This may be my favorite thread in some time.

As I said, I'll be counting on you to help me with the next nutter who thinks that such arguments are compelling..or even coherent.

I did ask whether you wanted to consider the smaller circumstantial gods of myths, contingent beings who could fail to exist and whose work product is the (purported) reason that people believe. The gods that exist insomuch as they did some thing(s) x.

(July 15, 2023 at 11:49 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I honestly don't think you guys need any arguments for your belief.   Which is convenient, judging by the quality of the arguments you offer.  If you really needed them..if they even mattered to you, in actuality, rather than performatively, you and your gods would all be fucked.  Or maybe that's just you burdening god again.


The truly interesting thing, for me, above, is that you've described the experience of being compelled by an argument you don't believe in, premised on a god that cannot exist...and all according to you.

You're right, my reason for believing isn't that some argument is valid and sound. I just hold to an intuition that I find extremely compelling, along the lines of "all this couldn't have come by chance, all this beauty and richness of the world, couldn't have been there without some supreme power". That's it, that's why I believe. It's probably an immediate, perceptual belief.

I don't think I'm capable of articulating this intuition in a 100% completely sound argument. But all I've read from the other side, all the atheistic arguments and reasons for rejecting belief just never shook this intuition.

I don't think that you're fully exploring your belief there, but the basic premise is sound. You feel a certain way. No argument required - it's just a statement of subjective fact. How you get from there to your wizard in the sky with a shitlist, a sex themed amusement park, and a favorite phone buddy...well, that's something else.

I suspect that it's just the way you learned to communicate the feeling. I communicate it a different way, same feeling.

(July 15, 2023 at 12:12 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I don't think that you're fully exploring your belief there, but the basic premise is sound.  You feel a certain way.  No argument required - it's just a statement of subjective fact.  How you get from there to your wizard in the sky with a shitlist, a sex themed amusement park,  and a favorite phone buddy...well, that's something else.  

I suspect that it's just the way you learned to communicate the feeling.  I communicate it a different way, same feeling.

Actually, it's straightforward once you accept the premise that God exists.

It follows that this same being made electrons, quarks, and all the blessings of particle physics and quantum mechanics, in order for this world to function properly. A being who is that precise and knowledgeable, should also be knowledgeable with regards to human beings.

Would such a being , the being who fashioned a universe obeying mathematical laws, create humans who procreate, eat and die for no reason ? highly implausible, he must have communicated with us and told us what to do... hence prophets.

It also must be morally obligatory for us to listen to what prophets are saying (otherwise, why bother?), there must be consequences of that, hence heaven and hell.

All of this stuff is very intuitive. Even though the bit about hell may look unjustified, one can think of reasons of why it would be so, reasons that have to do with fairness or justice.

There's nothing straightforward from believing that gods exist to islam - as the many other people of many other faiths handily demonstrate. Think about all of the elaborate internal value systems you'd have to explain to justify even those few comments you made up there, and then consider your dismay when none of that, even, gets you to allah.

My opinion, your god keeps getting smaller and smaller. First you told me it wasn't necessary, now you tell me that it's both incompetent and petty.

If intuition is the hill you want to die on after huffing and puffing and pretending you care at all about logic, then your entire posting history is an even greater infantile self indulgent waste of everyone else’s time than might have been apparent before.

(July 15, 2023 at 9:24 am)Loaded dice Wrote: Yeah, we know. That's why the vast majority of theistic arguments begin from observations and facts about the universe.

You actually have no observations from ANYWHERE else other than THIS universe.
That's one of your many problems. Using observations from inside this universe is presumptuous and ignorant.
You have no reasons to think what goes on inside this universe is the way things work in any other environment, (what would be external to this universe).
The assumption is typical, but unwarranted. You're saying the gods liked by the laws of this universe before they created it ? LMAO.

As far as being done with me goes, is that a promise ?

(July 15, 2023 at 12:28 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: There's nothing straightforward from believing that gods exist to islam - as the many other people of many other faiths handily demonstrate.  Think about all of the elaborate internal value systems you'd have to explain to justify even those few comments you made up there, and then consider your dismay when none of that, even, gets you to allah.

I don't want to get into comparative religion here because it'll become really messy, but since there is no serious competitor to Islam, it must be that Islam is God's message - assuming God exists.

I know atheists are fond of bringing out the problem of incompatible revelations, but it's a very weak objection in my opinion. They're just too lazy to consider the plausibility of each revelation.

Religions that are local, or which advocate for some individuals to be the incarnation of God, or for one nation to be God's chosen nation, can't be taken seriously.  Islam doesn't have any of these fatal defects, so it's most likely the only one that should be examined more closely.

(July 15, 2023 at 12:39 pm)Loaded dice Wrote:

(July 15, 2023 at 12:28 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: There's nothing straightforward from believing that gods exist to islam - as the many other people of many other faiths handily demonstrate.  Think about all of the elaborate internal value systems you'd have to explain to justify even those few comments you made up there, and then consider your dismay when none of that, even, gets you to allah.

I don't want to get into comparative religion here because it'll become really messy, but since there is no serious competitor to Islam, it must be that Islam is God's message - assuming God exists.

I know atheists are fond of bringing out the problem of incompatible revelations, but it's a very weak objection in my opinion. They're just too lazy to consider the plausibility of each revelation.

Religions that are local, or which advocate for some individuals to be the incarnation of God, or for one nation to be God's chosen nation, can't be taken seriously.  Islam doesn't have any of these fatal defects, so it's most likely the only one that should be examined more closely.

This is the point where you full on flee reality, isn't it?  OFC there are "serious competitors" to islam...what can you even mean by that absurd statement?  

Who said anything about incompatible revelations in comparative religion?  Is that the thing you'd rather talk about, than be held accountable for the nonsense that keeps falling from your own mouth?

Oh, so now a god can't even have a chosen people?  Fucking A you believers are thirsty.  Maybe gods just not into you?  Don't feel bad, never asked me over to netflix and chill either.

Again, consider all of the justifications you'd have to make for each of these statements..each likely to be more absurd than the last if the past few posts are any indication...and remember, even you know that it's not on the basis of any of these "arguments" that you believe what you do. They're all ad hoc rationalizations for an immediate perceptual belief.