If you think I am wrong...easy enough to show me to be wrong.

I asked you a question, which you didn't answer. I'll ask again. What is your evidence/arguments for the following assertions-

There is NO way to KNOW if there is at least one god...or if there are none.

There is NO way to KNOW if it is more probable that there is at least one god than that there are none...,or vice versa.

One CANNOT get to any of those things through reason...or logic...or science...or math.

Or does your evasion of the question mean that you don't have any evidence or argument for these assertions?

(that said, his writing style is far from traditional or straight-forward- especially in Zarathustra and his aphoristic works- so its often unclear how his various arguments and comments relate or connect to one another, and so putting the pieces of the puzzle together takes a bit more work than it does with, say, more recent English-speaking philosophers in the analytic tradition... a problem that was made especially acute by his appropriation by the Nazi party and the meddling of his proto-Nazi sister, and the sorry state of Nietzsche scholarship until fairly recently)

I certainly would, though I guess YMMV on what you consider "detailed". But there is indeed a description (more than one, in fact, as it was a recurring theme/topic) of the means by which his solution to the problem of nihilism (as posed by the death of God) is reached- i.e. the re-evaluation of all values, philosophizing with a hammer, philosophical laborers clearing the rubble and laying the groundwork for the overman to create new values, and so on. To clear the way for the overman and the creation of new values, the old systems and old values must be critiqued and refuted, and thus his normative account of the role of philosophy (and his own role therein) as primarily negative and critical- clearing out the old, to make room for the new.

And of course there is no description of a "superman society", since "the goal of mankind cannot lie in its end, but in its highest specimens"- the overman is an individual who is defined, at least in part, by standing apart from the crowd and going their own way. For Nietzsche, a "superman society" would be an oxymoron. Nietzsche had no faith in the masses or the public, in the state, in religious or other institutions- humanity is redeemed, suffering is justified, and nihilism is defeated by those lonely individuals who overcome themselves, impose order onto the chaos of their own passions, and create new values via art and/or philosophy... not by societies or groups.

So again, one can certainly disagree with Nietzsche's diagnosis and/or prescription, but suggesting that he didn't give a pretty robust or detailed account of what he had in mind simply isn't accurate- virtually everything he wrote from his "middle" period on was preoccupied with this question, and its the crucial context for all the positions and arguments he is famous/notorious for adopting (the will to power/self-overcoming, the overman, the eternal return of the same, his critique of Christianity and traditional morality, etc).

I doubt that Pfhorrest’s philosophy is based on mere faith.

Um... right. I never said that it was. But that doesn't mean it must be infallible and certain knowledge either- like I said, there's a good deal of middle-ground between mere faith and infallible knowledge, and most views and beliefs probably belong to this category..

So don’t be hung-up with the notion of faith. It’s not only about religious belief.

I didn't suggest that it was, and I'm not "hung up with the notion of faith". But I am interested to hear what you were referring to there- how/where/when did Nietzsche "falter in his rejection" of either faith (in the relevant epistemic sense- i.e. faith-that certain propositions are true, not faith-in) or nihilism, and what do you think follows from this?

I suppose the middle ground here is faith in one’s reasoning.

Sounds like an oxymoron, and not what I meant in any case- i.e. that it seems fairly obvious (and certainly plausible at the very least) that there can be reasonable (i.e. well-justified) belief that falls short of certain or infallible knowledge, but is also based on more than mere faith. I would expect most beliefs/positions fall into this category in fact.

Pfhorrest spoke of rejection, of two things, and it being core to his philosophy, so if he faltered in his rejection wouldn’t that show a lack of faith?

Faith in, not faith that, I suppose (though you'd have to be more specific, I'm not sure I understand what exactly you're referring to here)... but again, so what?

Well sure, but utterly unquestionable/infallible vs. a matter of faith strikes me as an obviously false dilemma- there is ground in the middle, right? And being faithful to a given endeavor is a different matter than having faith in this or that proposition or belief.

you can certainly disagree with Nietzsche's prescriptions on this point, but he actually had a pretty robust and detailed view of what was to come next (the ubermensch and humanity's "highest specimens", amor fati, affirmation of life, etc) and how it was to be effected (the re-evaluation and destruction of existing values). This is what almost the entirety of his "mature" or later philosophy was concerned with.

I imagine most would agree that good philosophy should involve sound reasoning, no? And sound reasoning renders faith superfluous/unnecessary (faith comes in precisely where/when we lack a sound rational or evidential basis for something).

Nietzsche saw nihilism as something to be overcome: that people would rightly reject religious doctrine and traditional beliefs and values, and having nothing left, fall i to nihilism, but that that was a phase which needed to be overcome, building something new and better in the place of those old rejected views.

:up: Yep. Though, to be more precise, Nietzsche didn't just think that people "would" reject traditional religious beliefs- he believed that they already had, as a matter of fact. This is the point of the parable of the madman and the death of God. But in Nietzsche's view, people had abandoned the religious doctrines and beliefs, but not the morals that depended on them, leaving contemporary morality as Nietzsche saw it a house with no foundation. And thus the problem (of nihilism), and the need to reevaluate old values and create new ones, ones which are "faithful to the Earth" (i.e. grounded in reality rather than religious dogma or superstition).

This is nothing more than a smoke and mirrors sleight of hand to convince believers in scientism that scientism has the big questions answered and that it is irrational to delve any deeper into them.

"nothing to see here"

Hardly smoke and mirrors or sleight of hand, though certainly an inconvenient or awkward situation for (at least some) theists. But given the current picture of our best and most rigorously corroborated physical theories, predictability and our ability to posit meaningful cause/effect relations breaks down utterly at the gravitational singularity of the Big Bang/relativistic picture.

And its actually immaterial for our purposes here, whether this represents something physically real or just a breakdown/artifact of theory (i.e. lacking as we do any viable alternative- a successful quantum theory of gravity)- either way, talk of "before" the Big Bang or any sort of prior cause is incoherent, literal non-sense, in the same way that "north of the North Pole" is incoherent. If you disagree, you're going to need to do a bit more than wave your hand and stomp your foot saying "nuh-uh!"- tell us how we can meaningfully talk about "before the Big Bang" or causes of the Big Bang, given that GR breaks down utterly at the t=0 singularity of the BB model, with all the bizarre shenanigans (path incompleteness, etc) that entails. Needless to say, we probably shouldn't hold our breath on this count.

How can you be so daft

Sense of irony is not strong with this one, I see.

There is NO way to KNOW if there is at least one god...or if there are none.

There is NO way to KNOW if it is more probable that there is at least one god than that there are none...,or vice versa.

One CANNOT get to any of those things through reason...or logic...or science...or math.

And your evidence/argument for these assertions is... ?

And obviously there is middle ground between knowledge and "blind guessing". You should also consider answering jorndoe's question about other entities whose existence is dubious- surely you don't take this same agnostic position with respect to dragons and underpants gnomes and so on? And if not, why the special pleading wrt theistic deities but not other fictional entities?

One big issue here is that you must presuppose a god, then work backwards, only to arrive at post-hoc inferences, based on whatever position you hold for your specific god.

:up: sort of the fundamental flaw common to all these arguments- a conclusion in search of premises, rather than the other way around.

there is no burden of proof if the question is incoherent. God must not exist if God is definitionally incoherent. The only "proof" comes about from demonstrating this incoherence.

I'd say less that burden of proof doesn't apply, and more that it may take different forms depending on the nature of the claim in question. So certainly, saying/showing how a given claim is incoherent would meet ones burden for rejecting or disputing that claim (one could hardly provide empirical counter-evidence against a genuinely incoherent claim- what would evidence for or against even look like if the claim is truly incoherent?), whereas if the claim in question was a coherent/well-formed factual claim, then some sort of empirical contrary evidence would probably be required.

And the bottom line about burden of proof is that its a procedural principle, a convention, so there isn't really any fact of the matter there, the burden of proof in a given context just is what the participants agree that it is. And lacking explicit specification to contrary, its usually assumed burden of proof is neutral and so applies equally to all participants and any claims/arguments they may make, regardless of their content or whether they are positive or negative claims, and so on.

Not so much.

Yep. That's how burden of proof works in most contexts, though there are obviously some exceptions where burden of proof is stipulated to rest on one side rather than the other- so, in a criminal legal proceeding (where the burden rests with the prosecution), or certain debate setups. But in the context of a discussion board like this, burden of proof is neutral, and so applies to any claim or position, positive or negative, theistic or atheistic or otherwise. And so the popular canard that "the burden of proof rests on theism" is only partially true- the burden of proof rests on theism... when theistic claims are made. When other sorts of claims are made (atheistic ones, for instance), the burden of proof rests on those claims as well. The good news is, atheistic claims can much more easily meet this burden, since they tend to have the benefit of the weight of the evidence in their favor (unlike theistic claims).

You know perfectly well what I'm asking for examples of- examples of what we've been talking about for this entire exchange, of course. And I'm trying to "achieve" an understanding of this vague claim you've made. But clearly, you're either unwilling or unable to elaborate on this claim that there are things which neither exist nor don't-exist (or give examples of such), and as this is like pulling teeth I'm happy to find other discussions with other posters who are actually interested in discussing the things they post (since this is, after all, a discussion board).

I still do not understand for certain what you are saying, but it sounds a lot like: If you assert "there are no gods"...no burden of proof arises.

I doubt you would find many logicians who would agree.

If I have misunderstood your position, Enai, I apolgize.

No offense taken, but I'm genuinely confused how you got the impression I was talking about burden of proof or the claim that there are no gods. I was talking about the notion of a "necessary fact", a "necessary being", or a being that "exists necessarily" (as in the "ontological argument" for the existence of God)- logical necessity doesn't attach to facts, beings, or existence, and so these phrases are category errors, like Chomsky's furiously sleeping green ideas.

But certainly in most contexts burden of proof applies to any claim, positive or negative, and so asserting that no gods exist carries a burden of proof like any other assertion. But like I said, I wasn't talking about burden of proof, but about the incoherence of a certain class of claims and arguments about God (the "ontological argument" and its variations, and this terminology about "necessary" beings/existence/facts)

so... examples? Elaboration? No? Maybe you're not even sure what you meant by that claim yourself?

while there are other sorts of modality (so, nomological modality- pertaining to physical laws of nature, epistemic modality, and so on) and there almost certainly are arguments for the existence of God framed in those terms, from what I've seen of Plantinga specifically (i.e. his modal ontological argument) he's not arguing for a different kind of necessity in this sense, but is simply using a slightly more complicated modal logic (S5) that allows for different kinds of inferences involving combinations of the basic modal operators "it is possible that" and "it is necessary that" (so, for instance "it is possibly necessary that", or "it is necessarily possible that.."). He ultimately runs into the same problem the traditional ontological argument does, of needing to smuggle the conclusion into the premises for the conclusion to follow at all- one of the premises of Plantinga's modal ontological argument is equivalent to the proposition that God exists necessarily. Its just not obvious to the untrained eye, because of the counter-intuitive modal language of S5. But of course if you start with the premise that God exists necessarily, its hardly surprising that you're able to conclude that God exists necessarily!

So ultimately just a kind of philosophical/logical sleight of hand, and his argument ultimately fails for the same reason as the traditional ontological argument, by any reasonable measure. You can't get out more than you put in, so if you need to derive an existential statement ("there exists an X" of such-and-such nature) at some point you're going to need to introduce one into your premises.. but no one who doesn't already accept that existential claim is going to accede to such a premise. So the argument is only valid if its question-begging, and invalid when its not, and so cannot be regarded as persuasive by any means. It will only be accepted by those who already accept the conclusion, but then what's the point?

not sure which quote you're referring to (Hume or 180 Proof), but yes, that's the gist of it- facts are contingent, existence claims are claims of fact, and anything that can be by the same token can not be. So as Hume says, there is an "evident absurdity" in an a priori argument purporting to establish an existence claim- a claim of fact- because such an effort is doomed to failure by its very nature. As far as logic and deductive arguments go, you can only get out what you put in, and so any argument with purely a priori or definitional premises but a factual conclusion (like that some X exists) is bound to be invalid. And so it is with e.g. the ontological argument for the existence of God.

Right, and so I'm asking you to give examples and to elaborate on that point- why the coyness? If you don't exist, but you don't not exist either, then what do you do? What is the third option here? These two options (existing or not existing) would appear to be exhaustive, but you disagree, so tell us what you have in mind.

so... Santa Claus? Bigfoot? Various deities? Poltergeists? What other entities are admitted to the class of objects that both exist and don't exist (or neither exist nor don't exist)? And if you don't exist, but you also don't not exist, then what exactly is it that you do, and how does that work?

.. then it is contingent, that is, it can always change (even if it hasn't yet). 'Necessary - impossible to negate - facts' are subsistent constructs like round squares, fish riding unicycles, ... paradoxical figures in Escher's gallery & inconsistent objects in Meinong's Zoo because facts are causally relational, thereby change with respect to other facts changing - in flux - anywhere anywhen, and so they're 'necessarily non-necessary'. Unless there aren't any changeable, or contingent, facts at all; but that is not the case. What's impossible is a fact - node of causal relations - which is 'impossible to negate', or change; factual existence presupposes contingency - possibility of negation - insofar as facts are - at least one fact is - causally relational, unlike abstract subsistents which are not causally relational. I can easily list necessary abstractions (e.g. numbers, equations, classes / categories) but not a single 'necessary fact' - not even Witty's "world is the totality of facts" because it's an abstraction, not a fact, like the "set of all sets".

:up: Well-stated; I quite like this. A necessary existent or fact (i.e. a being who exists necessarily- whose existence is a "necessary fact") is literal non-sense. Each of the terms is perfectly meaningful on their own, but their conjunction is illicit, a category error, like Chomsky's furiously sleeping green ideas.

"there is an evident absurdity in claiming to demonstrate—or to prove by any a priori arguments—any matter of fact. Nothing is demonstrable unless its contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. So there is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction."
- Hume, DCNR

honestly if anything you have been overgenerous to a poster who gives every indication of being a garden variety troll. I mean, he's now doing the "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I" shtick (!!!), as if this was elementary school recess period and not a philosophy forum.

you have anything to say RE the Susskind video you linked? So about "fine-tuning" (for life, not consciousness) or anthropic reasoning? No? Only interested in shadow-boxing strawmen? I'll give you this much- the strawman thing is way easier, as it requires no effort whatsoever on your part- so I guess in that sense I can understand your aversion to any sort of substantive philosophical criticism or analysis.

its another lazy strawman OP, but sure.

I didn't ever say (or even imply) that you said that you could "prove" the existence of God. I said what you have now confirmed you said- that you believe God exists and that your own existence is evidence of this. Not a compelling argument, certainly, since one's existence is no less consistent with the non-existence of the selfsame deity.

As for evidence that God doesn't exist, the absence of evidence for pretty much all scriptural claims with any direct bearing on God's existence (creation, divinity of Christ, etc.) is a good place to start. The absence of evidence for any sort of divine causal intervention quite generally. The near-certainty falsity of the traditional dualistic picture of the immortal, immaterial soul. The (evidential) problem of evil has been mentioned. The fact that historically religious (including theistic) explanations all eventually are superseded by naturalistic ones. The world simply doesn't look like what we'd expect, if something like the deity of western monotheistic traditions (especially the Christian Bible) existed- so creation ex nihilo, a moral world order, immortal souls, and all the rest- and looks an awful lot like we'd expect if it was not created by a moral personal agent.

not surprising, given the poster's other contributions, that the OP has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the Susskind video the OP themselves have offered as a purported example. Susskind is concerned with fine-tuning and the anthropic principle; so life, not consciousness, and certainly not consciousness in the sense of the so-called "hard problem". Something about hammers and nails, I guess, but still.. c'mon.

that was my initial takeaway as well (i.e. something like, "I can only exist if God does, and I do exist, therefore God exists"- so something like presuppositionalism/a transcendental argument for God's existence), but his subsequent claim that he's "not adopting those positions" (that theism is true/that God exists) has me sort of stumped.

I can't decide if I'm being trolled or not. You said: "My evidence for the existence of God is my existence". I interpreted this to mean that you believe God exists, and your evidence for this belief is your own existence. You're saying now that this not what you intended by this sentence (i.e. "I'm not adopting those positions") and that I've misinterpreted you somehow here? Care to clarify, if that's so?

Theism = the position/belief that God exists. So, yeah, that's what you said. And that wasn't the part that was a problem, obviously.

Hmmm... Punshhh exists, therefore theism. Well I guess that settles it then, I mean who could argue with that?

I would imagine you can find a good deal of information on the transition from Aristotelian mechanics to classical mechanics free on the internet without needing to buy books, and virtually anything on the early history of classical mechanics will cover the "refutation" of Aristotelian mechanics (although I'm not sure "refutation" is the best term here- I'd say that Aristotelian physics was more replaced or superseded than strictly "refuted", though being inconsistent with observation was certainly a major part of it so I guess this is mostly semantics). But this is properly more of a physics topic than a philosophy topic so I'm afraid I don't have any specific book recommendations for you (sorry). Play around on Google- try "Aristotelian mechanics" or "Aristotelian mechanics vs. classical mechanics" or something like that.

The Thomist formulations of these arguments are certainly bound up in outdated and problematic mechanics/(meta)-physics (and its not just Thomas' take on Aristotle, one of the Ways, iirc the Fourth, is bound up in some extremely bizarre neo-Platonism as well), which will obviously make the arguments difficult to accept, as formulated, for anyone not already inclined towards those frameworks.

But its worth considering the historical context there- at the time Thomas was writing, the non-logical works of Aristotle had only recently been re-introduced to the Latin-speaking world, and were widely viewed as a threat to orthodoxy- they were widely banned and censured. So Thomas was as (or more) concerned with showing that Aristotle could be used to support theism/Christianity, as he was about proving the existence of God. And he was more aware of the shortcomings of his enterprise than many modern apologists appear to be (e.g. Craig), as in the quotes from the Summa I posted in the other thread, he was well aware of the fact that these arguments presupposed faith more than they were able to persuade or induce one who wasn't already sympathetic to their conclusions. They're more rationalizations or reassurances for the faithful, than genuine proofs or demonstrations that can establish something that is seriously in dispute.

I voted "with philosophy", since the sort of (philosophical) analysis provided by e.g. 180 Proof reveals it to be an ill-posed question that more or less precludes any meaningful answer (and obscures other, genuine questions regarding e.g. the causal history/explanation of various aspects of the physical world).. though I suppose either "with humor" or "with bewilderment" would have been appropriate as well.

Also... was that a Paul sighting?! Good to see him still active, on some PhilosophyForum or other! :party:

You're not even trying at this point. If X can only be regarded as evidence for something if you engage in open fallacy, then X isn't meaningful or substantive evidence for anything. And the lack of a scientific explanation doesn't entail a theistic explanation, this is textbook "god-of-the-gaps" reasoning. Truly, if that's the best evidence for theism, I can rest my case.

Nope, but nice try. The point is that the evidence for theism is woefully lacking- and your comment that the best evidence for theism is ... not actually evidence for theism unless you engage in open fallacy obviously is consistent with and only strengthens that point.

As mentioned, I don't believe Christianity has ever relied on philosophical arguments to establish the existence of God.

Tell that to Craig. I also recall seeing a survey where a plurality of theists listed "evidence of design in nature" as the top reason why they believed in God. So while there's no question that there is a huge variety of reasons why people accept theism, its simply false to say that no theists ever claim that philosophical arguments establish the truth of theism (this is also completely neglecting the relevant cultural/social/historical significance of, for instance, Aquinas and his Ways). There's an entire industry of apologists who do basically just that for a living, Craig not least of which. And Kant certainly did not refute Hume's criticisms of the design argument (Kant did not disagree with Hume on this point), and indeed Kant would be another key philosopher to cite as far as those philosophers who made major contributions to destroying that sort of natural theology as a valid or useful enterprise. But Hume's refutation of the analogical design argument specifically stands to this day.

I should, however, mention one body of solid empirical evidence for, at least, divine intervention. You will recall the origin of the term 'devil's advocate' - it was a role accorded to an ecclesiastical offical whose job it was to try and debunk evidence of the miracle cures that were required for the process of the beatification of Catholic saints. And the reason that this body of records is 'solid' is because the process has been carried out over centuries, and has been meticulously recorded, so there's a reasonable data set. This caught the attention of a haemotologist, Jacalyn Duffyn, whose expert testimony was sought regarding one such case. It piqued her interest and she began to study the records. She said:

Over hundreds of hours in the Vatican archives, I examined the files of more than 1,400 miracle investigations — at least one from every canonization between 1588 and 1999. A vast majority — 93 percent over all and 96 percent for the 20th century — were stories of recovery from illness or injury, detailing treatment and testimony from baffled physicians.

If a sick person recovers through prayer and without medicine, that’s nice, but not a miracle. She had to be sick or dying despite receiving the best of care. The church finds no incompatibility between scientific medicine and religious faith; for believers, medicine is just one more manifestation of God’s work on earth.

Perversely then, this ancient religious process, intended to celebrate exemplary lives, is hostage to the relativistic wisdom and temporal opinions of modern science. Physicians, as nonpartisan witnesses and unaligned third parties, are necessary to corroborate the claims of hopeful postulants. For that reason alone, illness stories top miracle claims. I never expected such reverse skepticism and emphasis on science within the church.

From here and here. It is of note that Duffyn continues to profess atheism and was not converted by this research, but she does acknowledge that the cures in all these cases defied scientific prediction.

Regarding this as positive evidence for the existence of God/divine intervention is a pretty textbook "god-of-the-gaps" fallacious appeal to ignorance. Lacking a scientific explanation->god-did-it is not a valid or reasonable inference. If that's the strongest evidence there is, this only strengthens my point: theism is not sufficiently warranted by either empirical evidence or philosophical arguments.

I can't see how they're not related; they're two sides of a coin.

Of course there are connections, but there was no direct relevance to the conversation at hand. The quality of Feser's arguments against naturalism has no bearing on the quality of his arguments for the existence of God. The possibility of e.g. Daniel Dannett sawing off the branch he's sitting on doesn't mean that theists claiming God is "beyond reason" aren't also sawing off their own branch. That's what I mean when I say they were not relevant.

:up: :strong: :cool:

I do feel as though I should respond to that, as it's not the first time you've said it. Expressed in these terms, it reduces the entire question to personal prediliction, 'what I like'. I think criticism of materialism is more profound than that, as it is the de-facto philosophy of secular culture. I don't believe the main stream of Western philosophy is materialism at all.

The problem here is that it wasn't relevant and so was a change of topic. If I wanted to defend or talk about materialism, I would find a thread about materialism. I wasn't really interested in talking about e.g. the quality of Feser's arguments against materialism or the supposed failings of Daniel Dennett when the topic is the existence of God and the quality (or lack thereof) of the arguments/evidence in its favor.

But then whats the point in saying that they're question begging? If all the premises are correct then the conclusion must follow? We can't just swoop away deductive arguments altogether for begging the question as such, right? Is only the ontological argument invalid?
Surely these arguments are rejected for other reasons than these two.

Because the proponents of these arguments (at least some of them, like Craig) make quite strong claims about them, like that they are both sound and persuasive and warrant theism (and render atheism/agnosticism unwarranted/irrational)... claims which aren't tenable. And the problem is often precisely that the premises aren't correct- or, at least, can't be regarded as such without simply assuming the conclusion that is in dispute (rendering the whole exercise pointless). And there are numerous variations of each type, the ontological argument is certainly not the only one that is invalid, but that's going to vary on a case by case basis I expect (its easy, even trivial, to construct a valid argument for any conclusion.. the fly in the pudding is finding acceptable premises). The ones that are valid, are question-begging, and visa versa. And I don't doubt that people reject these arguments for other reasons, you'd have to take a survey. I'm not sure what relevance that has here, though. Whatever other reasons people may have for rejecting these arguments, its hard to have a better reason than the fact that the arguments either don't logically entail their conclusions and/or have premises which have not been established as true (as these are sort of the basic things an argument needs to do in order to be successful, i.e. sound).