Fact check with Pet: Can you prove God's existence? Part I

[pe7erpark3r]

In history – that is in a history when still anybody believed that there was a God or were gods – people already wanted to know. The idea of proving God seemed to be especially popular at the beginning of the last millenium. The first one to come up with such a "proof" was the monk Anselm of Canterbury. This is a short summary of his argument:

• Everybody can agree on the following definition: God is that above which you can think nothing greater
• Now think God like this, but think that he does not exist
• Woops, you can think of something higher can't you? Because a God who does exist, is definitely greater than one who doesn't
• Ergo: Our mind is not capable of thinking God without also thinking that he exists

Now for the million ₫ question (currency: vietnamese dong) : Why does this argument not prove that god exists?

[Indrid Cold]

I believe that Melvin Bragg and the whole 'In Our Time' posse did a whole half hour on St Anselm's Punt, and a podcast does exist, but @petrapark3r I'm unable to give you the link because I'm too cool and working class to use the BBC website.

It's a fascinating bit of logic, though, and win-win. If it's true, then bingo bongo jobs a good un. But even if it's flawed (and there are a couple of flaws, as I remember, I refer you to Bragg and his gang of nerds), it suggests that post-human logic can still be lassoed by the hobbledehoy and used from afar --and this is a good thing, because, if today's technological world has taught us anything, it's that algorithms are an easy-to-use bit of kit, and they have a snowball effect. At the minute, we only use them for marketing data, and financial chicanery, but imagine if we had an algorithm running somewhere in the background that dealt with such large, conceptual matters as God? It would be COOL.

I know it's something that Rainbow George Weiss is always farting on about, and as soon as he mentions it, he gets shut down. I'm less of a hippy than RG, though, and I reckon it's still something worth thinking about.

[pe7erpark3r]

@Indrid-Cold said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

I believe that Melvin Bragg and the whole 'In Our Time' posse did a whole half hour on St Anselm's Punt, and a podcast does exist, but @petrapark3r I'm unable to give you the link because I'm too cool and working class to use the BBC website.

Sound like interesting fellas. Ill check em out. But I actually do know why its not, so this is a riddle actually :yum:

It's a fascinating bit of logic, though, and win-win. If it's true, then bingo bongo jobs a good un. But even if it's flawed (and there are a couple of flaws, as I remember, I refer you to Bragg and his gang of nerds), it suggests that post-human logic can still be lassoed by the hobbledehoy and used from afar

yeah the long version does have a few flaws. I should check out the podcast so I'm not forgetting anything. But my version should have only one, the main flaw.

--and this is a good thing, because, if today's technological world has taught us anything, it's that algorithms are an easy-to-use bit of kit, and they have a snowball effect. At the minute, we only use them for marketing data, and financial chicanery, but imagine if we had an algorithm running somewhere in the background that dealt with such large, conceptual matters as God? It would be COOL.

So you're saying that machines will one day prove that God exists? :joy:

I know it's something that Rainbow George Weiss is always farting on about, and as soon as he mentions it, he gets shut down. I'm less of a hippy than RG, though, and I reckon it's still something worth thinking about.

Look IMHO if you personally haven't thought about something yet it might always be worth checking out properly, no matter who gets shut down for mentioning it. Especially in this day and age where quite reasonable fellas get shut down too.

[Indrid Cold]

@petrapark3r OK pal, I dun a whole 3 minutes homework and found it on Youtube. It seems to me to be, basically, just an infinitely-upgraded variation of the cosmological argument, and Anselm built a scaffold around it, and then Spinoza came along and started shaking it to make him fall off, even though Descartes was standing there trying to steady it. The moral? All a bit of a semantic swamp, fo sho.

What I find interesting is that sometimes in the discussion, one of the rabble-rousers will say something like, "You could equally use this logic to prove that unicorns exist". This happens all the time in some of the religious debating websites I frequent. "Why is God any more likely to exist than unicorns, or the Easter Bunny, or Harry Potter?"

Why do atheists always use such wanky examples? If they truly wanted their examples to be technically precise, they'd at least namedrop, say, some unlikely pantheistic gods, or an archetypal fictional character, or even the implicate world itself. That they always use such unnecessary, childish comparisons suggests, to me, that there really could be something profound in our (lack of a) collective, logical, semantic-bound discourse on god.

But yeah.

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

So you're saying that machines will one day prove that God exists?

No. Yes. Maybe. What I was getting at, what with things like high-power computing, and virtual reality, robot labour, universal income, the suring-up of our natural resources ...it strikes me that a lot of the things we traditionally 'need' God for have been supplanted. We've now got the easy part. We've now just got to decide what kind of vibe we want ...just what kind of meaning we want to attribute to raw existence. Dunchya think?

[pe7erpark3r]

@Indrid-Cold said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

The moral? All a bit of a semantic swamp, fo sho.

Don't be fooled by em philosophers aye? They make a semantic swamp of anything :unamused:

@petrapark3r OK pal, I dun a whole 3 minutes homework and found it on Youtube. It seems to me to be, basically, just an infinitely-upgraded variation of the cosmological argument,

It is fundamentally different from the cosmological argument. And this is exactly it's main flaw.

and Anselm built a scaffold around it, and then Spinoza came along and started shaking it to make him fall off, even though Descartes was standing there trying to steady it.

IMHO it's not the same argument. It's called the ontological argument, but those instances you heard are actually different ontological arguments.

What I find interesting is that sometimes in the discussion, one of the rabble-rousers will say something like, "You could equally use this logic to prove that unicorns exist". This happens all the time in some of the religious debating websites I frequent. "Why is God any more likely to exist than unicorns, or the Easter Bunny, or Harry Potter?"

Yeah, the first one to bring the unicorn up (in form of an island :smirk:) was this other monk, directly answer Anselm. I read his argument (translated of course) a few years back and just thought: man that guy didn't get it (hint he really didn't).

Why do atheists always use such wanky examples? If they truly wanted their examples to be technically precise, they'd at least namedrop, say, some unlikely pantheistic gods, or an archetypal fictional character, or even the implicate world itself. That they always use such unnecessary, childish comparisons suggests, to me,

Everybody loves unicorns :shrug: don't you? :heart:

that there really could be something profound in our (lack of a) collective, logical, semantic-bound discourse on god.

We'll get to that :smile:

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

So you're saying that machines will one day prove that God exists?

No. Yes. Maybe. What I was getting at, what with things like high-power computing, and virtual reality, robot labour, universal income, the suring-up of our natural resources ...it strikes me that a lot of the things we traditionally 'need' God for have been supplanted. We've now got the easy part. We've now just got to decide what kind of vibe we want ...just what kind of meaning we want to attribute to raw existence. Dunchya think?

Indeed people have always used God as a stopgap. It is good that our time has finally put an end to that (sometimes though with something that doesn't quite fill the gap).

Yeah, meaning. That's what it's all about. And remains about. Interesting times indeed.

[pe7erpark3r]

@Indrid-Cold said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

@petrapark3r OK pal, I dun a whole 3 minutes homework and found it on Youtube. It seems to me to be, basically, just an infinitely-upgraded variation of the cosmological argument, and Anselm built a scaffold around it, and then Spinoza came along and started shaking it to make him fall off, even though Descartes was standing there trying to steady it. The moral? All a bit of a semantic swamp, fo sho.

All right, here's my take.

Anselm's argument operates purely in the realm of thought. This is what differentiates it from the cosmological arguments: they always start with experience, with the things in the world and conclude from them, back into the world.

Anselms argument is the only sound one (IMHO) among the ontological arguments, because it does not actually define God! Instead it defines a limit (the limit of our thought: "above which nothing greater can be thought"). And then it concludes using this limit, that God must be thought with existence. And this limit is why the argument works, and why even mentioning unicorns shows but an utter lack of understanding.

And here is the flaw: Anselm concludes from the pure world of thought into the real world. But those are two very different things. There is no basis on which you can assume that something which is true in your thoughts (and the argument is true in your thoughts once you have really understood it) must be true in reality.

But I really like Anselms Argument. I found it quite refreshing when I first understood it. Isn't the fact, that he's right about the concept of god necessarily including existence quite astonishing? It is no proof, but I think you can definitely call it evidence.

[Indrid Cold]

@petrapark3r You're quite right to remind me about the purely thoughts-based nature of Anselm's idea. And it might even give the whole thing a practical application. I've been thinking a lot recently about belief. It's often said in parascientific books that there's always a divide between what we perceive and the true nature of the world, whether because of the delay in our senses picking up the data, our inability to perceive certain light and audio spectrums, etc.

And ...in my roundabout way, I've started to equate this with the thinking of Carlos Castaneda. I'd never quote anything from his 'Don Juan' meetings (because, let's face it, they're bunkum), but if you chase down his logic behind these transcendental experiences, he talks mainly about playing with his own expectations, manipulating them to achieve a different reality.

What would it be like to believe in something god-like 100 percent, with no margin for doubt? I'm not convinced we'd get an answer even if we could somehow go inside the mind of the most delusional, straight-jacketed religious schizophrenic. By observing his (OR HER) inner life, a duality would occur, which in turn would require a shared responsibility for this god-like thing, which de facto we'd be unable to get. Yet it is worth thinking about just because...

I'm a big lucid dreamer, me, and a profound thing I've noticed is this: lack of processing power on the part of my mind does not seem to be a consideration. I can come into consciousness in non-reality surrounded by the densest, most sophisticated details. And it's a hell of a thing for a human to be willing to take responsibility for everything. Every weird, quantum-age idea. Like, for instance, a certain amount of consciousness coming from the future, and, the

And when our minds get,

When the, (trips up, head falls in campfire, burns to death like drunken cowboy in Red Dead Redemption)

[pe7erpark3r]

@Indrid-Cold said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

@petrapark3r It's often said in parascientific books that there's always a divide between what we perceive and the true nature of the world, whether because of the delay in our senses picking up the data, our inability to perceive certain light and audio spectrums, etc.

Hehe, the parascientists should stop copying Kant then, saying things as if they were grown in their own backyard :yum:

I've been thinking a lot recently about belief.

I suppose I should talk a bit about real belief then. Because the real God couldn't care less about our philosophical discourses (even though I think he might chuckle over our jokes). For the God of the philosophers ain't quite Him and belief ain't quite what we think when we hear the word...

Faith, as it has always been and as you can see especially clearly in the old testament, is not being convinced of certain ideas. Instead it is trust. Trust in the very fact, that this God will act, in your life, today, and tomorrow. The israelites believed in a God who acted in history, even created history, not in some fancy shmancy theology.

You will not recognize this God in one teaching or another. You will recognize Him through His actions in your life. And once you have seen how He acts, you will realize that He has always been there, always working tirelessly to guide you closer to Him, to open doors for you, so you could see Him. You will understand that He is the most tender Father, the one who created you in His Heart, in the place that will one day be Your Heaven, if you dare so as to take His Hand.

And you shall recognize His voice.

And ...in my roundabout way, I've started to equate this with the thinking of Carlos Castaneda. I'd never quote anything from his 'Don Juan' meetings (because, let's face it, they're bunkum), but if you chase down his logic behind these transcendental experiences, he talks mainly about playing with his own expectations, manipulating them to achieve a different reality.

What would it be like to believe in something god-like 100 percent, with no margin for doubt? I'm not convinced we'd get an answer even if we could somehow go inside the mind of the most delusional, straight-jacketed religious schizophrenic. By observing his (OR HER) inner life, a duality would occur, which in turn would require a shared responsibility for this god-like thing, which de facto we'd be unable to get. Yet it is worth thinking about just because...

I'm a big lucid dreamer, me, and a profound thing I've noticed is this: lack of processing power on the part of my mind does not seem to be a consideration. I can come into consciousness in non-reality surrounded by the densest, most sophisticated details. And it's a hell of a thing for a human to be willing to take responsibility for everything. Every weird, quantum-age idea. Like, for instance, a certain amount of consciousness coming from the future, and, the

And when our minds get,

When the, (trips up, head falls in campfire, burns to death like drunken cowboy in Red Dead Redemption)

always making me smile :smile:

[Mr.Ghost]

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

In history – that is in a history when still anybody believed that there was a God or were gods – people already wanted to know. The idea of proving God seemed to be especially popular at the beginning of the last millenium. The first one to come up with such a "proof" was the monk Anselm of Canterbury. This is a short summary of his argument:

• Everybody can agree on the following definition: God is that above which you can think nothing greater
• Now think God like this, but think that he does not exist
• Woops, you can think of something higher can't you? Because a God who does exist, is definitely greater than one who doesn't
• Ergo: Our mind is not capable of thinking God without also thinking that he exists

Now for the million ₫ question (currency: vietnamese dong) : Why does this argument not prove that god exists?

frankly, I could not ensure the existence of God, on the other hand, I would say that this being does not really exist

[pe7erpark3r]

@Mr-Ghost said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

frankly, I could not ensure the existence of God, on the other hand,

Yeah, well, no, this "proof" I summarized, does not prove (ensure) the existence of god, no.

I would say that this being does not really exist

Why would you say God does not exist? Do you have a good reason?

[Mr.Ghost]

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

Why would you say God does not exist? Do you have a good reason?

.....i just say it....

[pe7erpark3r]

@Mr-Ghost said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

Why would you say God does not exist? Do you have a good reason?

.....i just say it....

:joy:

thats not what i meant :unamused: :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

[steelfirehawk]

I can prove God exists, but it's a long story, and even still an individual can choose to not believe me, even with evidence. I'll use the signs of my life that are easy to research. First of all my middle name is Steel, because my dads middle name is Flint, and he did this to symbolize a father son connection. I was born on 4/27/88. Well the funny thing about that is that 427 engines were made in Flint Michigan. There's also a game called the Stanley Parable based off of Half Life where the main character starts in room 427, and its the players objective to do as the narrator says, or go any other direction just to see Stanleys fate out of morbid curiosity. Also I was born in Indiana in the poorest city in America by record at the time of my birth, and my moms name is Deanna. So I was being conceived literally in Deanna my mother

Many of us adults know of a cheep high gravity beer called 211 Steel Reserve. My friends were calling me Steel Reserve before I knew the of the beer, but strange things happened regarding that number. I found out there's an album by Rush called 2112 about a man who suffers a terrible fate. On 2/11/13 the previous pope stated his resignation, and on that same day lightening struck the Vatican not once, but twice, and many of us have heard the expression that lightening does not strike the same place twice. The first woman I fell in love with was born 2/08/80 and there's a 3 day gap between her birthday the number 211, and valentines day.

My dad was born 8/08 and whats very odd about this is that long after I took a serious interest in Ukulele over all instruments I found out that Hawaii's area code is 808. I could go on and on about the strange signs of my life to be honest, but as I said no one has to believe me, even if they took the time to research, and find evidence of the things I share, and even then there is the question if I am telling the truth about names, origins and birth dates etc. As for me I have had all the evidence I need god exists, and moreover I have even seen demons flee from the name of Jesus, but again no one will likely even believe it.

[steelfirehawk]

it's simply easier to allow oneself to believe we evolved from monkeys to enable ourselves to be compulsive in the flesh like animals. People don't want to believe in God so they can do what they want without any regard to a higher power that judges purely, and righteously.

[Sabo-go-thud]

Okay....I want to break this down a little more. Not to prove/disprove an overall force that drives our reality, but ask...."can you prove I (@sabo-goes-thud) exist?" Or anyone else here.

Are you sure your talking to a human or a line of code or a lizard of the Illumina?

[pe7erpark3r]

@steelfirehawk said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

I can prove God exists, but it's a long story, and even still an individual can choose to not believe me, even with evidence. I'll use the signs of my life that are easy to research...

You have got to be very very careful with those playing with those numbers. Because the problem is, you can easily find connections anywhere. For example a lot of people in indiana where conceived by a woman named deanna. Since your name is Steel, and your friends might have heard the name of the beer in commercial a couple of times, it is rather likely that you would get exactly that nickname. By what rule should there be a connection with the album that is called 2112? Would there be the same connection if it was called 2211 or 2121? You know what I mean? You will see connections everywhere, if you look for this kind of connection, because there are connections like this anywhere.

And last but not least, there is a certain amount of coincidences that simply must happen in everybodies life! Just simply because their propability is in fact this high. Sorry, but IMHO the things you listed do not even qualify as evidence.

Seeing demons flee however would qualify as evidence, if you really saw them with your own eyes, which I doubt is what you mean by that. It really depends on exactly what you saw, wether it could be called evidence. However you must know that it wouldn't be proof. Seeing any kind of creature in this earth, even if it was a demon, would not prove God's existence. A real life demon apearing is strong evidence, but it is not proof.

[pe7erpark3r]

@Sabo-go-thud said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

Okay....I want to break this down a little more. Not to prove/disprove an overall force that drives our reality, but ask...."can you prove I (@sabo-goes-thud) exist?" Or anyone else here.

Are you sure your talking to a human or a line of code or a lizard of the Illumina?

There is an important difference between proving God's existence and the existence of literally anything or anyone else. Because there could be something that God must be, which you and me are not: necessary.

But we can break this down further if you want. It could be the case that we are not able to think. It could indeed be the case, that our thoughts don't really make any sense at all. It's just that they seem to make sense to us. Ergo, it could be that all our conclusions are wrong. It could be, that you are dreaming this whole world up, that nothing is real, and you could not prove anything, because you cannot really think. But there is one thing, that cannot be denied by you. That one thing is you. Because you experience. And experience requires a space in which it can happen. This space is you (your consciousness).

Now lets assume again, that our thoughts do indeed work, which is what you do, when you live your life (you do think, that you understand how your car works, or else you wouldn't dare to drive the hellish thing aye?). Now you have a problem. Because now you know that you exist, because you experience. The problem is this: Why do you exist? Why in the world would anything exist? And a reason seems to be necessary. Ergo. It could be possible to prove God (the reason), while it is impossible to prove to you, that I (or anyone else) exists, with the same clarity.

[Jeebuz]

I believe that God exists as a manifestation of our own intellectual evolution. To put it simply, God is the default placeholder for most people for everything unknown because that is simpler than not knowing. So to answer your question there is no way, yet, of knowing either way 😊

[pe7erpark3r]

@Jeebuz said in Fact check with Pet': Can you prove God's existence? Part I:

I believe that God exists as a manifestation of our own intellectual evolution. To put it simply, God is the default placeholder for most people for everything unknown because that is simpler than not knowing. So to answer your question there is no way, yet, of knowing either way 😊

Thank God our times have been doing great at putting an end to using God as a placeholder for everything unknown! But we might have been throwing the baby out with the bathwater too :joy:.

You are absolutely right btw., in the scientific sense (e.g. test → measure → interpret results), and it will also stay that way. Because whatever God is, He is not (a he :joy:...) anything like this world. He wouldn't be God if we could measure Him. In fact that is the whole dilemma: God could be doing absolutely nothing, and He would still be real and we could never measure Him (just like the parts of the universe that drift away from us faster than the speed of light) and He could also be doing lots and lots of things and they would just appear random to any measuring device...

But I'll write about another one of the ways to God, that'll really get you thinking soon.

[Jeebuz]

@petrapark3r Thanks for your thoughtful and intelligent response. :) I am glad I found this site now!

I find the biggest issue with us trying to understand or even discover the existence of a God, is our somewhat ignorance of the fact that we may not even have the capability/means to do so. I mean that is like us expecting a programmed character in a computer game to develop awareness of their programmer's (God) world, something that doesn't even exist or have any measurable connection within their own environment/programming.

My strongest hypothesis (and secretly hoping) :) would be that we are some form of advanced symbiosis between our human lives and another form of life, similar I guess to a kind of virtual reality system. What else could it be right :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: