Deism for non-believers

[FallentoReason]

This whole thread has been nothing but philosophical in nature. In the OP I was definitely making a case for thinking that a Deist god had to exist, but thanks to Rhythm's persistence we came to the conclusion that the scale doesn't translate to reality at all.

As for you thinking I'm a closet theist... are you on crack?

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

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[quote='FallentoReason' pid='301061' dateline='1340087026']
This whole thread has been nothing but philosophical in nature. In the OP I was definitely making a case for thinking that a Deist god had to exist, but thanks to Rhythm's persistence we came to the conclusion that the scale doesn't translate to reality at all.

As for you thinking I'm a closet theist... are you on crack?

I really don't care what you call yourself or pretend to be as you pursue your campaign to "prove" this or that made-up bullshit version of a god.

[FallentoReason]

As a militant anti-theist I understand your need of chew toys, and I'm sorry but I'm not one of them. I thought at AF.com there were plenty, or did you get yourself banned?

[Taqiyya Mockingbird]

As a militant anti-theist I understand your need of chew toys, and I'm sorry but I'm not one of them.

You don't understand shit. You troll an atheist forum with bullshit, expect to be called on it.

I thought at AF.com there were plenty, or did you get yourself banned?

People get banned from there for being too stupid to live.


I do see your title designation over there, though:

[The Grand Nudger]

To be honest, I think you're using intervention as a weasel word. Separating the immaterial and the material is a strange exercise to me, but if you want to use the word intervention in the way that you have decided to use it you have no other choice. Now I'm going to have to ask you to provide justification for this definition by reference to the "immaterial world", which I'm guessing you can't do. Bit of a hail mary there, when attempting to rule in creation of the material world and avoid the disqualifying criteria of "intervention" -that you yourself set- you are compelled to invoke the existence of the immaterial world (which is yet another thing I'm guessing you've never seen) as a bare assertion in support of the definition which you have pinned your argument on, again leading me to ask why the axe hasn't fallen. Are we attempting to double down on the absurdities?

I assert a-therefore b ad naus...hmn, let me see. There is an immaterial world, and so creation is not intervention in the material world (ergo i don't have to rule it out). -Gonna have to do a bit of work on the immaterial world here aren't we?-

[Faith No More]

You don't understand shit. You troll an atheist forum with bullshit, expect to be called on it.

Where exactly has he trolled this forum with bullshit? All I have seen from him is discussion.

[FallentoReason]

To be honest, I think you're using intervention as a weasel word. Separating the immaterial and the material is a strange exercise to me, but if you want to use the word intervention in the way that you have decided to use it you have no other choice. Now I'm going to have to ask you to provide justification for this definition by reference to the "immaterial world", which I'm guessing you can't do. Bit of a hail mary there, when attempting to rule in creation of the material world and avoid the disqualifying criteria of "intervention" -that you yourself set- you are compelled to invoke the existence of the immaterial world (which is yet another thing I'm guessing you've never seen) as a bare assertion in support of the definition which you have pinned your argument on, again leading me to ask why the axe hasn't fallen. Are we attempting to double down on the absurdities?

I assert a-therefore b ad naus...hmn, let me see. There is an immaterial world, and so creation is not intervention in the material world (ergo i don't have to rule it out). -Gonna have to do a bit of work on the immaterial world here aren't we?-

Well I guess the whole 'god' topic hinges on the assumption that a material world exists. I can't even begin imagining what an immaterial world would be like, but by definition I can imagine what it's not.

I think intervention can still be defined even if we don't have an understanding of the assumed immaterial world though. For example, let's think of our material world as a football match. Now for the sake of argument, suppose a streaker-to-be is standing on the side and he represents our plausible god. For the streaker to be able to invervene in the match, the match has to be in play. If there is not match, then how does the streaker intervene in it? Now, with creation, I have to say I have some trouble imagining the process and whether that process can be seen as intervention. If you agreed with my example that intervention requires the material world, then how can the creation of said material world simultaneously be the intervening in that world? I just can't wrap my head around the whole situation actually..

[Angrboda]

Just to, perhaps, cast this issue into a little more focus. If this immaterial world, and any god in it, do not in some sense exist in time, even if not our time, then all caused existents related to it are co-existent with it. This is generally not the option chosen in such a scenario, but rather that the immaterial existed, and then the material existed. It's possible, even in immaterial time, that this was simply the unfolding of what passes for natural law in the immaterial world, without depending on the choice of any agent, immaterial or not. However, if an immaterial agent chose to change the state of existence, immaterial or material, that choice, and its effect is intervention (see below).

intervene, v.

Forms: Also 16 entervene, interveyn, Sc. -vein.
Etymology: < Latin interven-īre, < inter between + venīre to come. Compare French intervenir (earlier entrevenir, 1363 in Hatzfeld & Darmesteter).

In this case, the immaterial agent is "coming between" events and what would be without its choice and act, and causing that 'existence' to take a form it wouldn't have without that choice/act.

There's a third option that occurs to me, the so-called logical necessity defense, that if the agent was in some way unable to avoid the act (such as if in order to avoid it, they would have to make false equal true), it may not be considered an intervention in the usual sense of a voluntary action which comes between the natural course of events and their resulting in the natural course.

[The Grand Nudger]

The god with no choice would again fall to the axe that his interventionist god fell to, perhaps even more gloriously, in that the interventionist god has been ruled out due to a lack of evidence, but the choiceless-though-present god is not only lacking in evidence, but lacking a manner in which we would even be able to determine what evidence there might be. (specifically, as it would be indistinguishable from a universe -by any other means-)

Hehehe, I covered my bases on that one pages ago. I think the trouble with the scale in this regard is that it invoked demonstrable evidence (and the lack thereof) as a disqualifying criteria for one set of gods whilst simultaneously shielding another presumed set of gods from the same criteria. To me, the scale seems to be a classic exercise in two things. Working backwards from our conclusion, and creating special considerations and classifications that are friendly to the type of god we were looking to conclude in favor of in the first place. Rather than asking whether or not there is a god, and if so whether or not this god is a creator god (the two proposals here don't exactly tumble one after the other like dominoes) we have decided that there is both a god and a creator, and the purpose of the scale is to reinforce those initial assumptions. As such, whatever comes out the other end of this scale will be worth precisely what those assumptions are worth, which in this case (and largely due to the way criteria for acceptance of this or that has been determined) is nothing at all.