Atheists Protest Ground Zero Cross

WorldNetDaily ^ | Posted: June 18, 2002 | By Ron Strom

[Washington_minuteman]

Concerning your dialouge with Dimensio:

II Cor. 4:3-4
II Cor. 10:3-6
John 6:37-40

I think you're trying too hard.

[VRWC_minion]

It is true that there are counterarguments to each of the traditional philosophical arguments for the existence of God, but that doesn't mean that they have necessarily been refuted.

But none of them will stand up to traditional logic because ultimately the premise is "I am" and its starting point is a premise.

[Dimensio]

I think that I've seen that "proof" in a slightly different form. Of course the problem is that it assumes that the premise "God is a necessary being" is true. That premise has two problems: it isn't established as true and the word "necessary" lacks any meaningful context (necessary for what?). It's also somewhat meaningless without a definition for the "God" being referenced.

[Dimensio]

I think that you just phrased it poorly originally. A better way to put it would have been "Only a God could raise people from the dead" and "Only a God could predict the future". The inclusion of "if God exists" can be read to imply that your premise is only true if your conclusion -- that God exists -- is true, meaning that if God does not exist then ressurrection and precognition would be possible through other means.

[Dimensio]

"The heavens declare the glory" isn't an argument. It is an assertion. At best it is an appeal to incredulity; at worst it begs the question "how?"

[Polybius]

What about the separation of church and state? If one religion's symbol (ie cross, star of david, etc) is allowed to be an official part of an official govt. site, then doesn't that open up dangerous issues for future endeavors?

The First Amendment guarantees Freedon of Religion not Freedom from Religion.

Below is a photo of "an official U.S. Government site": an American military cemetery of World War II dead. Crosses and Stars of David (purchased by the U.S. Government) adorn their graves. That is Freedon of Religion.

Do you propose that these Crosses and Stars of David be pulled out?

Denying these dead Americans the symbols of their faith would entail Freedom from Religion. That is a totalitarian concept advanced by Nazi Germany in the case of the Jews and by the Communists in the case of all religions. These men died to defeat such totalitarianism.

[dodobird]

I think the Cross should stay. If the Muslims/Jews or any other religion found their religious symbols at Ground Zero, then they can display them along with the Cross. Those who find the Cross offensive can look on it as two beams that survived a horrific disaster and a symbol that when all is said and done the American spirit lives on. I am a Christian and I will look on it as a miracle and a Sign from God that He is Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient and He will take care of those who believe in Him. God Bless America.

[Dimensio]

That premise has two problems: it isn't established as true and the word "necessary" lacks any meaningful context (necessary for what?).

"Oh, come now, modalities like "necessity" and "possibility" have been continuously employed in logical discourse for what -- a thousand years, give or take a century.

Except that "necessity" typically has context. Saying "God is necessary" is a null statement -- it has no meaning because there is nothing to which the necessity relates. I had a feeling that Spinoza wasn't as inarticulate as the argument presented, so I went and looked up the actual syntax of the argument. Of course, being the scatterbrained person I am I had forgotten that proving Spinoza's god is somewhat trivial, as Spinoza essentially defined god as the sum total of everything that exists in the natural universe. To say that such a God necessarily exists makes more sense in that context, because this God must exist in order for anything at all to exist (where everything that does exist is simply an extension of God). Personally I find such a definition of God meaningless except as a nice catch-all term because it certainly implies nothing regarding this God's nature, and in fact does not even imply that this God (as a whole) has any level of sentience or awarness. I won't argue if someone wants to call the sum total of the universe "God", but I'm hardly going to consider that a real deity.

Since the early Scholastics down to Spinoza and, especially, Leibniz, who had a great deal to say about logical modalities. Never mind that modalities of necessity and possibility are standard fare in logic today. All this is merely ephemeral since an atheist has legislated that "necessary" means nothing, regardless of Kripke semantics and all that confusing stuff.

"Necessary" implies essential for a specific result or definition. Saying simply "God is necessary" is meaningless because there is no result or definition specified. I admit, I should have looked up Spinoza's "proof" myself once it was presented because Spinoza's definition does actually have context for "necessary" simply by virtue of his definition for God.

"It's also somewhat meaningless without a definition for the "God" being referenced."

Do you need to know the definition of "Socrates" in order to evaluate the logical validity of [...]

There is a difference between a logically valid argument and a meaningful logically valid argument. "All Xs are Y, Z is X therefore Z is Y" is logically valid but it gives no useful information about the world. Without defining God any arguments as to its existence don't have meaning, no matter how logically valid. In the case of Spinoza, his God is defined but as I said, it's just a nice catch-all term for the sum-total of the natural universe and not exactly a traditional concept of a "God".

[Dimensio]

Alright, fine, it's a logically consistent argument. This begs the question as to the truth value of the premise "God is necessary".

[4Godsoloved..Hegave]

I think you're trying too hard.

I think you are right :-)

By His grace†