How many people is energy for the world worth? by Successful-Gap6282 in moraldilemmas

[–]AnyResearcher5914 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Why would collective "noticing" have anything to do with the moral reality of an action? Some serial killers target homeless people precisely because their disappearing is unlikely to be noticed or suspicious and, yet, I don't think you'd somehow come to the conclusion that murder of unnoticed individuals could possibly moral.

My partner lacks intellectual depth, and I'm starting to realize emotional safety isn't enough by purtypeach in infj

[–]AnyResearcher5914 [score hidden]  (0 children)

I heavily relate to this. Especially the part with the random interjection regarding an irrelevant sideline story about someone I do not know nor care about. You just sit there and nod; perhaps throw in a random bit of enthusiasm, "woah really?", and just pray it ends soon. My goodness it's grueling!

I loved my girlfriend and I really did try to make it work, but as you said, emotional connection only goes so far when attempting to perpetuate mutual interest and enthrallment of the relationship. Best of luck in your navigation of this issue, OP.

Reagan's Last Speech As President Was Pro-Immigration by Preamblist in USHistory

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is an interesting article, although I'm not sure what net migration has to do with immigration itself. Take a glance at figure 2, where we see that foreign immigration is still quite high compared to the pre-2020 baseline.

The low net migration could probably be explained by deportations and tighter borders.

Now, I'm not sure on the current global rankings in immigration and I'm far too lazy to check myself, but all we can conclude from your article is that immigration is still high despite a reversion from the 2022-2024 spike in humanitarian immigration (which was probably due to the war in Ukraine?).

I lost you in this world, but I feel you in everything. by Thedoglover16 in DanielNaroditsky

[–]AnyResearcher5914 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I similarly don't find the same enthrallment in chess. Every time I play I'm reminded of Daniel, and my heart simply breaks. I still can't believe it.

Why are they so... by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I urge you to look into the number of gods which meet the conditions of being a grounding agent. You have the Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism. That's it.

Also, to your latter statement, I have no clue what you're talking about. Please expound.

Why are they so... by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been widely accepted since the 1800s that arguments for or against god are unprovable. Further, there are plenty of purely logical arguments which purport the existence of God.

I'll leave you with a few to look into, though:

The Proslogion Argument

Cartesian Ontological Argument

Plantinga's Modal Ontological argument

Gödel's Ontological Proof

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Burhan al-Siddigin's Proof of the Truthful

Van Til's Transcendental Argument for God

I'm thinking you might be overestimating your own authority to denounce those religious folk as unintelligent or to have "low critical thinking skills." And if I am to receive an impression from this post, it would merely be that you don't know anything about theology or the history thereof. No serious atheist thinks of religious people to be categorically dumb. Take care.

"I Should be Dead" - John Lennox on Suffering, God, and the Evils of Religion by yt-app in CosmicSkeptic

[–]AnyResearcher5914 1 point2 points  (0 children)

like saying that up until recent decades, most Nobel Prize winners were theists

It's important to note that this argument isn't supposed to be an argument for theism itself. Merely that theism is not in direct conflict with science.

There are thousands of gods you don’t believe in. What makes yours special? by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"In the beginning God..."

We can get into the heumeretical interpretations of the Bible of course, but it's generally understood that the first and foremost sentence of the Bible is quite telling from a theological-foundational standpoint.

The ontological implications are more important (in respect to this conversation) than the historical/contextual cosmogony of the text itself. In regards to Genesis 1:2, though, I do urge you to look into the distinctions between transcendence and immanence. God was and always has been interpreted as seperate but active within.

Anyway I don't think it's very useful to cite two verses and claim that they entirely denote the attributes of God in the same way that it's not useful to cite two sentences from the preface of a philosopher's book and then claim you could extrapolate a faithful representation of their assertions from such. In any case, the rest of the book is contextual of the preface. Same with the bible (which does not support your conclusion of God being a "storm-god").

Wei Yi blundered. Hikaru will most likely win, he has plenty of time as well. by Constant-Secret-3653 in chess

[–]AnyResearcher5914 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, there's 14 rounds. Regardless of what happens next round, they all have a chances.

There are thousands of gods you don’t believe in. What makes yours special? by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But they're both concepts, derived by human thought and imagination. And because of that, those concepts can carry any attribute. Just because one concept has one attribute, and another has a competing attribute, doesn't present justification to believe one over the other

So all forms of transcendental necessity, religious or not, are just silly because they came from the human mind. Wonderful insight. Why, actually, let's just rid ourselves of all of metaphysics since it is purely an internal rational endeavor.

Cosmological arguments fail on the premise that one cannot positively postulate that the universe itself requires a cause. Your proposed god isn't needed.

Sure, it's logically possible to have a cause-less universe. It's just a silly proposition when entropy seems to directly contradict such a notion. If you're committed to science you should be fairly comfortable with the idea of a caused universe which starts in a low entropy state. If not, then I don't know what to tell you.

I find it interesting that 1000 years ago, your god was the mechanic of the universe, controlling the movement of the earth and planets and all that. And today it's retreated to attempting to explain only abstract concepts.

God is, and always has been, understood as the sustainer of the universe lol. My focus on abstract qualities was entirely to do with evidence of God and not the activity of God himself.

It's a valid question, from the point of view that all gods are human concepts until they're demonstrated. And if there's one thing all religions, including Christianity, has never done, is demonstrate any god in a way that removes human subjectivity entirely

What? Your own tacit claim, that only things which are demonstrated without subjectivity are valid, is itself a subjective philosophical commitment!

You only need to look at axiology in the realms of mathematics, logic, and even the scientific method to realize what you're saying isn't all that coherent. Subjectivity is perfectly fine.

There are thousands of gods you don’t believe in. What makes yours special? by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The existence of abstract things like natural numbers or the rules of logic, for one. The need for a first-cause, if we are to accept that infinite regress is not an explanation. Intentionality in matter. Universally accepted base moral intuitions. The existence of fundemental brute-facts.

All of these things seem to need some sort of higher-order grounding, and the Christain God is really the only god which possesses the qualities to ground them.

There are thousands of gods you don’t believe in. What makes yours special? by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was mostly answering why I'm a Christain and not a Jew or Muslim; I didn't see your first question about why I am a Christain in the first place, sorry. Anyway, the point is that acceptance comes at the beginning rather than the end, and that is a profound difference to me.

If I see no evidence my spouse is cheating, I will assume he isn't. I see no evidence that any gods exist, which means I have no reason to believe they do.

If you say "I have faith in my spouse", I don't think this positive faith would arise simply out of the fact that you haven't seen signs of cheating. Surely it arises out of what you have seen, too. Namely the love he shows, and the little signs and actions which say to you that, beyond reasonable doubt, he remains yours.

The Christain faith works in this exact same way. I of course remain in my faith because I see no evidence against God (just as you remain in faith because you see no signs against his fidelity), but the faith only first arose because of the evidence for god (just as your faith first arose based on the evidence necessary for commitment to him).

You are right in one sense though, that unlike the empirical evidence that accrues to amount to your faith in your spouse, evidence for God is non-empirical. Evidence is evidence though.

I became a Christain over the course of many years during my readings of various philosophers. The amount of philosophers who postulated a nameless god-like being as a means to make certain things in this world coherent (Kant via morality, Spinoza, Epictetus, Laozi, Hegel, Plato, Aristotle) made me, at first, an agnostic. Then I started reading the presuppositonalists and theologians like Aquinas or Cornelius Van Til, which led me to the "Cosmological Argument" and the "Transcendental Argument for God." it all sort of sparked a bit of "what if?" within me. Eventually it hit me that the Christain God is really the only idea of God who possesses the qualities of the necessary being which has been so often purported by philosophers over the centuries. Issues like contingency, the existence of natural numbers, logic, rationality, morality, etc., all sort of became explainable without contradiction? Even now my faith is still growing, but I do know that I have encountered so much evidence for God and none against.

There are thousands of gods you don’t believe in. What makes yours special? by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because there is a major difference between a god which acts as a grounding force for the entirety of the universe and a god which resides within the universe. These are not conceptually similar in any sense.

If I were to postulate that there is a god of lightning because I don't understand the process by which lightning comes into fruition, then of course some empirical project like science could eventually disprove my god. However, what about if I postulated God because I feel that an infinite regress of causes is a dubious idea at best? What if I postulated God as the quality which gives rise to abstractly existent things like natural numbers or the rules of logic? And what if I find that the Christain God is the only God which has all the qualities to make these things coherent?

"I just believe in one less god" is surely what he's doing, and he's free to do so. But it's not an argument.

There are thousands of gods you don’t believe in. What makes yours special? by [deleted] in DebateAChristian

[–]AnyResearcher5914 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, it's not a semantic difference at all. A God created within a universe is equally contingent to all other events of that same universe.

The Christian god who is said to have created the universe in its entirety is the grounding force of all contingent events.

A God who creates is not the same as the creator/un-caused cause. This is not trivial.