RE: Debunking Christianity? It's actually quite as simple as asking "why?"
July 17, 2011 at 4:27 pm
(This post was last modified: July 17, 2011 at 4:28 pm by Faith No More.)
(July 17, 2011 at 2:28 pm)Boris Spacek Wrote: Ok. Fair enough. But what is God apart from these attributes? The way I see it, it's a simply equivalence: God is the source of goodness; he is eternity. I suppose I shouldn't call the source of goodness an attribute; whereas, it would be right to say, an attribute of God is that He IS the source of goodness. By my definition, God is these things, so I don't have to prove that, since it's an axiom. I think it sounds like I'm grafting onto someone else's God these attributes (which, from historical arguments, the Christians were doing), instead of starting fresh and algebraically making God the origin and entire populace of these qualities, these abstractions.
Okay, for the sake of argument I'll give you that god is the source of all goodness for now. How do you define goodness, or more appropriately, how do you define what a deity would define as goodness? What we think as good, might be trivial to god. Since god would be the ultimate authority, how can you know that anything that exists would be what he considers good? For all we know, this existence would be considered a complete cesspool by a deity.
Boris Spacek Wrote:So, in effect, His existence should be ratified by the existence of what He is equal to. Recognizing God really should just be a matter of grouping and naming. About the only problem I can see from here is in deciding what God isn't: omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, and all perfection. But thinking? Is He sentient? Anyway.
Remember though, when using this kind of 'proof,' you can shoehorn god into existence by ascribing him any attribute you know to already exist. Suddenly god's existence becomes a subjective matter of giving him properities.
Boris Spacek Wrote:1. God = perfection (well, I can't get anywhere without this)
2. Perfection exists, among other things (duuuuuuhhhhhhh...maybe?)
3. Ergo God exists (I guess so)
The problem here is that either attribute you ascribe to god, perfection or imperfection, exists. Ignoring the problems already discussed, the only way for this to work would be if god was ascribed the opposite attribute it would prove that he doesn't exist.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
