Who goes to hell - as far as those pious Bible Christians are concerned?

[Silver]

Most people aren't convinced that your god exists.

Yes they are.

Nope.

[The Grand Nudger]

He's a deist, that's definition enough to show that most people don't believe in his god. The overwhelming majority of god believers are theists...though, honestly, I think he's confused about what that term means. The god he's been describing is very interactive.

[GrandizerII]

At work.


But you did post;

".... But considering that most of the world is theistic I'd say he's succeeding....."

Which, to my reading comprehension, suggests the interpretation of "Because a lot of people believe, therefore..."

Again, I'm happy to be corrected upon your actual meaning in relation to what you're typing.

Cheers.

But why did you read that as me giving an argument for God's existence when I never said that I was offering such an argument?

Perhaps it will help if I go back and show you why I said what I said and what it actually means:

I don't think God actually cares that much whether people are convinced or not

Note that here I'm saying that I don't think God actually cares *that much* whether people are convinced that he exists. The *not that much* implies that God must care to *some* degree about that. Now let's continue.

but considering that most of the world is theistic I'd say he's succeeding anyway even when it's not even his priority

So, hopefully now it's clear that I'm saying that the fact that God cares to *some* degree, however little, that people are convinced that he exists is evidenced by the fact that people are *overall* becoming convinced.

Hopefully it's clear that this is an argument for the fact that *because* God exists the fact that people are overall becoming convinced that he exists is evidence that God is succeeding at convincing people.

So, to lay it out more clearly here is what the argument is:

Premise 1: If God exists then he must to *some* degree, however small, care about whether people believe in him or not.

Premise 2: If most people in the world believe in God then God is succeeding at convincing them that he exists.

Premise 3: Most people *do* believe in God.

Conclusion: Therefore God is succeeding at convincing them that he exists.

Note that the conclusion is *not* "therefore God exists" which is why I'm *not* saying that the fact people believe in him means that he exists. In fact, my whole argument already assumes that he exists. My argument is that *if* he exists *and* he cares to some degree whether people are convinced in his existence or not *then* the fact that most people are convinced is evidence that he's succeeding at what he to some degree wants: people to believe in him. Do you see what I was saying now?

Please let me know if writing the argument out like I did above, with premises and conclusion, helped or not. If it helped then I will do it more often.

What did I miss earlier? Premise 1 seems false to me. And how does accepting this premise as true make you a deist exactly?

[The Grand Nudger]

Presuppositional theism.

[UtilitarianDeist]

What did I miss earlier? Premise 1 seems false to me. And how does accepting this premise as true make you a deist exactly?

Saying premise 1 is false is not the same thing as saying that I am saying that God exists just because most people are theists. The former is another matter and the latter is what I was falsely accused of but something I never actually said. I didn't make an Argumentum ad populum fallacy but I was strawmanned so it looked like I was to those who weren't paying attention. Absolutely not attributing any intention and saying that the guy did it on purpose, though.

It's starting to seem like what people want is me to give an argument for God's existence. Is that correct? If so, I can do that, but it will take a long time. First I'll have to argue for other things that most people would consider not uncontroversial. Those things would then make arguing for God's existence possible. Without those things it isn't possible ...... hence why so many theists fail so horribly to do it.

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And how does accepting this premise as true make you a deist exactly?

Premise 1 doesn't make me a deist. I haven't given an argument for my deism. That was my whole point. I was being responded to as if I was arguing for God's existence but I wasn't doing that.

---

Presuppositional theism.

Nope. More assumptions laid on me when I haven't given any sort of presuppositional argument for God.

Just because I've assumed that God exists during this argument doesn't mean that I have to assume that God exists to make sense of my worldview. Nor does it mean that I think that you have to assume that God exists to make sense of any sort of evidence at all--which is what the presupposionalist says, but what they're really doing is just committing a special pleading fallacy. Just because I haven't given an argument for God's existence doesn't mean I can't. And just because I am assuming God's existence in this argument doesn't mean that I think we have to do that to make sense of any evidence. I don't think that. If God doesn't exist then evidence for things can be made sense of just fine. It would just mean I was wrong about my desim.

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Yes they are.

Nope.

My God is just an infinitely powerful infinite mind. That's something that Christians, Muslims and Jews all believe in. They just get more specific than I do.

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Yes they are.

Define god.

An infinitely powerful infinite mind.

[Silver]

Which just makes the deistic deity less believable.

[The Grand Nudger]

I call people who make presuppositional arguments for a theistic god presuppositional theists.

I know, I know, I'm fucking looney.

As to claiming others gods as your own, your worse than the bahai nutters with that shit. They don't believe in your god, and you know that, so just stop.

[UtilitarianDeist]

I call people who make presuppositional arguments for a theistic god presuppositional theists.  

I know, I know, I'm fucking looney.

As to claiming others gods as your own, your worse than the bahai nutters with that shit.  They don't believe in your god, and you know that, so just stop.

I didn't make any presuppositionalist arguments.

Like I said, they all believe in an infinite mind. That's what my God is.

If you mean that they don't believe in plenty of other stuff that I do about what that infinite mind is like, then sure. But Christians don't agree on everything either and it doesn't stop them being Christians. The point is that they believe in an infinite mind and that's what the God I believe in is. I just interpret the implications of that mind differently and I don't give special pleading to any specific book.

[The Grand Nudger]

Who am I going to believe, you or my lying eyes, right?

[UtilitarianDeist]

Who am I going to believe, you or my lying eyes, right?

Well, if your eyes are lying then why would you believe them?

If I actually gave a propositional argument for God's existence then somebody would actually be able to quote me doing that. They can't do that because I didn't do it. All they can do is quote me saying something that they insist insinuates it or something like that .... but then when we actually look at the literal meaning of what I said it turns out that I was right and that I haven't actually given any propositional arguments for God's existence at all.