Proof that the Christian god cannot exist

Because I reject the validity of point six. Your point six is that we must assume that people make no mistakes in order to ascertain whether or not their religion inspired their violence, I contest that. By that logic we can't ever identify the cause of any violence because we can't honestly make the assumption that people make no mistakes. No such assumption is needed.

??

People make mistakes, we make mistakes in assessing people's behavior and intentions.

Given this, how can you, with any certainty, make claims about other people's intentions?

Please go to the recent thread on religious violence, and make your case there.
 
@wynn --

My case is already made, I reject the validity of your sixth point, either validate your claim that because people make mistakes we can't know whether or not religion inspires violence or retract it. If there is even one instance where we can ascertain the cause of any violence then the logic of your argument is hopelessly flawed, and since we have ascertained the causes of many instances of violence it would seem that evidence would contradict your argument as well.
 
My case is already made, I reject the validity of your sixth point, either validate your claim that because people make mistakes we can't know whether or not religion inspires violence or retract it. If there is even one instance where we can ascertain the cause of any violence then the logic of your argument is hopelessly flawed, and since we have ascertained the causes of many instances of violence it would seem that evidence would contradict your argument as well.

Your desire to be right is trumping your desire to be correct ...
:shrug:
 
@wynn --

Then prove it. Demonstrate your point, show me that I'm in error by supporting your claim. If not then retract it. Those are really your only two options at the moment.
 
"People make mistakes. Therefore, it is best not to attempt to make absolute assessments of them, as we ourselves might be making a mistake in doing so."


- Is this really such an irrational stance?
 
@wynn --

Non-sequitur.

Your stance does not logically follow from "we must assume that people make no mistakes to know if religion motivates violence".

And who the fuck, other than you, was talking about any "absolute statements"? Where did I or anyone else say that religion causes all violence? In the two thousand plus posts here I'm almost positive that phrase wasn't uttered once.

Sorry, this doesn't validate your point six, it's a non-sequitur and a straw man.
 
Have you ever met any person who once committed something you perceive to be "religious violence" - and who later on repented?
 
Again:
Have you ever met any person who once committed something you perceive to be "religious violence" - and who later on repented?
 
@wynn --

Again, that's irrelevant to whether or not your conclusion follows logically from your premise, ergo it is a red herring and answering it contributes nothing to your argument until you can rephrase it so it isn't a non-sequitur.
 
Oh well. One can talk to someone intent on mastering The Art of Being Right only for so long ...

:shrug:
 
@wynn --

Oh well, one can only talk to someone who stubbornly refuses to support their claims for so long.
 
The 'Cake' Response

Hi. New to the forum. I was looking up examples of the self exclusionary nature of God of the Bible and I found your argument.

I agree with you. But I have heard a counter argument that is fallacious but I don't think your argument addresses it. Or does it:

The possibility that "God" knows what I'll decide does not keep me from deciding. If I put eggs and flour and sugar in a bowl I know it will become a cake when I bake it, but it still has to be baked. When a person makes a choice then the outcome is complete but the choice had to be made for the outcome to occur. "God" cannot make the decision if he has decided and "seen" that you must choose. But that doesn't mean your choice, your decision cannot be both known by him in advance and still 'make' by you. Does it?

To me the best argument denying the existence of the Biblical God is, I think Dawkin's? He, (or someone) said that; a universe with a God "as described" in the Bible would have certain measurable qualities. For example, my personal example is that if God existed, Christian music today would be the best music, the most inspired and most important, being inspired from the very fount of creation, it would be the most creative and the most original known to mankind - instead of the derivative drivel they produce. The easiest example of course would be the effects of prayer, if there were any effects of prayer. Of course if there were effect from prayer that alone would not prove God, but its absence is problematic for those who make God claims.
 
Skipping all 100+ pages after reading the OP (can you blame me?). It is important, to me, to note that this omniscient being is the Omnimax Creator of everything. Before the universe was created, God held a die. He knew that when he rolled it, it would land on three. He, being omnipotent, had the power to make it land on two, or six, or any number he wanted. He rolled the die. Is that number truly random? So this slight variation is also a problem of evil. God created me knowing that I would die and burn in hell for all eternity. He could have caused my mother to miscarry, or...well, really anything, so that this end would not happen. Fate (that he knowingly wrote down in the beginning of time) chugs along, and we call God evil. Then again...Omniscience prevents any being from having free will, so...while we can fight the Man, we have to realize that he doesn't have any "real" choice either. But, coming from an Atheist who already doesn't believe in free will, that doesn't make him any less evil, does it?
 
Proof that the Christian god cannot exist.

Omniscience vs. Human Free will. A Paradox.

Omniscience: Perfect knowledge of past and future events.
Free will: Freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion.
Paradox: Statements or events that have contradictory and inconsistent properties.

Your definition of omniscience presupposes a necessity for prescience, but even humans can make fairly accurate predictions based on known current and past facts. So omniscience does not necessitate any more prescience than humans demonstrate. Would you equally say that human predictions preclude free will, or that simply with enough knowledge, and the consistent rules of behavior, they can accurately anticipate consequences?

Omniscience is merely maximal knowledge, which is logically consistent with free will.
 
@Syne --

But that maximal knowledge must, by definition, include complete knowledge of every single thing you will ever do. Ergo you can't possibly make any choices which differ from that knowledge and thus it follows that omniscience, at least for the time that it is present, would negate free will(if such a thing even exists).

Of course, if a mortal like you or I possessed omniscience it would only interfere with free will while we were alive as once we died that knowledge would no longer exist. Only an omniscient and eternal being would completely negate free will.
 
@Syne --

But that maximal knowledge must, by definition, include complete knowledge of every single thing you will ever do. Ergo you can't possibly make any choices which differ from that knowledge and thus it follows that omniscience, at least for the time that it is present, would negate free will(if such a thing even exists).

Of course, if a mortal like you or I possessed omniscience it would only interfere with free will while we were alive as once we died that knowledge would no longer exist. Only an omniscient and eternal being would completely negate free will.

By definition, maximal knowledge includes complete possible knowledge.

Since omniscience is maximal or complete knowledge, it is typically defined in terms of knowledge of all true propositions, namely, as

(D1) S is omniscient =df for every proposition p, if p is true then S knows p. -http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/omniscience/

Only propositions with some truth value can possibly be known. QM has shown us that the individual results of some systems cannot be known beforehand with an arbitrary certainty. Thus these have no truth value to be known beforehand.

You have to assume the future already has some truth value in order to suppose omniscience necessitates prescience.
 
@Syne --

Quantum theory also only speaks on incredibly tiny scales, scales which are utterly useless on the scale that humans function on. By that point all of the various probabilities have cancelled out leaving only the most probable course, meaning that for all intents and purposes a large enough clump of matter would still act in ways which are predictable(hence why relativity still works on those and larger scales).

While we can't predict with absolute certainty how individual particles, say a proton, will respond to gravity, we can predict with certainty beyond any reasonable doubt how large groups of particles, say a human, will respond. In fact to date we have done so unfailingly, no group of particles large enough for the uncertainty principle not to apply has responded to gravity by falling up. In effect this means that quantum theory may indicate that a god can't necessarily predict which path an electron will take, but that he's still able to predict the movements, and thus the future, of large groups of particles.

Would there be room for error? Well that would depend on just how complete his knowledge is. If his knowledge is indeed maximal then there would be so little room for error as to be non-existent, if not then he is not omniscient and thus not a problem for proponents of free will(though there are plenty of other problems for them to contend with).

Of course the simplest solution is to just drop the god concept all together.
 
@Syne --

Quantum theory also only speaks on incredibly tiny scales, scales which are utterly useless on the scale that humans function on. By that point all of the various probabilities have cancelled out leaving only the most probable course, meaning that for all intents and purposes a large enough clump of matter would still act in ways which are predictable(hence why relativity still works on those and larger scales).

While we can't predict with absolute certainty how individual particles, say a proton, will respond to gravity, we can predict with certainty beyond any reasonable doubt how large groups of particles, say a human, will respond. In fact to date we have done so unfailingly, no group of particles large enough for the uncertainty principle not to apply has responded to gravity by falling up. In effect this means that quantum theory may indicate that a god can't necessarily predict which path an electron will take, but that he's still able to predict the movements, and thus the future, of large groups of particles.

Would there be room for error? Well that would depend on just how complete his knowledge is. If his knowledge is indeed maximal then there would be so little room for error as to be non-existent, if not then he is not omniscient and thus not a problem for proponents of free will(though there are plenty of other problems for them to contend with).

Of course the simplest solution is to just drop the god concept all together.

That "large enough clump of matter" depends upon those quantum probabilities for its very existence, and that is very far from useless. If what allows for the existence of the thing cannot be known in advance, then it necessarily follows that the thing itself, much less its behavior, does not have a predetermined truth value. How can you attribute a truth value of what something may do when you cannot even assign a truth value to the very existence of its constituents?

But all that is beside the point. You must logically support that the future has a preexisting truth value for prescience to even be possible. Where does this future exist to be known beforehand? If the past can only be known in the present, after having been the present, what is the ontology of the future?
 
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