God most likely does not exist

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Well, the point is that existing isn't really a property of an object to be analyzed in the same manner as brown. To say that an object is brown is to really talk about the object, but to say that an object exists is really to talk about the occurrence of the object in reality. We couldn't define a unicorn to exist by a definition, but we can define them to have horns.

And the issues of modality end up being different. There is a modal logic ontological argument, and it itself has the same kind of problem as other existing ones.


..... The Gaunilo's Island objection is phil of religion 101.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/ont-arg/#SH2b


An infinite causal chain?? That's simply refusing to accept the definition of the first cause, but issues of necessity aren't that heavily related.


So.... your comments are pointless? The entire discussion about the first cause is a discussion about the cosmological argument. Trying to throw in "Well, God is necessary by the ontological argument" really doesn't do much.


The problem is that with sufficient cleverness, any fool can make the argument that the universe is. As Gaunilo showed a long time ago, basically, you can easily modify the first part to refer to any object.


Ok, but whose to say what it creates and what it doesn't? A clever person can usually find all sorts of loopholes. First off, does a first cause have to create time? No, it has to exist in the first moment of time. Issues of creating time create all sorts of causal problems anyway. It doesn't really have to create physics either. Physics could concurrently exist, in a cause that exists in the first moment of time. I mean, let's just face it, there is nothing more absurd about a first moment of time, than that a first moment has to be created, and there is nothing more absurd about physics that just exists than there is about a being by whose nature physics can be brought into being.

I agree with you that existence is not a "property" of an object like brownness is. However, I don't think that all predicates need to be properties. What about the predicate "is hated by Bob"? If I tell you that Kevin satisfies "is hated by Bob", then I haven't told you anything about the properties of Kevin. But it's still a perfectly sensible predicate, and it can be used without hesitation in a logic argument.



As far as I understand the argument, it has a serious problem. The problem is that "maximally great being" can be unpacked in a reasonable way, but "maximally great island" can't be. Consider the question:

It's a ridiculous question that immediately makes you suspicious of the concept "maximally great island". But can you give me an equivalently silly question about the concept "maximally great being"?



I'm trying to address the idea that "The universe just exists" is just as good an explanation as "God created the universe". I don't think that's true. The second explanation grounds the contingent in the necessary. It puts everything on a firm foundation.



Physics cannot "just exist". Physics is contingent, and every contingent thing requires a cause.

what makes you think there is a firm foundation?

now unfortunately i cannot remember the name of the model but there is one that basically balls up all of reality in a self contained geometry before the big bang,
the big bang simply marks the change where all dimensions exist equally at the same time to where they start resolving among themselves, that effect of resolving is time.
no god nor anything outside current existence is neccesary.

i will see if i can find the actual model so people dont have to use my dubious understanding of it as fact.

**edit**

the model is the no boundary proposal by hawking and hartle

"The Hartle-Hawking state is a proposal concerning the state of the universe prior to the Planck epoch. Hartle-Hawking is essentially a no-boundary proposal that the universe is infinitely finite: that there was no time before the Big Bang because time did not exist before the formation of spacetime associated with the Big Bang and subsequent expansion of the universe in space and time.

James Hartle and Stephen Hawking suggest that if we could travel backward in time toward the beginning of the universe, we would note that quite near what might have otherwise been the beginning, time gives way to space such that at first there is only space and no time. Beginnings are entities that have to do with time; because time did not exist before the Big Bang, the concept of a beginning of the universe is meaningless. According to the Hartle-Hawking proposal, the universe has no origin as we would understand it: the universe was a singularity in both space and time, pre-Big Bang. Thus, the Hartle-Hawking state universe has no beginning, but it is not the steady state universe of Hoyle; it simply has no initial boundaries in time nor space."

now if my understanding is correct or not requires some more reading.

You just showed it does, and that it is a dumb way to attempt to get over the argument and thus not an actual explanation.

Technically it is - someone is calling you - but I know what you mean! It is not only beings that progress (otherwise we'd not have beings in the first place).
The worrying part is when you start wondering what the difference is between a sentient being and a mass of chemically active proteins, fats and sugars in the shape of a human.



You don't understand what atheism is. In order to believe God is dead, one must first assume God's existence. Dead and non-existent are not equivalent.

"hated by Bob" still doesn't work as a predicate for the purposes you need for an ontological argument, otherwise you can make an ontological argument from how an existing Kevin is MORE hated by Bob than a non-existent Kevin.


You're engaging in special pleading. A maximally great island can be aesthetically optimal and thus have an optimal number of trees for maximal aesthetic pleasure. What's the optimal personality though for the maximally great being? The optimal desires? Does this being have a body, or no? Does this being like human beings, or want nothing to do with them? What's the optimal cognitive structure?

Not only that, but what about a maximally horrible being? A maximally horrific being is really very very similar to a maximally great being, just maximally evil. So, by that logic, we then have an evil God. Seriously, just cross examine your own favored argument, and you see it's really easily thrown off the tracks and involves a lot of questionable assumptions.


The issue is that unless the ontological argument holds, the latter explanation doesn't do very well. The ontological argument probably doesn't hold though.


No, contingent things don't require causes. They may require sufficient reasons, but physics can exist for all time.

Nicely done. Go girl!! !!

How can that which does not currently exist and that which has never existed - be dead?
Some Atheists have proclaimed that 'God is dead' but it is inaccurate to suggest that all atheists would make such an illogical statement.

I don't know what to respond to here so I will raise another point: God is teh personification of goof by man. Yet people kill others enforcing it on others. See the flaw with this?

Why are people who dont believe in god talking about him so much

about him? Rather about the belief in it.

Even if we assumed that evolution was random (it isn't).

Shuffle a deck of 52 cards. Calculate the probability of getting the deck of cards you just got. Since the probability is low, you didn't really get the deck of cards :/ That's Behe for you. The ultimate proof (and shame to all of us mathematicians) that mathematicians ought to avoid getting their heads in topics they don't understand long before finishing understanding their own

I think "God is dead" is simply about people who have stopped believing. Because their idea of God has "died".

I like the analogy because it's rebelling against the long religious traditions. "We" do not "need" God anymore because we have alternative views on the world that make a "God" redundant.

If god is real and created the universe what created god? What happened before that? If it was true was there a god before him or her or it that created it? And if god is real I do not think such a being would come in the form of a human, but I guess in a way of a universally supernatural matrix of the universe. Or in a way a moderator of space time and living things themselves but such an idea or hypothesis would be crazy and cannot truly be proven.

Woofer123, I have not read all responses so this is more a response
to your post and not to the whole thread. Sorry.

I agree with most of what you say there.
Most likely there is no such god that believers believe in.

But what if God is more like Art or Music or a metaphor
for something else and that exists but get referred to as God.

God could be a biological tendency to believe in Humanity
a kind of generalized Tribalism? "Here is neither Greek nor Jew
man or woman we are all one in Jesus" or whatever that text claim.

Religion often claim to be dominating. You are either with us or against us.

There is only one name Jesus that can save you. Similar claims for
other religious traditions.

I see it maybe even more like Sport or Game. Supporter of a Sport
or a Game tend to be very protective of their favored Sport.

No other Sport than the one they have chosen makes it for them.
Their choice of Sport is what save them from being a nobody.

When the Hero of their Sport score or win then they feel happy
and when their Team lost the Game then they feel miserable.
God could be a kind of "Live" that is taken for real.

Many believers actually say that their religion would be worthless
if it where not referring to something more real than reality itself.

God logically has to be the cause of all that exists and one of
their greatest taboo is that "man made God after human fashion".

Even atheists agree somewhat to that. Such a God is ridiculous
even to atheists. A man made god is only usable for mockery.

I am different in that like Music or Sport I can see some merit
even in a man made god if it is a good design that has the ability
to help somebody survive.

But like all tools it can be abused and exploited for political and
other reasons. Power games and personal emotional kicks.

My God is bigger than yours kind of thinking.

I think that if it is most likely that man made their gods then
we as humans are responsible for how we express these gods.

We ahve to construct them with more care than those existing now.