Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

[JWeinCom]

WolfpackN64 said:

JWeinCom said:

 

I edited my last post to better illustrate my point, but I may as well put it here since it works as a response to this anyway. Just a couple of points first.

1.  Maybe if people keep asking you, your answer doesn't actually answer the question?  Either we're all too dumb to understand it or your answer sucks.  Personally, I'm thinking the latter.

2.  I'm not sure what simplistic statement you're referring to...anyway...

You cannot say your argument has true premises, and is still in doubt.  If you have premises that you've demonstrated, and the structure of the argument is valid, then the argument is true.  If you acknowledge that there are still doubts about your argument, then either one or more premise is not supported, or the structure is invalid.  Unless you're claiming the argument is actually proven though, one of those problems has to exist.  I'd personally say it's the premises, because your "justification" of the premises has been to repeat some variety of "god is necessary" which is the conclusion of your argument.  Using the conclusion to support your premises is question begging.  

As for the Christian god being outside the scope of the argument... no.  You made that the conclusion of your argument.  How can you say the conclusion of your argument is outside the scope of the argument?  That's nonsensical.  Which is why most proponents of the cosmological argument are wise enough to end it at first cause.  

I'm sorry if you're losing your patience, but logic has rules.  If you want to present a logical argument, expect people to hold you to them.

Edit:

I'm going to give a more detailed description because I'm trying to distract myself from something.  But maybe people will learn more about logic.

If you're presenting a formal logic argument, then it has to be proven or not proven.  Its closer to math than philosophy in that regard.  There's no real middle ground to be had.

For an argument to be true or to "stand" it needs to be valid and sound.

Valid means that the conclusion will follow the premises, assuming the premises are true. 

For example...

P1: All Sony first party games suck.

P2: Uncharted is a first party game.

C:  Uncharted sucks.

This is a valid argument.  If the premises are both true, the conclusion would have to be true.  Of course, someone will likely point out the flaw that P1 can not really be demonstrated. But, whether or not the premises are actually true has nothing to do with validity.   The truth of the premises is all about soundness.

Sound means that an argument is valid + the premises are all true.  So, this argument would not be sound because I could not realistically justify P1.  

An example of a sound argument would be. 

P1:  The 3DS game plays all DS games.

P2:  Nintendogs is a DS game.

C:  The 3DS can play Nintendogs.

That argument is both valid and sound. All of the premises could be demonstrated (unless there are some DS games I'm unaware of that won't play on a 3DS... but for the sake of convenience lets pretend Guitar hero DS doesn't exist), and the conclusion follows from the two premises.  

So, is your argument valid? Nope.

Your conclusion is "6) This necessary being is God."

 For your argument to be true, this conclusion has to be demonstrated by the premises and the premises alone.  You can use outside information to demonstrate the premises, but you can't use any outside information to prove the conclusion.  Because the whole point of the argument is that the premises prove the conclusion.  So when you say,    

"But why is this necessary being God?". The awnser is, given the argument, we know it must be God through... revelation.

You have just invalidated your own argument.  Your conclusion IS that the necessary being is god.  If that's your conclusion than it HAS to be true based on the premises.  If you need to invoke revelation to support that, then that defeats the whole purpose of the argument.   You claim that your argument demonstrates "this necessary being is god" then later you're asking "why is this necessary being god".  If you still have to ask, then you obviously did not prove it. If your premises do not lead to your conclusion, then your argument is not valid.

Is your argument sound?

Again, I'd say no.  I think I could object to all of the premises (except maybe 2) but if I can invalidate one then the argument is debunked.  Let's focus on 3 and 4.

"3) We can follow this chain backwards in time, since in the future, it goes on for eternity."

This is simply malformed.  It is wrong on two grounds.  First off, just because something goes on for eternity does not necessarily mean it is past finite.  Secondly, I don't know if the chain of cause and effect goes on forever.  I believe most physicists believe the universe will have some kind of ending.  Third, I don't see how one 

follows the other.  If we find the future ends at some point, we'd still be able to follow the chain backwards, right?  So... I don't really get the purpose of this premise, and it seems like it needs to go back to the workshop.  So the argument in this form is debunked.  You may be able to change the wording and rebunk it, but it is not sound as it stands. 

4) To start the chain, in the beginning, there must be a necessary being. One that causes but is naut caused itself.

This one is waaaaaaay more problematic.  To start the chain their must be a CAUSE.  That's something we can maybe accept.  But you didn't say cause, you said BEING.  A being refers to something that is alive, or at least has life-like qualities, and typically implies intelligence.  And I'm sorry, you simply haven't demonstrated that.  Like, at all.  There's no reason, according to your premises, that the cause can't be a non-being.  A particle, an energy surge, a quantum fluctuation, etc.  If you want to say it is a being, then you need to somehow prove that, and I don't think you can.  This is similar to the problem in your conclusion.  

When you say things like 

Having reached the point where the cosmological argument is doubted, but still stands,

you are showing a complete misunderstanding of formal logic and syllogisms.  If your argument is valid and sound, there can be NO room for doubt.  The only way someone could doubt a true argument (syllogism) is if they themselves are irrational.  

Otherwise, if there is doubt, then the syllogism is not proven.  It could be either not valid (the conclusion doesn't follow the premises) or not sound (the premises are not demonstrated).  In your case it is both.  

Consider it debunked.

*Sigh* Well, here I go again.

To start, don't give me logic 101, I study moral scienced, logic is part of my curriculum. You nicely explained how deductive reasoning works, you kind of forgot inductive and abductive reasoning, which the argument uses. The argument's premises can very well be true and the conclusion false. The latter part we don't know. So the argument stands, once again. Don't try to give me deductive reasoning 101 again, it's just not applicable here. If we had a deductive reasoning, this wouldn't be a debate.

And don't mistake me giving ground for counterarguments as "doubt". It's nothing more then epistemic modesty, which is a virtue in and off itself. Nothing more, nothing less.

And how did you end up missng my point again? Revelation is NOT invoked to say that the being from this argument is a necessary being, which the argument claims it's God. Revelation only specifies this is the Christian God. That's how coherentism works. Multiple arguments will need to support each other to get somewhere specifically.

And your last two points just further go to demonstrate you can't just grasp the argument. Open Stanford Encyclopedia and read the argument, because I'm not going to spoonfeed it to you.

I'm kind of tired of people trying to feed me definitions just because you people have no idea how proper philosophy works. As for this thread, I'm done. I demonstrated my point and I drive my stake in the ground here. There'll be other opportunities for us to discuss this again, but for now, I'm done.

The argument stands.

I forgot inductive reasoning, because you presented a deductive argument.  Premises leading to a conclusion is a deductive argument.  If your premises can be true and your conclusion false... then I don't know what good the argument is.  

You could tack on an inductive argument after you've proven something with deductive reasoning.  That's what William Lane Craig does.  He uses the Kalam, then goes on to, "if there is a cause what do we know about the cause" and THEN goes on to make his inductive case for the cause being god.  But you've just kind of jumbled them up into one argument, and that's a problem.  

I don't believe I said anything about using the bible to prove the being is necessary.  I said you used revelation to prove that it's god.  That is a problem because you include god in your conclusion.  This is why pretty much every version of the comsological argument I've seen does not include god in the actual argument.  

I actually did look in the Stanford encyclopedia. Which does not contain your version of the argument.  It contains this.

The Deductive Argument from Contingency

The cosmological argument begins with a fact about experience, namely, that something exists. We might sketch out the argument as follows.

1. A contingent being (a being that if it exists can not-exist) exists.
2. This contingent being has a cause of or explanation^[1] for its existence.
3. The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
4. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
6. Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists cannot not-exist) exists

First off, we'll notice that they list it as a deductive argument. Which means my logic 101 lesson was both apt and necessary.  :)  Secondly, you'll notice that they don't include god in the premise or the conclusion.  They also list the Kalam which again does not list god in any premise or conclusion.  Maybe you should double check the site, because it seems to go against what you're saying. 

It could be that we plebeians are simply too feeble minded to grasp the greatness of your argument.  But I pointed out flaws and your response is to point me to a source that does not include your version of the argument, and indeed includes a version that avoids the obvious fallacies I pointed out.  That's kind of telling.

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 31 August 2018