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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 4:57 am
The problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness are good pieces of negative evidence against the Christian god. A deist god, however, can't really be disproved at all.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 5:03 am
Divine hiddenness is not evidence against God. Since a completely undetectable God is indistinguishable from a non-existent one.
Furthermore, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
And as for the Problem of Evil, it depends how you define "Evil" and how God defines "Evil"
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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 5:09 am
It is evidence against the Christian god. From Wiki: 'The premise of the argument is that if God existed (and wanted humanity to know it), he would have brought about a situation in which everyone reasonable believed in him; however there are unbelievers and reasonable unbelievers, and therefore this weighs against God's existence.'
Also, absence of evidence constitutes evidence of absence if you look where there should be evidence and find none e.g. if you hear that there was an elephant in your back garden, look for footprints or a giant turd, and don't find them, or if you conduct a double blind trial on the efficacy of prayer, and get no positive correlation.
In the Problem of Evil, the definition of evil is that given by monetheists themselves.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 5:19 am
The fact that he is all-loving would mean he'd want us to go to heaven. Thus, he should make it obvious. If he's prepared to give religious experiences to some people, why not to all?
As for free will, I am probably in the compatibilist camp. There are good reasons to doubt free will, but hard determinism is self-refuting, for nobody could rationally decide that hard determinism was true if it were true, as their decision would be decided by non-rational factors.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 6:03 am
I'm a pessimist or hard incompatabilist on the free will matter. I think that free will makes no sense whether the universe is determined or undetermined.
The fact God is said to be all-loving doesn't mean he thinks of love in the same sense as us. Maybe to him, only bothering to reveal himself to some people (if any(!!)) is "love".
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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 8:07 am
(August 23, 2010 at 6:03 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: I'm a pessimist or hard incompatabilist on the free will matter. I think that free will makes no sense whether the universe is determined or undetermined.
So how do you know that your belief on this matter wasn't determined by factors outside your control?
Quote:The fact God is said to be all-loving doesn't mean he thinks of love in the same sense as us. Maybe to him, only bothering to reveal himself to some people (if any(!!)) is "love".
True, but most theists would assert that God's love is at least analogous to ours.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
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RE: Evidence god does not exist
August 23, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Also: Via Negativa: We cannot know what God is, but only what He is not. So to study Him, we study what He has not -- such as composition and motion.