Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Goliath · 04-10-2002, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
I would love to hear you guy's responses to Hugh Ross's argument here, specifically about the mind.

Here's the link:

<a href="http://www.reasons.org/resources/faf/97q4faf/97q4reas.html" target="_blank">http://www.reasons.org/resources/faf/97q4faf/97q4reas.html</a>

Mr. Ross' argument is nothing more than a straw man. There are things that exist that cannot be seen (eg air).

However, no one has come up with a proof that the supernatural exists. THAT is what I am waiting for, and that is what theists have continuously failed to provide.

Sincerely,

Goliath

daemon · 04-10-2002, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:
If a creator has access to another plane of existence other than the one He created, and since we do not know that He would exist in the plane He created, why would we ever expect to detect Him?

Christian belief relies on the detectability of God. If God is not perceivable, then revelation is delusion it best, and prayer is pointless. Both of these events (revelation and fulfilled prayer) are humans detecting God.

Quote:

My argument was that it is not a rational expectation for the creator to be present in our universe. He does not HAVE to be present, therefore his absence does not provide any evidence for or against his existence. There is no reason for us to expect Him to be present in his creation.

Christians believe God has been present, and many believe God is present in his creation--see omnipresence. If you are arguing deism, then, I can't argue--I see no pragmatic difference between deism and atheism.

I should note at this point that I've noticed a tendency to equivocate what "God" means; there is a tendency to attempt to prove that the deistic God is possible, then pretend they have proven the possible existence of the Christian God, when it is the differences between those two concepts that cause skeptics to doubt the latter most. As the article that started this talks about the Christian God, I am assuming that is the correct topic.

Quote:

What I was trying for in my original analogy was to point out that it makes no more sense for us to expect God's primary existence to be in his own creation than we would expect Charles Schultz, for example, to choose to live in his Peanuts comic strip.

We expect it because Christians claim God does exist in some fashion within his creation. Please note that this is in no way about primary existence, but the claims about God made by Christians.

Quote:

If Charles had the power to create and give life to an animated world, the way we presume a Creator God has the power to create our world, would we assume that Charles would want to establish primary residency in that world? He might or he might not, but his absence from that world would not prove or disprove his existence. It would be, from an evidentary standpoint, totally useless information: no conclusion could be drawn from it.

Strawman argument. This is not relevant to the discussion.

[Edited because I forgot the word "claims" somehow, and further to add my concern over what I perceive to be a rather loose use of the word "God" by luvluv]

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: daemon ]

luvluv · 04-10-2002, 12:30 PM

"Christian belief relies on the detectability of God. If God is not perceivable, then revelation is delusion it best, and prayer is pointless. Both of these events (revelation and fulfilled prayer) are humans detecting God."

No, my friend, revelation and fulfilled prayer is God contacting humans.

But if you want to argue that prayer and revelation are the only means by which to detect God, I totally agree.

"We expect it because Christians claim God does exist in some fashion within his creation. Please note that this is in no way about primary existence, but the claims about God made by Christians."

I've already explained how God can reveal himself to humans and yet not be detectable through scientific means. God could have manifested himself in the person of Jesus Christ, I believe He did, but that doesn't mean you are going to be able to see Him with your telescope or prove Him to exist through any other purely empirical means. That is all I am arguing.

But again, if you want to argue that humans can only contact God through his divine manifestations on planet earth, I agree.

HRG · 04-10-2002, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:

My argument was that it is not a rational expectation for the creator to be present in our universe. He does not HAVE to be present, therefore his absence does not provide any evidence for or against his existence. There is no reason for us to expect Him to be present in his creation.

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]

Let's forget about the argument that an "absent entity" is difficult to distinguish from a non-existing one. Let's also forget that a being would need to be present in this universe in order to affect it. Let's just look at the evidentiary value of the absence of an alleged creator in this universe.

An existing creator may or may not be present.
An non-existing creator cannot be present.

Thus the non-presence of a creator is evidence against his existence - of course, not compelling evidence.

HRG.

luvluv · 04-10-2002, 01:10 PM

I don't see how that follows HRG.

If we acknowledge that a Creator does not have to be detectable in the given universe to exist, then the fact that we do not detect Him does not speak at all to the possibility of His existence.

It isn't non-compelling evidence, it isn't evidence at all.

And of course, there is the corallary to my argument, which states that He may be present yet not detectable.

ex-preacher · 04-10-2002, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luvluv:

ex-preacher:
"luvluv, How would you rate the morality of a parent or god who stood by and watched while a child drowned in feces?"

Like MadMorrigan, you are mixing the analogies out to the point where your questions are non-sequitors. Please read my previous response to him, and my response to him in this post. The crap analogy was meant as a response to Khvalion whose objections were on totally different grounds.

No, I'm not mixing the analogies, I'm just carrying this analogy a step further. You insist that God cannot or should not interfere with our free will. We would all agree that a parent who allowed a child to drown in feces should be locked up. But when God allows it, are we all supposed to praise him for his mysterious ways?

Quote:

But this raises a further confusion I have with you in particular as a poster: is it your contention that God does not exist or that He exists and is immoral. You seem to fluctuate in your posts, but generally you give the impression that it is the latter.

I am an atheist. One reason: the facts of life are inconsistent with the existence of a loving and powerful god. I'm trying to convince you that if the god you worship does exist, he is immoral. I've got my work cut out for me.

You also confuse me. Sometimes you argue that for free will to exist, we must be allowed to hurt ourselves and others. Yet you also claim to believe in a heaven where free will can exist without anyone being hurt. You say that those who choose God will somehow no longer choose to do evil. Yet you also admit that you often make mistakes on earth. You need to come clean. Either free will is necessary for love or it isn't.

luvluv · 04-10-2002, 01:37 PM

ex-preacher:

"We would all agree that a parent who allowed a child to drown in feces should be locked up. But when God allows it, are we all supposed to praise him for his mysterious ways?"

First, there is an entire thread on this issue, as I'm sure you are aware. Perhaps the "Problem of Pain" thread would be a better place to post this particular question, otherwise every thread that you and I participate in will develop into one long argument between us, as opposed to dealing with the issue at hand.

But briefly, God does not just allow children to be drown in their own feces (sidenote: how exactly does a child drown in his own feces?). God gave us an instinct to care for our young, he created us with a strong social impulse and with an innate morality wich prohibits us from abandoning our young. He gave us an instinct for creating moral codes and social consequences for not taking care of our children. The emotional tie He has formed between the child and the mother are so extreme that it requires almost a pathology within the mother to bring her to the point where she will abandon here child. He has done just about everything short of physically restraining us via a harness to our children.

So from the outset the analogy is flawed. God did a lot to prevent this hypothetical child from being abandoned before it was even born.

But beyond that, perhaps you should bring your objections to this particular point to the Problem of Pain thread where they belong.

"I'm trying to convince you that if the god you worship does exist, he is immoral. I've got my work cut out for me."

For once, we agree. In the interest of saving you time, I can tell you will not succeed at this. If there is something else you'd rather be doing, you might want to be doing it.

"Yet you also claim to believe in a heaven where free will can exist without anyone being hurt."

Didn't we go through this on another thread? On that thread I said that I am incapable of knowing how heaven would work, but that a lot of our ability to not sin would probably be the result of our different natures. I said that the reason why we weren't given these different natures on this planet would be because those different natures could possibly be dangerous or constitute infringements on our free will. I said such altered states could be available to people in heaven and not be an infringement on free will because everyone in heaven has already chosen to serve God out of their free will and the altered states do not interfere with that decision, only our ability to carry it out.

"You say that those who choose God will somehow no longer choose to do evil."

I seriously doubt I ever said that. Could you cut and paste over here where you think I said that?

If you are talking about heaven, the above is a condnesation of all I have ever said about that. I already told you that I do not know how heaven works, and that everything you get out of me is going to be a guess. There are many reasons why heaven is like it is and earth is like it is, but the primary reason as I've said before is that everyone who is in heaven has already freely chosen to love God. Therefore measures that He cannot take here because it would be an infringement on our free will He may take there. But again, I am more certain that we will be free in heaven than that we will not sin. I don't know exactly how it will be worked out there, but I have a good theory about why it works the way it does here.

Kvalhion · 04-10-2002, 02:46 PM

Quote:

God gave us an instinct to care for our young, he created us with a strong social impulse and with an innate morality wich prohibits us from abandoning our young. He gave us an instinct for creating moral codes and social consequences for not taking care of our children.

This is an argument from ignorance. All of the above have already been established with naturalistic causes. For instance, natural selection gives humans instincts to care for our young, or else our young would not survive and humans would cease to exist. The fact that we have survived and continue to exist reflect this. You attributing all these things to your God is nonsensical and unnecessary.

Quote:

So from the outset the analogy is flawed. God did a lot to prevent this hypothetical child from being abandoned before it was even born.

Sorry, it is your explanation that is flawed by attributing things to your God that are unneccessary to attribute.

Quote:

I already told you that I do not know how heaven works, and that everything you get out of me is going to be a guess.

Why stop with Heaven? Perhaps we should extend this to your entire religious beliefs.

Typhon · 04-10-2002, 03:14 PM

Quote:

As I said in other threads, the belief in God's ominipotence does not include the belief that God can do things that are intrinsically impossible. I do not believe that God can give human beings free will and act to ensure that they never use that free will to harm other people (which is what the crapping on themselves refers to in this analogy). So God could create a universe in which no one ever hurts anyone else, or he can create a universe in which everyone has free will. To do both in the same universe is an intrinsic impossibility.

This is a false theory on your part I'm afraid. You may believe, but you do so in error. It is certainly not an "intrinsic impossibility" for an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god to be able to create beings that possess BOTH free will, and omnibenevolence themselves. To claim that god is incapable of this, completely destroys his claim to omnipotence. A perfect god could create free-willed beings as perfect as he wished. Humans are even supposed to have been cast in god's own dubious self-image, certainly god is both free-willed and omnibenevolent. Either god is both free-willed AND able to always do the right thing, based on his perfect nature, or he is not, and hence a flawed and limited creator. If the former is true, and god is possessed of true omnipotence, then he could have made humans to be both perfectly free-willed (like himself) and perfectly benevolent (also like himself) and still not be god-like (lacking in this case, god's omnipotence and omniscience). To argue otherwise is a flawed line of reasoning as far as I can see.

To say that is would create an "intrinsic impossibility" is the weakest of all moral and intellectual retreats from a very straightforward problem. Any omnipotent creator by the very definition of omnipotence would be able to make a being which had BOTH the free will to choose good or evil, and the wisdom and the perfect nature to choose, freely, good, perfectly, 100 times out of 100. God certainly is held to possess this trait, so to claim that such a state is an "intrinsic impossibility" is to say that god is an "intrinsic impossibility" and could not possibly exist.

How can you reconcile this, with your insistence that both a perfect, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, free-willed god exists and yet free will and omnibenevolence can not be combined in the same universe? If you are thinking of your theory that god exists in one universe, with different laws, than the one he created, then you are just opening another flaw in your theory. For then god either created the universe, and set the rules, in which case god could have made the second universe conform exactly to the potential of the first, or god doesn't have control of the rules which govern the first universe, and hence god itself is a flawed, imperfect, non-omnipotent deity.

.T.

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]

Vorkosigan · 04-10-2002, 03:23 PM

So God could create a universe in which no one ever hurts anyone else, or he can create a universe in which everyone has free will.

As I understand it, there is no pain and suffering in heaven, so god has already created such a place, according to Christian doctrine. So either, there is pain and suffering in heaven, or there is no free will there.

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04-10-2002, 12:30 PM	#63
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	"Christian belief relies on the detectability of God. If God is not perceivable, then revelation is delusion it best, and prayer is pointless. Both of these events (revelation and fulfilled prayer) are humans detecting God." No, my friend, revelation and fulfilled prayer is God contacting humans. But if you want to argue that prayer and revelation are the only means by which to detect God, I totally agree. "We expect it because Christians claim God does exist in some fashion within his creation. Please note that this is in no way about primary existence, but the claims about God made by Christians." I've already explained how God can reveal himself to humans and yet not be detectable through scientific means. God could have manifested himself in the person of Jesus Christ, I believe He did, but that doesn't mean you are going to be able to see Him with your telescope or prove Him to exist through any other purely empirical means. That is all I am arguing. But again, if you want to argue that humans can only contact God through his divine manifestations on planet earth, I agree.

04-10-2002, 01:10 PM	#65
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	I don't see how that follows HRG. If we acknowledge that a Creator does not have to be detectable in the given universe to exist, then the fact that we do not detect Him does not speak at all to the possibility of His existence. It isn't non-compelling evidence, it isn't evidence at all. And of course, there is the corallary to my argument, which states that He may be present yet not detectable.

04-10-2002, 01:37 PM	#67
luvluv Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Planet Lovetron Posts: 3,919	ex-preacher: "We would all agree that a parent who allowed a child to drown in feces should be locked up. But when God allows it, are we all supposed to praise him for his mysterious ways?" First, there is an entire thread on this issue, as I'm sure you are aware. Perhaps the "Problem of Pain" thread would be a better place to post this particular question, otherwise every thread that you and I participate in will develop into one long argument between us, as opposed to dealing with the issue at hand. But briefly, God does not just allow children to be drown in their own feces (sidenote: how exactly does a child drown in his own feces?). God gave us an instinct to care for our young, he created us with a strong social impulse and with an innate morality wich prohibits us from abandoning our young. He gave us an instinct for creating moral codes and social consequences for not taking care of our children. The emotional tie He has formed between the child and the mother are so extreme that it requires almost a pathology within the mother to bring her to the point where she will abandon here child. He has done just about everything short of physically restraining us via a harness to our children. So from the outset the analogy is flawed. God did a lot to prevent this hypothetical child from being abandoned before it was even born. But beyond that, perhaps you should bring your objections to this particular point to the Problem of Pain thread where they belong. "I'm trying to convince you that if the god you worship does exist, he is immoral. I've got my work cut out for me." For once, we agree. In the interest of saving you time, I can tell you will not succeed at this. If there is something else you'd rather be doing, you might want to be doing it. "Yet you also claim to believe in a heaven where free will can exist without anyone being hurt." Didn't we go through this on another thread? On that thread I said that I am incapable of knowing how heaven would work, but that a lot of our ability to not sin would probably be the result of our different natures. I said that the reason why we weren't given these different natures on this planet would be because those different natures could possibly be dangerous or constitute infringements on our free will. I said such altered states could be available to people in heaven and not be an infringement on free will because everyone in heaven has already chosen to serve God out of their free will and the altered states do not interfere with that decision, only our ability to carry it out. "You say that those who choose God will somehow no longer choose to do evil." I seriously doubt I ever said that. Could you cut and paste over here where you think I said that? If you are talking about heaven, the above is a condnesation of all I have ever said about that. I already told you that I do not know how heaven works, and that everything you get out of me is going to be a guess. There are many reasons why heaven is like it is and earth is like it is, but the primary reason as I've said before is that everyone who is in heaven has already freely chosen to love God. Therefore measures that He cannot take here because it would be an infringement on our free will He may take there. But again, I am more certain that we will be free in heaven than that we will not sin. I don't know exactly how it will be worked out there, but I have a good theory about why it works the way it does here.

04-10-2002, 03:23 PM	#70
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	So God could create a universe in which no one ever hurts anyone else, or he can create a universe in which everyone has free will. As I understand it, there is no pain and suffering in heaven, so god has already created such a place, according to Christian doctrine. So either, there is pain and suffering in heaven, or there is no free will there.

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