An intellctual challange about one of the key issues of mankind

[Terxpahseyton]

Right, another boring thread where an atheist full of himself wants to expose those nutty Christians. I know what you think, I feel your pain and tiredness of such threads and/or debates.

But I got an approach which is a little more sophisticated and straight to the point and hence actually produtcive, useful and hopefully interesting.

It starts with me liking to propose the following statement (don't get scared away by it, I encourage you to make the effort to at least read until the end of the post):
There is no way to know or to have a shot at the likely nature of a potential God or other forms of potential supreme beings, based on all the knowledge collectively gained by humanity so far - feel free to disagree with those points - but I assure you that you will not be able to hold such disagreements without engaging in blatant intellectually dishonesty or hubris.
That is my challenge.

I am not saying Jesus is not our savior. I am not saying anyone is wrong. I am all and alone saying what the statement reads. Now if one accepts the message of the statement - understanding what it reads - and chooses to believe, I honestly don't take any issue with it. However, I do claim to be able to defend the correctness of this statement against any argument whatsoever and I would like religious people or any kind of people of some kind of faith in supernatural beings to try me. Because I am convinced that such people and me must be able to find a common ground. I hold that conviction because as it seems to me every human being has the capability to understand why 1 + 1 equals 2. And if one manages that, one can in principle manage logic. And if one manages that, we two have to be able to manage a mutual understand.
That's my second challenge.

So come on people. I will be eager to debate you, but I will be even more eager to do so in a fair and productive way to the best of my abilities.

Let's see if someone bites

 

[El_Machinae]

"There is no way to know or to have a shot at what is likely how a potential God is or other forms of potential supreme beings are "

A god could easily communicate such a concept to me, no? Ergo, if a god existed, there would be a way to know.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, you're making an exceptionally strong epistemic statement that is probably more difficult to defend than "I know that God exists".

It's also unnecessary to do so, if you just want to show that most religious people have poorly constructed metaphysics.

 

[Cutlass]

"There is no way to know or to have a shot at what is likely how a potential God is or other forms of potential supreme beings are "

A god could easily communicate such a concept to me, no? Ergo, if a god existed, there would be a way to know.

That assumes a god that chose to communicate. It says nothing of a god that chose not to communicate. Or, from the Christian perspective, God chose to communicate in the Old Testimate times. Then sent Jesus. And after that figured he'd done all he wanted to do overtly that we had all the information we needed, if only we would take it to heart and apply it.

 

[peter grimes]

I want to see if I understand the statement correctly, so I'll try to re-word it:

It is not possible to know - even in principle - the nature of any possible god

Is that correct?

 

[.Nightingale]

That's called agnosticism.

Basically, the only rational stance as to wheter "god" exists or not is to say: "We don't know".

I myself am an agnostic atheist, meaning I accept that you can't prove or disprove the existence of god, but based on my limited knowledge and personal experiencies I don't think it's very likely that one exists, at least in the way we humans see "god".

 

[Defiant47]

It is not possible to know - even in principle - the nature of any possible god

Seeing as that is the basic gist of my religious beliefs, I have nothing to disagree with here.

One would have to be very presumptuous to claim to know what God is, what God communicates, etc.

 

[Defiant47]

A god could easily communicate such a concept to me, no? Ergo, if a god existed, there would be a way to know.

A non-God could likewise communicate (falsely) the concept to you as well. Say, a Christian priest, or a Muslim imam. The concept has been communicated, and evidence has been wrongly attributed to God.

Given the degree of conviction from people of different religious backgrounds in regards to their own religious beliefs, it is difficult to assert that given the presence of this conviction, a real truth must have been obtained.

Basically, there would be a way to know, but you'd never know it, and could never differentiate it. Well, you could, just like all the other deluded souls out there - but what's separating you from the delusion?

 

[Traitorfish]

I want to see if I understand the statement correctly, so I'll try to re-word it:

It is not possible to know - even in principle - the nature of any possible god

Is that correct?

That's called agnosticism.

I'd say it's closer to ignosticism than to agnosticism, in that it doesn't merely reject the possibility of knowing whether or not a god exists, but rejects the possibility of establishing a rational conception of "god" in the first place. Agnosticism merely says that the question "Is there a god?" is unanswerable, while ignosticism says that the question is in itself impossible to formulate in a coherent manner, so is meaningless. (Perhaps I'm reading a too much into the qualification of "even in principle"; feel free to correct me if it seems that way.)

 

[Mr. Dictator]

The universe is a cell in god's body. We must be good components of his highness, as god doesn't get enough proper nutrition or exercise.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I want to see if I understand the statement correctly, so I'll try to re-word it:

It is not possible to know - even in principle - the nature of any possible god

Is that correct?

You understood it just fine, as did the others. But I just realized I messed the OP totally up . As I meant not possible from information we have gathered so far, not not possible in general. No ignosticism for me and I agree with El_Machinae on that one (though he should have said could instead of would). So nothing spectacular about that thesis, but it being innovative isn't the point of this thread.

The point of this thread is that I want to achieve the so far unachievable - get to common ground with a religious person by a rational debate (which as said doesn't entail said person giving up his faith). So for the thread to be of actual worth, someone religious would have to volunteer. But maybe previous experiences on this board have them all scared away of such an endeavor. But I won't bite and be a nice atheist, I promise.

 

[timtofly]

What is a non-consuming fire that allows both light and darkness regardless of time and gravity?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I... what? ^^ Well I don't know.

 

[timtofly]

I... what? ^^ Well I don't know.

Possible or not possible?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well my guess is that physics would predict that to be impossible. But in general - as everything - it is possible. Just like God is a possibility. Where are you going with this?

 

[El_Machinae]

A non-God could likewise communicate (falsely) the concept to you as well. Say, a Christian priest, or a Muslim imam. The concept has been communicated, and evidence has been wrongly attributed to God.

Given the degree of conviction from people of different religious backgrounds in regards to their own religious beliefs, it is difficult to assert that given the presence of this conviction, a real truth must have been obtained.

Basically, there would be a way to know, but you'd never know it, and could never differentiate it. Well, you could, just like all the other deluded souls out there - but what's separating you from the delusion?

Actually, you've just stated what is basically my main reason for being atheist (and not agnostic). I almost never bring it up on CFC, because I think of it as too hard to properly communicate.

Yes, a god could be knowable. But you present very good evidence that the subjective belief that you 'know god' can be gained through entirely naturalistic mechanisms that lead to deception. In other words, a human can be convinced that they know a god personally, even if it was entirely not true.

This means that there's fundamentally no mechanism by which you can be certain that you're communing with a god, because the delusion of 'communing with god' is always an alternate idea.

This reasoning, more than anything, is why I fundamentally believe that there's no God.

 

[warpus]

The point of this thread is that I want to achieve the so far unachievable - get to common ground with a religious person by a rational debate (which as said doesn't entail said person giving up his faith). So for the thread to be of actual worth, someone religious would have to volunteer. But maybe previous experiences on this board have them all scared away of such an endeavor. But I won't bite and be a nice atheist, I promise.

Won't be possible, since religious people who believe that God exists also believe that we have information (holy books) which explains what sort of deity he is, details about his powers, etc.

So they do believe that this information exists.

 

[Mise]

Actually, you've just stated what is basically my main reason for being atheist (and not agnostic). I almost never bring it up on CFC, because I think of it as too hard to properly communicate.

Yes, a god could be knowable. But you present very good evidence that the subjective belief that you 'know god' can be gained through entirely naturalistic mechanisms that lead to deception. In other words, a human can be convinced that they know a god personally, even if it was entirely not true.

This means that there's fundamentally no mechanism by which you can be certain that you're communing with a god, because the delusion of 'communing with god' is always an alternate idea.

This reasoning, more than anything, is why I fundamentally believe that there's no God.

So... you don't believe that I exist? I could be a deception.

You could be adopted.

 

[peter grimes]

Minor quibble:
I think the title of this thread is grossly exaggerated. Most of mankind is not the sort of christian that atheists worry about. For that matter, most of mankind isn't christian at all

Besides, I think there's a pretty long list of things that are more of a 'key issue' facing mankind.

But I welcome the attempt

 

[timtofly]

Well my guess is that physics would predict that to be impossible. But in general - as everything - it is possible. Just like God is a possibility. Where are you going with this?

"common ground"

The sun consumes and produces energy, but it is a finite perpetual energy producer. Space is both dark and light at the same time. Light is energy but it is effected by gravity. What is time? Does time determine how the sun functions? Would we be able to exist if all of the energy in the universe was "light". Is the darkness just less "light" energy. Or energy that does not travel very fast. What does it even mean to travel fast, if there is no time involved?

If all energy moved as fast as it did near the sun, would time stop and every thing be so "light" even if it did not consume a human, would a human survive in that much light/energy?

Why do people have a problem with GOD? If God was all of the energy, but allowed enough darkness/lack of energy for humanity to survive in, why would mankind prefer there be no God. Could man really do a better job in "holding" the universe together? Could Lucifer even do a better job than we can?