Evidence for atheist claims

[Cecelia]

The first problem you have is that you immediately presume that God must have created the Earth.  This is a claim on its own.  You say "If God didn't do it, how did it happen?"  This suggests that if we don't have an answer, that God is the answer.  The problem with this is obvious: You're eliminating all possibilities except for the one you happen to believe.  By doing this you're being intellectually dishonest. 

You can't ask "If not God, then what?"  because that requires evidence of God in the first place.  And it doesn't just require evidence, but good evidence.  The bible for example is not good evidence because we can't count on it being reliable.  It makes a lot of claims that are simply unfounded. 

The truth is: You can't start with the premise that if we can't explain how the world was made, it had to be God.  It would be like if someone asked how mountains were formed, and someone said "Well if it wasn't Frost Giants, then what was it?"  That doesn't make the answer 'frost giants' any more than anything else makes the answer to your question 'god'.  It's a false dichotomy.  "Either you can explain how it was done, or God did it." 

To learn how the Earth was formed, one starts by looking at the geological record.  What it suggests can be left up to interpretation.  But I see nothing that requires a god for the earth to exist, and for us to be here.  Without that requirement, I see no reason for me to believe that a 'God' created this earth.  Absence of that evidence isn't evidence of absence, but it's also not evidence in support either.  Lack of that evidence is a big part of why people don't believe in your god.  Combined with the fact that your Bible is filled with inaccuracies, unproven assertions, and a good deal of nonsense, we have no reason to believe in your God. 

The fact is we're not certain how the Earth was formed.  We just have no reason to believe that a God was involved. God is not necessary for the Earth to exist.

[LadyForCamus]

Besides the poster that came after me, no one really answered anything, well, anything besides unbased mockery which I am getting used to.

Now, I have read this claim "The Earth is thought to have been formed about 4.6 billion years ago by collisions in the giant disc-shaped cloud of material that also formed the Sun. Gravity slowly gathered this gas and dust together into clumps that became asteroids and small early planets called planetesimals. These objects collided repeatedly and gradually got bigger, building up the planets in the Solar System, including the Earth.

The details of how the Earth formed are still being worked out. Scientists study meteorites and the oldest rocks on Earth to understand what happened in these earliest times in the Solar System. They also observe other solar systems in our galaxy, the Milky Way." but you are not better than any theist by just stating it so, if you read this claim without any further information it looks like a beautiful tale. I need, as you, evidence for this claim. What is the evidence behind this?

You said I could read the internet but that is not my point. This is a debate forum and if we would search the internet everytime we have a doubt there would be no forum at all, I want you guys to explain this to me.

So...you are admitting that you typically do no research when participating in debates?  Why on earth wouldn't you; especially when you are debating topics scientific in nature?  Haven't you ever written a research paper or an essay for school before?  We don't (normally) just pull this stuff out of our asses, you know...

[LadyForCamus]

Why are you still ignoring my posts? I've engaged you and shown you the courtesy of answering your poorly formed request for evidence, offering advice on how you might better approach such questions in the future. I've yet to even receive an acknowledgement, let alone a response to the information I've provided. That's very rude.

Now you come with a completely different topic, derailing your own thread! Is that because you refuse to accept that your challenge has been met? Is it because you can't keep a thought straight in your own head? What's going on?


Nonsense. The whole point of a theistic god is that it intervenes in human affairs, in the material universe (any god which fails to intervene is deistic not theistic). Such intervention must, by definition of occurrence in the material universe, leave a testable trail. If you claim that your god answers prayers, grants blessings, turns wine in to blood, tests can be made to verify the veracity of such claims. If your god makes no interventions, there would be no point to it: from the perspective of our universe, there's no difference in attributes between that god and something that is non-existent.

So which is it? A theistic god, the existence of which can be proven or a deistic god that matters not?

Excuse me, Ben Davis, but if you cannot comprehend that in this post there is a lot of brainless commentaries and that yours was lost between them we are not going anywhere. I do not have time to read trough the whole page you provided, I have opened it and it is full of technicism I do not understand, that is why I just asked you to simplify them and to give me a brief and simplified answer, is it that hard?

So, first you demand detailed scientific evidence, and then you complain that it's too hard to understand when someone actually provides you with it?  What?!

[LadyForCamus]

Sorry, I'm WAY late to the party.

[Redbeard The Pink]

"Jehovah, for instance, has the mutually contradictory qualities of omniscience and omnipotence. He is also described as a perfectly loving and moral god, which can't be possible if he, as an all-powerful being, created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.). It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving), or he could not prevent these things from being a part of his plan (meaning he is not all-powerful). For this and many more reasons, Jehovah cannot possibly have all the qualities attributed to him, therefore he cannot exist.", this is incorrect in many levels.

This should be good.

"Jehovah, for instance, has the mutually contradictory qualities of omniscience and omnipotence", who attributed Him these adjectives?

Your religion did while they were in the process of making him up.

These adjectives are a mere and poor attempt of human beings to explain the innefable. It is not that God is "omnipotent" and "omniscient" in the sense that he is bond to these adjectives and to their meanings. We have witnessed that God knows pretty much everything and that does everything He wants to do, how are these contradictory?

No. Nobody has witnessed your god doing anything, and the Bible does not contain any knowledge that wouldn't have been readily accessible to people of the time. There is no evidence that you or your religion has communication with an all-knowing being.


Adjectives do not "bind" things. They describe them. That's all adjectives do. Your god cannot be both all-knowing and all-powerful because those descriptors are mutually exclusive, so is he one or the other, or is he neither?

"He is also described as a perfectly loving and moral god, which can't be possible if he, as an all-powerful being, created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.). It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving), or he could not prevent these things from being a part of his plan (meaning he is not all-powerful).", this is just a mere product of your poor theological preparation. You have said that "created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.)", how exactly His plan went badly? By stating that only because we have sinned His plan went badly? I will tell you the truth, His plan went exactly as He planned it. He created Adam and Eve knowing exactly that they would sin and the fact that they sinned is a part of our deification (because the Incarnation of the Word began at the start of Creation).

So he planned Sin and suffering himself, which means that not only is he entirely responsible for both of those things, but he clearly wants us to suffer and therefore does not love us.


You still haven't dodged the bullet, Dodgy. If he planned sin, then he's not all-loving. If he had to plan around sin, then he's not all-knowing and all-powerful. An all-knowing, all-powerful being could have made a plan that would have precluded sin and suffering from being possible without interfering with free will.

God created man with all the spiritual and physical powers necessary for its fulfillment, but for that to happen, a moral exam had to happen, the challenge by which, in a conscious and totally free way, man could acknowledge and manifest the willing submision and gratitude towards his Creator and to win, at the same time, personal merits, comprised in perfection and to avoid, being made perfect, of the tragedy in which the devil fell by his pride, because: Sirach 34:10 People with no experience know little. So, the commandment is not a sign of tirany but the very manifestation of God's kindness and wisdom, so man can raise to its full state of liberty and perfection, because moral power grows only by exercise, man now can freely want to choose God.

If a moral exam "had to happen" because god requires it, then he doesn't love us. If he loved us, he wouldn't have made a requirement that would allow some to experience Hell. If it "had to happen" because god had no choice in the matter, then he's not all-powerful.


As for free will, a perfect being with perfect knowledge and power would be able to create a scenario where everybody gets to choose freely, but nobody ever chooses wrong. The fact that your god went with a plan where some people choose wrong means he either wants some people to choose wrong (meaning he couldn't be all-loving), or he can't make a plan where nobody chooses wrong (meaning he couldn't be all-powerful).

"It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving)" and how exactly this shows that God is not all loving?!

Because he allegedly made a plan that he knew in advance would involve eternal suffering for a certain percentage of living beings, and instead of changing his plan to something that eliminates this possibility, he went through with it anyway.

This stupidity of "if suffering exists it is because God is not loving" is pure ignorance.

That's not the argument. Your little straw man is missing some pieces.


The argument is "If suffering exists, then god cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving. If suffering exists by design, then he is not all-loving. If it exists by necessity, then he is not all-powerful."

As our holy father, St. Nikolai Velimirovich said: “Only the foolish think that suffering is evil. A sensible man knows that suffering is not evil but only the manifestation of evil and healing from evil. Only sin in a man is a real evil, and there is no evil outside sin. Everything else that men generally call evil is not, but is a bitter medicine to heal from evil. The sicker the man, the more bitter the medicine that the doctor prescribes for him. At times, even, it seems to a sick man that the medicine is worse and more bitter than the sickness itself! And so it seems at times to the sinner: the suffering is harder and more bitter than the sin committed. But this is only an illusion – a very strong self-delusion. There is no suffering in the world that could be anywhere near as hard and destructive as sin is. All the suffering borne by men and nations is none other than the abundant healing that eternal Mercy offers to men and nations to save them from eternal death. Every sin, however small, would inevitably bring death if Mercy were not to allow suffering in order to sober men up from the inebriation of sin; for the healing that comes through suffering is brought about by the grace-filled power of the Holy and Life-giving Spirit.”

Where did evil come into this discussion? I never said suffering was evil. What I'm saying is that if a being deliberately inflicts eternal suffering on others, then that being is not all-loving. Before you harp up with "God doesn't inflict eternal suffering, we do," remember that god created everything with advance knowledge of what it would all do. By executing a plan that he knew would result in suffering when he has the power and knowledge to change his plan, god is inflicting that suffering.

Look, I get you are an atheist and I respect your point of view (even if you don't believe so) simply because I believe that every person is able to do the choices they want and that they are responsible for the choices they do, but I will never understand why do you theologize if you lack belief in God? Why do you envolve in theology if you have no preparation?

I'm demonstrating why your theology (or theology in general, rather) is illogical, unsupported garbage that can't possibly be true in the objective reality we observe. Why do you initiate discussions about science and logic when your only preparation is a book of myths and fables?

[Foxaèr]

I am starting this post because, so far, no atheist ever showed me evidence for their beliefs (or as you say, "lack of beliefs") and I am curious.

Do you believe in the in existence of leprechauns?

If you do not, then I must ask that you provide the evidence in support of your non-belief.

See how dumb you have been?

[wiploc]

"Jehovah, for instance, has the mutually contradictory qualities of omniscience and omnipotence"

, who attributed Him these adjectives?

Christians.  The same people who claim he exists.  

These adjectives are a mere and poor attempt of human beings to explain the innefable.

So you don't really know anything about him?

It is not that God is "omnipotent" and "omniscient" in the sense that he is bond to these adjectives and to their meanings.

If he can't do anything, he isn't omnipotent in any sense.  If he doesn't know everything, he isn't omniscient in any sense.  
And we aren't trying to bind him to those adjectives.  We're just pointing out that the adjectives don't describe him.  Not if the Christian stories about him are true.  

You aren't a vegetarian if you eat meat.  Nobody says vegetarians are bound to avoid meat.  We only say that, if you eat meat, then you aren't a vegetarian.  Likewise, if you don't know things, then you aren't omniscient, and if you can't do things, then you aren't omnipotent.   

We have witnessed that God knows pretty much everything and that does everything He wants to do, how are these contradictory?

If I was the god of Oklahoma, and Jehovah was the god of everywhere else, everybody would move to Oklahoma.  And I'm not even that nice.  It's just not hard to be nicer than Jehovah.  

Jehovah causes suffering, and allows suffering, and all because he is too stupid, too weak, or too evil to prevent it.  If we have earthquakes and floods and plagues, then Jehovah (assuming he exists) is not the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving god that Christians make him out to be.  

Maybe that's not your version of him.  Maybe your version is all-ineffable, but in that case there's still no reason to worship.

"He is also described as a perfectly loving and moral god, which can't be possible if he, as an all-powerful being, created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.). It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving), or he could not prevent these things from being a part of his plan (meaning he is not all-powerful).",

this is just a mere product of your poor theological preparation. You have said that "created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.)", how exactly His plan went badly? By stating that only because we have sinned His plan went badly? I will tell you the truth, His plan went exactly as He planned it.

Then he's not loving.  All this suffering cannot be the plan of a loving god.  

He created Adam and Eve knowing exactly that they would sin and the fact that they sinned is a part of our deification (because the Incarnation of the Word began at the start of Creation).

He could have started us out with Solomon and Ruth, or whoever it would take to avoid the fall.  He could have put that tree outside the garden.  But, no, his plan included the Fall, so he's not a good god.  

In the same sense that Hitler was not a good humanitarian, Jehovah is not a good god.  

God created man with all the spiritual and physical powers necessary for its fulfillment, but for that to happen, a moral exam had to happen, the challenge by which, in a conscious and totally free way, man could acknowledge and manifest the willing submision and gratitude towards his Creator and to win, at the same time, personal merits, comprised in perfection and to avoid, being made perfect, of the tragedy in which the devil fell by his pride, because: Sirach 34:10 People with no experience know little. So, the commandment is not a sign of tirany but the very manifestation of God's kindness and wisdom, so man can raise to its full state of liberty and perfection, because moral power grows only by exercise, man now can freely want to choose God.

An all-knowing god would know in which worlds the Fall happened, and in which it did not.  An all-powerful god would be able to create any world of his choice.  An all good god would want to create one of the infinity of possible worlds in which (a) there is no suffering, and which have (b) any other desired effects the god desires.  

If you say that your god ineffably can't do this, then it is effably less than omnipotent.  If you say that your god ineffably is to stupid to manage this, then it effably isn't omniscient.  If you say your god ineffably isn't benevolent enough to do this, then it effably isn't omnibenevolent.  

That's three of your five available moves.  Here are the other two:

4: You could say that we don't suffer.  Nobody is unhappy.  It's rare, but I've seen Christians resort to this move when they can't tolerate the others.

5. You can abandon logic.  You can say, in effect, "Yes, logic proves that god is less than omnipotent, less than omniscient, or less than omnibenevolent, but my religion is not logical."  I've seen this more often.  

Those are your five choices.  

"It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving)" and how exactly this shows that God is not all loving?! This stupidity of "if suffering exists it is because God is not loving"

is pure ignorance. As our holy father, St. Nikolai Velimirovich said: “Only the foolish think that suffering is evil.

Suffering is evil by definition.  Why can't I turn off these Italics?  If you mean something else by the word, you need to share your meaning.  Otherwise, talking past each other is inevitable.  

... Only sin in a man is a real evil, and there is no evil outside sin.

You don't want to conflate sin and evil.  Evil is the punishment for sin.  Sin is doubting and disobeying Jehovah.  Evil is all the things that cause unhappiness, like weeds, like having to earn our living by the sweat of our brow, like pain in childbirth, like having to cover our nakedness with raiment--"And YOU," Jehovah said, pointing at Eve, "gots to button yours backwards!"

Everything else that men generally call evil is not,

So you're talking a different language, or about a different subject?  Then, quite effably, nothing you say can be construed as contradicting anything we say.  

...There is no suffering in the world that could be anywhere near as hard and destructive as sin is.

Who made that rule?  Certainly not a tri-omni (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god).  An all-powerful god could prevent sin from being destructive if it wanted.  An all-knowing god would know how to prevent sin from being destructive if it had the power.  A totally benevolent god would choose to prevent sin from being destructive if it had the power and knowledge.  

A tri-omni god, then, would not coexist with destructive effects of sin.  

All the suffering borne by men and nations is none other than the abundant healing that eternal Mercy offers to men and nations to save them from eternal death.

Spoken like one who thinks god is effable after all.  Else, why all these opinions about what he's up to and why?


An omnipotent god could save us from eternal death without any suffering.  An omniscient god would know how to accomplish that.  An omnibenevolent god would choose to do so.  

If we have suffering, then, we do not have an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god.  

Every sin, however small, would inevitably bring death /quote]

Who made that rule?  Certainly not a good god.  At least not if it is also smart and powerful.  

if Mercy were not to allow suffering in order to sober men up from the inebriation of sin; for the healing that comes through suffering is brought about by the grace-filled power of the Holy and Life-giving Spirit.”

God tries to be ineffable, but you've got him all figured out, right?

[Goosebump]

Late to this... but do Atheists make any claims??

[drfuzzy]

God. Omniscient. Yes, according to the Bible.  

 Psalm 147:4-5 tells us, “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”   And since we know that humans are unable to number the stars even in the Milky Way Galaxy . . . much less in the billions of other galaxies that exist, that's a lot of stars.  Hebrews 4:13: "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." And God knows the future: “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure’.” (Isaiah 46:9-10).   Matthew 10:29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father."  The next verse claims that every hair on everyone's head is numbered.  In the Psalms, there is the claim that every grain of sand is numbered.


Well, if these verses are true, then what about this one: Genesis 6:6 "The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart." 7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."

So, the deity who created billions upon billions of galaxies, who knows every thought in the head of every human on the planet, who has a plan for everything and knows the future, regrets that he screwed up by creating humans?  But, he's omnicient!  He knew humans would screw up before he made the planet.  But he still, according to the Bible, drowned every living creature, human, animal, fish, bird . . . (except for one family and a few pairs of mammals) because he screwed up.  

Nope. That dude is definitely not omniscient.  In fact, he's an asshole.

[The Valkyrie]

You've been told, these aren't atheist claims, and they have nothing to do with atheism.

They're SCIENCE.