On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:59:47 +0500, "mush97" <mush97@hotmail.com>
wrote:
- Refer: <MIKdncD8SKQ8mVrZnZ2dnUVZ_sOdnZ2d@giganews.com>

Hi,

Atheists believe that the invention of the concept of God is the biggest

fraud played on human beings by the self-styled of the prophets.

How far is this correct ?

Not very far at all.

"Most Atheists" is a meaningless nonsense until surveys of most
atheists have been executed on the matter.
Atheim is signified by a lack.
It is not a coherent group, and includes non-indoctrinated infants,
for instance.

But I can speak for myself.
Your proposition is, I take it: "the invention of the concept of God
is the biggest fraud played on human beings by the self-styled of the
prophets."

I do not believe this to be accurate at all.
Judging by the available records, most of the historic self-styled
prophets were not frauds, simply barking mad.
Most of them seemed convinced that their hallucinated 'voices'
originated from an intolerant and incoherent sky-pixie, instead of
their schizophrenia, and were thus not intentionally fraudulent,
merely mentally ill.

People like Benny Hinn and so-on, are not prophets in any way shape or
form, but base con-men, and total frauds from arsehole to breakfast
time.

Please guide !

--

I do not believe this to be accurate at all.
Judging by the available records, most of the historic self-styled
prophets were not frauds, simply barking mad.
Most of them seemed convinced that their hallucinated 'voices'
originated from an intolerant and incoherent sky-pixie, instead of
their schizophrenia, and were thus not intentionally fraudulent,
merely mentally ill.

mush97 wrote:

Atheists believe that the invention of the concept of God is the biggest

fraud played on human beings by the self-styled of the prophets.

How far is this correct ?

IS THERE A GOD? NO.
Strong Atheism's answer.
Part 1.

1. First of all, this proof "God" does not exist
is aimed at an entire class of gods, not particular
gods.

This remark alone is an explict admission that you've been lying up to
this point.

No, its just an admission I underestimated the intelligence
of SOME of my audience.

This is the class of gods that are
omni-everything and creator of all. If I can
disprove an entire class of gods, all particular gods
that belong to that class are collectively disproven
too. This is an efficient, and sensible approach to
disproving god, by which I mean the god of major
religious and theological traditions.

No, it is not. Since your argument aims at attributes of God, not at the
existence of god per se. The god of the major traditions might still
exist apart from the attributes the theologians have ascribed to that
god.

1. Tom is a doctor.
2. Tom has never been to college and is illiterate
3. Since doctors are literate and have to attend college, Tom
is obviously not a doctor as claimed.

What I do is point out that the class of omni-everything gods
similarly contains claims that disprove each other.

Naturally, all claim specific examples of that class likewise
are impossible.

A class of gods is said to be omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient and
creator of all.

1. Bill Smith exists.
2. It is said by his admirers that Bill Smith always tells the truth.
3. But Bill Smith cannot always tell the truth.
4. Hence Bills Smith does not exist?????

If god creates all, and is omniscient, he knows what his creations will do
in the future. Any possible god must then examine each potential act and
all it to come to pass or something else to be substituted. he and olny
he creates or decides what is created.

Free will cannot exist for man. Man can decide exactly nothing at all.

Thus all evil is god's doing, personally and knowingly, all evils from
greatest to smallest.

Evil =/= omnibenevolent as explicitly claimed.

All gods that are said to be omniscient and creator of all are thus
contradictory

Omnipotence. Omnipotence mean all powerful. That means not
affected by other forces or powers. Time is does not affect god.

God is outside and transcedent to time.

Time does not affect god so
theer is thus no past, present, future. To god all is now.
Thus god created all at once in all its particulars to the smallest
physical
degree.

Thus again, there is no free will and all evil acts are thus god's
doing.

Thus the class of all gods that are said to be omnipotent, are thus
transcedent to time, not bound by time, and thus free will cannot exist
mthus evil is all god's doing.

All gods of the class of god that are omnipotent are thus all evil.

Thus the concept of a class of creators gods that are
omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent is impossible.

An obvious absurdity.

And so your argument fails. The fact that God cannot logically be
omnipotent in the extreme sense that the Christian tradition insists,
does
not in itself prove that God does not exist.

It does show the god that is indeed dogmatically claimed to be omnipotent
cannot exist.
Obviously.

"Extreme sense" is your strawman.

For example Aquinas states god is only omnipotent in regards to real
thhings, not say bad definitiions like "unmarried batchelors".
I don't have to pick a strawman extreme omnipotence to do the job.

Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, Brahamnistic Hinduism.
Some have complained that this does not disprove all
gods. True, but this is not meant to, it is meant
only to deal with the gods that are the main problem
for this world,

Another unsupported assertion. Nowhere does your original argument prove
this universal claim. Religion in general has caused tremendous
suffering
in the world, but your argument nowhere addresses this particular
problem.

the gods of 4 1/2 billion believers.
The god that is the source of fundamentalism,
bigotry, fanaticism, anti-intellectualism and
backwardness. There are a few other classes of gods
but numerically by believers, these are not that
widespread or important.

According to whom? You may be competent to recognize what is
'widespread'
but who are you to decide what is "important?"

for example, without religious idiots in the US would we be having
problems with creationists assaulting science teaching in schools, and in
may cases, all but gutting science education in backard states and cities?

But it is possible to sort
them into a few classes of gods and likewise disprove
each class.

Which you have not done and cannot do. Hence, another lie on your part.

Here I am primarily looking at the class
of omni-everything creator gods. This does not mean
other classes of gods cannot also be likewise disproven.

And it doesn't mean they can be.

Or are totally unimportant. But basically the
omni-everything class of gods is so far above any
other god that once it is debunked, its hard to
step down to distinctly second rate gods.

Why is this so and why should it be so? 100s of years ago, the vast bulk
of
humanity believed that space was filled with an ether. Did this make the
fact that it was not filled with ether "unimportant?"

2. A BASIC DEFINITION THE CLASS OF GOD,
OMNI-EVERYTHING AND CREATOR OF ALL
Also known here as the Grand God of Grand Theology.

There is no evidence whatsover for god. All we
have to work from is claims, or assertions made
about god. I have chosen the following 8 as they are
all part of all great and large religions and
theological traditions of the world.

But mostly because you've decided that they are the weakest factors. In
other words, you still haven't attacked the assertion of God's existence,
only assertions concerning God's attributes.

I need only weak factors to work with and basically all basic claims of
this
class of god are indeed, weak,
Sorry, thems just the facts. All we have are weak assertions.

I mean, what facts are there that save omnipotence, omnibenevolnece
and omniscience, free will and this class of gods.
Nothing. Nothing at all.

Most of 4 1/2
billion believers will agree with most of these,
and these are all dogmatic to most main religions.

Fallacy of composition. Not even all Christians agree with these points.

We will fid a few wimpy newage type salad bar christians and so on.
But conservatives, evangelicals, fundies and moslems mostly agree god is
omni-everything. Sorry.

If we can show these create contradictions, we can show that
the class omni-everything creator gods, the Grand God,
cannot exist.

No, you cannot. All you can prove is that any particular attribute is
illogical within that particular argument.

We can. You simply are wrong. As usual.

All we have to work with are assertions
and logic.

Get on with it, Barlow.

Read faster.

The general overarching definition of god as per
the major religions of the world is:

A. God is personal, God has will and consciousness.
B. God has free will.
C. God is the creator of all.
D. God is omnipotent.
E. God is omnibenevolent.
F. God is omniscient.
G. God is that which nothing more powerful
can be imagined.

These are the basic attributes that can be claimed
for the god of orthodox Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, and Hinduism.

1. you're utterly wrong about the beliefs that form Hinduism and
obviously
have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

2. Judaism is NOT Christianity, and you're attributing to the one what is
strictly true only of the other.

I didn't say it was, did I?.

These are the basic attributes that can be claimed
for the god of orthodox Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, and Hinduism.

You lied again.,

These are the basic attributes that can be claimed
for the god of orthodox Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, and Hinduism.

Omnibenevolence and omniscience are actually
logically derivable from the claimed attribute of
omnipotence and so aren't not truly independent
attributes, and may be considered special aspects
of omnipotence.

No they aren't and you can't prove that they are. There is no logical
reason that a being could not be omnibenevolent without being omnipotent.
The same is true of omniscience. Neither knowledge nor goodness are
power, hence neither omnibenevolence nor omniscience are Omnipotence.

Since being evil is by all accounts of theology a defect, god cannot have
defects because then he is not all powerful.

This is old dogma.

We're beginning to see that your argument is as fallacious in its details
as it was in its major presumption.

We see you are still wrong about everything

3. We can abstract a class of gods, omni-everything,
creator gods from these 8 characteristics.

Except that you haven't proved the 8 characteristics at this point.

You are obviously a goofball.
1. God is personal, god has conciousness and will
2. God is intelligent
3. God has free will
4. God created all
5. God is omnipotent
6. God is omniscient
7. God is omnibenevolent
8. God is that which is so great, nothing greater
can be imagined.

All are dogmatic among these basic religious traditions.

1. Bill Smith exists.
2. It is said by his admirers that Bill Smith always tells the truth.
3. But Bill Smith cannot always tell the truth.
4. Hence Bills Smith does not exist?????

5. CLASSES OF GODS

It is important to note here in 2. that this is a
definition not for a particular god, but an
entire class of gods. This is key to this disproof
which is general in nature.

Except that your list is both incomplete and internally illogical as I've
shown.

6. If we disprove the entire class of gods by examining
the logical implications of a few claims, all secondary
claims are also destroyed.

1. That's not necessarily true.
2. You haven't disproved the entire class.

We need not examine claims of god's simplicity or whether
god is immanent or transcendent or other similar claims.

Which you can't begin to do.

I could, its for another time.

Classes of transcedent or immanent gods go away when
they are claimed to be of class of omni-everything anyway.
Other problems go away automatically, following them in flames
the hole of bad ideas.

We need not break down omnibenevolence into secondary
associated claims such as such as mercy, justice, or
implied claims, though we might mention their destruction
in passing when appropriate, and damage done to such
concepts of damnation, or punishment or sin.

Such destruction as you have NOT caused, due to the flaws mentioned
above.

7. If we disprove a class of gods,

But so far you haven't.

9. THE FOUR GREAT THEOLOGICAL TRADITIONS

Again, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism hold
to this basic Grand God and are typical Grand
Theologies holding to this basic class of god as
their basic definitions of what god is at god's
most basic level.

But I've shown that they do not hold to the god you've constructed, nor
are they equivalent to each other.

I chose these since the majority of
believers 4 1/2 billion approximately belong to these
traditions and related religions and sects.

Fallacy of *argumentum ad numeran* It makes no difference how many
people
believe what. A proof is supposed to address truth, not popular opinion.
At this point, you've failed to even accurately describe what the major
beliefs believe in. You're certainly in no position to make statements
about the importance of those beliefs taken as an illigitimate group.

10. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.

The problem of evil was first written down by
Epicurus in about the third century BCE.
It is found in Christian writer Lactantius's
Treatise on the Anger of God.

A basic formulation is:
A. God is defined as powerful
B. God is defined as as good.
C. Evil exists.
D. God therefore, is not powerful as claimed.
E. Or God is not good as claimed.
F. Or god is neither powerful or
good.
G. Or god is not existant.

Not a true representation of the argument. The argument does not prove
that
god does not exist UNLESS god must be powerful and good as asserted. And
even then, even assuming that god must be either good or powerful, god
might
not be the one and still be the other. Therefore the argument from evil,
which reaches its most powerful form much later than the pre-socratics
that
you seem to be limited to, does not prove the non-existence of god. It
only
proves that god cannot be both ALL-powerful and all good. If god were
simply powerful, god might not be powerful enough to eliminate evil. The
true argument claims that god is omnipotent, that god could unilaterally
prevent the occurance of evil in the world if god wanted to. The further
assumption that god must be infinitely good creates a god that MUST want
to create a world in which no actual evil exists.

Hence, the original form of the argument does not prove a thing. The
final form of the argument only proves that IF a god MUST be, by
definition BOTH infinitely good and infinitely powerful, then such a god
is a logical contradiction.

[argument from free will clipped since it derives from your fallacious
presentation of the argument from evil]

13 OMNISCIENCE VERSUS CREATORHOOD OF GOD
FREE WILL DISPROVEN PART 2.

God is defined as creator of all in these
religions.
And god is claimed to be omniscient, all knowing.

Not in all of the religions you've named. Thus your argument fails right
here.

A. God created the Universe and all in it.
B. God is omniscient, all knowing, he knows all
in the Universe and he knows the future of the
Universe and its contents.

In some traditions.

C. If god creates a Universe, he will know that
in 13 billion years this Universe will have a
man named John Smith in it.

This is not omniscience vs. creatorhood. There is no necessary reason
that a creator logically must also know the full details of all possible
futures.

D. If John Smith is good and saved, or evil and
damned, God will know that.
E. As he knows that the Universe in its present
state will have a John Smith, god may then
contemplate the future state of Smith and
decide if he will tolerate an evil Smith.
F. If yes, Smith will be evil only because of a
specific personal and will choice made solely
by god.
G. If Smith is evil, then evil exists solely
because of a choice made by god. In fact all
moral evil done by creations of god will be
evil and do evil only because of personal and
willful creations of god allowing evil acts
to be done, by direct decision of god.
H. If evil exists in a world with an omniscient
creator god, it is solely and only because
god allows evil.

Non sequitur. An omniscient god that is not omnipotent might not have a
choice as to whether to allow evil or not.

I. If evil exists solely because of personal
choices of god, god then is not as defined,
omnibenevolent.

Non sequitur. You haven't proved that evil necessarily exists due to
god's
choice. If god is not omnipotent, evil may exist regardless.

J. Man and any other sentient being in such a
Universe cannot have any free will, not even
in principle. A Universe with a god that
creates all and knows all precludes free will
for all beings god creates in the strongest
possible manner.

Non sequitur. Mere knowledge does not imply control. God might know
everything that is knowable and still not know the future, or god might
know everything including all possible futures [though I doubt it].
Nevertheless, the fact that god knows everything does not logically imply
that God denies free will to actors in the world. In a purely
deterministic universe, which is a scientific materialistic assumption,
there is also no
such thing as true 'free will'. What does god's foreknowledge of such a
universe have to do with the actual precluding of free will? Simply
knowing that the universe is predetermined is to know that there can be
no
such thing as true free will, but knowing and causing are two different
things. Your argument implies that if a scientist believes that the
universe is deterministic and the scientist is right, then the scientist
is responsible
for destroying free will. That's an absurdity.

The Grand God of Grand
Theology is thus self destroying,

Not from what you've shown.

THE SITUATION SO FAR.

1. A minimalistic class of gods is defined, this
Grand God has been defined here with as few
terms as possible.

Actually, you've been as wordy as you can be in order to cover the
numerous logical flaws in your argument.

2. The problem of evil dooms such a claimed god.

As I've shown, it does not.

3. The attempted defense, free will is fatally
flawed.

As I've shown, free will or its absence need have nothing to do with god
one way or another.

4. Omniscience and creatorhood of god further
doom claims of god's omnibenevolence

No they don't, as I've shown. In fact, as I've shown, they have nothing
to do with one another.

man's free will free will cannot exist for
man.

If this is true, it need have nothing to do with god.

All evil is the direct and knowing
creation of god contradicting claims of
omnibenevolence.

You haven't even begun to show that. You haven't even addressed it.
Hence, I can only presume that you've pulled that claim out of thin air.

5. Since Free will for man is totally impossible,
free will cannot be a good quality, much less
necessary.

Again, you havne't demonstrated that.

14. GOD AND TIME.

Both Augustine and Boethius described god as being
transcendent to time, outside and beyond it.
Thus there is no past, present, or future to god,
all is now. Since all is now, god must have
create all things at once at once.

Again, you're conflating terms. Here you conflate timelessness and
creation when you haven't proved that both must be necessary attributes
of
a god.

Any explicit claims of omniscience, and creatorship of god
doom free will and more. Any claim god is outside of time
forces us to the claim god is effectively omniscient.

1. you haven't doomed free will.
2. Being outside of time is not a necessary corollary much less a cause
of
omniscience.

15. If evil exists, god is evil.

Another assertion out of left field. Please show your proof of this
assertion. You've not even addressed this question to this point.

We have no free will which
means secondary attributes of God such as mercy, love, justice
are pretty meaningless in face of a god that creates many
of us morally evil.

If such a god existed, that might be true. But you offer no evidence to
suggest that god must have had a choice in the fine details of creation.
I.e., you haven't offered proof that god must be omnipotent. Hence, your
derived assumptions that he must not be merciful, loving or just, are
what
is truly meaningless here.

Heaven, hell, damnation, sin, punishment,
salvation, nothing much makes with such an omniscient god.

How so? How does Omniscience imply any of the above?

Augustine's free will defense of God in face of Epicurus's
problem of evil is utterly undone by his claim god is sovereign
over time because he is all powerful.

You haven't shown this to be the case.

16. TIME AND GOD'S CREATION OF ALL.
If we say god is omnipotent, all powerful, he is outside
of time and free will is impossible and all else is simply an
Universe utterly alien, incoherent and mad and most certainly
not anything the great theological traditions tell it it is.

That does not follow. The fact that Augustine said that god is all
powerful and outside of time, does not mean that god is either all
powerful or outside of time, OR that either of these attributes are
necessary attributes
of god. Omnipotence does not imply being outside of time. Being outside
of time does not imply omnipotence.

And if to avoid this we say god is not outside of time, this
implies time is outside and beyond god and he cannot have
created it. Thus contradicting claims of being the creator of
all. Especially ex nihilo as many religions claim.

Not all religions make a ex nihilo claim.

17. Here, the Grand God of Grand Theology has
collapsed.

Apparently not, since you haven't made an argument that would lead to
such
a collapse.

As has Grand Theology.

1. Only the Grand Theology that you deliberately made up out of a
patchwork, skewed selection of elements would be impacted by even that
small part of your lengthy argument that was actually valid.

2. Since no such theology exists save in your skewed list, it cannot be
said that you've said much of anything about the major tenets of Western
Theology.

3. Your argument seems to be an argument about what you think is most
popular in most of theology.

4. Since what you think is most popular is not even representative of all
the world's MAJOR theologies [you haven't even touched the dogma of
hinduism] your argument is at best a strawman.

5. As has been shown, you're points are mostly non-sequiturs even against
the trumped up list you've created.

In short, your argument is a strawman, and you haven't even succeeded in
debunking your own strawman.

As pointed out,
this destroys the claims and viability of an
entire class of possible gods, all secondary and
tertiary claims for such a god of this class also
fail, as do dogmas or secondary or tertiary
claims hanging off this class of gods in any way.

18. If a this entire class of omni-everything creator gods
cannot exist as defined, specific gods cannot

Once again, you're attempting to slip in a general statement about any
specific god when you haven't even made a successful argument against the
strawman god you've created.

Your argument fails, even in this altered version, in both its specific
and its general claims.

DOES GOD EXIST? STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - NO.

1. OMNIGENESIS, DETERMINISM, FREE WILL,
METAPHYSICAL CHAOS AND THEOLOGICAL NIHILISM.

Omni - all, genesis - creation.
Omnigenesis = creation of all.

Here I shall coin a word for further discussion.
Omnigenesis means creation of all, to the smallest
physical detail.

If god is in any way omniscient,
and creator of all, then he in fact creates all

, omnigenesis,
to the smallest detail,

quantum level material, to the smallest Planck quantum
distance, Planck quantum time, dimensions, fields,
everything, all of it. All that is, was, and shall be and can be.
At higher levels emergent qualities arising from these
basics create our physical world and us. It creates us,
our actions, our consciousness, feelings, nature, mental
inclinations and surrounding environment. One man may
be a lawyer in California, another an illiterate peasant
in Bangladesh. One man may be good, another an evil
psychopath. Omnigenesis means god creates all things
and all of this and all men's actions and existance
to the smallest details.

It removes all possibility of free will.

2. THE OMNISCIENT, CREATOR GOD

God creates all, all our acts, inclinations, personalty,
to the smallest detail. This is extreme determinism.

3. Omnigenesis destroys free will utterly and totally.

This destroys compatibilism,

the doctrine god creates
all but we have free will, and even though god knows what
we do, he does not interfere with our free will to choose
what we do. Many people hold this doctrine is incoherent
and impossible that knowing what we do destroys free will.

But omnigenesis makes that argument moot anyway, we can
have no sort of free will at all and thus no sort of
compatibilism can be true. Compatibilism is now irrelevant
and meaningless as a dodge to exlain way free will
vs God's foreknowlege of the future.

God knows the future because he knowingly creates its every
tinyest detail.

4. THERE ARE 3 ASPECTS OF CREATOR GODS
OMNIGENESIS FORCES US TO CONSIDER.

A. The Clock maker, determinate universe, and foreknowledge

This is idea that god is omniscient, has foreknowledge
of the future because the universe is determinate.
That god somehow winds up the Universe and lets it go
and it goes on unfolding in a determinate manner.
Laplace's demon is said to be able to know the future
relying on determinism like this. God is theorized
as just a sort of Laplacian demon here. This god created a
determinate Universe and knows the future since he can
calculate the future state of the Universe from a starting
state due specifically to the determinate quality of
the Universe.

But omnigenesis means there is no wind up universe
that unfolds,

B. God and omnipotence and time.

If god is omnipotent,or even just magnipotent, greatly
powerful, he is beyond being affected by mundane
things. Time does not affect god,

But again its omnigenesis. God creates all. And there
is no past, future all is now. Thus all is created at
once, now, in all its finest details. We are back to
omnigenesis as above.

We are driven there

C. Omnigenesis - Creator of all and Omniscience
As seen above in 2., a god that is simple said to
be creator of all and omniscient even with no
particular theory how he knows all, out of time,
or creates a determinate word that unfolds, no
theory as to how he knows all, also dooms free will
in the strongest manner possible. Just the fact this
god is omniscience and creates all is sufficient
to create omnigenesis and doom all free will.

D. Three theories of creation, omniscience
1. Deterministic, clock maker style Universe.
The theoretical deterministic prime mover's world.
2. Omniscient - creator god.
3. Omnipotent god transcendent to time.

All 3 theories lead to total omnigenesis.

5. OMNIGENESIS AND METAPHYSICAL NIHILISM

God is alleged all good, totally good, omniscient,
creator of all. And the omni-everything creator
class of gods including the gods of Judaism, Islam,
Christianity and others have these attributes explicitly,
and also have other attributes.

Heaven, hell, sin, salvation, damnation lose all
coherent sense and meaning. Where is love in
creating one man evil and many his victims?
How can that be loving, merciful or just?

6. SOULS

And supposedly this god creates souls,

7. CHAOS, NIHILISM, IRRATIONALITY, UNREALITY OF ALL

We achieve then total, absolute, furious metaphysical nihilism.

This is In the end, taken to their logical ends are all
theology religion, and omni-everything, creator god class
religion can possibly hope to achieve.

Materialism must be true, the only truth possible.

In the end, we have two stark choices, sane materialism, or
total metaphysical nihilsm. There is really then, only one choice.