Originally posted by amannion I don't think so, but I could be wrong.
Now we're getting to the heart of the matter.
What I want to know is whether anybody believes that God exists out of logical necessity. That is, if you believe God exists, do you believe he does so contingently, in which case evidence has bearing on your belief, or out of logical necessity, in which case evidence has no bearing on your belief. Note that you cannot have it both ways.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles Now we're getting to the heart of the matter.
What I want to know is whether anybody believes that God exists out of logical necessity. That is, if you believe God exists, do you believe he does so contingently, in which case evidence has bearing on your belief, or out of logical necessity, in which case evidence has no bearing on your belief. Note that you cannot have it both ways.
St. Anselm's Ontological argument for the existence of god claimed his existence could be known a priori. The Cosmological and the Teleological arguments are a posteriori arguments for the existence of god.
Originally posted by rwingett St. Anselm's Ontological argument for the existence of god claimed his existence could be known a priori. The Cosmological and the Teleological arguments are a posteriori arguments for the existence of god.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles And which do you prefer?
They are all flawed. None of them accomplishes what they set out to do. The teleological argument, as popularized by William Paley, is probably the best known.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles Must God exist?
If you are to have an unchanging absolute point of reference by which you can measure all other things, then God has to exist as that unchanging absolute point of reference.
Originally posted by dj2becker If you are to have an unchanging absolute point of reference by which you can measure all other things, then God has to exist as that unchanging absolute point of reference.
Why must we have an unchanging absolute point of reference? And if we are to have one why must it be God? And let's not even mention the fact that declaring that something must exist because we need it to is horrible.
Originally posted by XanthosNZ Why must we have an unchanging absolute point of reference? And if we are to have one why must it be God? And let's not even mention the fact that declaring that something must exist because we need it to is horrible.
You only need it if you want to make sense of the world around you.
If you have stopped at an intersection and you see the car in front of you moving towards you, for a fraction of a second you go down harder on your break pedal with your foot in order to make sure that it is not you that is moving. Then you look at a lamp-post or something else that is stationary in order to see if in fact you are moving or not.
Now how would you feel if the lamp-post also started to move?
God is the only being that can provide us with an unchanging absolute point of reference, by which we can make sense of the world around us, since by definition there is not a moment in time that God did not exist
Originally posted by dj2becker You only need it if you want to make sense of the world around you.
If you have stopped at an intersection and you see the car in front of you moving towards you, for a fraction of a second you go down harder on your break pedal with your foot in order to make sure that it is not you that is moving. Then you look at a lamp-post or something else that i ...[text shortened]... of the world around us, since by definition there is not a moment in time that God did not exist
So you need God to give your life meaning is what you are saying?
What about people who don't need God to make their life meaningful?
An interesting question
05 Oct '06 03:39
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