Philosophical arguments against the existence of God

[Ana the Ist]

Thanks for the info on Kuklinski. I was not aware that he had died.

I think that both of us can agree that God would provide enough evidence for us to be justified in believing He existed if in fact He exists, and created us to inhabit this world with the option to have fellowship and communion with Him

Lol what? No...no we don't agree. Nor do we agree on any of the sentences you started with some form of "I think both of us can agree..."

No lol we don't agree....for lots of reasons. Let's start at the beginning though...you gave no one any reason to agree. None. You're basically starting off your argument with ...

"Hey guys, I think we can all agree that if this god fella exists...he's a pretty good guy, right? Right?!?

You never gave any basis for this...or for any of the other ridiculous premises that follow. Without at least a reason to think those things.. no- I don't think those things. That leaves the rest of a rather long post completely pointless.

 

[Ana the Ist]

And see this is the beauty of it.

You see, God, if He existed, would know exactly what it would take for you to come to the place in your life where you give assent to the proposition, "God exists".

In addition to that, He would also know exactly what it would take for you to come to the place in your life where you would not be content with merely knowing that He existed, but would want to know Him, i.e. to have a filial knowledge of Him. One that speaks of an intimate relationship. One where you desire to be like Him in Holiness, purity, and righteousness and love.

God would know your heart. He would know your thoughts. He would know the hurts, the ups, the downs, the disappointments, the pain, the joy, the love, the desires, the passions, the ambitions, the hopes, and the dreams you have.

He would love you. He would love all of us. And He would make a way for us to be reconciled to Himself. He would make sure that before you die, you would have been given enough light to make unbelief inexcusable, but not too much to make belief in His existence something you are grudgingly forced to give assent to.

There's a huge difference between delivering a message and convincing someone of a message. It's true that we could find flaws in both...but the example used in my argument is only about the delivery of god's message.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Thanks for taking the time to assemble all of this. I shall go back and review all of this as soon as I have time to do so. Thanks.

See also this previous discussion with your other user account.

 

[Eudaimonist]

G.K. Chesteron once remarked:

"Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all."

IOW, you trust the veridicality of your senses. You trust the deliverances of introspection.

All this does is water down the idea of "faith" to the point where it becomes nearly empty of any religious meaning.

The Bible does not describe faith as mere "trust" in one's ability to think or perceive reality. It is:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1

It isn't describing a rational process in which one comes to conceptually understand and "trust" one's understanding of the natural world. It is specifically about the "unseen" -- the subject of religious hopes and beliefs and the mental methods for trusting in their existence. This is clearly not an empirical process in the sense that one would normally mean, even if sight might be indirectly involved, such as seeing "Jesus" in a piece of burnt toast.

It is stretching the concept beyond recognition to apply this to the sort of life experience that small children use to gain confidence in the powers of their minds for grasping the reality around them. These are two different processes, and only similar through a vague analogy. The sort of confidence involved in rocket science isn't the same as boosting one's faith in God by belief that "miracles" are occurring all around oneself. That is just presup trickery.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

What is a "doctrine of doubt"?

Something a Straw Man atheist is trying to spread.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ana the Ist]

We both agree that there are different interpretations for some portions of the Bible.

We both agree that there are different denominations too.

Why should I construe these two observations as evidence of a flaw in the Bible?

I answered your post above AP, in the post I wrote below. Now, it's not unclear anymore why multiple interpretations and denominations are evidence of the flaw in god's message.

Again, this is one of those points that's so obvious I didn't think it needed to be made. Let's look at the definition of clarity...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clarity

"the quality of being expressed, remembered, understood, etc., in a very exact way."

Wonderful, so now we know what l mean by "lack of clarity". I'm talking about the idea that no two people read the bible and come away with the exact same message. That's the interpretation part...I'm not simply referring to changing the words from one language to another...I'm talking about the meaning of specific events, laws, etc. There are an astonishing number of disagreements between christians on many many aspects of the bible

It's these differences that form the basis for different denominations. One group of christians read a passage one way...another group reads it another way...

Who is correct? We don't know, god doesn't settle the matter....that would be providing clarity. It's possible one group is correct, or another group is correct, or they're both correct....or they're both wrong.

For all a christian may want to say, "well god has spoken with me and told me my interpretations are correct."...such claims are useless until they can be demonstrated.

The message that god intended for mankind...the message which is supposedly of the greatest importance, the message upon which christianity is founded...is entirely unclear and largely debatable. This flaw (lack of clarity) impedes effective communication (inefficiency) and cannot be the result of a perfect creator god.

Since all your questions regarding my argument have been addressed, will you be rebutting my argument? Or is there no flaw in its logic that you can find?

 

[anonymous person]

Lol what? No...no we don't agree. Nor do we agree on any of the sentences you started with some form of "I think both of us can agree..."

No lol we don't agree....for lots of reasons. Let's start at the beginning though...you gave no one any reason to agree. None. You're basically starting off your argument with ...

"Hey guys, I think we can all agree that if this god fella exists...he's a pretty good guy, right? Right?!?

You never gave any basis for this...or for any of the other ridiculous premises that follow. Without at least a reason to think those things.. no- I don't think those things. That leaves the rest of a rather long post completely pointless.

Well, when I use the word God, I am using it to signify the Greatest Conceivable Being. I assumed that is how you understand the term.

 

[anonymous person]

All this does is water down the idea of "faith" to the point where it becomes nearly empty of any religious meaning.

The Bible does not describe faith as mere "trust" in one's ability to think or perceive reality. It is:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1

It isn't describing a rational process in which one comes to conceptually understand and "trust" one's understanding of the natural world. It is specifically about the "unseen" -- the subject of religious hopes and beliefs and the mental methods for trusting in their existence. This is clearly not an empirical process in the sense that one would normally mean, even if sight might be indirectly involved, such as seeing "Jesus" in a piece of burnt toast.

It is stretching the concept beyond recognition to apply this to the sort of life experience that small children use to gain confidence in the powers of their minds for grasping the reality around them. These are two different processes, and only similar through a vague analogy. The sort of confidence involved in rocket science isn't the same as boosting one's faith in God by belief that "miracles" are occurring all around oneself. That is just presup trickery.


eudaimonia,

Mark

You can't prove the veridicality of your senses through empirical means.

That was my point. You have faith, i.e. a firm and justified trust in them without being able to see or check or test or prove they are reliable.

That's all.

 

[anonymous person]

See also this previous discussion with your other user account.

And what was it in that post that you wanted me to see specifically my friend?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

And what was it in that post that you wanted me to see specifically my friend?

The same thing you didn't bother responding to last time.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

You can't prove the veridicality of your senses through empirical means.

That was my point. You have faith, i.e. a firm and justified trust in them without being able to see or check or test or prove they are reliable.

That's all.

That's not what "faith" means in this context.

 

[anonymous person]

The same thing you didn't bother responding to last time.

Oh ok.

 

[anonymous person]

That's not what "faith" means in this context.

Oh ok.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Oh ok.

... which you're going to dodge, again.

 

[anonymous person]

http://www.winteryknight.com/2009/02/16/why-doesnt-god-provide-more-evidence-that-he-exists/

 

[Archaeopteryx]

http://www.winteryknight.com/2009/02/16/why-doesnt-god-provide-more-evidence-that-he-exists/

More apologetics blogs?

 

[anonymous person]

... which you're going to dodge, again.

Whether or not me saying that it is possible that I am wrong is inconsistent with something I have said at some point in the past, I shall leave up to you to determine.

How does that sound?

You see, I'm not really interested in defending myself. To do so would be to draw attention away from what I want this thread to be about.

 

[anonymous person]

More apologetics blogs?

Yes. It is a very good article.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Whether or not me saying that it is possible that I am wrong is inconsistent with something I have said at some point in the past, I shall leave up to you to determine.

How does that sound?

You see, I'm not really interested in defending myself. To do so would be to draw attention away from what I want this thread to be about.

It sounds like you aren't interested in defending your claims or answering questions about them.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Yes. It is a very good article.

By apologists' standards?