This is incontrovertible proof that God is evil. God does no

Post Reply New Topic

That was already stated, as it was already a strawman argument. The initial claim was that God didn't exist, so that's where the burden of proof lies and was never relived.

The burden of proof lies on theists, as they are the ones making an extraordinary claim (i.e. a supernatural, omnipotent being is responsible for the universe). It's an unfalsifiable claim though, so it does not even work as a truth claim and cannot be examined in a logical or scientific manner.

You haven't established that God kills. You've just asserted it.

Yes, people die, but there's no evidence that God specifically killed them.


I assume the Golden Rule you are referring to is:
So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7:12

If that's the case, your argument is based on the assumption that God wants people to cure him. Since, as far as I know, God doesn't get sick and is immortal, I have no idea why God would want that. So, it doesn't follow that by not curing people God is violating the Golden Rule. God may well be treating people exactly as God wishes people to treat Him and thus be abiding by the Golden Rule. There's no way to tell.

Now, if the Golden Rule was "treat others as they wish you to treat them", then your argument would follow. As it is, though, you've smuggled in an assumption and built your argument on that assumption, making it invalid.

Care to recast your argument so as to avoid that smuggled assumption?

Nope.

1. Saying God doesn't exist is as much of a claim as saying he does. To not make a claim is to be agnostic.
2. There is no such thing as an extraordinary claim as extraordinary is an opinion. All claims need to be proven in order to taken as true.
3. The only claim to God existing that was made in that thread was defining God as the first cause (in which your reply failed to understand the first cause argument as if someone else created "God", then "God" wouldn't be the first cause). The only alternative to the first cause argument is the eternity argument, which while not logically impossible, leads to an infinite regression.
4. Doesn't matter if it's unfalsifiable. That's a principle for experiment design, not metaphysical truth. The only reason it's a principle of experimental design is because science can only progress through falsification, but it's not the only epistemology. Your equivalence of logic and science is also patently absurd, as science is based on empiricism, while logic is based on rationalism. Yes, you can logically conclude the truth of an unfalsifiable claim.

No. "God exists" does not function as a logical truth claim unless you are willing to put forth a reasonable proposal for what would constitute proof. Until then, it is opinion at most.

Believing magical sky beings are responsible for everything is far from rational. Claiming that such a being could exist without cause is not rational.

Finally, asking people to prove the nonexistence of fantastic, mythical beings isn't anywhere in the realm of rational. It is patently absurd both from a scientific and a rational perspective. It's Russell's Teapot. Can you prove Zeus doesn't exist? Can you prove that the universe didn't fly out of the ass of an invisible pink rhinoceros? Of course you can't. Claiming the existence of any god is in the same realm as these.

"The Doctrine of Lucifer the Lightbearer"? NOW I've heard it all!

How did "the Prince of Darkness" end up with the name "bringer of light" (ie "Lucifer")?

There is so many things wrong with what you just said, there is no logic in your argument whatsoever. Most of all, you seemed to have missed the fact I'm not claiming God exists, but that I'm pointing out that saying God doesn't exist is a claim. To claim that not having proof for something is proof of the logical opposite is such a blatant logical fallacy that it removes all credibility that you are in anyway rational.

Sky beings is a strawman as God is not defined as such. Claiming that's what theists believe is like claiming physics believe the world is made out of tiny marbles, it's an absurd claim that can be dismissed if you knew any theology whatsoever. Since nobody is actually making that argument, I don't have to address any of your conclusions based on that ridiculous proposition. It is also worth noting that one of the dominant views of physics is essentially theistic as *you* defined God in a previous comment, as it's metaphysics are based around laws which omnipotent and those laws created the world. So you're basically claiming science is unscientific, an clear contradiction. And once again, you've failed understand the concept of first cause. It's only illogical if you assume every has to have a cause, which is an provable claim. As for the idea of God in general, it's far more rational than claiming subjective experience can somehow just emerge out of non-sentient material!

By declaring that God is fantastical and mythical, you are loading the question, assuming that God is nonexistent from the get go. Sorry, you can't do that in order to prove God is nonexistent. That being said, proving a mythical being is nonexistent is an entirely rational process (as I will demonstrate), it seems you are confusing "rational" with "empirical", which means you just completely fail at philosophy as they were rationalism and empiricism were opposing philosophies.

I'm going to tackle the teapot, Zeus, and the rhinoceros, because in each case you are making false claims that proving their nonexistence is logically equivalent to proving the nonexistence of God. With the teapot, the argument Russel is actually making is that he has no reason to believe in a teapot in orbit, not that the nonexistence of such a teapot could assumed, though he did choose a purposely absurd object to imply that claim as while empirically the nonexistence of teapot cannot be deduced, it can be done rationally. First though I'll explain while his actual argument fails. The reason is that the teapot is completely irrelevant to us, whether or not the teapot exists has no bearing on our lives. God meanwhile plays a key role in many theories. Next, the notion of the teapot is absurd, while the notion of God is not, because a teapot is concrete object with several restrictive process, while the notion of God is abstract and not subject to the same restrictions. This can bring us to the rational proof of the nonexistence of the teapot. A teapot is a sort of object which implies a creator as they have structure too complex to arise randomly from natural processes as we understand them and they serve teleological function, people create teapots to serve tea. Assuming a material universe under the current understanding of physics and extraterrestrial life, there is no way a being which could have created a teapot could have placed a teapot there. Of course, the rational model may be wrong, so if a teapot is observed, then the model will have to be discarded (but then our senses might just be deceiving us so...) God meanwhile is a teleological source rather than function, and the definition of God does not even imply God exists at a point in space, so the same argument doesn't work.

Next, Zeus. Unlike the general idea of God, Zeus is a falsifiable hypothesis because it concludes falsifiable details. For example, lightning is explained as being the result of Zeus throwing lightning bolts, and he lives on Olympus. Empirically we can observe there is no Zeus on Olympus and that lightning is generated through static charges rather bolts. From the empirical evidence we can rationally conclude that Zeus does not exist (at least the mythological view of Zeus, modern Hellenists as well as many ancient have a different view of Zeus closer to the abstract notion of God, and then my uncle is a philosopher who has a sort of atheistic polytheism were the Greek gods are real, but they are real as abstract concepts with personalities rather than as physical entities).

Finally, the invisible pink rhinoceros. I get you're referencing the IPU, you're not even creative enough to come up with your own arguments and instead rely on ones I've already heard and tackled a million times. The abstract notion of God would include this possibility, but there are several qualities about this invisible pink rhinoceros which are logically contradictory and thus it cannot exist, and the rational proof is trivial. Also, like the teapot, a rhinoceros is concrete and implies several other qualities which are absurd. Yes, I can prove that is not the case as I just did. You just suck at epidemiology.



The Luciferians do not worship the devil, they worship a different Lucifer who is good. The ones that equate him the biblical Lucifer have him as an angel who nobly sacrificed himself in order to give humans the gift of knowledge



A common theology is that Lucifer became the prince of darkness when he fell. Another is that the name Lucifer is either ironic or it's the result of deception. One last one is that it's a reference Anyway, Lucifer doesn't directly mean bringer of light, it's means the evening star (which we now call Venus), which was one of the titles of the king of Babylon.

Strawman much, Ganondox? I'll address this later.

Epicurus posed the following riddle. It concerns the problem of evil.

Two questions arise. Is god able to prevent evil and Is god willing to prevent evil. Assume these questions have yes/no answers there are four possible cases

god is able to prevent evil and god is not willing to prevent evil. that makes god malicious
god is not able to prevent evil and god is willing to prevent evil. that makes god not all powerful
god is able to prevent evil and god is willing to prevent evil. then why is there evil at all
god is not willing to prevent evil and god is not able to prevent evil. then why call him god?

Among Orthodox Jews one of the worst condemnations is apkikoros with is the Hebrew war of saying Epicurus.
Calling someone Apikoros is a major condemnation or insult.

Yeah, of course it's a strawman, because you don't even have an argument to be deconstructed.



Epicurus's philosophy was based entirely on comfort via the elimination of pain, most of all existential pain from fearing the wrath of gods, so he was pretty biased. Anyway, my solution is that God is not all powerful because the definition of all powerful being given here is absurd regardless of the existence of evil, but God still qualifies to be God under other definitions of all powerful which aren't inherently absurd, and under those definitions God can't prevent all evil. Alternatively, the problem is with the definition of evil, where it assumes not preventing evil is evil, when evil is better understood as the opposite of good and thus the existence of good implies the existence of evil, it is better to allow good to exist then to prevent evil from existing. Though that's not really any different from the previous as argument, as then by preventing evil from existing God becomes evil, which means it would be logically impossible for God to prevent all evil, but it's precisely the logical impossibility which shows while the absolute definition of all-powerful is ridiculous.

I really don't think anyone gets very far debating the existence of God. If you've never experienced anything sublime you'll look at our bloody history, at nature red in tooth and nail, at the capricious nature of evolution (or perhaps better termed seemingly non-sentient and unjust as a doornail), and the lack of any confirmed psy-phenomena as proof positive that religious people are nutters. If you have experiences that force you to grapple with the existence of the sublime it gets all the more confusing because all the things that would have been proof positive of materialism for a materialist are elements that really baffle most attempts you make at truing up the gap between the way the world seems to work and the existence of higher and holy beings.

About all I think you can do at the end of the day is if you've never experienced it - don't worry about believing it, just go about improving yourself in any way you can to make your life better as you see fit. If you have experienced this stuff; really examine the ways you can weave it into your life and give the world back something that it didn't already have or give the people around you something that's in rare measure or quantity. The later may not be proof, it doesn't need to be proof, just that - if you've had a very real experience that very real experience shapes and changes your life as well as the potentials of who you can be; proving in any absolute terms whether you were in contact with saints, dieties, angels, or just a neuro-chemical brain hiccup is almost irrelevant in comparison to what you gained from it.

I have never seen God kill anyone. Nor do I know anyone who has ever seen God kill someone. So I don't think that statement is irrefutable. Do you care to provide some evidence of God killing people?

I must say, people who do worship this God sure worship a fairly violent being, not to mention the greatest mass murderer in the HISTORY of mankind. To wit:

Genesis 6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

Everyone, of course, except Noah and his kin, and two of each animal.

Personally, I don't think it's fair to kill millions of innocent children and animals, but who am I to say?

I need to remember that this is a forum full of autistic people, and anything short of purely literal language tends to fly over people's heads. Also, there's a propensity to nitpick inconsequential words rather than focusing on the actual point. No matter how intelligent people are I still need to treat them a bit like children.

So, either due to all of that or because you're having trouble with reading comprehension (or both, I don't know what exactly the issue is), I'm simply going to restate my points.

God's nonexistence is an extremely sound position empirically. I think we can probably agree on that. Under empiricism, the burden of proof would be on a theist to prove that a deity exists. Since this cannot be proven the claim can simply be dismissed. Simple.

How about from a more rationalist perspective? This is a bit more dicey, and I don't see any need to get into all the details for a few reasons. One, the claim "God exists" is on shaky ground as a Truth Claim. While it is necessarily either true or false, it is difficult to imagine what would constitute proof one way or another. This is an essential component of a truth claim in formal logic. We could propose that God showing up and performing miracles would constitute proof, but how would we then know the being doing so is actually God?

This leads us into another little problem, which is that claiming the existence of any being like God is just as valid as claiming the existence of a specific one, which is what the "Invisible Pink Unicorn" is getting at in some respect (I prefer a rhino, they're more fun). As long as I am claiming a God-like entity exists, my claim is on exactly the same logical ground as the claim that the Judeo-Christian god exists. We get into absurd territory here, given the number of religions that claim similar entities exist. How valuable is the claim that God exists if we can just as easily claim that other mutually exclusive beings of a similar nature exist? How credible is it?

My reading comprehension is VERY good, you are just very bad at philosophy. I'm currently studying this stuff academically, and I've seen your main argument a million times and it's entirely entry level stuff that can be dismissed at ease. The problem isn't me, it's you, I can say that with confidence. Regarding the burden of proof, the problem is that you failed to take context into account. Burden of proof lies on any claim being brought, and the claim that was brought up in the discussion was that God DOESN'T exist, not that God exists. Once again, I'm have not made the claim God exists, just demonstrated the problems with the claim God does not exist. As such, the main issue has been you trying to counter an argument I never made.

Yeah, from a purely empirical stand point the nonexistence of God is sound (but not provable), but pure empiricism is frankly stupid. From a purely empirical stand point, you can't do science either, because the lack of constant conjunction means you can't make any conclusions about cause and effect relationships. Also, some argue that God can and has been experienced, especially when you go into radical empiricism ala William James and count mystical experiences as empirical evidence. Frankly the main reason I believe in God is because I have experienced him, but of course that isn't going to sway anyone who hasn't, so I'd have to rely on rational arguments when discussing the subject.

IMO the main problem with Western logic is the assumption a statement must either be true and false. If you look at natural language, it's obvious there are sentences with no truth value, and there are sentences which are grammatically statements which don't have stable truth values either. In mathematics, there are numerous paradoxes which result from conventional formal logic and complex systems of axioms are created to avoid those paradoxes which create even more problems. So, back on topic, the only actual issue here is the lack of formality in the definition of God. Depending on how God is defined, his existence can be proved either way. The most important definition I find for God is as a source of order in the universe. The universe appears to be ordered, so it can be rationally concluded that order has *some* source. After that the argument is whether the order is teleological or mechanical. I'd argue mechanism itself reflects a teleological aim, but that's just my belief.

Talking about God performing miracles goes back into empiricism, as you're basing his existence on observing him. Your argument about it actually being God is rather silly, as it could be applied to literally anything. You see something which appears to be an apple, how do you know it's actually an apple? It all depends on how you define apple, but once apple is defined as something beyond the sensory experience of the apple, absolute proof of it being an apple is impossible. So you go with the duck test: if it looks like a god, sounds like a god, and a quacks like a god, it's probably a god.

"This leads us into another little problem, which is that claiming the existence of any being like God is just as valid as claiming the existence of a specific one," And as I stated last paragraph, this is a claim you are making, and it's nonsense. Obviously it's more valid to claim there is a president of the united states than to claim Vermin Supreme is the president of the united states, and that follows the exact same logical structure. The only way I can make sense of this nonsense is it appears you are abusing the law of universal instantiation when it clearly does not work that way.

Next you are referring to a claim that is logically very different, but equally nonsensical, which is that any two different specific gods are equally likely. You asserted that claim last time, I just it down, and you just reasserted that claim without addressing the counter-argument. The ball is still in your court. If nothing else, some specific gods are more likely because they are possible, while other ones are flat out impossible. The next issue comes from the fact than some specific gods are much more general than others, eg. the Judeo-Christian God is much general than the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you don't realize that, it's because you're just completely ignorant of Judeo-Christian theology, which most critics are because they've never bothered to consider it a serious area of study. Some classical atheist philosophers were actually well versed in philosophy like Nietzsche, but the New Athiest movement completely sucks at it (and it's no surprise considering how many of them make ridiculous claims like philosophy being absolute because science, failing to realize they are applying philosophy, not science, in order to make that claim). Finally, if it's possible to make claims about any unknown outcome being more likely than another (and since it's basically impossible to logically prove most practical things that would be a very use thing to be able to do), then the principle could certainly be applied to deducing certain gods are more likely than others. Finally, it should be noted that a lot of mutually exclusive gods still have a LOT in common, so it's entirely possible for no one to be entirely right, but have some truth in their model of god. To dismiss the idea of God because you can't settle exactly on all the details of God is absurd and it's just anti-theistic sophistry.

PS: Nowhere previously did I say anything about the Judeo-Christian God, you added that yourself. I made some comments about the theology of Lucifer, but that was just to answer questions.