The trouble with truth is that, if you are too demanding about the quality (?) of the truth you seek, you will find nothing. Many issues do not contain Truth in the sense we might prefer, so we have to find ways of discovering and using approximations, unsatisfactory though that may be. — Pattern-chaser
Of course, however, people use this as a cop-out in order to not have to scrutiny their theories. They misuse the fact that absolute truth might be impossible in order to imbue their incomplete logic and reasoning with more truth-value than it has. It's the "because you can never know what is truly true, I'm not wrong" reasoning, which is a philosophically infantile method of reasoning. — Christoffer
Define "causeless effects" as "something coming form nothing", then refute the latter? :chin: This depends for its validity on causeless effects being identically and exclusively equal to something from nothing. It is not clear to me that this is the case. You seem to be offering yet more assertions. — Pattern-chaser
If it's possible that gods are "involved in the reality of existence" then it's possible that the gods inform some people and not others of their existence. Perhaps they speak to those who are open enough to listen. If that were the case, the people to whom the gods speak would know directly, through acquaintance, the existence of the gods. They would not be "blindly guessing", but rather expressing their direct experiential knowledge, when they speak of the existence of the gods.
Of course the problem is that, in the context of philosophical argumentation, one is expected to produce inter-subjectively convincing arguments to support one's assertions.This is impossible to do regarding god or gods (and no doubt many other things) if your interlocutor has not had the kind of experiences involving god or the gods that you have.
That is why sensible people who have faith in god or gods don't bother with such paltry arguments and the time-wasting talking-past-the-other that this thread so amply exemplifies. — Janus
Still we must keep on trying. — Devans99
So I think for simple questions, it is possible to 'know the mind of God' — Devans99
. It’s not possible to exist permanently in time (an infinite regress; it would have no start so could not be), so the ‘something’ must be a timeless first cause. — Devans99
I believe that in recent times, we have moved further away from the truth. — Devans99
Atheism is more of a belief that the knowledge that can be extracted from the unknown is reliable. — Merkwurdichliebe
The difference between faith and belief: faith is a fixed and necessary position; belief is amendable, and any alteration in understanding has the potential to change one's belief. — Merkwurdichliebe
If you restrict the definition of God to 'creator of the universe' then there is actually plenty of evidence for such a proposition: — Devans99
I would have thought that a 'causeless effect' would require some energy/matter to achieve it... — Devans99
...so that energy/matter would have to come from nowhere to count as causeless? — Devans99
It's not a belief. Atheism just accepts what we observe, prove and measure to be known, the unknown is fascinating, but there's never a belief like described and not as you describe. Atheists do not just accept data to be reliable, the difference is that theists just conclude that fact with "...and therefore God", which is a lot worse as a rational stance than "we have enough data to have a scientific theory". — Christoffer
We sometimes find the truth difficult - maybe even impossible? - to determine, and your response to this is to say that sometimes people reason improperly? Well so they may, but it has no effect on whether truth can be determined, or what we might do instead if it can't, does it? — Pattern-chaser
Do you believe in miracles? — Merkwurdichliebe
The question then, is there a part of me that is eternal and infinite? If affirmative, this would be the only way I could directly relate to the Eternal and Infinite in itself. But how can I directly communicate this immediacy to the atheist, who requires exactly this as the necessary proof of God? Impossible I say. — Merkwurdichliebe
Only if the causeless effect is the creation of the matter/energy involved. If the matter/energy is simply subject to an effect that proves to be causeless, then...? — Pattern-chaser
They certainly believe in their methodology. — Merkwurdichliebe
Atheism is just accepting the world as we know it, as we can know it, nothing more, nothing less. Atheism doesn't need fantasy to explain anything. Relying on fantasy is unnecessarily complicated if we want to understand more about everything. It's like an Occam's razor for perspective. — Christoffer
What's the difference between deists and theist? — Merkwurdichliebe
Theists settle with a conclusion and then tries to argue for it. — Christoffer
Claiming that we can't know anything for sure does not render the two equal, one is clearly more fit to scrutiny knowledge over the other. That's just logic. — Christoffer
Deism is more science friendly than a theism. It's a believe that there was a first cause who created the universe, but is not actively involved in the universe day to day. The first cause does not have unreasonable attributes (like the 3Os). Knowledge is to be found in science rather than ancient scripture. — Devans99
They will never succeed in convincing atheist. — Merkwurdichliebe
The methodology that atheism relies on has proven itself, but it hasn't been proved. But it doesn't matter because as long as it works, it is working. This is where atheist belief lies. — Merkwurdichliebe
My argument is the first cause must be timeless; IE able to see all of time in one go, IE eternalism must apply. That is not really enough to convince people. A start of time also rules out presentism, but again it's quite an abstract argument so I can see why people will not be convinced. — Devans99
So there's no belief to be seen. — Christoffer
To argue for a conclusion that has been decided upon before the argument is a basic logical fallacy. It doesn't matter if it's about convincing an atheist. I would even argue that if your argument is solid, the atheist will definitely take that into account, not to become a believer, but to accept the conclusion since it cannot be countered easily. — Christoffer
Religion is a confusing mess in this area. The omniscient of God requires he knows the future but free will is required in order to send folks to hell. I would not like to be a theologian; very tricky job. — Devans99
So if the arguments for a start of time are excepted, presentism is impossible, implying 'more than only now exists'. That sounds a lot like Eternalism. Some of the physicists believe in Eternalism/Spacetime. Einstein famously believed free will was an illusion. — Devans99
You would first need to provide supporting arguments for your bare assertions, which you haven't done, and also, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so they'd have to be damn good arguments. Given that you've failed to meet this burden in spite of repeated requests — S
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