LIIA
Well-Known Member
If it's unevidenced it holds the same epistemic status as unicorns and dragons. If we believe in God with no physical evidence, we must needs believe in griffins, trolls and and the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal. If we disbelieve in these due to no evidence, we must, to be consistent, disbelieve in God, as well.
Everything exists because God exists. Without an absolute at the beginning, there is nothing to give rise to probabilities. Everything we see or know is a probability not a brute fact.
At present I'm aware of none. So what?
So, you can accept the unknown because it’s logically necessary.
The same as yours --none.
Exactly, it’s never the nature but we can definitely infer existence/attributes.
Both are equally evidenced.
What? Do you mean both are false?
Do you believe in infinite regression?
Are you sure a first cause is necessary? Why would the first cause be a personage?
Who is taking about a personage? God’s nature is not attainable. We are relative being. Our understanding is limited to relative/caused entities within our realm, the absolute is beyond our grasp, yet must exist.
Life emerging from non-living matter, through unguided chemistry, is consistent with everything we know about chemistry and biology.
The illusion here is the impression that you have an explanation or a mechanism. You don’t have any. You cannot stop at the preceding domino and think you found the ultimate explanation. You need the first one. Chemistry is a behavior of matter, unless you explain the root cause of the observed behavior, you don’t have an explanation, chemistry is not magic or a brute fact, the observed behavior of matter as it interacts must be caused.
Life emerging magically, by an imperceptible magician, has never been seen. It's an extraordinary, unevedenced, extraneous claim.
The nature of all physical forces is imperceptible, the mechanisms through which it controls matter are imperceptible. By your logic, we should call it all the “invisible magicians” not “physical forces”. By your logic, your options are either to explain its nature/mechanism or accept it all as causeless magic that just exists on its own and takes control of matter in a mysterious unknown way. Yet we do know it’s caused since it’s not brute facts.
Life emerged, either by known, familiar chemistry, or by magic poofing. There is no evidence of conscious intention, and chemistry seems entirely adequate to accomplish the task.
If you don’t explain the root cause of chemistry itself as the observed behavior controlling the interactions of matter, you’re back to square one; without that cause, the behavior itself (chemistry) becomes a magic poof.
If the automated factory exhibit processes that collectively produce purposeful end products, then the factory and every process in it is a product of conscious intention. The factory encompasses all the natural processes that control matter and responsible for all the end products resulted from it.
there is abundant, consilient, concrete and first person evidence he existed.
Sure. Same is true for the prophets. Credibility of the person and scripture can be established through methods of historiography. If you can reasonably establish that the person is credible, then it's reasonable to trust the knowledge that he conveys.
No, you must critically evaluate the evidence. Not all historical evidence is equal.
Sure, that’s what you should do. Must people don’t, they typically shoot from the hip based on their own false presuppositions, which they consider it as facts. They don’t verify it, they presuppose it.
It's not an interpretation. It's an epistemic, logical fact.
Your opinion is relative to your perception/interpretation. It’s always a relative product of your mind/will. Everything gets its meaning/definition by being relative to something else. Without an absolute, all meanings/definitions are lost.
A distance gets defined as a meter by using a tape measure, the tape measure is calibrated by the manufacturer by being compared to a standard unit of length, the standard unit gets its definition by comparison to the national prototype, the national prototype gets compared to the international prototype, the first reference is self-defined. It doesn’t need to be compared to anything; it identifies everything, yet nothing defines it. It’s self-defined. Without it, no distance can be measured or have any meaning.
The point is, a distance is not defined to be a meter because of the tape measure, what gives definition to the tape measure itself? You need a self-defined root (absolute) at the end of the chain. Same logic is absolutely true for everything that exists. Everything is relative/contingent, and all relatives must be grounded in the absolute. Without the absolute, no relative is possible.