InterestedAtheist
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Yeah. Premise one for a Christian is that arguments don't count unless they agree with them already.
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Yeah. Premise one for a Christian is that arguments don't count unless they agree with them already.(aside: these formal arguments, for or against, always seem to fail at premise one. It cracks me up.)
I understand. But without critiquing the said syllogisms, it appears fairly simple for me...
If such a God does exist, and also claims to be loving, interactive, and answers prayer, but my requests for interaction in prayer/other go 'unanswered' for decades, one may only conclude a small handful of possibilities:
1. I'm too stupid to see God's attempts to contact me
2. God chose to not contact me, despite my earnest requests for decades, (maybe because he deems me not worthy)?
3. God may not exist, and a human wrote all of these assertions
4. God is not a slot machine, and God answers the call on His time, and not ours; (but then what would be the point of prayer in the first place)?
I'm sorry, but applying my conclusion, happily admitting to either committing the argument from ignorance fallacy, or, adhering to Occam's Razor; I conclude option 3.
Yeah. Premise one for a Christian is that arguments don't count unless they agree with them already.
Because people trying to nail down the divine like an insect specimen is funny!
Same for when they make grandiose "rules" that implicate how things must be beyond our or any other universe (like they do with kalam). Massive overreach beyond our grasp. I find that funny. But I'm weird. I know that.
Oh really?
Why are you putting up such a fight against unicorns and the Hawaiian gods who ride them?
I think if you were to say that 4 fails, then at some point in our evolution long before monotheism emerged, our species began “resisting” something of which they had no concept, which is difficult. Perfect nonresistant nonbelief may or may not be possible now, but I think the ignorance of the ancients probably counts.
"No finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists,"
It seems that we could make some caveats of mental health like most epistemic models would suggesting properly functioning so to eliminate psychology. But it does seem to me that if I had love for an individual the way the monotheistic books talk about God's love as parent for a child, well then we would have reason to expect quite lavish attempts to make one's presence known. After all what kind of parent (the Bible's analogy not mine) would hide from their child?
...Oh, the crazy things we human beings do with language. I guess If I can have a "relationship" with God-----in the colloquial sense-----then I can also go "hug a hurricane," as much sense as that phrase makes (which is nearly none). So, if this is the case, why would I ever expect things to be otherwise while here on this terrestrial mud-ball? I mean, there's what God actually does, and then there's what we 'wish' God would do, and somehow we often seem to think that if we can manipulate language in certain ways, we can force God to forever play our games, and not only that, but on our terms and in our favor.
So, yeah. Schelling is wrong.
I understand. But without critiquing the said syllogisms, it appears fairly simple for me...
If such a God does exist, and also claims to be loving, interactive, and answers prayer, but my requests for interaction in prayer/other go 'unanswered' for decades, one may only conclude a small handful of possibilities:
1. I'm too stupid to see God's attempts to contact me
2. God chose to not contact me, despite my earnest requests for decades, (maybe because he deems me not worthy)?
3. God may not exist, and a human wrote all of these assertions
4. God is not a slot machine, and God answers the call on His time, and not ours; (but then what would be the point of prayer in the first place)?
I'm sorry, but applying my conclusion, happily admitting to either committing the argument from ignorance fallacy, or, adhering to Occam's Razor; I conclude option 3.
You do realize that Occam's Razor can be shown to be somewhat duller in sharpness than we once thought, right? Happy reading!
Science, Ockham’s Razor & God | Issue 115 | Philosophy Now
Fair point.Because I'm a product of a post-Enlightenment, rationalistic, secular culture and have an immediate negative reaction to anything that looks like superstition. My skepticism is not entirely rational, but it's proven too deep-set to really tear out entirely.
On the other hand, I'd rather not offend the fair folk by making claims of their existence or lack thereof....
Fair point.
But, as long as we're making all manner of assumptions about the divine, as the "hidden God" argument seems to demand, here's another: the all loving personal relationship offering God would know how to crack that resistance like it was nothing.
Yeah except the dystopian rulers are always trying to play God.Yikes, that sounds like something out of a dystopian novel.
Yeah except the dystopian rulers are always trying to play God.
God, otoh, can just be God.
No, I'm just wildly speculating on how I might expect this creature that I've defined should act according my my little mortal notions of correctness that I've cobbled together from my little time as a human animal on earth.Which apparently looks like acting like a dystopian ruler? I mean, you're kind of implying that the universe should be set up so that God "breaks the resistance" of those who don't want to deal with him.
No, I'm just wildly speculating on how I might expect this creature that I've defined should act according my my little mortal notions of correctness that I've cobbled together from my little time as a human animal on earth.
(And no, my perfect God would not look like the dystopian ruler because She would know how to get it right. She'd be the utopian ruler!)
On the Christian side, we have: "There is an all-powerful being who created the universe, actively intervened in human history to set up a religion, manifested himself on Earth, performed miracles, and listens to our prayers. More than that, you never actually die, your soul just goes to heaven, or to hell, depending on whether you do what we say God says you should do."Yeah, that overreach thing seems to happen on all sides of the equation, whether it's the Christian side or the Atheistic side that thinks String Theories answer our ultimate questions.
Why so all or nothing? Why not just answering the phone once in a while?So even divine hiddenness can work with the parental analogies, since what type of parent smothers their child with their presence 24/7?
False dichotomy. You're saying that the reason God doesn't show up at all, ever, is that it's better to do that than to overwhelm us with his constant...love? Presence?So even divine hiddenness can work with the parental analogies, since what type of parent smothers their child with their presence 24/7?
I'm willing to bet you're on his extensive Ignore List too, but that was my first thought too. Too bad he'll never see it to address it...Number 6 is a false dichotomy. Maybe a god who hates us exists, and wants to remain anonymous.
Well, ignorant mortals would botch it completely. But for God who could accomplish this without causing any harm.... thats a different story.Your little mortal notions of correctness involve cracking people's resistance like it was nothing? That's some pretty wild moral reasoning you've got going on there.
Yeah, I know. What we're doing here is working through the "if God was like me/us he would behave like this..." discussion. Which is where premise 1 of the argument comes from.And maybe "getting it right" involves... not acting like a dystopian ruler? If it's the wrong way to do things, I'm not sure how you can do it right except by not doing it.
On the Christian side, we have: "There is an all-powerful being who created the universe, actively intervened in human history to set up a religion, manifested himself on Earth, performed miracles, and listens to our prayers. More than that, you never actually die, your soul just goes to heaven, or to hell, depending on whether you do what we say God says you should do."
On the atheist side, we have: "Really? What evidence do you have for that?"
It isn't the atheists that have the problem with "overreach".
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