Reply to Re: Religion
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Proof is not obvious to most people and being able to prove something does not depend on masses of people recognizing that proof. But unless someone can post a rational argument from premise to conclusion which counters said proof, the proof stands nonetheless.
And your proof that a christian god cannot exist is that it's contradictory? This seems pretty flimsy to me. It's also impossible to disprove the existence of pixies, ghosts, and the tooth fairy, though. There's no way to do it, besides, what's considered "existence" anyway? If something exists in your mind, it exists on some level. Saying that SOMETHING CAN'T EXIST PERIOD is just really obnoxious. Are you sure you didn't use to post quite a lot around here under the name DraconicDink?
The keen attention to semantics and black-and-white logic bear an uncanny resemblance.
And the question is NOT "If God knows all(the future as well as the past) how can HUMANS have free will?" When the question gets phrased that way then we end up in a mess because it is much simpler than that. God HIMSELF cannot have to free will to create ANYTHING or do ANYTHING if he is omniscient. And THAT is where theistic religionists run off throwing rocks and threats of Hellfire back at me because there is not way out of that predicament.
Perhaps the people you talked to just sucked? I don't know what free will means to YOU, but to me it just means being able to choose to do whatever you will. How does knowing what you will do cancel that out? Of course, if you know what the future brings, you might do stuff differently than you would have done if you didn't know. But then you would know what you will ultimately choose to do, not what you'd have done if you didn't know. "Duck, I can't do what I want to do because omniscience tells me I do this other thing!" is obviously contradictory to free will, but omniscience doesn't need to mean that. Nothing is forcing anyone to do something they don't want to do.
Omnipotence is a much more difficult trait to have, I think. But anyone can just cop out of answering that question by saying that it's beyond your (or if you want to play safe, beyond anyone's) grasp. Just because YOU find it impossible doesn't mean it actually has to be impossible. God can make it make sense by being awesome.
And it is not true that we are all on even footing with good arguments on both sides. That is 100% false!. Real "proof" can be ignored and rationalized away by the fearful or non-understanding but it cannot be "answered". This will have little effect on who believes what but my point was that there are many things which CAN be proven(one way or the other) and God's nonexistence is one of them.
What is real proof? Back in the day, plenty of proof existed to support the theory that the earth is flat. Any well-spoken and intelligent believer can give you proof as to why their deity must exist. Clearly Mister E's two sticks weren't very good proof since no one believed him. It's only in retrospect that we can say his proof was "real".
The ONLY things which CANNOT be proven to exist are imaginary things so saying that God cannot be proven to exist is no different than saying "God is imaginary".
And that proves god exists... at least in peoples' minds. Even if he has to be a physical, omniscient entity with mass-murdering tendencies, lack of proof of him existing doesn't prove he doesn't exist. An imagined contradiction of his character certainly doesn't.
I'm not trying to say that believing something exists because it can't be disproven isn't ridiculous, just that it can't. And that logic and proof aren't absolute.
And your proof that a christian god cannot exist is that it's contradictory? This seems pretty flimsy to me. It's also impossible to disprove the existence of pixies, ghosts, and the tooth fairy, though. There's no way to do it, besides, what's considered "existence" anyway? If something exists in your mind, it exists on some level. Saying that SOMETHING CAN'T EXIST PERIOD is just really obnoxious. Are you sure you didn't use to post quite a lot around here under the name DraconicDink?
The keen attention to semantics and black-and-white logic bear an uncanny resemblance.And the question is NOT "If God knows all(the future as well as the past) how can HUMANS have free will?" When the question gets phrased that way then we end up in a mess because it is much simpler than that. God HIMSELF cannot have to free will to create ANYTHING or do ANYTHING if he is omniscient. And THAT is where theistic religionists run off throwing rocks and threats of Hellfire back at me because there is not way out of that predicament.
Perhaps the people you talked to just sucked? I don't know what free will means to YOU, but to me it just means being able to choose to do whatever you will. How does knowing what you will do cancel that out? Of course, if you know what the future brings, you might do stuff differently than you would have done if you didn't know. But then you would know what you will ultimately choose to do, not what you'd have done if you didn't know. "Duck, I can't do what I want to do because omniscience tells me I do this other thing!" is obviously contradictory to free will, but omniscience doesn't need to mean that. Nothing is forcing anyone to do something they don't want to do.
Omnipotence is a much more difficult trait to have, I think. But anyone can just cop out of answering that question by saying that it's beyond your (or if you want to play safe, beyond anyone's) grasp. Just because YOU find it impossible doesn't mean it actually has to be impossible. God can make it make sense by being awesome.
And it is not true that we are all on even footing with good arguments on both sides. That is 100% false!. Real "proof" can be ignored and rationalized away by the fearful or non-understanding but it cannot be "answered". This will have little effect on who believes what but my point was that there are many things which CAN be proven(one way or the other) and God's nonexistence is one of them.
What is real proof? Back in the day, plenty of proof existed to support the theory that the earth is flat. Any well-spoken and intelligent believer can give you proof as to why their deity must exist. Clearly Mister E's two sticks weren't very good proof since no one believed him. It's only in retrospect that we can say his proof was "real".
The ONLY things which CANNOT be proven to exist are imaginary things so saying that God cannot be proven to exist is no different than saying "God is imaginary".
And that proves god exists... at least in peoples' minds. Even if he has to be a physical, omniscient entity with mass-murdering tendencies, lack of proof of him existing doesn't prove he doesn't exist. An imagined contradiction of his character certainly doesn't.
I'm not trying to say that believing something exists because it can't be disproven isn't ridiculous, just that it can't. And that logic and proof aren't absolute.
