Berkeley's argument for the existence of God

[Mystic]

Please, I think we all know that my atheism is contingent on just one thing.  Demon locks from the dark forces.  

Lay down, you're drunk.

I see my words have an effect on you. I hope you will slay your demons. 

[The Grand Nudger]

They do indeed.  They make me laugh.  Also..in case you were wondering..material.

[Mystic]

You make me laugh too.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then QED right?  I'm a material thing and I make you laugh.  If you are an immaterial thing then it's clear that a material thing can be in a causal relationship with an immaterial thing.
(gimme all your kudos neo, you know you want to )

[Mystic]

Omg, that made me laugh so hard.

[vulcanlogician]

Okay, so Berkeley distinguishes himself as an empiricist by founding his philosophy on the following (uncontroversial) assumptions:

(note: modern science has no disagreements with the first quote below)

Colours, sounds, tastes—in a word, all that are termed ‘secondary qualities’—have no existence outside the mind. But in granting this I don’t take anything away from the reality of matter or external objects, because various philosophers maintain what I just did about secondary qualities and yet are the far from denying matter. [In this context, ‘philosophers’ means ‘philosophers and scientists’.] To make this clearer: philosophers divide sensible qualities into primary and secondary. •Primary qualities are extendedness, shape, solidity, gravity, motion, and rest. They hold that these really exist in bodies. •Secondary qualities are all the sensible qualities that aren’t primary; and the philosophers assert that these are merely sensations or ideas existing nowhere but in the mind.

http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/p...ey1713.pdf

The next part is controversial and represents the fundamentals of immaterialism:

Wouldn’t it seem very odd if the general reasoning that covers all the other sensible qualities didn’t apply also to extension? If you agree that no idea or anything like an idea can exist in an unperceiving substance, then surely it follows that no shape or mode of extension [= ‘or specific way of being extended’] that we can have any idea of— in perceiving or imagining—can be really inherent in matter. Whether the sensible quality is shape or sound or colour or what you will, it seems impossible that any of these should subsist in something that doesn’t perceive it. (Not to mention the peculiar difficulty there must be in conceiving a material substance, prior to and distinct from extension, to be the substratum of extension.)
... [p. 15]
But there are many possible explanations, one of them being that ·those philosophers were influenced by the fact that· pleasure and pain are associated with the secondary qualities rather than with the primary ones. Heat and cold, tastes and smells, have something more vividly pleasing or disagreeable than what we get from the ideas of extendedness, shape, and motion. And since it is too visibly absurd to hold that pain or pleasure can be in an unperceiving substance, men have more easily been weaned from believing in the external existence of the secondary qualities than of the primary ones. You will see that there is something in this if you recall the distinction you made
between moderate heat and intense heat, allowing one a real existence ·outside the mind· while denying it to the other. But after all, there is no rational basis for that distinction; for surely a sensation that is neither pleasing nor painful is just as much a sensation as one that is pleasing or painful; so neither kind should be supposed to exist in an unthinking subject.

[polymath257]

In a dream, if you see green, is it material or immaterial?

It's activation by the same areas of the brain that would see green if they had input from the optic nerve. It is a material process both ways.

[Silver]

We can show that light exists in how it interacts with the world around us; the same with wind. The same cannot be stated for a so-called god.

[I_am_not_mafia]

We can show that light exists in how it interacts with the world around us; the same with wind.  The same cannot be stated for a so-called god.

Which reminds me, I need to get some perception panels fitted to my roof to help with the electricity bill.

[Pat Mustard]

The material nature of the colour red is that certain materials absorb light at certain wavelengths while reflecting others.  The things which reflect more light at the red end of the spectrum than other visible spectrums appear in different shades of red.

MK this is basic physics,  stuff that Newton mostly figured out.

Let's not insult each others intelligence. We both studied science in middle school and high school.


What you are stating is irrelevant.

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I think that our world being immaterial, but without a supreme being, is actually conceivable.

Ok, take some time. At least you are not materialistic right now

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Sorry people science won't be able to bail you out of this one.

I cannot insult the intelligence you consistently fail to display. You're asking stupid questions you would concede if you had any interest in learning about reality.

I simply do not have the patience for people like you who continue to peddle the same lies despite repeated corrections.