Philosophical arguments against the existence of God

[anonymous person]

How can he be wrong if he is following the commands of a morally perfect God?

He isn't following the commands of God.

 

[Loudmouth]

He isn't following the commands of God.

He said he is, just as you do.

 

[anonymous person]

He said he is, just as you do.

Yes I know he says that.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yes I know he says that.

Then I guess I will equally discount your claims of following God.

 

[anonymous person]

Then I guess I will equally discount your claims of following God.

You can do whatever you like.

 

[anonymous person]

Both of us can't be right though. And you know good and we'll God hasn't told anyone to strap bombs to themselves and blow up people that are not Muslims.

Your repeated moral pronouncements show that you have a sense of what is right and wrong and you know perfectly well that the ISIS dude is not being told by God to do what he is doing.

 

[bhsmte]

Then don't do it if you judge it to be a waste of time. That is a judgment you will have to make.

I think he made that judgment, which was his point.

 

[anonymous person]

I think he made that judgment, which was his point.

Oh.....

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Ok......?

 

[bhsmte]

Oh.....

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..

Ok......?

Glad I could clear that up for you.

 

[Loudmouth]

Then don't do it if you judge it to be a waste of time. That is a judgment you will have to make.

It is the same as the judgement you have made. Apparently, those Bible verses aren't worth your time, so why should I make time for them?

 

[anonymous person]

It is the same as the judgement you have made. Apparently, those Bible verses aren't worth your time, so why should I make time for them?

At 9:37 pm yesterday I posted some stuff. In it I made mention of how I do not just ignore verses Iike the ones you reference but try to understand them. Did you see this post?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

One day, not too long ago, my five year old twins did something I told them not to do. As a result I sent them both to the room they share to sit on their bed and think about what they did and why it was wrong and why they were being punished. I closed the door and stood outside to listen to what they would say.

Why didn't you curse them and all their descendants?

Now to be sure, my children have a rudimentary understanding of morality.

Something they have in common with their father then.

They know they should share their toys. They know they should not lie but tell the truth. They knew they should obey me and their mother. I even asked them if what they did was wrong when they disobeyed me and they confessed they knew that what they did was wrong.

Nevertheless they judged me to be a bad daddy when I punished them for disobedience. Although they knew right from wrong, they were not in a position epistemically to know that me punishing them was intended to bring about a greater good for them, i.e. it was to help them remember not to play where I cannot see them but to play where I can see them so that they are safe. Their ultimate well being was what I had in mind when I brought them in and told them to go to their room. I wanted them to learn to listen to me because I know I have their best interest in mind. I know of the pedophiles that prey upon unsupervised children. I know of the people driving cars that do not pay attention to where they are driving while texting that have hit children and run them over and killed them. I know of all the insects and wild dogs that are out there that could hurt them.

Suppose they disobeyed you and decided to play on the roadside anyway, precariously close to traffic. From a distance, you see an oncoming truck. One of the children is walking onto the road and into its path. Do you just stand there and allow them to be hit by the truck out of some misguided respect for their free will? How would you justify this to the children's mother?

If I wanted to I could simply ignore any and all portions of the bible where God is said to be wrathful or where He does things that I can't understand or think are contrary to Him. But I dont. I don't because I believe that I should accept the whole counsel of God and that it is all God's word even the parts I don't get.

I choose not to be like Thomas Jefferson who felt free to cut out of the Bible those verses he did not agree with and make his own.

Idol worship is easy. Worshipping the One True God requires obedience.

That's the problem: you've confused morality with mere obedience.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

My grandmother, a woman upright and who walks with God punished me whenever I did something meriting punishment. She often times told me how much Iike my dad I was. The same things my dad did, I did. She punished me just like she did him. She never once walked up to me while I was being a good little boy and said "boy, your dad lied when he was your age, and even though you are being a good little boy right now, I'm going to punish you because of what he did!"


That's absurd.

Please read this if you have not already. The article puts the pertinent verses in context and expounds upon them.

www.gotquestions.org/parents-sin.html




No



I don't view cancer the way you do. I don't view life the way you do. I don't want to lean on my own understanding either. So while the question is a no-brainer for you, it is not so clear cut for me. Would I want my children to suffer? Of course not. Would I want my children to die? Of course not. But my God is greater than cancer and many of my brothers and sisters have had it and overcome it and have lived through it, learning from it, becoming better people because of the suffering they endured and patience and perseverance they cultivated. Some overcame and are now with Christ, having overcome through the blood of The Lamb.

I would want what is best for my children. If that meant being healed by God then I would rejoice. If it meant them being ushered into the presence of God having been delivered from this world, I would consider. God gave them to me and He can take them away.



I don't determine what is moral. God does that for me. I desire to live moment by moment in His will so that I will know what course of action to take in any given situation.






Everything God created was good. This means there was no cancer. No disease. No pain. No suffering. No death.

Suppose you were to reward and punish your twins arbitrarily; that there was no rhyme or reason to it. You just punished them whenever you felt like it, regardless of what they did. Worse still, if they questioned you about why they were being punished, you said that it was justified because of something their remote ancestors did. In other words, there is always some excuse you give for punishing them. Would such a system be moral?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yea and he is wrong obviously.

How do you know that he is wrong?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Indeed. I am a bible believing. Christian. When someone calls me a fundamental, I take it as a compliment.

It's not.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I believe children should be taught the truth. That God loves them and that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in His image and that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and that we are all accountable for what we do with the life God has given us. That the evil we do will be judged and the good praised and that we are to seek and pursue righteousness because in doing so, we find true happiness and peace.

To be clear, moral accountability is entirely absent from and inimical to your theology, in which one may evade it by means of Christian faith.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Both of us can't be right though.

But you CAN both be wrong.

And you know good and we'll God hasn't told anyone to strap bombs to themselves and blow up people that are not Muslims.

How would you know what God did or didn't say to al-bagdadi?

Your repeated moral pronouncements show that you have a sense of what is right and wrong and you know perfectly well that the ISIS dude is not being told by God to do what he is doing.

But you said this: "I don't determine what is moral. God does that for me."

So if god determines what is right and wrong, then it doesn't matter what we happen to think.

It seems like you are trying to have it both ways.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Not at all. The many many atheists who aren't Nihilists aren't living like atheists. They are living like theists. They are living as if the things they do really do ultimately matter in the grand scheme of things. They are living like they are somehow special and intrinsically valuable in the whole scheme of things.

No, they are living as though what they do matters to themselves and to others.

The non-nihilist atheists have not come to terms and taken a long hard look at reality. I recommend to every non-nihilist atheist to read the works of Sarte, Camus, and other existentialist writers and to take their head out of the sand.

You haven't read them. Stop pretending. No one is buying it. I have read Sarte.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Not at all. The many many atheists who aren't Nihilists aren't living like atheists. They are living like theists. They are living as if the things they do really do ultimately matter in the grand scheme of things. They are living like they are somehow special and intrinsically valuable in the whole scheme of things.

What are you going on about? Aside from an interest in astronomy, I don't care about what happens in the "grand scheme of things". My influence on the Laniakea Supercluster is infinitesimal, but the Supercluster's "perspective" on the matter is not relevant to my existence. I care about what happens in the human scheme of things.

The non-nihilist atheists have not come to terms and taken a long hard look at reality. I recommend to every non-nihilist atheist to read the works of Sarte, Camus, and other existentialist writers and to take their head out of the sand.

I have taken a long hard look at reality. That's why I'm not a nihilist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Read the epistle of Paul to the Romans. In it you may find answers to your questions. Read it prayerfully. Read it openly. Read it honestly, praying humbly that God shine His light upon it and speak to your heart.

Since you raised this topic again, I'll reiterate my question from before:

You began this thread ostensibly for the purpose of answering questions posed to you. However, your responses to certain questions have been nothing but vague, and other questions have gone completely unanswered. First, I asked you about the importance of intellectual honesty in the pursuit of truth (1), and received no answer. Then I asked you whether you were open to be convinced on the question of Jesus' historicity (2). Again, I received no answer.

Shortly thereafter, you claimed to have examined diverse religious claims with the "desire to be objective, honest, and open" (3). Curious about this, I inquired whether this meant you were open to questioning the authorship of scripture and the claims contained therein (4). To my surprise, you reported that you were (5). Moreover, you acknowledged fallibilism in relation to your religious beliefs (6, 7), in contrast to what you had earlier claimed (8).

As I harboured severe doubts about your intellectual honesty in this discourse (9), I took this as a positive sign that you had reflected on and modified your philosophical praxis. However, the evasiveness of your most recent responses to my question about appeals to personal religious experience, which tend to reflect a disposition you putatively no longer hold (10), suggests that some kernel of your old habit of thought remains intact. This would imply that, contrary to your earlier claims, you are not open to reconsidering or revising your theological commitments. This in turn raises the same question I posed earlier: in what way is your approach to these matters "objective, honest, and open"? How can one approach such questions honestly if one is not willing to accept the possibility of error or the need for conceptual revision?