An argument against God

[Mystic]

(1)If God exists, it would be a favor if humanity knew he existed beyond doubt.
(2) God can prove his existence beyond doubt.
(3) God being all benevolent would want to be bestow the favor of being knowing beyond doubt by all of humanity.
(4) He is not known beyond doubt by all of humanity.
(5) Therefore God doesn't exist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Experience on AF has taught me that Premise 2 is false. There seems to be nothing at all that could persuade an ideological atheist.

[The Grand Nudger]

The antecedent does not satisfy the conditions of sufficiency or necessity regarding the consequent, therefore the "if" or "if and only if" operators cannot be relied upon to lead to truth. To put it another way, the premise you've chosen cannot be adequately handled by the argument structure that you've chosen. You'll need a different structure or a different premise (or both) - or a different natural language entirely.

Good luck.

[Mystic]

Rhythm, I don't see how the argument is either not valid, let alone not sound.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because there are conditions that must be met for the operator "if" to have power. We can't just plug anything we want into an otherwise valid argument structure and expect it to yield truth.

enjoy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/necessary-sufficient/

[downbeatplumb]

Experience on AF has taught me that Premise 2 is false. There seems to be nothing at all that could persuade an ideological atheist.

Don't blame us for your shortcomings as a persuader.

[Mystic]

Because there are conditions that must be met for the operator "if" to have power. We can't just plug anything we want into an otherwise valid argument structure and expect it to yield truth.

enjoy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/necessary-sufficient/

You are being too general. Can you show where my argument fails?

[Mudhammam]

Experience has taught me

A progressive Christian? Is it true?

[Angrboda]

This argument is otherwise known as the argument from Divine Hiddenness.

1993 was a watershed year in the philosophy of religion generally and for atheological arguments specifically. In that year, Cornell University Press published J.L. Schellenberg's now classic book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason. Schellenberg's book contained the first book-length analysis and defense of the idea that the weakness of evidence for theism is itself evidence against it. At the heart of Schellenberg's argument is the idea that inculpable or reasonable nonbelief actually occurs; he labels his argument "the argument from reasonable nonbelief" for this very reason. In other words, there are people who do not believe in God whose nonbelief is not the result of culpable actions or omissions on the part of the subject. According to Schellenberg, a perfectly loving God would desire a personal relationship between himself and every human being, or at least every human being capable of it. Belief in God's existence is a logically necessary condition for such a relationship. Hence reasonable nonbelief is evidence for atheism.

http://infidels.org/library/modern/nonth...elief.html

[Mystic]

Experience on AF has taught me that Premise 2 is false. There seems to be nothing at all that could persuade an ideological atheist.

What seems to me to be the case is that Atheists don't have faith like believers. Just like believers are naturally endowed with faith, so can God made it so that Atheists were, and a long side that showed miracles to prove that at least a Creator exists. The knowledge and certainty of a Creator existing would help people hold on to the faith of capital G God. At more so, just like he can give faith knowledge, why can't he give certain knowledge in that form? Surely he is able to endow properly basic certain knowledge.