No it doesn't. If the moon exists, then it is made of swiss cheese. The moon exists. Therefore it is made of swiss cheese.
No, because they could be not listening very well, but to an existent God. If I tell you there is a Spanish guy in the other room - say you are handicapped and can't check it out yourself - and then I tell you things this guy says and you think those things are ridiculous and clearly not things a Spaniard would say about his country and beyond that they are things you cannot believe anyone would asser. In fact you think you know a psychological weakness I have that would make it likely I would make up the Spanish guy, sort of like a fantasy playmate. Therefore, you conclude, I am making up this 'other guy'. This might be a reasonable guess, but it is certainly not proved. There are other possibilities. As I said above - I might be a very confused listener. The man in the next room might speak English poorly. He could be a Spaniard and a liar. He could be Argentianian and eccentric.
The christian god is the god described in the christian bible. Joe Blow may tell you something which is not in the christian bible & if you don't believe Joe Blow, you're fine. But the god I'm discussing is the god described in the christian bible not what someone poorly overheard. If you want to discuss Zeus, Odin or IPU later, fine.
I said nothing about these other Gods. You misunderstood. Your argument has more merit when dealing with literalists, where everythign in the Bible must be absolutely correct and in no way metaphorical. But if you take the Bible as a human attempt to explain a real God that various people were in direct but fallible contact with, your argument does not work.
So, Superman exists except he didn't come from Krypton & he doesn't have super powers. Nonsense. Why believe anything about the god without believing everything. Which part is to be believed. If 1 believes only the parts that seem sensible & moral, that's not believing the bible. It's simply having 1's own morals.
Do you believe everything about President Bush? I guess he doesn't exist. Further you are confusing inconsistancies or contradictions in believers with proof that what they believe in does not exist. That is my primary problem with your position. People can have inconsistant beliefs about something AND it is real. In fact we all do.
You really have to go beyond labeling things to make a good argument. It seemed you were saying that if someone has contradictory impressions of something then that something does not exist. Au contraire. That is amazing, but let's leave that aside for now. YOu do have contradictory perceptions of things and people. You and a friend describe a certain person. You use different adjectives. There is some overlap, but there are contradictions. Even with yourself you have contradictory perceptions of certain people - sometimes you can become aware of your contradictory perceptions of a person or thing in a crisis or when they let you down, for example, and you realize you never trusted them really, but that was your official story to yourself. If you don't have contradictory perceptions of things then you are different from every single person I have ever met. I too would doubt that the Bible is a flawless description of God, but that does not mean that there is not something that these people actually did come in contact with and the filters of they cultures and psychologies distorted it. Exactly like your own contact with other people, for example, is unbelievably affected by your culture and psychology. Still, despite the distortions and failed but perhaps honest attempts to explain something as complicated as a God or another human being, perhaps they got some things right. You cannot prove something does not exist because people's perceptions of it are flawed. I understand why you, not having any experience of God, are not convinced by what they say and by their Bible. But your not being convinced is a very different thing from you somehow having proof that God does not exist. Even the Christian one.
You really have to go beyond strawmen to make a good argument. It SEEMED to you I was saying something which I did not say. You, you, you saying what you know about me. BULLSHIT I am different from every person you've met. Given that I'm correct about me tho you still don't know that about everyone else. The latest tangent of the discussion isn't about whether god exists. It's about whether people believe what they claim to believe. Which is a hugely obvious NO. (The tangent which began with : There's no such thing as theists.)
Correct. However, in pointing out the strawman, the 'argument' in question then is thereby made invalid.
