Prove God does not exist!

[newfangle]

Upon reflection, I should have used the word omniscient, though I fear you would have giving me the same response.

So your God is neither omniscient or omnipotent?

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Not unless you can show me Chapter and verse where it says otherwise.

I will acknowledge that when it comes to potence, God is supreme in the Universe, and that when it comes to science, God's is likewise supreme to all comers. But you can be better than everyone else without attaining the maximum possible in any given test. A weightlifter can be stronger than anyone else on earth without lifting 80 metric tons. A sprint-skater can be the fastest on earth without cracking the sound barrier.

God can create a real anthrocentric universe, populate it with life, and let His creations choose their own destinies, even to the fairly ludicrous point of letting them debate His existence. Can you do that?

God doesn't HAVE to create a rock that's so heavy He can't lift it. He can create one that ONLY He can lift.

 

[newfangle]

Thanks for clearing that up.

You'd think that people like the Pope would attempt to eliminate such blatant contradictions like omnipotence.

 

[romelus]

The difference in the comparision is that teleporting could or might lead to excessive power potential which would disrupt normal function (unless the world were a utopia).

well, what's normal. is humans being able to clone themselves also normal? i'd say that's even cooler than teleportation. yet we are now able to clone ourselves (and some claim they've already done so), and i don't see god wagging his finger and telling us to stop. cloning can easily be argued as "excessive power potential", yet god made it possible (if he existed and created us)

and who says one day we won't be able to teleport

That would prevent humans from choosing to inflict evil on others thus preventing meaningful relationships among humans. If only good seems possible to humans then they must be good an cannot be evil. The teleportation issue is not necessary for meaningful free will. The non-utopian condition of humans could perhaps explain the lack of teleportation abilities.

errrr... are you saying that god wants us to be able to inflict evil on each other? and if he really gave a crap about whether we worshipped him or not, he could easily and instantly alter our brains so everybody in the world believed him 110% without question. it comes back to my point. either he can't do it, doesn't care to do it, or he doesn't exist.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Thanks for clearing that up.

You'd think that people like the Pope would attempt to eliminate such blatant contradictions like omnipotence.

What motive would the Catholic Church have to do such a thing? History records their actions, and the fruits of those actions, and judging by those fruits, the RCC is about as apostate as you can get. Anyone with even conversational familiarity with the Bible's contents can shoot gaping holes in the entire Catechism.

The RCC used to burn people at the stake for reading the Bible.

Does that strike anyone as the action of a Christian organization?

 

[Free Enterprise]

well, what's normal. is humans being able to clone themselves also normal? i'd say that's even cooler than teleportation. yet we are now able to clone ourselves (and some claim they've already done so), and i don't see God wagging his finger and telling us to stop. cloning can easily be argued as "excessive power potential", yet God made it possible (if he existed and created us)

and who says one day we won't be able to teleport

I just stated that as a possibility. I do not claim to know why people cannot teleport. That is one possibility. Others include: non-utopia condition caused by The Fall.

errrr... are you saying that God wants us to be able to inflict evil on each other? and if he really gave a crap about whether we worshipped him or not, he could easily and instantly alter our brains so everybody in the world believed him 110% without question. it comes back to my point. either he can't do it, doesn't care to do it, or he doesn't exist.

A condition in which people have to believe 110% without question would seem to be a condition of slavery or the equivalent of being an automation. It seems more likely that God wants free people to choose whether or not they will believe. Loving God seems to require the ability to actually choose whether or not to do it. If there is no real choice then it is simply a state in which an automation is performing the function that occurs as a result of its structure. The human causing good or evil on another person issue I think can be resolved by the apparent necessity of humans to be able to have meaingful relationships with one another. It seems quite possible this is a necessary ingrediant in the path of choosing what type of person one is (benevolent or manvolent for example).

 

[FearlessLeader2]

It actually goes much deeper, and much shallower, than that.

'Belief' was never truly the issue. The issue has always been willingness, or lack thereof, to do as God says instead of doing as we please. Most people would rather cut off an arm than accept the limitations on their right to be as self-serving at any cost to others as they want to be that would result from following God's rules.

To save themselves the trouble of worrying about it, they simply decided to pretend that God doesn't exist, and then passed it to their children, and drilled it into their heads (along with all kinds of mixed messages about Santa and Christmas, and Halloween and Easter and who-all knows what) until they ignored what their own common sense was telling them and accepted it.

Rather than lose their temporal power, many of the original Christian congregations changed their teachings to make them more 'user-friendly' to keep people coming in (and laying money on the plate). If people didn't want to hear about personal sacrifice and spreading the Word, well, we'll just take that part out and say that Jesus is handling the works and men need faith alone.

'Little' changes like that are why things like the Inquisition, the Reformation, the Hundred Years War, and a whole lot of other terrible things happened. Because once you start lying, you have to either defend that lie, or abandon it and the things it has brought you.

 

[Perfection]

That's offensive, FL2! You're implying that non-christians are immoral, something that is clearly not the case!

I take full responsibility for my actions and often do what I consider to be right instead of what I consider to be good for me!

I don't worry about god striking me down if I do something bad, but I do worry about the consequences of my actions!

 

[Gothmog]

Things that are real?

Non-linear Time (Seems like a safe bet, but still no proof of its existence...)

If by this you mean time-dilation we certainly have overwhelming evidence of its existence. GPS satellites correct for its effect all the time.

Dark Matter

Again depending on how you mean this, we certainly have overwhelming evidence that something is holding all those galaxies together and it's not matter that interacts with radiation. Not to mention more sophisticated ideas regarding the form of the cosmic microwave background.

God

Satan

Absolute Morality

The Perfect Philly Cheese-steak Sandwich (I will scour the earth for it though, 'til my dying day...)

All these last are things that currently only exist in the human psyche and there is no physical evidence for. It's the old Invisible Dragon in my garage issue (nod to Carl Sagan).

 

[Pointlessness]

Symbols:

W: God is willing to prevent evil.
A: God is able to prevent evil.
I: God is impotent.
M: God is malevolent.
E: Evil exists.
G: God exists.

^: Conjunction (And)
V: Disjunction (Or)
~: Negation (Not)
->: Conditional (If… then)

Proof:

1. ~A -> I (1-5) (Given)
2. ~W ->M
3. E -> (~W V ~A)
4. E
5. G -> (~I ^ ~M)
6. ~W V ~A (3) (M.P.)
7. (~A -> I) V (~W -> M) (1,2) (Conj.)
8. I V M (6,7) (C.D)
9. ~ (~I ^ ~M) (8) (De M.)
10. ~G (5,9) (M.T.)

Therefore, god does not exist.

The problem with this equation exists in the first and second premises. It may be necessary for God to allow human created evil to happen in order to allow free will to exist. One argument for why God must allow natural evil is that there must be predictable outcomes from natural events. Altering any of this would generally affect free will.

I think you completely missunderstood my post. I never said W or A. I never said anything about god being willing or able to prevent evil in my first 2 premises. My actual first and secod premises are true by definition.

 

[Pointlessness]

I would be curious about how posters define god. Do all the believers see god the same way? What is gods role in the universe? Is there within Christianity (any flavor) a described purpose to the universe? The nature of good an evil will flow naturally from your answers.

On the other side of the debate, where logic rules, I would ask you to say if you think that the universe had a beginning or if it is eternal? If it had a beginning, what was the first cause? If it is eternal, how do you account for the big bang?

These are the fundamental questions that define the religious and anti religious postions. If you cannot answer them you must be an agnostic.

I believe the universe is eternal, a claim you have thought about...

 

[Chingis Khan]

Just some questions for the pro-God guys:

Are we just trying to disprove the Christian God, or all Gods including Allah, Buddha, the varied Gods of Roman and Greek mythology, the Indian Gods, etc.?
If you believe in one God, why not believe in all Gods? Don't they all get an equal shot, given that no God (or Gods) have ever really been disproven?

Assuming that we are talking about the Christian God, do you believe the Bible to be true and accurate, seeing as that is mainly what the religeon is based on?

The Bible can be easily proven to be full of contradictions and fallacies (Does anyone truely believes the world was created in six days and that a great flood scoured the earth some four thousand years ago?).
Or lets say that you do believe the Bible. Does that mean you advocate slavery, wife beating and animal sacrifice (All in the Bible for those that care to look). The point I am trying to make is that the nature of the God that we worship seems to change with the nature of the society that worships it. How can a religeon be true if it changes to the whim of man? The evidence seems to point to the existance of a man-made God.

There are approximately 27 religeons in existance today. Most people deny the existance of 26, atheists merely deny the existance of 27.

Just my two cents.

 

[Gothmog]

This got left out of my last post...

FL2 wrote

'Belief' was never truly the issue. The issue has always been willingness, or lack thereof, to do as God says instead of doing as we please. Most people would rather cut off an arm than accept the limitations on their right to be as self-serving at any cost to others as they want to be that would result from following God's rules.

Some of us wonder why God hasn't been better about telling us what it wants. What does God say? Which 'holy text' is a man to believe? and why? I have only found anything resembling the word of God from introspection.

To save themselves the trouble of worrying about it, they simply decided to pretend that God doesn't exist, and then passed it to their children, and drilled it into their heads (along with all kinds of mixed messages about Santa and Christmas, and Halloween and Easter and who-all knows what) until they ignored what their own common sense was telling them and accepted it.

My common sense, and deep introspection, tells me to live along a very similar line to what is described in the Bible and various other religious texts. Of course all of those texts also include suggestions that I don't agree with (in some interpretations of the various vague wordings at least). How we get from there to believing in Christ, or any of the innumerable saviors represented in various religions, or taking a specific text as the 'word of God' is beyond my ken.

I have no desire to pretend that God does not exist, but neither do I have a desire to pretend that any of the various religious texts represent true knowledge of God or creation.


Also Re: the big bang. Just to clear this up a bit, science does not say that this event is the begining of the universe. Just that it is the begining of the known universe. We have no information from before that moment, nor any information about anything beyond what emerged from that event. That in no way rules out times before the big bang, nor things that exist separate from the big bang. At least that's the theory, there are a number of others.

 

[stormbind]

W: God is willing to prevent evil.

What religion is that from? Seems your theory is somewhat flawed given that God offers free choice

 

[Pointlessness]

W: God is willing to prevent evil.

What religion is that from? Seems your theory is somewhat flawed given that God offers free choice

I am confused because of the . Are you trying to piss me off, or do you seriously not understand, like everyone else, that that is not one of the premises? Just wondering.

 

[Free Enterprise]

Premiss 2: ~W -> M If there was an all seeing God, it would be pretty malevolent of it to watch the evil and do nothing.

Many would answer false to premise number two. Many would also say that God does do things to correct the evil (not directly under this premise however it is a related concept). Your conclusion is grounded in this premise. Therefore your argument does not account for all possibilities.

 

[stormbind]

Are you trying to piss me off..

Can you prove that I'm trying to piss you off?

 

[Pointlessness]

Many would answer false to premise number two. Many would also say that God does do things to correct the evil (not directly under this premise however it is a related concept). Your conclusion is grounded in this premise. Therefore your argument does not account for all possibilities.

Like what? What does god do to correct the evil? I would say a god who does nothing to correct evil is malevolent by definition. Would you like to dispute that definition?

Besides, I already destroyed my own proof in the post you quoted from. I merely disproved the notion of a omnipotent, completely benevolent god.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I believe the universe is eternal, a claim you have thought about...

Thanks for the reminder!
If the universe is eternal and exists prior to the BB in a compressed state, then where is it? How would you describe/characterize its location. A "point" only exists in relation to what is not the "point". The moment you compress the universe you create a duality, even if the point of compression is infinitely small. It must be different from what is around it or it wouldn't be a distinct point.

So you have to describe the nature of the "non point".

If the point is everywhere, then it is no longer a point, but infinite.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Like what? What does god do to correct the evil? I would say a god who does nothing to correct evil is malevolent by definition. Would you like to dispute that definition?

Besides, I already destroyed my own proof in the post you quoted from. I merely disproved the notion of a omnipotent, completely benevolent god.

What if, from god's perspective there are no evil acts. Is it possible that people have misread god's message? Could god then be both onmipotent and benevolent?