I have a hard time with this question because your hypothetical 15th century peasants both are and are not warranted in their belief.

Solid is, in itself, an hypothesis which, in a probable future of the hypothetical, will fail. In 20th-21st century physics 'solidness' refers to a repelling force and it is fairly clear in my mind that your hypothetical characters would argue that they aren't meaning anything of the sort by their coining of the word 'solid'.  And furthermore it is also hard to say that a 21st century person is any more warranted in believing the hypothesis of repelling forces as an alternative descriptor. The existence of things and processes are essentially presupposed to be described and the epistemic justification for doing so comes from the axioms that allow us to engage in sensical communication not from any assurance that the hypotheses of form and process are inherently absolute. A presuppositionalist will insert God and say that's why it makes sense, while a smart secular scientist would say NO it doesn't necessarily make sense and no complex assumption slid under the foundation should be able to change that; I simply accept that is way it is, and one can always systematically check and recheck definitions/hypotheses.

you are basically asking theist to define god withing the confines of science. first off science has its limitation if you do not agree with that then i highly encourage you to look at that.

now you are asking about god, so i think we need to be on the same understanding as to what we believe god is for the sake of the argument. as a christian i will say this

God is the uncaused cause of everything.

He is the uncreated creator.

The unmoved mover.

If you cannot agree on those statements for the sake of the argument then you are not treating it fairly.

now, if god is the uncreated creator, to create the universe he cannot be in the universe. something inside the universe cannot created something from nothing within that universe. so quite simply god could not be in the universe to create the universe, so to ask us to define god withing the confines of science is an unfair and illogical question. however, with science i think it is fairly easy to prove the POSSIBILITY of a god. it is impossible to 100% prove god, why else would we need faith?

 

It's amazing how utterly incapable of following simple english communication atheists are.   I'll try and use small words.

TB  made no argument it was a statement of a definition.  If you can't follow such simple things maybe you should stop trying to communicate on the internet.

 

an argument consists of a premise and a conclusion, both of which TB supplied.  maybe you should brush up on what "argument" really means, instead of making up bullshit terms like "statement of a definition," whatever the fuck THAT means.

and you, motherfucker, are bordering on being a troll.  what say you, mods?

Would you please divulge what these limitations are?

That is not a suitable definition.  What is an 'unmoved mover'?  What is an 'uncaused creator'?  What is the 'uncaused cause of everything'? Seriously, don't answer 'god'.  Please, provide a coherent defiintion.

Mhmm...

Mhmm... this part doesn't even make sense.

You wrote that already.

It's illogical to presuppose that something without of the universe (something which we would be unable to talk about coherently because it's without the universe) could cause or have any effect on the universe.  Further, what's not fair is that you, who has a paltry understanding of philosophy and cosmology, presume to define (incoherently) something you admit is without of the universe, presume that this something without of the universe could have any effect on it and expect people to accept this as a decent answer to any question about the nature of your god or the method by which it performs the actions you attribute to it.  I'll preclude you appealing to your god's awesome powers right now by reminding you that you have yet to define it coherently and by your own admission can't logically know anything about it.  Why don't you try again?  And this time define your god coherently and then work toward explaining how it created the universe (and not from where, your answer for which, even were that the question asked, is nonsense).

How could the possibility of something existing be determined utilizing the very thing within which it cannot be, according to you, fairly defined?

Indeed, if god cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt (which does not require 100% certainty, something which does not practially exist) to exist, why would you bother attempting to prove it at all?  Why even bother defining it?  Faith is belief in the absence, and increasingly in the face, of reason or evidence.  Presumably faith is all a theist requires or would want in order to maintain her belief, since her belief is already contradicted to the point of nullification by the body of knowledge in all science collectively.  In fact, faith requires an absence of reason or evidence for it to be considered as such and so it is only secure so long as faith is all that is needed.  If your faith is not enough then I'd suggest opening a textbook from any science or philosophy and actually learning something.

"God is the uncaused cause of everything. He is the uncreated creator. The unmoved mover." ~ trubeliever

Geezz what a clever way of saying nothing, pointing to nothing to worship but the unknown, nor how to worship, and if that was what chrisianity even is, I actually wouldn't object so vigorously. Christianity is a hocu pocus dance of make believe, using the the bi bull as some kind of esp of magical supernatural voodoo communication.

Religion is all bunk, wisdom pollution, mental and physical poison, blasphemy to reason, blind, hypocricy, terrorism, dishonest, and a sick slandeous joke to any reasonable godly sense.   .... and atheistic buddha jesus wepted, as I do. Heal the enemy, religion is dogma, religion is hell, a place of wrong separatism thinking.

i prefer to think of god as the unshat shitter. 

Anyone care to hazard a quess at where Consumption and NellyBoy got off to?  Hopefully not to spread their respective disease and  persuasion (sinful, both) around the internetz?  I'm sure we'd all like responses and I, at least, would think it better to contain them here.

The only logical deduction that I can see from your example is that ignorance tends to increase the propensity for assumption, experienced as belief, to be confused with knowledge of fact.

 

Your 15th century "solid feelers" would have had no knowledge of atomic theory but would have had sufficient kowledge of matter to differentiate between "solid", "liquid" and "gas" (cutting edge science at the time). Within the limited parameters of their scientific knowledge they had enough to go on, in other words, in order to make sense of their physical world, and it would never even have entered their minds that in light of more advanced understanding of matter the distinctions are no longer satisfactorily expressed in such a simplistic manner.

 

Exactly like theism, in other words.

 

So you raise an interesting point - why on earth should we be induced, in this day and age, to accept inferior definitions like theism, when better ones exist? Why resort to "belief" when the knowledge (or at least an improved version of it) not only exists but dispels the assumptions, and in doing so dispels the reason to "just believe" anything?

 

You'll never get away from the fact that "science" meets an anomaly with inquisition whereas religion meets it with assertion. Yet science actively seeks out anomalous challenges whereas religion abhors them, since they expose its over-reliance on assertion and its compulsion on its subscribers to repeat those assertions, even to the point of ludicrousness. You'll never convince me that your preference for the latter is the way to go.

I didn't. I analysed as if the intended meaning of solid referred to classical concepts of mass volume and density and I said contemporary terms paint a contrasting picture of what creates the sensation of solidness, in those terms the mass volume and density to which your peasants refer is non-existent and meaningless and in that way, your peasants are not warranted in their belief. By Aristotle, for example, they are saying of something that it is what it is not, which is false.

But... yet, at the same time they do have an epistemological foundation that warrants their belief, and this is the thing you're looking for someone to concede, they have an agreement on what is communicable about the world and the communication is meaningful in their contemporary epistemic framework. So they are warranted in their belief, they are warranted by the agreement which is essential to their epistemological concern.

So the question is difficult to address. Yes, they're wrong, but no less than we might be in the fact that contemporary theory contradicts them, because we all presuppose that 'things' and 'processes' have independent existence, we even presuppose 'independence' of existence. So theories of knowledge are complex and sensitive philosophical ground. full stop. And then we test those presuppositions against reality and take the validation of an hypothesis to be the criterion of knowledge - which is a good but by no means foolproof system.

A process or identity can be validated even if it's a non-starter. Take gravity for example - in Newtons time the hypotheses of gravity was that the earth exerted an attractive 'force' and since then the intended meaning of that word 'gravitational force' has fallen out totally with a major epistemic framework, namely Relativity. Nevertheless, Newtons calculations predicted the 'strength' of the force and repeated validation of these predictions facilitated the epistemological acceptance of the summary hypotheses, including it's flawed 'force' posit. 

 

The way I see it I am not dodging the context of the original proposition but rather revising it and what entails the logic within it. You're clearly asking for us to suppose 'within' the logic of your 15th century context and critique the truth value of the statement in the light of 'knowing why something is solid" but I am introducing knowledge that the something isn't solid in those terms at all, this has an entirely different repercussion on your peasant's hypotheses.

 

My apologies presupp, I was speaking generally to demonstrate the contrast between presuppositional and pragmatic epistemologies as I understand it and I didn't intend that to be a reflection or representation of what you've posted here.

Science = Knowledge.

You claim to know that God exists, don't you? And you claim to know that he created everything.

 

So, what gives? If he's outside your knowledge like you just claimed, how could you know anything about him at all, including that he exists and made everything?

How underwhelmingly vague. How do you know all of this in he first place, by chance? Clearly you have no idea how creation works.

 

More importantly, if creationism is not science, why is it that such a wide range of Christians want it added to the science curriculum?

tru, I'm pretty okay with that god definition as it implies nothing but the unknown, and says nothing about creating an idol nor dogmatic ways of worship. It's like the eastern saying that god cannot be named. The word god doesn't mean a deity in taoism nor buddhism.

For me god and religion need be seen also as separate things. Religion is an important study of the cultural aspects of humanities confusion and errors. God is simply a scientific synonym for all the connected Oneness of all existence of total equality, of No possible Master.

Study awe, as I call it g-awe-d, with science and self awarness, and drop all religion dogma of separatism. All is 100% g-o-d. Atheistic Jesus and Buddha, as many others are exlint ancient mentors if you can seperate wisdom from folklore and attached dogmas. Start over with the idea, all is god, you are god .... LOL

So very simply well said Future ....    thanks, i god as you

 

 

Exactly!  As Arthur C Clarke said so eloquently:  "The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion". 

It's worth reading the rest of what he had to say on the subject:    http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/relmor.htm