The only omniscience thing is natural law holding to intellectual honesty, until proven otherwise.
Atheism = self defeating.
by towerwatchman 315 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Finkelstein
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cofty
TWM - When you get a minute don't forget to reply to my refutation of your OP...
I suggest you slow down a lot and reflect on the answers you are given. There are a lot of people here who have far more knowledge of these issues than you clearly have. With a bit of humility you could learn a lot. Your wordy responses invariably miss the point you pretend to be replying to.
You should also reply to Berengaria's post above. She shows irrefutably that your OP got off to a bad start. Atheism means "without god".
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towerwatchman
To Finkelstein
Anything can be imagined but you have to have evidence to make it into reality, there has been no evidence of god(s) but only hearsay drawn out imagination and ignorance of the world in which we live. There is a reason why there haven't been any new envisioned gods in the last 1000 years or more before BCE there were hundreds. The reason why is because human ignorance is an indefensible fact.
Let’s see what takes more faith?
When it comes to the existence of God lets see how low is low. What evidence is there for God's existence? The Christian points to Genesis and the universe as proof that God exist. The atheist says no and points to slime plus time as proof of the existence of life. But what the atheist fails to notice is that the odds of the essential elements coming together over time by chance to form the initial building blocks of one cell is a statistical impossibility. Which would a cognitive individual put his money on?
DNA is a code, communicates the instructions for assembling proteins, but the cell needs proteins to transcribe and translate the information. 1.3 billion bits of information, placed in precise order. The probability of placing 15 base pairs in the right sequence is 1x 10 20 power. The only known cause that can do this is intelligence. My faith is based on logic, reason, and proven facts.
Yours, we are the byproduct of slime plus time. A cosmic accident that blindly evolved over time. Even though the evidence prove that this is an impossibility, you take it by faith.
There is no evidence for the existence of God. Historically, the life of Jesus of Nazareth affirms the existence of God. No scholar, Christian or secular, denies the life, teachings, or extraordinary reports about Jesus.
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cofty
Oh dear I didn't realise your were an evolution denier as well!
From your first venture into biology it is clear you have never read a single book on evolution or abiogenesis in your entire life.
No scholar, Christian or secular, denies the life, teachings, or extraordinary reports about Jesus
You could not be more wrong. There is naivety about your apologetics that makes me glad you came here. You will be my special project :)
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towerwatchman
To: onthewayout.
Give me a break. I am willing to make that absolute statement even though I don't have "unlimited knowledge of this universe." First may we define our terms. The term "flying spaghetti monster" comes literally from a satirical open letter written by Bobby Henderson in 2005 and started a social movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion and opposes the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools. It is not any lifeform that seems to sort of look like spaghetti, but rather it is the silly "god" made of spaghetti that created the universe. I am confident there is no god, but for most atheists, confidence that all the specifically defined gods do not exist is sufficient. If you think it is self defeating to say there is absolutely no flying spaghetti monster, then you might expect it to show up one day. I am positive that it won't, and equally positive that "God" won't either. I would love to be eating my words and "he" shows me up for taking such a self defeating stand.
The argument commits the fallacy of false analogy. Just because the issues at hand are alike in trivial ways it does not make it relevant to the conclusion. The creator of a false analogy is saying, "Accept my argument because of these superficial similarities between what you are proposing and my fictitious comparator." And here is the gap.
At its core the FSM argument is two fold.
(1) the chance of God existing is extremely low – similar to that of a Flying Spaghetti Monster;
(2) there is no evidence that God exists, just like there is no evidence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
When it comes to the existence of God let’s see how low is low. What evidence is there for God's existence? The Christian points to Genesis and the universe as proof that God exist. The atheist says no and points to slime plus time as proof of the existence of life. But what the atheist fails to notice is that the odds of the essential elements coming together over time by chance to form the initial building blocks of one cell is a statistical impossibility. Which would a cognitive individual put his money on?
There is no evidence for the existence of God. Historically, the life of Jesus of Nazareth affirms the existence of God. No scholar, Christian or secular, denies the life, teachings, or extraordinary reports about Jesus.
Belief in God
(1) Prevalent among all peoples of all times. Atheism is very rare; even atheists admit this.
(2) There are many sophisticated philosophical arguments for God’s existence.
(3) The Christian God is a coherent explanation of why something exists rather than nothing, why logic is prescriptive and universal, why morality is objective, and why religion is ubiquitous.
(4) Belief in God is rationally satisfying.
Belief in Flying Spaghetti Monsterism
(1) Believed by no one. Even the so-called advocates of the FSM do not really believe that it exists.
(2) There are no technical philosophical arguments for the FSM. Actually, there are no technical arguments of any kind for the FSM.
(3) Even those who sarcastically espouse that the FSM exists don’t really believe that the FSM exists, nor do they think that the FSM is a coherent explanation for finite contingent being, logic, morality, beauty, etc.
(4) No one really believes in the FSM, but even if they did, it would not be rationally satisfying.
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towerwatchman
To venus
To claim a negative in the absolute, one would need omniscience.
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towerwatchman
To doubtful 1799
I think you'll find atheists in general (though I can't speak for all, because like all groups there will be differences in individual outlook) don't see themselves as denying the existence of God in an absolute sense as you claim, they merely say they don't have enough evidence at this point in time to accept the existence of one, not that their couldn't possibly be one, or that they wouldn't accept the evidence for one if such evidence came to light.
That would be Agnostic.
The term "atheist" is a very loose one and is a generalisation for a broad range of ideas that are subtle different. I don't think people who call themselves athiests would limit themselves or define themselves to fit YOUR particular definition.
I am defining them by the word they choose to define them.
Atheist =
A = negative, denial
Theist = God.
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cofty
TWM - Why are you still ignoring the need to carefully define the god you are arguing for?
You ignore all the hard questions don't you?
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cofty
A = negative, denial
Nope. You pulled that out of your imagination. Atheist means without god.
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cofty
Since you are ignoring my response from 10 hours ago here it is again...
The problem is you haven't defined the "God" that atheists reject.
Christians make a lot of specific claims about god. It is possible to show that these claims cannot be reconciled with each other or with reality. Therefore we can say with certainty that the god of Jesus does not exist.
If you retreat into a very vague form of deism - a common trick of christian apologists - then of course your very modest claims can never be refuted.
To illustrate - If I said unicorns exist, an a-unicornist could never prove me wrong without perfect knowledge of all the beings - visible and invisible - in the universe. If however I say that a large pink, visible, and noisy unicorn lives in my bathroom then the a-unicornist could prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt.