rEvolutionist wrote:

Nocterro wrote:The biggest problem is with this:

Dawkins wrote:
3 The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the
designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously
no solution to postulate something even more improbable. We need a 'crane', not a 'skyhook', for only a crane can do the
business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbable complexity.

This is destroyed by the existence of a necessary being.

As others have said, I've got no idea what you mean by a "necessary" being.

Furthermore, God is not more improbable than competing hypotheses if there are good reasons to think GH is true, and no good reasons to think any competing hypothesis is true.

What's "GH"? I assume its some sort of theory for supernatural design? I don't know what the evidential state of abiogenesis is. That's not to say that there is no evidence, it's just that I don't know. If it is the case that no theories have any evidence at all, then I am led to believe that this doesn't equate to the assertion that each theory is as likely as each other. This is a branch of probability studies I don't know anything about.

I'm guessing GH is god hypothesis. EDIT: beaten to it.

The argument of a necessary being is the argument from contingency, just another variation on the cosmological argument where first cause is replaced by universal cause.

Armageddo wrote:Come on, who's brave enough to volunteer for a one on one debate?

Why one on one? This mass debate seems to be jerking along just fine.

So what is it exactly you want to debate? You seem to want someone to defend particular things about The God Delusion. I would never do that as I didn't write it and it doesn't speak for me as a total expression of what I believe. It's not an atheist bible, it's just one man's view.

If you just want a debate on the subject "does God exist", then I expect someone would probably be willing. There'd need to be some groundrules though, and I expect most people would include something about the burden of proof in those. Thus, it's up to you, first of all, to provide some evidence that he exists.

As you still haven't done this, despite all your self-satisfied bluster, the chances of that happening don't look good.

There seems to be an awful lot of dick-waving going on in this thread.... poe?

Are forum cleaners allowed to do the Hot Squeegee Shuffle during a Formal Debate?

btw, "necessary" in the modal sense isn't quite the same as the word as it is understood in the case as he is "necessary" for something, namely say this universe.

Katherine wrote:Are forum cleaners allowed to do the Hot Squeegee Shuffle during a Formal Debate?

Do what you like, babe, just enjoy the spectacle. That's if our friend ever shows up. And at the end you can be at my side, sharing in the glory. Then we'll build a life together and you can be my manager when I take on Dawkins himself. Oh yeah baby, I'm going for the big time, you betcha. I'm going all the way to the top. I assume it'll be a white wedding? Ah, never mind, as long as you're by my side.

I just looked up the "argument from contingency" on wiki and it contained these few sentences:

wikipedia wrote:Aquinas observed that, in nature, there were things with contingent existences. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed.

The last two sentences are a non-sequiter. A set of things once did not exist, therefore the full set of everything did not exist!?! Surely he didn't mean this, did he?

rEvolutionist wrote:I just looked up the "argument from contingency" on wiki and it contained these few sentences:

wikipedia wrote:Aquinas observed that, in nature, there were things with contingent existences. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed.

The last two sentences are a non-sequiter. A set of things once did not exist, therefore the full set of everything did not exist!?! Surely he didn't mean this, did he?

Surely you haven't found a hole in the argument!?

Armageddo wrote:

Katherine wrote:Are forum cleaners allowed to do the Hot Squeegee Shuffle during a Formal Debate?

Do what you like, babe, just enjoy the spectacle. That's if our friend ever shows up. And at the end you can be at my side, sharing in the glory. Then we'll build a life together and you can be my manager when I take on Dawkins himself. Oh yeah baby, I'm going for the big time, you betcha. I'm going all the way to the top. I assume it'll be a white wedding? Ah, never mind, as long as you're by my side.

So you think you're an expert Cleaner flirter?
That don't impress me much.
You got the brag, but do ya have the touch?
Don't get me wrong, yeah you could be alright,
But words don't warm my body on a long, cold night!

Shania Twain, ladies and gentlemen!

Mr P wrote:

rEvolutionist wrote:I just looked up the "argument from contingency" on wiki and it contained these few sentences:

wikipedia wrote:Aquinas observed that, in nature, there were things with contingent existences. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed.

The last two sentences are a non-sequiter. A set of things once did not exist, therefore the full set of everything did not exist!?! Surely he didn't mean this, did he?

Surely you haven't found a hole in the argument!?

I can't believe that could be a hole. It's too obvious. Must be wiki ballsing it up (that a shock...).

Katherine wrote:

Armageddo wrote:

Katherine wrote:Are forum cleaners allowed to do the Hot Squeegee Shuffle during a Formal Debate?

Do what you like, babe, just enjoy the spectacle. That's if our friend ever shows up. And at the end you can be at my side, sharing in the glory. Then we'll build a life together and you can be my manager when I take on Dawkins himself. Oh yeah baby, I'm going for the big time, you betcha. I'm going all the way to the top. I assume it'll be a white wedding? Ah, never mind, as long as you're by my side.

So you think you're an expert Cleaner flirter?
That don't impress me much.
You got the brag, but do ya have the touch?
Don't get me wrong, yeah you could be alright,
But words don't warm my body on a long, cold night!

Shania Twain, ladies and gentlemen!

I like it.

Armageddo wrote:Nocterro, they know very well what this thread is about, but they're too scared to actually offer any of Dawkins' arguments. Just like Dawkins himself, they like to shy away from the real questions. But then again, what can you expect from people who worship a man who wrote a book called the GOD Delusion but which fails to address the question of god? Not to mention their numerous evasion tactics.

My very first response was actually an argument against what you are saying. general-faith/the-god-not-religion-delusion-t3446.html#p77064

You have thus far fannied about and refused to acknowledge it, clearly demonstrating that you are afraid to enter any real discussion and instead like to flex your little chicken drumstick muscles to make you feel like a big man.

Perhaps when you develop the maturity of say, a ripened pineapple, you can start to actually address the rebuttals to your OP.

Armageddo wrote:Do what you like, babe, just enjoy the spectacle. That's if our friend ever shows up. And at the end you can be at my side, sharing in the glory. Then we'll build a life together and you can be my manager when I take on Dawkins himself. Oh yeah baby, I'm going for the big time, you betcha. I'm going all the way to the top. I assume it'll be a white wedding? Ah, never mind, as long as you're by my side.

This little man syndrome grows tiring, I;ll say it again... ahem.... POE.

Nocterro wrote:

Under Construction wrote:You have yet to demonstrate that there is such a thing a a necessary being so someone might want to tell Armageddo to cease and desist in his premature victory dance.

God is a necessary being by definition. He's not contingent. He can't fail to exist. (note: I am not claiming that God exists here, I am merely describing the ontology of God)

That's why the argument doesn't work. God, if he exists, has no explanation. He exists necessarily.

Meaningless wibble.

Necessary to what? Why is he necessary? Why is the universe not a necessary being/thing?

And if he cannot fail to exist, you either are claiming he exists or you have a pretty big hole in your argument.

Armageddo wrote:If any of you misguided atheists is brave enough to debate me on the existence of God, using the arguments put forward (well, what little there are) in Dawkins' badly titled book,

Man, what a load of piffle in this thread!

Debate you..only using another individual's else's arguments from a single book? Why the Hel would anyone do that?! It's just plain insane!

And from what I have seen so far, to be honest, I don't think you are up to the task just yet.

Armageddo wrote:I will gladly refute them all.

You don't even get the title of the book. So why should anyone believe this of you?!

On that note: "The religion delusion" - now that would be insane; imagine someone being so delusional that they believe that they have a religious belief that they do not really have!

Armageddo wrote:Hackenslash has problems with it due to his confusion over the title,

No, the problem is with your fixed erroneous assumption that you DO understand it.
____________________

Armageddo wrote:
If you want a definition, I will give you one. God is the source of all phenomena and all systems and processes.

What a pathetically poor definition. This is the claim that God is the first cause. This could be the deist god - one Richard Dawkins expressly stated that he was NOT discussing in TGD, thus "using Dawkins' arguments in the god delusion" would be pointless wouldn't it? Like using the recipes in a pastry cookbook to explain string theory.
Also this defined "God" could be almost anything; a quantum wave fluctuation, the collapse of inherently unstable "nothing", a magical pixie, or any bloody thing imaginable or unimaginable. Nothing more than "I have no freakin' idea, but if we just assume, for no good reason, that everything has an ultimate cause, let's just call that cause 'God'. Why not eh?"

It is giving a label to an unknown, and choosing one that implies a pretence that it is in some manner known.

Armageddo wrote:Now, using Dawkins' arguments in the god delusion, debate me.

No.
____________________________

Nocterro wrote:This is destroyed by the existence of a necessary being.

Great, now all you have to do is establish that this "necessary being" does in fact exist. In other words; to substantiate the god-hypothesis in this manner, you have gotten to the point that all you have to do to substantiate it is prove that this god exists. Nowhere in other words.

You can't just assert, that is MAKE UP, the existence (or even need) or a "necessary being" (not even a necessary first cause for that matter,) and claim that this solves the problem.

There's way to many "Ifs" there; IF there is anything that is "necessary." IF it is a being. IF it was the singular first cause of everything. Then and only then does it solve the potential infinite regress created by postulating an intelligent designer of the universe in the first place.

It's Einstein's cosmological constant on crack! "IF we just make up this mysterious magic man, then we can PRETEND that the problem doesn't exist! And HEY, if we give it the characteristics of the god we believe in then we can ALSO pretend that is it is an argument, supporting evidence/reasoning even, for him as well! "

Nocterro wrote:Furthermore, God is not more improbable than competing hypotheses if there are good reasons to think GH is true, and no good reasons to think any competing hypothesis is true.

There are no good reasons to believe that this GH is true though.
In fact you have not even yet detailed sufficiently what this hypothesis is supposed to explain exactly! Hypothesis for what?!
____________________________

Nocterro wrote:God is a necessary being by definition. He's not contingent. He can't fail to exist. (note: I am not claiming that God exists here, I am merely describing the ontology of God)

What utter bollocks.
I could say the same about "The Necessary Cheese Sandwich"; it too is necessary by definition, is not contingent, can not fail to exist.

You just asserted, based on absolutely nothing, that the first cause or whatever, is a "being" (and a "he")
Yes, we get that you believe that to be the case. BUT WHY, and why should anybody else?!

Nocterro wrote:That's why the argument doesn't work. God, if he exists, has no explanation. He exists necessarily.

You can't just define away the holes in your argument. You have in no way made ANY inroads into establishing that there is, or is any need for a "necessary being"...for what? The universe existing? What?! You have just thrown in the god you already believe in can asserted that he could be the answer...of course he could - he's MAGIC. Thus of no rational value.

You entire argument here is that Dawkins' argument that an intelligent designer existing before the creation of the universe, and creating it somehow, is implausible, "doesn't work" because it COULD have been done by an 'eternal' magic man, a mystical being, that unlike any known being is somehow "necessary, contingent and can't not exist"!
Now; if he had been claiming that it was literally impossible, then you might have had a case, but he wasn't, was he?
_____________________________

Armageddo wrote:Nocterro, they know very well what this thread is about, but they're too scared to actually offer any of Dawkins' arguments.

Love the cheap shots don't you.
Why should we take our arguments from the one book you specify?
If you are so hot to show that you can refute them, then why don't YOU present one of his arguments and do so?

Armageddo wrote:Just like Dawkins himself, they like to shy away from the real questions.

Such as?
I have a question: What reason is there to believe in this god you claim exists?

Simple no?

Armageddo wrote:But then again, what can you expect from people who worship a man who wrote a book called the GOD Delusion but which fails to address the question of god?

Who was it who brought up, and has kept on rabbiting on about that man and that book? Who is that Armageddo?

Armageddo wrote:Not to mention their numerous evasion tactics.

Hello pot, this is kettle.
________________________

Nocterro wrote:I posted a criticism of point (3). Perhaps you should read it?

Point three:
"3 The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously
no solution to postulate something even more improbable. We need a 'crane', not a 'skyhook', for only a crane can do the
business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbable complexity."

Summation of your 'criticism':

"Nuh uh; God could be "neccessary" (unlike each and every being ever observed, and contrary to all evidence about beings and the universe etc - because he's magic.) If so, then I can just ignore this problem. Which, even though I have made absolutely no attempt to provide ANY reasoning to even suggest that God IS necessary (or even real,) I will now do anyway, and pretend that I have won the point."

Why is everyone in this thread still misunderstanding the concepts of necessity and contingency? As I have already said, "necessary" is a modal operator.

something is possible if and only if it is not necessarily false.
something is necessary if and only if it is not possibly false.
something is contingent if and only if it is not necessarily false and not necessarily true.

Here are some examples:
"There are no square circles" is necessarily true.
"not(2+2=5)" is necessarily true. [we can shorten this to say "2+2=5" is necessarily false]
"I ate a sandwich for lunch" is contingently true.
"not(I ate a steak for lunch" is contingently true.

The argument in the OP attempts to establish that "God exists" is necessarily true.

Some further reading:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modal ... stemology/

Nocterro wrote:Why is everyone in this thread still misunderstanding the concepts of necessity and contingency? As I have already said, "necessary" is a modal operator.

something is possible if and only if it is not necessarily false.
something is necessary if and only if it is not possibly false.
something is contingent if and only if it is not necessarily false and not necessarily true.

Here are some examples:
"There are no square circles" is necessarily true.
"not(2+2=5)" is necessarily true. [we can shorten this to say "2+2=5" is necessarily false]
"I ate a sandwich for lunch" is contingently true.
"not(I ate a steak for lunch" is contingently true.

The argument in the OP attempts to establish that "God exists" is necessarily true.

But "God exists" is possibly false, therefore does not satisfy the definition of "necessary" supplied here.

And why is God thought to be necessarily non-contingent?

In modal logic, the terms "necessary" and "possibly" don't mean the same things that they do in ordinary usage. That's why it's common to use the modal bullshit Nocterro is throwing around as if it means something even remotely related.