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

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Adamantium
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29 Nov 2016, 12:36 pm

^wins my vote for PPR post of the month, both for clarity of expression and range of thought.

If only there were more of this in PPR. :D


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29 Nov 2016, 1:44 pm

First off, if you're not arguing for the logic of the Judeo-Christian god's existence specifically, that reframes the entire discussion we've been having. We're not actually arguing the same point, then. It's also a bit disingenuous of you, because this thread is clearly about that specific god. Moving on...

Quote:
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.


Granted. My bad.

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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.


People have experienced all sorts of strange phenomena, but I am not going to take all of them at face value. If someone tells me they have experienced something supernatural, I am naturally going to be skeptical. It's not necessarily that they are a liar (though they could be), but that such experiences are subject to interpretation.

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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.


Truth claims must be true or false. Formal logic isn't perfect, of course.

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So, back on topic, the only actual issue here is the lack of formality in the definition of God.


No s**t! :lol:

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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.


"Proved" is a strong word, here. You have not established that the "order" we see requires a deity.

Quote:
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.


Granted.

Quote:
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.


I had to look up what "New Atheists" are. Huh.

In any case... suppose I posit the existence of a god with the same essential characteristics as the Judeo-christian one, but which is not the Judeo-Christian one. How is that claim any weaker than the one made in the mythology of a tribe of Bronze Age herders? What if I propose multiple deities like this? Let's call them "Jehovah-like-entities." Suppose a hundred people do this? How is any one of these proposed gods more valid than any other? You will have to explain this to me in detail, because I do not see how this doesn't create a logically absurd situation where all JLEs exist.


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Adamantium
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29 Nov 2016, 5:29 pm

AJisHere wrote:
How is any one of these proposed gods more valid than any other? You will have to explain this to me in detail, because I do not see how this doesn't create a logically absurd situation where all JLEs exist.


While this is a reasonable question, it is not proof that no god of any kind exists.
Gananondox has already put it plainly here.

You may be presenting a good case for agnosticism.

Going back to the OP, since the existence or non-existence of a god or gods can't be proven, it's unreasonable to strongly assert claims about the properties such a being/entity/principle/pattern may have.

AS for the Epikoros being denied a place in Olam Haba, I believe there is something similar to one of the Epicurean situations suggested in part of the midrash concerning the Yetzer Hara and Yetzer Tov. I am by no means a scholar of this material, but I believe the idea is that god created an inclination toward evil and an inclination toward good within people in order to develop them spiritually through a dialectic process.

It is implied that working through the context of the yetzer hara and the yetzer tov is the way this has to happen, so there is an implication on a limit to the power of god, else why put people through the dialectic process rather than simply creating them as intrinsically good and totally free of an evil inclination?

I recall reading somewhere that students of these topics are cautioned not to think too deply about god's authorship of evil lest they be drawn to false conclusions about god.

If one can't find compelling reason to believe in a god of the type that would have this kind of relationship to people, it's hard to take arguments about that god's nature very seriously. It can be interesting to see people's ideas on these topics, though.


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29 Nov 2016, 6:22 pm

Adamantium wrote:
While this is a reasonable question, it is not proof that no god of any kind exists.
Gananondox has already put it plainly here.

You may be presenting a good case for agnosticism.


Right, and that is my main goal right now.


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29 Nov 2016, 7:01 pm

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


Believing everything just happened to come about from some random explosion from nothingness, and created ordered systems and planets from all that seems just as irrational, if not even more so.

God, the One I worship, is not a magical sky being. He is an eternal being existing independently from our sky, universe, and the bounds of our spacetime altogether.

Such a being would have mastery of all dimensions of space time. Even the ones we are not able to perceive. It may seem magical to lower creatures as ourselves, but it is quite ordinary from God's perspective.

When you try to understand God from a material and physical level, you are failing to understand the God I worship. Not that it is possible for stupid finite creatures like us to comprehend such an incredible being to any remote totality.

IT is not my burden of proof to prove anything to anyone. If people want to continue in their sin of unbelief, so be it. I will continue to serve and honor Jesus in my everyday conduct and conversation.

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord .”
Joshua 24:15 NIV


Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.”
Revelation 22:11 NIV


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29 Nov 2016, 10:09 pm

Adamantium wrote:
Going back to the OP, since the existence or non-existence of a god or gods can't be proven, it's unreasonable to strongly assert claims about the properties such a being/entity/principle/pattern may have.

You could also have scenarios such as macro-organisms, where something that the universe comprises is alive but too large to be perceptive of our relevant range of concerns and possibly incapable of being so. In that case even if it were the mind of the universe calling it 'God' might be tempting with respect to its sheer magnitude but it would check off very few of the 'God' functions.


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29 Nov 2016, 10:25 pm

Adamantium wrote:
Going back to the OP, since the existence or non-existence of a god or gods can't be proven, it's unreasonable to strongly assert claims about the properties such a being/entity/principle/pattern may have.

The logical consistency of those claims can still be examined. They just can't be checked against reality — somewhat like string theory.

Changing the subject to whether or not God exists is
i) a different topic;
ii) a diversion to avoid addressing the actual claim made;
iii) bad faith.



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30 Nov 2016, 1:02 am

marcb0t wrote:
Believing everything just happened to come about from some random explosion from nothingness, and created ordered systems and planets from all that seems just as irrational, if not even more so.


Not really, given that nature is something we can observe and study whereas deities are not.

Quote:
God, the One I worship, is not a magical sky being. He is an eternal being existing independently from our sky, universe, and the bounds of our spacetime altogether.

Such a being would have mastery of all dimensions of space time. Even the ones we are not able to perceive. It may seem magical to lower creatures as ourselves, but it is quite ordinary from God's perspective.


This sounds very much like a magical sky being.

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IT is not my burden of proof to prove anything to anyone.


If you want other people to believe your god exists, yes it is. If not, then it is your own business and there is no need for you to prove anything.


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30 Nov 2016, 1:59 am

AJisHere wrote:
First off, if you're not arguing for the logic of the Judeo-Christian god's existence specifically, that reframes the entire discussion we've been having. We're not actually arguing the same point, then. It's also a bit disingenuous of you, because this thread is clearly about that specific god.


The point is that Christianity is so diverse there is no single Judeo-Christian God, there is even atheistic Christianity. So I don't need to rely on the traditional Judeo-Christian God, and very few educated Christians actually believe in that God. I could argue any God I want. Most the arguments against the Judeo-Christian God are based on an ignorance of the history of theology as they are attacking a straw God. So maybe you're competent at general theology, but you've demonstrated bad theology.


AJisHere wrote:

Quote:
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.


Truth claims must be true or false. Formal logic isn't perfect, of course.



That is the assumption in Western philosophy (it goes back to Aristotle), but it's not the case in Eastern philosophy. I'll give a specific example. Say you're walking through a door into the room. Now consider the truth claim "I am in the room". Depending on your position in the door, that claim is either true or false according to formal logic. If position is continuous, that means there is some point where the limit of the truth value of the claim is undefined. The Eastern solution is that you are both in the room and not in the room at the same time. One way of interpreting this is that while the truth claim is sensical (nonsense is whole 'nother discussion), it is neither true nor false.

Quote:
Quote:
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.


"Proved" is a strong word, here. You have not established that the "order" we see requires a deity.



Yes, I did, the issue is really just you disagree with how deity is defined, which is one of the premises. Here is the semi-formal logical proof:

1. If there is order to something, the order has a source which exists.
2. A deity is the source of order in the universe as whole.
3. The universe as a whole has order.
4. Ergo, a deity exists.

Again, the issue is that the definition of deity here is far too loose. For it to be really meaningful, it would have to be a source with teleological aims rather than just a mechanical cause, but as I said, there it's just belief.

Quote:
Quote:
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.


I had to look up what "New Atheists" are. Huh.

In any case... suppose I posit the existence of a god with the same essential characteristics as the Judeo-christian one, but which is not the Judeo-Christian one. How is that claim any weaker than the one made in the mythology of a tribe of Bronze Age herders? What if I propose multiple deities like this? Let's call them "Jehovah-like-entities." Suppose a hundred people do this? How is any one of these proposed gods more valid than any other? You will have to explain this to me in detail, because I do not see how this doesn't create a logically absurd situation where all JLEs exist.


What difference does it make if you worship God, Yaweh, or Allah, if they all have the same characteristics? It's just a difference in name. It's not like i versus -i, where the distinction between the two is important because they both exist, as the traditional Christian belief is that there is only one God. And if you can define a difference, then it no longer has the same characteristics, and then different weights can be applied for the likely hood of one versus another.


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30 Nov 2016, 2:18 am

AJisHere wrote:
marcb0t wrote:
Believing everything just happened to come about from some random explosion from nothingness, and created ordered systems and planets from all that seems just as irrational, if not even more so.


Not really, given that nature is something we can observe and study whereas deities are not.

Quote:
God, the One I worship, is not a magical sky being. He is an eternal being existing independently from our sky, universe, and the bounds of our spacetime altogether.

Such a being would have mastery of all dimensions of space time. Even the ones we are not able to perceive. It may seem magical to lower creatures as ourselves, but it is quite ordinary from God's perspective.


This sounds very much like a magical sky being.

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IT is not my burden of proof to prove anything to anyone.


If you want other people to believe your god exists, yes it is. If not, then it is your own business and there is no need for you to prove anything.


1. Not being able to observe something doesn't make it irrational. If we could only go with what we could observe, science wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as it has. A lot of inferences had to be made.

2. It's not a magical sky being at all, as it's not magical, it's just supernatural (from the perspective of nature being the physical world), it does not exist in the the sky, and it's not a "being", because it's not physical. Consider this model:
https://xkcd.com/505/

Don't take it too literally, as that would be falling for the homunculus fallacy for the person in the model is a "being", but it shows how a God outside of time and space can be completely rational.

3. Can't disagree with that.


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30 Nov 2016, 2:37 am

Ganondox wrote:

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 theology 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 obsolete 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.


Fixing some very critical typos I made in this post.


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30 Nov 2016, 11:58 am

AJisHere wrote:
If you want other people to believe your god exists, yes it is. If not, then it is your own business and there is no need for you to prove anything.


Not really. Plenty of people believe in my God regardless of whether or not I try to prove it. Furthermore, nobody had to prove God to me with their own arguments when I came to believe. The Holy Spirit simply put me through the right circumstance that were needed to cause me to cry out to and seek reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ.

Nobody was able to win me over with some foolish intellectual argument, let's say.

I want people to believe, but I know they won't if the Holy Spirit does not draw their hearts and open their spiritual eyes.


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01 Dec 2016, 9:19 am

Amaltheia wrote:
Adamantium wrote:
Going back to the OP, since the existence or non-existence of a god or gods can't be proven, it's unreasonable to strongly assert claims about the properties such a being/entity/principle/pattern may have.

The logical consistency of those claims can still be examined. They just can't be checked against reality — somewhat like string theory.

Changing the subject to whether or not God exists is
i) a different topic;
ii) a diversion to avoid addressing the actual claim made;
iii) bad faith.


Not so. The assertion in the original post was, "God kills when he could just as easily cure. This is irrefutable."

This is rubbish, not least because claims that assertions about a purely hypothetical being are irrefutable are intrinsically unsound.

To expand very slightly on that thought, try unpacking the original terse statement that God kills when he could just as easily cure.

How do we know that God kills? How do we know that God could just as easily cure?

The OP might be correct IF

it is true that God exists and

it is true that God kills and

it is true that God could cure.

Since we can't prove any one of these statements and all of them rest on matters which are not settled even among Christian theologians, suggesting that there is some kind of irrefutable logic in the original statement is silly.

The form of argument engaged in by the OP amounts to, "just assent to all my assertions and you will soon see that I am correct." I don't know if that's arguing in bad faith or just a didactic rhetorical technique that is mostly ineffective.


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02 Dec 2016, 8:18 pm

Adamantium wrote:
The form of argument engaged in by the OP amounts to, "just assent to all my assertions and you will soon see that I am correct." I don't know if that's arguing in bad faith or just a didactic rhetorical technique that is mostly ineffective.

I think that's why it can be difficult to make much of theology aside from faith - it's a top down approach. Ironically (to the nature of these threads) Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism were all heralded as systems that were more philosophical and attempted to build on reason from the ground up. You see particularly where Neoplatonism and Hermeticism had a lot of value to give particularly in spurring the Renaissance and scientific revolution.

Christianity did encourage hospitals and schools but the kinds of dogmatism that you see in the Abrahamic faiths seems a lot like a 'no soul left behind' policy which keeps the bar of recognition and comprehension equally low which was disastrous for the honor students and aspiring prodigies and polymaths who labored under it and had a way of getting burned at the stake for heresy. This is really why I'd have to say that I prefer philosophy to theology - philosophy attempts to clarify knowledge and deshroud the universe and human spirit; theology cuts the gordian knot by starting with absolute knowledge and demanding conformity to that knowledge.


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03 Dec 2016, 3:42 am

the problem is that you're presupposing the existence of god.. something that hasn't been justified to my understanding.
if god DOES exist, it is probably one who doesn't meddle in the affair of humans, one who set the ball rolling but then turned his back so to speak.
that's the only kind of god that makes any sense, a deistic one. no i don't subscribe to this, but there are a few decent reasons to think one MAY exist.



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03 Dec 2016, 1:35 pm

redrobin62 wrote:
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?


But they werent innocent. All of those millions of folks who were Noah's contemporaries who got drowned in the Flood were all sinners, and corrupt, and like that. Thats why God got fed up with the human race. So he picked the one innocent man around to spare to keep the human line going. The one virtuous man. Thats how the story goes.

But here's the thing.

God (if he exists) presumably created all of us. And we are all mortal.
So even if we live to be a hundred and die peacefully of old age- we still die.
So we are all destined to be God's "murder victims". Correct?

So (forget about the Flood etc) all humans, and all other living things are destined to be God's murder victims. So by definition any God would be the greatest murderer possible.

So by definition any deity you could imagine would be by definition of being the creator of the Universe be in constant violation of the "Golden Rule" by being a mass murderer.