Pure reason dictates "an omnipotent being exists"

Debate Room
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Ah, it’s waffle time again.

First, I’ll note that you stated this:

and this :

which on its own does not bode well for your apologetics.

First of all, semantic inconsistencies can exist, and indeed, constitute an interesting problem for people constructing databases, among others. In short, a semantic inconsistency arises whenever definitions are constructed that, when applied to a given object, lead to contradictions.

An example arises, in the world of database construction, when, for example, a software company’s sales team defines “customer” as someone who has paid for one of the company’s products, while the support team defines “customer” as someone who receives support from them. This results in a semantic inconsistency, when applied to an entity that has been offered a free trial of one of the company’s products, with a fixed term of support, but has not yet paid for the product in question. From the standpoint of the sales team, this entity is not a customer, but from the standpoint of the support team, this entity is a customer. Attempting to merge the sales team’s database with the support team’s database, results in a semantically inconsistent database.

Of course, the solution is for the two teams to talk to each other, and construct definitions that don’t clash in this manner.

But this, of course, leads to an important distinction that needs to be made in the interests of rigour, namely, that is is perfectly possible to construct semantically inconsistent sentences or propositions, while it is impossible for an entity to exist which makes those sentences logically true. I can construct as many quantificational sentences of the form:

(∃x) f(x)∧g(x)

as I wish, where f(x) and g(x) are statements about an entity x that result in contradiction. What I cannot do is find any entity x that makes the requisite sentence true - it will be false for all possible relevant values of x.

Again, in the interests of rigour, it is perfectly possible to construct such sentences for pedagogical purposes, namely to inform students of some of the intricate traps that lie in wait for the naive or ill-prepared, and doing so for said purposes is perfectly rational. What is not rational, is asserting that an entity exists making those sentences true.

As for the rest of your waffle, others have already dealt therewith, and further attention from me is superfluous.

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Yes you can, if you lived at the park.

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Yes, so can lies. My point is this:

Lies and liars exist. Liars intentionally seek to express that which is not true of Existence. Which is the same as saying that liars intentionally lie. If I’m at home, Existence is such that the truth in relation to me is that I’m at home. If I say to another person I’m at the park when I know I’m at home, then I have lied. I have said what is not true of Existence.

If a person, theory, belief, statement is semantically inconsistent in what it expresses, then it is expressing what is definitively not true of Existence.

Existence = that which exists everywhere. That which is Omnipresent.

Once again, I have shown the following beliefs/statements to be semantically inconsistent:

Existence is finite. Existence is imperfect.

I provided a clear argument for the above. You have not said why the above beliefs/statements do not lead to semantical inconsistencies. I have said why they do.

You are right in saying that semantical inconsistencies exist, just as you would be right in saying lies exist. But again, if x is a semantically inconsistent word or belief or statement or theory, then x is definitely false. As in it is definitely not true of Existence. A round square and a finite Existence are both instances of semantical inconsistencies. They are both instances of that which is definitively not true of Existence. As in there has never been and will never be a round square or a finite Existence.

If you have seen their replies to me and consider their replies as amounting to having dealt with what I have presented to them, then further discussion between me and you would be a waste of time.

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He seems to think he can offer a subjective argument, and call it proof. Now I ask you, does that sound like someone whose semantics are infallible, as he keeps asserting.

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By your standards, Infinity, Existence, Omnipresence are all ‘human abstract’ concepts too. Science makes empirical observations and makes sure that no semantical inconsistencies occur in the theory that it presents. Scientists did not get their semantics from empirical observations, just as musicians did not get pitch and sound from composing music. They worked with the semantics Existence/Nature/Reality/God made available to them. Again, science never empirically verified that one thing cannot be two different things at the same time. But it knows that this is 100% true. Because science recognises the need to adhere to the dictates of pure reason and consistency in semantics if it is to produce anything true/meaningful/useful. So again, I have shown the following beliefs to be semantically inconsistent. As in I have falsified the following beliefs:

Existence is finite.
Existence is imperfect.

I present to you clear semantical inconsistencies in your belief, you respond with what is irrelevant to what I have presented to you. It would be like me telling someone your belief about God/Existence is wrong because God/Existence cannot create something from nothing because that is a semantical inconsistency, and then them telling me, it’s a shame you weren’t born two thousand years ago, you would have excelled at determining how many unicorns could fit in a box. With regards to a contradictory belief, how can you reason with someone who holds a semantically inconsistent belief, and then refuses to address the inconsistencies is his belief after you’ve shown it to him? You cannot. It’s not just a matter of having the ability to reason. It’s also a matter of choosing to exercise/uphold/obey reason.

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Indeed, and you’ve only produced the former, but haven’t offered anything approaching objective evidence for the latter.

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Argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, it is irrational to claim a belief has any validity because it cannot be falsified.

As in court, the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim, the prosecution.

That’s incorrect.

No you haven’t. You’ve offered a subjective argument.

Flaws in semantics, and the subjective nature of the claim measured against the subjective complexity of words like existence, and imperfect against the simplicity of “how many sides a simple shape has”. As you’ve been told exhaustively of course.

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So Newton didn’t observe the effect of gravity on an apple?

Whilst I’m happy to accept this story may be anecdotal, it utterly refutes your claim.

Does it? Surely the largest advances in science come from people who ignore what we know, and use leaps of pure imagination, science then either can or cannot validate these.

No you haven’t, and science would never accept a subjective argument based purely on semantics to falsify something.

You haven’t clearly shown this, but I can think of a perfect litmus test for your ludicrous hubris here…

Leave the dozen or so atheists here and go convince the theistic world you’ve proved a deity exists…

What are you waiting for?

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Oh fuck! There is a “true existence” now. Not just 'existence" but a whole new category of “true existence.” Cockamamie Bullshit!

I can not be, both at the park and at home unless I am sitting, parked in my car, on top of my roof, which happens to be a parked trailer in the Aloha Trailer Park, on the corner of Park Path and Park Circle, in Park Town USA.

This shit is just stupid… Philosopher could not reason his way off of a flat earth.

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Do you have a room, a nice white jacket? He can sit and be fed and think his god and his existence is meaningful.

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One tries to keep an open mind of course, but the sheer hubris of the title should cause most rational individuals some pause.

Sadly after 291 posts, this apologist has shown he has zero interest in honest debate, and little concept of how to apply logic in any objective way.

Starting with a belief, then bending everything to that belief is not a sound rationale, far from it. Blaming everyone else when his rhetoric has failed to convince them of his core belief speaks for itself.

As I said previously, if @Philosopher thinks the audience of atheists he’s deliberately sought out, are to blame for his hubris coming to naught, then the world is filled with theists waiting to be shown “proof” of an extant deity.

I shall keep a weary eye on the news, and prepare to eat humble pie when his claims are validated, and he wins the Templeton prize, and one imagines many more honors that cannot fail to be heaped upon anyone producing such a paradigm shifting revelation.

No mere burning bush here, but logical proof no less…millennia of theologians, scientists, philosophers and great thinkers have all been outdone, and we lucky, but ungrateful few, got to learn about it first, and from “the horses mouth.”

How silly will we all feel, when he is being lauded by the entire theistic world.

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You have not proven anything. I will repeat once again. No matter how sound the logic, no matter how consistent it is, and no mater how much it matches observations, it can not be PROVEN without being testable. Ideas are wonderful, logic is wonderful, but we must have confirmation, and that comes from being testable with proofs and evidence.

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That chew toy stopped being squeaky too quickly for my liking …

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What exactly do you mean by testable? Can you test/prove the following:

You cannot have one thing be two different things at the same time.

Should you believe in the following:

You cannot have one thing be two different things at the same time.

What does it take for you to accept something as proof exactly? Do you actually believe the following to be true:

One semantic cannot mean another semantic at the same time
One thing cannot be two different things at the same time.

If yes, then how did you come to believe in them? If no, then I’ll leave you to your beliefs.

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I was responding to the idea that something could be proved, without being tested and only realized you were saying the same thing after posting so — never mind.

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That is your problem. I am the eager listener waiting for a god to be proven, and once past your verbal presentation, you suddenly stop and leave me hanging.

Let me give you a hint. Gods are supposed to perform miracles, answer prayers, and since “gods” encompass the spiritual world, be the process where near-death experiences originate. So, since we have those examples of a supposed god interacting with this real world, we study and verify if miracles, prayers, and near-death experiences are valid.

If you can prove “miracles” are real, then you have moved one huge step in proof of a god.

Go ahead, think of something godly and prove it to me.

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He needs to get off the "proof’ kick and just provide some solid evidence. There is no “PROOF.” Stop trying and simply offer some REASONABLE EVIDENCE.

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I’d be happy to get either.

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Yes.

No.

If you’re talking about lexical semantics, then one word can have a different semantic. Not sure why this fact is being ignored.

Mathematically an arguments stated assumptions must logically guarantee the conclusion.

In informal logic, proof is a misnomer, I’d never use it in that context. In order to believe a claim, belief, idea or assertion, I’d need sufficient objective evidence to support it.

Yes

No.

If you ask very nicely I’ll explain it again to you.

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So does formal logic and formal philosophy. And it is something you can bet your bottom dollar theists will avoid like the plague (at least the audacious ones, which is inevitably what we get here); all the while trying to appeal to it indirectly. Just like @Philosopher in this thread.

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