It’s an incoherence. What you are describing understands God to be an existing actor. This is the logic of “miracles.” The existing actor, all powerful and amazing, literally does the impossible, performs the action the world could never do itself. No doubt it is a relationship to the world, an understanding of events that have occurred,but it’s one which lacks understanding and imagination. From the first instance, they were wrong to think the world couldn’t being anew. The fracture is only between what the expected the world to be and what it did. God didn’t ruin the general. The world did. And it always could. Nothing in the world is has the power of precluding the possibility of its destruction. The general is ignorant by his own hubris. He mistakenly thought it was impossible for him to loss. History is broken in the way the general thinks. It’s just the history the general thought was so was never there. Nothing in the world is pre-determined.

The “metaphysical” relationship of “miracles” is the mistake of logic. It maintains God acted, even in the face of a world that does otherwise, because it thinks itself concerned with the metaphysical rather than the empirical. It mistakes the metaphysical (necessity, an imagine image of the world) for the empirical (what the world does), and thinks becasue it speaking about “logic” it can say stuff about the world without reference to the world, in turn generating the schism of “miracles” and “broken history” when the world defies their expectations.

Nietzsche only left God somewhat dead. While he identified separation, killing the idea of unity, he did not escape the expectation of unity. For Nietzsche, the crisis of Nihilism appears precisely because he cannot see beyond the expectation of unity. Ethics and value supposedly turn from something eternal to only an finite whim, all because unity it lost. In effect, Nietzsche is making the same ransom found in many proselytisers (religious or otherwise)— “Value requires unity (God), else it is all meaningless.” And so do the “last men” who follow him. For many a modernist and even post-modernist, God is not really dead. To some of them, we will finally have unity through science, through technology or social acceptance. Nietzsche said we killed God, but many of us only killed religious tradition, including him to a large extent. The metaphysics of God, the confusion of metaphysics for the empirical, notions of a predetermined world of unity, all carried on strongly. In the modern world, many say their is separation, but a lot of them don’t think it’s true.

God only dies when the world becomes the locus of possibility. Where the world sub specie durationis is finally understood to besub specie durationis, rather than being considered a pre-determined outcome of the world sub specie aeternitatis. It’s an understanding where there are no “miracles” because no-one has the hubris to think the world is predetermined to their expectations, be that winning a battle, death or solving a social problem. The world is known to have the power to form a new state of system that destroys what we expected or desired. In it, we understand not only is history broken (separated), but that all are actions are put towards to building a broken history (some state of a separated world) and this is where the infinite of ethics and value are expressed— with any question of ethics or value, our goal is not to bring unity to the world, but rather defend its separation, to protect important states of sub specie durationisfrom destruction or destroy instances of sub specie durationis which are vile. Politics doesn’t seek unity. It defends separation.

The virgin isn’t the same as the slut. Either is separation sub specie durationis, a distinct state, which is (sub specie aeternitatis) worth defending (to the postmodernist, who is right here- but that’s another argument). No-one is trying to make the world unbroken, to give the world unity. Everyone is defending a separation and that’s important. The only question is whether one realises that or is still deluded into thinking the world can be unified.

You are still deluded. You read politics as if its goal was unity, as if our institution were made to progress to unity, to a pre-determined world in which there were no loss or problems. Democracy isn’t made for an unified or eternal end. It serves the present, to defend particular sub specie durationis states, to avoid a totalitarianism government in its presence. That’s why it’s important, not some ultimate end where we get to sit in a world where totalitarianism is impossible. Our choices and actions may always erode or overturn democracy. Electing dictators is not new. Erosion of democratic systems is not new. It’s happened many times before all over the world. The world is always destroying its own. Sometimes this follows an institution created to solve a problem. Indeed, sometimes it even a response of result of solving a problem (e.g. cane toads in Australia, the impacts of DDT on the environment, etc., etc.). That’s what it means to live in a world of possibility. Nothing ensures we will get what we want. History (or rather the predeterminate) gives us nothing.

The crisis of Nihilism is the failure to accept this, a pining for the predetermined world immune to destruction and change. The world without Sin is not expressed or even sought in the death of God. Indeed, such an idea is the fantasy of God, the unified world in which there is no loss, in which Sin is impossible, where the world is predetermined to be as expected and just, a fantasy which views ethics not as a question of world action defending separations that matter, but one in which the world has no value or significance or ethics (i.e. “without God, there is not meaning, value or morality”). In this respect, it far precedes Nietzsche and the modern world. We might say the crisis of Nihilism is the belief in and expectation of the unified world.

Yes. You suggested you might be wrong about the empirical not amount to the ethical. This is not true. It not possible of empirical description to be a telling of ethics. You're letting Terrapin's argument of the hook, treating it as something which might be true when it's impossible.

Any world. To claim that empirical states amount to an ethical value is logical incoherent-- "is" is not "ought," "presence" is not "value."

It is when there's no God doing healing.

I'm referring to the misuse of "possibility" to then claim it might still be God who did the healing. The supposed "mystery" of how the world works, to keep alive the claim about the world which has shown to be false, so even when the absence of a healing God is shown, it's still considered possible.

It was meant to be "falsification or incoherence"-- just a typo I missed.

It's not a logical possibility.

Ethics judgement is not made on the basis of empirical states. It's a question of a logical position which has various relationships to the world. If an author's work is greater, it's so on the basis of ethical logic. It's not possible for empirical inquiry to confirm or disconfirm this matter.

Only if you are accepting the incoherent argument that contradictions are possible.

To someone who is thinking in terms of logic, "anything and everything is possible," just means any outcome that's not a contradiction is possible. The mention of possibility has already excluded contradictions from the question.

As states of the world, something the world does, the events classed under both are possible-- a entity that cures disease, creates life, hurls lighting bolts or talks to people is perfectly coherent; any of them might be. It's just that they are all states of the world, all nature acting.

I'm referring to the logic of "miracles" and the "supernatural." The problem is with the misuse of "possibility" to appeal to" mystery" to claim something can be, even in the face of falsification of incoherence. "Contradictions are possible" is how this line of thought works. When the world doesn't show the event claimed (the acting God, the ghost, a magic spell, etc.,etc.), it's still understood to be possible outcome, to avoid the realisation it's false--i.e. God is not there healing anyone, but's that okay, for the contradiction of God healing someone without the presence God healing someone is a possible outcome; it still might be true.

Which is true-- one can only describe a possible outcome if it is a possible.

This is not a "circular" argument. One is not "deriving" that a "possible outcome" is possible becasue its possible. It describing what it takes for someone to be talking about a possible outcome.

If I'm to talk about a computer then I need to be referring to a computer. I can't talk about a rock and be referring to the computer. Possibility is similar-- I can't talk about a possible outcome without referring to a possible outcome.

In your question, you are trying to say that talking about a impossible outcome (contradiction) can amount to talking about a possible outcome (such that a contradiction is a possible state).

That question is based on a logic error. It assumes that "anything is possible" can include contradictions.

By the definition of contradiction, this is not the case. Logically, one cannot say "anything is possible" and be referring to contradictions. In other words, the question is posed by those who are ignoring what contradictions are.

It's a sort of "magical thinking" if you will. It's a bit like belief in the supernatural or "miracles"-- a logic error made to say something can occur when it cannot happen at all.

It's worse than circular. It would be incoherent-- the logic expression of non-contradiction entails that contradictions aren't possible. The supposed argument of "anything being possible, including contradictions" is incoherent.

To argue, for example, that it's possible that an non-existing state exists, contradiction itself would have to be rejected.

Which is why I didn't bother clarifying "anything is possible" with "except contradictions." Contradictions are excluded from the possible by definition, so it doesn't make sense to treat them like they are something that could be true.

To say: "Might it be that a contradiction is true? Isn't something that could be? is just incoherent.

People will revere ignorance if it let's them be the saviour of the world. Without those mistakes, their work couldn't be passed off as the Jesus of philosophy.

It wasn't your point. You were more or less trying to use metaphysics to take out (the necessity) of radical contingency. In your argument, you treated logical possibility as if it was like a state, almost like we needed to observe those logical possibilities actualised if it were true they were logical possibilities.

He refuses to answer what the metaphysics actually are, and instead throws up his hands and goes like - "oh yeah, everything and anything is possible!" Thanks, but no, that's a lazy answer. — Agustino

Everything and anything is, indeed, possible. Whatever Lewis's mistakes, it is not wrong to say that. What you are trying to do here is use metaphysics to constrain the world. The reason you think it's the lazy answer is it means metaphysics don't necessitate anything in the world.

If "everything and anything is possible" is true, we can't use metaphysics to judge anything, we will be left only with disruptions of the actual world, rather than being able to rely on metaphysics to guide us (radical contingency, for example, takes out Aristotle's metaphysics). Rather than identifying what laziness in this context (trying to logical possibility when descriptions of the actual world are relevant), you are deny the necessary truth of logical possibility to keep metaphysic relevant for dealing with the actual world.

Not quite. The point about possible worlds is they do not exist. Rather than a state of the world, they are a logic truth, necessary and unaffected by what exist in the world. To pose the question: "Can possible worlds exist?" simply doesn't make sense. Since they never exist, there is no question of doubt or possibility to consider.

It's not eternal if it ends. Nor do they intend for it to be eternal, which is the even bigger problem. And the idea that they were "meant to have sex" is nonsense. There was no destiny compelling them to do it. It's their own choices that led to it. Furthermore, the fact that both of them will be hurt is inevitable - anything which is lost, will be - sooner or later, perceived as a loss. And even if this isn't so - it would still be running a Russian Roulette. One never knows if they, or their partner, may actually fall in love and hence end up hurt badly. — Agustino

All relationships end in the sense of the world. Our lives are not eternal. Life-long love in the sense is only transfinite— a continuing series of finites states where two individuals are in a relationship. Here the eternal never appears. It’s in the expression of states that the eternal is found, in the meaning which cannot be overcome or destroyed within the passageof finite states. The eternity of a life-long relationship is not in lasting forever, but an expression of a particular series of states that end— a world of particular meaning.

An eternity, in this sense, is expressed all states. A night of passionate causal sex no less has a meaning that’s etched into the history of the world. It just involves different states. The difference between a life-long relationship and night of casual sex is not in eternity, but rather in the world. One is the existence of a sexual and/or romantic relationships across a life time, the latter is the existence of a sexual connection for a night. What matters to you here is not eternity, but trying sure only states of the former expression exist. You aren’t trying to defend the everlasting over the finite, but rather the existence of life-long relationships over any casual sex.

What you're describing here is merely something that is more immoral and outrageous than the immorality that most people practice. But just because there are worse people out there, doesn't mean that what most people are doing is fine. It's like comparing killing a child, with hitting a child. Both are immoral - it's just that one immorality is worse than the other.

Why is it, in fact, more immoral and outrageous? Because there is even less love in it - they don't only want to gain pleasure from others - and hence use them as a means to an end - they want to humiliate them, deceive them, dominate them, and so forth. This means they want to gain pleasure from others' suffering, not merely to gain pleasure regardless of others' well-being. — Agustino

'

My point was in ethics, there is no hierarchy. Sometimes actions do less damage or cost less, but that doesn’t affect their discrete ethical value. The young man intoxicated with the idea of picking at women, whose not make his intentions clear and is content to pray on the naive, has no less dome something he ought not have than the rapist— in ethical terms, he has and is trying to “abuse” another.

In terms of causal sex without love or care, to say “They are just trying to have sex” does not do what is happening justice. In the above example, the man is not just trying to have sex at all. He is trying to possess the woman he’s interested in, to do what he wants regardless of what she thinks or desires. To think that such a man is only trying to have sex is to ignore the dimensions of how that man thinks about others and the way he deliberately acts towards them.

As an understanding of sexual relationships, it is a sibling of “seeking sex is only question of someone getting pleasure.” Just as that terms sex only in terms of the sexual desire of the self, to use the description “it’s only about sex” reduces the motivation an action to merely a person sexual desire. It fails to talk about how the person acts and thinks towards others, as sex were somehow isolated in it’s own world. Sex is still treated as an individual status symbol (the self seeking to fulfil their sexual desire), rather than grasped as an action and value involving other people. I'm saying you a letting people off the hook for how they treat others here.

If I care for someone, I cannot just care for them for the 30 minutes we're having sex for, or for just the night we have met. That's simply impossible, and I would be deceiving myself if I thought I care about them. I may appreciate them, I may find them interesting people, and so forth - but CARE about them? Impossible. If I actually care about them, then I will go on caring tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and so forth. That's what caring means. — Agustino

No doubt, but the critical question here is whether that involves having sex with them. I mean must you have sex someone to care about them? Is it impossible to care for a woman without having sex with her? You appear to hold the position that if someone has sex with someone, then they must continue to do so for the rest of their life, if they are to care for them.

Suffice to say, your insistence you don’t care about sex is a pretence. You understanding it as an all consuming component of status. So much so much so that, if people have sex, they are bound to having sex for life, or else have no care for each other. The horndog holds their status depends on getting sex from others, you set your status by continuing to get sex from someone. For you the question of caring is not one of thinking about others, what they think and feel and what matters to them. Rather, it’s about maintaining your status of having a lifelong sexual relationship.

Could you care about the woman you fell into bed with in a night of passion? Only if you keep having sex with her, you say.

It's their intentions that matter more than behaviour. Their intentions - like worms - grow in their heart, and give birth to immorality. However, for most, their immorality is restrained by elements of decency they have learned to respect from society. Because they never question such norms, their immorality can never truly manifest itself completely in their behaviour. — Agustino

This is Erik’s argument that you (correctly) called out as not even worth considering in the context of ethical reasoning. Supposedly, people possess this “natural” inclination (intention) which means they are pre-determined to act immorally unless held back by a threat of rule. The spectre of original sin, which doesn’t take into account what sins are actually committed (that would be behaviour), but creates this image that one has sin irrespective of their behaviour, as if our choices and actions had nothing to do with acting immorally. Like Erik was, you are approaching ethics in terms of an image. You’ve imagined what humans supposedly are without reference to their behaviour and taken choice, responsibility and description out of the equation.

It's eternal. The expression of the one night when they were meant to have sex doesn't die because they don't continue a sexual relationship. Desire for each other may be shot-lived, but that doesn't take away the meaning of what happened.

Indeed, that's why it works. If a participant did desire an ongoing relationship, this eternal expression would be lost. Someone would be hurt badly and the night of casual sex would be unethical in one way or another.

But for most people sex is simply obtaining pleasure, or, in some cases, self-esteem. Many - perhaps most people - measure their self esteem by who they manage to have sex with or not. — Agustino

I think that's an image. People think and say that, but I don't think that's how most people behave. Don't get me wrong, plenty of people have sex for a social status, but they don't do it with just anyone. or everyone. Those people tend to try and possess particular people-- the attractive, the popular, the known, those people at the party or those they know will accept their advances.

In practice, the abusive don't just seek to obtain pleasure. They seek to obtain others, to possess and mislead ignore them, to obtain them for only their own benefit. I would say that the idea that these people are just trying to obtain pleasure is part of the atomistic pretence that sex is this isolated from everyone else.

You say such people are trying to obtain pleasures if it is all they are seeking. It's not. They are seeking to use, possess, mislead, ignore and hurt others. Put it this way, "just seeking pleasure" isn't really what is wrong with their actions. Or at the very least, it doesn't do justice to what's happening.

For those who don't care about the other person, sure. This is not always the case. Sometimes casual sex is a mutual expression of a a short term desire. One doesn't forget about them the next day. The people involved just don't need to maintain a sexual or romantic relationship.

Ehm... no, in practice, this is most often the case, for probably 99% of people, including, unfortunately, those who are married. — Agustino

My point was the idea was an illusion. People who think sex is only the obtaining of pleasure are pretending. And, indeed, it is unfortunate.

The issue is more that it's frequently immoral to obtain pleasure because sex involves and interaction between two (or more) people. Without love (and I use that term sort loosely here), people are only interested in what they want, setting the stage for the abuse of others. Ethical sex (or perhaps avoiding unethical sex and the harm it causes people) always involves a deep concern for others.

Even causal sex, in a relationship which lasts no more than a night, needs "love" to be ethical. If it's not understood to be the mutual expression of people, it becomes destructive. People become content to use each other.

The idea sex is just "obtaining" pleasure is absurd. It's never just a presence of someone getting pleasure. By definition, it involves people who act towards each other, who care (hopefully) or do not care about other people. The atomism of sex exists only in pretence.

The material universe which expresses meaning and value. A reality in which God is not a foundation of the world or meaning, but rather an expression of existing states. God defined by non-existence: a series of necessary truths which can defy existence(e.g. the ethical truth that remains despite everyone acting otherwise) precisely because they aren't "in" the world.

A piety that matters because it is what the world expresses: the importance of family, a community where people are honest and can trust each other, the needles suffering which ought be avoided, a sacrifice of life so someone else can live, etc., etc.

In all cases, states of the material world which have significance, which demand action. No one needs to go hand-wringing over how to make the lives of loved ones matter or what makes feeding the starving child important. This states of the world express significance all on their own. The world is replete with meaning. Its expression is a necessary truth.

More like "the truth (whatever that might be)" is irrelevant. Many objective facts cannot be changed at all. This, however, doesn't mean they are relevant to a particular instance. Is, for example, a truth of atheism relevant in the Sunday morning church service? No, it's just tone-deaf harassment of theists trying to practice their culture. Sometimes "the truth" is not needed.

Post-modernism has not taken out truth or even the concept of "the truth (people still use that to say they are right all the time)," but the link between metaphysics (necessity) and truths in the world (physics). The world always has the power to defy what is thought to be "The Truth."

Truth no longer corresponds to a metaphysical reality, which no physics could ever change or alter, but to the reality of physics itself. — Agustino

Indeed. It's not exactly new either. Truth has always worked like that, we just didn't recognise it so well. A bemoaning of "post-truth" politics could well be found in any instance where the world does something different to a perceived metaphysical reality. I mean how could anyone deny the truth of the King's divine right? Or the truth of Church's authority? The truth is obvious, how could people have become so ignorant/deranged/demonic as not to recognise it?

"Post-truth" is more like "What do you mean you reject my understanding of what world necessarily is/will be?" It's mostly about complaining someone didn't think or act like in away you thought was necessary.

This is not to say people are wrong that truth as been ignored. In many cases, that happens, particularly in the quest for rhetorical victories in political conflict, but that's always a question of a specific issue. It's not that society somehow stops thinking in terms of truth. In any of these instances, people are just ignoring particular truths which are important.

It's always intellectual though, for ethics is the reason that matters. For the theist, the God without the political is not God. If God is merely rhetorical, it is not The Truth. There is no cosmic creator , judge, enforcer and giver of eternal life in such a circumstance. For the theist, God is always intellectual, a necessary truth of reason always bound to the ethics/politics of a just society. To recognise that a God debate is really about hierarchy of cultural practice and values, as opposed to the presence of a being that necessitates justice, is to destroy the very premise of the theist belief.

In understanding it, one destroys God-- ethics and power become their own category, without a foundation that necessitates them. Ethics become necessary in-themselves and, in terms of practice, a contingent state of the world (i.e. Nietzsche--"God is Dead").

So there is no doubt the socially conservative atheist may find God a useful concept for policing society and grounding their values, but it comes at the cost of honesty. God only works as a foundation when it is believed. Only if people think God is intellectual, is inseparable of the intellectual and political ethics of a just world, can it help reinforce socially conservative practice. Their mutual commitment to socially conservative tradition is not stronger than the theist's commitment to God. If the conversation turns to metaphysics of ethics, the theist must disagree or else lose their belief in God.

The social conservative atheist's argument might rest on reason (or specifically an intellectual and binding ethical/political position), but they can't publicly state that and make rhetorical use of God. To keep the theists on side, the public face must claim God is true and equate social conservative values with religious belief.

I think that's many atheists reason for rejecting God, but then I think that make sense.

I mean what is God without the "traditionalist" elements? If God is not a moral arbiter or enforcer of the world, God becomes sort of irrelevant. What does it matter if there is some being if it has no impact on the world? The question of believing in God becomes equivalent to whether one thinks there is some astroid in some galaxy we haven't observed. God without the "traditionalist" stuff is so benign that no-one has a beef with them-- well, apart from the traditionalist theists, who cannot stand the notion because it would mean the absence of their moral arbiter and enforcer.

I'd say everyone has a beef with God because that God is inseparable from the tradition they are opposed to. Even the "descriptive" atheist (i.e. the worried about the presence or logical coherence of God) reacts because belief would mean partaking in a tradition they found abhorrent (e.g. believing in falsified states and/or incoherent concepts).

So think you are right about people having a beef with God becasue of tradition, but what exactly is God without tradition? I think you are ignoring it's the tradition that makes God God.

I think this is a historical reason for the lack of intersection between atheism and social conservatism. Social conservatism has ties to traditions inseparable from God. Within the political environment, both the traditional theists and their opponents promote the opposite. Since the social conservative tradition so many people are worried about is tied to God, belief in God becomes the battleground. To be a social conservative atheist, one is effectively building an identity without precedent. No one thinks of a social conservative tradition being necessary tied to an atheist identity.

The social conservative atheist is caught in the middle. To the traditional theist, they are a threat because they agree with the non-traditionalist that God is irrelevant to the definition of tradition. Although they are both social conservative, the atheist denies the foundation of the theist's belief. God is no longer necessary and rejected. That's a big hurdle to ask many theists to jump. In the current political environment, the socially conservative atheist doesn't have many pre-existing traditions to coalesce a movement around. Without the reactionary defence religious tradition or alt-right identity, it's difficult for the social conservative atheist to generate political appeal. I think, perhaps, they are in the most difficult position in the West at the moment. The embedded liberalism within Western culture makes it difficult for them to develop a movement on their own terms.

I don't think they are-- "tradition" more or less means "values and behaviour" that ought to be handed down through generations. Atheists and/or "non-traditionalists" have these too, contrary to what someone analysis of morality (Haidt comes to mind), but they just advocate different values and behaviours. It's just the "non-traditionalists (i.e. not religious)" values and behaviour are new, so people don't think of them as traditions.

I think there is a bit of a metaphysical difference. The traditions of the past focus on a particular underlying foundation (God, Nation, etc., etc.) where is the behaviour and values of the modern "non-traditionalists" focus on the world itself (at least with respect to post-modern Western liberalism). Their traditions (freedom, equality, etc.,etc.) are understood to serve the present world and it people, rather than a foundation. In a way, we might say to values the world (that which exists at some point in time), rather than an idea (a particular notion of a foundation). I think this is a bit of a significant change. The "non-traditionalists" don't understand behaviour and values, their traditions, like the traditionalists do.

Only to the eliminativists who equate existence with real. Non-eliminative materialists have no such issues.

Where logic is recognised as real in the first instance, as opposed to the illusionary and finite presence of an existing state (dependence on an existing object or mind), existence isn't required for logical laws and expression to be true. Logic or universals are true without existing. The mental/physical of substance dualism is a red-herring.

Logic's independence is given by its absence in existence, either as a "physical (e.g. brain)" or as a "mental (e.g. existing experience or mind)," in the first place. In the realness of logic, it is not materialism who loses the game, but substance dualism and its"mental" and "physical" substances.

That's a contradiction: a particle does not pre-exist itself such that it's there with a "nature" that determines its own form.

Practically it seems impossible. — Agustino

For sure. Such a machine would require world different from the one we've observed. With respect to our understanding of "energy," it would effectively break the laws of thermodynamics as we understand them. An endless series of finite states of energy that don't impact on the wider world is effectively an endless internal battery for the machine.

Although it doesn't break what is logically possible, and is consistent with thermodynamics in the metaphysical sense, it utterly contradicts our understanding of thermodynamics as an expression of interacting states. In practical terms, it would effectively mean creating energy out of nothing-- to build this machine would mean granting access to an endless well of energy that otherwise did nothing. With respect to the interactions of the world, it adding an endless supply of energy from nothing more than building the machine itself.

No, they are necessary. The world couldn't be otherwise. This world couldn't. Maybe some other world could. — Agustino

That's pre-determinism-- not only are is there such gas, but no other outcome was possible. Or in other words, there are no worlds in which gas could be otherwise.

When we say the world "could be otherwise" we are always speaking about some "other world." A possible world, not the actual one. "Could be" doesn't describe the world as it happens. This is why freedom/contingency doesn't clash with the determinism of causality. The necessarily outcome at any moment (the event that occurs) happens not in opposition to freedom, but rather because of it.

The behaviour of gas particles is caused not by an necessary destiny ("final cause"), but in the emergence of new states which amount to the causal outcome. Gas particles moving to increases pressure in a container, for example, only occurs if that outcome emerges. If we happened to reduce the space in a container, only to find the gas stayed where it was or didn't exert any more force, a different possible outcome would occur and the gas model (at least for that interaction would be different). For any causal relationship, the world has to perform it. It cannot be given by a model. Models are expressions, not constraints.

This world could be otherwise. The fact that something happens doesn't mean an alternative is not possible. If someone acts to kills someone else, it doesn't mean they couldn't have acted otherwise. The killing wasn't necessary to this world. It's just what happened. Possibilities aren't touched by this.

You have to accept that the laws governing this universe could entirely change tomorrow, and be completely different! Gravity could start repelling us from the Earth rather than attracting us! So crazy... — Agustino

They could change though. This is basic logic-- one cannot say what must happen in the future based on the knowledge of the present. It's entirely possible the universe could be different tomorrow.

Such a possibility doesn't mean the world will be different though. Possibility is not what's actual. To say it possible the universe could work completely differently doesn't commit to a position to saying that it does. It's not really "crazy" at all. Accepting that gravity might start repelling us from Earth tomorrow is not to think that it will. Indeed, that idea might be rejected entirely. A person may think that although such an event is possible, it will never occur-- a frequent position people hold about what the world does.

Second law of thermodynamics is partly metaphysical. The arrow of time isn't just a distinction of one state of existence from another, but a identification of a logical difference between the past and future.

The perpetual motion machine, for example, isn't logically impossible because a machine cannot run indefinitely (that might happen, so long as their is a finite state of energy to draw-- practically, the effect of a perpetual motion machine is logically possible. If there was an endless series of finite states to draw on, and doing so had no impact on anything else, the machine would run "perpetually"almost as imagined ), but rather because even a machine that keeps on running is a finite state drawing on other finite states. Time and difference keep moving, even for the machine that runs constantly.

The gas laws model describe interactions of gas as we have observed. In effect, it does model interactions of individual particles, just only to a specific level-- to the impact of many individual gas particles together in the world we have observed so far.

Nothing about this relationship is necessarily to the world though. At any point, gas might behave differently or cease to exist at all. The gas laws are not a constraint on the world, but rather than expression of the world as we've found it.

As such, there is no "final cause." Gas that behaves to the gas model laws is not necessary at all. It's only so when gas behaves in that way. No doubt gas that is modelled by the gas laws necessarily behaves in that way, but that is an expression, an instance of being, rather than a cause.

Sometimes. Here "faith" (in the sense of an argument for a belief, as opposed a description of a belief) is a about a little bit more than that. It doesn't consider faith to be a truthful argument, but rather something entirely outside knowledge altogether-- one just "believes" rather than knows something about ethics or the world.

In effect, this does mean ignoring evidence in favour of belief (as one believes no matter what), but the notion faith runs deeper. It doesn't understand itself to be knowledge at all. (hence Agustino's turn to the "unknowable" here).

Fruits which are irrelevant to the faith argument. It doesn't mention them. It can't, for that would take knowledge. Instead of arguing what is true (the fruits of the theist belief), the faith argument only deals with appeals to fear and hope. It's a rehtorical argument made to cause commitment to God without considering truth.

To you, as you have refused to marry her. But that's your action, not her loyalty to her partner.

In the context of belief in God, this would merely mean you choose not to follow God. You would just marry some other belief instead. This is why it's particularly rehtorical-- you are demanding faith in God to get people to follow God. It's not an argument made on truth (ethical or descriptive reason to believe in God), but an act made to cause followers of God.

Which is why it's rehtorical-- faith is convincing you to marry her. It has nothing to do with with truth, nothing to do with describing her or her behaviour.

Faith is not required for her faithfuness (she might be faithful to someone else she's involved with), just marriage to you.

That's precisely why faith acts as a rehtorical enforcer. The world anyone hopes for gets attached to faith, creating a situation where people think faith is required to hope.

Hope becomes confused with belief, which in turn becomes confused with truth, such that people think they need to have faith or else what they hope for won't come true. But, of course, hope has nothing to do with it-- turth is what matters.

A faithful wife is defined by the truth of her actions. Hope doesn't matter. A woman you despair would cheat might never do so. It's her actions, not your hopes, that define that. Her faithfuness is entirely possible, despite your lack of hope.

Similarly with God. What matters with God is not hope, but truths of the world and ethics. The theist follows God because of what God means for the world, and that it improves our actions and lives.

I do: that's why it merely rehtorical. In faith, one hopes for God, for an unknown to turn out how they wish. In terms of an argument, it like saying: "I hope the coin turns up heads."

Some people complain faith doesn't give a reason for belief, but that's too kind. Faith doesn't even take a position on the world or ethics-- it's just someone saying "I wish."

They don't need to agree. In this respect, they are ignorant of themselves. As for the point, it's about understandi the relationship of knowledge to faith.

Also, some theists would agree. My argument here is not that God and knowledge of God is impossible, it is that "faith" fails to respect knowledge.

In ethical and descriptive terms, a theist should be arguing that belief in God is justified because it's what's true.

The fear arguments actually work in terms of describing a lot of human behaviour. In either case, they are arguments about someone's motivation to hold a particular position. For many people, the atheist/theist line does depend on these fears. If they didn't fear death or God's action, they would not be theist or atheist respectively. The argument just has nothing to do with good reasons, be they descriptive or ethical, for believing or disbelieving God.

Faith doesn't even engage on that level. It's more or less a rhetorical device, an affirmation of a way of life, of practice, of value, in the face of possibility.

In terms a description of the world, it's incohrent. If I understand God exists, for example, any of you question of doubt is resolved. My postion is I know God is true. To what I know, faith doesn't even enter the picture. In possessing this knowledge, I know there is no need for faith as an excuse of belief. If one knows, they don't need to appeal to the unknown.

Faith is about locking in a particular way of thinking or acting, not describing what is true.

I know. That's why it's not a temporal point. In terms of meaning or idenity, a human at a given point is no different.

Banno as a waiter does not preceed or be without Banno's existence (choice) as a waiter. Just like X as computer does not preceed or be without the existence of such a computer.

I know, but that's also the problem: he treats reference as if it has nothing to do with the actual world. As the only consideration was the formal reference someone has imagined (e.g. I'm talking about Obama who necessarily has a human body.).

Descriptivism is wrong. Reference isn't defined by describing some property of a thing in the world. Mountain Obama is a testament to that-- if I suggest that possible state is true, I'm certainly not describing who I'm referring to.

But this doesn't mean the actual world becomes entirely irrelevant. What I'm referring to is actual in some world, a state of existence which may change or be different to what I think it is in countless ways. I can't just take an idea about what I'm referencing and proclaim it's necessarily true.

Well... on a formal basis, we can imagine an Obama as a mountain. For any Obama, we might pose that they turned into mountian or suggest they were always a mountain. Any of these positions is a possible state of the world. Rather than idiotic, it's correct.

Kripke sort of denies this though, for he treats any named entity as a state with necessary properties. To suggest Obama might be a mountian would be incohrent to him, because it would break the rule that Obama necessarily had a human body. Kripke's problem is he more or less mistakes the actual for formal-- Obama has a human body, he doesn't necessarily have a human body. Kripke claims the later.

More or less the predicate, I think. In this case there is X (a thing) which is a computer. How would one have the existence of this computer prior to that predicate being expressed in the world?

It's impossible. X, the computer, cannot be prior to the computer. When X is a computer, it must always express the meaning of computer, else we would be claming there was a computer before the computer was there.