Ah, I see, we're supposed to believe in the qualifications of your chosen authority on faith. Like you do. Hmm, that sure sounds familiar... — Jake

It's the same qualifications you have, I'm sure, or else you'd have a lot of contradictory ideas floating around in that head of yours.

All unfalsifiable claims have the same amount of evidence - none. Therefore, they should all be given the same amount of weight - none. I'm sure you don't just go believing in every claim made by some human being. What makes one claim by one human (or several), that has no evidence to support it, better or more believable than another claim that has no evidence to support it? Isn't evidence that makes one claim better than another?

I haven't claimed there is a God. Thus, I take no responsibility to prove any of that. — Jake

So, you're arguing my point. I haven't claimed there is a God either, so why is it my responsibility to prove anything if it isn't also your responsibility? :brow:

Harry the discussion starts with an If - then statement - concerning the nature of God. These are quite normal - If God is X then God cant be Y - therefore there is no God. It is a very fair question to all of these arguments for someone to ask those making the claim to support the basis for their proposition they can say anything at all about the nature of God. — Rank Amateur

Right. So, it is up to the claimant to define what it is their term refers too. What does the string of symbols, "god", refer to? Some religions call the universe, "god". If this is the case, then we don't have a disagreement about the nature of "god", we have a disagreement about the term we use to refer to it. Why would one use "god" when we have "universe"?

All unfalsifiable claims have the same amount of evidence - none. Therefore, they should all be given the same amount of weight - none. — Harry Hindu

This is human logic. Please prove that human logic is qualified to address any subject of any scale anywhere in all of reality, because that is the scope of God claims.

You're making an unwarranted leap from 1) the fact that human reason has proven itself very useful for very many things at human scale, to 2) the unexamined assumption that therefore human reason is qualified to examine any question, no matter how large the scale.

Theists often do the same thing. They will make an unwarranted leap from 1) the fact that holy books have provided comfort and meaning to billions of people over thousands of years, to 2) the unexamined assumption that therefore holy books are qualified to examine any question, no matter how large the scale.

It's the same process in both cases. A leap from a well established fact, to wild speculation.

How you experience this observation should tell you whether you are a person of reason or an ideologist.

If you are a person of reason you will realize that you have nothing to build atheism upon, and nothing to build theism on, and you will become a man without a country, so to speak.

If you are an ideologist you will reject all this with a wave of the hand and go back to chanting positions you've already chained your ego to. In this case, you will find yourself competing with theist ideologists who mastered the ideology dance thousands of years before you were born.

I haven't claimed there is a God either, so why is it my responsibility to prove anything if it isn't also your responsibility? — Harry Hindu

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but haven't you been spewing sarcastic scorn upon anything theist in every other post you've added to the forum? It seems you're making a huge claim. It seems you can't prove any of it.

Sorry, no personal disrespect intended, but you know, reason, like faith, can be very inconvenient.

think we are talking past each other - you are either missing my point, or answering the question you want to answer and not the one asked - let me try to be clearer with a classic example.

The Atheist claims - If God is the 3 O's - then God should not permit evil - therefor there is no God

My point is that neither the Atheist making the argument, or the theist attacking the argument - have any basis at all to make any proposition at all about the nature of God - All such propositions from both the theist and the atheist have no basis in reason - and are all propositions based on faith.

All such propositions from both the theist and the atheist have no basis in reason - and are all propositions based on faith. — Rank Amateur

And the point of this mutual faith based operation is to try to make reality smaller, within our grasp. Very understandable and very human, but...

Reality would actually be far more interesting, wonderous, spectacular, and inspiring if it is way to large, complex and sublime etc for us ever to be able to grasp.

Consider an example, if you will. Think of all the times you've heard the story about the couple who fell in love, were so excited to be married, but then got to know each other so well that it became boring, so they gave up and quit. Many couples struggle to keep the mystery going because it is the mystery, the unknown, the ignorance, which keeps the project alive. Once everything is known, once there is nothing new to learn, once you've seen it all before, been there and done all that, the dance can be over.

Maybe it's wiser to skip all the fantasy knowings and just let reality be vast and mysterious beyond comprehension? Maybe trying to make reality smaller is a mistake driven by fear?

Common definitions of "being" include simply "the quality or state of having existence" or "something that actually exists."

think we are talking past each other - you are either missing my point, or answering the question you want to answer and not the one asked - let me try to be clearer with a classic example.

The Atheist claims - If God is the 3 O's - then God should not permit evil - therefor there is no God

My point is that neither the Atheist making the argument, or the theist attacking the argument - have any basis at all to make any proposition at all about the nature of God - All such propositions from both the theist and the atheist have no basis in reason - and are all propositions based on faith. — Rank Amateur

This is ridiculous. Jake's posts are even more ridiculous.

"The Atheist claims - If God is the 3 O's - then God should not permit evil - therefor there is no God"
isn't a statement of faith. It is a statement of logic.

Atheists don't make claims about God. If they did, they wouldn't be atheists!

Someone makes a claim. Other people ask questions about the claim because the claim isn't coherent on it's face. When the person making the claim can't answer the questions, or can't be consistent, then why would faith be the reason the other is rejecting the claim?

What you and Jake are saying is that everything - all knowledge - is faith-based. If that is the case, then there is no such thing as reason or logic, as those would just be forms of faith. If faith is all there is, then why are you on this forum trying to be reasonable? Just make your claims and leave, or don't make any claims at all. Everyone will believe their own subjective things based on faith and you won't be able to reason with anyone.

Atheists don't make claims about God. If they did, they wouldn't be atheists! — Harry Hindu

Saying if god is x then god y. Is making a claim about the nature of god. Logical or not, it is a claim about the nature of god

My very simple question is what is your rationale argument that you or me or anyone for supporting that we can say anything at all about what god is or is not

Saying if god is x then god y. Is making a claim about the nature of god. Logical or not, it is a claim about the nature of god — Rank Amateur

And I already said that atheists don't make those types of claims or else they wouldn't be atheists.

My very simple question is what is your rationale argument that you or me or anyone for supporting that we can say anything at all about what god is or is not — Rank Amateur

Only theists make claims about the nature of god, so that would be a question you ask them, not an atheist.

I only attempted to say anything about god when I was a theist. Then, I started to question my beliefs, not make more claims. At that point, you could call me agnostic. I was no longer a theist making claims about the nature of god. I was questioning those claims.

Now, I'm an atheist because other theists couldn't answer my questions consistently. When the claims of theists are more consistent, that would give me good reason to take their claims seriously.

Your problem is that you think that atheists make claims about the nature of god. That is a contradiction.

Your problem is that you think that atheists make claims about the nature of god. That is a contradiction. — Harry Hindu

The argument from evil is an atheist argument that is based on the nature of god.

The argument that started this thread is an atheist argument that is based on saying something about the nature of god

My point is, that neither theist or atheist have any basis to say anything at all about the nature of god and any argument either makes that uses the nature of god as a proposition is outside reason and is faith based

The argument from evil is an atheist argument that is based on the nature of god. — Rank Amateur

No, it is based on the theists' claims about the nature of god. What they are saying is that IF the theist claim is true, then...

The argument that started this thread is an atheist argument that is based on saying something about the nature of god — Rank Amateur

No, it was based on some theist's claims about the nature of god. What they are saying is that IF the theist claim is true, then...

My point is, that neither theist or atheist have any basis to say anything at all about the nature of god and any argument either makes that uses the nature of god as a proposition is outside reason and is faith based — Rank Amateur

My point is that only theists make claims about the nature of god.

My point is that only theists make claims about the nature of god. — Harry Hindu

Theists make positive ones, atheists make negative ones

By the way I know of no reasonable theist argument that ends with a conclusion therefore there is a 3 O God. All such theist claims such as this are based on faith

Let me make one try putting this in form

P1. There is such a thing as the argument from evil

P2. This argument end with the conclusion “there is no god

P3. This argument is made by the atheist

P4. This argument contains propositions about the nature of god. Notable for sake of argument that god is the 3 O’s. Also that if so god is allowing evil

P5. The entire logic of the atheist argument from evil is based on a contradiction in the nature of god

Conclusion: Atheists base arguments on the nature of god

Harry - if you want to hold the conventional atheist claim that they make no claim. The only argument you are allowed to make against any theist is:

I don’t believe in God. That is it. And the second you refuse to justify that position with reason. It is no longer a reasoned belief. It is now a faith based belief.

Common definitions of "being" include simply "the quality or state of having existence" or "something that actually exists." — Terrapin Station

I didnt get a notification for this, for some reason.
Im aware of that usuage, but it seems pretty clear that Rank was using it differently. “A necessary being” was how he put it. That is different that even just “necessary being”, which would be more in line with the usuage you pointed out but still (imo) a pretty strong implication that he was talking about a being with some kind of personage.

Yeah, I agree that it's almost always used with a religious connotation, but it wouldn't have to be. Simply arguing for a necessary being shouldn't be sufficient for that. Folks should have to do extra work to support that the necessary being would be anything like a god and not just a physical field or whatever.

Let me make one try putting this in form

P1. There is such a thing as the argument from evil — Rank Amateur

I'm going to stop you right there.

The argument from evil is dependent upon a theist's claim that a god is good - about the nature of god. No claim about the nature of god - no argument from evil is necessary.

Conclusion: Atheists base arguments on the nature of god — Rank Amateur

For the last time, atheists base arguments on the claims of theists.

Indeed, that is why I tried making the distinction between first cause and a “being”.
People often try to masquerade the first cuase as a theistic argument when it actually is no more than a deistic argument.

I made you a formal argument with propositions and a conclusion. You made an emotional response. Show where the propositions are false or the conclusion does not follow

I don’t think I made any claim about the nature of the necessary being other than the definition of necessary being

Ok, when you say “necassary being”, are you talking about an entity, or a first cause? Do you mean “being” as in existing, or “being” as in “a being”?

I really have no clue what you are asking for there. If you can please define your terms, I would be happy to address what I agree or disagree with.

I made you a formal argument with propositions and a conclusion. You made an emotional response. Show where the propositions are false or the conclusion does not follow — Rank Amateur

No. You made a formal argument based on faulty prepositions. I already told you this. I questioned your first premise.

The argument from evil is dependent upon a theist's claim that a god is good - about the nature of god. No claim about the nature of god - no argument from evil is necessary. — Harry Hindu

You are just too dense to get it.

Lol, im trying to understand what YOU are saying.
I may not understand what you are intending by the word “being”, so I wanted to know in what sense you are intending the term. Do you understand what I mean by the two senses of the word “being”? “Being” as in ”a state of existing” or “being” as in “an entity”?

No. You made a formal argument based on faulty prepositions. I already told you this. I questioned your first premise. — Harry Hindu

Please, using reason and not opinion what proposition is false, and why

I have explained it and defined it a few time on here. Just not to your satisfaction. That is why I am asking your definitions to see where we disagree.

This is a great topic! Augustine talks a lot about God and Time in City of God. I cannot possibly describe it as he did. He says that God was before Time so always was in time, of course. His ideas of time stopping for us all was really scary. That is his basis for eternal Heaven and hell.....that time stops and you are trapped in timelessness.

God is understood to be changeless, and therefore timeless, but God is also understood to be the creator of time.

If God creates the physical world along with time, then God experiences a change - from existing alone to existing along with time.

Can anyone explain how God is the creator of time and remains changeless? — Walter Pound

I'm abit lazy, So I didn't read the rest of the comments, hence on the risk of repeating something already said:

Where does it say that god is the creator of time?
If I read genisis 1 it states:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

In the beginning of what?
Time? matter? existence?
I think it's most sensible to interpret it as "in the beginning of consciousness, God created the heaven and earth"
In wich heaven and earth are not nessesarily references to spacial locations, but rather to states of being. where earth references to the current state of being and heaven to the ideal state of being.

Hence to conclude that it must mean that god created the physical world seems rather silly to me, since I don't think that was the main concern of the people who wrote those lines.

Since god is also referred to as the light, I have no problem with god being timeless, since literal photons are timeless too according to einsteins theory of relativity. Since that tells us that the faster something moves, the slower time passes for that moving object, untill one reaches the ultimate speed, the speed of light, where time is so much slowed down that it stands still.

I think it's most sensible to interpret it as "in the beginning of consciousness, God created the heaven and earth" — Tomseltje

In what sense do you mean the beginning of consciousness? Do you mean once consciousness arose evolutionarily? Or something else?

In what sense do you mean the beginning of consciousness? Do you mean once consciousness arose evolutionarily? Or something else? — Terrapin Station

The beginning of human consciousness. One possible interpretation is as you say, evolutionary, but it can also be seen as developmental (as in how an individual becomes concscious somewhere between the point of fertillisation and their 5th year of life). Both ways seem to make sense, so perhaps both were intended.

So you'd say that either there's no creation of heaven and earth until humans, as a species, develop consciousness, or that there somehow keeps being no heaven and earth for each individual until they're about five years old?

The argument from evil is dependent upon a theist's claim that a god is good - about the nature of god. No claim about the nature of god - no argument from evil is necessary. — Harry Hindu

But a claim is made about the nature of God; that he is all powerful enough to prevent all evil. If God is good but not omnipotent, a universe that contains some evil is maybe the best we can expect (if God is not perfect)?

So taking a realistic view of God as a a non-perfect being then the problem of evil goes away. The amount of evil decreases with time as civilisation improves so things should work out OK in the end.