God is so quiet

[GrandizerII]

Nothing is an inconceivable state . You cannot think of nothing . Nor can one negate everything that is . To say that there could ever be real nothing is nonsense .

I'm not sure the religious philosophy claims that there ever was true nothingness.
I think their arguments rests on there being only god.

Of course, our words betray the underlying existence of time in all this. Existence of stuff also requires the spatial framework. So, one can posit space-time as the basis for all existence.

The whole point of the cosmological arguments is that true nothingness is a thing (as far as the physical or material world is concerned at least). Why else would SteveII argue pages with us over it? Many learned theists don't adhere to pantheism or the sort; they see God as beyond this space-time world we're in rather than be reduced to it. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a point to the doctrine "creatio ex nihilo".

[possibletarian]

Nothing is an inconceivable state . You cannot think of nothing . Nor can one negate everything that is . To say that there could ever be real nothing is nonsense .

I'm not sure the religious philosophy claims that there ever was true nothingness.
I think their arguments rests on there being only god.

Of course, our words betray the underlying existence of time in all this. Existence of stuff also requires the spatial framework. So, one can posit space-time as the basis for all existence.

Yes I agree, nothingness is not an option for theists either.

[SteveII]

You are overthinking this. What if there was no potential for existence? Is that conceivable? 


Nothing. Not anything. Existence did not happen. There is nothing mysterious about this concept. Just...nothing at all.

Steve, do you realize that just by saying, ‘nothing is’, as in: ‘nothing is an alternative to something’, or that ‘nothing could have been’, you’re already talking about nothing as though it were, in fact, something?  I think you’re the one overthinking it.  As soon as you attempt to conceptualize nothing as an alternative, you’ve already screwed the pooch, because ‘nothing’ cannot be an alternative.  It can’t be anything.   I would say with reasonable certainty that existence did NOT happen. That’s my entire argument: existence has always existed, because that’s what existence is, and what it does.  There is no such possible thing as nothing.  Not even in concept.

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Dean Rickles says it more perfectly than I:

‘What kind of possible world could instantiate there being nothing?’

Okay, I finally had time to listen to the video. I understand your point now. My confusion came in from you and Grandizer moving from the Universe being a necessary entity to the concept of 'existence' and I did not understand the pivot.

Alright, that makes sense. But as Dean Rickles clearly said (7:00) this reasoning does not apply to concrete objects. So, the universe does not necessarily exist. What point do you think you can make with the fact that the concept of existence must exist in all possible worlds?

[possibletarian]

God never gave the permission to eat meat or not to eat.
All God gave was the free will so people make their own judgements for the good or the bad.

Spiritual teachers suggest not to eat meat because the path to purity involve that which I believe is something that God agree too but God Himself doesn't go around telling people what to do nor He write holy books so you should be very careful before you say that God said this or that.  

Actually Rik I don't believe god said anything. I was (as Jor pointed out) wrongly assuming you were a Christian and so got your source of instruction from the bible, in which the narrative says god gave people permission to eat meat.

Now I know you don't take the bible as god given, your posts make much more sense, in your likeable but kooky way.

[SteveII]

Your problem continues to be that the pronoun 'nothing' means the negation of the word it is referring to!!

You had nothing for lunch. That means lunch did not happen. 

You saw nobody. Means that seeing a person did not happen.

None of the people ate to cookie. Means that eating did not happen. 

Nothing existing. Means that existing did not happen. 

So no, it does not look to be a logical contradiction--in the slightest. You MUST have tried to look this up. Didn't the fact that you couldn't find anything give you pause?

It is a logical contradiction, but I was missing some intermediate steps there to get to that conclusion.

The negation of everything in existence still requires something to exist for such a state of affairs to be possible. And in fact, the negation itself must be expressed as a possible world/state, one that has to be "concrete" in order to be possibly actual. But we can't speak of something like that as true "nothingness". And so "nothing exists" does translate to "nothing is something" and, therefore, is illogical.

Fine, I will grant that the concept of existence must be present in every possible world and that concept is something (much like numbers, logic, and other abstract objects). However, this whole discussion started when I made the statement that the universe does not necessary exist. That is still the case.

[The Grand Nudger]

I've been hoping you'd come back round to explaining why that's a problem.

[Banned]

We read/hear all this talk from theists about how God clearly exists and how he is this and that and did this and that, and when someone objects to his existence and/or attacks him, theists jump quickly to his defense.

Yet, in all this arguing back and forth, not once does God utter a word. He just stands there in the corner watching us having an argument about him, with nothing to say to support his buddies and prove us wrong. No voice, no physical manifestations, no declaration of divine presence.

...

It's because people like you can't stop advertising God, that the name persists.
I maintain that Atheists are the greatest evangelists.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We read/hear all this talk from theists about how God clearly exists and how he is this and that and did this and that, and when someone objects to his existence and/or attacks him, theists jump quickly to his defense.

Yet, in all this arguing back and forth, not once does God utter a word. He just stands there in the corner watching us having an argument about him, with nothing to say to support his buddies and prove us wrong. No voice, no physical manifestations, no declaration of divine presence.

...

It's because people like you can't stop advertising God, that the name persists.
I maintain that Atheists are the greatest evangelists.

Inverted logic is silly. But what do we expect?

[Amarok]

It's because people like you can't stop advertising God, that the name persists.

 Saying were advertising god is like saying mothers against drunk drivers is promoting drinking and driving .

I maintain that Atheists are the greatest evangelists.

That because your not very bright .

[ohreally]

We read/hear all this talk from theists about how God clearly exists and how he is this and that and did this and that, and when someone objects to his existence and/or attacks him, theists jump quickly to his defense.

Yet, in all this arguing back and forth, not once does God utter a word. He just stands there in the corner watching us having an argument about him, with nothing to say to support his buddies and prove us wrong. No voice, no physical manifestations, no declaration of divine presence.

It's almost as if ...

---

He doesn't exist ...

---

...

<cue dramatic music, signifying shock and horror>

Nice OP.  Is there anything from a god that doesn't need human interpretation and/or explanation?    I find god to be silent but not people.