1×1=1 Therefore god

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I don’t know about you, but for me, this is the poorest kind of apologetics. I am aware men more intelligent that yours truly have used modal logic to try to demonstrate or proof the being of a god, this fellow right here is taking us for a really long ride. He tells us, with confidence, that until now, faith has not had evidence thorough enough to convince anyone that a deity has brought this universe into being. First, though, god can be anything- a computer program, a force, could be sentient being or maybe not- who knows.

How are we to get from 11111111² to the existence of a god, you ask? It’s through a specie of the argument from design. We are made to imagine a spire appearing somewhere in Mars. That several probes sent to observe this spire all arrive to the same conclusion that this spire must have been designed. This far, the same arguments that are fatal to the design argument apply here. But let’s hold here it for a moment.

Our interlocutor wants us to believe 1*1=1 because it was designed by some higher intelligence. I have used 1*1=1 instead of 11111111² to make the point that this argument is really weak. Am sure, Neil will agree, that as far as math is concerned, 1*1=1 regardless of the planet we are in. That 11111111² gives us 12345678987654321 is not different from the fact that we get 1 when 1*1. And if you find this beautiful, who am i to stop you, besides, beauty, they say depends on the beerholder.

Maybe I am missing something.

In other interesting news, this Nigerian has decided to tackle superstition in his home country head on. I do hope he manages to stay out of jail for much longer. He, really, is the mad man in the market who has killed god.

Is there a god

On my friend Ark’s blog there is a discussion or is it a narrative on where the burden lies in the god debate. And I generally agree with him. However, I think, and our late friend *my atheist life* would agree, we can say there is no god and the burden of proof doesn’t switch to us. Why so, you might ask, first, no coherent definition of a god has been provided that would demonstrate such a being(s) would exist. There are contradictory attributes of alleged gods that such beings are unlikely to exist. Whether such beings are necessary and in what manner of existence they are to exist have not been demonstrated. And attempts have been made to do this.

I know my empiricist friends wouldn’t commit themselves to such a statement arguing, among other reasons, new evidence may convince us otherwise. That is all fair. But until this evidence is adduced, we have nothing to go on with and as the good priest Jean Messlier wrote, to believe in God(s) is to believe in a chimera with no parallel in experience.

But I could be wrong

What sort of evidence are you looking for?

Is a question many atheists have been asked in one form or another. Many have given varied answers to the question and my contribution, though not new, is to say evidence that would be accepted by any reasonable person/observer.

But who is a reasonable observer/person?

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Abstract philosophy and exercise is only suited for that person who is well fed and housed. The practical man or woman has use for philosophy to the extent to which it is relevant to their lives and until professional philosophers address issues of practical men and women, their works will remain in university bookshelves read only by other professional philosophers.

Love letters from god

I thought this was hilarious

Dave Allen on first contact with god

the humour, the wit

Good news and

Bad news

god’s will

I have mentioned elsewhere I am reading a book by El-Saadawi titled Diary of a child name Souad, which was her first literary work. It is presented as narrative, interposed with dialogue in various places, but of a child. And at some point, the child wonders

what the benefit is for a human to think and choose good, for example, if God has decreed evil for him?

Is not everything god’s will? She continues to ask

can a human do good against God’s will?

And we have her father respond thus

God decrees evil for evil people and for good ones, he decrees good

the Souad asks a follow up question

God is the one who creates the evil and the good, can the evil become good against God’s will

and finally in anger, her father responds, and it could be any believer in DCT or any of those millions who justify the Canaanite massacre

this is God’s wisdom in his creation and he is free to do what he wants with his slaves. He gives to who he wants, and denies who he wants, and he bestows gifts on who he wants, and leads astray who he wants. Everything goes according to his will. He is the wise knower.

and this reminds me of the book by Boethius, Consolations of philosophy, where Fortune is portrayed as both blind and capricious, favouring whom she wills and reminding Boethius he has no reason to complain about his situation.

Talk to atheists on their own terms

While this article claims to offer a proof of god that the author thinks persuasive, I hate to be the one to show it fails at what it aims at proving.

The argument here is

A being is said to be possible if we can conceive no contradiction in the idea of it, and impossible if we can conceive a contradiction (as we do in the idea of a square triangle, for example).

but this cannot be said to be true for

 an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God

for this contains contradictions.

 

Quotable quotes

From the word god, the theist derived no argument in his favour; it teaches nothing, defines nothing, demonstrates nothing, explains nothing.

Bradlaugh Charles in Plea for atheism

Here we go again: Morality

On the stone god’s blog, I ask

Ark, could you ask your Christians whether a thing is good because God commands it or god commands it because it is good?
Could they give an example of an objective moral and with supporting justification.

and then I get

What is the nature of God. God is good. God is love. Love and goodness are the very essence of God.

God is certainly not arbitrary in His moral actions, nor is God subject to some external standard of morality that governs His decisions…God isn’t arbitrarily deciding what is good and what is evil on a whim. Rather, it is God’s nature to do good, and God never acts contrary to His nature.
…the ground of morality is God’s nature and not some external standard to which God must adhere. God’s sovereignty is preserved as well as an objective standard for morality, i.e., God’s nature.

The Scriptures, God’s self-revelation to humanity, illustrates this quite nicely. A sampling of passages that demonstrate that goodness is grounded in God’s nature:

God commands certain actions as good and therefore to be done and forbids certain other actions as evil and therefore not to be done. What is good is not good simply because God commands it. It is good because it is reflective of His divine nature.

My first question is, did he understand my question? My question is about the nature of good. Are things good independent of god or do they get their goodness from god? And if all that is is the handiwork of god, how can anything be bad? IS it conceivable that a good god has through omission let bad exist? Is this fellow willfully ignorant or do we blame it on his upbringing?

The claim god is good is asserted without proof. The author has not demonstrated that god is and that it is good. It is not enough to claim god is good. God’s existence has not been demonstrated. It is quite evident the author of the above comment is ignorant of theologians who have argued god’s nature is unknowable. I propose they settle this small matter first then get back to us.

By saying god doesn’t act contrary to its nature, we must assume the author implies all a god does is good. That must include, in the case of the god of the bible, drowning all that lives, save a few, is good. Cursing the earth is good. Turning out A & E for a minor infraction is good. A further question is how does this fellow know all this about god? And the value judgement of god? Can he tell us what to god is evil? IS it the same with what he considers evil or are they different?

I have deleted the bible references because they are useless in this discussion. So far as I can tell, the theologian has not demonstrated the bible to be the word of a god, any god. On the contrary, most of the bible passages look like the ramblings of a deranged mind. Or maybe, god is deranged and we have been thinking the bible as is, could not come from a god. I think we have been holding god to a high standard without justification.

The god of the bible gave Joshua express orders to kill the Canaanites. The god of the bible is recorded to have drowned the Egyptian army, to have sent bears to kill children. The list of the moral things this god is said to have done have been listed before by others with much patience than yours truly.

It is tiring dealing with people who will not read.