Ludwig Wittgenstein's "defense" of religion

[ideologyhunter]

So that at the end of a long hot day on earth we can all go to bed knowing that everyone had a good day.
Also, according to the Bible Gnome, to assign 67% of humanity to eternal torment.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why does God exist?

Because He wants to.

 

[lpetrich]

Why does God exist?

Yes, that's a problem with the First Cause argument. I once brought that up in a post on "God Paradoxes". If God is uncreated, then he has no purpose, and if he has no purpose, then he had a purposeless, meaningless existence.

 

[Lion IRC]

How does it logically follow that if God is uncreated then therefore He can not decide what His purpose is? God can have any purpose He wants.

 

[DBT]

The Universe may be eternal, forever cycling between expansion and contraction, where anything that can possibly happen does happen. Which is more likely than the existence of a God, whatever such a thing is supposed to be.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Why does God exist?

Because He wants to.

That is not an answer to the question.

 

[abaddon]

If you want to draw an artificial line in the sand called "methodological naturalism" and jettison any existential why questions as irrelevant, that's your business. *shrug*

And if you think that "an ancient book" is the only means of knowing God, then that is tantamount to saying Noah, Job, Abraham, Jonah, Moses, etc didn't think God was real because they didn't have "an ancient book".

Dismissing relevance wasn't the point of mentioning naturalism. You said "atheism entails too many unanswered questions" when it entails none. It's naturalism that does or doesn't answer your "existential why questions".

Humans must answer such questions themselves, or do without answers. Some folk wrongly attribute their human-made/culture-bound answers to God, by having unreasonable faith that the Bible presents factual truths.

I don't think (and didn't suggest) it's only through an ancient book that theists might know about God. Because there is also oral tradition. Going back in time, the Hebraic God evolved from earlier gods, and those from spirits. There was a very long time before Jehovah showed up within a culture (in its stories, and nowhere else but its stories).

God (and other gods) evolved from the animistic "spirits make things move" intuition that is still assumed by theism today. And then, later, after reason became valued, people started applying reasons to God. Some theists call that "reasoned faith". Which is faith-based mythic tales with some rationalizations attached.

So the theist worldview (or "theory") doesn't have good answers to your "existential why questions". Just having some crappy answers doesn't make it more complete.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why does God exist?

Because He wants to.

That is not an answer to the question.

It certainly is. LOL. Why did I do something? Because I want to.

You just dislike the fact that my past-eternal Being called God has volition, and your inanimate 'thing' called universe does not.

God as Prime Mover can want the universe to exist. God can have a First Cause reason for the universe to exist. The universe can't want anything. It certainly doesn't want or love you.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

That is not an answer to the question.

It certainly is. LOL. Why did I do something? Because I want to.

You just dislike the fact that my past-eternal Being called God has volition, and your inanimate 'thing' called universe does not.

God as Prime Mover can want the universe to exist. God can have a First Cause reason for the universe to exist. The universe can't want anything. It certainly doesn't want or love you.

You seem to have missed the entire point. Why does the Universe exist? Why does God exist? Ain't no why to either. But we know the material Universe exists because we experience that.

 

[Lion IRC]

You haven't rebutted my explanation that God's volition accounts for 'why'.

His free will prerogative - His motive - is precisely the definition of how you answer a 'why" question. The universe exists because God wanted to...paint a picture, compose a symphony, create a sculpture. We can ask why does a Rembrandt painting exist? Why does a Mozart symphony exist. Why does the universe exist.

You attempted a category conflation trick by lumping the past-eternal God and the (allegedly) past-eternal, Almighty Sacred Tao Universe of Holy Saganism into the same group.

And you tried the age old...who made God, why does God exist 'gotcha" - thinking that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If God is the same as a universe then both might be exempt from requiring a (Kalam) explanation for their existence.

Except you forgot that that if/since God has free will, then He is not in the same category as an inanimate object which lacks volition and which can't explain its own existence.

 

[DBT]

'God's volition' and 'free will' are assumptions that have not been described, explained or proven, consequently they are nothing more than claims.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

You haven't rebutted my explanation that God's volition accounts for 'why'.

His free will prerogative - His motive - is precisely the definition of how you answer a 'why" question. The universe exists because God wanted to...paint a picture, compose a symphony, create a sculpture. We can ask why does a Rembrandt painting exist? Why does a Mozart symphony exist. Why does the universe exist.

You attempted a category conflation trick by lumping the past-eternal God and the (allegedly) past-eternal, Almighty Sacred Tao Universe of Holy Saganism into the same group.

And you tried the age old...who made God, why does God exist 'gotcha" - thinking that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If God is the same as a universe then both might be exempt from requiring a (Kalam) explanation for their existence.

Except you forgot that that if/since God has free will, then He is not in the same category as an inanimate object which lacks volition and which can't explain its own existence.

Pure baloney. God does not will himself into existence. If God always existed, that claim is a brute fact and brute facts by definition have no further explanation, and thus, no why.

 

[Lion IRC]

God exists at His own prerogative.
Can you say that about the universe?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

God exists at His own prerogative.
Can you say that about the universe?

You can. I'm not particularly sure why anyone would want to, but it is syntactically possible.

 

[skepticalbip]

God exists at His own prerogative.

This is a reason that why questions are not asked in science. The answers only reveal the beliefs of the one being questioned, not anything useful for anyone who does not hold the same beliefs. The question of why god exists answered by a Hindu could result in the answer, "he has no choice", and by a Zen Buddhist the answer could be, "god isn't". Do you find either of those answers useful?

Can you say that about the universe?

A pantheist certainly could. Religions make people believe all sorts of things. If an idea can be held then there is likely some religion that asserts it as fact.

But then deeply religious people tend to be dismissive of or militantly intolerant of the beliefs of other religions.

 

[DBT]

God exists at His own prerogative.
Can you say that about the universe?

We have no evidence for the existence of a God, yet alone 'His own prerogative' - we do have evidence for the existence of a universe.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Let's apply the same arguments (for and against) to the question of life - beings - existing elsewhere in the universe/multiverse.

Are you an atheist insofar as there being Higher Beings anywhere?

Define "higher beings"..

The (undesirable) being atheists say doesn't exist....is logically impossible, can't be seen in a telescope etc etc The sort of being who can do stuff that atheists describe as "supernatural" because humans can't do likewise.

I don't like the concept of "higher beings". It's nebulous. It's a logically circular catch all phrase. Any being won't be higher than any other. Humans aren't more evolved than earthworms or cockroaches. We just fit different niches. If God existed, the same would be true for God. If God existed, God would be our equal. Because that's how nature works. Any technology we don't have yet will be indistinguishable from magic. So being able to do "supernatural" things doesn't mean they can.

 

[DrZoidberg]

God exists at His own prerogative.
Can you say that about the universe?

If you have a cosmological model where nothing can exist without a creator then logically God also does. So it follows that whatever created God would be deciding this.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

God exists at His own prerogative.
Can you say that about the universe?

If you have a cosmological model where nothing can exist without a creator then logically God also does. So it follows that whatever created God would be deciding this.

A god is just like magic, it exists at the prerogative of a believer. That's why no one can show you their god.

A universe it very different, no believer or magic is necessary.