@Vex-Man said in Fact check with Pet: Can you prove God's existence? Part I:
You have missed the point. Just because one island is bigger than the other does not mean it exists.
The point is not which island is bigger. The point is how many trees can be found in both islands. I can think of an island which has a great number of trees, but I can think of another island which has more trees than previous one. I can count how exactly they are in numbers. Can’t I ? B an island has greater number of trees than that of island A. Island C has more trees than that of island B. And so on. Take the example of bigger island now. I can measure the exact length of island with kms, then i can conceive one more island which is bigger than previous one. There might be more more more island and none of them would really exist.
As I said, you have missed the point: You cannot conclude from the greatness or greaterness or more-number-ness of anything (other than God) to its existence. The only reason why this works with that-which-is-greater-than-anything-you-can-think-of, because the fact that you cannot think of anything greater is what defines it. The island with its number of trees is not defined by the fact that you cannot think of anything greater. God however is defined as that-which-is-greater-than-anything-you-can-think-of and thus His existence necessarily follows from that definition.
Just because someone who exists is more evil than someone who doesn't, does not mean he exists.
‘Greatness’ or 'perfectness' or 'absolute one' is just a property and property cannot be reduced to existence. There has been a lot of debate among philosophers on this subject. Kant really won this debate. ‘Evilness’ is also a property. This argument has been refuted by Hume and Kant together.
This argument works only with the God of above definition, and with nothing and noone else.
This is not true. The argument was given by Anselm and he himself said about ‘being’.
Philosophers and words ... wether its a God or a being is not relevant. What is relevant is only the definition greater than anything that can be thought of not about wether its a being
or God.
Check this argument from internet. Kant compared two beings A and B. It is plausible to suppose that a sufficient condition for entity A being greater than entity B is that A has all and only the properties that B has except that A has, in addition, a property P that makes A more valued or prized than B. On this account, a judgment that A is a greater entity than B, given that A is exactly the same as B, except that A exists and B does not, assumes that existence is a property of A. However, the assumption that existence is a property of objects is a very controversial one; and insofar as the ontological argument makes this assumption, it is not a dearly sound argument. Kant's point still has force:
By whatever and by however many predicates we may think a thing-even if we completely determine it-we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this thing is. Otherwise, it would not be exactly the same thing that exists. but something more than we had thought in the concept; and we could not, therefore, say that the exact object of my concept exists.
Indeed, and since the definition is not about a 'being' and wether it has the property 'existence' but simply that-which-is-greater-than-anything-that-can-be-thought-of. These are my words, this is the definition as I wrote it. So please do in the future stop refuting other people's (e.g. Anselms) concrete words. Try to refute mine instead.
I (me, not Anselm) am not saying, that the God I think of as non-existing is the same as the God that has existence. I perfectly do agree, that the existing God is something completely different from the non-existing god I'm thinking.
And I do disagree with the notion, that something that does exist is not greater than something that doesn't. In fact I don't even have to disagree with: here is my defition of greater "being better or more or of more subsance in any way than something else".
But other than that the argument is sound, and it does not work for Satan, because Satan is not that "above which nothing greater can be thought".
Again, ‘greater’ is just a property like ‘more evil'. Satan is one “above which nothing more evil can be thought”. Existence of devil is perfect than that of non-existence.
True, an existing devil is more evil than a non-existing devil. But he's not in an absolute sense greater. His greatness does not define him. From my definition of God you can see, that He's defined by His greatness alone. You can think of a lot of things that are greater than the devil, even the most evil, and the greatest existing devil: God for example, or you, since you are less evil than the devil you are in fact greater than the devil... Are you starting to get what makes this definition of God special?
There are lots of believers and theologians who both accept that God exists and the devil, for the devil is not defined as that below which nothing more evil can be thought.
This argument was based on old testament and it itself said, “the fool has said in his heart, that there is no God”.
You just need to use the reductio ad absurdum technique: I can define “Ultimate Underwear” as the greatest underwear that can be conceived (e.g. it washes itself, it doesn’t stink, it fits all waists, etc). By Anselm’s logic this underwear must exist. Similarly, the greatest possible potato chip, dog, cricket bat, and so on, must exist. This is false.
Yeah, as explained before, this argument does not work for the greatest XYZ. It only works for The Greatest.
The devil is defined as simply a created being, like you or me, who has completely decided against God.
Evolved being only if we consider ourselves*.
No, I did mean created, not evolved... I believe in God and I believe we are being created, just like the devil and anything else that is not God. This is the definition I was referring to. No need to introduce another concept here. It is irrelevant if there was an evolution or not, to the question wether we are created or not. And the devil as he is defined in the christian world view is not evolved or developed. He just made an eternal decision against God.
Hinduism and Islam are agree with ‘absence of god is devil and absence of devil is God. And perhaps, OT of bible was also agree with it (the source where the argument was derived).
An educated Hindu explained to me that in Hinduism there is no such thing as an absolute good (God) or an absolute evil (devil). Everything seems to be involving including the gods. So I'm pretty sure Hinduism would not agree with this definition, it just makes no sense in the context of hinduism.
Islam would neither agree with it. Islam agrees with the absolute God, just calls him Allah. And in front of an absolute god, there cannot be an equally absolute opposite...
I assure you that the christian world view does not agree with God being the absence of the devil. I can assure you that in the christian world view (at least the only authoritatively defined, the catholic world view), God is the defintion of good, and the devil is mainly a creature that decided against good. In the christian world view evil does not exist. It is purely the absence of good. Good on the other hand exists, and it is not purely the absence of evil, for it is God himself. This is the christian (catholic) world view.
This is like with light (this comparison is an anecdote from Albert Einstein btw.), you can measure light, because it is something, it is real. You cannot measure darkness. Darkness is simply the absence of light.
Subjective vs objective, science is objective and is not subjective like people thoughts about devil-god. For atheist philosophers, human is the god/(s).
This was an analogy to explain the idea that goodness (light) exists and evil (darkness) does not, not a reference to science as the basis of an argument.
You forgot about the most peaceful religion of this whole effing universe is atheist - Jainism. They do not even kill insects, nor they kill crops-worms. The Jains preach a doctrine of utter nonviolence. While the Jains believe many improbable things about the universe, they do not believe the sorts of things that lit the fires of the Inquisition. You probably think the Inquisition was a perversion of the "true" spirit of Christianity. Perhaps it was. The problem, however, is that the teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries.
People. Let me remind you that we are talking about people. People can interpret anything into anything, like the Nazi's interpreted that it was okay to kill millions of Jews into Nietsche's philosophical texts.
The new testament is pretty clear about killing: They brought an adulterous woman before Jesus, and asked him to comply with the law and thus stone her. He says: Who has no sin, should throw the first stone. Jesus does not speak muddled about such things! He clearly does not condemn even the greatest sinner (adultery was seen as one of the greatest sins) and he asks his disciples to give those who beat them on their left cheek their right to beat too.. So, there really is no interpretational room for killing heretics or witches or anything of the like...
Also I – as a german – have a funny (forgive my dark humor) annecdote about the inquisition. You know that they also burned witches right? The witchhunt in spain had a total of 8 victims. This is because the laws worked like this: you get blamed to be a witch. you go to prison. you renounce. they let you go. you get blamed again. you go to prison again. you renounce again. they let you go again. Those 8 people prolly did not renounce, who knows... What do you think the germans did? If you do something, do it right, right? So the germans, including the very zealous witchhunter Martin Luther, killed thousands and thousands of suspected witches... As I said: people...
It is not surprising that people statistically assume that atheists are more readily doing evil than believers.
I see, you bring communism vs Nazism in every conversation. Why don’t you check pornhub and try to insert a word a ‘priest’ or ‘church’ in search ? My friend told to me a day before yesterday that he was enjoying some gangbang porns of christian priests. As you know I am an atheist, I do not believe in anything very quickly. After-all, I do not watch porns (watching porns may decrease brain's grey matter) so I tried to look for internet data instead. https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/hidden-wounds-christians-say-rape-is-common-persecution-method-against-women/
History is the victim of the statistics- 30 percent fights for the name of religion
Rest 70 percent- not for the name of atheism but they were fought for resources, land acquisition and border disputes.
Very true. And even those 30 percent of wars in the name of religion are not actually because of religion. They too are because the believers (people again) want more power, influence, fame, money or resources.
Communism did not fight for the name of atheism, Nazism did fight for the name of religion.
Nazism did not fight for religion either, they fought for their ideology.
Communism fight for their doctrine and atheism does not have a doctrine. Communism has a dogma so as christianism has. Communism has heroes marx, stalin, mao, lenin and they were founders of marxism, maosim, leninism etc. Athe is not a guy like christ, mao or marx.
Communism is an atheistic ideology. Atheism and materialism are its core principles. And equality. Marx was a philosopher, like many atheists.
Mao and Lenin were politicians and serial killers...
Christian communism is also a branch of marxist communism.
Is the fact that someone thought some contradictory combination of two things goes together an argument?
Communism is said to be a political religion. They should read Jainism books and follow it first rather than believing in any thing else. It’s true that the tyrannical communist regimes of Mao and Stalin were opposed to religion, with religious belief discouraged and punished under their rule. This had less to do with atheism and more to do with the threat of religion as competition with their own tyrannical plans. Totalitarian regimes are built on dogma and fear, not freedom of speech and inquiry. In this way, they greatly resemble religion.
Some religions. It is not a coincidence that the idea of freedom of speech developed in christian countries (yes back then they were still all christians). And that the scientific process developed in catholic and anglican universities is neither a coincidence.
The catholic church made one big mistake: It did fight certain things that seemed to contradict the doctrine. For example Galileo's world view. The mistake is clear today: Wether the earth is flat has absolutely nothing to do with theology. That the earth is flat is not even in the bible! But back then people did think this was an attack on faith. Of course it was not, and this is clear today. But many people did not understand. In fact Galileo might have been the only one who really understood what he was talking about... And he was a christian so he clearly understood too, that there was no contradiction.
The catholic church made a few mistakes that is true. But the dark ages are not as dark as people always make them look. It really is no miracle that the scientific process was developed there, for the catholic church never fought any kind of progress that had nothing to do with the teaching. Lets take engineering for example. The church officials of the church did never fight an engineer and his inventions. I mean of course there was some power struggle here and there, but we are still talking about people.
Point is, religion does not have to hinder scientific progress, and 95% of scientific progress was not hindered by christian churches. And the rest was only hindered because people mistook the progress for an onlsaught against faith, which it simply wasn't. People make mistakes. And the church apologized for it a few 100 years later (the church needs a few 100 years for everything it does btw....)
In effect, these leaders essentially created religions and inserted themselves at the top as new deities. The problem with communism, however, is not that it is too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions.”
Which is always the danger of any kind of doctrine. This includes of course atheism and genderism and any religion...
This cult of personality are not derived from atheism, and it is hard to see how one could argue that its activities were representative of atheists as a whole.Indeed, many free, irreligious nations, such as Denmark and Sweden, are among the most peaceful and prosperous countries in the world. The point, however, is not to say that atheism necessarily causes people to be happier or more prosperous. What is clear, however, is that atheism does not lead to violence, tyranny or genocide any more than religiosity guarantees a peaceful and prosperous nation.
Of course you can say that atheism isn't communism, and you are right (even though 99% of communism is clearly atheistic). I'm just saying that statistically atheistic ideologies have done a lot more harm than religious ones. This is just numbers and facts, so I'd be very careful to say that there is no danger in atheism. In fact I'm pretty sure that the presence of atheism and atheistic movements did further the strength of the communistic ideology. Communism cannot take root so easily in a country that is deeply religious.
The world’s religions have rules and holy books that tell their followers what’s wrong or right and how to behave. Thus, it is reasonable to hold a religion accountable for the message that it preaches. There are no holy atheist scriptures, no atheist pope and no atheist rituals, tenets, creeds, code or authority. Atheism cannot be held accountable for the activities of atheists in the same way that religion can be judged by its doctrine because atheism has no doctrines.
As noted above I'm not judging atheism by its doctrine here, but by the effects that atheistic doctrines had in total numbers. And I'm just saying it is safe to assume, that there might be some danger in it, even if there are atheistic communities that are completely peaceful.
Worse still is the concept of hell, where non-believers suffer in eternal torment simply for disbelieving in God. Indeed, this torture is supposedly granted even to theists who believe in the wrong gods. If the Christian religion is the “right” one, every Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jew would burn in hell for eternity (John 3:18-36, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 and Revelation 21:8)
I'm too tired to find you the quote after writing you such a long response, sorry :sweat_smile:... the catholic teaching is quite clear about the fact that non-believers can be saved. What it says however is that they will all be saved through Jesus Christ. There is no way around Him. You will meet Him when you die. And you can then (at the latest) accept Him and be saved, or say: "you have no right to judge me" and thus condemn yourself.
and this rule is the same for other religions that believe in the concept of hell, such as Islam:
Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment. (Quran 4:56)
So, do not fear God, only adore Him (the "fear of God" in the bible does not mean being scared, it means to know that God is Holy and to lower your head in front of Him, so He can lift you.)
An all-loving god would surely not damn his children to an eternity of torture simply for being born into a culture that believes in the wrong deity, follows the wrong holy book or attends the wrong type of church services.
As said above the all-loving God does not condemn his children to an eternity of torture for that at all. But He requires them to accept Himself at least when they meet Him (Jesus Christ) from face to face.