Proof that the Christian god cannot exist

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Cris, Jun 21, 2001.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    ??

    People make mistakes, we make mistakes in assessing people's behavior and intentions.

    Given this, how can you, with any certainty, make claims about other people's intentions?

    Please go to the recent thread on religious violence, and make your case there.
     
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  3. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    My case is already made, I reject the validity of your sixth point, either validate your claim that because people make mistakes we can't know whether or not religion inspires violence or retract it. If there is even one instance where we can ascertain the cause of any violence then the logic of your argument is hopelessly flawed, and since we have ascertained the causes of many instances of violence it would seem that evidence would contradict your argument as well.
     
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  5. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Your desire to be right is trumping your desire to be correct ...
    :shrug:
     
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  7. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    Then prove it. Demonstrate your point, show me that I'm in error by supporting your claim. If not then retract it. Those are really your only two options at the moment.
     
  8. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    "People make mistakes. Therefore, it is best not to attempt to make absolute assessments of them, as we ourselves might be making a mistake in doing so."


    - Is this really such an irrational stance?
     
  9. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    Non-sequitur.

    Your stance does not logically follow from "we must assume that people make no mistakes to know if religion motivates violence".

    And who the fuck, other than you, was talking about any "absolute statements"? Where did I or anyone else say that religion causes all violence? In the two thousand plus posts here I'm almost positive that phrase wasn't uttered once.

    Sorry, this doesn't validate your point six, it's a non-sequitur and a straw man.
     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Have you ever met any person who once committed something you perceive to be "religious violence" - and who later on repented?
     
  11. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    Ooh, and a red herring this time. You don't do so well on the defensive do you?
     
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Again:
    Have you ever met any person who once committed something you perceive to be "religious violence" - and who later on repented?
     
  13. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    Again, that's irrelevant to whether or not your conclusion follows logically from your premise, ergo it is a red herring and answering it contributes nothing to your argument until you can rephrase it so it isn't a non-sequitur.
     
  14. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Oh well. One can talk to someone intent on mastering The Art of Being Right only for so long ...

    :shrug:
     
  15. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @wynn --

    Oh well, one can only talk to someone who stubbornly refuses to support their claims for so long.
     
  16. jcisbell Registered Member

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    The 'Cake' Response

    Hi. New to the forum. I was looking up examples of the self exclusionary nature of God of the Bible and I found your argument.

    I agree with you. But I have heard a counter argument that is fallacious but I don't think your argument addresses it. Or does it:

    The possibility that "God" knows what I'll decide does not keep me from deciding. If I put eggs and flour and sugar in a bowl I know it will become a cake when I bake it, but it still has to be baked. When a person makes a choice then the outcome is complete but the choice had to be made for the outcome to occur. "God" cannot make the decision if he has decided and "seen" that you must choose. But that doesn't mean your choice, your decision cannot be both known by him in advance and still 'make' by you. Does it?

    To me the best argument denying the existence of the Biblical God is, I think Dawkin's? He, (or someone) said that; a universe with a God "as described" in the Bible would have certain measurable qualities. For example, my personal example is that if God existed, Christian music today would be the best music, the most inspired and most important, being inspired from the very fount of creation, it would be the most creative and the most original known to mankind - instead of the derivative drivel they produce. The easiest example of course would be the effects of prayer, if there were any effects of prayer. Of course if there were effect from prayer that alone would not prove God, but its absence is problematic for those who make God claims.
     
  17. LostInThought7 Registered Senior Member

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    Skipping all 100+ pages after reading the OP (can you blame me?). It is important, to me, to note that this omniscient being is the Omnimax Creator of everything. Before the universe was created, God held a die. He knew that when he rolled it, it would land on three. He, being omnipotent, had the power to make it land on two, or six, or any number he wanted. He rolled the die. Is that number truly random? So this slight variation is also a problem of evil. God created me knowing that I would die and burn in hell for all eternity. He could have caused my mother to miscarry, or...well, really anything, so that this end would not happen. Fate (that he knowingly wrote down in the beginning of time) chugs along, and we call God evil. Then again...Omniscience prevents any being from having free will, so...while we can fight the Man, we have to realize that he doesn't have any "real" choice either. But, coming from an Atheist who already doesn't believe in free will, that doesn't make him any less evil, does it?
     
  18. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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  19. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Your definition of omniscience presupposes a necessity for prescience, but even humans can make fairly accurate predictions based on known current and past facts. So omniscience does not necessitate any more prescience than humans demonstrate. Would you equally say that human predictions preclude free will, or that simply with enough knowledge, and the consistent rules of behavior, they can accurately anticipate consequences?

    Omniscience is merely maximal knowledge, which is logically consistent with free will.
     
  20. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @Syne --

    But that maximal knowledge must, by definition, include complete knowledge of every single thing you will ever do. Ergo you can't possibly make any choices which differ from that knowledge and thus it follows that omniscience, at least for the time that it is present, would negate free will(if such a thing even exists).

    Of course, if a mortal like you or I possessed omniscience it would only interfere with free will while we were alive as once we died that knowledge would no longer exist. Only an omniscient and eternal being would completely negate free will.
     
  21. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    By definition, maximal knowledge includes complete possible knowledge.

    Only propositions with some truth value can possibly be known. QM has shown us that the individual results of some systems cannot be known beforehand with an arbitrary certainty. Thus these have no truth value to be known beforehand.

    You have to assume the future already has some truth value in order to suppose omniscience necessitates prescience.
     
  22. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    @Syne --

    Quantum theory also only speaks on incredibly tiny scales, scales which are utterly useless on the scale that humans function on. By that point all of the various probabilities have cancelled out leaving only the most probable course, meaning that for all intents and purposes a large enough clump of matter would still act in ways which are predictable(hence why relativity still works on those and larger scales).

    While we can't predict with absolute certainty how individual particles, say a proton, will respond to gravity, we can predict with certainty beyond any reasonable doubt how large groups of particles, say a human, will respond. In fact to date we have done so unfailingly, no group of particles large enough for the uncertainty principle not to apply has responded to gravity by falling up. In effect this means that quantum theory may indicate that a god can't necessarily predict which path an electron will take, but that he's still able to predict the movements, and thus the future, of large groups of particles.

    Would there be room for error? Well that would depend on just how complete his knowledge is. If his knowledge is indeed maximal then there would be so little room for error as to be non-existent, if not then he is not omniscient and thus not a problem for proponents of free will(though there are plenty of other problems for them to contend with).

    Of course the simplest solution is to just drop the god concept all together.
     
  23. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    That "large enough clump of matter" depends upon those quantum probabilities for its very existence, and that is very far from useless. If what allows for the existence of the thing cannot be known in advance, then it necessarily follows that the thing itself, much less its behavior, does not have a predetermined truth value. How can you attribute a truth value of what something may do when you cannot even assign a truth value to the very existence of its constituents?

    But all that is beside the point. You must logically support that the future has a preexisting truth value for prescience to even be possible. Where does this future exist to be known beforehand? If the past can only be known in the present, after having been the present, what is the ontology of the future?
     

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