Atheism does not exist

[idav]

I don't think that the "God of the gaps" applies in any case where all these premises are claimed as true:

- God wants something to happen.
- God is capable of making anything happen.
- The thing doesn't happen.

I've never understood why an all powerful being that is able to do everything is expected to actually do everything. Able to do but not doing it isn't contradictory. "Oh noes my God is less than omni powerful!"

 

[LuisDantas]

While I agree this is a problem, I am also willing to accept that I may be wrong.

Put it this way: The fact that I am not smart enough to figure out a way that the two might be compatible doesn't mean that I am confident that there isn't a way for the two to be compatible.

I don't know about you, but I sure have no problem saying such a God is impossible to exist. It is simply not a real doubt, far as I am concerned.

 

[steeltoes]

Doesn't cognitive dissonance more properly refer to the difficulty people have accepting two contradictory ideas? Or, am I wrong about that?

People learn of ways to live with it.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

People learn of ways to live with it.

Yeah, the most popular technique seems to be whistling past the graveyard.

I really admire the conservative religionists who come to a place like this, figure out that they can't convert the world to the True Truth as easily as they assumed they could, and then actually stay and engage in sincere Q&A with other minds.

The only way to overcome cognitive dissonance is to face it, but that really does require courage. You've gotta love God with all your heart to face the confusion within.

 

[Willamena]

Yes. Schizophrenia.

And 'Doublethink'.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

I've never understood why an all powerful being that is able to do everything is expected to actually do everything. Able to do but not doing it isn't contradictory. "Oh noes my God is less than omni powerful!"

Well cause said God is supposed to care about us.

Think of it like this.

Most parents (flawed humans), would do everything in their power to avoid their kids learning a bad lesson even if it was for their own good. If it can be avoided and taught another way, they'll do what they can to find it.

Same parents will have what is expected to be unconditional love for their child, that no matter what the child does, they will always love that child.

That's humans, for a Omni-powerful God to just sit back and let things rock like they have in the world...well it's not a pleasant picture.

Because unlike the human limited parent the Omni-powerful God isnt' limited, and so must either be doing it because.

1. They don't care
2. They don't exist
3. They care but just won't interfere for some reason that is completely unknown to us.

But when you say that same God is Omni-Benevolent, then you get into issues. With number 3....

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I've never understood why an all powerful being that is able to do everything is expected to actually do everything. Able to do but not doing it isn't contradictory. "Oh noes my God is less than omni powerful!"

That's why it's not contradictory unless it includes some sort of claim about what God wants. A God that isn't good (or is just less than perfectly good) doesn't result in the Problem of Evil being a paradox.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I've never understood why an all powerful being that is able to do everything is expected to actually do everything. Able to do but not doing it isn't contradictory. "Oh noes my God is less than omni powerful!"

If you're talking about the problem of evil, then God's omnibenevolence requires that he do everything in his capacity to further/achieve his maximally benevolent motives.

-Also, an omnipotent and necessary being is contradictory since a necessary being exists in all logically possible worlds whereas an omnipotent being has the capacity for self-destruction/self-undoing and does not it exist in at least one logically possible worlds.

-An atemporal deity cannot be an intervening/acting deity since causing changes involves temporality

-a maximally perfect being, or a being possessing all possible perfections is logically contradictory; perfections of various attributes exclude one another

-A transcendent being can only be a non-being since transcending all conditions and relations entails transcending all conditions of existence (causal or other relations, spatiotemporal location, etc.); a transcendent being cannot exist

***

What if god made the universe and had no contact since then. How would you know he fails the tests?

This is still an effect which would entail worldly evidence (irreducible complexity, moral world order, absence of waste in nature, etc.)... Evidence which, so far as I'm aware, does not obtain...

 

[Falvlun]

This is still an effect which would entail worldly evidence (irreducible complexity, moral world order, absence of waste in nature, etc.)... Evidence which, so far as I'm aware, does not obtain...

Why? :sarcastic

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Why? :sarcastic

I think because God would have created everything in perfection.

 

[Falvlun]

I think because God would have created everything in perfection.

Maybe he didn't or maybe his idea of perfection is different than our own.

(And even so, I don't know why irreducible complexity should be considered an attribute of perfection anyway, though I realize that wasn't your post.)

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Maybe he didn't or maybe his idea of perfection is different than our own.

(And even so, I don't know why irreducible complexity should be considered an attribute of perfection anyway, though I realize that wasn't your post.)

I would like to think that Gods idea of perfection is like ours...because if not...then by what would God judge us by?

I can sit there all day and explain to an ant why the sky is blue, but if the ant doesn't understand my idea of blue nor can see it...then what does it matter?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I would like to think that Gods idea of perfection is like ours...because if not...then by what would God judge us by?

But the universe is indeed perfect.

So does that prove God, I wonder?

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

But the universe is indeed perfect.

So does that prove God, I wonder?

We have barely touched the Universe.

So when you say it is perfect to what do you define it as perfect?

In ability to sustain life, or just that it has order? Despite it moving towards disorder?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

We have barely touched the Universe.

So when you say it is perfect to what do you define it as perfect?

In ability to sustain life, or just that it has order? Despite it moving towards disorder?

I simply declare it to be perfect.

I do that because so many people seem to assume that the universe is imperfect and I don't know why they make that assumption (and neither do they).

Heck, I have no idea what 'perfect' might mean and I'm sure that no one else does either. I mean that no one could speak coherently about perfection if I were to ask them questions about it.

Such is my opinion anyway. The concept of perfection is nonsensical, in the same way as omnipotence or omniscience are nonsensical concepts.

 

[idav]

That's why it's not contradictory unless it includes some sort of claim about what God wants. A God that isn't good (or is just less than perfectly good) doesn't result in the Problem of Evil being a paradox.

I'm saying that omnipotence is a contradiction with itself. Like is god so powerful that he can exist and not exist at the same time, perhaps in two parallel universes he created where he exists in one but not the other? Thats why I hate the omni words, including everything gets ridiculous pretty quickly.

 

[Falvlun]

I would like to think that Gods idea of perfection is like ours...because if not...then by what would God judge us by?

I can sit there all day and explain to an ant why the sky is blue, but if the ant doesn't understand my idea of blue nor can see it...then what does it matter?

So, essentially you could say that a God-that-produces-a-universe-in-allignment-with-your-concepts-of-perfection doesn't exist. What about all the other sorts of Gods?

 

[Falvlun]

I'm saying that omnipotence is a contradiction with itself. Like is god so powerful that he can exist and not exist at the same time, perhaps in two parallel universes he created where he exists in one but not the other? Thats why I hate the omni words, including everything gets ridiculous pretty quickly.

I think it works best if you just take these things in the spirit in which they are meant, rather than taking them to a logical conclusion. Words, and meanings of words, aren't after all meant to be a syllogism.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

So, essentially you could say that a God-that-produces-a-universe-in-allignment-with-your-concepts-of-perfection doesn't exist. What about all the other sorts of Gods?

I'm saying that my concept of perfection may be flawed, but it does not mean that the underlying idea of what it means to be perfect is.

So the argument that "We don't understand God" to me is faulty because if we are created by God, given spirits by God, then it stands that we have a good grasp of what these things mean.

 

[Falvlun]

While I agree this is a problem, I am also willing to accept that I may be wrong.

Put it this way: The fact that I am not smart enough to figure out a way that the two might be compatible doesn't mean that I am confident that there isn't a way for the two to be compatible.

Just take my word for it, then, as I'm plenty smart enough to know they're not compatible.

*smooch*

I don't know about you, but I sure have no problem saying such a God is impossible to exist. It is simply not a real doubt, far as I am concerned.

While I appreciate your confidence (and the smooch ), I am still not convinced. (Well, to be fair, it's not like you guys made any argument; you just asserted.)

This is the line of thought that brought me to this sad pass:

How do we know this isn't the best possible world? Do you have access to all the knowledge that an omniscient God would have in order to come to that conclusion?

Based on the knowledge I do have, no, I can't see how this can possibly be the best possible world. But, I have to admit, I don't have access to the big screen view that the big guy upstairs would have.

Therefore, the assertion that this is not the best possible world is an assumption. It might be a good assumption, but it is still just an assumption.

Hence, an omnimax God is NOT logically contradictory, since it is possible that all three omnis did in fact produce the best possible world, and we just don't know it.

I don't think that the "God of the gaps" applies in any case where all these premises are claimed as true:

- God wants something to happen.
- God is capable of making anything happen.
- The thing doesn't happen.

Not sure what you mean by "God of the gaps". For your argument to work, though, you'd have to show that something God wanted to happen didn't happen. That seems like a pretty tall order.