Failure condition for god

[JuliaL]

By not defining the victory conditions for God, failure is not a possibility.
The flip side of allowing this means that everything nasty is also God's intention.
Kids died?  That's God's Will.
Rape & torture?  What part of ineffable don't you understand?
God is all good and allows the above?  That means goodness is other than what you think it is.
Theists have had millennia to work out their stories which just come down to:
  "No I'm not being obtuse. He meant to do that. Really."

[robvalue]

Right. As Ricky Gervais said recently, anything that happens either God made it happen or he could have stopped it happening. Either way, it's exactly what he wants.

[comet]

This is a question aimed at theists mainly but feel free to kick my ass whoever.

Can you give an example of a failure condition for God? By that, I mean some situation, event, universal setup... anything, that would not be evidence for God in your opinion?

The reason I ask, is no matter what happens, no matter what the outcome of anything, it's heralded as evidence. But if there are no failure conditions, then you can show God exists whether he actually does, or not. Hopefully anyone who cares about truth can see the problem with that.

the problem is that the data suggest something more than we understand.  You can call it "higher" if you want to.  Militants hate that.  But they are emotional based anyway so their conclusions are not really objective.  Fundie' reject that notion and that there is no Omni thing.  That is an emotional based belief so not objective either.

So back to honesty.  How trained are we and what end game do we seek.   If I am anti-religion nothing you say will change that.  Game over.

[robvalue]

Uhmm... Sorry I dont understand.

Who are militants?

[Iroscato]

Iro: Sure, I don't think it is either. But a Christian can literally point to a tree and say it's evidence for God. I'm saying they have set the bar so low that it can't fail.


I'm asking them to show me there is a bar.

I really don't think there is one. No christian I've debated has been prepared to give an inch of ground in that respect. But all the same it never really mattered to me IMO. Anyone can say 'this happened because of X', but the 'victor' will always be the one with the more simple and supported theory.

[robvalue]

Hehe yeah. I'm not surprised to hear that's your experience too.

I'm offering the whole works here, they can talk about how the universe could be entirely different, how Earth could be entirely different. We could be different. Anything at all.

Can they come up with any scenario, any creation, different rules of the universe, anything that isn't automatically numberwang? I mean evidence of God?

What would a non created universe look like in contrast?

[JuliaL]

Right. As Ricky Gervais said recently, anything that happens either God made it happen or he could have stopped it happening. Either way, it's exactly what he wants.

Such is the direct effect of omnipotence.
Absolutely anything You want, you get.
Whatever is, is what You want because if You actually wanted it different, it would be.

What would a non created universe look like in contrast?

My guess of what they'd expect is a lot of rape and pillage by what would otherwise be restrained Christians.

[robvalue]

That's right. It's what makes their position impossible to defend. If I was going to try and make an argument for some sort of "God" the first thing I would do would be to drop all this omni nonsense. At least then you have a chance at a rational argument.

A non omni (nomni?) God might actually have to cause suffering to prevent more suffering. He might even be unaware of certain suffering. And it would be believable that he would want things, like company.

[Iroscato]

Hehe yeah. I'm not surprised to hear that's your experience too.

I'm offering the whole works here, they can talk about how the universe could be entirely different, how Earth could be entirely different. We could be different. Anything at all.

Can they come up with any scenario, any creation, different rules of the universe, anything that isn't automatically numberwang? I mean evidence of God?

What would a non created universe look like in contrast?

The quote system here takes a bit of getting used to...
A non-created universe? You mean from a christian perspective? Since the idea of a creator is so intrinsically linked to the entire concept, probably just God twiddling His divine thumbs in total darkness. Rather like what he was doing before the creation of the cosmos, which he apparantly did out of sheer, infinite boredom.
Seriously, what was he doing for those countless eons before he decided to make all of reality?

[robvalue]

Yeah, that's what I mean It's my standard counter to the "watch maker" argument.

I don't know what God was doing all that time! I know what he was not doing, and that was practicing