Original Post
God: why i reject the idea
It's that fun time again!
Before i start, let me clarify what I'm about to do.
I will present some arguments against dogmas of Christianity (mostly) - things which cause me to reject the idea of biblical god. Some of my arguments may not work in the same fashion on all denominations, but I will try to keep most of them centered on the core concepts of the bible. The properties I assume biblical god possesses are agreed on by most, namely: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibelevolence.
NOTE: please have enough courtesy to watch the media i may provide with the arguments - this will avoid many useless posts.
I will start with some philosophical arguments.
Free Will
This is a deductive argument that tackles the idea of divine foreknowledge and free will. I will borrow William Rowe's formulation, because there really is no need to reinvent the wheel.
1) God knows before we are born everything we will do (omniscience)
2) If God knows before we are born everything we will do, then it is never in our power to do otherwise.
3) If it is never in our power to do otherwise, then there is no human freedom.
4) Therefore, there is no human freedom. (conclusion)
To see a more detailed analysis and possible refutations of this, visit this video.
This is another deductive argument by William Rowe, now dealing with the problem of evil:
1) There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3) (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.
There are are a couple 'defenses' against this argument that i can think of. One is to question the reliability of human perception of good and evil. Of course, it's a weak route to take because apparently god himself gave us a detailed enough insight into what he considers good and bad, in the bible. Everything written there (except for supernatural stuff) happens every day in one form or another.
Another one would be to deny the notion that omnibenevolent god would necessarily want to prevent all evil and suffering. Of course, this route is very similar to first one and the apologist taking this route must accept some odd twisted definition of benevolence completely alien to us, thus stripping the word of any real value. He may as well follow up by saying Hitler was benevolent.
Regardless - naturalism much better explains the copious amounts of "evil".
Omniscience and God's own free will
There are many versions of this problem, but i find this example gets the point across easier:
"There is a light switch on the wall; God may either turn it on, or leave it off; but, since God already knows the future, God knows that he will turn it on. That is part of his knowledge. But what if God exercises freewill, and chooses not to turn it on. Is this possible?"
Now, one could argue that his absolute knowledge is compatible with freedom, because all his actions are exactly what he desires, regardless of the fact that he knows them upfront. However, this still doesn't wail out of the fact that his actions are predetermined - by his nature. Is it still right, then, to call him omnipotent? Is he as limited by his predispositions as humans? Could he lie to someone when he was in his Jesus form?
Interesting.
Varying Standards of Evidence
Now on to some evidential curiosities.
This isn't really a neat organized argument, but a huge problem nonetheless.
Have you ever wondered why God is so vibrant and active in the bible, letting everyone know of his presence? Whether it be through miracles such as splitting the sea, or helping Noah stuff millions of animals into a boat, or turning Egyptian water into human blood - it was pretty much impossible for people to ignore him, let alone have reason to question his existence. And what now? Where is this elephant in the room? If he does in fact exist and simply became very quiet, i think it's utterly unfair that he provided those people with irrefutable observable evidence while totally ignoring modern society. This is especially unsettling seeing how belief in Him is the most important criteria he supposedly judges people by, sending them to eternal torture if they fail to meet it.
Of course, it's not like God never showed blatant bias toward one group over other in the bible. For example.....he freed Israelites from Egyptian slavery and punished common Egyptian people. This happened despite the fact that he seems to not have any problem with slavery, and actually casually mentions slaves in the sacred commandments. This fact, however, does little to help his case.
This is not the strongest argument since, much like Kalam argument, it assumes universal truths necessarily apply to whatever lays beyond it's bounds. However, it is but another brick in the wall. the author of this formulation is Keith Augustine.
Firstly, if a nonphysical mind (soul?) does our thinking, then altering the brain (say by lobotomy) should have no effect on one's ability to think. But, in fact, altering the brain does (often dramatically) affect one's ability to think. Therefore, thinking is probably not something done by a nonphysical mind, but rather something that the brain does. And since the brain is destroyed by death, thinking--or one's mind as a whole--is probably destroyed by death too.
1) Since all known mental activity has a physical basis, there are probably no disembodied minds.
2) God is conceived of as a disembodied mind.
3) Therefore, God probably does not exist.
Problems posed by empirical Evidence
Now we are out of realm of philosophy. I won't elaborate here a whole lot - merely make several statements which i can defend if you ask me.
First and foremost is the age of Earth and the Universe, which, as astronomical and paleontological evidence unambiguously points, is radically greater than that which we may extract from the bible (~6000 years).
Alas, 6000 years is absolutely nothing in geological time scale. It's a puny number - a blink in infinity. Hell, there are numerous trees far older than that.
The second would be the sharp conflict between modern evolutionary synthesis and Genesis account of origin of man and other animals. I could go into details about the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution and how it is pretty much unanimous consensus amongst world's biologists, but this post is big enough already. One need simply look on fossil layers and DNA retroviruses to conclude that there is no way any modern creature magically sprang into existence.
PS: if you are interested in debates regarding theism, here are a couple channels you ought to check out:
TheoreticalBullshit (atheist)
Veritas48 (christian)
FatGermanBastard (atheist)
Before i start, let me clarify what I'm about to do.
I will present some arguments against dogmas of Christianity (mostly) - things which cause me to reject the idea of biblical god. Some of my arguments may not work in the same fashion on all denominations, but I will try to keep most of them centered on the core concepts of the bible. The properties I assume biblical god possesses are agreed on by most, namely: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibelevolence.
NOTE: please have enough courtesy to watch the media i may provide with the arguments - this will avoid many useless posts.
I will start with some philosophical arguments.
Free Will
This is a deductive argument that tackles the idea of divine foreknowledge and free will. I will borrow William Rowe's formulation, because there really is no need to reinvent the wheel.
1) God knows before we are born everything we will do (omniscience)
2) If God knows before we are born everything we will do, then it is never in our power to do otherwise.
3) If it is never in our power to do otherwise, then there is no human freedom.
4) Therefore, there is no human freedom. (conclusion)
To see a more detailed analysis and possible refutations of this, visit this video.
Problem of Evil & God's Benevolence
This is another deductive argument by William Rowe, now dealing with the problem of evil:
1) There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3) (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.
There are are a couple 'defenses' against this argument that i can think of. One is to question the reliability of human perception of good and evil. Of course, it's a weak route to take because apparently god himself gave us a detailed enough insight into what he considers good and bad, in the bible. Everything written there (except for supernatural stuff) happens every day in one form or another.
Another one would be to deny the notion that omnibenevolent god would necessarily want to prevent all evil and suffering. Of course, this route is very similar to first one and the apologist taking this route must accept some odd twisted definition of benevolence completely alien to us, thus stripping the word of any real value. He may as well follow up by saying Hitler was benevolent.
Regardless - naturalism much better explains the copious amounts of "evil".
Omniscience and God's own free will
There are many versions of this problem, but i find this example gets the point across easier:
"There is a light switch on the wall; God may either turn it on, or leave it off; but, since God already knows the future, God knows that he will turn it on. That is part of his knowledge. But what if God exercises freewill, and chooses not to turn it on. Is this possible?"
Now, one could argue that his absolute knowledge is compatible with freedom, because all his actions are exactly what he desires, regardless of the fact that he knows them upfront. However, this still doesn't wail out of the fact that his actions are predetermined - by his nature. Is it still right, then, to call him omnipotent? Is he as limited by his predispositions as humans? Could he lie to someone when he was in his Jesus form?
Interesting.
Varying Standards of Evidence
Now on to some evidential curiosities.
This isn't really a neat organized argument, but a huge problem nonetheless.
Have you ever wondered why God is so vibrant and active in the bible, letting everyone know of his presence? Whether it be through miracles such as splitting the sea, or helping Noah stuff millions of animals into a boat, or turning Egyptian water into human blood - it was pretty much impossible for people to ignore him, let alone have reason to question his existence. And what now? Where is this elephant in the room? If he does in fact exist and simply became very quiet, i think it's utterly unfair that he provided those people with irrefutable observable evidence while totally ignoring modern society. This is especially unsettling seeing how belief in Him is the most important criteria he supposedly judges people by, sending them to eternal torture if they fail to meet it.
Of course, it's not like God never showed blatant bias toward one group over other in the bible. For example.....he freed Israelites from Egyptian slavery and punished common Egyptian people. This happened despite the fact that he seems to not have any problem with slavery, and actually casually mentions slaves in the sacred commandments. This fact, however, does little to help his case.
Physical Minds & why god is a big "if"
This is not the strongest argument since, much like Kalam argument, it assumes universal truths necessarily apply to whatever lays beyond it's bounds. However, it is but another brick in the wall. the author of this formulation is Keith Augustine.
Firstly, if a nonphysical mind (soul?) does our thinking, then altering the brain (say by lobotomy) should have no effect on one's ability to think. But, in fact, altering the brain does (often dramatically) affect one's ability to think. Therefore, thinking is probably not something done by a nonphysical mind, but rather something that the brain does. And since the brain is destroyed by death, thinking--or one's mind as a whole--is probably destroyed by death too.
1) Since all known mental activity has a physical basis, there are probably no disembodied minds.
2) God is conceived of as a disembodied mind.
3) Therefore, God probably does not exist.
Problems posed by empirical Evidence
Now we are out of realm of philosophy. I won't elaborate here a whole lot - merely make several statements which i can defend if you ask me.
First and foremost is the age of Earth and the Universe, which, as astronomical and paleontological evidence unambiguously points, is radically greater than that which we may extract from the bible (~6000 years).
Alas, 6000 years is absolutely nothing in geological time scale. It's a puny number - a blink in infinity. Hell, there are numerous trees far older than that.
The second would be the sharp conflict between modern evolutionary synthesis and Genesis account of origin of man and other animals. I could go into details about the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution and how it is pretty much unanimous consensus amongst world's biologists, but this post is big enough already. One need simply look on fossil layers and DNA retroviruses to conclude that there is no way any modern creature magically sprang into existence.
PS: if you are interested in debates regarding theism, here are a couple channels you ought to check out:
TheoreticalBullshit (atheist)
Veritas48 (christian)
FatGermanBastard (atheist)
Last edited by Odlov; Feb 7, 2010 at 01:38 AM.
Originally Posted by River0fRed
this is a topic that has been argued in different times for centuries, we will never know until the day we die.
I beg to differ. I am arguing we 'know' already - just like we 'know' that sun doesn't revolve around Earth, or that the universe is far older than 6000 years.
How can one know anything? We always have to rely on our reasoning and observations.
PS: from now on don't give me posts which consist of useless platitudes - i only want replies relevant to what i have written.
Odlov I see what your saying, i personally am a Christian and i love science. Now we as humans rely on reasoning and observations but God gave us the ability to think and observe. If there is no God explain how we (by we i mean humans, animals, etc) came to be.
Abiogenesis + evolution
What i want to know is...have you read my topic? :|
