Belief in the divine as the source and principle of Being is perfectly rational

>rational
>Based on or in accordance with reason or logic
Tell me that reason or logic of yours.

*tips fedora*

Replace divine with something transcendentally other and sure. Whatever. Now try to test your theory.

...oh..

No. As in, what is responsible for what we qualitatively refer to as lightning. The principle or idea of what we think of when we think of lightning. You're talking causes of lightning, I'm talking the nature of lightning as it is, as an existent thing with its own "qualitative signature".

>Your religions are all subreligions of my religion.

Ah, I see. The game is afoot!

I choose to believe in Teotl, the fundamental force that loosely translates as "change"!

All people, animals, and existence in general are just manifestations of change created by Teotl so that it can experience itself. No one can fully comprehend Teotl or really even perceive it correctly due to the limitations of our existence, one could say it works in mysterious ways.

All forms of religion, deities, worship, prayer, etc.. are all just manifestations of change and people worshiping them.

i.e. Worshiping Tlaloc is no different from being appreciative and hopeful for rain. Worshiping the Christian god is no different from being appreciative and hopeful for positive change (though we of Teotl faith understand that no change is purely positive or negative, but it is always necessary).

I think it's pretty clear that my religion is truly the uppermost religion and yours is only a subreligion of mine.

Rational:

>based on or in accordance with logical reasoning

The concept of God has no logical basis.

No logically viable argument in favour of God has ever been presented.

Hence Kierkegaard stated that one must take a leap of faith, in order to counter the trivial and meaningless nature of reality.

This amounts to an indulgence in delusion and denial, for the sake of feels.

Other options involve suicide, or creating your own purpose as the airy fairy humanists espouse.

Wow epic reddit post, more like religions are all describing facets of one reality, and thus are subordinated to the necessary principle of reality, which has been variously referred to the Tao, Godhead, One, Source, Nirvana, etc.

The only one trying to make this into denominational dick wagging is you

> The principle or idea of what we think of when we think of lightning.

Do you mean what sort of reaction we have to a given stimuli?

He was being facetious.

/thread

There have been several arguments for the existence of God which are formally valid. Whether or not you accept their premises as valid has no bearing on how logical the arguments themselves are.

They aren't valid, though.

>belief
>rational

nope. end of discussion.

No, the qualitative features of that stimuli itself.

The nature of water is to be a clear liquid with low viscosity, etc. Water is not somehow actually JUST h2o, it is the qualities which these particular bonds give rise to that is water as we know it. That there is such a thing as water is the principle or idea of water, which is what ancients meant by spirits inhabiting streams and rivers. the spirit was none other than the sum expression of what made a particular body of water relative to others.

citation needed

>No logical basis

>Whether or not you accept their premises as valid has no bearing on how logical the arguments themselves are.

The arguments have no logically viable premise, user.

That's the point.

You can deduce all you like from an ad hoc assertion.

Except I do believe in Teotl and I do perceive your other religions this way.

Though you're correct. I was being facetious because typically when someone throws up the "they are all one religion" claim they are specifically pushing Christianity or at the very least Monotheism with an almost entirely blind eye toward polytheism.

Fair enough, I'm not pushing Christianity here. It's nice but it's babby-tier

But they are logical.

This is common knowledge in theology. Google "five ways."

A logical argument can have a false premise and still be logical. Stop abusing technical terminology.

what that user said:

>The concept of God has no logical basis.

what you said:

>Whether or not you accept their premises as valid has no bearing on how logical the arguments themselves are.

just how retarded are you, user?

It's common knowledge among dipshit children who spend their lives chasing fairy tales and avoiding empiricality that maybe fairies are real.

Good job.

>empiricality

Pseud detected

You are attempting to argue semantics.

I clearly said 'logical basis'.

But as you seem so hyped up about it, here you go:

No logically viable argument with a valid premise has ever been presented in favour of God.

We have no inductive logical premise for the existence of God.

The belief in God is irrational.

user is a wank puffin.

tao = laws of the universe

A premise can be false or true, but not logical or illogical, which are terms used to categorize arguments, not premises. You can construct a logical argument on a false premise. You can construct an illogical argument of a true premise. This is freshman level.

not every divine belief gives you meaning. your point is moot.

yes, we know.

you're just being pedantic.

tl;dr of the entire chain of arguments that might follow: there is no valid basis for the belief in god.

you can kill yourself now, user.

Yes when people misuse words semantics tends to come up.

So, do you believe that other people have consciousness or are you a solipsist?

>Veeky Forums

Could you demonstrate how the premises of the five ways are false?

You know full well that I am talking about religious belief systems that denote some form of inherent purpose to life.

You know what we're discussing here.

We all do.

If you wan't to get into philosophy, then that's fine, but when the average person thinks of the divine, they think of God as described by the dominant culture in which they developed.

The average person isn't a sophisticated theologian or a philosopher.

That's what my post was dealing with and you know it.

P.S. Fuck you

1. Those are not the only two options.
2. Why do I have to have a belief? I could entertain a variety of possibilities and each would allow me to live my life and make my decisions exactly the way I do.
3. Define "Consciousness"

What are you even doing here?

How can order exist without a creator?

That's the question isn't it. Best not to muck it up with whatever answer you stumble upon and decide is shiniest.

There is no evidence that OP was talking about a God. Neither does every religion have a God.

PS: That's fine :)

is the mind duality evidence of an spiritual dimention most scientists want to mock?

what if the spiritual dimention is real and operates under physical laws we still don't understand yet?

what if god exists but is diferent than the one that is presented by religions?

by God I mean the source of creation.

Atheism is the worst religion. Saying that atheism is a religion is like saying dog shit is a flavour of ice cream.

Evidence only means it doesn't debunk your premise. However, that does not mean it supports anything. Let's not ruin scientific discourse with wishful thinking. Any of what you said may be true. Now test it.

..oh.. you can't. Okay so let's move on.

I think the best way to prove God is to investigate the concept of human conciusness.

I don't think modelling a human AI means is the same as an organic one, same as some horse robot doesn't mean is alive.

How is it that you think what you just said applies as an argument to what I just said?

Please, detail for me how to investigate human consciousness.

there's some weird ideas on the alternative new age movements.

they're clearly labeled as pseudoscience and easily dismissed.

wonder how many of such ideas could be properly tested by someone with real scientific background.

I remember someone putting a lie detector over plants and so on.

Everyone, please hold back on calling this guy a retard. I'm trying to show him gently.

I don't see any steps on how to investigate human consciousness. I'm waiting.

>new age movements
Ambiguous and interchangeable terminology thrown at the nature-nurture line to prey on the wishful thinking of the uneducated is not a scientific investigation.

>Lie detector on plants
I get it. You've seen a few facebook posts and took muchrooms once and now think that you can contribute to the study of mind.

I concede; my use of the term was careless.

Ok, one sec.

Look, if there were any evidence whatsoever that consciousness were transpersonal, or that it had any influence on matter, or any of the variety of ways outcast scientists have regurgitated mythological and scifi memes to prey on your wishful thinking, actual scientists would be all over it. It would be a career break. There would be no stopping them from further legitimate investigation. It would be the most important thing yet to happen in science. The fact of the matter is, there are no impirical means of investigating human consciousness. The social sciences are a word game and terence mckenna and rupert sheldrake and deepak chopera are preying on the hippies refusal to read real books and investigate their premises.

empirical* whoops

>he's an epiphenomalist

The Argument of the Unmoved Mover:

>In the world we can see that at least some things are changing. Whatever is changing is being changed by something else. If that by which it is changing is itself changed, then it too is being changed by something else. But this chain cannot be infinitely long, so there must be something that causes change without itself changing.

> But this chain cannot be infinitely long

There is no reason to believe that this chain cannot be infinitely long; in fact, we have reason to believe that it may well be.

The Argument of the First Cause:

> In the world we can see that things are caused. But it is not possible for something to be the cause of itself, because this would entail that it exists prior to itself, which is a contradiction. If that by which it is caused is itself caused, then it too must have a cause. But this cannot be an infinitely long chain, so therefore there must be a cause which is not itself caused by anything further.

The notion of causality is dependent on the dimension of time, which came into existence with our universe at the Big Bang.

Causality breaks down at the Big Bang.

The Argument from Contingency:

>In the world we see things that are possible to be and possible and not to be; In other words, perishable things. But if everything were contingent and thus capable of going out of existence, then, given infinite time, this possibility would be realized and nothing would exist now. But things clearly do exist now. Therefore, there must be something that is imperishable.

This is based on the notion that things that only have partial or flawed existence indicate that they are not their own sources of existence, and so must rely on something else as the source of their existence

Which is absolutely correct; however, the source of existence is matter.

The atoms that were expelled from exploding stars undergoing supernovae have gone on to become a part of you and me.

>inb4 we are all stardust memes

The matter remains constant, if only changing form from time to time.

Exactly. St. Thomas can believe in an infinite god but not an infinite causality? This is just nonsense. Ambiguous and interchangeable language thrown at unquantified topics to prey on wishful thinkers who just can't sit still without a "Belief" because for some reason it just won't do to have possibilities instead.

There is also no reason to believe that that something is sentient, godlike, or even a single object.

The Argument from Degree

>We see things in the world that vary in degrees of goodness, truth, nobility, etc. For example, sick animals and healthy animals, and well-drawn circles as well as poorly drawn ones. But judging something as being "more" or "less" implies some standard against which it is being judged. Therefore, there is something which is goodness itself.

Our sense of good and bad is resultant of positive and negative association circuitry in the brain which is shared with a great number of other animals, including chipmunks.

Our ability to conceptualise the highest degree of potential positive association is resultant of said circuitry interacting with our preinstalled simulation software which allows us to produce a range of abstract concepts.

Both of which have been experimentally verified and if you are interested in neuroscience there are two threads up at the moment detailing an assortment of introductory texts for the subject.

The Teleological Argument:

>We see various non-intelligent objects in the world behaving in regular ways. This cannot be due to chance, since then they would not behave with predictable results. So their behavior must be set. But it cannot be set by themselves, since they are non-intelligent and have no notion of how to set behavior. Therefore, their behavior must be set by something else, and by implication something that must be intelligent.

>This cannot be due to chance, since then they would not behave with predictable results.
>So their behavior must be set

Actually, the standard model of physics indicates that the laws of our universe are resultant of random quantum energy density fluctuations; therefore, we have a model in which the laws of physics arise by chance and are set.

There is also no basis for the belief that order must be resultant of intelligence, other than the presence of experimentally confirmed cognitive biases that lead us to attribute purpose to the natural world.

Hence when children are asked questions like ‘why are these rocks pointy?’ or ‘why do rivers exist?’, they typically reply with something along the lines of ‘so that birds don’t sit on them and break them’ and ‘for fishing’.

This was discovered in a 2008 study published in Science (Vol. 322, No. 5898)by Jennifer Whitson, PhD, and Adam Galinsky, PhD.

We’re also natural dualists, in that we have an inherent sense of being inside our bodies as opposed to being our bodies.

The five ways are wonderful proposals; however, they rely on ignorance that has since been alleviated.

They are tantamount to false premises in light of modern scientific discovery.

I'd also like to reiterate what this user said:

There is no reason to apply the notion of a sentient being to the origin of anything.

God exists and doesn't exist simultaneously unless observed.

What you mean is, god is an ideal. Something to be strived for. Like perfection. Selflessness. A babel language. a society of altruists. Or logos. Which would be.. wait for it... A scientific understanding of everything.

An ideal is "real" in the sense that you strive for it and it has enough momentum to keep you striving toward it. Sure. Just like how god help people quit drinking. They stopped drinking as soon as they found a reason to let go of alcohol. In that sense, god had presence in reality. But that does not change that it is still fiction.

That is unless you're talking about the double slit.

Also, in relation to this statement:

>Which is absolutely correct; however, the source of existence is matter.

I’ll take this one step further:

What’s matter?

It’s essentially excitations of fields, which are mathematically represented by tensors.

Forces are essentially exchanges of virtual particles, which is tantamount to saying exchanges of energy.

Everything is essentially energy.

Where did that energy originate?

The quantum vacuum.

What’s all that about?

We’re working on it.

>pic related

What a non-argument.

>what is beauty
>this part of your brain that lights up when you think about beauty lmao

No, this associational circuitry exists because there is qualitatively something we are reacting to, namely the undesirability of evil, privation, suffering, cruelty, etc. and the desirability of beauty, love, etc.

The standard of goodness is the overall health and well-being of the organism in question. To deny there are not gradients of sickness and health, suffering and joy, (what is conventionally referred to as) immorality and morality is to be completely blind to what this argument is saying.

You're saying literally nothing different than Aquinas is saying, except your terminology is more modern and scientific.

>Cannot use defined terms
>What a non-argument.

>m-muh defined terms

You know exactly what I'm saying. Respond or don't.

Nobody denied that there is a gradient; we have the ability to compare degrees of positive and negative association.

What we positively and negatively associate is determined by our genetic and environmental programming, plus many of our culturally mediated associations are built upon underlying genetic infrastructure, i.e. incest aversion.

The nature of the genetic predispositions to certain associations is resultant of the processes of evolution via natural selection.

>there is a God

There is no reason to believe in a God(s).

Oh look, I'm saying something completely different.

>You're saying literally nothing different than Aquinas is saying, except your terminology is more modern and scientific.

That user literally just refuted everything Aquinas said. Your statement couldn't be further from the truth.

Wasn't talking about ideals, although that is a view I like and find intriguing. Just saying, that as long as we can't find proof for either side of the argument, being anything else than agnostic would be idiotic.

It's best not to muddle up scientific endeavor with wishful thinking.

Nope. Natural selection is not the cause of finding x good and y evil, it is the mechanism by which believing x is good and y is evil actually works. Natural selection didn't "tell me" child murder is wrong, it's because I think child murder is wrong that I have successfully propagated my genes, because any society built on child murderers is not going to last due to the flaws inherent in a mentality that is predisposed to child murder.

Your argument is a non-answer.

Wrong again. Then Aquinas can just counter how there is a potentiality for physical laws to spontaneously emerge from a quantum vacuum and fine-tune themselves accordingly. Don't answer with le anthropic principle, the question is how it is possible that a highly complex, ordered universe can exist, not whether or not if there are a trillion other dud universes that didn't make the cut

>Natural selection is not the cause of finding x good and y evil

I didn't say it was user, I said:

>What we positively and negatively associate is determined by our genetic and environmental programming,

Our programming tells us that x is good and y is evil.

The programming that survives is that which contributes to our inclusive fitness, as mediated by natural selection.

>any society built on child murderers is not going to last due to the flaws inherent in a mentality that is predisposed to child murder.

Oh dear, it looks as though somebody has slipped into group selection; what a shame, you weren't doing too badly before that point.

Actually user, infanticide is practiced by humans in certain context.

That is to say, infanticide most definitely has evolutionary benefits in certain contexts.

I'd advise you to brush up on your evolutionary biology and anthropology.

>Then Aquinas can just counter

Aquinas can't do shit, because he's fucking dead.

>the question is how it is possible that a highly complex, ordered universe can exist

Yes, that is the question.

It's the question that theoretical physicists are working on.

The answer is: we do not currently know.

The same answer is given to the question of, how does the organic structure of the brain give rise to consciouss experience.

We don't know and neither do you.

Nobody does.

Infanticide is practiced according to values any modern would agree with. Steppe tribes will kill their infants not because abooga wooga everything is relative, but because the tribe cannot support an additional mouth to feed and will thereby kill it to prevent its future suffering. That's it. Don't try to slip this bizarro world morality bullshit past me.

Morality is a direct product of the ontological status of being a thinking, feeling agent in a world populated with other thinking, feeling agents, all with the same capacity to suffer. It is an objective phenomenon insofar as subjectivity is an objective phenomenon.

>>>Veeky Forumsrules/3

Fuck off.

As rational as believing a potato is a source and principle of everything.

>abooga wooga everything is relative
>Don't try to slip this bizarro world morality bullshit past me

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

>because the tribe cannot support an additional mouth to feed and will thereby kill it to prevent its future suffering

Firstly, you’re appealing to group selection again without realising it.

Anyway, there are all kinds of justifications given for killing infants; however, the rationale individuals develop for performing any action often doesn’t match the underlying cause.

We tell ourselves all kinds of stories, in order to explain our behaviour; however, they’re often very wrong.

Inuit mothers typically kill female infants, as they believe that killing the infant will increase fertility and increase the likelihood of carrying a male infant to birth the next time around.

It has nothing to do with the future suffering of the female infant; it's because the female infant is considered less valuable.

From an evolutionary perspective, this is accurate as males will have more opportunities to pass on genetic material than females.

When it comes to infanticide, females are disproportionately targeted and this comes as no surprise to anyone who has an understanding of evolutionary biology.

>Morality is a direct product of the ontological status of being a thinking, feeling agent in a world populated with other thinking, feeling agents, all with the same capacity to suffer.

In relation to empathy resulting from theory of mind interacting with kin altruism, mate-specific altruism and reciprocal altruism; however, morality is also dependent on a variety of conflicting other sub-routines than govern human behaviour, i.e. guilt reinforcing a long term mating strategy and negatively reinforcing short term mating/infidelity.

to all the uneducated morons itt:
it's because the bible is so accurate historically despite all odds that it not being inspired of God is an impossibility.

The "evolutionary perspective" isn't a perspective, it's the effects of real humans behaving in real time. There's no "evolutionary perspective" in killing females to ensure males will pass on their genes; it is a function of society, environment, and individual dispositions, all of which add up to the "evolutionary perspective". Your argument is starting to seriously reek of a telos. However mediated our perception of what is undesirable/desirable is, no matter what there are some things considered universally desirable/undesirable by the average representative of a population.

You're thinking this shit too mechanically. First there is the qualitative apprehension of reality, then there are the effects of these decisions made according to these gradients of good/bad, beautiful/ugly, etc. which add up to the long-term "evolutionary perspective". You are confusing the effect for the cause.

Did anyone actually google the '5 ways' arguments?

Three of the 5 are invalidated by the simple existence of feedback systems, which are now known to operate in every field (from psychology to computer science) and at every scale (i.e. molecular to cosmological scales). This knowledge may be relatively new in comparison to these arguments, which may explain the very existence of the '5 ways' argument to begin with.

Most of these arguments start from false premises as well. Worth a look for those of you who enjoy sorting through arguments to identify flaws.

>it is a function of society, environment, and individual dispositions, all of which add up to the "evolutionary perspective".

No user; you seem to be confused.

Individual dispositions and society are resultant of evolutionary programming interacting with a variety of environments over time.

In particular contexts, for example during times of scarcity, the rate of infanticide will increase and the targets of the infanticides will be disproportionately female.

This occurs because humans who practiced infanticide during times of scarcity fared better than those who didn’t, for obvious reasons.

More specifically, humans who practiced female specific infanticide fared even better as males are able to pass on more genetic material, which is due to high gamete density in males (millions of sperm produced daily) compared to females (one ovum per month).

>no matter what there are some things considered universally desirable/undesirable by the average representative of a population.

Of course there are, this is exactly what evolutionary biology indicates.

I’ve already mention human behavioural universal ITT several times, so I have no idea why you are bringing this up.

you don't seem to have understood a single word the other user has written. it's like you're arguing with someone else.

He's trying to refute Aquinas' argument for the existence of a Good with his reductionist evolutionary drivel, I understand perfectly what he's saying.

>Individual dispositions and society are resultant of evolutionary programming interacting with a variety of environments over time.

Which are the results of human behaviors made in real time. There is no "evolutionary programming", there are organisms that survive, and organisms that don't, all according to what in this universe is conducive to survival vs. what isn't. You are saying literally nothing insightful or interesting other than "when people with trait x survive, they survive. ergo, aquinas is wrong." Wow, amazing.

the fact that the prevailing societies of the past widely acknowledged the existence of a Good in some shape or form is not because of nebulous "evolutionary programming", but because those that recognized the Good had a greater chance of survival because they were more attuned to the very same cosmic laws of action and reaction, psychological health and sickness, that ensured their survival in the first place.

>He's trying to refute Aquinas' argument for the existence of a Good with his reductionist evolutionary drivel
>when people with trait x survive, they survive. ergo, aquinas is wrong

What the absolute fuck are you going on about? This has absolutely nothing to do with Aquinas.

I am replying to your comments regarding that nature of the positive and negative association circuitry in the brain.

Nothing I have said since these posts:

Has had anything to do with Aquinas or the The Argument from Degree.

The argument against the the Argument from Degree was simply as follows:

>But judging something as being "more" or "less" implies some standard against which it is being judged.

The standard is behavioural programming stored in the form of particular nucleotide arrangements and neural networks in the brain that correspond to an array of psychological mechanisms that were crafted by the evolutionary processes of natural selection.

That’s the standard.

And that, is the refutation of the argument.

Nothing that I have been posting about before this point and after the aforementioned posts (above), has been related to Aquinas or the five ways.

hahaha you idiot, that user stoped talking about aquinas ages ago.

as usual
nobody refutes this
lmao fucking stembots

You're a fucking idiot. My whole argument has been there's no abooga wooga hand of evolution mechanistically guiding everything from on high, and to say something is less beautiful than something else isn't "nucleotide arrangements" somehow talking through me, it's me talking through me dumbass, I am equivalent with the nucleotide arrangements and neural networks, I am not somehow subordinate or determined by them, I AM them. Your argument is literally "we are made of something so Aquinas is wrong".

It's an autistic, shitty, reductionist argument that explains nothing and tries to set up this artificial bifurcation between the "fake" me who can judge what is beautiful and ugly, and the "real" me which is just a puppet dancing to the tune of my "biological programming", when in fact we are one and the same. And it is exactly that there IS a concept of beauty, and good, and sickness and health, that Aquinas is trying to explain teleologically, he's not asking for a scientific explanation for how we get here dipshit, he's trying to understand the theological ramifications of this "here" in the first place.

Dude, I don't think you have a full understanding of what you're talking about. The other guy is schooling your ass - you can't seem to grasp how evolution works at all, or how the evolutionary process explains just about everything in terms of basic human thought and behavior. Go to bed.

Lmao no it doesn't you fucking autist.

Goodnight user.

>le embarrassed for u pretty girl XDDD

not an argument.

...