God?

[Deleted User]

It's nonsense to suggest an omnipotent and omniscient god wouldn't be able to answer every single question skeptics asked if he decided to be transparent, but you're certainly right that people would try to disprove him - and that just shows him being so transparent would not rob us of our free will. =p

Anyhow, if I had to pick a conception of god that makes the most sense to me, it wouldn't be that of a god worshiped by any religion I know of. I think I'd either go with a deistic god or a god who is a huge troll and just messing with us for the lulz.

[devils' advocate]

-God- certainly could answer them, he IS Omniscient. However, seeing as no one on earth IS god, we can not. God has reasons to not give us all of the answers, he wants us to find these things out for ourselves. He wants us to have free will. To give us all of the answers would be too easy, and take away much of the meaning to each of our individual lives.

[/devils' advocate]

[Gaunt]

A 'good' atheist, would read the book in it's entirety. If you consider yourself a skeptic, you must not act out of ignorance. It's your responsibility to hear what the other side is saying, even if your preconceived opinions don't agree with it. The manner in which you went about it is completely detrimental to getting a clear picture. You're selectively reading from a source that will verify all of your biases, picking up quotations to use as pot shots in your arguments. So long as you continue to hold on to said biases, or remain ignorant to any one side of the argument, you shouldn't be claiming to be..... informed or, 'enlightened' I suppose. Hilda says she's been on the other side of the fence in the past and claimed that she's come to the conclusion that God is the correct answer. While I don't necessarily agree with her on that, that's much more respectable and more informed than someone who would knowingly avoid certain portions of a sides debate or argument that go against their opinion.

I myself fully intend to read it, eventually, someday. I'll likely start with the new testament though, since it's been claimed that the old testament it primarily 'poetic' and should hardly be taken literally.

Did you miss the second part? I tried to read it

[Deleted User]

Did you miss the second part? I tried to read it

That's all fine and dandy, but that doesn't change the fact that you're simply basking in bias and ignorance because 'You find it boring.' I'm sure we're both aware by now that the contents of the Old Testament are rather silly in almost all cases. Here is a breakdown of which books are in the new and old testaments. Most Christians today will tell you the new testament should be taken more to heart than the old. So even if you find it boring, do your due diligence and read what they have to offer, THEN re-assess and all likelihood come to the same conclusion, but at least you'll be more free from ignorance and bias. You also shouldn't be going into reading the bible, or arguing with a theist simply in the back of your mind only intending to scrutinize their opinions. There's another side to the coin, one must also defend their viewpoints and give explanation as to why they see them as more plausible. Chances are you'll both walk away remaining unchanged in your stances, but I'm sure you'd want any theist you argue with to not be completely ignorant to the ways of science, even if they don't agree with certain premises, can you not give them that same courtesy?

[Eviora]

[devils' advocate]

-God- certainly could answer them, he IS Omniscient. However, seeing as no one on earth IS god, we can not. God has reasons to not give us all of the answers, he wants us to find these things out for ourselves. He wants us to have free will. To give us all of the answers would be too easy, and take away much of the meaning to each of our individual lives.

[/devils' advocate]

Oh, I'm more than familiar with such vague responses. We were talking specifically about the case where god did decide to be transparent. Obviously no gods have done this to any satisfying degree, so the discussion is purely theoretical. That said, can you explain carefully how being told the correct answer would rob you of your free will? It doesn't do that for any other questions when the one giving you the answer is a human.

I really don't buy that a large portion of the "meaning" in our lives is necessarily rooted in trying to solve some supernatural guessing game without any strong evidence. It seems to me that we make our own meaning - many people find great fulfillment in their relationships with family, or in chasing their dreams, or whatever else they do. If you want to claim those things are trivial, you'll have to explain to me the meaning of "meaning". =p

[Gaunt]

That's all fine and dandy, but that doesn't change the fact that you're simply basking in bias and ignorance because 'You find it boring.' I'm sure we're both aware by now that the contents of the Old Testament are rather silly in almost all cases. Here is a breakdown of which books are in the new and old testaments. Most Christians today will tell you the new testament should be taken more to heart than the old. So even if you find it boring, do your due diligence and read what they have to offer, THEN re-assess and all likelihood come to the same conclusion, but at least you'll be more free from ignorance and bias. You also shouldn't be going into reading the bible, or arguing with a theist simply in the back of your mind only intending to scrutinize their opinions. There's another side to the coin, one must also defend their viewpoints and give explanation as to why they see them as more plausible. Chances are you'll both walk away remaining unchanged in your stances, but I'm sure you'd want any theist you argue with to not be completely ignorant to the ways of science, even if they don't agree with certain premises, can you not give them that same courtesy?

So in your opinion i should read a text i fell asleep with only to be able to discuss with a theist? Can't i use other sources? Also i don't ask them to read atheists works so i expect the same treatment in return...but wait there's more! I believe that every religion is false/wrong so following your proposition i should also read every "sacred" text from every religion there is...wow i'm sure i'll enjoy every bit of it...nah i think i'll pass on that and continue being bias and ignorant but without the need to lose entire years of my life just to be more informed about something i find not true.

[Deleted User]

So in your opinion i should read a text i fell asleep with only to be able to discuss with a theist? Can't i use other sources? Also i don't ask them to read atheists works so i expect the same treatment in return...but wait there's more! I believe that every religion is false/wrong so following your proposition i should also read every "sacred" text from every religion there is...wow i'm sure i'll enjoy every bit of it...nah i think i'll pass on that and continue being bias and ignorant but without the need to lose entire years of my life just to be more informed about something i find not true.

You should read a text so YOU can be informed and free from ignorance and bias, as well as go into an argument/debate with a greater understanding of the other side of the coin. Yes you CAN, and SHOULD use other sources, but to totally discount or simply Cherrypick from the backbone of the other side isn't kosher. If they aren't willing to read the other side of things that's on them. I'll value their opinion less if they've never explored the possibility of 'hey maybe I'm wrong.' even if for just a moment. At the very least, if you aren't going to read the bible, then don't use cherry picked quotations from it in your argument. If you're going off the argument that you believe all religions are wrong, stick to scientific premises, and don't debate the moral side of things. Defend your viewpoint far more than you go about attacking the opposing ones. Back up what you believe to be the most likely scenario of whatever is being discussed rather than nitpicking so much why the other side is wrong. It's foolish to actively seek out things you see as wrong with someone else's point of view when you're not fully aware of what their viewpoint is. There are some situations where such things are more clear cut and black and white, even within this thread as shown by the resurrection debate, but I'd ask you not to act as if you are greatly informed on matters when you're reasoning for not hearing the other side out is 'it's boring'.

[Gaunt]

You should read a text so YOU can be informed and free from ignorance and bias, as well as go into an argument/debate with a greater understanding of the other side of the coin. Yes you CAN, and SHOULD use other sources, but to totally discount or simply Cherrypick from the backbone of the other side isn't kosher. If they aren't willing to read the other side of things that's on them. I'll value their opinion less if they've never explored the possibility of 'hey maybe I'm wrong.' even if for just a moment. At the very least, if you aren't going to read the bible, then don't use cherry picked quotations from it in your argument. If you're going off the argument that you believe all religions are wrong, stick to scientific premises, and don't debate the moral side of things. Defend your viewpoint far more than you go about attacking the opposing ones. Back up what you believe to be the most likely scenario of whatever is being discussed rather than nitpicking so much why the other side is wrong. It's foolish to actively seek out things you see as wrong with someone else's point of view when you're not fully aware of what their viewpoint is. There are some situations where such things are more clear cut and black and white, even within this thread as shown by the resurrection debate, but I'd ask you not to act as if you are greatly informed on matters when you're reasoning for not hearing the other side out is 'it's boring'.

You do have a point...ok no more bible citations from me only logic and common sense.

[Sevonic]

I am an agnostic atheist and ex-Christian, though my beliefs were never strong to begin with. My dad used to teach philosophy over at a local university, but got a higher job as a dean just a few years ago. So, during my childhood, I learned skepticism, and religion wasn't constantly rubbed in my face like some children. I was a brilliant child, finding out Santa wasn't real at the age of seven (I confronted my dad once and said that no man could possibly be that old and the only people who know how I act all the time are my parents). My parents are agnostic, so of course, it was very hard for me to believe in such a deity if I never went to church.

I tried going to a progressive Christian church a few times back in 8th grade, but it didn't feel right to me. I didn't feel like I was in the right place, no matter what I told myself. I've had a pretty shitty life, so I wanted to be reached out to, but God just wasn't who I could depend on. Got cancer at 2, had back surgeries until I was 11. Where was my god?

I got into an abusive relationship later that year, suffering from the worst kinds of emotional manipulation. No matter how many times I prayed, begged, cried for it to end, this "God" wasn't helping me. I lost the little faith I had left.

-

Now, I'm done with the life story that I just put fourth, time to get logical. I have no problem with Christianity, or any religion, as long as it's not forced upon me.

Considering that I am an agnostic atheist, I believe that there is a possibility of a God, but it is definitely not what is depicted in any of the books.

Another thing, Jesus did NOT intend to start a new religion, I can NOT state this more. He wanted to reform Judaism. Christianity was not started by Jesus, it wasn't started by God. It was started by people. And the bible was not written by God, it was written several decades after Jesus was crucified (HISTORY MAN!)

[Chase]

@ Eviora - that [Free Will when told the right answer] - is actually the example that is made in the story of "the Fall"

• God creates Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden
• God tells the first couple not to eat from a specific tree and that they can eat anything else.
• Eve is deceived by a second opinion (the serpent) and Adam freely chooses to eat from the tree anyway - even though they WERE told the right answer.

On the matter of "How did God come to be" - He's eternal because of what I had to address in the Kalam argument. In order for God to have existed eternally, he can't be made of the things that were made at the time the Universe began (Space, Time, Matter) - and because you can't scientifically prove anything specifically pertaining to God - God being an uncaused cause is completely viable and is supported by one piece of historical evidence in the book of Genesis. If God consisted of Space, or Time, or Matter, there is absolutely NO way He's able to have existed forever - as those things haven't existed forever.

However, if he's as I argued. space-less, time-less, immaterial, and uncaused, and immensely powerful....then it's completely feasible that God be eternal. If God is timeless, he has no beginning, and if God has no beginning, he doesn't need to have a cause. God differs from the universe we KNOW exists here because we know the current universe is slowly losing energy. There is no scientific evidence or law that would propose God is losing energy at this point in time.

The Problem with Evil has a lot of questions tied to it. Which questions would you like me to field?

@ Gaunt

No. We know for a fact that other animals on our planet besides Humans existed - and yet we were crafted "in the image" of God. In the event of an extraterrestrial being existing, hey can without making that statement null. Remember, it's highly reasonable - even for the evangelical Christian - to assume the writer of Genesis was using peripherals and not a globe when writing the manuscript. At this point in time, there was no evidence at all that there was anything beyond Earth's atmosphere - and there's still not anything out there but science fiction that suggests Aliens do indeed exist at this point. If they do - it's not going to be faith-shaking in the slightest and doesn't contradict biblical doctrine.

As to how did Christianity expand? That much can be historically explained. The disciples are among the 500+ "Resurrection witnesses" after they too discover the body to have gone missing -AND- the Christ appears to them multiple times. They then go to Jerusalem on request and then begin to preach as the bearers of the Christian narrative. Some time later, a man named Saul is on his way to Damascus - to KILL these Christian converts no less - and experiences a Jesus appearance that blinds him for a while. That man would regain his sight as the Apostle Paul - and Paul goes around all over the Middle East and European world at the time spreading the gospel and establishing Gentile churches. Missionaries like Paul and Apollo brought Christianity out of the confines of being only for a certain people.

@ Sevonic

Thank you for sharing your testimony. I am sorry that life has been difficult for you and you are a strong and bright individual.

You are -not- however, any form of atheist if you hold that the possibility for a God is present. You are indeed a skeptic - but not an atheist.

The other thing I got for you is that manuscripts are being found closer and closer to the Resurrection that we're not really talking about "several" decades anymore. You are on point about Judaism and you are correct in that the Bible was written by man. Those weren't really in contention in this thread to begin with.

[Eviora]

I agree with you that being told the right answer doesn't rob you of free will, and would go further by saying any benevolent gods could then get away with making their existence abundantly clear without robbing us of our free will. I find "free will" to be the biggest cop out answer used in apologetics, so I am quick to argue against that when I believe I see it being misused.

You can say god is eternal. I can say the multiverse is eternal. I see no reason for me to treat one of those statements any differently than the other. It's nonsense to try to use Genesis as historical evidence for the existence of a god. There weren't any humans around to witness the creation of the universe, and a society of two people wouldn't have kept records, anyway. There's also no evidence that the multiverse is losing any energy if it exists, exactly the same as any gods. The biggest problem with "First Cause" arguments is that they end by violating their own assumption that everything has a cause. If there's a god that has no cause, then clearly not everything has a cause, and we can just throw that assumption out the window, killing the entire argument. Trying to place god in his own special category is just special pleading.

Can you answer the Problem of Evil without appealing to free will arguments? Because from a logical standpoint those are pretty easy to destroy if the god in question knows the future, which he should as much as he does the present if he's outside time.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Eviora

[Chase]

You can't say the multiverse is eternal because it's been scientifically proven that whether or universe is one of many or all alone - it had to have to have had a beginning. You would have to disprove multiple scientific developments and debunk the 2nd law of thermodynamics in order to make the argument that the multiverse is eternal. Until that's happened, you can't really say the Multiverse and God are one of the same without being ignorant of discovery.

I'm not that oblivious. There is most definitely a possible way to separate a temporal universe from an eternal Creator. It's in the build-up of each. Time is observable. Timelessness isn't. Matter is observable. Immateriality isn't. Space is observable, Non-space is something Humans have yet to encounter and thus isn't observable. God can't be confined to the laws of Physics like the universe can if He isn't composed of the same qualities of the universe. By that reasoning, God's in a special category because of what His build-up is and the Kalam cosmological argument isn't threatened by an eternal first cause that doesn't apply to the laws.

Evil is the corruption of good and the consequence of bad decisions. I'm not sure I can answer it without at the very least acknowledging Free Will as an integral part of why Evil exists - but it may not be the case if the question were more specific. For example, a good child that chooses to cause harm to another child is now - at least in that moment, a corrupted good child. Just because the argument sounds like a cop-out doesn't necessarily make the argument defunct. I don't care if you don't like that, because I wouldn't expect anyone to like humbling themselves. However - it doesn't really absolve the fact that we pick our poisons willingly. You can't have the ability of choice, not call it a broken fixture of the creation of Humanity, and then blame God for the bad in the world.

[Eviora]

How are scientific hypotheses substantiated? Through empirical studies. How many empirical studies have we done outside of this universe? None. Therefore science cannot definitively speak on other universes. We only know our laws apply to this universe. Even if there were evidence otherwise, the moment we open the door to the supernatural it could just be tricking us and muddling our scientific results.

Once again, who says other universes, multiverses, etc have the same properties as ours? If that can't be established, the beginning of our universe could be rooted in one of those. If you have evidence that all universes, multiverses, etc must have the same laws as ours, please provide it.

So here's the thing about free will. Any god with the 3 "omni"s would know whether each individual being ends up in "heaven" or "hell", assuming those "places" exist. Therefore, at the moment of creation, that god would know exactly which creatures would, through their own free will, end up in eternal suffering and which, through their own free will, would end up in paradise. A benevolent god would not want any of his creations to suffer eternally, so he would only create beings that would end up in paradise. I can already hear the complaints that that denies all of us free will, but actually, regardless of where everyone ends up, the god would know the outcome. If Gary and Lance went to heaven but Fern went to hell, god would know that, too. Everyone has precisely the same amount of free will regardless of where they end up because god knew where they all ended up at the moment of creation.

if you were thinking of having a child, and before the child was even conceived, you were given the certain knowledge that that child's suffering would be infinitely greater than their happiness, would you truly have the child anyway? That would be callous in the extreme, and is exactly the dilemma a god with the 3 "omni"s would face when deciding to create beings who were going to suffer eternally.

[Chase]

We haven't done any empirical studies on God either - and proving His existence isn't really the point of believing in Him. People don't believe in a God because the evidence for their being one is 100 percent there. What's appalling, is that there are scientists who devote their whole lives to disproving the "God problem" - where on the other side there are theists who do their best to live as they see beneficial to the world around them. In these cases, I would be willing to believe the theist lives a happier and more meaningful life. Why?

There simply isn't any evidence of a total lack of God either - which certainly helps theists more than believing in something that is quite obviously non-existent.

---

The evidence is in our mathematical constants.

- Adjusting the Gravitational Constant means that our universe will either have expanded too fast and not allowed the formation of stars, meaning there was no way life could be sustained, or the universe would collapse on itself for the same result. No life.

- The Cosmological Constant is the driving force behind universal expansion. Changing -it's- value causes the universe to expand too fast or too slowly - again causing life to cease.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. You have the masses of a proton, you have the speed of light, you have Hubble's Constant, and so on and so forth - consisting of numbers that absolutely can't be changed in order for life to exist. Mathematical constants show us that life sustaining universes absolutely HAVE to be identical to ours or else they aren't sustaining life. Our ability to live is literally sitting on a razor's edge. This makes it highly unlikely that there are other universes out there with different variables and life sustaining. In fact, it makes it nearly impossible. If the universe is completely composed of space, time, and matter like ours is - and uses the same math - it also most likely operates under the same laws of physics. This is how the multiverse is incredibly unlikely because the multiverse would need to produce a near exact replica of THIS universe to sustain life.

Is humbling Oneself into becoming a Human, and DYING not enough benevolence for you? The way I see it, God loves us so much he didn't go for the second flood and drown us all > and tried everything to the point of unnecessary DEATH for His creation to choose Him. He didn't want us to be separated from Him so much that he DIED for us. As far as human understanding goes > there's no coming back from death. You don't GET your lost loved ones back. > That's what makes the fact that we can get JESUS back so remarkable.

Even if I were to cast away my beliefs and say, you know what God? You know I'm a sinner and that I'm going to hell, I don't NEED you.", that doesn't change the fact that He DIED for me anyway. If you are going to choose Jesus, you shouldn't choose it because "WOOHOO ETERNAL LIFE BITCHES."......you should choose Him because He knows you're going to fuck up.........and He died for you anyway.

Here, it's a case of God did everything that was sufficient for humanity - and it's on said humanity to accept the olive branch. To not do so, is most definitely their choice.

---

I've been called callous before > but yeah. God knows who's going to take his offer and who isn't, and he's kind enough to allow those to make the choice. It's not a cop out, it's the breaking point and major crossroad every believer faces. "God, I don't want to suffer. -If- you can save me, please do so." or "God, I don't think you can and therefore I'm not going to give myself up to you unless you show me something."

It's the people that reject the most obvious and heartfelt sacrifices and displays of His mercy, that don't -get- His mercy. Not the people that don't deserve it > because that would be all of us.

[Deleted User]

"Religions aren't inherently good or bad, but each system of belief has good people and bad people within it."

[Darvan Korematsu]

You know Hilda, do you bring an interesting point to the table for "God". You keep saying HIM. Not, IT. Technically speaking, a God, at least the Christian adaptation of God is technically formless. We call God "the Father" because of patriarchal dominance in the fields of theology and men as the "superiors" to the women in a time when women were little better than cattle.

Interesting debate I've had several times about God before. God expresses both masculine and feminine traits. What does it make God then?

[Chase]

I'm only using common terms there. It's true that God possesses both paternal AND maternal traits. I just don't want the discussion to get even more off topic than it already is.

[Eviora]

I agree that we have no empirical evidence of god either existing or not existing, just as is the case for the multiverse. As for the fine tuning argument, that doesn't generalize for a reason you hinted at yourself - they could just be fundamentally different. They could have magic or something, or dream world type logic, or whatever. And there's also a chance that there is another perfect set of constants for a life sustaining universe, or that our universe came from another one that has no life in it. The possibilities are basically endless.

As for the rest... well, it's just an appeal to emotion as far as I can see. I don't believe any gods exist at all, let alone that one died for me. That disbelief is born entirely out of a lack of evidence. The whole line "God, I don't think you can and therefore I'm not going to give myself up to you unless you show me something" is not the sort of thing I'm saying at all because I don't talk to beings I don't believe are real.

Even aside from that fact, the whole narrative just doesn't make any sense to me. God died to save us from... what? Damnation by his hand? The sinful nature he gave us? Why exactly did have have to die to do that, anyway, if he's omnipotent? With ultimate power comes ultimate responsibility. I don't believe it's any more acceptable for a god to hurt his creations than for a parent to hurt their child. I don't buy into the whole "god's morality's is objective" thing, and honestly find it a bit appalling to worship a being who tries to convince his worshipers of how unworthy they are when he made exactly the beings he intended to.

[Chase]

I've already made the argument that damnation is done by our OWN hands, you're still pulling that card. We've hit a to-be-expected impasse though. Nobody wants to humble themselves. Ever. Humanity can't be wrong, right?

If your belief is that there is no God. Fine > that's your choice too. Don't try to convince me of the same unless you have a more convincing argument than I do.

Objective morals exist though. That's not even negotiable or debatable. Your choice to believe in them though!

God made His people exactly how He wanted them too, and honestly, I find it appalling that anyone can misconstrue constant re-negotiation, pursuit, and ultimately martyrdom as a statement of non-worth. That's on the contrary a show of worth to God than it is the opposite.

[Deleted User]

This thread has gone beyond what it's original intent was and is honestly just going in circles, if you have some absolutely pressing need, feel free to PM the individual in question.