Is God imaginary? One example

[Shoes]

ok ok ok ... pasta you win. i don't believe anymore. now go away

[pastafari]

(06-05-2011 08:53 PM)Annie Moose Wrote:  All of those studies you mentioned focused purely on physical benefits. God gives us spiritual ones, which are far better.

How do you know this? One example of benefits you get from believing that I cannot get from disbelieving?

Shoes Wrote:ok ok ok ... pasta you win. i don't believe anymore. no go away

Somehow I don't believe you. Either way, I'm not here to convert anyone. If you guys at least think about why you believe, and critically examine your beliefs (and I think some of you have tried) then I have succeeded in my goals of coming on here.

I think asking "Why do I believe what it is I believe?" is a great question. The truth has no fear of questions. The truth gets revealed even brighter the more it is questioned as the more answers we get.

[Annie Moose]

Pasta, I have thought very deeply about why I believe. I have critically examined my beliefs many times. There was a time in my life when I even said there was no God--a thankfully brief period! I'm sure many others on here have done similar things. In fact, I often ask myself why I believe things I believe--not just the big, general questions like "does God exist?" and "is the Bible true?", but specific questions about specific beliefs. I can't imagine any other way to live! If you don't step back every once in a while and ask those questions, you're going to end up like the fundies we (gently) mock so much--blindly following beliefs just because some guy in a shiny suit shouted it from behind a podium.

Don't assume that just because people hold different beliefs than you that they haven't thought about them deeply.

[Mommy2Kids]

Why is this jackwagon here?

[JordanMaria]

(06-06-2011 07:45 AM)Mommy2Kids Wrote:  Why is this jackwagon here?

bwahahahahaha! I've never heard of "jackwagon" before. That's funny!

[Shoes]

Pasta,
I am sorry I was being facetious. I still believe in God. Let me tell you why. I met him. No not in the physical sense, but I did meet him. I prayed (I know you don’t think prayer “works”) and my prayer was answered. It wasn’t a “My little piggy toe hurts, please make it better.” It was more of the “God I can’t do it anymore. I literal can’t go on anymore, and I need your help” variety.

At that point there was a serious, significant change in my existence/ being/ consciousness. You can not argue with that. No matter what you say, no matter how many scientific studies you present to me, I know what happened to ME. What do I have to gain by lying about this to you? I was content talking to others on this site who share this common experience. You came to this board with your questions and opinions. We did not seek you out, you sought us out. We might not have the “scientific” answers to your questions, but until quantum theory was presented, there were no explanations to why sub-atomic particles acted in the manner they do [is it a wave or a particle?].

You do not know within the next 100 – 150 years, a scientific study or a piece of equipment will be invented/discovered that will prove our statements making them verifiable. You argue as if science is king. Science is one of the most fluid fields of study that exist. Even the most elementary or basic laws of science have broken down in the last 100 – 150 years. Mass is relative, time is relative. These were thought to be “constant” for millennia but as our knowledge has grown, we have found this to be untrue. How can you say with 100% certainty there is no God/ He is imaginary/ fill in your question? I say we don’t have the means to accurately observe, record and categorize GOD yet. I don’t think that day will come either, IMHO. A God that can be known/ understood/ explained is no God at all.

Read Gödel and the Bible.

[The Singular Observer]

Well, Pastafari, you are quite obviously doing "atheist evangelism" here. We have clearly shown before that you muddle your terminology, and that your line of reason is sohomoric at best, and that your grasp of logic is fairly primitive. That being said, here are some questions yo can answer to redeem yourself:

1. What would constitute, in your mind, a proof for the eixtence of transendence / transcendent beings / deities ?
2. Define faith.
3. Define your epistemological basis, so that we understand from what your angle you are coming from.\
4. What is your ontological framework?
5. Answer Godel's Proof of the existence of God, which we put to you in an earlier thread.

[Mommy2Kids]

(06-06-2011 08:45 AM)JordanMaria Wrote:  

(06-06-2011 07:45 AM)Mommy2Kids Wrote:  Why is this jackwagon here?

bwahahahahaha! I've never heard of "jackwagon" before. That's funny!

[pastafari]

(06-06-2011 10:52 AM)Shoes Wrote:  At that point there was a serious, significant change in my existence/ being/ consciousness. You can not argue with that. No matter what you say, no matter how many scientific studies you present to me, I know what happened to ME. What do I have to gain by lying about this to you? I was content talking to others on this site who share this common experience. You came to this board with your questions and opinions. We did not seek you out, you sought us out. We might not have the “scientific” answers to your questions, but until quantum theory was presented, there were no explanations to why sub-atomic particles acted in the manner they do [is it a wave or a particle?].

You do not know within the next 100 – 150 years, a scientific study or a piece of equipment will be invented/discovered that will prove our statements making them verifiable. You argue as if science is king. Science is one of the most fluid fields of study that exist. Even the most elementary or basic laws of science have broken down in the last 100 – 150 years. Mass is relative, time is relative. These were thought to be “constant” for millennia but as our knowledge has grown, we have found this to be untrue. How can you say with 100% certainty there is no God/ He is imaginary/ fill in your question? I say we don’t have the means to accurately observe, record and categorize GOD yet. I don’t think that day will come either, IMHO. A God that can be known/ understood/ explained is no God at all.

You do understand that many people say they KNOW they experienced anal probing from Aliens aboard their spaceship? Once you understand this, you will know why anecdotes are not evidence. Heres a good video explaining the problem with anecdotes

The problem with anecdotes

Yes I understand science gets things wrong, it is constantly trying to get more information to get closer to the truth. Religion discourages questioning. The beauty of science is, when wrong, it self corrects itself leading to better and more accurate theories.

I am not saying I know anything with 100% certainty. I just don't believe theres a god, and think it's all in your head.

You just said that within 100-150 years someone will discover god with some piece of equipment, then in the same paragraph you said that day will never come. Which is it?

[pastafari]

(06-06-2011 11:19 AM)The Singular Observer Wrote:  1. What would constitute, in your mind, a proof for the eixtence of transendence / transcendent beings / deities ?
2. Define faith.
3. Define your epistemological basis, so that we understand from what your angle you are coming from.\
4. What is your ontological framework?
5. Answer Godel's Proof of the existence of God, which we put to you in an earlier thread.

1. Well first you would have to define these transcendent beings and what they are capable of. But if God appeared in the sky in front of millions, spoke in a loud booming voice that caused seismographs worldwide to go crazy, and decided to move a large mountain like he said he could, then I would end up believing.

2. Faith: hope and belief in the goodness or trustworthiness, of a person, concept or entity, despite insufficient or contradicting evidence

3. Give me a few examples of an epistemological basis

4. Give some examples of frameworks

5. Godels Proof is basically the lame Ontological proof polished up a bit. You could say a polished turd.

Here's the basic Ontological argument:

P1: God is defined as a being which possesses all attributes of perfection
P2: Existence is an attribute of perfection
C1: God exists

Here's the problem with the Ontological Argument: Existence is not contingent upon perfection, perfection is contingent upon existence! Something must first exist in order to be either perfect or imperfect. If it does not exist, it cannot be perfect. If it does exist, its perfection can be judged from there.

Basically, the Ontological Argument is arguing from the definition of god that god must exist. But defining something into existence does not work with any other concept, so why should it work with god?

As far as Godel's work, I'm not that great at modal logic, and Ive been looking at this work:

Godel's Ontological Proof

I didn't get through the whole thing because I think that axiom H2 "If God exists then it is necessary for God to exist" is nonsensical. In modal logic, we have possible worlds, which range over all logical possibilities. Whether or not g is true depends on which possible world we are in. The meaning of "it is necessary for God to exist" is basically, g is true in all possible worlds. Now why on earth would you say (as axiom H2 does) that if g is true in some world, then g is true in all worlds? This is daft! The idea behind it is that God is the greatest thing imaginable, and so if God did not exist in all possible worlds, then we could conceive of an even greater God that did. But these are possible worlds in our logic we're talking about. They have no dependency on each other. This is like saying God is so great that he trumps the logic we use to describe him. Just because g is true on some possible worlds doesn't mean that g is true in all possible worlds.