There is no acceptable proof of God for atheists

chozometroid

This is just something I think about now and then, especially considering that people in the OT rejected God as their God after "in your face" evidence of His power and mercy.
I think nothing would be different today.

BEWARE: Straw men ahead!

---

God reveals Himself in the sky for all of the world to see, declaring that He is the God of the universe, and He created all life.

Christian #1: Oh Lord in Heaven! Thank you for revealing your glory!
Atheist #1: Certainly something out of the ordinary has happened, but that doesn't mean it's supernatural, or even, that the claims of said person in the sky are true.
God: Be still and know that I Am God!
God then heals a cancer victim, a paraplegic, and a blind man before thousands of people, then raises a dead man, and creates a forest in a parking lot, while also being videotaped.
Atheist #2: Wow, this is amazing! Surely this person has extraordinary evolved abilities.....or perhaps they are creating a mass illusion using unknown technology?
Christian #2: Don't you see what just happened?! God performed a MIRACLE! It was even videotaped!
Atheist #2: We must conduct thorough testing on these "healing" victims. I'm sure there is a natural explanation for how their bodies underwent this rapid transformation.
Atheist #3: Actually there is all ready a peer-review journal which has detailed numerous theories involving quantum field mechanics and the conditions under which permanent injuries may be reversible when extra-dimensional entities alter the electron orbit of a local sub-dimension at vector coordinates inverse to said entity in parent universe.
Atheist #1: You know I'm a pretty open-minded person. I'm willing to postulate that there is other life in the universe afterall. We must ask this alien where he came from, and what steps must we take to evolve to this level of perfection!
God: Why do you continue to doubt Me?! I laid the foundations of the universe and created all that you admire in the heavens!
Atheist #3: How can you prove to us you created the universe? Or that you are even some sort of "god" creature? Where is the evidence?
Atheist #2: There is no reason to believe the Chrisitan god exists just because we can't yet explain what has happened. That's argumentum ad ignorantiam!
Atheist #3: Prove yourself, strange alien creature!
God sends fire to consume all atheists.
God: Come, my faithful servants. Well done, and welcome to the paradise I have prepared for you!
Christians: Yay!

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them. Atheists are their own gods, and as such, are on their own in the grand scheme of things.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Tar.Aldarion

Well it is different for every person, there is nothing worthy of worship to me, and also, the idea of a god is irrelevent to me, as there is no such being that could exist that I would call a god, just something powerful. If I create life? If I am so powerful compared to another creature that it would consider me a god, am I one? Could we evolve to be a god, if we had similar powers?

Anyway that is just me, I know of many atheists that would be persuaded to believer if they were convinced there was a god. I had an argument before about it, the other atheist saying that a god would be worthy of unwavering worship, me on the other side.
It's like asking, is blue all atheists favourite colour...

desertcircus

Two things:

One - I'm pretty sure if the heavens parted and a two-mile-wide bearded guy appeared, performed massive miracles at will, and demanded atheists accept his godhood, most of them would accept they'd been pretty wrong.

Two - if I was a tooled-up alien with ludicrously advanced technologies, pretending to be God to less advanced societies would probably seem like a whole load of fun. Didn't the Spaniards under Cortes conquer the Aztecs doing that?

Three - none of the stuff described would actually prove his status as creator of the universe. Proving that the Big Bang could only have occurred in such a way as to spell out "RICHARD DAWKINS IS A BIG SPANNER" during its expansion would do the trick, though.

Fanny Cradock

Humm...

We'll see how this thread goes. But I really don't like the implication that all atheists are x, y or z simply because they don't believe. Let's all behave on this thread. OK?

Soul Winner

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Well it is different for every person, there is nothing worthy of worship to me, and also, the idea of a god is irrelevent to me, as there is no such being that could exist that I would call a god, just something powerful. If I create life? If I am so powerful compared to another creature that it would consider me a god, am I one? Could we evolve to be a god, if we had similar powers?

Anyway that is just me, I know of many atheists that would be persuaded to believer if they were convinced there was a god. I had an argument before about it, the other atheist saying that a god would be worthy of unwavering worship, me on the other side.
It's like asking, is blue all atheists favourite colour...

But if there is a God, the giver of all life, including the life blood that flows in your veins, then the fact that you have the capacity to have that opinion is due to His providence, and should you ever come to recognize the fact that there is other than you in the universe and how you came about might just be down to the love of this Other, then that Other is at least worthy of being given the courtesy of a simple thanks from time to time, no?

monosharp

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them. Atheists are their own gods, and as such, are on their own in the grand scheme of things.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Your wrong.

Give me any proof whatsoever and I'll admit I was wrong. Anything, the smallest piece of evidence that there is a supernatural being who created us all. Doesn't even have to be the Christian god, any god at all.

And no I don't like the idea of a god or the idea of the christian god or any god.

We humans have existed as homo sapiens for 500,000 years, as anatomically modern homo sapiens for 150,000 years.

So for 146,000 years (or 496,000 years depending on your definition of human) 'god' left us to our own devices. To gawk at the sun and wonder where it went at night, to wonder what winter was etc.

Then eventually building societies, ships, buildings, pottery, graves, tools etc. (10,000 years ago)

Then god decides to make an appearance about 4000 years ago and whats the sum of his advice to us primitives ?

Cut our penises, don't sleep with the same sex, worship me and follow a varying list of 10 rules (depending on what "10 commandments"your reading) , the majority of which were already shown to be morals in many cultures long before this. (murder/stealing was considered 'wrong' in societies long before 'god'.)

Howabout giving us some useful advice ? Telling us how to prevent the spread of disease or something, anything that would have been useful ?

Give me a speck of evidence and I'll fall down on my knees, mutilate my penis, sacrifice my sheep or whatever else 'god' wants.

studiorat

It's still a bit early for me.

But I'll make one comment, Atheists don't like Religion.

Not liking God is the same as not liking Mickey Mouse, pointless...

God then heals a cancer victim, a paraplegic, and a blind man before thousands of people, then raises a dead man, and creates a forest in a parking lot, while also being videotaped.

Two questions here; why is the cancer victim a victim? And why is Gods PR company still using Tape?

lugha

The OP does raise an interesting question about proof. I wonder if God’s existence is in effect unprovable. He’s too improbable.
Imagine a primitive tribe who declared to the outside world that they once observed objects falling upwards or that one of their number had once died but returned to them a week later. Consider how you might assess the veracity of such a claim, (assuming that you didn’t dismiss it out of hand completely!). No doubt you would postulate all manner of routine explanations, deception, mistaken identity, rumour mill or possibly death misdiagnosis / coma etc. You absolutely would not blindly accept that a gross violation of our understanding of the laws of nature took place. If you had witnessed directly you would most likely opt for deception explanation.

Or possible you would question your senses. And there is the problem. As there is some (small hopefully!) probability that you are senses or capacity for reason might fail and what you think you are seeing is nothing more than an hallucination, it follows that anything which has a lower probability of being true should not be accepted by you, if you evoke Occam’s razor.

As to your assertion that we don’t like the idea of a God, well I absolutely do, or would, and with bells on! But alas.
I would also love the idea of untold riches as promised to be by all of those fine fellows who routine email me if I just make contact with them. But again, alas.

kumate_champ07

desertcircus wrote: »

Two things:

One - I'm pretty sure if the heavens parted and a two-mile-wide bearded guy appeared, performed massive miracles at will, and demanded atheists accept his godhood, most of them would accept they'd been pretty wrong.

Two - if I was a tooled-up alien with ludicrously advanced technologies, pretending to be God to less advanced societies would probably seem like a whole load of fun. Didn't the Spaniards under Cortes conquer the Aztecs doing that?

Three - none of the stuff described would actually prove his status as creator of the universe. Proving that the Big Bang could only have occurred in such a way as to spell out "RICHARD DAWKINS IS A BIG SPANNER" during its expansion would do the trick, though.

the aztecs thought that the spaniards and horses were 'one', like that mythical creature I cant think of right now, he had a bow and arrow

robindch

chozometroid wrote: »

BEWARE: Straw men ahead!

You were right to warn -- there are so many straw men there that they constitute a fire-hazard!

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not. He is not worthy of worship to them.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

You have it almost completely backwards. I don't think that your deity exists for pretty much the same reasons that you think that the islamic, greek, indian and other deities don't exist -- it's got nothing to do with whether I think he's a nice chap or not.

That said, I can certainly read your religious texts and decide whether I'd like the entity that's in there, and I certainly don't -- the deity, as described, is almost uniformly hideous. And from that, it's clear enough that "worshipping" him is simply silly; again for much the same reasons that you won't worship other deities.

As somebody once said, when you think about your reasons for refusing to believe in other deities, you'll then understand why I don't believe that your particular one exists.

Morbert

Everything the OP said about atheists is wrong, for obvious reasons.

pisslips

Since you have definied 'god' as some un-provable argument, then it is no argument at all. It's not even worth thinking about apart from the social phenomena of organised religion and the collection of moral philosophy we call the bible.

But the argument for a god is not defined, pointless. You defined it as incomprehendable therefore it doesn't exist because I can't percieve it.

Stephentlig

in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses.
These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. ( Jude 17-18 )

whats interesting here is that this passage is given just before the book of revelation.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not..

Actually there are some Gods that I do like : Just not the Christian-Juedo One. I like Jesus a bit though:P

It matters a whole lot to me if He/She/It is real because I want to understand this world and figure how it was 'created' and who if anything created it.
It's just the more and more I look at the world the less reason I see for a deity, certainly so for your Christian Deity.

One thing, that I would say though is that if most atheists are like me (which I think is doubtful, but it would be cool:)) then we would go '
"Wow,This is awesome there is actually is a God...so ahem, which God are you then??"

How would you react if He said he was actually Thor???

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

God reveals Himself in the sky for all of the world to see, declaring that He is the God of the universe, and He created all life.

This is a common issue we have discussed before.

Can you tell me how you would determine the difference between God and a super powerful being pretending or acting like God?

It is one of the issues with the supernatural and the idea of an omnipotent being. Or as it is commonly put how do you know the devil isn't pretending to be God every time you think you are experiencing him. Almost by definition you cannot determine the difference, though most religious people seem happy with the rather nonsensical answer "I just know"

Of course an atheists doesn't believe the devil exists any more than God, the point is the thought experiment, get people to think about why they think what they know or believe is accurate. You can replace the devil with another god (Loki, the Viking trickster god if you like, one of my favourite versions as Loki would actually have motivation to pretend to be gods of other religions).

So when Christians say to an atheist "When God appears before you would would have to admit he is real and exists" an atheist simply asks "Well how would I know it is your god that has appeared before me." The most so far any Christian has come up with is that he is going to claim to be God and sure who else could he be. Which shows some what of a lack of imagination on their part. He could be anything.

The atheist would probably be happy to admit that some super powerful being has just appeared before him, but almost by definition he/she cannot determine anything about this super powerful being since the super powerful being could be doing what ever it wants. The being may claim to be something, but he could equally be lying. Whether you believe him or not is entirely up to the person but given that there is absolutely no way to test either way I think most atheists would defer to the position of "Haven't a clue what that is"

Religious people seem very happy to accept that their particular version of a god exists and that this version is the only version that can exist. Where as actually by accepting that such a being can exist you are in fact greatly reducing the amount you can know about such a being because the more powerful and omnipotent it's powers are the less you can determine about it.

You have to go on blind faith that the being is what it claims to be. There is obviously strong motivation to do so, as the thing the being is claiming offers people something good, where as a trickster lying god doesn't. You gain more if it is true than if it isn't true, so blindly believing it is true (and before anyone gets annoyed about the use of the word "blindly" it is blindly given that you have absolutely no way to determine anything about a supernatural being either way) would appear to make sense. So they may very well claim what is the harm in accepting that he is what he is, which I suppose is valid on some levels.

Atheists tend to be more realistic about epistemology, and less accepting of one position over another, particularly is they are not particularly fond of the version that the being is claiming to be anyway. I wouldn't worship your god if he appeared before me and told me to, and that is before I get to the issue that I couldn't determine he is actually your god anyway.

chozometroid wrote: »

What is comes down to is this: Atheists just don't like God, or the idea of the Christian God, so it doesn't matter to them if He is real or not....Correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah that is pretty much it.

Most atheists I know don't particularly like the God described in the Old Testament (the genocidal one), so don't feel any strong need to excuse his actions as "good but we don't know why" or to assume that if he exists he must be good. They are perfectly happy with the idea that if God exists he is just bad.

Because of this they don't feel the need to assume that he is good simply because he says he is. He, if he exists, could just be lying. He could just as easily be a bad god/superpowerful being pretending to be a good god (ever watched Stargate SG1?)

So if he appeared before me (while threatening to annihilate me if I didn't worship him) I wouldn't have any strong desire to blindly accept that he is as good as he claims he is (particularly given what he is done), ie accept that he is the version of god you believe exists.

Of course it would be nice not to be annihilated, but principles have to come first in some instances.

Fremen

If the great lord Brahma manifested himself on earth in the form of a big fiery cow, wouldn't christians behave much like the athiests in the original post?

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

But if there is a God, the giver of all life, including the life blood that flows in your veins, then the fact that you have the capacity to have that opinion is due to His providence, and should you ever come to recognize the fact that there is other than you in the universe and how you came about might just be down to the love of this Other

Lot of assumptions there Soul Winner.

Given that humans create life forms for pretty bad reasons all the time, I find it curious that you assume that he could have only created us for loving, good reasons. That the fact that we exist must mean he is good.

Do you believe that because you have determined that is the case, or do you believe that simply because the alternative is not beneficial to you?

It is like the chimp thinking these humans are wonderful to me, they housed me, feed me, taught me sign language, keep me warm, provided me a mate. Right before they blast the chimp into space to either run out of air or burn up falling back to Earth.

Turtwig

Wicknight wrote: »

Right before they blast the chimp into space to either run out of air or burn up falling back to Earth.

Heyyyyyyy

It was the dog we killed, the chimp survived

chozometroid

Wicknight wrote: »

This is a common issue we have discussed before.

Can you tell me how you would determine the difference between God and a super powerful being pretending or acting like God?

It is one of the issues with the supernatural and the idea of an omnipotent being. Or as it is commonly put how do you know the devil isn't pretending to be God every time you think you are experiencing him. Almost by definition you cannot determine the difference, though most religious people seem happy with the rather nonsensical answer "I just know"

I agree with much of what you said, and as far as "it could be the devil when you think you are experiencing God" goes, I actually think that is exactly what the devil is constantly trying to do, for those who do believe in God. The devil wants to be in the place of Christ, and will appear to be a good spiritual being, but in the end, it's the intentions that reveal the truth. Satan will always be known by his idea of everyone ascending to the level of God, and denying that Jesus Christ is God and died in the flesh. All the world's religions (and the new age movement)fall under one or both of these two categories.
So I do not believe that my experience is from the devil.

I guess there is no way to know if who we think is God is actually a super-powerful being pretending to be. The problem is that it doesn't make sense(it would mean said being has been watching us from our origin, so what is it's purpose? Did it create us too?), however true it could be, and it doesn't explain the origin of the universe. As far as the possibility that God is evil, well, there is no way to know this, and we have to go on what He has revealed of Himself. If in the end he just tortures everyone and laughs at us for believing his lie, then I guess we are at his mercy. I believe in the God of the Bible though, and have joy in what He has revealed to me.

Stephentlig

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/nature_grace.vi.ii.html

above is a link to St.Thomas acuinas on the existence of God.
its not that long of a read. I hope you enjoy it.

God bless
Stephentlig

Morbert

Stephentlig wrote: »

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/nature_grace.vi.ii.html

above is a link to St.Thomas acuinas on the existence of God.
its not that long of a read. I hope you enjoy it.

God bless
Stephentlig

Bleargh. I respect coming to God through personal experience and whatnot, but philosophical arguments like those are worthless. In fact, most of the Christians I know would agree with me.

Stephentlig

Morbert wrote: »

Bleargh. I respect coming to God through personal experience and whatnot, but philosophical arguments like those are worthless. In fact, most of the Christians I know would agree with me.

fair enough Morbert, but unless you refute his demonstration on the existence of God it remains at present a valid one. Christians who side with you does'nt make conclusions of yours such as the above correct ones.

Morbert

Stephentlig wrote: »

fair enough Morbert, but unless you refute his demonstration on the existence of God it remains at present a valid one. Christians who side with you does'nt make conclusions of yours such as the above correct ones.

I was waiting for an invitation to refute it :pac:. I'll be as concise as possible, but I can elaborate on any point.



1: Aquinas assumes that things that appear "self-evident" are necessarily true. He does not demonstrate this. So if God seems self-evident to many people, we still need an additional argument which demonstrates that, because Damascene says that God's existence is self-evident to some people, it is necessarily true.

2: Arguments revolving around the notion of a "first cause" or "unmoved mover" unfortunately don't take into account observations in cosmology. Why, for example, is God allowed to be defined as an unmoved mover, but the universe isn't?

[edit]-I have deliberately kept this short in the hope that you would like to present points in Aquinas's work that counter my points, to save me the trouble of writing a rambling essay.

irlpic

I cant be bothered reading all the posts in this thread,so id just like to say -

It doesn't matter what or who you believe in.The main thing is that what/whoever it is ,if you completely 100% believe and have faith in it can make miracles happen.

My reason behind this is that the human mind can be used to preform so called 'miracles' and evoke well-being etc. if you trust in something without pretense.


Positive mental thinking is a proven mental researched method which i believe applies to religious beliefs aswell.

Stop giving about about religion and start believing in what is good for each individual.

Ps. I'm a none believer but don't mind what you believe in as long as it doesn't involve a mercury tilt switch.

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

I agree with much of what you said, and as far as "it could be the devil when you think you are experiencing God" goes, I actually think that is exactly what the devil is constantly trying to do, for those who do believe in God. The devil wants to be in the place of Christ, and will appear to be a good spiritual being, but in the end, it's the intentions that reveal the truth.

You can't know or determine any of that.

For all you know Christ was the devil. For all you know Christ was Loki. For all you know God and the devil are actually totally alien beings pretending to be something they aren't, for some unknown reason.

The assumptions you hold about your religion are completely indeterminable. You cannot determine true from fiction, what is true and what is a lie, when you are dealing with all powerful supernatural beings. There are no tests, by virtue of being all powerful they can manipulate the results of any test you make.

There is no requirement that supernatural beings won't lie, and in fact your religion already believes lying supernatural beings such as the devil exist. There is no requirement that they be what they say they are. And there is no way to determine that they are or not.

If your entire religion was a lie perpetrated by another supernatural omnipotent being, for what ever reason, you would have no idea.

chozometroid wrote: »

Satan will always be known by his idea of everyone ascending to the level of God, and denying that Jesus Christ is God and died in the flesh.

He will? And you have worked that out how exactly?

Let me guess, you read it in the Bible. Which is the word of God. And God doesn't lie.

And you have worked that out how exactly?

chozometroid wrote: »

I guess there is no way to know if who we think is God is actually a super-powerful being pretending to be. The problem is that it doesn't make sense(it would mean said being has been watching us from our origin, so what is it's purpose? Did it create us too?)

Well no offence but I don't think any of your religion makes sense even if we believe it is all true and accurate. But that isn't really the point.

Christians are very happy to accept that there are unknown reasons why God does things that he does, and in fact these are not only unknown but unknowable to the human mind.

Why then would anyone happy to believe in a supernatural omnipotent being that can do things for unknowable reason have any trouble with the idea of a trickster god, doing his tricking for unknown reasons?

To say that a trickster god doesn't make sense because we can't think of a reason that he would do this doesn't in itself make sense if you are perfectly happy to imagine a concept like the Christian god doing things when you don't know why he does them.

Surely you must be perfectly ok with the concept of a trickster god who would pretend or invent a religion for a reason none of us knows or possible can even imagine?

Really the issue is not that it doesn't make sense but that it doesn't offer anything.

Believing that God is not what he claims to be offers you nothing, where as believing he is what he claims to be offers you quite a lot. Given that it would seem obvious that a lot of people are going to choose to believe he is what he claims to be and ignore the issue that it is actually impossible to determine this.

chozometroid wrote: »

however true it could be, and it doesn't explain the origin of the universe.

What does that have to do with anything?

Are you saying that God must be God because believing that explains the origin of the universe? How does that work?

What if God didn't create the universe, he just claimed to. How would you tell?

chozometroid wrote: »

As far as the possibility that God is evil, well, there is no way to know this, and we have to go on what He has revealed of Himself.

That is the point. He could be lying. There is absolutely no way to determine or test this.

So again if God appeared before me why would I believe what he says? Even the little things humans use to judge if another human is lying or telling the truth become irrelevant because we are talking about all powerful supernatural beings. If God is lying he is not going to act like he is lying. There isn't going to be a "tell". He would have the ultimate poker face.

Anyone who thinks they can determine God is what he claims to be is just kidding themselves.

chozometroid wrote: »

If in the end he just tortures everyone and laughs at us for believing his lie, then I guess we are at his mercy.

Well I can easily imagine a situation where we all die and come before God and he asks why did you all believe the devil when he appeared as a Jewish carpenter and pretended to be my son? Off to hell with all of you.

It is one of the reasons I find the whole idea of gods, particularly the Abrahamic concept of a god who demands worship, ridiculous.

God expects us to believe in him but ignores all these issues this thread highlights about how the heck we are supposed to determine anything about him?

If a god exists and is good he wouldn't, by virtue of being good, expect that. To be good he would have to have far more respect for logic and the limitations of human knowledge. Otherwise, in my book, he is far from good.

If he does exist and does expect that we worship him despite all these issues well then he is not a god I would feel any need follow. Though I find it far more plausible that he doesn't exist at all and this requirement for worship was created by humans living a long time ago who really didn't think this through very well.

chozometroid wrote: »

I believe in the God of the Bible though, and have joy in what He has revealed to me.

Good for you. Just don't be too surprised if others don't share that view.

But then I would say that, I'm the devil ... wait, ignore that ... d'oh! .... :pac:

Zombrex

Stephentlig wrote: »

fair enough Morbert, but unless you refute his demonstration on the existence of God it remains at present a valid one. Christians who side with you does'nt make conclusions of yours such as the above correct ones.

What is there to refute? The whole article is circular nonsense. Half way through he starts quoting the Bible in support of his arguments for the existence of God for crying out loud. :rolleyes:

Stephentlig

Morbert wrote: »

I was waiting for an invitation to refute it :pac:. I'll be as concise as possible, but I can elaborate on any point.

1: Aquinas assumes that things that appear "self-evident" are necessarily true. He does not demonstrate this. So if God seems self-evident to many people, we still need an additional argument which demonstrates that, because Damascene says that God's existence is self-evident to some people, it is necessarily true.

point taken, but I must admit I need to look into it.

2: Arguments revolving around the notion of a "first cause" or "unmoved mover" unfortunately don't take into account observations in cosmology. Why, for example, is God allowed to be defined as an unmoved mover, but the universe isn't?

because God is the universe he created and controls the universe and everything in it, therefore he is the first cause and unmoved mover.

philologos

Morbert: Thomas Aquinas isn't foolproof and his argumentation is quite early on in the philosophy of religion, however theistic argument in that area of philosophy has been improving ever since people like Avicenna, Moses Maimonides, Aquinas, Anselm and numerous others began their arguments for Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages. It's certainly not something to be merely snubbed at.

Other atheists have made very good counterclaims to most of the theistic arguments if one finds a textbook on the subject especially sceptics such as David Hume, but to merely dismiss them without giving them a seconds thought is the epitome of closed mindedness.

These arguments won't make or break a faith in God, but they give food for the mind, so that the heart can explore what God or what Christ has had to say.

As Stephen said, provide some points on the arguments instead of merely rubbishing them. E.G The infinite regress in cosmological arguments, the fact that a designer does not rule out the possibility of there being more than one designer among many of the points that David Hume brought to the table.

Turtwig

Stephentlig wrote: »

because God is the universe he created and controls the universe and everything in it,

Uhh, that makes absolutely no sense, how does someone/something create themselves into being??

Stephentlig

Malty_T wrote: »

Uhh, that makes absolutely no sense, how does someone/something create themselves into being??

1: he created the universe

2: the universe is a part of him, therefore it is he in his omnipotence.

3: with the above pointers in position God remains the first cause and unmoved mover. he was already a being, but he is within what he created.

chozometroid

Wicknight, there is too much there to address in your post, especially knowing that it will never end with you. You will always say something in argument of the Christian idea of God, no matter what.

I will address a couple things:

You are basically telling me I can't know anything, therefore it's foolish to believe in anything. I may as well go the easy way and be an atheist, huh?

I have no reason to believe any of your imaginings should be even considered a possibility.

Why should God lie? What possible reason would there be for a God to lie to His creation? I'm pretty sure you'll fail to see my reasoning here....no it's guaranteed you will.

As far as God doing things for unknown reasons, there is no issue here. All that is saying is that we accept that we do not know everything, so we cannot possibly know how God is working things out. We actually do have an idea of why He is doing things, because He has revealed His plan to us.

A trickster god is man's invention. It just seems to me that a perfect single God is the source of all things. Otherwise, how can you label the trickster god as being "tricky?" Is being tricky part of perfection? If there is one or more gods, and they are imperfect, where did the imperfection come from? Is there a greater god still? A desire to deceive and humiliate others is a sign of weakness. The trickster god would have "fun" with the idea of 1+1=3, which means he is illogical.
Of course this is all pointless speculation, and all you have done is try to cast a sad picture of how Christian belief is in vain.

What if God didn't create the universe, he just claimed to. How would you tell?

I'll ask Him when I see Him. If at that point, I was to act like you, I will not believe Him when He says how He did it. I would say He's lying or taking credit for the glorious work of the Big Bang. God cannot prove Himself to you, as you reject Him.

If a god exists and is good he wouldn't, by virtue of being good, expect that. To be good he would have to have far more respect for logic and the limitations of human knowledge. Otherwise, in my book, he is far from good.

I'm glad you typed this, as it shows you have some sort of an idea of what a god should be, even though your idea of "good" is formed by flawed atomic arrangements in your head.