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PART 1 Miscellaneous Problems with God-Theories __________________________________________________________________
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Miscellaneous Problems with God-Theories ___________________________________________________________________________
There
are three ways to view the gods or a God: 1. A Comprehensible Theistic view—that
God works and moves in this world and is
definable and by some means describable and a Listener (which we discuss at length in RID
when dealing with omni-characteristics that assume God is composed of some
matter/material substance of which to describe It); 2. A Transcendent Incomprehensible
Deistic view—beyond definition and our comprehension in which God is not
involved in the universe and does not Listen with any concern. He only made
the universe, end of story; and 3. The Pantheistic
Considering propositions 2 and 3, the statements “God is or God exists,” are meaningless. How can the incomprehensible be any thing or something if it is beyond comprehension? What is the significance of there being a God if It is everything? This justifies a view of the objects that may as well be independent in themselves, without a need of being associated with a supernatural power. Both of these propositions ask: What’s the point when we don’t know and can’t know anything about God? If there is no way to know how do we know that God is even incomprehensible? And if God is All and All is God where do we draw the line for murderers, rapists, dictators, drugs, poisons, toxins, pollution, nuclear bombs, starving children, etc...? __________________________________________________________________________
Without God life would have no meaning. This may be true. And so may the possibility that life indeed has no meaning so there is no God—no meaning no God vs. meaning and God. And there is the possibility that even if there is a God, life may have no meaning as well.
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Content or Dissatisfied?
The Traditional theistic God is considered to be a God with Absolute power, morality, presence, and knowledge. This implies Perfection. If this God is considered to be Perfect, It could not become better. Therefore, a Perfect God would have to be content. It could not be forced to be better or more satisfied because It is Perfect.
In other words, if perfect and content—God lacks nothing and has no
desires because It is content/happy. This would make God completely
inactive. Action is change, a behavior with a means to change things—to
reach an end.
From
this we can conclude:
A Perfect God could not have created the universe out of curiosity because It is supposedly omniscient.
A Perfect God would not have created the universe just because it felt like it or wanted to either.
A perfect God, or any God, would not have created the universe for no reason at all. If It created the universe It obviously wanted to or felt like doing it, for whatever reason, or It would not have done it.
From the above it can be said that a Perfect God could not have created the universe so a Perfect God does not exist.
Two questions remain to be answered: 1. Where did God come from? 2. Where did It exist before the universe?
Two “answers”: 1. Some imperfect minds created the theistic idea of God. 2. It’s a secret only theists “know.” The Perfect Body
“God, the perfect being, cannot have a perfect physique, [if] God has no body at all.” (p.313, Michael Martin).
The Perfect Role Model
If God is a perfect role model for moral education, it must be able to sin and defeat temptations, if not the pupil could become unmotivated. (p.313 Martin).
Perfect beings would not be troubled by anything, including the behavior of humans. Hence, the notion that the gods will reward or punish us is absurd. To be perfect is to be unperturbed. The concept of perfection, therefore, requires that the gods be indifferent to human behavior. Some have rejected belief in the Christian God for similar reasons. The idea of a perfect being creating the universe is self-contradictory. How can perfection be improved upon? To create is to indicate a lack, an imperfection. If that objection can be answered, another arises: if God is All-Good and All-Powerful, evil should not exist. Therefore, either God is All-Good but allows evil because God is not All-Powerful, or God is All-Powerful but allows evil because God is not All-Good. Such an argument clearly does not deny the existence of all gods, just perfect ones...they don't exist.
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__________________________________________________________________________ Casual Argument: If I can imagine a world that is better than the one we live in, then god is incompetent not to have created it. If I can imagine a world with one less death, one less twig out of place, or any slight improvement, then god is incompetent. Therefore, if god is incompetent, then he is not worthy of praise. The usual response is that you can't know his will or you can't know "What god ultimate plan is". And, this is true, but if you don't know his plan or his will, then why assume that he is a good god. Any atheist or agnostic can tell of the evil nature of god as told in the bible. Well, anyway, that is the Causal Argument, incase you hadn't heard it. Unfortunately, all the philosophical and scientific explanations have no impact on the theists. Internet Infidels' Response: This argument is essentially a version of the problem of evil which might be called the problem of imperfection. While I would disagree with the conclusion that any imperfection makes God "incompetent," it is a defensible argument that any imperfection makes God less than the omniscient and omnipotent being he is supposed to be. One of the standard replies, as you note, is that whatever imperfections or evil exists is all part of some plan--that it is necessary for some higher purpose. Yet much imperfection seems to be correctable, certainly by an omnipotent being. Another standard reply is that imperfection or evil is introduced through human free will. This defense requires that free will (a) is of great enough value to outweigh or offset all imperfections and evil and (b) is incompatible with determinism. If (a) is not the case, then there is still unnecessary imperfection/evil; if (b) is not the case, then God could have made the world such that people had free will yet the imperfections and evil did not occur. http://www.infidels.org/infidels/feedback/1996/june.html
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Infinite vs. Bound For a God to know ‘all there is know,’ ‘all there is to know’ must be a finite and bounded set of truths with a first and beginning truth and a last and ending truth, not an unbound and infinite number of truths. If there is a finite/bound set of truths, then omniscience is possible. If there is an infinite/unbound set of truths, no gods can be omniscient. If space and time are infinite then no god can be omniscient. In mathematics the highest conceivable number is irrelevant because it is not bound and therefore infinite. Can the same be said for life and existence? Knowledge Omniscience, Moral Perfection, and Omnipotence There are three types of philosophical Knowledge:1. prepositional-factual, analyzable as true 2. procedural- how to, a know-how, a skill 3. knowledge by aquaintance w/x- did x therefore has #2. (adapted from Michael Martin pp.287-292) If a God is omniscient It knows all (Total Knowledge Tk) there is to know about x by 1-3.
If a God has Tk then: #3 means this God has k of envy, lust, hate, and greed etc… - an omniscient God cannot be morally perfect - a morally perfect God cannot be omniscient -
an omniscient and morally perfect God do not exist #3 means God has k of physical activities - an omniscient God must have a body to gain k by aquaintance - an omniscient God with a body cannot be omnipresent(everywhere at once) - an omnipresent God cannot have Tk - an omniscient and omnipresent God does not exist #3 allows God to have k of fear, stress, and weakness - an omniscient God cannot be omnipotent - an omniscient God must believe It is limited in power -
an omniscient and omnipotent God does not exist
Here
is an Omniscience/prayer issue to think about from Mickey
Z. :
*If
your god is all knowing, why do you need to pray in order to let him know
what you want? For that matter, if he already knows what’s going to
happen, what good is prayer anyway?
Many more omniscience quandaries to be added…
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The speed of light: c=3000,000 km/sec, or 186,000 mi/sec, or seven times around the earth in one second At 10% of c, a particle’s mass increases by 0.5%. “ 90% “ 2 times its own mass standing still. Everything with intrinsic mass (matter) is confined to speeds less than c. Using the kinetic energy and work-energy theorems it is determined that to reach the speed of light it would take an infinite amount of energy because as the speed of light is approached the mass of the object and the energy required by that object to reach the speed of light approach infinity as well. Only ‘particles’ with no intrinsic mass, or material medium not required for motion, can move at c. Problems the precedent information poses for the existence of a God/One God: 1. Was God inside or outside of the Big Bang?
2. Being that c can never be reached means that God’s omnipotence (all powerfulness) becomes not powerful enough. 3. The same holds for God’s Omniscience and its ability to be everywhere at once. Even if a God could travel at infinite speed it could not be everywhere at once because one particle can occupy only one space-time not every possible space-time at once. 4. If a God was the impetus of the Big Bang any hint of its sculpting, or modeling/design would be erased by quantum fluctuations during the expansion of the Big Bang and God would have to be extremely lucky to know the results of the cause considering the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle—which puts limits on the prediction of particle momentum and position (i.e. the motion and formation of the universe after the Big Bang). 5. If there was no Big Bang and a God just formed elements and molecules by slapping the protons and neutrons of atoms together where did the matter come from, Its own body? If so, was It ‘infinitely’ dense?
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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then God is not Omnipotent. Is God able, but not willing? Then God is Malevolent. Is God both willing and able? Then whence cometh evil? Is God neither able nor willing? Then how can God be called a God?
__________________________________________________________________________ Can God make a rock so heavy It can’t pick it up?
The following is from the site God is Dead.com The Logical Rock __________________________________________________________________________
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How
can the Judeo Christian God be a Jealous God (Exodus 20:5) and at the
same time, have everything? ___________________________________________________________________________
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The
Reincarnation Problem If souls are
made of matter where are new souls coming from? When someone is born: 1. they get an old soul 2. a new one is formed or 3. 1 and 2 are combined Soul deficit- If no new souls are made since some time in the past (when souls came with birth or at whatever time in a person's existence) then there are lots of empty bodies because there are more people alive today than in our past (unless somehow other animals or insects are in this equation). But were the souls generated in people or entities other than people? And what’s to be said about lost souls, souls in perdition, and souls damned to hell or stuck in heaven? Choose your religion choose, your philosophy, throw away reason, and start guessing....like me. Soul surplus- If each body makes its own soul then the old souls have no where to go. If we throw in the manufacturing of souls in all humans that have ever lived and include insects and other animals all these souls are left to spend their time crowding heaven, hell, and limbo. Soul balance- Go figure? See soul deficit and surplus and let RID know when we can see the data. The Stuff Souls Are Made Of? Are souls made of matter? If not then they don’t exist... or matter. How do they feel, see, and think. Do they have nerves and neurons? Any connective tissues or electrical gradients? Everything within our universe is made of matter. There is no supernatural realm or other world within ours. Nothing exists outside of nature. Such a place would have to be beyond our world. The paranormal and supernatural are not testable because they are statements of faith based on otherworldly events, not events that take place in the non-supernatural, i.e. natural, world. Photographs, testimonials and hearsay with incomplete data are not proof enough to be considered science. As far as we know there is no change in body weight when the human animal dies. It is doubtful that souls exist. But its comforting wishful thinking shared by billions who haven't second guessed this 'given' fact. It must feel great to be 'soulucky' as to believe something just-because. Souls,
Heaven, Hell, and Nirvana If souls are made of matter and nerves then the “afterlife,” if it exists, is an issue. Otherwise, with no matter or nerves then how can souls feel the pain of Hell or the pleasure Heaven? Souls and
Entropy Nothing, even a soul, is immune to the destructive effects of the Boltzmann constant and Entropy. That is, if souls exist and are made of matter. Everything made of matter is susceptible to entropy—the journey of molecular degradation towards chemical equilibrium (i.e. chemical bliss). The old adage that “nothing is forever” is true, but it should be added that everything is fleeting…and this includes souls. Which have eluded all attempts to date to be detected except in the minds of humans.
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This popular argument usually sounds like this:
This is not logically sound. First, insisting God is the explanation does not explain anything, we still don't know what explains x. God is not an explanation, but an unknown, so x is still not explained because we are left to awe x as a phenomenon of a god and supernatural wonder, not a natural process that does not need a god to explain it. Secondly, interjecting a God to explain x assumes that science probably won't answer what causes x in the future. Science has closed many gaps throughout its history (Galileo, Newton, Mendel, Darwin). A more recent example is the argument by some Creationists that complex molecules (such as amino acids) could not have arisen by natural processes on the early earth. Hence, life could not have arisen by natural means, and God must have miraculously created these chemicals while creating life. The chemicals were part of a Purpose, not the result of chaos and statistical chance.. The basis of this argument was a gap in scientific knowledge. This basis fell apart when molecules (including organic molecules) were detected in interstellar space by astronomers. The argument came further apart when amino acids were found inside the Murchison meteorite. Apparently the basic molecules of life form naturally in some quite harsh places, and there is a way for vast quantities to have arrived intact on the early earth. http://freethought.freeservers.com/reason/gaps.html There will always be unknowns in science. Many theists see these unknowns as reasons for believing in God. The argument usually goes something like this: "We don't understand how the universe got here, therefore God must have created it." (This is today's version of the argument, years ago it was "We don't understand thunder, therefore the thunder god must have done it.") But is saying "God did it" really an explanation? No, it isn't. An explanation is a description of something we don't currently understand in terms that we do understand. Theists will usually admit that they don't understand their god, saying things like "God works in mysterious ways". Well if we don't understand how God does something, then "God did it" is just about meaningless. We will never have all the answers, but postulating an infinite god and pretending that this provides the answers is just irrational. It is much better to have the intellectual integrity to simply admit that we don't yet know. A fairly common example of the god of the gaps fallacy is the argument that since we don't understand where the dimensionless constants in the equations of physics come from, and since carbon based life could not have evolved if some of the parameters varied by a small amount, a god must have chosen the parameters to produce human life. In addition to being an example of the god of the gaps fallacy, this argument is wrong for several other reasons. For example, it assumes that the dimensionless parameters are fundamentally arbitrary. In other words, it assumes that the parameters cannot be predicted with a more fundamental theory. But in string theory, all dimensionless parameters are expected to be predictable (see Internet Physics Resources). Several other problems with the argument are discussed in Cosmythology and Is God in the Details?. __________________________________________________________________________ What evidence is there for the existence of Deities? Is it tangible? Repeatable? Observable? And what the hell is "supernatural" when all we know is the natural world? Is it beyond this one? what poof have we that it exists. What physical laws apply to it? Its not possible to prove with Absolute certainty that a god or gods do not exist (see Is a Proof of the Non-Existence of a God Even Possible? and Proving a Negative and Argumentum ad Ignorantum). But the same 'impossibility' can be applied to Santa Claus. How rational would it be to believe that Santa Claus really existed when we know it is just a fabrication? There is "evidence" (false as it may be) that would lead some people to believe that Santa exists, however, close examination would reveal it to be bogus. In other words, there really is no evidence for Santa (no real evidence). Can the same be said for the evidence for a God? There is no reason to believe in Santa just as there is no reason to believe in a god or gods. As an aside, Santa Claus is no more than a preparation for adulthood god-belief. Children grow up believing in the Almighty Santa and when they get old enough they put the childish Santa-god aside for the big person's "real" god. http://freethought.freeservers.com/index.html :
The fact that there is no valid reason to believe that a god exists justifies weak atheism (lack of belief in gods), but not strong atheism (belief that there are no gods).
Lack of evidence for a proposition ("God exists" in this case) is, in and of itself, not evidence that the proposition is false. However, lack of evidence for a proposition combined with the expectation that if that proposition were true that evidence would be available does constitute evidence that the proposition is false.
As an example of this reasoning, suppose someone claimed that there is a herd of invisible two-ton elephants stampeding through your living room. If such a claim were true there would be plenty of evidence in the form of broken furniture for example. Now you examine your living room and find no evidence for stampeding elephants. It is, of course, rational to believe that the elephant claim was false. Now lets consider the gods of the dominate theistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each of these religions postulate a god that is concerned with human welfare and that performs miracles. If such a god exists, there should be ample evidence of the miracles that he works whenever human suffering is present. But human suffering certainly exists and there is no evidence of the theists' god. This constitutes evidence that this god does not exist.
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