Christians and Their Homework!

[GrandizerII]

Wow, I’m very impressed by the seriousness with which you guys responded to my arguments. I’m really sorry these posts have been really long but I hope you’ll agree that this conversation has been very enjoyable and worth having. In the interest of addressing points instead of individual responses, I will attempt to formulate my thoughts in the form of responses to questions. If my questions misrepresent your thoughts in any way, I apologize in advance. Also, in the interest of creating shorter posts, I will try to post my thoughts in several smaller posts instead of one large post.

That's fair.

What do agnosticism and atheism mean?
Perhaps I neglected to establish or conform to some kind of accepted definition of these terms within this community, and for that I do apologize. When I said that having no good evidence for God’s existence or inexistence should result in agnosticism instead of atheism, I meant that lack of evidence either way should, in my view, rationally result in a neutral intellectual judgment and a functionally theistic lifestyle a la Pascal’s wager.

Except the evidence for such a God is so incredibly lacking that the credence I apply to God's existence is way too low for me to take the claim that God exists seriously (especially when there should be clear evidence for such a significant entity). And even if I were to give 50% credence to God existing, which God shall it be? The God of Christianity? The God of Islam? Why not a deist God? Or a pantheist God? Or why not a God so incredible that no human being on earth has ever, and could ever, conceive of such a being?

Can a person be saved if they believe in God purely through Pascal’s wager?
I’m not entirely sure but I wouldn’t immediately discount it. I hold that saving faith is trust in God’s existence and His promises in a way that would be reflected in the way one lives one’s life. This means that if someone logically thinks that God’s existence is improbable but nonetheless chooses to live their life as if He did exist, then I would say that the trust they place in God’s existence and promises could plausibly be sufficient for their salvation. Now, even if this kind of faith doesn’t immediately result in salvation, it’s not inconceivable to think that it could eventually lead to the kind of faith that does result in salvation.

Except this contradicts various passages in the Bible, and it's not even an attempt to demonstrate that your God exists.

What kind of evidence is necessary to believe that God exists?
I don’t think irrefutable evidence is a necessary requirement to believe in anything. In my view, you are justified in believing something if you have better reasons to believe in it than its negation. That being said, the warrant a person has for a particular belief is drastically increased by evidence we may consider irrefutable. However, I question the notion that if God existed, He would provide irrefutable evidence of His existence for everyone. After all, if God's goal is not to get people to believe that He exists, but to have a love and trust relationship with human beings, then it seems to me that the lack of irrefutable evidence is to be expected. In fact, I think it's quite plausible that if God’s existence was made more obvious to everyone, then more people would believe THAT God exists but even fewer people would believe IN God (ie. fewer people would choose to enter into that kind of relationship with God). Thus, I don't think the hiddenness of God is a very good objection to His existence.

Nonsense. The objection is demanded by a proper adherence to logic and reason (free of theological bias). If there is no evidence for such a being, then we don't have any good reasons to believe it exists, and (in the case of a grand and significant being like God so lacking in evidence) we have every reason to believe it doesn't exist. Rationalizing God's hiddenness/nonexistence doesn't magically make the rationalization an argument for God's existence. All it means is that you are too biased to concede the soundness of the Hiddenness of God argument.

Besides, isn't the God you worship a God who has no qualms intervening in human affairs and who apparently reveals himself to select groups of people anyway? This is the God of the Bible we're talking about, right?

Have the classical arguments for God’s existence been debunked?
Just as one user correctly pointed out that arguments do not equate to existence, I’d like to point out that objections do not equate to refutation. For as many objections that have been raised against the arguments for God’s existence, there have been equally as many, if not more, counterarguments defending the validity of these arguments. I’d like to offer some of these defenses in response to the objections posed in this thread.

Sure, the number of objections raised against arguments for God do not really invalidate them. However, it's not numbers you have to look out for, but the compellingness of the arguments and counterarguments. And I say that the arguments for God presented thus far haven't been compelling at all, given what we know and observe.

Is the universe a contingent existence?
I don’t see what property of the universe would make it a necessary existence. That Big Bang cosmology essentially proves a finite beginning of the universe entails that the universe has not always existed and therefore does not exist necessarily.

The universe is a grand entity (or grand collective of entities). Are you sure you really don't see anything about the universe that would imply a necessary existence? Not even the fact that multiple entities are contingent on the universe itself for their existence?

And the Big Bang theory doesn't say anything about the beginning of the universe anyway. There was a beginning to the expansion of the universe perhaps, but not necessarily the beginning to its existence. And besides, even if this universe had a beginning to its existence, it doesn't mean the wider cosmos itself had a beginning to it existence.

Was the universe created from nothing?
I actually mistyped my earlier description of the Kalam Cosmological Argument and meant to say that the universe could not have come into being from nothing. The Law of Causality affirms that the universe could not have come into being from nothing uncaused and I posit that God is this cause of the universe. Now, it’s certainly possible that something existed prior to the universe but then you’re faced with an infinite regress of causes until you arrive at the first uncaused cause. On an unrelated note, I find it interesting that some are so eager to hold to some non-God entities existing prior to the universe when there is no evidence of such things, while asserting atheism on the grounds of having no evidence for God.

Except we have multiple good science-based reasons to believe there is far more to this universe than what we currently observe with our eyes. The universe itself may be the efficient and/or material cause for everything else in existence. Or perhaps it is the wider cosmos itself that is the "first uncaused cause". Positing a logically problematic God (who also happens to be able to magically create things without a material cause) isn't necessary, and is in violation of the principle of parsimony anyway.

Is an infinite regress logically possible?
Why, of course it is! But the Contingency Argument and Kalam Cosmological Argument don’t depend on an infinite regress being a logical impossibility, but a physical impossibility. On the tensed theory of time, it can be shown that it is not possible to have an infinite number of past events and that there must be a first cause.

Since you believe an infinite regress is logically possible, but not physically possible, what is the constraint preventing an infinite regress from being a physical possibility? Is it something to do with the tensed theory of time, which (by the way) is strongly contradicted by modern physics and cosmology?

Must there be only one first cause?
Considering that causes need to be greater than their effects, the regression of causes leads us to the ultimate cause, and neither of two equally great causes can be said to be ultimate, I think we can confidently conclude that there can only be one first cause.

Oh, come on, you didn't even try with this silly argument. Please don't pretend this is a compelling argument ... because it's anything but compelling. This is nothing but bold assertions, that's all.

Is the first cause part of our universe?
If being a part of the universe means being a constituent, then no, because the first cause created the universe and therefore exists independently from it. If it means physical presence, then I would say that God does directly interact with the universe.

The universe itself could be the first cause, or something smaller than the universe could have brought the universe forth into existence and is now a part of it. Unless you can provide compelling logical arguments against such possibilities (and others), you haven't successfully argued for a logically necessary God.

Does quantum mechanics provide an exception to the Law of Causality?
Not at all! There are many interpretations of the equations of quantum mechanics, only a few of which assert indeterministic quantum events. However, even these indeterministic events are not uncaused in that they require causal preconditions to even occur (eg. fluctuations in a quantum vacuum).

Meh, I don't adhere to indeterministic interpretations anyway. I'm a determinist who adheres to the Many-Worlds Interpretation because it seems to be the most logical explanation of quantum mechanics thus far. But what does this have to do with God exactly?

Does a multiverse solve the problem of a finite beginning of the universe or fine-tuning?
No, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem shows that even the multiverse needs a finite beginning and the multiverse theory is fraught with problems as an explanation of the fine-tuning of this universe. For example, as the Kalam Cosmological Argument explains, a physical infinite is not possible, so there aren’t actually an infinite number of universes in a multiverse, meaning there’s no guarantee of a universe with constants as precise as ours. If there were a large number of universes out there, it’s a mystery why the highly probable chaotic collapse of all these universes wouldn’t trigger the collapse of our own. If there were such a large number of universes, then it would still be far less likely to end up in a universe as finely tuned as ours than a universe barely capable of supporting life. Lastly, the existence of a multiverse itself would require an incredible degree of fine-tuning (eg. a very precise critical density). Given all these problems, it seems to me that God is a far simpler and more plausible explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe than such an extravagant theory as the multiverse, for which there is no evidence.

1. The BGV theorem says no such thing. This is a misunderstanding/mischaracterization of the theorem on the part of William Lane Craig, and it would do you well to check the paper for yourself and see what it actually says (if you have a proper understanding of the technical details, that is). Or just ask a physicist like Sean Carroll who would know more about this than your favorite Christian philosopher.

2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument doesn't say anything about how a physical infinity is impossible (only that the passage of time from eternal past to present is apparently impossible). But the KCA depends on the A-theory of time for it to have any chance of being a successful argument, as it does not bode well with the B-theory of time. And even William Lane Craig conceded this. So if you have one personally that is a logically compelling argument against the existence of an actual infinity (in the physical world), then by all means share it with us. The KCA is just not that argument.

3. Who said anything about a collapse (particularly one that is of a high probability)? Perhaps some multiverse theories posit such collapses (maybe), but not all multiverse theories require that.

4. You would only be able to observe a universe which permits your existence, so the odds of you observing this life-permitting universe, instead of a universe that does not permit (or that barely permits) life to exist, actually seem pretty high.

5. I'm still not clear on what you mean by a universe "as finely tuned as" ours, or a multiverse that would require "an incredible degree of fine-tuning". It seems like stuff you're just parroting without really knowing what you're talking about.

6. In fact, we have good reasons to believe a multiverse of some sort exists (hell, perhaps a multiverse of multiverses even). Several scientific theories and models have been pointing to such a thing, so that scientists are taking the multiverse idea very seriously. Can't say the same about God, especially a logically problematic God such as the one you hold to because ... Jesus, right?

Can the Ontological Argument be used to show the necessary existence of the maximally great unicorn?
Not at all! The great-making properties of the maximally great being are logically incompatible with the necessary properties of a unicorn, making the possibility of the maximally great unicorn’s existence untenable. If you reduce the great-making properties such that we arrive at the greatest possible unicorn, then it no longer has the properties which make its existence necessary in every possible world. Now, if you diminish the necessary properties of the unicorn such that this unicorn shares the same properties as the maximally great being, then that unicorn is in fact God, just going by a different name.

These properties you refer to as "great-making properties" are man-made, you know? If you don't believe me, ask Alvin Plantinga himself. He would know.

Is it possible for the maximally great being to exist?
In my view, this is the only premise of the Ontological Argument that can be reasonably attacked but from what I can tell, there has not been any successful objection to this premise. Some historical attempts include the Problem of Evil (the logical version of which has been resolved with the free will argument) and the omnipotence paradox (which is resolved by defining omnipotence to mean that God can do anything that is logically possible). It seems to me that the burden of proof is on the atheist to show that the maximally great being cannot logically exist.

1. By your argument, there has not been any successful objection to the premise that a "maximally evil" being exists, simply because it hasn't been shown that such a being is logically problematic. So what? Something that seems logically possible doesn't mean it is actual. It may very well be actual, just as it may very well be actual that a flying teapot exists in outer space (or that a necessary unicorn exists). However, without good arguments and/or evidence for the existence of such entities, there are no good reasons to believe such entities exist. This is what's so empty about the Modal Ontological Argument. It argues that if something purportedly necessary is true, then it must be true. But it doesn't really demonstrate that such a thing is true (or even plausibly true). It may be a valid argument, but there is nothing about it that one can say is compelling. I mean, you don't consider a mathematical proof to be compelling if all it does is say that this mathematical conjecture is true if it is possibly true, right? It's not a very satisfying answer at all.

2. Even so, the God that you believe in is logically problematic. After all, we are talking about a supposedly "spaceless" and "timeless" being that somehow "resides" beyond the confines of existence itself ... and somehow created things out of literal "nothing" (i.e., without a material cause) and in a "timeless" and spontaneous (i.e., mindless) manner. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can't get any more logically problematic than a Creator God.

3. You could argue that the logical problem of evil has been resolved with the free will argument, but I don't find the free will argument compelling at all, as libertarian "free will" is logically incoherent. There is nothing "free will" about randomly/probabilistically choosing good or evil.

4. And if God is omnipotent in the sense that he could only do what is logically possible for him to do, then by such an argument, so am I!

Are testimony and historical facts best explained by delusion/myth or God?
In regards to history, I’d argue that the scholarly consensus on certain historical facts obtained from the New Testament documents (eg. the crucifixion of Jesus, the empty tomb, the radical transformation of the apostles, the explosive rise of early Christianity following their leader’s death, the multiple independent eyewitness testimony of the risen Jesus, and the martyrdom of the apostles) are best explained by Jesus actually resurrecting from the dead, which is then best explained by God. In regards to testimony of miracles and experiences of God, I think the ubiquity of these claims (which share an uncanny number of commonalities) from independent sources worldwide are, in the absence of a powerful defeater, also best explained by God.

1. I wouldn't be confident in saying that historical facts can be obtained from a collection of documents written mainly for theological purposes. And it's not really clear what you mean by "scholarly consensus", as it appears to be too vague. I mean, what scholars, what consensus, and consensus of what? Perhaps there is some scholarly consensus regarding the crucifixion of Jesus and the empty tomb, but not regarding the other "facts" you mention. And perhaps there is some scholarly consensus about one or more of these "facts" among Christian scholars, but not among secular scholars. Nevertheless, as a rational person, you should take everything stated in the Bible with a grain of salt. Don't believe everything you read.

2. Even if we agreed (for the sake of argument) that these were all "historical facts", it still doesn't mean the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for these "facts". It's just another example (among many) of human beings falling prey to religious/non-religious delusions and fantasies, even ones commonly shared by a group of human beings.

3. As for miracles and personal experiences of the divine in general, they're much better explained by anthropological/sociological/psychological theories and explanations than by some logically problematic supernatural entity. Human beings are after all easily susceptible to all sorts of biases and wishful thinking, and have a history of thinking and behaving irrationally. The ubiquity of certain attitudes and behaviors worldwide only shows that we, human beings, have a lot in common, no matter how far apart in space and in time. For God to be the best explanation of all this, you need to first demonstrate that he exists, something you have yet to do.

Does Bayes’ Theorem disprove Jesus’ resurrection?
Given that Bayes’ Theorem applied to history relies upon arbitrary probability values, the most bizarre of which is the intrinsic probability of the hypothesis (ie. that miracles are possible), I simply don’t think Bayes’ Theorem is reliable for calculating the likelihood of whether or not Jesus was resurrected and thus reject it as a good argument against the resurrection.

Well, it doesn't really matter what prior probabilities you assign to each competing explanation, since these figures will always be adjusted in favor of explanations that correspond more to the observed evidence than others. So I don't think you really understand (and appreciate) the reliability of analyzing the world in a Bayesian manner. Though I can understand why you would outright reject it, considering that an honest use of Bayes' theorem in this case should force one to reject the resurrection of Jesus as the best explanation of the "facts" under discussion, due to the lack of observed evidence that would correspond to the divine resurrection more than to any of the other competing explanations.

Is morality grounded in human well-being?
As I have argued, if objective moral values exist, then morality cannot be grounded in human well-being because it must exist apart from even the existence of human beings or any other contingent moral agents. Even if objective moral values did not exist, I still don’t see how human well-being would necessarily be the foundation of morality. Moral decisions would merely be governed by evolutionarily developed cognitive predispositions and whimsical decisions of those in power in a certain place and time, which would not likely result in the determination of human well-being as the foundation of morality. And even if it did in every scenario, there’s nothing giving these moral decisions any normative weight because what IS does not necessitate what OUGHT TO BE.

I don't have a definite opinion on this matter, and it's not really something that interests me at this point. Most of us seem to be doing ok in this world despite "whimsical decisions of those in power", and as long as we can all somehow get along and not hurt each other, then we don't need to worry about morality not being objective enough. You can have all the arguments in the world about how a really objective morality could only stem from your favorite God, but if you can't even demonstrate that God exists, then all this arguing about divine morality is pointless.

How can objective morality be grounded in God’s nature?
Because God is the maximally great being, part of that greatness entails moral perfection, and so morality is rightly grounded in God’s nature. This means that whatever is good is consistent with God’s nature. For example, justice is good because God’s nature is just and vice versa. And so, when I say that someone can do good without knowledge of God, what I mean is that they can act in accordance with one or more aspect of God’s nature without believing that God exists.

Yet, we are talking about the same God that would send people to eternal hell, mercilessly kill human beings (including children), command others to do the same, stand by while watching rapists and molestors abuse their victims, and let people starve to death and be struck by all sorts of misfortunes, tragedies, and catastrophes. Where in such a "divine nature" is the "perfectly good" exactly? Then again, a "maximally great being" could be perfectly evil instead, so who knows ...

Is God evil?
If God’s nature is the standard of objective morality, then by definition, God and anything He does cannot be evil, regardless of what we may believe. If there is no such thing as objective morality, then clearly, human beings would be pragmatically disposed to oppose any command by God that would threaten their individual well-being. However, there would be no moral basis for accusing God of being evil because human morality would be subjective and therefore illusory. That is to say, if objective morality does not exist, then there would be no such thing as good and evil.

Yet nothing you've argued here precludes God from being evil. I could argue that an evil God, by definition, is compelled by nature to be evil. So perhaps, we are the good ones having to deal with an evil God.

But even so, must I abide by the rules of the moral divine in order to have my own say about whether I see such an entity as "good" or "evil"? If your God doesn't seem like a good God to me, should I pretend that I see him as "good"? It wouldn't be reasonable for me to do so, whether or not I had a godless objective morality to stand by.

In regards to the argument that God contradicts Himself in the Bible, I don’t think so. Again, under the version of Divine Command Theory I defend, God’s specific direct commands supercede His general moral law. For example, it is normally immoral for people to kill each other, but when God commands it, it becomes a moral obligation. God does not wrong anyone because every adult is liable for judgment and I believe young children who die go to heaven.

You may be ok with such "divine morality", but I'm definitely not ok with this. Any God who would command some people to kill others, including children, is a morally problematic God as far as I'm concerned.

In regards to the Problem of Evil, God is morally justified in permitting evil and suffering to exist if doing so results in a greater good than the universal well-being of all people, namely, the greatest number of people freely choosing to believe in God and be saved.

Which sounds to me like some divine version of utilitarianism, which you theists like to rattle on against. Why not just save everybody? It's not that hard for a supposedly omnipotent God to do.

In doing this, God is different from an abusive parent in that abusive parents are morally fallible and unaware of their actions’ consequences, whereas God is incapable of deviating from His nature and cognizant of the outcomes of every single one of His actions and commands.

It's unfortunate that you think abuse has to do with not being aware of the consequences of abuse. Abuse is committed even when the abuser is aware of the consequences of their abuse.

In regards to the Problem of Hell, I don’t see a problem with the consequence of eternal separation from God if people reject Him in their life on earth and I don’t believe in the eternal suffering of souls in Hell. I hold to the (admittedly controversial) doctrine of Annihilationism which proposes that souls that go to Hell are destroyed forever.

Annihilationism would be far less morally problematic than sending people to an eternal hell, but it would still nevertheless be morally problematic.

Is there biblical evidence that young children go to heaven when they die?
Actually, yes, sort of. In 2 Samuel 12:23, King David remarks of his deceased infant son: “I will go to him, but he will not return to me,” suggesting that he will meet his son again in heaven.

Does the verse say anything about "heaven", though? That's the question.

Now, this doesn’t show that all young children go to heaven when they die, but that it’s possible for young children to go to heaven.

So given a morally good and loving God, it would still be possible for some young children to not go to heaven when they die?

Another passage I reference is Matthew 18:2-4, where Jesus says: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” If Jesus holds young children in such high esteem, I think we can infer that God would be merciful towards children who die young.

I don't see what's divinely impressive about this. Jesus should've told his Daddy back in the Old Testament days not to kill children. Now he cares about them?

Is there moral knowledge that God revealed which human beings could not have discovered on their own?
I don’t see how this could not be the case. Naturalistic or purely rational explanations of morality attempt to describe moral actions in terms of the benefit they confer on the survival of the individual, but I find that this is an inadequate explanation of our current moral views. It’s true that altruistic behavior is observable in some animal species, but they are a rare exception compared to the selfish kill-or-be-killed nature of most animal behavior. On the other hand, our moral views overwhelmingly favor altruism, often at the expense of our own well-being, which I don’t think natural selection even comes close to explaining.

Look at it this way: if we all just killed one another, would we have survived as a species for long? Would we still be here to this day? Of course not. We're here because we're not all Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper.

So I think the best explanation of the moral knowledge characterized by our culture of altruism is God’s revelation in history.

I see it more like intuition rather than knowledge. And you don't need a "better/best" explanation if we already have a sufficiently "good" explanation. No logically and morally problematic God needed.

I think my argument is further supported by the fact that God’s commandments and moral teachings at various points in history were extremely radical and counter-cultural in the patriarchal Jewish societies to which they were issued.

Commandments to do with animal sacrifices and killing others were hardly "counter-cultural". Confucius was far more impressive than Jesus, and he lived long before Jesus was ever born (assuming a historical Jesus, of course).

Is the Bible a reliable source of information about God?
I’d like to point out that belief in biblical inerrancy is not a requirement for being a Christian; it is very much an in-house debate. Although I personally believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible for philosophical reasons, I also hold that the sections of the New Testament that scholars almost universally regard as historically reliable (eg. 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 and Galatians 1:11-24, 2:1-10) are sufficient to justify belief in the core doctrine of Christianity (ie. Jesus’ crucifixion/resurrection and salvation through faith in Jesus)

Historically reliable? Says who? Christian scholars? It seems to me that Paul made various unverified claims that he knew no one reading/listening to these letters would challenge, so he had no problem just stating them.

So, all that said, still no good reasons to believe God exists. Lots of arguments to deal with, though ... bad as they may be.

[Mister Agenda]

Yeah...your fucking god is a real moral paragon.


What a scumbag.

Figures you would cite one of the very few passages in the entire biblical text which says something like this.

How many passages like that in the entire biblical text do you figure there ought to be if the Bible is the word of God and God is perfectly loving, just, and merciful?

As I said in another post, this command was issued specifically for a single event and not intended to be normative, for which reason later biblical revelation unanimously prohibits murder.

God: Murder is prohibited! Genocide is even worse! I tell you, do not ever do those things! Unless I tell you to do them!

The other thing you haven't mentioned is the fact that God is perfectly just. Sin is so evil that it perverts everything it touches. The Amalekites, like many other Canaanite tribes, had practiced all sorts of wickedness over and over again for an extended period before the Israelites even arrived. God used Israel to punish the group as a whole for its sins just as He later used the Babylonians to do the same with the Israelites when they practiced immorality and social injustice for centuries with no repentance. I'm afraid that's the best answer I can give in light of what Scripture teaches.

What sort of wickedness did their suckling infants do, and why did God need the Israelites (or the Babylonians, for that matter) to do his dirty work?

[brewer]

Where the hell is there a "love and trust relationship" in the first 4 commandments? 

Sounds like demands to me. If fact, all of them sounds like demands. Either do it or be punished. Nice god ya got there.

[Silver]

Man can already do evil without a belief in god, just as he can be good without a belief in god. But man can do the most evil with a belief in god, for who would dare question the motives of someone who claims to be receiving holy orders from god?

[Pat Mustard]

It appears to me that many people believe that we need proof to believe in God's existence and that in the absence of such proof, we shouldn't believe that God exists. The thing that puzzles me about this view is that if there are no good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, then I'd think we're left with agnosticism, not atheism.

You don't understand burden of proof. You're making the claim, therefore you've got to prove it. The null hypothesis is not "meh" it's "that claim is unevidenced, it is therefore reasonable to doubt the claim's veracity".

Oh and you also don't understand what it means to be agnostic. Well I'll break it down for you, the word comes from gnosis, the Greek for knowledge, and in religious terms it generally is taken to mean a secret knowledge which elevates the possessor over the run of the mill people. Agnosis is the word with the "anti" prefix attached, meaning, literally "without knowledge".

So when you use agnostic to denote a person's religious position you are simply stating that they do not have knowledge of that god, and they acknowledge that lack.

Whereas atheist is generally taken (except by lying religitards trying to strawman their opposition) as somebody who doesn't believe in the god claim. Guess what, not believing in a god claim is admitting that you have no knowledge that the god claim is true. So all you have to do to become atheist and agnostic is also claim that you've no knowledge supporting the falsity of the god claim.

Personally I am both atheist and agnostic to a generic god claim, whereas I am atheist and gnostic to the yhwhist claim (because any honest reading of the bible would show yhwh cannot exist).

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6. The Historical Argument: The best explanation of the historical facts surrounding the apostles' claims of Jesus' resurrection, boldness in proclaiming the Gospel, and eventual martyrdom, as well as the rise of early Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus, the best explanation of which is God.

I don't even know what you mean by this.

What CA is saying there is that because shit got wrote down, it must therefore be real (ignoring that said shit got wrote down long after it was asserted to have happened, and directly contradicted by other shit that also got wrote down or the lack of corroborating shit independent of the shit being also wrote down, if you follow me).

Therefore CA is essentially stating both that the Disc is an oblate spheroid with a diametre of 10,000 miles ca and that it is a relatively flat disc of circumference of 10,000 miles ca. carried on the backs of four elephants (there were five once, but one fell off) who themselves are carried on the backs of a giant space turle.

Now we, as daring chelonauts (morituri nolumus mori!), know that the Great A'tuin exists, we have gazed into it's eye as it gazed right back. Or as the saying goes, "my gods, it's full of elephant!".

De chelonian mobile

[Angrboda]

Can the Ontological Argument be used to show the necessary existence of the maximally great unicorn?
Not at all! The great-making properties of the maximally great being are logically incompatible with the necessary properties of a unicorn, making the possibility of the maximally great unicorn’s existence untenable. If you reduce the great-making properties such that we arrive at the greatest possible unicorn, then it no longer has the properties which make its existence necessary in every possible world. Now, if you diminish the necessary properties of the unicorn such that this unicorn shares the same properties as the maximally great being, then that unicorn is in fact God, just going by a different name.

Is it possible for the maximally great being to exist?
In my view, this is the only premise of the Ontological Argument that can be reasonably attacked but from what I can tell, there has not been any successful objection to this premise. Some historical attempts include the Problem of Evil (the logical version of which has been resolved with the free will argument) and the omnipotence paradox (which is resolved by defining omnipotence to mean that God can do anything that is logically possible). It seems to me that the burden of proof is on the atheist to show that the maximally great being cannot logically exist.

The ontological argument is fatally flawed because the very notion of an objectively greatest anything is fundamentally incoherent. You likely have never heard of this counter-argument as it is my own invention. You can find out more about it from the discussion in the following thread.

...I've shown in the past that the notion of a greatest conceivable being is incoherent, though you didn't understand the last time so I'm not optimistic that explaining it again will help. When you say that God is the greatest conceivable being, you're saying that God has all the good [great -ed.] qualities. But goodness is a subjective judgement, so greatest possible being is a judgement made up of subjective judgements. For every subjective judgement that says X is a great making quality, there is an equally valid subjective judgement which says that X is a bad making quality. The reason is because qualities and properties are neither good or bad in and of themselves, they only become so when a subject attaches a value to them. You cannot construct a greatest anything out of properties that are inherently neutral. So "greatest conceivable being" has no meaning other than as a religious catchphrase.

https://atheistforums.org/thread-51825-p...pid1644388

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How can objective morality be grounded in God’s nature?
Because God is the maximally great being, part of that greatness entails moral perfection, and so morality is rightly grounded in God’s nature. This means that whatever is good is consistent with God’s nature. For example, justice is good because God’s nature is just and vice versa. And so, when I say that someone can do good without knowledge of God, what I mean is that they can act in accordance with one or more aspect of God’s nature without believing that God exists.

This doesn't even begin to answer the question. You need a complete metaphysical explanation of how God being morally perfect gives rise to objective moral values. Like most apologists, you just sort of jump from God being morally perfect to the conclusion that objective moral values exist as a consequence of his moral perfection. But that doesn't really connect the two together. You've skipped a bunch of necessary steps getting from one to the other. But I'm not surprised as many theists make similar non-arguments. You've simply swallowed their faulty logic without thinking about it. For example, one of the first steps is explaining what it means for something to be morally perfect. We typically ascribe moral goodness or badness to actions, not to any supposed "moral nature" of beings. Assuming the latter gives rise to such constructions as the belief that someone who never ever commits a bad act can still be considered to be morally evil, because you've asserted that people can have moral nature's whose properties are independent of their actions. That usage seems nonsensical and counter-intuitive, but you seem to have committed yourself to such usage by the nature of your argument. And that's just the beginning. You've got a long way to go to explain how a specific being, God, having a specific nature, good, gives rise to objective moral values. (Even if we skip over problems with assuming God is good, such as Euthyphro's dilemma. See the following post for an updated Euthyphro for the claim that God's nature is good, thereby eluding the traditional Euthyphro, here.)

[brewer]

Yo, CA, regarding your ontological argument: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontol...#ObjOntArg

(they speak better than I can)

Ontological argument fails.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Where the hell is there a "love and trust relationship" in the first 4 commandments? 

Sounds like demands to me. If fact, all of them sounds like demands. Either do it or be punished. Nice god ya got there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36g3auOm9HA&t=1850s

[downbeatplumb]

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I don't even know what you mean by this.

What CA is saying there is that because shit got wrote down, it must therefore be real (ignoring that said shit got wrote down long after it was asserted to have happened, and directly contradicted by other shit that also got wrote down or the lack of corroborating shit independent of the shit being also wrote down, if you follow me).

Therefore CA is essentially stating both that the Disc is an oblate spheroid with a diametre of 10,000 miles ca and that it is a relatively flat disc of circumference of 10,000 miles ca. carried on the backs of four elephants (there were five once, but one fell off) who themselves are carried on the backs of a giant space turle.

Now we, as daring chelonauts (morituri nolumus mori!), know that the Great A'tuin exists, we have gazed into it's eye as it gazed right back.  Or as the saying goes, "my gods, it's full of elephant!".

De chelonian mobile

"Small gods" is one of my favourite books.

Heres something to be exited about.