(November 30, 2020 at 7:57 am)Klorophyll Wrote: "Natural teleology".. funny name. It's as if you people assume that a deity can't manifest its design in natural processes. Let's say there is some natural teleology completely explaining children's behavior. So what ? Do you think it would explain away god's imprint ?There's no indication, thusfar, that we're discussing anything god related. No one is making any assumptions about god aside from yourself.
The observation is that children tend to ascribe purpose to natural phenomena.
Some portion of this, we agree, is down to kids imagining things. That they're very capable of describing something that is not there. I don't know what portion of experienced content that accounts for, but we can put a pin in that and say some. Some of what children see is purely imaginary. I doubt that the purely imaginary stuff is what you have in mind when you insist that this is evidence for a god.
Still, we might assert that....at least sometimes....children get it right. I think that's probably more fair than the notion that they always get it wrong. They ascribe purpose to natural phenomena because it's there. This is what the term natural teleology explicitly refers to.
Quote:Apparently, you didn't take that many math classes.It either is or isn't possible. The specific failures of your own imagination are irrelevant. Nothing has prevented equally religious people from conceiving of an afterlife without any gods and nothing about you believing in some silly god makes that impossible.
Let me break it down for you : the first thing one learns in a rigorous math course is to ensure that all objects he appeals to can logically exist. Now, you mentioned "afterlife without god", and for us theists, such a thing is logically, literally, utterly impossible, unless you can help us conceive of the possibility of ressurecting dead people without an all powerful being.
Also, the existence of God is a necessary condition for the existence of an afterlife. Or, if you understand the material conditional:
(a just) God ⇒ Afterlife. Thus, by contraposition, No afterlife ⇒ No (just) God.
That's not how any of this works, at all.
Quote:I have no problem with that. You can't deny, though, that the god purpose, if exists, is definitely more worth it than all these makeshift purposes. Besides, many people do help the poor and prevent bad things precisely because they believe God commanded them to do so.To you, maybe..and perhaps that's why you made yet another assumption. That other people would share your silly beliefs about god-purpose. I don't think that god-purpose is worth anything at all.
Quote:No, I don't believe that. Why would I ? A test has to be fair. And the divine test as described by Islam is actually fair.Why indeed. Winter thinks that a test shouldn't be fair. : shrugs :
Quote:You'll have to look into revealed theology for that. I never claimed in any of my posts that these arguments yield complete certainty about god's existenece. I am merely trying to explain that the God question lies outside the purview of deductive arguments, that atheists misunderstand inference and, more importantly, appeal to it a lot in real life without knowing so.More silly beliefs laundered as fact.
Only verbatim instruction handed out to us from a deity can reveal the unknowable. Therefore if all these prophets are conmen and liars, then it's very likely that there is no god.
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