread on a video game forum.
