Transcendental Argument for Nonexistence of God

[Kilgore Trout]

i think you are too intelligent and matured to be that girl in your avatar pic...

Yeah, imagine a girl being intelligent and mature. That's about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

 

[Reptillian]

Yeah, imagine a girl being intelligent and mature. That's about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I certainly haven't met many intelligent mature girls out in the real world. There seem to be an aweful lot of them online, but I secretly suspect that they're all really men.

 

[Meow Mix]

I certainly haven't met many intelligent mature girls out in the real world. There seem to be an aweful lot of them online, but I secretly suspect that they're all really men.

Right, everybody knows there are no girls on the internet.

...or it could be that you're hanging with the wrong girls. There were more girls than there were men in one of my physics classes -- imagine that. Granted, there were only like 16 people, but still.

Granted, I'm sure your comment was tongue in cheek

 

[Meow Mix]

Coming back to this I wonder how many people really think stuff like that... that it's more reasonable to assume someone's using a false identity before believing that a woman can be intelligent. Is our culture still that chauvinistic, or are there truly that many men that run around in e-drag? (And why would they do that, anyway?)

 

[Sunstone]

I certainly haven't met many intelligent mature girls out in the real world. There seem to be an aweful lot of them online, but I secretly suspect that they're all really men.

Maybe the internet, like all mediums, skews what you see to some extent, so that a woman's intelligence is more apparent over the net than it is face to face?

 

[Meow Mix]

Maybe the internet, like all mediums, skews what you see to some extent, so that a woman's intelligence is more apparent over the net than it is face to face?

When would anyone talk about transcendental arguments face to face in the first place?

Maybe people should start talking to women about interesting intellectual things -- I bet they'd be surprised.

 

[Sunstone]

When would anyone talk about transcendental arguments face to face in the first place?

My guess is they would be more likely to discuss such stuff over the net than in person.

Maybe people should start talking to women about interesting intellectual things -- I bet they'd be surprised.

Maybe. I still think the "medium is the message" and that the nature of the internet strips away some obstacles to grasping how intelligent someone is -- not just women, but men too -- thus making it relatively easier to grasp how intelligent someone is over the net than in person.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Maybe people should start talking to women about interesting intellectual things -- I bet they'd be surprised.

I suppose if they don't have a nice rack, it's worth a shot.

 

[Meow Mix]

I suppose if they don't have a nice rack, it's worth a shot.

lol. I'm in the clear then unfortunately!

 

[Reptillian]

Yeah, it was a tounge in cheek comment, I don't imagine that there are too many people that really think things like that anymore. Although I must admit that I am a bit prejudiced toward women drivers...always touching up their makeup in the rear view mirror while chattering away on their cell phones. Am I right guys?!

 

[Meow Mix]

Yeah, it was a tounge in cheek comment, I don't imagine that there are too many people that really think things like that anymore. Although I must admit that I am a bit prejudiced toward women drivers...always touching up their makeup in the rear view mirror while chattering away on their cell phones. Am I right guys?!

Pfffft, if it weren't for the OTHER dumb drivers it'd be easy to touch up mascara...

I don't do that anyways! )(

 

[Mister Emu]

Consider a configuration space, which is like a pocket universe with only a few things in it: let's talk about a 3-point configuration space as if it were real. This means only 3 Euclidean points exist in this thought experiment. If that were what existed and no minds were around to conceive it, it would still be true that there were "three" points (even without a word for it); it would still be true that there were 180 degrees total between the points (even without anyone to define what an "angle" is), and so on.

Thank you.

Ultimately the question comes down to whether nothingness can be somethingness.

If it can't -- notice that word, can't -- then it has a limitation, which is identity.

So the question of why doesn't come into play in your opinion?

Here's how: suppose there is only a mind that exists.

This does not refute the idea that the number 2 is contingent on the existence or concept of multiple objects.

Could you explain how it would exist in the absence of even a mind?

That would be putting the cart before the horse. If God created identity, how was God God in the first place to create it?

Because there was nothing else for God to be.

 

[Meow Mix]

This does not refute the idea that the number 2 is contingent on the existence or concept of multiple objects.

Could you explain how it would exist in the absence of even a mind?

It doesn't take a mind existing for it still to be true that things are the way they are, and that all of mathematics follows from that. This is true with or without an assumption of the rest of the universe existing without minds or not.

Because there was nothing else for God to be.

Yeah, which equates to God adhering to a higher transcendental truth. See?

 

[hyacinthus]

Even at 26 i still think that you are quite intelligent for your age. I just turned 27 two days ago and i am as stupid as anybody out there. hahaha.

Not many people are seriously interested in physics nowadays, relatively speaking. i am glad to know that you are one of the few whose daily concerns and problems never prevent themselves from thinking about the deeper question on existence and the nature of the universe.

The science of Physics is far more precise compared to the two other sciences (i.e. chemistry, biology); as a new member here, i look forward to reading your article on physics, especially about the planets. i am thankful that you are here. you remind me of Richard Feyman's sister.

more power!

 

[hyacinthus]

Even at 26 i still think that you are quite intelligent for your age. I just turned 27 two days ago and i am as stupid as anybody out there. hahaha.

Not many people are seriously interested in physics nowadays, relatively speaking. i am glad to know that you are one of the few whose daily concerns and problems never prevent themselves from thinking about the deeper question on existence and the nature of the universe.

The science of Physics is far more precise compared to the two other sciences (i.e. chemistry, biology); as a new member here, i look forward to reading your article on physics, especially about the planets. i am thankful that you are here. you remind me of Richard Feyman's sister.

more power!

 

[Wessexman]

One problem with this argument is it uses a very limited, popular and crude theistic conception of God. It also assumes a separability between different parts of the Godhead which are only separated from a relative, human perspective.

Really what you are doing is based on a mistaken reliance on causal thinking, you define God then define what is his nature and say the latter, the higher transcendental law, must cause the former and so on and so on. But God is uncaused, so causal thinking and discursive thought reach their limit at this stage. One cannot causally reason about what is uncaused. God's nature is simply a part, to use crude terminology of him. The very term you keep using, higher, is really being used to mean cause. What you are saying is God's identity is the cause of God. This is then no argument against the Godhead, your simply expressing the fact that in terms of discursive thought and human language certain aspects of God or reality are supra-rational, not irrational or illogical though because it doesn't violate reason per se, because discursive thought and reason are based on causality, on inferring one thing from another and are not about a direct knowledge of a thing in itself which one must do in order to utterly "explain" God and his nature. This is what the great mystics have always realised, God is, at least on the level of discursive thought, undefinable. This is why Meister Eckhart said everything you can say about God is wrong, and why Laozu maintained that the Tao cannot be spoken in its ultimate form.

This is a basic problem for modern "philosophy". In the ancient world philosophy, or at least that of the great wisdom tradition, was based on what Platonism calls the Intellect, the "eye of the heart", or that knowledge which is direct union of knowing and being and in which one "sees" more than deduces. Discursive thought or reason, which is by contrast indirect, which worked by deducing effects from their causes was an important but secondary and limited tool. This is also the same throughout the East, in the Dharmic faiths the Intellect was known as Bodhi. But we have lost this, our Intellect is largely unused and we rely only on reason even when it comes to many areas for which it is ill-suited, hence we are led into many errors, including those in your argument which takes what is relative, the relationship of effect to cause, and tries to utterly define what is absolute. One can use reason to define certain things about God but it meets its limits, though it is never violated in its proper place, and one must turn to the Intellect through spiritual intuition and symbolism.

 

[Reptillian]

One problem with this argument is it uses a very limited, popular and crude theistic conception of God. It also assumes a separability between different parts of the Godhead which are only separated from a relative, human perspective.

Really what you are doing is based on a mistaken reliance on causal thinking, you define God then define what is his nature and say the latter, the higher transcendental law, must cause the former and so on and so on. But God is uncaused, so causal thinking and discursive thought reach their limit at this stage. One cannot causally reason about what is uncaused. God's nature is simply a part, to use crude terminology of him. The very term you keep using, higher, is really being used to mean cause. What you are saying is God's identity is the cause of God. This is then no argument against the Godhead, your simply expressing the fact that in terms of discursive thought and human language certain aspects of God or reality are supra-rational, not irrational or illogical though because it doesn't violate reason per se, because discursive thought and reason are based on causality, on inferring one thing from another and are not about a direct knowledge of a thing in itself which one must do in order to utterly "explain" God and his nature. This is what the great mystics have always realised, God is, at least on the level of discursive thought, undefinable. This is why Meister Eckhart said everything you can say about God is wrong, and why Laozu maintained that the Tao cannot be spoken in its ultimate form.

This is a basic problem for modern "philosophy". In the ancient world philosophy, or at least that of the great wisdom tradition, was based on what Platonism calls the Intellect, the "eye of the heart", or that knowledge which is direct union of knowing and being and in which one "sees" more than deduces. Discursive thought or reason, which is by contrast indirect, which worked by deducing effects from their causes was an important but secondary and limited tool. This is also the same throughout the East, in the Dharmic faiths the Intellect was known as Bodhi. But we have lost this, our Intellect is largely unused and we rely only on reason even when it comes to many areas for which it is ill-suited, hence we are led into many errors, including those in your argument which takes what is relative, the relationship of effect to cause, and tries to utterly define what is absolute. One can use reason to define certain things about God but it meets its limits, though it is never violated in its proper place, and one must turn to the Intellect through spiritual intuition and symbolism.

Thats all fine and dandy until your undefinable incoprehensible God starts indirectly telling me through you what I can and can't do. Its when I've abandoned reason that people start ordering me around and manipulating me into all sorts of wars, crimes, and attrocities. Only the coupling of reason and truth can enable me to say, "No, that is wrong". Its also when you claim that this indescribable thing interacts with and influences the natural world that I start to worry because science's goal is to understand the workings of the natural world. Perhaps reason is incapable of describing our reality, but I'm not willing to give up just yet.

 

[Wessexman]

Who said you should abandon reason? I basically said that reason is correct in its own sphere. Indeed I belief it can offer proof of God, at its own level at least and can partially define him and his purpose for human purposes. I support reason, indeed by realising its limits and proper place I think I am a better defender of reason and dialectic than those who claim to be rational but do not realise its limits.

At no time then did I advise "abandoning" reason which I defined as causal-based thought or ratiocination.

 

[Meow Mix]

One problem with this argument is it uses a very limited, popular and crude theistic conception of God. It also assumes a separability between different parts of the Godhead which are only separated from a relative, human perspective.

Really what you are doing is based on a mistaken reliance on causal thinking, you define God then define what is his nature and say the latter, the higher transcendental law, must cause the former and so on and so on. But God is uncaused, so causal thinking and discursive thought reach their limit at this stage. One cannot causally reason about what is uncaused. God's nature is simply a part, to use crude terminology of him. The very term you keep using, higher, is really being used to mean cause. What you are saying is God's identity is the cause of God. This is then no argument against the Godhead, your simply expressing the fact that in terms of discursive thought and human language certain aspects of God or reality are supra-rational, not irrational or illogical though because it doesn't violate reason per se, because discursive thought and reason are based on causality, on inferring one thing from another and are not about a direct knowledge of a thing in itself which one must do in order to utterly "explain" God and his nature. This is what the great mystics have always realised, God is, at least on the level of discursive thought, undefinable. This is why Meister Eckhart said everything you can say about God is wrong, and why Laozu maintained that the Tao cannot be spoken in its ultimate form.

This is a basic problem for modern "philosophy". In the ancient world philosophy, or at least that of the great wisdom tradition, was based on what Platonism calls the Intellect, the "eye of the heart", or that knowledge which is direct union of knowing and being and in which one "sees" more than deduces. Discursive thought or reason, which is by contrast indirect, which worked by deducing effects from their causes was an important but secondary and limited tool. This is also the same throughout the East, in the Dharmic faiths the Intellect was known as Bodhi. But we have lost this, our Intellect is largely unused and we rely only on reason even when it comes to many areas for which it is ill-suited, hence we are led into many errors, including those in your argument which takes what is relative, the relationship of effect to cause, and tries to utterly define what is absolute. One can use reason to define certain things about God but it meets its limits, though it is never violated in its proper place, and one must turn to the Intellect through spiritual intuition and symbolism.

Not causality -- necessity and contingency. As I said at the top of the argument, if you reject the premises for the god the argument attacks then the argument doesn't apply to you.

My argument simply shows that God isn't the creator of everything external to God's essence since God couldn't have caused identity to exist and identity isn't a part of God. So, conceptions of God as the creator of everything are false; identity necessarily exists and doesn't exist because of God and doesn't exist "as" God either.

 

[Reptillian]

Who said you should abandon reason? I basically said that reason is correct in its own sphere. Indeed I belief it can offer proof of God, at its own level at least and can partially define him and his purpose for human purposes. I support reason, indeed by realising its limits and proper place I think I am a better defender of reason and dialectic than those who claim to be rational but do not realise its limits.

At no time then did I advise "abandoning" reason which I defined as causal-based thought or ratiocination.

Perhaps our disagreement is a matter of semantics. I think you insert the word God where I insert the word truth. I think that there are limits to the kinds of truths that language (and consequently reason) is able to express, but I think that one can seek out the boundaries of those truths using reason to guess at what lies inside. If you want to say God=truth then say that the truth is not entirely definable then thats fine with me...but thats an abstract philosophical view of God that is much different from the common idea of God as a being that actually cares about people and answers prayers and that sort of thing. Thats often what I tell people when they ask if I believe in God. I say, "If by God you mean something abstract like absolute truth or a manifestation of the underlying order of the cosmos, then yes...but if you mean something like a being in the clouds who answers prayers and cares about whether I do my income taxes on the sabbath, then no."