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markgreyam posted:Hence Christianity actually being a sun-worshiping religion. Stars make helium out of hydrogen, the reaction without which life as we know it at least could not occur. So we worship that. We just needed a more appropriate contextual story as we became more advanced. Jesus the Sun. It died, so that we might live
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Dec 9, 2014 05:38
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 21:17 |
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Ernest Hemingway posted:Could you clarify as to what exactly what your question is? The problem is that it begins by assuming the greatest thing must exist. Yes, the greatest thing would have the property of existence, but it's not necessarily true that there IS a "greatest thing". That's where the unicorns come into play: just because we can imagine it or describe it, does not mean it's there, even if the thing we imagine has the property of being there. Like, my version of the best chocolate cake in the world would include the property of being in my kitchen right now, yet I am cakeless. bitterandtwisted posted:This is a load of waffle What a spectacular turn of phrase
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Dec 10, 2014 19:02
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Ernest Hemingway posted:You're thinking in terms of existence/non-existence and not in terms of necessary existence/contingent existence - your conception of the perfect cookie might include it's existence - but as Kant established, existence is not something that can be predicated onto something- i.e. regardless of what qualities A consists of, it either exists or it doesn't (You can have a real or imaginary A with qualities C,B,D - but you can't have an imaginary A that also exists ) this is why "The perfect (X) argument fails to address a more refined understanding of the ontological argument. When you imagine the perfect cookie existing, you don't imagine it necessarily existing - and you couldn't because cookies can't necessarily exist (i.e. there is at least one possible world where the cookie is not on the table). I think you have to prove that God has necessary existence. I don't buy it. You've said that "If God exists in any possible world, then God must exist in all possible worlds." - I disagree with that conclusion, AND I disagree that God exists in "any possible world". I mean, if you're talking about multiverse theory or some poo poo, well, okay? I guess? But to me it seems like the conclusion of that line of argument is "everything exists" which is completely unhelpful. And proves both my ultimate cake and penis unicorns.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:19
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Ernest Hemingway posted:So, what you'd be claiming is that although God is an entirely perfect being, necessary existence isn't a trait that an entirely perfect being would possess? No more than the perfect cake necessarily existing. You contend that the difference is, the cake doesn't exist as a concept until we conceive of it, but I submit that the same is true for God. We invented Him as an idea, and ascribed to Him the quality of "perfection", thus the argument came about that since he is perfect, he must exist, QED. This is one of those fun tricks of logic, like Xeno's Paradox (you must go halfway before you can go the full way, must go a quarter of the way before half way, etc etc, thus you can never get anywhere). You use these definitions and seeming-truths to construct a conclusion that doesn't at all match up to reality. But in the end, it does not change the fact that we are the ones who dreamt Him up (prove we didn't), and just like the best cake, or the perfect girlfriend, or the ideal world, it doesn't exist just because it would exist if it were really perfect.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:29
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Ernest Hemingway posted:While it certainly made people shut up out the ontological argument for awhile, more recent attempts to revive the argument that operate via modal considerations are intriguing and can't be dismissed off-hand. They kind of can. I have to already accept the existence of this so-described God to prove the existence of Him. It's almost nonsensical: "accepting that of course God exists, we can now use that to prove that God exists. QED."
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Dec 11, 2014 18:51
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JohnsonsJohnson posted:God defies rational argument, I believe in God out of faith. Where did that faith come from? Which God do you believe in, and why that one over any others?
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Dec 20, 2014 18:22
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JohnsonsJohnson posted:I just cant buy any particular religious conception if God other than there being some powerful, good consciousness of the universe. Id like to think my faith is a form of intuition but it may just because I'm terrified of me and my loved ones not existing after death and I want to believe we are all part of some cosmic narrative. So you're a deist, because you're afraid of death? You don't have a reason to believe other than "I really really want it to be true"? You see how that's problematic, don't you?
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Dec 21, 2014 18:37
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 21:17 |
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I think calling it spirituality is a way to equate it to what the religious people experience. That is, it is suggesting that the two feelings are really the same, and come from the same place: there is no God in reality, but when you feel a connectedness with it, you feel the same emotion as one who feels a connectedness to the cosmos without the religious element. "We are made of star stuff" and "we are God's children" produce the same feelings, so if we call the latter "spirituality" it can make sense to call the former that too.
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Jan 5, 2015 18:56
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