Atheistic Double Standard?

[Shad]

God's actions and moral requirements flow from his nature. It is his nature that makes one thing good and another evil, not his commands, or even his will.

You are super imposing a standard of good not derived from God to judge if God is good.

Is slavery moral? Yes or no?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

God's actions and moral requirements flow from his nature.

So do mine.

If you look up divine command theory you will find that it is not God's might that determines morality.

Of course it is. According to Christian doctrine, obey it or burn.

Thank God two Christian nations hated tyranny enough to kill the tyrants in Germany, Japan, Italy, etc.....

You mean, 'Thank god that two Christian nations defeated two others.'

I know Hitchens' take on God quite well. He literally hated God

Then you don't know Hitchen's take on God. He's an atheist. He hates Jehovah about the same as he hated the Riddler from Batman.

The most powerful and benevolent nation in human history was founded by 95% theists and a handful of deists.

Virtually none of the principles embedded in the American constitution is of Christian origin. The authors of the US Constitution were functioning as secular humanists when they crafted that document. You only need read the Constitution's preamble. The purpose of the government is to promote the interests of humanity, not to obey any god.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

it demonstrates that a timeless, space less, immaterial, personal agent, of unimaginable intelligence and power must exist.

That "demonstration" seems to be confined to people that already believe that.

Others understand that nothing exists outside of time. The word "exist" require that something be present in some string of contiguous instances. That's what distinguishes the potentially existent and the nonexistent from the existent. Only the latter appears in a strip of time.

What could your god do in no time, with no possibility of "before" followed by "after" states? It couldn't act, think, or exist.

As Polymath noted, nothing can cause time. The word "cause" also implies a temporal sequence - a before and after - words that assume that time already exists.

However that does not make him Yahweh, just the best candidate.

How is Yahweh a better candidate than Dreamtime Snake or Quetzalcoatl?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

the logical incoherence of a thing being the cause of its self

The logical incoherence of creation ex nihilo. No cause can have an effect on that which is not (yet) existent to bring it into existence.

What's the least likely thing we can imagine or name to exist uncaused and undesigned?

[a] the universe's singularity
a bacterium
[c] a god
[d] other

Go ahead and pick one. Which one screams most loudly for an intelligent designer?

You give your god a pass. That's called special pleading.

You will always return to your dark master in the end.

No, *you* will, as you just did again - generally when you've run out of ammo and patience. That's when you roll the demon out like a scary chicken nailed to a stick that you shake.

Tip: Don't give up hell theology, especially with children. They have no defense against it.

People aren't motivated to spend eternity praising a god that comes off as a black hole of need and conceit. They just want to avoid the fire. Simplistically, Christianity's hellish stick is a far better motivator than its heavenly carrot.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You complain about how many times you had to agree with me

When have I agreed with you, and if I had, why would I complain about it?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If science does have anything that makes God's existence unlikely why can't it be found in Newtonian physics, calculus, discrete mathematics, LA, Geometry, Algebra, arithmetic? In applied science instead of the most theoretical science.

I assume that by "God" you mean the god of the Christian Bible. It's already been explained that the only evidence necessary to rule it out is scripture. The list of attributes ascribed to that god include many pairs of mutually exclusive attributes, which renders the character described logically impossible.

What that means is that although we still cannot rule out the possibility of gods in general including those that are not interested in revealing themselves or perhaps cannot do so, we can rule out the god described in the Bible. It's simply impossible to be perfect, yet make mistakes and regret them. It's impossible for free will as conceived in Christian philosophy to coexist with omniscience and perfect foreknowledge of all that is to come.

Each such example is smoking gun evidence that at least one (if not both) of any two mutually exclusive attributes is a human invention.

Then we have the arguments that let us know that some things cannot be the creation of a god, such as time and consciousness. A god would have to be conscious already to create anything, so it obviously cannot create its own consciousness. Something else would have had to do that, and so, we can bypass gods and go to that something else.

And for anything to think or act, time must already exists. A god could not create time or even conceive it without being in time.

This does not rule gods out, either. It just makes them dependent on external realities for their existence. They cease to be like the god of the Christian Bible.

The fine tuning argument curiously enough actually argues against an omnipotent god. Why would such a god need laws of physics at all, and why does it appear to be constrained to only certain sets of basic physical constants? A godless universe constructing and operating itself needs such laws.

Consider a juggler. He doesn't need rules for juggling. He just juggles without any understanding of the forces he applies to the balls, the precise description of the movements of his hands and fingers, or the time interval between throws, for example. He just juggles without rules because he's an intelligent juggler.

But if he the juggler wants an non-intelligent juggler - a mindless, juggling robot - to take over for him, he will need to engineer a device wherein all of those parameters are measured and the rules for juggling encoded in the juggler's construction and digital instructions.

Similarly, a god juggling the planets, moons and other heavenly bodies around their stars wouldn't need Kepler's and Newton's laws, whereas a mindless, godless, robotic universe does.

Then there's the problem of the origin of the laws that permit a god to exist - that give it structural integrity and maintain the form necessary to know everything or even anything rather than to begin forgetting and disintegrating or rearranging itself into something no longer a god. We can't very well credit a god for those

Occam's razor says that no one should multiply causes beyond necessity.

It also says that we should prefer the simplest explanation that accounts for the available evidence. If there is any merit to the cosmological argument - that the universe had a first moment and needs an efficient cause - it need not be a conscious, intentional, highly structured agent, if an amorphous, unconscious substance is capable of doing the same thing. Occam suggests that we should prefer that option.

Furthermore, the multiverse hypothesis has the merit of not requiring that something that doesn't exist come into existence, which is what the cosmological argument for a god like the Christian god indicates happened. That god is said to have created our universe ex nihilo, whereas the multiverse hypothesis only requires that some of the substance of a preexisting and perhaps eternal (but not extratemporal) entity changed form. Our first moment wasn't its first, just as your first moment and mine weren't the world's.

Nor were you and I created ex nihilo. We were formed from the rearrangement of elements in the universe that are at least as old as it is, and may in fact have existed eternally in a multiverse. From the pen of the poet, "we are billion yeas old stardust."

You mentioned a moon forming event earlier as an example of cause and effect. This was just a case of preexisting matter/energy changing form, not an ex nihilo creation of the substance of the moon. That's a fine model for a multiverse, but incompatible with a god that just wills universes into existence from nothing.

Recall that you claimed while presenting the cosmological argument that nothing was known to begin to exist uncaused, and considered that meaningful when discussing the origin of the universe. Well, nothing is known to be able to create anything else from nothing. Does that matter to your argument?

If creation ex nihilo is logically impossible, and a god exists, we can only really consider pantheism or panentheism - the universe is God, or the universe is part of God, neither of which requires the creation of something from nothing.

But we've still got the apparently intractable problem of the source of consciousness, which cannot be a conscious agent like a god. Once again, the multiverse, which need not be conscious, comes to the rescue.

So where does a god like the god of the Christian Bible - the omniscient, omnipotent, extratemporal, ruler and ex nihilo creator of our universe who possesses mutually exclusive pairs of qualities fit into any of this?

It doesn't.

Can you rebut any of that? I don't think you can.

 

[Polymath257]

Again, this seems to require tens less time. Tensed time does not have an infinite number of seconds occurring at all times. My analogy only assumes that I have a dollar.

OK, so make an argument for tensed time. Relativity does a good job of showing the necessity of dealing with tense-less time

Ok, I am having to cut back on the time I invest in responding so I am going to give you a representative answer to this quantum issue and then consider all future quantum issues addressed.

1. Even if I grant that you have two PhDs, that does not necessarily mean you are competent in QM.

True, although I took the graduate classes in it and passed the PhD quals in it.

2. Even if I granted that you are that as well IMO QM is too young to reliably know much of anything about it.

On the contrary, it has a history now of over 100 years and was built up originally because of the failures of classical physics. Again, it is now the basis for a very large amount of very practical technology.

3. Even if I granted the above two, I do not have the education level to evaluate your claims.

Well, since it is a subject that is relevant to your arguments, it might behoove you to learn something about it. You seem to have at least some math education, so a basic undergraduate course shoudl not be beyond you.

4. Even if I the above 3 were true and we knew which model describes QM your still only talking about a
possibility (more accurately labeled, not a known impossibility).

Which means we should not discount that possibility a priori. Which is a big part of my counter-rgument: that you have discarded alternative possibilities without consideration.

5. Even if all 4 above were true that would only counter the cosmological argument and leave the rest of the
evidence for God unaffected.

We can address one argument at a time.

6. If science does have anything that makes God's existence unlikely why can't it be found in Newtonian
physics, calculus, discrete mathematics, LA, Geometry, Algebra, arithmetic? In applied science instead of
the most theoretical science.

Well, because Newtonian mechanics assumes a deterministic description of the universe dominated by causality at every level. Because Newtonian physics views the universe as 'clockwork' and is thereby more consistent with deist theology? And because arguments based on causality have been undermined by the non-causal nature of quantum mechanics? And because the pre-Cantorian views on infinity were often vague and contradictory?

ALL those are good reasons why. You also seem to think that any arguments should be based on old ideas that have been shown to be incorrect in detail and not on the more accurate and precise replacements.

And your precisely positing tens less time.

OK, so?

The argument only applies to things that begin to exist. Occam's razor says that no one should multiply causes beyond necessity. Everything devolves into a singularity, not a plurality.

And, once again, I am not doing so. I am showing the weaknesses of your argument. There are many situations where there is a partial order with multiple 'smallest values'.

I have yet to see any evidence that it isn't. I think it was you that said that positive claims carry the burden, even if you didn't, it is true. You are making the positive claim.

Actually, I am not. I am pointing out that there are more possibilities than your argument has addressed. I don't know which possibility is correct, but neither do you. For your argument to go through, you have to show the other possibilities do not hold.


It comes up in calculus as well. Usually in the form of what can't be reached.

I did. I rarely have secular debates. In fact my opening post in this thread concerned God. I disagree with your conclusions and the burden is yours. My claim is a universal negative, yours is a positive.

No, you make a positive existence claim: that God exists. The burden of proof is on you.

Many of those that I trust know a lot about math. I also follow some very good mathematic professors as well as experts in testimony, history, textual criticism, etc....... Heck, I use atheist scholars like Nietzsche and Vilenkin quite often as well.

OK.

Got us to the moon.

That it did. And for macroscopic things it is accurate enough for the vast majority of purposes. But the differences between classical physics and reality have been measured even at the level of time between different floors of a building. The differences are small, but they are there. To use the old system when the new system leads to different conclusions is foolish.

Which semi-conductor or laser is relevant to theism? I did not say non-Newtonian science does not exist.

No, but you claimed you can ignore quantum mechanics because it is purely theoretical. That is false. It has very important things to say about a great number of things related to technology and has never been shown to be wrong. This is in contrast to Newtonian physics which is wrong at the atomic level (for example).

So far I see a pattern without exception from you. You denounce anyone who states something inconvenient for you. Newton is out, Vilenkin has been outdated, Aquinas and Aristotle got it all wrong, Occam should be ignored, Penrose has lost it, Leibniz is an idiot, Plantinga should retire, and by association Lennox and Craig should be doubted, etc..... This is starting to look like a tactic instead of a sincere position.

Newton's ideas work very well in their purview. But they are approximations and not accurate in detail. To use them when the more modern, accurate ideas lead to a different conclusion is a basic mistake.

Occam has a lot of value. We don't multiply assumptions unnecessarily. That is a very good policy. But that often means that we have to allow for possibilities where our arguments can fail.

Vilenkin has a lot of good work, showing singularity theorems in several important cases. The question is whether his assumptions apply in the versions of quantum gravity currently being discussed. They don't.

Aquinas ans Aristotle bsed their ideas on a physics that is *totally* wrong and on a view of the universe and motion that is completely inaccurate. Why *anyone* would use their ideas today is beyond me They aren't even decent approximations (unlike Newtonian ideas).

I have read a bit of Craig (none of Lennox) and have found him to spout the usual arguments poorly.

Physics does, actually I think math does as well.

Pure math doesn't use labs. Applied math often produced ideas that others (like physicists) check for in labs.

I may look up and post the formal argument sometime soon. That is the word used, you just do not agree that it should.

Again, I do not care whether you use the word 'inconsistent' or 'incoherent'. They are both wrong here.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So God was practicing social Darwinism then. Drowning everybody except eight of the best.

The first eugenics program?

Of course, as written, it was a hare-brained scheme unbefitting a god. It doesn't take omniscience to see that if you want to replace mankind with something that can outperform it - something that won't sin or be rebellious or impious - you can't use the same breeding stock to repopulate the earth.

What a wonderful coincidence that the only eight righteous people on earth were all related either by marriage or descent, and that all seven of the others believed Noah when nobody else would.

I guess that the Noah family wasn't as righteous as God thought, or else, you can't inherit righteousness.

The obvious solution was to reprogram man's urges and desires to conform with God's will, or else learn a little tolerance for rebellious behavior like most parents do. They rarely feel the need to drown their children and start over simply for testing boundaries.

 

[Polymath257]

1. Even if I grant that you have two PhDs, that does not necessarily mean you are competent in QM.
2. Even if I granted that you are that as well IMO QM is too young to reliably know much of anything about it.
3. Even if I granted the above two, I do not have the education level to evaluate your claims.
.

If you want a very good, undergraduate, introductory text on QM, try Eisberg+Resnik:
Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles: Robert Eisberg, Robert Resnick: 8580000516449: Amazon.com: Books

It is an often used book for physics students that are just beginning to learn QM.

If you have questions, just ask.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

God's actions and moral requirements flow from his nature. It is his nature that makes one thing good and another evil, not his commands, or even his will.

But we've seen what that nature is, and it is not good. As the Hitchens citation suggests, we should hope that this god doesn't exist.

I understand that our wishes don't affect the reality concerning gods, but to hope that there exists a god that would do the things that Jehovah is said to have done and intends to do is foolish.

Here are a few questions for you:

• If you haven't judged your god, how did you decide that it is worthy of your worship? On what basis can you call it a good god? Faith? And if you can judge it, why not others?

• How much worse would the universe be if Satan ruled it instead of Jehovah. As it is, we've got most of the souls ever born slated for eternal torture - perhaps 90+% given how few conform to the requirements for salvation. How much worse would it have been to have been born into a universe created and run by Satan alone? 100% damnation, and without the few decades on earth first? I'd call that universe only about 10% worse than the one we are told we were born into.

• You're going to hate this one, but the question deserves an answer. If Christian theology were correct, and things such as the existence of hell and damnation without hope of mercy characterize reality, why would it be wrong if it were possible to destroy this god and release all of the souls being tortured? We might also prevent the apocalypse it has in mind for us. Sin would cease to exist if God did, since sin is nothing more or less than disobedience to God.

• Moreover, why wouldn't it be just to imprison such a god in its own nightmare rather than offer it permanent unconsciousness, which is more than it will do for you and me. Why is it OK for that god to do that to us but not have it done to itself?

If you find these questions shocking and offensive, I apologize, but consider that it is only because you haven't allowed yourself to consider matters like these in the past. Had you contemplated ideas like these, you would have rejected the claim that the Christian god is a good god.

But you chose to accept that claim on faith without evaluating it, right? How else could you have missed all of this, and how can that be a good way to decide such issues?

 

[Polymath257]

Ok, your still not quite getting it. In my argument God = Yahweh and has all of Yahweh's attributes. I then build two different "if" - "then" arguments.

1. If God (Yahweh) exists then objective morality exists. If you do not understand why God's moral values and duties would be objective let me know.

Yes. Please explain this.

2. If God (Yahweh) does not exist then moral preference is all that is left and it usually comes in the form of might makes right.

This is incorrect. Human well-being is a reasonable standard for morality. In fact, it is a much better standard than attempting to determine the desires of an unimaginable deity. And it is much, much better than taking the word of a book written by humans as the decrees of an unimaginable deity.

 

[Shad]

Yes. Please explain this.

I will simplify it. It is because people like Robin have defined God to be that way. Just like how I can define a fish as having 4 legs, with fur and makes a barking sound. The only difference is that you can falsify my view but not Robin's. So they treat their definition as if unchallenged rather than impossible to prove. Reject the definition and the argument collapses.

 

[Pudding]

That there is no god.

What claim does atheism make?

the claim of atheism is that there is no god.

Atheism is the belief that no god exists.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

You are joking, right? I would not even know how to begin to start counting all the various branches of monotheism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You are joking, right? I would not even know how to begin to start counting all the various branches of monotheism.

What does that have to do with Pudding's chart?

 

[Jeremiahcp]

What does that have to do with Pudding's chart?

The chart is suggesting there are no subcategories of group A.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The chart is suggesting there are no subcategories of group A.

No, the chart is focusing on the categories of atheists.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

No, the chart is focusing on the categories of atheists.

I thought that might be your response, so I came up with a witty rebuttal ahead of time: I disagree!

There has to be a reason it is on the chart, whether realized or not, and it certainly can be read the way I read it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I thought that might be your response, so I came up with a witty rebuttal ahead of time: I disagree!

There has to be a reason it is on the chart, whether realized or not, and it certainly can be read the way I read it.

But why would you?

Do you really think it was the intended meaning?

Better yet: why does it even matter?

 

[Jeremiahcp]

But why would you?

Do you really think it was the intended meaning?

Better yet: why does it even matter?

Ya, I am sorry, but this is not very interesting. Just live with the fact I shared my thoughts on the chart.