A "meta-argument" against all future arguments for God's existence ?

[Belacqua]

Forget your Plato, your Georges, your Simons. Think for yourself and compose the best argument that you can.

I think I'll pass, thank you.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Here is Karl Popper's classic text on the "three worlds": non-physical, mental, and material.

There is nothing supernatural here, so it's safe for atheists.

https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_resourc...pper80.pdf

Generally, I think of reality as having at least two, and most likely more, apprehensible natures: one known by sense, the other by intellect. Seems more accurate than material or mental.

[Belacqua]

Here is Karl Popper's classic text on the "three worlds": non-physical, mental, and material.

There is nothing supernatural here, so it's safe for atheists.

https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_resourc...pper80.pdf

Generally, I think of reality as having at least two, and most likely more, apprehensible natures: one known by sense, the other by intellect. Seems more accurate than material or mental.

Yes, I think "sensible" and "intelligible" were a lot clearer, and less likely to cause confusion than their modern replacements. As so often, those old guys had good reasons for the terms they used, and we discard them at our peril.

I suspect that part of Popper's reason for using neutral terms ("World 1," etc.) was to avoid a single-word label that might mislead. Since "World 1" by itself doesn't mean much of anything, it forces us to read two or three pages to see exactly what he means by the term. And since the meaning is not exactly what we might imagine by "physical" or "material" he prompts us to be more careful.

But I'd be happy to stick with sensible and intelligible.

[Jehanne]

Here is Karl Popper's classic text on the "three worlds": non-physical, mental, and material.

There is nothing supernatural here, so it's safe for atheists.

https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_resourc...pper80.pdf

Generally, I think of reality as having at least two, and most likely more, apprehensible natures: one known by sense, the other by intellect. Seems more accurate than material or mental.

Like seeing dead people? To my north, we had (and. perhaps still do), Physic readings by Mary.

[Fake Messiah]

Generally, I think of reality as having at least two, and most likely more, apprehensible natures: one known by sense, the other by intellect. Seems more accurate than material or mental.

No, these two must be connected because without knowing something by senses, but only "intellectually", you won't be able to differentiate it from other things in your head. Like you won't be able to know that God's existence is more plausible than Cinderella or Krisna or Odin.

[Disagreeable]

Classical theism has been claiming that God is absolutely simple, with no parts. It is not only simpler than us, it is the simplest thing there can be.

This has been a basic tenet of theology for millennia.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

The ultimate simplicity would be non-existence.

“It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.”
— Peter De Vries

The guy has some funny quotes in general. Here is another:

“Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.”
— Peter De Vries

[The Grand Nudger]

Names, designs, emotions, music, literature, and painting are all very efficacious- and also very material.

Perhaps, they appear to be material bc we only encounter a material form of them:

All those things are information. Maybe in the case of emotion, some people would call it a brain state or emotional state.

Not just emotion, but any and every thought yeah.  

For a name, you might see it printed on a door or on a newspaper or on a website.
You can have the exact same name “George” appear on a door, in a newspaper, on a website.
You can’t have the exact same atom located in multiple places at the same time.

And you can have the same exact car in multiple places at the same time, but that doesn't lead us to posit that cars aren't material.  

When the name “George” appears on a door, it is a structure. It is a specific arrangement of smaller components: molecule/atoms.
It is just paint and plastic.
It takes a brain to understand the structure.
You can even take the paint and plastic and change its structure and have it represent a screwdriver.

Screwdrivers, notoriously material.  

When you go to your hardware store and are interested in a certain drill. You might find boxes of the same drill. They are all the same design.
Design is information and information can be copied and destroyed.
The atoms/molecules of drill 1 and 2 are not the same but the design of drill 1 and 2 is the same.

Hope that helps.

It's a running description of material objects and material interactions.  If material forms are the only thing I encounter - then even if we lived in a world bursting with immaterial whatsists, it would be irrational of me to believe as much.  Most of the time, theology invokes a veil to explain the disconnect - tacit acknowledgement that the immaterial is nowhere to be found - at least by us - at least here - at least now. It's also the basis of belief in ritual or magical objects. Totems that can help you to apprehend or interact with the other - because even when we're positing the immaterial.....we can't escape describing it as nominally immaterial. Monkeybrains.

[GrandizerII]

The only way for non-material things to exist is to have a material representation of it.

While that may be reasonable, all you're doing here is begging the question in favor of materialism.

As for the OP, I'm iffy about Premise 4. My experience doesn't lend much credence to that, and anyway, I'm not sure omnibenevolence entails that God must always be willing to make their existence known to everyone.

[The Grand Nudger]

One presumes (and the god bothers will argue out of the other side of their mouth) that there can be good reasons to be silent about some thing, or silent some of the time, and even completely hidden.

[Ferrocyanide]

Not just emotion, but any and every thought yeah.

Roger.

And you can have the same exact car in multiple places at the same time, but that doesn't lead us to posit that cars aren't material.

A car is also a structure and structures are pieces of information and they are also designs.
Structure, design, information are all non material things, just like a sphere, cube, and other geometric shapes.

So a car’s design is a non-material thing. The actual implementation, to turn that design into something that has an effect in reality, you need atoms/molecules.
The original design, as thought of by the engineer, isn’t even made of atoms. It’s just certain complex geometric shapes.
In our reality, such shapes do not exist so what we do is approximate these complex geometric shapes using zillions of atoms/molecules.

Also, when a press makes car parts, like a muffler, one muffler doesn’t match another muffler. The number of atoms aren’t the same, the crystals aren’t in the exact same locations, there are various microfractures. The muffler that comes from a factory approximates the design as though of in the engineer’s mind.

Screwdrivers, notoriously material.

Same with screwdrivers. There is the design and then there is the real world approximation made of atoms.

It's a running description of material objects and material interactions.  If material forms are the only thing I encounter - then even if we lived in a world bursting with immaterial whatsists, it would be irrational of me to believe as much.  Most of the time, theology invokes a veil to explain the disconnect - tacit acknowledgement that the immaterial is nowhere to be found - at least by us - at least here - at least now. It's also the basis of belief in ritual or magical objects. Totems that can help you to apprehend or interact with the other - because even when we're positing the immaterial.....we can't escape describing it as nominally immaterial. Monkeybrains.

Yes, theology makes some interesting claims, such as X is not material such as the soul is not material. They sometimes seem to call it the spirit.
My understand of soul and spirit is that they believe that the soul is the thing makes makes the body move and maybe it does the thinking and has the emotions.

That’s nice but we also need to talk about some science/our understanding as to how nature operates and a few concepts such as non-material things, such as numbers, names, languages, designs, information, software. We need to plug all this together and see where the soul/spirit fits.
What effects does the soul/spirit have on the brain?
What effects does the soul/spirit have on each molecule of the brain?
With what forces is it interacting with the material world?
Has any research scientist done work on the soul or is it just all talk thus far?

For me, the soul would be the “software” of the brain. We can compare it with a PC although the way a brain works and a PC works isn’t an exact match. The brain has more of a similarity to a ASIC (a specialized chip. For example a MPEG hardware decoder.).

Once your ASIC is damaged, then the software that it represents is gone.

So, I’m fine with the notion that our soul/spirit is non-material.
Then there is the question of god. Why are people claiming that it is non-material when it clearly decides to make things out of atoms?
At least claim it that it is made of some other type of particles and maybe it is from another world or universe.

Claiming that the god is non-material is equivalent to saying that it is a nothing or just an idea and one has not been built yet.