To deny God is to imply and to need to shoulder the burden of showing God impossible.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/reli...al-evidence-and-the-reasonableness-of-theism/
The reasonableness of Ethical Theism
...
Let me do a basic outline of key points:

1: A world, patently exists.

2: Nothing, denotes just that, non-being.

3: A genuine nothing, can have no causal capacity.

4: If ever there were an utter nothing, that is exactly what would forever obtain.

5: But, per 1, we and a world exist, so there was always something.

6: This raises the issue of modes of being, first possible vs impossible.

7: A possible being would exist if a relevant state of affairs were realised, e.g. heat + fuel + oxidiser + chain rxn –> fire (a causal process, showing fire to depend on external enabling factors)


8: An impossible being such as a square circle has contradictory core characteristics and cannot be in any possible world. (Worlds being patently possible as one is actual.)

9: Of possible beings, we see contingent ones, e.g. fires. This also highlights that if something begins, there are circumstances under which it may not be, and so, it is contingent and is caused as the fire illustrates.

10: Our observed cosmos had a beginning and is caused. This implies a deeper root of being, as necessarily, something always was.

11: Another possible mode of being is a necessary being. To see such, consider a candidate being that has no dependence on external, on/off enabling factors.

12: Such (if actual) has no beginning and cannot end, it is either impossible or actual and would exist in any possible world. For instance, a square circle is impossible,


One and the same object
cannot be circular and
square in the same
sense and place at the same time

. . . but there is no possible world in which twoness does not exist.

13: To see such, begin with the set that collects nothing and proceed:

{ } –> 0

{0} –> 1

{0, 1} –> 2

Etc.

14: We thus see on analysis of being, that we have possible vs impossible and of possible beings, contingent vs necessary.

15: Also, that of serious candidate necessary beings, they will either be impossible or actual in any possible world. That’s the only way they can be, they have to be in the [world-]substructure in some way so that once a world can exist they are there necessarily.

16: Something like a flying spaghetti monster or the like, is contingent [here, not least as composed of parts and materials], and is not a serious candidate. (Cf also the discussions in the linked thread for other parodies and why they fail.)


Flying Spaghetti Monster Creation of Adam

17: By contrast, God is a serious candidate necessary being, The Eternal Root of being. Where, a necessary being root of reality is the best class of candidates to always have been.

18: The choice, as discussed in the already linked, is between God as impossible or as actual. Where, there is no good reason to see God as impossible, or not a serious candidate to be a necessary being, or to be contingent, etc.

19: So, to deny God is to imply and to need to shoulder the burden of showing God impossible.

20: Moreover, we find ourselves under moral government, to be under OUGHT.

21: This, post the valid part of Hume’s guillotine argument (on pain of the absurdity of ultimate amorality and might/manipulation makes ‘right’) implies that there is a world foundational IS that properly bears the weight of OUGHT.

22: Across many centuries of debates, there is only one serious candidate: the inherently good, eternal creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of loyalty, respect, service through doing the good and even worship.

23: Where in this course of argument, no recourse has been had to specifically religious experiences or testimony of same, or to religious traditions; we here have what has been called the God of the philosophers, with more than adequate reason to accept his reality such that it is not delusional or immature to be a theist or to adhere to ethical theism.

24: Where, ironically, we here see exposed, precisely the emotional appeal and hostility of too many who reject and dismiss the reality of God (and of our being under moral government) without adequate reason.​
 
Just for argument's sake:

1. Language is composed of only metaphors.
2. With this, there are no two things that are identical. A circle is not a square AND no two circles are the same. The word circle becomes meaningless.
3. By being condemned to abstractions and metaphors we cannot really talk about truth or about the essence of anything else that exists.
4. Communication is the only way we know things (debatable) because unless communicated, knowledge is void (this is because we are looking at knowledge from a distance - the knowledge we can argue or agree about rather than unmuttered silence).
5. Language is necessary for communication.

Then back to (1). You cannot break out of the loop unless you say "Dude, what subjectivity (or objectivity - which is much worse)? This is plain murder." Maybe that's why there is something called critical theory in social sciences. Absurdly, science with some heart. Even scientists can be after a deified universalism - values and stuff.

A couple points here. "Nothing" is a metaphor so it has to refer to something ultimately. As soon as we refer to existance of something - God, nothingness, pizza, friendship, we refer to a space-time frame of reference because that is how we communicate. Every verb we use includes a delta t of physics. I guess it is humanly impossible to speak of God as God and nothingness may be one and same as the root one/universe. "Root" does not have to refer to a causal relationship as it also points to a temporal priority. Causality is a game in scientific absurdism.

I find it equally difficult to accept a rejection of God because almost all rejectors make polemical arguments much like what I did in the beginning. It is very easy to disprove them.

Oh, God.. So difficult understand or disprove..

Just for arguments sake. No point to make actually.
 
Guys :
To try to prove or disprove the existence of God rationally , logically or intellectually was just a silly ,stupid and childish habit of ancient Greeks that was taken over by christians , later on.....

God can neither be proved nor disproved that way , since one has to try to know the self by letting go of the false and illusory ego/mind , and hence transcend the latter, to get in touch with the divine within : Know thyself ,and you would know God.

God can be thus known only from within through higher levels of consciousness : the lowest level of consciousness, the sensory perceptual one , through the ego/mind cannot thus help you know God , since the ego thinks and wants to be a "god".

Try to liberate yourselves from the slavery of your own egos thus...Cheers.
 
Atheists: "Science shows there is no good reason to believe in God". Nobel Prize Winning Scientists: "The scientific evidence is best explained by the existence of God".
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/atheists-science-shows-there-is-no-good.html

Nobel Prize winners Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Brian Josephson, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes and scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, believed the scientific evidence demonstrates the existence of God or that the universe was designed:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

The Cosmological Argument for a Transcendent Designer of the Universe. The discovery that the universe is expanding, the discovery that the universe came from nothing, and the discovery that natural laws are finely tuned to make life possible, all demonstrate that the universe was created and designed by an intelligence outside the universe. The evidence for intelligent design in the origin and evolution of life shows that the designer continued to play a role in the universe long after its creation.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-cosmological-argument-for.html
Also see: Video: Doug Ell Discusses the Evidence for Intelligent Design
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/07/doug-ell-video-discusses-evidence-for.html
More on Cosmology:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_cosmology

Evidence That God Exists: People Who Have Near Death Experiences Meet God.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/09/evidence-that-god-exists-people-who.html

The Effectiveness of Prayer:
http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Leibovici2001.pdf
 
If you don't believe the proof in the opening post please point out where the flaws are. Put up or shut up.
 
If you don't believe the proof in the opening post please point out where the flaws are. Put up or shut up.

Don't be silly , please.Grow up.I am entitled to my own opinion, don't you think ? Only by looking within can one know that God does exist and more.
I have been there .I used to rely on theology , philosophy and on some scientists to find "arguments" or 'evidence " for the existence of God , but i was chasing a mirage thus.
Reason, logic , philosophy or science can't help you with that ,since they do operate , so to speak, only from the lowest level of consciousness : the sensory perceptual one, that corresponds with the lowest level of reality.
Trying to prove or disprove the existence of God through the lowest level of consciousness/reality thus is a silly , stupid and childish habit that was inherited from ancient Greece.

You can display a whole army of scientists or philosophers that would agree with you , but their take on the subject is irrelevant thus , considering the above.Cheers.
 
Causality is also a ...myth , an illusion...not to mention "objectivity"...
QM has even been challenging classical locality, classical realism as well as classical determinism : Bell's theorem and its related experiments confirmed all that.....
 
Just for argument's sake:

1. Language is composed of only metaphors.
2. With this, there are no two things that are identical. A circle is not a square AND no two circles are the same. The word circle becomes meaningless.
3. By being condemned to abstractions and metaphors we cannot really talk about truth or about the essence of anything else that exists.
4. Communication is the only way we know things (debatable) because unless communicated, knowledge is void (this is because we are looking at knowledge from a distance - the knowledge we can argue or agree about rather than unmuttered silence).
5. Language is necessary for communication.

Then back to (1). You cannot break out of the loop unless you say "Dude, what subjectivity (or objectivity - which is much worse)? This is plain murder." Maybe that's why there is something called critical theory in social sciences. Absurdly, science with some heart. Even scientists can be after a deified universalism - values and stuff.

A couple points here. "Nothing" is a metaphor so it has to refer to something ultimately. As soon as we refer to existance of something - God, nothingness, pizza, friendship, we refer to a space-time frame of reference because that is how we communicate. Every verb we use includes a delta t of physics. I guess it is humanly impossible to speak of God as God and nothingness may be one and same as the root one/universe. "Root" does not have to refer to a causal relationship as it also points to a temporal priority. Causality is a game in scientific absurdism.

I find it equally difficult to accept a rejection of God because almost all rejectors make polemical arguments much like what I did in the beginning. It is very easy to disprove them.

Oh, God.. So difficult understand or disprove..

Just for arguments sake. No point to make actually.
 
A favorite story of mine from Mevlana (Rumi)..

A father and son walks up to this artizan's store one day. I think it was a metal worker, not important. The father asks the artizan to teach his art to his son in exchange for his labors. The thing is, the kid is cross eyed, very much, and sort of low on wits. The artizan thinks he can do with a helper and somewhat reluctantly agrees. One day the master asks for the bottle of water inside the hut and sends the kid to fetch it. The kid goes and shouts out, "Which bottle master, there are two of them here."

The master shouts back: "Take one, hit the other with it, bring me the bottle that survives."

--------
Not exact wording of course.. We have two bottles here I guess. Is it God or nothing?
 
A favorite story of mine from Mevlana (Rumi)..

A father and son walks up to this artizan's store one day. I think it was a metal worker, not important. The father asks the artizan to teach his art to his son in exchange for his labors. The thing is, the kid is cross eyed, very much, and sort of low on wits. The artizan thinks he can do with a helper and somewhat reluctantly agrees. One day the master asks for the bottle of water inside the hut and sends the kid to fetch it. The kid goes and shouts out, "Which bottle master, there are two of them here."

The master shouts back: "Take one, hit the other with it, bring me the bottle that survives."

--------
Not exact wording of course.. We have two bottles here I guess. Is it God or nothing?

I have read that interersting story somewhere , maybe in "Fihi ma fihi" , discourse of Rumi by Arberry , maybe .
I am a big fan of Rumi by the way.

The human ego/ mind is way cross-eyed or myopic , illusory and false than that little boy in the story. lol

The story of prophet Abraham is very interesting on the subject :
He tried to seek God by using his mind , in many ways : when he saw the sun rising , he said : that might be god , the sunset made Abraham reject the sun as a "possible candidate " for divinity .
He used the same thinking process regarding the moon, fire ....
In utter despair and surrender , he then asked God to let him know He exists ,if He does really happen to exist , "otherwise , i am lost " said Abraham.
, then and only then God revealed Himself to him, so to speak .

Know they self thus to know God by surrendering the false and illusory ego/mind.Cheers.

index.jpg

Be Lost in the Call:

Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?

Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you've never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
Yet clean away the mud and straw,
and a mirror might be revealed.

Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.

My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
You return just as you left.
Where are the traces of my gifts?

We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.

-
"Love is a Stranger", Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1993


http://www.khamush.com/poems.html
 
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Excerpts from Love is a Stranger
Poetry of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi
Translated by Kabir Helminski




The Root of the Root of Your Self :

Don’t go away, come near.
Don’t be faithless, be faithful.
Find the antidote in the venom.
Come to the root of the root of yourself.

Molded of clay, yet kneaded
from the substance of certainty,
a guard at the Treasury of Holy Light –
come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Once you get hold of selflessness,
You’ll be dragged from your ego
and freed from many traps.
Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You are born from the children of God’s creation,
but you have fixed your sight too low.
How can you be happy?
Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You were born from a ray of God’s majesty
and have the blessings of a good star.
Why suffer at the hands of things that don’t exist?
Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You are a ruby embedded in granite.
How long will you pretend it’s not true?
We can see it in your eyes.
Come to the root of the root of your Self.

You came here from the presence of that fine Friend,
a little drunk, but gentle, stealing our hearts
with that look so full of fire; so,
come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Our master and host, Shamsi Tabrizi,
has put the eternal cup before you.
Glory be to God, what a rare wine!
So come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

The Intellectual :

The intellectual is always showing off;
The lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone, even surrounded with people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
gets nothing. He’s mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

Buy Me From My Words :

Before now I wanted
to be paid for what I said,
but now I need you
to buy me from my words.
The idols I used to carve
charmed everyone. Now I’m drunk
on Abraham and tired of idols.
An idol with no color or scent
ended my whole career.
Find someone else for the job.
A happy madman without a thought,
I have swept the shop clean.
If something enters my mind,
I say, “Leave. You’re a distraction.”
Whatever is coarse and heavy, I destroy.
Who should be with Layla?
Someone who can be Majnun.
The man holding up this waving flag
actually belongs to the other side.

http://sufism.org/lineage/rumi/rumi...laluddin-rumi-tr-by-kabir-helminski-excerpt-2
 
From the OP:
14: We thus see on analysis of being, that we have possible vs impossible and of possible beings, contingent vs necessary.

15: Also, that of serious candidate necessary beings, they will either be impossible or actual in any possible world. That’s the only way they can be, they have to be in the [world-]substructure in some way so that once a world can exist they are there necessarily.

16: Something like a flying spaghetti monster or the like, is contingent [here, not least as composed of parts and materials], and is not a serious candidate. (Cf also the discussions in the linked thread for other parodies and why they fail.)

17: By contrast, God is a serious candidate necessary being, The Eternal Root of being. Where, a necessary being root of reality is the best class of candidates to always have been.

18: The choice, as discussed in the already linked, is between God as impossible or as actual. Where, there is no good reason to see God as impossible, or not a serious candidate to be a necessary being, or to be contingent, etc.

19: So, to deny God is to imply and to need to shoulder the burden of showing God impossible.

By the same logic, there could exist any number of necessary beings (gods), and it is then incumbent on the monotheist to show that all but one are impossible.

Pat
 
God does not really care if he's proven true or not, because God believes in free will. God gave us dominion over this Earth and what we do as we please. Why? Because God gave us free will. It is our free will to choose if we serve God or Mammon. We can not serve both. If someone serves Mammon, then no matter how much definitive proof you provide will not make Mammon a God believer. The first human who did just that was Jesus Christ. Despite all the miracles he made and all the super human abilities, a lot of people still don't believe he's the son of God. And so be it, because as a true believer of God, who he or she serves for God also respects God's law of "Free Will". Which means, if you truly believe in God you would nurture and teach those who believe in God and allow him or her to get closer to God. Who he or she serves Mammon will always choose to be separate from God. This is their free will to do so. To try and convert these people to believe in God is futile and in fact a clear violation of free will.

You all have heard the old saying that "The road to hell is paved with good intention". Surely some of you have good intention to write thesis and analysis to convince the non-believers, humans who serve Mammon that there is a god. But I must tell you that the best road to take is to walk away and let these people discover God by themselves. They will after they had enough with the school of hardknocks and had served many life times through many incarnations.
 
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The universe might have a cause, but this cause could not be intelligent or rational, that is, not be God, or there could be a series of contingent beings without a necessary being.
 
The universe might have a cause, but this cause could not be intelligent or rational, that is, not be God, or there could be a series of contingent beings without a necessary being.

Paradoxical non-sense , sorry, not to mention that causality is a myth ,an illusion....as Hume used to say...

The only really logical answer to the question regarding the origin of the universe cannot but be ...God.To know that , you have to try to know the real Self , by letting go of your false and illusory ego.Cheers.
 
Paradoxical non-sense , sorry, not to mention that causality is a myth ,an illusion....as Hume used to say...

The only really logical answer to the question regarding the origin of the universe cannot but be ...God.To know that , you have to try to know the real Self , by letting go of your false and illusory ego.Cheers.

You explain why my comment is paradoxical. Causality is not a myth, but something that we assume every day. Do not you admit you caused your comment? Hume said only that the causal link is empirically unprovable, no that the causality does not exist.
 
You explain why my comment is paradoxical. Causality is not a myth, but something that we assume every day. Do not you admit you caused your comment? Hume said only that the causal link is empirically unprovable, no that the causality does not exist.

Take a closer look at your above displayed quote then, here below :

The universe might have a cause, but this cause could not be intelligent or rational, that is, not be God, or there could be a series of contingent beings without a necessary being.

What do you see ? ... endless series of contingent "beings " ... endless series of "causes ' ...without a necessary being ...while all "beings " cannot but derive their "existence or beingness" from the endless series of "beings " = "caused " by endless series of "beings " ...

You have to define what you mean by "being" also .

In fact : none or nothing has any real existence , let alone an "independent existence " , but THE source of all existence : God.

On the other hand , you also assume that "beings " have separate 'existences " , and maybe even separate "independent existences " like some sort of isolated islands , in the same fashion when one would assume that you and i do exist as separate and independent beings from the rest of the universe , while QM, for example, has proved the fact that the whole universe is interconnected , has challenged classical realism, classical locality as well as classical determinism ...

What " causes ' entanglement , for example ? according to you then ?

Furthermore : to claim that A causes B , for example is a non-sensical claim , since there are fields , forces and other physical "mediums " between the 2...
Science does also operate only within the lowest level of consciousness : ( technological tools used by scientists are just extensions of our senses) : the sensory perceptual one ( science can reveal only what consciousness can reveal , and hence the former cannot even exist without the latter) : science does operate only within the lowest level of consciousness thus that corresponds with the lowest level of reality : what we perceive to be the cause of something is just an illusion : causality is just a mental construct : that's how our minds work to make sense of 'reality " .That does not have to mean that "reality " does behave that way .

You have to climb higher in the ladder of consciousness , so to speak, to know what i mean.Thanks.Cheers.
 
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Causality is an abstraction. On that we would all agree I think. It works through making things discrete, embodying them with boundaries. It may be empirically convenient, but truth? God does not have to exist. Because when we use the word, we make an abstraction.

This cannot end for anyone....
 
What do you see ? ... endless series of contingent "beings " ... endless series of "causes ' ...without a necessary being ...while all "beings " cannot but derive their "existence or beingness" from the endless series of "beings " = "caused " by endless series of "beings " ...

It is possible that the existence has no reason to be ultimately. Absurd? Maybe, but who tells you that reality is not ultimately absurd? And if we accept your argument, that leads to God is the necessary being but not that this being is rational, intelligent or worry about us.

On the other hand , you also assume that "beings " have separate 'existences " , and maybe even separate "independent existences " like some sort of isolated islands , in the same fashion when one would assume that you and i do exist as separate and independent beings from the rest of the universe , while QM, for example, has proved the fact that the whole universe is interconnected , has challenged classical realism, classical locality as well as classical determinism ...

I do not assume that, my point about causality still maintain.
 
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