1.Mathematical abstracts. Why do we have two ways or this dual capacity for knowing the world? Consider falling objects, we avoid them through our cognitive/perceptive abilities. One does not calculate the laws of gravity in order to avoid falling objects to survive in the jungle do they? What survival value does math hold? In Darwinism, there is no reason to believe that the second method springs from a refinement of the first. The former does have a biological need, the latter has no biological significance at all. — 3017amen

So obviously you do not agree that traits can arise evolutionarily if there's no survival advantage to them or need for them. But you never explicitly said that you do not agree with that and you never explained why you disagree.

it has something to do with Atheists lack of ability to explain them adequately — 3017amen

Alright, [randomly chooses one of your questions] how does a theist explain the feeling of the color red?

Why?

First, what does it mean exactly for something to exist? And what does it mean exactly for something to be physical? — petrichor

Re existing, the idea is simply that something is present, it occurs, it obtains, it's instantiated, etc. If we say "There is a such and such" we're saying that the such and such exists.

Re physical, on my view it refers to material/substance (in the matter sense), and (dynamic) relations of that material.--Or we could say matter, relations and processes.

Re why, the idea of them literally makes no sense. No one can ever even relay what nonphysical whatevers are supposed to be--what any properties of them are supposed to be, for example. All anyone does is say what they're not, but the list of things that they're not doesn't leave anything conceivable for them to be.

Anyway, to answer your your question, let me paraphrase a few from the OP:

... ?
... ?
... ?
... ?
... ?
... ? — 3017amen

I think you've gotten confused between an answer and a question. What you've provided here are a series of questions. The clue is in the little mark at the end of each one. Answers don't tend to have those.

The format of this thread allows @3017amen to ignore the posts that answer his questions, so that he repeated himself beyond tedium.

There's a formal debating thread here somewhere in the forums - such that two folk can engage one on one, keeping the discussion on track.

It might be interesting to debate you on this topic, @3017amen.

You take first post, setting out your argument. I will oppose. Topic: "Atheism is untenable"

Over to you.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/categories/29/debate-proposals

"I reason from existence, not towards existence." — 3017amen

You mean like this:

"

One never reasons in conclusion to existence, but reasons in conclusion from existence. For example, I do not demonstrate that a stone exists but that something, which exists, is a stone. The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists but that the accused, who does indeed exist, is a criminal. Whether you want to call existence an addition or the eternal presupposition, it can never be demonstrated.

If, for example, I wanted to demonstrate Napoleon’s exist­ence from his works, would this not be most curious? Isn’t it Napoleon’s existence which explains his works, not his works his existence? To prove Napoleon’s existence from his works I would have in advance interpreted the word “his” in such a way as to have assumed that he exists. Moreover, because Napoleon is only a human being, it is possible that someone else could have done the same works. This is why I cannot reason from the works to his existence. If I call the works Napoleon’s works, then the demonstration is superfluous, for I have already mentioned his name. If I ignore this, I can never demonstrate from the works that they are Napoleon’s. At least I cannot guarantee that they are his. I can only demonstrate that such works are the works of, say, a great general. However, with God there is an ab­solute relation between him and his works. If God is not a name but a reality, his essence must involve his existence. — Soren Kierkegaard

Hey Tim ! I never said God did it. The Atheist say God didn't do it.

Absolutely banno it's fine to say I don't know. But positive atheism doesn't say that.

In my case I'm not interested in being an agnostic. I took the leap of faith years ago as a Christian existentialist.

Hahaha, was that you who gave me a reach-around the other night?
LOL

I don't have an answer for mathematical abstracts. And neither do you or anyone else.

Is that what your way of saying that your atheism is untenable?

I mean you didn't even answer any of my concerns.

Tick tock tick tock

I took the leap of faith years ago as a Christian existentialist. — 3017amen

Indeed. An unjustified leap. Fair enough.

But you started this discussion because you think others ought make the same leap.

Debate?

Is that what your way of saying that your atheism is untenable?

I mean you didn't even answer any of my concerns. — 3017amen

What? Why would me pointing out that you have provided questions not answers have anything to do with my atheism? Is atheism a belief in discourse now?

Absolutely banno it's fine to say I don't know. But positive atheism doesn't say that. — 3017amen

It doesn't even mention it. Positive atheism is the belief that there is definitely no god. It doesn't say anything whatsoever about any of the 'mysteries' you've repeated. It doesn't answer them, doesn't deny them, doesn't say it knows the answers, doesn't say it doesn't know the answers. Doesn't say a bloody word about them because it's about belief in God and absolutely nothing else.

Re existing, the idea is simply that something is present, it occurs, it obtains, it's instantiated, etc. — Terrapin Station

When you say, "something is present," do you have in mind that it must be a thing in the world, something extended, something finite and measurable? Must it have location?

Can there be actualities, realities, truths, and so on, that aren't things in this sense? For example, what about time itself? Or what about logic? What about the very relationality, or possibility of such, of things in the world?

Consider that some physicists are working with new ideas in the pursuit of quantum gravity where time and space and matter all emerge from an even more fundamental level. Would that more fundamental, non-extended, non-temporal reality be something that "exists" in the sense you are talking about?

What about that which grounds physical reality? It cannot itself be physical in the sense of being a measurable state of affairs inside the world. What about even the universe as a whole itself? The universe isn't a thing in the universe. I am not sure it makes sense to speak of it being in itself measurable. One thing in it can affect something else in it, this constituting a measurement, but such doesn't make sense with respect to the universe itself.

It seems to me that what we usually mean when we speak of things existing involves difference. Something "stands forth" from the background of "nothingness". And this nothingness from which it stands out does not itself "exist". But what about that which is differentiated, that which itself is prior to all differentiation, but is in some sense the condition for the possibility of all differentiation? Does that exist?

Heidegger spoke of what he called the ontological difference, saying that Being is not a being among beings. When people speak of God as not existing, but as nevertheless having a sort of reality, I think what they mean is that God is not something in the world, something you'll find and be able to put your finger on. As the ultimate ground of the world and everything in it, God, considered in this way, cannot sensibly be expected to be a state of affairs in the world that can be established in the way the existence of the planet Mars is established. And to say that God, thus being not "found", being impossible to point at, to register on a dial, is therefore not real, is to fail to appreciate what God, if real, must be.

A thing in the world cannot ground the world. This much is or should be obvious. Even a first cause is the wrong thing to consider, as a cause being at the start of a temporal chain of events is, in the sense I am talking about, something in the world, something in time.

I hate to do this when you're being friendly (which I'm grateful for--seriously), but I wouldn't say that really understood what I wrote (so even though I was hesitant to point this out, I think it's important because you think the comments are sourced in the mere fact of disagreement).

I wasn't saying that atheism implies no interest in gods or deities. So "If you are atheist you have no interest in gods or deities" isn't necessarily the case, and that's not what I wrote, it's not what I was saying.

Particular atheists might have no interest in gods or deities, but plenty do. The ones who do have an interest have just reached the conclusion that there are no such things as gods, or they at least lack a belief in gods. — Terrapin Station

I apologize if I have come across as unfriendly. I don't really think of discussions in terms of personal feelings anyway. In other words you can attack anything I say to your heart's content without there being any danger of my being offended. I generally feel a commonality with everyone here insofar as they are all (bar any trolls that might be lurking) interested in exploring ideas, and trying to work out where they stand in relation to the various standpoints that are available to the inquiring mind.

So I didn't think you had intended to say that atheism implies no interest in gods or deities, I was merely drawing out what I see to be the implications of what you had said. I was highlighting the fact that atheists have no real interest in god or deities, because they don't believe there are any actual gods or deities. Now they may have an interest in ideas or stories about gods or deities, or in the psychology of belief in gods or deities, but that would not be an interest in gods or deities themselves, since one cannot have an interest in something one does not believe one experiences, or at the very least does not believe exists.

You could not, for example, have an interest in unicorns, because there is nothing there to be interested in. You could be interested in stories about unicorns, you might even like pictures of imagined unicorns, but you could not rightly be said to have an interest in unicorns in any way analogous to how you might be interested in horses, for example.

Even when you say that atheists may have an interest in gods but have reached the conclusion that there are no such thing as gods or have no belief in gods; I think what you really mean is that they may be, or they may have been, interested in the question about the existence of gods. To be interested in something you must have access to the thing, or at least believe that you do if the thing does not obviously exist or even does not exist at all (in which cases you would not actually be interested in the thing, but merely in the idea of, or belief in, the thing).

It is possible that God is real to (at least some) theists; is real, that is, as an experience that we might call an hallucination but is nonetheless every bit as compelling for the believer as any experience of anything actual is for anyone. You could say that such people really are interested in God, because they experience His presence directly. Would this mean that God really does exist? Who knows? But whether God really exists or not, I would maintain that no one who does not have a direct experience of God's presence could really be said to be interested in God.

Sure here's the thesis from your Kierkegaard quote that's relevent to my argument:

Does existence have primacy over essence or the reverse?

Right?

I'm not a theist — 3017amen


Wha? You're not a theist?↪3017amen


Hahaha ( Christian Existentialist) — 3017amen


But you do believe God exists, right? — Janus

I'm still expecting a straight answer from you.

I believe God is an ineffable experience, and a genderless spiritual force of energy.

I don't think that fits into the traditional theistic paradigm.

it has something to do with Atheists lack of ability to explain them adequately
— 3017amen

Alright, [randomly chooses one of your questions] how does a theist explain the feeling of the color red? — praxis

@3017amen Tick tock tick tock

The important point, though, is whether you think God is merely a name we give to a certain kind of experience or whether you think he is real independent of human beings. Because I think it cannot be justifiably denied that there are what might be called "experiences of god" had by many humans. The ontological question though is about whether God exists independently of humans. Would you say God exists regardless of whether humans (or any other God-experiencing species) exist?

The quote is not a metaphysical claim regarding essence.
If you can't see how it challenges the premise of your OP, then I have gone as I can and will now turn the bike around to head back home.

Fare forward.

First of all I'm not a 'theist'. However I posit that a theist, atheist, et.al . is unable to adequately explain the nature of those kinds of things.

My guess is that it's similar to the ineffable feelings of love. And maybe philosophically one could argue that love is a mottled color of subjective and objective truth.

How would one capture the phenomena of Love in words?

You're not paying attention. I'm not discussing metaphysics. I'm discussing the nature of a thing or things. Existence precedes essence; the central theme in Existentialism.

You can go home now professor, you just got an F.

Valentinus' point was existence precedes essence. This precludes the accounts you giving because neither an essence of God nor an essence of mystery can be an account of that which exists.

If we are to give an account of an existence, say the human who feels love, it can only be done in terms of existence. What does the loving human entail? The existence of a human who loves. That's how it occurs. There is no other account to give. It cannot be accounted for by God nor mystery.

First of all I'm not a 'theist'. However I posit that a theist, atheist, et.al . is unable to adequately explain the nature of those kinds of things.

My guess is that it's similar to the ineffable feelings of love. And maybe philosophically one could argue that love is a mottled color of subjective and objective truth.

How would one capture the phenomena of Love in words? — 3017amen

I’m not inclined to bother with these questions because you haven’t shown how it would lead anywhere.

Just a wild guess but so far your reasoning appears to be something like: there are mysteries no one can answer and therefore we should all be agnostic. Is that right?

If that’s the case then the topic title is somewhat misleading.

I don't have an answer for mathematical abstracts. And neither do you or anyone else. — 3017amen

I don't know what you're responding to there.

When you say, "something is present," do you have in mind that it must be a thing in the world, something extended, something finite and measurable? Must it have location? — petrichor

No.

If you think that something can be present that's not in the world, that's not extended, that doesn't have a location, etc., then it's up to you to try to make sense of those notions. Again, simply saying it's not such and such won't cut it. You need to explain properties whatever you're proposing would actually have if we're to make any sense of it.

Can there be actualities, realities, truths, and so on, that aren't things in this sense? — petrichor

I don't want to suggest that I'd be using "thing" in some technical sense. "X exists" is met by you saying that there are whatevers. And then if you want to posit something that doesn't have any location, etc., again, it's up to you to try to make some sense of that and to not just list ontological properties that what you're proposing does not have.

Consider that some physicists are working with new ideas in the pursuit of quantum gravity where time and space and matter all emerge from an even more fundamental level. Would that more fundamental, non-extended, non-temporal reality be something that "exists" in the sense you are talking about? — petrichor

If there is a "more fundamental level" for space and matter to emerge from, sure. Again, it would just be a matter of whether we can really make sense of the idea.

What about that which grounds physical reality? — petrichor

You'd need to explain, for one, why there would (need to) be something that "grounds" physical reality, and then if you're saying it's not physical, you'd need to try to make sense out of what you're saying the whatever would be.

It cannot itself be physical in the sense of being a measurable state of affairs inside the world. — petrichor

I didn't say anything about a measurement requirement, by the way.

This is already a bunch of different issues to discuss. I don't want to keep adding to them. We could get back to the rest later.

Sure absolutely.

1. Your point is well taken. Atheism would deny the religious experience as has been reported in cognitive science. Or maybe better said, they would not associate a god with such experiences. They're entitled to that choice to believe otherwise. However, it begs the question of what does "otherwise" really mean. No - thing?
They can't even explain things in themselves.

2. Your concerns about God's existence I view in this way. You mentioned ontology. The ontological argument of course is based solely on a priori/pure reason. It's meaningless. Most know that. Traditional Theism endorses that logic. I don't. The irony is atheism endorses the same kind of logic relative to explaining things in existence.

3. Your question about what I think about whether God exists independently of humans existence is of course not answerable. However my answer here is consistent to the theme in the OP which is, I speculate that God would exist like mathematical abstracts exist. Which isn't too far off from the notion that all events must have a cause.

I've broad-brushed a lot but I'm trying to be as succinct as I can....

Valentinus' point was existence precedes essence. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You are right, of course, as the matter is expressed in the vernacular of "existentialists" who speak of matters that way.
In addition, Kierkegaard was opposed to the formulation as a matter of logic, per se. In that sense, he was arguing with the Hegelians while also arm wrestling with the "Scholastics."

They're entitled to that choice to believe otherwise. However, it begs the question of what does "otherwise" really mean. No - thing?
They can't even explain things in themselves. — 3017amen

If a Buddhist has the kind of experience I'm referring to then she might think of that in terms of 'realizing Buddha Nature', and obviously that is only possible if there is a 'realizer". But she might still say that Buddha Nature is real independently of any human's belief.

In any case, why do experience need to be explained rather than just lived, felt and accepted
as such?

The ontological argument of course is based solely on a priori/pure reason. It's meaningless. Most know that. Traditional Theism endorses that logic. I don't. The irony is atheism endorses the same kind of logic relative to explaining things in existence. — 3017amen

I wasn't referring to the ontological argument but to the ontological question about what exists and whether the existence of anything that exists is independent of human experience. You might say that we can't know the answer to that question, but we can still have a opinions about it.

Your question about what I think about whether God exists independently of humans existence is of course not answerable. However my answer here is consistent to the theme in the OP which is, I speculate that God would exist like mathematical abstracts exist. Which isn't too far off from the notion that all events must have a cause. — 3017amen

So, again, even if there is no definite absolutely certain answer to the question (as is also the case with questions in science, by the way) it doesn't follow that we cannot have any opinion about it. If you think God exists like mathematical abstracts exist, would you say that the latter exist Independently of human thought and experience?