(December 10, 2019 at 7:19 am)Peebo-Thuhlu Wrote: Oh? I thought my definition, and even an example, were anything but vague and quite cogent.

Zeus and Odin most definately 'tried to reach' their followers. There are many an epic tale depicting just such things/events.

Why should your assertion of 'Omnipotence' be heeded?

What about the concept of 'Omnipotence' makes it even a viable thing?

Cheers.

It's not the definition that is vague, it's the huge set of possible gods that match it. Once the properties become loose and unprecise it's safe to say the existence of gods with these properties becomes unknowable.

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(December 10, 2019 at 8:45 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: There have been mortal gods, none answer the question of infinite regress, IDK why you expect them to deal with injustice, and only a few create afterlives.

You're just describing the way that you like gods to be.  It's not surprising that you end up believing in the kind of god you prefer.

As I said mortal or non omnipotent gods existence is unknowable. Omnipotence and such absolute attributes are what allows acceptable logical deductions to make sense of our existence.

But again the main object of inquiry remains scripture.

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(December 10, 2019 at 10:08 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: I'm interested in whether the version of Allah the OP believes in has perfect and complete omniscience. I've run across the idea among Muslims that Allah does not know absolutely everything, that he chooses to limit his omniscience in order to allow for free will, but can know anything he wants to know. If Allah is not omniscient but 'superniscient', his knowledge becomes a part of his omniscience, he knows everything that he wants to know, and the paradox of having free will in the company of omniscience and omnipotence is resolved.

I am familiar with this idea too but I definitely don't agree with it. It is artificial and not needed at all. It is conceivable that an omniscient God knows what creatures will do with their free will. Knowledge does not imply coercion.

It's just an improvement over watching a replay of a football match, if we suppose you know in advance the minute a goal was scored, it's just you knowing something. You didn't intervene in any way.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: The only qualities I can know are those that god allowed me to know. And for that there is no way around scripture.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that you've come to know the qualities of god through reading scripture? I'll continue to read on for the clarity you claim you're going to provide...

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: To avoid any circularity let me clarify the whole thing like this:

(1) If one assumes a God exists with some desirable properties,...

Okay, stop. Why would I assume that?

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: ...which include justness, then necessarily God gave us the way to know him to some extent and what he expects us to do in this life, the only thing one can think of that matches that is scripture. Next step is then to investigate good 'candidate' scriptures.

Okay, so you're already operating on the false assumption that god exists, and have made yet another false assumption by stating that if we assume god exists, and has "desirable properties," then god would reveal to us the way to know him through scripture. But why would you assume that? Why would scripture be the only way to know god?

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: If God didn't give us any clear way at all in this life, then he necessarily possesses negative properties (namely: absolutely uncaring and unjust). And inquiry about his existence is meaningless since nothing changes by us knowing whether he exists or not.

...Still operating on false assumptions. But okay; I'd agree that god would be better to give us a way to know of its existence than to not. If a god exists, surely it should provide some evidence of its existence to humans so we would know that it is there.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: (2) If one doesn't assume God exists, then he should investigate how truthful are the people who claim to communicate with him. The truth of one claim is then proof of both God's existence (which the religious claims usually entail) and the truth of the particular religion.

Okay, so you're already operating from a place of presumption... But who says I should believe you if you claim to communicate with god? If I say to you that I communicate with little green men from Mars, are you required to take my word for it, simply because I'm a truthful person, so far as you know? That seems like an odd way to treat "evidence" for god.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: As I clarified above it depends on one's position about God's existence. If one is absolutely agnostic about the question the most natural way is to read about the prophets' claims and what evidence did they present without the need of checking standard proofs like the Kalam argument, the teleological, ontological, etc.

These proofs are constantly refined to address the constant holes found, but if God exists it shouldn't be that difficult to find out about it, leaving the prophets as the only plausible proof.

As I've explained to many other users before, a lot of us have dealt with these same arguments over and over for years and end and simply don't feel like dismantling them anymore. I've personally argued about intelligent design more times than I cant count. You know how that conversation ended, almost every time? With some random theist quoting scripture at me and telling me I'm going to hell.

The dirty little truth about theologians and supposedly sophisticated religious thinkers is that a large number of them simply hope to drown these concepts in ambiguity in order to make religious concepts more palatable to a more scientifically literate generation. It's bullshit man. It just is.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: That they identify as Buddhists is an opinion of theirs. If one is a true Buddhist he should adhere at least to the core ideas, which obviously don't include the christian God. If one claims he's a Muslm but doesn't acknowledge Muhammad's prophecy then there is something wrong with his claim, he is either lying or is terribly misinformed about the system of belief he's adhering to.

No true Scotsman.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:06 am)Klorophyll Wrote: The answer I give of course doesn't answer all the cases one can think of about evil, there is like a whole literature on theodicy. But it does address the fundamental problem with christianity : God will punish some poeple with eternity in hell while he loves them. In this form the problem is simply unanswerable, some assumption is not correct or the deity doesn't exist.
Omnibenevolence is actually nonsensical, love and caring entail elements of human affection which can't be extended to a creator.

The famous objection of bone cancer in children is a good example of that, we cannot stand as humans a newborn suffering an incurable disease, from our perspective it's extremely unsettling, but again any level of suffering for any finite length of time is (if a just deity exists) entirely canceled out by an eternity of heavenly existence.

It sounds like one of those deals that's too good to be true.

Look man, I have a car to sell you... and it doesn't run great right now... but when it finally dies, I'm gonna' buy you a Ferrari, and then you'll be totally set. Trust me.

A being who is truly omniscient can't even have free will itself, it can only do what it already knows it will do; if it does otherwise, it was not truly omniscient, and if it can't do otherwise, it does not truly have free will.

Frankly, all this tri-Omni stuff seems like the incoherent end of a long series of 'my god is greater than your god' claims.

My god can do this!
Oh yeah? Well my god can do that!
Pshaw, my god can do ANYTHING!

Frankly, I'd have a little more respect for an Allah that created the universe, knows a lot, is pretty powerful, and whose heart is in the right place doing the best he can under the circumstances. That could be noble, and we could be living in a 'best he could do' world. An Allah that knows everything and can do anything and is benevolent (not necessarily Omni-benevolent, but at least well-meaning) is a terrible underachiever based on observation of his work. The imagination of humans surpasses his at every turn.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: Okay, stop. Why would I assume that?

A god with less than absolute properties is unknowable (say, less bright to be knowable) and didn't make an effort to communicate with us (since all major scriptures agree on properties like omnipotence and omniscience).
And isn't the god with these particular proprties the first one we shoud look into ?

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: Okay, so you're already operating on the false assumption that god exists, and have made yet another false assumption by stating that if we assume god exists, and has "desirable properties," then god would reveal to us the way to know him through scripture. But why would you assume that? Why would scripture be the only way to know god?

If there is any way to know god, it's already there (the assumed just God existed for the ancient people, way before the big bang was figured out, way before formal arguments about his existence were written) , it's clearly not something we will figure out one day, it's already there or it isn't, because the supposed God is just for our ancestors too and made a way for them to reach him.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: ...Still operating on false assumptions. But okay; I'd agree that god would be better to give us a way to know of its existence than to not. If a god exists, surely it should provide some evidence of its existence to humans so we would know that it is there.

The false assumptions you're talking about are simply a logical disjunction : you either assume God exists or you don't, there is no third way

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: Okay, so you're already operating from a place of presumption... But who says I should believe you if you claim to communicate with god? If I say to you that I communicate with little green men from Mars, are you required to take my word for it, simply because I'm a truthful person, so far as you know? That seems like an odd way to treat "evidence" for god.

Of course you won't take anyone's word for such a claim. Messengers reportedly came up with miracles and such. The prophet of Islam is the most recent of the abrahamic religions and the original holy text is preserved, don't you think this might be a good candidate ?
A pages ago I mentioned the theory of Isnad being the way Islamic scholars ascertain what's reported about Muhammad, Isnad was acclaimed by orientalists and can be a good starting point for the serious researcher.
For example an authentic hadith narrates some miraculous event Muhammad did, the chain of narrators is made of very reliable historical figures reporting the event one after another. It's true it's far from an exact science, but once you look into it more carefully it completely dismisses the claim that Muhammad knowingly lied and faked his prophecy, and popular atheist activists today found a laughable way out of that : Muhammad was epileptic and was completely convinced that he is the prophet of God, everything he did was sincere but was out of his epilepsy.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: As I've explained to many other users before, a lot of us have dealt with these same arguments over and over for years and end and simply don't feel like dismantling them anymore. I've personally argued about intelligent design more times than I cant count. You know how that conversation ended, almost every time? With some random theist quoting scripture at me and telling me I'm going to hell.

The dirty little truth about theologians and supposedly sophisticated religious thinkers is that a large number of them simply hope to drown these concepts in ambiguity in order to make religious concepts more palatable to a more scientifically literate generation. It's bullshit man. It just is

Well, that was my point in a way. Philosophical arguments are by definition inaccessible to the layman and prone to error, although I would give the theologians the benefit of the doubt as they merely try to convey their understanding of scripture - which convinced them of God - in formal terms.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: No true Scotsman

I don't agree with that. If I join the fat right hand community, my right hand really should be fat.
If one claims to be a Buddhist and sharply disagrees with what almost all Buddhist scholars say about what he should believe in... I mean come on.

(December 10, 2019 at 10:48 am)EgoDeath Wrote: It sounds like one of those deals that's too good to be true.

Look man, I have a car to sell you... and it doesn't run great right now... but when it finally dies, I'm gonna' buy you a Ferrari, and then you'll be totally set. Trust me.

An existent deity should be good enough to make such deal, and given the amount of objections we humans can come up with, it's not an easy to get kind of deal.

The real challenge is to reconcile our beliefs with reality, not to give up on them

(December 10, 2019 at 11:30 am)Klorophyll Wrote: The real challenge is to reconcile our beliefs with reality, not to give up on them

Make sure to let us know the moment you start doing that.

RAmen

I prefer embracing reality.

Fantasy can be fun but the secret of enjoyment is to realise it’s not real.

(December 10, 2019 at 11:48 am)Nay_Sayer Wrote:

(December 10, 2019 at 11:30 am)Klorophyll Wrote: The real challenge is to reconcile our beliefs with reality, not to give up on them

Make sure to let us know the moment you start doing that.

RAmen

(December 10, 2019 at 11:57 am)The Valkyrie Wrote: I prefer embracing reality.

Fantasy can be fun but the secret of enjoyment is to realise it’s not real.

Funny how you two disregarded everything I said just to get to the endiing sentence, this only proves what I said in the original post : most atheists are too lazy to look for the truth, or simply don't care about it, or are arrogant enough to think their brilliant mind will surpass even the holy books they didn't read.

Speaking of reality, when I look around I can see that things are quite orderly. My computer didn't jump and crash against the roof for no reason, when I reach out for my phone I on average reach out to it without some random alien lightening coming down my finger.

Enjoy your quest to reconcile orderly with no god.

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(December 10, 2019 at 10:51 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: A being who is truly omniscient can't even have free will itself, it can only do what it already knows it will do; if it does otherwise, it was not truly omniscient, and if it can't do otherwise, it does not truly have free will.

It's just the way you put the words that makes you think there is a contradiction. An omniscient being simultaneously wants and knows what he will do and he will do it. When you say "he can't do something different than what he knows he will do "[sic.] you are already assuming he changed his mind and the future he projected didn't please him enough, you are accusing the deity of mood swings.

I didn’t read what you stated.

I’ve had religious propaganda pushed on me since I was 4 or 5, so I’ve likely seen multiple versions of your claims, in multiple formats.

Mine was a general statement of fact: reality is better than fantasy. Especially bad fantasy.

(December 10, 2019 at 12:09 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(December 10, 2019 at 11:48 am)Nay_Sayer Wrote: Make sure to let us know the moment you start doing that.

RAmen

(December 10, 2019 at 11:57 am)The Valkyrie Wrote: I prefer embracing reality.

Fantasy can be fun but the secret of enjoyment is to realise it’s not real.

Funny how you two disregarded everything I said just to get to the endiing sentence, this only proves what I said in the original post : most atheists are too lazy to look for the truth, or simply don't care about it, or are arrogant enough to think their brilliant mind will surpass even the holy books they didn't read.

Speaking of reality, when I look around I can see that things are quite orderly. My computer didn't jump and crash against the roof for no reason, when I reach out for my phone I on average reach out to it without some random alien lightening coming down my finger.

Enjoy your quest to reconcile orderly with no god.

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(December 10, 2019 at 10:51 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: A being who is truly omniscient can't even have free will itself, it can only do what it already knows it will do; if it does otherwise, it was not truly omniscient, and if it can't do otherwise, it does not truly have free will.

It's just the way you put the words that makes you think there is a contradiction. An omniscient being simultaneously wants and knows what he will do and he will do it. When you say "he can't do something different than what he knows he will do "[sic.] you are already assuming he changed his mind and the future he projected didn't please him enough, you are accusing the deity of mood swings.

Funny how you disregarded everything I said. this only proves what I always: most Theists are too lazy to look for the truth, or simply don't care about it, or are arrogant enough to think their brilliant mind will surpass even the one true holy book they didn't read.

I have to again inform another woefully misinformed lost lamb.

I'm not an atheist, I am a devout Pastafarian here to spread the goodwill and cheer of our lord FSM, give out free beers and save lost lambs like yourself.

I’m always amused that it’s atheists who are claimed to be arrogant simply because we don’t believe the claims put forth by books or their advocates and we ask questions instead of blindly accepting everything that’s put before us.

Yet those individuals who claim we are arrogant come onto atheist leaning communities and tell us we should belueve their particular fiction because only their “holy” book conatains the “truth”, usually with a capital “t” and at least one exclamation mark. Meanwhile the other religions, from which theirs is derived, are wrong, as are the other versions of their own religions.

They quote passages from their book, post “miracle” videos that “prove” their religion while nixing the same type of “evidence” put forth by other religions, and assail us with personal revelations they’ve had.

And they expect us to accept this “Truth!!” Without question as if we haven’t encountered these claims multiple times.

But WE’RE the arrogant ones...