Do you believe in God?

Yes, this would essentially mean she were dead. If I say Abraham Lincoln doesn't exist, I would mean he were dead, not that he never existed. So, yes, you could say this, but you'd have no basis for making this claim as you don't know my mother. You'd need further evidence than the simple fact that I exist to answer the question "Does she exist?". I think you must mean here, "Has your mother ever existed?", and, in this case, I think the core piece of evidence would be that I existed.

You sound like a fundamental theist, trying to force a notion of "god" on me. What makes you think god has the same characteristics of existence as any creature? The burden of proof is on you, not me. I never claimed "God" was anything. I merely asked what evidence strong atheists have for "God" not existing. Do you know the answer to this question?

P1: All fruit are made of aluminium.
P2: Oranges are fruit.
C: Oranges are made of aluminium.

The argument is valid, but the conclusion and premises, as far as we know fruit, are unsound. People can make up deductive arguments for whatever they desire, but it doesn't necessarily make the thing they're arguing for or against true (or false).

What argument of mine do you find baseless, or did you not mean that one of my arguments was baseless?

I am requesting the characteristics of god that make god exempt to observational evidence.

I request this also. I best identify with what's called Ignosticism:

"The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless."

Ignosticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Exactly. The interesting part about is, people who believe, tend make assumptions about the characteristics of god and at the same time, they assume that everyone else accepts those assumptions as facts.

Have you heard of Thomas Aquinas? One can prove the existence of god through an argument, but this does not necessitate that god exists. The argument can be valid, but the soundness of any of the premises or conclusion can be debatable. Here's an example:

P1: All fruit are made of aluminium.
P2: Oranges are fruit.
C: Oranges are made of aluminium.

The argument is valid, but the conclusion and premises, as far as we know fruit, are unsound. People can make up deductive arguments for whatever they desire, but it doesn't necessarily make the thing they're arguing for or against true (or false).

As was discussed earlier, all absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Your not observing god or not having evidence for god does not mean that god does not exist.

Of course you can. And many have. Have you heard of Thomas Aquinas? One can prove the existence of god through an argument, but this does not necessitate that god exists. The argument can be valid, but the soundness of any of the premises or conclusion can be debatable. Here's an example:

P1: All fruit are made of aluminium.
P2: Oranges are fruit.
C: Oranges are made of aluminium.

The argument is valid, but the conclusion and premises, as far as we know fruit, are unsound. People can make up deductive arguments for whatever they desire, but it doesn't necessarily make the thing they're arguing for or against true (or false).



What argument of mine do you find baseless, or did you not mean that one of my arguments was baseless?

The premises and conclusion of your argument (above) are false. And, since the argument is valid, the reason the argument is unsound, is that the premises are false. And we know that the argument is unsound because the argument has a false conclusion. All arguments with false conclusions are unsound, although not conversely.

If an argument is sound, then that argument is a proof. Since all sound arguments have true conclusions.

Sound argument: The argument is deductive, and the argument has both true premises (all) and is valid.

But, as was pointed out, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence unless. it is reasonable to expect that if there were presence, then then would be evidence.

If you prove it, it does mean he exists. You can attempt to prove it, and that would not entail that he exists. If you DO prove it, however, it entails his existence, as if he doesn't exist, you have proven nothing.

If you prove it, it does mean he exists. You can attempt to prove it, and that would not entail that he exists. If you DO prove it, however, it entails his existence, as if he doesn't exist, you have proven nothing.

The existence of something can never be proved by logic alone.

How does that apply here, though? How do we determine if the presence of god should be reasonably expected?

Right. The most perfect logical proof, divorced from any physical corroboration, must be tautological. But I think most god proofs don't even get to that point, because of (as you mention) embedded assumptions -- like the assumption that existence is "greater" than nonexistence, or the assumption that god must be good.

I don't know whether there is a concept of although. But are all words names of concepts? I thought that, for instance, "Rover" is the name of my dog. When I call, "Rover", Rover come over (sometimes), but no concept comes over.

That is something that needs discussion and analysis. What I am saying is that when we say that absence of evidence for God does not show that God does not exist, then we are denying that we should expect there would be evidence for God if God existed. The next question is whether there should be evidence for God if God existed.

---------- Post added 10-24-2009 at 02:05 AM ----------



There is plenty of evidence of God... All we see and know can be taken as evidence of God...On the other hand what we have is the need to prove a cannon by a cannon ball...Evidence is not proof, and try as we might we cannot form a picture of a creator from what we see as created...Why have so many presumed an evil nature of God, or worse, a nature not far removed from our own??? It is because the evidence we have can be read a multitude of ways feeding endless argument and speculation...

---------- Post added 10-24-2009 at 10:13 AM ----------

Aedes;99558 wrote:

Right. The most perfect logical proof, divorced from any physical corroboration, must be tautological. But I think most god proofs don't even get to that point, because of (as you mention) embedded assumptions -- like the assumption that existence is "greater" than nonexistence, or the assumption that god must be good.

A proof is a process...Each step must lead like the links in a chain or the steps of a ladder to an inescapable conclusion... Logic fails us for this very reason; that we cannot see too far into the past to rule out events and influences, and we cannot push our logic too far into the future without foolishness...Cause and effect give reason to our lives, but we must admit that there are effects with apparent causes, and there are potential causes having no apparent effect.

Of course there is such a concept even if it is conditional...
---------- Post added 10-24-2009 at 10:07 AM ----------

kennethamy;99565 wrote:

That is something that needs discussion and analysis. What I am saying is that when we say that absence of evidence for God does not show that God does not exist, then we are denying that we should expect there would be evidence for God if God existed. The next question is whether there should be evidence for God if God existed.

---------- Post added 10-24-2009 at 02:05 AM ----------



There is plenty of evidence of God... All we see and know can be taken as evidence of God...On the other hand what we have is the need to prove a cannon by a cannon ball...Evidence is not proof, and try as we might we cannot form a picture of a creator from what we see as created...Why have so many presumed an evil nature of God, or worse, a nature not far removed from our own??? It is because the evidence we have can be read a multitude of ways feeding endless argument and speculation...

---------- Post added 10-24-2009 at 10:13 AM ----------


.

I did not, of course, say there was no such concept. But, the concept of Rover is not Rover. And the concept of water is not water. And the sentence " the sky is blue" is not the blue sky. Let's not confuse concepts and words with the things they are about (if there are any such things).

I did not say either that there was no evidence of God, nor that there was evidence of God. I simply pointed out that to say that absence of evidence for God is not evidence for the the absence of God, unless it is to be expected that if there is a God, there would be evidence that there is one.

But if what he meant when he wrote, "God is just a word" was, that the word, "God, was just a word (as you say he did) then what is it you think he meant by that? Surely you don't think he was telling people that the word, "God" is just a word. Why would he tell anyone that?

Because in this crazy language of ours there are sometimes multiple words with the same meaning or similar meaning. I think the technical term is synonym. Didactic and instructive, for example.

The simple moral: there's no sense getting hung up on the word "God".

Fido;99587 wrote:

Of course there is such a concept even if it is conditional...
---------- Post added 10-24-2009 at 10:07 AM ----------



I did not, of course, say there was no such concept. But, the concept of Rover is not Rover. And the concept of water is not water. And the sentence " the sky is blue" is not the blue sky. Let's not confuse concepts and words with the things they are about (if there are any such things).

I did not say either that there was no evidence of God, nor that there was evidence of God. I simply pointed out that to say that absence of evidence for God is not evidence for the the absence of God, unless it is to be expected that if there is a God, there would be evidence that there is one.

For the primitive mind as for ours, the name is the thing...It is for that reason that no one actually knows the name of the old testament God, and we are warned not to use the name in vain... The name gives the power to bring all ideas to mind... Nothing can be conceived of without a name... What is a dictionary??? It is a book of definitions... What is a concept but a set of definitions, and a name??? If we say, as Kant that knowledge is judgement, then all knowledge must be classified, and we cannot classify without a name... Now, with God, we have a name without knowledge, and some confuse the fact that we have a name with real knowledge, but they are wrong... Since there is no knowledge there is no true concept, and the concept of God only points to so many subjective meanings... Of that, we can have knowledge...

Evidence is not proof... Evidence is evidence and proof is proof, and there is a reason the words are not synonymous....

kennethamy;99592 wrote:

For the primitive mind as for ours, the name is the thing...It is for that reason that no one actually knows the name of the old testament God, and we are warned not to use the name in vain... The name gives the power to bring all ideas to mind... Nothing can be conceived of without a name... What is a dictionary??? It is a book of definitions... What is a concept but a set of definitions, and a name??? If we say, as Kant that knowledge is judgement, then all knowledge must be classified, and we cannot classify without a name... Now, with God, we have a name without knowledge, and some confuse the fact that we have a name with real knowledge, but they are wrong... Since there is no knowledge there is no true concept, and the concept of God only points to so many subjective meanings... Of that, we can have knowledge...

Evidence is not proof... Evidence is evidence and proof is proof, and there is a reason the words are not synonymous....

That may be true of the primitive mind, but no one I know confuses the name with the thing. The word, "cat" is not a cat. Everyone knows that.

I did not say that evidence for something need be proof that the something exists. But it is evidence which is needed in order to prove. Without evidence, there is no proof. Just as running a race is not winning a race, but there is no winning a race without running a race.

What I meant was that god can be logically proven; this does not necessitate that god actually exists, though. Most often, I see this done with the intelligent design movement. Essentially, a tautology is made: Properties are applied to the notion (god), and the notion becomes almost unfalsifiable. For instance, one could say that "god" is the universe, "god" is the thing which designed the mathematical exactness of things like gravity (we've seen this a lot on this forum).

Perhaps I'm just abusing words, and I shouldn't have brought the word "prove" into the mix.

I'm inviting you to read the thread I began "Causal Argument ..."

This is the only answer I can come up with to justify my belief/understanding that there is a God. The argument (it's a philosophical one) defines what I mean by God, and the argument is objectively valid. You're right though. Just because an argument may be valid doesn't mean that there really is such a Being. My argument amounts to a model that I think fits the universe in which I live, and it's my explanation for why I exist in that universe. At least, the model provides some rational justification for my belief in the existence of God. I cannot think of a more sound proof that would for me, justify such a belief. The argument, being philosophical, provides something better, I think, than just a conjecture like: our universe just popped into existence after being bumped into by another universe ... or: it's a freak quantum vacuum fluctuation.

These conjectujres and others just as banal I've read in one book after another on the big bang.

I think something more should be expected from philosophy.

I've tackled the problem by addressing Immanuel Kant, who I think had the right approach. My argument answers his challenge.

To attack the argument you need to show that the argument is not a priori, as demanded by Kant, but a posteriori (grounded upon experience as opposed to pure reason). My argument is a priori ... meaning, it's grounded upon pure reason, and so carries with it, its own inherent rational, or logical proof.