I Can Prove God

[nameless]

Originally Posted by MySiddhi

(A1) Propositions cannot be both true and false. (Parmenides)
The axiom of non-contradiction is required to prove anything at all.

If your whole house of cards is built upon a refuted 'law' (Parmenides was incorrect, evidenced so by quantum theory's double slit experiment), then I need read no further. The rest will likewise fall. No, you cannot 'prove' anything, definitively, conclusively, universally. Period. Especially depending on some 'law' that seems to only have a 'local' status at best.
Neither can your 'god' be so proven, nor anything else.
(Last I heard, anyway, 'god' is not a 'thing'.)

*************
Is a 'tautology' not an error (why would you brag about your practice thereof)?:

tautology

This is the name for a particular fault in expression, the unnecessary duplication of an idea using different words. In the phrase: the former musical glories of an earlier time, former is not needed; it means 'of an earlier time'. In the phrase: the circumstances surrounding her death, the word circumstances already means conditions surrounding, so it should be followed simply by of. Here are some further examples.


a new innovation; an amazing marvel; return the book back to the library; at this moment in time; the one single reason; the single most quoted reason; make a beeline straight there; an added bonu.

It is noticeable that many tautological expressions are clichés. They come ready made along tired old grooves of expression. The reader may well wonder whether tired expression means tired ideas.

Some tautologies arise because the writer does not know the precise meaning of a word. An innovation, for example, is a 'new' idea or way of doing something, not just an idea or practice.

It is quite easy to introduce tautologies into a piece of writing when you are searching among various similar phrases for a way to express an idea, so it is wise to look out for them when you are checking a piece of writing.

© From the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia.
Helicon Publishing LTD 2008.

So, for me, I need read no further, than your above referenced quote, for your proposition of 'Proof' to have already failed.

Since you see need to post your erroneous 'proof' in multiple places, you might expect me to reply sometimes. Perhaps I can just save the response and multiple post it along with your multiple posts?
And link people to the necessary discussion including the howls of the 'believers' to my suggestion that the 'sacred' (so called) laws of (identity, objectivity, etc..) empiricism have been toppled...

Peace

[MySiddhi]

Originally Posted by DrZoidberg

Well, I am trained in formal logic. It's just reformulated arguments you've heard a million times already. I didn't see anything new.

It starts with the assumption God is restrained by logic.... which an omnipotent God isn't, since it created logic... along with everything else.

But let's say for sake of argument that God is. Any of the omnipotence paradoxes invalidates it. Just take your pick. They all do a wonderful job of it.

...and then you're in the mess of trying to prove which religion/sect this is proof for. Even if you manage to somehow ignore the omnipotence paradoxes you're not better off than no knowledge at all. It's impossible from any valid evidence for the existence of an omnipotent force to tie it to any specific religion/sect.

Just because scientists are pretty clueless to our origins doesn't give any added weight to any religious theory. We just have to accept that at best we're just guessing. It's about hedging bets. Nothing wrong with that...but please don't claim you can "prove God". It's just intellectually dishonest.

...and since anything omnipotent is unrestrained by logic there's no way to work out or understand anything about it. Which equally defeats faith in it because you can impossibly understand what it is you're having faith in.

Questions on that?

God is restrained by himself. Stoics call God the Logos... from which we get our English word logic.


IF omnipotence is all-power-full and we use the scientific definition of power as I have highlighted it;

Then we have solved the paradox thus;


Can God create a rock that he cannot lift?

No, God cannot do anything contrary to his nature. Creating anything involves the transformation of energy, and moving anything requires the transformation of energy. God is an infinite energy and a rock which inherently has finite form cannot exist in an infinite substantial state. Therefore God cannot create a rock that he cannot lift.

[MySiddhi]

Originally Posted by nameless

If your whole house of cards is built upon a refuted 'law' (Parmenides was incorrect, evidenced so by quantum theory's double slit experiment), then I need read no further. The rest will likewise fall. No, you cannot 'prove' anything, definitively, conclusively, universally. Period. Especially depending on some 'law' that seems to only have a 'local' status at best.
Neither can your 'god' be so proven, nor anything else.
(Last I heard, anyway, 'god' is not a 'thing'.)

*************
Is a 'tautology' not an error (why would you brag about your practice thereof)?:



So, for me, I need read no further, than your above referenced quote, for your proposition of 'Proof' to have already failed.

Since you see need to post your erroneous 'proof' in multiple places, you might expect me to reply sometimes. Perhaps I can just save the response and multiple post it along with your multiple posts?
And link people to the necessary discussion including the howls of the 'believers' to my suggestion that the 'sacred' (so called) laws of (identity, objectivity, etc..) empiricism have been toppled...

Peace

What does the law of non-contradiction have to do with the double slit experiment?

You are welcome to provide a single example of a proposition that is both true and false in the same respect at the same time! By the way, that would actually falsify the law of non-contradiction.


When someone is writing a rhetorical piece such as a novel or a newspaper or other such rhetoric a tautology would be out of place.

However, when one is writing a proof... a logical tautology is logical truth. No one can create a proof without using tautologies. In propositional calculus a tautology is a theorem. And any propositional formula that is a logical tautology is formally necessarily true.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by neo-anchorite

Aedes correctly points out that there is a certain gap between any logical conclusion and existence but for me that still misses the point...Could a logician have persuaded Abraham that he ought to sacrifice his son? Would Abraham ever have sacrificed his son for the sake of logical consistency?

No. So I'm not missing the point of faith at all. The contention that God can be proved logically, however, is a contention that faith is worthless without logical support.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by nameless

Is a 'tautology' not an error

No, it's not. Tautologies are closed logical systems. For instance, if you claim that 1+1=2 is some sort of transcendent truth, I can easily respond that 1+1=2 simply because that is one way of defining 2. (which could also be defined as 0.1 + 1.9). There is no external reference.

[neo-anchorite]

Originally Posted by Aedes

The contention that God can be proved logically, however, is a contention that faith is worthless without logical support.

Should the logical argument for the existence of God not begin with something to convince the skeptics (amongst whom we find Kant and Kierkegaard) who doubt whether God NEEDS a proof in logic.

Is faith - human faith - really the sort of thing that is worthless without logical support?

Kierkegaard, for one, was convinced that the most fundamental religious ideas were absurd from the standpoint of the sort of reason being expounded in the logical argument on this forum. "I am mortal and I am not mortal (because immortal - assuming the immortality of the soul, which is my essence, presumably)" is a way of summing up one crucial Christian idea which is clearly absurd.

For Kierkegaard, faith requires a leap beyond such logic otherwise it is never really faith - a passionate belief in a God who was also not a God (because he became flesh).

Was he wrong? Will logic, in the end, do the trick?

"Nothing is nothing"

"Nothing is ..."

"Nothing IS ..." Hmmm?

But if nothing is, is it not therefore something?

Of course Sartre spent a few pages dwelling upon the ways in which nothing is (or can be) something (which doesn't make sense as a logical proposition but does as a paradoxical summary of a phenomenological fact that we take note of absences - an absence can be something for us, not just nothing).

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by neo-anchorite

Should the logical argument for the existence of God not begin with something to convince the skeptics (amongst whom we find Kant and Kierkegaard) who doubt whether God NEEDS a proof in logic.

Let me first say that it's grossly naive to think that someone truly skeptical about the existence of God would be convinced by logic. I can prove to you that I'm wearing shoes by showing you my feet. That's how you convince a skeptic.

Someone like Kierkegaard, who endorses the legitimacy of religious belief from faith alone, does not require logical proof, right? They'll still believe without it.

Is faith - human faith - really the sort of thing that is worthless without logical support?

Are you asking my opinion about it? I think that we have faith in many things without logical support and faith is very useful. It's what keeps my patients hopeful even when odds are against them. But for someone else who feels the need to logically prove the existence of God, like a Duns Scotus or an Anselm, faith is insufficient.

Kierkegaard, for one, was convinced that the most fundamental religious ideas were absurd from the standpoint of the sort of reason being expounded in the logical argument on this forum.

And people before him felt that way too, esp Spinoza.

Was he wrong? Will logic, in the end, do the trick?

For those who feel that logic in a vacuum somehow can prove something about the external world. But if you look closely, people who PROVE something using logic are almost certainly just rationalizing a pre-existing belief. In this way it becomes a kind of highly precise sophistry.

[neo-anchorite]

Originally Posted by Aedes

Let me first say that it's grossly naive to think that someone truly skeptical about the existence of God would be convinced by logic. I can prove to you that I'm wearing shoes by showing you my feet. That's how you convince a skeptic.

Just to clarify: the skeptics previously referred to (Kant and Kierkegaard) were Chrisitians (no skepticism there) who were nevertheless skeptical about the relevance of logic to faith.

The point I was trying to make comes from recently being impressed by Kierkegaard's ideas that truth (religious Truth) is subjective and that genuine faith cannot rest upon a rational system of thought - the implication being that before we devote days/weeks/years/a lifetime to developing a watertight logical argument that is supposed to provide some kind of rational foundation for religious belief there needs to be some kind of phenomenology of faith to clarify what sort of "thing" it is and thereby clarify the relevance of logic to religion - to clear the way for the logical argument (if indeed one is needed) otherwise the argument begs the question and simply assumes (as does your reference to your shoes) that my belief in God is the same sort of thing - the same sort of phenomenon - as my belief that your feet exist.

By the way, there is no need to remove your shoes. I believe you!!

[iconoclast]

You cannot say 'nothing implies nothing...' it's false, as I told you in another forum. You didn't reply - but went right ahead and posted it here without addressing the issue. Typical religionist.

iconoclast.

[MySiddhi]

I of course disagree on the issue of faith with Kierkegaard and others.

I do not have faith that God exists. And if I ever believed in God without actually knowing how to formally prove it, it was due to intuition.

For me I only have faith in a two things involved with belief... such as a resurrection hope... and that of God's kingdom.

Beyond that, faith to me is magik. When ever I use faith, I use it to intentionally create the future.