Does God exist? (16 Viewers)

[buriza]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

#long post

voltaire

always pick voltaire, he is actually a joy to read

if you do hume you have to do berkeley with him

spinoza and bertrand russell would also be interesting

I have a feeling I would love to learn about Hume since I am interested in all his thoughts about empiricism and what not, the belief that everything is derived from experience. idk if I quite agree but it is relevant to psych

Well keep in mind my evaluation of him is incredibly biased against him, I disagree immensely with him on quite a lot of things with his philosophy, but other than that he was a great physician, astronomer and mathematician and *insert 10 other disciplines*

Ibn Sina (latinized Avicenna) is a sort of Aristotle of the east, upon the Muslim conquests of the Byzantine empire, a lot of greek works were translated into Arabic, which is where Ibn Sina began studying Aristotle, he was by no means a complete mouthpiece of Aristotle, even criticizing him on occasion.

The reason why I say Western philosophy would love him is because he would be the closest to western philosophy, rejecting some orthodox principles in favour of his Greek inspired philosophy (such as the belief in the pre-eternity of the universe)

His philosophy gained quite a bit of popularity, until the theologian Al-Ghazali a century or so later refuted him in his famous book Incoherence of the Philosophers, where he refuted the notion of a pre-eternal universe (among 19 other beliefs), which was the inspiration for the Cosmological arguments and for the rise of Saint Thomas Aquinas

if Ibn Sina was similar to Aristotle I wonder if his philosophy experienced criticism during the anti-Aristotelian period

still even though I find Western philosophy interesting, it would be nice to be able to learn about other philosophies from different cultures, the most obvious being Confucianism

you would enjoy reading voltaire tbh

he writes his philosophy in prose form so it's pretty fun to read too

what is Voltaire about?

I disagree with Ibn Sina on everything that he disagrees with the orthodoxy haha
Such as (I'm going through my copy of Incoherence of the Philosophers, so keep in mind this is all through the lens of Ghazali, Ibn Rushd later tried to refute it in Incoherence of the Incoherence, claiming that Ghazali was throwing straw-men on Ibn Sina on some issues)

- pre-eternity of the universe
- the universe is necessarily existent with God, i.e. just as the Sun necessarily produces sun rays, God necessarily exists with and sustains the universe.
- God only knows the universals, but not particulars, i.e. God knows that I'm typing up this response about Ibn Sina, but not what words I'm using to convey it (this was quite unique to Ibn Sina)
- denial of the possibility of an actual bodily resurrection

Ghazali claimed that Ibn Sina also denied the immortality of souls, but Ibn Rushd says this is a strawman

As far as the difference between essence and existence is concerned, I am not familiar with Ibn Sina's position on it, nor do I think there is an orthodox religious position on it

dat title

and even though I'm not much of a religious person, it does seem a little strange to me to believe in the pre-eternity of the universe. I also agree that given God does exist, he does not exist with and sustains the Earth out of necessity, tbh the whole notion of necessity isn't really compatible with the notion of creationism in the first place. the thought that God knows only the universals but not the particulars is an interesting thought however and I haven't heard about such before this. as for the denial of the possibility of an actual bodily resurrection, is Ibn Sina saying this in reference to Jesus or the concept of resurrection in the general afterlife?

and actually from what I read in the wiki article (may or may not be reliable), Ibn Sina's philosophy does convey the immortality of souls. apparently Ibn Sina thought that the connection between body and soul must be strong enough to allow the soul's individuation, but weak enough to allow for its immortality. being completely honest here but I have no idea what the hell that means however I believe it does express that soul = immortal

edit: reading over it, it does make a lot of sense now ahahahah

@sy123 @buriza

What is philosophy ?
What does it aim to achieve?

philosophy is contemplation and it aims to answer questions about humanity, for both enlightenment and improvement

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

if Ibn Sina was similar to Aristotle I wonder if his philosophy experienced criticism during the anti-Aristotelian period

still even though I find Western philosophy interesting, it would be nice to be able to learn about other philosophies from different cultures, the most obvious being Confucianism

He definitely experienced a lot of criticism from what you'd probably call the 'clergy', though at his time the Mu'tazila sect which is a sort of moderate version of Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi and would be more sympathetic of them, they were essentially rising in popularity, however with Abu Hasan Al-Ashari's scathing critique of the Mu'tazila, and later Ghazali's critique of the philosophers, they eventually died out until today were mostly those of orthodoxy remain

also just to clarify, its not exaclty correct to call Ibn Sina completely Aristotelian, but also a neo-platonist

dat title

and even though I'm not much of a religious person, it does seem a little strange to me to believe in the pre-eternity of the universe. I also agree that given God does exist, he does not exist with and sustains the Earth out of necessity, tbh the whole notion of necessity isn't really compatible with the notion of creationism in the first place. the thought that God knows only the universals but not the particulars is an interesting thought however and I haven't heard about such before this. as for the denial of the possibility of an actual bodily resurrection, is Ibn Sina saying this in reference to Jesus or the concept of resurrection in the general afterlife?

and actually from what I read in the wiki article (may or may not be reliable), Ibn Sina's philosophy does convey the immortality of souls. apparently Ibn Sina thought that the connection between body and soul must be strong enough to allow the soul's individuation, but weak enough to allow for its immortality. being completely honest here but I have no idea what the hell that means however I believe it does express that soul = immortal

edit: reading over it, it does make a lot of sense now ahahahah

I've always thought that to deny the cosmological argument one would really have to argue for an eternal universe or something like that, it is what Bertrand Russel and (I think) Hume argued.
Ibn Sina's reference to a denial of bodily resurrection is in reference to the day of Judgement, where orthodox belief lies in the affirmation of a literal bodily resurrection to face judgement, whereas other sects believed in a sort of spiritual ascension of sorts, since they thought it was impossible for it to be literally possible for a bodily resurrection to take place

Yea it doesn't make sense to me to deny the immorality or eternality of the soul, because in the end the self-sufficent Eternal One could potentially sustain all our souls, meaning our souls would have a life-span of being potentially infinte, whereas the 'life'-span of the Eternal would be an actual infinite, i.e. the natural numbers 1,2,3.... is a potential infinite, because although we have no 'infinity' number, we can still go higher and higher if we tried

 

[nerdasdasd]

The Nonsense Thread

apparently he advocates freedom of religion, freedom of expression and separation of church and state. interesting...

it is also very intriguing that he is capable of writing in so many different forms, literally if he can condense philosophical thought into well-composed poetry then I will be very impressed

not to mention he is an Enlightenment writer, hard to resist

I can imagine that in the 1600s he would of stirred a lot of controversy, given that the Catholic Church did consider him dangerous :0 (back then)

 

[buriza]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

He definitely experienced a lot of criticism from what you'd probably call the 'clergy', though at his time the Mu'tazila sect which is a sort of moderate version of Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi and would be more sympathetic of them, they were essentially rising in popularity, however with Abu Hasan Al-Ashari's scathing critique of the Mu'tazila, and later Ghazali's critique of the philosophers, they eventually died out until today were mostly those of orthodoxy remain

also just to clarify, its not exaclty correct to call Ibn Sina completely Aristotelian, but also a neo-platonist

I've always thought that to deny the cosmological argument one would really have to argue for an eternal universe or something like that, it is what Bertrand Russel and (I think) Hume argued.
Ibn Sina's reference to a denial of bodily resurrection is in reference to the day of Judgement, where orthodox belief lies in the affirmation of a literal bodily resurrection to face judgement, whereas other sects believed in a sort of spiritual ascension of sorts, since they thought it was impossible for it to be literally possible for a bodily resurrection to take place

Yea it doesn't make sense to me to deny the immorality or eternality of the soul, because in the end the self-sufficent Eternal One could potentially sustain all our souls, meaning our souls would have a life-span of being potentially infinte, whereas the 'life'-span of the Eternal would be an actual infinite, i.e. the natural numbers 1,2,3.... is a potential infinite, because although we have no 'infinity' number, we can still go higher and higher if we tried

how do you even know all of this, seriously

but just curious, does the cosmological argument then assume that instead the existence of God has been pre-eternal rather than the universe then? and I understand what you are saying with the day of Judgement but I can also understand why other sects may believe this to be more a sort of spiritual ascension rather than literal bodily resurrection. to be completely honest I would have thought the spiritual ascension as more befitting. however this is only because I cannot really understand what purpose a literal bodily resurrection serves in the context of the day of Judgement

honestly, if the concept of a soul does exist, then it just makes sense that it would be inherently immortal. after all, I thought this was what the soul was meant to embody, in that it is the everlasting essence of a person. that's why I was so interested in Ibn Sina's thoughts about the relationship between the body and the soul and how he figures they interact with each other (but this, of course, has also been quite a predominant discussion in much of Western philosophy)

 

[Kiraken]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

He definitely experienced a lot of criticism from what you'd probably call the 'clergy', though at his time the Mu'tazila sect which is a sort of moderate version of Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi and would be more sympathetic of them, they were essentially rising in popularity, however with Abu Hasan Al-Ashari's scathing critique of the Mu'tazila, and later Ghazali's critique of the philosophers, they eventually died out until today were mostly those of orthodoxy remain

also just to clarify, its not exaclty correct to call Ibn Sina completely Aristotelian, but also a neo-platonist



I've always thought that to deny the cosmological argument one would really have to argue for an eternal universe or something like that, it is what Bertrand Russel and (I think) Hume argued.
Ibn Sina's reference to a denial of bodily resurrection is in reference to the day of Judgement, where orthodox belief lies in the affirmation of a literal bodily resurrection to face judgement, whereas other sects believed in a sort of spiritual ascension of sorts, since they thought it was impossible for it to be literally possible for a bodily resurrection to take place

Yea it doesn't make sense to me to deny the immorality or eternality of the soul, because in the end the self-sufficent Eternal One could potentially sustain all our souls, meaning our souls would have a life-span of being potentially infinte, whereas the 'life'-span of the Eternal would be an actual infinite, i.e. the natural numbers 1,2,3.... is a potential infinite, because although we have no 'infinity' number, we can still go higher and higher if we tried

hmmmm not exactly

hume was more critical of the argument by design

having said that, what is perhaps most intriguing about hume was his rather unique and revolutionary way of defining ethics less in terms of abstract moral outlines and more in terms of the capacity for humans to be human, i.e. our emotions and feelings

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

how do you even know all of this, seriously

but just curious, does the cosmological argument then assume that instead the existence of God has been pre-eternal rather than the universe then? and I understand what you are saying with the day of Judgement but I can also understand why other sects may believe this to be more a sort of spiritual ascension rather than literal bodily resurrection. to be completely honest I would have thought the spiritual ascension as more befitting. however this is only because I cannot really understand what purpose a literal bodily resurrection serves in the context of the day of Judgement

honestly, if the concept of a soul does exist, then it just makes sense that it would be inherently immortal. after all, I thought this was what the soul was meant to embody, in that it is the everlasting essence of a person. that's why I was so interested in Ibn Sina's thoughts about the relationship between the body and the soul and how he figures they interact with each other (but this, of course, has also been quite a predominant discussion in much of Western philosophy)

Yep, God is seen as pre-eternal by clear consensus. I could also ask the question of what purpose would a spiritual ascension do over a bodily resurrection which would surely be more invigorating and 'real'.

The point being with the soul and why it being eternal is a problem for those who say it is a problem, is the point in saying that God should be the only actual eternal Being. Having souls be actually eternal would be akin to polytheism as it denies a fundamental unique attribute of God.

The refutation of it would be as I've said, that the soul is potentially infinite in life-span, i.e. that if God chose, my entire existence could be annihilated completely. I believe that the concept of actual infinite souls appears in I *think* the more eastern and sub-Continental religions

 

[Kiraken]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

the part of the cosmological argument and any argument against it that i find a bit absurd is the fact it deals with what was before the universe

but since the universe is defined as all of space and time its like asking what was before time, a kind of self defeating concept

 

[buriza]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

hmmmm not exactly

hume was more critical of the argument by design

having said that, what is perhaps most intriguing about hume was his rather unique and revolutionary way of defining ethics less in terms of abstract moral outlines and more in terms of the capacity for humans to be human, i.e. our emotions and feelings

I need to hear more about this ahahahahah

Yep, God is seen as pre-eternal by clear consensus. I could also ask the question of what purpose would a spiritual ascension do over a bodily resurrection which would surely be more invigorating and 'real'.

The point being with the soul and why it being eternal is a problem for those who say it is a problem, is the point in saying that God should be the only actual eternal Being. Having souls be actually eternal would be akin to polytheism as it denies a fundamental unique attribute of God.

The refutation of it would be as I've said, that the soul is potentially infinite in life-span, i.e. that if God chose, my entire existence could be annihilated completely. I believe that the concept of actual infinite souls appears in I *think* the more eastern and sub-Continental religions

that's a good question

as for your other points, I thought God would have other unique attributes? but even if He didn't it sounds strange to me that individuals would think just because we have souls it would then somehow invalidate God's existence as the only actual eternal being. in my opinion to have an eternal soul is different from being an eternal being. I consider being in the context of humans to be mostly physical and our soul is the only real eternal aspect about ourselves. whereas for God I thought all aspects about Him were eternal, so even in the case that an eternal soul was something humans and God both shared, God can still be clearly differentiated from us. I don't know if anything I'm saying is accurate at all

but your refutation does make sense, probably far more sense than what I have attempted to say

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

the part of the cosmological argument and any argument against it that i find a bit absurd is the fact it deals with what was before the universe

but since the universe is defined as all of space and time its like asking what was before time, a kind of self defeating concept

But God is timeless as He is not bound by time, meaning God existed independent of time t, and created the universe, therefore creating the universe. The issue you quoted is an issue with what is seen as the relational theory of time.

 

[Kiraken]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

I need to hear more about this ahahahahah



that's a good question

as for your other points, I thought God would have other unique attributes? but even if He didn't it sounds strange to me that individuals would think just because we have souls it would then somehow invalidate God's existence as the only actual eternal being. in my opinion to have an eternal soul is different from being an eternal being. I consider being in the context of humans to be mostly physical and our soul is the only real eternal aspect about ourselves. whereas for God I thought all aspects about Him were eternal, so even in the case that an eternal soul was something humans and God both shared, God can still be clearly differentiated from us. I don't know if anything I'm saying is accurate at all

but your refutation does make sense, probably far more sense than what I have attempted to say

essentially he says moral approval isn't about a rational thought process but rather than emotional response, which does actually make sense. He proceeds from there lol

 

[Kiraken]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

But God is timeless as He is not bound by time, meaning God existed independent of time t, and created the universe, therefore creating the universe. The issue you quoted is an issue with what is seen as the relational theory of time.

it's an issue with the entire argument though

the issue, as you rightly pointed out, doesn't invalidate the notion of God at all since God is by definition timeless, but the issue means that the cosmological argument makes no sense because you don't need anything beyond the universe.

The fact that the concept of before time is absurd simply means you don't *need* anything before the universe. Sure, you can say God is timeless and can exist beforehand in a sense but really that's just putting God there rather than deriving his existence by any necessity or logical process.

For example, that particular flaw where nothing has to exist before the Universe means the universe can come about without any prior cause (prior implying before and before being a null concept when considering the non-existence of time at that point) by definition and whilst there may be a cause you need to prove it by another argument which shows this cause is necessary

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

that's a good question

as for your other points, I thought God would have other unique attributes? but even if He didn't it sounds strange to me that individuals would think just because we have souls it would then somehow invalidate God's existence as the only actual eternal being. in my opinion to have an eternal soul is different from being an eternal being. I consider being in the context of humans to be mostly physical and our soul is the only real eternal aspect about ourselves. whereas for God I thought all aspects about Him were eternal, so even in the case that an eternal soul was something humans and God both shared, God can still be clearly differentiated from us. I don't know if anything I'm saying is accurate at all

but your refutation does make sense, probably far more sense than what I have attempted to say

All attributes of God are indeed unique, the ones that we can arrive at through pure reason though, include His pre-eternality, and to suggest that there are other beings that can have this attribute at least in my view is akin to polytheism. To have our souls be pre-eternal, and to suggest that it is different to being a pre-eternal being, is analogous to having God and the universe be both pre-eternal, which has been refuted earlier.

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

it's an issue with the entire argument though

the issue, as you rightly pointed out, doesn't invalidate the notion of God at all since God is by definition timeless, but the issue means that the cosmological argument makes no sense because you don't need anything beyond the universe.

The fact that the concept of before time is absurd simply means you don't *need* anything before the universe. Sure, you can say God is timeless and can exist beforehand in a sense but really that's just putting God there rather than deriving his existence by any necessity or logical process.

For example, that particular flaw where nothing has to exist before the Universe means the universe can come about without any prior cause (prior implying before and before being a null concept when considering the non-existence of time at that point) by definition and whilst there may be a cause you need to prove it by another argument which shows this cause is necessary

Hang on so what is your definition of the universe? If the universe is all that there is, then God would be inside the universe, but that is fine because in our argument, we simply change the word 'universe' to 'physical universe'.

Then we can simply apply the notion of an infinite regress of causes being impossible, showing that there must be an all-Powerful, all-intelligent Eternal terminator of the infinite regress of causes, being God. And for sake of Occam's Razor we can simply cut down the amount of causes down to 1, so God directly creates the universe, than God creating something which created the universe.

As for you comment that we don't need anything before the universe, if we show that the universe began, then by the first premiss of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, everything that begins must have a cause, and so the universe has a cause, so if we show that the universe indeed began, there MUST be something beyond the universe that caused it. We arrive at the concept of God through logical process by using the fact that a cause is necessary

We aren't talking about 'before' the universe, because my to say 'before' or 'after' these words do not even apply to God. There is no before time t=0, because God created time, and hence time t=0 started.

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

it took me a few times rereading to understand this but I think I understand what you are trying to say so God is unique in that everything about him is pre-eternal however this differs from us because we have been created from him and are thus not pre-eternal nor strictly eternal in a general sense since our souls could be extinguished by God Himself? is this even right?

Yes that looks right to me, the reason why we even say that our souls are potentially eternal, is because according to scripture, we will have eternal afterlives, meaning our existence will be eternally sustained by God meaning our souls are potentially eternal.

Hope that makes sense

 

[Kiraken]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

Hang on so what is your definition of the universe? If the universe is all that there is, then God would be inside the universe, but that is fine because in our argument, we simply change the word 'universe' to 'physical universe'.

Then we can simply apply the notion of an infinite regress of causes being impossible, showing that there must be an all-Powerful, all-intelligent Eternal terminator of the infinite regress of causes, being God. And for sake of Occam's Razor we can simply cut down the amount of causes down to 1, so God directly creates the universe, than God creating something which created the universe.

As for you comment that we don't need anything before the universe, if we show that the universe began, then by the first premiss of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, everything that begins must have a cause, and so the universe has a cause, so if we show that the universe indeed began, there MUST be something beyond the universe that caused it. We arrive at the concept of God through logical process by using the fact that a cause is necessary

We aren't talking about 'before' the universe, because my to say 'before' or 'after' these words do not even apply to God. There is no before time t=0, because God created time, and hence time t=0 started.

the universe is all of space and time

occam's razor isn't really a proof and isn't exactly applicable to metaphysics though which by it's very nature is independent of occam's razor

the entire problem with causality is causality is based on the concept of time, the term cause applies to a time scale, it's about "this makes this happen", it's an event, something dictated by time. As such causality is not a necessity at all when you're dealing with pre-universal concepts because the concept of pre-universal is thus self defeating. It's like asking what is north of the north pole.

Then this gives rise to two lines of thought. Either you don't need anything beyond the universe (which fits in perfectly well and logically with this) or God created time. I personally believe the latter but that is a personal belief and i acknowledge that logically speaking the other possibility exists.

This flaw with the cosmological argument doesn't disprove the existence of God, it simply shows that the cosmological argument itself by no means proves the existence of God because causality as a concept is nullifed when dealing with non-time conditions

 

[Sy123]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

just skim read that and that rebuttal is very flawed lol

take into account this particular section

Third, Oppy’s reconstruction of the argument on behalf of the causal premiss of the kalam cosmological argument neglects a crucial assumption of kalam: the view that time is tensed and temporal becoming is an objective feature of reality. Oppy’s tenselessly formulated premisses are entirely compatible with a metaphysic of tenseless time, according to which the parts of reality referred to in the premisses do not come into being at all but simply exist tenselessly at their appointed stations. On such a tenseless view of time, it is far less obvious that parts of reality which exist later than the initial state must have causes and that the things existing tenselessly at the initial state cannot exist without a cause, since they do not come into being at that time. If Oppy is to allow the argument in question its full intuitive force, then it must be reformulated along tensed lines. For example:

1´. If it is possible for something to come into being without a cause at a first moment of time, then it is possible for things to come into being without a cause at later moments of time.

2´. It is not possible for things to come into being without a cause at later moments of time.

3´. Therefore, it is not possible for something to come into being without a cause at a first moment of time.

It's wrong from point one lol and is literally just a leap of logic applying a point in a specific set of conditions to every other set of conditions and entirely neglects the crux of the argument that you can't have a before to time

Why is the first premise wrong?

Clearly t=0 and t=15 or whatever have no discrimination in between, so why should there be an uncaused event happen at t=0 but not t=15?

Anyway

I think I'm getting what you are saying though

You are saying that causality in essence is a temporal concept, that as you said "its about to do something"

Take P and Q, a cause and its effect

Doesn't your definition of causality mean that P must be before Q?

Why cannot P and Q simultaneously exist? Such as a chandelier being held up by a chain attached to a ceiling.

 

[kaz1]

Dude all I'm saying is that is science can't explain everything. You are just being simplistic.

Science doesn't explain everything so that is an excuse to say religion automatically has the answer, okay then.

 

[cohenill]

Hm I don't want to start a war or anything, I just wonder sometimes why do we have to argue about whether God exists or not.... Those who believe keep believing, those who don't then don't.... I rest my case *Peace*

 

[Queenroot]

Hm I don't want to start a war or anything, I just wonder sometimes why do we have to argue about whether God exists or not.... Those who believe keep believing, those who don't then don't.... I rest my case *Peace*

Arguing is better than starting physical wars over religion.

 

[iBibah]

Today I found out I didn't fail my maths assignment.



Therefore God must exist.