Who made God?

Originally posted by dj2becker
Your formula actually assumes the existance of God if you are saying that He is responisble for the deaths.

You cannot assume his existance whilest trying to disprove it.

No, you're not following. The claim is that such an event is not compatible with your God's existence.

A more formal formulation of the Problem of Evil would be reductio ad absurdum, in which the premise of God's existence is shown to lead to contradiction.

Originally posted by jaywill
Hmmmm,

I must have missed something in the calculation.

Exactly where in those figures does it prove with mathematical certainty that God does not exist?

I said a formula that proved beyond all reasonable doubt. At most your formula only suggests that God either does or allows some things to happen which we consider great tragedies. It doesn't sa ulas - chemical, statistical, mathematical? I don't think we've gotten started yet.

Look, arguing with your type is a complete waste of time, so I wasn't posting anything formal. You're asking for "proof" from me and yet are willing to base your own belief on a sort of internal compass that you only hope exists.

The person who claims that your God doesn't exist can do more than simply assert that claim. He can support it with convincing argument -- The Problem of Evil, The Problem of Ignorance, The Euthyphro Dilemma to name a few.

All you have is some extremely vague claim to a sappy sort of internalist justification to your belief. And you constantly mistakenly take it to be the case that the perceived consequences that you attribute to your belief (you say that your belief has transformed your life for the better) somehow bear on the assessment of whether or not your belief is true.

Originally posted by dj2becker
Christians naturally believe there must be a God because the world had a beginning. And everything that had a beginning had a beginner. But the tough question to answer is how we know the world had a beginning. Maybe the world always existed.

Famous agnostic Bertrand Russell presented this dilemma: Either the world had a beginning, or it did not. If it ...[text shortened]... rse we call the cosmos—that is, God exists.

(As stated by Dr. Norman Geisler)

I don't have time to read this right now. I'll come back to it later.

Originally posted by KellyJay
What do you think that proves and why?
KJ

That formula proves nothing. It was tongue-in-cheek.

But I think the Problem of Evil demonstrates that no all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God exists. The 'why' has been discussed repeatedly in this forum for a long time.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Look, arguing with your type is a complete waste of time, so I wasn't posting anything formal. You're asking for "proof" from me and yet are willing to base your own belief on a sort of internal compass that you only hope exists.

The person who claims that your God doesn't exist can do more than simply assert that claim. He can support it with convin ...[text shortened]... life for the better) somehow bear on the assessment of whether or not your belief is true.

You said "the fact that your God does not exist" or essentially that.

You can't subtantiate that it is a fact. So stop getting mad with "my type" because I demonstrated that YOU made an empty assertion about a supposed "fact" which you cannot prove.

Your "formula" went over like a pregnant pole vaulter.

Originally posted by jaywill
You said "the fact that your God does not exist" or essentially that.

You can't subtantiate that it is a fact. So stop getting mad with "my type" because I demonstrated that YOU made an empty assertion about a supposed "fact" which you cannot prove.

Your "formula" went over like a pregnant pole vaulter.

Yes, it is a fact. I believe that, and I'm willing to argue that.

You need to understand what your real motives are. You're a pragmatist; and quit acting like you know anything about epistemic justification.

Originally posted by dottewell
Because we were in the process of working through someone else's argument.

Its the same argument.

Why is not God a logical explanation for the cause of the existence of the universe?

But, as implied, I won't distract you. We're through.

Originally posted by jaywill
Its the same argument.

Why is not God a logical explanation for the cause of the existence of the universe.

But, as implied, I won't distract you. We're through.

The first part of the Cosmological Argument is only designed to show that a necessary being exists. Alone, even if successful, it doesn't show that your God exists. So you're going to need a lot more than just that.

Plus, there aren't any good reasons I see for accepting the principle of sufficient reason. Without that, most formulations of the Cosmological Argument fall apart.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Yes, it is a fact. I believe that, and I'm willing to argue that.

You need to understand what your real motives are. You're a pragmatist; and quit acting like you know anything about epistemic justification.

Yiiks!

Who would ever dare to argue with person who uses a phrase like "epistemic justification?"

Originally posted by jaywill
Its the same argument.

Why is not God a logical explanation for the cause of the existence of the universe?

But, as implied, I won't distract you. We're through.

By "logical" what do you mean?

(a) coherent?
(b) plausible?

Originally posted by LemonJello
The first part of the Cosmological Argument is only designed to show that a necessary being exists. Alone, even if successful, it doesn't show that your God exists. So you're going to need a lot more than just that.

Plus, there aren't any good reasons I see for accepting the principle of sufficient reason. Without that, most formulations of the Cosmological Argument fall apart.

Well, it sounds like you like to discuss things along formal lines of philosophical definitions more textbook style.

That's fine. I admit that philosophy is not my strong suite.

But you might think about this. If there is a God He should be available to be known by people with and without formal training in philosophy.

If we all had to have Phd's in philosophy in order to approach God I think He would be very biased.

Thanks for the exchanges. Hope you profit some from your dialogue with ?becker.

Originally posted by dottewell
My point was that the statement:

You cannot assume his existance whilest trying to disprove it.

...is wrong.

From a naturalistic point of view, how do you differentiate between right and wrong?

Originally posted by LemonJello
No, you're not following. The claim is that such an event is not compatible with your God's existence.

A more formal formulation of the Problem of Evil would be reductio ad absurdum, in which the premise of God's existence is shown to lead to contradiction.

No, you're not following. The claim is that such an event is not compatible with your God's existence.

That's a strawman argument. You are defining God by your own terms.

A more formal formulation of the Problem of Evil would be reductio ad absurdum, in which the premise of God's existence is shown to lead to contradiction.

Yet another strawman argument.

If you assume the existance of Evil, you automatically assume the existance of Good, is that correct?

That also assumes the existance of the God you are trying to disprove, and you cannot disprove a God that you define by your own terms.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
By "logical" what do you mean?

(a) coherent?
(b) plausible?

What do you think the writer of this Psalm is trying to convey?

"He who planted the ear, does He not hear?

He who formed the eye, does He not see? "(Psalm 94:9,10)

I think the psalmist is making the logical point that the design of the eye and the ear tell us something about the abilities of the Creator. God "sees" and God "hears."

I don't have enough faith to believe that something that knows nothing about seeing and hearing in some kind of regard, is responsible for the function of the human eyes and ears.

It is asking a lot of me to make that leap of faith. That is that the function of the eyes and ears, serving man as they do, are accidents, or freaks of random interactions of molecules over huge amounts of time.

Modern attempts to convince me that the appearance of design is only an illusion I would consider a kind of psuedo Buddhism. It is futile to me to think of the universe as only having an appearance or illusion of design.

Originally posted by dj2becker
[b]No, you're not following. The claim is that such an event is not compatible with your God's existence.

That's a strawman argument. You are defining God by your own terms.

A more formal formulation of the Problem of Evil would be reductio ad absurdum, in which the premise of God's existence is shown to lead to contradiction.

...[text shortened]... is that correct?

That also assumes the existance of the God you are trying to disprove.[/b]

No, the formal argument would define God by the terms that many of his supporters insist on.

Assuming the existence of evil just assumes that there is some reasonable ethical treatment being used. This does not in any way imply the existence of your God. Once you understand that no agent undergirds normativity, you'll have yourself a real epiphany.