- Nov 30, 2003
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Your above points may have some use as subsidiary arguments against the existence of God but the real issue is the absence of reasonable evidence for the existence of God.
My intention on this thread is far humbler than that. I am not trying here to prove the existence of God. I am merely trying to point out that many of the arguments against the existence of God are fallacious.
In the absence of this evidence the above arguments are interesting but unnecessary. This is essentially the same point made by @Ophiolite in his post above (#2)
I can present evidence for the existence of God. But I made this clear in my introduction that this was not my intention in this thread. I will be happy to open a thread dealing with the arguments later.
Also, if my counter-argument against the most popular arguments used by atheists are "interesting, but unnecessary" then would not they have been just "interesting, but unnecessary" for the atheists to use then in the first place? And yet you atheists use them! So you can use the argument such as "how can an all-loving and all-powerful God allow suffering" but we are not allowed to respond? How can our response to your arguments be "interesting, but unnecessary" unless your arguments are also "interesting, but unnecessary"? To tell you the truth, I am suspicious on how confident you are with arguments that are not based on incredulity if you must resort to unnecessary arguments.
However, looking at these statements in isolation; the first, second and fourth points are essentially the same, i.e., an all-loving God allows or causes suffering. The problem with these statements is not their incredulity; it's their internal contradiction.
No, it just betrays the limitation of your imagination. You are assuming that God's love is the same as our love. You are assuming that God's power we see power. You seem to assume that there is no free will, or that we used our free will to bring about evil. And God, being a God of love, hates evil and evil-doers. Should not a God of love hate and punish Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's for killing the Jews? Would not a God of love let someone like Hitler suffer?
Maybe you think that God should have taken away our free will to do evil? Yes, we can all be walking zombies.
Being 'all-loving' and, at the same time, allowing or causing suffering, are, arguably, contradictory qualities.
Well, this is odd. After you say that my arguments are unnecessary, you then find it necessary to respond to them.
When I was a kid, my father once dropped my pants and shorts in front of a stranger. That stranger in a white coat then jabbed me with a needle! That was painful and humiliating. I could not believe that my all-loving father would allow this to happen to me!
Your third point is also contradictory in that an all-powerful God would not need to be worshipped.
You are using the word "contradiction" very loosely. The law of non-contradiction is strictly that the subject cannot be the exact opposite of the predicate. The statement "A is non-A" is false. But you are seeing the predicate to be B, such as "A is not B", assuming that B cannot be this or is that, or A is this. That is not necessarily a contradiction. It is just your opinion based on certain assumptions. Granted, I also make certain assumptions, but that is my point. You are making this apparent contradiction into an objective truth. But it is not.
Such a God would, by definition, have no needs or wants. These arguments demonstrate a common problem, where God is depicted as an all-powerful, all-knowing etc. being who, at the same time, has a set of all-too-human characteristics.
Needs, no. Wants, yes. According to Judeo-Christian thought God created us not because He needed us, but that He wanted us. It was pure wants without needs. In order to love someone is to want someone. If God is a God of love then He would want us to have a relationship with Him.
But this is the problem you are having. You have a limited imagination. You see a God with no wants. He is not a God of love at all. He is a God of apathy. And if He is a God with no wants, then He is a God who does not care if we suffer. He would not want us to spend eternity with Him. No wonder you reject this God! I would, too!
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