Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency

[Crossless2.0]

Aquinas is not the "loon fringe of Christianity". Not even close.

Have you ever watched TV evangelists? Do you even know any Christians in real life? Shit, I could randomly throw a rock in the Mall of Louisiana and have a 90% chance of hitting someone who is (1) a Christian and (2) vastly loonier than Aquinas.

Yeah. Raised RCC. Had you a point to make?

As to aquinas, he was bat poop nutty. Feel free to assert his crap. It will not magically become less nutty by dint of your assertions.

I'm an atheist. Try to keep up.

[Whateverist]

No, like I just realized I think the point of his argument is that either God exists or else we don't have a complete explanation of the world/universe.  Duh, obviously we do not.

We definitely don't have a complete explanation of our universe. But even if we did that wouldn't get us to God, right?

Frankly I don't see the connection one way or the other, however complete our understanding may become.  But my best guess is that the elusive complete list of everything that exists will not include anything at all like a god. Just my best guess.

Another problem with God of the Gaps, is that God isn't the only thing that could be asserted into the gaps!

Absolutely, that god hole is available to all and any.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'll give you yet another example, Neo, on how 'debunking' Aquinas doesn't really take any real 'debunking' exactly, and it's really nothing more than a game that I shall call "Spot The Non-Sequitur". Wanna play? Here we go. Here's the so-called fourth of Aquinas's ways, the one about God's so-called perfection:

1. Objects have properties to greater or lesser extents.

Yep.

2. If an object has a property to a lesser extent, then there exists some other object that has the property to the maximum possible degree.

Yep.

3. there is an entity that has all properties to the maximum possible degree.

Yep.

4. Hence God exists.

*cough* *cough* non-sequitur *cough* *cough*

Can you spot the non-sequitur?

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_degree

And, to quibble a little more, the 3rd point here is false as well if it's really saying that there's necessarily one object that has ALL properties to the maximum degree. That's another non-sequitur if that is what it is saying. There's no reason to believe that one object exists that has all of those degrees to their maximum. There may be one object that is the most intelligent, another object that is the most divine, another object that is the strongest, another object that is the fastest, for example, there's absolutely no reason to believe that one object has all those things, to say otherwise is yet again just another non-sequitur.

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Frankly I don't see the connection one way or the other, however complete our understanding may become.

Yeah, whether our understanding is complete or not definitely has nothing to do with a god.

 But my best guess is that the elusive complete list of everything that exists will not include anything at all like a god.

I agree. No god required.

Absolutely, that god hole is available to all and any.

No, I don't mean the god-shaped-hole is available to everyone, I mean that the hole is available for anyone to fill with anything. And filling it with a generic uncaused cause makes a lot more sense than filling it with an uncaused cause that also has all the other properties of a god. The latter is necessarily less parsimonious and necessarily more improbable than the former.

[Whateverist]

If I was not a theist I would be a deist. To me, atheism makes the least logical sense out of all 3.

And I don't mean this as an insult to y'all  (I'm sure y'all feel the same way about what I am).

I just mean it would take some serious, serious faith and dishonesty to myself to believe there exists NO force, not bound by the laws of nature, that could have created the first physical thing to ever have existed.

But why should the consideration of that possibility weigh so heavily in your thinking?  Why something instead of nothing .. therefore Puff the Magic Dragon!  That is how it seems to me.  Farfetched, abstract and inconsequential.

[Catholic_Lady]

Thats what many folks here say, but based on my observation over the past 2 years, it seems very much like for most people here it is indeed a strong disbelief, not simply a lack of belief.

Nonetheless, my point still stands, whether it's worded as lack of belief or disbelief.

That's what happens when you confuse atheist with atheism. Vegetarians might also have a moral aversion to alcohol, the bastards, but that isn't vegetarianism.

I say again, atheism is neither a lack of belief nor disbelief (in theistic claims); it is belief's absence. Now with that in mind, many atheists, myself included, take the pragmatist position and live their lives as if no gods exist. It's rather like deciding not to bother waiting in for Kylie Minogue to show up at the door. Sure, I might be risking finding a "sorry I missed you - KM xxx" note on the doormat, but so far I've been pretty accurate.

That's fair enough. I guess if atheism is described as lack of belief and lack of disbelief, i see no difference between that and agnosticism, or even apathy.

[bennyboy]

That's fair enough. I guess if atheism is described as lack of belief and lack of disbelief, i see no difference between that and agnosticism, or even apathy.

I'm with you on this one. By their definition, my beagle is an atheist. So's my big toenail.

The problem, though, is that "-ism" is usually used to describe a deliberate position or system of thought, and an "-ist" is usually used to describe someone who holds that position or adheres to that system of thought.

I will almost certainly spawn about 20 pages of hate mail and 2-axis diagrams, when I say that the answer to "Do you believe God exists?" should be found among the following:

1) Yes. (theist)
2) No. (atheist)
3) I don't know. (agnostic)
4) Please define God so I can answer. (ignostic)
5) I don't care, because what has He done for me lately? (apatheist)

In order to title myself as "atheist" in a general philosophical sense, I'd have to believe that nothing that could be called God exists, something which I cannot do. To refer to myself as "atheist" in a Christian community, I'd have to believe that the Christian God as described in the Bible doesn't exist-- that which I can extremely easily do, since it's a largely incoherent collection of impressions by various writers.

I'd say I'm agnostic when thinking about God on my own, ignostic when talking about God in general, and hard atheist when talking about any well-defined specific God idea (Christian God, Thor, etc.)

[Whateverist]

Nope, atheism is the position of not believing that there is this force, not necessarily that this force is not. Regardless, we see no justification for painting a face on it and praying for rain.

Thats what many folks here say, but based on my observation over the past 2 years, it seems very much like for most people here it is indeed a strong disbelief, not simply a lack of belief.

Nonetheless, my point still stands, whether it's worded as lack of belief or disbelief.

I'd say it is the belief that the question regarding the existence of gods need not be taken seriously which is felt strongly by some of us.  That is far from the same thing as a strong belief that gods do not exist.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure.  I mean, have you asked your beagle though?  You never know. Mine seems to worship at the alter of Discordia.

[Whateverist]

@Tiz
Thou shalt not mock the lord, thy god, Mysticknight.

Truly the lord doth speak through him and every booger in his nose is holy.

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Thats what many folks here say, but based on my observation over the past 2 years, it seems very much like for most people here it is indeed a strong disbelief, not simply a lack of belief.

Nonetheless, my point still stands, whether it's worded as lack of belief or disbelief.

That's what happens when you confuse atheist with atheism. Vegetarians might also have a moral aversion to alcohol, the bastards, but that isn't vegetarianism.

I say again, atheism is neither a lack of belief nor disbelief (in theistic claims); it is belief's absence. Now with that in mind, many atheists, myself included, take the pragmatist position and live their lives as if no gods exist. It's rather like deciding not to bother waiting in for Kylie Minogue to show up at the door. Sure, I might be risking finding a "sorry I missed you - KM xxx" note on the doormat, but so far I've been pretty accurate.

I was well ninja'd.  My sentiments exactly.

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That's fair enough. I guess if atheism is described as lack of belief and lack of disbelief, i see no difference between that and agnosticism, or even apathy.

I'm with the Christians on this one.  By their definition, my beagle is an atheist.  So's my big toenail.

Probably, like xtians, you think the question deserves to be taken seriously.  I disagree.  That it seems a silly issue is reason enough for me to ignore it.  I think the label "atheist" applies, of course so do "agnostic", "ignostic" and "apatheist".  Granted the latter three are probably more informative regarding why I don't believe than my mere lack of belief, but all apply and none are really of any consequence.

[Edwardo Piet]

That's fair enough. I guess if atheism is described as lack of belief and lack of disbelief, i see no difference between that and agnosticism, or even apathy.

The way see it is that the complete absence of belief in gods and the complete presence of disbelief in gods are identical, since disbelief is itself an absence of belief.

Those are not beliefs. But the belief that God is positively improbable or positively does not exist are beliefs. I believe both of those things but it depends which concepts of gods we are referring to. I believe some versions of god are improbable and others are impossible. Of course, I'm still an atheist because I certainly don't hold any beliefs in god, but I also have positive beliefs about gods non-existence, in addition to my disbelief in gods.