On what grounds do you reject Premise 2? You believe that you god exists, this is not knowing. You could be wrong (as you stated yourself).

Will you please explain (C2) why it is necessary that they all have equal chance? It's enough when the chance for the most likely to be true is considerable less than 50%. As in terms of mankind about 1/7 are Christians, many of them at least in the western countries are "sunday believers" or "christians of tradition" that I would rather count as agnostics. Those that are "active" believers aren't very unisono about what they exactly believe in.

Rejecting C3 means probably picking the wrong position is better than not choosing sides?

Well C4 was not phrased very good, I was kindof in a hurry. How about "Gods want that that people believe in them/have faith in them and want them to follow their (gods') rules."?

I read (past tense) Christian historical sources, and quite a lot too, because they're often the only ones (like medieval texts about rites and stuff, interesting and enlightening). As for contemporary Christian scholars - this is difficult. I find them as hard to read as the "ancient alien visitors" people, but just not as entertaining. I think there maybe very intelligent people around, but the most vocal (and some of those you linked) often have an intolerable holier-than-though attitude of rightousness and an unhealthy obsession with "debunking the bible debunkers" (I admit that the latter also often suffer from unhealthy obessesion). Also many of those people are, what I wouldn't call intelligent, but clever. They are pretty good at presenting their case and hide the circular reasoning (maybe even from themselves). But in the end, taken apart, it's most of the time the good old "proving the bible by the bible" and (to me) strange reasoning.
Like that guy you linked a many pages ago, that argued that the vastness of the universe proves God.
Well, if the universe was small and Earth at the center - I think this would be considered strong evidence for a purposeful creator to every sane person. But to see the exact opposite, the antithesis, also presented as evidence pro God is remarkably insane.
People like these make me reluctant to read more from that corner.

As for recommendations for historical studies: Well the easiest recommendation is - read everything ;-).
But for an overview I actually recommend Wikipedia. Now that site has a very careful and sceptical approach to both religion and "alternate" history. But most articles have a good list of references. Start from there.

Also read the books of those "alien visitors" and "alternate history" people. If nothing else, they are highly entertaining. The "gurus" (Butler, von Däniken) of those people are most of the time pretty good storytellers. If you have the time, look at the evidence they come up with, then look at the answers given by respected scholars. It's often not as easy as it seems. When they come up with maybe ten pieces of evidence, the "real" scholars will maybe disprove five of these, and most oft the times the easiest ones, and consider them "debunked". But that leaves five open issues that sometimes contain real gems of how "traditional" history can't explain everything and that would be worth exploring further. But this is extremely time consuming. At this point I had to give up, since at some point I had to start actually earning a living ;-)

I further, with all my heart, recommend reading as many legends, epics, fairytales, sagas, creation myths, religious stories from all around the world as you can get your hands on. This is (IMHO) both entertaining and very enlightening. You learn a lot about different cultures and their take at the world. Also these stories (just like the Bible) contain a tremendous amount of wisdom.

Well the Romans usually were pretty pedantic in documenting things. Much of this is lost in time (things like burning down Rome surely didn't help). I beg to differ in that if there was an actual miracle like a resurrection took place, the Romans would have had looked into it and at least written a report. It also strikes me as odd that AFAIK there are no verified accounts on the Romans wanting to have a word with the killed and resurrected Jesus. Wouldn't they care that they "failed" to execute him?

Sorry. Then please explain again (for the slow minded ;-)) what you base your belief on.
From your posts I gather the following:

You believe, because other people believe too. You're by far not the only one.
You believe in a creator, because you can't image another reason for the universe to exist.
You believe in the authentic resurrection of Jesus. You believe this because you believe that the bible is a reliable source (reason?), and because your belief in the creator gives you the ground on such a thing is possible.
What else?

Ahem. Do live in the country or city? I grew up in a village (with quite a few sheep). Actually sheep nearly always keep together, because this offers the best protection from predators. Of course there are "lost sheep" like there are lost cows, lost gazelles, lost deers.
As kids we would often bring home the sheep. Now this weren't big herds, just small groups. But it's enough to guide the leading sheep and the rest will follow. I you watch big herds with shepherd and dog: When they're not moving they both have not much to do, because they stay together on their own. When the herd is on the move, the shepherd takes the lead and the dog will check that noone is left behind. Most of them stay together. That's why one shepherd and one dof is usually enough for a big number of sheep.
You need a lot more manpower for cows or horses, for instance.

And 1000 years ago, when most people in the world had never ever heard of Jesus, they couldn't be saved? How loving and fair.

This "I'm a sinner" a concept that totally alien to me. I see myself first and foremost as human. And human means I'm a conscious animal. Consciousness means power and with power comes responsibility. I'm not always living up to this responsibility. In the result be both try to be "better people", you feel by default guilty and always need to repent, while I by default feel innocent and if I do wrong I try to find the reasons that made me fail and make it better next time.

That's the cherry picking I spoke about. Built a hospital? Jesus' teachings did that! Killed your heathen neighbor and his whole family and took his land? They got Jesus wrong!
Good deed? Because they were Christians.
Bad deed? They were no real Christians.

From my view also pales in comparison, just the other way around.

Yay for 100 pages. Here's to 200!

Is that a fair summation?

And now 4 posters have tried to explain why that's not a great argument against God.

Let me try one more time, then I'm done:
1. First up - why would He want to? I mean, that's the kind of argument that I came up with in primary school and the response was 'don't be stupid.' (because it was).
Now - all that's required for the Christian God in terms of 'potence' is that He created the universe and everything in it and continues to make it work. Hence we give Him the term 'omnipotent'. There's nothing He can't do that anyone would actually want to do.
If He has any limits due to logical inconsistency, we don't know.

2. Again - why would He want to?
But further - all that's required for the Christian God in terms of being 'scient' is that He 'monitors' (limitation of language here) everything that's going on, especially our lives and our hearts and souls. Since He can do that, we give Him the term 'Omniscient'. He knows all. What other term would you use to describe that?
Out of curiosity - can you conceive of something that could exist that He couldn't know? If not, the question is illogical in itself.

3. See 2, the question is illogical in and of itself. It's just a word game.

Now, I don't doubt that He could get around any logic problems you care to pose, I'm just saying that the questions are inherently both illogical and ignorant of what is meant by the terms applied.

Side note: He's already done all 3 things via the Trinity -> There were plenty of rocks Jesus couldn't lift, things He didn't know and He went willingly to His death.

Why would he want to? That is your answer? Seriously?

1. Maybe he is tired of all the sin in the world, like you worrying about tomorrow. Maybe he just can't take it anymore. Who cares, it is irrelevant to the problem.But if you insist....there better examples than ending itself. Like create another being just like it. Not possible, the new being would not be eternal or without a cause as Seyong would say. Why would it want to? To not be so lonely, poor "being" all alone in eternity without peers, only lowly sycophants, sinners and atheists around....who gives a shit why it would want to.

2. Again you make no effort against this problem but instead go on to explain what omniscience means which we all agree on ...so thanks anyway.

But to your question: "can you conceive of something that could exist that He couldn't know? If not, the question is illogical in itself. "
Why is it illogical if the answer can be a simple "no"? Illogical questions are unanswerable, and not only unaswerable because the answer is unknown to us or anyone, but because there can never possibly be a right answer. even for your omniscient being. Like "does darkness think you are right or I" (illogical because darkness does not think and isn't really anything just the abscence of something else) or "what is the favourite music of PI" (do I have to explain it..)....you know illogical.

Hey I just thought of a knew problem, can something be omniscient if it can't know the right answers to illogical questions? lmao...this is fun.

3.Even though you once again made no effort or argument against this....Here I actually agree and I did not make this point. To this I would simply answer, yes it can. After it finished this task then it would not be omnipotent anymore, but so what, that would be a different being then. It would still be omnipotent before that. This would only be a problem if you want it to be omnipotent and not omnipotent at the same time. Which I guess you kinda are now that I looked at your sidenote.
This problem is very poorly phrased. If I had come up with it, I would simply pose it as a variation of 1.: Can an omnipotent being create something eternal? No.


Side note: oh so it isn't really omniscient or eternal, so wtf is the problem...oh yeah your bible contradicts itself everywhere, that was it.

Here are more problems: Can a eternal omnipotent being travel back to a time where it did not exist? Why would it want to....just to prove to me that it can.

The questions are not inherently illogical, what kind of statement is that anyway...I am not asking what colour transparent is, I am not asking for names of gods that atheists believe in, I am asking questions that are direct results of the properties many religious people assigned to their gods.

What is illogical is to propose the existance of such beings at all,since they logically can't exist. Seriously, I don't understand why you guys don't just accept that your god is illogical (call it above or outside logic to make it more pleasant) and have some faith anyway like every other monotheist.

No - my answer was much longer - that part was merely to illustrate that it's a pointless question.

Because you're the only one making these definitions. Can't you argue what someone in this thread has actually said instead of going "yeah, well, 'lots of Christians'(TM) say xyz"?
I've tried to explain how people use the words 'omnipotent' and 'omniscient' - you won't accept it. Fine. But don't pretend you're being clever or wise because you think you've figured out a proof.

"'Oh says God, I hadn't thought of that' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. 'Ah, that was easy' says man, who goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra-crossing" ~Douglas Adams
(except when he did it, it was funny)

You really don't get the Trinity thing do you? That's ok, it's not something that's easy to understand. And I'm not claiming to know how He does it.

But ok - you think you've figured it all out. I'll not waste any more time trying to explain it.

With your "why would he want to" question failed to illustrate that my questions are pointless.

Then define the properties of the god of your religion, please. So far all you did was change the meaning of the word omnipotent being to "just someone/thing that is 'all-powerful' as far as that can go". If that is your personal god, fine, but that is not the christian god. The bible makes no qualifiers like that.

Jesus didn't say “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God except some things even it can't do.” It doesn't say "nothing is impossible with God except the impossible stuff", Paul didn't say "God is above all, except logic".

What do you base your personal god on? Don't you realise you are just making up another god to fit your sense of logic? I have more respect for the christian who at least takes his religion seriously instead of bending it back and forth so it can fit modern knowledge like you do.
Why don't you just accept what the bible says, that your god is above all (all,including logic), and simply realise such a being is illogical?

I found an interesting blog written by an atheist:

"It's not hard to kick this nonsense to pieces, especially since the people presenting it know next to nothing about history and have simply picked this bullshit up from other websites and popular books and collapse as soon as you hit them with some hard evidence. I love to totally stump them by asking them to present me with the name of one - just one - scientist burned, persecuted or oppressed for their science in the Middle Ages. They always fail to come up with any. They usually try to crowbar Galileo back into the Middle Ages, which is amusing considering he was a contemporary of Descartes. When asked why they have failed to produce any such scientists given the Church was apparently so busily oppressing them, they often resort to claiming that the Evil Old Church did such a good job of oppression that everyone was too scared to practice science. By the time I produce a laundry list of Medieval scientists - like Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, Walter Burley, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, John Dumbleton, Richard of Wallingford, Nicholas Oresme, Jean Buridan and Nicholas of Cusa - and ask why these men were happily pursuing science in the Middle Ages without molestation from the Church, my opponents have usually run away to hide and scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong."

http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/10/gods-philosophers-how-medieval-world.html

This is a game forum after all. :D

oh man, so so close :P another hour and it would have been 9 whole hours...

Oh right, blame me. Anyway, that's a funny picture.

Oh wait, I didn't break the "silence" forget it.

If by sins you mean incompetence then yeah sure I agree. That or faulty buttons, which I suppose raises some intriguing theological questions. What if the disasters that has befelled earth were due to god pressing the wrong buttons, or not pressing the right buttons fast enough. Perhaps he really does care about us, but he's just not a very good gamer O.O
XD - I lolled
There is no greater comical device than that moment of dawning realization...
Like when it dawned on me one cold winter morning when I woke up half frozen to death that I had 'woken up' in the middle of the night, neatly folded my bed covers, placed them on the bottom shelf of my closet, closed the closet and went back to sleep...

I'll throw something up here again.

@jamotide: Last I checked this forum a week or two ago, you were saying the same things about logical impossibilities. Just because logical impossibilities exist does not necessarily remove the possibility that God does. Moreover, these issues have been adequately addressed for the past three hundred years or so. The proper classical answer is to answer your questions in the logical positive versus logical negative.

Example: God can't be omnipotent because he can't make a rock so large that he can't lift it.
The positive answer is: God can lift any rock that he makes.

What you end up with is someone saying something in a negative, another saying it in a positive, and never the two meeting. Nobody is satisfied -- neither with the question nor the answer. Which is an appropriate answer to an illogical question.


And @toxicTom: Some say that God can be proven to exist, but the proof eludes those who refuse to believe. For example, a man very publicly rose from the grave in 2001. He was even talked about on mainstream news channels who sent journalist to investigate the claim. There were enough witnesses who had no ponies in the race that most reporters said that it must happened (those who disbelieved simply said it didn't happen b/c it couldn't have happened).

He was partially embalmed, even.

Here's a website I saw with his story: http://bibleprobe.com/ekechukwu.htm
The Internets were not nearly as widely used back in the day. I searched online for years trying to find more info about the story and could never find it. I only saw stuff in print and on TV. But today, even the Nigerians are online. Yay!

So, to many people involved in this story, God was revealed as true and powerful and real. But to most people who hear the story, they do not believe. And even Jesus said that someone could raise from the grave and still people wouldn't believe. And so they don't. Nonetheless, to Christians, there is not only sufficient evidence, but most believe there to be definitive evidence. But then again, how could it be definitive if not everyone believes?



Alright. That's enough for me again. Continue on. I enjoy the periodic reading. :)
This is a great one Sinistar! And I'll gladly write on this.

This is a classical question (it arose, if I'm not mistaken, in Anselm's time -- Anselm through today's theologians have dealt with similar issues). And the classic answer, if I'm not mistaken, is that God did create the world he did in order to demonstrate his highest qualities -- love of an enemy and grace.

That precludes that God knew we would sin and, therefore, it could be argued that God made people sin. But I would argue that he only knew that we would sin -- and he did it all to demonstrate his love.

I think ultimately, assuming all of this is real and there's a New Jerusalem and all, that people will love God even more than they could otherwise and that they'll do far greater things than they could otherwise. The Bible talks about a person who has more forgiven will love more. And I think it's true. Mankind, I think, will be amazed by God's grace (I already am, and I've only had a taste) and there will be an amazing sense of communal and God-focused love that will, hopefully, stretch across eons as man does many great things (I secretly hope for Star-Trek-like community [except all the free love] and tech being developed and even star-trekking the universe in the New Jersusalem days -- but I have no idea how it'll be).

Thanks Tallima, I figured some variant of this question was well established, since it deals with one of the greatest theological debates, The Problem Of Evil. Nice to have the historic context for the question.

I can accept the argument that evil exists because a true universe of potential probably has to contain EVERY possibility, and evil is one of those. Though again, the resolution of the theological wrangling over the nature of evil and its relation to the divine is far too complex for me to vouchsafe in a simple sentence.

Nowt wrong with free love my friend, and I say this as someone who has always been and still is a committed monogamist. If we were as free with our love as we are with our judgement, and as free with our compassion as we are with our prejudice, we'd be a damn fine global specie already.