Atheism is inadequate because it is not worth dying for. — unenlightened

I wouldn't die for your god, either. It's not worth it.

Lawyers and judges believe in law and order despite, and because of, knowing that the world is chaotic and anarchic. — unenlightened

The world WOULD be chaotic and anarchic without law and order.

Doctors seek to preserve life, despite and because of knowing that all men are mortal. — unenlightened

I am not sure if all doctors have the same motivation to practice medicine. I see a lot of deaths in the United States that could have been prevented by proper medical care, which would have happened if the doctors actually practiced what YOU preach.

There is love. If you don't find it outside of God, it's not god's fault or the atheists'. Others do have love without involving god or the notion of a god image. You extrapolated from yourself, and at the same time admitted that you are not a loving person, or wouldn't be, if you did not believe in god. That is a pretty strong statement of your natural abilities and the lack of your inclination for compassion.

Iyy.

I am riled. I don't like to argue with blind fanatics who lose sight of logic, reason, and civility when they engage in their most sacred subject.

Really, please explain consciousness then LOL

We're waiting???? — 3017amen

As long as you explain first the unification theory between quantum mechanics and relativity theory.

Who the hell are you to tell me what to do? Are you my boss? No. So I do expect the courtesy and respect that you don't treat me like I were your subordinate.

Don't task me, please.

Paradoxes are not self-contradictions. You just showed the lack of your science education, @3017amen.

You're using rationalism to disprove EOG no?

And self reference unresolved paradox exist yes? — 3017amen

A-ah. No speaking in tongues around here, please.

Paradox is singular. Therefore your verb should have the form "exists".

I just discoved this thread. Should grow into big and juicy. The thread. This is the most fundamental disagreement on any philosophy board I've seen. All other arguments are footnotes to why Atheism is wrong, or why religionism is stupid.

P and-p describes how consciousness and subconsciousness works together no? — 3017amen

No.

Atheism primarily uses philosophical rationalism to justify their belief. — 3017amen

This is false. In my case, at least. I use rational thinking to prove TENETS, particular tenets, and the teaching of the Scriptures to prove they are wrong. I point at self-contradictions.

But a god belief I can't disprove. Nor can any theist prove a god existence.That is a futile task.

Now if you talk about the Bible, and the Christian god, it and his descriptions are so full of holes and self-contradictions that in my opinion only a fool (not an idiot, but a fool) would believe in the existence of a god Christianity describes.

Aside from that, I state that religions need to make scientific findings that are undeniable by even the most fundamental believers, compatible with the scriptures. The solution? Dumbing down the science teaching in the world's technologically most advanced nation, because it happens to be the largest body of most concentrated Christian believers. THIS IS ONE MORE REASON I FIGHT AGAINST RELIGIONISM.

A priori proofs only exist in atheist thinking when the atheist points at bible self-contradictions. In a way, the bible says "X is X and not X", and the astute atheist only has to have a superficial reading and he can point these a priori falsehoods out.

Easy does it.

I feel dirty and used. — Coben

"Been dazed and confused for so long it's not true... one day a woman never bothers with you... lots of people talkin'; few of dem noooo... the soul of the woman was created belowwwww..." (Guitar riff, guitar solo, drum)

Ah,... Nadia...

Did you get something from Nadia? — Hanover

Yes, @Hanover, I got the same message, sent by @Nadia.

By-the-by, have you noticed how she introduced herself as Natasha, but the message came from Nadia? I think it's a teamjob. One types the consonants, the other, the adverbs.

That's her. I remember her from Phil243 "Critique of the Pure Reason: The Cunning of Kant." She dropped out when the prof wanted her to shave her beard.

The latter. I had lengthy first hand experience. The cadres "induce" the subalterns to transfer their "affections" from the previous authority to them instead. It can be cloaked in all sorts of sentimentality, dynamism or superior-looking mystique but beware. The cadres will select individuals who are pliable enough "material" to represent a privileged element within the subalterns, initially making very sure to imply that it is the rest of us subalterns that are electing those. Hence the pretence at democracy. Further "elections" will be more contrived if they don't become less frequent. Dumbing down the system, and relying on the prevalence of a forelock-tugging mentality in the first place, are features.

These operatives and ringleaders wear the aura of semi “rehabilitated” IRA, or Italian revolutionaries, or Yaxley-Cummings “people” types. And they embed themselves everywhere. I mean everywhere. Religions, commerce. They render what we thought was hitherto proper authority, completely ineffective, no matter if there are still a few old-style seniors of attempted goodwill around. There is no recourse and there are no channels of responsibility-taking. — Fine Doubter

Are you talking about real life, or a computer game? I tend to believe the latter is the case. (Gramsci, subalterns, cadres, dumbingt the system, forelock-tugging, being features. All indicate non-reality. Unless I live a really sheltered life.)

Thanks, Islam. My answer is not changed although I read the questions again.

But please don't lose heart, only because I haven't heard of these. I am not very well read. Some other, better educated members may have something to say about your topic(s).

I am unaware of any philosophical analysis on performance, reflecton, and / or the neighbour.Other than his wife, whom I always wanted to bone, oh, what a performance it would be, but on the second reflection the sixth or seventh commandment keeps stopping me.

The best way, I think, is to describe the concept is in sets and subset. You have the set of God, within this set are other sets called subsets. Jesus, God the Father, and The Holy spirit. None of the subsets overlap. — hachit

I still don't get this. You say Jesus is god. Yet it is less than god. Because God has three subsets, which don't overlap. So Jesus does not overlap with Father does not overlap with Holy Spirit. So... if they are not overlapping, they are different. They are gods; yet they are different from each other... and yet there is one god. A ONE god can't be DIFFERENT from itself. If you insist on one god, then Jesus, Father, and the Holy Spirit must be overlapping. If they are gods (which you say they are) and are not overlapping, then the three form three different gods, with the fourth god being formed by their entire set.
Incongruent with logic. Your application of the set theory somehow was inadequate.

How can you believe in one god and three gods at the same time? I think you have to make up your mind, and design a totally different system of gods in your view.

What you say is not what you say, and what you not say is what you say. This is your belief.

You, and other Christians have to ask yourself: can I believe in something that all logic says is not possible to exist? If I can believe it, am I completely gone, or am I just denying the fact to myself that my belief makes no possible sense? If my god is not possible to be, who is the real god whom I have been falsely avoiding to worship because I have been too much wrapped up in NOT thinking my faith through?

Remember, our own conscious existence (and the nature thereof) is not coherent. — 3017amen

No, I can't remember that. If I am incoherent, I don't have a memory, do I? So if I don't remember that, I am incoherent, but I can't remember that I am incoherent, so I must be coherent. If I am coherent, as you say, then I must remember, but I don't remember, since I am incoherent, as you say.

Can you get me out of this infinite flip-flop switch, @3017amen? You put me in there, so you must rescue me too.

well let start by saying that there all God. — hachit

So we are back to the start. They are all god. And together they make one god. This means that they are all singularly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. So three make one -- much like my criticism precisely said, three of one something can't make one SAME something. There is more if there are three, yet you say the three are each the same as the sum of the three.

In effect, therefore, you say "1 + 1 + 1 = 1". At least this is how I read your first claim. If I misread it, or you wanted to say something different, then I apologize, and I humbly ask you to please clarify it for me.

In the rest of your post here in the last reply you make it clear, and you also admit, that you are oblivious to the characteristics of each god.

Your closing says

And the holy spirit is the divine power of God. — hachit

But the holy spirit is the god. (According to your first claim.) So the divine power is the divine power of the divine power? a bit of a recursive finite regress, with a meaning I can't comprehend. Also, you seem to sugget that Jesus and the Father are not the divine powers of god. That makes them less than god. So are they god, or not god? You have to make up your mind sometime sooner or later. If they are god, then they also are the divine power of god. If they are not god, then why the Holy Spirit having only this power?

God is omnipotent, all-powerful; therefore Jesus is all power ful, and so is the Father, since they are gods. But you say only the Holy Spirit is the divine power.

--------------

You said in your very first reply that this is very simple. Yet I am somehow confused; I am not so simple as to understand your concepts as you have penned them, @hachit.

Cartesian reasonings on the other hand tends to be way more dualistic in intrinsic nature where mind is unequivocally separated metaphysically from the body/brain/biological-substrate... — tornatras

Soounds like Descartes, but it also sounds like the Colonel Sanders (mechanically separating meat from bones)

like for instance possessing unlimited omnipotent powers from the very start might very well get very boring along the ride the whole way through and through — tornatras

Spake wisely. Sounds, from experience.

Paramatered settings may be altered in which the system immerses oneself lucidly (where you know you're dreaming). — tornatras

sounds like Sigmund Freud.

(look up Pascal's Wager on God's existence) — tornatras

Here you sound like Pascal.

God is one entity with 3 parts but each one of it parts is not the other. Father, Son, Holy spirit.
They are of one substance, three minds, and three bodys.

Whatever the substance is, that is what makes them God and it is shared between them. — hachit

Thanks for the explanation, hachit.

Where does one body start, and the other end, when you say god is omnipresent? I can see that Jesus is of a typical human's physical body, so his limits of extent in the physical world are given. But what about the Father and the Holy Spirit? God is omnipresent; is either one of the two omnipresent, or both of them?

They have three minds. This presupposes that they have different thoughts, different memories, different knowledge. Which of the three is omniscient? Which has more memory, and which is the one that is all
good? And the other two have how much knowledge memory, and goodness? Maybe some of the three are not all good? If all the three are all good, and all knowing and have all memory, then their minds are not separate.

That is to say that it is the substance that the three share that has omniscience, omnsophia and omnimemory. If yes, then they don't have different minds. So the three share among them one body limited in size, two infinitely large bodies, and one mind. Which is not what you claimed they have among the three of them.

Sorry I thought it was obvious that the 3 leaves made up the one shamrock. — hachit

A shamrock has 3 leaves each separate from the other but together they make one. — hachit

... one LEAF? one SHAMROCK?

If the three leaves make up one shamrock, then the analogy to the holy trinity completely fails, as the holy trinity consists of three manifestations of the one and same god, and the shamrock is not three manifestation of the one and same shamrock, but it is of three leaves.

Let me put it this way. Each member in the holy trinity is god. But each member of the three leaves is not a shamrock. Each leaf is a leaf, not a shamrock. But in the trinity each constituent of the three is god. And the three constituents make one god.

So your analogy, as re-written by your correcting my reading of the first instance of the wise saying, is not applicable to the holy trinity.

Ah, OK. I was projecting too much anti-religion on you, it seems. — joshua

Easily done, what with my username. I admit, I am no friend of religion, but I perfectly see how human societies used it as a very useful tool for social coexistence.

I am anti-religious because in today's day and age there is no need for religion.
1. Natural, innate and learned moralities can develop without a fear of god.
2. For some, law is a good enough deterrent from doing illegal things, which are mostly coinciding with immoral things.
3. The knowledge gap is narrow enough that we don't need god to fill it.
4. Social expectations and norms are enforced by peer pressure.
5. Knowledge of the physical world can curb immoral acts, such as senseless promiscuity or eating from each other's plates, what with our awareness what causes physical diseases.
6. Psychiatry and psychology has helped much more many mentally ill than the soothing (ha!) effect of trying to rid one of feelings of guilt with pious living.
7. The introduction of affordable medicare on a grand scale in the US could have proved to be a powerful sociological experiment. In my opinion (I built a theory around it, too), the last vestige of God as a gap-filler is random acts of disaster. People do not leave religion until they feel secure enough in their security of no starvation, no disease, no calamity. In the USA disease has been a randomly occurring threat to the population, with awfully expensive repercussions. You get sick enough and even with a medical insurance you lose your house, your middle-class existence, everything. So this is what you pray for. I believe there are no atheists in the foxholes under attack. It may not be a god you pray for, but you do make offerings, "If I only get out of here alive I will never scream at my kids ever again," etc.

So with that threat removed, the threat of loss of money, existence and social status, people may have been less reluctant to turn away from god-worship in the USA.

That's why the powers that be don't want medicare in the USA, and they stopped it from happening efficiently enough.

But mostly the masses want civilization. — joshua

True also. Several reasons exist, one is that civilization helps the individual survive easier and more lucratively, second, that the individual can aspire to become king, if not in realistic terms, at least in fantasy.

Again: it's not that religion or law and order are a problem. The problem is that we focus on the nitty-gritty detail of religion, which is actually negligible from our points of view, or ought to be if it is not.

In a lot of societies in modern times, namely in Europe, Russia and China, law and social customs have completely replaced the role of religion as a motivating force to act and behave in ways that aid society, live in civilization, and promote the individuals' success at survival.

The societies that are deeply focussed on religion are somewhat handicapped, because in their efforts to maintain religion, they hinder other social growth. For instance, in the USA the lack of science education for the masses resulted in a political system that has been ignoring fatal possibilities for mankind through political pressures. In Europe, Canada, the population has always been aware of global warming and motivated to stop it or reverse it. In the USA it's just gaining momentum now, and political forces could and did favour short-term gain on the expense of huge long-term losses in ecology.

This is the problem with religion. It's a blinding force. It saps and taxes the intellectual energy levels of all societies where religion is a prevailing, major social force.

Because the absurd supernatural stuff was arguably not the essence of religion. — joshua

I agree absolutely. Religion is just PART of the behaviour modification program. There are other institutions in society that help the same program: law, and social customs.

I am not blaming religion. I am only saying there is much too much focus on religion, so much so, that we lose our sight of what it is that is really going on.

Occam's Razor.

The solution that has the least complexity with the smallest number of variables is the right one.

My proposal to the problem of evil and free will:

There is no god or gods. There is no evil. There is no hell or heaven. There is no free will. There is no sin.

Case closed. Now we can all go home and sit down and eat dinner and go to sleep in peace. Not worrying about earning an eternity of suffering in hell via a god's evil nature, due to not having a free will which would necessarily make us sin, since sin is so much more fun than not sinning.

YOU FOOLS! Can't you see that Sin, and Hell and stuff are a behaviour modification program's motivating forces, designed to curtail those activities in our lives that some ruling classes decided would be detrimental to society's survival?

Have you not noticed that kings and pharaos could always fornicate unrestricted? They could always take drugs, kill people, and not worry about their future in the afterlife?

This means something, and what it means is that the entire morality shit is designed to control the behaviour of the masses.

While you argue about morality and sin and evil and heaven and free will and hell, you miss the only point in religions' moral teaching: do as they, whoever "they" are, want you to behave, and they make it so by making you believe there are gods or a god, who is evil, but you can't say that, and who will punish you if you don't heed to the moral codes that are also reflected in -- imagine that! -- in the laws of our legal systems.

People may not like this view since God is a omnipotent and omniscience being that would be able to do anything, including making a world with human freedom and no evil. But I argue that God has the power and knowledge to do anything that is possible. So its not that God can’t make a world with human freedom and no evil, it is just not possible make such a thing. So is the problem of evil really a problem? — Mysteryi

This is all hypothetical. You can't possibly prove your point by other than assuming the conclusion. Which is precisely what you have done.

1. If God exists, then he would make the best world possible.
2. A world with both human freedom and evil is better than a world without both human freedom and evil.
3. There is both human freedom and evil.
4. So a world with both human freedom and evil is the best possible world. — Mysteryi

This does not address the issue of bugs and everyone else's excrements contaminate the drinking water, for instance.

It can be argued that there is no human freedom, but there is evil created by god.

Yup, we speak in different lexicons. It seems far too different to have any meaningful conversation. — javra

My advice and opinion: Take no notice of @Bartricks, or of his insults to you or to intelligence. Best is not to feed him. He has proven he is illogical, and can't be reasoned with.

The Grim Reaper paradox is interesting, but immaterial in responding to Hume's argument. That is so because the Grim Reaper paradox assumes too many hypothetical features, none of which are necessary to be hypothecised in reality. In other words, the Grim Reaper paradox creates a world which has no leg to stand on for believabilty; it has no connection to reality; it is a fantasy world, which has no connection to the world outside of its own.

1. Correct.
2. How to respond to Hume? Try this: "You're right." Or try this: "This is purely a matter of faith. Both are possible, and neither can be proven or disproved." Or try this: "Hume, you're wrong," and give no reasons why you think so.

Joshua, your point is valid, inasmuch as the bastardization of the words and teachings of the bible are valid. People these days take a lot of bible teachings and adapt it to their own liking, creating straight disobedience and contrarianism to the words of the bible.

It seems to me that that the doctrine of the Trinity is not something given just to circumvent incoherencies in Scripture, but rather a way to describe the main parts of who God is. This means that it is not that case that Jesus, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost are all different entities, but rather that they are just parts of one being manifested in different ways so as to perform different essential functions. — CFR73

This would stand, if and only if God, Jesus and the HOLY SPIRIT appeared or existed while the other two did not exist. But all three can and do exist concurrently according to Christian tenets. Therefore your claim of these beings a manifest of the one god in different ways, fails. However, if you insist that they are manifests of one god, then there is no trinity; and you are a heretic. In fact, if you insist that there is a one-ness, and it was the accepted norm of looking at the faith, then the word trinity never would have been coined.

I like the way St. Patrick explain the trinity. A shamrock has 3 leaves each separate from the other but together they make one. — hachit

This is an application of the equivocation fallacy. If each leaf of the three is a separate leaf, then the three together is not "a leaf" but a conglomeration of leaves. If the three parts form one leaf, the the three parts are not individually leaves each but parts of a leaf.

There is a concept-mangling in the St. Patrick explanation of the H. T.

To say that a moral value or duty is objective is to say that it is true or binding irrespective of human opinion (regardless of what anyone thinks). For example, to say that the Holocaust was objectively wrong is to say that even if the Nazis had succeeded in winning WWII, and brain-washed or exterminated everyone who disagreed with them, so that everyone in the world believed that Naziism was right, it would still be wrong. — cincPhil

I am Jewish, but I deny that the Holocaust was objectively wrong because of a moral principle. It was wrong for the Jews, it was a crime against humanity, it was wrong as a possible pilot project for future genocides; but I deny that the Holocaust, as inhumane as it were, broke some moral rule. THE HOLOCAUST WAS BAD. IT WAS A HORRIBLE CRIME. I wish it had never happened, and many of my past relatives suffered and / or died in this horrible experience. But not morally wrong according to some objective moral principle.

If there is or was indeed an objective moral principle that you, @cincPhil, can name that the Holocaust violated, then please I ask you to name it.

Idol worship is not about ideals. It is very constricted to the worship of a figure. A physical figure, a manifestation or likeness in physical features of another figure. Idol worship does not extend to the description of other attributes of god, aside from the visual form.

Who knows for sure what god looks like? If you worship something that does not look like god, you are worshipping an idol. Which is a sin. On the other hand, the scriptures give no precise indication what god looks like.

Therefore you may worship god, or you may worship an idol, depending on your random fortune whether the god image you envision is coincidental with the true image of god. This is an unsolvable problem.

For sure Pantheists are idol worshippers, as they can't possibly imagine precisely what the universe looks like.

I am not saying that people never have the right to dignity in death, but that the infringement of their dignity in life does not qualify them to prematurely take their right to dignity in death. — Ferzeo

Your wording is a bit unfortunate, as to "take their right to dignity" may mean to TAKE AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO DIGNITY IN DEATH, as well as it may mean that they RETAIN THEIR RIGHT TO DIGNITY IN DEATH. Similar to the construct of "I'll take the Fifth" etc.

Please clear up this ambiguity, then we can make progress (maybe).

I would also like to ask you to please state your claim in the positive, not in the negative. You are using single, double, triple negatives, and that creates a logical nightmare of trying to analyze what it is that you are actually saying.

this being would also need to be able know what it's like, subjectively speaking, to be us. To be human. — ballarak

True. But how do you reconcile this with the fact that to be human means to NOT know how it feels like being a god, a swan, a tapeworm, a rock? Because I don't have to tell you in so many words, that man does not knwo what it feels like to be a god, a swan, a tapeworm, a rock. God knows precisely what it is like to be a swan, a tapeworm, a rock. Obviously he can't not know, otherwise he would not be omniscient.

Therefore since being omniscient involves NOT KNOWING as much as it involves positive, direct knowledge, I claim that the state of being omniscient, or omniscience, is not possible.

P.s. Apology in order. My answer seems like a replica of other answers. I wrote the answer first, then looked at other posts to this opening post.

Religious books are said to contain eternal truths that we are to live by (laws).
If religious books contain eternal truths that we are to live by, they are religious law books.
Religious books are law books. (2,3 MP)
If law books are not continually updated to keep up with advancements in technology, human knowledge, and loopholes, then they are irrelevant.
Religious books have not been updated to keep up with advancements in technology, human knowledge, and loopholes.
Religious books are irrelevant. (4,5 MP) — philrelstudent

This argument, on the other hand, can be shot down easily.

One can argue that some law books do not have a scope of regulating all behaviour, and only some subset of all required behaviour is regulated by a certain law book. This is possible and probable.

It is conceivable that the law that are found in religious law books need not be updated, since their application has not changed.

Therefore the argument put forth by your religion philosopher teacher is false.