Forum:Arguments Against God

I didn't do very good in the arguments FOR God, so logically I wouldn't do very well in disproving the arguments against God. Of course, I apparently have a distorted sense of logic. So you never know..Pitzy (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll just leave this here: Negative proof. You opened this page with your comment indented by two colons (this symbol :).  It seems you are just putting an arbitrary number at the beginning of your posts.  Here is a good set of guidelines for posting on wikis . Marlow (talk) 20:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The ignostic perspective
Let's start here. There's no point in arguing this question without a definition of what's being tested verified. I guess you could say this is the idea that comes closest to mirroring my own.

By example, if I argue that dragons are real, people are right to be incredulous of my claim, but when they respond say dragons don't exist, I can waffle about it and say "Oh I mean WP:Komodo dragons." Unless what you mean is clear, arguing about whether you're right is a fruitless exercise.

As a less fantastical comparison, consider people arguing about whether tomatoes are fruit or vegetables. I can say they're fruit, and point to the fact they are watery and have seeds. And someone else can point out that they have the nutritional and culinary properties of vegetables. This debate is fruitless(ha) because the very idea of what a fruit is isn't established. If, however, myself, and whoever I'm having this hypothetical argument with, decide on a definition of fruit and vegetable ahead of time, we can actually cut through all the ambiguity and answer the question quite freely. Not just for tomatoes, and beets, and rhubarb.

So to the ignostic, the answer for "Is there a god" can only be answered in the context of a well-defined god(and then for most of those that are commonly raised, the ignositic has to promote the discussion to being agnostic or atheistic).

When we argue against "god" as you're asking us to, keep in mind that not only do we have to consider Yehwah, but also Vishnu, Thor, Allah, or Khorne as possibilities for what the question means. Heck, some people define "god" as the universe itself, and the natural response to that definition is "So what? we already know the universe exists."(Philosophical mincing about this notion aside). Ikanreed (talk) 20:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

So, questions to you, from this perspective
What is a fruit? How do you know if something is a fruit? Understanding and answering this question seems natural to anyone familiar with fruit(though we may disagree).

What is god? How do you know if something is god? Understanding and answering this question may help you in ways I couldn't say.

The determinist's perspective(against an intercessionalist god)
Two quick predicates to this discussion
 * 1) This one requires some light education in philosophy to follow. Read up on the wikipedia article on WP:Determinism to understand the meaning of the term when I use it.
 * 2) This one also assumes as a predicate that determinism is true.  It's a premise to the rejection, and can, itself, be rejected if you don't think it's valid.  But you should think about why.

Determinism is the idea that one "state" of the universe flows to the next, without variation. You can think of it as coming from newton's laws. An object at rest remains at rest until acted upon by another force. An object in motion remains in motion until acted upon by another force. And then all the forces that get exerted on objects comes from other objects. And since the motion of those objects is predictable, it can appear that the resulting state of the universe always flows from the current one.

Now the actual modern laws of physics are a lot more complicated. They deal with a quantum world and a relativistic one. And concern themselves with fields and particles and waves and fundamental forces. But the big thing for this notion hasn't: matter reacts as a result of force being exerted. And after countless observations and experiments, the only forces that affect matter come down to just 4: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity. And no experiments have shown things change for causes other than those.

Where then, can an intercessionalist god(like many claim such as yourself the Christian god is) interfere with the world? Why does matter we carefully look at always bend to the apparent mechanics of the universe and not some portion of it simply obey god's direct will? Omnipotence suggests the power to change things, intercessionalism suggests that god does so. Those changes, no matter their nuance, would leave traces. Those traces simply don't appear to exist. Ikanreed (talk) 21:07, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Blah blah blah, acknowledging the flaws in the argument and tacit replies

 * 1) Okay, quantum strangeness is a thing, but every crazy idea ever uses it as an excuse, why should we consider your idea special in that regards?
 * 2) "But what if god just set everything on the path it is now and everything is just fated to come out to his will?" Well, that's not the god we're discussing right now.  See the ignostic argument.
 * 3) "God could purposefully hide from us." Then why leave a book explicitly stating both his presence and how he works?   Odd choice.