RE: Theists and Atheists: the "is there a God Devil's advocate thread
August 22, 2015 at 11:39 am
(This post was last modified: August 22, 2015 at 11:53 am by Neo-Scholastic.
Edit Reason: undermined by my next post
)
(August 22, 2015 at 8:03 am)Nestor Wrote: So, let me introduce this argument by saying that it's 8 am and I have been up all night, and that I just typed it up as the thoughts came to me, and am only presenting it for the fun of pursuing discussion wherever it leads. I cannot vouch for the internal consistency or necessity of the premises and conclusion that follows, but maybe someone can improve on it or demolish one or more of the lines it takes.
(P1) Human reality is comprised of the phenomenal (experience) and the conceptual (ideas about experience).
(P2) These in turn are assumed to derive from an external or objective reality,
(P2a) the nature of which is unknown or non-apprehensible except as it relates to experience and idea.
(P3) The phenomenal and the conceptual are non-existent and insubstantial, as the phenomenal is always perceived to be in a state of becoming (hence, non-existent as existence implies being and becoming precedes being) and the conceptual is insubstantial insofar that ideas have no concrete existence apart from the phenomenal impressions they stand to signify.
(P4) Furthermore, as criterion requires either additional criterion or proof to demonstrate its validity in rendering a judgment vis-à-vis criterion or proof, and likewise proof requires either additional proof or criterion to demonstrate its validity in rendering a judgment vis-à-vis proof or criterion, all efforts to make a positive claim about truth beyond subjective appearances will result in the impossibility of ad infinitum demonstrations or circular reasoning.
(P5) Human reality, encompassing our notions of truth and untruth, therefore, is relative to the unknown conditions that comprise external reality,
(P5a) which, reaffirming P4, compound the groundlessness of our experiences and ideas as criterion for accepting or rejecting substances or properties associated with the various definitions of God.
(P6) Given P4-P5a, the question of a God, dimly or superficially understood by way of negation, analogy, and/or metaphor, boils down to utility.
(P7) Utility may include individual happiness or health, and as societal animals, precludes a necessity of external or objective criterion of truth, morality, and being, which, per P3, P4, and P5a, are otherwise non-existent, insubstantial, and impossible to establish, and yet,
(P8) due to P2 and P2a, such faith, which is the inevitable first step towards knowledge, must be held in an undogmatic fashion.
I would take issue with premise I even as a theist. Ideas are the means by which we know; whereas a concept is the mental representation of that idea. I apologize for not being able to give your post the time it deserves.
