ddunbar, thanks for your explanations. Right, so are you saying God can or cannot exist because no cogent argument can be made? Nevertheless regardless of that, it will still have no bearing at all on whether God or not. Only existence will do that. And in the context you put forward, God is a subset of Existence. Without it God doesn't exist. You do agree you can't define God into existence?? However, anything which comprises of "existing infinitely in all modes of existence"... presupposes existence is available to it. God needs existence to exist by whatever description you define God to be in. Defining God's abilities defines what God does or is. That defines God. But your defining of it has no authority over its actual existence. For it to actually exist it would necessitate existence itself not an explanation or definition.. No matter how much you define what it is capable of or what it is or does, - that will alter its actual state of existence not one bit. To define it as existing you must first above all , presuppose existence. Existence is existence. God is God otherwise we would not have the word. Ok define God as first cause, but you are only once again presupposing existence so that God can exist (or Did exist ) to be defined as the first cause. Even if God existed as the cause of existence (umm ), that still presupposes existence. Existence is the totally essential primary principal for anything to first exist, not God. You were saying about first causes ??? Existence itself is THE only principal irreducible essential for ALL things to exist. God doesn't do it, "He" needs it to exist as much as you or I. Existence itself is the thing
Stu, I do understand where you are coming from. I'm not discounting it entirely. My issue is if God is defined as having no beginning and no end, yet, what we know of as existence is stated as having at a minimum, a beginning, I cannot embrace the notion of God "needing" existence in the sense that God presupposes existence. Existence is relative in the sense that an observer can recognize something as existing or being. Self-awareness is relative to the recognition of things existing other than yourself. God who "existed" before he created anything, if you can speak of such things without a basis in time, was always self aware. That's paradoxical considering how we define self-awareness. We are not self-aware in a proverbial vacuum. Our self-awareness presupposes existence because we recognize that things exist via our five senses. In any event, in the context in which you are using existence, as simply a state of being, you could say that God presupposses existence. It's not as if you're saying existence was before God since it doesn't appear that you are attempting to make that argument not even for argument's sake. If God is said to have no beginning, then existence and God go hand in hand. In essence nothing can exist without God. As God could not exist without the concept of existence. If I'm misreading or mistating you, please clarify.
My two contributions to this thread: 1. Belief in God takes a leap of faith; but to not believe takes a MUCH bigger leap of faith. 2. One must be careful when talking about God to NOT limit God to the size of one's own brain.
Since existance is the "state or act of existing" And Knowledge is "The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning" The matter must rest based on ones owns presuppositions. Existance is not reliant upon reason. The state of being is independant of perception or logic. I stand by my original statement. Now can we examine the evidence for God?
Not to pick nits, but would you please stop misspelling the word existence. It's annoying. p.s. might as well mention independent also
When you say existence has a minimum , a beginning , aren't you actually referring to specific objects or things which have beginning, rather than existence itself ? My argument is that God needs existence to exist. For whenever you propose something exists, you must presume existence is available to it. It's not the state of the object that ultimately conditions whether something exists, it is existence itself being available if you like, that is the primary condition required. Recognizing things exist has no consequence on existence itself. Existence does exist period - and that is why God can exist. No existence - no God, is why I say God is dependent on existence. When you propose God ( sorry to harp on, but you must presuppose existence to do that ) and existence go hand in hand, aren't you only really suggesting that God must require existence? Letting go of the hand of existence would leave God non-existent surely ? From that you then jump over to "nothing can exist without God". But apparently God cannot exist without existence, as you say existence and God go hand in hand . That makes God dependant I think.
So Aapex your point is? All you seem to be doing is agree (again). Proposing God, presupposes existence. God does not exist unless you presuppose - the "state or act of existing" - Existence. Examining the evidence for God presupposes God exists. It's a big jump at this stage, but I'm in no doubt after reading your posts it's one you are keen to make, given the restriction 'existence-exists' bestows upon God.
Proof #7 - Understanding religious delusion Let's imagine that I tell you the following story: There is a man who lives at the North Pole. He lives there with his wife and a bunch of elves. During the year, he and the elves build toys. Then, on Christmas Eve, he loads up a sack with all the toys. He puts the sack in his sleigh. He hitches up eight (or possibly nine) flying reindeer. He then flies from house to house, landing on the rooftops of each one. He gets out with his sack and climbs down the chimney. He leaves toys for the children of the household. He climbs back up the chimney, gets back in his sleigh, and flies to the next house. He does this all around the world in one night. Then he flies back to the North Pole to repeat the cycle next year. This, of course, is the story of Santa Claus. But let's say that I am an adult, and I am your friend, and I reveal to you that I believe that this story is true. I believe it with all my heart. And I try to talk about it with you and convert you to believe it as I do. What would you think of me? You would think that I am delusional, and rightly so. Why do you think that I am delusional? It is because you know that Santa is imaginary. The story is a total fairy tale. No matter how much I talk to you about Santa, you are not going to believe that Santa is real. Flying reindeer, for example, are make-believe. The dictionary defines delusion as, "A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence." That definition fits perfectly. Since you are my friend, you might try to help me realize that my belief in Santa is a delusion. The way that you would try to do that is by asking me some questions. For example, you might say to me: "But how can the sleigh carry enough toys for everyone in the world?" I say to you that the sleigh is magical. It has the ability to do this intrinsically. "How does Santa get into houses and apartments that don't have chimneys?" I say that Santa can make chimneys appear, as shown to all of us in the movie The Santa Clause. "How does Santa get down the chimney if there's a fire in the fireplace?" I say that Santa has a special flame-resistant suit, and it cleans itself too. "Why doesn't the security system detect Santa?" Santa is invisible to security systems. "How can Santa travel fast enough to visit every child in one night?" Santa is timeless. "How can Santa know whether every child has been bad or good?" Santa is omniscient. "Why are the toys distributed so unevenly? Why does Santa deliver more toys to rich kids, even if they are bad, than he ever gives to poor kids?" There is no way for us to understand the mysteries of Santa because we are mere mortals, but Santa has his reasons. For example, perhaps poor children would be unable to handle a flood of expensive electronic toys. How would they afford the batteries? So Santa spares them this burden. These are all quite logical questions that you have asked. I have answered all of them for you. I am wondering why you can't see what I see, and you are wondering how I can be so insane. Why didn't my answers satisfy you? Why do you still know that I am delusional? It is because my answers have done nothing but confirm your assessment. My answers are ridiculous. In order to answer your questions, I invented, completely out of thin air, a magical sleigh, a magical self-cleaning suit, magical chimneys, "timelessness" and magical invisibility. You don't believe my answers because you know that I am making this stuff up. The invalidating evidence is voluminous. Now let me show you another example... Another Example Imagine that I tell you the following story: I was in my room one night. Suddenly, my room became exceedingly bright. Next thing I know there is an angel in my room. He tells me an amazing story. He says that there is a set of ancient golden plates buried in the side of a hill in New York. On them are the books of a lost race of Jewish people who inhabited North America. These plates bear inscriptions in the foreign language of these people. Eventually the angel leads me to the plates and lets me take them home. Even though the plates are in a foreign language, the angel helps me to decipher and translate them. Then the plates are taken up into heaven, never to be seen again. I have the book that I translated from the plates. It tells of amazing things -- an entire civilization of Jewish people living here in the United States 2,000 years ago. And the resurrected Jesus came and visited these people! I also showed the golden plates to a number of real people who are my eye witnesses, and I have their signed attestations that they did, in fact, see and touch the plates before the plates were taken up into heaven. Now, what would you say to me about this story? Even though I do have a book, in English, that tells the story of this lost Jewish civilization, and even though I do have the signed attestations, what do you think? This story sounds nutty, doesn't it? You would ask some obvious questions. For example, at the very simplest level, you might ask, "Where are the ruins and artifacts from this Jewish civilization in America?" The book transcribed from the plates talks about millions of Jewish people doing all kinds of things in America. They have horses and oxen and chariots and armor and large cities. What happened to all of this? I answer simply: it is all out there, but we have not found it yet. "Not one city? Not one chariot wheel? Not one helmet?" you ask. No, we haven't found a single bit of evidence, but it is out there somewhere. You ask me dozens of questions like this, and I have answers for them all. Most people would assume that I am delusional if I told them this story. They would assume that there were no plates and no angel, and that I had written the book myself. Most people would ignore the attestations -- having people attest to it means nothing, really. I could have paid the attesters off, or I could have fabricated them. Most people would reject my story without question. What's interesting is that there are millions of people who actually do believe this story of the angel and the plates and the book and the Jewish people living in North America 2,000 years ago. Those millions of people are members of the Mormon Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. The person who told this incredible story was a man named Joseph Smith, and he lived in the United States in the early 1800s. He told his story, and recorded what he "translated from the plates", in the Book of Mormon. If you meet a Mormon and ask them about this story, they can spend hours talking to you about it. They can answer every question you have. Yet the 5.99 billion of us who are not Mormons can see with total clarity that the Mormons are delusional. It is as simple as that. You and I both know with 100% certainty that the Mormon story is no different from the story of Santa. And we are correct in our assessment. The invalidating evidence is voluminous.