Your definition is problematic because it makes it impossible to speak properly about God, — AJJ

My usage of the term wouldn't change anything whatsoever about anyone's ontology. It just changes whether we're saying that something belongs to the universe or not. God would simply be beyond the source of the rest of the universe.

Again: Are you seriously not trolling? That's not a rhetorical question. I want you to seriously answer.

Ditto

Are you seriously not trolling? It seems incredibly difficult for you to understand something really simple.

I'm not making a technical point whatsoever, so stop trying to interpret it like I'm writing a computer program. "Being everything" = "everything" as I defined above is fine.

Settle down. So if x is a pencil, you label the pencil “the universe”? Perhaps you’ve mistyped — AJJ

It's part of it if you think there's more than that thing in it. If you think there's only that thing in it, then it's the universe. I'm not being persnickety about that. I'm not being persnickety about grammar. I don't care about that. Everything that exists in any manner, whatever its nature, is the universe in my usage of the term.

God can’t be “had” by the universe for the same reason I gave in my last post; he would be subject to it, — AJJ

All I care about at the moment is that you understand how I personally use the term "universe"--it should be like a kindergarten-level thing to explain, but it's amazingly difficult to get it across to you. At any rate, so I'm not interested in making any sort of ontological claim at the moment at all. So, if you have a god and you also have things (or just one thing--whatever your ontology is) that the god isn't subject to, which is what you're suggesting above, then per the way I'm using language, there's a part of the universe that god isn't subject to, but there's also the part of the universe that's god. (or maybe a subpart of god that's the other stuff that he's not subject to--again, whatever your ontology is)

It's fine if my definition is peculiar. I never claimed otherwise. I'd be fine if I'm the only person in the world who is using it. I couldn't care less. Nevertheless, that's the way I use the term. It's not difficult to understand that that's the way I use the term.

You've explained what you mean by 'everything.' I'm asking what the phrase 'being everything' means. I ask that because you've used it multiple times in order to explain your point. — csalisbury

Obviously there's no difference in my usage. "Being everything--x is part of what I just defined as everything"

So, why isn't that an answer?

How about explaining why the answer I'm giving you doesn't count as an answer in your view? If you don't know the answer and I do, then how would you know that what I'm saying isn't the answer?

Everything is a term for all objects, all phenomena, etc. Anything that occurs, appears, etc. in any manner.

Do you understand the sentence above?

which necessarily has the attributes of being timeless and immaterial. — AJJ

If there are timeless and immaterial things, per how I use language, the universe has timeless and immaterial things.

But God is God precisely because he is not a part of anything. — AJJ

Now you're being all Aspieish about "part." That's not the idea. If there is an x--whatever imaginable x is--I label it as "the universe"

That's not understanding the difference between (a) an argument for or against anything, and (b) a stipulation about how I'm using a term.

I'm not saying anything at all (in these comments about how I use the term "universe") about what does or doesn't exist, what can or can't exist. I'm simply making a declaration that whatever exists, I'm going to call it "part of the universe."

It would be no different than if I were to say that I'm going to say that everything is part of "shplabeeblewaffle." I'm simply announcing that I apply a sound to anything that exists, whatever it is, including gods, including timeless things--whatever imaginable it might be.

You are, implicitly. Do you understand this? — AJJ

I don't agree with that, no. How am I implicitly arguing something?

It just can't be this difficult to communicate something so simple.

The arguments for theism demonstrate the existence of an entity beyond the universe; that is what you’re up against when you argue in opposition to theism. — AJJ

In my comment about how I use the word "universe," I'm not arguing anything, for or against. Do you understand this?

Your definition requires that your conclusion - that there is nothing beyond the universe - is true. — AJJ

It's not a conclusion. It's a stipulation about how I'm using a term.

Let's try to get one thing sorted out at a time so that I don't have to keep repeating myself.

Do you understand the difference between a conclusion and a stipulation about how I'm using a term?

The elaboration of what "everything" refers to is this: "a term for all objects, all phenomena, etc. Anything that occurs, appears, etc. in any manner."

What words there do you not understand?

Let's try this: what part of this sentence do you not understand?

"Everything is a term for all objects, all phenomena, etc. Anything that occurs, appears, etc. in any manner. "

Do you understand any of those words? Any of them in conjunction with each other? If you don't understand any of those words, or any of them in conjunction with each other, you sure do not need to be on a philosophy board. You need to be taking remedial English or getting some other kind of rudimentary assistance.

I already answered this above.

And your concept of the universe is question-begging: — AJJ

But it's not an argument, lol. Only arguments can have argumentative fallacies. It doesn't make any sense to apply argumentative fallacies to things that aren't arguments.

By defining it as “everything” you assume there is nothing beyond it, and therefore no God, which is precisely the issue under discussion. — AJJ

Not at all. In fact, I explicitly wrote above that if there were a god, that god would be a part of the universe per how I use the term "universe." Didn't you read that when I wrote it above?

There can't be anything beyond the universe per my usage of universe, because whatever there is, whatever its nature would be--including gods--it would be part of the universe. All I'm doing there is telling you how I use a term.

The third option is creation by a transcendent God, which your dichotomy precludes because it assumes there isn’t one. — AJJ

That's not a third option. Either the god always existed or it appeared from nothing.

The two things you're having an issue with here have absolutely nothing to do with an argument re whether a god exists or not.

I wasn't saying anything about the "nature" of anything. I simply said that logically, there are only two options no matter what. Either "always existed" or "appeared spontaneously."

The prohibition isn't against speech. It's against promising something and not delivering it. Not sure why that wouldn't be a clear distinction to you, but you can say it isn't. It's not as if I can force people to (say they) understand things they (say they) don't understand.

If you can't offer a reasonable response to the question of why your position allows enforcement of contractual speech acts, despite your claim that no speech can be regulated, then just say so. — Hanover

I already answered this. Re contracts, it's not any sort of speech restriction. It's not stopping anyone from saying anything they want to say. It's just that I'd enforce contracts--if you promise A in exchange for B and do not deliver, there would be legal repercussions.

I couldn't care less if you think that's reasonable or not. There's no reason for me to care what your assessments would be of my stances, especially given how you've behaved towards me so far.

Re "beyond the universe" I'm telling you how I use the term "universe." That's not an argument, it's a statement about a concept per my usage.

Re the paragraph starting with "No matter what," that's again not an argument. It's simply a statement reporting what I believe to be a logical dichotomy. If you know of a third option, I'd be glad to hear it.

At any rate, for some reason you're taking me to be forwarding arguments with premises and conclusions when I'm not.

The begging the question fallacy occurs when the premise of an argument assumes the conclusion of the argument.

I don't even know what you'd be reading as my premise(s) and my conclusion.

There can't be something "beyond" the universe. If there were a god, the god would be part of the universe. Again, I use "universe" to refer to everything.

No matter what, we're only left with either things appearing "out of nowhere" or with things always existing, and both are counterintuitive. There's no way around that. So although counterintuitive, there are simply no other options.

I'm not a "scientism" adherent, by the way, a la treating current scientific claims like a religion. Science forwards a lot of nonsense.

But that's not what I asked — Hanover

I wasn't aiming to retype/rephrase what you asked. I was commenting on the notion of "proper" and whether I was saying anything about it. Weird that that might be difficult to figure out.

In any event, instead of trying to find creative ways to pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about, how about realizing that differentiation isn't actually necessary for identification in some regards.

You keep bringing up existence. I'm not saying anything about it.

Definitions are for example the text strings you find in dictionaries, or the string of spoken phonemes re a verbally given definition.

Meaning is a mental act of associations that we perform in our heads.

Are you aware that on atheism you’re forced to believe the universe just is, and there’s no explanation why? That some part of it accounts for its own existence, by what you can very fairly characterise as magic? — AJJ

It makes no sense to me why you'd think theism is any different in that regard. (Keeping in mind that I use the term "the universe" to refer to everything.)

If you were to ask me if moral stances have anything to do with what's "proper," I'd say "No."

How would there even be anything "supernatural"?

no - as I said it is a fact that such things as bunnies exist, it is a fact we know the capabilities of these things we call bunnies, it is a fact that the these capabilities do not include filling baskets around the world on Easter Sunday. — Rank Amateur

So in other words, the idea is that given that you're okay saying it's a fact that there's no x on an absence of evidence of it even when the idea of an x is coherent (for example, the Easter bunny), it's even stronger to say that there's no x on an absence of evidence when the idea of the x isn't coherent (as with gods).

(And this is the argument for P3 being false. It's not a proof per se. Empirical claims are not provable period, including "There is no Easter bunny," including "I have a refrigerator in my kitchen," etc.)

But I didn't use the word "proper" anywhere, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying what I am/am not in favor of (well, and what I'd do "if I were king").

But with the Easter bunny notion, that's not even incoherent. There's just no evidence for it. So it doesn't seem consistent for you to not say that it's not a fact, there's just no empirical evidence for it--until there is.

I would say the only thing factual that can be said on the lack of empirical evidence, is that it is a lack or empirical evidence. — Rank Amateur

Sure. So you wouldn't say that it's a fact that there's no easter bunny, for example?

You're saying that it's improper to regulate free speech generally, but that it's proper to regulate contracts specifically. — Hanover

Where am I saying that?

No - that was a argument - if you remember way back to the first time - my argument back was - the lack of empirical evidence is a very good reasonable argument that god does not exist. It does not however make it a fact. As an example - there was no empirical evidence at one time for the atom - until there was. — Rank Amateur

I already responded to this. Do you withhold judgment on everything conceivable that there's no empirical evidence for, no matter how crazy the idea is?

Right. So one reason that we know that it's a fact that there is no god is that there's no empirical evidence at all that there is a god. Now, you'd say that's not a reason, it's simply a "declarative statement without support."

So that means it doesn't meet some criterion you have for a sentence, Q, to count as a reason for or to count as support of another sentence, P. We need to figure out what your criteria are.

because you have yet to supply any reason whatsoever behind you statement - i even tried to do it for you on the last one. You need to support your statements or they are just opinion — Rank Amateur

That would imply that you have criteria for what counts as reasons.

So, for example, "I believe I'm Napoleon because I ate a taco last night." Is "because I ate a taco last night" a reason there or not?