Simple question?

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so I can't wait to hear the irrefutable proof God does not exist.

Did you ever have group meals at your seminary school, FrGamble?

Student1 "Who ate the last piece of crusty bread?"

Student2. "Don't know? Maybe Peter ate it before he left?"

Student1 "I think you ate it."

Student2. "I didn't eat it."

Student1 "I think you ate it! Prove you didn't eat it?"

Student2 "Well, I can't prove I didn't eat it."

Student1 "AHA! Just as I thought! You must of eaten it."

So many words you guys have written
since last night. You can't find a god
with words, or make one disappear
either. Zen says thinking about god is
a distraction that keeps us from
experiencing reality. In zen, god simply
doesn't matter either way, like any
other intellectual argument. In the end
it's just a waste of time and energy to
think about it at all.

Quote: FrGamble

That being said this question you brought up does kind of have irrefutable logic behind the answer that there cannot be many gods.

Speaking of that, how do you justify the three gods Christians believe in?

Going by the logic we previously agreed to, they can't all be "God." Nor can each be a mere part of "God," as that involves the same contradiction.

Quote: Nareed

Speaking of that, how do you justify the three gods Christians believe in?

Going by the logic we previously agreed to, they can't all be "God." Nor can each be a mere part of "God," as that involves the same contradiction.

I'm trying to bet on the answer ahead of time. Let's see, god wasn't actually split but was just existing in 2 or 3 forms at the same time. Maybe it was an illusion? I think the text says something different though.

I'm glad I don't have to resolve this.

Quote: Nareed

Speaking of that, how do you justify the three gods Christians believe in?

"The most difficult thing about the Christian concept of the Trinity is that there is no way to perfectly and completely understand it. The Trinity is a concept that is impossible for any human being to fully understand, let alone explain."

Good enough for me. Just another convoluted
concept for a very flawed religion.

Quote: Dalex64

Redundancy and unnecessary complication, while inconvenient, is not proof or disproof of an assertion.

No, but it is evidence that would naturally and reasonably show that you are incorrect.

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It is your assertion that there is one being with infinite power. If there are two beings, and infinite power available, how much power does each being have? I think that is what Nareed was trying to say. What if these beings DON'T have infinite power, but instead have a LOT of power, an equal amount of power to each-other, and ENOUGH power to create and control a universe? Infinite is pretty big, and is bigger than is necessary to do the job. Of course, by placing these beings outside of time and making them exist forever, you make it necessary for there to be infinite power, in order for them to exist forever. So again, what is twice infinity or half infinity? If infinite power is available, an infinite number of beings can all wield it.

First of all having infinite power is not necessary to exit forever. Maybe it would be less confusing to say that God is all-powerful enough to create that universe and all matter/energy and space and time. Anytime you are trying to create or posit an infinity of things, such as gods you run into the absurdity of an actual infinite of things. See Hilbert's Hotel. I am asserting that there is one being, God, who is alone all-powerful and has created all that exists. This being of course must also be eternal, spiritual, and I finally understand now why this God must also be personal and have freedom of will.

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Why should I be expected to disprove your god, when you can not disprove the other gods? Your proof seems to be that the other gods don't agree with your philosophy on how you think things are.

It is not just that these other gods don't agree with my philosophy they don't agree with humanity's reality or answer the big questions we all face. This is probably why they have no adherents today.

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The Catholic assertion isn't that there must have been some supernatural force to create the universe, it is that PLUS the assertion that it is what you think God is. That is two things that you have to prove.

The first one has been proved to be more plausible than not based on the evidence of the philosophical arguments I presented and the modern scientific discoveries. Why don't we all agree on that first and then dive into the second assertion that God is the Most Holy Trinity as revealed in Christianity. Do you have any problems with the previous evidence I have presented for the existence of a God? If not we can talk about the second proposition in due time.

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If you can show me where we can look to see God, then we can look there and use "absence of evidence" to prove god doesn't exist.

Please remember that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Also I have already pointed where to look in philosophy to see the reality of God's existence. If you hope to see Him in a telescope His spiritual nature will not allow you. however, you can of course look to the person of Jesus Christ.

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If there is nowhere to look, or no way to look, then you can not use evidence to disprove god. Now, this is very important: that does not prove that god exists!

You have to use evidence to disprove God just like you have to use evidence to show that He exists. I still await any evidence that points to Him not existing.

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Asking someone to disprove god with evidence - that is one of the reasons that Pastafarianism has become so popular. It embodies how you can look at something, declare it as evidence for something, and then shout "prove me wrong!"

I think this is what Nareed is getting at by asking me to disprove the ancient strange gods of the past. I think I have tried to show that philosophically and logically there must be one all-powerful creator of the universe and that these ancient gods are no longer believed in nor are Pastafarians really believers in the FSM because these "gods" do not answer or contribute to the understanding of who we are as human beings.

Quote: rxwine

Well, as soon as you add an intelligent sentient creature even a human, it's fair to ask why they inflict unnecessary pain or harm. If I catch my coat in a taxi door and am dragged down the street that is going to be bad for me. But it is not evil. If someone slams my coat in the door and purposely drags me down the street that is intentional harm. But they are both essentially the same action.

They are very different actions. One is an accident the other is attempted murder.

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I question the second action when there is an intelligent being behind it, just as I question why a intelligent creator makes creatures he plans to destroy and absolves himself of responsibility all the while knowing what is going to happen from the beginning.

This is what I consider the heresy of double-predestination. God does not create us and plan to destroy us, exactly the opposite. We have the responsibility to use our freedom to do what is good and right and God's foreknowledge of our decisions does not cause us to reject the constant gift of Grace and God's efforts to encourage us to love Him and others.

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I'm not inferring one reason for Christianity's or any other religion's success, but many possible reasons why it survives. But the point is the same, it has outcompeted other myths. Control could be one, but it's not the only reason any myth would survive over another.

The question you and Evenbob have to then answer is why the Christian myth has outcompeted the others? I'll give you a hint it has nothing to do with control.

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I'll concede that a intelligent creator could have created the Big Bang, and the process of evolution. (in other words instead of Shakespeare he created millions of monkeys and all the typewriters)

But the process used obviously wasn't intended to reveal an intelligent creator. And the process, IMO, doesn't need one to explain why it works either.

My point is you need much more than just monkeys and typewriters you need intelligence at the level we only find in human beings. You bring up a good point about if the process obviously intends to reveal an intelligent creator. However, as far back as one wants to go even the ancient Greek philosophers marveled at the order of the heavens and the earth that they couldn't scientifically explained but led them to a belief in God. As we delve deeper into the universe and our world with science I think we are constantly amazed at the complexity and order of things.

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EDIT - and if you want a central theme for my answers, it's why the Universe actually fits my model better than it does yours. I'm not going to claim that I'm right, just that there is very little hoop jumping needed to make it work.

I respectfully disagree. I think the universe fits the model of an intelligent, eternal, all-powerful, spiritual, and personal creator much better than any model of random chance.

Quote: rxwine

Did you ever have group meals at your seminary school, FrGamble?

Student1 "Who ate the last piece of crusty bread?"

Student2. "Don't know? Maybe Peter ate it before he left?"

Student1 "I think you ate it."

Student2. "I didn't eat it."

Student1 "I think you ate it! Prove you didn't eat it?"

Student2 "Well, I can't prove I didn't eat it."

Student1 "AHA! Just as I thought! You must of eaten it."

The only thing that student1 does wrong is use the last statement as evidence that student2 ate the bread because just because someone cannot prove something is not evidence that it is true or false. Atheists would do well to remember this. However, if student2 is the only student at the table and the bread is gone it is reasonable to suggest he ate it. If he claims he did not then you can ask Peter or trust student2 if he has proven himself to be trustworthy.

While I don't believe that god exists, I am not trying to prove it.

I simply don't believe the evidence supports what you claim that it supports.

I'll leave it up to you to simultaneously prove that your god exists and prove that none of the others do, which is one of the conditions necessary for the "one all powerful god" assertion. You need to be able to disprove all other gods in order to back up your assertion that your god is the one and only. If you can't do that, then you can't prove that your god was the god who created the universe.

Please explain why your god is the special exception to the infinite regression idea, and why some other more powerful being didn't create him? Is it just because infinite regression is impossible? Why does this regression necessarily stop with the creator of the universe? I don't see any logical reason for why it should.

Instead of further regression, why can't the universe itself be its own first cause?

I have an issue with pretty much every assumption and assertion that religion has come up with.

Here is a link, again, to a description of first cause and infinite regression, the rational, logical problems people have with them.

Http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_first_cause

People's circular reasoning arguments here are still quite common. Please review:
Http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

Quote: Dalex64

Why can't there be more than one non-contingent being?

Because that wouldn't fit the theology in question.

It's the "back of the book" problem again. Briefly, math textbooks, usually, which provided problems for students to solve, supplied the answers to these problems in an appendix at the very end. Thus the answers are found at the back of the book. And I'm sure everyone here knew this already.

When you have a holy book which is taken to be the "inerrant word of God," naturally everything contained within is 100% true. It has to be. Therefore when you come up with things mentioned in it, you have to make reality fit the book, as the book cannot be wrong.

Of course, over time as you gain knowledge empirically from the universe, some of these 100% true "facts" in the book are clearly wrong or impossible. No matter, you interpret them as still 100% correct and true, but they are now parables rather than facts.

Some things, though, cannot be reinterpreted in this fashion. First and foremost, the existence of the entity whose inerrant word you're reading. Therefore you must make reality fit the facts.

This is an incredible disadvantage when trying to learn.