What would it take to prove / disprove the existence of God?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Elok
Sava: You don't annoy, me, sorry. That was merely an observation compounded by my natural cantankerositude.

Sobering up a little?







I annoy everyone. It's just a question of how much.

[Elok]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Well, I'm kind of reliefed that you aren't an advisor for Bush - then there still may be hope for us.Actually, I consider it a small blunder from your side that you aren't aware of the fact that our prime minister is a good friend of yourpresident

Blunder? Dude, you come from Denmark. With the exception of the cheese "danish" and "Hamlet," I can go for weeks without thinking about your country's existence. No offense, but really...how's your prime minister's relationship with whoever's in charge of Mongolia these days?

You didn't have to say such - it was a part of the message just as what you have written elsewhere. Not that you need a disclaimer that tells what you don't mean, just be more careful when you express your opinion.

No, I'm afraid you misunderstand. "May have WMD" is a famous bit of Bush code for "I want to invade these guys." It's like instinct with him by now. Whenever he gets a really strong yearning for a meatball sub, he tells the CIA to "search for al-Qaeda smuggling links" to the local Quizno's, and bravely offers to investigate the matter personally at the same time. Much as his feeble intellect would appreciate the large explosions, I don't think Bush would actually use any of the nukes we have. He's saving them for a rainy day or something.

And yeah, I'm sober now, I'm just clarifying my drunk positions. I think all God threads need a little booze to spice them up.

[Whaleboy]

It's my experience that, if you reduce morality to egoism, you wind up with either something that isn't morality or a serious stretch of logic.* Morality as egoism only works if the two are consistently united in purpose--which they aren't.

Ah, there you're making the classic mistake of assuming egoism = selfishness, whereas of course it doesn't. If your familiar with the iterated prisoners dilemma, it shows that socially conducive behaviour is a question of self interest... consider it instead the cause of motivations, and those motivations can cause morality, so it's an indirect link.

I don't know about consistent, but Kant certainly doesn't give an independent reason, which is all that matters to me. That's not really his fault; as I understand things, he was just elaborating on his religious beliefs. Still, it boils down to "just do it," and I don't see how that differs from "because God says so," except we have some reason to listen to a God if He exists.

Perhaps but I dont think that's entirely fair. The independent reason is one of consistency as I said earlier. For example, I could postulate a moral instruction and you could turn round and say "well this contradicts such and such postulation you made earlier". Kant's theory is a basis for avoiding that. You might say it's more a philosophers moral code.

I, speaking of my personal opinions, am an emotivist. That is to say that I consider morality to be the product of an emotional reaction. As a result, the seeking of an internally consistent moral holism is a fruitless and irrelevant pursuit, because that does not reflect the nature of morality... you might say that morality needs to be consistent, and my response would be "why? I think it not". This links in to an area I know some people want to take this thread to of transcendant theism, because in this case, the only consistency that applies to morality is my own perception and experience.

Incidentally, just to cover myself, Agathons usual attack on emotivism in that "it is just saying "if you feel like it, it's ok" or "I dont feel that way", assumes that you know what you're thinking. I think most modern psychoanalysts would take issue with that approach. You can approach it as saying there are emotions in your subconscious that affect your conscious perception and judgement, or that morality is, itself, an emotional motivation to logical rationalisations.

[Elok]

Egoism literally consists of looking out for your own interests, correct? I am aware that, generally, cooperation is in our own best interests. However, cooperation alone is not equal to moral actions, nor is it always in our best interests. There are definite advantages to careful thievery, for example.

Sorry, just got back to school and my roommate has Civ4. Must neb. Higher priorities, you know.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Whaleboy

I, speaking of my personal opinions, am an emotivist. That is to say that I consider morality to be the product of an emotional reaction. As a result, the seeking of an internally consistent moral holism is a fruitless and irrelevant pursuit, because that does not reflect the nature of morality... you might say that morality needs to be consistent, and my response would be "why? I think it not". This links in to an area I know some people want to take this thread to of transcendant theism, because in this case, the only consistency that applies to morality is my own perception and experience.

Exactly. Philosphers can debate to eternity about ethical questions, but form the average person it is his or her gut feelings and the need to enforce cultural norms that determine morality.

[Whaleboy]

Egoism literally consists of looking out for your own interests, correct?

Not really. Egoism is the idea that all of our motivations are self-interested, in other words, apparently altruistic behaviour is egoistic in terms of motivations, whether they are subconscious or conscious. It even extends to behaviour that is good for the species, so in its strictest sense, it's a motivation for our behaviour in order to look after the genome.

You cannot go directly from egoism and or altruism, to a moral theory.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Sorry this is so late in the game, but... UR:

Lower pressure drastically in the area around the pot. No heat source, but the water will begin to boil away.

Good point

It takes some doing to lower pressure without, hm, being obvious about it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Flip McWho
I suppose here for clarity we must define what you mean by morality?

That's the hard part.

First approximation: a code of conduct that most people of a culture follow to allow proper functioning of said culture.

Originally posted by Flip McWho
As for the last sentence. No I'm not asking that, I'm asking whats the point behind a religious ethical code without the deity. God is the point behind the whole religious system. God is the thing that weaves and binds it all together. God is the giver of the morals. If God is proven to not exist then it removes all that from the system.

Oh that.

The Argument from Morality attempts to prove the existence of God from the existence of a moral code.

I don't think the point behind a religious ethical code is God. The point behind it is for people to act "properly," whatever that means. God is there to enforce the code, by retributions in various forms.

This means the fatal flaw in a religious moral code is it needs an enforcer. I hear Catholics keep saying something about "God fearing..."
That means if they don't fear God bad things start to happen. It makes a very weak basis for morality.

[Urban Ranger]

The point is that we do have this sense of wonder without any reasonable explanation as to how we got this sense.

To me this smells like a God in the Gaps argument.

Just because we can't explain A or B yet isn't evidence for an infinite, personal being.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Joseph
The summer of 1958, I was 14 and I was swimning in a canal about a mile north of Castle Air Force Base, Atwater Calif. I was drowning and had lost all strength. A voice came into my head and told me that is was not my time to died, but it also told me that I had to fight. A moment later I had strength to try to swim again. A few moment later the people that were with me found a tree limb for me to grab and pull me to the side of the canal and pull me out. I was in the water alone.

One late Autumn day in 1999 when I was walking around in Mongkok (a district in Hong Kong), I suddenly heard Pavarotti singing. Surely Pavarotti could not have been in the area, and I could find no shops around playing his tape or CD.

I am sure you did hear a voice. The only question is where the voice came from.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
That version is said to be deliberately mistranslated as a form of support for some of JWs' more controversial dogma. IIRC, John 1:1 reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was a God" in that version? Little things like that.

I have to ask you for a cite from a scholarly source on this one. Many attack the KJV as inaccurate to support their own religious PoV just because the version doesn't support it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Just pull open the JW's bible and any other translation of that one passage.

The JW's is the only on that says 'a god', implying that the Son is somehow not the same as god the Father.

[Ben Kenobi]

That's an interesting point.... would one begin by believing in Christ and then -> God -> The Bible, or would one start by believing in God -> The Bible -> Christ? In the latter case, external proof would be unnecessary since you already believe in the bible and God. To someone like me of course it's a different game, but Christ is marketted differently to me.

My own path went from believing in God, I think in some sense I always believed in the existence of God. I was then confronted with the bible in university, and an excellent book on historiography, which I have long since had to return arguing that by the methods of historiography, that the Bible ought to be considered a historical source.

Christianity is somewhat unique in that respect that it has always been a historical religion, many of the concepts of time and organisation came from the Christians, and did not exist in the same form from before. What sense does it make to say time has a beginning, if you believe as the Greeks did, that the world has always existed?

Christ came from the claims in the bible. If you believe that the bible is an accurate historical source, then you must assess the claims of Christ to be the Son of God. So yes, it went from God - Bible - Christ.

I don't see why things would necessarily be different for other people, I am surely not the only one to have walked this particular path.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Sufficiency is an important point, but flip it around. If God were not omnipotent and omniscient, would he be worthy of worship?

Most deities are neither omnipotent and omniscient, but they have worshippers nevertheless.

In fact, why would a rational being worship another entity just because it is more powerful? What's the rational behind it?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
God does not need our worship, for whatever reason he wants and desires our worship.

Surely the Old Testament rejects your claim, BK. There are multiple instances in there where YHWH asks for worship and even sacrifices.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I think the free will of man plays an important part in all this, and the age-old question of the interchange between free will and omnipotence. God may know all that is to happen, but he cannot decide for us the choices that we may make in life. Christians have came up with different ways of resolving this conflict, some say that we make the choice even though the choice has already been decided for us, others, that God sees all possible futures.

Not omnipotence, omniscience. The argument, briefly stated, is this:

Why would an omniscient and omnipotent God allow some of us to come into existence even though He knows well in advance that they won't believe in Him, thus, will end up in Hell? If God knows this but cannot do anything about it, He is not omnipotent. If He can do something about it but will not, He is not merciful.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Look at your own life. Do you not feel joy in giving yourself to someone and seeing how they respond? How does it make you feel to give pleasure to someone else, to make them feel good?

Yet, the Christian god is infinite.

Think about it for a minute. Infinite. Do you care if a water molecule in your body has a bad day, or when a red blood cell gets chewed up in your liver when it reaches the its end of life?

Just multiply this difference by infinity - why would an infinite being care about us?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Just pull open the JW's bible and any other translation of that one passage.

Which passage is that?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
The JW's is the only on that says 'a god', implying that the Son is somehow not the same as god the Father.

The Trinity concept is an invention of the Church AFAIK.