God or No God - that is the question (for atheists)

Good point. No they are not. In and of themselves. I would argue that without a direct revealing by God himself, no one can be sure of his existance. But it is here the two parties separate. The athiest can only provide a proof for himself (for that is ultimately the only person who needs to be satisfied) from what we can all see around us. The believer on the other hand has this same evidence of 'creation' to point in a direction. But the proving evidence is Gods revealing of himself (to the believer - for that is ultimately the only person who needs to be satisfied)Whilst a believer cannot prove his case (because it relies ultimately on unproveable-to-others personal revelation by God) an athiest should be able to, because he is dealing solely with the natural, observable, objective reality - to which we are all privy. Which is why I posed the question. Did I imply that. I'm sorry if I did. I think we can have human-derived definitions of good and evil. But these cannot be absolute - because humans aren't absolute - they change their minds/customs/fashions all the time. What's good to one is evil to another. What's considered 'right' now, might not be 'right' tomorrow. If you want an absolute definiton of good/evil that is independent of time/culture/fashion etc. then God must be the one to define this. No other can. If I don't say 'if', then I'll spend half my time responding to posts saying "you say he exists, prove it..." And the purpose of this thread is not to prove God (who can't be proved by one to another - for good reason it turns out), but to have athiesm 'proved' which should be possible (or at least a 'proof' that takes into account some of the obvious questions that would be asked of said proof). I know God exists. I'm more sure of that than I am the sun will rise tomorrow. Can I prove it. Nope... (except maybe, by a process of elimation!). Does it matter to me that I can't prove it to another? It gives me untold sleepless nights and I wish to God I could. But understand and agree with him why I can't. I probably said there is nothing that points inerrantly or inarguably to a creator. If I didn't then I apologise, for that is what I meant. But 'cause' I believe there must be. There is nothing that occurs without cause of some description, so there's no reason to suppose the Universe had no cause.The current options are:
A gigantic accident, which resulted in a fantastic amount of order (or what we percieve as order, but we must assume some objective reality so as to discuss it). Whilst staggeringly improbable (and whilst not being able to account for the matter/energy necessary to make it all happen), it is possibly possible that some model can be posed to indicate it could happen so. Or...This order is a reflection of the ordered mind who made it. I know of no other option. If a supreme being was around, but had no hand it things, then we would be back to natural being the Creator.. which kind of makes the supreme a lot less than supreme. For the sake of discussion, can you agree to respect the greatest minds who have considerd the situation and have come up with these two options. If not then I'd pose: if the cause was natural, outside the influence of a supreme being, then the supreme being wasn't supreme. he had, like us, to contend with the natural. He wouldn't be God then but something else. Something has to be king: either Nature or God. If God, then he is supreme, meaning control over everything including nature.

Present the post where I insulted you, or retract the accusation. The debate will not continue until you do one of those two things. Every post you post in this thread until that time will be replied to, by me, with the text of this message.

I'll take this opportunity CF, to apologise for any offence you may feel at being accused of something you did not intend. I took some of your language as insulting but did in no way mean to offend in stating that opinion. I particularily apologise to referring to your method of discussion as 'using insult' in my post to Hangdawg 13. That was intended as a joke at your expense - not a response to what I felt to be a personal insult. Sorry for that too."Insult" or "curtness and directness". Which is it? Who knows?. Whatever it is in fact, I reserve the right to spend my time in discussion with those with whom I feel progress (on both sides) can be made. It takes two people to get the discussion down to the essentials and this is especially difficult when the views are opposing. Curtness and directness are not ways I find helpful in achieving that goal. And that is my goal.

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Other gods that you consider falsified, do they still have strong follwers, believers?

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I don't know. Are there any religions that worship a god that's only mostly powerful? That would be comfortable concluding that one thing or another is entirely beyond the power of their God, no matter His will?

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My reasoning on this question is that since gods are from the imagination and their characteristics are adjusted to fit the needs of the culture or believer, IMO the characteristics of the gods that no longer have followers are no longer altered to avoid falsification. Does that make sense?I hadn't thought of it until reading one of your posts. Now I have a theory to check out.Thanks

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Your IF’n game and inconsistent stance have actually proven my point of God residing in mankind’s imagination.

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Thus, any argument as to the non-existance of God, based on science or experience or gut feeling, etc. is, I will argue, an inappropriate vehicle on which to arrive at a 'No' conclusion.

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purpledawn writes:

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Are they appropriate for a "yes" conclusion though?

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Good point. No they are not. In and of themselves. I would argue that without a direct revealing by God himself, no one can be sure of his existance.

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But then you state:

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Whilst a believer cannot prove his case (because it relies ultimately on unproveable-to-others personal revelation by God) an athiest should be able to, because he is dealing solely with the natural, observable, objective reality - to which we are all privy. Which is why I posed the question.

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You say we should be able to prove our case dealing solely with the natural, observable, etc; which is science BTW. Yet above you state that an argument to support our position based on science or experience is unacceptable.You are unable to support your position because it is an internal personal experience or gut feeling, but we are not allowed to argue from gut feeling.My little brother used to like wrestling with my sister or I, but he would always yell, "No hands, no feet!" which only applied to my sister and I of course. Obviously that's not wrestling. Just as what you are doing is not a fair discussion.Here is the larger picture as to why there is no god. Now if you wish to poke holes in my logic with actual logic, go for it, but IFs are not an acceptable counter.Since the idea of a supreme being God was created by mankind within his imagination, the characteristics/attributes will always change to evade proof or disproof.The existence of God has already been disproven thousands of years ago, but the legends continue.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

I don't say anything about an athiests naturalistic argument being unacceptable in the quote above. I say here and elsewhere that, an athiest can only (if he choses to do so) form his proof naturalistically - because, by definiton, there is no other realm from which to formulate his argument. In the thesis in post 1, I suggest that, in locking himself into purely naturalistic proofs, the athiest attempts to circumvent the possiblity of a supernatural God. Yet a supernatural God is an eminently plausible option given that a first cause must exist for the existance of the universe. That there is no provable (I suggest), purely naturalistic explanation offering a first cause for the universe, forces one, logically, into accepting the possibility of a supernatural first cause. Since there is no way (I suggest) to demonstrate that one possibility is more likely than the other, both must be given equal weight (not that a weight shift either way would result in any concrete judgement being formable).A rational model for a supernatural being, who created an ordered universe (which reflects his order) is as easily extracted from the observable universe as is the rational model which is naturalistic through and through. The athiest however choses not to take the former model into account. In doing so, he can only present a proof which will fall at the first fence. I don't say his proof is unacceptable, I say his proof can't rationally be shown to be acceptable. That's a different thing altogether.And failing a proof, the best an athiest can say is he doesn't know for sure. In which case he has no option but to call himself an agnostic.Athiesm, I hereby suggest, is an unsustainable position.This message has been edited by iano, 09-Aug-2005 03:45 PMThis message has been edited by iano, 09-Aug-2005 04:17 PM

The time may come when I have to argue my case. But for the moment it's athiest defending theirs. That my position may turn out to be irrational and indefensible has no bearing on whether an athiests position is rational and defensible. We might both turn out to have indefensible positions. If God, he is not defined by any action or thought of man. God, if he exists, is defined by himself. What man thinks may be accurate or not - it brings no influence to bear on who or what God is. You may not like rationally-based ifs, but if(sic) you don't deal with them then your rational proof can't take account of them and can be rationally falsified. A proof is something which leaves no rational room for manuoevre.Alternatively, you could attempt to state the rational proof for athiesm, which provides for a first cause, but is devoid of the word 'if' (or words to that affect).This message has been edited by iano, 09-Aug-2005 04:21 PM

The rational basis for Atheism is that there is no evidence that GOD exists.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

"No evidence" can be claimed when the naturalistic proof has an naturalistic explanation for the evidence. Evidence? There is a universe. How did it get here - naturallistically speaking?A proof which ignores the evidence it cannot explain is not a proof. It's a dodge

No one knows for sure. But it is a question that is being asked. What evidence is being ignored?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yeah, yeah, I'm not an Atheist, but what you are saying is just flat wrong.Science already has an explanation for "how the universe got here." It's called the Big Bang. It doesn't require a God to complete the explanation.By your logic, I could say that King Kong built the office building I'm in. The evidence is that the building exists - but how did it get here? Well, obviously King Kong built it. Ignoring the evidence that the building is here is just a dodge.God is ONE POSSIBLE explanation for the existance of the universe, but it still doesn't describe how the universe came to be. Goddidit is not an eplanation - it is a dodge. Since there is no evidence that God DID do it, Occam's razor tells us to stick with the naturalistic explanation, since it doesn't require the extraneous entity called God.Not to mention, you're using circular logic. "Since God created the universe, and the universe exists, obviously God exists since He created the universe."Rationally, the Atheistic view is the correct one - there is no evidence suggesting the existance of God.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

If no one knows for sure, then how is God excluded as a first cause? If no one knows. Remember, the athiests position is to deny God as a possibility. This is different than the agnostic position which is represented in fence-sitting "no one knows either way". In denying God, the athiest says there can only be a naturalistic explaination for the existance of the universe. My question of the athiest is, what is the naturalistic explaination for the universe? That the universe exists and must have a cause for existing (as you rightly say above, a lot of people (scientists) are trying to find out what it is - thus backing up the inescapable notion that 'a cause' is a rational thing presume of all physical phenomenon, such as the universe). The atheist, being unable to provide a first cause can only say "I don't know yet what it could be". As soon as he says "I don't know..." he allows in the possibility that God was the first cause - because he can't exclude him from the possibilities.Note: "I don't know" can't be used as a default position for athiesm until such time as "I do know". An athiest who "doesn't know" is an agnostic until "I do know"

The library has many books, Brian. Are all of them true, just because they say they are?

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

You are conflating two different questions. First, whether or not there is a god, second, the origin of the universe.The Atheist says that GOD does not exist because there is no evidence to support such an assertion. Every question examined so far has reduced to natural explanation. There is no reason to think that those questions that remain to be answered will not also reduce to a natural explanation.Then you jump to the question of the origin of the universe. That has nothing to do with the other question, whether or not there is a God.Sorry, you can't get by by changing the issue whenever you want.I'm a Christian Theist and you cannot even show me that you have a point.This message has been edited by jar, 08-09-2005 11:55 AM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion