Is There One Sound/valid Syllogistic Argument For The Existence Of God?

[Hollie]

It seems M. Pompous Rawling is getting quite desperate. If seems anyone who disagrees with his fundamentalist beliefs is suddenly the enemy.

So say the denizens of the one-dimensional reality, who apparently never really have anything of real interest to say about anything, just nasty things about those who don't conform to the trappings of their small, cramped minds. .

I find it comical that you denizens of magical spirit realms believe you're in a position to condemn those who reject your nonsensical claims to utterly unsupported supernaturalism.

I think that the problem you religious extremists have with rationality is that you perceive it doesn't address human intangible issues such as fear, emotions, superstitions, thus you feel reason is somehow inadequate. I take a very different view. The keystone of our perception of existence *must* be reason, otherwise, humanity would never have left Dark Ages thinking that people like you have never let go of.

I'm put in mind of the story of the Director of the US Patents Office under President Taft who declared in the early part of this century: "No more new patents need be issued; everything mankind can possibly invent, he already has." Of course, Taft fired him, because of course, that Director was wrong. You're like that. You're close-minded and ignorant and with little imagination, you're left to living in trembling fear of angry gawds.

I don’t see that accepting reason as the criteria for perception is stripping away anything. Human fears and emotions have always had their source in natural instincts. We simply have added a vast array of texture to emotions that simpler animals do not. So I don’t see that accepting rationality strips life of anything-- in fact, it enhances it. That you religious zealots choose to see existence as governed by magic and supernaturalism is an unfortunate throwback and a disservice to humanity.

Are you drunk? Never mind, of course you're are. Rawlings is using nothing but logic and you are reacting to that with nothing but emotion, as clearly you're not bothering to think about his posts at all.

Not drunk at all. A clear, focused mind is all that's needed to see flaws, logical errors and fraud that is being perpetrated by you and Rawling as a veneer for your proselytizing.

Secondly, you should have noticed that I divorced emotion from reason in my prior comments. Reason does not automatically lead us to The Five Things™ pwoof of your gawds which you insist it does. Further, the pointless (Christian fundamentalist), bible thumping that you and Rawling are performing is an embarrassment.

Your fawning, doe-eyed, worshipping at the altar of Rawling is a little creepy, dude.

 

[Hollie]

[Rawlings, you can put any kind of descriptor in front of logic... classical, formal, neo-classical, whatever... it is still a word which describes a concept of human belief and perception. Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.

This is not a matter of me wanting to continue being a cave-dweller. I understand your argument regarding human cognition and identity, and logic for that matter, and I have not disagreed with you on any of that. I have been treated as if what I had to offer posed some sort of threat to your ideas. I don't know why, other than hubris.

I have only pointed out that any discussion of "logic" or things like "evidence" and "proofs" are all highly subjective terms used by humans to define various human perceptions of the aspects in reality. Because YOU can see your argument as valid and apparent, doesn't mean that every perspective also sees the same thing. And even if they did, it doesn't mean it's the truth. Logic does not equal truth. We don't know truth, we believe truth.

Boss, I'm impervious to the false and immaterial innuendoes of hubris or insecurity. You are making claims about reality that are purely subjective as if they were absolutes from on high, while you provide absolutely no objectively discernible argumentation or evidence in support of the bald declarations. None. Your contention about logic, evidence and proofs is false and contradictory.

Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.

You cannot be objective or rational if you keeping inaccurately thinking and stating things. I've told you this before. It is self-evident that logic is not truth. Logic is a tool that divulges truth. Your statement is meaningless. Then you declare that we are incapable of knowing truth. How do you know that is true? Because you believe that is true? It’s not possible to believer a falsehood?

We, all of us, can see what is objectively true logically, and there is no justifiable or coherent reason to believe that what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges is not true. Is it possible that we can come to false conclusions even though we faithfully and objectively applied the principle? Sure.
But the reason we know that’s possible is the very same reason we know the fault would not be due to the logical principle, but due to apply it to a set of falsely apprehended data or do to a set of incomplete data.

But then that mostly happens when we are applying the principle to empirical data, not the rational data of axioms, postulates or theorems.

There's not a shred of evidence to support the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated is not true. How could there be? And the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated might not be true outside of our minds is useless, subjective mush. For whether that is the case or not, we wouldn't know the difference or be able to do anything about it. That's just the way it is for us, and commonsense and experience dictate that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness are at the very least reliably synchronized with the properties and the processes of the cosmological order.

There is no evidence or reason to believe that human consciousness has primacy over existence. On the contrary, all the evidence and the rational apprehensions of human cognition dictate that existence has primacy over human consciousness!

In other words, regardless of what the ultimate reality might be, that has absolutely no bearing on what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges every time we apply it. Wisdom dictates we go with what works rationally and empirically.

Bottom line: All you're really saying in the end is that what appears to be, might not be true. Okay. That’s nothing new, and it is in fact a useful thing to know, as we know that our data could be off. Also, this understanding allows us to imagine alternatives that we might not otherwise consider, but we must eventually be able to reconcile any extrapolations thusly derived to the real world in order for them to be of any practical use, and logic tells us that what might be via intuition and experimentation is dangerous to assume without always bearing in mind the exact nature of our premise. Otherwise, we're just blindly going with the flow of subjective mush, and it is people like me who are most capable of imaginatively regarding the variously apparent potentialities, not irrationalists or subjectivists, for they are in fact the most dogmatically closed-mind fanatics around.

Absolute logical consistency and objectivity reveal the complexities and potentialities of reality, not the ill-supported meanderings of subjectivist/relativist mush that presupposes that any given proposition isn't real, may not be real or can't real simply because its purely rational and not material. Ultimately, everything we believe is rational, not material in nature. Only closed-minded dogmatists ask the question of whether or not the nature of a thing is material or immaterial, or disregard the constructs of infinity, perfection, eternity, absoluteness, ultimacy . . . and accordingly confine the principle of identity and the logic thereof to the trappings of a one-dimensional reality. Hello! Folks were actually on this thread suggesting that I'm the closed-minded dogmatist because my way of thinking about things, actually recommended by the laws of thought, didn't make sense to them. Yeah. It didn't make sense to them because they are stuck in their one-dimensional world of subjective mush, which is not what logic is telling us about reality at all!

Logic is telling us that reality is infinitely more complex than that!

You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.

Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.

The only thing that can know truth is God.

Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?

I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?

P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.

And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.

Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.

More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.

There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

 

[emilynghiem]

1.

MD I'm SORRY that people cannot be magically perfect
and drop their emotions and associations that are negative
to focus on these points.

Emily, I know this. I understand the psychology. I'm a former Army NCO. I understand leadership, motivation, cooperation and the dynamics of team work and group think. Have more faith that there's rhyme to my reason.

The hardest folks to reach are hardcore religionists, which has nothing to do with formal religious affiliation or non-affiliation; rather it's the religion of belief in the things of the material world and not the belief in the inner truth of the mind, that still small voice of God. We are all entangled in this religion to some degree or another, some more than others. The key is understanding this so that one may get free of it, systematically shed the dead weight of it.

1. GREAT! I'm SO GLAD to hear this.
In addition to what you are saying which is GREAT to hear,
I'm glad you're a Veteran. I wanted to do the 10 million dollar fundraising project to buy historic land and housing for
Vets to build a campus. And Spiritual Education and Healing is part of the outreach to facilitate and cut the costs of health care. So this ties together!

In ADDITION to what you are saying about understanding change and dynamics, and hard core personalities.
AGREED

(in case you missed the long msgs, I propose a 10 million dollar bet to prove a consensus on God can be reached by proving spiritual healing, and to prove that political and religious conflicts can be resolved, and social justice/world peace can be accomplished in real life examples of healing, by applying restorative justice which is the meaning of Christ Jesus
and which brings spiritual healing which is receiving the holy spirit and restoring the human spirit collective to reunite humanity as one)

2. The one point about change I'm not sure you and I are on the same page with:
Do you GET that change is mutual?
That to reach these hard headed types, people like you and I often have to make the first move and first concession.
I may have to be the one who gives a little, makes a little more room for the approach or bias the Other Person has,
if I want them to trust me with my bias they don't have either. Do you get this is a mutual tradeoff to establish trust?

It's one thing to understand what needs to change and why it isn't changing.
Like person A is stuck because they are strongly opposed to C but can tolerate group B,
or C is stuck because they can't stand people of group A and don't trust B who seem to enable them, etc.

It's ANOTHER thing to get that we all have our biases and ways
and have to trust each other, which means letting go equally, NOT giving up or compromising our points or beliefs,
but letting go emotionally so the other person leaves space for us also.

Do you understand the mutual dynamics of change
as happening "in tandem"? Some changes happen hierarchically, if the top guy changes the policy,
then all the followers in rank follow in turn.

Between equals, we interact and mutual influence each other to open up to understand
the other person's points they have to contribute as well.

MD do you understand that for everything new YOU give to someone else to expand their worldviews,
like conservation of energy or equal and opposite reaction, they have something larger to share with YOU in return?

I'm saying if you open yourself up to receive their gift to you, they can receive your gift to them.
We don't have to fear this change as combative or some competition to make someone wrong so the other is right.

We are like "trading cards" -- if you have a 10 to give someone to complete their set,
they have a 2 to give you that matches something in your hand you needed a card for.

We just have to find out who has what, and lay out our hands and play openly to
match up all the cards we are holding among us. And the deck gets organized in sets!

=============================

3.

As I have written elsewhere:
.

Yes. God is the first principle, albeit, for the universe, not of it. He is the transcendent Principle of Identity contingent on nothing.

He is the ground for all existence, and, of course, the universal principle of identity (the comprehensive expression of the rational and moral laws of thought) endowed by God to man, is grounded in Him, as He is the fullness of that principle. The fundamental laws of thought are reliable for this reason. The comprehensive expression/principle of the rational and moral laws of thought are stamped by God on our minds. This is His image and what sets us apart from all other creatures of the terrestrial order. It's His name, put on us as His property.

The voice we hear as our own in our minds when we faithfully apply the comprehensive principle of identity (the logic of God) to any given problem is in fact His voice speaking the wisdom thusly divulged. God is talking to us all the time. It's that still small voice heard in the objectively uncluttered quite of the principle of identity. "I AM! I'm hear! Listen to Me! Stop listening to the baby talk of subjective mush that leads to nowhere. Stop going around and around that mulberry tree." --Rawlings​

Please read my posts from today. Tomorrow I will return to your post that I started to address regarding number 4 of The Five Things, which gets at your proven-disproven dichotomy, and things like infinity, eternity, perfection. . . .

Yes, I can follow this because I'm already there with you.
I'm Okay with people Understanding God as Nature, God as Wisdom, God as Creation, God as Love.

And Collectively, all these things come from the same SOURCE. So you are talking about the SOURCE,
but people aren't there yet. I think you are jumping ahead, which is part of the process.

It pushes teh process forward to show where we are heading.

But one step at a time.

Even to work with people to equate God with Love or God with Wisdom
takes some forgiveness and letting go of the ENgrained negative concept of "God as a madeup bogeyman
for angry Christians to manipulate or scare others"

MD, you keep pushing God as teh SOURCE, maybe that's your job as the head guy in the pack over other ranks.

Maybe I am like the troop Recruiter who is matching people to their local commands.

Which people respond to God as Truth or Wisdom.
Which people need to connect on the level of Justice and understanding Jesus or Restorative Justice
brings equal justice or socials justice: which people understand if they focus on real life peace and justice/social
issues to see how this "forgiveness and healing" applies.

MD not all people will go through the process of forgiveness (and thus letting go of past negative perceptions of God)
if the end motivation is to "prove that God is the Source".
That can be the end goal, but it may not motivate people!
In fact, it may turn people off and AVOID change because they don't BELIEVE in the goal.

Maybe some people will go through the "forgiveness" process (again to let go of negative concepts)
by working on peace and justice issues that require the same level of healing to make it work.

so they will get there another way.

if you are the Army guy used to keeping the ranks in line, that may well be your job.
Salute to you! I totally agree to let you be in charge.

Let me also do my job of finding out where everyone else falls in their ranks.

Hollie may be able to work with other Atheists on this idea of proving
Spiritual Healing which is a HUGE step.

That same healing with get RID of a LOT of this negative division between
nontheistic Science and theistic religion.

So it will break down barriers on all sides, fundamentalists in religion, also.

This medical proof of spiritual healing will also stop the divide between
JW and Church of Christ who are both opposed to spiritual healing as demonic
and this is dividing the church denominations until it is proven as natural science.

This is GREAT!!!!

MD you are perfect, and I see God is calling us to fall in our respective ranks.

Everyone has a job to do that nobody else can do to handle their part of the service and purpose.

I will keep doing my job, to find out who needs to be on what team focused on what
and checking which person from going too far. Maybe we need to pair up in opposites
so we can help each other work with others of the opposite biases?

I can head up the women's team because I think there is a chance of
connecting there and supporting some of the men who tend to clash with each other
due to pecking order patterns. If all the men hve their own teams and projects to head up
or work on, as part of the proof of spiritual healing to reach a consensus on God (or
peace and justice to reach a consensus on Jesus and Restorative Justice),
then there won't be such a fight to one up each other. Everyone is equally needed and important.

We just need to organize in ranks!

4. Here's the website project I was going to rally around
and try to raise 10 million to buy historic houses and land for real estate development
to teach Veterans to run their own housing and health care campus , both for
financial independence and help for disabled Vets and also to train Vet leaders
for public office: Freedmen s Town Historic Churches and Vet Housing

Once this campus model is proven to work sustainably
I propose to replicate campus communities a cross the border for security
and to create viable development in jobs, education and service internships
to solve the immigration issue and issues with drug, human, and gang/cult related trafficking:
Earned Amnesty

MD if you are ready for change, I already WROTE to Allen West
about having his foundation to be in charge of the historic model
campus in Freedmen's Town. Another buddy online referred his son,
they are both vets, to help with this project.

 

[BreezeWood]

Do you understand and acknowledge the five things as necessarily true?

M.P. Rawlings: It proves that God exists! Period. End of thought.
Justin Davis: What he said!
Hollie:
Boss:
Emily:
GT:
dblack: My local used car salesman is more compelling.
sealybobo: What are the five things?
Treeshepherd:
Breezewood:

Let's get a roll call. Add your opinion. (apologies to anyone I left off the list - feel free to add)

Updated:

Totals:

Yes: 2
No:
WTF??: 2

My vote is definitely WTF??

.

3. The possibility that God exists and is the uncreated Creator of all other things that exist, including the cosmological order, cannot be logically ruled out!

The possibility ... cannot be logically ruled out!

because there is a possibility, does not describe the actual existing condition.


... including the cosmological order

I believe the Creator exists within the Everlasting and did not create that state and the Everlasting is tangentially responsible for the cosmological order to what exists / does not exist within it.

all hail the Creator, but that the Creator is among many ...


GT makes sense at the same level as MD the Proselytizer, -

amen.

.

 

[Justin Davis]

Boss, I'm impervious to the false and immaterial innuendoes of hubris or insecurity. You are making claims about reality that are purely subjective as if they were absolutes from on high, while you provide absolutely no objectively discernible argumentation or evidence in support of the bald declarations. None. Your contention about logic, evidence and proofs is false and contradictory.

You cannot be objective or rational if you keeping inaccurately thinking and stating things. I've told you this before. It is self-evident that logic is not truth. Logic is a tool that divulges truth. Your statement is meaningless. Then you declare that we are incapable of knowing truth. How do you know that is true? Because you believe that is true? It’s not possible to believer a falsehood?

We, all of us, can see what is objectively true logically, and there is no justifiable or coherent reason to believe that what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges is not true. Is it possible that we can come to false conclusions even though we faithfully and objectively applied the principle? Sure.
But the reason we know that’s possible is the very same reason we know the fault would not be due to the logical principle, but due to apply it to a set of falsely apprehended data or do to a set of incomplete data.

But then that mostly happens when we are applying the principle to empirical data, not the rational data of axioms, postulates or theorems.

There's not a shred of evidence to support the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated is not true. How could there be? And the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated might not be true outside of our minds is useless, subjective mush. For whether that is the case or not, we wouldn't know the difference or be able to do anything about it. That's just the way it is for us, and commonsense and experience dictate that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness are at the very least reliably synchronized with the properties and the processes of the cosmological order.

There is no evidence or reason to believe that human consciousness has primacy over existence. On the contrary, all the evidence and the rational apprehensions of human cognition dictate that existence has primacy over human consciousness!

In other words, regardless of what the ultimate reality might be, that has absolutely no bearing on what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges every time we apply it. Wisdom dictates we go with what works rationally and empirically.

Bottom line: All you're really saying in the end is that what appears to be, might not be true. Okay. That’s nothing new, and it is in fact a useful thing to know, as we know that our data could be off. Also, this understanding allows us to imagine alternatives that we might not otherwise consider, but we must eventually be able to reconcile any extrapolations thusly derived to the real world in order for them to be of any practical use, and logic tells us that what might be via intuition and experimentation is dangerous to assume without always bearing in mind the exact nature of our premise. Otherwise, we're just blindly going with the flow of subjective mush, and it is people like me who are most capable of imaginatively regarding the variously apparent potentialities, not irrationalists or subjectivists, for they are in fact the most dogmatically closed-mind fanatics around.

Absolute logical consistency and objectivity reveal the complexities and potentialities of reality, not the ill-supported meanderings of subjectivist/relativist mush that presupposes that any given proposition isn't real, may not be real or can't real simply because its purely rational and not material. Ultimately, everything we believe is rational, not material in nature. Only closed-minded dogmatists ask the question of whether or not the nature of a thing is material or immaterial, or disregard the constructs of infinity, perfection, eternity, absoluteness, ultimacy . . . and accordingly confine the principle of identity and the logic thereof to the trappings of a one-dimensional reality. Hello! Folks were actually on this thread suggesting that I'm the closed-minded dogmatist because my way of thinking about things, actually recommended by the laws of thought, didn't make sense to them. Yeah. It didn't make sense to them because they are stuck in their one-dimensional world of subjective mush, which is not what logic is telling us about reality at all!

Logic is telling us that reality is infinitely more complex than that!

You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.

Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.

The only thing that can know truth is God.

Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?

I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?

P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.

And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.

Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.

More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.

There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

 

[Justin Davis]

.

3. The possibility that God exists and is the uncreated Creator of all other things that exist, including the cosmological order, cannot be logically ruled out!

The possibility ... cannot be logically ruled out!

because there is a possibility, does not describe the actual existing condition.


... including the cosmological order

I believe the Creator exists within the Everlasting and did not create that state and the Everlasting is tangentially responsible for the cosmological order to what exists / does not exist within it.

all hail the Creator, but that the Creator is among many ...


GT makes sense at the same level as MD the Proselytizer, -

amen.

.

"because there is a possibility, does not describe the actual existing condition."

Possibility does not necessarily equal actuality? That's what #3 says. So you agree with it right? So the Everlasting is your name for the ultimate ground of all other things, the ultimate God or Creator right? That's what #3 says. So you agree with it right?

Amen.

 

[Hollie]

You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.

Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.

The only thing that can know truth is God.

Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?

I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?

P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.

And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.

Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.

More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.

There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

 

[Hollie]

.

3. The possibility that God exists and is the uncreated Creator of all other things that exist, including the cosmological order, cannot be logically ruled out!

The possibility ... cannot be logically ruled out!

because there is a possibility, does not describe the actual existing condition.


... including the cosmological order

I believe the Creator exists within the Everlasting and did not create that state and the Everlasting is tangentially responsible for the cosmological order to what exists / does not exist within it.

all hail the Creator, but that the Creator is among many ...


GT makes sense at the same level as MD the Proselytizer, -

amen.

.

"because there is a possibility, does not describe the actual existing condition."

Possibility does not necessarily equal actuality? That's what #3 says. So you agree with it right? So the Everlasting is your name for the ultimate ground of all other things, the ultimate God or Creator right? That's what #3 says. So you agree with it right?

Amen.

Isn't it a bit presumptuous for you to assume your particular version of gawds are the "true" or the only gawds?

You are promoting that you know with certainty things you cannot know with certainty. Therefore, we can assume that Vishnu, Zeus, Osiris and a host of other conceptions of gawds are just as likely as your gawds.

So you agree with it, right?

 

[Justin Davis]

It seems M. Pompous Rawling is getting quite desperate. If seems anyone who disagrees with his fundamentalist beliefs is suddenly the enemy.

So say the denizens of the one-dimensional reality, who apparently never really have anything of real interest to say about anything, just nasty things about those who don't conform to the trappings of their small, cramped minds. .

I find it comical that you denizens of magical spirit realms believe you're in a position to condemn those who reject your nonsensical claims to utterly unsupported supernaturalism.

I think that the problem you religious extremists have with rationality is that you perceive it doesn't address human intangible issues such as fear, emotions, superstitions, thus you feel reason is somehow inadequate. I take a very different view. The keystone of our perception of existence *must* be reason, otherwise, humanity would never have left Dark Ages thinking that people like you have never let go of.

I'm put in mind of the story of the Director of the US Patents Office under President Taft who declared in the early part of this century: "No more new patents need be issued; everything mankind can possibly invent, he already has." Of course, Taft fired him, because of course, that Director was wrong. You're like that. You're close-minded and ignorant and with little imagination, you're left to living in trembling fear of angry gawds.

I don’t see that accepting reason as the criteria for perception is stripping away anything. Human fears and emotions have always had their source in natural instincts. We simply have added a vast array of texture to emotions that simpler animals do not. So I don’t see that accepting rationality strips life of anything-- in fact, it enhances it. That you religious zealots choose to see existence as governed by magic and supernaturalism is an unfortunate throwback and a disservice to humanity.

Are you drunk? Never mind, of course you're are. Rawlings is using nothing but logic and you are reacting to that with nothing but emotion, as clearly you're not bothering to think about his posts at all.

Not drunk at all. A clear, focused mind is all that's needed to see flaws, logical errors and fraud that is being perpetrated by you and Rawling as a veneer for your proselytizing.

Secondly, you should have noticed that I divorced emotion from reason in my prior comments. Reason does not automatically lead us to The Five Things™ pwoof of your gawds which you insist it does. Further, the pointless (Christian fundamentalist), bible thumping that you and Rawling are performing is an embarrassment.

Your fawning, doe-eyed, worshipping at the altar of Rawling is a little creepy, dude.

The five things are not a proof for God's existence. The facts of the principle of identity (the rules of organic thought) are. I already knew that before I ever joined this forum. I don't need Rawlings to tell me that and you don't need Rawlings to tell you that, nobody needs a human being to tell them that. That part is self-evident. You keep saying that what we're saying is illogical but you never tells why its illogical because you can't, because the five things are obviously true.

 

[Hollie]

It seems M. Pompous Rawling is getting quite desperate. If seems anyone who disagrees with his fundamentalist beliefs is suddenly the enemy.

So say the denizens of the one-dimensional reality, who apparently never really have anything of real interest to say about anything, just nasty things about those who don't conform to the trappings of their small, cramped minds. .

I find it comical that you denizens of magical spirit realms believe you're in a position to condemn those who reject your nonsensical claims to utterly unsupported supernaturalism.

I think that the problem you religious extremists have with rationality is that you perceive it doesn't address human intangible issues such as fear, emotions, superstitions, thus you feel reason is somehow inadequate. I take a very different view. The keystone of our perception of existence *must* be reason, otherwise, humanity would never have left Dark Ages thinking that people like you have never let go of.

I'm put in mind of the story of the Director of the US Patents Office under President Taft who declared in the early part of this century: "No more new patents need be issued; everything mankind can possibly invent, he already has." Of course, Taft fired him, because of course, that Director was wrong. You're like that. You're close-minded and ignorant and with little imagination, you're left to living in trembling fear of angry gawds.

I don’t see that accepting reason as the criteria for perception is stripping away anything. Human fears and emotions have always had their source in natural instincts. We simply have added a vast array of texture to emotions that simpler animals do not. So I don’t see that accepting rationality strips life of anything-- in fact, it enhances it. That you religious zealots choose to see existence as governed by magic and supernaturalism is an unfortunate throwback and a disservice to humanity.

Are you drunk? Never mind, of course you're are. Rawlings is using nothing but logic and you are reacting to that with nothing but emotion, as clearly you're not bothering to think about his posts at all.

Not drunk at all. A clear, focused mind is all that's needed to see flaws, logical errors and fraud that is being perpetrated by you and Rawling as a veneer for your proselytizing.

Secondly, you should have noticed that I divorced emotion from reason in my prior comments. Reason does not automatically lead us to The Five Things™ pwoof of your gawds which you insist it does. Further, the pointless (Christian fundamentalist), bible thumping that you and Rawling are performing is an embarrassment.

Your fawning, doe-eyed, worshipping at the altar of Rawling is a little creepy, dude.

The five things are not a proof for God's existence. The facts of the principle of identity (the rules of organic thought) are. I already knew that before I ever joined this forum. I don't need Rawlings to tell me that and you don't need Rawlings to tell you that, nobody needs a human being to tell them that. That part is self-evident. You keep saying that what we're saying is illogical but you never tells why its illogical because you can't, because the five things are obviously true.

It seems M. Pompous Rawling is getting quite desperate. If seems anyone who disagrees with his fundamentalist beliefs is suddenly the enemy.

So say the denizens of the one-dimensional reality, who apparently never really have anything of real interest to say about anything, just nasty things about those who don't conform to the trappings of their small, cramped minds. .

I find it comical that you denizens of magical spirit realms believe you're in a position to condemn those who reject your nonsensical claims to utterly unsupported supernaturalism.

I think that the problem you religious extremists have with rationality is that you perceive it doesn't address human intangible issues such as fear, emotions, superstitions, thus you feel reason is somehow inadequate. I take a very different view. The keystone of our perception of existence *must* be reason, otherwise, humanity would never have left Dark Ages thinking that people like you have never let go of.

I'm put in mind of the story of the Director of the US Patents Office under President Taft who declared in the early part of this century: "No more new patents need be issued; everything mankind can possibly invent, he already has." Of course, Taft fired him, because of course, that Director was wrong. You're like that. You're close-minded and ignorant and with little imagination, you're left to living in trembling fear of angry gawds.

I don’t see that accepting reason as the criteria for perception is stripping away anything. Human fears and emotions have always had their source in natural instincts. We simply have added a vast array of texture to emotions that simpler animals do not. So I don’t see that accepting rationality strips life of anything-- in fact, it enhances it. That you religious zealots choose to see existence as governed by magic and supernaturalism is an unfortunate throwback and a disservice to humanity.

Are you drunk? Never mind, of course you're are. Rawlings is using nothing but logic and you are reacting to that with nothing but emotion, as clearly you're not bothering to think about his posts at all.

Not drunk at all. A clear, focused mind is all that's needed to see flaws, logical errors and fraud that is being perpetrated by you and Rawling as a veneer for your proselytizing.

Secondly, you should have noticed that I divorced emotion from reason in my prior comments. Reason does not automatically lead us to The Five Things™ pwoof of your gawds which you insist it does. Further, the pointless (Christian fundamentalist), bible thumping that you and Rawling are performing is an embarrassment.

Your fawning, doe-eyed, worshipping at the altar of Rawling is a little creepy, dude.

It seems M. Pompous Rawling is getting quite desperate. If seems anyone who disagrees with his fundamentalist beliefs is suddenly the enemy.

So say the denizens of the one-dimensional reality, who apparently never really have anything of real interest to say about anything, just nasty things about those who don't conform to the trappings of their small, cramped minds. .

I find it comical that you denizens of magical spirit realms believe you're in a position to condemn those who reject your nonsensical claims to utterly unsupported supernaturalism.

I think that the problem you religious extremists have with rationality is that you perceive it doesn't address human intangible issues such as fear, emotions, superstitions, thus you feel reason is somehow inadequate. I take a very different view. The keystone of our perception of existence *must* be reason, otherwise, humanity would never have left Dark Ages thinking that people like you have never let go of.

I'm put in mind of the story of the Director of the US Patents Office under President Taft who declared in the early part of this century: "No more new patents need be issued; everything mankind can possibly invent, he already has." Of course, Taft fired him, because of course, that Director was wrong. You're like that. You're close-minded and ignorant and with little imagination, you're left to living in trembling fear of angry gawds.

I don’t see that accepting reason as the criteria for perception is stripping away anything. Human fears and emotions have always had their source in natural instincts. We simply have added a vast array of texture to emotions that simpler animals do not. So I don’t see that accepting rationality strips life of anything-- in fact, it enhances it. That you religious zealots choose to see existence as governed by magic and supernaturalism is an unfortunate throwback and a disservice to humanity.

Are you drunk? Never mind, of course you're are. Rawlings is using nothing but logic and you are reacting to that with nothing but emotion, as clearly you're not bothering to think about his posts at all.

Not drunk at all. A clear, focused mind is all that's needed to see flaws, logical errors and fraud that is being perpetrated by you and Rawling as a veneer for your proselytizing.

Secondly, you should have noticed that I divorced emotion from reason in my prior comments. Reason does not automatically lead us to The Five Things™ pwoof of your gawds which you insist it does. Further, the pointless (Christian fundamentalist), bible thumping that you and Rawling are performing is an embarrassment.

Your fawning, doe-eyed, worshipping at the altar of Rawling is a little creepy, dude.

The five things are not a proof for God's existence. The facts of the principle of identity (the rules of organic thought) are. I already knew that before I ever joined this forum. I don't need Rawlings to tell me that and you don't need Rawlings to tell you that, nobody needs a human being to tell them that. That part is self-evident. You keep saying that what we're saying is illogical but you never tells why its illogical because you can't, because the five things are obviously true.

The Five Things™ is pwoof of of nothing and won't help you sidestep and waffle.

There is no reason to accept that your partisan version of gawds are the only gawds. There could be a unionized syndicate of available gawds.

Why are you trying to sidestep such an acknowledgement?

Why is Zeus any more or less a candidate for title of Gawd, the Big Cheese than your gawds.

 

[Justin Davis]

Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?

I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?

P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.

And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.

Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.

More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.

There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic, math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

 

[Hollie]

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic and math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

I see. So the point is, your sole purpose is to proselytize, to thump your bibles and avoid any attempt to address issues with which you have a prior commitment to dogma.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic, math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

Right on, Justin! That's the problem with the things that Boss and Emily are saying about proofs, or about things that can't be proven or disproven. Ultimately they're talking about scientific verification or falsification, and I'm going to address why what Emily is saying about things like eternity and infinity and perfection do not hold up in logic or math or science, for that matter, precisely because of her misuse of these terms.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

No serious rational person accepts the TAG as good argument, sorry. Its presuppositional horse hooey that begs the question.
Uses the word inside of its definition.
Is retarded.
Also, 2 & 2 = 4 doesn't beg the question.

I'm sorry. You must have missed this post: http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/9997553/

But never fear. I've been waiting for a post just like this one in order to put the final nail in the coffin for the corpse of yours and QW's philosophical bullshit. . . .

Oh, no, of course not, no one takes the transcendental argument seriously. It's never happened, could never happen. The very idea is ridiculous, absurd . . . retarded. It's all balderdash, poppycock, hooey and the like.

There's only been thousands of articles and hundreds books written on the Transcendental Argument in particular, entailing an innumerable number of exegeses on the conventions, structures and apriorities of various other kinds of transcendental propositions in general.

All these people don't exist or never existed: the prophets and apostles of the Bible, Immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, William Craig, James Anderson, Herman Dooveweerd, Peter Strawson, Jonathan Bennett, J. P. Moreland, Barry Stroud, Kenneth Westphal, Adrian Bardon, Moltke Gram, A.C. Genova, Quassim Cassam, Anthony Brueckner, Bernard Lonergan and, of course, many, many others. Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head from my own reading.

As for begging the question, actually, because, in truth, like the atheistic, know-nothing ninnies of post-modern popular culture on the Internet whose silliness you tout as one who is as philosophically and historically illiterate as they: 2 + 2 = 4, according to your logic, does beg the question!

The major premise of the Transcendental Argument (MPTAG) is an incontrovertible axiom of human cognition, not kind of like or sort of like, but just like 2 + 2 = 4! The MPTAG is intuitively and, therefore, axiomatically true. It's cogency cannot be logically denied or refuted. It's a cognitively direct and absolute proof.

Not even its critics from the perspective of epistemological skepticism asserting the conventions of modal logic challenge its organic validity, but rather its veracity strictly on the basis of metaphysical ultimacy, for it cannot be doubted on any other basis, doubted, mind you, not logically denied or refuted!

In other words, they know that under any form of logic, due to the inescapable imperative of the principle of identity, its validity cannot be logically denied or refuted. No serous scholar of academia questions its cogency as an apparently indispensable first principle of organic logic, a necessary enabling condition of human cognition. No serious scholar of academia, therefore, argues that it formally begs the question, you idiot!

Accordingly, for this reason, even its professional critics of peer-reviewed academia, you know, real scholars, appreciate the fact that propositions of necessary enabling conditions in general, insofar as they are axiomatically well-founded, are legitimate presuppositions that can and are used in the mathematical and scientific proofs of classical, intuitionistic and modal logic for the purpose of analyzing the constituents of the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, the empirical phenomena of the material realm of being and the veracity of scientific hypotheses, laws or theories.

In fact, the normatively transcendent, presuppositional exegencies of human cognition are the ultimate bases for our apprehension of where and how Newtonian physics and the physics of special and general relativity break down!

In other words, the only real objection of serious scholars goes to the metaphysical nature of the MPTAG's Object. They merely hold that while it is in fact an indispensable first principle of organic logic, its substance cannot currently be scientifically verified. That's all! Whoop de doo. Everybody knows that.

Let's cut to the chase. The fact of the matter is that it is you and people like you who are the buffoons, the pseudo-philosophical and pseudoscientific yahoos making baby talk on the outskirts of peer-reviewed academia. Only radical, untutored materialists, irrantionalists and the lunatics of Ayn Rand's Objectivism rail against the incontrovertible axioms of presuppositionalism as they necessarily negate their very own premises in doing so.

Are you an irrationalist (an epistemological relativist) or a devotee of that idiot savant Ayn Rand, G.T.? I thought you leftists hated Ayn Rand. LOL!

 

[G.T.]

"The major premise of the Transcendental Argument (MPTAG) is an incontrovertible axiom of human cognition, not kind of like or sort of like, but just like 2 + 2 = 4! The MPTAG is intuitively and, therefore, axiomatically true. It's cogency cannot be logically denied or refuted. It's a cognitively direct and absolute proof."

Umm, no - it's a mere opinion of yours and apologetics.

I dont care if every Religious person in the history of man wrote about it, it is not sound reasoning and is not any more "incontrovertible" than "knowledge just is," hence it's poor to use as a premise for a proof. It's not absolute, it's not an axiom and it's damned well begging the question.

2+2=4 does not beg the question.

2 is not presupposed, it is observable.

Jeebus.

 

[Justin Davis]

No serious rational person accepts the TAG as good argument, sorry. Its presuppositional horse hooey that begs the question.
Uses the word inside of its definition.
Is retarded.
Also, 2 & 2 = 4 doesn't beg the question.

I'm sorry. You must have missed this post: http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/9997553/

But never fear. I've been waiting for a post just like this one in order to put the final nail in the coffin for the corpse of yours and QW's philosophical bullshit. . . .

Oh, no, of course not, no one takes the transcendental argument seriously. It's never happened, could never happen. The very idea is ridiculous, absurd . . . retarded. It's all balderdash, poppycock, hooey and the like.

There's only been thousands of articles and hundreds books written on the Transcendental Argument in particular, entailing an innumerable number of exegeses on the conventions, structures and apriorities of various other kinds of transcendental propositions in general.

All these people don't exist or never existed: the prophets and apostles of the Bible, Immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, William Craig, James Anderson, Herman Dooveweerd, Peter Strawson, Jonathan Bennett, J. P. Moreland, Barry Stroud, Kenneth Westphal, Adrian Bardon, Moltke Gram, A.C. Genova, Quassim Cassam, Anthony Brueckner, Bernard Lonergan and, of course, many, many others. Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head from my own reading.

As for begging the question, actually, because, in truth, like the atheistic, know-nothing ninnies of post-modern popular culture on the Internet whose silliness you tout as one who is as philosophically and historically illiterate as they: 2 + 2 = 4, according to your logic, does beg the question!

The major premise of the Transcendental Argument (MPTAG) is an incontrovertible axiom of human cognition, not kind of like or sort of like, but just like 2 + 2 = 4! The MPTAG is intuitively and, therefore, axiomatically true. It's cogency cannot be logically denied or refuted. It's a cognitively direct and absolute proof.

Not even its critics from the perspective of epistemological skepticism asserting the conventions of modal logic challenge its organic validity, but rather its veracity strictly on the basis of metaphysical ultimacy, for it cannot be doubted on any other basis, doubted, mind you, not logically denied or refuted!

In other words, they know that under any form of logic, due to the inescapable imperative of the principle of identity, its validity cannot be logically denied or refuted. No serous scholar of academia questions its cogency as an apparently indispensable first principle of organic logic, a necessary enabling condition of human cognition. No serious scholar of academia, therefore, argues that it formally begs the question, you idiot!

Accordingly, for this reason, even its professional critics of peer-reviewed academia, you know, real scholars, appreciate the fact that propositions of necessary enabling conditions in general, insofar as they are axiomatically well-founded, are legitimate presuppositions that can and are used in the mathematical and scientific proofs of classical, intuitionistic and modal logic for the purpose of analyzing the constituents of the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, the empirical phenomena of the material realm of being and the veracity of scientific hypotheses, laws or theories.

In fact, the normatively transcendent, presuppositional exegencies of human cognition are the ultimate bases for our apprehension of where and how Newtonian physics and the physics of special and general relativity break down!

In other words, the only real objection of serious scholars goes to the metaphysical nature of the MPTAG's Object. They merely hold that while it is in fact an indispensable first principle of organic logic, its substance cannot currently be scientifically verified. That's all! Whoop de doo. Everybody knows that.

Let's cut to the chase. The fact of the matter is that it is you and people like you who are the buffoons, the pseudo-philosophical and pseudoscientific yahoos making baby talk on the outskirts of peer-reviewed academia. Only radical, untutored materialists, irrantionalists and the lunatics of Ayn Rand's Objectivism rail against the incontrovertible axioms of presuppositionalism as they necessarily negate their very own premises in doing so.

Are you an irrationalist (an epistemological relativist) or a devotee of Ayn Rand, G.T.? I thought you leftists hated Ayn Rand. LOL!

Boom shakalaka boom! I heard that last nail go in all the way from Alabamy. I think the noise of it broke the sound barrier. My ears hurt. Dovotee of Ayn Rand. Yeah I've read some of her stuff. She's okay on some of her first principles but then she goes off the rails into la-la land. It's like reading a two-old trying to talk about a theory of everything about a pile of nothing.

 

[G.T.]

^cheerleading


where's your pom poms, yo!?!?!

 

[Hollie]

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic, math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

It's The Five Things™ is pwoof of of nothing and won't help you sidestep and waffle.

There is no reason to accept that your partisan version of gawds are the only gawds. There could be a unionized syndicate of available gawds.

Why are you trying to sidestep such an acknowledgement?

Why is Zeus any more or less a candidate for title of Gawd, the Big Cheese than your gawds.

Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?

Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic, math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

For all your sidestepping and evading, it's obvious you're befuddled. You were able to cobble together one accurate statement in that science makes no absolute claims. However, you then go on to state that "logic" can and does verify "spiritual" things. I suppose that's good to know because we can then use logic to verify Zeus, Osiris, Jupiter, etc.

As I noted before, "logic" is much a pwoof for your versions of gods as it is for all the other gods. The Five Things™ is pwoof of nothing and won't help you sidestep and waffle.

There is no reason to accept that your partisan version of gawds are the only gawds. There could be a unionized syndicate of available gawds.

Why are you trying to sidestep such an acknowledgement?

Why is Zeus any more or less a candidate for title of Gawd, the Big Cheese than your gawds.

 

[G.T.]

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic, math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

It's The Five Things™ is pwoof of of nothing and won't help you sidestep and waffle.

There is no reason to accept that your partisan version of gawds are the only gawds. There could be a unionized syndicate of available gawds.

Why are you trying to sidestep such an acknowledgement?

Why is Zeus any more or less a candidate for title of Gawd, the Big Cheese than your gawds.

You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.

The gawds tell us no such thing. Once again, as you're thumping your bibles in desperate efforts to sell your religion, you come across as just another bad example of religious zealotry. Do you by chance wear a plaid, polyester suit?

IMHO, the search for meaning is at the heart of the religious impulse. We are driven by the despair of our own existential anxieties to generate meaning and purpose for ourselves. I think this is all the result of the unavoidable psychological conflict between our basic instinct for survival and the intellectual realization of our own mortality. We find meaning in self transcendent acts and concepts. By reaching out beyond ourselves to find connections to larger communities and realities we somehow escape our own mortalities, at least symbolically. If our creative efforts, or our children, or our communities, or our species, survive our own personal mortality, we gain a symbolic sense of immortality through our connections to these things. If the rigorous pursuit of scientific knowledge through reason contributes to the health of the planet and the survival of our species, it is profoundly meaningful, much more so than caving in to fear and superstition as you choose to do.

Science holds that God doesn't exist? Okay, I'll bite. Give us the link for this theory.

I've noted consistently that,

1) science cannot investigate the supernatural, and,

2) no gawds have ever made themselves known in a way that meets a standard of proof.

If the gawds are "telling us they're here", why don't you give us something more than what you have offered so far (which is nothing) so we can come to our own conclusions.

There is no standard of proof in science. Science holds laws and theories that have been upheld in repeated experimentation to be working facts until they are partially or totally falsified. Newtonian physics were held to be the universal working facts of the cosmos until as such they were partially falsified. Only in propositional statements and mathematics does the word "proof" apply. Science doesn't formally use the word "proof" or "disproof". Those are informal words that when used without understanding are misleading. We say that informally when what we really mean scientifically is a revisable granting of verification or falsification. You really don't know what you're talking about. All you're saying is that science cannot verify spiritual things. So what? Go bark at moon, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Logic can and does. I don't accept your confused, made up definitions and religious doctrines about logic, math and science. I don't drink Kool-aid.

For all your sidestepping and evading, it's obvious you're befuddled. You were able to cobble together one accurate statement in that science makes no absolute claims. However, you then go on to state that "logic" can and does verify "spiritual" things. I suppose that's good to know because we can then use logic to verify Zeus, Osiris, Jupiter, etc.

As I noted before, "logic" is much a pwoof for your versions of gods as it is for all the other gods. The Five Things™ is pwoof of nothing and won't help you sidestep and waffle.

There is no reason to accept that your partisan version of gawds are the only gawds. There could be a unionized syndicate of available gawds.

Why are you trying to sidestep such an acknowledgement?

Why is Zeus any more or less a candidate for title of Gawd, the Big Cheese than your gawds.

I think he would better understand if you wrote it in crayolas and glitter glue and followed it up by "rah rah zeus our man, if he cant do it, noone m.d. can!"

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Boom shakalaka boom! I heard that last nail go in all the way from Alabamy. I think the noise of it broke the sound barrier. My ears hurt. Dovotee of Ayn Rand. Yeah I've read some of her stuff. She's okay on some of her first principles but then she goes off the rails into la-la land. It's like reading a two-old trying to talk about a theory of everything about a pile of nothing.

That's the hook, the obvious first principles that no one denies, followed by a heaping pile of subjective mush that's supposed to be objective. LOL!

"Existence exists!" she says. "Consciousness presupposes existence!" she says. No you-know-what, Sherlock, so exactly how does the incoherent gibberish that existence necessarily has primacy over all of consciousness, which begs the question to get rid God, follow? From thereon out it's all down hill, sheer idiocy. In fact, I'm going to edit my post in the above, insert the term idiot savant. By the way, if you want a good laugh read this from my blog: Prufrock s Lair Objectivist Cult Member Says Composition Not Relevant to Science

Also, on a more serious note: Prufrock s Lair Objectivism The Uninspired Religion of Reason