…that’s the age-old question, right there.
That’s personal to the individual, but I’m sure if you ask nicely someone might tell…
Leibniz said that God is the creator, that God is good, and that God is omnipotent? like I put forth -as a proposition- earlier in this thread.
Atheists certainly don’t.
Who doesn’t like the thought?
Well, I would dispute this. In order to formulate an opinion on it, which atheists by definition do, you have to think it.
Apparently and to my surprise, a great many people.
To be perfectly honest with you here, having the opinions of one such as Leibniz all written down in volumes, I don’t often find myself needing to ask too many people. I enjoy discussing Leibniz, though.
He said a lot of other things too, most of them pretty great.
He might as well have said that God is beyond everything, even beyond the beyond? Of anything anyone could think of, beyond anything seen or unseen way beyond any tonight or sense.
Maybe that implied there is nothingness beyond , …and that nothingness while it is something, it too is beyond
What if anything beyond this here place and time is so beyond comprehension that only a god could ever account fir ut?
(The point being is that only something super extraordinary could move anything beyond this here point in space and time)
And that implies that the beyond this point in space and time only, that super agent - agency can move anything behind here and now and he is bith: a kind unmoved moved and an un kind evil jenious combined.
They push the point, this point against each other and that is how reality is created seemingly moving at an exceedingly slow rate.
Evil and good make things appear as if tremendous forces pressing reality from either side result in an artificially simulated loveable world possible?
And the corollary to that is if the evil one or the good one stopped pushing against each other the world, are leaf as we mow know and understand it would cease to exist?
How so?
Unless you mean he never gives a basis for substance of God, which he doesn’t, because substance isn’t an actual thing beyond a thought. Perhaps you mean matter? I don’t see any claim in Leibniz that God is matter.
God is beyond nothing. He is right there, when you think of him.
So, is it a claim of God that is not bearing out, or an imaginary criteria that you are imposing?
Why don’t we start with you putting forward what substance is. You might as well be saying that substance is beyond everything, even beyond the beyond, of anything one could think of, beyond anything seen or unseen way beyond any (???) or sense.
Except God doesn’t make the claims substance makes, so he’s not, in fact, beyond any thought, but in many thoughts.
The claims substance makes is that it exists beyond existence. Which is preposterous. But some people need magic, superstition is an old disease.
God exists, within existence, as shown by the fact that in a thought of god, God is there.
Atheists simply do not believe in god… you are free to tell atheists otherwise though, as you seem to have created a paradox in your head.
You said: “If you don’t like the thought, you don’t need to think it.”
There is no opinion to formulate on it for atheists, because there is [literally] nothing for atheists to think about in their mind.
Why are you surprised by that?
Leibniz defined god as “an absolutely perfect being”, and who thus knows what is best, always acts in the best way.
I wonder how he came to think (know?} that?
Well we cannot know those things for sure… hence proposition rather than fact, but Leibniz is certainly not alone in having had those thoughts… as is evident in this thread.
From PN:
Indeed, and I really appreciate those like you who create threads like this. Why? Because few things fascinate me more than contemplating how existence itself came to exist at all.
In fact, contemplating this is so utterly mind-boggling, it’s still the closest I can now come to God. Him/Her/It being one possible explanation for existence, right? Until, again, you start to wonder if God too popped into existence out of nothing at all or has always existed.
No, what I question here are the limitations of logic in regard to such things as morality and religion and those really big metaphysical questions.
Logic revolves around the rules of language. But human beings themselves…where do they fit into the complete understanding of existence itself? How on Earth can we determine if the human brain is even capable of grasping that?
Webster’s dictionary: “a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration: the science of the formal principles of reasoning”
A priori and a posteriori, how would we go about validating what we think is logically true here? Again, empirically, materially, phenomenologically.
Mathematics, science, and philosophy all intertwined in the definitive explanation?
And, for some here, theology?
Because my main interest in philosophy revolves around how others close the gap between what they think is true “in their head” about things like morality and religion and the Big Questions and what they can demonstrate using the tools of philosophy – the philosophical equivalent of the scientific method – all others are obligated to believe in turn if they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.
If all one is interested in is noting a “flaw” in the language used to explain something, then the exchange can go on and on and on up in the didactic clouds that revolve around definitions and deductions.
But how is that connected to the physics, the chemistry and [with us] the biology of existence itself?
Though I’m the first to admit that my own speculations here seem able to be nothing more than my own “wild-ass guess”.
Edit:
On the other hand, what constitutes showing us something like that?
It’s not like someone can create a YouTube video for something like this. Or provide us with a mathematical equation that all rational men and women are able to concur establishes whether existence did in fact come into existence out of nothing at all…or was always around. Or that it is possible for something to come from nothing. Or link their “world of words” logical conclusion to unequivocal physical, material, phenomenological evidence.
Or not that I am aware of.
Atheists can believe whatever they want, but in order to formulate an opinion on whether they believe in God or not, in order for the belief to exist or not, the thought of God has to precede it. Otherwise it would be an absurdity, they don’t believe in, period. You cannot add “God,” as in they don’t believe in God, because that would have to mean that they considered God, which means they thought of God.
This would be the case for someone that never knew religion, not for someone that rejected it.
It seems a decidedly arbitrary thought to choose to dislike.
The way he put it, because the very idea of a perfect being is formulatable, the proposition must be considered. If there is an absolutely perfect being, what would that entail?
The first thing an absolutely perfect being would entail is that he would have to exist, because if he didn’t exist, he would be less than perfect. So an absolutely perfect being exists.
Sure God makes no claims maybe only by revelation
Again no disagreement there: a perfection can not entail any thing. , and not because It doesn’t exist, but because It is invisible and indivisible.
Okay, in the interim, let’s consider the above.
Now, either this absolutely perfect being popped into existence out of nothing at all or He/She/It has always existed.
Okay, how would those who believe one or the other go about demonstrating it beyond a “world of words” in which they just define and deduce and “think” this absolutely perfect being into existence? Or, if you’re someone like MagsJ, you fall back on your “intrinsic self” to settle these things.
Then the part that is of particular interest to me…
Reconciling what you construe to be an absolutely perfect being with this:
“…an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events…making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages.”
Iambigious says:
"Now, either this absolutely perfect being popped into existence out of nothing at all or He/She/It has always existed.
Okay, how would those who believe one or the other go about demonstrating it beyond a “world of words” in which they just define and deduce and “think” this absolutely perfect being into existence? Or, if you’re someone like MagsJ, you fall back on your “intrinsic self” to settle these things."
me no says:
" I see the point. To fall back is the issue, the context that this can be attempted as a minimal start ;
Roll back into the word of Word that began the inquiry, is beyond the scope of anyone alive since the beginning through now. So that is why we roll back to the context-vantage point of the sensible , albeit definitive struggle apparently proceeded from the opposition between the great believer Socrates/Plato and the Evil genius.
That earthshaking struggle still fixes the continuous conflict between those who think they see the light : the bible thumpers, and those who actually have gone through that confusing duplex.
The bible thumped are a misnomer really, since they really intend to take the word on face value, as THE WORD was meant to transmit in to the rolled back situation.
Before the second of particular interest, let’s break OK?
Please, Mr. Sokal! Enough is enough!! 
Makes claims. Just not to substance, not to something that exists out of the thought. Not as a requirement to be.
That it entails that the being would have to exist is something, not nothing, so clearly we disagree.
As far as You’re concerned. Something told me to start with what You consider to be of special interest. Could we begin with that? Are You still interested in my take on it?
Signed: me no sokol
Being does have to exist as something other than ‘being in It’s self’ is true, but it’s non existence may not be perceived/understood as for the other, may not necessarily be true fir the other.
So I understand You, even if You do not .
To no me is to love me no (t)?
“The way he put it, because the very idea of a perfect being is formulatable, the proposition must be considered. If there is an absolutely perfect being, what would that entail?”
how can a proposition be reducible to a formulation"
“To assert that conclusion if not absurd on it’s face, it certainly leads to that conclusion”
And at this point saying who said this or what? Is totally UN necessary.
Jus’sayin’
As much as I fully understand what you are stating here, I cannot agree… the paradox ensues… because your words continue to hold no weight, as the same can be said of dragons, or winged angels, or time travel…
Some believe in the notion of, say… reincarnation, and others do not… the word exists, and yet nothing is provable beyond the word ‘reincarnation’.
Yes… I had the former in mind, the latter would correspond with your thinking on the matter of this inquiry, and so make more sense of your statements of fact.
You say dislike, I’ll go with disbelieve… there is proof of disbelief, but not of dislike.
Re. the former… it must?
Re. the latter… benevolence …as what good would the worlds’ ’figurehead’ do without it… hypothetically speaking.