God is an Impossibility

Exactly the point.

Neither do reasonably rational people.

Btw, did you ever learn how to actually spell, “Meow”? :-s
… I mean out side of just “your head”.

I think his point is that if it can’t exist empirically, it can’t exist in spacetime. That may be true, but it doesn’t mean it can’t exist.

What I meant is, what is postulated as an absolutely perfect or absolute perfection cannot exists within an empirical-rational reality as real.
Empirical-rationality meant the empirical process reinforced with the highest faculty of reason, i.e. philosophy.

A perfect circle can be thought but how can you justify its real existence within empirical-rational reality.
Rationally, it is impossible for a perfect circle to be realized within empirical-rational reality as real.
Note Hume one cannot get an “is” [empirical] from an “ought” [as reasoned]. Can you prove Hume was wrong? Nb; there are other arguments beside Hume that prove it is the case one cannot mix an “is” [oil] with “ought” [water].

In the case of absolute perfection, we are going into the highest scale one can think of. An absolutely perfect circle [e.g. as in Plato’s Form] is an impossibility within empirical-rational reality.

Note a “circle” has an empirical foundation but it is impossible as an absolutely perfect circle.
OTOH, the idea of God [which MUST be of absolute perfection] has no empirical foundation at all but it is merely arise from thoughts and pure reason which is a transcendental illusion.
Therefore the idea of God which must be absolutely perfect cannot exists as real within an empirical-rational reality.

If you think it can exists, explain how it can exist and explain the possibility of how you can prove it.

Note I stated some human-liked aliens which are very intelligent and powerful could exist in a planet or location some billions of light years from Earth could possibly exists, albeit of very low probability.
Why such aliens can exists is because they have empirical-based elements which can be empirically-rationally confirmed if such aliens appear before us.
To prove such aliens exists [empirical-rational] all we need is the empirical based evidences.

The point with a necessary absolutely perfect God is it has no empirical basis, but merely arise from thoughts and pure reason. Thus such a god is an impossibility within an empirical-rational reality. There is no question of ‘bring the evidence’ because it is impossible for the empirical-based evidence to exists in the first place.

How Did the Idea of a God Arose within Human Consciousness?
Why theists insist such an impossible God exists is driven and compelled by an existential psychological force.
Note Hume’s explanation of how ‘Induction’ is driven and compelled by our customs, habits and conjunction.
This psychological drive that compel a theist to believe in an empirically-impossible-God is much deeper and complex than Humes’ habit and custom.

This psychological link to a God is not a frivolous claim.
There are many research and evidence to prove those who claim to have experiences of a God in various way were caused by psychological factors, mental problems and illnesses.

Drugs, hallucinogens and other chemicals entering into the brain can also induce various experiences of a God.

With the above psychological research and evidence, the idea of a God which MUST be ultimately absolutely perfect, God is more likely [as evident] to manifest in one’s consciousness due to psychological reasons than a very hollow claim like “but it doesn’t mean it can’t exist.”

I prefer saying, “There is no Truth.” Ever read Holophany, The Loop of Creation?

That’s my point.

Yup.

Most modern ontologies are superficial.

If there is no Truth, there is no Lie. So what is Prism bickering about?

I wouldn’t call Science “superficial”, although scientists are obviously philosophically naive.

He doesn’t understand what the word “perfect” means, so his issues are irrelevant.

It’s axiomatic. Existence (the fact or state of continued being) is axiomatic (meaning that it does not rest upon anything in order to be valid, and it cannot be proven by any “more basic” premises) because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth (a denial of something is only possible if existence exists). “Existence exists” is therefore an axiom which states that there is something, as opposed to nothing.

See above.

I certainly hope so. (The brain is a receive-amplifier, not the source of consciousness.)

Existence is that which has affect (“to affect” being “to cause change”). If God has affect, then by definition, God exists.

I alluded to this earlier…

Walking is a static platonic ideal or form, from which we can notice the act of walking. The platonic ideal or form is not affectance. I will assert without any reservation, affectance is not the defining characteristic of existence.

Does the ground of being have an an affect on the things grounded in it?

In terms of ideal platonic forms… “the ground of being”, they don’t need to act of them to be, the platonic ideal of walking, in the eternal, needs no act of walking to assert itself on this plane, it exists regardless. This is where James is wrong

If it is the changing itself, yes - Affect upon Affect.

Affect upon affect is stasis …James. Tsk, tsk

Not even close.

Makes sense to me. :slight_smile:

Without qualification it is nonsense to me.

In the above case where A caused effect B, both A and B are empirical entities and the whole process in accordance to Hume is basically a psychological process.

In the case ‘God cause effect B’, there are various philosophical issues;

  1. The first point is cause and effect [regardless of real or not ] is psychological.
  2. Effect B may be empirical and can be proven but
  3. IF effect B is non-empirical, then there is no way of proving it empirically.
  4. God [unprovable based on mere faith] has no empirical basis.
  5. God [an ought] can never be equated with “is” [empirical effects].

Therefore ‘God cause effect B’ makes no sense, i.e. it is non-sense in terms of empirical-rational reality.

The only sense ‘God cause effect B’ has is in the psychological sense since it is the psychological sense [re Hume] that trigger it.

As I had always stated, the only real basis of ‘God exists’ is merely psychological and has nothing to do directly within an empirical-rational reality.

Oh really.

[b]Can you name something known to exist yet has no affect upon anything at all?

Can you name anything that has affect upon something yet is known to not exist?[/b]

Who is actually the shallow one here.
:laughing:

It’s amusing that you revere Hume and Kant so much. Neither were the greatest philosophers in the world. But then for those of you who cannot think for yourselves, I guess you have to turn to someone. The sad thing is that you can’t seem to understand any of them, yet still preach their names from your little soapbox, hoping to leech an ounce of respect.

But since logic is new to you, let me remind you of a common logic fallacy which you tend to ignore:

“It’s true cuz my smart man said it’s true”.

And since you spout Science as the new savior of humanity, let me remind you:
The foundation of Science and the motto of the Royal Science of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, the oldest such society still in existence.
Nullius in Verba
“Take No one’s Word”

If you can’t figure it out for yourself, who are you but someone else’s preacher?

It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullius_in_verba

That last part is important James.

Quite true.
Did you do any of the experiments?
Did Prism?
Or have you both merely taken their word for it?

Hundreds of people saw Jesus walk on the water.
Millions prayed and got their wish.
So do you believe them?

And btw since you have tossed your hat in,

[b]Can you name something known to exist yet has no affect upon anything at all?

Can you name anything that has affect upon something yet is known to not exist?[/b]

Me too. I’ve always had an aversion to authority.

Still, in the broadest sense, any ontological assessment must eventually come around to the part where any actual God and any actual human interactions are probed and understood.

And then judged?

The part that you speak of here, while important technically of course, is of less interest to me.

My “thing” here is more to explore the extent which the technical arguments make contact with conflicting human behaviors that [on threads like this one] are interwined in turn in conjectures about God and religion.

Again, there’s what any particular individual thinks is real “in her head”, and her capacity to demonstrate that it is in fact real for all other rational human beings.

Really, when you think about it, what else do we have?

It still seems to me that Kant “analyzed” a transcending font into existence, because without one there would be no actual foundation for his deontological morality. Which particular behaviors could be demonstrated categorically and imperatively to be the right ones without an omniscient and omnipotent frame of mind able to resolve any conflicting assessments among mere mortals?

To me this basically revolves around either agreeing or not agreeing with the definition and the meaning that Kant gave to the words in his argument. What’s crucial is that there is nothing “out in the world” that he was able to attach this analysis to. What actual evidence can be tested? What actual experiments can be performed and then replicated by others? What actual predictions can be made regarding human interactions?

The difficulty I have with this is that I find it hard to understand what it means as it is applicable to an actual existing existential crisis. From my frame of mind, the “angst” that permeates a crisis embedded in an issue like abortion revolves around conflicting goods. Reasonable arguments can be made for bringing the baby to term. Reasonable arguments can be made for granting women the right to terminate the life of the baby.

Then what:

Then you concoct a frame of mind to make this angst go away: objectivism.

You convince yourself that there are no conflicting goods. Instead, if you embrace the right philosophy or the right God or the right political ideology or the right description of nature, then you can truly know what you are obligated to do.

From my frame of mind, this frame of mind is just a way to avoid bringing God down out of the clouds of abstraction. Whereas in the context above, you either lie or you do not lie to the murderer. And God then either figures into your choice or He doesn’t.

Technically, this is either true or it is not true. But it does not alter the fate of the woman if you tell the murderer where she is hiding. Instead, it seems to take the gut-wrenching agony of that choice up into the stratosphere of abstraction. All these technical points are batted back and forth…but the woman is either dead or she is not.

Whereas from my frame of mind, you will choose a behavior here predicated largely on the accumulation of experiences in your life that predispose you to go in one rather than another direction. It will all revolve around your own understanding of the situation. Who is this woman? Do you know her? Do you love her? Do you care if she is murdered? Has the murderer threatened to kill you if you don’t talk? What are the actual perceived consequences of going one way or the other?

In other words, a profoundly problematic existential contraption.

Yet you are assuming that intellectual integrity here revolves around the assumption that you have in fact proven your point. But your point is [from my frame of mind] just another intellectual contraption that in no way is able to grasp the totality of existence itself. And God is certainly one possible explanation for existence.

How on earth then have you demonstrated that in fact God is not the explanation?

Again: the staggering gap that almost certainly exists between what you construe “empirical rational reality” to be [here and now] on a cosmological scale and what any particular mere mortal must know to make that gap go away.

In other words:

To the extent that you do not construe this is be just an “intellectual contraption” vis a vis the “rational empirical reality” one would need to know in order to encompass an ontological – teleological? – understanding of Existence, is the extent to which you fail to grasp my own point here.

In other words, not acknowledging this crucial gap does not make it go away.

Okay, but what then is the original basis of human psychology? Again, we don’t even know definitively if it is not just embedded autonomically in the immutable laws of matter that encompass the human brain.

Let alone where the debate regarding God/No God fits into it.

Explain to me then how the Eastern philosophies are any less ignorant of whatever the explanation is for Existence rather than No Existence. For this Existence rather than some other.

And benign in what particular context regarding what particular behaviors that come into conflict over what particular assumptions regarding what particular God/No God.

How does this not come down to making an existential/political distinction between “one of us” [who are benign] and “one of them” [who are malignant]?

Again though:

Beyond the intellectual assumptions that you make in your argument/analysis, how have you demonstrated that rational men and women are obligated to believe you?

And if the psychology here is a compulsion then how would it not become the explanation for why folks seem compelled to embody it? Then it just comes down to the extent to which this compulsion is a manifestation of a wholly determined universe.

Either created or not created by a God, the God. A God, the God either compelled to create it as it is or not.