The hypocrisy and arrogance of atheism

[Hollie]

For you thumpers with a typically limited science vocabulary, I should point out that an "inexplicable hypotheis" is something you obviously read on some retrograde christian fundamentalist website.

I thought I might be the benovelent soul and instruct you regarding what a hypotheis is as it relates to science but, why? Your knowledge begins and ends at "the gawds did it". The fundamentalist zealot will not change a single opinion because, nothing, not argument, not fact, not reality itself, can shake his conviction that the "evilutionists" and/or any number of other co-conspirators are in involved in some cover up to discredit your gawds. Truly, a desperate and pathetic delusion.

Limited science vocabulary?!


This from the an illiterate rube who has never discussed the pertinent science on any topic whatsoever on this forum and doesn't grasp the fact that logic and the philosophy of science (agency) necessarily precede or have primacy over science (methodology). But, by all means, read the following and tell us where I'm wrong: Prufrock s Lair Abiogenesis The Unholy Grail of Atheism

On the contrary, thumpy, your inability to address a number of direct challenges to your amateurish and profoundly stupid notions of your claimed supernatural realms leaves to bluster on about the simplistic and pointless "Philosophy of pseudoscience".

What a laughable joke.

That's weird. I'm only aware of two, arguably direct challenges offered by you to anything I've ever argued, and that's being generous given your obvious handicaps, and, of course, that nonsense was utterly annihilated. Oh, and the second one wasn't even your stuff, but something copied and pasted off of a website blathering pseudoscientific madness.

But, hey, I've got some peanut butter sandwiches and a glass of warm milk you can have.

Yeah, that is weird. Every challenge to your pointless spamming with pseudoscience blathering is met with your retreat to nonsensical sidestepping with "peanut butter sandwiches".

That's not really weird at all. Rubbing a zealots nose in the dirt with facts and evidence does cause them to react as you do: with pointless spam.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The basis of the faith of theists is that their God in omnipotent. If you remove that assumption their faith is then based upon a lesser God. So in order to believe that their God is omnipotent theists have to deal with the Omnipotence Paradox. That is the arrogance of theism in that it sets itself up for that conundrum.

As far as the existence of sentient beings with what to us appear to be "god-like powers" that is well within the realms of probability. The gods of the ancients could see what mere mortals were doing from on high and send a bolt from the sky to strike them dead. Today we have drones that allow us to see people on the other side of the planet and we can fire a missile that will kill them. To the ancients we now have "god-like powers" ourselves. Yes, there probably are beings who can change the orbit of a planet or make a star go supernova. But that doesn't make them Gods any more than we are.

Whatever.

So what's the Omnipotence Paradox? Is this objection subject to the falsification of the organic laws of logic or is it just something you say, you know, because it sounds smart? I mean, you know, assuming that Mathbud has it right, your paradox amounts to arguing that God ≠ God, because, you know, everybody knows that God ≠ God or something equally absurd.

Does Mathbud have it right or are you talking about something else? I would suggest you acquaint yourself with the imperative of the law of identity first, which is the universally indispensable principle of logic: for organic logic, for all alternate, analytic forms of logic and for science. Then look up the terms paradox and absurdity, and carefully note the difference. If Mathbud has you right, then what you're really saying, albeit, unwittingly, is that the universal principle of identity is paradoxical, which makes no sense at all, as that would necessarily mean that all existents are paradoxical. But since that can't be true, the real truth is that your notion of the Omnipotence Paradox is just an absurdity dreamt up to amuse gullible, sophomoric college students all hopped up on ecstasy.

 

[Hollie]

The basis of the faith of theists is that their God in omnipotent. If you remove that assumption their faith is then based upon a lesser God. So in order to believe that their God is omnipotent theists have to deal with the Omnipotence Paradox. That is the arrogance of theism in that it sets itself up for that conundrum.

As far as the existence of sentient beings with what to us appear to be "god-like powers" that is well within the realms of probability. The gods of the ancients could see what mere mortals were doing from on high and send a bolt from the sky to strike them dead. Today we have drones that allow us to see people on the other side of the planet and we can fire a missile that will kill them. To the ancients we now have "god-like powers" ourselves. Yes, there probably are beings who can change the orbit of a planet or make a star go supernova. But that doesn't make them Gods any more than we are.

Whatever.

So what's the Omnipotence Paradox? Is this objection subject to the falsification of the organic laws of logic or is it just something you say, you know, because it sounds smart? I mean, you know, assuming that Mathbud has it right, your paradox amounts to arguing that God ≠ God, because, you know, everybody knows that God ≠ God or something equally absurd.

Does Mathbud have it right or are you talking about something else? I would suggest you acquaint yourself with the imperative of the law of identity first, which is the universally indispensable principle of logic: for organic logic, for all alternate, analytic forms of logic and for science. Then look up the terms paradox and absurdity, and carefully note the difference. If Mathbud has you right, then what you're really saying, albeit, unwittingly, is that the universal principle of identity is paradoxical, which makes no sense at all, as that would necessarily mean that all existents are paradoxical. But since that can't be true, the real truth is that your notion of the Omnipotence Paradox is just an absurdity dreamt up to amuse gullible, sophomoric college students all hopped up on ecstasy.

Or, more likely, Gawd < ≠ Gawd.

 

[Mathbud1]

The basis of the faith of theists is that their God in omnipotent.

Because you say it is? There are an immense number of theistic belief systems. Can you say that you know the teachings of all of them?

If you remove that assumption their faith is then based upon a lesser God.

Lesser is relative. There is a massive gap between complete omnipotence and humanity. To avoid your paradox, a God must only be incapable of breaking truly immutable laws. The scope of power of such a being could still be so far beyond our comprehension as to easily be considered godlike.

So in order to believe that their God is omnipotent theists have to deal with the Omnipotence Paradox. That is the arrogance of theism in that it sets itself up for that conundrum.

As far as the existence of sentient beings with what to us appear to be "god-like powers" that is well within the realms of probability. The gods of the ancients could see what mere mortals were doing from on high and send a bolt from the sky to strike them dead. Today we have drones that allow us to see people on the other side of the planet and we can fire a missile that will kill them. To the ancients we now have "god-like powers" ourselves. Yes, there probably are beings who can change the orbit of a planet or make a star go supernova. But that doesn't make them Gods any more than we are.

Why wouldn't it make them Gods? That would depend on your definition of God would it not?

The problem with the "Omnipotence Paradox" and all other such "proofs" that God does not or could not exist, is that it is trying to do the impossible: prove that something does not exist.

 

[Mathbud1]

The basis of the faith of theists is that their God in omnipotent. If you remove that assumption their faith is then based upon a lesser God. So in order to believe that their God is omnipotent theists have to deal with the Omnipotence Paradox. That is the arrogance of theism in that it sets itself up for that conundrum.

As far as the existence of sentient beings with what to us appear to be "god-like powers" that is well within the realms of probability. The gods of the ancients could see what mere mortals were doing from on high and send a bolt from the sky to strike them dead. Today we have drones that allow us to see people on the other side of the planet and we can fire a missile that will kill them. To the ancients we now have "god-like powers" ourselves. Yes, there probably are beings who can change the orbit of a planet or make a star go supernova. But that doesn't make them Gods any more than we are.

Whatever.

So what's the Omnipotence Paradox? Is this objection subject to the falsification of the organic laws of logic or is it just something you say, you know, because it sounds smart? I mean, you know, assuming that Mathbud has it right, your paradox amounts to arguing that God ≠ God, because, you know, everybody knows that God ≠ God or something equally absurd.

Does Mathbud have it right or are you talking about something else? I would suggest you acquaint yourself with the imperative of the law of identity first, which is the universally indispensable principle of logic: for organic logic, for all alternate, analytic forms of logic and for science. Then look up the terms paradox and absurdity, and carefully note the difference. If Mathbud has you right, then what you're really saying, albeit, unwittingly, is that the universal principle of identity is paradoxical, which makes no sense at all, as that would necessarily mean that all existents are paradoxical. But since that can't be true, the real truth is that your notion of the Omnipotence Paradox is just an absurdity dreamt up to amuse gullible, sophomoric college students all hopped up on ecstasy.

The Omnipotence Paradox is usually stated something like: Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?

The idea is that either answer "proves" that an omnipotent being is impossible: either he is incapable of creating such a stone or he is incapable of lifting it, thus showing a limit to his power.

It is commonly used as "proof" that God does not exist.

 

[Derideo_Te]

The problem with the "Omnipotence Paradox" and all other such "proofs" that God does not or could not exist, is that it is trying to do the impossible: prove that something does not exist.

Not in the least!

The Omnipotence Paradox does not set out to "prove" anything of the kind. All it does is establish that the concept of omnipotence is a paradox. The onus is on theists who claim to believe in an omnipotent deity to resolve the paradox. Equally so they have to accept that their God is responsible and accountable for the creation of evil since it could not exist unless he created it. Furthermore theists have to deal with omniscience which means holding their God responsible and accountable for Ebola, the Holocaust, the 9/11 attacks, etc, etc. (He knew they were going to happen and yet did nothing to stop them.) The Omnipotence Paradox is just one of many hurdles that theists must face when trying to explain their belief in what is logically an irrational and capricious God.

As far as proving that something does not exist goes there are 2 aspects to that issue. Theists demand that the onus is none believers to "prove" that their God does not exist and are therefore setting up a strawman argument for themselves. When you leave the realm of religion and enter pure logic then it becomes another matter entirely. Circles and squares each have specific definitions. Does a perfectly square circle exist?

 

[Mathbud1]

Not in the least!

The Omnipotence Paradox does not set out to "prove" anything of the kind. All it does is establish that the concept of omnipotence is a paradox.

The Omnipotence Paradox was developed in response to what, and with what purpose in mind? It was developed as a rebuttal against those believe in an omnipotent God. It's intent is to prove that such a God could not exist. It serves no other purpose.

The onus is on theists who claim to believe in an omnipotent deity to resolve the paradox.

You are correct. But again the paradox is only a problem for those who believe in an actually omnipotent God. For those who do not believe God can do absolutely anything, it is not a problem at all.

Equally so they have to accept that their God is responsible and accountable for the creation of evil since it could not exist unless he created it.

Only if they believe that God created evil. But evil is not a thing to be created. It is a direct result of the principle of choice. If people are allowed to choose their actions, some people will choose evil actions. The person who makes an evil choice is responsible for their own choice.

Furthermore theists have to deal with omniscience which means holding their God responsible and accountable for Ebola, the Holocaust, the 9/11 attacks, etc, etc. (He knew they were going to happen and yet did nothing to stop them.)

That is assuming that he should have stopped them. From our perspective they are certainly horrifying, but from a perspective that views reality as eternal and views us as eternal they are but a moment's pain. They are part of the experience of living on earth.

If I offered to give you ten billion dollars if you would choose to experience for a single second a pain that was the most excruciating pain imaginable but would do no permanent damage, would you accept?

Some people believe that we knowingly chose to come to earth. That we knew full-well the level of hardship we would face here, and that we chose to come knowing that we would learn and grow beyond our previous potential through the experience.

When I was younger, I wrestled. My mother had to watch me go through some incredibly difficult and painful moments, but it would have been wrong for her to stop them. I chose it, and I learned and grew through the experience. I'm a better person today because I went through difficulty.

The Omnipotence Paradox is just one of many hurdles that theists must face when trying to explain their belief in what is logically an irrational and capricious God.

As far as proving that something does not exist goes there are 2 aspects to that issue. Theists demand that the onus is none believers to "prove" that their God does not exist and are therefore setting up a strawman argument for themselves.

Some believers do perhaps do that. Not all do. Just as not all atheists try to convince believers they are wrong, and some do. From my perspective, the onus is on each individual to decide what they will think. It is not a believer's responsibility to make you believe, and it is not a disbeliever's responsibility to make you disbelieve. It is up to you to seek your own knowledge.

When you leave the realm of religion and enter pure logic then it becomes another matter entirely. Circles and squares each have specific definitions. Does a perfectly square circle exist?

First, circles and squares are not things per se that can exist. They are descriptions. There is no square that is not in actuality some thing that is square shaped. There is no circle that is not in actuality some thing that is circle shaped. To answer your specific question, a cylinder that has a height matching its diameter will be circle shaped when viewed from the top, and square shaped when viewed from the side. Is that a perfectly square circle? Perhaps. It depends on your definition.

To disprove the existence of some thing using only logic you would have to be able to rigidly define every aspect of the thing, and know that every rule you use in your proof is true everywhere and in every way. Can such a thing even be done?

 

[Derideo_Te]

Only if they believe that God created evil. But evil is not a thing to be created. It is a direct result of the principle of choice. If people are allowed to choose their actions, some people will choose evil actions. The person who makes an evil choice is responsible for their own choice.

The ability to "choose evil" is yet another limitation on the "omnipotence" of a deity. If you can choose to defy the will of the deity and can actually carry out that defiance and the deity cannot stop you from doing so then it cannot be omnipotent. Once again theists are faced with a conundrum.

 

[Mathbud1]

Only if they believe that God created evil. But evil is not a thing to be created. It is a direct result of the principle of choice. If people are allowed to choose their actions, some people will choose evil actions. The person who makes an evil choice is responsible for their own choice.

The ability to "choose evil" is yet another limitation on the "omnipotence" of a deity. If you can choose to defy the will of the deity and can actually carry out that defiance and the deity cannot stop you from doing so then it cannot be omnipotent. Once again theists are faced with a conundrum.

That's assuming the deity would stop you. If choice is part of the purpose of living here, taking away that choice defeats the purpose. The ability of the deity to stop you, the desire of the deity to stop you, and the actual choice of the deity to stop you are all different things.

 

[Tuckwolf]

You were saying something about mental illness, cults and Satan. Prior to cuisine and stuff, I was talking about the foundational axioms of human cognition and the objective facts regarding the problems of origin and existence thereof.

Scientologists tell me about Thetans and engrams. Just like you and your arguments, they're positive it's rational and convincing, and that they've destroyed anyone who argues against them.

To those outside of your cult, it's apparent how you're using very many words just to define yourself as correct over and over, cloaking your lack of any substance with layers of Unibomber-style psychobabble. As with the Unibomber or the Scientologists, the only refutation needed is to point out that it's twaddle.

Now, I'm sure you were quite the hit of the late night drunken dorm room bull sessions. You no doubt ruled there, as you waved about your bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade for extra emphasis. That's probably why your reception here has come as such a shock to you, because you've never tested yourself outside of an audience that already agreed. Plus, people are sober here, so they just laugh at your mental onanism.

Now, back to the Satan theory. Given the nearly-infinite skill and cunning of Satan, how can you be sure all of your arguments haven't been placed into your mind by Satan?

'the only refutation needed is to point out that it's twaddle'.... lol You gotta love their 'science', right??? Irony at its best!

Irony at its best is the statement that god created man in his own image.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Irony at its best is the statement that god created man in his own image.

Why is that?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

As far as proving that something does not exist goes there are 2 aspects to that issue. Theists demand that the onus is none believers to "prove" that their God does not exist and are therefore setting up a strawman argument for themselves. When you leave the realm of religion and enter pure logic then it becomes another matter entirely. Circles and squares each have specific definitions. Does a perfectly square circle exist?

Nonsense! There is but one sound and absolutely incontrovertible foundation for logic: God! Any argument asserted on any other basis is invariably irrational, unsustainable, the stuff of paradox, contradiction, absurdity and self-negation . . . which ironically proves that God must be and that God is the universal Principle of Identity, the universal Logos, i.e., the universal Word or Rationale for all of existence.

 

[Hollie]

As far as proving that something does not exist goes there are 2 aspects to that issue. Theists demand that the onus is none believers to "prove" that their God does not exist and are therefore setting up a strawman argument for themselves. When you leave the realm of religion and enter pure logic then it becomes another matter entirely. Circles and squares each have specific definitions. Does a perfectly square circle exist?

Nonsense! There is but one sound and absolutely incontrovertible foundation for logic: God! Any argument asserted on any other basis is invariably irrational, unsustainable, the stuff of paradox, contradiction, absurdity and self-negation . . . which ironically proves that God must be and that God is the universal Principle of Identity, the universal Logos, i.e., the universal Word or Rationale for all of existence.

Nonsense. Gawds are an irrational assertion. There is nothing in logic that concludes supernaturalism, except in the warped mind of the hyper-religious crank.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Not in the least!

The Omnipotence Paradox does not set out to "prove" anything of the kind. All it does is establish that the concept of omnipotence is a paradox. The onus is on theists who claim to believe in an omnipotent deity to resolve the paradox. Equally so they have to accept that their God is responsible and accountable for the creation of evil since it could not exist unless he created it. Furthermore theists have to deal with omniscience which means holding their God responsible and accountable for Ebola, the Holocaust, the 9/11 attacks, etc, etc. (He knew they were going to happen and yet did nothing to stop them.) The Omnipotence Paradox is just one of many hurdles that theists must face when trying to explain their belief in what is logically an irrational and capricious God.

Not at all!

The Omnipotence Paradox has been overthrown since time immemorial. Only the sophomoric think it to be of any significance at all. I just wanted you to emphatically state your position. . . .

The Omnipotence Paradox is utter nonsense, as it arbitrarily defines sans any justification that divine omnipotence must necessarily mean that God can do anything at all . . . except, of course, what he can't do. Hence, supposedly, since God can't do just anything at all, divine omnipotence is paradoxical.

Straw man!

The justified exception to this rule is self-evident and proves that a rock too big for God to move could never exist in the first place. The paradoxical absurdity is the conjecture regarding the existence of such a rock, not the existence of divine omnipotence proper.

In actuality, it's the antagonist's paradox . . . not necessarily the theist's problem at all. For example, it's neither a problem in the face of the absolute laws of thought objectively apparent to all nor a problem for the divinity of the Bible, the divinity of Judeo-Christianity.

The belief to the contrary is a mere illusion, an unexamined notion that only persists in the minds of those who are gullibly biased and thoughtless.

It is, however, a problem for at least one member of this forum, for his construct of divinity is utterly overthrown by the Omnipotence Paradox.

That would be the construct of USMB member Boss, as he holds that the absolute laws of logic (the law of identity, the law of contradiction and the law of the excluded middle: comprehensively, the principle of identity) were created by God for mankind, not the eternally existent logic of God Himself bestowed on mankind by God!

With his god you have a point, but you got nothing' on the God of the Bible.

The burden of proof is on the atheist antagonist especially, for he necessarily (unwittingly and contradictorily) presupposes not just one, not just two, but three things to be true:

1. He presupposes that the laws of thought are universally true in order to contradictorily argue that they are not universally true; that is, he argues something he cannot rationally demonstrate or explain, namely, that the principle of identity is false.

2. He presupposes God's existence as if he were one from on higher than high by insisting that divine omnipotence would necessarily mean that God can do anything . . . when that does not necessarily follow at all. In other words, he presupposes to known something about the nature of God that is not logically apparent to the rest of us.

(At this point, the atheist is sputtering that he does no such thing, but observe. . . .)

3. He contradictorily presupposes God's existence by claiming to know for a fact that God is not the Principle of Identity Himself, the very substance of and the universal ground for the laws of logic. In other words, like Boss, he pretends to know for a fact that the absolute laws of logic were created by God for mankind, not the preexistent logic of God Himself bestowed on mankind, not the eternally and transcendentally immutable laws of thought for all existence.

It's either that or the antagonist necessarily argues that the laws of thought were bestowed on mankind by . . . mutable nature.

Crickets chirping

The laws of thought necessarily hold that God must exist in order for the laws of thought to be absolute. In fact, the laws of thought hold that God must be the ultimate Source and Guarantor of the laws of thought, the Source and Guarantor of natural and moral law, and the Source and Guarantor of the physical laws of nature. God must be the reason for the apparent synchronization between the prescriptive, rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness and the descriptive properties and processes of nature.

Those who don't hold that to be true necessarily concede that whatever comes out of their mouths about anything is the esoteric mumbo jumbo of relativism. Fine. Nothing they say is authoritative, absolute or reliably true. According to them, there's no such thing as proofs for anything, let alone burdens of proof. LOL! Let them talk to rocks. Hump trees. Argue with flowers. Bark at the moon. I hold that the laws of thought are universally true and, thus, whatever I assert accordingly stands.

Hence, on the contrary, the burden of proof is on the relativist—whether he be a theist, an agonistic or an atheist—who stands on paradox and barks at the moon.​

But the antagonist does not assert the so-called Omnipotence Paradox as a problem for epistemological relativism, does he? He asserts it as if it were a refutation of divine omnipotence premised on a universally absolute axiom of logic.

Hocus Pocus.

What the antagonist is really doing, albeit, unwittingly, is presupposing something that he himself, once again, cannot rationally demonstrate or explain. He presupposes an apriority that he doesn't even put into evidence . . . because he's not even aware of the fact that his allegation of a paradox is actually premised on something else: the inherently contradictory paradox that the laws of thought are not universally true in the first place.

That's weird because the nature of the antagonist's contradiction is self-negating; hence, it positively proves the opposite must be true!

In other words, the construct of divine omnipotence proper, that which is rationally consistent and upholds the universality of the laws of thought, is not subject to a logical fallacy that begs the question: especially to one that is asserted as if it were exempt from the falsification of the absolute laws of thought . . . especially to one that necessarily negates itself and positively affirms that the laws of thought must be universally true.

So what does this all mean? Some are still scratching their heads.

All the antagonist is really saying is God ≠ God, because if God = God, then God ≠ God. Or more to the point, divine omnipotence = divinity can do anything . . . only for those who believe in absurdities or contradictorily argue that the principle of identity is false: a notion that is rationally indemonstrable/inexplicable.

Hence, divine omnipotence necessarily = God can do all things but that which would negate His existence or contradict His nature.

The actual nature of divine omnipotence is not subject to the utterly arbitrary, unqualified, unjustifiable and irrational absurdities of presumptuous little gods in the gap.

The law of identity: for any given A: A = A; any given existent is what it is and cannot be what it is not. God = God. By definition, God = Perfection. God is perfect rationality, not the imperfection of irrationality or absurdity.


Hence, according to the laws of logic, all of reality is paradoxical/absurd . . . unless the following are true:

1. God exists!

2. God is the Principle of Identity!

3. The universal, bioneurologically hardwired laws of thought of mankind are ultimately the eternally and transcendentally immutable laws of divine thought bestowed on mankind, not created.​

The paradoxical/contradictory figments of human imagination that are not logically necessary or logically possible do not have primacy over existence; they do not have primacy over the mind of God, as if the minds of creatures could be greater than the mind of the Creator. The order of contingency is the converse. Human consciousness is contingent on the mind of God and the universally absolute laws of thought thereof.

The laws of thought stand. Truth must be universally absolute, not relative. Logical paradoxes, contradictions or absurdities are just that: logical paradoxes, contradictions or absurdities. For any given A: A = A. They are not truths. The utterly arbitrary assertion that divine omniscience means the ability to do anything is logically and metaphysically false.

The Omnipotent Paradox is a straw man, a logical fallacy, a logically and metaphysically illegitimate definition.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Something's that's always amused me about the whole theistic debate is if God's existence were irrefutable, like say the Sun's, ya wouldn't be asking if he existed in the first place. It's only when something doesn't exist, but people claim it does, that such a debate arises.

 

[Tuckwolf]

Irony at its best is the statement that god created man in his own image.

Why is that?

If you knew the meaning of irony you wouldn't have ask.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Only if they believe that God created evil. But evil is not a thing to be created. It is a direct result of the principle of choice. If people are allowed to choose their actions, some people will choose evil actions. The person who makes an evil choice is responsible for their own choice.

The ability to "choose evil" is yet another limitation on the "omnipotence" of a deity. If you can choose to defy the will of the deity and can actually carry out that defiance and the deity cannot stop you from doing so then it cannot be omnipotent. Once again theists are faced with a conundrum.

Not at all!

Here we have the atheist presupposing God's existence, more at, putting himself in the place of God, in order to assert that he has some secret knowledge about the state of existence that is unknown to the rest of us, not in compliance with the laws of thought, as he has deluded himself into believing, but in defiance of the laws of thought: namely, that all of existence is necessarily confined to a one-dimensional reality. Hmm. Where's the peer-reviewed affirmation for that notion, I wonder.

Got ?

And he does this in the face of the ramifications of the multidimensional theorems of infinitesimals in calculus, those of the position-momentum dichotomy of subatomic particles in the wave-like systems of quantum physics, those of dark mass and dark energy, those of the special and general theories of relativity and, finally, those of the law of identity regarding the construct of infinity (for any given A: A = A, which holds that any given existent of a single predicate may consist of an infinite number of properties/dimensions simultaneously without contradiction: i.e., any given existent is what it is.

This is the same folly that was asserted by a theist, by the way, to the delight of atheists, albeit, on the grounds that God could not be absolutely omniscient, which is the word you want here, not omnipotence; for, allegedly, absolute divine omniscience and the actual free will she held to exist could not coexist logically. But, of course, that's just a closed-minded, dogmatically fanatical theist arguing that all of existence is necessarily a one-dimensional reality contrary to the mathematically manifest ramifications of the construct of infinity. Further, in terms of omnipotence, if God wills according to His good pleasure to create free moral agents that would necessary constitute an instance of Him exercising the divine prerogative of His unlimited power, not an example of a limitation on it at all. Your contention to the contrary is, on the very face it, contradictory, self-negating, absurd even.

Listen to yourself:

God cannot create free moral agents = omnipotence.

God can create free moral agents = impotence.​

Whaaaaaaaaaa?


Bottom line: The law of identity logically and mathematically holds that existence can be an infinitely multidimensional reality of a single predicate without contradiction, and absolute divine perfection and actual free will can coexist without contradiction.

Enough of this dogmatically closed-minded ignorance regarding the logical, mathematical and even scientific actualities of existence!

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Irony at its best is the statement that god created man in his own image.

Why is that?

If you knew the meaning of irony you wouldn't have ask.

If you grasped what you're ultimately implying to know about reality, especially in the face of your original statement, you would know the meaning of the term irony in its most emphatic sense!

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Something's that's always amused me about the whole theistic debate is if God's existence were irrefutable, like say the Sun's, ya wouldn't be asking if he existed in the first place. It's only when something doesn't exist, but people claim it does, that such a debate arises.

Well, if I understand you correctly, what always amuses me are the incoherently self-negating arguments of those who rail against the axioms regarding God's existence, which are readily self-evident, scientific facts of human cognition/psychology, for if there be no actual substance of divinity behind these axioms, then all existents apparent to man are paradoxical, including the apparent existence of the star to which you referred.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Nonsense. Gawds are an irrational assertion. There is nothing in logic that concludes supernaturalism, except in the warped mind of the hyper-religious crank.

Let's put you down for The Seven Things again, Hollie. . . .

Everyone escapes the Seven Fraudulent Things
The Seven Fraudulent Things™

1. We exist!
Stating the obvious. Perhaps that would be a useful observation if we had some sort of general agreement on how this proves your various gawds. But since we don't, it's not. Therefore, we agree that you concede point 1 in your Seven Phony Things™ is useless as a means to prove your gawds.

2. The cosmological order exists!
Cosmology
1 a : a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe
b : a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe

2: a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe; also : a theory dealing with these matters.

It is science that has given us a first, but incomplete understanding of the cosmos. As with so much of your ignorant and religiously based worldview that is corrupted by fear and superstition, you cant even define what you mean with slogans such as "cosmological order". You really need to look past harun Yahya for your science data. The cosmos contains many pockets and eddies of order in the midst of its more general violence and chaos. Most of human misperception on that issues is entirely one of scale. We happen to exist in one of those eddies... the localized order we experience is a precondition for our very existence. But it is not characteristic of the universe.

Lest you see a sign of "design" in our great good fortune, you have that exactly backwards. It is again the law of incredibly large numbers that requires that there must be such oases of order, and that some subset of them contain life, and some smaller subset of them contain intelligence. The universe is a very large place. Somebody, somewhere always wins the lottery eventually.


3. The idea that God exists as the Creator of everything else that exists, exists in our minds! So the possibility that God exists cannot be logically ruled out!

Your ideas of partisan gawds is entirely a function of happenstance. If you raise a baby in a Hindu culture, it will almost certainly embrace Hinduism; if in a Christian home, Christianity. All theistic beliefs are brought externally to human beings, none of them display inherent hardwiring as you falsely claimed in your earlier disaster of The Five Fraudulent Things™. If you raise a child devoid of god concepts in the middle of a remote jungle, the child will not arbitrarily and spontaneously generate theism.


4. If God does exist, He would necessarily be, logically, a Being of unparalleled greatness!

And if he does not exist, he wouldn't. If today was Friday, it wouldn't be Thursday. See how that works? The ultimate failure of your fraudulent Seven Phony Things™ is your precommittment to the polytheistic christian gawds. Your gawds are relative newcomers as human inventions of gawds go, so, to the back of the line you go with your hand-me-down gawds.

Secondly, I have to point out how spectacularly incompetent your gawds are relative to your claim of "unparalleled greatness". A tour de force of pointless. There is nothing in that paragraph worthy of intellectual allegiance. Especially as it contains such furious backpedaling from your earlier certainty regarding The Five Phony Things™

Did you just make up The Seven Phony Things™ off the cuff? Certainly you are not pretending that it is the result of any deep thinking.

You're not bright enough to ask why your gods would choose to deliver their message through the corruptible hand of man. What is more important: gods who clearly deliver their message upon which one's eternal salvation rests, or do they speak in riddles and poems, leaving open to interpretation what their intent is? What a risk they put their children at.

5. Currently, science cannot verify whether or not God exists!

Currently, science cannot verify whether or not the Easter Bunny exists!
You are now free to actually accept or reject it based on your own assessement. Now... that very well might be difficult for you, given your affection for "absolutes." You might possibly feel more comfortable being told exactly what to accept and what to reject via a long line of "absolute claims." There is certainly a personailty type that is most comfortable embedded in revealed dogma requiring no actual decision making or judgment on their part.

One of the profound difficulties religious zealots have with reality in general and science in particular is that they are more complex than “the gawds did it.” The universe does not consist of ideals and opposites, but instead of continua along dimensions with multiple (often infinite) possible options. Yes… it is one of the rude awakenings to the religious that we live in a Darwinian world, not a Platonic one.
6. It is not logically possible to say or think that God (the Creator) doesn't exist, whether He actually exists outside the logic of our minds or not (See Posts 2599 and 2600)!

It is not logically possible to say or think that your polytheistic gawds are the only gawds that don't exist.

Your polytheistic gawds are merely one conception of gawds. We are privileged to consider reality, but only the universe that actually exists can be fruitfully considered. How do we assign confidence to what is real and what is simply imaginary?

Evidence and reason. These are our only tools for that task. Thankfully, they appear to work pretty well, at least for those of us not bound to a precommittment to your dogma.


7. All six of the above things are objectively, universally and logically true for human knowers/thinkers!

No, they're not. Millennia of “philosophers and theologians” have constructed elaborate and ultimately futile models of reality and truth, with next to no positive impact on the human condition. Science in dramatic contrast is among the youngest of human of human endeavors, and yet has achieved things no previous discipline has approached. It has fed the hungry, cured disease, created technology that four generations ago would have been unimaginable. It has literally changed our world, while religions like Christianity and Islam have done little more than churn human misfortune in a static embrace of past error. Unlike all the philosophies and religions that came before it, science actually works.

This is why “scientific facts” deserve so much deference in comparison to the imaginary “absolute facts” delivered by philosophy and faith. They have evidence that affords them some qualification for our rational allegiance.

There is a reason why science has proven to be the single most influential and impactful human endeavor in history; that is because it formally recognizes the tentative nature of all human knowledge, and provides a method for incrementally approaching “absolute” truth without the arrogance of assuming it is ever actually achieved. It bears a humility regarding its own achievement that constantly inspires revision and review. It inspires thinking and iconoclasm rather than the intellectual rigor mortis of received dogma.

And in this way it accomplishes what most religious beliefs do not; progress.

Putty Hollie Down for The Seven Things


Well, looky here. Hollie put up a semblance of an argument.

These are The Seven Things™ that are objectively true for all regarding the problems of existence and origin due to the organic laws of human thought (the law of identity, the law of contradiction, the law of the excluded middle): http://www.usmessageboard.com/posts/10193696/.



1. Okay, so we have Hollie down agreeing that #1 of The Seven Things is factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought.


2. She conflates cosmological (adjective) order with cosmology (noun) proper, which necessarily entails all the concerns of the cosmological order:

1 a : a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe

b : a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe

2: a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe; also : a theory dealing with these matters.​

I guess she's never heard of the multiverse, but she does acknowledge the existence of the discipline that deals with the existence of the cosmological order. Hence, we have Hollie down agreeing that #2 of The Seven Things is factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought.

Do you see how that works so far, Hollie?


3. Here Hollie claims that the idea of God is a mere figment of human culture, but concedes that the idea is universal. That's weird. So I guess a child brought up in an atheist home would be told that there's no actual substance behind the universal idea of divine origin. Yep. Looks like the potentiality of divinity's existence is a universally intrinsic apprehension of human cognition regarding origin and, therefore, cannot be logically ruled out. Yep! We have Hollie down agreeing that #3 of The Seven Things is factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought.


4. Now, on this one, we have Hollie down for some rather interesting Freudian slips:

And if he does not exist, he wouldn't [be infinitely great].

. . . Secondly, I have to point out how spectacularly incompetent your gawds are relative to your claim of "unparalleled greatness".​

Hence, the first statement necessarily concedes that #4 would be true if God exists, but then it appears, at first blush, that she backslides a bit. But no worries because she necessarily presupposes God's existence in order to imagine how He would go about things. She's obviously aware of the fact that, by definition, the idea of God would necessarily entail the very highest order of divine attribution after all, including perfection, as no creature, of course, could be greater than the Creator. But apparently she's a bit disgruntled about how God went about things, thinking the cosmological order to be something less than perfect. That's weird because that's a teleological argument that, once again, necessarily presupposes God's existence in order to imagine how a perfect God would necessarily go about things.

Yep! We have Hollie down agreeing that #4 of The Seven Things is factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought.


5. Of course the atheist could have no possible problem with #5, which is axiomatically true in any event, so we have Hollie down agreeing that #5 of The Seven Things is factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought.


6. Now, though we have Hollie going off on some silly tangent about my supposed "polytheistic gods," we do have her necessarily conceding that it is not logically possible to say or think that God (the Creator) doesn't exist, whether He actually exists outside the logic of our minds or not. So we have Hollie down agreeing that #6 of The Seven Things is factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought, too. But then we have Hollie saying something . . . that's weird:

We are privileged to consider reality, but only the universe that actually exists can be fruitfully considered.​

Wow! It would appear that Hollie knows something about reality that only divinity could know. Looks like Hollie's making an absolute claim about reality as if from on . . . higher than high. Do you suppose Hollie has a reputable source for this special knowledge of hers, a peer-reviewed and experimentally verified source.

Got link, Hollie?

But what's really weird is that after agreeing that the first six of The Seven Things are factually and logically true according to the laws of human thought, she suddenly finds the consideration of these realities of human cognition to be less than fruitful. Oh, well, as weird as that it is, we have Hollie down for the first six, which means. . . .


7. We have Hollie down for all seven of The Seven Things, as #7 merely summarizes the first six! Welcome to The Seven Things Club, Hollie. We're glad you could join the rest of humanity. Now have a glass of milk and some cookies, and chill out.


No one escapes The Seven Things.