Originally posted by Furious
...but it is you that has assigned this "god" an infinite unknowability. That doesn't make it so.
First of all, tons of things were unseen but subsequently found to exist only because someone let their imagination run loose, IOW play things out in idea. More things yet have been found to be possible, i.e. make sense, thanks to logic.
It stands to reason that there is a limit to man's understanding. There's no proof yet (your requirement to credibly qualify something as such or such) that such a thing as the infinite or a god doesn't exist, or that it isn't possible.
God being a being an unknown so far, it remains for the time being just an idea, just as relativity and black holes and airplanes and a ton of other things were until they actually happened, or were proven impossible. Those do "incredible" things, so something as incredible in itself as an infinite entity (a possibility until proven otherwise) could manage something as ordinary as manage something its own size.
I don't see what the big deal about this is.
Back when the earth was widely thought as flat, someone asked a flat-earther: "Ok, so the Earth isn't round.. So what would it look like to us if it was?"
So here you are saying the idea of god itself is flawed.. "God doesn't exist"? What would it look like to us if he did and was everything that he's reasonably (infinite and unfathomable, not a bearded titan) supposed to be?
"God" and religion are irrational ideas, your arguing them isn't going to get anywhere more concrete than platonics.. Philosophy 101 taught by any teacher atheist or deist, would tell you the same. (Not to ramble here, but incidentally the teacher would likely include that ideas are the most real things).
We are dealing with facts now?
Yes, it's a fact that the idea I enunciated is subject to the same rules as any other (real or not, rational or not), those of logic. Logic validates the idea as I said it and as HoldenMcGroin points out too.
I'm not saying god is anything specific, anymore than you are admiting god exists by spelling out his "name" or thinking about the idea of "god". What you've yet to do is point out why the idea god is not possible.
...and my "belief" was not that there is no god, but that it does not require faith to believe there is no god. I am merely using the word "belief" to convey an idea, not assign it some metaphysical power. So, off into semantics? Yes.
No need to go off into semantics, that doesn't even make sense. If you can't refute my saying so, maybe Holden's?
Also, where did I state that I believe god to be non-existent?
Here:
The idea that "faith" is prerequisite for a belief in non-existence just doesn't hold water. [...]
The same could be said of a god that created the entire universe and everything in it.
How am I misreading this? You don't believe in the bearded guy, ok. I'm on about the idea of something infinite, the only sort of thing we can reasonably say we will never appreciate (like Zeno said, only this time it's not a matter of infinite portions of a finite distance, but even just one infinity). I'm debating the idea of it. It seems like an important argument because it decides the validity of everything religious downstream of it (and **** knows there's an abundance of that everyday and just about everywhere) and happens to be on the limit of rationality, which a good reference point in terms of where I can look back inward from the limits of possibility, i.e. decide the limit past which it's not worth arguing or even considering.
If you're going to insist on something not only being possible but definitely true, then failing concrete proof, you should be able to demonstrate it with reason. Believe it or not, the only thing keeping me from being atheist is reason.
Honestly Furious, have you read up on philosophy in general and/or religious philosophy? There's maybe as much as a thousand years or two's worth of debate on this thing's validity. Do you really think you've got the answer to nail it all down once and for all? I'm all ears if you do
