Ontology of God--Theological Noncognitivist View

[Knight]

I have shown precisely, and all you have done is to try to introduce objectivity of a non object.

Please tell me more about this "non object." If it is not objective, how can we possibly know anything about it, even the state of its existence?

The 'blue' answer was not mine, but your fellow atheist. I don't 'insist' that I am right. I presume to be right in the absence of reasonable opposition.

If that is the case, then I apologize. I will have to reread this thread then.

Well what is your special pleading' point if not a plea to uniqueness?? So you accept that uniqueness is no reason to except the possibility... so you can consider a being without needing to be observable then?

You really don't get it? Come on, I think you're more intelligent than you're letting on.

It's not the fact that it's unique that I have a problem with. It is the fact that this unique property is not observable. If the unique property happens to be that it is unobservable, then yes, I have a problem with it. All known things in the universe are in some way observable. If it is not observable, it cannot be said to exist (no one can prove it doesn't, but why the presumption that it does?)

Take this as an analogy.

There is a unicorn living on the moon. This unicorn is capable of anaerobic respiration, which is why it does not die. It is also immaterial, which explains why we cannot see it or detect it in any way.

The words in the above context make sense, but in reality no such being can be shown to exist. Does that mean we just assume it does? Why? Even if such a being does exist, if it is immaterial how does it have any meaning? It certainly would not be able to interact with the universe in any way, being completely immaterial. It would seem that even if God exists, believing in him is completely meaningless. If this is the God you believe in, fine. No one will ever be able to prove you wrong.

[fr0d0]

Further the person trying to explain it to you via the colour blue is a fellow Theological Noncognitivist. How amusing is that!

You commit yet another fallacy by calling into question my intelligence. Strike 3!

The unicorn having no meaning is the crux of the problem. The formulation of the God concept does have meaning, and his transcendental nature is core to his essence. Believing in him has a lot of meaning. Meaning which is emphasised by the necessity for faith in his existence.

[TruthWorthy]

LOL @ Strike 3
What are you, the umpire?

[Knight]

You commit yet another fallacy by calling into question my intelligence. Strike 3!

You would be correct if I discredited your arguments based on your intelligence. I did not. The old ad hom. fallacy is thrown around so much on forums it seems people forget what it actually means.

The unicorn having no meaning is the crux of the problem.

The unicorn has told me it has decided to raise the stakes. If you do believe in it, it shall reward you with an eternal life. If you do not believe in it, you shall be tortured for an eternity.

I must go, it is speaking to me now and I must record what is is saying before Almighty Unicorn's Word is lost. But first...

The formulation of the God concept does have meaning, and his transcendental nature is core to his essence. Believing in him has a lot of meaning. Meaning which is emphasised by the necessity for faith in his existence.

How can it have any meaning? You have failed to answer the questions of my previous post.

[fr0d0]

@ Trustworthy: Oh yeah

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You commit yet another fallacy by calling into question my intelligence. Strike 3!

You would be correct if I discredited your arguments based on your intelligence. I did not. The old ad hom. fallacy is thrown around so much on forums it seems people forget what it actually means.

I see. So you saying: "You really don't get it? Come on, I think you're more intelligent than you're letting on." was not you saying that I'm not intelligent enough to understand your point thus proving that you were right and I was wrong... the Ad Hom Fallacy?

Blimey your going to take my crown as most wriggleworthy member!

The unicorn having no meaning is the crux of the problem.

The unicorn has told me it has decided to raise the stakes. If you do believe in it, it shall reward you with an eternal life. If you do not believe in it, you shall be tortured for an eternity.

I must go, it is speaking to me now and I must record what is is saying before Almighty Unicorn's Word is lost. But first...

This is the usual silliness we see. I believe it's brought about by the lack of coherent argument.

The formulation of the God concept does have meaning, and his transcendental nature is core to his essence. Believing in him has a lot of meaning. Meaning which is emphasised by the necessity for faith in his existence.

How can it have any meaning? You have failed to answer the questions of my previous post.

You mean the question about how it has to exist first? You're going to make me break out in uncontrollable laughter soon.

As far as I can see... you haven't recovered from my first response in this thread which destroys your position.

[Knight]

I see. So you saying: "You really don't get it? Come on, I think you're more intelligent than you're letting on." was not you saying that I'm not intelligent enough to understand your point thus proving that you were right and I was wrong... the Ad Hom Fallacy?

It absolutely was not. If that is what I wished to say, I would have said it. You are deliberately avoiding answering my questions. I was hoping that you were doing so my mistake, but obviously not.

Blimey your going to take my crown as most wriggleworthy member!

What question have I wriggled around? I feel I have been quite direct.

This is the usual silliness we see. I believe it's brought about by the lack of coherent argument.

It is just as silly and incoherent as Yahweh.

You mean the question about how it has to exist first?

No, I meant exactly what I said:

You have failed to answer the questions of my previous post.

If I HAVE to point them out:

Please tell me more about this "non object." If it is not objective, how can we possibly know anything about it, even the state of its existence?

There is a unicorn living on the moon. This unicorn is capable of anaerobic respiration, which is why it does not die. It is also immaterial, which explains why we cannot see it or detect it in any way.

The words in the above context make sense, but in reality no such being can be shown to exist. Does that mean we just assume it does? Why? Even if such a being does exist, if it is immaterial how does it have any meaning? It certainly would not be able to interact with the universe in any way, being completely immaterial. It would seem that even if God exists, believing in him is completely meaningless. If this is the God you believe in, fine. No one will ever be able to prove you wrong.

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As far as I can see... you haven't recovered from my first response in this thread which destroys your position.

I responded to your first response. You did not come anywhere close to destroying my position.
Why must Christians always declare victory prematurely?

[fr0d0]

I'm just saying it how it is Knight. I see only repetition of points already thoroughly dealt with. Please see my answers to your questions above. I'd love to see some point against what I've already said. If I'm only required to repeat myself, forgive me for not doing so.

[AtheistPhil]

Ignosticism suggests that we can't know what God isn't, which is clearly falsifiable.

You still didn't prove it anywhere...seriously.

How can you find out what God is not before you first define what this "God" IS? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

That question is stuck in my mind too.

Well if you were a rock you'd be mineral; chocolate you'd be vegetable etc. By process of elimination animal is all you could be as something existant in the physical universe. Yeah I could be a lot more vague... but for simplicity I started with the first question of the '20 Questions' game.
Apply that successively to what I can know doesn't apply to you, and you can see that I can come up with a pretty good idea of what you are.

This is how God is defined and it clearly is effective in formulating an idea of what God is.

God is not confined into the universe, that's why the whole "define it by what it isn't" doesn't work.

Such definition is meaningless since telling what God is not doesn't confine his nature/essence to a known area. For example, God could be "anything" as the possible definitions are infinite. Then let's say that I "find" that God is not X or Y (even though we can't do that without knowing what God is, but nevermind), where X can even be an entire known, definite and confined group such as "animal". But if we add these "informations" to the previous definition of God we get: the possible definitions of God are infinite, therefore God could be "anything" (even though we removed X and Y).

Starting with all the informations you gathered (not X, not Y) about god, we could still define an infinite number of Gods (or ideas of God) with different attributes.

If we can know what he isn't, then we know he isn't the unknown right? Because nothing at all can be known about the unknown. So God can't be metaphorical.

If nothing at all can be known about the unknown, then you can't say that the unknown is not God...and you can't say it is God either...I guess.

Which seems consistent with Christian theology. Christianity's attributes of God are never complete.

That implies christianity knows something about god's attributes. But according to the above that is a lie.

I agree with PurpleRabbit. If Christianity knows attributes of God (and I assume it knows positive attributes) then it knows partially what God is which is in contradiction with "you can't know what God is".

[theVOID]

Fr0d0 has unknowingly created a God of the gaps argument it would seem, for if to find out what God is you must find out what God is not, and nothing ever discovered by man is God, then God is entirely dependent on what we don't know, and the more we learn isn't God there are less and less attributes than can be God.

[TruthWorthy]

Fr0d0 wrote: If we can know what he isn't, then we know he isn't the unknown right? Because nothing at all can be known about the unknown. So God can't be metaphorical.

This is a logical fallacy.
"God" can exist as an metaphor, and even the basis of "his" existance can't be proved beyond that, in terms of 'being'.