Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[SteveII]

@steve

I just want you to answer this one question, and then I’ll let you have the last word here.  You and Mathilda have a lot going on.

Why should I take seriously the positing of an entity that, by definition, requires no explanation for its alleged attributes and powers, and cannot be demonstrated to exist?

You are right that by definition God has no explanation. But your second phrase does not follow from the first part (or any other logic). In other words, there is nothing in the definition of God that even suggests that his existence cannot be demonstrated. For example, why couldn't God demonstrate his existence by coming to earth and telling everyone? 

Regarding your question "why should I take seriously...?" even if you don't believe, you should understand the concept that a good part of the world believes.

[Huggy Bear]

Oh, regarding Hickey's missing uterus, the problem isn't that she may or may not suffer from that problem, it's that you, Huggy, jumped to that conclusion. From what my research has shown, Hickey herself has never said what her problem is/was.  There are many conditions that can preclude pregnancy.  And some conditions can present as others (misdiagnosis is a thing).  So, my mockery of you isn't due to me not believing/knowing the condition exists, but rather you insisting - without any proof - that it's what she was miraculously cured of.

You ASSume a great many things, Huggy.  All without cause.

Regarding 'some discrepancy' between the accounts of Upshaw's 'healing', all we have are those two people's accounts of what may or may not have happened.  No other 'witnesses' on the record, as far as I can tell (which is amazing since the 'healing' happened immediately in a church service).  Moreover, the account went from "Oh, tell that guy I had a vision, and now he's healed" to "I talked to him directly, had a vision of not only his accident, but a brown suit, and other things, plus I removed the other guy (Kopp) from the story completely."  And, of course, there's ample photographic evidence of Upshaw standing without his crutches before the event (he was supposed to be wheelchair bound, yet he was getting in and out of convoys and delivering speeches 3-4 times a day).

Again, you're gullible.

*emphasis mine*

How about posting up your sources, and the photographs instead of popping off at the mouth... After all I've just posted evidence of your dishonesty in the hall of shame.

As far as Hickney is concerned

1. She stated he had an inherited condition that would not allow her to have a baby, which means that someone in her family obviously could not have children.

2. A doctor stated unequivocally that it would be impossible for her to have a child, sure misdiagnosis is possible but not in the case of a missing uterus, having a child is literally impossible.

3. An audio recording confirms the fact that she indeed went and received prayer in order to be healed of her condition, so it's not just her word, there is supporting evidence.

So is stating she had MKRH speculating on my part? Ofcouse I never alluded to it being anything other than than, I'm confident in making that guess based upon the factors I just layed out and the commonalty of the condition.

Scientific principles have been proposed on less.

[vulcanlogician]

I don't like the Wikipedia formulation. Here is the one I use:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

and what must that cause be like:

4. To stop an infinite regress of causes, the cause of the universe (or it's predecessor) is an "uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful." (from your quote above)

This avoids a misunderstanding of the argument and also eliminates parody attempts like above. 

The KCA is an inductive argument. This is an important point. "Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning or abductive reasoning) is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion.While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is probable, based upon the evidence given." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning

Which number(s) do you think are false?

Until I looked it up, I assumed the KCA was deductive (as most cosmological arguments are), but you are right. It's inductive. It wouldn't have killed WLC to use the word probably or likely. It's worded like deductive logic, so please forgive my error. It doesn't really matter though. My problem isn't with the conclusion.

Let's look at the part of the argument that deals with contingency first. I'll quote your post below, with my commentary in bold.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. This is true of things within the universe, yes.
2. The universe began to exist. This is fine, though it isn't necessarily true.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. This does not follow because premise 1 is not necessarily true of the entire universe--composition fallacy.

I omitted the contingency part of the argument because in my first response because it has little to with the point I was trying to make--that the cosmological argument is god of the gaps argument. This part of the argument has no god of gaps reasoning, yet it is still problematic because of the composition fallacy. As a youtube video I once saw put it, the composition fallacy works in some cases but not all. If the individual bricks in a wall are red, it follows that the wall itself would be red. True enough. But what if the individual bricks are small? Would it follow that the wall that the wall itself would be small? Not necessarily. You could have a large wall made up of small bricks. https://youtu.be/ppBxkTTGoRQ

Bertrand Russell accused the cosmological argument of the composition fallacy:

But why should we think that the cosmos is contingent? Defenders of the view contend that if the components of the universe are contingent, the universe itself is contingent. Russell replies that the move from the contingency of the components of the universe to the contingency of the universe commits the Fallacy of Composition, which mistakenly concludes that since the parts have a certain property, the whole likewise has that property. Hence, whereas we legitimately can ask for the cause of particular things, to require a cause of the universe or the set of all contingent beings based on the contingency of its parts is mistaken.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmo...-argument/
Now for the second part:

4. To stop an infinite regress of causes, the cause of the universe (or it's predecessor) is an "uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful." (from your quote above)

I already explained this in my last post. Just take the words "personal creator" out and it still works. Some Hindus see God as an impersonal force from which all things emanate. Their concept, Brahman, would just as adequately satisfy this portion of the argument as Yahweh. Similarly, any other descriptor "beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless..." needn't be a property of this being. I'll give you "enormously powerful"... that's the only property required of such a force.

Taking all this into account, you could rephrase the premise like this:

4. To stop an infinite regress of causes, the cause of the universe (or it's predecessor) is an uncaused, enormously powerful force.

I don't see any materialist taking issue with the premise when worded like this. To reason any further than this is god of the gaps reasoning.

[Angrboda]

I'll give you "enormously powerful"... that's the only property required of such a force.

Taking all this into account, you could rephrase the premise like this:

4. To stop an infinite regress of causes, the cause of the universe (or it's predecessor) is an uncaused, enormously powerful force.

Since the sum total of energy in the universe is thought to be close to zero, it follows that it doesn't actually require a very powerful force. But relative to what are we actually measuring this against? It seems that the "power" required to create a universe is essentially a dimensionless measure, as we have nothing to compare it against. It takes as much as it takes, and that's about all we can conclude about it.

(Which oddly enough leaves us with only "uncaused" as a qualification. But then, that seems to follow tautologically, so it doesn't seem as if we've demonstrated anything more than our initial assumption that caused things can't be the cause.)

[Ravenshire]

All of which can be explained without invoking a creature with impossible to prove characteristics, like I said all in the mind then.
Apart from wanting god to exist,  do you have anything real you can offer ?

I offered a list of different ways of discovering that God exists. To which you replied "All of which can be explained...". Even if you had a theory for each of them, those theories are your opinion. You cannot prove one counter-argument to any of the above--not one. 

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

1. Person of Jesus is compelling.
2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Since you cannot 'prove' that any of these are falsely held beliefs, my conclusion (opinion) that God exists is by definition rationale (from my reasoning listed above). The amount of evidence meets my personal threshold for proof that God exists.

Steve-o, that lame little list is a list of opinions and assertions, not arguments, reasons to believe or any kind of evidence.

[Amarok]

So Steve reasoning is a steaming pile of bullshit opinions . Then demanding h's rational because we can't debunk them . Theist logic in a nutshell 

---

I offered a list of different ways of discovering that God exists. To which you replied "All of which can be explained...". Even if you had a theory for each of them, those theories are your opinion. You cannot prove one counter-argument to any of the above--not one. 

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

1. Person of Jesus is compelling.
2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Since you cannot 'prove' that any of these are falsely held beliefs, my conclusion (opinion) that God exists is by definition rationale (from my reasoning listed above). The amount of evidence meets my personal threshold for proof that God exists.

Steve-o, that lame little list is a list of opinions and assertions, not arguments, reasons to believe or any kind of evidence.

Funny steve demonstates the opposite of his conclusion 

[LadyForCamus]

@steve

I just want you to answer this one question, and then I’ll let you have the last word here.  You and Mathilda have a lot going on.

Why should I take seriously the positing of an entity that, by definition, requires no explanation for its alleged attributes and powers, and cannot be demonstrated to exist?

You are right that by definition God has no explanation. But your second phrase does not follow from the first part (or any other logic). In other words, there is nothing in the definition of God that even suggests that his existence cannot be demonstrated. For example, why couldn't God demonstrate his existence by coming to earth and telling everyone? 

Regarding your question "why should I take seriously...?" even if you don't believe, you should understand the concept that a good part of the world believes.

A clarification here because I realize my wording was unclear.  What I meant was, by definition, god needs no explanation.  Additionally, he cannot be demonstrated to exist.  

God could certainly demonstrate his existence by coming to earth and telling everyone.  I’m not sure why he doesn’t do it right now as I’m typing this. I’m not sure why he would do it just the one time, and then expect every human on earth going forward to simply accept the Bible at its word.  The Bible is not a demonstration of god.  It’s a claim about a god.  If god could be demonstrated to exist, we’d ALL be theists.

So, you’re asking me to rationally accept a thing that:

 1. cannot be demonstrated and...

2.  cannot be coherently explained

...as the explanation for all of reality?

Why would anyone do that?!

[I_am_not_mafia]

I don't like the Wikipedia formulation. Here is the one I use:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

and what must that cause be like:

4. To stop an infinite regress of causes, the cause of the universe (or it's predecessor) is an "uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful." (from your quote above)

Let's rewrite this argument without the simplistic everyday words that assumes that the universe is made up of discrete states that instantaneously switch from one to another. Let's rewrite it in a way that acknowledges that the universe is made up of many persistent patterns of matter and energy that change gradually over time.

1. Every stable pattern of matter and energy in the universe first had to develop over time (continuous version of begins to exist) and this happened because of how it was shaped by a larger environment (continuous version of cause).
2. The universe itself first had to develop over time.
3. Therefore the universe itself is part of a larger environment shaping it.

4. To stop an infinite extension of the universe, this larger environment of the universe is an environment that either:

4a: came about in an instant
4b: has always existed unchanging
4c: has always existed but continually changes.

4a and 4b does not explain how this larger environment the universe exists in came about. It just poses more questions that we cannot answer.
4c on the other hand means that there doesn't need to be a larger environment that the universe exists in.

This shows that the Kalam Cosmological argument only works because it uses simplistic every day language to gloss over the specific details. It only convinces you if you think about the problem simplistically. It gives the illusion of providing an explanation but only if you refuse to ask any more questions. This is why christians argue that after a while you need to stop asking questions and just have faith. If you have the right answer, you don't need faith, you can continue asking more questions, testing your answers and refining your understanding. This is how the scientific process works.

[robvalue]

Things like the Kalam take observations from our local are and extrapolate them to all reality, even beyond what we can test. It then relies on them being 100% true, which can't possibly be verified. This is an attempt to try and "do science" without any of the hard work, or using the scientific method. It's a total failure.

It also simply asserts that the universe had a beginning, which has been established either.

If instead it's simply a load of tautological language, then it doesn't in fact tell us anything.

[Huggy Bear]

Steve is trying his best to take this thread off topic while i'm trying to give atheists that work...

Seeing how I have made my case for why Odin cannot exist based upon evidence that he is a character based upon ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and that no evidence of Odin's existence has been presented PERIOD, I have no other choice but to declare myself the victor according to the predefined criteria.

How about this... I present evidence that Odin exists and you present evidence that Odin does not exist and we'll judge based on who has the most evidence for and against.

Since more evidence has been presented against Odin than in Odin's favor, Cecelia loses her argument.

And on that note, I'm getting on up outta this thread...