Monotheists: why only one god?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Where is the evidence that abiogenesis only happened once? (besides Occam’s Razor)

The chirality of DNA immediately comes to mind.

Edit: also, genetic material that's shared across kingdoms of life.

 

[leroy]

The chirality of DNA immediately comes to mind.

Why life couldn’t emerge 2 or 3 times with the same chirality? (Remember you are not allowed to use Occam’s Razor ) what observation has been made that couldn’t be explained if abiogenesis happened say 2 times?

Edit: also, genetic material that's shared across kingdoms of life.

You mean that if abiogenesis would have occurred twice there wouldn’t be shared genetic material between kingdoms?

1 Do humans and bacteria have any genetic material in common? (I honestly don’t know)

2 if yes, why couldn’t that be explained by Horizontal Gene transfer, convergent evolution or some unknown natural mechanism?

To me it´s simple, if all the evidence and observations can be explained by postulating a single abiogenesis event, why postulating 2 or 3 or 10 events, this is enough to justify the “one time abiogenesis hypothesis”

 

[1213]

What godlike attributes do humans have?

For example ability to form things.

 

[leroy]

You didn't make a point. Your comparison was disanalogous.

"Unrealistically too high" is such fuzzy language. What makes it unrealistically too high? Where is the line of "realistically high"?

A realistic bar would be to show that God is the best explanation for a given observation / this should be enough to justify rational belief in God.

Conclusive evidence to me sounds like “prove beyond reasonable doubt” / which by definition it´s impossible to achieve because there will always be a possibility that a given event was caused by an unknown natural mechanism,

 

[ppp]

A realistic bar would be to show that God is the best explanation for a given observation / this should be enough to justify rational belief in God.

Ok. I don't think that has been done.

Conclusive evidence to me sounds like “prove beyond reasonable doubt” / which by definition it´s impossible to achieve because there will always be a possibility that a given event was caused by an unknown natural mechanism,

It seems to me that before you could show that God is, as you say, the best explanation, you would first or simultaneously have to show that God is a candidate explanation. If God is shown to be a candidate explanation then it should be as easy to show that God is an explanation for X as it is to show that Bob is the explanation for Carol's death.

 

[leroy]

Ok. I don't think that has been done.


It seems to me that before you could show that God is, as you say, the best explanation, you would first or simultaneously have to show that God is a candidate explanation. If God is shown to be a candidate explanation then it should be as easy to show that God is an explanation for X as it is to show that Bob is the explanation for Carol's death.

Yes, Yes, but my original point is that the lack of “conclusive evidence for God” doesn’t justify atheism (nor naturalism)

Do you agree with this point?

as it is to show that Bob is the explanation for Carol's death

Well lets see that Carol is dead (this is the observation)

The hypothesis are

1 a thief kill her

2 her jealous boyfriend killed her

You don’t have to prove a priori that she had a boyfriend in order to consider “2” as an alternative. And you can accept 2 as the best explanation even if you don’t have conclusive evidence.

 

[ppp]

Yes, Yes, but my original point is that the lack of “conclusive evidence for God” doesn’t justify atheism (nor naturalism)

Do you agree with this point?

No. The lack of conclusive evidence for the existence of X justifies withholding belief that X exists. e.g. the Higgs boson, gravity waves, EM drive, cold fusion, recordings of the lost episodes of Doctor Who from bouncing off a dust cloud 25 light years away.

Well lets see that Carol is dead (this is the observation)

The hypothesis are

1 a thief kill her

2 her jealous boyfriend killed her

You don’t have to prove a priori that she had a boyfriend in order to consider “2” as an alternative. And you can accept 2 as the best explanation even if you don’t have conclusive evidence.

There is a metric buttload of conclusive evidence that jealous boyfriends exist. There are no valid analogies to be drawn between jealous boyfriends and gods until at least one god has been demonstrated to exist.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I think I asked this a few years ago and didn't get much of a response, so I figured I'd ask again:

Those of you who are monotheists: how do you justify your position that two or more gods do not exist?

I mean, we've seen all the threads here directed at atheists about burden of proof and the like, and plenty of theists - often monotheists, ironically - have gone on at length about the problems they see with the conclusion that no gods exist.

... but here's the thing: if these problems are problems at all, they don't just apply to atheism. All the objections along the lines of "well, what if there's some god out there that you haven't noticed?" work just as well for a second god to a monotheist as a first god for an atheist.

So these objections to atheists saying "there are no gods" can really be seen as expressions of a larger idea: if you think only a specific number of gods exist and no more than that - whether it's 0, 1, 3, or 94 - how do you know there aren't more gods than that?

A lot of the responses to this question I've seen from atheists have been some form of argument that gods are impossible in general... but of course these arguments aren't available to a monotheist.

So monotheists: what gives? Why not two gods? Why not 10?

When you have more than one god, you inevitably end up with more than one set of values and morals, and they are going to conflict at times. It makes no sense at all to say that yesterday I followed the Goddess of Love, but today I will follow the God of war. It's just basically inconsistent.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

When you have more than one god, you inevitably end up with more than one set of values and morals, and they are going to conflict at times.

You think people get morals from gods? Interesting.

It makes no sense at all to say that yesterday I followed the Goddess of Love, but today I will follow the God of war. It's just basically inconsistent.

Because no one person would engage in both love and war?

It sounds like you're saying that polytheists aren't able to function... but there are polytheists in the world and they function just fine, so your objection seems to be wrong-headed on its face.

 

[leroy]

There is a metric buttload of conclusive evidence that jealous boyfriends exist. There are no valid analogies to be drawn between jealous boyfriends and gods until at least one god has been demonstrated to exist.

All I am saying is that the claim

1 first you have to show that she had a boy fried and only then we can consider the hypothesis is fallacious.

2 which is analogous to first you have to show that God exists and only then we can consider God as a hypothesis for a given observation.

In the analogy I am not comparing the evidence for God vs the evidence for Boyfirends I am comparing the fallacious logic used in both cases.


The Hidden assumption is that both jealous boyfriends and God are at least possible (meaning not impossible) which unless you what to affirm that the existence of God is impossible (or very very unlikely) you should accept this assumption .

 

[leroy]

No. The lack of conclusive evidence for the existence of X justifies withholding belief that X exists. e.g. the Higgs boson, gravity waves, EM drive, cold fusion, recordings of the lost episodes of Doctor Who from bouncing off a dust cloud 25 light years away.

ist.

No idea on what you mean by “withholding belief” but my point is that it is rational to accept stuff even if you don’t have conclusive evidence.

For example it was rational to hold the view that the Higgs Boson Exists even before 2012 (when it was discovered)

It´s rational to hold the view that dark matter exists, that a “rock” form space killed the dinosaurs or that inflation occurred shortly after the big bang even though we don’t have conclusive evidence for any of those things.

Any disagreement form your part?

 

[ppp]

2 which is analogous to first you have to show that God exists and only then we can consider God as a hypothesis for a given observation

I reject that claim for the reasons previously given. Your just trying to make the same disanalogy using (barely) different words..

 

[leroy]

I reject that claim for the reasons previously given. Your just trying to make the same disanalogy using (barely) different words..

Well if we ever find the ruins of an ancient city in a other planet like Mars, would you consider the possibility that Aliens did it?………….. or would you say something stupid like “no no no I will not even consider the Alien hypothesis, because first you have to show that Aliens exist.....

My point is that you don’t have to establish the existence of God nor Aliens in order to consider them within your pool of possible explanations.

Do you grant this point?

 

[ppp]

Well if we ever find the ruins of an ancient city in a other planet like Mars, would you consider the possibility that Aliens did it?………….. or would you say something stupid like “no no no I will not even consider the Alien hypothesis, because first you have to show that Aliens exist.....

Like jealous boyfriends, we already have at least one demonstrated example of physical life evolving on a planet, and at least some of those life forms creating artifacts. Which makes artifact building material life a candidate explanation

You just keep trying to cite sets that are not empty as validation of your empty set.

From now on, every time you do it, I am just going to keep referring you back to this post.

 

[leroy]

Like jealous boyfriends, we already have at least one demonstrated example of physical life evolving on a planet, and at least some of those life forms creating artifacts. Which makes artifact building material life a candidate explanation

You just keep trying to cite sets that are not empty as validation of your empty set.

From now on, every time you do it, I am just going to keep referring you back to this post.

Again, all I am saying is that you don’t have to establish the existence of “X” before considering X within your pool of possible explanations. That is the only point that I am making. (do you agree or disagree with this point?)

If you have additional reasons, independent from that point, for rejecting the existence of God then that would be a different topic.

we already have at least one demonstrated example of physical life evolving on a planet,

Sounds like an arbitrary line to me…
You are cherry picking so that you can exclude God from everything and then simply apply a different standard for God hypothesis.……..I could say that we already have the experience of intelligent minds creating stuff / so an intelligent mind creating the universe (God) would be just an extrapolation of what we already have.

example of physical life evolving on a planet,

What about inflation (in the context of cosmology and the big bang)? The existence of a mechanism required for creating such a rapid inflation has never been established, but scientists use it as a possible explanation for several stuff (lack of magnetic monopoles, flatness of the universe, homogeneity etc.)……………. Nobody is saying " No No No inflation has not been established therefore we won’t even consider it as an option."

All I am saying is that it´s good and desirable to establish the existence of X before proposing X as an explanation, but it is not a deal breaker , X can still be considered within the pool of options even if it´s existence has not been established………. And quite frankly I´ll bet that you agree with me in general terms, you are just making an arbitrary exception with God and other stuff that you personally don’t like.

 

[ppp]

You are cherry picking so that you can exclude God from everything

Then produce some object or entity that I accept the existence of for which there is no evidence.

 

[leroy]

Then produce some object or entity that I accept the existence of for which there is no evidence.

Again, all I am saying is that you don’t have to establish the existence of “X” before considering X within your pool of possible explanations.


Do you agree with this point ?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Again, all I am saying is that you don’t have to establish the existence of “X” before considering X within your pool of possible explanations.


Do you agree with this point ?

How would a non-existent thing be an explanation for anything?

 

[ppp]

Again, all I am saying is that you don’t have to establish the existence of “X” before considering X within your pool of possible explanations.


Do you agree with this point ?

That is not all that you are saying.

 

[stanberger]

So, effectively, you're a monotheist because you believe your god has said that there are no other gods?

Fair enough.

monotheism just makes sense. having multi gods would only lead to arguments and knock down drag outs between them all