Poll: The best argument against God, capital G.

[Revoltingest]

Hahaha, you’re full of ****! Feel ‘ya, though.

I've covered this before you joined RF....
A friend was tested as a child by concerned parents.
His IQ was 70...according to that test at that time.
He's smarter than I am, so that establishes an upper limit.
I've never been tested, so I go by that.

 

[dybmh]

Can a god make a burrito so hot he (she?) can't eat it?
Yes or no....a contradiction.

Of course! During a brief moment of decreased omnipotence God cannot eat the scalding burrito. Omnipotence permits a lapse in omnipotence. That resolves the contradiction. And God enjoys the burrito a moment later.

 

[Revoltingest]

Of course! During a brief moment of decreased omnipotence God cannot eat the scalding burrito. Omnipotence permits a lapse in omnipotence. That resolves the contradiction. And God enjoys the burrito a moment later.

So omnipotence has a "time share" quality to it, eh.
But during a period of omnipotence, the contradiction arises.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So omnipotence has a "time share" quality to it, eh.
But during a period of omnipotence, the contradiction arises.

Here is another problem. Is the universe everything? I.e. how do you know if that is the case? If not, then for the non-universe logic might not apply.

 

[dybmh]

So omnipotence has a "time share" quality to it, eh.
But during a period of omnipotence, the contradiction arises.

No, omnipotence permits the lapse. Without omnipotence, the lapse would not be... ummm potent.

So, as long as the potential exists for the lapse, there is no contradiction.

 

[dybmh]

But during a period of omnipotence, the contradiction arises.

In perpetual bigness, there also exists perpetual smallness:

 

[Zwing]

I've covered this before you joined RF....
A friend was tested as a child by concerned parents.
His IQ was 70...according to that test at that time.
He's smarter than I am, so that establishes an upper limit.
I've never been tested, so I go by that.

Pay little attention to IQ tests. Oppenheimer had an IQ some 40 points higher than his buddy Einstein, and well…there ‘ya have it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Pay little attention to IQ tests. Oppenheimer had an IQ some 40 points higher than his buddy Einstein, and well…there ‘ya have it.

In general S-factor is not the same as G-factor and that accounts for some of it.

 

[John D. Brey]

The brain has a very complex structure with
many billions of neurons & connections.
So it's reasonable to see that such complexity
could host human thought.
When certain parts are damaged, we can observe
that certain elements of the mind are damaged too.
This correspondence points to the brain as the
origin of thought.

. . . I think they're now saying the brain has trillions of connections. One world-class physicist said the human brain has more connections than there are stars in the universe. Furthermore, they've proven that only in certain cases does damage affect thought. Memories, for instance, have been shown not to reside in any one area of the brain since damage in different areas doesn't seem to affect memories.

The hardware of the brain is like the hardware of a computer. But the software is where the information is stored. And no matter how much software I load onto my computer, it doesn't weigh a minuscule of an ounce more. I can put every book ever in print onto my computer ---billions or trillions of pages of information ---and my computer doesn't weigh more than it did before I loaded all that information onto it. (I recently loaded 6000+ pages of Aquinas' Suma Theologica onto my Kindle and did twelve bicep curls with both my right and then my left hand).

Our thoughts are weightless and timeless. The brain on the other hand is the most magnificent 3 pounds (4 or 5 in my case) of matter in the universe. More importantly, when I purchase a new computer, I can load the stuff on the old one onto the new one and find that it works better and faster. The same will be true when all the information now stored on my old-fashioned brain gets uploaded into my resurrection body. The latter will be more dramatic than loading information from a Tandy TRS 80 onto one of today's quantum supercomputers. My resurrection brain will make the quantum supercomputer of today function like an abacus in comparison. And I've been promised software upgrades galore.



John

 

[Nakosis]

If you had to choose one, and only one, argument against the God of Abraham as described in the Bible ( both Hebrew and Christian ), what would it be?

Please vote in the poll. I tried to cover all the major objections, and I'm interested to know if I missed anything.

My vote? God doesn't listen. I think that's the single best argument against God.

• No evidence? It's not really an argument against.
• Harsh / evil actions in the bible? The NT and Christian theology explains most of that stuff.
• The bible is unrealistic / fake? It doesn't bother me.
• Suffering / Starvation / Disease / Pests / Pestilence? It's a really good argument, my 2nd choice.
• No intervention against tyrants and the worst of the worst criminals. This is my 3rd choice.

Thank you in advance for your response.

...God never listens ... to what I say... and you don't get a refund ... if you over-pray...

Spoiler: lyrics

Swinging on the lifeline
Fraying bits of twine
Entangled in the remnants of the
Knot I left behind
And asking you to help me make it
Finally unwind

But God never listens to what I say
God never listens to what I say
And you don't get a refund
If you overpray

And when the line is breaking
And when I'm near the end
When all the time spent leading
I've been following instead
When all my thoughts and memories are
Left hanging by a thread

God never listens...

Stranded on this slender string
The minutes seem to last a lifetime
Dangling here between the light above
And blue below that drags me down

But God never listens to what I say
God never listens to what I say
And you don't get a refund
If you overpray

There is no tangible benefit to believing in God.

There's no consequence to not believing in God.

Life whether I believe or don't believe doesn't get better, doesn't get worse.
So even if a God exists, they might as well not.

 

[John D. Brey]

I’m not suggesting an alternative model. I’m saying that a purely physical explanation of the mind is by definition incomplete. You cannot reduce that which is mental entirely to the physical, without losing something vital - the experience of being aware, of looking out from within, at a world we perceive in our minds.

The reverse is also true btw. While we cannot even conceive of the existence of the brain and it’s functions independently of the mind (because it is in the mind, and only in the mind, that conceptions are manifested), to reduce the physical to the mental, as idealists do, is to completely abandon external, mind-independent reality. Thus we slip into the intolerable despair of solipsism.

So we arrive at the point where mind and body, consciousness and objective physical reality, are interdependent. But these two cannot ever be entirely reconciled, nor can the thinking person ever be at ease in the material world, without developing a conscious awareness of the spirit.

Well put. Biological evolution requires a degree of homeostasis, or equilibrium between organisms and organs, that the human brain simply doesn't abide by. There's no way on God's green earth, literally, that the hominid biology had the resources to purchase the modern human brain without knowing ahead of time what it would gain by possession of that invaluable machine. There's no way the human brain comes online without retroactive guidance from the mind that waited, guided, patiently, all those eons, for a beach-head (in the human head) where it could get back into the game (using the nomenclature of Mike Ditka).



John

 

[Revoltingest]

Here is another problem. Is the universe everything? I.e. how do you know if that is the case? If not, then for the non-universe logic might not apply.

So far, logic has proven more useful than
other kinds of reasoning, eg, emoting, faith.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, omnipotence permits the lapse. Without omnipotence, the lapse would not be... ummm potent.

So, as long as the potential exists for the lapse, there is no contradiction.

Wrongo pongo. Set aside episodes of
non-omnipotence...
During a period of omnipotence, gods
cannot make burritos so hot they can't
eat them.

 

[Revoltingest]

Pay little attention to IQ tests. Oppenheimer had an IQ some 40 points higher than his buddy Einstein, and well…there ‘ya have it.

Oppenheimer could very well have been
smarter than Einstein, who succeeded thru
not just brains, but perseverance. Not every
genius is in the right profession at the right
time to make astounding breakthroughs.
To rank achievements doesn't mean to rank
intelligence.

 

[John D. Brey]

There is no tangible benefit to believing in God.

There's no consequence to not believing in God.

Life whether I believe or don't believe doesn't get better, doesn't get worse.
So even if a God exists, they might as well not.

From my perspective anyone who could hold that position without some modicum of pain would be impervious to the fires of hell such that at least there's nothing to fear from holding onto such a position. It seems to me that the position as stated could at best be considered Attitudinal Asbestos.



John

 

[Revoltingest]

From my perspective anyone who could hold that position without some modicum of pain would be impervious to the fires of hell such that at least there's nothing to fear from holding onto such a position. It seems to me that the position as stated could at best be considered Attitudinal Asbestos.



John

Could you dumb that down for me?

 

[Heyo]

Omnipotence permits a lapse in omnipotence.

[citation needed]

That resolves the contradiction.

Only if you re-define omnipotence.

This is another example of the greed of the theists. Wanting to have an omnipotent god and having it being non contradicting at the same time. You can't always get what you want - especially not two thing that contradict each other at the same time.

 

[Nakosis]

From my perspective anyone who could hold that position without some modicum of pain would be impervious to the fires of hell such that at least there's nothing to fear from holding onto such a position. It seems to me that the position as stated could at best be considered Attitudinal Asbestos.



John

Well, just in case, I'm working on a killer tan in Florida.

 

[RestlessSoul]

By what definition from whom?

By the definition implicit in the premise; an explanation involves terms and concepts, which are not directly observable. They are the stuff of the mind, having no tangible mind-independent existence of their own.

If I read you correctly, a question....
Who says a system is no more than the sum of its components?
What's the basis.

The whole must always, again by definition, have qualities beyond those present in the parts; even if only the quality of wholeness.

I disagree that this is a problem.
It's not been demonstrated.

I don't understand this.

Not sure what you don’t understand. Maybe that’s the problem?

Or this.

Yeah, that was always going to be a step too far for you.

 

[Revoltingest]

By the definition implicit in the premise; an explanation involves terms and concepts, which are not directly observable. They are the stuff of the mind, having no tangible mind-independent existence of their own.

That's not a definition.

The whole must always, again by definition, have qualities beyond those present in the parts; even if only the quality of wholeness.

OK.
But that comports with my theme.

Not sure what you don’t understand. Maybe that’s the problem?

Can you clarify?

Yeah, that was always going to be a step too far for you.

Again, clarify, perhaps elaborate with less jargon?