[Anselm]That God truly exists

"Belief itself is necessarily illogical, as it does not rely on absolute proof. This is not necessarily negative, as nothing relevant has absolute proof. We rely on faith in everyday activities. Induction certainly is not proof, for observance is coincidental, that you see a pattern and deduce from it something says nothing about the future that is necessarily the case."




"This has so many presumptions about the nature of god I don't know where to start. It is the most general, silly absurd refutation that I have ever seen, not to mention that ti is the most stereotypical one. You have your own definition of what god is that does not even necessarily coincide with anyone else's conception of god. That god is responsible for evil and good makes god a neutral implicitly. That god supposedly is the creator of everything and above human means implicitly that god is not an entity which necessarily is an any sense anthropomorphic i.e. god is not human and not subject to human attributes by definition. by the same token god is not necessarily bound by logic, by definition, so any proof of or against god is absurd as it assumes some aspect of the nature of god."



"and that even if there was a personal God with all of these attributes he would have to be a cruel son of a *****, and does not deserve to be worshiped!"

You have assumed one specific view of god in saying that if he did exist, then he must have this human attribute. If this isn't assuming the nature of god, I don't know what is. Also, that the concept existed before you repeated it doesn't give it any credence. My point is that you are prejudging an entity whose existence is in question using nothing but popular conceptions of it. You haven't once cited a religious scholar and look at his/her conceptions, which will undoubtedly have much more sense to them that the common one.




Again, this comes from a single concept of god, it is an old Arabic paradox which is sometimes explained away with free will. To say that god is necessarily evil is assuming that god has human flaws when god is defined to be flawless. To say that god is evil by necessity, in the way that you did, indicates that you have assumed gods nature to necessarily be your concept or concept X, so you have effectively made a judgment on

The problem here is that on other issues, people cite experts, you might cite Descartes for a concept of dualism or Kant for a concept of ethics, but few people cite modern religious scholars and rabbinical texts to understand the philosophy behind those who truly have faith. Even though I would consider myself a weak atheist, in that I refuse to speculate on the nature of anything which has not been established to exist outside of the mind, I would cite the experts rather than criticize the uneducated semi faithful in-it- to- save- their- own- superstitious- butts-more-often-than not crowd. You will find it quite a bit more difficult to dissemble a Rabbi's opinion than some fool-on-the-street's.

When I said that the concept existed before me I was simply trying to say that I am not the one who conceived of these ideas of God. I was simply taking the age old concept of theism and explaining some of the reasons for why I disbelieve in it. What about that is so hard to understand? If we're going to debate then please be reasonable. You seem to be an intelligent person, so I'm sure that you understand where I'm coming from.

If there is no God to answer to in the hereafter all one need worry about is evading the police in the now. My openness to the possibility of a Jedeo-Christian God is the only thing (besides my aversion to anal rape) that keeps me from a life on the lam and risking becoming caged. Because well, that would be fun wouldn't it? But that's just me.

Then again, the bible does contain passages that advocate incidents of murder and rape, so there you go.

Pardon me jumping in. I think the point Zetetic is trying to make is that your arguments against God make certain assumptions about God which are not necessarily made by theists. Your argument(s) against God would then be straw men.

Only if you cherry pick lines and ignore the rest of the volume thereby missing the point.

You are excused, but I am not making any assumptions about God that theists don't make. I've been through this with theists over and over again. The attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are common for almost every benevolent deity that man has conceived of. These attributes are the very things that make the deity divine.

I've been in long debates about the atrocities advocated by the old testament, and I've heard all of the apologetic arguments. According to apologists, if you include one sentence of the chapter it is supposed to forgive other sentences that are incompatible with their view that the bible is the best piece of work on morality and ethics. I am simply saying that the bible has good things and some very bad things, which shouldn't be hard to accept if you realize that it is the work of iron age men.

Not all theists agree on God. That's the problem. While your arguments against God may work with respect to certain conceptions of God, your arguments are also irrelevant with respect to certain notions of God.

Omnipotence, et al. are fairly common attributes ascribed to God. However, what is meant by saying "God is omnipotent" varies from tradition to tradition, and from person to person. Some claim that God is literally omnipotent, ect, while others say that accurately describing God is impossible and that the traits attributed to God are figurative - fingers pointing to the moon, not the moon itself sort of thing.

The term divinity is used in many different ways; often times the definitions are mutually exclusive. The same is true of God - we use the same word but have different understandings of that word.

It's fine to argue against certain notions of God, when said notion is clearly expressed, but it is a fallacy to give one definition of God, argue that the definition does not work and then assert that all understandings of God are flawed simply because one understanding of God appears flawed.



All of the apologetic arguments? I make apologetic arguments and I have not heard all of them.

The apologetic argument you mention is one I am unfamiliar with. Typically, apologetic arguments go something like this: 'yes, the text speaks of some atrocity, but the atrocity has to be understood in context'.

Also, the Bible is not the work of Iron Age men. The Old Testament is the work of Iron Age men, the Bible is the work of Axial Age thinkers and compilers.

I'm going to just end this with you in a simple way, because I don't want to waste time going in circles.

There are indeed, many conceptions of God (many of the new ones being ambiguous and meaningless to human life), and many of these new ones were conceived due to the shrinking gaps in science. I am an atheist, because I disbelieve in any and all deities; that includes Krishna, Jesus, Horus, Vishnu, Zeus, Yahweh, Mithra, Allah, and any new characters that someone wants to imagine real.

If you're being serious then it is just you. Your reason for believing in the Judea-Christian God is what the philosopher Dan Dennett calls "moral Viagra". You seem to believe that you need moral Viagra to keep it up. Trust me, you don't commit those crimes because you are afraid of going to jail and being punished, which is a reasonable thing. The reward and punishment system is very effective for the average person. Some of the most religious people you can find are murderers and rapists. Then again, the bible does contain passages that advocate incidents of murder and rape, so there you go.

I can assure you that murders and rapist are not religious.

I guess this assertion is contingent upon your definition of "religious".

In my mind, someone who practices a religion, who believes in the theological underpinnings of the religion, and who self-identifies as religious IS religious in the end. And they can still rape and kill someone for whatever reason. That doesn't make it the fault of religion. But religion is certainly no vaccine against human failings.

The best that one can do with God is to let God be who God is. Don't box God up. If God can create a universe yet know who you are (an invisible dot on an invisible dot) Then leave God alone as you or any being alive or dead can never understand anything about God :Not-Impressed:

Apparently you failed to read the two posts that took place after that which you are quoting.