Are you Certain There is no God?

[viole]

Don't understand. Please explain more.

I know God does not exist, in the same way I know there are no violations in the constancy of the speed of light.
Did I check every corner of the Universe for such violations? Nope. In fact, knowledge does not entail certainty.

It could be that in the future we find out that my knowledge was wrong, but that does not constitute a good reason for me to not claiming knowledge of these things.

Ciao

- viola

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I know God does not exist, in the same way I know there are no violations in the constancy of the speed of light.
Did I check every corner of the Universe for such violations? Nope. In fact, knowledge does not entail certainty.

It could be that in the future we find out that my knowledge was wrong, but that does not constitute a good reason for me to not claiming knowledge of these things.

Ciao

- viola

You still haven't explained what you mean by know. You say that you know but you don't explain, how you know.

If you want me to be able to understand how you know, not what you know, you have to explain how you know.

 

[viole]

You still haven't explained what you mean by know. You say that you know but you don't explain, how you know.

I don't know. I just know, you know?

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't know. I just know, you know?

Ciao

- viole

So you are in effect just an unreflected believer in knowledge. Okay.

 

[viole]

So you are in effect just an unreflected believer in knowledge. Okay.

Do you know how you know? For instance, how do you know there is no Superman, assuming you know that?

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Do you know how you know? For instance, how do you know there is no Superman, assuming you know that?

Ciao

- viole

I don't know anything other than tautologies and some forms of logic. I am a strong hardcore skeptic. I have a set of beliefs, which appears to work.

So here is a Superman, otherwise we wouldn't talk about Superman, The question is how you view your experiences of Superman compared to other experiences and how you classify your different experiences.
I.e. if there wasn't some form of Superman, we wouldn't talk about him. So off course you have an experience of Superman. The same with me.

 

[viole]

I don't know anything other than tautologies and some forms of logic. I am a strong hardcore skeptic. I have a set of beliefs, which appears to work.

Very good. So, you are agnostic about x, if x is not a tautology, for all x.
Ergo, knowledge does not exist, if not for analytical things.

Well, then the sentence "scientific knowledge" is an oxymoron for you, right?

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Very good. So, you are agnostic about x, if x is not a tautology, for all x.
Ergo, knowledge does not exist, if not for analytical things.

Well, then the sentence "scientific knowledge" is an oxymoron for you, right?

Ciao

- viole

Yes.
Science is to me a human belief system that works in limited sense for some parts of the apparent everyday world.
The main limits are the inability to do these using science :
Morality and politics.
Actual human usefulness.
Aesthetics.
Metaphysics as such including but not limited to the idea of a metaphysical form of idealism including a certain subset of creator god(s) and related ideas.

I can in the everyday sense use the word "know", but when we do this as a gnostic versus an agnostic and skeptic, I go epistemology as a skeptic.

 

[viole]

Yes.
Science is to me a human belief system that works in limited sense for some parts of the apparent everyday world.
The main limits are the inability to do these using science :
Morality and politics.
Actual human usefulness.
Aesthetics.
Metaphysics as such including but not limited to the idea of a metaphysical form of idealism including a certain subset of creator god(s) and related ideas.

I can in the everyday sense use the word "know", but when we do this as a gnostic versus an agnostic and skeptic, I go epistemology as a skeptic.

Good, I am not a global skeptic. For me knowledge makes sense, even thought I could be wrong about things I claim to know. Again, knowledge does not entail certainty. And given this, my knowledge that there is no God is the same as the knowledge that there are no invisible fairies in my garden.

Ciao

- viole

 

[PureX]

For instance, relativity, quantum mechanics, inflation theory, etc? For instance, do you understand how permanent new matter can be generated by vacuum fluctuations near a strong gravitational source?

Do you understand that these are irrelevant to the question of existential origin?

Just sayin'.

 

[viole]

Do you understand that these are irrelevant to the question of existential origin?

Just sayin'.

But not to the origin of matter, which is what has been asked.

By the way, I would not be so sure. If relativity is correct, for instance, then the word "origin" would be meaningless.

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Good, I am not a global skeptic. For me knowledge makes sense, even thought I could be wrong about things I claim to know. Again, knowledge does not entail certainty. And given this, my knowledge that there is no God is the same as the knowledge that there are no invisible fairies in my garden.

Ciao

- viole

Well, to me you are conflating 2 different categories: Metaphysics and epistemology, but that is me.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But not to the origin of matter, which is what has been asked.

By the way, I would not be so sure. If relativity is correct, for instance, then the word "origin" would be meaningless.

Ciao

- viole

No, it is metaphysics, not science. Science is the assumption that reality is natural. That is not the knowledge that reality is natural. Further there is no strong scientific theory of the origin of the universe. There are hypothesis in theoretical physics, but that is no science as say some aspects of biology.

 

[viole]

No, it is metaphysics, not science. Science is the assumption that reality is natural. That is not the knowledge that reality is natural. Further there is no strong scientific theory of the origin of the universe. There are hypothesis in theoretical physics, but that is no science as say some aspects of biology.

You are conflating "origin" with "metaphysics". The question of origins can be very physical.

For instance, if spacetime is as in special relativity, then the Universe did not have an origin. It would be completely a-temporal and eternal.

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You are conflating "origin" with "metaphysics". The question of origins can be very physical.

For instance, if spacetime is as in special relativity, then the Universe did not have an origin. It would be completely a-temporal and eternal.

Ciao

- viole

You are in effect treating methodological naturalism as philosophical/metaphysical naturalism and/or doing naive empiricism.
You can do that, but it amounts to a belief that is not different than the belief in a creator God. Both are unknown.

In practice I aspect science as it works in an everyday sense, but differentiate when it is used to do general philosophy as metaphysics.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I am certain there is no good reason for me to believe in God.

Why?
I see no reason to believe anything in the Bible.
I see no reason to believe that God communicates to us either individually or through messengers.

One can of course choose to believe otherwise but there is no argument or evidence which compels one to make either choice. Right?

The choice to believe in these things, like the Bible is purely arbitrary.
Why I don't believe is the same reason I don't believe Harry Potter is anything more than a fictional character, I've no reason to.

Do you feel compelled to believe in God?
Do you feel belief is necessary?

I don't see it but perhaps you can explain it.

I do feel compelled to believe in God, but that is because of my experience of being conscious in a dynamic Whole that I cannot be completely aware of.

 

[viole]

You are in effect treating methodological naturalism as philosophical/metaphysical naturalism and/or doing naive empiricism.
You can do that, but it amounts to a belief that is not different than the belief in a creator God. Both are unknown.

In practice I aspect science as it works in an everyday sense, but differentiate when it is used to do general philosophy as metaphysics.

Again, the beginning of X entails time. The same with causality. Not only that, but a time with a certain direction (from so called past to future).

And time is physical. And if we take relativity at face value, time is a mere illusion, and the Universe never began to exist. But even if there was a time somehow, its direction is a macroscopic effect. It is statistics, basically. Ergo, requires a macroscopic something to emerge and cannot therefore be used to assess the origin of that something.

That is the problem with metaphysics. It pants and sweats to keep up with physics. Hopelessly.

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Again, the beginning of X entails time. The same with causality. Not only that, but a time with a certain direction (from so called past to future).

And time is physical. And if we take relativity at face value, time is a mere illusion, and the Universe never began to exist. But even if there was a time somehow, its direction is a macroscopic effect. It is statistics, basically. Ergo, requires a macroscopic something to emerge and cannot therefore be used to assess the origin of that something.

That is the problem with metaphysics. It pants and sweats to keep up with physics. Hopelessly.

Ciao

- viole

Let's play this one part at a the time:

Are you the result of something else than you, i.e. you are the effect of a causation that is not you and which limits what you are and what you can do?

 

[Nakosis]

I do feel compelled to believe in God, but that is because of my experience of being conscious in a dynamic Whole that I cannot be completely aware of.

Then what is this God you believe in?

Could this conscious whole exist without God?

I'll admit to a similar experience. I just question question such an experience necessarily has anything to do with God.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Then what is this God you believe in?

Could this conscious whole exist without God?

I'll admit to a similar experience. I just question question such an experience necessarily has anything to do with God.

This conscious Whole is God.

Since "God" is often used to describe an all-powerful, omnipotent, and omnipresent creator being, this only makes sense if it is referring to the undivided Universal Whole of existence, whatever that is (it can never be actually described or experienced due to the need to dice it up into digestible chunks).

So as a conscious extension of this Whole, I can describe it as being conscious itself. This is God. I can accurately say that I am God, or you are God. My cat is God. That pile of raw sewage is God. Or rather, all pieces of God.