Stay under water for too long. Go out in the height of Summer without sunscreen. Hardmode: no water either. Take a casual stroll in Death Valley or the Sahara. Don't drink water for a week or so. Don't eat anything for a couple days. Lie on your back and cough wrong. Look at a gorilla the wrong way. Tickle a grizzly. Get a moose drunk.
Yes, as I've already explained (#336, #350), I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and got over it. If you really desire something, it's very easy to fool yourself into thinking you've found it.
Not in the same sense of the word as religious faith, no. A good 'secular' education will teach you to question things (which is part of how I escaped from faith).
What reason is there to think this is a real choice? I see nothing in people of faith that suggests that any of them have found something that is objectively real. Since their beliefs are contradictory, at least most of them have got a lot wrong.
You can't love something you have no reason to think exists.
Belief in a ready-made religion that one is born into isn't faith. Being educated by biased Atheist will just give you a pessimistic worldview which in the end is just another belief. Today education teaches people what to think, not how to think.
You were presented with a belief which you eventually rejected which may well have legitimate merit. But that's true of secular childhood elusions as well. If we are honest about it we are constantly updating of beliefs and concepts about reality. All conceptual frames, secular or religious are just the scaffolding that gets us to the next phase.
"The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.
The gods of primitive men may have been no more than shadows of themselves; the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute the creation shadows of all space." UB 1955
Stay under water for too long. Go out in the height of Summer without sunscreen. Hardmode: no water either. Take a casual stroll in Death Valley or the Sahara. Don't drink water for a week or so. Don't eat anything for a couple days. Lie on your back and cough wrong. Look at a gorilla the wrong way. Tickle a grizzly. Get a moose drunk.
I was presented with a belief but what convinced me was the experience. I believed absolutely that, as you put it, "Proof of God comes through experiencing God." - and that I'd genuinely experienced God. I was wrong.
Doesn't change the fact that it can happen. And then there are things completely out of our control at this point, like increasingly damaging and deadly severe weather. Life is always trying to find a way to kill us, not coddle us.
Stay under water for too long. Go out in the height of Summer without sunscreen. Hardmode: no water either. Take a casual stroll in Death Valley or the Sahara. Don't drink water for a week or so. Don't eat anything for a couple days. Lie on your back and cough wrong. Look at a gorilla the wrong way. Tickle a grizzly. Get a moose drunk.
Someone who has decided God is a psycho has his mind made up and is the one trolling Christians. There are dozens like you here on RF and they are only here for one reason. To tell Christians how wrong they are. If you think you are fooling anyone then you should be doing the rock kicking.
Water is unbreathable, the sun emits deadly radiation that also dehydrates us. Deserts are deadly. We require food and water. Our internal systems aren't the best designed ever, and often fatally flaw. Wildlife is deadly...
Life is a far cry from "it's designed to be sunshine and rainbows and provide you with happiness and joy"
Water is unbreathable, the sun emits deadly radiation that also dehydrates us. Deserts are deadly. We require food and water. Our internal systems aren't the best designed ever, and often fatally flaw. Wildlife is deadly...
Life is a far cry from "it's designed to be sunshine and rainbows and provide you with happiness and joy"
We live on an unremarkable planet of which there are hundreds at the very least the galaxy over. It sustains and prunes life, often in uneven measure. If it is designed, it is designed to kill as much as it provides. It's incredibly naïve to believe that Earth was divinely designed to do nothing but coddle us.
Sounds like someone can't back up their claims... Funny enough, the OP didn't single out Christians or your god when inviting discussion on the matter of theology.
We live on an unremarkable planet of which there are hundreds at the very least the galaxy over. It sustains and prunes life, often in uneven measure. If it is designed, it is designed to kill as much as it provides. It's incredibly naïve to believe that Earth was divinely designed to do nothing but coddle us.
Sounds like someone can't back up their claims... Funny enough, the OP didn't single out Christians or your god when inviting discussion on the matter of theology.
I’ve been living. Now is the time to live. One day I’ll die; then it will be time to die. But the inevitability of death does not diminish the miracle of life. Quite the opposite, I’d say.
Remarkability is what we make of it. The difference between us is that you expect this to be handed to you, to be Special and Beloved from creation. If you wish to be remarkable, work for it.
The arguments against an infinite past show (if correct) that the past can't be infinite. And yet, whatever begins to exist has a cause (so the universe cannot be uncaused). But if that's the case, then something must have caused the universe and at the same time be eternal (since something cannot come from nothing). But how can it be "eternal" if an infinite past is impossible? Easy! That eternity must be non-temporal/timeless. Therefore, the creator must be timeless. This demonstrates there is no non-sequitur.
You haven't proven that the universe cannot be uncaused, that it had a beginning, or that eternity can be timeless. Nor have you refuted the argument that Craig's conclusion isn't a non sequitur by virtue of either never considering the multiverse or unjustifiably dropping the multiverse from his analysis
The multiverse hypothesis is still on my list of candidate hypotheses for the origin of the universe, and in fact, sits higher on that list than the god hypothesis (which I have not unjustifiably dropped from my list) by Occam's principle of parsimony. The multiverse need not be sentient or purposive. It's a simpler answer than positing a sentient, volitional source.
The problem with Craig's analysis is that he is closed-minded. He begins by assuming that his god hypothesis is correct, then attempts to retrofit a premise that he hopes to pass as a conclusion by fashioning an argument that seems to lead to his "conclusion." It's the same error the intelligent design people made when they began their program with the assumption that they would find a god, and of course, with that mindset, they thought they did several times, and presented biological systems that they claimed were irreducibly complex, only to be shown that they were wrong in every case.
Craig is in the same boat. One cannot expect such a person to see that there are other interpretations of the evidence than his god claim. He sees them as wrong before beginning the process, and so naturally, they play no part in his thinking. That's a logical error.
In case you're wondering just how closed minded Craig is, consider these words from him:
"The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right..." - William Lane Craig
What's is he telling us there if not that his mind is permanently closed to any interpretation of reality inconsistent with his theology? Such a mind doesn't even consider the possibility of a multiverse, which is why he never mentions it or tries to rule it out, hence his non sequitur argument that jumps to the conclusion he prefers.
For those interested, I have a couple more examples of religious minds that have shut themselves off to evidence and reason:
The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, 'What would change your minds?' Scientist Bill Nye answered, 'Evidence.' Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, "Nothing. I'm a Christian." Elsewhere, Ham added, "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."
“If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa (would you like this guy as your accountant?)
“When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data. The only Bible-honoring conclusion is, of course, that Genesis 1-11 is actual historical truth, regardless of any scientific or chronological problems thereby entailed.” –creationist Henry Morris
You may challenge the premises (e.g., that an infinite past is impossible, that something coming from nothing is impossible, that whatever begins to exist has a cause), but then you're already conceding the point that P2 isn't a non-sequitur; you would simply be challenging the soundness of the premises.
The non sequitur occurs when jumping from the universe must have had a cause to "If the universe has a cause of its existence, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans creation is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful and intelligent." I've already mentioned that I see no reason that this source need be (or could be) extratemporal, nor need it be changeless. Add to that it being personal, a person. These are all assumptions that don't derive from what preceded in the argument, and thus are non sequiturs.
I chose not to challenge the soundness of the premises in this refutation of Kalam in my previous post, but that is easily done. It has not been established that either “Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence” or that “The universe began to exist.” There are other interpretations possible. Perhaps only our universe exists, and had existed as a singularity infinitely back in time before expanding. Perhaps that singularity and our universe did come into existence uncaused. How do you rule any of those ideas out? Craig seems to have done just that.
Remember, appealing to common sense isn't appropriate when considering universes, since common sense evolved in creatures that lived on a much smaller scale and only had to contend with finding food and shelter. The rules at the scale of the very large may be different as they are in the subatomic world. Common sense tells us nothing comes into existence uncaused, and that time cannot go back infinitely (how would you ever get to any moment if infinite time preceded it?), yet it seems that one of those must be the case if not something else presently inconceivable to us. I can't think of a third possibility, but I've just warned about relying on common sense when considering such issues, so I'm allowing for a third possibility despite not being able to saw what it could be. So, either something has always existed, or something came to exist uncaused - the two counterintuituve choices - or something not just counterintuitive, but inconceivable, is the case. The point is that we cannot justifiably rule out as much as Craig has in his premises.
It is true that material existence implies being in time since the temporal dimension is an essential property of the physical world. However, the same hasn't been demonstrated on the case of a supernatural deity that is radically different from the physical world.
Nothing need be demonstrated regarding the claims that a supernatural realm exists. It is merely an unsupported assertion that has the same kinds of logical inconsistencies in its formulation as the idea of existing, thinking, or acting outside of time has, but that would a digression as long as this discussion, so suffice it to say as Hitchens did (I'm paraphrasing) that what is asserted without evidence can be rejected without rebuttal.
You still haven't rebutted the contention that existence implies time. It's is unintelligible to assert that something exists, but doesn't subtend a series of consecutive moments in some time frame. You keep writing as if that were the case, but until you establish that the claim of creating out of time isn't self-contradictory, it's still my position, and no argument that depends on the premise that creation can occur out of time can be sound.
Regarding the claim that to create, God must be in time (before and after), Craig would reply the creation is simultaneous. God's act and the effect happen at the same time.
Simultaneity also implies time. And the word act also implies time.
It's also incoherent to call something an act of creation if there is not a state designated as prior and a different one as subsequent. God creating the universe by this reckoning is indistinguishable from God destroying it if one can't say that one preceded the other. Your metaphysics posits a god living out of time, yet somehow thinking, creating, and existing (living) anyway. It's not a coherent mental construct. It is self-contradictory to conceive of action or change or existence without time. Perhaps it isn't apparent that most if not all verbs imply the passage of time.
Those words are not a rebuttal to the statement, "[Craig] has unjustifiably dropped the multiverse from his list of candidate conclusions." Perhaps you can make the missing argument for Craig. Please explain how the multiverse has been ruled out in Craig's argument. It is a logical possibility that no observation, argument, experiment, or algorithm can rule in or out, just like a the possibility of a deity. It seems you want to refer to some infinity paradoxes that I don't see in the argument. What are they explicitly, and how do they rule out the multiverse hypothesis. Remember, this is essential to concluding that the existence of a god has been proved. Without that, the "proof" is fallacious, a non sequitur.
Two quick remarks. First, Craig would say not all interpretations of QM are non-deterministic. In the Bohmian interpretation, for example, quantum events are entirely deterministic (the Everett interpretation is another example). And given that all interpretations allegedly account for all empirical observations, we must be agnostic about which interpretation is correct.
Bohmian mechanics are deterministic, meaning it assumes hidden variables, the existence of which have been ruled out by experiments by Alain Aspect confirming Bell's Theorem. But even were that not the case, the Copenhagen interpretation would remain viable. It's simply not sound reasoning to drop possibilities because one doesn't like them, because one needs it to be impossible that a singularity can pop into existence uncaused for one's argument to hold water. Craig's argument is a laundry list of things he needs to be the case for his god to be necessary. "The universe came into existence. This must have been caused. The cause must be my conscious, personal god." None of that is necessarily true, hence it is not a proof of God.
Second, the composition argument is not always a fallacy. For example: 1. I have a wall of ordinary Lego bricks; each individual brick is red. 2. Therefore the wall is red. How is this a fallacy? It is clearly sound.
It's not necessary that the composition argument always be fallacious for it to sometimes be fallacious. It would be yet another non sequitur to say that the principle doesn't always apply, and therefore cannot be made in this instance. How do you get from one to the other without a fallacy?
For an alleged proof of God to convince an experienced critical thinker, it must begin with shared, established premises and make no logical error connecting the premises to the conclusion for us to say that the conclusion follows from what preceded it, and is therefore correct. Craig's Kalam argument, with its questionable premises and it's leaps of faith doesn't rise to that standard, and hence is not a proof of God for anyone who can identify those problems in the argument.
The Big Bang requires the laws of physics [to] change at some point, since the Big Bang was a singularity. The only way he can claim the laws of physics didn't change is if he rejects the BB, which I doubt is going to be received well.
Craig would reply a singularity represents a hole in the spatio-temporal manifold. It is not a physical state where the laws of physics change; it is a missing point of space-time. The laws of physics are completely annulled there since they are formulated in a space-time background. Ergo, that wouldn't be a problem for Craig since the singularity represents the beginning of the universe (i.e., space and time), which Craig will happily accept.
You can, of course, deny the existence of singularities (along with the majority of cosmologists and contra Craig), but then your previous point about the laws of physics changing will also be denied.
Remarkability is what we make of it. The difference between us is that you expect this to be handed to you, to be Special and Beloved from creation. If you wish to be remarkable, work for it.
