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questions from an agnostic bored to death by obnoxious atheism and obnoxious monotheism:
if one god can bring itself into existence/have always existed, what precludes that possibility for a 2nd 3rd or 4th god, (etc.)?
couldn't an infinite number of gods have come up into existence at the same moment?
using the argument from the first video, why does each mind have to be made in the image of the same god? couldn't each mind be an image of a different god? couldn't parts of minds come from different sources?
why do people do people involved in organized religion make assumptions about things they know they cannot possibly comprehend?
hume covered that in dialogs concerning natural religion
Somehow in the flurry of multiple debates, I just noticed that you had posted a video to make your points on Hume and was able to watch it this morning.
Some thoughts.
The arguments for the fine tuning of the universe are very strong, and, in my understanding do not fail by being made from analogy. In fact, a) the analogy holds strong when you think of it as coming across the universe with all of its dials perfectly set for life to be present on earth, it is simply the logical conclusion to believe that "someone had been dialing in the physics" of the universe. In fact, Christopher Hitchens made a taxi cab confession of the strength of the fine tuning arguments sometime before his death. He also asserted that even if he could drive religion out of the world, that he wouldn't do so.
What is more, b) evolutionary Big Bang theorists make cosmological claims taken from the micro-scale as well; like when they assert that the cosmic singularity at the beginning of the universe is likened to a fluctuation at the quantum level, and so forth.
Bottom line, when analyzing arguments, there are good analogies and bad analogies; the question is, then, if an argument from analogy is presented, does the analogy accurately represent the facts of the natural world? which the design arguments for God, in fact, do.
There is another connotation of the term Analogy that is important in religious discussion about God. Hume's dialogue rightly expressed that to try to project human characteristics back upon God is "gross", but the univocal mode of predicating (i.e., human and God's characteristics are the exact same) God's attributes is not the way to speak about God anyway. And, equivocal predication (i.e., that no finite language can accurately express anything about God) leads to self refuting agnosticism.
So, analogous predication is the way to go. That is, humans have similar characteristics to God, but we have them in a finite sense, while God has them in an infinite sense. Humans can and do express love, but our love comes and goes and experiences change. God can and does love, but His love is unchanging and has no ebb and flow to it. Humans have limided knowledge, God has infinite knowledge, and so on in an analogous sense.
But, God does have certain attributes distinctly different humans, simply because humans were created and are thus finite. That is, God is uncaused, infinite and immaterial, while humans are caused, finite, and material. This is the metaphysical gap that separates God from man insofar as being is concerned, but we can still understand a great deal about God through natural reason and special revelation in an analogous sense.
As far as morality goes, the entirety of Hume's dialogue presumes the existence of a standard of right and wrong on which to make the various cases for God's abilities. In other words, how are any in the dialogue saying that anything is evil or that there is such a thing as evil, etc.? To make such meta-ethical claims presupposes God's existence as moral arbitrator.
Moreover, it is important to note, in the context of Classical Theism, that this world we live in is not the best possible world, but rather is the best possible way to the best possible world, which is Heaven.
God has allowed evil to be in the world as a concomitant factor to the gift of human free will. God can and will defeat evil at the consummation of all things at the final judgement (note: Jesus judicially defeated evil at the cross) but until the Final Judgement the world suffers evil as a privation via the Fall of Adam and Eve.
Further thoughts, there is no such thing as "finite perfection" as finite beings can gain and lose characteristics, they are caused by another, effected, limited, prone to err, etc.. and thus cannot be the most perfect conceivable being (i.e., God). Also, Dostoevsky's 'wicked God' is impossible because God, by His very nature, is perfect, and wickedness is far from a perfection.
Topic: Evidence for God (Read 51370 times)