Comments on: Advanced apologizing: Proof of the existence of God

By: Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth[ Carneades]

Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth[ Carneades] — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:49:00 +0000

Nicholas, I take Kreeft on @ arguments for God in the Amazon Religion Discussion Forum. I add there that in the introduction to a debate book about God [Craig v. Nielsen] that he urges us seek Him by letting Him into our hearts. That is just as stupid as Pascal’s urging others to practice rituals; that is nothing more than to urge us to self-brainwash- to blaspheme reason!
Nicholas, thanks for this site,sir!
Ryan, yes, Smith rocks! What about his finding that each part of Existence makes for more Existence, and what about any objection to that,sir?

By: rc_moore

rc_moore — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:49:09 +0000

“If we’re made in God’s image then we should share his vision of beauty. Was it mere subjectivity when God said everything was good in the book of Genesis?”
How could it be anything else? No one’s opinion but God’s was being counted!

“Besides, although there are different tastes in beauty, there is still quite a bit of similarity across cultures over what is beautiful.”
I have no idea what criteria you could establish that would support this assertion. Do you have some objective protocol that could be followed over time?
I agree with nbjayme on this one. The logic is terrible.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:08:08 +0000

“This logic suffers from subjective perceptionof what beauty and good order is. Take for example an abstract art — others see it as a mess but the artists see the beauty, meaning, and cohesiveness of design.”

If we’re made in God’s image then we should share his vision of beauty. Was it mere subjectivity when God said everything was good in the book of Genesis?

Besides, although there are different tastes in beauty, there is still quite a bit of similarity across cultures over what is beautiful.

By: nbjayme

nbjayme — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:30:48 +0000

“It is perfectly reasonable to expect a very good, wise, and powerful person to begin his creation in a very beautiful and magnificent way that exhibits an admirably high degree of naturally good order. ‘Complete chaos is just ugly,’ and a perfectly rational finite mind would predict that ugliness is not the very first thing that a good, all-powerful person would want to create.”
This logic suffers from subjective perceptionof what beauty and good order is. Take for example an abstract art — others see it as a mess but the artists see the beauty, meaning, and cohesiveness of design.
Even the building of any human endeavor starts from chaos to order. For example, cooking a certain recipe requires many process of cutting, frying, to create the desired flavor and dish.
When we say that God is order and beauty — it is because out of Nothing, God established order and beauty.

Therefore, Quentin Smith suffers from the I-expect-it-this-way argument.

;-)

By: Merrick

Merrick — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:42:27 +0000

George Rumens, you might actually look into “germ theory” a little more closely. It was, in fact, discovered by Louis Pasteur. Writing a 1200 page book one would assume you’d done a fair amount of research. How did you ever rationalize the fact that a fundamental tenet Louis Pasteur laid as the basis for Germ Theory is that spontaneous generation simply doesn’t exist? That rats don’t spontaneously generate from grain, for instance? Without this axiom you can’t then proceed to the requirements of germ theory – isolating the agent and showing that the agent generates disease.
Pasteur, a devout Christian, then takes the immutable physical law against spontaneous generation and deduces a primary cause. He believed that this principle undermined Darwin’s theory because Darwin at some point requires abiogenesis. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“What he could not above all understand is the failure of scientists to recognize the demonstration of the existence of the Creator that there is in the world around us. He died with his rosary in his hand, after listening to the life of St. Vincent de Paul which he had asked to have read to him, because he thought that his work like that of St. Vincent would do much to save suffering children. ”

Germ theory negates belief in God, huh?

By: Merrick

Merrick — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:00:40 +0000

Wow. All of the arguments are poor, but the one selected as best is, by far, the worst. And I guess it basically boils down to the world we now live in in which ANYTHING that doesn’t fit into our own opinion of reality is attacked from the outside using only evidence from the outside without the minimal attempt to understand something based on its own assumptions.
The Smith argument is based on *Smith’s* opinions of what God *must* be, and since Smith’s God doesn’t jump through the hoop that Smith designed Him to be foiled by Smith *proves* that God doesn’t exitst. (Of course, let’s be clear we’re talking about the Judeo-Christian God here, as the article makes clear at a number of points).
But what does Smith’s God have in common with the Judeo-Christian God? Well, in fact, apparently nothing. And what is Smith’s “requirement” for God (as if Smith had this authority)?

““It is perfectly reasonable to expect a very good, wise, and powerful person to begin his creation in a very beautiful and magnificent way that exhibits an admirably high degree of naturally good order.”

But, what does the Judeo-Christian text *actually* say about the beginning of creaion?

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

Now what exactly, I ask, is the relation between “without form and void” in the actual Judeo-Christian account of creation and the “exhibits an admirably high degree of naturally good order” that Smith requires of Him. Well, actually, nothing. So, Smith can’t actually be talking about the same God that Jews and Christians believe in and Smith’s argument therefore fails to have any relevance to the question of His existence.

But apparently philosophers just aren’t what they used to be. The Jesuits did better.

By: George Rumens

George Rumens — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:00:43 +0000

The ‘Belief by Numbers’ proof of a god, has been demolished in my 1200 page book called Principia Humanitas, which I am having difficulty publishing. My book talks of the ‘Four Humours Theory’ of how the human body works, which held the imagination of very thinking man, from ancient Greece 500 bc, to about 1850 ad, which is forty seven years before the birth of my father! It was a widespread mass belief which was held by almost every living person, but fell in a few months, after the discovery of germ-theory in 1850-60.

By: Gloria

Gloria — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:36:40 +0000

If the entire universe has a ‘meaning’, so to speak, I would like you to show what that meaning is. Does it not only have meaning because I comprehend that it is there…

To this you may think that there has to be a god, who created ME! But, am I the god who see it? Am I the one who understands? AND IS NOT ALL WISDOM, and understanding from the DEVIL!
God is real … god is the person who is responsible to him/herself, to me. Religions around the world have all proven that the god-syndrome is just a disease that takes people away from responsible behaviour.
I see ‘god religions’ as a disease, personally…the ‘chicken little syndrome’

By: rc_moore

rc_moore — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:05:35 +0000

Ryan –
Victor Stenger is a good source on the subject of God and the entropy question, but would find Smith’s argument quite flawed I think. (Because the physics is out of date). He would of course agree that the current cosmological model provides no evidence for the existence of a God.
I find your anthropic word choices quite interesting. “Violent, chaotic, perfect, rational” — these words have no definitive meaning outside the context of the human brain, trained by evolution and communal speciation.

Applying them suggests that the universe only has meaning due to the presence of human life, and therefore is given a purpose.

I reject that. Such words can have no possible utility in describing singularity conditions (especially pre-singularity conditions). This makes Quentin Smith arguments quite meaningless, and a bit pretentious. I prefer formal logic, which defeats any God-created -singularity propositions quite easily, and without all the cosmological clutter.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:58:42 +0000

Hi RC,

I think Smith’s argument is a good one. After all, Victor Stenger has written that the universe began in complete entropy, and we know that the first moments of the expansion were violent and chaotic. It just doesn’t fit what we would expect from a perfect and rational being.

By: rc_moore

rc_moore — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:51:04 +0000

Nicholas –

You may find Quentin Smith’s argument convincing, but I find it based upon woefully out of date cosmology! His usage of the words chaos and order seem to manufactured for some emotional impact, not a reflection of their use in physics.

The real objection to a singularity attributed to God is that the basis for ending any logical recursion must be specified up front, otherwise one has merely engaged in circular reasoning. Quentin Smith’s desire to drag cosmology and physic into the argument has more to do with employment in the field of Philosophy than any real breakthrough in reasoning, I’m afraid.

By: rc_moore

rc_moore — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:29:17 +0000

Very good article. I find none of proofs survive simple tests of logic.
Addressing only argument #1, “The Common Consent to God”, and stripping away everything but the basic concept: A person proposes something, based upon a belief they hold, and then repeats it to others.
Others believe the proposal, and possibly extend it. Through social networking, it becomes a popular belief, one that for many, cannot be contradicted, even in the light of evidence.
God? or the Sarah Palin “Death Panels”? A Deity? or the Obama “Birthers”?
We see a simple algorithm that only generates belief, not actual truth, as the logic is based upon an unproven premise and a filtering out of contradictory facts.
Therefore, the “Common Consent” proof is complete nonsense. It does not matter how long, or how many believers a proposal has, it only requires that the belief hold some benefit to those who espouse it, so that the will not easily give it up.