(February 8, 2018 at 12:29 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Steve, try to explain how “nothing” could be actualized as the alternative to something.  Go ahead; try it.

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(February 8, 2018 at 11:48 am)Grandizer Wrote: "not a single thing exists" means the same thing as "not-something exists". Just as:

"I had nothing for lunch today" means the same thing as "I had not-something for lunch today", which is equivalent in meaning to "I had not a single thing for lunch today",

and

"I saw nobody in the office" means the same thing as "I saw not-somebody in the office", which is equivalent in meaning to "I saw not a single body in the office".

So no problem so far.

Going back to "nothing exists" which means "not a single thing exists" which means "not-something exists":

"exists" means "is something".

So what you're saying is:

"not-something is something".

And so it looks to be a logical contradiction.

Thank you, that was a perfectly clear and perfectly succinct explanation.  Better than I’m capable of!

Not so fast. I might have messed up at the end.

I'll tell you why.

The phrase "no apples exist" is not illogical. So my reasoning is flawed there.

Nevertheless, you're still correct.

Nonexistence is what it's really about here.

The other stuff red herrings.

My fault. Time to sleep.

(February 8, 2018 at 12:37 pm)Grandizer Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 12:29 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Steve, try to explain how “nothing” could be actualized as the alternative to something.  Go ahead; try it.

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Thank you, that was a perfectly clear and perfectly succinct explanation.  Better than I’m capable of!

Not so fast. I might have messed up at the end.

I'll tell you why.

The phrase "no apples exist" is not illogical. So my reasoning is flawed there.

Okay, I see that.  But, Steve’s comparison is a fallacious one (a composition fallacy) so you were working from damaged material.  Particular objects existing or not existing in a point of time within our broader known existence, is a categorically different comparison than that of existence versus non-existence.

(February 8, 2018 at 11:45 am)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 9:56 am)SteveII Wrote: By admitting that we could logically conceive of both a possible world where we have our universe (obviously) and a possible world where it did not exist means precisely that the universe does not 'necessarily' exist.

Perhaps I misspoke.  When I said universe, what I meant, and what I should have said, was existence.  No, we cannot conceive of a world of non-existence.  That is logically incoherent.  We try, but as soon as we employ language to describe what non-existence is, we are logically refuting our own efforts.  As I said before, non-existence, by definition, is not anything, and cannot be anything, including a world.  Becuase a world, Ofc, would be a thing.  😏

I think you are getting stuck for the moment on "possible world" semantics. The term simply means the way things could have been. We can conceive that it was possible that everything failed to exists and there was not anything at all. There is no logical problem with that possibility. If there is no logical problem with that possibility, then the cosmos does not 'necessarily' exist. 

Quote:

Quote:We may instinctively attempt to conceive of “nothing” as a way to maintain logical continuity within this ‘cause and effect’ type of experience we’re used to, but “nothing”, described as any kind of thing, is by definition something, not nothing. And, non-existence, by definition, cannot exist.  

Ya’ll get any of that?  😝

Quote:In philosophy, 'nothing' (along with nobody, nowhere, none, etc.) are terms of universal negation. All you are doing is playing games with a word that grammatically is a pronoun and making it into a noun.

I’m not playing any kind of game.  I’m using simple, irrefutable logic.  Sorry you don’t like it.  You can call ‘nothing’ bananas if it pleases you.  My point still stands.  There is no logical alternative to existence.  Existence exists necessarily, by its very definition.

Why "is there no logical alternative to existence?" There are an infinite list of things that fail to exist. Perfectly logical. The property of 'existing' belongs to physical object and concepts. Properties do not exist by themselves. 

Quote:

Quote:If I had nothing for lunch today, I do not mean that I ate something and it was nothing. If I saw nobody in the office, I do not mean I saw somebody called nobody.

Not eating lunch and seeing people at work are pretty piss poor, and painfully inadequate comparisons to existence versus non-existence, don’t you think?  It seems to me, that you haven’t decided exactly what you mean when you say, “nothing”.

Quote:You are propagating a silly argument that only exists in the world of the atheist echo chamber.

If it’s silly, then refute it.  And btw, I did not come by this via other atheists.  I am capable of thinking for myself, thanks.

Quote:Go ahead, find a serious philosopher who has written on the somethingness of nothingness.

Huh?  That’s my whole point.  Nothing cannot be something.  So you agree?  Or, are you not talking about actual nothing?  Are you talking about a Lawrence Krauss type of nothing?  Because, that is not, no things.

I don't think we disagree as much as you think. Perhaps my comments above irons it out.

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(February 8, 2018 at 11:48 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 11:15 am)SteveII Wrote: You are playing word games.  'Nothing' is a pronoun (not a noun as you need it to be) that denotes negation so your phrase means "not a single thing exists". This is a tired old game.

"not a single thing exists" means the same thing as "not-something exists". Just as:

"I had nothing for lunch today" means the same thing as "I had not-something for lunch today", which is equivalent in meaning to "I had not a single thing for lunch today",

and

"I saw nobody in the office" means the same thing as "I saw not-somebody in the office", which is equivalent in meaning to "I saw not a single body in the office".

So no problem so far.

Going back to "nothing exists" which means "not a single thing exists" which means "not-something exists":

"exists" means "is something".

So what you're saying is:

"not-something is something".

And so it looks to be a logical contradiction.

Your problem continues to be that the pronoun 'nothing' means the negation of the word it is referring to!!

You had nothing for lunch. That means lunch did not happen. 

You saw nobody. Means that seeing a person did not happen.

None of the people ate to cookie. Means that eating did not happen. 

Nothing existing. Means that existing did not happen. 

So no, it does not look to be a logical contradiction--in the slightest. You MUST have tried to look this up. Didn't the fact that you couldn't find anything give you pause?

(February 8, 2018 at 12:48 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 12:37 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Not so fast. I might have messed up at the end.

I'll tell you why.

The phrase "no apples exist" is not illogical. So my reasoning is flawed there.

Okay, I see that. But, Steve’s comparison is a fallacious one (a composition fallacy) so you were working from damaged material. Particular objects existing or not existing in a point of time within our broader known existence, is a categorically different comparison than that of existence versus non-existence.

For sure, his reasoning is flawed. He thinks the negation of all that can possibly exist is a logical possibility, but this would require excluding the existence of that which "materially" makes such a state of affairs possible. So it's not that "nothing exists" is logical (it's not), but that I should have added more qualifiers in that post of mine. Instead, I rushed straight to the ending skipping some important details. In this sense, it was flawed.

(February 8, 2018 at 10:04 am)possibletarian Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 9:23 am)Little Rik Wrote:

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Your comment could not be more foolish.  
God also give us the sun.
If you look straight at the sun with your naked eyes for sometime in a clear day you may even go blind.
God doesn't give the sun, the meat the uranium or anything else to get sick.
It is all up to you to make a positive judgment whether something is good or bad or how we should use what we got in order to benefit or suffer from it.  

God never give any permission to eat meat or to get sick in any other way.
Religious people may not agree on meat eating but that is their interpretation of what God supposed to have said.
As far as I am concern God gave us the free will so we can choose what we like and in doing this we may either benefit or suffer from those decisions.  

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Never seen such silliness

Genesis 9:3
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

There were even instructions on what animals could and could not be eaten, of course god gave permission, well assuming that you believe the bible to be true that is.

Here is a good article from a Jewish perspective
http://www.aish.com/atr/Meat-After-the-Flood.html

I'll just point out that Little Rik is neither a Jew nor a Christian, so presenting arguments concerning the bible to him is simply evidence of a misplaced assumption. Little Rik follows tantric yoga, specifically that taught by the Amanda Marga movement. He could care less about what the bible says about eating meat.

Or what "science says", for that matter. Magic Man told him it was bad. That's all there is to see.

(February 8, 2018 at 5:55 am)pocaracas Wrote: I'm no expert, but I have read people claim that Paul was a somewhat drastic departure from the previous understanding of Christianity.

Paul and people around him invented Jesus à la L. Ron Hubbard. And why do I think that? Because Paul said it himself repeatedly. He constantly claimed that he has received his knowledge directly from Jesus. Meaning no apostles and no actual Jesus, no oral tradition, that it all came down from heaven direct to his ear, either via another vision of his Christ or the Lord God himself; like

Galatians 1:11-12   I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:15-16  But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

Or "1 Peter" (book that was not written by mythical Jesus Peter) where writer identifies himself as an "apostle" and not a "disciple" of Jesus Christ, meaning those who made careful search and inquiry into the Hebrew scriptures in order to get the answers from the "Spirit of Christ within them". So not witnesses or somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Jesus:

1 Peter, 1:10-12 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven - things into which angels long to look!

Considering that Paul's writings date before the gospels, writer of Mark reverse-engineered a cosmic savior deity from Paul into a flesh-and-blood man on earth doing a sloppy job. Because he made numerous geographical mistakes among other mistakes of Roman law, Hebrew law etc.
Then the other writers of Gospels simply plagiarize Mark with some re-writes so that Mark's story becomes increasingly improved in Matthew and Luke; and by the time John's story is written, Jesus has become a cosmic deity from the very creation of the universe who strides around Judea fearlessly declaring to all that he is God almighty made flesh.

Paul also fought other religions or should I say "Christianities" because that term Christianity did not exist and it will not come in use until the 2nd century. Even Paul was said to be Nazorean.
One of his conflicts is with what he calls top three "pillars" of the Jerusalem church were named Cephas, James and John. Like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas, these real people wind up as fictionalized characters in the Gospels, becoming Jesus' top three disciples: Peter, James and John. In fact, Paul only refers to a "Peter" once (Gal. 2:7-8), and it's still up for debate whether this is a scribal insertion, or if Paul meant Cephas, or a different person altogether.
Paul is quite paranoid about their group being "false believers," and brags he "did not submit to them even for a moment" (Gal. 2:4-5). Paul even accused "Peter" of being a hypocrite for not eating with uncircumcised Gentile Christians, which Mosaic law forbids and which is absurd because if Jesus existed then he would had settled these matters decades earlier. So Paul accepts them grudgingly as his own apostles and then Mark made them into Jesus'.
Also by Paul's time, communion rituals involving bread and a cup of wine or water had long been a staple feature of the pagan mystery faiths found throughout the Mediterranean world.
Paul was very aware of this, so what does he do? He simply calls other regions that do this "fakes" 1 Corinthians 10:21 "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons."
This is far from the only thing that Paul rips-off, because for starters the honorary title of the cult gods in the mysteries was Kyrios, "Lord" - the exact same word used in the NT for Jesus; Paul called himself the "father" of his converts, just as leaders of the Isis cult; his declaration of brotherhood is also present in the other Hellenistic mystery religions; in his letters his doctrines are called mysteries etc. and they are all proclaimed fakes and inventions of the devil, something that Christians today still hold to other religions and religions that brought Christianity.

(February 8, 2018 at 3:13 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 5:55 am)pocaracas Wrote: I'm no expert, but I have read people claim that Paul was a somewhat drastic departure from the previous understanding of Christianity.

Paul and people around him invented Jesus à la L. Ron Hubbard. And why do I think that? Because Paul said it himself repeatedly. He constantly claimed that he has received his knowledge directly from Jesus. Meaning no apostles and no actual Jesus, no oral tradition, that it all came down from heaven direct to his ear, either via another vision of his Christ or the Lord God himself; like

Galatians 1:11-12   I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:15-16  But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

Or "1 Peter" (book that was not written by mythical Jesus Peter) where writer identifies himself as an "apostle" and not a "disciple" of Jesus Christ, meaning those who made careful search and inquiry into the Hebrew scriptures in order to get the answers from the "Spirit of Christ within them". So not witnesses or somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Jesus:

1 Peter, 1:10-12 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven - things into which angels long to look!

Considering that Paul's writings date before the gospels, writer of Mark reverse-engineered a cosmic savior deity from Paul into a flesh-and-blood man on earth doing a sloppy job. Because he made numerous geographical mistakes among other mistakes of Roman law, Hebrew law etc.
Then the other writers of Gospels simply plagiarize Mark with some re-writes so that Mark's story becomes increasingly improved in Matthew and Luke; and by the time John's story is written, Jesus has become a cosmic deity from the very creation of the universe who strides around Judea fearlessly declaring to all that he is God almighty made flesh.

Paul also fought other religions or should I say "Christianities" because that term Christianity did not exist and it will not come in use until the 2nd century. Even Paul was said to be Nazorean.
One of his conflicts is with what he calls top three "pillars" of the Jerusalem church were named Cephas, James and John. Like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas, these real people wind up as fictionalized characters in the Gospels, becoming Jesus' top three disciples: Peter, James and John. In fact, Paul only refers to a "Peter" once (Gal. 2:7-8), and it's still up for debate whether this is a scribal insertion, or if Paul meant Cephas, or a different person altogether.
Paul is quite paranoid about their group being "false believers," and brags he "did not submit to them even for a moment" (Gal. 2:4-5). Paul even accused "Peter" of being a hypocrite for not eating with uncircumcised Gentile Christians, which Mosaic law forbids and which is absurd because if Jesus existed then he would had settled these matters decades earlier. So Paul accepts them grudgingly as his own apostles and then Mark made them into Jesus'.
Also by Paul's time, communion rituals involving bread and a cup of wine or water had long been a staple feature of the pagan mystery faiths found throughout the Mediterranean world.
Paul was very aware of this, so what does he do? He simply calls other regions that do this "fakes" 1 Corinthians 10:21 "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons."
This is far from the only thing that Paul rips-off, because for starters the honorary title of the cult gods in the mysteries was Kyrios, "Lord" - the exact same word used in the NT for Jesus; Paul called himself the "father" of his converts, just as leaders of the Isis cult; his declaration of brotherhood is also present in the other Hellenistic mystery religions; in his letters his doctrines are called mysteries etc. and they are all proclaimed fakes and inventions of the devil, something that Christians today still hold to other religions and religions that brought Christianity.

Excellent comments.

(February 8, 2018 at 1:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: I think you are getting stuck for the moment on "possible world" semantics. The term simply means the way things could have been. We can conceive that it was possible that everything failed to exists and there was not anything at all.  There is no logical problem with that possibility.

This is precisely where we disagree.  How could it be logically possible for existence to fail at existing?  If existence fails to exist, that suggests there was some potential for existence that was never actualized.  This potential, what ever it hypothetically is or could be, would still be something.  Not nothing.  

Quote:Why "is there no logical alternative to existence?"

I’ll answer that question with a question, if I may.  What is the logical alternative to existence?

(February 8, 2018 at 3:06 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(February 8, 2018 at 10:04 am)possibletarian Wrote: Never seen such silliness

Genesis 9:3
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

There were even instructions on what animals could and could not be eaten, of course god gave permission, well assuming that you believe the bible to be true that is.

Here is a good article from a Jewish perspective
http://www.aish.com/atr/Meat-After-the-Flood.html

I'll just point out that Little Rik is neither a Jew nor a Christian, so presenting arguments concerning the bible to him is simply evidence of a misplaced assumption. Little Rik follows tantric yoga, specifically that taught by the Amanda Marga movement. He could care less about what the bible says about eating meat.

Thanks for the heads up Jorg, Rik's posts make much more sense now.

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Nothing is not an alternative to anything, an alternative is still a thing that must have properties to be alternative. Just because we can conceive something does not make it a possible reality.

We do not even know if 'Something rather than nothing' is even a question we can justify logically.

I think this in essence was the OP's point, a mighty god for whom there should be nothing but evidence for is reduced to sophistry and word games.