Is God Dead?

[Liberal]

@FordPrefect

In the words of Dirk Gently, “Which god, and why?”

I know that you prefer the Ontological argument for the why. But what about the which?

I’m going to give you first a short answer, and then a longer answer. Short answer: there is no which.

Longer answer: The question of “which” is born of the nature of subjective reference frames. Five blind men might describe an elephant very differently, depending on where each is standing. The accessibility relation that proves necessary existence is true is Euclidean, meaning that perceptions of God will vary from world to world, depending on the rules of those worlds. But it is a logical fallacy to presume from that a biconditional implication that there are many Gods. Many perceptions does not mean there are many Gods any more than many perceptions of Mona Lisa means there are many Mona Lisas. Just because A -> B does not mean that B -> A.

If, for example, you have never experienced snow, you will not imagine that snow is necessary (let alone actual or possible) — after all, you’ve existed without it. It doesn’t make sense that in a world (like ours) where the circumference of a circle cannot possible be pi times its diameter (our universe is curved), anyone would demand that God create such a circle, despite that it is an analytic truth, because if He were to do so, none of us could perceive it. The rules of our world preclude us from the experience. It is not a limitation of God, but a limitation of our perception.

Consider a poster, for example, say, Polycarp. Perceptions of him range from near hero worship to near hatred. (Recall the now banned hard atheist fellow who followed Poly from thread to thread attacking him with selected scriptures about Jesus being a monster and so forth.) Just because there are many perceptions of Poly does not mean there are many Polys.

So, the question of which God is in fact a question of which perception of God. There is no contradiction that many perceptions exist any more than there is a contradiction that a hub has many spokes. Even if your perception is that He does not exist while my perception is that He is love, both our perceptions are valid since both are born of our subjective experiences. Your consciousness is closed to me. Owing to the nature of our universe, two objects cannot experience the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same place. Likewise, my consciousness is closed to you.

You cannot see things from my point of view. (Although you can possibly get close if your experiences have been similar.) Therefore, we all are unique. (Which incidentally and interestingly makes us all the same, or identical, in the eyes of God — an objective, not subjective, reference frame: wRv & wRu -> v=u, the CD Axiom.)

[Liberal]

@sweetfreak

Well, for you to have existed, their existence was necessary.

Exactly what my response was going to be.

Really, don’t we have to prove whether there is or is not a supreme being before we ask whether he is dead or not? I like my questions answered in chronological order.

Yes. And me too.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Merkwurdigliebe

Yes and we we couldn’t believe how little he was!

About 4 feet tall, if I remember my “Kids in the Hall” correctly?

[calm_kiwi]

@EvanS

Actually, a lot of people ***claimed ** * God made his presence known all the time in the Old Testament.

If you look around, today (what are we now, post New-Testament?), there’s still lots of people claiming God is making his presence known.

In fact, after the recent tsunami, there were a whole slew of “prophets” saying that the God of Judeo-Christianity smote the mostly Muslim countries around the Indian Ocean the day after His son’s birthday in punishment for something the Muslims have done recently… see?

Ev

Did these “prophets” take in to account the non muslim countries affected?

[Loopydude]

A kind of blog I’m fond of for their attitude, if nothing else, is the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic (“We don’t know, and we don’t care”…sums up my outlook precisely, fwiw, and, of course, reveals my bias).

I think this critique of Anselm’s argument is pretty interesting.

It should be noted that Malcom and Plantinga have a differing oppinion. For myself, I can never get past the “necessity” angle. I simply don’t see how refusing to accept without some evidence that God is a “necessary being” equates to an unequivocable assertion that God does not exist. It’s creating a false dilemma for the agnostic, as far as I can tell. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how I read it. Same goes for Plantinga, essentially. Why is it “necessary” for a “maximally great” being to have all the attributes we normally associate with God. Sure, we can dream up this Maximally Great being, but just because we can think of it, we don’t magically conjure into existence a world where this being exists. We don’t really know if such a world is possible or not. Besides, must we all agree on what the true attributes of this “maximally great” truly are? A maximally great being simply must have “moral perfection”? What is moral perfection, anyway? He insists you accept a certain definition of God, and that the existence of such a being is possible. From there, it follows it is necessary, or the agnostic must admit they assert God is impossible. I just don’t see it. And, as the author of the article himself points out, Plantinga acknowledges one needn’t accept his first premise. In other words, you alreayd have to believe in God to prove it. Tautology, through and through.

The last paragraph, I think, is rather telling:

I have never met a person who was convinced to believe in God by studying the finer points of the ontological argument. Nonetheless, I think there can be some significant insights we can learn from this argument. Karl Barth suggested that the Anselm’s ontological argument is not an attempt to persuade atheists to believe in God, but that it is a devotional exercise for those who already have faith in God. Although I think that Barth misses Anselm’s overall aim, there is an important aspect of personal reflection that I think theists, atheists, and agnostics can all benefit by pondering the definition of God as a being which none greater can be conceived. The important questions the ontological argument makes us face are: What do I mean by the word “God”? Is God’s existence possible or impossible? Is it possible for God not to exist? Is belief in God irrational? The answers to these momentous questions I will leave up to you to decide.

I think the gist of this statement is “you can’t use pure logical thought to prove God’s existence, but if you believe in God, these proofs are logical”.

How perfectly circular.

[ParentalAdvisory]

@EvanS

Let’s try “whose,” does that work? (As in “whose shoes are there?”)

:smack:

Vowels are expensive these days.

[Liberal]

@Loopydude

I simply don’t see how refusing to accept without some evidence that God is a “necessary being” equates to an unequivocable assertion that God does not exist.

Well, it doesn’t equate immediately, in the sense of “It is possible that God does not exist; therefore, God does not exist.” But it equates after a logically valid chain of inferences. Consider the Modal Ontological Proof, whose first premise is ~~G (or <>G). If that premise is changed to ~G (or <>~G), then the conclusion reached is the opposite: rather than G, you get ~G. So if you say that it is not necessary that a necessary being exists, you must eventually conclude that it cannot exist.

[Loopydude]

O.K. I see how it follows, but nearly all the arguments follow logically from the premises, the formulators being brilliant thinkers and all.

Again, the difficulty is in the premises, which, as far as I can tell, are insuluble. Oh well. I can’t sum it up any better than the cite of Oppy’s objection to Plantinga, which, I think, appears sound enough. Belief in God leads logically to belief, and not to not. A hopeless exercise for the undecided.

[FordPrefect]

@Liberal

Longer answer: The question of “which” is born of the nature of subjective reference frames. Five blind men might describe an elephant very differently, depending on where each is standing. The accessibility relation that proves necessary existence is true is Euclidean, meaning that perceptions of God will vary from world to world, depending on the rules of those worlds. But it is a logical fallacy to presume from that a biconditional implication that there are many Gods. Many perceptions does not mean there are many Gods any more than many perceptions of Mona Lisa means there are many Mona Lisas. Just because A -> B does not mean that B -> A.

If the various perceptions are occurring in spatially different areas, like the five blind men perceiving five different elephants, then there could be many Mona Lisas. Since we can’t assume A -> B does not mean B -> A does it in the end preclude B -> A?

If, for example, you have never experienced snow, you will not imagine that snow is necessary (let alone actual or possible) — after all, you’ve existed without it. It doesn’t make sense that in a world (like ours) where the circumference of a circle cannot possible be pi times its diameter (our universe is curved), anyone would demand that God create such a circle, despite that it is an analytic truth, because if He were to do so, none of us could perceive it. The rules of our world preclude us from the experience. It is not a limitation of God, but a limitation of our perception.

The rules of our world, or our universe? We wouldn’t perceive it because it wouldn’t be a circle. I don’t see any special knowledge in pi other than it being a ratio from diameter to circumference for a set of points at equal radii from one specific point on one plane. Unless there is math in higher dimensions that changes this, but in a Euclidean universe as you mentioned above, this is a circle. I won’t be so bold as to make the claim, but it seems axiomatic to me.

So, the question of which God is in fact a question of which perception of God. There is no contradiction that many perceptions exist any more than there is a contradiction that a hub has many spokes. Even if your perception is that He does not exist while my perception is that He is love, both our perceptions are valid since both are born of our subjective experiences.

Assuming that supreme existence is a singular entity rather than a collection of supreme entities. However, as you perceive, I am a weak atheist, who used to be an evangelical Christian. Yeah, I know, from bad to worse I wouldn’t say I perceive that God doesn’t exist, but I don’t have any perceptions of existence. Just as I don’t recall the hard atheist that harassed Polycarp, it doesn’t mean that atheist didn’t exist.

Your consciousness is closed to me. Owing to the nature of our universe, two objects cannot experience the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same place. Likewise, my consciousness is closed to you.

This is where my Christianity fell for me. It is true that two objects can’t experience the exactly same thing at the same time in the same place, however, I think we can perceive extremely similar things from extremely near places, such as you and I are in this universe. And if God, in any meaningful sense, as in an afterlife, desires (I am not saying you are making this claim) my worship and obedience, then I would expect that God to make it extremely simple to be aware of His existence to everyone on this planet.

You cannot see things from my point of view.

Truer words have not been spoken of me Thanks for your detailed reply. I enjoy the occasional Liberal mindbend more than I should It is almost as much fun as an evening of martinis. A lot cheaper, but not much easier on the head.

(Although you can possibly get close if your experiences have been similar.) Therefore, we all are unique. (Which incidentally and interestingly makes us all the same, or identical, in the eyes of God — an objective, not subjective, reference frame: wRv & wRu -> v=u, the CD Axiom.)

The same goes for bacteria? I will have to find a source for formal logic symbols.
P.S. Thanks Loopydude for that link.