Rational belief

[theVOID]

I'm interested to see if any theist here has a sound and valid argument (An argument where the premises are true and the conclusion follows logically) for the existence of God, that is to say: An argument based on either 1) Evidence in indication of the proposition OR 2) Logical necessity for the truth of the proposition.

This does not induce standards like "personal experience", "emotions" or "intuition" as they can all lead to innumerable contradictory conclusion with no way to logically discern the truth of the resulting conclusions.

Also, an argument for a God is not an argument against a competing proposition, unless there is a true dichotomy.

Anyone want to have a shot at meeting these standards?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Rational and/or logical does not guarantee truth..

Every belief system I've studied formally has its own internal logic.The conclusions just happen to be false or unprovable.Hence I argue that truth may only be discovered via reason AND evidence.

Besides,in my experience, the loopier believers tend to consider evidence as cheating. I refer froot loops such as young earth creationists.

[theVOID]

I don't see the problem Padriac...

Propositions that are logically necessary are necessarily true, I asked for this and not logical arguments that are internally coherent for the very reason that the latter are not necessarily true.

Rational beliefs are those that are most consistent with the evidence and/or are logically necessary. Evolution, for instance, is the Theory that is most consistent with the available evidence and is therefore rational to believe, despite it not being a logically necessity.

Internal logic is irrelevant if any of the premises are fallacious, Theistic internal logic is irrelevant to this discussion because the main premise, the existence of a deity, is a bare assertion, therefore any reasoning based on a bare assertion fallacy is irrational.

If the believer considers evidence cheating then they clearly do not meet these standards.

[tackattack]

Yes Void I'll give it a go when I have a free moment.

[Rayaan]

I don't think it's possible to prove God through logical analysis. Why? Because to do that we have to know certain things and/or qualities of God which are not possible to know, and therefore, we can't be too sure if all the premises are true or not. We have to understand all of God's attributes before we try to form any statements about Him. However, that is not possible since this is something beyond our knowledge. I know that many thinkers have already created proofs for God's existence but then they were refuted by other arguments. I don't think I'll be at successful at finding a proof by myself either.

Trying to prove to God through logic seems to go around in circles only. But maybe it's one of those which is true but you can't prove it to be true. Something to do with Godel's incompleteness theorem I guess.

[gargantuan]

Good, challenging question Void. I'll answer it directly: No I don't.

That said, I'm going to give it some good thought though. I'll get back to you.

[chatpilot]

There is no way that you can prove the existence of God by empirical and or objective proofs, why? Because quite simply outside of the many so called holy texts the world over; we know nothing about God. The texts themselves are invalid in my opinion because they require faith in the texts without any evidence. And if we were to choose to believe in a text then there is the problem of determining which one is right.

Rayaan wrote: "We have to understand all of God's attributes before we try to form any statements about Him. However, that is not possible since this is something beyond our knowledge. "

I really hate to see this kind of thinking, that "knowledge of God is beyond our knowledge" as if are minds are so feeble that we must accept that the only way to know God is to submit to the assertions made about him in the holy text and to his will on faith alone. It is not arrogance that drives me to this conclusion but rather the necessity of proof. Any theist who makes such statements is simply dodging the question in my view and winding up his merry go round for what theists do best and that is circular reasoning.

[gargantuan]

This is a thought experiment: I think all the atheists among us understand the points being raised in oppostition, but it's good to try and test our own theories to breaking point.

Logic can generate false positives and I think that is what theVOID is looking for.

[Captain Scarlet]

Yes Void I'll give it a go when I have a free moment.

Can't be done without committing yourself to informal fallacies. Cosmological and Design arguments rely on the Ontological status of God and have been thoroughly pulled down. Plantingas modal argument is unconvincing. All thats left is the appeal to TAG, biblical authority and personal experience. Hardly a beauty parade of convincing argumentation. Sneer over!

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I don't think it's possible to prove God through logical analysis. Why? Because to do that we have to know certain things and/or qualities of God which are not possible to know, and therefore, we can't be too sure if all the premises are true or not. We have to understand all of God's attributes before we try to form any statements about Him. However, that is not possible since this is something beyond our knowledge.

I think this is an honest response but also a bitterly disappointing one. If you cannot define what you believe in, how do you know you believe in it? It places you in a position of intellectual bankruptcy (and I don't beleive you are incapable of rational thought). It is the equivalent of saying:

"I believe in Superman. I read it in a book and saw a movie. I do not know of supermans powers, nature nor attributes. I have no empirical evidence of supermans existence. I cannot define superman nor what he is. But he exists outside of any reality I can describe and understand."

What is the difference between my position on superman and your belief in a god (apart from the age of the supporting texts)?

[DeistPaladin]

Some of the reasons I would offer for Nature's God would be:

1. The Big Bang, while incompatible with Islamo-Christian ideas of the creation, still seems like a dramatic and miraculous event. Stephen Hawking's latest book may challenge this. I plan to read it as soon as I can. Who knows, he may convince me to shift to atheism.

2. How life got started on this world (although abiogenesis may challenge this).

3. So many things came together in our evolution that enabled us to develop our highly advanced brains, coupled with opposable thumbs, that made our subsequent civilization possible. "God's Gift of Reason".

4. My "homosexuality proves God" argument which atheists will find just as unconvincing as #3 but at least it's one that may be new. One can only talk about that damn watch in the desert for so long.

5. I get to identify with great minds from history who had great hair. Oh wait, that's not a logical reason, is it?