Do your beliefs imply a Necessary being exists?

[Cyberman]

Which I as an atheist do not share, so to channel Matt Dillahunty, why should I give a crap?

So you have no position with regard to any of the statements in the survey?

You don't believe that there is anything that has a cause?

I have never said that I don't believe that there is anything that has a cause. For example, the pain you are giving me in the arse has a direct and identifiable cause. The statements I gave and the opinions I expressed are clearly with reference to the topic at hand, id est this damn 'survey'. You, sir, are demonstrably dishonest.

Which Rasmussen's paper, one of the cornerstones of this survey/test remember, informs us is another term for God. Everything else beyond the point at which I cut off your quote flows from this foundation. On the basis of all this, if you want the most honest answer to this question from me, a permanent atheist - and you do seem really interested in my opinion on this - it would be "no" without hesitation.

It seems like you're unwilling to think through the consequences of your beliefs. That is, you don't want to hear whether your beliefs entail the existence of a Necessary Being, because you think a Necessary Being eventually leads to God, and you don't believe in God.

So you're choosing to remain ignorant, lest you find out that your beliefs entail contradiction.

Since you have repeatedly demonstrated dishonesty by distorting my words to suit your own position; since you have repeatedly demonstrated dishonesty by asserting that I, an atheist, hold beliefs on the topic of beings of godlike distinction in general and an Essential Being in particular (which has clearly been revealed by one of the authors of the 'survey' to be nothing more than a thinly-veiled definition of God) despite having been corrected numerous times; since you have repeatedly demonstrated dishonesty by triumphantly concluding that my refusal to play the game is an admission of wilful ignorance; I bid you good day, sir. See you on the flip side.

[Reforged]

Neat linky, fun exercise. After ~3 run-throughs I managed to get a weaker result

Congratulations! Your answers appear to have an interesting implication: they imply that you have a (prima facie) reason to think that there is (more likely than not) a Necessary Being.

---

Here's how. It is not necessary that every concrete thing is included in a chain of causes that is both infinite and ungrounded (by your report). Therefore, it is possible for there to be a concrete thing that has no cause, either because it is a first member of a finite chain of causes or because it causally grounds, at least in part, a chain of all causes (other than itself).

Now as a rule of thumb, contingent things generally have a cause, or are more likely than not to have a cause (by your report). Therefore, you have a reason to think that a concrete thing that has not been caused to exist is (likely) not contingent; it is instead something that must (by nature) exist. Therefore, since it is possible for there to be a concrete thing that has not been caused to exist (as just shown), you now have a reason to think it is (likely) possible for there to be a Necessary Being.

Therefore, since we stipulated that a thing that must, by nature, exist is something that would automatically exist were it possible for it to exist, it follows that there actually is something that must (by nature) exist, which is capable of causing something. In other words, there is a Necessary Being.

I recognize that you may have counter-reasons that defeat this implication.

---

Which I will consider a small victory for the anti-necessary being crowd.
Modal logic is tricky. Especially with necessary beings eating up all the 'possible' operators

If you can't prove existence itself is necessary how can you hope to prove a being must necessarily exist?
Without the assumption existence is necessary you can't make the claim a being can necessarily exist.

If he proves there is a necessary being, he has proven that something must necessarily exist. It's not like you have to prove A by itself before proving B just because A is a weaker statement than B.

That'd be like me saying flight doesn't have to be necessary but someone necessarily needs to fly flies. Claiming the latter must assume the former.

Which is why a proof of the latter also proves the former

You cannot prove the latter without first proving the former.
The former acts as a building block for the next claim, the latter does not prove the former. We can prove the former through the latter in the case of flight.
The case of a necessary being depends purely on "logic", there is no empirical evidence for this case at present. Fine, if thats what we're going by then thats what we're going by.
You must logically prove existence is necessary before claiming a being can necessarily exist and I don't think you can. :-)

[downbeatplumb]

My beliefs entail the existance of many beings being required for my existance, my mum and dad for a start.

[Categories+Sheaves]

You cannot prove the latter without first proving the former.
The former acts as a building block for the next claim, the latter does not prove the former. We can prove the former through the latter in the case of flight.
The case of a necessary being depends purely on "logic", there is no empirical evidence for this case at present. Fine, if thats what we're going by then thats what we're going by.
You must logically prove existence is necessary before claiming a being can necessarily exist and I don't think you can. :-)

I can prove cauchy-schwarz for infinite series without having proven it for finite series beforehand. Sometimes I can prove M is a differentiable manifold without having first proven it's a topological manifold first. The path to a strong result need not plow through every weaker result first
So I still think the whole 'A has to be proven separately' point is bunk. If this 'necessity of existence' thing does need to be proven in some way the proof fails to address, that failure has to materialize in an invalid assumption or logical step in the proof (else why are we worrying about it?) so you should have no trouble picking one out. Unless you mean something very sideways by 'the necessity of existence' (what do you mean, btw?) this type of gripe doesn't pan out

tl;dr: Do your logic homework!

[Reforged]

You cannot prove the latter without first proving the former.
The former acts as a building block for the next claim, the latter does not prove the former. We can prove the former through the latter in the case of flight.
The case of a necessary being depends purely on "logic", there is no empirical evidence for this case at present. Fine, if thats what we're going by then thats what we're going by.
You must logically prove existence is necessary before claiming a being can necessarily exist and I don't think you can. :-)

I can prove cauchy-schwarz for infinite series without having proven it for finite series beforehand. Sometimes I can prove M is a differentiable manifold without having first proven it's a topological manifold first. The path to a strong result need not plow through every weaker result first
So I still think the whole 'A has to be proven separately' point is bunk. If this 'necessity of existence' thing does need to be proven in some way the proof fails to address, that failure has to materialize in an invalid assumption or logical step in the proof (else why are we worrying about it?) so you should have no trouble picking one out. Unless you mean something very sideways by 'the necessity of existence' (what do you mean, btw?) this type of gripe doesn't pan out

tl;dr: Do your logic homework!

The invalid assumption you make is that existence is necessary. You have made no attempt to back this up.
If existence itself is necessary then it follows that the existence of a certain being would be necessary. I would of thought you'd jump at the chance to prove this.
I think things would go by quite nicely without the existence of anything. Boring yes but no-one would be around to complain.
What is existence necessary for? Why is a being necessary to spread it? To what end? Unless you have the answer to these questions how can you dare to claim the necessity for the existence of anything let alone the being you are trying to prove with this line of reasoning?

Also if a necessary being must exist then it follows that another necessary being must exist in order to create the aforementioned necessary being. Then another necessary being must exist to create that one and so on and so forth. If this is not the case and you wish to make the case a necessary being can just come into existence without another then why is a necessary being required in the first place? Whats to stop everything else that is supposed to have been created from doing the same?
This seems very poorly thought out and rife with assumption.

[Shell B]

I'm surprised that so many people are able to answer entire posts from Clive. It is virtually inevitable for my mind to wander after about one paragraph of, "But it's logic. Don't you like logic? I do, because I can use a superficial facsimile of it to prove that I am smarter than every atheist on the planet. I cannot believe you do not care about logic and think that the suspiciously capitalized Necessary Being is referring to gods." After about that much, my mind is thinking about ways to cook zucchini, hallucinogenic drugs and avoiding churches.

[Cyberman]

It's amazing how much of one mind we both are, you and I. For my part, it's a way to work off the side-effects of my new meds cocktail. Plus, finding creative ways to express resentment at being essentially called a liar by someone who clearly lies even to himself counts as a way to torture myself (albeit a less than cool one).

[Categories+Sheaves]

What is existence necessary for? Why is a being necessary to spread it? To what end?

Do you want a lecture on how modal operators work?

The invalid assumption you make is that existence is necessary. You have made no attempt to back this up.

I'm not the one making that claim. But if you're going to announce CliveStaples' link's arguments to be dead in the water, I'm going to insist that you kill them properly.

If existence itself is necessary then it follows that the existence of certain being would be necessary. I would of thought you'd jump at the chance.

This is backwards imo. If A necessarily exists then something necessarily exists (e.g. A, at the bare minimum). If something must exist it's not true that there is one thing that necessarily exists; maybe it's necessary that either A or B exists, (but not necessarily one or the other) in which case we still don't obtain a 'necessary being'.

This seems very poorly thought out.

I know that feel bro.

I'm surprised that so many people are able to answer entire posts from Clive. It is virtually inevitable for my mind to wander after about one paragraph of, "But it's logic. Don't you like logic? I do, because I can use a superficial facsimile of it to prove that I am smarter than every atheist on the planet. I cannot believe you do not care about logic and think that the suspiciously capitalized Necessary Being is referring to gods."

If I'm an atheist who likes logic, whose side am I on?

[Shell B]

There are no sides. *facepalm* Where did I say there are sides? Furthermore, you don't have to dislike logic to find Clive tiresome and as biased as a soccer mom.

FYI, this is not logic. This is not logic at all. It is shit covered with a thin veneer of what might look like logic if you did not know better.

[Cyberman]

If I'm an atheist who likes logic, whose side am I on?

Well, I am an atheist and I 'like' logic, whatever that means in practise. I admit I may not be as versed in logical minutiae as may be taught in US schools, it was never something that got mentioned in my education. However, I can generally find my way around logical situations and I really enjoy solving logic-based problems and puzzles. What I do not enjoy is having assumptive conclusions drawn on my integrity and my honesty based on nothing more than my refusal to play silly presuppositional entrapment games.