Is Atheism viable?

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Topic:	Religions > Atheism
User:	"J Young"
Date:	18 Sep 2006 11:08:15 PM
Object:	Is Atheism viable?

http://www.carm.org/atheism/viable.htm
Atheism is, essentially, a negative position. It is not believing in a
god, or actively believing there is no God, or choosing to not exercise any
belief or non-belief concerning God, etc. Which ever flavor is given to
atheism, it is a negative position.
In discussions with atheists, I don't hear any evidence for the
validity of atheism. There are no "proofs" that God does not exist in
atheist circles; at least, none that I have heard -- especially since you
can't prove a negative regarding God's existence. Of course, that isn't to
say that atheists haven't attempted to offer some proofs that God does not
exist. But their attempted proofs are invariably insufficient. After all,
how do you prove there is no God in the universe? How do you prove that in
all places and all times, there is no God? You can't. Besides, if there
were a proof of God's non-existence, then atheists would be continually
using it. But we don't hear of any such commonly held proof supporting
atheism or denying God's existence. The atheist position is very difficult,
if not impossible, to prove since it is an attempt to prove a negative.
Therefore, since there are no proofs for atheism's truth and there are no
proofs that there is no God, the atheist must hold his position by faith.
Faith, however, is not something atheists like to claim as the basis of
adhering to atheism. Therefore, atheists must go on the attack and negate
any evidences presented for God's existence in order to give intellectual
credence to their position. If they can create an evidential vacuum in
which no theistic argument can survive, their position can be seen as more
intellectually viable. It is in the negation of theistic proofs and
evidences that atheism brings its self-justification to self-proclaimed
life.
There is, however, only one way that atheism is intellectually
defensible and that is in the abstract realm of simple possibility. In
other words, it may be possible that there is no God. But, stating that
something is possible doesn't mean that it is a reality or that it is wise
to adopt the position. If I said it is possible that there is an ice cream
factory on Jupiter, does that make it intellectually defensible or a
position worth adopting merely because it is merely a possibility? Not at
all. So, simply claiming a possibility based on nothing more than it being
a possible option, no matter how remote, is not sufficient grounds for
atheists to claim viability in their atheism. They must come up with more
than "It is possible," or "There is no evidence for God," otherwise, there
really must be an ice cream factory on Jupiter and the atheist should step
up on the band wagon and start defending the position that Jupiterian ice
cream exists.
At least we Christians have evidences for God's existence such as
fulfilled biblical prophecy, Jesus' resurrection, the Transcendental
Argument, the entropy problem, etc.
But there is another problem for atheists. Refuting evidences for God'
s existence does not prove atheism true anymore than refuting an eyewitness
testimony of a marriage denies the reality of the marriage. Since atheism
cannot be proven and since disproving evidences for God does not prove there
is no God, atheists have a position that is intellectually indefensible. At
best, atheists can only say that there are no convincing evidences for God
so far presented. They cannot say there are no evidences for God because
the atheist cannot know all evidences that possibly exist in the world. At
best, the atheist can only say that the evidence so far presented has been
insufficient. This logically means that there could be evidences presented
in the future that will suffice. The atheist must acknowledge that there
may indeed be a proof that has so far been undiscovered and that the
existence of God is possible. This would make the atheist more of an
agnostic since at best the atheist can only be skeptical of God's existence.
This is why atheists need to attack Christianity. It is because
Christianity makes very high claims concerning God's existence which
challenges their atheism and pokes holes in their vacuum. They like the
vacuum. They like having the universe with only one god in it: themselves.
--
----------
J Y�ung
youngopinions@aol.com
.

User: "wcb"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? God is impossible	22 Sep 2006 07:17:38 PM

DOES GOD EXIST? STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - NO.
1. OMNIGENESIS, DETERMINISM, FREE WILL, METAPHYSICAL
CHAOS AND THEOLOGICAL NIHILISM.
4.3 billion people believe in religions that have a god
that is claimed to have created all, and is omniscient
and omnipotent. Omni-everything creator class gods (OEC).
After OEC god religions, non-theistic religions like
Buddhism are the largest religions. Non-OEC gods are also
easily shown impossible, but these are not very numerous
nor important religions. This essay disproves the OEC
class gods that make up the largest number of today's
important religions and represent the vast bulk of
religious believers.
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, all of creation
to the smallest 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. All physics we know of and much
physics we do not as yet understand. And this god creates,
at higher levels, emergent qualities arising from these
basics that create our physical world and us. This god
than, creates us, our actions, our consciousness, feelings,
nature, mental inclinations and surrounding environment.
One man may be created a lawyer in California, another
an illiterate peasant in Bangladesh. One man may be good,
another an evil psychopath. Omnigenesis means god creates
all these things all men's actions, and existence to the
smallest details. All we are and all we do to the smallest
detail possible is created knowingly, and purposefully to
the smallest possible degree by God.
Omnigenesis, if true, removes all possibility of free will.
2. THE OMNISCIENT, CREATOR GOD
The claims that that god of Bible, Vedas, or Quran is
omniscient, and creator of all means these gods are
essentially driven to omnigenesis, creation of all.
Free will is impossible with a god that creates all
and is omniscient. OEC class god are claimed to be
creator of all and omniscient. That includes knowing
the full future which is important to religious claims
(Christian and Quran especially) of revelation and
prophecy of future events.
God at the start of creation must look at what his
considered creation will create and decide, "Do I allow
this or that to happen?"
"Do I make John Smith 13 billion years into the future
a man who is evil and damned or good and saved to life
eternal in heaven?" All acts Smith does are decided by god.
"Do I allow Smith at 10:23 June 24, 1999 commit rape-murder
or not?"
God must look at that future and say yes, or no and then
create the world that will generate that future he has
personally and purposefully decided on. All acts of all
sentient beings are decided on and created in the smallest
possible detail, knowing, and purposefully by this omniscient
creator God from the beginning of creation.
3. OMNIGENESIS DESTROYS FREE WILL AND COMPATIBALISM.
This destroys compatibilism, the doctrine god creates
all but we have free will, and even though god knows what
we do in the future, 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, the future is set.
In Christian theology, compatibilism has been the Roman
Catholic Church's dogmatic stance, which came out of
St Augustine's writings on free will. (1) Augustine
attempted to harmonize god's foreknowledge and our free will.
Opposing this are Calvinist claims of double predestination.
Calvinism claims man had free will and lost it with original sin.
But omnigenesis makes these arguments moot. We can
have no sort of free will at all if god creates all to
the smallest detail, and thus no sort of compatibilism
can be true. Hard incompatiblism, the claim that free
will is impossible if god foreknows the future is closer
to the facts. God creates the future in all detail, not
just knows it. Compatibilism is now irrelevant and meaningless
as a dodge to explain way free will vs God's foreknowledge
of the future. God knows the future not because he is
mysteriously omniscient and all knowing, but because he
knowingly creates the Universe, all of it, to the tiniest
details. All is created after personal consideration and
personal approval of all details. If on June 24, 1999
John Smth does indeed commit murder-rape, God saw that the
Universe he considered creating would contain this act of
Smith's if he created this Universe, and he made a decision
to allow this rape and subsequent murder to occur.
That universe with this murder - rape was actualized
by god purposefuly and knowingly.
4. THERE ARE 3 ASPECTS OF CREATOR GODS
OMNIGENESIS FORCES US TO CONSIDER.
A. THE CLOCKMAKER GOD, FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE
AND AN EXPLICITLY DETERMINATE UNIVERSE.
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, the
Deist god. The God of some natural theologies. The so
called clock maker God.
Laplace's demon is a thought experiment, a conceptual idea
invented by Pierre-Simon Laplace, the French Astronomer,
in 1820 (2)
Laplace's demon is said to be able to know the future
relying on the Universe's explicit determinism to calculate
the future. God has been theorized as just a sort of
Laplacian demon. 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. Since this
god creates the initial state of the Universe, all futures
states unfold from that and god can control future states
by choosing the appropriate initial starting state
of the Universe. Thus we have omnigenesis. By controlling
the initial conditions of the Universe all is controlled
including future states.
Here, in a determinate Universe we can have no free
will, not even in principle.
A determinate, clock maker Universe that unwinds in a
determinate manner from a god created initial state
precludes all possibility of free will. All is determined.
Omnigenesis, all parts of a future Universe and all
our future acts are controlled by the god created
initial conditions of an explcitly determinate Universe.
B. GOD, OMNIPOTENCE AND TIME.
If god is omnipotent, he is beyond being affected by
mundane things. Time does not affect god, he created time
and God controls time, time does not control or affect
God. For God there is no past, present, future, just now.
This is God as explained by Augustine and Boethius. (3)
God out of time, transcendent to time, is a standard
theological claim because of these thinkers. If god were
controlled and subject to time, he could not be as claimed,
all powerful, omnipotent.
But again it's omnigenesis. God creates all. There
is no past, or future, all is one big now. Thus all is
created at once, now, in all its finest details. We are
back to omnigenesis as above.
We are driven there starting with claims god is
omnipotent and considering an omnipotent god who
created all and that god's relation to mundane time.
Omnipotence implies sovereignty over time which
drives us to total omni-genesis. Omnipotence and
omniscience both destroy and possibility of free will
in the very strongest manner possible.
C. OMNISCIENCE, GOD - CREATOR OF ALL, AND
OMNIGENESIS.
As seen above in 2. "The Omniscient, creator god",
a god that is simple said to be creator of all and
omniscient. No particular theory how he knows
all, is given, it is just claimed god is omniscient.
A God with no explicit theory as to how he knows all
still dooms free will in the strongest manner possible.
Just the fact this god is omniscience and creates all
is sufficient to create a states of universal omnigenesis.
D. Thus we have three theories of creation, omniscience
1. Deterministic, clock maker style Universe.
The theoretical deterministic prime mover's world.
2. Omnipotent god transcendent to time.
3. Omniscient - creator god.

All 3 theories lead to omnigenesis.
All 3 theories destroy any possible free will
totally in the strongest manner possible.
5. OMNIGENESIS AND METAPHYSICAL NIHILISM
A. 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.
B. These specific attributes are to be found in various
alleged revelations, Quran, Bible Vedas, et al. Proof
texts are used to make specific claims, god is merciful,
just, God loves us, God wants us to be saved and other
similar claims. Plus claims such as God created hell
and heaven, and that some men are to spend eternity in
eternal torment for their sins and acts.
C. God is just, merciful, he loves us and wants us to
be good and to be saved. God hates sin, evil and
punishes evil men for their acts, including eternal
damnation. And so on. Different religions may have
slightly different variations and emphasis on this
or that aspect of their god's abilities. Also involved
are more metaphysical considerations. God's perfection,
God as source of all morality, god's immutability.
But OMNIGENESIS destroys all of this. Since God
creates all to the smallest atom, act, and inclination,
there is no room for love or mercy. Why create one
man good, saved and to have eternal life in heaven,
and the next man evil, damned and tortured in eternal
torment in the flames of hell for all eternity for
acts that god decided, planned and created in all
their minute details to the lowliest quark?
Why that then, if god loves us all is just and merciful?
Since free will means nothing in the strongest manner
imaginable, a god that loves us would create us all
saved, and good and to have life eternal in heaven
if that god is as claimed merciful, just and loving
and omnibenevolent. Since we have no free will its
all one and the same. Thus we would expect a world
where all are good, and moral evil is never done by man
if in fact there was a god who creates all such that all
is decided by god to the finest details.
Heaven, hell, sin, salvation, damnation lose all
coherent sense and meaning. Where is love in
creating one man evil and allow him to torment many
innocent victims? How can that be loving, merciful or
just?
Theologians have created many half-baked excuses, suffering
creates character, evils allow second order goods to exist,
a kindness done to a fellow victim of a genocidal murderer
like Hilter perhaps.
That all dissolves into a meaningless, incoherent nihilism,
a bewildering meaninglessness far beyond the supposed
meaninglessness of a materialistic, Atheistic world
without god, which many theists assert is the logical
end point of Atheism.
Here god is creator of grotesquely meaningless chaos.
A world without any meaning, a surreal Hieronymus
Bosch world of demons and angels and the damned,
heavens and hells with lakes of molten sulfur and
fiery flames and unrelenting torture for men who
were only toys of a relentlessly mad, and meaningless
monster god who created them damned, for reasons unknown,
and unknowable, and irrational to nihilistic extremes.
6. SOULS
And supposedly this god creates souls, which somehow,
are attached to our physical bodies and minds and are
part of the heart of our very existence. Then again,
along with our bodies, our minds, our acts, our inclinations,
god must have created these souls. But he also must have
created them in relationship to our physical body and its
created acts, acts created by god to the smallest details.
It is the soul that allegedly is damned or saved and lives
for ever, or some such, but again, all acts of ours are
created by omnigenesis to the smallest quark so god either also
creates a corresponding soul, damned or saved in parallel.
Or maybe not, who can tell with such an incoherent chaotic,
senseless, irrational system?
The doctrine of souls, confusing enough as is, now becomes
impossible to explain in any fashion. It makes no sense
in a physical world that is determinate to the most
exacting omnigenesistic manner, how does a soul fit
into that world?
With omnigenesis all bets are off, all supposed knowledge
is impossible and incoherent to extremes.
7. CHAOS, NIHILISM, IRRATIONALITY, UNREALITY OF ALL
We achieve then total, absolute, furious metaphysical nihilism.
God is mad, and nothing in reality, or metaphysics or any possible
afterlife can be trusted. All supposed systems of metaphysics,
philosophy, religion, theology and reality are destroyed until
the rubble of it all is sucked into a chaotic surreal abyss of
irrational metaphysics undreamed of by thinking man. Theism
at bottom is nihilism so total it is obviously wrong in all its
particulars.
Good, evil, sin, salvation, damnation, sin, souls, heaven,
hell, love, mercy, justice, theodicy, teleology, ontology,
all makes no sense in the strongest terms. the class of
omni-everything, creator Gods destroys everything
with corrosive finality.
Theology, metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, philosophy,
science, nothing makes the slightest sense in an omnigenesis
world, with a god that destroys all it touches if we claim
this personal, concious god is all knowing and creates all.
God then is perfect intellectual 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. Utter madness
and total incoherence. Compared to this atheistic
materialism is mankind's only rational hope.
Materialism must be true, the only truth possible. The Grand
Gods of Grand Theologies not only self destruct, but destroy
everything else with such incredible thoroughness and totality
that they cannot possibly be truth or reality. The class of
creator, omni-everything gods are impossible in the strongest
terms.
In the end, we have two stark and plain choices, sane
materialism, or total theological/metaphysical nihilism.
There is really then, only one choice to which we are driven
by logic and rationality.
God as creator of all, and omni-everything is impossible.

(1) Augustine (CE 388-395) De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio
(2) Pierre-Simon Laplace - "Essai Philosophique sur
les Probabilites" 1820.
(3) St. Augustine "Confessions" Book XI
(4) Boethius "Consolations of Philosophy" Book V

(End)
--

You are a fluke of the Universe
You have no right to be here,
and whether you can hear it or not,
the Universe is laughing behind your back.
Cheerful Charlie
.

User: "Gandalf Grey"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED	22 Sep 2006 07:29:02 PM

"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12fsitpc5g4e0a2@corp.supernews.com...

I am now rewriting my Omnigenesis essay and sharpening it up rather
considerably.

Possible Translation: You mean this time it will actually be logically
valid?

Simplified, some what less confusing, still basically the same
truth

Well, since your original argument was fundamentally flawed and NOT true,
you're probably still in the intellectual bog you began in.

you are mentally incapable of understanding.

Yadda, yadda.

You are a totally ignorant, unthinking fool.

Cough up the argument, save the taunts for your S&M friends.

Again, OEC gods are claimed to be creators of all, all knowing
via revelation.

Define revelation. In most modern religions, revelation is considered to be
an ongoing aspect of the church. It's not confined to the OT prophets.

This logically creates omnigenesis and that creates
metaphysical nihilism.

How does revelation imply creation? If I tell Fred what I plan on doing
next Tuesday and I don't tell Sally, I can be said to have revealed
something to Fred. Fred might even decide to call himself the prophet of
Gandalf. That doesn't mean I created the universe.
On the other hand, if your claiming that literally....." .....OEC gods are
claimed to be creators of all, all knowing via revelation," then all you're
saying is that the gods that are in the class of gods that are claimed to be
'omni-everything' [to use your pre-confabulated term], are in fact claimed
to be all knowing. And since 'all-knowingness' is already a part of your
'omni-everything class,' the only thing you're telling us is that the gods
that are claimed to be omni-everything are claimed to be omni-everything.
Redundant as well as being a strawman, since it's already been demonstrated
to you that
1. Modern religions do not all claim that God is omnipotent and omniscient
and neither did the original Hebrew texts state that God was omnipotent and
omniscient without internal contradiction.
2. Not all modern religions believe in revelation through holy texts
3. Not all modern religions believe that revelation is closed.
4. Not all modern religions believe that revelation is open.
Which leads us to wonder why or how revelation has anything to do with
anything.

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

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

4.3 billion people believe in religions that have a god
that is claimed to have created all, and is omniscient
and omnipotent.

Which leaves a whole lot of people who don't believe that but still believe
in a god. Which leaves your original claim that 'god is easy to disprove'
totally without support.

Omni-everything creator class gods (OEC).
After OEC god religions, non-theistic religions like
Buddhism are the largest religions. Non-OEC gods are also
easily shown impossible

Apparently they aren't "easily shown impossible". Out of the piles of horse
manure you've served up to the group, you haven't come up with a single
argument that has succeeded in doing that so far. I doubt that there are
many people here who will have forgotten that the best you could do on that
subject was to offer a personal opinion that Non-OEC gods 'weren't very
important." Quite a proof.

, but these are not very numerous
nor important religions.

And true to form, there you go again. Two problems with the comment.
1. YOU don't get to decide what's important.
2. Commenting that a particular god of a particular belief or group of
beliefs is not 'important' is not PROOF that they cannot exist. Cheap
brush-offs don't equal valid conclusions.
You've stated:

Non-OEC gods are also
easily shown impossible

So prove it right here, right now. I think most of the readers are tired of
watching the BillyBob version of The Rehashed Theological Arguments on Revue
show. The recognizably logical parts of any of your articles aren't yours.
They're antique arguments that worked better before you started skewing
them. YOU, on the other hand, have shown NOTHING that's new, and NOTHING
that's shown that Non-omnipotent gods are "impossible."
You can pull your pseudo arguments out of the trash, you can re-edit them,
you can reword them, or even put sequins on them and they're still going to
be garbage, Barwell. They still don't prove that no god can possibly exist,
which is what YOU claimed you could do. Everything from then to now has
been you tapdancing around your original fraudulent claim that you could
disprove the existence of any possible god. All the sheer tonnage of your
piles of crap has been an effort on your part to avoid the truth that you
don't have one damned clue as to how to disprove the existence of any
possible god. All your manure and the only thing you have to show for it is
'well, if god exists, god isn't very important.'

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

No it doesn't. It means "all creation"

Here I shall coin a word for further discussion.

Translation: Here you shall mutilate some words to try to disguise the fact
that you've got no game.

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, all of creation
to the smallest quantum level material, to the smallest
Planck quantum distance, Planck quantum time, dimensions,
fields, everything, all of it.

Sorry, but you flop right here, as usual. If the Big Bang were the creator
of all, there is no logical necessity that the Big Bang would have to
manufacture everything in the universe down to the smallest detail. There
is no valid logic that necessitates that a first cause must create
everything in detail.
The rest of your argument is fatally flawed by your first and fatal mistake.
In short, it's the same garbage argument, propped up with more sophistry.
.

User: "wcb"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable?	22 Sep 2006 11:01:20 PM

*****************************************************
OMNISCIENCE VERSUS CREATORHOOD OF GOD

There are a number of major religions today, Judaism,
Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, that together represent
the large majority of religious believers on earth today.
These basic religions represent the religious beliefs
of about 4.3 billion people.
These religions derive their beliefs about god from
what is claimed to be revelation. These relevations are to
be found in religious books, the Bible, Torah, Vedas and
similar books, and the Quran.
The gods of these religions are similar enough we may
regard them for practical purposes as a class of gods, the
class of of omni-everything creator gods.
These gods are claimed dogmatically to have a number of
charateristics. These as a class are creators of all, all
good (omnibenevolent), and all knowing (omniscient). They
are also omnipotent, and also merciful, loving and other
secondary characteristics. Here in this essay when God is
used, by that is meant this class of god and specific gods
of that class of omni-everything gods.

A. God is claimed to to have created the Universe and all
in that Universe.
B. God is omniscient, all knowing, he knows all that is in
the Universe and he knows the future state of the Universe
and the state of all its contents as he contemplates creating
the Universe.
C. St. Augustine claimed that god is omnipotent, all powerful, and
thus is sovereign over time and that god must therefore be
transcedent over time and outside being affected by time. To
god, past, present and future are all one thing to god who thus
knows all that existed, exists and will exist, as time
cannot affect god. Boethius a century later also stated this.
D. If god creates a Universe, he will know that in 13 billion
years this Universe will have a man named John Smith in
this universe because he is omniscient, all knowing.
E. If John Smith is good and saved, or evil and damned, in
the distant future, God will know whether John Smith is
to be good or evil.
F. If God knows that the Universe created in its present state will
have a John Smith, then god must then contemplate the future state
of Smith and decide if he will tolerate an evil Smith or if
god will create the Universe in another manner that will have
a good Smith who is saved in preference to a Smith who is evil
and damned.
G. Thus, Smith will be good or evil only because of a specific
personal and willful choice made solely by god who must make
a choice faced with the knowledge of the future. God must
implement his choice of what the future Smith will be, good
or evil. If God sees that Smith will commit rape on June 27,
1999, god must decide if he will allow that act to exist in
the future or not.
H. Since this all happens as god contemplates creation of the
Universe, Smith has no say in whether he is to be good or evil
as he does not exist yet and cannot influence god's choice.
I. If Smith is evil, then his evil exists solely because of a choice
made by god. In fact all moral evil done by creations of god
are done only because of personal and willful creations of
god, allowing specific acts of evil acts to be done, by direct
and personal decision of god.
J. Smith's acts to the smallest degree, all of them, from the greatest
to the smallest are personally contemplated and created by god
to the smallest physical degree. All acts to the last quark God's
specific and personal doing. And all men and women's acts
similarly are forseen and either allowed or not allowed by
god, personally and purposefully to the smallest degree.
K. Thus man can have no free will even in principle.
L. If evil exists in a world with an omniscient, creator god,
it is solely and only because god allows evil acts by
his personal choice.
M. If god creates all at once, because God is out of time and
transcedent to time, again, god creates all, each physical
part of us to the last degree through space and time, the last
atom which makes up all of us, and all our acts through all
space and time. God, purposefully designing all he creates,
creates all our acts and thoughts to the smallest possible
degree. We have no say as to what God decides to create
and what God actually does create, and creates all at once.
Since he creates all at once and is all knowing, he knows all
he plans to create before he creates it.
N. In a universe where god is omnipotent and thus transcedent in
regards to time, man can have no free will.
O. If all moral evil exists solely because of personal choices of god,
god then is not as defined, omnibenevolent. Nor merciful,
just, or similar good qualities.
P. 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.
Q. A god that is all knowing, omniscient, and/or omnipotent makes
free will impossible.
R. This is precisely because knowing all and faced with
what will be, god at all times must make a personal choice
to actually create what he is contemplating creating with
full knowledge and acceptance of what his creation will
entail, or he must change his creation to conform to his
wishes for the type of world he wants. Thus free will is
impossible, only god's will can be expressed in a
Universe where god is creator of all and omniscient
or omnipotent. God sand only god really acts.
S. God is defined as all good, omnibenevolent. But if
God creates all and is omniscient or omnipotent, all
evil is God's doing personally and purposefully.
T. This is a contradiction, an all good, omnibenevolent
god cannot be the author of all moral evil.
U. A god that is creator of all, omniscient, and/or omnipotent
and omnibenevolent thus cannot exist.
V. Thus the entire class of omni-everything, creator gods is
impossible, as a class and these sorts of gods, individually.

***********************************************************
--

You are a fluke of the Universe
You have no right to be here,
and whether you can hear it or not,
the Universe is laughing behind your back.
Cheerful Charlie
.

User: "Gandalf Grey"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED	22 Sep 2006 11:05:20 PM

"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12h9cdl4q1tc750@corp.supernews.com...

*****************************************************
OMNISCIENCE VERSUS CREATORHOOD OF GOD

God is defined as creator of all in most religions.

But not in all.

And god is claimed to be omniscient, all knowing.

Not by all religions.

A. God is said by theologians to have created the Universe
and all in that Universe.

Not by all theologians.

B. God is omniscient, all knowing, he knows all that is in
the Universe and he knows the future state of the Universe
and the state of all its contents as he contemplates creating
the Universe.

This is not a characteristic of all theologies.

C. Augustine claimed that god is sovereign over time and thus
must be outside and transcedent over time.

Augustine is dead and long debunked. What is novel about this?

D. If god creates a Universe, he will know that in 13 billion
years this Universe will have a man named John Smith in it
because he is omniscient, all knowing.

Except that god is not necessarily omniscient.

E. If John Smith is good and saved, or evil and damned, in
the distant future, God will know whether John Smith is
to be good or evil.

Only if god is omniscient and THEN only if that omniscience extends to
impossible knowledge of a future that hasn't happened yet. Nearly all
philosophers and theologians understand that this is a logical
impossibility.
The rest of your argument fails due to this.
.

User: "wcb"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable?	23 Sep 2006 02:26:28 PM

GOD FREE WILL, GOOD NATURE.

God has free will(1), no higher gods, or forces
can limit god's will. God is all good, he has
a good nature, and he cannot do moral evil.
Being all good god hates evil. If god wishes to
eliminate moral evil, he would give man a god-like
free will and a god-like good nature incapable
of doing moral evil.
But moral evil exists. If god could do this and
fails to, he then is responsible for all moral evil
that exists and cannot be said to be all good, or to
hate evil as claimed. He is in fact, omni-malevolent
since all evil is due to god's refusal to give man a
god-like good nature and a god-like free will.
Since god supposedly designed and created man to begin
with, there is no reason not to have created man
this way, free from moral evil from the beginning.
Moral evil exists, and a god that is alledgedly
all good and hates evil cannot exist.
1.
http://forerunner.com/chalcedon/X0020_15._Council
_of_Trent.html
The Council of Trent, the 19th ecumenical council
of the Roman Catholic church, was held at Trent
in Northern Italy between 1545 and 1563.
Canon 5. If anyone says that after the sin of Adam
man's free will was lost and destroyed, or that it
is a thing only in name, indeed a name without a
reality, a fiction introduced into the Church by
Satan, let him be anathema
- End
--

You are a fluke of the Universe
You have no right to be here,
and whether you can hear it or not,
the Universe is laughing behind your back.
Cheerful Charlie
.

User: "Gandalf Grey"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED	23 Sep 2006 04:33:15 PM

"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12h5tc282p2u6f0@corp.supernews.com...

GOD'S FREE WILL AND GOOD NATURE.
A DISPROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE

Note first of all, that Barwell does not discriminate between the god of one
religion or the other.
We must presume from his title and his argument that either,
1. Barwell believes that ALL possible gods are disproven by this one
argument.
or
2. Barwell has deliberately constructed a particular god and his argument
pertains only to the god of Barwell's argument.
Either way, as we shall see, his argument is invalid for diverse reasons.

- W.C. Barwell 6-22-06

1. God has free will. There is nothing that can
stop him from doing what he wants, nothing that
constrains his will.

According to whom? Which god is this?

2. God is all good, supreme good. Ominbenevolent.
God has a good nature, god hates evil and does
no moral evil.

Same as above. There are many religions that do not believe in this
assertion. Where are you getting it from. Is it what you believe or just
part of your usual strawman argument?
But note that you're already getting into trouble.
1. If God hates evil and does no moral evil under any conditions.
2. Then there is at least one thing that god does not do under any
conditions.
3. If there is at least one thing that god does not do under any conditions,
then it is problematic to assert that god has free will.

8. God created man and created the design of man. God
can create us to be what he wishes us to be.
God has given us free will.

Actually, that's several assumptions hidden in one assertion. God created
man directly according to one religious view and god created the design of
man according to other views.
The assumption that God can create us to be what he wants us to be is a
direct violation of your next assertion that God has given us 'free will.'
If you mean 'will' in the accepted use of that term, God cannot have created
us 'to be what he wishes us to be' or we would not have 'free will.' If we
have even partial free will, we cannot all be 'what he wishes us to be' at
all times. If you mean 'what he wants us to be ultimately or most of the
time or in general' you haven't stated such.
Moreover, even without a god in the picture, you're far too vague as to
'free will.' Do you mean the 'freedom from restraint' of the compatibilists
or the free will of the indeterminists? Regardless, you'll have a problem
because if we accept even the soft form of determinism, free will is
problematic with or without a god. You don't need to postulate a deity to
have problems with philosophical libertarianism.

10. God then can create us with a god-like free will
and a god-like good nature incapable of doing moral
evil.

Non-sequitur. Nothing you've stated so far escapes being either an
unsupported assertion or being self-contradictory.

11. Hating evil, and being totally good, God then has a
duty derived from his supreme goodness and his hate
of moral evil to actually give us a god-like free will,
and a god-like good nature such as he enjoys.

Another unsupported assertion.
1. How do we know that god hates evil?
2. How do we know that god is 'totally good?'
3. How do we know that god has any 'duties,' derived or otherwise? The god
of the Hebrew Bible is not constrained to act in a particular way because
within the course of that book he is often described as one thing while
acting like another thing.
4. Absolutely NOTHING that you've written logically implies that IF god was
totally good and totally free and totally powerful that he would be forced
to give US a god-like free will.

12. Man does moral evil, we do not have a god-like free
will and a god-like god nature incapable of doing evil.

So? As noted, nothing you've written implies that we should expect to have
god-like free will or a god-like good nature.

13. If god existed and had free will, and was totally good
and created us and the design of us, we would not have
the ability to do moral evil,

Totally unsupported. An argument COULD be made that a completely omnipotent
god would only be able to create puppets not human beings. But you haven't
made that argument. The argument you've made does not support your
conclusion.

14. If god is said to be all good, totally good, and yet
allowed evil to exist, this would be a contradiction.
A totally good god would destroy evil given that its
easy to do so, by giving man a good nature.

Non-sequitur.
1. Several variations on the best of all possible worlds argument
successfully contradict your assertion.
2. Your assertion also rests on the presumption that human beings are in a
better position to know what is ultimately good and ultimately bad than god
is. Given that you've already asserted that god is perfectly good, your
argument is therefore self-refuting.
a. If god is perfectly good and knows himself, god knows what perfectly good
really means.
b. If man is not god, man is not perfectly good.
b. If man is not perfectly good, man does not know what perfectly good
really means.

15. Nor would god have to be totally good or supremely good,
nor omnipotent to do this. Merely to be able to create man's
nature, his inclinations and to be good. To hate evil.

Not without denying man free will. Again, we needn't even postulate a god
to create the problem. If man's will is truly free, we have a problematic
condition that denies determinism even to the extent of determinism as the
Principle of Sufficient Cause. Your problem is that, under those
conditions, your only reasonable alternative is 'indeterminism' which is
indistinguishable on the level of acts from sheer chance. Few human beings
are willing to accept sheer chance as a definition of free will.

16. Therefore god does not exist.

Therefore your argument against god fails on logical grounds.

17. The only way moral evil could exist is if god defined
as totally good and having a free will does not exist.

Non-sequitur. God's 'free will' is no more or less problematic than man's
free will. If god has free will, it must mean that god is free to choose
among moral alternatives. But moral alternatives are seldom if ever
exhaustive. If god is only free to choose among evils, then evil of some
kind and degree will be the result. If a man must choose between evils and
chooses the lesser of two evils, we consider that man moral. God must
surely be given the same benefit of the doubt.
The fact that god could be totally good has nothing to do with proving your
argument. You can hate evil as much as you like. But if evil is a
metaphysical necessity, hating it won't make it go away.
Hence, your argument would have validity only if some definition of
omnipotence is included. Free will alone will not do it. Total goodness
alone will not do it. Free will and total goodness will not do it. Only if
we presume that god has total control over evil can we begin to make moral
judgements about god on a cosmic scale. And if god is omnipotent,
controlling everything in total, then man cannot have free will in the sense
that you assert.
So again, your argument fails.
You go round and round on this vicious circle, Barwell. There's really no
escape. If we assert that god is omnipotent, then man is nothing more than
a puppet and cannot have free will. If god is only very good and has free
will, man can be just as inclined to evil and just as culpable as we know
man is when it comes to moral choices.
If man has free will, God is not omnipotent.
If God is omnipotent, man does not have free will.

18. Free will objections have been a standard claim as to
why evil exists, evil comes from our free will. This is
obviously false. Our free will cannot excuse evil
with a God that has free will and a good nature.
This free will defense is no longer viable.

God's free will has nothing to do with our free will. Only if god has the
power to give US free will. And as I've demonstrated above, free will is a
problem with or without god. Likewise a good nature on the part of god is
largely meaningless. If god gives us free will, we're responsible for our
own moral choices. That's what free will means. If god is omnipotent, we
do not have free will.
So the free will 'standard claim' is perfectly valid, with or without god.
Most modern thinkers recognize that moral evil is the RESULT of choices
rather than being an entity in and of itself. So long as some choices
benefit some they will harm others. This being the case, goodness itself is
nothing but the other side of evil and both are the children of human
choices. Without moral good there would be no moral evil. Without moral
evil, there would be no moral good. Morality arises from the choice between
alternative acts.

19. Any claimed class of gods that create all, is supposedly
good, and has free will cannot exist, not just the class
of omni-everything gods.

Here we go with the 'class' nonsense again.
Since you haven't even proven that an individual god who creates all and has
free will and is very good cannot exist, you also haven't proved that a
class of such gods cannot exist.
The fact that you've run away from your 8 points and are now down to 3 would
[I had hoped] make it easier for you to construct a valid argument. But I
see you are still as prone to non-sequiturs as ever.
The fact that you try to hide it by being as wordy as possible also hasn't
changed.

21. This destroys all classes of god(s)

Your argument destroys no class of gods and your argument does not destroy
even a single god.

C. POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS TO GOD HAVING FREE WILL
AND A GOOD NATURE

GOD'S FREE WILL IS CONSTRAINED BY HIS GOOD NATURE
HE CANNOT BE SAID TO HAVE TOTAL FREE WILL.

1. God cannot do moral evil, but that does not count
against his free will.

Of course it does. You're making the rookie mistake of confusing action
with intention or volition. Free will is not Free Action...it's Free WILL.
If you cannot do moral evil, you must be able to want to do evil but be
unable to actually act in such a way as to do evil. That would make God
less physically free than man. No traditional Christian dogma would assert
this.

He has potential to do evil
but in actuality, because of his good nature, he does
no actual moral evil. This is a special case because he
has a good nature. This is his will, it is what he wishes.

Again, you confuse action and intention. If god WILLS not to do wrong, it's
quite different than God being able to ACT in such a way as to do wrong. So
either you're arguing that God cannot choose to do evil, as per 1 or he
cannot WANT to choose to do evil as per 2.
Either way, God becomes less free than man. No dogma asserts this.
The god you're postulating is no more free than one of the inmates of Walden
II. Being unable to want to do evil is to be lacking in free will every bit
as much as being physically constrained from doing evil. The biologically
engineered inmates of Walden II are assumed to be free because they are not
contrained from doing anything wrong. But they've been biologically
engineered not to WANT to do anything wrong. Being able to WANT freely is
the very essence of FREE will.

2. God has to have some sort of nature and that nature
good, bad or indifferent would incline god to some
sort of action. To say god has no free will because
he has a nature of some sort is thus false.

But that's not what you're saying. You're saying that either,
1. God cannot actually do evil because god is incapable of acting in an evil
way.
2. or God cannot actually WANT to do evil because god does not have free
will.
3. If either is true, it's unlikely that god can give man a 'god-like' free
will because according to your own argument, god does not have free will
either as free action or free choice.

3. God's free will creates his nature. It does not
constrain itself by doing so since it precedes his
nature. God's free will is truly free.

According to whom? According to your own argument, god either does not have
free will or god does not have free action. Either way, such a nature would
be constrained in the extreme IF IT WERE THE CASE that "free will creates
his nature." since by your own argument god does not have free will. And
either way, it would seem very unlikely that god could give man a free will
that god lacked, making man, by definition, more free than god.
No dogma of the traditional variety asserts this.

3. Some people may insist though, that god's nature means
indeed his free will must be limited by having a good
nature, but then that merely shows free will then is
an overrated attribute.

What utter nonsense! It shows nothing of the sort. Either nature defines
what we're able to do, or what we're able to do defines nature. Since
you've argued your way into the double assertion that either god has no free
action or no free will, it hardly matters where god's nature comes from,
since either way, god has no free will.

Free will is then not necessary
in its naive, open ended manner. Its merely a technical
limit caused by god having some nature, god having a
nature that inclines him to good moral behavior. If so,
then man no more needs a naive, open-ended free will than
god needs that, and can still be morally good and limited
in exactly the same god is limited by likewise by having
a good nature. the limits are technical and minor

MY, MY! Aren't we glossing over the problems here! The fact is that free
will, as I've noted, is problematic, god or no god. And the fact that god
may need or not need something in no way logically necessitates that man be
of a like nature. Otherwise, where is the difference between a supposed god
and man?
The picture you've painted of god leaves us with a supposedly all good, free
will god who has no free will, but who supposedly gives man free will even
though god does not possess free will.
Not very convincing.

5. Thus arguments god's free will and good nature affect God's
free will do not affect the argument god can give many a
free will and good nature.

You have not even begun to show how that's possible, Mr. Barwell. Your rank
assertion that "the limits are technical and minor" is...sadly...not an
explanation as to how a god who you've described as both lacking and having
free will can give free will to man.

6. If its a logical impossibility to have a nature and
free will not limited by that nature, then this
is only a technical limit that is meaningless
in the same sense not being able to make a married
bachelor does not means god lacks omnipotence.

7. Therefore, God has free will and a nature incapable of
of doing moral evil.

Non sequitur. If god has free will, then god is capable of doing moral
evil. Q.E.D.

8. None of these things prevents god from giving man a
good nature and free will.

Apparently they do because you've already argued that god does not really
have free will. It's difficult to know how he can give man what God lacks.
Even more difficult to conceive of a god that has and does not have free
will simultaneously.
.

User: "Gandalf Grey"
Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED	23 Sep 2006 09:41:14 PM

"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hb2kjbr94tn00@corp.supernews.com...