@Andir: "Because it just does" is such an unscientific answer, don't you think?
Of course it is unscientific, it has nothing to do with science, it is logical. There is absolute certainty that 'something' "Just is", even if that 'something' is complete nonexistence, although we know that isn't the case because our perception exists.
" Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
what say you, bay12ers?
Ahh, today I come to this debate armed with an Islamic theological point of view of God. Because it is a good question indeed, and I'm not happy with people trying to twist around the question without a good answer.
Good to have a slightly different subject, but proving one religious belief is foolish would serve to weaken the case for others... Should we go beat up scientology for a while?
For one thing, Islam never claims that God is "omnipotent". In fact, there are plenty of specific labels, but not omnipotent. The closest you get "The Creator"
If you create a nuclear bomb and leave it lying around in a playground you can hardly claim to be without responsibility for the results...
The question arises as to how much control exists. If control is absolute then they can create things to precise specifications. You can make angels humble, humans considerate, and apples impervious to teeth. If control is severely limited then we are the product of its limitations, not its designs, and there is no reason to respect it for our creation. So what exactly are its abilities as a creator?
Now this alone says that God is very powerful, but certainly not all-powerful. He created everything and lasts before and after time, which qualifies him to be labeled a God.
Without time there is no before and after, that is pure semantics, not that this is much better...
'God' has no qualifications, that is a large part of why these debates drag on so much, nobody really knows exactly what they are fighting over...
all-powerful is not required, it simply needs to be powerful enough to influence 'evil'(which is another highly subjective term). If it cannot control this evil then what hope is there in supporting it?
that whole argument is invalid, because it makes some invalid assumptions (about god being omnipowerful, or non-omnipowerfulness equals weakness).
Replace the term "not Omnipotent" with "a waste of our efforts which should be devoted to fixing our shoddily constructed world"...
let's go with the "where came evil" argument. Theologically, God seems to treat this life as a temporary thing, just as we treat a game.
I regard it as cruelty not to let us in on the secret...
Evil is simply a test. But the Islamic version of God clearly knows everything you think, why should he even bother to test you when he knows how you'd do?
Well, there's three reasons schools make you take tests:
1. To test your competence
2. To force you to study
3. To have concrete evidence for those who challenge your qualifications
God knows that you're (in)competent, so (1) is invalid.
One questions why 'incompetent' people would exist in the first place...
Part (2) is valid as people would put their faith to question when confronted by evil. It is painful to improve, which is also why God gave us math.
Why not create people to already possess everything they would attain through study? But assuming that to be too great a task, where is the justice is a test in which the first challenge is to choose, largely at random, which of many tests to take, when only one can prove anything? It is a flawed subject with a flawed test made by a flawed master with flawed qualification who has absolutely no verifiable contact with any of the students and the whole thing is almost certainly a delusion.
Part (3) is most important. God, knowing whether or not people deserve hell or heaven could just toss them wherever he wanted. But being "The Utterly Just", he has to prove to us that we're not qualified for heaven. Otherwise the nice people in heaven would be questioning God's authority to toss people into hell.
So people have a right to question this god? People should be able to understand its reasons? Do people have a right to question whether the basis of the judgements is fair? Humans were supposedly created with an inclination to disrespect the grounds upon which they are deemed unworthy. This supposed justification solves nothing and it is entirely due to the failures of the supposed judge...
They attempt to instantly disqualify themselves from the game and incorrectly assume that it gets them to heaven.
What evidence do you have to prove that they are incorrect? Do you think that they are willing to die due to a lack of faith? Or are they condemned because they were not granted the wisdom to see their errors? Or are they right, and you wrong, what unassailable font of wisdom has granted you such clarity?
The reasoning that a deity might be unwilling to prevent evil has been heavily discussed, and it is apparent that, at the very least, malevolence is not the only possible conclusion.
But the alternatives are no better.
Granted, a lot of this thread boils down not to a debate between Theism and Atheism, but instead to a debate between Christianity and Atheism. Rather than actually tackle the possibility of a deity as a whole
There are different proofs dismissing different species of deity, choose the deity you want to defend and state its nature... Lately I have been focussing mostly upon creators, and assuming them to be able to choose the nature of their creations...
, many of the debaters here prefer to take Biblical beliefs, attempt to prove their fallacy through logic (which is silly and meaningless, because there are a plethora of interpretations about the Bible amongst people who follows its teachings in the first place), and then claim that because they have 'disproved' Christianity, they have disproved the idea of a God.
So one of the most successful religions in the world doesn't actually have any reliable source of information, nor even instructions, and yet religion is a respectable medium?
If one can prove that religion has failed in some cases, which is an assumption usually held by one religion about others, then it establishes that alone faith in a religion is not sufficient to find 'the one true faith'... So if you are not relying upon the same hope and desperation that obviously misguided all those other poor fools, then what are you following?
Could it have not created the universe, wound up the clock, and set us on our way?
Uncaring.
Maybe it doesn't interfere because it likes to spectate?
sadistic, but also uncaring by virtue of literally not respecting us at all, so not really sadistic by its own standards...
Maybe it doesn't interfere because it can't, whatever power it had has been spent on creating the universe?
Then why worship it? Certainly a little respect may be in order, except for the fact that there is no reason to believe it exists, but it is powerless, and its efforts appear to have been insufficient...
Maybe it doesn't interfere because it would rather leave us to do our own thing?
It created "our own thing". Why should we suffer so it can see its script played out?
Of course, many mathematical theorists speculate that the entire course of the universe has already been predetermined, and that if there was an intellect or a computer powerful enough, they could equate everything that will ever happen.
Well it is simple logic, in the absence of any effectively random agents all events will follow a logical progression. Which is, obviously, predictable...
One of the things not covered here, as far as I have seen, is where the universe began.
It is covered, the universe did not begin. The thing that is not discussed here is where god began, except to say that god doesn't follow the rules. Well, if god doesn't follow the rules then why should the big bag?
It is easy (and probably true!) to cite the Big Bang Theory. Except that the Big Bang Theory indicates that something had to exist in the first place, in order to be scattered across the cosmos.
It only looks that way, the big bang is actually outside of time, causality was actually created by the big bang...
To me, the nature of the universe itself seems to indicate that some form of deity must exist, or existed at one point. Everything has an equation, after all, and if everything has an equation, that means there is perfect order to it. Yet, at the same time, it is completely chaotic, completely unpredictable. This, to me, imprints on my mind the idea of a God.
Y=x is an equation, it plots a line on a graph, in fact, more specifically, it plots an infinite line on a graph, the equation of the universe is the same, one thing leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to the next, continuing onwards forever. And it continues backwards forever also, one thing lead from another which came from yet another on through eternity.
Completely unpredictable? I predict that the world will keep on spinning, that stars will keep on dying, and that people will continue to destroy the world at large in a futile effort to protect their own tiny piece. Prove me wrong...
Also, for the sake of the discussion I'd like to bring in the following quote for discussion;
" Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
what say you, bay12ers?
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34795.msg832502;topicseen#msg832502
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34795.msg823444;topicseen#msg823444
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34795.msg552938;topicseen#msg552938
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34795.msg1109566;topicseen#msg1109566
Pick one.
Oooh, oooh, pick me, I was in a fell mood!
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Topic: Atheists (Read 409419 times)