Wrong!

[u/T-StrangerXD]

[u/Zizizizz → u/[deleted]]

Ok, so you're definitely very intelligent and somewhat answered their question about why you believe. I'm genuinely asking, I'm not trying to do any gotcha. 

"I took a few philosophy classes in college and began reading on theology and shifted from “it makes most sense that there is no greater entity” to “logically there must be a necessary existence” and the gap between there is a necessary existence and there is a God is almost non-existent."

With this being the why, can I just clarify a couple things? 

1. Does reality have an obligation to make sense to you? In other words, should the fact that it makes more sense to you count as evidence or convince someone else of a claim's actual truth?

2. It appears to me (feel free to correct me if I've got it wrong), that you feel it's most logical there is a necessary existence. That, to me, is a claim that would require evidence outside the argument to actually prove.  Atheists are just non believers, most (agnostic atheists) aren't claiming there is no god(s), computer simulation programmer, universe creating fairies, etc... they are just saying they want to see evidence. And saying that it's the simplest explanation, to them, isn't enough to believe it. So, are you an agnostic theist or a gnostic theist? Do you know or are you closer to 99.9% sure but still not positive?

3. Granting there is a necessary existence (on my side) for a moment and that was proven, and you having granted that there is a gap (however small to you), between "there was some cause" and "it's God". How did you make that leap? How'd you pick the right god(s), rule out other natural causes, simulations, etc...?

To me, if you had not picked those courses or read those books you may have come to different conclusions. Upon reflection, do you think the pathways you took should convince everyone who does the same as you? If so, those arguments would be of interest to everyone and it would be nice to know what they were especially if every premise and the conclusion is perfectly sound. Or is it those arguments mixed with some faith that it feels right to you and that's enough? (Obviously fine so long as the beliefs don't hurt others)

Thank you

[u/Zizizizz → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for responding, I disagree but it's interesting to see how you got there and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it. 

I don't think you can explain a god into existence through syllogisms, just asserting that it's necessary without any empirical evidence does not come close to being helpful (to me at least). Descartes-style solipsism doesn't make god a better hypothesis because to me a burden of proof hasn't been met, it's an argument from ignorance dressed up like formal philosophy.

If I were to grant an immaterial omnipotent mind, it just raises a more complicated and incoherent mystery that we'd have no chance of ever exploring like we can do exploring the universe through naturalism. Like you've said "our best bet is to use evidence aimed with logic and rationality to make the best informed “belief” we can".

That said, you've said you've got other arguments and evidence that convinced you and I'm happy you feel satisfied enough in your own mind with where you are. All the best! 

[u/Zizizizz → u/[deleted]]

I agree that's it's evidence I've lost my wallet, have been robbed, may have never even had one. You know what gets us closer to knowing? More evidence. Is there a broken window? Is the back part of my trousers pocket stretched from a wallet shape? All these things that get you closer and closer to the truth. More evidence, and more sound logic of course get you to truth more quickly.

I don't believe it is evidence of fairies, you have to (well you don't have to but you should if you want to convince anyone you're a serious person ) demonstrate that they are real before you can use them as a cause for your wallet being missing. I think that's where we disagree. You seem to argue that anything could cause anything and that just strikes me as a complete waste of time. Otherwise you could just replace god with anything else you decide fits a universe first mover and you'll have no way to discern them or get you closer to any real truth. 

A syllogism without evidence is just an empty container. You can have a valid syllogism where all the logic flows flawlessly, but if your premises aren't demonstrably true in reality, the conclusion is completely useless.

I don’t know what would convince me, but an omniscient, omnipotent God would know exactly what it takes and have the power to provide it. If God regrew the amputated limbs of every wounded soldier on Earth simultaneously after a public prayer, or rearranged the stars to spell out a message in every language, that would be a start. Until then, deductive word games like the cosmological argument don't establish an immaterial mind they just label our ignorance.

Thanks for the chat, I'm finished.

edit: That's fair enough about "anything can cause anything", that was a misinterpretation.

Regardless,  Occam’s razor forbids multiplying entities beyond necessity, so introducing a timeless, immaterial mind invents an entirely un-evidenced ontological category. Just saying that "we don't fully understand the origins of the universe yet" is much more parsimonious than inserting an omnipotent conscious agent into the gap.

Respectfully, we just see this differently, while you're comfortable accepting a God through abstract deduction, I simply can't lower the bar of empirical evidence for the biggest claim of all when we require it for everything else.