God's Existence

Thanks Pro. Well I guess you do not see the implication inherent in the argument from non-cognitivism. You have no positively identified primary attributes for the god concept, simply ascribing relational attributes to that concept tells us nothing of what a god is. Thus the term god is simply meaningless and points to nothing in reality. If we wanted to draw an analogy we could set up the concept of the Yellow Quantum Whisperer (YQW), assign to their being the relational attribute of quantum whispering and thereby use them as an explanation for Quantum effects. At this point you may ask what a YQW is? As I would about a god for the exact same reasons. I see no reason why we must agree that there can be only one Ground of Existence (GOE). Even if one accepts that a GOE must be unlimited, there could be multiple overlapping unlimited entities. It is not the contemplation of the nature of contingency that we should turn to first. But the Ground of Existence (GOE), Pro wishes to point to (which I take to mean the necessary being or principal sufficient reason). The point about the termination of an infinite series by invoking an infinite being leads to the same result. For instance if we are to assume that a god took a decision to create a contingent Universe, how did that infinite god cross an infinite series of mental processes to arrive at that decision. An infinite being would indeed have an infinitely long set of things to negotiate. Worse still to escape this problem the Theist may argue that in some utterly mysterious creative act (hitherto unknown) a god auto-bootstrapped into existence instantly with this plan already held in an utterly mysterious intelligent consciousness. But this leads to a worse outcome for the Theist. A necessary being with the attributes ascribed to a god would be incapable of doing anything else other than creating the Universe as it is. Thus in what sense is the Universe contingent? A necessary being creating things necessarily because they are programmed to do so. Nothing contingent about that possible world. Pro has also missed the point about perfection. A maximally perfect being would only create perfect things, If they choose not to they would not be maximally perfect, in that it would be possible for them to be more perfect. These are not the problems for the Atheist, but Theistic confusion on the attributes (see the first point above). Placing the GOE outside of space and time is meaningless. But let us say that it is not, what then. In what sense can it be a creative causal force? Causal creation requires an act inside of time in the effects always temporally follow causes. There are also no grounds to import the concept of intelligence into a maximally unlimited entity. A theoretical quantum field could be said to be unlimited, but what intelligence does it have? Again this is a bare assertion on Pros part. We are left to conclude that either the Universe is not contingent as a perfect and necessary being had no choice but to create it as it is, or that it is contingent on something which in itself or as or more mysterious than an infinite series of natural events. None of this leads us to conclude that a god is a likely explanation given the terms laid out by Pro.