Why Must There Be a God?

[_Dr Exiled]

Doesn't "God" exist or at least the concept of him exist in order to justify his proxy's authority? Don't church people need him to exist to justify their constant need to tell us what to do?

[_subgenius]

The ability to choose does not defy natural law. You still choose to act, but your actions are bound by physical law. This statement of yours is meaningless. My thought and action are not without option...

you misunderstand the extent of your own argument here.

Your very thoughts, by your notion, must be products of bio-chemical reaction...inescapably formed by environmental influences. No thought can be "generated" without first being subject to the immutable laws that govern these reactions. Therefore your notion of being able to "choose" is a delusion because that "choice" is nothing more than the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion of a variety of chemical reactions...reactions that are unable to "react" any other way.

For example, when a pot of water reaches boiling temperature on your stove, it has no ability to not boil. There is no choice....there is no option. Your scenario requires that your own brain, for whatever purpose, is merely creating illusions of choice as the chemical reactions proceed along their inevitable path.
So
if "you" are claiming that somehow you can disrupt or deviate from these chemical laws of nature then you are, by definition, behaving in a supernatural manner....and that is sufficient evidence for the possibility of the supernatural....and if the supernatural is possible, then it is also possible that God exists, because God is necessarily supernatural.

Now, for you to insert at this point some statement like - "well we just haven't figured that part out yet" - is tantamount to making a faith based claim, thus making you a worshiper of science - as in no different than any other religious person you may see fit to criticize.

But hey...if you know of some natural method or process by which you are able to "choose otherwise" then, please, explain. Share with us all how it is that you are capable of defying the laws of chemistry.

[_Amore]

Why should I define god? I am not the one proposing that such a thing exists. You define it.

If god is defined as the conjectured uncaused causer of the teleological and cosmological arguments, then god may as well be the universe as some being or entity of conscience. I am not inclined to worship gravity.

How logical is it to deny something that you don't know the meaning of?

[_SteelHead]

As logical as not engaging in a discussion about the physiology of dragon-unicorn hybrids.


How logical is it to insist something exits, that you can provide no evidence of, and that you can not provide a definition of?

[Guest]

Your very thoughts, by your notion, must be products of bio-chemical reaction...inescapably formed by environmental influences. No thought can be "generated" without first being subject to the immutable laws that govern these reactions. Therefore your notion of being able to "choose" is a delusion because that "choice" is nothing more than the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion of a variety of chemical reactions...reactions that are unable to "react" any other way.

I can choose to understand that your statement is absurd. Even though thought is a process based in chemical process, it is not necessarily deterministic. Your pot boiling example is over simplistic when applied to the processes of the human mind. That we can not fully explain the working of the human mind does not make it supernatural. Just, currently not fully understood at this time.

Your false dilemma is not worth chasing.

[_ludwigm]

How logical is it to insist something exists, that you can provide no evidence of, and that you can not provide a definition of?

"For by this time Starglider was more than a match for any terrestrial logician. This was partly the fault of the University of Chicago's Department of Philosophy; in a fit of monumental hubris, it had clandestinely transmitted the whole of the Summa Theologica, with disastrous results.
2069 June 02 GMT 19 .34. Message 1946, sequence 2.
Starglider to Earth: I have analysed the arguments of your Saint Thomas Aquinas as requested in your message 145 sequence 3 of 2069 June 02 GMT 18 .42. Most of the content appears to be sense-free random noise and so devoid of information, but the printout that follows lists 192 fallacies expressed in the symbolic logic of your reference Mathematics 43 of 2069 May 29 GMT 02 .51.
Fallacy I... (hereafter a 75-page printout.)
As the log timings show, it took Starglider rather less than an hour to demolish Saint Thomas. Although philosophers were to spend the next several decades arguing over the analysis, they found only two errors; and even those could have been due to a misunderstanding of terminology."

"2069 June 08 GMT 15 .37 Message 6943 sequence 2. Starglider to Earth: The hypothesis you refer to as God, though not disprovable by logic alone, is unnecessary for the following reason.
If you assume that the universe can be quote explained unquote as the creation of an entity known as God, he must obviously be of a higher degree of organisation than his product. Thus you have more than doubled the size of the original problem, and have taken the first step on a diverging infinite regress. William of Ockham pointed out as recently as your fourteenth century that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. I cannot therefore understand why this debate continues."

[_subgenius]

I can choose to understand that your statement is absurd. Even though thought is a process based in chemical process, it is not necessarily deterministic. Your pot boiling example is over simplistic when applied to the processes of the human mind. That we can not fully explain the working of the human mind does not make it supernatural. Just, currently not fully understood at this time.

Your false dilemma is not worth chasing.

There is no dilemma, either you believe I'm free will or you believe in the laws of the universe.
The logic remains even when considering "yet to be discovered" laws of biology or chemistry. No matter how you care to describe a physical process it must adhere to a law of the universe (nature) because to transcend that law (choose otherwise) is supernatural. It is hardly "over simplified" to compare a thought process to boiling water - complexity does not create magic powers that can somehow choose not to boil.

However,
Your concession is duly noted and your faith based statement is as was predicted.

[_SteelHead]

I can choose to understand that your statement is absurd. Even though thought is a process based in chemical process, it is not necessarily deterministic. Your pot boiling example is over simplistic when applied to the processes of the human mind. That we can not fully explain the working of the human mind does not make it supernatural. Just, currently not fully understood at this time.

Your false dilemma is not worth chasing.

There is no dilemma, either you believe I'm free will or you believe in the laws of the universe.
The logic remains even when considering "yet to be discovered" laws of biology or chemistry. No matter how you care to describe a physical process it must adhere to a law of the universe (nature) because to transcend that law (choose otherwise) is supernatural. It is hardly "over simplified" to compare a thought process to boiling water - complexity does not create magic powers that can somehow choose not to boil.

However,
Your concession is duly noted and your faith based statement is as was predicted.

Ah the claim of victory where none exists. Your argument is founded on the claim that choice must be supernatural, else there is no choice. You have not demonstrated this. It is upon you to do so.

[_subgenius]

Ah the claim of victory where none exists. Your argument is founded on the claim that choice must be supernatural, else there is no choice. You have not demonstrated this. It is upon you to do so.

it has been clearly demonstrated, your refusal to admit it does not change that objective fact.
Again,
You have already affirmed" (if not, please post correction):
1. That "evidence" is required for validity.
2. Lack of evidence joined by a faith statement is not acceptable for validity.
examples:
a) you saying "no one knows today, but one day we may know"
b) me saying "God knows today, but one day we may know"
3. There are laws that govern the Universe
examples:
a) when walking around my house, no matter where i drop this ball, it falls.
b) mixing baking soda and vinegar always causes these bubbles and gas
c) Sulfur Dioxide has a density (mass) of 64 g/mol
d) energy is neither created nor destroyed
4. The laws described by #3 above are immutable.
examples:
a) Sulfur Dioxide will never have a density(mass) of 17 g/mol like Ammonia.
5. The human body is composed of elements and nothing more.
6. These elements have consistent and unchanging physical characteristics.
examples:
a) Carbon always is Carbon...always has an atomic weight of 12.0111 and melts at 3800 K, etc.
b) Covalent bonds
7. The human brain is a component of the human body
8. All of the processes in, and performed by, the human brain are subject to the laws and concepts described in items #1 through #6 above.
examples:
a) http://engineering.mit.edu/ask/what-are-thoughts-made - "When the signal reaches the end of an axon, it causes the release of chemical neurotransmitters into the synapse, a chemical junction between the axon tip and target neurons"
9. A single chemical reaction is bound to a single behavior, a single unchanging "product"...is subject to the natural law.
examples:
a) Bimolecular Chemical synthesis is A+B-->AB and can never be A+B-->CD
b) Electrolysis of water will always be 2H2O-->2H2+O2 and can never be 2H2O-->Pb(NO3)2
10. If thoughts, choices, or other activity of the brain are subject to these same natural laws of chemistry then they are incapable of violating those laws.
11. If thoughts, choices, or other activity of the brain are NOT subject to these same natural laws of chemistry then they are by definition supernatural.
examples:
a)"(Of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature" - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... pernatural
12. Items #10 and #11 above are mutually exclusive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_exclusivity
13. If item #10 is true then a it is impossible for any reaction (thought) to produce any other product. Therefore making it impossible to choose otherwise. A chemical reaction never has more than one path
a) Sulfur Dioxide never has the ability to be either 64 g/mol or 17 g/mol
b) IF this "X" then 2H2O-->2H2+O2; OR IF this "Y" then 2H2O-->Pb(NO3)2 is not a possible conditions within the laws of chemistry.
14. The logical and reasonable conclusion of #13 is that any concept of free-will or decision making is delusional. When an environmental (external) stimulation occurs that initiates a series of chemical reactions (no matter the complexity) then those reactions are unchangeable.
examples:
a) You may laugh at something that I do not laugh at, but that is only because different series of reaction occurred within your brain than occurred within mine.
15. If these chemical reactions are governed by something other than other chemical reactions then #11 must be true, because this "something else" must necessarily transcend the laws of nature.
16. If the supernatural exists then God may be reasonably considered to exist.

Now, certainly another way to consider this is that the basic concept of "nature" is flawed, but this violates #2 above. Because if you put forth a faith based statement then you can not reasonably dismiss any other person's faith based statement.
So, in light of that position, you must rely only on what "you know" and what you "can prove" - which leaves you in the awkward position of having to accept the notion that your sense of self and sense of "choosing" is merely a delusion - a chemical induced hallucination which veils the inevitably, nay, veils the imprisonment of natural laws.
Perhaps it is just a biological evolution of the mind in order to keep the physical body "doing", but that would be speculation (or scientific prayer).

Anyway, there is my demonstration (again).

[_SteelHead]

Again with the oversimplification. Comparing a massively parallel hundreds of millions of pathways, feedback mechanism, learning and memory electro chemical biological processor to boiling water in order to show that it is magic...... The brain is not a single chemical reaction. It is an process that weighs and evaluates against a multitude of input variables via reactions, produces a multitude of options, via the parallelism inherent over differing weighted pathways, and allows for the selection from the results. There is also an element of randomness thrown in, plus the impact of degraded pathways.



Your overly simplistic attempt at making it supernatural might satisfy you, doesn't meet the criteria of showing that it is supernatural.

You would have been the guy 700 years ago arguing that the only logical explination for lightning is Thor welding Mjolnir.