Arguments for or against god

[Samael_Khan]

My original delusionment with god was way back as a young teen. I am dyslexic (then undiagnosed) so was considered thick, beyond redemption because i could not read the bible. Not the attitude an adolescent needs from good christians. At around the same time as saying "enough" i was also was diagnosed and corrective aids supplied allowing me to see words. A revelation! Books became a passion. Within a couple of years i felt confident enough to read the bible. I read it as a book, cover to cover (not cherry picked as many christians read it) and its all there... All the hated towards difference, all the spite (and much more, genocide, murder, rape, theft, slavery), often instituted or condoned buy god.

1/ why would god want to create worshippers who could treat a god believing child so badly like the sick minded congregation of the church i loved did?

A friends (christian and a theologian) child died a most horrible, lingering and painful death from leukemia.

2/ why would a creator god create a race to worship him and create an incurable disease to make a loyal subject and her innocent child suffer so much?

This got me thinking, sick people in the name of god, innocent children suffering, what sort of god would do this to the human race. I went back to a bible and re-read it. By now it just didnt make any sense and after much thought decided that a god as depicted in the bible is just a load of crock designed to keep priests as top dog and everyone else subservient to them.

Since then i have seen, heard and been involved in several hundred events (some life-threatening) that have done nothing to reaffirm my belief in god but just the opposite, they have strengthened my disbelief to the extent i im now right through Atheism and out the other side. It is no longer a lack of belief, it is evidenced knowledge that no god exists.

Of course should evidence be put forward that i am wrong then it would be worth considering and weighing against the evidence i recognise but i am not holding my breath. In over 10,000 years of recorded god worship no such evidence has ever been presented.

God is a theoretical concept first or foremost. Or should I say an intelligence that created everything. Who he is, whether he is a sadist, whether he revealed himself or not to us or whether he is really a "he" is all besides the point.

Certainly certain theories of a God (religions) can be disproven.

In reality, God is just one potential theoretical answer to the question "how did everything come into existence?". For all we know existence occurred out of nothing. Either way it is beyond our examination and beyond our understanding.

 

[Curious George]

The point that I am making is that whether if humans have invented stories in the past or nothas no bearing on whether if God excists or not.

By your logic: the Earth is not spherical (nor an oblate spheroid) because humans have been wrong about the shape of the earth in the past, humans have been telling wrong stories about the shape of the earth in the past.

This is a strawman.


I offered the m&m analogy specifically for this strawman. If i hold an opaque bag and ask you to draw 1000 m&ms and each one is red, we have inductive evidence that the m&ms in the bag are red all going to be red.

Is it possible that there are green m&ms in the bag? Absolutely. But given the evidence we can say that it is more likely than not that there are not green M&Ms in the bag. You are trying to make me say that we can conclude that there are no green M&Ms in the bag. These are very different statements.

In life we do not exhaust every possibility before concluding that something is more likely than not. And the hard truth is that given the evidence, any god is more likely not.

 

[leroy]

So let me get this straight. You want to create an unnecessary story, expect me to ignore the presumption that the story is another fanciful invention and then seek to prove it wrong?

You have it mistaken. That man continually creates these stories is evidence that you, a member of mankind, have merely created another story. Now you overcome the presumption that your story is not make believe and i will address that.

Yes the fine tuning argument overcomes that presumption .

We can prove for example that the entropy of the universe is low (and was lower in the past)

We can prove that a universe with high entropy is statistically more probable than a universe with low entropy.

We prove that galaxies, stars, planets, etc (and therefore inteligent life) only excist in universes with low entropy.

This arguments are independent of any ancient stories told by humans. And have been verified by science.


So please provide an explanation for why the entropy of the universe is low and explain why is that explanation better than inteligent design .

 

[We Never Know]

This is a strawman.


I offered the m&m analogy specifically for this strawman. If i hold an opaque bag and ask you to draw 1000 m&ms and each one is red, we have inductive evidence that the m&ms in the bag are red all going to be red.

Is it possible that there are green m&ms in the bag? Absolutely. But given the evidence we can say that it is more likely than not that there are not green M&Ms in the bag. You are trying to make me say that we can conclude that there are no green M&Ms in the bag. These are very different statements.

In life we do not exhaust every possibility before concluding that something is more likely than not. And the hard truth is that given the evidence, any god is more likely not.

Again a poor analogy.
1. You don't state how many M&M' s are in the bag.
2. A green could be the last one or ten drawn.
3. It's an odds argument
4. It's not evidence no greens are in the bag.
5. The only evidence that no greens are in the bag is when the bag is empty and no greens were drawn.

 

[leroy]

This is a strawman.


I offered the m&m analogy specifically for this strawman. If i hold an opaque bag and ask you to draw 1000 m&ms and each one is red, we have inductive evidence that the m&ms in the bag are red all going to be red.

Is it possible that there are green m&ms in the bag? Absolutely. But given the evidence we can say that it is more likely than not that there are not green M&Ms in the bag. You are trying to make me say that we can conclude that there are no green M&Ms in the bag. These are very different statements.

In life we do not exhaust every possibility before concluding that something is more likely than not. And the hard truth is that given the evidence, any god is more likely not.

..

Granted , my suggestion is that there is evidence for green M&Ms

Your mistake is to assume that the only Evidene for God is "stories told by humans" which is wrong, apologetics typically provide a multitude of arguments for God that are independent of any stories told by humans.

 

[Curious George]

Yes the fine tuning argument overcomes that presumption .

We can prove for example that the entropy of the universe is low (and was lower in the past)

We can prove that a universe with high entropy is statistically more probable than a universe with low entropy.

We prove that galaxies, stars, planets, etc (and therefore inteligent life) only excist in universes with low entropy.

This arguments are independent of any ancient stories told by humans. And have been verified by science.


So please provide an explanation for why the entropy of the universe is low and explain why is that explanation better than inteligent design .

Yeah that doesn't work. We have continually been moving towards higher entropy since the big bang which is the beginning of time. This provides no reason to suppose your character invention is true.

 

[Curious George]

Again a poor analogy.

I thought you were done with me.

1. You don't state how many M&M' s are in the bag.

I didn't need to do so.

2. A green could be the last one or ten drawn.

Absolutely true. It is possible that there is a green in the bag. That does not mean that the best answer is "unknown."

3. It's an odds argument

Most inductive arguments are at the heart.

4. It's not evidence no greens are in the bag.

Here is where you are wrong. It is evidence, it is simply not conclusive proof.

5. The only evidence that no greens are in the bag is when the bag is empty and no greens were drawn.

Here you are wrong again. That would be conclusive proof that there were no green m&ms in the bag.

 

[We Never Know]

I thought you were done with me.


I didn't need to do so.

Absolutely true. It is possible that there is a green in the bag. That does not mean that the best answer is "unknown."

Most inductive arguments are at the heart.

Here is where you are wrong. It is evidence, it is simply not conclusive proof.

Here you are wrong again. That would be conclusive proof that there were no green m&ms in the bag.

"Here is where you are wrong. It is evidence, it is simply not conclusive proof."
Wrong it's only evidence no greens were drawn yet. As long as there are M&M's in the bag, drawing a green can't be ruled out.

 

[leroy]

Yeah that doesn't work. We have continually been moving towards higher entropy since the big bang which is the beginning of time. This provides no reason to suppose your character invention is true.

Aja ..... so how do you solve the fine tuning problem, and why is that solution better than inteligent design?

Or more specifically:

, .....how do you explain the low entropy of the universe, and why is that explanation better than inteligent design ?

 

[We Never Know]

I thought you were done with me.


I didn't need to do so.

Absolutely true. It is possible that there is a green in the bag. That does not mean that the best answer is "unknown."

Most inductive arguments are at the heart.

Here is where you are wrong. It is evidence, it is simply not conclusive proof.

Here you are wrong again. That would be conclusive proof that there were no green m&ms in the bag.

Oh also. Logic sux for people who both are sure god does exist and those who are sure god doesn't exist.
Neither can prove their case and both are based on lack of evidence.

 

[Curious George]

"Here is where you are wrong. It is evidence, it is simply not conclusive proof."
Wrong it's only evidence no greens were drawn yet. As long as there are M&M's in the bag, drawing a green can't be ruled out.

You are trying to "rule it out." That is your mistake. I am simply discussing whether it is more likely than not.

 

[We Never Know]

You are trying to "rule it out." That is your mistake. I am simply discussing whether it is more likely than not.

Nope. You've already ruled out a god existing when you don't know yet.

 

[We Never Know]

You are trying to "rule it out." That is your mistake. I am simply discussing whether it is more likely than not.

At least atheist such as myself will admit even though I have a lack of belief in a god existing, I cannot rule out a god existing.
You portray yourself as nothing more than a militant disbeliever that is sure no god exists.

 

[Curious George]

Aja ..... so how do you solve the fine tuning problem, and why is that solution better than inteligent design?

If i ask you to roll a set of dice overand over again recording your numbers, with each roll it becomes less and less likely that you would have rolled the number you have recorded. Now you want to jump in and say how impossible it is that anyone could have gotten the number you did without some invisible entity guiding the dice? Please.

With regard to the various constants in our universe, i fail to see how this overcomes any presumption. We are some of the life that did emerge given the factors as they are. There is simply no reason to assume it was intelligently designed for us.

Or more specifically:

, .....how do you explain the low entropy of the universe, and why is that explanation better than inteligent design ?

I explain the low entropy as it has not increased to a higher entropy yet.

 

[leroy]

"Here is where you are wrong. It is evidence, it is simply not conclusive proof."
Wrong it's only evidence no greens were drawn yet. As long as there are M&M's in the bag, drawing a green can't be ruled out.

Pretend that you start with a 50% probability that there is atleast 1 green M&M in the bag.

Everytime you take one M&M and observe that it is not green the probabilities of having a single M&M will shrink , a single observation of a non green M&M will make the green M&M hypothesis less likely to be true than the initial 50% probability.


This is true regardless of the number of M&Ms in the bag. (As long as the number is finite)


However my suggestion is that a few dozen of M&Ms that really seem to be green have been discovered in the last 100 years. And scientific research seems to be confirming that these M&M really are green.

Take the fine tuning if the universe for example. In the 50s some FT where starting to be discovered, but far from solving this problems science has discovered new FT problems over and over again, and current problems became even worst as new scientific discoveries where made

 

[Curious George]

At least atheist such as myself will admit even though I have a lack of belief in a god existing, I cannot rule out a god existing.
You portray yourself as nothing more than a militant disbeliever that is sure no god exists.

You have it all wrong. I will happily admit that i cannot "rule out" god existing. I am just honest and say given the evidence it is more likely than not that no god exists. Were the evidence to change, i would reevaluate. But there is no reason to give credence to ideas simply because i cannot rule them out. Again, i cannot rule out that the earth will stop spinning tomorrow but this doesn't mean i should behave like it is just as likely as the earth continuing to spin tomorrow.

 

[JJ50]

Belief in a god didn't do me any favours, it was a big relief when I discarded my faith over 50 years ago.

 

[We Never Know]

At least atheist such as myself will admit even though I have a lack of belief in a god existing, I cannot rule out a god existing.
You portray yourself as nothing more than a militant disbeliever that is sure no god exists.

@Curious George If you noticed I didn't call you a militant atheist because that's a insult and disgrace to atheism same as flat earthers are viewed as a disgrace and insult to christianity.

 

[Curious George]

@Curious George If you noticed I didn't call you a militant atheist because that's a insult and disgrace to atheism same as flat earthers are viewed as a disgrace and insult to christianity.

When the ad hominem comes out to play...

 

[We Never Know]

When the ad hominem comes out to play...

When the "I'm getting my @$$ handed to me so it's time to cry fallacy" comes into play. Lol