those who believe in a Good God believe in salvation through this belief. which has greater utility than not believing in God. — Cavacava

Sorry, but you still haven't explained the "utility" here. Believing in God and salvation is more useful than not believing in God and salvation because.... ?

If your faith does not transform you, then it is not real faith. — John

Which comes first though? Are you transformed because of your faith, or do you have faith and are transformed thereby?

So believing in God is useful because it's useful to believe in God? You just made a tautology.

Animals have no rights — Emptyheady

To which one can reply, as I would, that they do. :-}

which has greater utility than not believing in God. — Cavacava

It has greater utility with respect to what?

Sure, but the conclusion to the wager, that believing in God gets one salvation, is now impossible to maintain if God can mean anything.

Aristotle is arguably a substance pluralist. He thinks there are lots of different substances.

God refers to what ever you believe is god is — Cavacava

Which makes it a meaningless term....

and see myself as a nothing — Agustino

Compared to God, you are.

I didn't interact with him much, but this thread seems out of character from him, I dunno.

Do you think that the existence or non-existence of god can be proved? — Cavacava

Once again, you're assuming I know what you mean by the word "God." Why don't you tell me, then we can proceed.

Are you really Cavacava or have you simply taken over Cavacava's account? I don't recall you posting stuff like this or in the manner you have done.

No that does not sound right. The worst outcome with A1 is oblivion, no god, no eternal bliss, no nothing. The only outcome from A2 is oblivion, eternal nothing. — Cavacava

I've been reading through this thread and find it astonishing that you keep making this claim. It has been pointed out to you several times that the, or one of the, fundamental flaws in this argument has to do with the multiplicity of mutually opposed conceptions of the word "God." Is God triune? Has he revealed himself to the Jewish people? To the New Testament writers? To Muhammad? One, two, all three, or none of the above? Is he "Nature," as Spinoza would say? Is he Brahman, Zeus, Thor, or Amun-Ra? Can God even be adequately defined? Many classical theists would say no.

Simply put, there is no single, unambiguous definition of "God," so to believe in it/him in no way guarantees salvation. Besides, salvation in most religions requires sincerity of belief, which the wager does not require.

What you are in fact saying is, "it is better to believe in my conception of God, in order to obtain my conception of salvation, which is a result of said belief." And that is much less rational than you have supposed in light of what I say above.

That's great, but I think the real question is whether you're going to become a League of Legends pro again.

None.

I'm still looking for any evidence of wisdom in the discussions on this forum — Noble Dust

Perhaps the wise would not look to Internet forums as the depositories of wisdom. :-}

I would agree. The professionalization of the discipline has been a net negative, in my opinion. The scholasticism of the Middle Ages was nothing like university philosophy in the modern period.

But scholasticism has destroyed philosophy, and rendered it a vacuous masturbatory intellectual exercise. What use would anyone have for a Descartes? — Agustino

How are you using the word "scholasticism?" Descartes is often considered to have brought on the death of that particular school of philosophy.

Did she mention the US? "We" is more generic than a country.

That doesn't contradict my statement.

So, John, are you a classical theist?

Jeopardy facts. While important, it's best not to overrate them. How you think is more important than what you know.

To repeat: to talk about 'a war with Islam' is indeed 'controversial' rhetoric. — mcdoodle

Because you say so. Got it. QED. How shall I ever recover from this argumentative masterclass?

They added the "the" and now emphasize it whenever they reference the university. You hear it on commercials, hear it from alumni, etc. Really annoying.

The Philosophy Forum — Bitter Crank

I always read this like people from Ohio State refer to their university. It sounds so pretentious.

I like that quote. Schopenhauer employs it, too, as I recall.

I think it's too vague to classify with any precision. Silesius seems to be coming out of the tradition of the Rhineland mystics, who were classically theistic, I would say.

I thought you were suggesting that in the hard sciences it was an even split among left leaning and right leaning views. — m-theory

I corrected this in my very first reply to you.

Are you a classical theist, John? Just out of curiosity.

What the hell? I'm not disputing those numbers, nor ever intended to. I was making a comparison by saying that there is generally an even greater political disparity within the humanities and social sciences than there is in the hard sciences. What don't you understand about that claim? Here's a source for you: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/21/politics

But Aquinas does marshall many other arguments to support his contention that necessary being should be associated only with God — John

Perhaps I missed them. I see only the identification being made, not the arguments thereto.

"A bit more parity" is not the same as "as likely as." Those on the left in academia outnumber those on the right by 2 to 1 generally speaking. I'm saying that the disparity is the most extreme in the humanities and social sciences. You can Google things on your own time.

Google is your friend. There have been many studies and surveys done that show that leftist professors outnumber their conservative colleagues by quite a large margin, especially in the humanities and so called social sciences. There's a bit more parity in the hard sciences.

however metaphorically — mcdoodle

Ah, so you can read. Excellent, then I still fail to see how what she said was controversial.

on my spectrometer — mcdoodle

Your what now? Why should I care?

In my locality — mcdoodle

Again, so? "According to me and the community I live in, she's controversial, therefore she is!" No, sorry, that doesn't follow.

The five proofs are meant, in their different ways, to show that there must be necessary being as well as,and as the very condition of the existence of, contingent being. — John

Yeah, but as I intimated to a previous poster, this doesn't strike me as positing anything all that different from Spinoza's Deus sive Natura or Kant's thing-in-itself or Schopenhauer's will or Hegel's Absolute or Tian (Heaven) in Confucianism or the Tao in Taoism or Nirvana/Storehouse Consciousness/Buddha Nature in Buddhism or Brahman in Hinduism or Plato's Form of the Good or Plotinus's One.

Each of these seems to meet the criterion of "necessary being" generally speaking. So when Aquinas blithely states at the end of each of the five ways that "this all men call God," I think he's making an unjustified leap. Not all men have called necessary being God. So why does he do so?

Boy are you a cliche. Equate "conservative think tank" with "right wing extremism" and "racism," cite the SPLC, and play the Islamophobia card. Can I be sure I'm not talking to a robot?

I think her words in that interview were spot on and courageous. We're in real trouble if they now meet the standards for "controversy."

I will also say that you've basically already ceded the main problem I have with classical theism, its unfalsifiability. The conversation we're having above is much less interesting to me.

You wrote this:

"Existence" participates in "God", such that God necessarily exists. But just like an animal is not necessarily a human being, existence is not necessarily God. — Metaphysician Undercover

Take a look at the wording again. Existence participates in God? You've set up a binary here.

Wot.

There are existing things, and God created them. God's creation is other than God. You seem to be thinking of pantheism which is somewhat different from classical theism. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I'm thinking that, according to Aquinas, existence is a property independent of God, in that God can possess or partake of it just as created things can.

They are called the five ways, and they are meant to explicate, or enhance one's understanding of God. — Metaphysician Undercover

See my response to Wayfarer on this point. "Enhancing" understanding doesn't make sense.

You don't have to accept it though — Metaphysician Undercover

Very well, but this is not how many, many apologists conceive of and use them.

Then, given that you accept the premisses, such arguments can be made — Wayfarer

For what purpose? It's just fides quaerens intellectum, I suspect you will answer. But why is understanding necessary when faith is already certain?

(I will see if I can find that reference I mentioned.) — Wayfarer

Sure. I'd be interested.

The proofs are for the intellectual edification of the faithful, not to convert the heathen. — Wayfarer

Except that Aquinas presents them even in the Summa Contra Gentiles.