Originally posted by James R
It's nice to be approaching a consensus, indeed.
Well, now that we have that particular hurdle out of the way, here comes the juice.
First of all, if a god is to be the explanation of where the universe came from, the following question arises: where did ectoplasm come from? The point of that question is that no matter how many links you postulate in the story of creation, there is always going to be such a question applicable to the very first link -- and by the virtue of that being necessarily rhetorical. This shows that no intelligent designer can be a sufficient explanation of all existence.
Now, if ectoplasm is primary and a god secondary, one has to explain how that god came to be within the ectoplasm. That is qualitatively no different than explaining how the known universe came to be within the ectoplasm. In fact, it's arguably easier in the case of the known universe, since it is by definition simpler than God.
Granted, the upshot is that any god is merely unnecessary and explicatively futile on logical grounds. And you’re right, God cannot be ruled out on such a basis. However, God being unnecessary helps quite a bit in the argument that no god exists (at least no god as construed by any known religion.)
Moreover, the argument demonstrates that no God exists (with the capitalized form meaning as conceived in Abrahamic religions) because such a god is the be-all and end-all of existence, which is impossible since ectoplasm has to be the real deal.
It's nice to be approaching a consensus, indeed.
<i>What you seem to be missing with your postulates, is the very fact that "God is made of ectoplasm" means that ectoplasm is primary and God secondary. Which was my argument all along.</i>
Ok. I'll concede that point for now. What I set out to show was that God could not be ruled out on logical grounds. We seem to have reached the point where we can agree on a particular concept of God which is not ruled out on logical grounds, so I'm happy to leave it there.
Well, now that we have that particular hurdle out of the way, here comes the juice.
First of all, if a god is to be the explanation of where the universe came from, the following question arises: where did ectoplasm come from? The point of that question is that no matter how many links you postulate in the story of creation, there is always going to be such a question applicable to the very first link -- and by the virtue of that being necessarily rhetorical. This shows that no intelligent designer can be a sufficient explanation of all existence.
Now, if ectoplasm is primary and a god secondary, one has to explain how that god came to be within the ectoplasm. That is qualitatively no different than explaining how the known universe came to be within the ectoplasm. In fact, it's arguably easier in the case of the known universe, since it is by definition simpler than God.
Granted, the upshot is that any god is merely unnecessary and explicatively futile on logical grounds. And you’re right, God cannot be ruled out on such a basis. However, God being unnecessary helps quite a bit in the argument that no god exists (at least no god as construed by any known religion.)
Moreover, the argument demonstrates that no God exists (with the capitalized form meaning as conceived in Abrahamic religions) because such a god is the be-all and end-all of existence, which is impossible since ectoplasm has to be the real deal.