Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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@solo said:
He has taken a page from the atheist playbook...
I suspect he would suggest the difference is that he hasn't just said, 'you don't have an answer so God did it,' but rather that he's proved that within the atheistic worldview no answer can possibly exist. But I guess you're saying that he hasn't proven this and that an answer does exist even if you can't currently explain it?
-Brodie
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@ Brodie: are you getting what you're saying about logical absolutes from that page you linked to earlier? I wouldn't take that particular web page for gospel.
I mean ...
"Logical Absolutes are transcendent.
(...)
- Logical Absolutes are not dependent on people. That is, they are not the product of human thinking.
- People's minds are different. What one person considers to be absolute may not be what another considers to be absolute. People often contradict each other. Therefore, Logical Absolutes cannot be the product of human, contradictory minds.
- If Logical Absolutes were the product of human minds, they would cease to exist if people ceased to exist, which would mean they would be dependent on human minds. But this cannot be so per the previous point."
"3" is a rather shaky premise, for which no arguments are provided. It's simply stated, as if it were self-explanatory.
- Logical Absolutes are not dependent on people. That is, they are not the product of human thinking.
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This is all very interesting, however it is all pure speculation and rests upon a single card...that there is a god....for which there is absolutely no evidence. Even if there is a god, it may well be that he is not your god, with all the Judaeo-Christian-centred philosophy attendant on him.
If, indeed there is no god, then however elegant ones model for our purpose here, or what lies in store for us after death, then it's all just so much hot air and mental gymnastics.
It matters not a jot how well-argued and eloquent the case is or by whom it is put...anyone from St. Thomas Aquinas to modern day apologists like William Lane Craig. It doesn't matter how deeply it's felt, or by how many, or how fervently you wish it to be so, it is no more valid than any of the myriads of belief systems that have come and gone in different parts of the world.
PS My point about the Chinese and Logic is that they developed it from an entirely humanistic perspective. The key word there is developed. They didn't discover it, they developed it; and that development as well as parallel developments in Greece and India are well charted. Logic has a recorded history...just like mathematics.
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@unknownuser said:
@ Brodie: are you getting what you're saying about logical absolutes from that page you linked to earlier? I wouldn't take that particular web page for gospel.
I mean ...
"Logical Absolutes are transcendent.
(...)
- Logical Absolutes are not dependent on people. That is, they are not the product of human thinking.
- People's minds are different. What one person considers to be absolute may not be what another considers to be absolute. People often contradict each other. Therefore, Logical Absolutes cannot be the product of human, contradictory minds.
- If Logical Absolutes were the product of human minds, they would cease to exist if people ceased to exist, which would mean they would be dependent on human minds. But this cannot be so per the previous point."
"3" is a rather shaky premise, for which no arguments are provided. It's simply stated, as if it were self-explanatory.
In honesty, that is where most of my info regarding that particular argument has come from although I've tried to verify a few things he's said regarding the laws of logic.
It what sense do you find that premise 'shaky'? Do you feel that logical absolutes are dependent on people? Before people existed do you suppose that A might not have equaled A?
-Brodie
- Logical Absolutes are not dependent on people. That is, they are not the product of human thinking.
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@alan fraser said:
This is all very interesting, however it is all pure speculation and rests upon a single card...that there is a god....for which there is absolutely no evidence. Even if there is a god, it may well be that he is not your god, with all the Judaeo-Christian-centred philosophy attendant on him.
If, indeed there is no god, then however elegant ones model for our purpose here, or what lies in store for us after death, then it's all just so much hot air and mental gymnastics.
It matters not a jot how well-argued and eloquent the case is or by whom it is put...anyone from St. Thomas Aquinas to modern day apologists like William Lane Craig. It doesn't matter how deeply it's felt, or by how many, or how fervently you wish it to be so, it is no more valid than any of the myriads of belief systems that have come and gone in different parts of the world.
PS My point about the Chinese and Logic is that they developed it from an entirely humanistic perspective. The key word there is developed. They didn't discover it, they developed it; and that development as well as parallel developments in Greece and India are well charted. Logic has a recorded history...just like mathematics.
Can you point me to a source on what it was the Chinese logicians developed? The fact that people of different cultures were beginning to understand these things at the same time would only seem to indicate all the more that they weren't independently inventing them. We don't have Western math and Eastern math. It's just math no matter where it was that people began to understand it. We may have developed conventions around math or logic but these conventions are only a means of understanding or determining an underlying truth - ways to determine what 4x4 will be without arranging so many objects on a table, as we did in grade school.
-Brodie
Edit: to address the first part of your comment I fully agree that all this 'heaven' talk is predicated on the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. I just think that if we're going to bring it up, it's best to understand it in an accurate way. Christians do a disservice to their argument when they suggest the atheistic position is that 'men came from monkeys' and so atheists also do a disservice when they misrepresent the positions held by Christians. It is important to understand that the Christian idea of the afterlife is deeper and more attractive than where we see Wile E. Coyote go after falling off a cliff.
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Some Alberto Giacometti's quotes.
Life is only an abyss.
I no longer understand anything about life, about death, about anything.
Art is only a way of seeing. Whatever I may look at, everything is beyond me, everything surprises me. I don’t exactly know what I am seeing. It’s too complex.
It’s impossible to do a thing the way I see it because the closer I get the more differently I see it.
The human face is as strange to me as a countenance which, the more one looks at it, the more it closes itself off and escapes by the steps of unknown stairways.
I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality… to protect myself.
The more I work the more I see things differently, that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.
Artistically I am still a child with a whole life ahead of me to discover and create. I want something, but I won’t know what it is until I succeed in doing it.
All I can do will only ever be a faint image of what I see and my success will always be less than my failure or perhaps equal to the failure.
It was always disappointing to see that what I could really master in terms of form boiled down to so little.
Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working.
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@ Brodie
I was, of course, being entirely fatuous about heaven and hell. I just thought things needed lightening up a little. I'm quite sure that if heaven exists it is far more profound than my glib description. I'm equally sure that it would be far more profound than even the most fervent christian imagines it to be.
To be honest, I'd quite like the answers to all the questions we are currently asking; to have it all revealed and be able to say "Ah! so that's how the universe really works." or "Ah! so that's the purpose for which we were created."
I'd like it...but I'm reserving judgement on whether or not it's going to happen.
In terms of living our lives in the here and now, I don't think we can do any better than heed the advice of Marcus Aurelius.“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Regarding Chinese logical history, I believe it developed quite separately from that in the west...although it reached similar conclusions There is a heavy emphasis on words and names; and you don't need me to tell you that Mandarin doesn't have much in common with western languages in terms of vocabulary and structure. There's a simple introduction to it here.
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@alan fraser said:
@ Brodie
I was, of course, being entirely fatuous about heaven and hell. I just thought things needed lightening up a little. I'm quite sure that if heaven exists it is far more profound than my glib description. I'm equally sure that it would be far more profound than even the most fervent christian imagines it to be.
To be honest, I'd quite like the answers to all the questions we are currently asking; to have it all revealed and be able to say "Ah! so that's how the universe really works." or "Ah! so that's the purpose for which we were created."
I'd like it...but I'm reserving judgement on whether or not it's going to happen.
In terms of living our lives in the here and now, I don't think we can do any better than heed the advice of Marcus Aurelius.“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Regarding Chinese logical history, I believe it developed quite separately from that in the west...although it reached similar conclusions There is a heavy emphasis on words and names; and you don't need me to tell you that Mandarin doesn't have much in common with western languages in terms of vocabulary and structure. There's a simple introduction to it here.
Well put Alan.
Of course, Christians would argue with Aurelius' first point on the grounds that none of us is adequately virtuous...but that's another matter.
-Brodie
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Definitely well put Alan. However now I can't get "It's A Small World" out of my head!
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@solo said:
Yet he draws a conclusion that god exists because atheists have no answer, but no where has he linked absolute logic to a creator but rather makes the assumption that if it cannot be disproved it has to be correct.
Again, I don't think he believes he's drawing that conclusion because atheists haveno answer but because they can have no answer - that is because he's disproven that atheism can possibly account for the existence of logic. I'll admit that's a hard case to make though.
The way I see his argument is somewhat like arguing that either 2+2=4 or 2+2!=4 (where != is 'does not equal'). If we can show that the second statement is false, the first must be true. But disproving something can certainly be a 'tough row to hoe' as grandma says.
-Brodie
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Happy New Year to all of you (both a and theists
Interesting discussion. I think it makes horizons wider to all participants (who wants them to be
So it is not useless at all.
I'll bring my thoughts about last pages I wasn't here.First of all I have to say once again that most arguments from atheist here are against (someone said) "TV version" of religion (and popes version
. I agree with that arguments. The real thing is more like this:@michaliszissiou said:
Some Alberto Giacometti's quotes.
Life is only an abyss.
I no longer understand anything about life, about death, about anything.
Art is only a way of seeing. Whatever I may look at, everything is beyond me, everything surprises me. I don’t exactly know what I am seeing. It’s too complex..."Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic." For lateral thinking one need open ends, not closed. You don't think in a linear way (the way of Logic), but non-linear. This ability too keep ends opened is essential for every invention. This is also essential for creating image of God. One (scientist of religious) needs faith for this. And, as Brodie wrote The Bible is open book for us to create.
@michaliszissiou said:
Some Alberto Giacometti's quotes.
Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working.@speaker said:
...I think they are just wishful thinkers who just haven't found spiritual fulfilment outside religion yet. I also was struggling for a long time to reach this state. One of the last obstacle in my way was the question of morality. Once I found the answer, I felt as everything was in it's place and my life has found it's meaning, I finally felt... happy
@unknownuser said:
What is the answer you found regarding morality? And yes I am genuinely interested.
Me too
@alan fraser said:
PS My point about the Chinese and Logic is that they developed it from an entirely humanistic perspective. The key word there is developed. They didn't discover it, they developed it; and that development as well as parallel developments in Greece and India are well charted. Logic has a recorded history...just like mathematics.
@unknownuser said:
Can you point me to a source on what it was the Chinese logicians developed? The fact that people of different cultures were beginning to understand these things at the same time would only seem to indicate all the more that they weren't independently inventing them...
...or that they were in fact discoveries of the same thing which is inside our nature and began with logos (seems logical to me).
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Alan,
While I am not saying who invented it, I think logic as a human pastime, construct, whatever must long predate the systems you cite, just as poetry, mathematics, etc. existed before written systems were added. The Chinese and Greeks are post-civilization. So... no logic in the human experience prior to civilization? I doubt it.
(Of course without writing we can't prove it so... God must exist! The answer for everything we are not sure of.)
Peter
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@srx said:
...or that they were in fact discoveries of the same thing which is inside our nature and began with logos (seems logical to me).
Well of course they are...after a fashion. Logic is a way to organise thought processes...of creating order out of chaos. The early Chinese philosophers thought that without this kind of order, civilization was not possible at all. It was all in the name; and the way you defined something.
But there are many different types of logic...Predicate, Propositional, Foundation etc. Some deal in absolutes...such as that which governs mathematical principles, others are contingent on language. Logic simply mirrors the way our brain organises information, but that is not to say that it was planted there by any divinity. That's as much a leap of faith as any other aspect of Intelligent Design.Edit: Peter, I'm sure you're correct. It's just that these civilisations formalised the process. The Egyptians couldn't have built the pyramids thousands of years before without exercising logic as to their construction. You could also argue that the higher animals that exhibit forethought planning and strategy (in hunting for instance) are also exercising logical thought.
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@solo said:
This whole logic debate is totally new to me, I have never heard it debated or read any discussions in regards to it proving or disproving a creator.
This has got me thinking and not working today and I find it fascinating to say the least.
What exactly is logic?
Do animals have logic?
Are babies born with logic?
Is logic a result of human consciousness?
Indeed. It's much more confusing than I'd originally thought or intended. In retrospect I realize I was speaking only of a small subset of the canon of logical thought (that being those laws of logic attributed to Aristotle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought ). The argument may be more broad than just those particular laws but I find I'm overwhelmed just by taking a cursory glance through a handful of wikipedia articles.
I think because of these different aspects of logic, depending on which sort you've got in mind you'll come to different conclusions.
For example, the sort of logic I was referring to couldn't really be broken by an animal (laws of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded-middle). Likewise babies are born logical, in this sense, whether they understand it or not (it would be like asking if babies are born with the law of gravity). But I don't think that's the same sort of logic that most of us are talking about. When we say our girlfriend is illogical it means something more like 'they do and say things which contradict other things they've said or done.'
Likewise, I think this is where our discussion got off track and I failed to articulate and refine my position well. I think we'd all agree that the law of gravity was discovered rather than developed (although I'm having my doubts now if we'd even agree on this), but I was unable to reign in the specific aspect of logic I was referring to when posing a similar question about logic. It's all rather confusing at this point.
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
It's all rather confusing at this point.
Yeah.
I'll see if I can come up with an answer to your question about the laws of logic being dependent on man in the morning. My thinking cap is starting to make my scalp itch.
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
It's all rather confusing at this point.
Yeah.
I'll see if I can come up with an answer to your question about the laws of logic being dependent on man in the morning. My thinking cap is starting to make my scalp itch.
haha, that certainly paints a mental picture
-Brodie
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Good stuff
Who was the balding guy at the end, he looks familiar. Was he Tim's (Simon Pegg's) boss in Spaced?-Brodie
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That's Bill Bailey. I've not seen 'Spaced', though. I'll check it out.
If you've not seen 'Black Books', I totally recommend it. I laughed tears watching it.
Er, [/ot].
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Spaced is a must watch in my book. A sort of cult show here in the states, I'm not sure how popular it ever was over seas. It was my intro to Simon Pegg and probably my favorite thing he's in (although Shawn of the Dead is pretty great as well and also has Nick Frost as most of Pegg's movies seem to). I'm not a big british comedy fan, either but this one has so many great quotes and it's only like 3 seasons I think. I believe it's on Netflix instant watch last I checked.
I've never heard of Black Books. I'll check it out.
Bailey, is indeed Pegg's boss, Bilbo Bagshot (hahaha).
-Brodie
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