Arguments for God's Existence

[leroy]

Is Leroy under the impression that trying ARATTs with someone new will make these arguments any more sound?

Take the 2nd argument (there was actually 5 of them on Craig's page, Leroy did not include the 1st for some reason... can you guess?): it's the Kalam cosmological argument.

Hasn't this "argument" been addressed a couple of thousand times already? And particularly Calamity Craig's use of it?

It isn't unusual from Leroy to abandon a topic where he can no longer defends his blunders with anything new but to do in order to regurgitate old ones this time? :facepalm:

if you would have read the article you would have noticed that the first argument is the Kalam cosmological arguemtn


the argument that I removed was the fifth, which is not really an argument but some sort of reflection, this is why I remove it.

 

[Sparhafoc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading#Types_of_reading

There are 3 types of reading

Mental reading (Subvocalization): sounding out each word internally, as reading to yourself. This is the slowest form of reading.
Auditory reading: hearing out the read words. This is a faster process.
Visual reading: understanding the meaning of the word, rather than sounding or hearing. This is the fastest process.

Mental readers generally read at approximately 250 words per minute. Auditory readers read at approximately 450 words per minute. Visual readers read at approximately 700 words per minute. Visual reading is a skill that can be developed through continuous training and practice. [6]

So yeah, LEROY. If you sit there reading out each syllable before proudly alighting on the resulting meaning of that collection of phonemes, then I can well imagine why you'd consider even a normal reader to be superhuman.

The World Championship Speed Reading Competition stresses reading comprehension as critical. The top contestants typically read around 1,000 to 2,000 words per minute with approximately 50% comprehension or above. The six time world champion Anne Jones is recorded for 4200wpm with previous exposure to the material and 67% comprehension.

All these contestants, and all the people involved in the competition are liars, because of LEROY's poverty of imagination, and excess of hubris.

This does explain why LEROY won't accept logic - if he doesn't understand something, it's obviously you lying! :roll: :lol:

 

[Sparhafoc]

[
But that doesn't mean I will give you free pass.

You distorted what I wrote. If you desire to have even a scrap of credibility with honest people, if you make an 'honest' mistake, you'd apologize immediately. Didn't your momma teach you that? Or were you too busy tugging on your local priest's plonker to notice?

didn't I apologized already?

No you didn't apologized already as well you knowed.

 

[Sparhafoc]

http://www.iep.utm.edu/design/

Design Arguments for the Existence of God

Design arguments are empirical arguments for the existence of God. These arguments typically, though not always, proceed by attempting to identify various empirical features of the world that constitute evidence of intelligent design and inferring God's existence as the best explanation for these features. Since the concepts of design and purpose are closely related, design arguments are also known as teleological arguments, which incorporates "telos," the Greek word for "goal" or "purpose."

Design arguments typically consist of (1) a premise that asserts that the material universe exhibits some empirical property F; (2) a premise (or sub-argument) that asserts (or concludes) that F is persuasive evidence of intelligent design or purpose; and (3) a premise (or sub-argument) that asserts (or concludes) that the best or most probable explanation for the fact that the material universe exhibits F is that there exists an intelligent designer who intentionally brought it about that the material universe exists and exhibits F.

Educate yourself Leroy then you can pretend you know what you're talking about.

 

[Sparhafoc]

that would seem to make sense for someone who just read the "Title" of the argument,

It's amazing that you think you are fooling anyone. You're just fooling.

someone who actually read the document would have noticed that the intent of the argument is to stablish that the universe had a cause, someone who actually read the document would have noticed that the argument is based on 2 premises and 1 conclusion any rebuttal should be on ether rejecting any of the premises or by showing that the conclusion doesn't follow.

Already defeated this - your inability to process my post notwithstanding.

again, from where I am standing all the evidence indicates that you don't understand the argument, and that you don't have a genuine interest in learning and understanding the argument.

You understand the concept of 'evidence' and well as you understand the concept of 'proof'.

if you what to redime yourself, If you what to convince me that I am wrong about that, you are going to have to answer 3 or 4 questions that by answering correctly you will prove to me that you understand the argument.

Vapid obvious troll is both obvious and vapid.


if you don't care what my personal opinion about you is, then you don't have to do anything[/quote]

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Is Leroy under the impression that trying ARATTs with someone new will make these arguments any more sound?

Take the 2nd argument (there was actually 5 of them on Craig's page, Leroy did not include the 1st for some reason... can you guess?): it's the Kalam cosmological argument.

Hasn't this "argument" been addressed a couple of thousand times already? And particularly Calamity Craig's use of it?

It isn't unusual from Leroy to abandon a topic where he can no longer defends his blunders with anything new but to do in order to regurgitate old ones this time? :facepalm:

if you would have read the article you would have noticed that the first argument is the Kalam cosmological arguemtn


the argument that I removed was the fifth, which is not really an argument but some sort of reflection, this is why I remove it.

I've dealt with the KCA before - here and throughout that thread. The list of my comments alone is here

Note my explanation of creatio ex nihilo.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[leroy]

[

1 you have lied in the past

Cite or reinsert your bollocks back in the sticky hole you extracted them from.

.

No problem, this is the last lie that I can recal

So about that assertion regarding the manner in which you claim you can calculate probabilities from one data point.

I never said that I can calculate probabilities with one data point, nor anything remotely similar to that.


you see, just because I don't expose your lies, that doesn't mean that I am not aware of them, it is just that I am more interested in having a meningfull conversation on Boltzmann brains, than a stupid conversation on who say what.



the average person reads 50 to 70 words per minute

That being said, when we talk about technical contents, the average reading speed is about 50-75 words per minute

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading-Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html


so you are ether 10 times faster than the average person, or you are simply lying, as I said before there are multiple independent lines of evidence that you are lying, including the fact that you have lied before and the fact that you demonstrably misrepresented the arguments.


But I will simply ask you this....
The Kalam Cosmological argument (the first in the list) concludes that the universe had a cause.


what is wrong with that conclusion? if the universe did not had a cause what other alternatives are there, and why do you think that this alternative is better than the statement that the universe had a cause?


any comment that is not related to this will be ignored

 

[leroy]

[

1 you have lied in the past

Cite or reinsert your bollocks back in the sticky hole you extracted them from.

.

No problem, this is the last lie that I can recal

So about that assertion regarding the manner in which you claim you can calculate probabilities from one data point.

I never said that I can calculate probabilities with one data point, nor anything remotely similar to that.


you see, just because I don't expose your lies, that doesn't mean that I am not aware of them, it is just that I am more interested in having a meningfull conversation on Boltzmann brains, than a stupid conversation on who say what.



the average person reads 50 to 75 words per minute

That being said, when we talk about technical contents, the average reading speed is about 50-75 words per minute

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading-Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html


so you are ether 10 times faster than the average person, or you are simply lying, as I said before there are multiple independent lines of evidence that you are lying, including the fact that you have lied before and the fact that you demonstrably misrepresented the arguments.


But I will simply ask you this....
The Kalam Cosmological argument (the first in the list) concludes that the universe has a cause.


what is wrong with that conclusion? if the universe did not have a cause what other alternatives are there, and why do you think that these alternatives are better.


any comment that is not related to this will be ignored

 

[MarsCydonia]

[But I will simply ask you this....
The Kalam Cosmological argument (the first in the list) concludes that the universe has a cause.

what is wrong with that conclusion? if the universe did not have a cause what other alternatives are there, and why do you think that these alternatives are better.

any comment that is not related to this will be ignored

So it does indeed appear that Leroy wants to go over this ARATT, again.

It is amazing the capacity that christian trolls have to complete ignore their own past history when it is incovenient to them.

 

[leroy]

[But I will simply ask you this....
The Kalam Cosmological argument (the first in the list) concludes that the universe has a cause.

what is wrong with that conclusion? if the universe did not have a cause what other alternatives are there, and why do you think that these alternatives are better.

any comment that is not related to this will be ignored

So it does indeed appear that Leroy wants to go over this ARATT, again.

It is amazing the capacity that christian trolls have to complete ignore their own past history when it is incovenient to them.

yes that is true, some people (me included) cant learn form past experiences. I am expecting a direct answer from an atheist (or whatever denomination Sparhafoc claims to have) when history has told me that atheist from this forum are unable to do that.

 

[Deleted member 619]

What's that in your signature, LEROY? :lol:

To be fair to Leroy, he doesn't actually think the statement in his sig is true. That's something I said, that he put in his signature to draw attention to my stupidity for saying such a daft thing, little realising that it actually makes him look stupid, it being a factually correct statement, which I supported with a simple logical thought-experiment, and which Leroy failed to understand (quelle surprise).

 

[MarsCydonia]

yes that is true, some people (mostly trolls) refuse to learn form past experiences. So I am expecting an atheist to repeat his direct answer for another couple of thousand times but history has told me that atheists from this forum are not willing to indulge my willful forgetfulness.

I changed your statement to be honest.

You should try it more often.

Now, if you want an atheist to repeat himself to you again, good luck. We don't get always get what we want after all. History has told me that christians from this forum cannot answer direct questions either, not because the trolls have to repeat themselves but because they have no answers.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

yes that is true, some people (mostly trolls) refuse to learn form past experiences. So I am expecting an atheist to repeat his direct answer for another couple of thousand times but history has told me that atheists from this forum are not willing to indulge my willful forgetfulness.

I changed your statement to be honest.

You should try it more often.

Dandan/Leroy thinks that if one does not follow his script, they are not answering him directly. To bad his scripts are always aweful and to bad he cannot deal with direct answers.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I never said that I can calculate probabilities with one data point, nor anything remotely similar to that.

For everyone reading this thread and not the relevant thread, as I am sure you can imagine, what actually happened there is that LEROY shifted the goalposts when he realized he'd been shown wrong.

He then told me I was lying (the actual wording was about whether I'd be honest enough to admit it), I then cited his own words post after post showing that he'd done exactly as I said, he then dropped the topic like a red hot stone and moved on to the next obfuscation.

Of course, he's back here bullshitting again because it's the way he evades ever having to admit being shown wrong.

you see, just because I don't expose your lies, that doesn't mean that I am not aware of them,....

Lying runt.

it is just that I am more interested in having a meningfull conversation on Boltzmann brains, than a stupid conversation on who say what.

Lying runt.


http://leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=180038#p180038

There's what actually happened.

And....

http://leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=180048#p180048

Yep, LEROY still pretending that his words don't say what his words clearly do say because honesty is alien to LEROY.

As for the Boltzmann brains diversion - it was already identified in that thread as being another iteration of LEROY desperately trying to pretend that his last set of assertions weren't destroyed. It's the usual pivot he tries, but I wouldn't allow him to do it until it was clear to all that he would squirm incessantly to evade having been shown that his declaration that sex = intent is wrong.

Handwaving on top of handwaving. I don't think I've ever met a less honest person than LEROY.


So, no lie can be established on my part. And if LEROY wants to claim there is, then I think we know it's just another attempt to divert from the fact that he got caught with his pants down playing with his plonker.

the average person reads 50 to 70 words per minute

That being said, when we talk about technical contents, the average reading speed is about 50-75 words per minute

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading-Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html

And?

What's the price of fish?

I just showed you examples of humans being observed, recorded and tested reading orders of magnitude more words than that per minute.

Do try and keep up, LEROY. Your rejection above actually doesn't change a thing.

so you are ether 10 times faster than the average person, or you are simply lying, as I said before there are multiple independent lines of evidence that you are lying, including the fact that you have lied before and the fact that you demonstrably misrepresented the arguments.

I may be 10 times faster than the average person, I don't know, but there are also recorded, tested incidences of humans being 10 times faster than me... which just shows how willing you are ever to acknowledge your error.

As I have never lied before, and as you cannot show any example of me lying, and as we all know when you are lying because your mouth is moving, and as I demonstrably dismantled your guff and you lack the competence to respond, it is clear to everyone reading here that this is just LEROY doing what LEROY does to convince himself that he's worth a wazz in other peoples' eyes.

But I will simply ask you this....
The Kalam Cosmological argument (the first in the list) concludes that the universe had a cause.


what is wrong with that conclusion? if the universe did not had a cause what other alternatives are there, and why do you think that this alternative is better than the statement that the universe had a cause?

Simple: the KCA is question-begging, and the postulate is unacceptable because it is contrived and contrary to logic.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
The universe began to exist;
Therefore: The universe has a cause.


The correct postulate, even with the weird wording, is that:

Everything IN the universe that begins to exist has a cause - that's the accurate statement, and it's what we observe, it seems unarguable from our Middle World observations. However, we don't observe universes being incidences within our set of observed things.

But given we're supposedly talking about the creation of the universe, and given that the set of things IN the universe doesn't include the set of things that existed prior to the universe, then any identified characteristic from within the universe cannot logically be applied to things not in the universe. It's a laughably inept error on WLC's record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

I know you won't grasp that, and you will try to reject it on technical grounds and ignore all logic, but hey, that's why you are a Creationist.

Instead, we can look at the numerous times it's been debunked if you like? WLC can't rebut them, and you sure as shit can't because you're not interested in honest discourse.

All your posts establish this fact, but none more so than this:

any comment that is not related to this will be ignored[

Any comment inconvenient for you will be ignored, but given that any comment convenient for you will be obfuscated, I am not seeing the difference aside from the net bullshit generated.

 

[Sparhafoc]

To be fair to Leroy, he doesn't actually think the statement in his sig is true. That's something I said, that he put in his signature to draw attention to my stupidity for saying such a daft thing, little realising that it actually makes him look stupid, it being a factually correct statement, which I supported with a simple logical thought-experiment, and which Leroy failed to understand (quelle surprise).

:lol:

That's where you went wrong mate.

The validity of a thought experiment is predicated on there being thought employed!

 

[Sparhafoc]

yes that is true, some people (me included) cant learn form past experiences. I am expecting a direct answer from an atheist (or whatever denomination Sparhafoc claims to have) when history has told me that atheist from this forum are unable to do that.

I really don't think I've ever encountered such a mendacious obsessive as LEROY.

I did have a friend with a problem with compulsive lying, but it was about his self-confidence, and he only lied about his own actions in the past.

LEROY thinks he can lie about other people's actions even when the words are still there, even when the words are quoted.

If LEROY was somehow magically restrained to tell the truth and only the truth in this forum, I wonder if he'd ever have managed to write a single word.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Dandan/Leroy thinks that if one does not follow his script, they are not answering him directly. To bad his scripts are always aweful and to bad he cannot deal with direct answers.

Yup.

At what point did he start thinking he could dictate the rules of discourse?

Is this a new phenomenon, or has he always been this self-gratifyingly obnoxious?

 

[Sparhafoc]

Absolutely no one else is interested in LEROY channeling WLC with even less understanding than that particular snake-oil seller would bring to the conversation. An inept proxy of an apologist who bamboozles those unable to understand his claims into lending them credence.

WLC is indeed a very good debater, but that's because debate is a form of sport, it has rules, and points, and a way of judging what's right.

However, public debates are rarely about what's true, or about delving into the comprehensiveness of the issue, and why it might or might not be true, if we're honest. Instead, they are exhibitions of wit, glibness, and to a large degree, manipulation. You score point, you defeat your opponent, and you win the approval of the audience. That's the format of a debate.

Logic also has rules, and points, and a way of judging what's right - it IS the way of judging what's right, defined by people over millennia of thinking about things, and thinking about our thoughts of things. And woe and betide those who think they get to simply dictate how logic works, or contrive new ways to evade logic's razor. All it means in such a scenario is that their arguments are illogical, unable to withstand the scrutiny of our minds. Clear, LEROY?

Finally, there's science. It has yet another set of rules, and doesn't give a rat's chuff about winning, or manipulating people. Science doesn't care if there are gods supposing there's no suggestion that they or their effects are empirical, because science's remit is purely natural. Science is the most honest enterprise because the adjudicator doesn't give a fuck if we think we've won, we're either right or wrong, and consequently no protestations or excuses, no matter how large your ego is, will stop the ground's inexorable advance if you declare that gravity doesn't work and jump out of a window.

These two (logic + science) share a core quality: they are about minimizing confusion, reducing uncertainty, being specific and clarifying... because both are fundamentally motivated by the same desire to separate the wheat of the unavoidable external spiky reality from the bullshit chaff of the inner woolly maunder.

The maxim might be best naively capitulated by Churchill: The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Debates, though, they're the same skill set as selling 2nd hand cars - convincing people with statements they know cannot be the whole truth, appealing to emotions that aren't needed if clarity is the objective, and twisting meanings and words to your own ends to score points, so that you may be declared a winner by other human beings. The same skill set as a snake oil seller needs; the same skill set as a parasitic clergy needs to keep their sheep willingly fleeced.

Of course WLC is good at debate, because he's a charlatan, like every other self-styled explainer of the ineffable. He's an AI agent in the meme-Matrix, it's his job to keep you thinking in the same patterns, not to help set your mind free. He uses that malice, ignorance and derision - he'll tweak every button he can find, but in the end, there it remains, regardless of his oratorial abilities.

So sure, I will address him word by word, as this will completely remove LEROY's pathetic and transparent attempt to pretend that he's the only one willing or competent enough to debate.

I have no doubt this will be boring for anyone already employing their brain, but that's exactly why I made this thread - to keep this guy from splooging out everywhere. As I didn't mention his name in this sentence, there's a pretty good chance he won't even read it!

But I need something to do between jobs at the moment, and I'm out of new books, don't watch tv etc, and I'm still recovering from an operation, so I can't go gallivant in the fields. This will at least keep me occupied! But I shan't be doing it all at once. The time it takes to clear away bullshit depends on the amount of bullshit there is. And with WLC it's bullshit all the way down.

So I'll do as much as I want, when I want, and how I want, LEROY. Clear?

So let us begin....

Does God Exist?

William Lane Craig

Here is the title. The title is problematic for 2 main reasons.

1) WLC isn't really asking, he's intending to write polemically in favour of God's existence. The essay's title should be 'God Does Exist!', so even in the first 3 words, we get to see the working of WLC's mind, about who he is, what he's doing, and how he's going to set about doing it. We know he wants to pretend to deduce it, that his arguments are going to pretend to be deductive, or follow from aspects of the universe, or from aspects of human nature.

Whether LEROY understands this or not, there's a strategy at play right at the outset, and it's a strategy that works on people just like LEROY. You're a consumer, LEROY, and he's a marketing manager. He knows what pushes your buttons, but you don't understand that they don't push non-target consumer's buttons. WLC does, of course, because he's a marketing manager for this brand, so were he to try and sell to me, he wouldn't be so clumsy at the outset as to offer me the chance to publicly retort with Betteridge's Law of Headlines:

Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

So I don't even need to go further than this to already give a perfectly sufficient response: no

However, of course I did go further than this before, and I will go further than it now. But there it remains, shining clearly on the hill, regardless of my need to jump into the swill below to wrestle with WLC's ensuing muddying of the problem.

No.

(But because I have to be honest with myself even if neither the proxy nor the preacher can: the answer is 'it depends' or in some instances 'probably not'.)


2) Existence is not a valid predicate. For a man who styles himself as a heavy-weight philosopher, this is impossible to ignore.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/the-ontological-argument/st-anselms-ontological-argument/existence-is-not-a-predicate/

Kant, himself a theist, argued that the ontological argument illicitly treats existence as a property that things can either possess or lack. According to Kant, to say that a thing exists is not to attribute existence to that thing, but to say that the concept of that thing is exemplified in the world. The difference, and its significance for the ontological argument, are described below.

Most statements of the form “S is p” are true if and only if there is something in the world that is picked out by the name S, and the thing picked out by the name S satisfies the description “is p”.

Thus God created the heavens and the Earth is true if and only if there something in the world that is picked out by the name God, and that thing created the heavens and the Earth. This analysis is simple, but it works for most statements of the form “S is p”.

Similarly, most statements of the form “S is not p” are true if and only if there is something in the world that is picked out by the name S, and that thing satisfies the description “is not p”.

“God exists” (or “God is existent”) appears to be of the form “S is p”; it appears to attribute a property, existence, to a subject, God. “God does not exist”, meanwhile, appears to be of the form “S is not p”; it appears to deny a property, existence, to a subject, God. If the above analyses of statements of these forms applies to attributions of existence and non-existence, then “God exists” would be true if and only if there is something in the world that is picked out by the name God and that thing satisfies the description “exists”. “God does not exist”, meanwhile, would be true if and only if there is something in the world that is picked out by the name God and that thing satisfies the description “does not exist”.

Of course, willing sheep ready to be fleeced LEROY doesn't need to think about this. WLC does - it's obligatory if he wants credibility from his peers.

As someone genuinely interested in the truth, as someone whose non-belief in gods arose from this honest impulse, I am not at liberty to simply ignore things which appear bullshit to me. I am not obliged because I need to beat a muppet on the internet who can barely write in coherent sentences, but I am obliged to because it is my most deep-seated, most essential, most aspired to characteristic. I firmly believe from evidence that we are just animals with recursive brains, and that we will live just 80 years, and that we will then die. As such, I do not feel I have the time to engage in obfuscating bullshit, or to seek comfort from pandering crap that ignores anything that could undermine it. I want to know for myself, and the obligation I feel is only to me. As such, I will not simply allow WLC to fail in his most basic duties as a supposed philosopher. If he doesn't understand what he's saying, then he should sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen to other human beings more honest than him.

That's what I'd do if I was in his position, and I know that because it's what I've always done when I've been in his position, and it's something I would continue to do if I found myself in his position. Stop flapping your internal incomprehension into other people's faces as if that will make them believe your internal processes best describe what's really happening in the external, encountered world.

So how does WLC overlook this tradition of thought? We know why he does it, but not how. How does he not feel obliged to accept that his entire argument is based on this fundamental mistake?

It basically results in the same reason that explains atheism, the non-acceptance of the theism claim. If God is a real, existing quality or object in the universe, then why is the description needed to describe his existence itself the word exist? Merely stating S itself proposes its existence, so why does p need to be added? Because there is no characteristic, no sign, no other apparent external object on which to hang a descriptor. We don't need to say that apples exist because it would be tautological. We would say apples are fruits (referential) or apples are red (sensory), but we wouldn't feel compelled to say that their existence is that they exist.

So in what way does this thing that exists exist? And why is it not already evident? The truth is because it's not evident that god exists. God is a mental construct, existing solely within the internal world, and cannot be found at all in the external world. So God does indeed exist: in your mind, in our cultural stories, and in our metaphors and linguistic symbolism - but nothing remotely suggests that this god has any existence external to that.

So what WLC is now going to do, having first shown he is going to manipulate his audience with polemics, and then ignored the self-defeating notion of a question about God's purported existence predicate, is now to pretend that there are reasons to lend the God in external world credence.

So let's first do a quick outline before going in word by word:

• If God does not exist, life is ultimately meaningless.
  If God does not exist, then we must ultimately live without hope.
  Does God exist? – God makes sense of the origin of the universe.
  Does God exist? – God makes sense of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

This is the pattern of his argument.

He first simply appeals to the inner world, where meaning and hope exists. If you are from a tradition where meaning and hope are connected to a belief in a particular god, then you will simply allow this to pass, but WLC hasn't shown how the two are connected - all we know at the moment is that he is trying to convince us that God exists, so he must be providing some other characteristic that we can see that will necessitate and exemplify God so that we can arrive at a genuine predicate. These are both sops to fools, but not a single person from another religious tradition, or from those who can follow his hands as he pockets the cards is going to simply permit this. Hope and meaning is not restricted to acceptance of the Biblical God, that's vile to believe, the snivveling little shitbag. Humans have always found hope and meaning in their lives, regardless of the gods they believed in, because that's what it means to be a fucking human. The arrogance of such a cunt like this to pretend that humanity itself - even non-theistic humanity - supports his claim is unbelievable.

I would have loved the opportunity to address this on stage, because I would have buried him and no one in the audience with normal levels of human compassion would disagree with me.

How would I do this? By showing examples of heroic sacrifice, of families, of love of all the aspirations and motivations of people who didn't accept the existence of your god, and thereby painted WLC as a narcissistic ignoramus, or potential sociopath (because characters win or lose debates, not facts).

But it doesn't matter here, what matters here is that WLC has so far failed to take on the burden of his own question. If he can't provide exemplification of God in the external world, if he has to restrict himself only to the internal world where we know the concept of God exists, then he's already failed.

So that's why he moves onto arguments of design/teleology, because he needs to exemplify other observed things to claim that these are the things which allow us to see god's existence as a predicate.

Now, if one were to read back to my original post - the one abruptly dismissed by LEROY and the one which he has since written thousands of words of fiction about - you can see I've already made this statement in that post.

Of course, LEROY has no real answer to that retort, which is why all the drama. But it's not like he's going to have any capability to address it once unpacked either. What he'll try to do is focus on a small snippet of words, try to obfuscate that, and thereby pretend to himself that he's shown the rest wrong. Evidence? This thread itself.

But anyway, let's move on from the title to the first paragraph:

Does God exist? C. S. Lewis once remarked that God is not the sort of thing one can be moderately interested in. After all, if God does not exist, there's no reason to be interested in God at all. On the other hand, if God does exist, then this is of paramount interest, and our ultimate concern ought to be how to be properly related to this being upon whom we depend moment by moment for our very existence.

One can be moderately interested in that sort of thing. I am moderately interested in your God, I am moderately interested in all gods humans have ever espoused, but I am not 'interested' in the same way you are.

If Sauron doesn't exist, there's no reason to make a film about Middle Earth and the Lord of the Ring, because no one would be interested in something that's fictional. Kind of funny that C. S. Lewis, a fiction writer, didn't grasp this!

On the other hand, if God (capital G, assumption of Yahweh tradition) does exist, then this thing is potentially of interest to some people, and probably still of less interest to others. Even if there was an all creator God type entity, and even if it made us and everything we do, if it's like an absent father, uninterested in our daily lives, then why 'must' we be interested in it? Doesn't follow, all the first paragraph's sentences are assertions that are not true.

Finally, the last sentence is completely whacky. It assumes a complex metaphysics which wants to suggest that we are literally held in the palm of an entity whose existence ensures our ongoing survival or could stop ensuring it at any moment.

But I don't see any gods making oxygen, I don't see any gods holding up the planet, I don't see any gods magicking food into existence.... so in what possible way could this be true?

In the extreme abstract? That because this god purportedly made the universe and all the rest followed, that this means we should be concerned about its existence? Doesn't follow. Requires undisclosed metaphysics. There's a mountain of undisclosed assumptions there, and I don't accept those assumptions. Maybe a god did make the universe, and has never given a rat's chuff about it since. As such, making it our primary concern would be the height of folly because it will never know and never care, and we'd be wasting our efforts on an entirely fruitless endeavour.

Or does he mean this in some other way? Well, it's only his first paragraph, so I am sure he has plenty of time to explain.

Regardless, nothing he's so far said holds any weight at all. It's just assertion and woolly assumption. He's appealing to woolly-minded Christians, dogwhistling to them, and failing to meet the obligation he sets out to bear.

So people who shrug their shoulders and say, "Does God exist? What difference does it make?" merely show that they haven't yet thought very deeply about this problem. Even atheist philosophers like Sartre and Camus—who have thought very seriously about this problem—admit that the existence of God makes a tremendous difference for man. Let me mention just three reasons why it makes a big difference whether God exists.

Firstly, who are these people? Do you mean 'if someone shrugs their shoulders'? Or are you talking about particular people? Looks like a strawman, but one he doesn't need to build too high, or too well. Maybe a straw pile, would be a better term for it.

Next up we have WLC's all too typical attempt to paint himself as someone who has thought deeply, because what he wants most is to be seen as a deep thinker. WLC does this in every debate - part and parcel of being a public polemicist - his product for sale is himself, so it must be good! Best get that in early to make sure everyone notices, even those who don't notice why he's written it.

Next up we have an acknowledgment of the existence of philosophers (people who think deeply about shit) who also happen to be atheists. Well, that's rather a problematic turn of events if you want to link thinking deeply with the acceptance of gods, but don't worry, WLC was careful to only dogwhistle that, and can always retreat to the 'does it make a difference?' straw pile if needed.

Of course, if the Christian God were real, and everything in the Bible were real, it would make a tremendous difference to humans.

But exactly the same could be said of the Hindu Gods and the Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, and Upanishads,.
But exactly the same could be said of the Buddha and Tripitakas.
But exactly the same could be said of the Egyptian pantheon and the Book of the Dead
But exactly the same could be said of Sauron and the Lord of the Rings.
But exactly the same could be said of the innumerable other things humans have either believed in or written down in recorded history, and if I had to write them all down in a format like this, then the thread would probably consume the internet.

The question isn't really about whether they'd be important if true, but whether there's any real reason to suppose that they are true.

The answer is no for all of them for the same reasons.

Exactly the reason WLC will give me for his not believing that the Hindu Gods are real, or that their religious narrative is true, is the same one I would give to him about his.

Again, shows just how deep WLC's thinking really is. Onanistic, no more.

But onto the three reasons, which I do not accept are exemplifying why God is important because you have not yet made God any more necessary than Buddha, Brahma, or Morgoth, so all the ensuing claims are descriptions of the Emperor's New Clothes, and your sartorial expertise is what's on show.

For those of us seeing a naked, wrinkly ape - we're still wondering why you haven't address the self-defeating question you're supposedly writing to answer.

And such, I will take a break there. One needs to shower every now and then after dipping into the slime exuded by such charlatans.

 

[leroy]

My intutions where correct, I did not received a direct answer from Sparhafoc









lets start with a simpler question.....................based on the evidence that we have to date, would say that the universe had a cause?


a) Yes

b) No


based on the evidence which do you think is more probably true? a or b?

 

[Sparhafoc]

My intutions where correct, I did not received a direct answer from Sparhafoc

Obvious troll is obvious.

Your prejudice was shown manifestly wrong, but still you state your prejudice as fact.

lets start with a simpler question.....................

If that helps you, LEROY.

But let's be frank, eh?

The dots in your above sentence communicate about as much information as the rest of your screed will.

You're not here to engage, you're here to get off on some sadistic belief that you're doing well.

You're not by any measure. To everyone else, you're a masochist who gets spanked and comes back for more.

based on the evidence that we have to date, would say that the universe had a cause?

No. I wouldn't say anything of the sort because it's metaphysics, not science. Metaphysics doesn't have evidence, it has belief.

a) Yes

b) No


based on the evidence which do you think is more probably true? a or b?

c) suspend taking a position until taking a position becomes credible.


Comparative to what I wrote above, the fact that you think you need to ask me 'simple questions' when you've just trotted out a question you could easily have deduced - if you possessed sufficient intelligence - from my post above.

Oh and thanks for confirming a REAL prediction!