God is real

Rebuttals:Mumbo jumbo is “unnecessarily involved and incomprehensible language” [1. http://www.merriam-webster.com......] The dictionary says the phrase derives from “a masked figure among Mandingo peoples of western Africa.” (1738) No doubt the Mandango peoples had a good idea of what the mask figure represented, but whatever it was it was incomprehensible to outsiders. Similarly, whatever Pro is talking about undoubtedly has meaning to the tribe of those interested in the language. Searching the web for terms like “telic recursion” reveals that there is such a tribe, proponents of what they call Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). CMTU originated with Christopher Langan. RationalWiki attempts to summarize the theory, and states the obvious, that “Critics point out this model is kind of a semantic game.” [2. http://rationalwiki.org......] Count me among those critics who find it to be semantic horsepucky. Error: My case is hardly “mumbo jumbo”. In fact, the essential argument is exceedingly simple (albeit abstract for those unused to thinking in this way). While some of my arguments did contain neologisms, such terms were either explicitly defined (as was the case with telic recursion) or easily inferred from the context in which they were used. This was necessary, since many of the ideas presented were novel, and no words yet existed to provide for them. Telic recursion can be a difficult concept to grasp, but its implication for the debate and its justification are not. Simply stated, telic recursion says that reality, being totally self-contained, must be self-determinative and self-configuring. Moreover, whereas ordinary time accommodates changes occurring within the spacetime manifold, this is obviously not so for the kind of time in which the manifold itself changes. Obviously, the highest level of change is that characterizing the creation of reality. But if the creation of reality was a real event, and if this event occurred in cosmic time, then cosmic time itself is real. But then cosmic time is an aspect of reality and can only have been created with reality. This implies that cosmic time, and in fact reality, must have created themselves! In this sense, reality is timeless, because time amounts to change, and there must exist a level on which there is no real change...non-reality to reality is no real change at all. Langan admitted in a quotation provided by Beasley that there are no practical applications of CMTU. But if there are no practical applications, there is no way to falsify the theory. A practical application says that if A, B, and C happens then D will happen. If D does not happen, the theory is falsified. Lacking application means that it is not a scientific theory, because all scientific theories can be falsified. That means that any claim that it is scientific proof of the existence of the O3 God is unwarranted. Error: What utter nonsense. First of all, Langan has said explicitly that the CTMU has practical applications . Unfortunately I cannot find the quote I was looking for, but I was able to find some others : “As far as wringing practical applications out of it is concerned...well, there'll be time for that later. I will say, however, that it [the CTMU] has a lot to say about "AI"...”Of course, the fact that the CTMU is not strictly scientific, i.e. dependent on the scientific method for confirmation, does not in principle stop it from yielding predictions or explanations of empirical phenomena.” - Chris Langan. In any case, a theory can be falsifiable without being empirically falsifiable, as is the case with the CTMU. It can be tested for logical and semantic consistency by examining it for errors or internal contradictions. But in the end, all of this is irrelevant, for we are not here to debate whether the CTMU is valid or falsifiable. Both of Con’s arguments reduce to “an imperfect world is inconsistent with a perfect being”. As I said in my previous round, God is not bound by time, permitting him to timelessly explore various forms he might take. The rebuttal that “A perfect being would have no need to for this” implies that such self-configuration would make God imperfect. This is false for at least two reasons: since God would be in the position of defining objective morality, he can (and in this course of acting, does) define what “perfect” entails. Secondly, since God is not bound by time, he witnesses a single act of creation, and can retroactively self-configure in such a way as to embody his ideal. In this sense, that which is not in line with God’s morality “never existed” except as a possibility. Summary: Con dropped all of my arguments. I don’t blame him for being annoyed with the prospect of refuting esoteric concepts like “telic recursion”, but I would appreciate it if he did not lump it all together and label it “incomprehensible”, as that is simply untrue. Many of the points I made were not nearly as abstract as the one he chose to focus on, and he doesn’t just get to avoid them because of it.