| 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 Yöung
youngopinions@aol.com
.
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| User: "wcb" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
23 Sep 2006 02:12:46 PM |
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IS THERE A GOD? - No.
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - PART 3
1. MORE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Does god create the rules, the laws, the logic of
the Universe or not? Is 2 + 2 = 4 something god
set as part of the nature of the Universe or is
that outside and beyond god?
Can god change 2 + 2 to 5?
2. IF GOD DID IN FACT MAKE THE RULES, LAWS, AND
LOGIC OF THE UNIVERSE.
A. If god did in fact make the rules and laws and
logic of the Universe, God could also change
them as needed.
B. A god that creates the rules, laws and logic
of the world he creates could simply make a
world where man has free will yet freely
chooses only to do moral good. Since such a
god creates the rules of the Universe, he
could change them in name of omnibenevolence,
free will is perserved and evil is banished.
Evil no longer needs to exist to allow for
free will.
C. If a god could do this and fails to, evil
exists solely and only because of god's
failure to use his omnipotence to change
the rules and laws and logic of the Universe
to give man free will and a nature incapable
of doing evil.
D. If a god can do this and fails to, that god is
not omnibenevolent as claimed, a contradiction
in definitions of god as omnibenevolent and
omnipotent.
E. God in fact since he is essentially the
creator and sustaining cause of all evil
that was, is, and shall be is omni-malevolent.
3. IF GOD DOES NOT MAKE THE LAWS, RULES AND
LOGIC OF THE UNIVERSE - THE SECOND HORN
OF THE DILEMMA.
A. If god does not make the rules, the laws, the
very logic of the Universe, then we have the
problem of what these things are and where
they come from.
B. If these laws and rules and logic limit god,
then god is obviously not omnipotent as
claimed.
C. And thus god is not as claimed, the greatest
thing that can be imagined. Obviously laws
and rules and logic that limit the most
powerful being in the Universe are greater
still because they do in fact limit such
a being.
D. If such laws and rules and logic outside and
beyond god do exist, and are thus greater
than god, god is not the greatest thing
imaginable and all ontological 'proofs' that
are based on that basic claim fail.
E. Such rules and laws and logic must exist
outside of god's control and must have always
been outside his control. If there were ever
in god's control, god cannot have reduced his
power to abandon omnipotence voluntarily.
Omnipotence is an inherent ability. It would
be like abandoning a sense of taste or touch.
This observation forstalls attempts at
apologisms claiming god abandoned any
abilities.
F. And if god could indeed abandon omnipotence,
he must avoid that. After all, he is also
omnibenevolent. Omnibenevolence dictates he
must at all times do the good thing, never an
evil thing. Abandoning omnipotence such that
he could no longer create a world where man
has free will, and a nature incapable of evil
is to allow evil to exist. To abandon
omnipotence is to embrace the proposition
evil is to be allowed to flourish. So any
claims god might have for some greater good
abandoned omnipotence freely are not possible.
G. If god is said to be omnipotent, if he at
anytime gave up any abilities he can no
longer said to be omnipotent, if he actually
gave up any abilities. A contradiction with
the claim god has all powers and abilities.
H. Since god must have had maximum power and
abilities and cannot have at any time
voluntarily relinquished any powers or
abilities, at least in the name of banishing
evil the fact that there are laws and rules
and logic of a universe outside and beyond
god, they are truly beyond and outside god,
and always were.
I. Since such laws and rules and laws are outside
god, and always were so, and are properties of
the Universe, the Universe is likewise outside
and beyond god, with its laws and rules and
logic.
J. Since the Universe and its laws and rules and
logic are outside and beyond god, god is not
as, creator of the Universe, of all. A
contradiction again of the claim god created
all.
K. Since the Universe no longer relies on god for
its purported existence, nor on god for the
existence of its laws and rules and logic,
god is no longer a necessary being. If there
are things that have necessary existence, it
would have to be the Universe as whole, or
possibly its laws, its rules or its logic,
or a subset of these rules or laws or the
underlying causes of these things, if any.
None were created by god or can be modified
by god.
L. If these laws and rules and logic could be
modified by god, then the rules and laws
and logic of the Universe would have been
modified to end existence of evil, and must
have modified this if god is actually
omnipotent and omnibenevolent.
M. God then is not omnipotent, or not
omnibenevolent, or is neither, or
does not exist.
4. POSSIBLE DODGES - LOGIC IS PART OF GOD
A. One possible dodge is to say logic is part
of god. An attribute.
B. God is said to be a necessary being, he
must exist, and is necessary for all other
things to exist, all other things rely on god
to create and sustain them, they are
contingent.
C. A house is contingent, it is made of lumber
and bricks and roofing tiles et al. Those
things must exist for the house to exist and
precede the house.
D. God is said to have attributes, intelligence,
personality, all powers and abilities,
foreknowledge, omnipotence, and on and on.
E. But then god cannot be necessary, we must
account for these attributes god is
contingent on.
F. Thus we have an ad hocism in theology,
simplicity. God is said to be simple, that
all these alledged attributes are single, part
of a large, whole attribute. This ad hoc
dodge is created to pretend god is not
contingent as a house is contingent on
its materials. And theology claims it
does not have to account for these attributes
much as we ask for an account of where the
House's bricks and lumber come from.
G. God is said to be simple, not made of parts,
physically or metaphysically, he is a whole,
indivisible.
H. If somehow god is said to be the source of
logic, theology must account how that
somehow becomes the laws and rules and logic
of a Universe god is transcendent to.
I. Since god is also intelligent, and all
powerful, and since all these attributes are a
single simple attribute, then the Universe
should not only have logic, it should also be
intelligent and all powerful, merciful, just
et al.
J. Thus ad hoc claims god is somehow logic
itself and the ad hoc claim god is simple, not
made of parts, metaphysically or physically
create an impossible and contradictory and
incoherent set of claims.
5. MORE PROBLEMS WITH SIMPLICITY
A. What is logic, is it one thing or many?
Is 2 + 2 = 4 a different logic than E=MC**2?
Is Physics something god creates? What
about morality, it that a sort of logic?
B. If physics is something god does, why do
we have massive earthquakes that kill many,
or is that somehow, part of god's nature
and out of his control? If so, god is then
not omnipotent, this doctrine of simplicity
contradicts the claim god is all powerful.
C. How does theology plan to investigate these
issues or is simplicity simply an ad hocism
that theology has no intention of following
up on? Its claims create a tremendous
amount of issues.
Another essay will be written dealing in greater
detail with the issue of simplicity and its
implications.
6. THE ATTRIBUTES AND NATURE OF GOD IN LIGHT OF
THE ABOVE EXAMINATION OF GOD
A. Thus the idea god is omnipotent,
omnibenevolent, and creator of all, clash again
and mutually self-destruct over the issue of
evil's existence.
This raises serious questions on the nature
of the Universe that cannot be as Grand
Theology claims it is. The class of
omni-everything, creator gods cannot exist as
asserted.
A. We have shown god cannot have created the
Universe.
B. We have shown god does not create the laws,
rules and laws of that Universe.
C. That god is thus not omnipotent as these laws
limit him.
D. That god is not the greatest imaginable thing.
E. That ontological proofs of god's existence
based on claims god is the greatest thing
imaginable are failed arguments.
F. That god cannot be a necessary being, as
claimed.
G. That any possible claims god might for some
reason abandon or limit any abilities cannot
be true in any attempt to avoid this line of
inquiry. Nor can that approach derail logical
examination of consequences of Grand
Theology's overarching claims to god's
attributes or nature.
The fact that god is allegedly omnibenevolent and
evil exists, demonstrates god cannot make the
rules of the world. 2 + 2 = 4 because that is
the nature of the Universe, not something god
created. Because if god did create the rules and
laws and logic of the Universe, and was omnibenevolent,
we should have no signs of evil, especially moral
evil of man, Satan, demons and devils.
But if one admits to that, Many other important
claims collapse, many other arguments about god
and his attributes and nature no longer are
viable. Some of these claims, god's creation
of the Universe are among the oldest and most
basic of theology.
Ontological proofs started with Anselm in the
10th century, all of these now must be abandoned.
The necessary being argument, long a rhetorical
argument is now finally dead.
Free will defenses against the problem of evil
opened up a line of attack here that is powerful
and very final.
**************************************************
--
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
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
23 Sep 2006 04:36:40 PM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hb1qjm5mf96fc@corp.supernews.com...
IS THERE A GOD? - No.
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - PART 3
BZZZZZZZZZZZZTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DEBUNKED ARGUMENT
DEAR READER:
THE FOLLOWING ARGUMENT HAS BEEN DEBUNKED FOR YOUR READING SAFETY
1. MORE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Does god create the rules, the laws, the logic of
the Universe or not?
Why? What does that have to do with the necessary existence of God?
THE ATTRIBUTES AND NATURE OF GOD IN LIGHT OF THE
ABOVE EXAMINATION OF GOD
Thus the idea god is omnipotent, omnibenevolent,
and creator of all, clash again and mutually
self-destruct over the issue of evil's existance.
Of course they don't.
1.None of these attributes are necessary to the existence of God.
2.Only Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence clash over the issue of evil's
existence.
3.Nowhere have you shown anything else.
This raises serious questions on the nature of the
Universe that cannot be as Grand Theology claims
it is.
That may be but you haven't shown it to be true.
The class of omni-everything, creator
gods cannot exist as asserted.
Unproven as I've already demonstrated in dozens of posts.
A. We have shown god cannot have created the
Universe.
No you haven't. And once again, you're pulling the same dishonest trick
you've pulled from the first. You make claims which you don't prove, then
you go on to compound your error by pretending your original claim has
proved more than you initially said it would.
1. You make fallacious claims.
2. You make no attempt to prove them.
3. When criticized you insist that you have proved them.
4. You go on to insist that they prove more than you claimed they would
prove.
5. When the criticism gets too strong, you backpedal your claims and revise
your comments to pretend that they now are more narrow.
6. You then trot out the original debunked arguments.
7. And you then go on to insist that these arguments, once again, prove more
than you said they would.
As we have seen, in this second attempt of yours after having your initial
argument debunked by myself and others, you said your 'new argument does not
aim at all gods but only particular gods. Yet here in your summary, you
start right out MAKING A UNIVERSAL CLAIM concerning the existence of god.
So once again, you've lied, and your subsequent arguments are essentially
the same arguments that have already been debunked.
You're a scam artist, Barwell. You have no argument. You never had an
argument, just a bunch of assertions that you pasted off the web. I doubt
that you have any intention of writing a book; that too was all part of the
scam. All you've ever had is a cloud of rhetoric that you pretend is
scientific and logical.
At this point, there's one conclusion about you that covers all the facts.
I believe you're a stalking horse placed here intentionally by the right to
play the part of a cardboard cutout scientist as the right conceives of
them.
Certainly your argument has done more damage to humanism, rationality and
science than many an argument coming from the religious right. Your
portrayal of an intellectual is a comedy pastiche of all the bigotry and
stupidity that is the very antithesis of real science.
But even as a stalking-horse for the right wing, you've done a poor job.
You're too 1-dimensional and take offense too easily to be believable as a
real scientist, your logic is simply too sophomoric to believe that you have
any knowledge of logic beyond what you've been coached on, and your tendency
to simply repost your fallacies is far more like the technique of the right
wing than the predictable response of any real scholar.
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
23 Sep 2006 09:46:06 PM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hb1qjm5mf96fc@corp.supernews.com...
IS THERE A GOD? - No.
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - PART 3
BZZZZZZZZZZZZTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DEBUNKED ARGUMENT
DEAR READER:
THE FOLLOWING ARGUMENT HAS BEEN DEBUNKED FOR YOUR READING SAFETY
1. MORE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Does god create the rules, the laws, the logic of
the Universe or not?
Why? What does that have to do with the necessary existence of God?
THE ATTRIBUTES AND NATURE OF GOD IN LIGHT OF THE
ABOVE EXAMINATION OF GOD
Thus the idea god is omnipotent, omnibenevolent,
and creator of all, clash again and mutually
self-destruct over the issue of evil's existance.
Of course they don't.
1.None of these attributes are necessary to the existence of God.
2.Only Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence clash over the issue of evil's
existence.
3.Nowhere have you shown anything else.
This raises serious questions on the nature of the
Universe that cannot be as Grand Theology claims
it is.
That may be but you haven't shown it to be true.
The class of omni-everything, creator
gods cannot exist as asserted.
Unproven as I've already demonstrated in dozens of posts.
A. We have shown god cannot have created the
Universe.
No you haven't. And once again, you're pulling the same dishonest trick
you've pulled from the first. You make claims which you don't prove, then
you go on to compound your error by pretending your original claim has
proved more than you initially said it would.
1. You make fallacious claims.
2. You make no attempt to prove them.
3. When criticized you insist that you have proved them.
4. You go on to insist that they prove more than you claimed they would
prove.
5. When the criticism gets too strong, you backpedal your claims and revise
your comments to pretend that they now are more narrow.
6. You then trot out the original debunked arguments.
7. And you then go on to insist that these arguments, once again, prove more
than you said they would.
As we have seen, in this second attempt of yours after having your initial
argument debunked by myself and others, you said your 'new argument does not
aim at all gods but only particular gods. Yet here in your summary, you
start right out MAKING A UNIVERSAL CLAIM concerning the existence of god.
So once again, you've lied, and your subsequent arguments are essentially
the same arguments that have already been debunked.
You're a scam artist, Barwell. You have no argument. You never had an
argument, just a bunch of assertions that you pasted off the web. I doubt
that you have any intention of writing a book; that too was all part of the
scam. All you've ever had is a cloud of rhetoric that you pretend is
scientific and logical.
At this point, there's one conclusion about you that covers all the facts.
I believe you're a stalking horse placed here intentionally by the right to
play the part of a cardboard cutout scientist as the right conceives of
them.
Certainly your argument has done more damage to humanism, rationality and
science than many an argument coming from the religious right. Your
portrayal of an intellectual is a comedy pastiche of all the bigotry and
stupidity that is the very antithesis of real science.
But even as a stalking-horse for the right wing, you've done a poor job.
You're too 1-dimensional and take offense too easily to be believable as a
real scientist, your logic is simply too sophomoric to believe that you have
any knowledge of logic beyond what you've been coached on, and your tendency
to simply repost your fallacies is far more like the technique of the right
wing than the predictable response of any real scholar.
.
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| User: "WCB" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell shows god is impossible, gandy cries |
24 Sep 2006 01:44:00 AM |
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Hello,
I am Richard Hanson. I have total contempt for you,
my reader. Let me explain. I have been harassing a
man named William C. Barwell. Barwell posts a lot of
essays on strong Atheism that are rather good, and I
hate him for being smarter than me.
I thus pretend to critique his essays on these subjects,
but it is harassment, not criticism.
What do I mean by this? I spew out any old crap off the top of
my head and spam, spam, spam Barwell with it anytime he posts.
He corrects my errors. Or I should say, he tries.
I will not be corrected, because this is not about debate,
it is about harassment. Malicious harassment.
I do not care if you waste precious time with my errors,
my mistakes, my malicious strawmen, out and out lies and
stupidities. I never will be corrected, I just spam away.
Here is a good example of what I mean:
1. MORE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Does god create the rules, the laws, the logic of
the Universe or not?
Hanson:
Why? What does that have to do with the necessary existence of God?
See? I don't even let the argument develop, I just rant.
THE ATTRIBUTES AND NATURE OF GOD IN LIGHT OF THE
ABOVE EXAMINATION OF GOD
Thus the idea god is omnipotent, omnibenevolent,
and creator of all, clash again and mutually
self-destruct over the issue of evil's existence.
Hanson:
"Of course they don't."
Of course they do, but being an ***** with an agenda, harassment,
I will never admit even though it is in fact an old concept that
people have been using for years. I have contempt for you reader.
I thing you are too stupid to notice that.
Hanson:
"1.None of these attributes are necessary to the existence of God.
2.Only Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence clash over the issue of evil's
existence.
3.Nowhere have you shown anything else."
Of course here I am lying as I always do. I don't give a a crap.
Never did, never will.
All religions claim god have these attributes. I will insult
your intelligence reader, because I think you are too stupid
to remember that. It is not a matter of what is "necessary".
That is a strawman, the issue is, what do the religions of
4.3 billion people claim.
I think you are so stupid you won't think of that.
I have contempt for you and Barwell.
Barwell has indeed shown that and corrected my lies a
hundred times. I sneer and refuse to be corrected because
this is about harassing Barwell, not about rational debate,
which I don't give a crap about. I can't handle that anyway.
This raises serious questions on the nature of the
Universe that cannot be as Grand Theology claims
it is.
Hanson:
That may be but you haven't shown it to be true.
Well, Barwell has but again, this is about harassment, not truth.
The class of omni-everything, creator
gods cannot exist as asserted.
Unproven as I've already demonstrated in dozens of posts.
Actually, Barwell has, his Omnigenesis is dead on, but being a
hateful senile net harasser kook,I will be the last to admit it.
A. We have shown god cannot have created the
Universe.
No you haven't. And once again, you're pulling the same dishonest trick
you've pulled from the first. You make claims which you don't prove, then
you go on to compound your error by pretending your original claim has
proved more than you initially said it would.
Actually Barwell has, again, read the Omnigenesis essay.
I can't write good stuff like that and it drives me insane
so I harass Barwell, because I am mentally unbalanced.
Here I just ranted bull doo doo, I didn't show any facts wrong, I
didn't mention facts, I posted hand wave doo doo.
Read Barwell and see the real facts.
I am just a jerk.
HANSON
1. You make fallacious claims.
2. You make no attempt to prove them.
3. When criticized you insist that you have proved them.
4. You go on to insist that they prove more than you claimed they would
prove.
5. When the criticism gets too strong, you backpedal your claims and revise
your comments to pretend that they now are more narrow.
6. You then trot out the original debunked arguments.
7. And you then go on to insist that these arguments, once again, prove
more
than you said they would.
This is of course a lie. Barwell proves everything he says with
relentless logic.
He starts with bible and Quran et al, take the proof texts, shows
this is what these religions of 4.3 billions believe and shows it is
impossible with simple logic.
I Richard Hanson, lie about it all because I am an envious fraud.
Id like to be thought of as a truly great intellect but I am going
senile and can't match Barwell, hell, I can't match a hamster at thinking.
Damn I hate Barwell. So I am going to harass him, because I am a jerk.
--
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
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell shows He's a Net forger |
24 Sep 2006 01:06:34 PM |
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A *Homage*
"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hc5kct4poht52@corp.supernews.com...
Hello,
I am William Barwell. I have total contempt for you,
my readers, in fact everything that is not me.
Let me explain.
Once upon a time, I was stupid enough to announce that I could easily come
up with an argument that proves that no god of any kind can possibly exist.
Since I really have no idea what I'm talking about, I turned to google, like
I usually do, and tried to boilerplate a bunch of essays together than would
make it look like I knew something about all this without my having any
actual knowledge at all. So, I assembled a bunch of academic-sounding
***** arguments that were really nothing but old arguments against
orthodox christian notions of god. Then I said that these arguments were
'new and improved' and that these arguments actually proved that NO god
could exist, and I bragged about how I was brilliant and had discovered
things that no one else had discovered and was going to write a book and so
on.
Well, wouldn't you just know it. A couple of people on the group saw right
through my *****. One of them, Gandalf Grey, started to post detailed
critiques of my garbage arguments. Grey actually dissected my arguments
rather than swallowing them whole. Grey, along with some others, raised
criticisms and actually expected me to defend my claims.
Now you should know at this point that I'm suffering from what all my
psychologists call "malignant narcissism." When I'm not on my meds [which
make it hard for me to use the keyboard and lead to the nearly incoherent
typo-filled screeds I sometimes post]
.....err? What was I saying?
Anyway, I'm a narcissist and I have this phony illusion of myself as a
philosopher king who all you idiots out there ought to bow down to. I've
actually said this online. I have nothing but contempt for the
"shitmonkeys" "idiots" and "morons" who post to AA....except for the two or
three people who willingly bow down to me and drink my Kool Aid. Well, this
Gandalf Grey and some others refused to bow down. They expected me to
explain my claims. They expected me to be able to support my own arguments.
Well, they had to go!
I started out spamming my arguments dozens of times a day while threatening
that I was going to spam them if I didn't get my way [that's a trick I
picked up from the fundamentalist posters], but that didn't work. I posted
long really obscene personal attacks against Grey and others and that didn't
work. I posted a phony "FAQ" about Gandalf Grey that I stole [I steal
everything I post] from a known right wing net-troll who's right next to
being prosecuted on criminal charges for criminal stalking, and that didn't
work. I even took to drawing obscene pictures [actually I stole them too]
and posting them on the net and even that didn't work.
So now, I'm forced to pretend I'm Gandalf Grey and posting forged "letters"
from him to the net.
I never once stopped to think that spamming this kind of garbage to the net
is going to lose me what's left of the group. I never stopped to think that
auto-spam is going to lead to even more people killfiling me for good. I
never once stopped to think that a supposed genius like myself wouldn't be
the kind of person that would call his opponents "shitmonkeys" and threaten
to destroy Usenet.
I'm basically an idiot and the spam you see coming from me is nothing more
than evidence that I am in fact the marginal troll that Grey said I am.
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| User: "wcb" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
22 Sep 2006 10:57:15 PM |
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IS THERE A GOD? NO.
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER PART 2
THE CLASS OF OMNI-EVERTHING CREATOR GODS
DISPROVEN.
1. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNISCIENCE
A. Omnipotence is a special sort of attribute, of
all god's alledged attributes the most
important, because from that attribute you
can derive others attributes, including
omniscience. If one says for purposes of
argument god is omnipotent, one is also
implying god is also omniscient.
B. If god is omnipotent, god must also
specifically have omniscience because if
he does not have omniscience, one
cannot claim omnipotence as an attribute.
C. Thus if god is omnipotent, and created all,
free will is impossible because creation
and omniscience rule out free will as was
shown in part 1. In this world god supposedly
created, evil exists. So god must not be
omnibenevolent as claimed as all evil is
created by god if man cannot have free will.
Omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence
cannot co-exist as dogmatic claims. A class
of gods that is said to have these is
impossible
D. Omnipotence and omnibenevolence are thus
mutually exclusive in a world that does in
fact have evil in it. Because omniscience
must exist as part of omnipotence and
omniscience and creatorhood cannot coexist
with free will, omnipotence is also not
compatible with creatorhood and
omnibenevolence. One cannot finesse this
all by ignoring omniscience or abandoning
omniscience if one tries to retain
attribute of omnipotence.
E. One can only dispose of omniscience by also
explicitly abandoning omnipotence. If god is
defined as being omnibenevolent then a god
that is also allegedly also creator of all
must be evil a direct contradiction. Since god
is defined as omniscient and omnibenevolent and
omnipotent, by major religions, a god that is
supposedly all three is obviously impossible.
Since omnipotence implies omniscience,
which cannot exist with omnibenevolence,
an omnipotent god is impossible.
F. Omnipotence drives us relentlessly to the
claims god nmust be omniscient and thus to
the conclusion god cannot be anything but the
source of all evil and thus is evil. Thus
generating internal contradictions to claimed
attributes of the class of omni-everything
gods.
G. Omnipotence and omnibenevolence then, cannot
coexist together. A class of gods claiming
to be both is impossible.
2. CREATORHOOD OF GOD
F. One may be tempted then to abandon the idea god
created all. But that creates some very strong
logical problems also.
G. If god is omnipotent, he can create all. Or
modify any other creation he does not himself
create. No other being or process may create
something god could not modify, because of the
power of his omnipotence.
H. So if for purposes of argument, we claim the
Universe was not created by god, he could,
being omnipotent, change that creation for
his own purposes, that of creating good due
to his attribute of omnibenevolence.
We are back to the problem of evil again, he
could change creation such that no evil John
Smiths can exist.
I. If not he then is sole and only cause for
existence of all evil.
If god is omnibenevolent and omnipotent he
still must modify any creations he did not
himself create to destroy evil, if he can
do so. So claiming god did not create all
does not save the concept of an omnipotent,
omnibenevolent god. It cannot avoid the
problem of evil.
J. Omniscience means we cannot dodge the problem
of evil by stating god did not create the
Universe even if one wished to, nor by limiting
his creatorhood, for example saying god did not
create the original material of the Universe,
but used it as a building material.
J. Thus to get rid of the creator problem, we must
explicitly abandon it all and totally. Only by
doing so could one get around the problem of
creatorhood and omniscience. But if we say god
cannot either create the Universe or modify it
as he finds it, we drop omniscience also,
explicitly. God then turns out not to be
creator of all nor omnipotent as a priori
defined, a contradiction disproving that
a priori defined omni-everything creator god.
K. If evil exists because god could change the
Universe he did not create, and he fails to do
so, then all evil exists solely because
of knowing and personal choices god makes.
L. God being omnipotent cannot be controlled by
any other process or other entities. He may
modify any works or creations made by them.
M. If god cannot change creations of others, or
the pre-existing materials of the Universe,
omnipotence in not an attribute of god as
claimed a priori.
M. Omnipotence and creatorhood thus are entangled
in a manner that makes it hard to abandon the
doctrine god created all and if one does, one
must likewise abandon claims of omnipotence.
3. PRE-EXISTING MATTER AND A PRE-EXISTING
UNIVERSE.
A. The Greek writer Hesiod in his Theogony, starts
with a Universe that is a chaotic void. This
void, through the mysterious property of
emanation, created the Earth and then from the
Earth, first generation of gods, the Titans, who
in their turn created the Olympians gods who
eventually displace the Titans as rulers of the
world.
B. Likewise, some theologians see Genesis as
representing god creating the world out of a
similar void, a primordial sea god did not
himself create, but used as raw material for
his creations. God's existence is not explained.
C. This idea god did not create all still would
not absolve an omnipotent god from responsibility
for evil. The biblical god if he did not create
the Universe and its component materials used them
as he pleased. If that god is omnipotent, then he
bears all responsibility for the world he did
create out of pre-existing material. Whether
this god is said to be eternal or like Hesiod's
Titans was somehow emanated from the chaos of
the void does not materially change any arguments
involving omnipotence, omniscience or
omnibenevolence, if god is said to have these
attributes.
4. God is allegedly all powerful, omnipotent.
Thus there is nothing more powerful than god. No
entity can create anything god cannot change or
modify. Thus any claims that possibly something
exists that may account for evil that was not
god's creation is impossible. God remains then
responsible for all and the problem of evil
cannot be solved by saying there are things that
outside of god, create evil.
5. Thus a few various possible dodges:
A. Omnipotence and omniscience and omnibenevolence
thoroughly contradict each other.
B. Dropping omnibenevolence or omniscience
destroys claimed omnipotence
C. Dropping the claim god created all does not
solve the problem of evil.
D. Limiting god's creatorship does not solve the
problems of evil.
F. If we say god is omnipotent but did not create
all, he still may modify what he did not
create and thus the problem of evil still
remains.
G. Since he is all powerful, there is no power
that can create anything god cannot modify
to account for evil not from god or outside
his control.
Omnipotence and omnibenevolence are not
compatible and cannot be saved by simple dodges.
************************************************
--
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
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| User: "Dana" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
23 Sep 2006 10:43:05 AM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12h9c604bqljs75@corp.supernews.com...
IS THERE A GOD? NO.
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER PART 2
As another atheist proves that atheism is a belief system. A belief system
that may be based on incorrect notions, but a belief system none-the-less.
THE CLASS OF OMNI-EVERTHING CREATOR GODS
DISPROVEN.
1. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNISCIENCE
C. Thus if god is omnipotent, and created all,
free will is impossible because creation
and omniscience rule out free will
Incorrect.
God gave all his creatures free will. God does not know what choices his
creatures will make, but God knows which choices were made.
I. If not he then is sole and only cause for
existence of all evil.
No, man is the cause of evil
Your whole article is based on a false assumption, hence the entire article
is incorrect in regards to who or what God is.
But then this is the belief of atheism we are talking about, and that alone
shows it cannot be trusted in regards to who or what God is.
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| User: "wcb" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
23 Sep 2006 02:34:31 PM |
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Dana wrote:
As another atheist proves that atheism is a belief system. A belief
system that may be based on incorrect notions, but a belief system
none-the-less
I use the claims about god as found by revelation in revealed books, bible,
Quran et al.
These are not my claims, these are basic claims of religions themselves as
derived from proclaimed revelations.
I simply show the claimed attrubutes of god are nor workable as
claimed.
Atheism has beliefs about the world, which are not derived from
revelation or ancient tall tale filled books or lying prophets.
It is based on reason. In this case, god as claimed simply is impossible
and so it is warranted belief to know god is impossible.
Belief for Atheism is derived from testable facts.
A god that is good, creates all, and also is either omniscient
or omnipotent is impossible.
*****************************************************
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
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| User: "Dana" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
23 Sep 2006 03:11:08 PM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hb33nj6mb67ee@corp.supernews.com...
Dana wrote:
As another atheist proves that atheism is a belief system. A belief
system that may be based on incorrect notions, but a belief system
none-the-less
I use the claims about god as found by revelation in revealed books,
bible,
Quran et al.
You did no such thing. You used your own opinions about other religions,
without even understanding those other religions.
These are not my claims, these are basic claims of religions themselves as
derived from proclaimed revelations.
Incorrect, they are your own incorrect assumptions about other religions.
Assumptions based on ignorance of those religions.
I simply show the claimed attrubutes of god are nor workable as
claimed.
No, you showed how little you know of those religions
Atheism has beliefs about the world,
Which you proved already. So now your atheist pals can no longer say atheism
is not a belief system.
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| User: "Jos Flachs" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
23 Sep 2006 08:44:34 PM |
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On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 07:43:05 -0800, "Dana" <raff242@yahoo.com> wrote:
Incorrect.
God gave all his creatures free will. God does not know what choices his
creatures will make, but God knows which choices were made.
So the tiger makes a conscious choice to eat goats, rather than attack
strawberries?
Cancer cells make a conscious choice to eat a human body, rather than
float in the human bowels and do something less malicious.
I. If not he then is sole and only cause for
existence of all evil.
No, man is the cause of evil
Your whole article is based on a false assumption, hence the entire article
is incorrect in regards to who or what God is.
Then let your gods come forward and educate us poor unbelievers. We
don't need you to do that.
But then this is the belief of atheism we are talking about, and that alone
shows it cannot be trusted in regards to who or what God is.
I'm bald. What's my hair color?
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
22 Sep 2006 11:01:07 PM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12h9c604bqljs75@corp.supernews.com...
IS THERE A GOD? NO.
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER PART 2
THE CLASS OF OMNI-EVERTHING CREATOR GODS
DISPROVEN.
1. OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNISCIENCE
A. Omnipotence is a special sort of attribute, of
all god's alledged attributes the most
important, because from that attribute you
can derive others attributes, including
omniscience.
You can but most religions don't.
Most religions do not define omnipotence in the special fashion that the
church adopted due to the special combination of poor biblical scholarship
and hellenistic philosophy.
So above you have a special case applying only to some judeo-christian
traditions and not to Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc, etc.
So your argument does not apply to your essay's title at all.
If one says for purposes of
argument god is omnipotent, one is also
implying god is also omniscient.
Not necessarily.
B. If god is omnipotent, god must also
specifically have omniscience because if
he does not have omniscience, one
cannot claim omnipotence as an attribute.
Sure one can. Only one special case of omnipotence cannot be claimed.
C. Thus if god is omnipotent, and created all,
free will is impossible because creation
and omniscience rule out free will as was
shown in part 1.
That was not shown in part 1. Part 1 showed you had a flawed arguement.
D. Omnipotence and omnibenevolence are thus
mutually exclusive in a world that does in
fact have evil in it.
You haven't shown that to be true.
E. One can only dispose of omniscience by also
explicitly abandoning omnipotence.
Again, you haven't demonstrated that.
F. Omnipotence drives us relentlessly to the
claims god nmust be omniscient and thus to
the conclusion god cannot be anything but the
source of all evil and thus is evil.
Omnipotence doesn't "drive us" so much as your flawed definition of it
drives you, hence your conclusions don't follow.
2. CREATORHOOD OF GOD
F. One may be tempted then to abandon the idea god
created all. But that creates some very strong
logical problems also.
None you've demonstrated.
G. If god is omnipotent, he can create all.
non sequitur.
J. Omniscience means we cannot dodge the problem
of evil by stating god did not create the
Universe even if one wished to
strawman argument. Not every theodicy makes such a claim.
J. Thus to get rid of the creator problem, we must
explicitly abandon it all and totally.
non-sequitur. You haven't shown this at all.
3. PRE-EXISTING MATTER AND A PRE-EXISTING
UNIVERSE.
A. The Greek writer Hesiod in his Theogony, starts
with a Universe that is a chaotic void. This
void, through the mysterious property of
emanation, created the Earth and then from the
Earth, first generation of gods, the Titans, who
in their turn created the Olympians gods who
eventually displace the Titans as rulers of the
world.
B. Likewise, some theologians see Genesis as
representing god creating the world out of a
similar void, a primordial sea god did not
himself create, but used as raw material for
his creations. God's existence is not explained.
So?
C. This idea god did not create all still would
not absolve an omnipotent god from responsibility
for evil.
But you've made no sensible argument concerning that in the first place, so
it hardly matters even if it is necessarily true. And you haven't shown
that.
4. God is allegedly all powerful, omnipotent.
Only in a few traditions.
5. Thus a few various possible dodges:
Even your dodges are strawman.
Omnipotence and omnibenevolence are not
compatible and cannot be saved by simple dodges.
Neither can you fatuous arguments.
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| User: "wcb" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
23 Sep 2006 02:13:12 PM |
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CAN GOD BE DISPROVEN?
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - YES
STRONG ATHEISMS PROGRAM
Key to disproving god is the concept of classes of gods.
Consider the class of omni-everything creator gods, the OEC
class of gods. This class can be abstracted out from the gods
of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
These religions depend on revelation, bible and quran.
These books explicitly claim god created all, and is omnipotent,
all good and omniscient. But these claims soon contradict each
other. A god that creates all and is omniscient destroys free
will and makes god creator of all moral evil acts, which
contradicts claims of gods love for us, mercy, omnibenevolence
and more. Omnipotence soon creates problems,for example and
omnipotent god must be outside of time and thus there is no past
or future for god. Since he creates all at once, again free will
is impossible and god creates all man's acts to the smallest details,
omnigenesis.
Using a small handfull of claims made for these gods, they
can be debunked. And we know why specifically.
1. God is personal, god has consciousness 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.
These small handful of attributes destroy viablity of
the class of omni-everything creator gods.
We need not consider other possible attributes, and out
of the thousands of claims made for god, if these few assertions
allow us to debunk god, we need not bother with other assertions.
We star out with bible and Quran and note assertions made for
these gods. We note this small handful create impossible contradictions
showing these gods cannot exist.
We note that if we abstract this out to a general class of OEC gods,
no OEC god that has these characteristics is possible.
We thus do not have to worry about other OEC gods, or chasing
them down one by one to be exhaustive in name of being exhaustively
complete. Any god with these OEC characteristics is impossible,
known or unknown.
God of Sikhs, Bahis, and others, are impossible also because they
have these OEC claims explicitly made for their god. Any gods we
do not know about that have these assertions made for that god
is automatically debunked.
This general principle means if we can debunk a broad class of gods,
then we automatically debunk all gods with these characteristics.
This is obviously far more efficient than debunking gods one by one.
The next issue is to sort out possible gods by broad classes
that can be debunked as efficiently as possible using broad
characteristics, small in number. This it turns out
is not particularly hard, only about 25 classes of gods and
god-like ideas are needed.
Further more, these form a sort of natural hierarchy.
At top, supergods, OEC gods and working our way down
to nature gods, animism, and finally down to supernatural
creatures such as fairies and leprechauns.
Once these general concepts are understood, it is then possible
for strong atheism to systematically attempt to debunk all gods,
class by class.
Mapping. Sometimes a class of gods maps to another. OEC gods
are debunked, but there are some secondary claims worth noting
from a class perspective.
A god that is transcendent, that is in a supernatural realm
apart from this physical world is different from
a maya god that dreams this illusionary world of matter
and ourselves. But all claim to have created all,
to be all powerful and all good. Thus all fall to the same
contradictions. A transcendent god that creates all at once,
omnigenesis, destroying free will and creating all moral evils,
is no different from a Maya god that merely dreams the same reality.
Immanent gods hat are the basis and sustaining cause of all
creation likewise are debunked as they claim to be omni-everything,
creator of all an omnigenesis is the same result.
Thus transcendent gods, immanent gods and maya gods map
OEC gods and are impossible.
Supergods. Gods that are explicitly supergods can have certain
assertions made for them. A god that is greater than anything
imaginable would be a god that is not limited by logic. A god
that creates logic. But if a god that is so unlimited is also all
good and hates evil, there is no excuse for existence of evil.
Such a god could easily eliminate all evil, having no logic limits.
But evil exists, such a god cannot exist.
This means a real god must at best be limited by logic.
And that needs to be explained. A god that is limited
cannot be omnipotent.
So OEC gods are destroyed by the concept of supergods.
This is a case of a class of gods the self destructs and
that destruction leaves big problems for lesser classes of gods.
No greater class than supergods can exist.
So we see Supergods, OEC class of gods, transcendent, maya, immanent
classes of gods are impossible.
We need not waste much time considering anything beyond the
small number of claims meant to destroy these classes as viable
classes of gods.
Metaphysical gods of Greeks and philosophers do not work.
Aristotle's prime mover has been debunked by cosmology, the big
bang and turbulence explain the movement of matter in the Universe.
No prime mover needed.
So much for #1 of Aquinas's 5 ways.
No creator of a metaphysical system has outguessed nature yet.
The layest version of metaphysical god classes, process theology
likewise came a cropper. Alfred North Whitehead metaphysically
defined his own physics and guessed wrong. As a result his
designed metaphysical god does not work with modern physics
and is not viable.
Going down the ladder we find Pantheism.
Deism.
Nature-tutelary gods.
Allegorical gods.
Millions of myth cycle gods.
Myth cycle gods map to either OEC gods, or nature gods
or allegorical gods. Thus all are easily debunked.
We start looking at ideas like spiritism/animism.
Souls. Apotheosis of humans to a god like state.
Lares, pentates and ancestor spirits.
And down to animism, every plant, rock, tree has its spirit.
Fairies, pookahs, imps, djinn, and other supernatural beings.
There are only so many broad classes of beings from supergods
to leprechauns.
And we have metaphysical considerations such as monism, dualism,
monism as idealism/maya gods, or as atomism, matter is supreme.
Stoics and others believed in monism, atomism, but matter was of
course kinds such as found in the world, and finer types of matter
that made up souls and gods. Can we eliminate supernaturalism
logically?
We have to account of logic and physics and the regularity of the
natural world and these implications for gods. Logic is particularly
a problem for OEC gods and supergods.
This then is Strong Atheism's program, to systematically as possible
sort gods out into classes that can be disproven with the simplest
and most economical assertions that can be used to describe a class.
By showing gods and related ideas are not viable, strong atheism
puts us on the path to truth and reason.
Strong atheism needs to explore secondary claims. What is logic
and what does that say about possibility of gods? What do we mean
by supernatural?
This is purely destructive, critical. It makes no arguments for
any particular science, or much anything else. It will imply some
metaphysical ideas, naturalism, that logic counts, that occultism,
supernatural religion, mysticism and other failed metaphysical
world views lead only to error.
If god can be disproven, strong atheism debunks tertiary claims,
creationism, laws against homosexuals being given to Moses by god
and more. What is left to replace them is not argued much here, it is
good enough to remove gods from considerations of such things.
Strong atheism then debunks gods to clear the way for correct,
true, naturally thinking.
(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
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
23 Sep 2006 04:35:29 PM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hb1rcrr4eka15@corp.supernews.com...
CAN GOD BE DISPROVEN?
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - YES
STRONG ATHEISMS PROGRAM
Key to disproving god is the concept of classes of gods.
And since you can't disprove the non-omnipotent class, your "program" fails.
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
23 Sep 2006 09:43:02 PM |
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"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hb1rcrr4eka15@corp.supernews.com...
CAN GOD BE DISPROVEN?
STRONG ATHEISM'S ANSWER - YES
STRONG ATHEISMS PROGRAM
Key to disproving god is the concept of classes of gods.
That's more like the key to the failure of your argument.
To date, you've been unable to disprove the possible existence of a
non-omnipotent god.
Q.E.D.
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
24 Sep 2006 12:33:12 AM |
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Gandalf Grey wrote:
Hello,
I am Richard Hanson. I have total contempt for you,
my reader. Let me explain. I have been harassing a
man named William C. Barwell. Barwell posts a lot of
essays on strong Atheism that are rather good, and I
hate him for being smarter than me.
I thus pretend to critique his essays on these subjects,
but it is harassment, not criticism.
I don't care if you waste time with my crap. I have contempt
for you, you are merely a tool for me to harass Barwell.
What do I mean by this? I spew out any old crap off the top of
my head and spam, spam, spam Barwell with it anytime he posts.
He corrects my errors. Or I should say, he tries.
I will not be corrected, because this is not about debate,
it is about harassment. Malicious harassment.
I do not care if you waste precious time with my errors,
my mistakes, my malicious strawmen, out and out lies and
stupidities. I never will be corrected, I just spam away.
Here is a good example of what I mean:
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.
Here is Barwell's essay...
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.
Obviously, the gods of Bible, Quran and Vedas are EXPLICITLY
omniscient.
Why would I post an old canned spam that ignores Barwell's real claims
and essays rewrirtten to end my malicious distortions and lies?
Because I have contempt for you and don't think you are smart enough to
notice I am a liar who is harassing Barwell with crap I refuse to correct
despite repeat corrections by Barwell.
I have contempt for you and the very issue of reasoned debate.
I have contempt for the concept of making a vast error and correcting
myself when called on it because I don't think you deserve rational,and
intellectually honest discussion of issues.
I am a net bully plain and simple.
I have a long history of that.
Gandalf Grey, net bully and contempous net kook.
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? Barwell DEBUNKED |
24 Sep 2006 12:33:58 AM |
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Gandalf Grey wrote:
Hello,
I am Richard Hanson. I have total contempt for you,
my reader. Let me explain. I have been harrasing a
man names William C. Barwell. Barwell posts a lot of
essays on strong Atheism that are rather good, and I
hate him for being smarter than me.
I thus pretend to critique his essays on these subjects,
but it is harassment, not criticism.
I don't care if you waste time with my crap. I have contempt
for you, you are merely a tool for me to harass Barwell.
What do I mean by this? I spew out any old crap off the top of
my head and spam, spanm, spam Barwell with it anytime he posts.
He corrects my errors. Or I should say, he tries.
I will not be corrected, because this is not about debate,
it is about harassment. Malicious harassment.
I do not care if you waste precisous time with my errors,
my mistakes, my malicious strawmen, out and out lies and
stupidities. I never will be corrected, I just spam away.
Here is a good example of what I mean:
A. God is said by theologians to have created the Universe
and all in that Universe.
Not by all theologians.
Again, this is a misleading statement.
here is Barwells current essay.
*****************************************************
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.
My inital spammed statement is a distortion of an old essay
I will not stop 'critiquing' unfairly despite the fact it
was misleading the way I posted.
The old statement was about OEC gods, one of a series of essay.
I pretended it was not one of a series so I could distort Barwell's
claims. Barwell rewrite that essay to stop me from doing that,
so I simply spam the same old 'critique'. I pretend the
new essay was not written and post the old distortions because
I think you are too stupid to notice.
I will not be corrected because this is not about debate or
issues, it is about lies, distortions, games and harssment.
I have contempt for you and by posting old debunked lies,
I show might contempt for my readers.
***** you, now back to harassing Barwell.
Richard Hanson
.
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| User: "wcb" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
24 Sep 2006 12:25:20 AM |
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Hello,
I am Richard Hanson. I have total contempt for you,
my reader. Let me explain. I have been harassing a
man named William C. Barwell. Barwell posts a lot of
essays on strong Atheism that are rather good, and I
hate him for being smarter than me.
I thus pretend to critique his essays on these subjects,
but it is harassment, not criticism.
What do I mean by this? I spew out any old crap off the top of
my head and spam, spam, spam Barwell with it anytime he posts.
He corrects my errors. Or I should say, he tries.
I will not be corrected, because this is not about debate,
it is about harassment. Malicious harassment.
I do not care if you waste precious time with my errors,
my mistakes, my malicious strawmen, out and out lies and
stupidities. I never will be corrected, I just spam away.
Here is a good example of what I mean:
1. MORE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
Does god create the rules, the laws, the logic of
the Universe or not?
Hanson:
Why? What does that have to do with the necessary existence of God?
See? I don't even let the argument develop, I just rant.
THE ATTRIBUTES AND NATURE OF GOD IN LIGHT OF THE
ABOVE EXAMINATION OF GOD
Thus the idea god is omnipotent, omnibenevolent,
and creator of all, clash again and mutually
self-destruct over the issue of evil's existence.
Hanson:
"Of course they don't."
Of course they do, but being an ***** with an agenda, harassment,
I will never admit even though it is in fact an old concept that
people have been using for years. I have contempt for you reader.
I thing you are too stupid to notice that.
Hanson:
"1.None of these attributes are necessary to the existence of God.
2.Only Omnipotence and Omnibenevolence clash over the issue of evil's
existence.
3.Nowhere have you shown anything else."
Of course here I am lying as I always do. I don't give a a crap.
Never did, never will.
All religions claim god have these attributes. I will insult
your intelligence reader, because I think you are too stupid
to remember that. It is not a matter of what is "necessary".
That is a strawman, the issue is, what do the religions of
4.3 billion people claim.
I think you are so stupid you won't think of that.
I have contempt for you and Barwell.
Barwell has indeed shown that and corrected my lies a
hundred times. I sneer and refuse to be corrected because
this is about harassing Barwell, not about rational debate,
which I don't give a crap about. I can't handle that anyway.
This raises serious questions on the nature of the
Universe that cannot be as Grand Theology claims
it is.
Hanson:
That may be but you haven't shown it to be true.
Well, Barwell has but again, this is about harassment, not truth.
The class of omni-everything, creator
gods cannot exist as asserted.
Unproven as I've already demonstrated in dozens of posts.
Actually, Barwell has, his Omnigenesis is dead on, but being a
hateful senile net harasser kook,I will be the last to admit it.
A. We have shown god cannot have created the
Universe.
No you haven't. And once again, you're pulling the same dishonest trick
you've pulled from the first. You make claims which you don't prove, then
you go on to compound your error by pretending your original claim has
proved more than you initially said it would.
Actually Barwell has, again, read the Omnigenesis essay.
I can't write good stuff like that and it drives me insane
so I harass Barwell, because I am mentally unbalanced.
Here I just ranted bull doo doo, I didn't show any facts wrong, I
didn't mention facts, I posted hand wave doo doo.
Read Barwell and see the real facts.
I am just a jerk.
HANSON
1. You make fallacious claims.
2. You make no attempt to prove them.
3. When criticized you insist that you have proved them.
4. You go on to insist that they prove more than you claimed they would
prove.
5. When the criticism gets too strong, you backpedal your claims and revise
your comments to pretend that they now are more narrow.
6. You then trot out the original debunked arguments.
7. And you then go on to insist that these arguments, once again, prove
more
than you said they would.
This is of course a lie. Barwell proves everything he says with
relentless logic.
He starts with bible and Quran et al, take the proof texts, shows
this is what these religions of 4.3 billions believe and shows it is
impossible with simple logic.
I Richard Hanson, lie about it all because I am an envious fraud.
Id like to be thought of as a truly great intellect but I am going
senile and can't match Barwell, hell, I can't match a hamster at thinking.
Damn I hate Barwell. So I am going to harass him, because I am a jerk.
*****************************************************
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
--
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
.
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| User: "Gandalf Grey" |
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| Title: Re: Is Atheism viable? |
24 Sep 2006 01:12:27 PM |
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A *Homage*
"wcb" <wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in message
news:12hc5kct4poht52@corp.supernews.com...
Hello,
I am William Barwell. I have total contempt for you,
my readers, in fact everything that is not me.
Let me explain.
Once upon a time, I was stupid enough to announce that I could easily come
up with an argument that proves that no god of any kind can possibly exist.
Since I really have no idea what I'm talking about, I turned to google, like
I usually do, and tried to boilerplate a bunch of essays together than would
make it look like I knew something about all this without my having any
actual knowledge at all. So, I assembled a bunch of academic-sounding
***** arguments that were really nothing but old arguments against
orthodox christian notions of god. Then I said that these arguments were
'new and improved' and that these arguments actually proved that NO god
could exist, and I bragged about how I was brilliant and had discovered
things that no one else had discovered and was going to write a book and so
on.
Well, wouldn't you just know it. A couple of people on the group saw right
through my *****. One of them, Gandalf Grey, started to post detailed
critiques of my garbage arguments. Grey actually dissected my arguments
rather than swallowing them whole. Grey, along with some others, raised
criticisms and actually expected me to defend my claims.
Now you should know at this point that I'm suffering from what all my
psychologists call "malignant narcissism." When I'm not on my meds [which
make it hard for me to use the keyboard and lead to the nearly incoherent
typo-filled screeds I sometimes post]
.....err? What was I saying?
Anyway, I'm a narcissist and I have this phony illusion of myself as a
philosopher king who all you idiots out there ought to bow down to. I've
actually said this online. I have nothing but contempt for the
"shitmonkeys" "idiots" and "morons" who post to AA....except for the two or
three people who willingly bow down to me and drink my Kool Aid. Well, this
Gandalf Grey and some others refused to bow down. They expected me to
explain my claims. They expected me to be able to support my own arguments.
Well, they had to go!
I started out spamming my arguments dozens of times a day while threatening
that I was going to spam them if I didn't get my way [that's a trick I
picked up from the fundamentalist posters], but that didn't work. I posted
long really obscene personal attacks against Grey and others and that didn't
work. I posted a phony "FAQ" about Gandalf Grey that I stole [I steal
everything I post] from a known right wing net-troll who's right next to
being prosecuted on criminal charges for criminal stalking, and that didn't
work. I even took to drawing obscene pictures [actually I stole them too]
and posting them on the net and even that didn't work.
So now, I'm forced to pretend I'm Gandalf Grey and posting forged "letters"
from him to the net.
I never once stopped to think that spamming this kind of garbage to the net
is going to lose me what's left of the group. I never stopped to think that
auto-spam is going to lead to even more people killfiling me for good. I
never once stopped to think that a supposed genius like myself wouldn't be
the kind of person that would call his opponen | | | | | | |
