I wonder if Christians have ever thought that the Bible is just a fucking book. It was created by man himself. If they say that the men who wrote it were messengers from "God", my answer would be that they were pot-heads who heard voices in their head when they were high.

Brainwashing children to believe in Christianity / Creationism without a choice pisses me off.

At 9/3/10 06:03 PM, Tianwell wrote: Brainwashing children to believe in Christianity / Creationism without a choice pisses me off.

Anyone up for a discussion of brainwashing vs raising a child?

At 9/3/10 06:26 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 9/3/10 06:03 PM, Tianwell wrote: Brainwashing children to believe in Christianity / Creationism without a choice pisses me off.

Anyone up for a discussion of brainwashing vs raising a child?

Writer of Godless and presidend of the Freedom of Religion Foundation Dan Barker in an interview on Blog Talk radio with a user by the name ThethinkingAtheist said that he was raised by (and spent most of his life as) Christians which he described it as "crazy fundamentalist beliefs". Even with the belief of faith healing, believing in an apocalypse and living an evangelical life which consisted of a vast amount of preaching he describes his childhood as fun, privileged, enjoyable and not abusive or negative.

That's all I got.

At 9/3/10 12:14 PM, CacheHelper wrote: You don't have to see something for you to find evidence that it exists.

True, but it helps. Too bad this does nothing to address the lack of evidence for God.

We can tell that planets exists around stars because we can see the effect they have on the objects around them.

Hey, this CRAZY new invention we came up with...called a telescope? Yeah, actually lets us observe the universe. Yeah, I know, damn things must have only come out like what? A year or so ago? I can understand why you aren't familiar...geez.

It's not crazy for someone to see life as the effect of God and thus rationalize their belief in his existance without having undeniable proof to show someone.

It's not fair either. Because when people have imaginary friends or create imaginary people in they're head with exactly the same amount of evidence they're called crazy or schizophrenic. But religion is exempt, and that's really not fair. It's not fair or right to be able to say you're not crazy for doing something people who are crazy do all the time.

If one believes, it's not his fault that the non-believers refuse to accept their evidence as a valid argument.

It's also not the non-believers fault that the "evidence" isn't really evidence and is done from a completely self-serving and illogical and irrational premise. "God exists because I say he does" or things like Pascal's Wager. Or the intellectual sounding, but complete bs "the abscence of evidence, is not the evidence of abscence"

Non-believers are just as close minded and set in their ways as those who believe.

I don't think most are. I have some belief in at least some sort of "universal justice". I realize and freely admit this is not a rational belief, it is not a belief I can prove, and I hold it solely because it makes me feel good to do so. I'm honest about that fact and have no problem with anyone who wants to tell me it's irrational, illogical, or highly subjective. Why? Because it absolutely is.

I think most non-believers would be perfectly willing to believe in the supernatural, but only when the supernatural, or it's adherents bring them some concrete proof. If God wants to make sure everyone beliefs in It, then why doesn't It do something that is totally and completely unmistakably a supernatural event and sign It's name to it? Hell, why not just show up in Central Park and broadcast the appearance all across the world simultaneously? If God did that, anyone arguing against God automatically looks like the irrational and illogical one.

A non-believer arguing against a believer is no diffrent then a believer of one religion arguing against the believer of another religion.

It's been pointed out numerous times why this line of thought is wrong. Atheism and Theism do NOT have equal footing in an argument. Not in the least,

We are all humans, we all suffer the same flaws.

That has nothing to do with anything.

To imply that you know something you don't or that your lack of faith makes you a better person, actually makes you the biggest fool of all.

Appeal to...intellect I guess? Right guys?

Saying that until evidence presents for God that you conclude there is no God isn't foolish at all. It's just logical. The ones who insist they know something they have no proof of and everybody ELSE is the idiot...they sound like the fools to me :)

hola! Thought this would be a cool place to post seeing as religion is one of my interests. Do any other theists post here?

At 9/4/10 01:32 AM, dillongunter wrote: hola! Thought this would be a cool place to post seeing as religion is one of my interests. Do any other theists post here?

Probably, but no sensible theist would argue religion with the atheists in here. Read the topic name and try to post an argument that doesn't end in 'Well, we simply have faith in God/Bible/Tradition!'... hence why I'm not arguing God's existence here (which is all atheists seem to be interested in... alas, how limited).

For shits and giggles, I'll summarize the thread, where I'm sure it's been and where I'm sure it'll go.

1.) Do you believe in God and why/why not?
Answer:
Yes, I do. There is no evidence, but I have faith in it.
-or-
No, I don't. There is no evidence, and I don't have faith in it.
IF a Christian (or whatever theist) tries to argue that there is evidence for Him, they will be shot down by the fact that there are other explanations to explain a particular phenomena.

2.) Why do you believe in God?
Answer:
That's a redundant question. The desired (and correct) answer is simple - the person has simple faith in Him. It's a redundant question because, by definition, 'faith' means you believe without a reason... so what's really being asked is 'What is the reason you believe without a reason?', which is stupid. The sooner people can get over that fact, the sooner people will stop asking that pointless question.

3.) Creationism or Evolution...?
Answer:
Evolution. (for both Theists and Atheists)
For the Christians that chose Creationism, that's simply incorrect, even for Christians. It has been shown not to disprove the existence of God in any way, so why are people still getting their pants wet over it?

Everything else can be reduced to point 1.) and point 2.), given enough time in the arguments. That's why no sensible theist should post in here.

At 9/4/10 01:32 AM, dillongunter wrote: hola! Thought this would be a cool place to post seeing as religion is one of my interests. Do any other theists post here?

A couple

At 9/4/10 04:49 PM, Gario wrote: That's a redundant question.

It's not completely redundant, assuming faith is a motivated or conditioned.

We also argue against the relativist fallacy a lot.

I can't recall the dude, but some famous bro once said something that sounded like this:

God exists and you believe in him.
God exists and you don't believe in him.
God doesn't exist and you believe in him.
God doesn't exist and you don't believe in him.

I'd be glad if someone linked me to a wikipedia article, since I've been googling for a while and can't find shit about this. Plus I'm not sure if it even went like that, because I only vaguely remember it from my brother.

At 9/4/10 06:19 PM, Lorkas wrote: I can't recall the dude, but some famous bro once said something that sounded like this:

God exists and you believe in him.
God exists and you don't believe in him.
God doesn't exist and you believe in him.
God doesn't exist and you don't believe in him.

You talking about Pascal's wager?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_
wager

As for the Relativist fallacy, I never saw that as a theist-atheist issue, so I never would've guessed it'd pop up here. It is fun to rip someone apart when they use relativism to it's extreme like that, though.

At 9/4/10 04:49 PM, Gario wrote:

Probably, but no sensible theist would argue religion with the atheists in here. Read the topic name and try to post an argument that doesn't end in 'Well, we simply have faith in God/Bible/Tradition!'... hence why I'm not arguing God's existence here (which is all atheists seem to be interested in... alas, how limited).

How about this argument on faith's logical existence. Jesus said: For we walk by faith and not by sight (I'm roughly paraphrasing that). Rene Descartes tried to prove the existence of anything but failed to prove anything but his own doubting (Cogito Ergo Sum). I have come to the conclusion that we honestly do nothing without faith. We have faith in everything around us, the natural laws that blindly direct everything around us, and faith in events that have not occurred yet (waking up tomorrow, going to work, school, church, plans for the future).

In my quest to logically prove god's existence, I've found that when someone is truly a determined skeptic, proving God's existence is like trying to prove other mind's existence to Rene Descartes. When someone is truly determined to disprove any idea or thought, they will and almost without question. More often than not, people will even place ideas within other ideas to corrupt the original idea in order to prove their own point. If someone is truly determined to disprove God and God's existence, they will.

At 9/5/10 03:10 AM, dillongunter wrote:
How about this argument on faith's logical existence. Jesus said: For we walk by faith and not by sight (I'm roughly paraphrasing that). Rene Descartes tried to prove the existence of anything but failed to prove anything but his own doubting (Cogito Ergo Sum). I have come to the conclusion that we honestly do nothing without faith. We have faith in everything around us, the natural laws that blindly direct everything around us, and faith in events that have not occurred yet (waking up tomorrow, going to work, school, church, plans for the future).

Look, this is an old fallacy. "We have faith in all these things in everyday life so my faith in the supernatural is justified!". No it's not. Our belief that everyday things will work is based on repetitive experience of these things working.

And despite this, all of us are ready to throw our "faith" in the everyday out of the window if it turns out to be in error. Somebody can have faith in that his wife loves him and is not cheating on him, but that changes if he sees evidence to the contrary. Faith in God is not like this. It comes about from a desire for God to exist, and it won't go away when you see things that suggest to the contrary.

In my quest to logically prove god's existence, I've found that when someone is truly a determined skeptic, proving God's existence is like trying to prove other mind's existence to Rene Descartes. When someone is truly determined to disprove any idea or thought, they will and almost without question. More often than not, people will even place ideas within other ideas to corrupt the original idea in order to prove their own point. If someone is truly determined to disprove God and God's existence, they will.

I keep seeing a trend for this. "Atheists wouldn't believe even if God appeared right in front of them". It's as if you are suggesting that we should all secretly want God to exist, and FYI on us atheists for not doing this. Stop being so damn skeptical, wouldn't it be awesome if God existed?

At 9/5/10 08:10 AM, yurgenburgen wrote:

At 9/5/10 08:03 AM, Drakim wrote: Stop being so damn skeptical, wouldn't it be awesome if God existed?

I disagree with you here. I think it would be horrible if god existed. I'm thankful that he/she doesn't.

I disagree with you reading my position wrong. That line was written in sacrasm, as indicated by that the rest of the post was clearly arguing against theism :(

At 9/5/10 08:03 AM, Drakim wrote:

Look, this is an old fallacy. "We have faith in all these things in everyday life so my faith in the supernatural is justified!". No it's not. Our belief that everyday things will work is based on repetitive experience of these things working.

Now, did I say that faith in the supernatural is justified? I was merely proving the existence of faith.

And despite this, all of us are ready to throw our "faith" in the everyday out of the window if it turns out to be in error. Somebody can have faith in that his wife loves him and is not cheating on him, but that changes if he sees evidence to the contrary. Faith in God is not like this. It comes about from a desire for God to exist, and it won't go away when you see things that suggest to the contrary.

Faith in general works like the way that you've pointed out about God. Faith is when you choose to believe in something, in spite of or lack of evidence unless there has been a personal revelation, which is usually of little value to someone determined to knock off the argument. I still find it a perwerful message though when you see someone clean their life up with the help of a "greater power" (12 steps program). Hope however was your latter definition of faith, hoping that your wife is not cheating on you, hoping that life is real, hoping that there is something after life (because, well, there's no sure answer until you die)

I keep seeing a trend for this. "Atheists wouldn't believe even if God appeared right in front of them". It's as if you are suggesting that we should all secretly want God to exist, and FYI on us atheists for not doing this. Stop being so damn skeptical, wouldn't it be awesome if God existed?

I never quite said that either, i just said that to a determined skeptic, proving God is like trying to prove the existence of other minds. It takes faith that there is a God. To someone that doesn't want faith, they won't believe unless a direct personal revelation occurs. I never suggested that we should all do one thing or another. I was merely persenting ideas. Another thing you might not realize is that you are proving my other point about corrupting ideas. You were reading into my thought without seeing the idea. You were filling the idea with notions that I was suggesting people should think a certain way or that I was reading more into the faith argument by including my ideas of God. I can tell you my friend that I was not. I would love to share my thoughts on God, but only if you would not add more to it than is there and try to corrupt an idea that was not corrupt to begin with :p lol

At 9/5/10 04:09 PM, dillongunter wrote: Now, did I say that faith in the supernatural is justified? I was merely proving the existence of faith.

Ok. Since you're so eager to call out a straw man. Who here has disputed - actually... of all the a thiests you've spoken to are been spoken to be... how many of them disputed the idea that faith even exists?

This is where I'm going to have to call disingenuousness on you, for falling back on moral relativism cause it gets you out of an argumentative bind - when your argument very clearly is an argument supporting faith in the supernatural.

You are by no means merely proving the existence of faith. Otherwise, you'd have no need to take the argument the step further, and compare a general notion of faith to that of faith in the supernatural. The comparison is very clearly a means to an additional point.

Faith in general works like the way that you've pointed out about God.

No it doesn't, as it's obvious when you're dealing with the dichotomy: { faith in the aforementioned everyday things } vs { faith in the supernatural }.

One of them has empirical precedent. The other does not.

Not to mention, of all the anecdotal evidence, run-ins with divine providence apart from 'natural' order are generally considered extraordinary or anomalous.

I still find it a perwerful message though when you see someone clean their life up with the help of a "greater power" (12 steps program).

12 stepping shows no conclusive statistical proof that it is more effective than secular or atheistic measures.

And you know... this looks a fucking hell of a lot like you're singing the praises of faith in the supernatural. What point is this serving otherwise? What do you mean by "powerful message"?

At 9/5/10 06:44 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: Ok. Since you're so eager to call out a straw man. Who here has disputed - actually... of all the a thiests you've spoken to are been spoken to be...

haha er... 'of all the atheists you've spoken to or been spoken to by'

At 9/5/10 04:09 PM, dillongunter wrote: when you see someone clean their life up with the help of a "greater power" (12 steps program).

Actually, AA has the same % of success as people doing it by themselves or through non-AA means.
Haha AA sucks balls.

I'd find it sad actually if someone turned their life around and all that their new life hung upon was superstition.

I never quite said that either, i just said that to a determined skeptic, proving God is like trying to prove the existence of other minds.

Seeing as we have minds of our own and other humans are extremely similar to ourselves, the conclusion that other people have minds is quite well supported by the evidence and requires almost no faith to accept.

And on faith, religious people make all the same assumptions as scientifics and skeptics do, and ON TOP of those, they assume God exists.

It's not like skeptics are choosing reality and you're choosing God, you are choosing both the 'faith' of God AND reality.

And ultimately all you'd gain from saying God is just faith on the same level as accepting the universe is predictable is basically admit that you have no evidence to believe in God anyway.
Congrats!

To Bacchalanian: I apologize for not quoting this reply, I think it would take too many characters in this message so I just went on ahead and wrote this out as so.

It seems to me that you are taking too much of your argument from picking out what parts of my argument were attackable and on how I argued my case to begin with. Personally I am not a big fan of Ad Hominem style arguments so I will simply leave that at that.

In regards to your argument on faith, at least you acknowledge that it takes faith to believe in everything around you. My initial argument on this matter was that because we as individuals cannot truly prove anything especially if you're a determined skeptic. It takes the same faith to believe in everyday occurences as it does in the supernatural. That is one major point on my argument.

On your argument for the 12 step program, fair enough. I can see the point you're presenting, but I must raise one objection and that is that when someone finds themself without something to live for, they will find no reason to live. What I mean by this is that why the AA program is somewhat successful is that it gives people support, even if by your measures of support it is not that great.

And to be honest, what other things should someone that believes in God sing praises about? By powerful message, I mean powerful message. I mean that when someone changes their life drastically from living a life that is harmful to one that is productive, I see that in itself as a powerful message.

To poxpower: As I afore mentioned replying to Bacchalanian, I apologize for not quoting your reply. It would take too much space.

I also would like to thank you from refraining from Ad Hominems but I digress.
In your argument against AA, I would simply like to refer to the argument that I used above, when someone has nothing to live for, they will usually find no reason to live. AA does at least one good thing in giving people support, whick is crucial in fighting addiction. Granted people may overcome without it, it is simply a resource tool to use to gather support of people with a common problem.

In your arguments on the mind, you could view that there are other minds through that deductive reasoning, or you could use the Doubting Descartes philosophy of not being able to prove anything beyond yourself. Sure you have the ability to tell that there is something generating this response, but what exactly is it? Is it a program or is it a human? There are many computers out there designed to emulate human behavior. I've even found a few on newgrounds. Sometimes people are fooled into thinking that a computer program is a real person or has emulated consciousness when that is not the case. Anyways, the point is that there is no way to tell that everything around you is 100% real beyond a shodow of a doubt and this is just like with God. There is no way to prove either side of the spectrum correct, but it is a much larger argument than arguing whether or not your grandmother is real.

In your arguments on faith, I would like to poke a half joke at your word choice of assumptions because as you know what happens when people assume (lol). Anyways, when you talked about religious people assuming there is a God, you left out one major detail in that. That is that atheist also make a large assumption that there is no God. With both of these arguments being almost polar opposites and being such large points, one side will be making a rather large ass out of itself, or perhaps even both as we don't know what happens after we die.

I agree with you that people that believe in God, like myself believe in both God and reality as those who do not believe in God only believe in the reality to which they have been placed.

On your last remark, I see a major flaw in your argument in that you leave no room for an x variable. What I mean by this is that if the universe was predictable, there would be no unknown variables and at this time (maybe not in the future) there are a lot of unknown factors in the universe (accurately predicting systems without interefering with them through observation (E.G. The Huysenberg Uncertainty Principle)) <granted that's just one example but a biggie eh? But the argument that the universe can be predicted doesn't necessarily mean that God does not exist. After all, if God were to be the omnipotent creator of the universe, then that would mean that he wrote the laws by which we exist (Laws of Physics).

The Huysenberg Concept can be an example of a universe that would allow for a God to exist. After all, if God were to be observing and interfering in the universe constantly, then that would mean that God would be directly interfering with his course of plan, unless through his omnipotence, was directing the outcome towards one final ending (Determinism vs. Free Will argument). Granted the argument presented there does leave the hole for the question: Does free will exist? but a universe with God does not mean no free will. The answer i can provide right now, however shallow is that all-knowing and all-powerful beings can do literally anything they want. After all, that's the nature of God.

*apologies for the long post. I was trying to address all the counter arguments presented

I personally believe that the ultimate question (How the fuck did all this happen) would be way to easy to simply answer, a magic man in the sky made it. I mean, I would be pissed if after all these years of looking and coming up with ideas, it was simply created by some jackass snapping their fingers. Also it is a very shortsided conclusion that has no scientific background. Mainly because, if something exists, it is made of molecules, and compounds, and tissues and what not. When the Universe first came around, all there was, was hydrogen, and a tiny bit of Helium. So, where did the things that made this Omnipotent creator come from? That, and if a god really does not have the time to come down and say, yes, I do exist, here is how you cure AIDS and Cancer. Then seriously, fuck that guy.

At 9/5/10 08:39 PM, dillongunter wrote:

when someone has nothing to live for, they will usually find no reason to live.

People are plenty good at finding reasons to live without religion.

AA does at least one good thing in giving people support, whick is crucial in fighting addiction.

Like I said, AA does no better than doing it alone or at some clinic but on top of that it leaves people with the crutch of religion on which their recovery hinges as opposed to making them stronger people who can ditch their alcoholism alone.

Anyways, the point is that there is no way to tell that everything around you is 100% real beyond a shodow of a doubt and this is just like with God.

The world doesn't work in absolutes. You don't have total faith or total doubt.
When you do something, you do so based on a series of probabilities. For instance, you probably understand that there is a risk of being attacked by a shark if you go swimming, but you understand that this risk is small based on the evidence you have.
You can't say for sure that you will or will not be attacked by a shark, but based on the probabilities, you will act accordingly and in this case, probably go swimming.

It's the same with reality. The only things we know is what our senses feed into us. It's useless to speculate on what they might NOT be giving us since we don't have that information.

Based on the world we perceive through our senses we make predictions and experiments. We learn rapidly that when you close your eyes, it gets dark. You learn that hitting objects is painful. And it happens every single time you do it.

That's how we construct our world without 'faith'. That's how we gain knowledge and not just 'hunches'. That's how humans have been able to build an airplane and a computer, because reality is predictable.

And given this, an easy prediction to make is that other humans have minds since they are genetically identical and there's basically no evidence to show only you would have a mind given you are built the exact same way. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption that requires an extremely limited amount of 'faith'.

That is that atheist also make a large assumption that there is no God.

They do not.

Faith, like I said, is a spectrum. You can be convinced of something at 100% or convinced of the opposite of that thing at 100%.
Theists ( religious people ) range on that scale from 100% sure to 51% sure, which means they act out their lives as though God was real.

Then there's the people from the 49% to the 100%, those are called 'atheists' because they do not believe in God, some extremely strongly and some not so much. But all of them share the common trait of living their lives as though God didn't exist.

On the matter of God, you can't sit on the fence at 50% like you could for something like Bigfoot. Either you believe in God ( theist ) or you don't ( atheist ).

But the argument that the universe can be predicted doesn't necessarily mean that God does not exist.

I never said that so how is that a flaw in my argument?

The Huysenberg Concept can be an example of a universe that would allow for a God to exist.

All universes would allow God to exist as he is defined by various religions and people.

That's one of the weak points of God ideas: there's nothing you can discover about the universe that would invalidate him. Whatever the universe turns out to be, God can always be right there sitting on the sidelines even if you can demonstrate the universe is entirely self-contained and self-generating.

At 9/4/10 06:19 PM, Lorkas wrote: I can't recall the dude, but some famous bro once said something that sounded like this:

God exists and you believe in him.
God exists and you don't believe in him.
God doesn't exist and you believe in him.
God doesn't exist and you don't believe in him.

I'd be glad if someone linked me to a wikipedia article, since I've been googling for a while and can't find shit about this. Plus I'm not sure if it even went like that, because I only vaguely remember it from my brother.

Let's extend the list

Baal exists and God doesn't but you believe Baal doesn't and God does
Vishnu exists and God doesn't etc.
A trickster god exists and God doesn't and you go to hell if you believe in the trickster god.

Warforger, there is an easier way to prove that Pascal's Wager is invalid without going through the lengths you're going. It's simple - the wager begs the question.

The four premises are presented neutral, but the costs assume that eternity exist. If God exists then the best case scenario is to believe, obviously, but if God doesn't exist and you live your life conforming to His will anyway then you have restricted your only existence, which is really quite a consequence. The original wager assumed that,in comparison to eternity, this was but a little cost, which is fallacious.

That wager is unfortunately terribly flawed, from a strictly logical point of view.

At 9/5/10 08:39 PM, dillongunter wrote: It seems to me that you are taking too much of your argument from picking out what parts of my argument were attackable and on how I argued my case to begin with. Personally I am not a big fan of Ad Hominem style arguments so I will simply leave that at that.

1. Discussing how you argued your case was a means to expose the implications of your argument. Something you've been reluctant to do until recently.

2. It's not ad hominem if whatever negative label I attach to you follows from why you're at fault. By your logic, saying someone was incorrect would be grounds to claim ad hominem.

It takes the same faith to believe in everyday occurences as it does in the supernatural.

No. It doesn't. You seem very intent on ignoring this point.

That is one major point on my argument.

Yeah. We knew that before you explicitly said it.

On your argument for the 12 step program, fair enough. I can see the point you're presenting, but I must raise one objection and that is that when someone finds themself without something to live for, they will find no reason to live. What I mean by this is that why the AA program is somewhat successful is that it gives people support, even if by your measures of support it is not that great.

Suppose you've got a stain. In one instance you first sprinkle bread crumbs on it, then steam clean it. In the other, you simply steam clean it. In both cases the stain is removed. By your logic, the bread crumbs are 'somewhat successful' at removing the stain.

Rather, you seem to be assuming the 12 step program is successful on account of some logic that would conclude it's successful. Ofcourse, in the process implying something very sour towards secularists and atheists. And again... is it faith in the supernatural that's the catalyst here or just having something to live for? Because the latter doesn't seem to me to have to be supernatural or theistic. You myopic prick. < see... not ad hominem either.

And to be honest, what other things should someone that believes in God sing praises about?

The only thing someone who believes in God should sing praises about is the alleged utility of 12 step programs? Seriously? Seeerrriously?

By powerful message, I mean powerful message. I mean that when someone changes their life drastically from living a life that is harmful to one that is productive, I see that in itself as a powerful message.

For emphasis: I see that in itself as a powerful message

Then what's with all the emphasis on 12 step programs?

Let me compress your argument, dillongunter, to it's inevitable conclusion, and you'll see why there isn't any point in arguing further.

'You all have faith that some things exist without 100% proof that anything exists outside of the existence of oneself (according to Descarte). Thus, it's not illogical to take that faith one step further and say there is a supreme being, either.'

That's a non sequitur statement. Everyone has faith that what they can sense and measure exists. Christians have faith that God exists. This does not logically reach the conclusion that everyone should have faith that God exists, since it's based on the assumption that if one has faith in one matter there is no harm to have faith in another (which isn't true).

After this, you'll respond:

'This doesn't prove that there's anything wrong with Christians believing that there is a God.'

Which sensible atheists should agree on (some don't, but they're as logically flawed as any radical fundamentalist theist argument, so I don't even consider them). This leads to this conclusion:

'I (and other Christians) have faith in God, and there's nothing wrong with that.'

The response will be:

'Fine; atheists do not have faith in God, and there's nothing wrong with that.'

This is also known as the 'Status Quo'. People can argue day and night on this, but ultimately the FSM argument proves that this is a pointless endeavor - the argument will never logically cave completely for Christians, and the logic will never cave completely for atheists (without solid proof, which most agree there isn't any). Hence why I said earlier that this is a pointless argument.

It makes me wish that they'd present more interesting topics in here that didn't involve the question of God's existence - then I might be interested in arguing theism to y'all. I doubt that'll happen, though - some people cannot get past the fact that some perfectly rational people will believe in a God without a logical reason (like me).

What are you talking about Gario? He was merely proving the existence of faith.

At 9/6/10 12:57 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: What are you talking about Gario? He was merely proving the existence of faith.

I'm using my inner powers of projecting the future to explain where the argument is going to end up before it gets there, based on how I've seen this argument go down before.

IF he was just proving that faith exists then... well, that's not technically a point that needs to be argued. It's much easier to just get a sample of Christians and ask them 'Do you have faith?'. When they answer 'Yes', you've undeniably proven that faith exists.

Whoops. Forgot to explain...

At 9/4/10 07:15 PM, Gario wrote: As for the Relativist fallacy, I never saw that as a theist-atheist issue, so I never would've guessed it'd pop up here. It is fun to rip someone apart when they use relativism to it's extreme like that, though.

A lot of people classify their belief as a 'personal belief,' akin to an opinion (albeit a strong one), and sometimes go as far as explicitly saying that it's subjective. They of course, then use this to deflect any and all criticism on the basis that opinions are exempt from such a thing.

At 9/9/10 12:35 AM, Bacchanalian wrote: Whoops. Forgot to explain...

At 9/4/10 07:15 PM, Gario wrote: As for the Relativist fallacy, I never saw that as a theist-atheist issue, so I never would've guessed it'd pop up here. It is fun to rip someone apart when they use relativism to it's extreme like that, though.

A lot of people classify their belief as a 'personal belief,' akin to an opinion (albeit a strong one), and sometimes go as far as explicitly saying that it's subjective. They of course, then use this to deflect any and all criticism on the basis that opinions are exempt from such a thing.

Ah, I see. Please tell me that anyone and everyone that uses this logic is ripped apart by the very fact that it contradicts the meaning of 'belief', in a religious context (you believe that your God is real/true, but at the same time you think it's 'just an opinion' to get yourself out of an argument... wait, what?). Alright, now I know what you're talking about.

It was brought up and locked, so I'll re-introduce the argument here, real quick, 'cause I want to comment :)

"The Riddle of Epicuris
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
---

I tried to play devil's advocate on this one, but I cannot crack it. It is an impenetrable logical argument. It has one slight logical flaw, but it doesnt really matter. able + not willing, doesnt necessarily imply malevolence, it can also be disinterest.

Still it crushes the whole idea of a caring loving god, like the christian and islamic god."

The thread called 'Epicurus' has the rest of the post, for those interested, but as a change in direction for this thread I welcome it.

Alrighty then, let's look at the argument. If you believe in God then obviously the first answer is not possible. The second answer isn't impossible, so that's food for thought. The third answer is sort of... well, contradictory, so I'm afraid that's ruled out. The fourth answer would be entirely correct, if you'd like to assume that God isn't omnipotent. For the sake of the argument, though, we are, so that's ruled out.

Again, for the sake of argument I'm going to assume that God exists, and He is omnipotent. Rather than attack the issue head-on, I'll take it in another direction.

What if God did exist, was omnipotent and removed all evil from the planet? What would happen then?