God's God

[downbeatplumb]

Everything has to have a cause.......... except this thing over here.....I shall name it Bernard.
Now lets give Bernard some properties.
He is 'dress sense' every time you wear a bow tie you make Bernard cry.
He is the strange sensation that something is watching you when you are on the toilet.
He hides your keys when you need them, HE IS BERNARD.

[Godscreated]

Our omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent God has always been, there has never been a moment He did not exist. I'm sure you find this difficult to comprehend, so you'll just dismiss it. I'm not saying I or anyone could comprehend this, it's that I choose to believe what He says.

Please read the OP again. I anticipated, and dealt with, this response there. The "omnis" are arbitrary assertions which have not been demonstrated or justified (i.e. - an attempt to define your "God" - whatever that means - into existence). They are also mentions of secondary characteristics - which renders your idea of a "God" incoherent (as you admitted - in a round about way - in your response). They don't tell anyone anything about what your alleged deity actually is - or could even be. So just saying (as I anticipated) "he's eternal" doesn't get you there.

Anyone can attribute any characteristic they want, to anything (arbitrarily) they want. So what. That doesn't get you one iota closer to showing how your alleged deity doesn't need an explanation for it's existence, but somehow we do. The door swings both ways. Either you stop attempting to define your deity into existence (omni this...all that....etc), at which case you literally have nothing to work with, or you allow that everyone else can also define into existence anything they want (i.e. - the global universe is omniscient/eternal/whatever we want!). Big whoop.

A lot of words which disproves nothing. The only reason you ever challenge Christians to prove God is because you believe God who is Spirit can not be proven. What you can't understand about those who seek God, we know Him through His revelation to us of who He is. Because you have not sought Him, how is it you believe you're qualified to dismiss Him? You want something to disprove, try my relationship with God, disprove I have not experienced the God of the Bible. I did not try to bring God into existence through omni- anything, God has always existed and because of this He is omni, whether you want to accept it or not, what you will never be able to do is wish the God of creation out of existence. Try as you may, He's not going away.

[Darkstar]

A lot of words which disproves nothing. The only reason you ever challenge Christians to prove God is because you believe God who is Spirit can not be proven.

Only if he doesn't exist.

What you can't understand about those who seek God, we know Him through His revelation to us of who He is. Because you have not sought Him, how is it you believe you're qualified to dismiss Him?

There are atheists on AF that sought god for decades. And...

You want something to disprove, try my relationship with God,

Or my relationship with FSM.

disprove I have not experienced the God of the Bible.

Why would I want to disprove that?

[downbeatplumb]

disprove I have not experienced the God of the Bible.

My friend "experienced" being chased around a field by giant smurfs after taking something he shouldn't.

Your experience means nothing to me.

[Tex]

God is ipsum esse subsistens, that is, Being per se. God doesn't need a cause of existence because he is "Existence".

Note: The above is only true if Being and Existence have the same meaning. In Heidegger's philosophy, they are not.

Edited Note: This would mean, grammatically, when something exists, they "participate in Existence".

[median]

A lot of words which disproves nothing. The only reason you ever challenge Christians to prove God is because you believe God who is Spirit can not be proven. What you can't understand about those who seek God, we know Him through His revelation to us of who He is. Because you have not sought Him, how is it you believe you're qualified to dismiss Him? You want something to disprove, try my relationship with God, disprove I have not experienced the God of the Bible. I did not try to bring God into existence through omni- anything, God has always existed and because of this He is omni, whether you want to accept it or not, what you will never be able to do is wish the God of creation out of existence. Try as you may, He's not going away.

1. HA! The "proving" is your job there, not mine.

2. The reason why I challenge Christians (as I used to be one of you and used your same arguments) is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of your case. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how you know your specific deity is actually real.

3. Huh? What is a "spirit"? This term is just as incoherent as the term "God" or "Yahweh" or "Allah". Anyone can makeup any fictitious character they want. It doesn't make it true or actually real. You need definite primary characteristics, not just hear-say or secondary anecdotes. It seems you don't actually care whether or not your beliefs are actually true. You just want to believe your assumption.

4. As is so typical with you Christian apologists, when you have no better come back, you commit the fallacy of Shifting the Burden of Proof (as well as the "b/c I said so" fallacy). NOPE! I won't fall for it. It's not my job to disprove your claim to "experience God". I used to say the same thing. But all religions in the world ultimately fall back to some non-demonstrable, internal, invisible, subjective (gay sounding), subjective "personal experience" they think they had with the one specific deity they grew up with in their culture (Yahweh in America, Allah in the Middle East, Krishna in Southeast Asia, etc). So what! Just because you think you had some "experience" doesn't mean your interpretation of that experience is true. It just shows that you don't care whether your beliefs are actually true and that you are willing to practice credulity, gullibility, and irrational argumentation to keep believing what you assumed from the start.

5. HA! Your last bit is comedy. First you say you "didn't try to bring God into existence" (by attempting to define this alleged being into being), and then you proceed to do just that! How do you know this deity exists? Can you demonstrate it? Again, if all you have is some subjective personal experience, and an ultimate fall-back onto "faith" then you really have nothing b/c faith is just gullibility dressed up. It isn't a reliable pathway to separating fact from fiction. Anyone can just have faith in anything. That doesn't prove a damn-thing.

"Try as you may, Santa Claus is not going away!"

[Mystic]

Everything has to have a cause.......... except this thing over here.....I shall name it Bernard.
Now lets give Bernard some properties.
He is 'dress sense' every time you wear a bow tie you make Bernard cry.
He is the strange sensation that something is watching you when you are on the toilet.
He hides your keys when you need them, HE IS BERNARD.

The logical premise (which seems true to me) is that everything needs a constant cause.
If everything needs a constant cause, then either it's the cause of itself in it's current state or it has a cause from other than itself in it's current state.
A quark doesn't have the power to constantly cause itself to exist.
Same is true of atoms.
Same is true of human beings.
Therefore these things necessarily, if the premise is true, need to be constantly caused by something else.
Whatever is causing the universe right now obviously ontologically precedes it and is the first being, even if he doesn't precede it time wise.
This being must also be able to constantly cause itself to exist.

This can be simply deduced.

If you disagree with the premise "everything constantly needs a cause", that's fine, but it's not special pleading to see a human needs a cause outside self while a super being doesn't.

Moreover, from the premise "what begins to exist needs a cause", it's not special pleading to say that first cause must not have began to exist.

Now there is proof the universe time is finite. You can say there is no ontological before "time zero" or perhaps there can be logical reasons there needs to be ontological precedence, for example, by the fact all time is preceded by a moment of time, time zero to be an exception, makes more of a case of special pleading, that to say a timeless creator caused time to come into motion.

All this is not special pleading. If you disagree with the premises, that's something else, but it's not special pleading, because if the argument is sound, it necessarily leads to the conclusion.

Furthermore, the necessary being, if it is possible, and the axiom agreed by most logicians "what is possibly necessarily, is necessarily" would suggest a lot of things. First the necessary being can only have qualities that it must have in all possible worlds.

If you gave it shape, you can say, why not this shape over that shape. If was a cube for example, you can ask, why not a pyramid. Ontologically, the both are possible in different possible worlds. But the necessary being is what must be the case in all possible worlds.

Therefore it's properties are necessary type. You can see more details about this in the "Plantinga's ontological argument" thread.

Whether you agree with the premises or not, is a different matter.

And finally, no one has proven the supernatural sacred necessary being can't be a properly basic justified belief.

In this case, if the properties of that ultimate being in the faith minds of people, doesn't require a cause outside itself because it's eternal and independant and able to sustain itself's existence, then this is not special pleading. You can deny their faith, that's fine. But it's not a special pleading as to why this being doesn't need a god above it or can't even know there is no god beside it.

For example, if it was ultimate existence, it would logically know that all existence is encompassed by it and derived from it, and hence no ultimate existence can exist beside it, because they must be temporal and limited.

[Tex]

Nemo latina sciunt?

[median]

The logical premise (which seems true to me) is that everything needs a constant cause.
If everything needs a constant cause, then either it's the cause of itself in it's current state or it has a cause from other than itself in it's current state.
A quark doesn't have the power to constantly cause itself to exist.
Same is true of atoms.
Same is true of human beings.
Therefore these things necessarily, if the premise is true, need to be constantly caused by something else.
Whatever is causing the universe right now obviously ontologically precedes it and is the first being, even if he doesn't precede it time wise.
This being must also be able to constantly cause itself to exist.

You obviously aren't reading the responses. Wow. "Constant cause"? How do you know everything needs a "constant cause" to keep existing? "It seems true to me" isn't a valid argument. There are lots of things that "seem true" to lots of different people. We are engaged in rational discourse here. Now, if you think "everything needs a constant cause", then both define your terms and demonstrate this. It does NOT, however, follow that the sum of all existent things needs a constant cause (that would be the fallacy of composition).

Second, to say something is "the cause of itself" is absurd (irrational) and incoherent (not to mention something you haven't shown to be true or accurate). Do you think Allah 'caused himself' to come into being? If so, this is like saying he existed before he existed. Absurd.

Third, in quantum physics there are effects that appear to have no apparent causes (i.e. - vacuum fluctuations, virtual particles, etc). Thus any experience of "uncaused causes" cannot act as evidence for your case. And no deity deduction can be made from them. At best, we could say that some causes of particles seem to come from unknown origins.

Is your deity physical? If not, how do you know it's real? If you don't, but rely on faith, why? Faith is not a reliable avenue for separating fact from fiction. It is gullibility dressed up.

This can be simply deduced.

If you disagree with the premise "everything constantly needs a cause", that's fine, but it's not special pleading to see a human needs a cause outside self while a super being doesn't.

Moreover, from the premise "what begins to exist needs a cause", it's not special pleading to say that first cause must not have began to exist.

Now there is proof the universe time is finite. You can say there is no ontological before "time zero" or perhaps there can be logical reasons there needs to be ontological precedence, for example, by the fact all time is preceded by a moment of time, time zero to be an exception, makes more of a case of special pleading, that to say a timeless creator caused time to come into motion.

All this is not special pleading. If you disagree with the premises, that's something else, but it's not special pleading, because if the argument is sound, it necessarily leads to the conclusion.

And around and around we go...

As with multiple times before, you cannot simply define your deity into existence by use of secondary characteristics (i.e. - what your alleged deity supposedly does). The "this is my God by definition" argument fails. Our local universe is demonstrated. Your deity is not. As before (and once again), anyone can define anything into being they want . It moves the discussion nowhere.

"Physical existence is eternal. It needs no explanation as to the cause of it's existence. We just are." If we wanted to, we could say this about humans too - and just dodge (as you are trying to do) every possible refutation from empirical investigation that arises. "Humans are eternal. We always were." This is, again, another attempt at the "because I say so" fallacy (which I anticipated in the OP). But you don't get to appeal to "my god is eternal by definition" and get away with it - b/c anyone can do that. So, stop attempting to define your deity into existence and start demonstrating how you know it is actually real - as we both agree the universe is real.

Btw, it IS still (contrary to your ad nauseum denial) Special Pleading. "Everything needs an explanation of its existence... except my deity."

Furthermore, the necessary being, if it is possible, and the axiom agreed by most logicians "what is possibly necessarily, is necessarily" would suggest a lot of things. First the necessary being can only have qualities that it must have in all possible worlds.

If you gave it shape, you can say, why not this shape over that shape. If was a cube for example, you can ask, why not a pyramid. Ontologically, the both are possible in different possible worlds. But the necessary being is what must be the case in all possible worlds.

Therefore it's properties are necessary type. You can see more details about this in the "Plantinga's ontological argument" thread.

Whether you agree with the premises or not, is a different matter.

The Russell/Copleston debate now? Even if we agreed that there must be some necessary being (a being which contains within itself the reason of it's own existence), and I don't necessarily agree that there must be, but even if I did it does not follow that such a "thing" (if we can call it that) has to be anything different from the totality of existence itself (i.e. - the global universe - a part of which we are now experiencing).

And finally, no one has proven the supernatural sacred necessary being can't be a properly basic justified belief.

In this case, if the properties of that ultimate being in the faith minds of people, doesn't require a cause outside itself because it's eternal and independant and able to sustain itself's existence, then this is not special pleading. You can deny their faith, that's fine. But it's not a special pleading as to why this being doesn't need a god above it or can't even know there is no god beside it.

For example, if it was ultimate existence, it would logically know that all existence is encompassed by it and derived from it, and hence no ultimate existence can exist beside it, because they must be temporal and limited.

Your first statement here hints at a kind of fallacious argument from incredulity (a burden shifting). "No one has proven me false yet. So I'll just keep believing my assumption until they do." How absurd and hypocritical. Secondly, the if, if, if postulations are gratuitous and unnecessary. You haven't demonstrated any deity (with characteristics of "eternal" etc). So saying anything of the sort is pure speculation. But if you're not making the argument that existent things require an explanation for their existence, then you shouldn't have replied to the thread.

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Nemo latina sciunt?

Non curo

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God is ipsum esse subsistens, that is, Being per se. God doesn't need a cause of existence because he is "Existence".

Ah, the "patAto/PAtato" argument. I will answer as George Smith did years ago. If you're trying to define God as nature, why not just call it nature? If God is nothing more than "existence" then there is no use for that ideologically charged term to be used. Simply replace the term with what we already agree exists...NATURE. Done.

Last, since we humans are part of existence, then are you saying we are God?

[Mystic]

How do you know everything needs a "constant cause" to keep existing?

I don't know for certain. It seems true to me, so I can base an argument on that. It will then seem to me an eternal maintainer to the universe and himself, needs to exist. It would not prove it to someone who disagrees with the premise, but it can be evidence to me, when the premise seems true.

"It seems true to me" isn't a valid argument.

It's an axiom in the proof, it's not the argument.

Now, if you think "everything needs a constant cause", then both define your terms and demonstrate this.

It's defined already. A thing includes everything that exists.

It does NOT, however, follow that the sum of all existent things needs a constant cause (that would be the fallacy of composition).

No it's not on a universal argument. All atoms can't think, it doesn't follow what forms of an atom doesn't think. But do you believe if atoms can't cause themselves to exist, some how the sum of atoms are possibly causing themselves to exist?

That doesn't appear rational. In this case, since each thing in the universe cannot be constantly causing itself to exist, it would follow the universe is not constantly causing it either.

Do you think Allah 'caused himself' to come into being?

Nope.

Third, in quantum physics there are effects that appear to have no apparent causes (i.e. - vacuum fluctuations, virtual particles, etc). Thus any experience of "uncaused causes" cannot act as evidence for your case.

Says you. To me they would be evidence of supernatural cause, just not concrete definitive evidence.

And no deity deduction can be made from them. At best, we could say that some causes of particles seem to come from unknown origins.

And it can seem like that origin is a supernatural creator. That can possibly seem more plausible that a 10th dimension or something like that.

Is your deity physical? If not, how do you know it's real?

I don't believe in a deity...so why don't you ask me what I believe before assuming so much.

If you don't, but rely on faith, why? Faith is not a reliable avenue for separating fact from fiction. It is gullibility dressed up.

I guess you don't believe in morals, praise, free-will, human rights, etc....

As with multiple times before, you cannot simply define your deity into existence by use of secondary characteristics (i.e. - what your alleged deity supposedly does). The "this is my God by definition" argument fails. Our local universe is demonstrated. Your deity is not. As before (and once again), anyone can define anything into being they want . It moves the discussion nowhere.

Strawman to what you quoted.

The Russell/Copleston debate now? Even if we agreed that there must be some necessary being (a being which contains within itself the reason of it's own existence), and I don't necessarily agree that there must be, but even if I did it does not follow that such a "thing" (if we can call it that) has to be anything different from the totality of existence itself (i.e. - the global universe - a part of which we are now experiencing).

The global universe could always be somewhat different, hence can never be ontologically necessary. Even if was ontologically necessary, it would not prove ontological necessary living being is not necessary.

Your first statement here hints at a kind of fallacious argument from incredulity (a burden shifting). "No one has proven me false yet. So I'll just keep believing my assumption until they do."

Well no, the point was, people have faith, and you haven't disproven that what they believe is special pleading at all. You simple re-assert it over and over again.

You haven't proven they can't know by faith. So the burden is on you because you are stating their faith is illogical.

I haven't coming out saying their faith is justified as an argument that you must accept.

I'm saying you haven't shown it's not true, therefore you haven't shown how they are committing special pleading.

If they know ultimate existence exists via faith (I don't claim to know), you haven't shown they don't. Just as they can't go up to you and tell you, their faith is proof to you, your faith that they don't know is not proof either that they are special pleading.

Creator constantly maintaining itself would not mean he had to ontological precede causing itself. He can constantly cause himself to exist and this maybe the very reason why we might know "everything needs to be constantly caused" (because it's the nature of existence and we can possibly be given knowledge of that by the Creator).