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RE: What is your favourite positive argument for atheism/unbelief?
April 17, 2017 at 2:10 am (This post was last modified: April 17, 2017 at 2:19 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Particular to christians? The argument from hiddenness. Natural non-resistant non-belief. I find it useful in that you don't have to argue in the binding assertion. The hiddenness of god is dogmaticaly accepted by christians...and expressed both in the OT and NT directly and unmistakably. It's the dark night of the soul, every believing human being has felt it. Even god himself...purportedly, felt it (lol?). It's why you can't find him with a telescope...or any other instrument man has ever invented to detect anything. Here are some gems:
Quote:Psalm 10:1New International Version (NIV) Psalm 10[a] 1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Quote:Job 23:8-10New International Version (NIV)
8 “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. 9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. 10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
Quote:Isaiah 45:15New International Version (NIV)
15 Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and Savior of Israel.
Quote:Matthew 27:46New International Version (NIV)
46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[a]lemasabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).[b]
-and here's a variant of the argument
Quote:(1) There are people who are capable of relating personally to God but who, through no fault of their own, fail to believe.
(2) If there is a personal God who is unsurpassably great, then there are no such people.
(3) So, there is no such God (from 1 and 2).
(4) Necessarily, if God exists, then God perfectly loves such finite persons as there may be.
(5) Necessarily, if God perfectly loves such finite persons as there may be, then, for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a positively meaningful and reciprocal conscious relationship with S at t.
(6) Necessarily, if for any capable finite person S and time t, God is at t open to being in a positively meaningful and reciprocal conscious relationship with S at t, then, for any capable finite person S and time t, it is not the case that S is at t nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
(7) There is at least one capable finite person S and time t such that S is or was at t nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.
(8) So, it is not the case that God exists. (from 4 through 7)
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