A few Dawkins quotes to think about.

by AK - Jeff 328 Replies latest jw friends

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  sabastious

  Sorry I am struggling to get the question?

  You paint God like he's this dude with a magic wand and what he thinks comes to be almost like the "Q's" of Star Trek. That's one idea of God and refuting a single idea, as an atheist, isn't very compelling to the audience (the atheists will nod in agreement and the Christians will be in an uproar, generally speaking of course). As a defender of Atheism, as you seem to present yourself as, maybe you could research other ideas of God as intricately as you know the God of the Bible. It will refine your position.

  -Sab
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  leavingwt

  Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.

  Loftus takes this very idea and argues that God should have therefore created nothing. Creating nothing would be more moral than what we have.
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  sabastious

  Creating nothing is an oxymoron.

  -Sab
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  tec

  The natural world is full of order, not chaos. It maintains a balance between species for the most part, not counting when something external interferes with that. Life also springs up in the most unlikely of places. Order and yes, survivability (adaptation, evolution). But if the universe was truly chaotic and without any form of order, we should have universes and galaxies colliding into one another, destroying life... though really, how would life even have the chance to exist in such a state?

  Again, I submit that when you say God does not exist because the natural world shows no sign of a loving creator... this statement is ignoring the fact that out of all of that IS love, compassion, forgiveness without conditions attached, selfless acts, even laying down of one life for another. The evidence is in that love, that compassion, those selfless acts that are done purely out of love and not with some great goal in mind (though there is nothing wrong with that either) We, humans, are part of the natural world too, right?

  Tammy
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  sabastious

  We exist therefore what we are made up of has always existed. A state of "nothing" from my vantage point is impossible.

  -Sab
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  sabastious

  The natural world is full of order, not chaos.

  Gravity is order. Throwing an innocent person off a cliff to settle a personal vendetta is chaos. When consciousness came the universe was injected with chaos.

  -Sab
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  leavingwt

  A state of "nothing" from my vantage point is impossible.

  Loftus also uses this point to argue that it would have been a greater demonstration of God's power to prevent anything from ever existing. Something is easy. Nothing is difficult.
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  botchtowersociety

  Loftus takes this very idea and argues that God should have therefore created nothing. Creating nothing would be more moral than what we have.

  Were your parents immoral for choosing to bring you into the world? Would you rather have not been born?

  If you have children, and consciously chose to have them, are you immoral for doing so? If you did so, you know you brought them into a life in which they are positively certain to experience suffering. Would not having taken a part in their existence have been a more moral choice?
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  leavingwt

  Sabastious: Why would an atheist want to argue against an uncommon definition of God? What would be the point? If he argues against Allah and YHWH, this covers the overwhelming majority of active theology.
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  cofty

  using the stories of the Bible as supporting evidence is counterintuitive

  For the third time it was not evidence of anything it was an illustration. You are majoring on minor points

  Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.

  Who ordered nature? How difficult would it have been for god to make a world where tectonic plates glided smoothly past one another without earthquakes and tsunamis?

  maybe you could research other ideas of God as intricately as you know the God of the Bible. It will refine your position.

  I have thanks. If anybody wishes to defend an alternative theism I am all ears.