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

[M.D. Rawlings]

You can take GT response s basically my answer.

OH, and by the way. The issue of sentience in terms of the 7 things is really about point 3. It is being assumed that God is sentient by the statement, and I suggested not implying but leave it OPEN by using a definition.

i.e. the question is not whether or not God is sentient, the question is why imply God is sentient when it has not been properly argued for?

It doesn't have to be argued. Philosophically, sentience is the foundation of self-awareness. The entirety of consciousness necessarily follows. You keep trying to beg the question, from top to bottom, and I'm telling you that it can't be logically done without presupposing God's existence. From the foundation of self-awareness to the infinite degree of greatness regarding the idea of God: none of these things can be logically ruled out! That and only that idea of God is objectively unassailable. Any notion less than the objectively highest conceivable standard of divine attribution begs the question.

But by all means keep presupposing God's existence with those Freudian solips of yours when you, as one with absolute authority, as if from on . . . higher, share your intimate knowledge about God's attributes and powers of cognition that cannot be logically ruled out by the rest of us mere mortals. Welcome to The Seven Things Club. Confession is good for the soul.

See that most revealing Post #3811. Some people just aren't thinking things through as they unwittingly reveal that they are aware that the objective facts of human cognition universally hold regarding the problems of existence and origin.

You have the foundation of self-awareness in your mind: sentience!

Even the solipsist has a subjective, sentient impression/sensation of a universe that presents itself as something existing beyond the confines of his mind. Whether he believes it has any concrete reality as such is irrelevant to the fact of that sentient sensation.

With these subject-object, sentient sensations indisputably comes self-awareness and the awareness that you are a finite mind that cannot account for your own origin sans an eternally existing, inanimate materiality or a self-aware immateriality akin to your own, albeit, one that would have to be infinity greater than your consciousness, and the reductio ad absurdum of the irreducible mind and of the infinite regression of origin tell you that this idea of a divine Creator cannot be logically ruled out.

You think you’re the first solipsist I’ve run into/this is the first time I’ve heard the solipsist objection.

No one escapes The Seven Things.

 

[BreezeWood]

Well, God would have to have self-awareness to begin with, or He would be something less than the sentience of human beings. Sentience, of course, is not the same thing as self-awareness; rather, it's arguably the foundation of self-awareness in humans, the most fundamental aspect of human consciousness.

Well, God would have to have self-awareness ... it's arguably the foundation of self-awareness in humans, the most fundamental aspect of human consciousness.


if that is - #1 We exist!, self awareness then your definition for existence is exclusionary for the purpose of humanity as you perceive it rather than for all creation you refuse for some reason to accept as a possibility ...

since when will self awareness lead to imortality, in fact it proclaims the opposite quality of mortality, baseless thought and certain death. the parable of Noah, awareness without self.

hopefully I have not just agreed with Bossy -

self awareness is sin.

.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Well, God would have to have self-awareness to begin with, or He would be something less than the sentience of human beings. Sentience, of course, is not the same thing as self-awareness; rather, it's arguably the foundation of self-awareness in humans, the most fundamental aspect of human consciousness.

Well, God would have to have self-awareness ... it's arguably the foundation of self-awareness in humans, the most fundamental aspect of human consciousness.


if that is - #1 We exist!, self awareness then your definition for existence is exclusionary for the purpose of humanity as you perceive it rather than for all creation you refuse for some reason to accept as a possibility ...

since when will self awareness lead to imortality, in fact it proclaims the opposite quality of mortality, baseless thought and certain death. the parable of Noah, awareness without self.

hopefully I have not just agreed with Bossy -

self awareness is sin.

.

Still interposing indemonstrable subjective opinions that beg the question, that which would eliminate that which cannot be logically ruled out about the idea of God, eh?

 

[Boss]

Umm, you're the one who imposed a limitation on omnipotence by saying that an omnipotent being is not sentient.

Which is a contradiction in terms you're having.

I have imposed NO limits, you are attempting to impose limits of sentience.

Sentience is not a limitation. It is a singular ability which does not preclude having others.

What the **** type of weird definition do you have down for sentience where you'd describe it as a limitation?

Stop that. You're flailing.

As I said... Post your favorite definition of "sentience" and then explain why an omnipotent and omniscient God would necessarily require "sentience" as you claimed. I am arguing that God does not require the attribute of sentience, as this applies to physical carbon-based life forms.

But I am willing to listen to your argument, if you'll ever present it.

Your position is a waste of ******* time.

How is that?

A being that can't perceive does not have unlimited power.

Perception is an asset, you're trying to twist it into a liability just to fulfill your ocd to argue with people.

Gluck with that.

What IS perception? I posted the definition:

1. the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.

See and hear? Those are human senses. What purpose does God have for them?
Become aware? How can God "become aware" if God already knows all?

I didn't say God can't perceive, I said God doesn't need to. That's a human attribute. WE need to perceive because we are humans not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent spiritual entities. Sentience is something required by humans, it is human cognition. God doesn't have any use for human cognition. God CREATED it for HUMANS!

But.... Here is a classic example of my point. Atheists can't see this. In their minds, it makes NO sense. They can only view God as some kind of mystical super-being with sentience and humanistic attributes. They fail to comprehend Spiritual Nature. The idea of "spiritual existence" is something they cannot wrap their minds around. The only kind of "existence" they are capable of contemplating is physical. Therefore, they conflate God with physical nature and science and demand to see physical proof that can never be shown. They imagine a God that can't be proven because that God simply doesn't exist.

 

[Hollie]

You can take GT response s basically my answer.

OH, and by the way. The issue of sentience in terms of the 7 things is really about point 3. It is being assumed that God is sentient by the statement, and I suggested not implying but leave it OPEN by using a definition.

i.e. the question is not whether or not God is sentient, the question is why imply God is sentient when it has not been properly argued for?

It doesn't have to be argued. Philosophically, sentience is the foundation of self-awareness. The entirety of consciousness necessarily follows. You keep trying to beg the question, from top to bottom, and I'm telling you that it can't be logically done without presupposing God's existence. From the foundation of self-awareness to the infinite degree of greatness regarding the idea of God: none of these things can be logically ruled out! That and only that idea of God is objectively unassailable. Any notion less than the objectively highest conceivable standard of divine attribution begs the question.

But by all means keep presupposing God's existence with those Freudian solips of yours when you, as one with absolute authority, as if from on . . . higher, share your intimate knowledge about God's attributes and powers of cognition that cannot be logically ruled out by the rest of us mere mortals. Welcome to The Seven Things Club. Confession is good for the soul.

See that most revealing Post #3811. Some people just aren't thinking things through as they unwittingly reveal that they are aware that the objective facts of human cognition universally hold regarding the problems of existence and origin.

You have the foundation of self-awareness in your mind: sentience!

Even the solipsist has a subjective, sentient impression/sensation of a universe that presents itself as something existing beyond the confines of his mind. Whether he believes it has any concrete reality as such is irrelevant to the fact of that sentient sensation.

With these subject-object, sentient sensations indisputably comes self-awareness and the awareness that you are a finite mind that cannot account for your own origin sans an eternally existing, inanimate materiality or a self-aware immateriality akin to your own, albeit, one that would have to be infinity greater than your consciousness, and the reductio ad absurdum of the irreducible mind and of the infinite regression of origin tell you that this idea of a divine Creator cannot be logically ruled out.

You think you’re the first solipsist I’ve run into/this is the first time I’ve heard the solipsist objection.

No one escapes The Seven Things.

Everyone escapes the Seven Fraudulent Things

The Seven Fraudulent Things™

1. We exist!

Stating the obvious. Perhaps that would be a useful observation if we had some sort of general agreement on how this proves your various gawds. But since we don't, it's not. Therefore, we agree that you concede point 1 in your Seven Phony Things™ is useless as a means to prove your gawds.


2. The cosmological order exists!
Cosmology
1 a : a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe
b : a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe
2: a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe; also : a theory dealing with these matters.

It is science that has given us a first, but incomplete understanding of the cosmos. As with so much of your ignorant and religiously based worldview that is corrupted by fear and superstition, you cant even define what you mean with slogans such as "cosmological order". You really need to look past harun Yahya for your science data. The cosmos contains many pockets and eddies of order in the midst of its more general violence and chaos. Most of human misperception on that issues is entirely one of scale. We happen to exist in one of those eddies... the localized order we experience is a precondition for our very existence. But it is not characteristic of the universe.

Lest you see a sign of "design" in our great good fortune, you have that exactly backwards. It is again the law of incredibly large numbers that requires that there must be such oases of order, and that some subset of them contain life, and some smaller subset of them contain intelligence. The universe is a very large place. Somebody, somewhere always wins the lottery eventually.


3. The idea that God exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that God exists cannot be logically ruled out!

Your ideas of partisan gawds is entirely a function of happenstance. If you raise a baby in a Hindu culture, it will almost certainly embrace Hinduism; if in a Christian home, Christianity. All theistic beliefs are brought externally to human beings, none of them display inherent hardwiring as you falsely claimed in your earlier disaster of The Five Fraudulent Things™. If you raise a child devoid of god concepts in the middle of a remote jungle, the child will not arbitrarily and spontaneously generate theism.

4. If God does exist, He would necessarily be, logically, a Being of unparalleled greatness!

And if he does not exist, he wouldn't. If today was Friday, it wouldn't be Thursday. See how that works? The ultimate failure of your fraudulent Seven Phony Things™ is your precommittment to the polytheistic christian gawds. Your gawds are relative newcomers as human inventions of gawds go, so, to the back of the line you go with your hand-me-down gawds.

Secondly, I have to point out how spectacularly incompetent your gawds are relative to your claim of "unparalleled greatness". A tour de force of pointless. There is nothing in that paragraph worthy of intellectual allegiance. Especially as it contains such furious backpedaling from your earlier certainty regarding The Five Phony Things™

Did you just make up The Seven Phony Things™ off the cuff? Certainly you are not pretending that it is the result of any deep thinking.

You're not bright enough to ask why your gods would choose to deliver their message through the corruptible hand of man. What is more important: gods who clearly deliver their message upon which one's eternal salvation rests, or do they speak in riddles and poems, leaving open to interpretation what their intent is? What a risk they put their children at.

5. Currently, science cannot verify whether or not God exists!

Currently, science cannot verify whether or not the Easter Bunny exists!
You are now free to actually accept or reject it based on your own assessement. Now... that very well might be difficult for you, given your affection for "absolutes." You might possibly feel more comfortable being told exactly what to accept and what to reject via a long line of "absolute claims." There is certainly a personailty type that is most comfortable embedded in revealed dogma requiring no actual decision making or judgment on their part.

One of the profound difficulties religious zealots have with reality in general and science in particular is that they are more complex than “the gawds did it.” The universe does not consist of ideals and opposites, but instead of continua along dimensions with multiple (often infinite) possible options. Yes… it is one of the rude awakenings to the religious that we live in a Darwinian world, not a Platonic one.

6. It is not logically possible to say or think that God (the Creator) doesn't exist, whether He actually exists outside the logic of our minds or not (See Posts 2599 and 2600)!

It is not logically possible to say or think that your polytheistic gawds are the only gawds that don't exist.

Your polytheistic gawds are merely one conception of gawds. We are privileged to consider reality, but only the universe that actually exists can be fruitfully considered. How do we assign confidence to what is real and what is simply imaginary?

Evidence and reason. These are our only tools for that task. Thankfully, they appear to work pretty well, at least for those of us not bound to a precommittment to your dogma.

7. All six of the above things are objectively, universally and logically true for human knowers/thinkers!

No, they're not. Millennia of “philosophers and theologians” have constructed elaborate and ultimately futile models of reality and truth, with next to no positive impact on the human condition. Science in dramatic contrast is among the youngest of human of human endeavors, and yet has achieved things no previous discipline has approached. It has fed the hungry, cured disease, created technology that four generations ago would have been unimaginable. It has literally changed our world, while religions like Christianity and Islam have done little more than churn human misfortune in a static embrace of past error. Unlike all the philosophies and religions that came before it, science actually works.

This is why “scientific facts” deserve so much deference in comparison to the imaginary “absolute facts” delivered by philosophy and faith. They have evidence that affords them some qualification for our rational allegiance.

There is a reason why science has proven to be the single most influential and impactful human endeavor in history; that is because it formally recognizes the tentative nature of all human knowledge, and provides a method for incrementally approaching “absolute” truth without the arrogance of assuming it is ever actually achieved. It bears a humility regarding its own achievement that constantly inspires revision and review. It inspires thinking and iconoclasm rather than the intellectual rigor mortis of received dogma.

And in this way it accomplishes what most religious beliefs do not; progress.

 

[amrchaos]

Umm, you're the one who imposed a limitation on omnipotence by saying that an omnipotent being is not sentient.

Which is a contradiction in terms you're having.

I have imposed NO limits, you are attempting to impose limits of sentience.

Sentience is not a limitation. It is a singular ability which does not preclude having others.

What the **** type of weird definition do you have down for sentience where you'd describe it as a limitation?

Stop that. You're flailing.

As I said... Post your favorite definition of "sentience" and then explain why an omnipotent and omniscient God would necessarily require "sentience" as you claimed. I am arguing that God does not require the attribute of sentience, as this applies to physical carbon-based life forms.

But I am willing to listen to your argument, if you'll ever present it.

Your position is a waste of ******* time.

How is that?

A being that can't perceive does not have unlimited power.

Perception is an asset, you're trying to twist it into a liability just to fulfill your ocd to argue with people.

Gluck with that.

What IS perception? I posted the definition:

1. the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.

See and hear? Those are human senses. What purpose does God have for them?
Become aware? How can God "become aware" if God already knows all?

I didn't say God can't perceive, I said God doesn't need to. That's a human attribute. WE need to perceive because we are humans not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent spiritual entities. Sentience is something required by humans, it is human cognition. God doesn't have any use for human cognition. God CREATED it for HUMANS!

But.... Here is a classic example of my point. Atheists can't see this. In their minds, it makes NO sense. They can only view God as some kind of mystical super-being with sentience and humanistic attributes. They fail to comprehend Spiritual Nature. The idea of "spiritual existence" is something they cannot wrap their minds around. The only kind of "existence" they are capable of contemplating is physical. Therefore, they conflate God with physical nature and science and demand to see physical proof that can never be shown. They imagine a God that can't be proven because that God simply doesn't exist.

Umm, you're the one who imposed a limitation on omnipotence by saying that an omnipotent being is not sentient.

Which is a contradiction in terms you're having.

I have imposed NO limits, you are attempting to impose limits of sentience.

Sentience is not a limitation. It is a singular ability which does not preclude having others.

What the **** type of weird definition do you have down for sentience where you'd describe it as a limitation?

Stop that. You're flailing.

As I said... Post your favorite definition of "sentience" and then explain why an omnipotent and omniscient God would necessarily require "sentience" as you claimed. I am arguing that God does not require the attribute of sentience, as this applies to physical carbon-based life forms.

But I am willing to listen to your argument, if you'll ever present it.

Your position is a waste of ******* time.

How is that?

A being that can't perceive does not have unlimited power.

Perception is an asset, you're trying to twist it into a liability just to fulfill your ocd to argue with people.

Gluck with that.

What IS perception? I posted the definition:

1. the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.

See and hear? Those are human senses. What purpose does God have for them?
Become aware? How can God "become aware" if God already knows all?

I didn't say God can't perceive, I said God doesn't need to. That's a human attribute. WE need to perceive because we are humans not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent spiritual entities. Sentience is something required by humans, it is human cognition. God doesn't have any use for human cognition. God CREATED it for HUMANS!

But.... Here is a classic example of my point. Atheists can't see this. In their minds, it makes NO sense. They can only view God as some kind of mystical super-being with sentience and humanistic attributes. They fail to comprehend Spiritual Nature. The idea of "spiritual existence" is something they cannot wrap their minds around. The only kind of "existence" they are capable of contemplating is physical. Therefore, they conflate God with physical nature and science and demand to see physical proof that can never be shown. They imagine a God that can't be proven because that God simply doesn't exist.

Kind of remind of the claim

"Verily, those who disbelieve, it is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe.

God has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be a great torment."

 

[BreezeWood]

Umm, you're the one who imposed a limitation on omnipotence by saying that an omnipotent being is not sentient.

Which is a contradiction in terms you're having.

I have imposed NO limits, you are attempting to impose limits of sentience.

Sentience is not a limitation. It is a singular ability which does not preclude having others.

What the **** type of weird definition do you have down for sentience where you'd describe it as a limitation?

Stop that. You're flailing.

As I said... Post your favorite definition of "sentience" and then explain why an omnipotent and omniscient God would necessarily require "sentience" as you claimed. I am arguing that God does not require the attribute of sentience, as this applies to physical carbon-based life forms.

But I am willing to listen to your argument, if you'll ever present it.

Your position is a waste of ******* time.

How is that?

A being that can't perceive does not have unlimited power.

Perception is an asset, you're trying to twist it into a liability just to fulfill your ocd to argue with people.

Gluck with that.

What IS perception? I posted the definition:

1. the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.

See and hear? Those are human senses. What purpose does God have for them?
Become aware? How can God "become aware" if God already knows all?

I didn't say God can't perceive, I said God doesn't need to. That's a human attribute. WE need to perceive because we are humans not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent spiritual entities. Sentience is something required by humans, it is human cognition. God doesn't have any use for human cognition. God CREATED it for HUMANS!

But.... Here is a classic example of my point. Atheists can't see this. In their minds, it makes NO sense. They can only view God as some kind of mystical super-being with sentience and humanistic attributes. They fail to comprehend Spiritual Nature. The idea of "spiritual existence" is something they cannot wrap their minds around. The only kind of "existence" they are capable of contemplating is physical. Therefore, they conflate God with physical nature and science and demand to see physical proof that can never be shown. They imagine a God that can't be proven because that God simply doesn't exist.

boss: But.... Here is a classic example of my point. Atheists can't see this. In their minds, it makes NO sense. They can only view God as some kind of mystical super-being with sentience and humanistic attributes. They fail to comprehend Spiritual Nature. The idea of "spiritual existence" is something they cannot wrap their minds around. The only kind of "existence" they are capable of contemplating is physical. Therefore, they conflate God with physical nature and science and demand to see physical proof that can never be shown. They imagine a God that can't be proven because that God simply doesn't exist.

mdr: Still interposing indemonstrable subjective opinions that beg the question, that which would eliminate that which cannot be logically ruled out about the idea of God, eh?

mdr: "So terrestrial-bound consciousness can exist without the existence of bioneurological systems?"

Answer: of course not!

"Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

why boss rules out a physical nature for the Almighty is anyone's guess however physical nature of a being is not dependent on "self" for it to exist physically and to have sentience - and is the flaw for the above biblical quote that is adhered to by mdr and would always preclude a syllogism by mdr to be flawed by his flawed "hardwired" interpretation of what he is trying to define as being God based on that document.

Flora is an example of consciousness without a neurologically based biology possessing awareness that can not be denied and similarly demonstrates the same attribute as humanity of an existence separate from "self", and an aspiration for life and imortality.

self - is the problem that both the bible and rawlings misconstrue and are in ignorance for its diabolical consequences. (Answer: of course not!)

bioneurological systems =/= God

.

 

[Justin Davis]

Amrchaos: ... You assume it has to be a sentient being.

The only people who assume this are Atheists. It's why they can't believe in God. They have no concept of spiritual beings. They assume God must be an invisible sentient being, which seems ridiculous to them.

hmmm, my atheism is predicated upon the Judaic description of God, in which sentients is a part of the that definition.

So, it seems you are correct. However, that is not the only problem I have with the Judaic God.

Just remember this--I can give a definition of God that neither you nor I can reject because it does exist nd observable!!. But those "Gods" are not the Judaic God. Sentients, by itself, is not the problem.

Edit: I forgot to add, and those gods are sentient!

Ahh... okay, well I don't have a dog in the hunt here because My God isn't a religious incarnation of any kind, but I am always intrigued with atheist arguments against Christianity, it's a little hobby of mine. Judaic religion uses The Bible, last I checked. Can you please show me the Scripture where The Bible says God is a 'sentient being'? I did a search at Bible.com but came up lacking any hits with that term. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't say it, then why do you claim it does?

What humans very often do, and Christians do this all the time, is attribute a lot of human-like attributes to God, when God has no logical reason to need such attributes. But it often causes confusion among Atheists who reject spiritual nature, because they can't rationalize spiritual existence. Sentience, however, is what Rawlings is defining as "cognition" and this is a human attribute. Humans need sentience, God doesn't. God is a Spiritual power beyond sentience. It created Sentience. God is also technically not a "being" because that would denote a physical being, which is all an Atheist can imagine anyway. So basically, you have an invalid descriptor with "sentient being" when applied to God.

A being doesn't have to be physical and there's no reason to think that God can't be sentient. I don't understand why that would be a bad descriptor. If God is aware of His exsistence then he can have feelings. I get why BreezeWood doesn't like that because he's a pantheist but he can't logically disprove God's not conscious.

 

[Justin Davis]

Amrchaos: ... You assume it has to be a sentient being.

The only people who assume this are Atheists. It's why they can't believe in God. They have no concept of spiritual beings. They assume God must be an invisible sentient being, which seems ridiculous to them.

hmmm, my atheism is predicated upon the Judaic description of God, in which sentients is a part of the that definition.

So, it seems you are correct. However, that is not the only problem I have with the Judaic God.

Just remember this--I can give a definition of God that neither you nor I can reject because it does exist nd observable!!. But those "Gods" are not the Judaic God. Sentients, by itself, is not the problem.

Edit: I forgot to add, and those gods are sentient!

Ahh... okay, well I don't have a dog in the hunt here because My God isn't a religious incarnation of any kind, but I am always intrigued with atheist arguments against Christianity, it's a little hobby of mine. Judaic religion uses The Bible, last I checked. Can you please show me the Scripture where The Bible says God is a 'sentient being'? I did a search at Bible.com but came up lacking any hits with that term. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't say it, then why do you claim it does?

What humans very often do, and Christians do this all the time, is attribute a lot of human-like attributes to God, when God has no logical reason to need such attributes. But it often causes confusion among Atheists who reject spiritual nature, because they can't rationalize spiritual existence. Sentience, however, is what Rawlings is defining as "cognition" and this is a human attribute. Humans need sentience, God doesn't. God is a Spiritual power beyond sentience. It created Sentience. God is also technically not a "being" because that would denote a physical being, which is all an Atheist can imagine anyway. So basically, you have an invalid descriptor with "sentient being" when applied to God.

Actually, the connotation I'm alluding to is the philosophical construct of sentience: a Being that like us has interior, subjective experiences. Bear in mind, the unabridged, metaphysical definition comes to the fore: "In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as "qualia")”; sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia"."

Well, God would have to have self-awareness to begin with, or He would be something less than the sentience of human beings. Sentience, of course, is not the same thing as self-awareness; rather, it's arguably the foundation of self-awareness in humans, the most fundamental aspect of human consciousness.

The notion arises when persons think about #3 or #4. What does it mean to say that God would necessarily be, logically, a Being of unparalleled greatness?

The very highest possibility for the idea of God would be a fully conscious Being having all the powers of cognition that humans have and then some. God would have to be greater than the sentience and the subsequent self-awareness of human beings. The nature of a finite being's self-awareness in the face of God is that of a creature, in our case, a rather ingenious creature, a creative creature. How much more powerfully creative is the consciousness of God?

Answer: Unparalleled.

So when I write that the highest conceivable standard of divine attribution would be an eternally and transcendentally self-subsistent, thus, non-contingent sentient Being of infinitely unparalleled, absolute perfection, I'm necessarily talking about a Being Who from the foundation of self-awareness on up is unsurpassed in greatness: a fully conscious Being having all the powers of cognition that human beings have infinitely magnified. For no creature can be greater than the Creator. For a finite being to subjectively presuppose that God be anything less than that is to beg the question.

But note something very important: nowhere in The Seven Things do we find the term sentience.

Why wouldn't God have interior sensations, such as subject-object impressions and feelings? Why presuppose that the Creator of lesser beings which have these things wouldn't also have them first? This possibility cannot be logically ruled out, no more than the possibility of God's existence can be logically ruled out or the possibility of God's unparalleled greatness can be logically ruled out.

Also note that there's never anything assumed about God as such in The Seven Things. Objectively apparent cognitions regarding the idea of God in our minds, in terms of logical possibility, simply come to the fore, due to the imperatives of the universally apparent laws of organic thought.

Hence, if we're going to be consistently objective, then we must not preclude any kind of cognitive attributes or powers that conscious beings are known to have, which, in this case, would necessarily be, logically, of the most excellent nature. The presumptuous position is to imagine, without justification, that God could not have certain kinds of cognitive characteristics that do not violate any standard of perfection just because humans have them in a lesser degree. In other words, the open-minded position is not to imagine that humans are anthropomorphizing God. Non sequitur. That begs the question and, perhaps, in an arguably arrogant way if we are in fact finite reflections of Him, according to His will and good pleasure.

Clearly the latter is logically possible.

As for those who unwittingly presuppose God's existence as they assert absolutes about what He couldn't be like in terms of certain cognitive attributes or powers that are well within the range of logical necessity or possibility: welcome to the club of The Seven Things.

Oops.

It looks like even them solipsists can't refrain from showing their hands in Freudian solips when it comes to the universally apparent, objective facts of human cognition regarding the problems of existence and origin.

No one escapes The Seven Things.

Shouldn't that be "to a lesser degree." Just saying.

 

[Justin Davis]

You can take GT response s basically my answer.

OH, and by the way. The issue of sentience in terms of the 7 things is really about point 3. It is being assumed that God is sentient by the statement, and I suggested not implying but leave it OPEN by using a definition.

i.e. the question is not whether or not God is sentient, the question is why imply God is sentient when it has not been properly argued for?

It doesn't have to be argued. Philosophically, sentience is the foundation of self-awareness. The entirety of consciousness necessarily follows. You keep trying to beg the question, from top to bottom, and I'm telling you that it can't be logically done without presupposing God's existence. From the foundation of self-awareness to the infinite degree of greatness regarding the idea of God: none of these things can be logically ruled out! That and only that idea of God is objectively unassailable. Any notion less than the objectively highest conceivable standard of divine attribution begs the question.

But by all means keep presupposing God's existence with those Freudian solips of yours when you, as one with absolute authority, as if from on . . . higher, share your intimate knowledge about God's attributes and powers of cognition that cannot be logically ruled out by the rest of us mere mortals. Welcome to The Seven Things Club. Confession is good for the soul.

See that most revealing Post #3811. Some people just aren't thinking things through as they unwittingly reveal that they are aware that the objective facts of human cognition universally hold regarding the problems of existence and origin.

You have the foundation of self-awareness in your mind: sentience!

Even the solipsist has a subjective, sentient impression/sensation of a universe that presents itself as something existing beyond the confines of his mind. Whether he believes it has any concrete reality as such is irrelevant to the fact of that sentient sensation.

With these subject-object, sentient sensations indisputably comes self-awareness and the awareness that you are a finite mind that cannot account for your own origin sans an eternally existing, inanimate materiality or a self-aware immateriality akin to your own, albeit, one that would have to be infinity greater than your consciousness, and the reductio ad absurdum of the irreducible mind and of the infinite regression of origin tell you that this idea of a divine Creator cannot be logically ruled out.

You think you’re the first solipsist I’ve run into/this is the first time I’ve heard the solipsist objection.

No one escapes The Seven Things.

Everyone escapes the Seven Fraudulent Things

The Seven Fraudulent Things™

1. We exist!

Stating the obvious. Perhaps that would be a useful observation if we had some sort of general agreement on how this proves your various gawds. But since we don't, it's not. Therefore, we agree that you concede point 1 in your Seven Phony Things™ is useless as a means to prove your gawds.


2. The cosmological order exists!
Cosmology
1 a : a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe
b : a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe
2: a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe; also : a theory dealing with these matters.

It is science that has given us a first, but incomplete understanding of the cosmos. As with so much of your ignorant and religiously based worldview that is corrupted by fear and superstition, you cant even define what you mean with slogans such as "cosmological order". You really need to look past harun Yahya for your science data. The cosmos contains many pockets and eddies of order in the midst of its more general violence and chaos. Most of human misperception on that issues is entirely one of scale. We happen to exist in one of those eddies... the localized order we experience is a precondition for our very existence. But it is not characteristic of the universe.

Lest you see a sign of "design" in our great good fortune, you have that exactly backwards. It is again the law of incredibly large numbers that requires that there must be such oases of order, and that some subset of them contain life, and some smaller subset of them contain intelligence. The universe is a very large place. Somebody, somewhere always wins the lottery eventually.


3. The idea that God exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that God exists cannot be logically ruled out!

Your ideas of partisan gawds is entirely a function of happenstance. If you raise a baby in a Hindu culture, it will almost certainly embrace Hinduism; if in a Christian home, Christianity. All theistic beliefs are brought externally to human beings, none of them display inherent hardwiring as you falsely claimed in your earlier disaster of The Five Fraudulent Things™. If you raise a child devoid of god concepts in the middle of a remote jungle, the child will not arbitrarily and spontaneously generate theism.

4. If God does exist, He would necessarily be, logically, a Being of unparalleled greatness!

And if he does not exist, he wouldn't. If today was Friday, it wouldn't be Thursday. See how that works? The ultimate failure of your fraudulent Seven Phony Things™ is your precommittment to the polytheistic christian gawds. Your gawds are relative newcomers as human inventions of gawds go, so, to the back of the line you go with your hand-me-down gawds.

Secondly, I have to point out how spectacularly incompetent your gawds are relative to your claim of "unparalleled greatness". A tour de force of pointless. There is nothing in that paragraph worthy of intellectual allegiance. Especially as it contains such furious backpedaling from your earlier certainty regarding The Five Phony Things™

Did you just make up The Seven Phony Things™ off the cuff? Certainly you are not pretending that it is the result of any deep thinking.

You're not bright enough to ask why your gods would choose to deliver their message through the corruptible hand of man. What is more important: gods who clearly deliver their message upon which one's eternal salvation rests, or do they speak in riddles and poems, leaving open to interpretation what their intent is? What a risk they put their children at.

5. Currently, science cannot verify whether or not God exists!

Currently, science cannot verify whether or not the Easter Bunny exists!
You are now free to actually accept or reject it based on your own assessement. Now... that very well might be difficult for you, given your affection for "absolutes." You might possibly feel more comfortable being told exactly what to accept and what to reject via a long line of "absolute claims." There is certainly a personailty type that is most comfortable embedded in revealed dogma requiring no actual decision making or judgment on their part.

One of the profound difficulties religious zealots have with reality in general and science in particular is that they are more complex than “the gawds did it.” The universe does not consist of ideals and opposites, but instead of continua along dimensions with multiple (often infinite) possible options. Yes… it is one of the rude awakenings to the religious that we live in a Darwinian world, not a Platonic one.

6. It is not logically possible to say or think that God (the Creator) doesn't exist, whether He actually exists outside the logic of our minds or not (See Posts 2599 and 2600)!

It is not logically possible to say or think that your polytheistic gawds are the only gawds that don't exist.

Your polytheistic gawds are merely one conception of gawds. We are privileged to consider reality, but only the universe that actually exists can be fruitfully considered. How do we assign confidence to what is real and what is simply imaginary?

Evidence and reason. These are our only tools for that task. Thankfully, they appear to work pretty well, at least for those of us not bound to a precommittment to your dogma.

7. All six of the above things are objectively, universally and logically true for human knowers/thinkers!

No, they're not. Millennia of “philosophers and theologians” have constructed elaborate and ultimately futile models of reality and truth, with next to no positive impact on the human condition. Science in dramatic contrast is among the youngest of human of human endeavors, and yet has achieved things no previous discipline has approached. It has fed the hungry, cured disease, created technology that four generations ago would have been unimaginable. It has literally changed our world, while religions like Christianity and Islam have done little more than churn human misfortune in a static embrace of past error. Unlike all the philosophies and religions that came before it, science actually works.

This is why “scientific facts” deserve so much deference in comparison to the imaginary “absolute facts” delivered by philosophy and faith. They have evidence that affords them some qualification for our rational allegiance.

There is a reason why science has proven to be the single most influential and impactful human endeavor in history; that is because it formally recognizes the tentative nature of all human knowledge, and provides a method for incrementally approaching “absolute” truth without the arrogance of assuming it is ever actually achieved. It bears a humility regarding its own achievement that constantly inspires revision and review. It inspires thinking and iconoclasm rather than the intellectual rigor mortis of received dogma.

And in this way it accomplishes what most religious beliefs do not; progress.

If you raise a child in Hollie's house he will tell you he doesn't believe that God the Creator exists so he doesn't exist either so he will admit that God exists logically.

 

[G.T.]

 

[Boss]

Amrchaos: ... You assume it has to be a sentient being.

The only people who assume this are Atheists. It's why they can't believe in God. They have no concept of spiritual beings. They assume God must be an invisible sentient being, which seems ridiculous to them.

hmmm, my atheism is predicated upon the Judaic description of God, in which sentients is a part of the that definition.

So, it seems you are correct. However, that is not the only problem I have with the Judaic God.

Just remember this--I can give a definition of God that neither you nor I can reject because it does exist nd observable!!. But those "Gods" are not the Judaic God. Sentients, by itself, is not the problem.

Edit: I forgot to add, and those gods are sentient!

Ahh... okay, well I don't have a dog in the hunt here because My God isn't a religious incarnation of any kind, but I am always intrigued with atheist arguments against Christianity, it's a little hobby of mine. Judaic religion uses The Bible, last I checked. Can you please show me the Scripture where The Bible says God is a 'sentient being'? I did a search at Bible.com but came up lacking any hits with that term. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't say it, then why do you claim it does?

What humans very often do, and Christians do this all the time, is attribute a lot of human-like attributes to God, when God has no logical reason to need such attributes. But it often causes confusion among Atheists who reject spiritual nature, because they can't rationalize spiritual existence. Sentience, however, is what Rawlings is defining as "cognition" and this is a human attribute. Humans need sentience, God doesn't. God is a Spiritual power beyond sentience. It created Sentience. God is also technically not a "being" because that would denote a physical being, which is all an Atheist can imagine anyway. So basically, you have an invalid descriptor with "sentient being" when applied to God.

A being doesn't have to be physical and there's no reason to think that God can't be sentient. I don't understand why that would be a bad descriptor. If God is aware of His exsistence then he can have feelings. I get why BreezeWood doesn't like that because he's a pantheist but he can't logically disprove God's not conscious.

I did not say a being has to be physical. I said this is the Atheist perception because they cannot comprehend anything but a physical being. Spiritual beings do not exist to an Atheist, the concept of such is beyond their comprehension.

God is not "sentient" because God doesn't have to be. God is universal everything. God doesn't have to be aware, that is a human attribute. God doesn't have any use for feelings. These are human attributes, things that humans need, things that make humans better. God is perfect.

Since we are humans, we are incapable of fully comprehending God. We assign variables to God based on our understanding of how humans function, what the universe is like from a human perspective. Words like "conscious" or "sentient" or "aware" are human concepts. God is The Creator of all these things. It's not that God lacks the capability, it's that these capabilities don't apply to God, there is no purpose for God to have them or need them. They are human attributes for humans, not for God.

 

[Hollie]

Amrchaos: ... You assume it has to be a sentient being.

The only people who assume this are Atheists. It's why they can't believe in God. They have no concept of spiritual beings. They assume God must be an invisible sentient being, which seems ridiculous to them.

hmmm, my atheism is predicated upon the Judaic description of God, in which sentients is a part of the that definition.

So, it seems you are correct. However, that is not the only problem I have with the Judaic God.

Just remember this--I can give a definition of God that neither you nor I can reject because it does exist nd observable!!. But those "Gods" are not the Judaic God. Sentients, by itself, is not the problem.

Edit: I forgot to add, and those gods are sentient!

Ahh... okay, well I don't have a dog in the hunt here because My God isn't a religious incarnation of any kind, but I am always intrigued with atheist arguments against Christianity, it's a little hobby of mine. Judaic religion uses The Bible, last I checked. Can you please show me the Scripture where The Bible says God is a 'sentient being'? I did a search at Bible.com but came up lacking any hits with that term. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't say it, then why do you claim it does?

What humans very often do, and Christians do this all the time, is attribute a lot of human-like attributes to God, when God has no logical reason to need such attributes. But it often causes confusion among Atheists who reject spiritual nature, because they can't rationalize spiritual existence. Sentience, however, is what Rawlings is defining as "cognition" and this is a human attribute. Humans need sentience, God doesn't. God is a Spiritual power beyond sentience. It created Sentience. God is also technically not a "being" because that would denote a physical being, which is all an Atheist can imagine anyway. So basically, you have an invalid descriptor with "sentient being" when applied to God.

A being doesn't have to be physical and there's no reason to think that God can't be sentient. I don't understand why that would be a bad descriptor. If God is aware of His exsistence then he can have feelings. I get why BreezeWood doesn't like that because he's a pantheist but he can't logically disprove God's not conscious.

I did not say a being has to be physical. I said this is the Atheist perception because they cannot comprehend anything but a physical being. Spiritual beings do not exist to an Atheist, the concept of such is beyond their comprehension.

God is not "sentient" because God doesn't have to be. God is universal everything. God doesn't have to be aware, that is a human attribute. God doesn't have any use for feelings. These are human attributes, things that humans need, things that make humans better. God is perfect.

Since we are humans, we are incapable of fully comprehending God. We assign variables to God based on our understanding of how humans function, what the universe is like from a human perspective. Words like "conscious" or "sentient" or "aware" are human concepts. God is The Creator of all these things. It's not that God lacks the capability, it's that these capabilities don't apply to God, there is no purpose for God to have them or need them. They are human attributes for humans, not for God.

Amrchaos: ... You assume it has to be a sentient being.

The only people who assume this are Atheists. It's why they can't believe in God. They have no concept of spiritual beings. They assume God must be an invisible sentient being, which seems ridiculous to them.

hmmm, my atheism is predicated upon the Judaic description of God, in which sentients is a part of the that definition.

So, it seems you are correct. However, that is not the only problem I have with the Judaic God.

Just remember this--I can give a definition of God that neither you nor I can reject because it does exist nd observable!!. But those "Gods" are not the Judaic God. Sentients, by itself, is not the problem.

Edit: I forgot to add, and those gods are sentient!

Ahh... okay, well I don't have a dog in the hunt here because My God isn't a religious incarnation of any kind, but I am always intrigued with atheist arguments against Christianity, it's a little hobby of mine. Judaic religion uses The Bible, last I checked. Can you please show me the Scripture where The Bible says God is a 'sentient being'? I did a search at Bible.com but came up lacking any hits with that term. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't say it, then why do you claim it does?

What humans very often do, and Christians do this all the time, is attribute a lot of human-like attributes to God, when God has no logical reason to need such attributes. But it often causes confusion among Atheists who reject spiritual nature, because they can't rationalize spiritual existence. Sentience, however, is what Rawlings is defining as "cognition" and this is a human attribute. Humans need sentience, God doesn't. God is a Spiritual power beyond sentience. It created Sentience. God is also technically not a "being" because that would denote a physical being, which is all an Atheist can imagine anyway. So basically, you have an invalid descriptor with "sentient being" when applied to God.

A being doesn't have to be physical and there's no reason to think that God can't be sentient. I don't understand why that would be a bad descriptor. If God is aware of His exsistence then he can have feelings. I get why BreezeWood doesn't like that because he's a pantheist but he can't logically disprove God's not conscious.

I did not say a being has to be physical. I said this is the Atheist perception because they cannot comprehend anything but a physical being. Spiritual beings do not exist to an Atheist, the concept of such is beyond their comprehension.

God is not "sentient" because God doesn't have to be. God is universal everything. God doesn't have to be aware, that is a human attribute. God doesn't have any use for feelings. These are human attributes, things that humans need, things that make humans better. God is perfect.

Since we are humans, we are incapable of fully comprehending God. We assign variables to God based on our understanding of how humans function, what the universe is like from a human perspective. Words like "conscious" or "sentient" or "aware" are human concepts. God is The Creator of all these things. It's not that God lacks the capability, it's that these capabilities don't apply to God, there is no purpose for God to have them or need them. They are human attributes for humans, not for God.

How stereotypical. You have assigned the attributes to your gawds that preceding religionists have assigned to their gawds.

 

[amrchaos]

Careful Hollie

Boss concepts are not following the more modern notions of the Judeo-Christian God.

I hope I don't need to say anything else

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Careful Hollie

Boss concepts are not following the more modern notions of the Judeo-Christian God.

I hope I don't need to say anything else

Well, I don't know what "the more modern notions of the Judeo-Christian God" means, but his notions are not biblical, and in my opinion they are not rational. Also, I need to repost a couple of revised posts below, edited to make a few things clear.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Amrchaos: ... You assume it has to be a sentient being.

The only people who assume this are Atheists. It's why they can't believe in God. They have no concept of spiritual beings. They assume God must be an invisible sentient being, which seems ridiculous to them.

hmmm, my atheism is predicated upon the Judaic description of God, in which sentients is a part of the that definition.

So, it seems you are correct. However, that is not the only problem I have with the Judaic God.

Just remember this--I can give a definition of God that neither you nor I can reject because it does exist nd observable!!. But those "Gods" are not the Judaic God. Sentients, by itself, is not the problem.

Edit: I forgot to add, and those gods are sentient!

Ahh... okay, well I don't have a dog in the hunt here because My God isn't a religious incarnation of any kind, but I am always intrigued with atheist arguments against Christianity, it's a little hobby of mine. Judaic religion uses The Bible, last I checked. Can you please show me the Scripture where The Bible says God is a 'sentient being'? I did a search at Bible.com but came up lacking any hits with that term. Therefore, if the Bible doesn't say it, then why do you claim it does?

What humans very often do, and Christians do this all the time, is attribute a lot of human-like attributes to God, when God has no logical reason to need such attributes. But it often causes confusion among Atheists who reject spiritual nature, because they can't rationalize spiritual existence. Sentience, however, is what Rawlings is defining as "cognition" and this is a human attribute. Humans need sentience, God doesn't. God is a Spiritual power beyond sentience. It created Sentience. God is also technically not a "being" because that would denote a physical being, which is all an Atheist can imagine anyway. So basically, you have an invalid descriptor with "sentient being" when applied to God.

A being doesn't have to be physical and there's no reason to think that God can't be sentient. I don't understand why that would be a bad descriptor. If God is aware of His exsistence then he can have feelings. I get why BreezeWood doesn't like that because he's a pantheist but he can't logically disprove God's not conscious.

I did not say a being has to be physical. I said this is the Atheist perception because they cannot comprehend anything but a physical being. Spiritual beings do not exist to an Atheist, the concept of such is beyond their comprehension.

God is not "sentient" because God doesn't have to be. God is universal everything. God doesn't have to be aware, that is a human attribute. God doesn't have any use for feelings. These are human attributes, things that humans need, things that make humans better. God is perfect.

Since we are humans, we are incapable of fully comprehending God. We assign variables to God based on our understanding of how humans function, what the universe is like from a human perspective. Words like "conscious" or "sentient" or "aware" are human concepts. God is The Creator of all these things. It's not that God lacks the capability, it's that these capabilities don't apply to God, there is no purpose for God to have them or need them. They are human attributes for humans, not for God.

Boss, this is not right, biblically, by definition or logically. See my revised post addressed to you and Amrchaos below and the new post addressed to BreezeWood.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Boss:

Actually, the connotation I'm alluding to is the philosophical construct of sentience: a Being that like us has interior, subjective experiences. Bear in mind, the unabridged, metaphysical definition comes to the fore: "In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as "qualia")”; sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences, or as some philosophers refer to them, "qualia"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

Well, God would have to have self-awareness to begin with, or He would be something less than the sentience of human beings. Sentience, of course, is not the same thing as self-awareness; rather, it's arguably the foundation of self-awareness in humans, the most fundamental aspect of human consciousness.

The notion arises when persons think about #3 or #4.

What does it mean to say that God would necessarily be, logically, a Being of unparalleled greatness?

The very highest possibility for the idea of God would be a fully conscious Being having all the powers of cognition that humans have and then some. God would have to be greater than the sentience and the subsequent self-awareness of human beings. The nature of a finite being's self-awareness in the face of God is that of a creature, in our case, a rather ingenious creature, a creative creature. How much more powerfully creative is the consciousness of God?

Answer: Unparalleled.

So when I write that the highest conceivable standard of divine attribution would be an eternally and transcendentally self-subsistent, thus, non-contingent, sentient Being of infinitely unparalleled, absolute perfection, I'm necessarily talking about a Being Who from the foundation of self-awareness on up is unsurpassed in greatness: a fully conscious Being having all the powers of cognition that human beings have infinitely magnified. For no creature can be greater than the Creator. For a finite being to subjectively presuppose that God be anything less than that is to beg the question.

But note something very important: nowhere in The Seven Things do we find the term sentience.

Why wouldn't God have interiorly subjective impressions or feelings? Why presuppose that the Creator of lesser beings which have these things wouldn't also have them first? This possibility cannot be logically ruled out, no more than the possibility of God's existence can be logically ruled out or the possibility of God's unparalleled greatness can be logically ruled out.

Sentience doesn't impinge on the issue of perfection at all. Perfection and the possession of emotions are not mutually exclusive!

Whaaaaaa?

Also note that there's never anything assumed about God as such in The Seven Things. The objectively apparent cogitations of logical necessity or possibility regarding the idea of God in our minds simply come to the fore, due to the imperatives of the universally apparent laws of organic thought.

Hence, if we're going to be consistently objective, then we must not preclude any kind of cognitive attributes or powers that conscious beings are known to have, which, in this case (sentience) would necessarily be, logically, of the most excellent nature. The presumptuous position is to imagine, without justification, that God could not have certain kinds of cognitive characteristics just because humans have them to a lesser degree. In other words, the open-minded position is not to imagine that humans are anthropomorphizing God. Non sequitur. That begs the question and, perhaps, in an arguably arrogant way if we are in fact finite expressions of Him, according to His will and good pleasure.

Clearly the latter is logically possible, thus, cannot be logically ruled out.

As for those who unwittingly presuppose God's existence as they assert absolutes about what He couldn't be like in terms of attributes or powers of cognition that are well within the range of logical necessity or possibility: welcome to The Seven Things Club.

Oops.

It looks like even them solipsists can't refrain from showing their hands in Freudian solips when it comes to the universally apparent, objective facts of human cognition regarding the problems of existence and origin.

No one escapes The Seven Things.

 

[Boss]

How stereotypical. You have assigned the attributes to your gawds that preceding religionists have assigned to their gawds.

Assign? Attributes? Why would it matter if some humans foolishly did such a thing to God... aka:gawd?

What IS God, is so far removed from the need for 'attributes' or mortal people to 'assign' something only they could imagine up, that IF God were the human-like entity you imagine, He would LOL at the notion. But God doesn't really care because God doesn't have to care.

Do you think God is this bearded man sitting in the clouds looking down and thinking... Hmm, not real pleased with that Pope and his comments lately... kinda like what these Mormons are doing over here... not to crazy about the Muslim terrorists but the moderates are okay... Crazy Hindus and their Cows!! I find that hard to believe, to be honest. If God were capable of "not liking" something, it would simply appear to us in our reality as if it never happened. If God "liked" a certain thing, that would be an essential element of our every day reality. What humans call "Free Will" is merely by the Grace of God.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Amrchaos:


Sentience doesn't have to be argued in The Seven Things. Philosophically, sentience is the foundation of self-awareness for humans. The entirety of consciousness necessarily follows. As for sentience as it would apply to the universal idea of God and the potential object thereof, you keep trying to beg the question, from top to bottom, and I'm telling you that it can't be logically done without presupposing God's existence. From the foundation of self-awareness to the infinite degree of greatness regarding the idea of God: none of these things can be logically ruled out! That and only that idea of God is objectively unassailable. Any notion less than the objectively highest conceivable standard of divine attribution begs the question.

But by all means keep presupposing God's existence with those Freudian solips of yours when you, as one with absolute authority, as if from on . . . "higher," share your intimate knowledge about God's attributes and powers of cognition that cannot be logically ruled out by the rest of us mere mortals. Welcome to The Seven Things Club. Confession is good for the soul.

See that most revealing Post #3837. Some people just aren't thinking things through as they unwittingly reveal that they are aware of the fact that the objective facts of human cognition universally hold regarding the problems of existence and origin.

You have the foundation of self-awareness in your mind: sentience!

Even the solipsist has a subjective, sentient impression of a universe that presents itself as something existing beyond the confines of his mind. Whether he believes it has any concrete reality as such is irrelevant to the fact of his experience of that sentient impression.

With these sentient sensations, impressions or perceptions indisputably comes self-awareness and the awareness that you are a finite mind that cannot account for your own origin sans an eternally existing, inanimate materiality or a self-aware immateriality akin to your own, albeit, one that would have to be infinity greater than your consciousness, and the reductio ad absurdum of the irreducible mind and of the infinite regression of origin tell you that this idea of a divine Creator cannot be logically ruled out.

No one escapes The Seven Things.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

why boss rules out a physical nature for the Almighty is anyone's guess however physical nature of a being is not dependent on "self" for it to exist physically and to have sentience - and is the flaw for the above biblical quote that is adhered to by mdr and would always preclude a syllogism by mdr to be flawed by his flawed "hardwired" interpretation of what he is trying to define as being God based on that document.

Flora is an example of consciousness without a neurologically based biology possessing awareness that can not be denied and similarly demonstrates the same attribute as humanity of an existence separate from "self", and an aspiration for life and imortality.

self - is the problem that both the bible and rawlings misconstrue and are in ignorance for its diabolical consequences. (Answer: of course not!)

bioneurological systems =/= God

.

You're still confused.

Your post demonstrates that you're still imposing your personal, subjective worldview, which is neither rationally nor empirically demonstrable to anyone else, on The Seven Things (TST). Hence, you continue to imagine that TST contain or assert things that aren't there. Illusions.

The theory that the laws of human thought are bioneurologically hardwired comes to the fore when we contemplate the objective facts of human cognition regarding the problems of existence and origin.

So even the understanding that the laws of human thought are bioneurologically hardwired is not literally expressed in TST. It need not be. It logically follows from them and is held to be a fact of human biology due to a mountain of cross-cultural evidence, and this obvious fact of human nature does not preclude the possibility that the ultimate ground for the universal laws of human thought is spiritual. On the contrary, the ramifications of TST hold that they must be bottomed on a spiritual reality, logically, which is driven home by #6 of TST! However, unlike the apparent fact that the laws of human thought are bioneurologically hardwired, the logical axiom that they are bottomed on a spiritual reality cannot be scientifically verified.

It's really quite amazing to see all the things that necessarily follow, logically, from the foundation of the objectively axiomatic Seven Things of human cognition due to the imperatives of the laws of thought, isn't it?

Just the same, some of these ideas, which do in fact qualify as justified true beliefs/knowledge because they are incontrovertible axioms in organic logic, cannot be scientifically verified. Hence, in constructive logic, due to its rule of direct evidentiary, inhabited proof, they are assigned valid, albeit, might or might not be true values, while science itself asserts no opinion about them one way or the other.

Hence, the bioneurological systems of terrestrial life known to exist have nothing to do with the nature of the idea of God or with the nature of divine consciousness relative to the objectively highest conceivable standard of divine attribution that cannot be logically ruled out (Post #3837).

If you believe that "[f]lora is an example of consciousness without a neurologically based biology possessing awareness that can not be denied and similarly demonstrates the same attribute as humanity of an existence separate from 'self', and an aspiration for life and immortality", that's fine. (By God! That's actually a coherent expression of a complex idea from you that I can follow. Congratulations, BreezeWood! Welcome to the English language.) TST do not preclude this possibility at all! Another Illusion.

Notwithstanding, you cannot objectively demonstrate, either rationally or empirically, that such a discrete and/or an all-encompassing consciousness adheres to any known existent . . . but to the universal idea of God and the potential object thereof that exists in our minds. Not even TST assert that spiritual consciousness can be axiomatically assigned to any other existent but the universal idea of God and the potential object thereof.

There's a revelation to think about. TST contain no assumptions whatsoever, beyond the assumptions that we, you or I, exist and have sentient sensations, impressions or perceptions that other things apart from ourselves exist. Period! End of thought.

Those who do not believe these two things are real can go antirealist themselves, for even the solipsist acknowledges that much, despite Amrchaos' earlier confusion when he forgot that the premise of solipsism is that the interior, sentient impressions of other existents apart from the self, ranging from metaphysical solipsism to methodological solipsism, are held to be things that do not or might not exist in their own right apart from the self. In other words, even the solipsist holds that the cosmological order exists at the very least as a sentient impression.

Fine. As I wrote earlier, the solipsist does not deny the actuality of his own existence as a finite being and, therefore, cannot account for his existence without appealing to something beyond himself. Go ahead, let the solipsist strike #2 from TST. The other five of TST still necessarily (i.e, axiomatically) follow from what is for him the only objective foundation, namely, his existence!

Hence, TST entail the universally apparent, rational and/or empirical necessities that cannot be denied to exist and elicit ideas about other things that either cannot be denied to exist or cannot be logically ruled out to exist, and nothing more.

People! Stop reading things or imagining things into the TST that aren't there!

Illusory cogitations.

These are your subjective conjectures that (unlike the objectively apparent Seven Things premised on the universal, organic laws of human thought) cannot be rationally or empirically demonstrated to be necessities and/or possibilities to anyone else on the basis of anything that would arguably constitute justified true belief/knowledge.

Justified true belief/knowledge (JTB/K), depending on the nature of the proposition, is the controlling factor! Well-established empirical facts/theories are held to be JTB/K. Rational facts of human cognition that are mere logical possibilities are not held to be JTB/K. Only the rational facts of human cognition that are logical necessities (i.e., inherently axiomatic or valid cogitations) are held to be JTB/K.

Indeed, Boss' assertion that all beings would necessarily be physical is wrong. For any given A: A = A. Any given being is what it is. Any given existent is what it is. Logically, we know that a being can be physical or spiritual (material or immaterial) or a combination thereof.

Boss knows this. He just forgot and interposed his personal idea of God in the place of the objective, logical standard. In other words, if that's his idea of God, okay, but the possibilities that God exists, that God is sentient and is also a self-ware conscious Being of unparalleled greatness cannot be logically ruled out (Post #3837).

No one escapes The Seven Things.