Because that doesn't explain why we have them. — 3017amen

You're saying that there must be an explanation for why we have choices. Am I understanding you correctly?

We have needs or goals because it is a feature of our existence. The counterfactual of a person without needs or a goal shows this to be the case. What would it take, for example, for a human without a need for food? The existence of someone who didn't need to eat food.

Our own existence is the reason here.

I thought Atheism was an alternative to Theism in the quest for those existential answers no? — 3017amen

Well, no. Atheism is not an explanation so much as the rejection of an incorrect explanation.

The notion of a theistic god is not credible. Hence, atheism.

Again?

guess I would have liked to see some sort of Bayesian analysis, wherein the probability of god being a believable theory becomes higher after one considers, say, mathematics. — Banno

Sure, put those seven items together in Bayesian analysis and see what you come up with LOL

Tick tock tick tock

In a sense, yep. Well put.

notion of a theistic god is not credible. Hence, atheism. — Banno

But your atheism is not tenable is it? You're like Donald Trump just attacking with no real plan LOL

put those seven items together in Bayesian analysis and see what you come up with LOL — 3017amen

Well, it's your thread. You put the bits together.

So, again, suppose that mathematics confers no evolutionary advantage...

is this the third, or fourth, time I've asked you to fill in the consequence. You want it to lead to the conclusion that there is a theistic god. But so far as I can see, it just does not.

But your atheism is not tenable is it? — 3017amen

Why not?

We have needs or goals because it is a feature of our existence. The counterfactual of a person without needs or a goal shows this to be the case. What would it take, for example, for a human without a need for food? The existence of someone who didn't need to eat food.

Our own existence is the reason here. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Are you saying that you know why we are here?

I didn't see a reply from you to this.

Why not? — Banno

Because you said you picked atheism over theism and theism accounts for mystery / faith. Yet you conceded that there is mystery in the world and in life no?

I would suggest you become an Agnostic. It would be more consistent with your logic.

Sometimes, yes.

Not always though, like any peice of knowledge, people are sometimes without it. Humans sometimes know why they are here, be that in an ethical sense of knowing what you ought to do in your life or a descriptive sense of know how you are a distinct entity of the world.

You seem to not know who we are. You keep insisting we are God or some mystery, rather than our own existence. We can do a lot better than such confusion of ourselves with an infinite entity.

I agree with you. For example quantum physics is a mystery to me.

Yet another mystery...

Humans sometimes know why they are here, be that in an ethical sense of knowing what you ought to do in your life or a descriptive sense of know how you are a distinct entity of the world. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Do all humans know why they die,?

You seem to not know who we are. You keep insisting we are God or some mystery, rather than our own existence. We can do a lot better than such confusion of ourselves with an infinite entity. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm not following you on that one...

...theism accounts for mystery / faith. — 3017amen

How?


Further, doesn't that oblige you to believe in a god who chooses to keep some things hidden from you?

Why should he do that?

Yet you conceded that there is mystery in the world and in life no?

Yes. There are things I do not know.

Compare that with "there are things that god chooses to hide form me".

Shouldn't an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, all-forgiving god be so overwhelmingly apparent that there could be no possibility of not noticing him?

Hence, for you, whence atheism?

I would suggest you become an Agnostic. — 3017amen

"Become..."

Is there a membership form I need to fill in? A secret handshake?

No, as per above, people sometimes know something, other times they do not. Plenty of people know of their own death. Plenty of others do not. Such is our existence, some things we know, some we do not. It's always down to an individual's existence, that is, what experiences of knowledge they exist with.

How?


Further, doesn't that oblige you to believe in a god who chooses to keep some things hidden from you?

Why should he do that? — Banno

Good questions. I will answer all of them in this succinct judgement:

All events must have a cause.

Sorry for the redundancy but it's real simple

All events must have a cause. — 3017amen

Only I explained earlier that this is just wrong.

I'm saying your position is a nihilism.

Faced with our lives, you assert they must be meaningless, that only a greater being or mysterious force could define who we are, our meaning, needs and goals. You take a postion in which we are nowhere at all, just an illusion of the puppeteer God or mystery that's really going on.

Okay you're wrong and I'm right. Now what?

Yep.

The trouble is - as mentioned in the discussion of existentialism elsewhere - we may either follow god or deny him; so god fails as a source of meaning.

I'm saying your position is a nihilism. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Really? I'm afraid of dying, aren't you?

I don't know about you but I'm living a pretty happy life and I'm sure you are too...

After all sitting around talking about philosophy confers biological advantages LOL

Okay you're wrong and I'm right. Now what? — 3017amen

Crash. Down comes the gate. You deny the conversation any future.





So is it really the case that your belief in god relies absolutely on the notion that each even has a cause? I doubt that. What is happening, I think, is that in trying to articulate your belief, you came to some conclusions about mathematics and other things that seemed to make sense. You've now exposed those to critique, and find them wanting.

So is it really the case that your belief in god relies absolutely on the notion that each even has a cause? I doubt that. What is happening, I think, is that in trying to articulate your belief, you came to some conclusions about mathematics and other things that seemed to make sense. You've now exposed those to critique, and find them wanting. — Banno

I'm sorry but I'm losing you on that one...?

My faith is based on many things. But the seven concepts I mentioned in the OP provides more persuasive evidence that all events must have a cause...

I don't think so, at least not in this abstracted sense. I like living and so am afraid of many things which might act to end my life (e.g. lack of water, guns pointed at me, etc.), but this strikes me as a little different than fear of being dead.

To ask if I fear being dead, that I no longer exist at some point or another, doesn't have much of an effect on me. The world was fine without me for many billions of years, it will get on fine without me for billions more. To think I must be so integral to the functioning of existence is quite the hubris.

I do think you've hit on why people engage in the sort of nihilism of your argument. If one recognises mortality to their existence, the only way to overcome it is to not exist at all. If it's all just really God or the mystery, then an impossible cure is on offer for mortal existence. We can trick ourselves into thinking because we are really the constant of God, we have no mortality to face.

My faith is based on many things. But the seven concepts I mentioned in the OP provides more persuasive evidence that all events must have a cause... — 3017amen

And yet I gave examples of uncaused events.

I appreciate that analysis