The way of an Agnostic vs. The well trodden path of Religions

So you agree that if "God exists" cannot be true then it cannot be the case that God exists?
You just disagree that "God exists" cannot be true, you think that it can potentially be true?

The thing is, only meaningful propositions can be evaluated as true.
That's basic rules of logic.
So if "God exists" isn't a meaningful proposition then there's no way it can possibly be true.
If you disagree then show how a meaningless proposition can possibly be true.
Just one counter example and my argument fails.
Or if you were to study logic, it would become quite clear that there are strict rules to which propositions can be true, and that it has to be meaningful is one of them.
Godel's proof is quite simple in a way - it's just the proposition "This proposition cannot be proved"
The difficulty in this proof was the lengths he had to go to to show that the proposition could be meaningfully expressed in mathematical language.
That's why "This proposition cannot be proved" is a paradox in mathematics but "This proposition cannot be true" isn't a paradox in mathematics, because the latter cannot be expressed in mathematical language so cannot be a true mathematical proposition.


Your objection seems to be that "God doesn't exist" isn't a meaningful proposition as 'God' isn't meaningful.
I think it can be though.
Although the term 'God' does not refer to a possible physical object, what it does refer to is the concept that the theist is using.
What the Strong Atheist is basically saying to the theist is:
"This 'God' concept you talk about, there's no way it can possibly exist because it doesn't even describe a possible existing thing - the word is just meaningless in that context"
That would be strong atheism.

Your position sounds very much like Kant's Transcendental Idealism.
It claims that "things as we understand them" doesn't necessarily represent "things as they really are", that reality is filtered to us through our understanding so we should not assume that the world as we perceive through our system of understanding fully represents the world as it really is.
I find his position ultimately incoherent though.
As soon as he talks of things as they really are, he's positing a 'thing' that is supposed to be free from all the constraints of human understanding.
At the same time, it's supposed to be related to "things as we understand them" and putting it in this relation ties it under human understanding again.

 

Yes.

I don't know if it can potentially be true. I think it is inherently beyond us, hence we cannot say anything about it.

Yes. But god and the supernatural cannot be evaluated in any sense of the word. Our inability to evaluate whether god exists does not lead to the conclusion "god does not exist".

God isn't meaningful, I agree with that, but there is no way to go from that, to stating that a god does not exist.

I don't know how it could be true, but if it is meaningless then the only conclusion you can make is that it is meaningless. There is not logical step between meaningless and non-existence.

I agree that god/the supernatural is a meaningless and incoherent 'concept', but that in of itself does not lead to non-existence.

Right. "God doesn't exist" is not meaningful either. ANYTHING about god or the supernatural is not meaningful. We cannot say god exists or does not exist.

God is a broken term. It has no ontology. The fact that theists think it is meaningful is irrelevant.

 

Topher... you didn't address the argument at all.
You just took line by line and made irrelevant comments.

Here the argument is again:
1) If the proposition "God exists" cannot possibly be true then God cannot exist. That would mean strong atheism is correct. - You agreed with this in the post above.
2) Only meaningful propositions can be shown to be true. - You can ask any logician this one.
3) "X exists" can only be a meaningful proposition if X is a meaningful concept. - Basic rules of language. Meaningful sentences require meaningful constituents.

4) "God exists" can only be meaningful if 'God' is a meaningful concept. - Follows from Premise 3
5) "God exists" can only be true if 'God' is a meaningful concept. - Follows from Premises 2 and 4
6) God cannot exist unless 'God' is a meaningful concept. - Follows from Premises 1 and 5
Conclusion) If the term 'God' is incoherent then strong atheism logically follows. - Rewording of Premise 6

So this argument logically proves my conclusion.
There are two possible ways that my argument is flawed.
There's either a flaw in the logical steps from premise to conclusion. (Invalid Inference)
Or you disagree with one of the 3 premises behind it. (Unsound Premises)
The steps have been very carefully done so I don't think you'll be disputing the inference.
That said, I also think you'll have difficulty disputing the premises.

Premise 1: If "God exists" cannot be true then God cannot exist.
"God doesn't exist" is a negative claim.
It's simply saying that it isn't the case that "God exists" is true.
Notice that it doesn't require "God exists" to be a meaningful but false statement.
If just needs the statement "God exists" to not be true.

Premise 2: Only meaningful statement cannot be true.
If you disagree, please show how a meaningless statement can be true.
Or you could save yourself the bother and just study up on Formal Logic.
Again, I'll use Godel's Theorem of incompleteness as an example.
He used the proposition "This proposition cannot be proved" as an example of a statement that was true but not provable, showing that in mathematics there were true statements that could not be proved.
"This proposition cannot be proved" clearly proves his conclusions quite obviously.
So why is the proof difficult?
It's because he had to prove that "This proposition cannot be proved" was a meaningful mathematical proposition.
It is also why "This proposition cannot be true" is not a considered a paradox in mathematics - the proposition isn't meaningful so cannot be true.

Premise 3: "X exists" is only meaningful if X is a meaningful concept.
Surely this one is common sense?
A meaningful proposition requires meaningful constituents.
It's basic language.
I'd be surprised if you tried to take this one down.



So instead of just commenting on odd lines, address the argument.
Do you find the inference from the 3 premises to the conclusion invalid?
If so, where is the invalid step?
Which what way was the step invalid?
Or did you find the 3 premises unsound?
If so, which premise did you disagree with?
In what way is it wrong?

 

Yes, I did address the argument! In fact I've stated the problem in several posts now, you just failed to even reply to them...

THERE IS NO LOGICAL STEP BETWEEN "GOD IS INCOHERENT" AND "GOD DOES NOT EXIST"

Your entire argument is a non-sequitur!

The fact something is not meaningful TO US does not mean it does not ACTUALLY exist. It just means WE are incapable of comprehending it or knowing anything about it. Unless of course you want to hold the absurd idea that WE have to comprehend something or be able to express something in a proposition, in order to for it to exist.

I agree that only meaningful propositions can be shown to be true. But I also hold that only meaningful propositions can be shown to be untrue. To say something is false/untrue is to hold that the statement is meaningful, but factually wrong. Thus, meaningless propositions are simply meaningless, they are neither true or untrue.

Furthermore, there is a difference between the PROPOSITION "god exists" and the ACTUALITY of "god existing". The proposition is meaningless and is thus neither true or false. However this does not mean that a god does not exist, it simply means that if such as 'being' does exists, we have no means of comprehending or expressing it (which is precisely why the proposition is meaningless).

I disagree with the first premise: "If the proposition "God exists" cannot possibly be true then God cannot exist."

I DO agree that iff it could be shown that god cannot exist, then obviously god cannot exist (tautology). However, my argument is that you cannot conclude that "god exists cannot be true" to begin with. You can only say it is meaningless and thus neither true or false. Again, it is a non-sequitur to say "god is incoherent, therefore god cannot exist", and this is ultimately what your argument is!

 

Stating this doesn't mean much...
Any idiot can type the words "Your argument is fallacious"
It doesn't mean much unless you can pick out the specific flaw, especially when your opponent has gone to the trouble of clearly notating their logical steps for your criticism.
In this case, you found your problem with a premise, which was fair enough.
But if the promise was with the premise and not the inference then why are you saying non-sequitur?


Moving on, I'll split your objections into two categories.
The first is problems that you have with my positive argument.
The second will be the positive arguments you have for your own position.

Problems you had with my positive argument

Okay, so you say that "God exists" is not a meaningful empirical proposition.
That means that as an empirical proposition it cannot be true or false, but fails to be a meaningful proposition altogether.
The strong atheist, however, isn't putting forward an empirical proposition when he says "God does not exist"
His proposition is analytical.
'God' refers to the concept that his agnostic opponent has defined in their position.
He points out since the concept is incoherent, it does not refer to something, and which is a necessary condition for it to be an 'existing thing'.
That's what the Strong Atheist means by "God doesn't exist"

Make up your mind.
First you say you disagree with the Premise 1.
Then the bit in bold shows a different objection altogether.
I can only answer your objections if you make it clear what they actually are.
Since you said your objection was with Premise 1 then I'll answer that objection:

If "God exists" is a meaningless statement then it clearly isn't a true proposition.
So if "God exists" is meaningless then it is not true.
If "God exists" is necessarily meaningless then it is necessarily not true.
(The rest of your objection seemed to be the "Saying God doesn't exist is also meaningless" one I answered in the previous paragraph.


Your own positive arguments for your own position

If to us you mean you and me personally, then fair enough.
However, you're not talking about something that a particular person hasn't grasped, that is we're not talking about a matter of human competence.
You're talking about gibberish that just doesn't mean anything at all to anyone or anything.
There are objective standards to truth that these attempts at propositions just fail to meet.

To talk of 'beyond them' like you do is equally incoherent and does not make for a valid position.

This argument is incoherent.
The "actuality of God existing" - what are you talking about?
By your own position there cannot be a meaningful statement about God.
This rules out the quoted argument from being coherent, and therefore it cannot be a valid argument for your position.
I'll have to ignore it and move on.

I'm afraid I cannot accept this argument either.
It contains the bit in bold that is also incoherent.
It contains a sentence with the word 'being' that looks like you intended it to refer to something, but you also ruled out it referring to anyone so it clearly can't refer to anything... so what are you even talking about?
For your arguments against me to be valid, they need to be meaningful.
Or maybe I should just say "aljgfajgpoajgpo" and say that proves me right?


Even if you don't accept my own positive argument, there's a strong negative argument against your position.
You cannot state your position coherently.
Therefore it cannot be true.
Then again, I'm open to you trying to coherently state your position, that "something" can "exist" beyond all the boundaries of understanding that underlie all objective truths.

 

I have! I've been quite specific. It quite clear later in this post that you don't seem to understand my point.

Because the premise does not support the conclusion.

I never said "meaningful empirical proposition". I said a "meaningful proposition". I don't think the claim is meaningful, empirically or otherwise.

In any case, saying god does or does not exist IS an empirical claim.

The premise is making a proposal that cannot be resolved. THAT is the problem with it.

I've been quite clear. Let me break it down:

1. I agree that IFF it could be shown that god cannot exist, then obviously god cannot exist (tautology)
2. However it cannot be shown that god cannot exist.
3. So the premise is making a proposal that cannot be resolved.

This is a non-sequitur. Meaningless statements are neither true or false. In order to confirm whether something true or false requires that it is meaningful, as it requires that you can ASSESS the statement being made, but you cannot do that with supernatural claims.

Non-sequitur.

Necessarily a non-sequitur!

I mean all naturalistic beings (humans). Nothing non-natural will be meaningful to natural agents, but this does not mean the non-natural entity does not exist, it simply means that as natural agents, we are incapable of comprehending and assess the non-natural entity.

Our inability to make a coherent proposition about X does not refute the existence of X. So even though a proposition about X may make no sense to us, X may still in fact exist. So my point is the existence of something does not rest with our ability to make proposition about it. Furthermore, if there WAS an actual god, we would still be incapable of comprehending it, forming proposition about it, thus, we would be in a situation where god did in fact exist, but we were not able to say anything about it (which may be the very situation we are in now!)

You must be confused then. NOWHERE in the post you quoted did I say there WAS a meaningful statement about god. I only said there is a difference between a proposition about god and any actual god that does exist. In other words, the existence or non existence of a god does not rest with our ability to formulate propositions about it.

Can you quote me where I "ruled out it referring to anyone"?

Again: I am simply saying that whether a god exists or not, we cannot comprehend, know or express anything about 'it'. The fact we cannot do this does not mean non-existence.

They are, you are just don't seem to understand what I am say.

One last time: You cannot say god does not exist simply because we cannot comprehend or express anything about this supposed god.

This couldn't be any more simpler.

Thanks. This serves are a fine example of something that is neither true of false, only meaningless. Or, would you say "aljgfajgpoajgpo is not true, therefore it must be false"? Surely you would agree with me that it makes no sense to say it is true or false, right?

 

I don't think you read it properly.
Did I say that it was a false proposition? No.
I simply pointed out that it wasn't a true proposition.
Only a true proposition is a true proposition.
A beachball isn't a true proposition, a rubber duck isn't one and neither is a meaingless statement.
If "God exists" is meaningless then it isn't a true proposition.

Here's a tautology: X exists if and only if "X exists" is a true proposition.
After all, if X existed then "X exists" would be true.

So you're making a positive claim to contradict mine.
The thing is, your claim here is incoherent so it fails to be a counter example.
You refered to a 'non-natural entity' and by your definition such a concept is incoherent.

But if X exists then "X exists" is a true proposition that a person can potentially provided they had the necessary mastery of the system of understanding.
It's a tautology: If X exists then "X exists" is true.

I'm afraid this argument fails as well.
You try to describe a scenario as a counter example only you fail to describe such a scenario because you make use of meaningless words like 'god', making the entire passage meaningless.
Never mind...

Ofcourse. You didn't say that there was a meaningful statement about god.
However, your arguments keep trying to pass of statements about god as meaningful.
This is the problem with your position - every time you attempt to even state it, let alone defend it, you fail because your claims are incoherent!!

I don't know what you are 'simply saying' because you keep using sentences with word 'God' in it.
Did I miss the part where you said that the word 'God' was meaningful after all and that we could use it as part of meaningful arguments?

It's a bit difficult to understand you when you keep using a word that you yourself insist is meaningless!!

This was covered at the top but I don't mind going over it again.
They are not saying "God exists" is a false statement.
They're saying that "God exists" cannot be true.
They're saying "Whatever that 'god' is that the agnostic is going on about, it's clearly not an existing thing."
Why? Because the concept of an "existing thing" is one bound by the understanding.
It has rules and limits like all other concepts of the understanding.
That is why existence is limited only to coherent concepts.
It's the rules of the concept of "existence".

If the agnostic means existence as in the way we use it relevant to everyday life then "X exists" is only possible if X is a coherent concept.
If the agnostic means something different by "exists" then they are now talking about something completely different and no longer contradict the strong atheist because the strong atheist uses existence in the usual way - not this different way.
So strong atheism would hold.
"God is necessarily incoherent" entails strong atheism.
Disagreement is impossible because the disagreeing proposition is incoherent.

 

Strafio,

My argument is simply this: In order to classify a statement as true or false it necessitates that we can assess the claim against the object of that claim, which in turn necessitates that we know something about that object.

For example, in order to say the statement "squares have 3 corners" is false necessitates that we know something about squares: that they in fact have 4 corners. If no one knew anything about squares, then we could not say the statement "squares have 3 corners" is false, we could only say the statement would be meaningless (due to the ramifications of our ignorance about squares).

Since we necessarily cannot know anything about supernatural being, we necessarily cannot assess any claim about a supernatural being, and as such, the claim cannot be assessed as being true or false. So the claim is just meaningless.

Now, you say...

Yes, you did. You said: "clearly isn't a true proposition."

Well, if something is NOT true, then it is means it is false, by definition, since false is defined in contradistinction to true!

And if something isn't true, then it is obviously false, by definition. I cannot be tralse or frue, can it.

If you say something is not true, then you are saying it is false.
If you say something is not false, the you are saying it is true.
If you are saying something is neither true or false, then you are saying it is meaningless.

Look at it this way:
Moral, Immoral, Amoral
Rational, Irrational, Arational
True, False, Meaningless

No, it isn't incoherent. Again, you're STILL assuming that incoherence leads to non-existence.

I am only saying that if something is incoherent, we can only say it is incoherent. We CANONT say it does not exist!

Please do not continue with this non-sequitur. I'm YET to hear any argument for why incoherence NECESSITATES non-existence!

Right. Unfortunately, since no one can comprehend or know anything about supernaturalism, even if a god does actually exist, we would be incapable of confirming whether the statement "god exists" is true or false.

I'm surprised you would make such a absurd comment like this! God is a incoherent word, that is true, but pointing this out is not meaningless!! What I said above is merely pointing out that god is a meaningless concept, therefore we cannot comprehend it. There is nothing meaningless about this. The whole paragraph, in context, is not meaningless for containing a meaningless word.

You reply is a fallacy of composition. You're making inferences about the whole from the part.

No, they don't. I'm simply saying god is incoherent, and therefore meaningless. There is nothing meaningless about this. You're making a fallacy of composition by extrapolating the meaninglessness of a single word to the entire passage.

If this is your view, then I take if also conclude any of your posts which contain the word god as also being meaningless! If you agree that the word god is meaningless, and you include the word god in your own posts, they by your own argument (which is a fallacy of composition) you must think your own posts/arguments are meaningless too. If you do think this, if you think this is ultimately an exchange of meaningless posts, why are we having this conversation?

Again, god is a incoherent, meaningless word, it has no ontology, but there is NOTHING meaningless about pointing this out.

Fallacy of composition.

And I'm yet to hear an argument for why incoherence NECESSITATES non-existence!

If no argument is put forward in the next post for why incoherence NECESSITATES non-existence then you'll simply be wasting my time.

 

You are kidding me??
Is this position new or is this genuinely the same position you've held since we started debating 2 years ago?
In your example of the Square, it's true that the Square has 4 sides.
"A square has 4 sides" is a true meaningful statement.
It might be that some people aren't acquainted with the appropriate system of understanding to understand it, but they can potentially understand it, should they gain mastery of the necessary system.
If you are likening "God Exists" to this then yes, "God exists" is potentially true and the agnostic is right.


In that case, I should clarify some things for you:
Your position isn't that "God exists" is meaningless.
Your position is that it's just epistemologically undecidable.
i.e. The proposition is meaningful but there is no possible way to determine whether it is true or false.
The God concept is not incoherent.
Theists do not steal the concept.
God is not 'beyond understanding', just beyond verification.

No. The claim just epistemologically undecidable - unverifiable.
A proposition that is either true or false but we currently have no way of knowing which one.
Meaningless means something different.
Meaningless means that the sentence doesn't even successfully denote a proposition that can be true or false - that it is just gibberish.


With this new query into what your position actually is, the rest of the debate is currently irrelevant.
However, there was just one thing I had to bring to your attention:

Dude... that's some serious cognitive dissonance!
Someone needs more sleep!!
To spell things out for you, as meaningless is neither true or false, that means it is not false and also not true.
So if "God exists" was meaningless then it would clearly not be true!!
Lol!!

 

It's the same, just more specific.

I'm still both a strong and weak atheist as I always have been.

I think a defined god which is internally contradictory (an omnimax god for example) DOES support strong atheism since internal contradictions cannot exist.

Any other god, such as an undefined god, leads to non-cognitivism, which in turn leads to no reason to believe in the god, and that is weak atheism.

I wrote the following on RR regarding contradiction:

As a side thought: internal contradictions. Are they false or just meaningless? Because we could say a statement is internally contradictory without knowing anything about the object of the claim (e.g. X is both P and ~P, or, X is P & N where P & N are mutually exclusive; we would not need to know anything about X, we would only need to know something about P and N)

In order to say something contradicts the object (Y contradicts X, where Y is a statement about X), then that would necessitate that we know something about X, and this would fit with my argument above. However, internal contradictions could be an example of something that can be classified as false, without knowledge of the object of the claim itself.

So if we say "god exists" and this god is defined in a way that is internally contradictory then we can deny that it exists without knowing anything about that god, purely via the contradiction. This leads to strong atheism. However if we say "god exists" and this god is undefined, then the statement is simply incoherent and there is no basis for saying it is true or false. To say it is true or false we either a) need a definition to evaluate, or b) we need to know something about the god.

It it true that with this example if we did not know anything about squares, we could still potentially know something about them, whereas we cannot understand god, not even potentially. However this is not the point of the analogy... the point is IFF no one on earth knew anything about squares, then we could not say the statement "squares have 3 corners" is true or false, because to do that necessitates we know something about squares: how many sides it does have.

Likewise, we cannot say the statement "god exists" is true or false unless we know something about god: whether it exists or not.

I think you need to create a distinction between the statement "god exists" and whether a god actually does exists. Here's what I mean by this:

I think the statement "god exists" is ALWAYS potentially true. I just deny that we could ever confirm whether it is true or false. If a god really does exist, right now, then the statement is technically true, but we could never confirm the truth of it, even though it is technically true.

Have I explained that well?

I think it is epistemologically undecidable because it is meaningless.

No. I think if something IS meaningful then it can be classified as true or false. I think "god exists" cannot be classified true or false precisely because it is incoherent.

I think god is beyond verification because it is beyond understanding. If was potentially understanding, then his existence would potentially be verifiable.

Yes, and "god exists", without definition, without ontology, IS gibberish. It's incoherent.

And as I said, saying X is not true NECESSARILY means you are declaring X false because false it defined in contradistinction to true.

To say X it true means you KNOW it is not false. To say X is false means you KNOW it is not true. But we cannot know anything about an undefined supernatural 'being', so you cannot say it is true or false at all.

And if it is not true, then it means you're saying it is false, by definition!

But saying something is neither true or false is something different entirely. It's like saying something is neither moral or immoral because it cannot be classified as neither.

 

Ha. Errr...quite a stupid argument.

 

Strafio,

Here's my argument for both strong and weak atheism:

1) If you speak of god, in any positive way, you automatically (and necessarily), steal the concept and thus create an internal contradiction. For example, saying "god is energy" is an internal contradiction since if this god is a supernatural being, and supernaturalism is defined in contradistinction to naturalism, and 'energy' is a material substance, then you're saying a supernatural (a non-natural) entity possesses a natural/material property. This is an internal contradiction and therefore false. So strong atheism is logically valid.

2) If you merely speak of god in negatives, by saying "god is supernatural" (supernatural being a negative term) then you've arrived at incoherence, which leads to non-cognitivism, which can only justify withholding belief, and this is weak atheism.

So I think the mere idea of a god (as an undefined negative) is simply incoherent, and this only leads to weak atheism. Whereas a positive definition of god necessarily leads to an internal contradiction, and this supports strong atheism.

If you want to say internal contradictions lead to strong atheism when I'll wholeheartedly agree.

 

Not as bad that rational/irrational/a-rational one that you sparked off!

Okay...
I'm going to start with the discussion of your positions and then we'll look at the other points that were raised.

Let me see if I've understood you.
This would be the position I called Epistemologically Undecideable and it would indeed entail agnosticism.

You think that "God exists" might be true or false but for the moment we cannot know.
This requires that the proposition is meaningful - only meaningful statements can be true.
It also means that there is a description of God out there that is true.
No one currently knows what it is, and if someone has the description then they cannot know whether this description is correct.

This would also mean that God has an ontology.
This shouldn't be so surprising - if you read the first line of the Wiki article, ontology is tied to existence so if something exists then it clearly has ontology.

God concepts would at least potentially be coherent if someone found the right one.
There would be no stolen concept fallacy - that would be an example of an internal contradiction.
Lastly, "God of the Sims" would be a God of this type.
A God outside of our limits of verification but at least a potentially understandable being.
A belief in this being could be true, even though this belief could not be justified - i.e. would be true by pure blind luck.

This is going on the paragraph I read above.
The thing is, you go on to say other things that contradict it.

So I don't know where your position lies.
One moment you say that "God exists" is meaningful and therefore potentially true.
Next moment you say that it cannot be true or false because it is meaningless/incoherent.
You need to make up your mind on this.
(btw, a meaningless statement would not be "undecidable" - it would be decidably meaningless!!)

Ontology is tied to existence rather than understanding.

I found the next point quite interesting:

I went through a stage of wondering about this.
Here's what I came to:
A description with a contradiction in it is meaningless.
A description requires that language be used correctly.
A contradiction shows a misuse of the words 'and' or 'not' so would make the description meaningless.

In other contexts, such as logical analysis, contradictions aren't meaningless
Systems of logic are slightly different.
Rather than having rules based around a language of description you have calculus to deal with propositions.
In this analytic language "P & ¬P is false" is a meaningful statement.
That's why earlier I said that "God doesn't exist" can be meaningful as an analytic statement, even if it isn't as an empirical description.





I'm not even going to reply to your points about "true/false/meaningless" because you're clearly just trolling me now.
The contradiction was pointed out to you as clear as day and you're just repeating it.

One line you're saying something is either true or false, next line you're saying it can be something different entirely...

 

Incidentally I think your argument is analogous to LJoll's argument in that thread.

Not quite. I think the statement "god exists" might be true or false, but we can NEVER know whether it is, by virtue that we are natural beings and this god would be supernatural. The statement might indeed be true, but we simply could not confirm or disconfirm it. This is my argument.

Only regarding naturalism. To have an ontology is to have an identity, and identity mean to exist as something--some thing--something material! Even if a supernatural 'being' does 'exist' we cannot actually say it 'exists' since existence denotes naturalism, materialism. We've been over this before on the old IG forum.

Nope. How can any natural being 'find' or comprehend a supernatural being? Whatever they 'find' or comprehend would be by definition natural.

I agree, this would be a potentially understandable natural being. Obviously if it is natural, it is natural, NOT supernatural (and in my view, therefore not a god).

I have not said it is meaningful. I said gods existence is potentially technically true (in that a god may 'exist'), but the statement "god exists" is still meaningless because we inherently cannot confirm it. So you're conflating two distinction points I am making:

1) A supernatural being actually 'existing'
2) Being able to confirm this 'beings' existence

The fact that a god may 'exist' does not make the statement "god exists" meaningful. It would only become meaningful it we establish, or could potentially establish its existence.

A god may in fact 'exist', so the statement may TECHNICALLY be true, however, we (any natural being) would be incapable of confirming this. So the STATEMENT "god exist" or "god does not exist" is simply meaningless by virtue of our inability to verify the truth or falsity of the statement.

Right. That is what I have said, many times! A meaningless statement is simply meaningless.

Contradictions are necessarily false.

It's why internally contradictory definitions of god are necessarily false, thus positive descriptions of god (which necessarily lead to internal contradictions) support the strong atheist position. I agree with that.

What I am saying is exactly like our discussion on rational, irrational, and arational, which you agreed with me on. Or have you now changed your mind?

Somethings are rational, something are irrational, other things are neither of these and so are arational. In the same way, somethings are true, somethings are false, and somethings are simply meaningless and so the category of truth or false cannot be applied.

Would you call arational things irrational because they are not rational? Or would you say they are in a category of things that cannot be called rational or irrational, meaning it would make no sense to call something arational either rational or irrational?

This is precisely what I mean with truth, false, and meaningless.

 

You say this one paragraph.
The next one you'll contradict it by claiming God is beyond understanding and therefore necessarily incoherent.
I don't know whether you have to coherent positions, held by 2 schizophrenic personalities that swap themselves around half way through the post or whether this thread is a huge wind up.
Are you doing some kind of Uni project social experiment on seeing how far you can wind a philosopher who takes themselves too seriously up?
If so, you got me good.
It took me 13 pages to suss you out.

Todangst said that ontology was necessary for identity, but that didn't mean he was defining ontology.
If you reduce ontology to identity then you misunderstand ontology.
Ontology is about the nature of existence.
Read the Wiki article.
If you're using the word Ontology then you ought to use it properly.

And that contradicts the paragraph I quoted at the top where you said "God exists" can be potentially true.
It can only be potentially true if it is meaningful.

Why contradict two separate paragraphs when you can do it in one!!

Maybe I should demand that you study some basic logic texts before you debate me again.

So where did I call a-rational (meaningless things) things irrational (false)?
If I remember right, I simply pointed out that a-rational beliefs (meaningless statements) could not be rational beliefs (true propositions) simply because they are two different things.
You would reply with "By it they're not rational (true) then they are irrational (false) because irrational is defined in contradistinction with rational!!"
Then maybe the next line, or a line or two after you would then say:
"And if it's neither rational (true) or irrational (false) then it is a-rational (meaningless)"

So I'd try and work with your latest line, pointing out that as a-rational was neither rational or irrational, that means it's not rational.
Then you'd come in with the whole "but if it's not rational then it's irrational!" :bang:



As logic depends upon the law of non-contradiction and you've spent the last 2 posts ignoring blatant contradictions, it seems that reason has no effect on you. That I'm even bothering to type this shows that I have a self-indulgent need to vent my frustration because I don't expect you to listen/understand anything more I say.

I might type out my arguments in that RRS thread, see what everyone else makes of it.
Adios.

 

Would you say "as;djgnasofgnsofn" is true, false, or meaningless?

No, this is not a contradiction at all.

A supernatural 'being' may 'exist'.
We (natural beings) cannot comprehend anything supernatural.
Therefore, this supernatural 'being' would be inherently incoherent to us.
The fact it is incoherent does not lead to non-existence. The supernatural 'being' may still 'exist' despite our inability to comprehend it.

You're STILL assuming incoherence leads to non-existence and you've YET to actually logically demonstrate this!

Yes, but to exists is to exists as something, to have an identity. Identity necessarily follows from existence.

No it doesn't.
A supernatural 'being' may 'exist', but still be an inherently meaningless concept to us.
Supernatural 'existence' does not lead to natural coherence.
The fact something supernatural may 'exist' does not mean this supernatural 'thing' is therefore meaningful or coherent to a natural being! You're entire argument assumes that if something supernatural 'exists', then it would be meaningful. It wouldn't.

You're STILL assuming that supernatural 'existence' would be meaningful to a natural being!!

Can you stop wasting my time and actually present an argument demonstrating that something supernatural would be meaningful and coherent to a natural being!

Maybe you should stop wasting my time and actually DEMONSTRATE that something supernatural would be meaningful and coherent to a natural being!

They are not contradictions. They are misunderstandings on YOUR part, born of your unjustified view that a) incoherence leads to non-existence, and b) the 'existence' of a supernatural 'being' would be meaningful/comprehensible to a natural being, neither of which you have demonstrated. You can't keep shouting contradiction when it is based on a naked assertion! I've explained to you many times now how a supernatural being may indeed exist but still be incoherent and meaningless to an natural being. Unless you actually demonstrate how this is a contradiction your assertion is completely vacuous!

 

It's possibly more stupid because it's the same argument, except this time you agree with me (even though I think you agreed with me last time without knowing it).

 

Strafio as you asked my opinion...

You are mistaken to argue that something to be true has to be meaningful to us. As Topher has repeatedly pointed out if a God entity existed entirely outside of the natural universe actually existed then that would be 'objectively true'. He is also correct that as a non-natural entity that exists 'outside' our natural world there would essentially be no way for us to know whether such a statement is true or false. Unless said entity interfered with the natural world but Topher seems to be suggesting that if this occured the entity would have to be 'natural' otherwise it would have no means to interact with our universe. The universe was not designed with human understanding in mind. Therefore it is rather likely that there are many things which are true which we would not at least presently and possibly forever be able to understand as meaningful. This doesn't make them any less true however.

Anyway, the reason I think your having difficulty is that despite the claim a few pages back that we were on the same page regards objective/subjective truth. I get the strong impression you are not on the same page and are still defining truth as something that is relative to humans. You are, as far as I can see, ignoring the entire category of objective truths by kind of palming them of as 'only true' in relation to our subjective social systems.

Regardless though the main issue is you keep repeating that for something to be true it has to be meaningful to us which I think is clearly wrong. It wouldn't be meaningful to bacteria that the earth is a sphere but that doesn't make it any less true. It wouldn't be meaningful to our primitive ancestors that plants cells conduct photosynthesis but it was still true. As human society progresses we continue to discover more and more things that are true that would in previous periods have meant nothing. There are also many truths today of which people are ignorant... so to me it's clear that the perceived meaningless of a statement has very little relevance to whether it is true or not. It's also clear that a statement say such as 'outside of time life couldn't exist' is potentially true but there is no way that I could know if it's true or not. This is the same for 'God exists'... Topher can argue that such a statement is meaningless because we would be unable to comprehend a supernatural being and still admit that the statement could be true or false. It's a completely coherent position.

I can't for the life of me understand why things like this cause so much hassle.

 

Lol! I was kind of hoping you'd agree with me this time!
Meh! The price of valuing free individual thought!
Cheers for contributing anyhow.
(am I the only one who hates these new smiley icons or does everyone else find them horrific too?)

I thought everyone agreed with everyone last time, only you Topher and Ckava didn't realise you all agreed...
The best bit was when Slip walked into the thread!!

 

"Things" aren't true or false. Statements about "things" are true or false. "Things" aren't meaningful or meaningless. Statements about things are meaningful or meaningless.

If a statement involving "God" is meaningless, then it contains no factual supposition and is no different to any other meaningless statement. Therefore it is absurd to suppose that a meaningless statement could be true, as that would require that the state of affairs in the world corresponds to a statement that contains no information about any state of affairs.

We agreed on one level, however his logical definitions were contradictory and contradicted what we all agreed on. He is making the same mistake here.