How about a debate on theism?

[Roger]

Joey: ........... Where does spooks contradict himself?

Emily: Who edited their posts?

I agree with Kenny. Instead of fucking up the topic with your own petty argument, why don't you guys make a separate thread called, "Homoerotic Amateur Pornography and Discussion: Coming Out of the Closet". You can argue there.

[Anthony]

admin said:

Joey: ........... Where does spooks contradict himself?

josh said:

i noticed ...that people who want to be atheists usually just dont want to hear reason, and there are so many facts that can oppose how genesis states the creation.

That's just the first sentence... read closely, especially in post 3, for more. It seems that Spooks is being largely sarcastic, though I agree that this isn't the right topic for sarcasm.

I'd rather not read through an entire creationist book at this point in time, but perhaps you could summarize the main arguments for the sake of this debate. However, most creation arguments present false dilemmas:
1. If evolution is flawed, creation is true.
2. Evolution is flawed.
3. Therefore, creation is true.

I'll say again that there's no evidence for creation (rather, there's limited evidence against evolution), and that disproving evolution does not prove the existence of God. We should redirect the discussion towards another topic, such as morality and God's Plan.

[Joshua]

this is waaay too much stuff... i cant believe im gonna have to read all this.

[Joshua]

because there is too much stuff here, i wil attack the posts on page 1.

1."first of all, god cannot be omniscient. this follows from a set theory paradox which i shall present in brief here:
consider the set of all things that can make an object that they cannot lift. if god was in this set, then god would be able to make something he could not lift. contradicion. if god is not in this set, then god isn't all powerful. contradiction. something is either in or not in a set. therefore god does not exist."
this argument makes no sense whatsoever. will the poster please elaborate?

2. "secondly, the presence of a god means no free will. if god was omniscient and knew the future, we are powerless to change it. and our "decision" to be charitable and kind or to commit atrocities are already predetermined."
who ever said that God is able to control what you decide to do anyways? using the word "omniscient" to describe God, and then attacking the word and saying that he could not possibly fit that description is unreasonable. humans were the first to assign "omniscient" to God anyways. the way that i think most Christians see it is that God can put his message and his task in a human's heart, and it is up to the human to decide whether he should accept it or not. if this proves that God is not omniscient, that does not prove that God does not exist. when did God ever have to be omniscient anyways? that was only an arbitrary word assigned to God.

3. "I assume that we're all familiar with the concept of God's Plan, which states that all events in time are part of God's Plan. For the sake of this argument, God's Plan is real, because God is currently assumed to exist."
Refer to the above argument... nowadays many Christians i know don't follow that doctrine.

4. "God's Plan contradicts crime and punishment. If a man is murdered or a woman is raped, the criminal responsible is merely carrying out God's Plan. He should not be punished at all because he has no say in his predetermined actions. If anything, the criminal should be rewarded as an agent of God for setting the plan into action. He should be rewarded with eternity in heaven for obeying the will of God. Abortions, gay marriages, genocide, terrorism, eating from the Tree of Knowledge, and eternal damnation are all part of God's Plan."
Once again, refer to the previous post. Another point I'd like to mention is that if God does not exist, one is still ruled by chemical unbalances. so one cannot be blamed for his actions, because he has no free will. the chemicals in his brain made him do this.

5. "Does this make sense for an omnibenevolent God? This picture is more malevolent than anything else. We must either accept the omniscient God and his plan, rejecting free will and our own morality, or vice versa. The omniscient Judeo-Christian God is mutually exclusive with morality. Why, then, would Satan or Hell exist? Why would the bible worship God as benevolent? Why do laws and rules exist if all is planned?"
Satan puts the seeds of evil within a man's heart, causing him to create all the destruction in the world. God will not or cannot actively change a man's actions, so thus, the humans that fall under Satan's temptations are condemed to burn in hell with him.

[Spooks- RSC]

HAHAHA its ok roger, joey's not reading the posts correctly.

thanks kenny, i wont post my comments here anymore. seems like no one is debating though.

anthony, i wasnt being sarcastic. honestly, so many scientists say they have proof that they know how earth was created. (well, the universe) too many arguments, but thats how people think.

[Joshua]

I will post some more points.
There are vague and disturbing points in the bible. keep in mind that the bible was not written by God. it was written by man. Humans are prone to mistakes, and the malice and cruelty promoted by certain points in the bible are caused by the bitterness of the oppressed christians. not even the best christians can come close to the ideals of christianity, and even they can be tempted to destroy the opposition. now come to Jesus's teachings, the most important part of the bible. here we can see the true benevolence of God.

what exactly is hell? nowhere does it say that you will burn in eternity if you are bad. its not either eternal bliss or eternal agony. hell may be more of a quick destruction of the soul. I like to see of it that way. there is also the limbo, where souls can repent and then enter heaven.

many of the atheist arguments are just black and white. remember that not everything is like that.

[Joshua]

1."youre not considering all other alternatives, such as random chance, alien life forms, etc. in order for this argument to hold, you must prove that all other things have not happened."
this has nothing to do with wheter God exists or not.

2."If that's another name for a synthesis of the Big Bang theory, abiogenesis, and evolution, then yes. These theories are logical, testable, and sound. There's sufficient empirical evidence for each of the above, including but not limited to expansion of the universe, the Miller and Urey experiment, and much of what we went through in Biology class."
logical, yes. Testable and sound? far from it. just remember that even if it was proven that these were true, it does not contradict the existance of a supreme being. remember that God has the ability to make things seem the way he wants them to be seen.

3."There isn't as much contradiction if the bible is taken figuratively, but if it is, it should be recognized as any other significant piece of literature. The situations and characters described should be treated as fictional. I'm not claiming that the bible must be either literal or false, but that history is either accurate or innacurate. Figurative history is innacurate."
Once again, its just black and white. Figurative history does not have to innacurate in its message, it can be just innaccurate in its wording. there is no reason to treat characters as fictional if they are figurative, and i challenge you to tell me why.

4. "dan, i believe that the chronology of a day has already been treated by anthony above. if "day" simply meant a long period of time, what would merit exactly 7 days? and would this "day" be analogous to the reference of "sabbath day" [sabbath long time]? something tells me a single word "day" cannot encompass the needs for the hebrews to convey time."
Thats what you think. something tells ME that a single word "day" CAN encompass the needs for the hebrews to convey time. yom is the word. poor translation occurs in many places. From God to moses, from hebrew to english, from king james to recovery. why not just forget all the "wordings" and focus upon the idea of God itself? Also, keep in mind that God can make things appear differently, like creating the world to look like its billions of yers old, but in fact, its only thousands of years old.

5."1. Suggesting that "whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 31:15) See also Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24-25, Psalm 19:7 and Matthew 5:18-20.
2. Being sexist with "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." (Timothy 2:11) Further reading at 1 Cor 14:34-35 and Numbers 31:14-18.
3. Commanding war against Muslims, atheists, and any other non-Christians - "And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him." (Leviticus 24:16)
A lot of these absurd commands exist scattered throughout the bible. I don't think they're fit for today's youth and tomorrow's leaders. All of my references are in the familiar King James version, of course, because I can't read Hebrew."
first of all, i dislike the king james version. it has many translation that are blatantly incorrect. the commonly accepted version nowadays with most religious scholars is the recovery version. secondly, the commands of death dealing are all in the old testament. in the times of the old testament, Jesus has not yet washed clean our sins yet, so we all had to be treated like dirty sinners, and none of us could interact with God. Remember that we are still dealing with Jews at this point. No Christians yet; the ideals were still "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Now, in the new testament, morality and niceness is glorified. Furthermore, the comment towards women is basically a reflection upon Jewish culture, not among the religion itself.

Oh yes, and we are challenging your points, your 're just refusing to acknowledge them.

[Anthony]

1. I don't see a problem with this argument - it's a combination of set theory and proof by contradiction.

2. a. I'm sure that the message God supposedly puts in my heart is my own conscience, the result of my brain chemistry and culture, not anything related to a God. We'll need proof supporting the connection to God.
b. The Judeo-Christian God is defined by supreme power (hence monotheism), including but not limited to omnipotence and omniscience.

3. What doctrine, then, do they follow? God's Plan is bilblical. Are the doctrines being made up as we go along? I then question the new doctrines in addition to the old.

4. God supposedly has control over these brain chemicals. He supposedly has control over everything, and has the power to act to stop crime. The fact that he doesn't means that he's impotent, he's malevolent, or he does not exist.

5. Again, God is all-powerful, right? Then Satan is part of God's Plan, and God has control over free will. If not, there is a glaring contradiction in the definition of God.

In addition to the above 5 responses, I'll mention that rationalizations still do not prove God exists. They only justify his actions assuming that he does. Even if a rationalization is perfectly valid, its premise is not.

The additional points:
1. This is again a rationalization that doesn't quite prove the existence of God.

2. I'm not sure this is relevant...

3. Some things are just black and white. Existence, for instance, is true or false.

The third post:
1. Mark's statement was a challenge of burden of proof. In order for God to exist and be responsible for creation, either the statement must be proven true or all others proven false. Since there's no evidence in favor of it...

2. It's a rationalization again. If God exists, he can do all of this. Prove that God exists first.

3. I've already covered this thrice. If figurative charaters have historical basis, how are we supposed to know exactly how to interpret them? We don't.

4. Read page 3...

5. a. The genocidal Matthew isn't Old Testament. Nor is the sexist Timothy.
b. Further rationalizations. If God exists, here's how it all makes sense.

The challenges are just rationalizations - our points are inherent contradictions in religion, disproving certain aspects of them such as omniscience. Rationalizations are responses encompassing how God would exist assuming he did.

I consider the theistic side of this debate to have the burden of proof for God's existence because of the unanswered points that Mark and I have presented. I'll bring up the unicorn proof:
1. The unicorn exists. It is invisible and omniscient.
2. Prove that the unicorn does not exist.
Understanding why the unicorn's existence is rejected is key to understanding why God's existence is rejected. I can easily rationalize the unicorn, but I have the burden of proof for supporting it - my rationalizations don't hold true if I can't come up with some reason that the unicorn exists.

[AlexCheng]

I'm not really going to debate, more of I'm going to just read, I find it entertaining (not in a, hey look, he just owned him with words!) I read Josh H's post and most of his stands were, God can make it seem this way. Is that a real good reason? Cause if it is, then from now on, everytime Anthony and Mark make a stand, jsut say, God made it seem this way. Example, why does evolution seem much more logical than just simple, creation? Counter, God created us all, but just made it seem like evolution.

This whole evolution thing, is just purely an example, I'm not stating that evolution is true, nor creation is true, just merely an example of that the reason "God made it seem that way" can then be used on every single argument.

[Joshua]

"I don't see a problem with this argument - it's a combination of set theory and proof by contradiction."
Then explain it more clearly. I have problems deciphering the wording.

"a. I'm sure that the message God supposedly puts in my heart is my own conscience, the result of my brain chemistry and culture, not anything related to a God. We'll need proof supporting the connection to God."
Theists believe that not only does the message make itself clear to the reciever, it also has an ultimate purpose. The "message" is not only conscience. Most theists can tell when God is commanding them to do something by being in touch with their feelings.

"b. The Judeo-Christian God is defined by supreme power (hence monotheism), including but not limited to omnipotence and omniscience."
This is defined by man, not God.

"3. What doctrine, then, do they follow? God's Plan is bilblical. Are the doctrines being made up as we go along? I then question the new doctrines in addition to the old."
you have to consider the many fragments of the church. Maybe other churchs believe that God "makes" the choices for humans, but my church believes that God knows the choice you will make, but you will still be able to make it. Actually, there is not defining ground for this because we can not possibly know. Following a strict doctrine word for word is not effective. if you would like to question the new doctrines, please do so.

" God supposedly has control over these brain chemicals. He supposedly has control over everything, and has the power to act to stop crime. The fact that he doesn't means that he's impotent, he's malevolent, or he does not exist."
once again, it depends on your defintion of the extent of God's control.

"Some things are just black and white. Existence, for instance, is true or false."
Yet your example is not just black and white.

"1. Mark's statement was a challenge of burden of proof. In order for God to exist and be responsible for creation, either the statement must be proven true or all others proven false. Since there's no evidence in favor of it...

2. It's a rationalization again. If God exists, he can do all of this. Prove that God exists first.

3. I've already covered this thrice. If figurative charaters have historical basis, how are we supposed to know exactly how to interpret them? We don't."
I feel no need to respond to these points, as they do not seem to require one.

"The genocidal Matthew isn't Old Testament. Nor is the sexist Timothy. "
They're humans. I had two points here. One was that the old testament was a bloody and deadly time. Two was that humans may tend to fall prey to the need for revenge, even if they were really holy. remember, they are humans.

""God made it seem that way"
I think i only made this argument once or twice. however, it seems like a good argument to me.

[Joshua]

Alright, time to make some posts for the existance of a God.
First of all, as most theists would agree, we can feel the existance of God within us when we approach him spiritually. I realize this statement is nil for atheists, because they never felt this before. however, the exultation experienced by theists when they approach him spiritually is enough to keep them theists. theists all feel doubts at times, but it is hard for theists to leave God because of the emptiness they feel without a deity watching over them. It is spiritually fulfilling.

Secondly, if the Bible is to be taken as history, there are the existance of miracles. Miracles cannot exist without a God. Also, many supernatural things occur in the world that cannot be attested to natural causes. for example, the existance of ghosts (i for one believe this fully) prove the existance of a spiritual realm, which indirectly proves the existance of God.

Thirdly, the rules that christians live by are altruistic and good for the common people. If people were to live SINCERLY (unlike crusaders and muslim radicals) by the rules of religion, the world would be a much better place. So even if a God did not exist, theism is good for the world (debate topic was theism vs atheism, not wheter God exists)

Lastly, there are the weighing of the benefits. the rewards and punishments of God far outweigh the small pleasures that could be attained in life. unless one was to live by very strict rules, one would not lose much in life by believing in God. In fact, a belief in God often makes humans happy and more loving. if Mark was to say that God may view believers of another religion as worse than just plain old atheists, then Mark is wrong. God views both atheists and believers of another religion as one sect; non-Christians. simple as that. atheists will not recieve less punishment. In fact, in my view, atheists who deliberatly believe in no God to escape the wrath of the potential other Gods should be punished more, because they're trying to manipulate their way out.

[AlexCheng]

joshiemoe said:

""God made it seem that way"
I think i only made this argument once or twice. however, it seems like a good argument to me.

You did only make that argument once. I never said you made it more than once or twice. (You specifically put that into your post, so I assumed that you thought I said you made that argument more than once or twice, I actually didn't say that)
If you interact long enough with Frank, sometimes you'll find that he is an illogical person. Frank often likes to use the reason, "Because I said so" , "Because I'm Frank". That's basically like saying "Cause God said so" or in this case "God made it seem that way" I think there should be more than just "Cause God made it seem that way" it reminded me of the time when people asked a question, the other would respond "Because that's the way the world works" Wow, that just explained all my questions in life! From now on, everytime I have a question, I just have to remember, because that's the way the world works.

Edit: My bad, I did say he used the God madeit seem tht way more tahn once, and he did actually use it more than once.

[silentwf]

sorry to budge in

alexcheng said:

...
Cause if it is, then from now on, everytime Anthony and Mark make a stand, jsut say, God made it seem this way
...

anyhow, agreed with alex.
last year when we had a debate for english about "does god exist or not"
(kay made us do the opposite of what we always believed in, like she made kiki "no god", and made me "yes god")
and i stated a "god made a computer sort thing that randomly generates the incidents and every event" type of thing. i thought it was a nice argument.

so just for the "yes, god exist stuff" maybe take that into consideration

(PS: im not "yes god" or "no god" person. that type of stuff. to me, those stuff mean nothing, i just wanna live and get good speakers (ok, not really))

[Anthony]

joshiemoe said:

Then explain it more clearly. I have problems deciphering the wording.

I'll leave the set theory to Mark when he's around. He doesn't quite get to say enough.

joshiemoe said:

Theists believe that not only does the message make itself clear to the reciever, it also has an ultimate purpose. The "message" is not only conscience. Most theists can tell when God is commanding them to do something by being in touch with their feelings.

The idea that a thought can be attributed to God is not valid; it can be equally easily attributed to narcotics or my hypothetical unicorn. This is a rationalization.

joshiemoe said:

This is defined by man, not God.

If man's definition (the biblical one) of God is unacceptable, I'll ask again, what is acceptable? An unfalsifiable being outside our comprehension? No one should automatically believe in something that can't be understood, defined, or tested.

joshiemoe said:

you have to consider the many fragments of the church. Maybe other churchs believe that God "makes" the choices for humans, but my church believes that God knows the choice you will make, but you will still be able to make it. Actually, there is not defining ground for this because we can not possibly know. Following a strict doctrine word for word is not effective. if you would like to question the new doctrines, please do so.

Referencing the mutually contradictory sects of the Church doesn't help the theistic case. The fact that some Christians believe in omnipotence and some don't does not make the huge paradox any more valid. How can someone know the choice you will make while you are still allowed to make it? This is a paradox: fate exists, yet fate does not exist. The initial assumption that someone knows your choice or that you have a choice must be false.

joshiemoe said:

once again, it depends on your defintion of the extent of God's control.

The idea that the defintion of God's omnipotence is dynamic gives the idea of omnipotence in general much less credit. It's a convenience, but definitions of beings cannot be changed for convenience, as definitions are static. A definition that can change based on personal belief isn't logical.

joshiemoe said:

is true or false."
Yet your example is not just black and white.

I don't understand the response to the black or white case. I stated that atheists make things "black or white" as logical, such as existence, which is either true or false, with nothing in between. Sure, other cases are not as extreme, but this doesn't change that existence is either true or false by definition.

joshiemoe said:

I feel no need to respond to these points, as they do not seem to require one.

Why don't the three points require responses? Is it because they're true? There's no given reason to automatically assume the existence of any gods.

joshiemoe said:

They're humans. I had two points here. One was that the old testament was a bloody and deadly time. Two was that humans may tend to fall prey to the need for revenge, even if they were really holy. remember, they are humans.

This is a rationalization. It's almost too convenient to redefine the New Testament as unholy, while still making the claim that God exists.

joshiemoe said:

I think i only made this argument once or twice. however, it seems like a good argument to me.

I'll explain in further detail what a rationalization is later.

First, there are many human feelings, and assigning them to deities is illogical. I often feel anger, but I'm not about to attribute it to a Satan figure; I often feel fulfillment, but I won't attribute it to God. Feelings aren't connected to God. Anyone who could knowingly communicate with a deity would be the smartest person on Earth and would be able to know things such as tomorrow's winning lottery numbers.

Second, you said the Bible shouldn't be taken as history. I'm asking how it should be taken and why any of it is credible. We've already proven parts of the bible as false, refuting that it is the perfect word of God.

Third, sincerety to laws is a good ideal, but sincerety to the outdated rules of Judeo-Christianity is inappropriate. These rules can be nullified in place of more rational ones. My ideals stand by the Humanist Manifesto II, that a hospital should be built instead of a church, that a deed should be done instead of a prayer said. Convincing masses of people that this life is preparation for an eternal afterlife is... not productive.

Fourth, Pascal's Wager presents many false beliefs. It contains a false dilemma, assumption that God rewards belief alone, assumption that belief is as simple as a choice, etc. Pascal's Wager is a rationalization for belief in the Christian God assuming the exclusive existence of the Christian God first.

Furthering the refutation of the archaic Pascal's Wager, no one can achieve the Christian salvation. Salvation is achieved as given in the bible:
1. Luke 10:25-28: Love God and everyone.
2. Luke 18:18-22: Do not commit crime, honor your parents, sell everything you have, then follow Jesus.
2.a. Luke 14:26-33: Hate your family and give up everything to be Jesus's disciple.
3. Matthew 18:2-3: Be like a little child.
4. Matthew 5:17-20: Be more lawful than law teachers and more righteous than Pharisees. (Pharisees followed hundreds of Old Testament laws, including ones about animal sacrifice.)
5. John 3:16: All you have to do is believe in Jesus.

I could point to hundreds more contradictions in the path to Heaven, but these should be sufficient to show contradictions in doctrine. The typical response would be that doctrines are old and inaccurate; I would like to point out that the proper response is that the religion and its central tenets are equally old and inaccurate. After all, it is the religion and the central tenets that gave rise to the doctrine.

Edit: I like how Alex defined a notorious rationalization: God made it seem that way. I'll show its fallacy through formal logic:
1. If unicorn exists, then unicorn has absolute power.
2. Assume unicorn exists, therefore unicorn has absolute power (modus ponens)
3. There are many contradictions in the idea of absolute power and the idea of unicorn in general.
4. These contradictions are invalid, as unicorn made them seem that way to humans.
5. Therefore, unicorn exists.
This is characteristic of circular logic or begging the question. The rationalization 4 of premise 3 is invalid because it relies on the unproven assumption 2 - if unicorn exists. Replace "unicorn" with "God," and we have a typical Christian rationalization.

[r: G-->GL(V)]

again. if we cannot take the bible as the tenet of christianity because it was written by men who make mistakes, what exactly do we take as the will of god? which branch of christianity is correct?

one cannot merely argue that god made it seem that way. otherwise, prove that a unicorn wasn't responsible. just try. you see the effects, but you cannot infer the causes.

now josh is saying how we can know what decisions we are going to make, but still choose. this is absurd. if i know i am going to order niu rohh mien, how can i still choose? we are arguing the extent of god's omnipotence, but if he merely controls one choice, it is already one too many.