Why all "Logical Proofs Of God" fail ...

[KichigaiNeko]

I propose that deep under the sea lives a creature called a Giant Prawn. It is 10 feet high. No one has managed to get recorded footage of a Giant Prawn, however there are stories from sailors about encounters with them 500 years ago.


Use a logical argument to show the Giant Prawn exists...

Like this?

[JuliaL]

Like this?

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What color?
It looks a bit irony.
You know, like bronzey or goldy.

[FreeTony]

What colour is it?

They're invisible of course.

Actually their colour doesn't matter. However they cause ships to sink, which is how we know they exist. All unexplained ship sinking are a result of Giant Prawn attacks as they have no other explanation (using logic).

[Neo-Scholastic]

I suppose we could expand the thread into a wider talk about logical proofs for God’s existence. Esq, do I correctly surmise that you believe no amount of thinking can call something into existence? That seems obvious enough for most categories of being. If so, I generally agree*.

That said, a self-evident premise of the OP is that reason serves as a means for gaining knowledge of reality. Clearly, no one can have knowledge of that which does not exist. But it is also clear that something can exist of which no one has knowledge. The question before us is whether knowledge of God, could in theory, be gained by using reason. Now people cannot know anything about specific gods, like Thor or Jesus Christ, unless the gods make themselves known is a highly specific way like divine revelation. “Proofs of God” deal only with how people can gain general knowledge of the divine by reasoning from the experiences within their reach.

All experiences have two distinct features: a sensible object and a knowing subject. As such, by reasoning from experience someone can gain knowledge about a sensible object by observation and about himself as a knowing subject by introspection. For example, someone can know that water refracts light and he can know that he likes to swim. The general revelations found in nature come from the most basic types of experience, like knowing that things maintain their existence despite change (the Aristotle’s unmoved mover) or that each of the plurality of things owes its particular being to a universal ground of being (Aquinas’s 2nd Way). This rest on self-evidences like the reliablity of our senses, the validity of logic, and personal identity.

This speaks to the so-called lack of evidence touted by most atheists. The Christian God, in the person of the Father, is not just another being like any other being, but rather something that pervades all of reality. As such most Christian apologists don’t point to a unique or specific bit of reality as evidence of God. Instead the whole of nature is the evidence, evidence that is only recognized as evidence by applying reason to experience, as shown above.

*While sensible objects counts as one category or being, there are others, like sets, relations & identity, that exist in a limited way, if only in thought.

[Rampant.A.I.]

A lot of apologists (deliberately?) confuse the concepts of "logic" and "reality". Reality is that which exists, regardless of who believes in it or not. Logic is a method of discerning and defining reality.

Massive fail. Some nonbelievers confuse reality with the physical universe. If God is real, then by definition He is part of reality. If logic is indeed a method for gaining knowledge of reality, and if God is part of reality, then logic is a method for gaining knowledge of God.

Wow. Somebody needs to take a community college Logic 101 class.

The unmoved mover is an historically flawed argument, with a presupposed conclusion in the premise.

I'm not sure what the point of reciting Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was, other than to make your argument appear to be legitimate, when in fact all you've done is shifted the burden of proof around so that you don't have to provide any evidence, logical or otherwise.

You're just stacking unsupported claims and presupposing <God exists> so "everything is evidence".

[Simon Moon]

I've heard a lot of testimony from reliable people attesting to miracles. I've never tried to scientifically prove them, but I believe them.

Do you only believe the miracle claims from other Christians?

Or do you also believe miracle claims from Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, etc?

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If logic is indeed a method for gaining knowledge of reality, and if God is part of reality, then logic is a method for gaining knowledge of God.

Every logical argument for the existence of a god is logically invalid. They all contain at least one fallacy.

But even if there was a valid argument, they still have to be fed sound premiss.

[*Deidre*]

Going back to the title of this thread, logic fails in "proving" God because we would all believe in his existence then, for the evidence would convey it. Evidence meaning "the ability to be proven in a controlled environment."

This is why to me, Deism is just another "version" of religion and not based authentically on evidence to support the existence of a Deity. (despite it being defined as such)

[bennyboy]

God is not logical concept to human thinking. If miracles can be proved to exist, though, I think it wouls be logical to consider the possibility of God.

Let's look at this idea. What, exactly, IS a miracle? It is an important good-aligned event for which there is no available physical-determinist explanation.

So let's say somebody walks on water. Pretty cool, and based on our knowledge of how density and gravity work, impossible. Unless, that is, someone has high-tech Superstat3000™ water-walking boots on. The fact that these are not known to exist in human technology could mean that a) God exists; b) future humans time-traveled and gave somebody said boots; c) I'm not saying it was Aliens, but. . .

What if I see a burning bush, and it begins talking to me, telling me to take off my shoes and bow down before its Holy Might. Should I a) do it; b) start looking for stereo equipment, and report to the authorities the wanton destruction of a perfectly good bush; c) run to the nearest hospital, having been drugged or possibly even experiencing a stroke?

Forget about establishing a miracle. I'd like you to suggest ANY HYPOTHETICAL miracle that would make believing in God a logical necessity.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The unmoved mover is an historically flawed argument, with a presupposed conclusion in the premise.

Please expand on your understanding of the objection. I believe the unmoved mover argument remains sound. I don’t know the specifics of the objection to which you are refer, but I do know that the objections of which I am aware are themselves flawed.

[KichigaiNeko]

Like this?

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What color?
It looks a bit irony.
You know, like bronzey or goldy.

Yes the 'Big Prawn' does exist. As does the 'Big Banana' and many other silly touristy attractions. The 'Big Mango' is currently AWOL