Argument for God's existence.

[holo]

sir it's not really a secret in defeating an indefensible position. Atheism is indefensible. Because it requires absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe, where God isn't.

I know you've argued over this already, and I haven't read every single post, but as I'm sure you're aware, for most people atheism means not believing in God. I very rarely see people claim to know there is no god(s). In short, atheism doesn't mean anti-theism. Same with agnosticism, which in common language means "I don't know", not "nobody can know".

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I know you've argued over this already, and I haven't read every single post, but as I'm sure you're aware, for most people atheism means not believing in God. I very rarely see people claim to know there is no god(s). In short, atheism doesn't mean anti-theism. Same with agnosticism, which in common language means "I don't know", not "nobody can know".

You should know that it seems to have become the norm for apologists to insist that “atheism” means something they can actually refute, instead of using the definition everyone I know uses, which doesn’t make positive claims that can be refuted.

I’m not sure if it’s intentionally dishonest, or just a subconscious means of dealing with annoyance.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

I know you've argued over this already, and I haven't read every single post, but as I'm sure you're aware, for most people atheism means not believing in God. I very rarely see people claim to know there is no god(s). In short, atheism doesn't mean anti-theism. Same with agnosticism, which in common language means "I don't know", not "nobody can know".

Hi there Holo! Thank you for weighing in.
You are, of course, perfectly correct. The attitude of any reasonable person to an extraordinary claim is "I'll believe it when I see it". I like the way the late Christopher Hitchen put it as well - "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence".
This has been explained already to @gradyll a number of times.

You should know that it seems to have become the norm for apologists to insist that “atheism” means something they can actually refute, instead of using the definition everyone I know uses, which doesn’t make positive claims that can be refuted.

Indeed. It is of course also the way apologists think about all other remarkable and unproven claims - except when it comes to their religion.

I’m not sure if it’s intentionally dishonest, or just a subconscious means of dealing with annoyance.

Well, my own personal theory goes like this: apologists know they are right and that atheists are wrong. Therefore, their arguments must be correct, and any flaws in these arguments that are pointed out to them simply don't count.

Thanks for allowing me to really research this and fully persuade me of this view. I hope I did my job and articulated it accurately.

As you can see, no, you didn't, not in the slightest. Not that this has been an uninteresting conversation at all, of course, and I'm sure that people who read it will find value here - just not the kind you seem to think.

sir it's not really a secret in defeating an indefensible position. Atheism is indefensible. Because it requires absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe, where God isn't. As I have proven time and time again, if you reject this definition, then your definition of atheism does nothing at all to answer the question if God exists or not, and it self defeats anyway.

You are, of course, simply mistaken about this. Atheism does not require absolute knowledge of everywhere else in the universe, nor is it required to answer the question of whether God exists or not. This is very easy to see, and has been demonstrated to you multiple times.
Let me illustrate:
Do you, gradyll, believe that there is a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars, as posited by Bertrand Russell? Can you say "Yes, I believe that Russell's Teapot does exist?"
It is, let me remind you, a yes or no question.

Do you believe in the teapot?

 

[holo]

Interestingly, the term agnosticism originally didn't mean what it means today, i.e. "I don't know if there is a god." It was more of an attitude toward knowledge. The guy who coined the term said, "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." So I think agnosticism in the original sense is something we should all strive for.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Calling them "purposes" is just begging the question. Things have functions, and people assign purposes to those things in line with those functions.

Function is whether the organ fulfills its purpose. Are you denying that your eyes are for seeing?

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
ed: So far almost all of the scientific evidence points to it not being eternal. And more is being discovered every month. Of course, most people will deny this conclusion, especially the conclusion that it is the Christian God, because humans naturally hate Him.

cv: I'm not about the 'bandwagon.' My point is that until we 'know', we don't know. To assert requires that you demonstrate your asserted burden of proof.

The BB theory which shows that the universe had a definite beginning and will end in a heat death is the strongest theory known to science, far greater evidence than the theory of evolution. So actually we do know and we are more certain about it than evolution.

cv: In regards to your asserted God, I don't have any energy to 'hate' something for which I doubt of it's existence. Much the same as I don't 'hate' Poseidon.

Almost every atheist I have ever debated gets more and more angry the more evidence I present. I believe that most atheists push their hatred of God into their subconscious and take it out on Christians. And then of course, deny their hatred of God and rather say that they dont like Christians shoving their religion down their throats.

ed: True but the fact that there exists anything in the universe that has a purpose points to a personal creator. The other things may have purposes that we have yet to discover.

cv; Even IF there exists some specific purpose, it is YOUR burden to demonstrate this purpose comes from the Christian God. And we are miles apart in establishing this 'fact.'

Where else could it come from? We know that humans did not create animals, and humans are the only other personal being known about. Now you could say ETs, but there is no evidence that ETs created animals or us either.

ed: That is called adaptation. The creator has created organisms that can adapt to the environment. Such as cavefish, that over time have lost their ability to see even though they have remnant eyes. But originally they did have eyes that worked.

cv: This will go nowhere fast. Seems as though the creator needed to make updates.

No, that occurred by natural selection, which He also created. It is macroevolution that cannot occur.

cv: And/or, I could just as easily mention how 99.99999% of our universe is uninhabitable to human life.

The Anthropic Principle has shown that if the universe was not exactly the way it is, human life would not exist. And since God's goal was to make it habitable for humans using primarily natural law, the universe had to be this large and uninhabited.

ed: No, as long as we have anything that was created, we can compare it to those things. And we can make rational assumptions about what type of universe other gods were create such as allah, which is a pure unity, therefore its universe would be a unity without any diversity.

cv: We are right back to where we started, with no established conclusion... If the 'universe' always was, then there logically is no 'creator.' Again, we don't know. And even if everything thing we know was created, then why couldn't something have created that creator, and so on and so forth?

No, see above how strong the evidence is that the universe is not eternal. Stronger than the theory of evolution. Since God is a Cause and not an effect, He doesn't need a cause or creator. Also see below about infinite regress.

cv:You see, infinite regress can even work for the concept of creationism.

No, if there was an infinite regress in the past, then we would never reach the present, yet here we are.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Function is whether the organ fulfills its purpose. Are you denying that your eyes are for seeing?

Equivocation isn’t persuasive to anyone with half a brain. This includes, but is not limited to, the words “purpose”, “code” and “law”.

We’re just not that gullible.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Almost every atheist I have ever debated gets more and more angry the more evidence I present. I believe that most atheists push their hatred of God into their subconscious and take it out on Christians. And then of course, deny their hatred of God and rather say that they dont like Christians shoving their religion down their throats.

You mistake exasperation with nonsensical arguments with some misguided idea that people hate something they don’t believe in.

But, I suppose some people need to think that everyone deep down believes in a god...

 

[Silmarien]

I know you've argued over this already, and I haven't read every single post, but as I'm sure you're aware, for most people atheism means not believing in God. I very rarely see people claim to know there is no god(s). In short, atheism doesn't mean anti-theism. Same with agnosticism, which in common language means "I don't know", not "nobody can know".

Actually, the most interesting form of agnosticism, strong agnosticism, is precisely the claim that nobody can know. It's a pretty cool position, so let's not erase it.

I don't know why everyone keeps refusing to make claims these days. It's like we've managed to brainwash ourselves into the belief that nobody actually has any beliefs, and scientific evidence is simply deposited on top of a blank slate.

 

[createdtoworship]

Interestingly, the term agnosticism originally didn't mean what it means today, i.e. "I don't know if there is a god." It was more of an attitude toward knowledge. The guy who coined the term said, "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." So I think agnosticism in the original sense is something we should all strive for.

So it basically does nothing to answer the question "is there a God or not." But yet we are assumed it is the most scientific.

 

[createdtoworship]

Hi there Holo! Thank you for weighing in.
You are, of course, perfectly correct. The attitude of any reasonable person to an extraordinary claim is "I'll believe it when I see it". I like the way the late Christopher Hitchen put it as well - "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence".
This has been explained already to @gradyll a number of times.


Indeed. It is of course also the way apologists think about all other remarkable and unproven claims - except when it comes to their religion.


Well, my own personal theory goes like this: apologists know they are right and that atheists are wrong. Therefore, their arguments must be correct, and any flaws in these arguments that are pointed out to them simply don't count.


As you can see, no, you didn't, not in the slightest. Not that this has been an uninteresting conversation at all, of course, and I'm sure that people who read it will find value here - just not the kind you seem to think.


You are, of course, simply mistaken about this. Atheism does not require absolute knowledge of everywhere else in the universe, nor is it required to answer the question of whether God exists or not. This is very easy to see, and has been demonstrated to you multiple times.
Let me illustrate:
Do you, gradyll, believe that there is a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars, as posited by Bertrand Russell? Can you say "Yes, I believe that Russell's Teapot does exist?"
It is, let me remind you, a yes or no question.

Do you believe in the teapot?

Sorry if I am politely bowing out. I feel at this point athiests are just spinning their wheels. If you would like to bring up something new to the discussion let me kow. The tea pot illustration can be answered in a simple post or to as with most athiest illustrations so let me know if you would like that rebuttal.

 

[Silmarien]

sir it's not really a secret in defeating an indefensible position. Atheism is indefensible. Because it requires absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe, where God isn't. As I have proven time and time again, if you reject this definition, then your definition of atheism does nothing at all to answer the question if God exists or not, and it self defeats anyway. So again. Thanks for allowing me to really research this and fully persuade me of this view. I hope I did my job and articulated it accurately.

I don't understand your argument here. How does atheism require absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe? All it would require to be defensible is a demonstration that the conception of God is incoherent and/or a better metaphysical model of reality.

 

[createdtoworship]

Athiests here assume christians have never heard of all the athiest arguments against theism, they are all very similar and commit similar assumptions, of course not verified. And if they don't make these assumptions, they fail to make any positive statement at all for answering the question "is there a God or not?" So there is no value to their arguments either way. This one thing alone would depress me as an athiest that my entire value system had no value.

 

[createdtoworship]

I don't understand your argument here. How does atheism require absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe? All it would require to be defensible is a demonstration that the conception of God is incoherent and/or a better metaphysical model of reality.

So your entire lively hood depends on the negation of someone else's positive statement. And do you honestly feel self worth in this position? Athiesm did not start out that worthless, they started out making real statements regarding if God existed or not. They presumed no, because of evil present in the universe. But scared little athiests who could not defend that position in the late 1800's decided agosticism was of more value, even though it provides even less value than athiesm toward the question "does God exist or not". Because now they have pride in holding a position of "no knowledge" toward that question. So again the entire purpose of original athiesm is defeated utterly and hopelessly.

 

[Silmarien]

So your entire lively hood depends on the negation of someone else's positive statement. And do you honestly feel self worth in this position? Athiesm did not start out that worthless, they started out making real statements regarding if God existed or not. They presumed no, because of evil present in the universe. But scared little athiests who could not defend that position in the late 1800's decided agosticism was of more value, even though it provides even less value than athiesm toward the question "does God exist or not". Because now they have pride in holding a position of "no knowledge" toward that question. So again the entire purpose of original athiesm is defeated utterly and hopelessly.

I repeat my question, since you have not addressed it:

How does atheism require absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe? All it would require to be defensible is a demonstration that the conception of God is incoherent and/or a better metaphysical model of reality.

I agree that the popular modern definition of atheism is worthless, but I have no idea why you're ranting at me about it, since I mentioned it nowhere. Your ad hominems are really bizarre too. I'm not even an atheist, so my livelihood obviously doesn't depend upon it.

 

[createdtoworship]

I repeat my question, since you have not addressed it:

How does atheism require absolute knowledge of everywhere in the universe? All it would require to be defensible is a demonstration that the conception of God is incoherent and/or a better metaphysical model of reality.

I agree that the popular modern definition of atheism is worthless, but I have no idea why you're ranting at me about it, since I mentioned it nowhere. Your ad hominems are really bizarre too. I'm not even an atheist, so my livelihood obviously doesn't depend upon it.

So why are you debating this? Are you agnostic? What do you gain from debating for a skeptics perspective. I think it's important to know before proceeding.

 

[cvanwey]

The BB theory which shows that the universe had a definite beginning and will end in a heat death is the strongest theory known to science, far greater evidence than the theory of evolution. So actually we do know and we are more certain about it than evolution.

Again, if we don't know, we don't know. If the universe is eternal, then the concept of creationism is absurd.

"Even if" the universe we live in had an absolute beginning, what's to say sparked this universe's beginning? It could very well be an infinite regress of prior states, forming and dying; and we are merely in the 'current' or parallel successive one?.?.?. But again, prior to this, no one knows. Pure speculation at this point... However, you are introducing basic fallacious reasoning - (argument from ignorance). See underlined below...

Almost every atheist I have ever debated gets more and more angry the more evidence I present. I believe that most atheists push their hatred of God into their subconscious and take it out on Christians. And then of course, deny their hatred of God and rather say that they dont like Christians shoving their religion down their throats.

I cannot speak for all these supposed 'angry atheists'... However, you have presented no evidence for your asserted God. Do you actually have any? And again, if I doubt the mere existence of something, the only thing that might 'bother' me in this discussion, is my opponent repeatedly blindly asserting the existence as such, while appealing to fallacy in doing so. Thus far, you are demonstrating fallacious reasoning. Again, see underlined below.

Where else could it come from? We know that humans did not create animals, and humans are the only other personal being known about. Now you could say ETs, but there is no evidence that ETs created animals or us either.

"I can't think of a better answer.' Or, 'if you cannot come up with an alternative answer, in direct opposition to my assertion, then I win.'

"Description: The assumption of a conclusion or fact based primarily on lack of evidence to the contrary. Usually best described by, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

- I say the 'transcendent cosmic human creating factory' created humans. Prove me wrong.

- I say 'universe creating pixies' created the universe. Prove me wrong.

Addressing your implications above, all we seem to have evidence for is humans writing in a book (i.e.) the Bible, and many many many other claimed holy books, asserting a God(s). We actually do not seem to have any evidence for this particular God of yours, any more than we have evidence for Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, etc...

No, that occurred by natural selection, which He also created. It is macroevolution that cannot occur.

I think you've missed my point. God would not create a creature/animal/insect/etc with eyes, knowing it did not need eyes.

The Anthropic Principle has shown that if the universe was not exactly the way it is, human life would not exist. And since God's goal was to make it habitable for humans using primarily natural law, the universe had to be this large and uninhabited.

Seems as though an all mighty god might be able to do whatever he wants. Meaning, seems odd that God would purposefully make the majority of the earth uninhabitable for human life; especially if we are God's primary creation and the most important species on earth.

Could it also be possible that there exists many many many planets completely inhabitable for life in the universe???

And could it also be possible that there may exist extremely intelligent life somewhere out there???

Intelligent enough so to also invoke or invent a 'creator(s)', and tell stories, write books, and/or some other form of forwarding communication about this/these asserted God(s)???

No, see above how strong the evidence is that the universe is not eternal.

Nope. All you have presented is fallacious reasoning; as demonstrated above in red underline.

Stronger than the theory of evolution. Since God is a Cause and not an effect, He doesn't need a cause or creator. Also see below about infinite regress.

In regards to God being the 'cause', you know this because?

Seems as though you do accept some science. What would happen if you took an evolutionary biology class and found there does exist ample evidence to support macroevolution? Would this 'shake your current faith?' Just asking...

 

[ToddNotTodd]

So your entire lively hood depends on the negation of someone else's positive statement. And do you honestly feel self worth in this position? Athiesm did not start out that worthless, they started out making real statements regarding if God existed or not. They presumed no, because of evil present in the universe. But scared little athiests who could not defend that position in the late 1800's decided agosticism was of more value, even though it provides even less value than athiesm toward the question "does God exist or not". Because now they have pride in holding a position of "no knowledge" toward that question. So again the entire purpose of original athiesm is defeated utterly and hopelessly.

Personally, I find a lot of bravery in the phrase “I don’t know”, since a lot of small minded people gravitate to knee jerk positions and then expect everyone else to do the same...

 

[Silmarien]

So why are you debating this? Are you agnostic? What do you gain from debating for a skeptics perspective. I think it's important to know before proceeding.

I'm a classical theist, and I'm not debating from any perspective at all. I'm asking you to clarify why you think atheism requires absolute knowledge of everything in the universe. That is a pretty extreme claim, and you don't need to be a skeptic to question it.

 

[Moral Orel]

Function is whether the organ fulfills its purpose. Are you denying that your eyes are for seeing?

Function is what a thing does. My eyes focus and receive light. That is their function. I choose to use that function to see, yes.