I think, therefore I cannot be an atheist!
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Banned from Richard Dawkins.net
Krauss vs Ke$sha
Richard Dawkins gets it wrong!
Omnipotence: An Introduction
Descartes' Meditations 1 and 2
Christianity and Reason
Stefan Molyneux Disproving God?
Epicurus and the Problem of Evil
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CartesianTheist
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Survey of professional philosophers of religion show that nearly 70% of PhDs in the field are theists!

http://philpapers.org/surveys/­results.pl?affil=Philosophy+fa­culty+or+PhD&areas0=22&areas_m­ax=1&grain=coarse
[Copy and paste into URL otherwise you have to go searching for this stat.]
These are the philosophers most qualified in the arguments for and against the existence of God.

For a list of contemporary theistic philosophers go to:

http://rationalperspective....

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The website link is not my website but to a very interesting interview with the very accomplished Christian philosopher Lydia McGrew.
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COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS:

1. A contingent being (a being that if it exists can not-exist) exists.
2. This contingent being has a cause of or explanation for its existence.
3. The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
4. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
6.Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists cannot not-exist) exists.

Miethe's Cosmological Argument:

1. Some limited, changing beings exist.
2. The present existence of every limited, changing is caused by another.
3. There cannot be an infinite regress of causes of being, because an infinite regress of finite beings would not cause the existence of anything.
4. Therefore, there is a First Cause of the present existence of these beings.
5. The First Cause must be infinite, necessary, eternal, and one.
6. The first uncaused Cause is identical with the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
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1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
1. Every physical event must have a cause.
2. There was a first physical event.
3. There was a first physical event with a cause.
Can you think of a better non-physical cause for the first physical event than God?

TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS:

1] Given the fine-tuning evidence, the existence of a life-permitting universe is very unlikely under a naturalistic single-universe hypothesis.
2] Given the fine-tuning evidence, a life-permitting universe is not unlikely under a theistic hypothesis.
3] The theistic hypothesis was advocated prior to the fine-tuning evidence [therefore it cannot be ad hoc].
4] Therefore, by the Likelihood Principle, a life-permitting universe strongly supports theism over any naturalistic single-universe hypothesis.

An argument from a standard theory of Confirmation, supported by the odds form of Bayes's Theorum by
Robin Collins

1] The fine-tuning of the initial state of the Universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design.
2] It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3] Therefore, it is due to design.
(Of course premise 2 requires some justification and you can find such in 'God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science' ed. Neil Manson 2003 Chapter 8 'Design and the Anthropic Fine-Tuning of the Universe'

MORAL ARGUMENTS:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Objective moral values do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

"The man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says, 2+2=5."
Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse

"Now if God does not exist, then what is the foundation for moral values? More particularly, what is the basis for the value of human beings? If God does not exist, then it is difficult to see any reason to think that human beings are special or that there morality is objectively valid."
William Lane Craig

For evidence of the historical person of Jesus go to:

http://www.thedevineevidenc...

ON ANTHONY FLEW:
I have debated some people who think Flew only changed his mind because of one dubious scientific issue. It is worth noting that in his book he starts with his journey away from Humean epistemology and scepticism about experience and causality. He then talks about how several theistic philosophers answered his a priori arguments against the existence of God and convinced him otherwise. He then saw that theism does not necessarily imply determinism [as he had previously thought] and that it could be held alongside libertarian free-will. He then points out he was challenged by Miethe's Cosmological Argument from the principle of existential causality. It is at this point that Flew declared himself no longer an atheist. It was on
About Me:
 
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." C.S. Lewis

The God I am defending the existence of is the God described in European philosophical literature. Here is Swinburne's nice summary:

"I take the proposition 'God exists' to be logically equivalent to 'there exists necessarily a person without a body who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things'. I understand by God's being eternal that he always has existed and always will exist. By God's being perfectly free I understand that no object or event or state in any way causally influences him to do the actions that he does - his own choice at the moments of action alone determines what he does. By God's being omnipotent I understand that he is able to do whatever it is logically possible that he can do. By God's being omniscient I understand that he knows whatever it is logically possible that he know. By God's being perfectly good I understand that he always does a morally best action, and does no morally bad action. By his being the creator of all things I understand that everything that exists at each moment of time, he makes it exist, or permits it to exist."
'The Existence of God' p.7

The reasons why I believe in this God are the following arguments [some of these are titles for several types of arguments]:

Cosmological
Kalam
Contingency
Non-analogical Teleological
Fine-Tuning
Physical Constants
Aquinas' Five Ways
Descartes' Ontological
Trademark Argument
Moral Argument
Evil
Rationality
Purpose
Intentionality
Consciousness
The Cumulative case for the resurrection of Jesus [especially as laid out by Timothy and Lydia McGrew]
Influences:
Descartes, Leibniz, Schaeffer, Ward, Plato, Locke, Plantinga, Craig, Swinburne, Audi, Collins, Henry, Van Til, Hume, Dooyeweerd, Yandell, Aquinas, Anselm, Augustine, Ruse, Carson, Moreland, Helm, Kierkegaard, Berkeley, Lacewing, Coplestone, Flew, Plantinga, Collins, Polanyi, Nietszche, Timothy and Lydia McGrew, Aristotle AND Plato [those who don't admit it just don't know it].
Favorite News Sources
http://www.thedevineevidence.com/jesus_history.html; http://www.closertotruth.com/
Country:
United Kingdom
Occupation:
Philosophy, theology, reading, watching films, and spending more and more time convincing fundies that Zionism is not a tenet of historical Christian Orthodoxy!!
Interests:
Philosophy [esp. epistemology, philosophy of religion and Descartes]; Theology [Systematic and Biblical]; Religious Studies
Movies:
Inception, The Matrix, Signs, The Village, The Sixth Sense, The Bourne films, Crimson Tide, A Few Good Men
Music:
Two Steps from Hell, E.S. Posthumus, Casting Crowns, Starfield, Third Day, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Sting, The Police, Gary Moore, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Phil Collins, Sarah McLachlan, U2, Hans Zimmer, Linkin Park, Enigma, Eminem, Within Temptation, David Cook
Books:
'The Meditations' Rene Descartes; 'The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology' ed. Craig and Moreland; 'Does God Exist? The Craig - Flew Debate''Knowledge of God' Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley'The Existence of God' Richard Swinburne'Warrant and Proper Function' Alvin Plantinga'God and Design' Neil Manson ed.'There is a God' Anthony Flew; 'Christian Philosophical Theology' ed. Taliaferro and Meister; 'Science and Spirituality' by Michael Ruse; 'Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology by W. Craig and Q. Smith; 'The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology' ed. Craig and Moreland; 'The Coherence of Theism' by Richard Swinburne; 'The Language of God' by Francis Collins; 'The Dawkins Delusion' by Alister McGrath; 'Exegetical Fallacies' by Don Carson; 'In Defense of Miracles' ed. Geivett and Habermas; 'God, Reason and Theistic Proofs' by Stephen Davis; 'The Myth of the Framework' by Karl Popper; 'The God who is there' by Francis Schaeffer, 'Faith Beyond Reason' by C. Stephen Evans; 'The Nature of Necessity' by Alvin Plantinga; 'The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz' by W. Craig
Channel Comments (1623)
CasperTheMeanieGhost (25 minutes ago)
@Rodriguez

Even if God COULD create freedom without suffering, it doesn`t necessitate that he do so (given there are valid reasons). For example, he could have created freedom with the potential for evil so that he could ultimately defeat evil (thereby demonstrating the power of good over evil once for all eternity).

Btw, if you insist that God should intervene everytime man abuses his free will (such as the rape of a child), then you`d be defeating the purpose of having free will in the first place! If someone pulled a driveby on your frontlawn, you expect God to immediately turn those bullets to snurf balls? Where does that leave the shooter? His intention was to blow your brains out.
hippo11222 (1 hour ago)
"God could have created freedom without suffering"

That's begging the question. Do you really think your in the epistemological position to know this? If people have free will (self determination) then we determine which world's are feasible for God to actualize, not God. Just calling CartesianTheist's arguments retarded is just an appeal to ridicule.
CartesianTheist (3 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
You said:
"Notice what you write, you say that since in our first life we have made our moral choices, we will have no suffering in paradise. My point here is that, judging according to your believes, we can have both, freedom and not suffer, you're contradicting yourself and suffering is not a requisite to have freedom."

That is ONLY true IF I also claimed that we would have significant MORAL freedom in paradise. Did I claim that? [Looks back to check!] Nope, I did not. The point about paradise is that the necessary moral decision making has been done in this life already. Those of us who do not wish to harm will be given the gift not to inflict it in paradise. You must be more careful with what is actually being said instead of hastily rushing to words such as "contradiction" or "inconsistency" when none exists. You'll notice I did not quote the Bible. I quoted Fletcher before but you gave no response to him??
MrAdversusHaereses (7 hours ago)
This is turning into a complete schooling. Well responded so far CT!!
CartesianTheist (8 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
Now you give us a POSITIVE philosophical claim but fail to provide any argument. You say:
"God could have created freedom without suffering..."

Firstly that noun needs an adjective. I have been talking about MORAL freedom throughout and I have identified when I spoke about epistemic freedom which is something different. So I would like you to demonstrate, through use of reason or any other accepted means of arguing found in mainstream philosophy, that a person could have substantial moral freedom in a world where there was no suffering. By the way, if you can do this you would be on the fringes of overturning Plantinga's proof against the logical argument and I suggest you might wish to submit it for peer review since it would be such a sensational moment in the philosophy of religion. Seriously.
CartesianTheist (8 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
And now I will take this to an emotional level because atheists like to try this non-academic approach often to score points with an audience so let's try it in reverse and see what happens...

I challenge you to approach parents who have lost a young child to some horrible death. I would like you to suggest to them that the short life of their child was without meaning and purpose and there is nothing good which came from their short life. Because that is EXACTLY what you are trying to argue here and, as a parent myself, I find that to be abhorrent in the most extreme. How dare you suggest the little life of that child served no good whatsoever just because you cannot see any. This is the height of hubris on your part and I can assure you that the parents of that child would not be inviting you back again without some serious apology on your part.
CartesianTheist (8 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
You ask: "What opportunity does a little kid gets to be good when he/she dies at a young age?"
The answer is I DON'T KNOW. And, I suggest, neither do you. Which is what kills this as an affirmative argument as you want it to be. You wish the apparent meaninglessness of the death of a young child to count as evidence for some metaphysical argument you are inclined toward [the argument from suffering]. However, in order for it to count as evidence, you would need to be able to demonstrate that this life was completely devoid of good or meaningfulness WHATSOEVER. This is the problem with the evidential argument and why it's only a probablistic argument. It cannot demonstrate any such thing.
CartesianTheist (8 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
No I do not have to "oppose" the Pellicer case at all. One reason is because it's incredibly inconclusive [as you yourself have argued elsewhere I am led to believe?]. So, I remain, as I generally am about miracle experiences - sceptical. I invite you to notice that down the bottom of my page where I list the reasons why I find theism so more rational than atheism I do not have in that list 'miracles' as a general argument. What I actually stated was that I did not believe God would do this as some parlour trick for modern science - where he would heal to a point where medical scientists and others would HAVE to infer some supernatural intervention. That appears quite contrary to the God of Scripture to me and remains so both before and after learning of that case. Nothing has changed in my thinking there at all.
CartesianTheist (8 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
I would also reiterate that I do not think physical healing miracles are anywhere as common as some theists suggest which makes the case of the amputee less of an anomoly. Just because someone claims they have been healed by God does not mean they have. Christian theology has mostly been against the idea that God has some moral duty to physically heal us. People, when they are seriously ill become seriously vunerable as well and this is why I hate the healing industry of so-called Christian healers. I think it's worth asking why God chose so many of them from North America? Closer to home in Europe we have Lourdes where the vast majority of people go to receive no substantiated healing whatsoever. However, I do not think, on this basis, one can infer that God does not care or that he does not exist.
CartesianTheist (8 hours ago)
@Rodriguez8611
I think there is a little language barrier here since rhetoric is usually less well disguised than that. Nonetheless I shall take your assurance that it was only that as truthful. You ask: "How could a thinking person believe that a miracle is a revelation of god, but at the same time claim that an actual proof of a miracle would be in conflict with our freedom!" I think the clue to the answer is in the way in which you formed the question itself. You see that a revelation is never regarded as a complete proof of anything. There is an epistemic freedom which remains even though there has been revelation. However, once there is undeniable "proof" of a miracle and some proof of the origin of that miracle then epistemic freedom is clearly lessened as a result. So I think it's quite easy to show the two can be held simultaneously by a thinking person.
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