An Essay about Atheism in Latin

[Belacqua]

But these are all just giant ad-hoc hypotheses, they aren't worth learning. 

Well, I'm not sure how you can know that if you don't know what they say. Doesn't it sound as if you're begging the question when you begin with the assumption that what you don't know isn't worth learning? 

The Problem of Inconsistent Revelations, the Problem of Natural Evil and the Omnipotence Paradox can all be presented in a few sentences that are easy to understand, the theological responses to them are hard-to-understand books that are not based on evidence.

But your arguments against them aren't based on evidence either, are they? Metaphysics is grounded in observations but conducted through logical argument. 

Do you have empirical evidence that the omnipotence paradox is a problem, or do you only have a logical argument? 

The fact that revelation is inconsistent -- does that really require a whole volume? Can't we just say that revelation is unreliable? Or that a lot of what people take to be revelation isn't really? Or that there is no revelation at all, but there is a God who doesn't use revelation? 

I think we can dismiss inconsistent revelation as a proof against God pretty easily. The whole field of Natural Theology is designed to argue for the existence of God without reference to revelation. Traditionally they say that certain things about God can be demonstrated merely through self-evident statements (e.g. things in the world change) and the logical consequences of those, while certain other things (e.g. the Trinity) cannot. Many people have accepted the demonstrated parts without the revealed parts. 

The fact that some definitions of omnipotence seem paradoxical also does nothing to prove that there's no God. The outlines of a rejection of your claim can be presented in a paragraph. 

Anyway, why should theology NOT require big thick books to understand? Understanding quantum physics takes big fat books with advanced math, and you wouldn't dismiss it for that reason. Some subjects are just difficult. 

Was that you who commented on my YouTube video? If not, I'd encourage you to, you can probably comment more intelligently than most of the people who will comment.

That's kind of you to say! But no, I haven't watched the video. 

Here's what I think: I think you're beginning by affirming the consequent (a logical fallacy). You seem to have accepted a priori that theological arguments are ad hoc and not worth learning, while not having a very solid grasp of them. 

Whatever you do, don't follow Dawkins on this. His "rebuttal" of Aquinas' 5 Ways, for example, is so wildly wrong that it's laughable. He has also begun with the notion that because theology is inherently stupid he doesn't have to work very hard to knock it down. As a result he gets all five of the arguments wrong -- I'm not saying that he fails to accept them (I don't accept them as is either) but that he fundamentally doesn't know what they're saying. So he makes this argument that satisfies himself, but which leaves anyone educated in the field slack-jawed in disbelief. This has been explained in print several times, yet he refuses to apologize or withdraw his "arguments." Now in his new book he has also written a number of historical falsehoods, apparently because he was relying on an amateur's web site, and didn't bother to do any fact checking. 

Here's a good lecture series that lays out clearly many of the main ideas in theology. The whole thing is valuable, as far as I can see, but you could also sample different classes that interest you. It would at least give a flavor. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat0ZKdu...nUVl-KBNSM

If there's something from this series that catches your interest, that might be something we could discuss. Not that I'm guaranteed to have anything smart to say about it!