My lesson from this thread is that theists are addcited to the opium of the masses. Once you start it, you'll forever be missing it if you don't continue.

Somebody on one of the threads said, "theism / spiritualism can only be understood and practiced on an emotional / spiritual level, never on an intellectual level." This is very powerful. I believe our emotional brains are older than the intellectual processing centres. Meaning, that even severely retarded / intellectually challenged / developmentally challenged persons have the same scale and depth and breadth of emotions, as people with the most intelligent minds. I have seen it in a cousin of mine, who had 17 words in his vocabulary, yet he possessed a full range of emotions, including but not limited to, social skills and even a sense of humour. Yes, humour is an emotion, though it hopelessly hangs on the intellect to kick-start it. I have seen similarly rich emotive behaviour in many other people who were otherwise decapacitated intellectually.

I believe emotions presented earlier in the development of the brain in evolution. You can see its manifestation in the behavour of many, many animals. For some reason, emotions changed littel, or none over hundreds of thousands of years and or millions of years of evolution. I don't know why this is so.

So if the emotive part of your brain gets used to something that is pleasurable, the activity is harder to shake than if your intellectual brain gets a high from something.

Religion seems to be therefore not only a metaphor, but an existent reality in its role as a drug. In my youth there were three authors I admired, later joined by a fourth: 1. A. A. Milne, 2. Karl May, and 3. Istvan Fekete. Of the three, I.F. was a religious man, and he wrote beautiful nature descriptions, which grabbed me by the soul, until at 15 I realized he is a covert follower of religion and of a god. I could never read him again. But I am the first to admit that his talent to put his emotions given to him by his own faith was superb, and catchy.

(For completeness sake: The fourth on the list was Jeno Rejto, be topped only by Frigyes Karinthy, who topped everybody else in world literature, methinks, when it comes to style, humour, and bravado. His works are like a lifelong works of what Toccata And Fuge in G Minor by J.S. Bach is in music: not much to say, but inimitable in execution and effect of detail.)

You have to start with defining god so that I may show the incoherence of the concept.

Actually, that is how all "God Exists" thread should start - in defining the "god" they are talking about. There have been countless versions throughout human history. Which one are you talking about? — Harry Hindu

To me, any definition will do.

Because we have no evidence of god, we have no evidence of god's alleged quality, quantity, capability, wishes, demands, if any and if they exist in the first place.

You ask me to define something that we have no reliable evidence of. "Define the thing that nobody has seen, heard, eaten, touched, was touched by, etc etc".

So... this is not a request I could fulfill, and I assert, that nobody else human can define god with any degree of certainty.

But I was not referring to Gods, I was referring to the spiritual texts and ideology taught in those religions. — Punshhh

Christianity, the biggest and meanest :-) western religion has spiritual texts called the Bible,and the ideology taught in those are God worshirp, and such. I don't know if it is possible to separate god worship and ideology in W religions in to god worship and something else than god worship.

In eastern religions, you can tell me anything possible, or even impossible, because I don't know them.

Hence, #2 requires not slavish Faith, but an intrepid Leap of Logic. — Gnomon

What does an intrepid leap of logic require? :-) Bravery? Aye, there is the rub. I'm a chicken, in a sheepskin coat.

Or in other words wisdom is not about being really clever and using logic, but being yourself in the world. — Punshhh

This is the first time someone called me wise. I am being myself in the world.

Every creature, every stone, every tapeworm, every star is wise. Even my wife**.

Wow.

**Had she heard you call her wise, she'd hit you with a frying pan in the head, with these words: "What??? ME?? Wise? Why, you little slouch, I'll teach you wise!"

There is no such thing as equivalence in English expressions. Each expression is unique. I don't see imaginary things, and that's why I don't see equivalence in English expressions. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you think then the word Equivalence came about? "Equivalence in expressions is a thing which does not exist." -- entry in the great Encyclopaedia by @Metaphysical Undercover.

Because I'm not the one making the claim that some thing exists! If you are, then define that thing if you expect me to believe in it too. — Harry Hindu

I don't expect you to believe anything. I only expect you to accept that the belief in it is just as valid and has equal probability of being true as not believing in it.

You are really seriously troubled by not noticing the difference between "what is" and "what can be".

You seek proof of "what is" when that proof does not exist. You fault me for not providing that proof; I never promised that proof to you.

You must get out of the groove of what you THINK I am talking about. You think I am insisting that god exist. Far from the truth. I insist that there is no proof for god's existence, and there is no proof against god's existence. Therefore the two outcomes are equivalent to each other in probability values.

THIS if you can't understand, then I don't know how else to explain to you, @Harry Hindu.

I said it has to do with being consistent in thinking about and accepting claims that have the same amount of evidence — Harry Hindu

Show me evidence that god does not exist. It is the same amount that god exists -- zero.

Do you understand how "Making a claim and proving it", works? — Harry Hindu

Yes, and I proved it. I am talking "possibilities" not facts. Do you understand the difference between probability and actual occurrence?

The universe is orders of magnitude more complex in its order, therefore requiring a designer. — TheMadFool

What is the measure of complexity? What is its unit value? How is it defined?

I think the quote makes sense, but only intuitively and qualitatively, not quantitatively.

If it's not quantifiable, then talking about multiples of the quality is meaningless.

I.e. "the Mona Lisa is 5.4 times more beautiful than "The Scream" by Munck." Beauty is not quantifiable. The same problem exists with complexity.

Because I'm not the one making the claim that some thing exists! I — Harry Hindu

For your information, I am not making that claim either. I am making the claim that it is possible for that thing to exist. Whether it exists or not, is beyond my ability to claim, show, prove, or even support as a theory.

There is no such thing as equivalence in English expressions. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ha!

(god must be atheist:]Don't take this wrong, but you are a very odd person. — Ron Cram

Whether I took it wrongly as a compliment, I am honoured by the distinction. (NOT joking.)

The Third Law of Motion is also known as Newton's Law of Cause and Effect. — Ron Cram

Sir Isaac Newton published his work about the laws of motion in 1687. The concept of Law of Cause and Effect was introduced in the 19th century with the advent of Spiritism. — http://sirwilliam.org/en/the-law-cause-effect-reaction/

I call it "Hume's Failed Attack on Newton's Law of Cause and Effect." — Ron Cram

I don't know... I won't be the judge, but I wouldn't call it that.

Can you guys please share some experience that you can connect your past experience to your current emotions. — isaacmoris

And I am not sure, but what is the philsosophical implication you are attempting to draw from this exercis, @isaacmoris?

And I am not sure, but your tone and explanatory style makes me think you think of us as grade 2 pupils. "Now, children, take out your rulers, and draw a straight line in your notebooks. Then draw another straight line across it. Can someone tell me what you just drew?"

Martha Nussbaum — isaacmoris

I am not sure, but did not Martha Nussbaum say that these learned emotional responses go back so early into our relationship with what was our world then, that we don't have any memories of it?

And I am not sure, but why are you crediting M.N. with this, @IsaacMoris, when all this was originally ideated by Sigmund Freud?

When I was a baby, I liked to suck on my mother's teats. These days I STILL like to suck on lady's breasts, despite the apparent lack of ensuing nutritional effects. It is clearly an emtional response that has its roots in my early infancy.

Fancy that.

The idea being that one can answer the questions about Gods through spiritual, or mystical practice, while you cannot answer them through intellectual reasoning on its own. — Punshhh

Thanks, P, for answering my exhaustive question, to my satisfaction, actually.

There are many corollaries you instigated with this claim, and I mention only two of them:

1. If faith is primarily and overwhelmingly a mystical practice, and it does not rely on the intellect, and it is untouchable by reasoning (both of which I accept), then perhaps faith and man's relationship to an alleged god ought not to be discussed on a philosophy site, as philosophy is strictly an intellectual pursuit.
2. If faith is as above, then proselytizing with reason and intellectually convincing arguments ought not to work, and therefore it is futile when tried.

And a third question, which is the fundamental problem of a missionary: if faith is untouched by reason and by the intellect, how can you impress reasonable people?

@Punshhh, I think your observation is spot on. Very good insight, indeed.

If you think about it, the biggest topic and the source of strife on the pages of this site is religion, religiosity, and/or the lack of it. Why? Because 1 and 2 that you touched on are true.

And why have missionaries such a hard time converting anyone? because of the unnumbered point.

The thema of the previous post of mine prior to this very one, can be debunked by asking me, to describe precisely how the sequence of events happened, with historical documentation. Well, I wasn't there, so this is only a hypotheses on my part.

After all, early man, and humans in currently primitive societies, create explanations for things and events that they could not or can't explain, and that is PRECISELY because humans have a predisposition to believe that cause-effect chains rule the universe's every change and every movement.

For instance, how come the sun gets up in the east, on a flat earth, and sets in the west, yet without any visible movement next moring 'tis again on the east side? Well, the ancient Latvians thought that the sun takes a canoe or raw-boat across the south seas every night to be on time at the east side when it's time for it to get up.

Similar explanations existed all over the place in all cultures, and our superstitions such as a black cat crossing our path of travel is detrimental to us are the remnants of them, proving that humans hankered to see the world around them as a world of cause-and-effect. This is an innate human need, and I hardly think we would have gotten off and out of the trees without it.

I don't feel the need to refer to any "laws" in order to understand cause and effect? Wouldn't understanding of cause and effect come WAY before the creation of any laws? What are the laws based on if cause and effect is meaningless? — ZhouBoTong

Precisely, but the development of thought re: laws and cause and effect is a bit like which came first, the chicken or the other chicken.

If you believe that cause and effect is the rule of the day, then it follows that laws can exist. But humans first discovered laws, some, and a limited number of laws, but some laws anyway, and from the existence of laws they derived that cause and effect is the rule of our universe.

Newton's Law of Cause and Effect."
— Ron Cram

What's that, then? — Banno

Precisely. Newton discovered many laws, such as preservation of momentum and energy, such as the nature of acceleration by gravity, such as the law that for every force there is an equal and opposite force, such as that things move without change in their movemnent or are at rest indefinitely until a force is applied ot them, (the law of inertia, I believe), and that things do need force to change speed or velocity; but Newton's laws do not comprise a law called Casue and Effect (Cause a Effet in french, and Schneiderheidigpanzerkraftgewerbunghaffen und Scholtzstuckengrafenpfeifferpferdenheidigungingung in German). According to what I know, anyhow.

It would indeed be interesting to see that the peer review process would accept a paper that debunks one of the theories of Newton which he never made.

Which we all precisely mimicked, until Banno's post as above.

Aft this lecture, when he talked about how in some instances the caused event preceds in time the causing event, I walked up to him, and said, if we can accept that our natural brains are inadequate at making it possible to accept things that are a priori-wise wrong, but do happen in reality, then under what rights do we insist that the unintuitive events and occurrences can only happen in quantum fields, and not, for instance, in such parts of reality, as the impossibility of the Holy Trinity? I mean, if we are forced ot accept that our intuitions can't declare the unintuitive self-contradictions untrue, then why can't we apply this to religion and to Imposible Studies 101, why do we only accpet it as a part of natural sciences where math cruelly forces us to do so? He hoed and hummed, and totally never responded to my emails.

Still, his theory is disturbing — Congau

Funny. To me this was one theory early on in learning philosophy as a dilettante, validated me for myself as a real philosopher. This tenet of Hume's assured me I am not crazy when I decided for myself, prior to learing Hume's theory or even knowing that he had ever existed, that natural laws can be broken, without the magic power of the supernatural, but only philosophically speaking, as what humans call natural laws are not laws per se but only our ordering in our minds the events of the wrold we observe.

I was in my twenties when I realized that a priori logic is not something that can incorporate empirical observations, for this very reason.

I extrapolated, falsely or wrongly, then, that in some universes therefore fundamental a priori logical laws could also be broken. For instance, 1+1+1 can equal one. Or some thing can both exist and not exist at the same time and at the same respect.

I was argued against my hypotheses, that a priori laws can be broken by empirical observations. But much later, 40 years later, math in quantum theory did prove me right.

I attended a lecture by a philosophy professor at Western University, which he gave us, a bunch of dilettantes, about seven years ago. He said that our, human's, logic is intuitive, and we developed it as a consequence of reality we have observed as a developing, evolving species; it is an innate, congenital quality, but unfortunately our logic, which philosophers now call Logic One, can be differed by reality, which acts and behaves to the logical laws in empirical matters and manners to Logic Two, which is unacceptable by the human brain and is unintuitive, or intuitively impossible by humanly acceptable and accepted standards.

Definitely, but I've always had the impression that the complexity was a factor of smart people who had been indoctrinated with religious beliefs as a kid--so that they couldn't exactly just drop the beliefs on a emotional level--realizing that they need to try to figure out some way to make something that's pretty obviously ridiculous seem not-so-ridiculous instead. That's why you get ideas like, "Yeah, it's not a big boogie man in the sky, it's an 'organizing force'" and so on. — Terrapin Station

You got it nailed down well. However, you can still argue with the smarter religious, even if you don't convince them. And the arguments, while clean, are enjoyable. Only about half the time does it devolve to mud-slingings, with the smarter religious. There is respect mostly, on both sides. I respect their learnedness and their politeness, I respect that I can reasont with them to some point. Whereas you can't even get your foot in the door with the less complex believers. They don't disrespect me, they just bounce back from every argument with a joyful smile on their faces, and keep bouncing about like little rabbits in a sun-beat field of daisy chains and blossoming dandelions without a care in the world.

One more thing... on the forums you encounter really smart religionists. But they can't keep out the not so smart ones. Whereas the atheists comprise only really smart people. This is what gives me hope in my efforts to proselyse. Because in the one-time communist countries you find a lot of dumm atheists. I mean, almost everyone is atheist there. This sort of tells me that reason will win, and then the masses will follow.

@Metaphysical Undercover please note:

both of them are possible, — god must be atheist

they are "both possible" — god must be atheist

I am sorry, but I see no nuance difference between these two expressions.

I am on the opinion, @Metaphysical Undercover, that you may or may not be a native speaker of English, but you can't tell two equivalent sayings as being equivalent when they are.

Why you have that fault, I don't know. It is none of my business why you are incapable to see equivalence in English expressions.

LOL - so thinking philosophically is not thinking objectively? That would seem to be the case for some people on this forum. — Harry Hindu

One more case where you ought to have thought philosophically.

I say this, because objectivity / subjectivity has nothing to do with proving or disproving the existence of god, or the non-existence of god. It is not a matter that can be true one way (objectively / subjectively) but wrong the other way (objectively/ subjectively). So that's why I said you must think philosophically, for you to consider that the existence of god is such a proposition in philosophy.

What the hell is a "god". — Harry Hindu

If you don't know what the hell you are arguing about, then why are you arguing?

I believe that it is impossible for order to come from disorder, in any absolute sense (meaning order cannot come from absolute disorder). — Metaphysician Undercover

I appreciate it's your belief, and against belief I have no logical argument.**

Let me know if anything changes.

** Not you, but people tenaciously cling on to beliefs like the holy trinity and like an entity can be omnipotent. So if I can't sway someone on a belief which is impossible, I won't even attempt to sway a person on a belief that is possible (but he believes it's the ONLY possible of two alternatives).

You should think about it more objectively. — Harry Hindu

And you must think about it more philosophically.

Claiming a god exists is a positive assertion without any evidence. It is an unfalsifiable claim — Harry Hindu

So is the claim that a god does not exist. Or some gods do not exist. If you don't believe me, prove it to me.

I personally believe that there are no gods or god. But I allow the possibility that they do exist. We just don't have any evidence either way. And we certainly don't have any knowledge what they are, what they want, what they want of us, what they can do, and what they will do. This is unknown to humans at this point, on the odds that there are actually gods (or god).

---------------

Aside from that, I don't claim that a god exists. I claim that it is possible that a god exists. Big difference.

Thanks, Terrapin Station, the mechanism is there, I understand it now. But I still don't understand the survival value of team sports. If I am proud of my nation, I will fight for my nation and not spy against it (unless of course I am offered a hefty sum and 49 extra virgins, oiled, on the side).

But team sports teams don't fight for scarce resources. So there will be no survival value if your team wins the world series or something. Only pride.

You explained it: we ought not to feel pride for our respective nations' past successes. So why ought we to feel pride for our respective and competing victories? You said it best.

I am still at odds why the outbursts of pride after a victory at a hockey game or football match. If you bet, you can grin if you win. If you lose, you can gnash your teeth.

It's like being proud of winning the lottery. "I know how to pick numbers," and beats his chest with his fist. (An imaginary person.)

How would one know that one is all-knowing? — Harry Hindu

There is nothing to know about god. I am on the opinion that there is nothing humans can learn or know about god until things in this world fundamentally change, furthermore, it is not even guaranteed that there is a god or there are gods. It is merely a belief that there are gods, not knowledge. Much like the opinion that there are no gods is not knowledge, but opinion.

If you reject the assumption that god is all-knowing, then my statement does not stand.

In Judaism, in Christianity, and in Islam the gods are all-knowing. It is a given in those religions, and the believers insist that it's true. I am not familiar with Hinduism, and I admit to that.

So you are saying, that the Hindu gods are not as intelligent and well-informed as the Jewish, Christian and Muslim gods, according to the respective believers of these four religions?

There is nothing wrong with the criticism, because the one (if it is correct) excludes the possibility of the other. So you could say that each of them, or both of them are possible, but it is incorrect to say that they are "both possible", as this implies the two of them collectively.

And you state at #8 "it does not exclude the chain of events...", when actually 1 - 5 does exclude that chain of events. By saying this you imply that the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, when actually each one excludes the possibility of the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know if you had a chance to think it through or you had a chance to proofread your script.

You wrote: "So you could say that ... both of them are possible, but it is incorrect to say that they are "both possible" Why is one correct and the other incorrect? I think the two say the same thing.

In the second quote, I made a mistake in the wording, and I admit it. It was a fatal mistake. I ought to have written, "if you assume that 1. and 2. are not true, or not necessarily true, then it is possible

that an orderer can be created by chance in a chaotic system. — god must be atheist

I regret the error.

So please reconsider my argument with the above corrections.

The insight I requested (and it came out all wrong, I apologize), is that 1 and 2 can be true, but they also can be false. I am not saying or arguing for whether those two are false or true; but I insist that both alternatives are possible.

Again, congratulations for catching me on this mistake. Please reconsider my stance as corrected in this post. Thanks.

↪Fruitless 16! That's amazing. I was 16 once, about 57 years ago. — Bitter Crank

That makes you... let's see... carry the three... forty-two years of age?

Details shouldn't be fetishized, only considered. The former is when you start getting careless... — Swan

The latter, when you can't find your glasses.

There also may be a smallest unbreakable thing in the universe, although I haven't studied that. — bronson

My aunt's Corningware thimble. That's what you are thinking about?

what more can we ask in addition to the seven basic questions of what, why, who, where, when, which, and how. It then dawned on me that "what" suffices to ask all the rest of the questions which are simply shorthand for a longer "what" question.

What???

The video is pretty straightforward, but the guy speaks with an almost incomprehensible accent. Luckily he posted at the trailing end of his video some explanatory notes in typed English.

He says, in a nutshell, that personal scruples are inborn, and societal ethics are ingrained. The common element, he says, is that both have the same punishment / reward system. There are lots of details given about the sameness and differences between the personal and the common systems.

He is not very original when he builds a superstructure of his basic discovery, but his discovery is interesting. I see his point.

I just am not read in philosophy to know whether his idea is original or he stole it / borrowed it from someone else. You know how it is: Copying one idea from one publication is stealing. Copying many ideas from many publications is research.

Hey, another question... you are good at raising thoughts to ask questions.

If you are familiar with eastern and western ideology of religions, or simply put, you worshipped in both the western and the eastern tradition... then can you tell the difference? Between gods? Is the western god any different from the eastern god? If they are different, how does the difference manifest? and if they are the same, then why talk about eastern and western gods? thanks. It's quite a few questions, sorry, but you really peaked my curiosity.

You're right. I was wrong. Users'.

Good catch.