Arguments about Him

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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aoxomoxoa
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by aoxomoxoa »

A global flood would easily explain the fossilisation that occurs.
Hardly. Why are trilobyte fossils consistently found lower in the earth's strata than dinosaurs, which themselves are deeper than say saber-toothed tiger fossils? In the turbulence of the rapid elevation and receding of waters necessary for a global flood in such a short time frame, what or who sorted the fossils so consistently (and in such a way that coincidentally just happens to support the idea that species evolved over a long period of time).
Banno
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by Banno »

aoxomoxoa wrote:
A global flood would easily explain the fossilisation that occurs.
Hardly. Why are trilobyte fossils consistently found lower in the earth's strata than dinosaurs, which themselves are deeper than say saber-toothed tiger fossils? .
Obviously the trilobyte couldn't swim as well as the saber-toothed cat, despite being aquatic. :?
Banno
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by Banno »

We have a giant earthworm that lives a few hundred KM west of here. It has a fairly limited range, and curiously, it drowns in floods. I have long wondered how they got here from Turkey, across asia, across large expanses of water and desert, to settle in one small area. Clever worm.
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skeptic griggsy
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Re: Arguments about Him- that sq

Post by skeptic griggsy »

Theists use the argument from God that our rights stem from Him so that they are inalienable rather than from the state and thus revocable. That is a false dilemma. Our rights stem from our level of consciousness. Indeed, we naturalists not only find that for us, so does the UN, in effect. And some of us want to extend more protections to the other great apes as have Spain and New Zealand in accordance with the Great Ape Project. This comports with Morgan's Canon. So atheists can further rights.
We ignostics would like to know how a disembodied entity could ever think or act without a mind, as the mind must have a brain. And it does no good to aver that Existence is his body and so, He has a brain and so , a mind as we cannot find the needed ganglia, axons and neurons.

Some atheists thought He'd have a body that one could find. No.
So, again , theists themselves affirm ignosticsm!
It hardly behooves Christians to aver that they have a relationship with their god-man , or Muslims that they have a way of life, not a religion. Poetically, fine, but that is preaching in vain as Paul the Sophist did.
And at that level, we are free beings, beholden to no totalitarian Yahweh or Allah.The I am that I am has only the duty to have put us into a better place as the problem of Heaven delineates.
' Life is its own validation and reward and ultimate meaning."
Wootah
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Re: Arguments about Him- that sq

Post by Wootah »

skeptic griggsy wrote:Theists use the argument from God that our rights stem from Him so that they are inalienable rather than from the state and thus revocable. That is a false dilemma.
Which theists? I don't really believe in rights myself.
Our rights stem from our level of consciousness.
Prove it.
Indeed, we naturalists not only find that for us, so does the UN, in effect. And some of us want to extend more protections to the other great apes as have Spain and New Zealand in accordance with the Great Ape Project. This comports with Morgan's Canon. So atheists can further rights.
You really consider yourself an ape and should have the same rights as other apes? Seems you are favouring one kind of animal over others. You are a speciest.
We ignostics would like to know how a disembodied entity could ever think or act without a mind, as the mind must have a brain. And it does no good to aver that Existence is his body and so, He has a brain and so , a mind as we cannot find the needed ganglia, axons and neurons.
Argument from ignorance?
It hardly behooves Christians to aver that they have a relationship with their god-man , or Muslims that they have a way of life, not a religion. Poetically, fine, but that is preaching in vain as Paul the Sophist did.
Aren't you just being a sophist right now?
And at that level, we are free beings, beholden to no totalitarian Yahweh or Allah.The I am that I am has only the duty to have put us into a better place as the problem of Heaven delineates. ' Life is its own validation and reward and ultimate meaning."
Great!

I didn't find a point in this last post of yours personally, nor how it ties into the thread.
Francesca
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by Francesca »

Wootah wrote:You only have to start reading. Ignore anything that says God did it, which is basically talking about the global flood and replace it with a major catastrophe such as a meteor, whatever makes it more palatable so you can look at the science. You start to see that the world was formed by catastrophies and not gradual changes.
What is the reason for North American Protestants' obsession with creation "science"?

Protestants in Europe have no difficulty with evolution, nor do Catholics in the Americas or in Europe. Try talking about "creation science" to just about any religious person in Europe and you will get blank stares. There are elderly clergymen in Europe who have never in their lives met a clergyman who has a problem with evolution. The Pope - who is not exactly a raving liberal - has no problem with evolution.

Even the Mormons - who often make Baptists seem liberal - generally have no problem with evolution, and the LDS has no official position on the issue.
Wootah
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by Wootah »

Francesca wrote:
Wootah wrote:You only have to start reading. Ignore anything that says God did it, which is basically talking about the global flood and replace it with a major catastrophe such as a meteor, whatever makes it more palatable so you can look at the science. You start to see that the world was formed by catastrophies and not gradual changes.
What is the reason for North American Protestants' obsession with creation "science"?

Protestants in Europe have no difficulty with evolution, nor do Catholics in the Americas or in Europe. Try talking about "creation science" to just about any religious person in Europe and you will get blank stares. There are elderly clergymen in Europe who have never in their lives met a clergyman who has a problem with evolution. The Pope - who is not exactly a raving liberal - has no problem with evolution.

Even the Mormons - who often make Baptists seem liberal - generally have no problem with evolution, and the LDS has no official position on the issue.
Well you are a Christian so let's see why I think if evolution is true then Christianity can't be.

To my mind if evolution is true then the Christian God chose a process that has taken hundreds of millions of years of death, of animals eating each other, killing each other, destroying each other to randomly arise at the human animal and to then decide to pick that animal to have a soul? Or do all animals have souls? And would you consider that such a God is good to chose this process?
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skeptic griggsy
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by skeptic griggsy »

Ergo, then don't be any kind of creation as all creationism contradicts what we know empirically. The empirical argument [Atheist@ Evoolve Blog] notes that there are no empirical bases for Hm. The atelic or teleonomic is part of that one as it illuminates that there is no intent that empricists can find for cosmic teleology and so no God. Science, pace George Gaylord Simpson and Ernst Mayr found out confirms no intent. :wink: Natural selection shows no intent but is as a sieve ,woriiing plannlessly, as the non-chance agency of Nature. :idea: Both these arguments pervade other arguments- no First Cause, no Supreme Miracle Worker,etc.
Science also backs up the argumet from pareidolia in finding out how people see agency when there is none. Yes, there are only teleonomy and patterns rather than intent and design.
John Paul Sartre :oops: is wrong in finding that our autonomy reveals no God, but it illuminates that whence our rights.Paul Edwards also faults him. Anon on that.
We naturalists erred in finding that cosmological arguments involved the fallac of composition. No, they aren't like a team and its members with the members having mothers and it doesn't but rather like an automobile and its components, each having manufacturers. However, we note that all cosmological and teleological ones argue in a circle!
:oops:
Wootah, yes, and that makes part of the ignostic argument. :mrgreen:
Francesca
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by Francesca »

[quote="WootahTo my mind if evolution is true then the Christian God chose a process that has taken hundreds of millions of years of death, of animals eating each other, killing each other, destroying each other to randomly arise at the human animal and to then decide to pick that animal to have a soul? Or do all animals have souls? And would you consider that such a God is good to chose this process?[/quote]

Richard Dawkins might have actually said something along those lines, in one of his arguments against the notion of benevolent God.

But I do not see how this presents a worse theodicean problem than that undisputed fact that from time to time babies die really horrible deaths (in say, house fires).

If you are willing to reject belief in God if evolution is true, then you should be willing to reject belief in God for the less disputed reason.
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skeptic griggsy
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by skeptic griggsy »

Wootah, what woo!
When you " contradict" that item, you are merely changing it rather than contradicting it. Sophistry gets no where with us rationalists!
Francesa, Wootah and advanced theologians just play word games, eh? Advanced supernaturalists allege that He is immune from the problem of evil as evoution does all that bad stuff! Yes, ever do supernaturalists rationalize what is a real argument against God! See the problem of Heaven.
I'll have more on Craig's silly Kalam argument.
At some French site, I found the absurd idea that the empirical argument is trivial:no, it rests on no evidence, the quintessential argument of naturalism.
I retract my statement about the Sartre argument, and I can't find that Edwards article about it.
Wootah
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by Wootah »

skeptic griggsy wrote:Wootah, what woo!
As opposed to your post?
When you " contradict" that item, you are merely changing it rather than contradicting it. Sophistry gets no where with us rationalists!
I don't see you addressing anything yet, but it's early in your post.
Francesa, Wootah and advanced theologians just play word games, eh? Advanced supernaturalists allege that He is immune from the problem of evil as evoution does all that bad stuff! Yes, ever do supernaturalists rationalize what is a real argument against God! See the problem of Heaven.
Is this your content?
I'll have more on Craig's silly Kalam argument. At some French site, I found the absurd idea that the empirical argument is trivial:no, it rests on no evidence, the quintessential argument of naturalism.
Ten to one you aren't a rational human being.
I retract my statement about the Sartre argument, and I can't find that Edwards article about it.
ok ... and off you go I imagine.
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skeptic griggsy
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by skeptic griggsy »

I ask any serious inquirers what about my points about the empirical the atelic and other arguments in the post before my last one?
We naturalists find no empirical basis for God, and any religious experience is just ones own mental states at work. We find no intent behind the Bog Bang and miracles and so forth. Those who do are seeing the pareidolia of intent and design when only teleonomy- no planned outcomes and patters exist. Ti's nothing but dressed up animism behind supernaturalism! :oops:
Last edited by skeptic griggsy on Thu Nov 25, 2010 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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skeptic griggsy
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by skeptic griggsy »

[1] Craig begs the question against us who do find infinitly, substantiated entities such as those Hilbert Hotels.
[2 He begs the question against us who find that we can by successive addition have w+w*.
[3] And he begs the question in assuming that every series formed by that successive series must have an intial point.
Folks, that's a triple whammy! :cry:
Aquinas and Kyle Williams note that everyday arrives on time forever. It is the essence of infinity that it arrives by that very successive addition!
His obfuscations just do not make a real argument against the eternal Metaverse! And the Big Bang was just a mere transformation of existing matter-energy. We've evidence from the quantum fluctuations, in accordance with the laws of condervation, that the quanta themselves are eternal.
On the logic, see Graham Oppy's 1995 article against Craig's sophistry, and for how the quantum fields attest to the eternal Metaverse see David Mill's " Atheist Universe and Rudiger Vaas's anthology on the eternal Universe.
I've more to say about the Kalam and Kant's First Antimony. :D
/size]
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skeptic griggsy
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by skeptic griggsy »

What arguments do you use for or against His existence?
I find that, Alvin Plantinga notwithstanding, that the argument from physical mind alone refutes the very notion of God! Therefore, He cannot exist, affirming ignosticism! :lol:
Lamberth's atelic or teleonomic argument alone also refutes any intent for Him as Grand Miracle Monger and so forth, that He cannot exist in that it presents no referents for Him. :shock:
The ignostic challenge, which includes that lack of referents, and that He has incoherent, contradictory attributes presents his non-existence. A triple whammy!

We stong atheists then can confidently by analysis exclaim no God exists, and thus have no need to travers the Metaverse or- be omniscient!
Nevertheless, as fallibilists, we can err!
Thanks everyone!
Blessings and good will for all!
chaz wyman
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Re: Arguments about Him

Post by chaz wyman »

skeptic griggsy wrote:To aver that God is omnipresent means that He cannot be a person, affirming ignosticism. He cannot be transcendent, because Existence is all [Lee Smolin]. As there is nothing to compare Existence with, one cannot aver a cause for it.
Aquinas begs the question of the First Cause in averring that if one takes it away, there are no intermediate ones. He begs the question in making the it must be of Necessary Being with his two categories of Contingent and Necessary Beings.
Time, event and cause bespeak previous tmes,event and causes.
He refutes the Kalam argument for the numerical First Cause [ His own is that of explanation.] by noting that everyday comes on time.William Lane Craig doth beg the question here in assuming a starting point.
So, cosmological arguments fail.
The atelic/ teleonomic argument claims that since the weight of evidence presents no cosmic teleology, to postulate Him would contradict that finding.
The argument from pareidolia is that theists discern divinity and design as one sees Yeshua on a tortilla when there are only natural causes and patterns [ the presumption of naturalism and Ockham's Razor at play].
Hume uses the argument from imperfections [ dysteological ] to illustrate that perhaps it was a committee of gods, a juvenile one or an incompetent one. It won't do aver trying to answer the problem of evil: one should try otherwise to respond to the argument. Two theists aver that a limited god would have to be exiguous- sparing in making matters whilst the omnipotent God can use flourishes assume what they need to establish that divinity had us in mind;and again that contradicts natural selection.
And all teleological arguments- from reason, to design, fine-tuning and probability- fail by assuming what they need to establhish - that divinity had us in mind; that contradicts natural selection rather than being compatible with science.
I have more arguments to address. And to readdres these. As one philosopher notes, it is fun to discuss these arguments!
Why do you believe or not in Him? Do you need Him? We naturalist. we can overcome. We ignostics find that He is as a square circle- nothing i[gnosticism].
I tend to take an anthropological perspective. hundreds of thousands of years, thousands of cultures risen and fallen, some having a divinity some having many; others having none; a very long list of discarded gods and goddesses. A visitor from another planet would be puzzled why , with all this variation, has the idea of a god managed to persist?
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