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Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)
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Tim Robbins wrote: »Philogos said he thought there were intellectual difficulties with atheism in another thread. Could you elaborate?
I am guessing you think atheism means you believe there is no God as opposed to disbelieving in any of the Gods put forward by various religions?
Not answering for phil but trying to keep up.
What? Ah so if atheism isn't believing in a God it's not believing in any god as described by the various religions with the option that they are wrong on the details??
Not sure I understand what you mean!0 -
Not answering for phil but trying to keep up.
What? Ah so if atheism isn't believing in a God it's not believing in any god as described by the various religions with the option that they are wrong on the details??
Not sure I understand what you mean!
I think he means the difference between gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists.0 -
You are ignoring the fact that God created us in accordance with his own whims. You don't go around murdering children. Presumably you aren't filled with the desire to murder and restrain yourself solely on moral and legal grouds. It is not in your nature to do it. God has created you with the desire to do X and he then impliments a prohibition against X. I would say he has some responsibility.
It would be like you designing a sentient robot and instilling in it a strong desire to light things on fire. You then tell the robot not to do it. Do you think people would accept you saying "..but I told it not to do that" as removing all culpability on your part for designing it that way in the first place?
I'm not ignoring that fact at all. Much in the same way that I'm not ignoring the fact that just because God gave us the decision to do X rather than Y that this doesn't mean that I'm not responsible for my actions. Much in the same way that if a friend gave me the keys to his car and trusted me with it, that doesn't mean that I'm not responsible if I crash it into a ditch. Blaming God for our decisions, and our rebellion against Him doesn't wash, it's a poor justification for sin.
Moreover, it's funny that in the passage of the Fall, Adam does the same thing as you:Genesis 3:9-13 wrote:But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”[d] 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The woman you gave me God caused me to do this. But couldn't Adam have refused to follow Eve? It's interesting.
I think it is fundamentally stubborn to say to God that He's responsible for the sin that we've freely chosen to commit. If we rebel against God's authority He's entirely right to be free to judge.Also. If I said to you. "You are free to eat those cakes over there if you like but I'd rather you didn't." ... "Oh and by the way, if you do eat those cakes I'm going to set you on fire".
You would characterise this as freedom to choose?
Imagine a court where a criminal is defending himself against a murder charge and his defence goes like this
"I asked the victim to give me all their money. They chose not to. I only killed them because their choice displeased me. They were free to hand over their wallet. You can't blame me for their choices!"
God has jurisdiction over Creation. He's perfectly entitled to say that some things are not in our benefit.
The analogy that you've given is nothing like what God has declared. God has decreed what is right and what is wrong in His creation. God can punish if one refuses to accept His standard, moreover God has authority over who dwells and who does not in His creation.
It's entirely logical that you can't blame God for the choices of man. God gave people the autonomy to choose X rather than Y, but it is up to the chooser to do what is morally upright and actually follow God.
Satan is the one who continually tells us the old lie. Go on, live a little God doesn't have a clue what He's doing. He's never going to judge you, don't worry. Go on. He wasn't telling you the truth anyway. The Bible's a lie, it's a cobbled together book of fairytales from goatherders. Surprisingly similar to what we see many in the world today saying.
The Bible also gives us the common expression there's nothing new under the sun, and there really isn't. The same lie that caused creation to fall is the same lie that many believe in today when they suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).If you wish to claim that God is an exception to this idea and what he says goes because he is God; you are making a might makes right argument. You don't think that God need to have any moral justification for his rules and punishments. We are his toys and he can play with us in whatever fashion he chooses. It is hard to reconsile that with our being free agents.
To what idea? You've not been very clear as to what the "idea" is. Your question is getting into where does good and evil come from. The atheist deals with moral subjectivism, I.E humans get to decide what is good and what is evil. Essentially good and evil are whatever the heck that humans feel like.
Christians believe in a sovereign God who is Lord over all creation, loving, kind, merciful and forgiving, a God who had declared what was best, and a God who actually knew better than we did as to what was truly good as He was the sovereign creator. Yet, we rebelled against Him and decided arrogantly that we knew what was better ourselves. How ridiculous?
It's the old lie again from Genesis 3, that we can know better than God as to what is good and evil.In Job's case the sin is nothing more than questioning God's motives. (Can you imagine a more despotic idea than being guilty of a crime for nothing more than question the motivations of the leadership)
This sin is also commited only after God permits the heaping of miseries on him when he quite rightfully thought himself to be innocent of any crime. God is being a complete asshole here. He is insinuating that he has justifications that Job doesn't understand. Job is lead to believe that he must have done something wrong in order for God to be allowing his current misfortunes and that he simply can't comprehend the nature of it. Job is infact entrirely correct that he had done nothing wrong and his treatment was infact unjust. It was God's hubris and apparent failure of omnicience that led to Job's suffering. What Job doesn't know is that God motivations are self-aggrandising and petty. His "sin", in a perverse irony, is not believing that God must have a good reason.
Job's sin was defiantly suggesting that He could possibly know better than God, much as you're doing here. It's fundamental arrogance, much as calling God a "complete asshole" is.
There's nothing "despotic" about the idea of God saying that following Him and seeking right understanding of Him is the right thing to do in Creation.
Noah's sin seems self-explanatory, he got absolutely hammered and was passed out drunk.With Abraham, one of the worst things he does is almost stab Issac to death. I don't think God considers this a sin though. Apparently, to God, murdering your child (Abraham's intent) is fine if it is a demonstration of loyalty to him.
I'll link to a number of posts where I've answered this already. I searched my posts for Abraham and Isaac recently, and it returned over 20 results in the last 6 years.There are modern moral philosophers who think scapegoating is ok? I really hope that isn't true
There are quite a number of moral philosophers who would regard the self-sacrificial death of Christ on our behalf as a model for how we should seek to serve one another self-sacrificially.
You don't seem to understand what Christianity says about mankinds position. Namely that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory (Romans 3:23). We aren't righteous on our own account because every single person has rejected God's standard, and every single person has done what is evil rather than what is good. In and of ourselves there is no reason why God can declare us righteous.
I think most people if they are genuinely honest can see that. Moreover I think it is quite sensible given our fallen state that one could come to the position that we need a Saviour.What cost does God pay exactly? Are you claiming it is equal to eternal damnation?
By what right does God forgive our sins against other people? If somone else punches you in the face, can I stroll up an forgive them for it. Surely it you, and only you, that has the power to forgive the offence?
If the claim is that God is personally offended by your actions and it is this offence is forgiving, then he seem to only be interested in punishing sins against himself. Sins against others are not his concern beyond how they make him feel.
Also, it is logically impossible to be fully just and merciful. I have often heard people claim that God is maximally just and maximally merciful. I don't think these are compatible. Justice requires that the evil be punished. Mercy requires that someone be excused their proper punishment.
Finally, is it really mercy, if you inflict the punishment on someone else?
Our sin is towards God. We've rebelled against His standard. Every sin that we've committed in His creation is an affront to God. The Bible doesn't undermine that people have a responsibility towards one another, but primarily sin is an issue between God and man. Sin moreover is what separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2).
By the by, it's a bit daft to ask "what right" does God, the sovereign Lord over all creation have to take the penalty for sin upon Himself.
Is it really mercy to pass God's wrath to someone else? - Yes, we go free. God still shows us the immense cost of sin.
God is just insofar as His wrath for sin was satisfied. God is merciful insofar as we walk free.
.This doesn't make a whole lot sense as we already have people claiming that there was no reason to think that God forgave at all.
The question stands. Also, if you do some harm to me and I wait until after I have punished to the full extent of the law and then forgive you, it is not really forgiveness, or at least a palty effort. Surely to be meaningful, forgiveness must be given
They are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, the eyewitness accounts that we have concerning Jesus Christ, the secular history that we have concerning His crucifixion, and the impact that His resurrection had on the disciples. Namely that they were willing to go into the Gentile world and risk their lives for it.
If we had no basis whatsoever for believing that God was abundantly merciful, rather than people ignoring what happened that day in Jerusalem roughly 2,000 years ago then I think that you and other atheists would be complaining that God hadn't provided good reason to believe that our sin was fully satisfied, and fully forgiven. The reality is He has, and there's no excuse.Again, justice satisfied and mercy. You see the strangeness also in God essentially being a slave to his own requirement for Justice. He appears to lack the ability to forgo attaining this Justice. As much a slave to his nature are we, perhaps? He'd better hope he wasn't created that way by a more powerful being who is going to punish him for it
It's not strange if there is a good reason for it. Namely to show us the sheer cost of sin, and to show us the sheer extent of His mercy. God shows us His love, and His mercy through Jesus Christ.This is an injustice then, something God is apparently not capable of.
Not at all. God's wrath was satisfied in full. God still counted us guilty. The difference is that now that God's wrath has been satisfied, Jesus now stands as our representative. When God sees us, He sees Christ. One who has been fully punished for sin.
If God were fair rather than merciful, and if Jesus hadn't received God's just wrath we'd all be condemned. Because without grace, there is condemnation which comes through the law. I.E - God's standards declare us guilty.Only according to God's arbitrary rules.
They are less "arbitrary" than relative morality. If God is Lord over creation, I don't have any place to argue with Him. Irrespective of what I say about Him, or if I blaspheme His name, His standards are what matter, not mine. I'm not Lord, He is. I submit willingly to His will, because I know that I amn't better than the Creator.We deserve God's wrath; who decides we are so deserving? God does. Accuser, Judge, Jury and law maker. This has the Euthyphro dilemma written all over it. Essentially, are God's laws based on an intrinsic good (which means God is not the source of goodness), or are God's laws good because God decrees them (This means that if God decrees that murdering people for fun is good then it is good.)
God does. I think the Euthryphro dilemma is surprisingly weak, and if we consider God's omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence the idea is ridiculous. Ultimately God's standards of good and evil are what He has declared as a result of Creation. It is because God knows everything about creation that He can declare how best to live in it. Much as the manufacturer of a car can describe in a manual how best to use it, or how it was intended to function. It is because God knows intrinsically what Creation is meant to be, and it is because God knows everything about it's function and purpose that He can say on the basis of His knowledge of it what is good and what is evil.From himself. Quite bizarre.
From the righteous judgement of God, as I've explained it is hardly bizarre at all. It makes perfect sense that God would reveal a physical sign of His mercy towards us, and the full cost of sin.Guilty by decree. Sounds rather despotic. Saddam accuses you of being a traitor. The only person who can decide if you are guilty or innocent is Saddam. You are born guilty of sedition. Would you really be grateful for him shooting his own son in your place? Would he strike you as loving and just?
This is ridiculous reasoning. The creation is God's therefore He has the right to legislate. Much as the State has the right to legislate. If I am before a judge for something that was clearly evil, how laughable would the notion be that I would call the judge despotic for rightfully judging?
Moreover, it is hardly ridiculous as an example to think that if I racked up a debt, and someone paid the price of that debt in full in return on my behalf so I might be spared it. I would still be fully a debtor who was not deserving of such kindness, but yet I received it. In the same way, while I was yet a sinner, Christ paid the penalty of sin in full on my behalf so that I can walk free. Entirely undeserving, entirely a free gift, entirely loving and entirely self-sacrificial.A willingness to torture you for ever removes any possibility of this being true. It also junks any possibility of God being merciful.
Not at all. God has given you everything you need to be forgiven, yet you refuse to accept it. How exactly is this His fault? It seems like it is pinning the blame on God for your stubbornness. How absurd!It wouldn't be saying that at all. If I forgive you for something without first smacking you areound a bit I am seemingly at fault. That is a really perverse view of forgiveness.
Sorry what? The smacking you around part doesn't even come into that logically.
If God is a just God, then His justice must be satisfied. Namely that the punishment that we deserve for our sin must be dealt with. If it is righteous to judge and God acquits without the penalty being satisfied that would make Him fundamentally incompetent.
The point of Christianity is that God was still right to command us to seek after Him, we are guilty but God wants us to come back to Him. Instead of visiting his wrath as He could justifiably, He's given us unmerited favour instead.Even if you can transfer the punishment for a sin, you cannot transfer the responsibility. The former is perverse and the latter nonsensical.
Consider a murderer. He is found guilty and sentenced to death. His wife, to profess her love, chooses to take his punishment. She is killed in his stead and his debt is considered paid. The horrifying nature of this scenario aside, is he now not a murderer. Can his wife take on the moral guilt of the crime?
Christians don't believe that the responsibility for sin has been transferred. Christians hold very clearly that they were the ones who sinned. That's why we believe that we cannot be saved of our own merit, but only by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.
The wife can't take on the murderers sin because the wife has also sinned.This is a logical contradiction. The law of non-contradiction. Jesus cannot be God and not-God at the same time. He can't be seperate from himself.
That's not what I said. I said that Jesus was separated from God the Father. Isolated from Him for the time that He was on the cross. Much in the same way as sin isolated us, our sin isolated Him.You can't compress infinity into any arbitrarily long non-infinite period.
That doesn't make sense.
This only comes into play if we presume that God is bound by time, that's what you seem to be implying here.In what sense does Jesus "die". Can God die? (and simultaneously not be dead?)
The Bible teaches that Jesus took on human form when He came to earth. Christians also believe that Jesus was pre-eminent. He existed with God in the beginning prior to His incarnation in human flesh. Jesus insofar as He bore human flesh died.What was Paul onabout then? (assuming it was Paul. I can't remember for certain)
Provide me some Scripture and we can talk.Do you see nothing wrong with belief being the primary basis for salvation?
Why is belief necessary? Would you agree that belief is not itself a moral matter?
Apologies for the length of the post, there was a lot to unpack in there!
You still don't understand if you're asking me that question.
Belief is the only way possible to bring salvation. If we were judging by works, we've sinned and are guilty and are fully deserving of God's wrath. A just God, without Jesus as our substitute would have to visit the penalty of our sin on us instead.
If we are guilty and if there is no other way that we can be unguilty, then we are condemned. There's no other way around it, other than Jesus. He came to rescue us as a free gift if we acknowledge Him and follow Him as Lord.
It's not really much to ask to be honest. Is it? Or do you expect to receive God's favour while rejecting Him, calling Him and asshole amongst other things? What kind of God would that be? No God at all, no Lord at all, rather all He'd be is our ATM machine of favours.0 -
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Phil,
While I appreciate you taking the time to respond, thanks for that, it is clear that this conversation is futile. You keep telling me what I already know you believe. It seems that you are commited to looking at this entirely from the perspective of God being great. Given that this is the exact thing being debated, it is not a valid presupposition. If God were pure evil, you would never be able to see it, as you treat all of God actions as good by fiat.
You are not really responding to my actual criticisms with arguments; you just keep telling me what you believe.
An example of what I mean:
Right from the get-go you make the claim that you are not ignoring my argument that God was free to create us any which way he wanted. He chose to instil in us the desire to do things that he didn’t want us doing. You then go right ahead an ignore it and go straight back to claiming that we are free to do X or Y. Our freedom of choice was not at issue. The argument was: Why would God create us with a desire to sin. He could have created humans who are perfectly free agents but simply had no desire for the things he considers sinful. He, by his own free choice, created a race of beings who are, by your own arguement, literally incapable of living in accordance with the arbitrary rules he chooses to set. You wish to absolve him of any responsibility for this. I was looking for an actual argument as to how this is not God’s responsibility. You didn’t provide one. You just fiat declared that God is not responsible for our choices and ignored entirely our natures (something we don’t have a choice about) that are the result of God’s choices.
I’m not really looking for a response here, just giving this an example.
This debate would be much like you questioning a Muslim on how they see Allah as just in doing X or Y in the Koran and they keep responding with “Allah IS just”.
I don’t doubt that you are telling me what you believe to be true, its just not what I was asking.
Thanks again though for taking the time to respond to my lenghty questions there, I very much appreciate it.
All the best, Phil.0 -
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I answered your question. Pinning the blame on God for what we decide to do as a result of Him giving us free will is daft. Its like saying if I crash my friends car into a ditch that He's responsible for it because He gave me the keys.
Much in the same way as Adam tried to pin the blame on God, you're trying to blame God for giving you free will.
Free will is the reason why we can decide to do evil rather than good. Therefore the responsibility is with us. It's not that complex surely?
To anyone with the slightest sense that's daft.
Accusing me of ignoring your question when I gave you sound reason as to why I think the logic is flawed also seems a bit silly.
The only reason I argue that God is just is because I have good reason to believe so. What the heck did you expect for me to join in calling God an "asshole" with you? 0 -
Nonsense, Christianity is not stupid, it has a deep theology to back it up, theology is the systematic and rational study of God after all. Because you don't study Theology it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The more intelligent and educated someone is, the more they excessively rationalize to the point where they deceive themselves. They are like children in a big mansion, they get lost. This is why unbelievers are nearly always educated people, they have plenty of room to toy with words, their meanings and even redefine them. This also explains why the totalitarian dictator elitists ('liberals') are educated and fairly wealthy. If you think enough about something, you can eventually justify anything. The Nazi's did this.
A sociologist carried out a study on Hitler's henchmen, the guys who did his dirty work, and found they were highly educated and intelligent. They did the same thing, justified their crimes through their ability to over rationalize. It shows the most dangerous people can be the intellectuals.
The poor on the other hand, don't have the education and thus playing room you guys have. They are simple minded and thus not easily deceived. It's far easier to fool a philosopher than a farmer. Not only this, but they need God, since they don't have a doctor nearby or a supermarket.
The glorification of rationalization by you lot, overlooks the error that is prone in human thinking. It works against you.
If you're educated and you don't want God to exist, for whatever motives, then go and make that happen, make believe, just like a fairy tale. If you don't want the unborn to be babies, just call them fetus's, since that might temporarily serve to alleviate a guilty conscience for a couple of years.
Seems the bible was right when it say Human wisdom is folly
Obvious troll is obvious0 -
philologos wrote: »I answered your question. Pinning the blame on God for what we decide to do as a result of Him giving us free will is daft. Its like saying if I crash my friends car into a ditch that He's responsible for it because He gave me the keys.
You still aren't understanding the question. Let me try a different approach to explain how I think God cannot escape some degree of accountibility.
Image if a group of nefarious scientists created a new species by manipulating DNA. They design this creature will an insatiable blood lust. It is part of this creatures nature. This creature is also sentient.
When these creatures eventually go on a killing spree, by your logic, the creators of these creatures bear absolutely no responsibility at all as the creatures have free will. You would be calling the people who want to hold the scientists responsible as "daft" for not understanding that they can't be held accountable as the creatures could have chosen not to go on a killing spree.
God could have created humans as free agents without the strong desires to commit what you are calling "sins". He chose to create us broken, essentially. Unless you wish to suggest that he was incapable of creating humans who are both have free will and a strong preference for being virtuous?
When you create a thing, you are at least some way responsible for its actions are you not?philologos wrote: »Free will is the reason why we can decide to do evil rather than good. Therefore the responsibility is with us. It's not that complex surely?
If I raise a child, teaching him everyday to hate Jews. I talk endlessly about how noble and visionary Hitler was. I feed him a constant stream of negative stories of Jews and cultivate in him a deep hatred.
I am entirely blameless if he grows up hating Jews?
He has free will. He can decide not to hate? The responsibility is with him. It's not that complex surely?... well I think it is complex.
God has done far worse than simply molding minds to prefer sin, he has buried these desires deep in our natures. If he had not, it would be a relatively trivial thing for at least some people to live completely sinless lives. Scripture practically delights in telling us how sinful we are and that none can possibly live up to God's standard.philologos wrote: »Accusing me of ignoring your question when I gave you sound reason as to why I think the logic is flawed also seems a bit silly.
Do you still think you answered the question I asked?philologos wrote: »The only reason I argue that God is just is because I have good reason to believe so. What the heck did you expect for me to join in calling God an "asshole" with you?
I don't agree with that. I think if a human acted as God has, you wouldn't even dream of defending their actions. You start from the position that God is good and you try to justify that position afterwards. Do you deny that it is axiomatic to you that God is good?
I would expect you to call someone, or something, an asshole when they are acting like one and not make special exceptions for your favorite deity:)
Do you honestly think God's treatment of Job was just from start to finish?
He esentially had Job's entire family murdered on a bet :eek:0 -
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Are you guys Atheists ... or simply anti-Theists?
... a lot of your line of questioning indicates that you know that God exists (so you're not an Atheist)
Hi JC,
Personally, I don't believe that God exists. I am happy to grant the premise though in order to investigate other aspects of religion. I think religious people are just as moral and decent as the irreligious but thier faith often requires of them that they support some fairly odious ideas. I am sure they must have some way of thinking about the whole thing that allows them to view, what to me are hideously immoral ideas, as being quite moral. I am interested in understanding the presuppositions they hold and the perspective that they are coming from that facillitates that view.... it's just that you don't like Him (so you're an anti-Theist)
What you are describing would essentially be Anti-Yahweh Theism.
I am in many respects an anti-Theist. Anti-Theist is really just someone who believes that religion is a bad thing.
Theism = belief in a God.
Anti-theism = Opposition to belief in God. In practice it is generally the view that religion is harmful.
Atheist and anti-theist are entirely compatible with each other and in my estimation most atheists are at least a little anti-theist, if for no other reason they believe it is a whopper of a lie.
Just to be clear as anti-theist can often be misinterpreted as being anti-religious person:
I oppose religion because I think it has a negative effect on society (not always or completely but in general), it has been a very effective source and tool of discrimination, it has been a retarding force working against scientific progress (though thankfully to a lesser extent today - today it serves more as a barrier to scientific education than actual scientific progress) and also because I think it is untrue. I would say that religion may sometimes be a positive thing but in my opinion the cons far outweigh the pros. I think the pros can be achieved without religion. I don't hate or even dislike religious people. I find myself frustrated by them a lot but I don't think they are bad people. While I might have some questions about their rationality, I also don't think that you have to be stupid to be religious. I've met some very intelligent, insightful, thoughly-decent people who are religious.
The TLDR version:
Religion: bad.
Religious people: good or bad on an individual basis.0 -
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This discussion has been closed.
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