DukeTwicep
New Member
Alright, so yesterday I got a boasting Jew to spill his guts about some proof he was going on about. I told him I'd give him a lot of money if he'd show me some scientific evidence of god's existence, but he replied and said that he already had enough millions because his dad was a wealthy businessman.
Anyway, he sent me some messages with some rather dopey content. I didn't know what to make of it, so I thought that anyone here might have a clue wth he's on about. A warning though, the second part is quite long.
Anyway, he sent me some messages with some rather dopey content. I didn't know what to make of it, so I thought that anyone here might have a clue wth he's on about. A warning though, the second part is quite long.
Proof1
If it is valid to ask about a stone�s continuing existence, it is certainly valid to pursue the question to a conclusion.[1] So let�s iterate the principle that everything, even constancy, has an explanation. We ask, �Why don�t the conservation laws cease to operate?� As the observed constancy of energy requires a law of conservation of energy, so that law�s observed constancy requires a meta-law conserving it. No new premise or logical principle is involved. We can then ask why the meta-conservation law continues to operate and get a meta-meta-law. It is easy to see that an infinite regress of meta-meta-meta-laws gets us nowhere. In fact, the entire series is just one more thing in need of an explanation. The only way to satisfy the scientific requirement for an explanation is with an object that does not depend on a further conservation law, but is self-conserving. That is God. Unless there is a being that holds itself in existence, the whole structure of science � that phenomena have explanations � fails. The choice is to accept God�s existence and on-going operation, or to abandon science.
An analogy may help. Naturalists are like children whose toys work when plugged into wall sockets. Because the toys work, they think they know all there is to know about pow,ering toys. In the first stage of the proof, I take them outside, show them the power lines and explain that if the socket is not connected to the power lines, their toys won�t work. Then we trace the power back through trans,mission lines and substations. Naturalists believing in infinite regresses think if we just keep adding more lines and substations, we won�t need a power plant. They are wrong. Unless there is a power plant on line, their toys won�t work.
Let�s note some points before moving on to objections:
1. The argument doesn�t depend on time-sequenced caus,ality. For A to be conserved here and now, its conservation law must operate here and now. The argument says nothing about creation in the past.
2. Accordingly, supposing the big bang was resulted from fluctuations in a prior chaos does not avoid the logic. To have explanatory value prior state fluctuations must be subject to natural laws leading right back to God.
3. The universe is as inseparable from God as from its other laws. This is an immanent God. However, there is noth,ing in the argument confining God to our universe. If one believes in dynamically linked multiverses, the same explanation, the same God, causes them all. Multiverses depend on God � not the reverse. The only dependence of God on the universe is logical. The universe is our evidence for knowing God, not God�s reason for exist,ing. God is self-explaining.
4. God is immaterial in the same sense the laws of nature are. The conservation and other laws are not composed of particles or fields. They are immaterial govern,ing principles. So is God.
What does this show? First, the laws of nature are an incomplete answer to why Paley�s stone continues to be. There are gaps, as required by Stenger. Second, the premises of scientific logic entail that God exists, is the ultimate source of the laws of nature, and through them of the continuing existence of every material object. This answers Stenger�s requirement that God be �a nanosecond by nanosecond participant in each event.� It does not show that God is intelligent. I will discuss mind in the universe in the next chapter.
Proof 2
Dennis Polis Ph.d Theoretical Physics (user name dfpolis)
Let�s start by clearing up some confusion. (1) While some people may think of God as an old man in the sky that is not the notion of God in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, nor addressed by Aristotle or the Buddhist Logicians . For us, God is an Infinite being. (2) �Infinite Being� does not mean �really big and powerful being.� It means completely unlimited being.
Dynamic Ontology
In �How is Experience Informative?� in chapter 5, I outlined the idea of a dynamic ontology in which being is understood as the capacity to act.
A finite being can act limited ways, and an Infinite Being can do any possible act. Finite beings can act in this way, but not that; here, but not there; now, but not then. Infinite being can act in all possible ways in all possible places at all possible times. So we are not God and have forgotten it, because forgetting is a limitation on our ability to think. Nor is the universe God because it is constrained by the laws of nature, which are more restrictive than what is logically possible.
This helps us understand the difference between essence and existence. Essence, what a thing is, is the specification of its possible acts. But a specification or description does not normally entail that something actually exists. Existence adds a new note of comprehension: that the thing we are talking about really can act. Not only does it have a specification, but that specification is operational. Perhaps an analogy will help. Essence is like a photographic slide. It specifies the picture on the screen, but there is no picture until the slide is illuminated. Existence is like the light illuminating the slide. It makes the projected picture actual.
Background
To prove existence we need to show the capacity to act. We can only show this by pointing out a concrete act that must be attributed to the being in question. We know concrete acts only through experience.
Thinking something does not make it exist. So �proofs� such as St. Anselm�s ontological argument fail because they only prove that if we define God as the greatest possible being, then we must think of God as existing. But, thinking of God as existing does not make God exist. We can think something in two ways � with commitment to the thought and without commitment. The ontological argument does not show that we must be committed to the thought that God exists, but only that to be consistent, in the context of the definition we must think of God as existing.
How we can prove God�s existence? We can only prove what we know implicitly. Proofs show us how to assemble facts we already know to see something we may not have noticed before. So, knowledge of God�s existence is implicit in experience. People with good intuition can see it directly, but may not be able to articulate it for others. Those of us who are less intuitive, or who trust intuition less, need a step by step construction to come to the same conclusion. The proof will make the connections needed for us to be aware of God in our experience.
Finally, the proof assumes a working knowledge of logic that not all may possess. For example, the Principle of Excluded Middle tells us that complete disjunctions like �A is either B or not B� are always true if they are meaningful.
The Proof
Premise 1: Something exists.
This is a fact of experience. At least I exist (cogito ergo sum), so let�s take our self to be concrete.
Premise 2: Whatever exists is either finite or infinite.
This is a complete disjunction. Remember that �finite� means limited in ability. I am finite because I can�t do everything that is logically possible, but only what is physically possible for me.
Premise 3: Any collection of finite beings, including the universe as a whole, is finite in being.
Again, finite does not mean quantitatively finite, but limited in its ability to act. Even the whole universe is limited in its ability to act. If it were not, logical possibility would be the same as physical possibility and physics identical to logic. There are logically possible acts that the universe cannot do. Since it has finite dimensionality, there are a finite number of directions in which its parts can move. It is logically possible to move in more directions, and so the universe is at least limited in this way. Even if the universe were spatially or numerically infinite, it would still have a limited capacity to act. Since the universe (or multiverses if you subscribe to them) is the largest possible collection of finite beings, any smaller collection will also be finite.
Premise 4: If a being exists, its explanation must exist.
I discussed this at length in chapter 2. Note that �explanation� has two senses: (1) the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. (We may or may not know these.) This is the sense I am using. (2) Our attempt to articulate our understanding of (1). (See table 1 in chapter 2.)
Premise 5: If something exists, its existence is explained either by itself or by another.
Given that explanations exist, this is a complete disjunction: the explanation is the thing in question, or not the thing in question.
Premise 6: A finite being cannot explain its own existence.
Why? Because whatever can be explained by a being, viz. whatever a being can do, results from its essence, the specification of its acts. For a finite being, existence, the unspecified power to act, is logically distinct from its specification. I am human and I exist. Being human explains my ability to think, because that is part of what it is to be human. But, being human does not imply that I exist, or no human being could cease existing.
A thing is finite because its specification or essence limits its capacity to act, its existence. What limits differs from what is limited, viz. existence, the bare capacity to act � just as a slide limiting light differs from the light it limits. Logically, limits negate the capacity for specific acts, while existence does the opposite, making acts operational. When essence limits existence, existence is more comprehensive. Something less comprehensive, a finite essence, cannot entail something more comprehensive � existence. Thus, a finite essence cannot entail existence.
The distinction of essence from existence does not apply to an infinite being if it exists. Why? Because an infinite being�s capacity to act is not limited by what-it-is. No possible act is negated by a limited specification. So for an infinite being, what-it-is would be identical with that-it-is.
Further Explanation of Premises 4, 5, and 6:
A being is logically necessary when it is. (Once it is now, it is no longer possible for it not to be now.) This logical necessity reflects a real world necessity. In modal logic, the necessity of a proposition derives from the proposition itself, or from the necessity of its premises. Since finite beings have a history of coming into and going out of existence, the necessity of their present existence is not intrinsic. (It is possible for them not to be.) So it must derive from other premises � their explanation. Therefore, by logical necessity, every actual thing has an explanation even if we are ignorant of it and say, �It just is.� Our verbal explanation is not true unless there is a reality it reflects.
Conclusion 1: The existence of a finite being implies the existence of another being, its explanation. P4, P5, P6.
Conclusion 2: This other being cannot ultimately be finite.
P3, P6. Any collection of finite beings, taken as a whole, is itself finite and so requires a further explanation.
Conclusion 3: So, the existence of a finite being implies the existence of an infinite being, as its explanation. C2, P2.
Conclusion 4: Therefore an infinite being exists, which we call �God.� C3, P1. We are free to name things as we will, but calling the infinite being �God� corresponds to common usage.
All of the commonly ascribed attributes of God (almighty, omniscient, etc.) follow form the unlimited capacity to act. For example, if God were not omniscient, then there would be a logically possible act, reflecting on an item of information, which God could not do. If God knows, God thinks and so is personal in the sense of being aware, etc.
Note that this does not show God as existing and acting in only the past, but as the present and on-going explanation of all existence.
I'll notify if he responds, but I won't trouble you with any more walls of text from this guy. After insulting me, putting words in my mouth, and assuming a helluva lot of things, he said that: "I'm on your side, just not representing what you do". Unfortunately I hate suck ups. First Jew I have ever talked to and he gives me this impression, no wonder there has been so much anti-Semitism around...