The absolute absurdity of God

[SteveII]

A reasoned argument? How about a basic Cosmological Argument from Contingency:

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.

Fine so far.

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence

Yes  it does.

that explanation is God.

Whoa there sparky!

This sounds an awful lot like an unsupported premise/assertion.

Please show your work. How did you eliminate every other explanation? How do you even know about every other possible explanation?

I know you know how a syllogism works. I also know you know there are tens of thousands of pages written about each one of these premises. So we can dispense with your "sounds like an unsupported premise/assertion" nonsense.

What explanation of the universe does not just kick the can back up the road of explanations? Since you already admitted that the universe has an explanation of it's existence, at some point you have to discuss the characteristics of a first cause.  A first cause must be uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, enormously powerful, and personal. What do you propose is a first cause that is not God? So how about it, what possible other explanation could there be? 

3. The universe exists.

Yes, it does.

4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).

I am sure it does.

5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

How does an unsupported assertion (from 2) lead to true conclusion?

Your argument is unsound.

This is a perfectly logical inductive argument. The premises are based on legitimate conclusions (each one can be easily defended with a surprising lack of defeaters).

Again we seem to differ on our definitions.

My definition of a "perfectly logical" argument is one that does not contain fallacies or unsupported premises.

Even if you don't find the argument convincing--what you cannot say is that the notion of God's existence does not make sense or is irrational. We logically infer what attributes must a first cause have: uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, enormously powerful, and personal.

The argument is unconvincing because it has unsupported assertions.

All that other stuff you tacked on there to describe your "first cause" is not supported. How do you know the first cause could not have been just powerful enough to create the universe? Why does it have to be personal? Why could it not have changed after it created the universe?

You cannot have a first cause without all of those features. Power? I didn't say omnipotent, so all that is needed is enough power to bring matter into existence. If you don't want to classify that as "enormously powerful", fine. Does not change one thing. Personal? because a decision to create had to be made otherwise the effect (the universe) would have been just as timelessly existing as its cause and not just 14 billions years ago. 

This is an inductive argument. This is an important point. "Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning or abductive reasoning) is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion.While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is probable, based upon the evidence given." Wikipedia.

Yeah.

Why don't you try to post an inductive argument that meets your own criteria? Because this one certainly doesn't.

Come on. You have to know that the only people that think this argument can be defeated are echo-chamber internet atheists that keep telling themselves that it can be even though no one ever actually does it. The most you can say is that it does not prove God. Fine. I concede that. What it does do is insulate my beliefs from charges of irrational/stupid/bronze age/pick your adjective.

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I said this earlier: to glorify God and enjoy him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism). Need some Bible Reference? Check our Got Answers. I was going to pull a couple of sentences out, but it really is good to read the 5 short paragraphs in their entirety. It brings out several aspects.

So, god created beings; beings capable of experiencing immense physical, mental, and emotional anguish; beings who he can, and will, and knows ahead of time he must cast into an eternity of anguish; so that his ego can revel in these beings worshipping and glorifying him?  Because, it’s not fun to be almighty god unless you’ve got some pet audience to tell you how great you are every day? God made people for himself; for his own selfish desire to be praised; knowing the pain his decision to create would cause untold numbers of souls? That’s beyond unjust. It’s sick.

Whoa. Why do you dwell on only the negatives of existence? What about all the great things of life? What about the billions who will live eternally with God?

God does not need us. I think you are getting hung up on a misunderstanding of what it means to "Glorify God". Glorifying God involves having the fullest possible existence--which includes a relationship with him. Part of this is to understand the differences between an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God and ourselves (which is pretty much the opposite). This rightly results in an awe of God and a desire to worship him as a being worthy of worship. 


We are not "pets". That is entirely too simplistic and shows a total lack of understanding the point which I am trying (imperfectly) to articulate.

God knows exactly how many will reject whatever truth he has made know to them. It says in the Bible that he does not want anyone to perish. It does not logically follow that no one should exist. At its root, this is an emotional response, not an argument.