Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

[WolfpackN64]

JWeinCom said:

WolfpackN64 said:

*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.

I'll give you that my deductive and inductive reasons became scrambled, just a slip of the mind.

And my point remains. You asked why this necessary being was God and I provided a secondary argument, which you saw as mixed up into the first? I think we took a wrong turn somewhere in our discussion.