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Forums - General Discussion - Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

 

Do you believe in any god?

Yes 63 36.21%
 
No 111 63.79%
 
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WolfpackN64 on 31 August 2018
JWeinCom said:

 

WolfpackN64 said:

People asked me the same question five times over. I elaborated as much as I could but I can't help it if people simply fail to understand the argument and reply with counterarguments that miss the point I was trying to make in the first place.

And no, You saw me write down this argument over and over so refrain from making simplistic statements because I'm kind of losing my patience here.

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.



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WolfpackN64 on 31 August 2018
vivster 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.

This is simply wrong as only one side is claiming proof while the other side is hypothesizing and trying to find proof. The search for proof for or against god may be complicated but the conclusions drawn from having no proof are not. The denial of believing in something without proof does not equal denying the possibility. Denying possibilities is something that you and theists do. Science does not take their own answers they got from empiric evidence and hypothesis as ultimate truth. It merely uses it as a tool and is constantly both trying to disprove or proof their own convictions. How many theists try to disprove god on a daily basis?

The difference here is that if one scientist found undeniable proof that our current foundations of physical understanding are wrong, most of them would be absolutely thrilled about it because even disproving all we know right now will bring us even closer to the actual truth. How do you think theists and their followers will react if presented with undeniable proof against god? They will just say that it's impossible to disprove god and move on with their lives, which is the worst kind of ignorance. Because they have been taught from childhood that believing in something is just as valuable as having proof for something.

It's not just about having or not having proof, or believing and not believing. It's also about what you do with your own conclusions. Believing in something without proof is alright, scientists do it all the time, with the difference being that their beliefs are a hypothesis that has no claim to absolute truth until proven.

That's the whole point of the argument. The constant hammering for definitive "proof", which neither of us can provide, just show you can't reason your way around the argument.



Rab on 31 August 2018
LuccaCardoso1 said:

I myself don't believe in any god, despite being raised in a spiritist home. That's due mostly to me also being taught to seek answers in science and have scientific thinking since I was a child (I'm also very skeptical because of that). Since there's no scientific evidence for any god, I consider myself an atheist.

You will find this interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5fINBoxons 



Cyran on 31 August 2018
Dota2Gamer said:

 

Cyran said:

My issue with this argument always been in one hand you say that every thing need to be created but then you assume a god who was not created. 

I did not assume. It was already given as stated in the bible Psalm 90:2, "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God."

Now you may be thinking, "wait a moment, that's a lousy excuse." You can take it however you like it but assuming Einstein's theory that time is relative to matter, and Bigbang is the beginning of all matter, therefore, time did not exist before Bigbang. Therefore, without Faith into the equation, the bible quote itself makes ore sense.

What I hear when someone uses the bible of proof of god is god exist because the bible says so and the bible true because god says so.  Circular reasoning does not work for me.  If that works for you am not going to debate further since it will just go in circles.  



JWeinCom on 31 August 2018
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

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JWeinCom on 31 August 2018
Dota2Gamer said:
JWeinCom said:

I'm sort of confused... I explained, I think quite clearly, that I do not necessarily reject or deny god and that most atheist don't do this either... 

 

Again, I'm following the definition. Whatever you want to call yourself, whether it's, "it's complicated", "questioning" "curious", it's fine. But I'm just following the definition.

 

JWeinCom said: 

 And you should clearly know that atheists do not necessarily deny god, since you just quoted an atheist who doesn't deny god.

David Berlinski, a renowned Scientist, does not even defend the existence of God. Rather, he criticized Atheism claiming that in order to stay scientific, one must not pretend that Science disproves God. He wrote a book, Devil Delusion in response to Richard Dawkin's God Delusion.

Words have more than one usage.  I gave you the one that I use, and the one which most atheists use.

I'm not going to argue about the definition.  Not because I'm close minded, but because it's exceedingly boring.  If you want to have a conversation, then you're gonna have to do it based on what I believe.  Cause I'm not going to defend a position that I don't hold.  



Alara317 on 31 August 2018

Here's a thought experiment: Try to argue in favour of God without assuming anyone knows what God is. Pretend there is no religion, no christianity, and no pre-conceived notions about the existence of a God. Try to go from what we know to God (like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon) without filling in any blanks of your own volition. Nothing you say can be based on assumption but based only on the science or the logical progression of things.

The closest you could ever possibly get is that there might potentially be a force out there greater than our comprehension. At most a vague possibility. I guarantee you'd not suddenly recreate christianity without manually filling in the blanks with conjecture.

The only way you can disprove religion as a whole is to remove it entirely from society. If you destroyed civilization and made us start from scratch, Science would always end up exactly where it is, eventually. No religion would be the same. That's why there are so many variants on the same idea from different regions. That's why we don't follow the Norse gods or the Greek gods of old.

So I'd love to see someone's train of thought from the information we have available to us now that would invariably lead to a sentient, omnipresent, omnipotent, benevolent god. You literally cannot do it without making shit up along the way, and that's why I don't believe in God as anything more than a metaphor for the unknown. God is, for the internet meme-culture, the ???? phase in Step 1, Step 2, ????, profit!



WolfpackN64 on 01 September 2018
Alara317 said:
Here's a thought experiment: Try to argue in favour of God without assuming anyone knows what God is. Pretend there is no religion, no christianity, and no pre-conceived notions about the existence of a God. Try to go from what we know to God (like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon) without filling in any blanks of your own volition. Nothing you say can be based on assumption but based only on the science or the logical progression of things.

The closest you could ever possibly get is that there might potentially be a force out there greater than our comprehension. At most a vague possibility. I guarantee you'd not suddenly recreate christianity without manually filling in the blanks with conjecture.

The only way you can disprove religion as a whole is to remove it entirely from society. If you destroyed civilization and made us start from scratch, Science would always end up exactly where it is, eventually. No religion would be the same. That's why there are so many variants on the same idea from different regions. That's why we don't follow the Norse gods or the Greek gods of old.

So I'd love to see someone's train of thought from the information we have available to us now that would invariably lead to a sentient, omnipresent, omnipotent, benevolent god. You literally cannot do it without making shit up along the way, and that's why I don't believe in God as anything more than a metaphor for the unknown. God is, for the internet meme-culture, the ???? phase in Step 1, Step 2, ????, profit!

The interesting this is that all cultures DO have a notion of a higher power in one way or another and many of them have overlaps in many different ways. The probability that religion wouldn't be exactly the same isn't really that telling, since human interpretations of everything tend to vary.

Start everything from scratch and our mathematics would look different for example. We would convey the same things, but our axioms and standards might be wildly different.



WolfpackN64 on 01 September 2018
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.



JWeinCom on 01 September 2018
WolfpackN64 said:
JWeinCom said:

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.

The problem is that the conclusion of your argument is that the necessary being is god.  If we agree that the argument is a deductive argument (which I think you just did but I'm not entirely sure), then the conclusion has to be proven by the premises.  At this point, there should be no need for a secondary argument.  If you reach the conclusion of your syllogism and you still need a secondary argument, then the argument is not valid.


Again to give an example of what I mean, I'll go to William Lane Craig, who is probably the foremost proponent of the cosmological argument.  

His version of the argument goes like this.

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
  2. The universe began to exist;Therefore:
  3. The universe has a cause.
I realize this is different than the argument based on necessary being, but the idea is similar (which is why they're both cosmological arguments).  At any rate, his argument is valid.  If the premises are true, then the conclusion is true without a doubt.  For argument's sake, we'll say that the premises are true.

After he establishes the conclusion, he then makes a separate inductive argument that the cause he has proved is god.  For example "if the cause created time it has to be timeless.  If it chose to create the universe it has to be intelligent".  And that sort of thing.  

Craig, as pretty much every modern theologian, has realized that you can't reach god through the cosmological argument alone.  Because the cosmological argument is indeed deductive.  So, they establish a cause or necessary being through the cosmological argument, and then create a separate inductive argument.
 
That's what I mean when I say you're mixing up the argument.  Instead of doing what Craig does and establishing a necessary being (which is a word I'd object to but w/e) through a deductive argument, and then making a separate inductive argument that being is god, you are just kind of shoehorning god in at the the end of your deductive argument.  And this makes the argument invalid and thus debunked in the form you're presenting it.  If you wanted the argument to be valid you'd have to stop at "there is a necessary being".  Then you can argue for why that necessary being is god, but that has to be a completely separate argument.