Guide on the Theistic argument

[BrokeProphet]

Alot of people on here attempt to use logic or science to justify or argue for the existence of God, for the existence of a soul or for the existence of an afterlife.

Science and logic deal in knowledge. You cannot have knowledge about something that is unmeasurable, undetectable, untestable, and you cannot have knowledge and have faith.

You have to have faith without knowledge.

There is no way to have faith in these things AND have knowledge of these things.

Been awhile since I read it, but it seems the bible, for example, talks a great deal about having faith.

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When confronted on here, or your ideas are challenged, you should say: "I don't have any evidence or proof for what I believe in, but I do have faith that the things I believe in are true."

Your argument pretty much has to consist of this:

I have faith.

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Please stop attempting to use science and logic to justify your BELIEF.

[L'Explorateur]

I can't say that I believe in God, but I think you should read the book The Language of God and then come back to this thread and edit some of the things you said.

[Yggdrasil]

BP, right now, half my family has poured in for the holidays. In total, they are 13 people; 12 Catholics and one Atheist. Can you spot my dilemma? I received 5 books on faith, God, and religion. As fun as it is to debunk every single tidbit of type, they won't let up. Let me read you an excerpt from one of the books:

"There is an expression that helps much to understand this word (faith). "Faith is an acceptance of a truth that cannot be seen nor felt. One only believes in the veracity of He who has taught it (whatever you're believing in; in this case, Christianity) It would therefore be contradicting (to belief) to first see (proof) and then accept (the truth).

It (belief) is to accept without evidence only because He who has professed it deserves merit"

The words in parentheses are of my own construct; to aid you through the esoteric text.

I don't know what to make of that excerpt. Personally, I think it is just one gigantic "self-pwn". Your thoughts?

[kurdt318]

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

"There is an expression that helps much to understand this word (faith). "Faith is an acceptance of a truth that cannot be seen nor felt. One only believes in the veracity of He who has taught it (whatever you're believing in; in this case, Christianity) It would therefore be contradicting (to belief) to first see (proof) and then accept (the truth).

Man, if I ever needed an example to demonstrate the logical fallacy of an "argument from authority", this would be it.

Originally Posted by BrokeProphet

Science and logic deal in knowledge. You cannot have knowledge about something that is unmeasurable, undetectable, untestable, and you cannot have knowledge and have faith.

So, the true atheist would declare no position at all, on any such matter, until evidence is produced in favor of it. Then would this not make any claims of death being nothingness, God not existing, and the soul imaginary, unatheistic?

[BrokeProphet]

Originally Posted by kurdt318

So, the true atheist would declare no position at all, on any such matter, until evidence is produced in favor of it. Then would this not make any claims of death being nothingness, God not existing, and the soul imaginary, unatheistic?

The only way a person can be unatheistic, it to be a theist.

Death could be any number of things, but until I see evidence of ANYTHING beyond death, I will have to assume death to be exactly what it appears to be:

Cessation.

It appears that when you die, the electrical impulses in your brain, stop. These impulses are what your brain uses to determine everything about you and everything around you. When this is gone, there appears to be nothing left of what makes you you, except a non-functioning sack of meat with eyes.

Saying death is nothingness, is then just a simplified concept based on the evidence we do have.

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As far as a God and a Soul go............

I don't flinch when walking down the road, thinking I might hit an invisible wall at any moment. I don't fear spontantous human combustion, and douse myself with water hourly. I don't fear a monster under my bed that might eat my feet when I get out of bed.

I don't see any reason to believe that any of these things exist, until I am presented with evidence to suggest otherwise. You don't either with the exception of God and Soul.

Which you believe in without any evidence.

[BrokeProphet]

Originally Posted by redzed

BP your argument hinges on a duality, a supernatural God.

There is no valid evidence for God, soul, or afterlife.

This is stone cold fact, and hinges on nothing except science, logic, reason, rationality, and fact.

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What you presented was not valid evidence for any of these three.

Showing we are all interconected on some level, is not evidence for a soul, god or afterlife. It is evidence we are all connected on some level, nothing more.

I am not sure why you present Parmenides. He presents no evidence for these things. If nothingness cannot exist, that doesnt mean a god, soul, or afterlife has to.

If every bit of matter changes forms, that does not mean the big three are real.

You read into evidence for something else, what you want to see, when you suggest otherwise. It simply is not there.

[HatterMaxwell]

Originally Posted by BrokeProphet

Alot of people on here attempt to use logic or science to justify or argue for the existence of God, for the existence of a soul or for the existence of an afterlife.

Science and logic deal in knowledge.

Everything you said is completely true, however, you lied by omission.
Science and logic do not deal exclusively in knowledge.
Much in science is based on knowledge or on other science that is also based on knowledge.
Scientific theories and most of what we think of as "science" is nothing but conjecture.
For example: Plate Tectonics is a theory based upon the theory of Continental drift, which is based upon the knowledge that there are similar plant and animal life on distant continents. Plate Tectonics assumes that heat always rises (not true), the earth's inner layers are high-pressure centers (a good idea, but not proven), and that the "mantle" of the earth is made of magma (again, just a good idea).
Most science isn't based upon knowledge, but lack of knowledge, we assume that everything anyone says is true until we replace that lack of knowledge.

I agree with you. Faith is not believing after it's proven. Faith is believing without knowing.

[killallthewhiteman]

***semantics***

[redzed]

Originally Posted by BrokeProphet

Please stop attempting to use science and logic to justify your BELIEF.

BP your argument hinges on a duality, a supernatural God. It only works if one sees oneself as seperate from all else. If you consider, that which some call God, others call intuition, instinct, higher power, higher consciousness, the greater self - science and logic do support and justify belief. Witness for science: the Aspect experiment, which shows all things are connected on an apparently transcendent level; for logic: the philosophy of Parmenides and his successors who have shown the impossibility of nothingness guarantees something must exist and that something is logically one-thing.

Who am I? How come I exist?


Come now and I will tell you – and you must spread my account when you have heard it – the only roads of enquiry to be thought of: the one of ‘is’, and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the path of Conviction (for Truth is her companion); the other of ‘is not’, and that it needs not be – that, I tell you, is a path that is altogether indiscernible. For you could not know or utter what is not (for that is impossible).


It is necessarily the case that saying and thinking are the reality. For being is and nothing is not. I bid you keep this in mind.


For surely this shall never be proved, that things which are not are. Restrain your thought from this way of enquiry.


Thinking and the thought of that which is are the same thing. For you cannot find thought without something that is, in respect of which it is uttered.


It [i.e. the path] never was, nor will be, for it is now whole, one and continuous. For what kind of origin will you seek for it? How and from what source could it have grown? I shall not let you say or think from what is not. For what is not can be neither uttered nor thought. And what need could have made it arise later rather than sooner if it began from nothing? Therefore it must either be completely or not at all. Nor will the force of argument allow anything else to come to be ever from what is not. Therefore Justice has never loosened her fetters to allow anything to come to be or pass away, but holds it fast. Our judgement concerning these things lies in this: it is or it is not. And it has been judged, as is necessary, to set aside the one [path] as unthought and unnamed (for it is no true path), and to take the other which is real and true. And how could what is be in the future? And how might it have come into being? For if it came into being, it is not, nor is it if it is going to be in the future. Thus coming into being is extinguished, and passing away unheard of.

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"....... sublime in its simplicity: only being is, since nonbeing cannot be. Being is therefore one: the collateral existence of nonbeing would have meant two, from which an infinitude of divisions would then have arisen. Now, since it is the same thing that can be thought and can be, any thought of that which is not will be impossible. For a thought of that which is not will be a thought of nothing, and hence not a thought at all. It follows, moreover, that sameness and difference can have no meaning, since it requires at least two for this to be possible, and that both time and change are illusory, since only ‘is’ is."

In addition, personal faith sometimes comes from personal experiences, those things may be valid - to that individual. This does not mean you need to accept it, but it could help develop tolerance if you recognised it.

[HatterMaxwell]

Thx redzed,
I totally agree.
The argument here is valid exclusively when it's posed to a Judeo-Christian theist.
Judaism and Christianity are the only religions that ask for blind faith.