I promise this isn't an ambush

[Algernon]

Maybe the fact that I haven't even said I'm certain there *is* an argument to be made? If I'm not even sure the argument can be made, then I certainly haven't made that argument. If I haven't made the argument, it is impossible to have begged the question. In fact, the three traits I brought up in the OP have never even been describded by me as being the premise. Certainly they would inform a premise, but I haven't even formulated one yet. If I haven't formulated a premise, then you certainly don't know what the premise is while asserting that I have begged the question.
Just stop.

You're telling me to "just stop"? Even this is a straw man wrapped in a red herring. You're free to stop with the logical fallacies at any time now.

Pay attention to what you wrote:
"Right now, I can only say I have an intuitive sense that the argument can be made; but, I haven't nailed it down. The basic idea is that these three observations of our own experience in the world ought to lead us to an acknowledgement of God -- not to a full-blown Christian theology, but at least to a basic theistic position."

Pay attention to what I wrote earlier:
""Even if you are able to reframe #3 into something palatable, your underlying premise is logically fallacious in that it assumes the conclusion. In other words, only those who believe that those "three observations" reasonably lead to "an acknowledge of God" will be lead to an acknowledgement of God. It's a non-starter."
"You stated the "basic idea" which is the "underlying premise".

Note that I did not say that your "argument" is logically fallacious. I said your "underlying premise". Yes Virginia, an underlying premise can beg the question.
Are you asserting that, for all intents and purposes, a "basic idea" is not the same as an "underlying premise"?

You clearly haven't thought through much of anything. You can start any time now.

Once again:
"Why don't you set your pride aside and admit that the reason that you've "been stewing on [your argument] for years" and haven't been able to "get it worked out" is because the underlying premise is hopelessly flawed?"

 

[shnarkle]

My point exactly - "morals aren't transcendant? Who cares?

Why do they have to be?"

Morals cannot be transcendent Morals are transcended. Transcendence transcends morality. If there were a transcendent god, they would necessarily transcend morality. They would never descend to the roundtable of human morality.

 

[Furion]

Morals cannot be transcendent Morals are transcended. Transcendence transcends morality. If there were a transcendent god, they would necessarily transcend morality. They would never descend to the roundtable of human morality.

The ten just about sum up morality, for man.

God is not a man, so you are honest about it.

God's thoughts are not man's thoughts either, and God also does not judge like men do.

The evidence is of the heart, and no man can hide what goes on in there from God.

 

[5wize]

What is the (intended) conclusion of the argument?

The god of the Bible?
Some interventionist creator god?
Some non-interventionist (deistic) god?

@SkullKrusher - Early on within an exchange, SkullKrusher indicated that the intent was to create an argument for God with premises crafted with neutral language that would not be leading to either worldview. We are helping him eliminate loaded words like "fallen" or "intent" that beg the question.

As a theist, I fully expect as he gathers this information he will make an argument that necessitates a transcendent God (he actually told me so). Maybe he won't. Either way, I appreciate the up-front effort to not craft a "so when did yuo stop beating your wife" argument. It's a worthy goal.

 

[4tune8chance]

Maybe you need to read up on the current civilizations in North Korea, Venezuela, China, Cameroon, Mozambique, Iran and other Islamic nations where homosexuals are tossed off roofs of buildings.

That's more like a Status Quo, when have people ever been at pease? There are less wars now than in the past (but its aa contentious issue). Either way, the nature of man has not dropped/fallen, if anything we are more enlightened now than in the past, if you're lucky enough to live in a democracy.

 

[Caroljeen]

That's more like a Status Quo, when have people ever been at pease? There are less wars now than in the past (but its aa contentious issue). Either way, the nature of man has not dropped/fallen, if anything we are more enlightened now than in the past, if you're lucky enough to live in a democracy.

Knowledge has increased. Other than that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to warring.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Knowledge has increased. Other than that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to warring.

Then I don't see how we could have "fallen", if it's always been this way...

 

[Furion]

Then I don't see how we could have "fallen", if it's always been this way...

Almost there.

The "fallen" part shouldn't be difficult for you.

You do readily admit you are estranged from your God, yes?

Bingo, fallen. And yes, me and you and everyone since Adam have always been this way.

 

[5wize]

Almost there.

The "fallen" part shouldn't be difficult for you.

You do readily admit you are estranged from your God, yes?

Bingo, fallen. And yes, me and you and everyone since Adam have always been this way.

Many of us feel we are getting closer to whatever God is by denying and opposing the current Christian view and the Jewish nationalist history of Him. That one is obviously wrong.

 

[Furion]

Many of us feel we are getting closer to whatever God is by denying and opposing the current Christian view and the Jewish nationalist history of Him. That one is obviously wrong.

By "us" you mean you and your cat?

 

[shnarkle]

That's more like a Status Quo, when have people ever been at pease?

Have you ever heard of the Pax Romana? It was a world at peace. Wars and rumors of wars were non-existent.

There are less wars now than in the past (but its aa contentious issue).

Wars are not decreasing. For the most part, they've just been redefined as "conflicts".

Either way, the nature of man has not dropped/fallen, if anything we are more enlightened now than in the past, if you're lucky enough to live in a democracy.

As Aristotle pointed out, all democracies devolve into tyrannies, and what we see in the world today are tyrannies, albeit with a higher standard of living than in the past, but nonetheless tyrannies just the same. The US imprisons more people than all other first world countries combined. That neither denotes enlightenment of those imprisoned, nor those who feel the need to imprison others.

So-called democracies are lobbing bombs on non-combatants all over the world causing massive migrations of hundreds of thousands of people. Economic sanctions have never provided the results intended as the people being sanctioned see that it is not their own government who is doing the sanctioning.

The global monetary system is inherently corrupt. Being given the ability to legally counterfeit currencies is dishonest, immoral and just plain evil. Inflationary monetary policies rob people of their hard-earned savings through debasing the money supply. It is nothing less than theft by fraud.

Everyone and just about everything on this planet is born with trace amounts of chemical compounds which have broken down from plastic, petrochemicals etc.

People are so sick that the medical community around the world now believes that everyone should be vaccinated every three to four months because human beings have become alienated from their own planet.

Human being, the pinnacle of evolution (or if you prefer, creation) don't have enough sense to seek higher ground before a tsunami drowns them. It is one of the most bizarre things to see when dogs, cats, rats, and even birds will begin to flee to higher ground long before a single human being even notices that the ocean has begun to suddenly recede. Even then, too many will just stand there in dumbfounded amazement waiting to be thrown into cars, buses, high rise apartments by tens of thousands of tons of incoming water.

These people are zombies. They're walking around unconscious of much of anything other than the latest notification on their smartphone. These people are not enlightened.

 

[5wize]

By "us" you mean you and your cat?

Nope. I think you have been introduced to the level of pushback you receive by skeptics. Yet again you feel the need to dodge it as opposed to address it by talking about cats.

 

[mikeT]

I'd appreciate some input from athiests & agnostics on something fairly basic: three self-evident (IMO) facts about human existence and experience.

1) We are all finite.
2) We are all fallible.
3) We are all fallen.

Granted, you may prefer a less theological term for the third, and I won't split hairs over that at this point -- call a ever-present tendency to moral compromise, moral failure, whatever.

My question is, does anyone have any fundamental dispute with or objection to the accuracy of these statements?

As an atheist (speaking only for myself), I'm never afraid of being intellectually ambushed; ask me leading questions which are ultimately intended to get me to contradict myself, or otherwise reveal some problem in what I believe or value. Please do this, as often as you think you can. As long as you're sincere (rather than trolling), I will sincerely answer your questions, because if there IS a problem in what I think/value, I want to know about it too.

I've been reading this forum for a little while, and I suspect many of the atheists here would say something similar.

---

Like several posts your OP has received, I accept #1 and #2, but take issue with #3. Sure, the terminology is loaded a bit (re. Christianity's concept of a fallen creation), but my main objective is that #3 is redundant/unnecessary. "We're fallible" includes "we're fallen"; moral fallibility is entailed by fallibility. I'm fallible, and everything I do or think has at least some chance of failing, being less-than perfect, or otherwise being wrong/bad. That includes moral judgements or actions, as well as my choice of clothing, driving my car, investing in the stock market, raising children, etc.

I don't see why moral fallibility needs to be included explicitly in your list.

 

[shnarkle]

Like several posts your OP has received, I accept #1 and #2, but take issue with #3. Sure, the terminology is loaded a bit (re. Christianity's concept of a fallen creation), but my main objective is that #3 is redundant/unnecessary. "We're fallible" includes "we're fallen";

I'm not so sure why that would necessarily be the case unless one were to assume a perfect state from which to fall from.

moral fallibility is entailed by fallibility. I'm fallible, and everything I do or think has at least some chance of failing, being less-than perfect, or otherwise being wrong/bad.

I don't see why moral fallibility needs to be included explicitly in your list.

Again, this makes sense if we accept that we're fallen from a state of perfection. I haven't seen anyone point out how this would necessarily be the case.

This causes me to scrutinize the first item as well because it might not fit well with the previous assumption either.

We're all familiar with the notion that there is more to a person than meets the eye, or that the sum is greater than the parts combined. The question is, how much more. If we assume perfection, then how can we automatically disregard infinity, or at least any connection or relationship to it?

Simply restricting our focus on a physical body doesn't seem worthy of consideration. Why exclude what truly makes one human, even fallibly human, in favor of some fallibly quantifiable person?

Isn't this really just Begging the Question? Aren't we just assuming what we're trying to prove?

 

[mikeT]

Like several posts your OP has received, I accept #1 and #2, but take issue with #3. Sure, the terminology is loaded a bit (re. Christianity's concept of a fallen creation), but my main objective is that #3 is redundant/unnecessary.

@SkullKrusher - the word in red was meant to be "objection". You probably will have guessed this, but I wanted to remove the guesswork...

 

[Furion]

Nope. I think you have been introduced to the level of pushback you receive by skeptics. Yet again you feel the need to dodge it as opposed to address it by talking about cats.

I've heard better arguments from my children than from skeptics here.

I noticed you named no one standing with you, besides maybe your cat or your hamster.

It must stink to put so much effort into your skepticism with not one convert. Sounds like God is still winning.

 

[Whatsisface]

I've heard better arguments from my children than from skeptics here.

It's good that you've found your level of understanding.

 

[5wize]

I've heard better arguments from my children than from skeptics here.

I doubt that. You've yet to answer one argument credibly with either your or your children's arguments. You are lying.

I noticed you named no one standing with you, besides maybe your cat or your hamster.

What skeptic on this board does not agree that Christians do not have a personal revelatory relationship with a God? Again, the seriousness of your faith is not found in you. You avoid having to defend it with the clownishness of hamsters and cats. Do you think the word "hamster" or "cat" is cute and funny? Does is substitute for a serious apologetic?

It must stink to put so much effort into your skepticism with not one convert. Sounds like God is still winning.

Not looking for converts. Just playing musical chairs with you where reality is the chair, and I merely enjoy seeing you sitting in the grass with your poster of god every time the music stops.

 

[Furion]

I doubt that. You've yet to answer one argument credibly with either your or your children's arguments. You are lying.

What skeptic on this board does not agree that Christians do not have a personal revelatory relationship with a God? Again, the seriousness of your faith is not found in you. You avoid having to defend it with the clownishness of hamsters and cats. Do you think the word "hamster" or "cat" is cute and funny? Does is substitute for a serious apologetic?

Not looking for converts. Just playing musical chairs with you where reality is the chair, and I merely enjoy seeing you sitting in the grass with your poster of god every time the music stops.

Just one, do you have even one to form your us?

Well it's good you are not looking for converts to your brand of skeptical tomfoolery. It's not very appealing.

 

[5wize]

Just one, do you have even one to form your us?

Whatsisface gave it a like. There. That's your one.