Is there a God?

Draculmaulkee · Post by **Draculmaulkee** » Sat May 11, 2013 3:51 am

It seems to me that without strong evidence for the existence of a god(s), the only logical argument a devout person could make is a God in the gaps argument.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat May 11, 2013 4:29 am

Draculmaulkee wrote:It seems to me that without strong evidence for the existence of a god(s), the only logical argument a devout person could make is a God in the gaps argument.

The part that is wrong about that is: that is not a logical argument.

Not even in the very basic sense, like:

1: If God exists, then God exists.
2: God exists.
Therefore, God exists.

or

1: If purple is a color, God exists.
2: Purple is a color.
Therefore, God exists.

I mean, arguments with incorrect premises, or arguments that assume the truth of the very premises being argued for are at least actually logical arguments.

God of the gaps is literally not even a valid logical argument, it is literally.

1: I personally can conceive of something not explicitly disproved.
Therefore, God exists.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 11, 2013 5:52 am

Yes. The "God of the Gaps" is logically possible, but that is not a logical argument that it actually exists.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat May 11, 2013 7:31 am

sabs wrote: And the Torah is just the ravings of a bunch of old men transforming a Matriarchal society into a Patriarchal one. The Pre-JHVH Jews worshipped a female fertility goddess. That's the whole point of Abraham.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the notion of an ancient matriarchy in the middle-east is yet more shit added on top of the old shit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 11, 2013 9:11 am

Meh. The Jewish Tribe is defined matrilineally, but the Levy priest caste is defined patrilineally. So you are "a Jew" because your mom was a Jew, and that goes all the way back to before the tribe wrote things down. But you're a "king" or a "priest" because your father was. And that has written stories about how it started (stories that are greatly exaggerated, but are nonetheless written down).

Interpreting that as there having been a pre-writing matriarchal society is not a particularly extraordinary claim. There was definitely a point in time in which your mother's tribe mattered and your father's didn't. And in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't really all that long ago.

Most of the claims that go beyond that are basically made up from whole cloth.

-Username17

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Sat May 11, 2013 7:46 pm

holy thread necromancy batman.

The problem is that no religious person can give you any argument on why God exists, and believing in God is the right thing to do, that you can't just find/replace with the word santa claus for God, and they'll have a complete thing about how Santa Claus isn't real.

Not to mention the problem that even if you accept that you should believe in a God, just in case. (Pascal's theory) Which God/Religion do you follow.

What makes Hinduism more myth, than Islam, or Shinto, or christianity.
Or less myth than Norse religion, or Egyptian?

I have never been able to figure out why Christians (my primary source exposure) can sit there with a straight face and talk about their faith, and in the same breath talk about how Greek Mythology is just made up stories by people trying to understand the world and humanize it.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Sat May 11, 2013 8:02 pm

I thought the matrilineal thing was a matter of practicality, the whole "Mother's baby, father's maybe" thing. You may not know who your dad is, but knowing the mother is a lot easier.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat May 11, 2013 8:24 pm

Meikle641 wrote:I thought the matrilineal thing was a matter of practicality, the whole "Mother's baby, father's maybe" thing. You may not know who your dad is, but knowing the mother is a lot easier.

The way Wikipedia tells it (which I looked up after two Jewish women couldn't agree on the matter), there's a faction that doesn't recognize marriages between Jews and non-Jews, and in case of such a marriage, a child born technically out of wedlock will inherit the mother's ethnicity.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon May 13, 2013 11:03 am

sabs wrote: I have never been able to figure out why Christians (my primary source exposure) can sit there with a straight face and talk about their faith, and in the same breath talk about how Greek Mythology is just made up stories by people trying to understand the world and humanize it.

Because they're using Special Pleading to resolve cognitive dissonance. I did the same thing myself for years. What's worse is I could even recognize the hypocrisy, but I just didn't care.

What was really weird was I got to the point where I realized that where a person was born (well, really, the religion they were taught) was the biggest determining factor to their current religion. I literally used to claim that I was lucky to be born in an area that worshiped the right god.

I'm not particularly proud of my old beliefs, but I know first hand why it's possible to sit there straight-faced and say very weird things.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon May 13, 2013 12:58 pm

sabs wrote: I have never been able to figure out why Christians (my primary source exposure) can sit there with a straight face and talk about their faith, and in the same breath talk about how Greek Mythology is just made up stories by people trying to understand the world and humanize it.

I don't just think it's about cognitive dissonance. From the few christians who have seemed honest about giving me an answer, it's also about the idea that growing up with the belief of a monotheistic god, polytheism just is false. It's that ultimate belief in the words handed down to them (rather than the written scriptures themselves) which state that polytheism is just plain stupid. I mean how can you have omnipotence if each deity has a different sphere of influence rather than encompassing everything.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon May 13, 2013 3:28 pm

Cynic wrote:I don't just think it's about cognitive dissonance. From the few christians who have seemed honest about giving me an answer, it's also about the idea that growing up with the belief of a monotheistic god, polytheism just is false. It's that ultimate belief in the words handed down to them (rather than the written scriptures themselves) which state that polytheism is just plain stupid. I mean how can you have omnipotence if each deity has a different sphere of influence rather than encompassing everything.

I grew up in a naively religious family and community. Omnipotence was, and still is, a completely alien idea to those folks. While by-the-book Orthodox Christianity is characterized by the worship of specific icons (mostly Godmother icons) as separate divine entities that split the wondermaking market between them, the central idea of the folk faith is the lack of divine omnipotence: rather, religion is the (best) way to beat back the natural dark magic which permeates the world. Saw a dead animal on the street? Better say a prayer or you'll catch the plague. Had a bad thought? It's demons all right. Saw a deceased person in your dreams? Oh my, they're envious of your good life and want to drag you away with them, run to the chourch to set a candle in their name. To say nothing of actual tragedy and misfortune. Lay Orthodox Christians in Russia seriously live in the World of Darkness.

It follows that other brands of Christianity are evil or at best deluded schizmatics whose ways of supporting God in his battle against evil are totally ineffective, but practical magic, and the practices of "exxotik" (polytheistic) religions that are seen as magic, are mostly a-okay and can be combined with devout Christian prayer as seen fit.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon May 13, 2013 7:50 pm

wait, so there are actually christians that don't think their god is omnipotent?
if so, then why call him god in the first place? O.o

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon May 13, 2013 8:01 pm

What the hell do you need an omnipotent god for? The fact that some people believe that their deity has phenomenal cosmic power isn't really relevant to anything except in the "my god can beat up your god" conversation.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon May 13, 2013 8:04 pm

I personally subscribe to the Greek religion. Not the Orthodox one, the one with the sexy time Olympians: They aren't omnipotent: they're really flawed and that makes them relatable; also, they go around naked, have sex a lot, and randomly kill things and then turn them into a bunch of stars.

What's not to love?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon May 13, 2013 8:29 pm

not enough feasting.
i go with the northern pantheon myself.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 13, 2013 8:46 pm

Stahlseele wrote:wait, so there are actually christians that don't think their god is omnipotent?
if so, then why call him god in the first place? O.o

Historically, the idea of omnipotence was not ascribed to the god of Israel. Jehova is a strong god, but he loses to iron chariots.

Judges 1:19 wrote:Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.

Actual omnipotence is of course logically impossible, so any omnipotent deity is logically incapable of existing. A being with powers of creation and destruction must necessarily have a limit to one or the other because either they are capable of creating something they can't destroy (and thus their powers of destruction are limited by their own powers of creation), or they can't (and thus their powers of creation are limited by their own powers of destruction). That's fucking binary, both abilities cannot be unlimited. It doesn't matter how mistomagical or supernatural your god supposedly is, that is a hard and fast logical limit.

Most religions historically go for the logically possible option of "our god is more powerful than anything you can imagine existing in the universe". Which is generally speaking good enough to meet the "why is this powerful enough that I should genuflect before it?" criteria without being something that a gradeschool child can disprove with simple declarative statements.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but those religions who have doubled down on the completely illogical "actually unlimited power" argument have not behaved in the most logical fashion the rest of the time.

Christians and Muslims, I am looking at you.

-Username17

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon May 13, 2013 9:41 pm

Stahlseele wrote:not enough feasting.

I get that being mistaken basically all the time is kinda your thing, but seriously, Greco-Roman culture didn't create enough feast days for you? Are you high? Germanic cultures made a big deal of their winter solstice feast given that the climate was harsh enough that it happened to be the right time of year to slaughter all the animals anyway before they starved to death in the winter but in the Mediterranean the top end of society happily took advantage of having various microclimates within reach of their trade networks and ate like damn hell ass kings several times a year.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 14, 2013 1:34 am

FrankTrollman wrote: Actual omnipotence is of course logically impossible, so any omnipotent deity is logically incapable of existing. A being with powers of creation and destruction must necessarily have a limit to one or the other because either they are capable of creating something they can't destroy (and thus their powers of destruction are limited by their own powers of creation), or they can't (and thus their powers of creation are limited by their own powers of destruction). That's fucking binary, both abilities cannot be unlimited. It doesn't matter how mistomagical or supernatural your god supposedly is, that is a hard and fast logical limit.

Understanding that this is not a refutation to your statement, just an example of them doubling-down on crazy, they typically respond that it's just that our human, finite brains can't handle the amazing truth that God is actually infinitely infinite: "for instance, think about the universe. Is it infinite? It can't just keep going forever, it has to run out of stuff at some point. But what then? There has to be something after that, if you could travel that far!"

And that's supposed to be an incredible argument that proves how wrong we are.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue May 14, 2013 12:40 pm

Koumei wrote: "for instance, think about the universe. Is it infinite? It can't just keep going forever, it has to run out of stuff at some point. But what then? There has to be something after that, if you could travel that far!"

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Tue May 14, 2013 12:59 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Actual omnipotence is of course logically impossible, so any omnipotent deity is logically incapable of existing. A being with powers of creation and destruction must necessarily have a limit to one or the other because either they are capable of creating something they can't destroy (and thus their powers of destruction are limited by their own powers of creation), or they can't (and thus their powers of creation are limited by their own powers of destruction). That's fucking binary, both abilities cannot be unlimited. It doesn't matter how mistomagical or supernatural your god supposedly is, that is a hard and fast logical limit.

chuck norris can create a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it. then he lifts it anyways, just to show you who the fuck chuck norris is.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Tue May 14, 2013 2:04 pm

Stahlseele wrote:wait, so there are actually christians that don't think their god is omnipotent?
if so, then why call him god in the first place? O.o

Because if you believe there are three benevolent magical sky fairies (Dad, Mom, and Junior; lay believers don't spare much thought for the Spook) with defined names, personalities, and distinctive likenesses who protect you against natural and anthropogenic curses and occasionally make your spoken wishes come true, you might as well have a word for them.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Tue May 14, 2013 3:38 pm

zugschef wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Actual omnipotence is of course logically impossible, so any omnipotent deity is logically incapable of existing. A being with powers of creation and destruction must necessarily have a limit to one or the other because either they are capable of creating something they can't destroy (and thus their powers of destruction are limited by their own powers of creation), or they can't (and thus their powers of creation are limited by their own powers of destruction). That's fucking binary, both abilities cannot be unlimited. It doesn't matter how mistomagical or supernatural your god supposedly is, that is a hard and fast logical limit.
chuck norris can create a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it. then he lifts it anyways, just to show you who the fuck chuck norris is.

Ironically, Chuck Norris is a crazy religious fundamentalist.

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Tue May 14, 2013 3:46 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:Ironically, Chuck Norris is a crazy religious fundamentalist.

yeah, i know. they even showed huckabee's commercial in the news of austrian public broadcasting.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed May 15, 2013 1:30 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:wait, so there are actually christians that don't think their god is omnipotent?
if so, then why call him god in the first place? O.o
Historically, the idea of omnipotence was not ascribed to the god of Israel. Jehova is a strong god, but he loses to iron chariots.

Judges 1:19 wrote:Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.
Actual omnipotence is of course logically impossible, so any omnipotent deity is logically incapable of existing. A being with powers of creation and destruction must necessarily have a limit to one or the other because either they are capable of creating something they can't destroy (and thus their powers of destruction are limited by their own powers of creation), or they can't (and thus their powers of creation are limited by their own powers of destruction). That's fucking binary, both abilities cannot be unlimited. It doesn't matter how mistomagical or supernatural your god supposedly is, that is a hard and fast logical limit.

Most religions historically go for the logically possible option of "our god is more powerful than anything you can imagine existing in the universe". Which is generally speaking good enough to meet the "why is this powerful enough that I should genuflect before it?" criteria without being something that a gradeschool child can disprove with simple declarative statements.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but those religions who have doubled down on the completely illogical "actually unlimited power" argument have not behaved in the most logical fashion the rest of the time.
-Username17

I mean, a lot of theologians essentially bite the bullet on this one and just admit that God can totally do logically impossible things, which fulfils the omnipotence criterion while neatly avoiding the omnipotence problem. It raises the problem of why, exactly God acts logically, as far as we can tell, but that's a much less substantial problem than the problem of omnipotence.

Alternately, the definition of omnipotence is revised such that it means that God acts in accordance with the divine nature: God not being able to do evil things isn't a restriction on God's omnipotence, but rather is merely God acting in accordance with God's nature. Similarly, either acting completely rationally (and therefore not doing paradoxical things) or merely acting not-paradoxically can be defined as being a fundamental part of being a perfect being.

Thirdly, it's easy to make an entirely semantic argument that these puzzles just don't mean anything. Saying that God can't make a really heavy rock is equivalent to saying that God can't make a square circle or a red green thing: they're just nonsense statements that don't mean anything at all. I don't have enough of an understanding of philosophy of language to expand this further (the verifiability criterion is about as far as it goes), but that's the argument broadly construed.