Is God logically possible?

[atheist buddy]

Please consider the Bible passages below:

God is love - 1 John 4:8
Love is not jealous - 1 Corinthians 13:4
The Lord thy God is a jealous God - Deuteronomy 6:15


That's like saying this:

Skippy is a cat
Cats are not dogs
Skippy is a dog

Logically impossible. Therefore God does not exist.

Question for debate: Is there any way to escape the fact that the Biblical attributes of God are logically contradictory and clearly violate the Law of Identity? Is there any way to come to any conclusion other than that God, as described in the Bible, doesn't exist?

[Freddy_Scissorhands]

What kind of justice system is that, .. to pay for your crimes, your sins?? Ah, .. I don't know, .. a just one?
I could go into greater detail to explain all this, but it would take too long. But tell me, what's better, or easier, to kill one of your sheep to show you are sorry, or be killed yourself, or maybe spend the rest of your life locked up in a cell?

Dude!
Listen!
You don't get it!
You've missed my point AGAIN... even though I've tried to make it very clear!
My objection in that case was NOT that god was not just! How can you not understand that?
Go back and read my comments again, and TRY to understand what I've actually writen!
The argument is: If god is just (as you claim he is) he CANNOT be perfectly mercifull! Because these two things contradict each other!
THAT was my argument! From the beginning! And you missed it again, and went on a speech about why something is just or not!
This doesn't matter to the point I've made!
I don't know how much clearer I can make that!

But actually:
YES, depending on your crime you SHOULD go to prison!
Killing some animal is an idiotic way of punishment! And if you think it isn't, then I'm glad that you are not responsible for our justice system!

lol, .. what would YOU do with someone who beat, then repeatedly raped your wife/daughter for days, then suffocated her by fulfilling some perverted sexual fantasy? What if you found out he did this to other women/girls too? I ask so I would understand your version of mercy since you think my God, the God of the Bible is so 'Holy Cow' unmerciful?

Yeesss, of course!
Go straight to the most extreme case!
Why? Why did you start with that example? Why not with something else, a smaller crime? Like stealing a chewing gum from a kiosk, or something like that?
Maybe is it, because then your gods "justice" system would suddenly look idiotic? Indefensible?
Picked up sticks on the sabbath?! STONE HIM!
Or at least kill a sheep for him, right?
Yeah, yeah... makes sense!

Also: You AGAIN missed the point!
What you describe (even though you make a terrible case for your understanding of fairness and justice) is that your god is JUST! But you prove by that, that he is not mercifull, because if you have mercy, you forgive the wrong-doings!
You can't have both. And you actually make my point here.

Seems like everyone on this earth thinks they could be more merciful than our Creator, yet I myself seen and been subjected to such injustice and cruelty throughout my life that would make your hair in the back of your head stand up, and you know what? Not one of those horrors I suffered was by the hand of God.

Noooo, of course not.
Your god just stood by and watched. He didn't act himself, he just didn't do anything to stop it.
You know why I know that I'm more mercifull than that monster you worship?
Because if I could, I would have helped you. I would have stepped in. I wouldn't have just let the injustice happend and said "Yeah, you go on, you criminal, do your bad action. But I will punish you LATER!"
THAT'S what your god apparently does, all day long, each day! Sit back, do nothing, even though he had the power to stop it, and just says "Yep, you'll be punished later. AFTER you've done these horrific crimes..."
Don't try to paint your god with the brush of innocence! If he has seen the terrible things happen to you, and didn't do anything to stop it, he is JUST as guilty as the person who did the horrible acts to you!

Actually, men appeared many times to save me, then disappeared. Now I know God sent them. And that was just me, I know billions have suffered also.

Yep... and sometimes god sents men to help you, and sometimes he doesn't.
You know what? I would sent men ALL THE TIME! (If I had the power)
Which makes me morally superior to your god!
And you would do the same thing, I hope, which makes you morally superior too!

So please, tell me how mercy is really supposed to be outside of this unmerciful, and cruel Bible God that you make out to be the cause of all the suffering on this earth? I am very interested to hear?

HE CAN'T!!!!
THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT OF MY ARGUMENT!
Thanks for making it for me!!!

But wait, maybe that wasn't cruelty at all, it's the way evolution is, the way things are. We are to forgive and forget. We don't need punishment for crimes right?

Of course we do!
Where did I say ANYTHING ELSE?

It's not like 70 million people were killed, many tortured to death, starved just in this last World War, right?

Yep. These horrible things happend. And guess who (according to your believe system) watched and let it all happen, even though he had the power to stop it?
Your god.
Even if he existed, he would be an immoral monster, who rather watches and does nothing (or "sents men"... meaning, that you just attribute acts of good, but limited people to your god, who could have stopped it all together)!

Yes He IS 'unchanging', you will never convince Him that good is evil, and that evil is good.

Wow, you seemed to have witnessed a lot of injustice by the hand of this Bible God. Like Jim Jones in Jonestown Guyana right? Yep, .. even atheists charge God of the Bible for all those deaths. You know, the One they swear don't exist.

You know what a "hypothetical scenario" is?
It means to accept a certain premisse (like "the biblical god exists") and apply it to a certain real scenario.
I don't believe in your god, but even if I did, he would be a moral monster, as described above.
But I don't believe in him.
I blame the actual people who do these acts. And I blame them, and despise their irrational, unsupported believes in a deity, which they don't dare to question, just because they have defined him into being supperior to them! Just as you have!
You have no basis to call your god just or good. Even if he existed, he clearly wouldn't be any of this.
But you have convinced yourself that he not only exists, but that he HAS to be the model of perfection and absolute goodness... which forces you to make horrible, inhumane excuses, because on a certain level you understand, that the world we live in and a good, powerfull god are not reconcilable. And this scares me. It scares me to see, how religious believes can make regular, nice people defend the most horrible ideas of "justice" and "goodness".

Explain to me justice without mercy, or mercy without justice?

Didn't I already explain these things?
Justice is the proper application of just and fair rules, which means punishments for wrong doing.
Mercy is the oposite. It's the suspension of the necessary and fair punishment. Therefore an entity can't be absolutly just and absolutly mercifull at the same time... which makes your god impossible, since he apparently is both.

Got it, .. no God, no devil and no hell, and this is all God of the Bibles fault, right?

Ha?
It's the god's fault that there is no god?
What?

I mean... I doubt that your hell, exists in the first place, but even if it did, I doubt that anybody choses to go there.

No one (not that I know of anyways) plans to go to prison either, yet I know prisons exist, and that they are packed.

Yes. And yet the prisoners don't chose to go there. They get sent against their will.
So even your analogy proves the point that people don't chose to go to jail/hell, they get sent there.

Being all powerful is not a contradiction in itself. God created man, as children of God (little gods) with no problem. But we are 'created'. Once God the Creator creates something, it automatically becomes the created. Think of eternity, or infinity, there cannot be other infinites or eternals, because then eternal and infinite is not eternal and infinite.

And again, you miss the point completly!
Let me make a very simple analogy:
Can god create a rock, that is too heavy for himself to lift?
If yes, he isn't all powerfull, because he couldn't lift the rock.
If no, then he isn't all powerfull, because there is something he can't create.
Omnipotence (all-powerfullness) is an internally contradictary quality.

Absolutely. I tend to jump ahead to make my point, but I guess this could be taken wrong, even offensive. My fault and I apologize.

It's fine.
I tent to move rather slowely through these discussions, but it's because I don't want to miss or jump ahead.
That's why you can really just take the things I write by their word.
Don't interprete more into it than I've actually writen, just take what I've writen as they stand. Sometimes, this might include stating something you might consider obvious, but be asured: In these conversations, there usually isn't much we all take equally for granted. That's why we have to build these things up from the absolut basis.

[ttruscott]

...

Explain to me justice without mercy, or mercy without justice?

...

Two groups of people:

Those sinners who by free will accepted HIS deity on faith and came under HIS promise of election to heaven by the salvation found in HIS Son are treated with perfect mercy.

Those sinners who by their free will rejected HIM as their GOD on faith are forever outside of HIS mercy and grace as eternally evil since they also rejected HIS promises of election and salvation thinking them to be manipulations without any reality and so are given over to the justice of damnation.

The elect are under perfect mercy; the non-elect are under perfect justice.

Peace, Ted

[Freddy_Scissorhands]

Two groups of people:

Those sinners who by free will accepted HIS deity on faith and came under HIS promise of election to heaven by the salvation found in HIS Son are treated with perfect mercy.

Those sinners who by their free will rejected HIM as their GOD on faith ...

I actually know a third category (and I belong to that category, actually):
The people who are not convinced of this god's existence and therefore just don't believe in him, not based on any free-will choice, but rather on the fact that they haven't been covinced.
What about them?

[atheist buddy]

Arian, maybe I can help get Freddy's point across to you.

Imagine there are two judges.

One is super strict. He follows the law to the letter. If the justice system says that a criminal deserves to be in jail for one year, 7 days and 15 minutes, then that's EXACTLY how much he sends him to jail for. He does NOT deviate from the justice system. He is practically perfect at giving people EXACTLY the punishment they deserve.

The other judge is a little more laid back. He's a really nice guy. Sometimes he gives people exactly the kind of punishments they deserve, but sometimes he forgives them and lets them go free, especially if they chat him up a bit, tell him that they have a personal relationship with his son, or sing songs about him.

Can you agree that the two judges are different?

Can you agree that no judge can simultaneously act like the first judge AND like the second judge?

Can you agree that it's logically impossible for a single person to be both the first and the second judge?


Now. If God is infinitely just, then he's like the first judge. Everybody gets the punishment they deserve. If God is infinitely forgiving, then he's like the second judge. Some people get LESS punishment than they deserve.

God could be one of those two things, but he can't logically be BOTH.

The bible says that he is both, therefore the God described by the Bible is logically impossible.

Therefore God doesn't exist.

Got it?

[ttruscott]

Two groups of people:

Those sinners who by free will accepted HIS deity on faith and came under HIS promise of election to heaven by the salvation found in HIS Son are treated with perfect mercy.

Those sinners who by their free will rejected HIM as their GOD on faith ...

I actually know a third category (and I belong to that category, actually):
The people who are not convinced of this god's existence and therefore just don't believe in him, not based on any free-will choice, but rather on the fact that they haven't been covinced.
What about them?

Imo,
They are a compilation of all all sinners who have repressed their memories of GOD's proof of HIS divinity and power because they are sinners, that is, that is the power of sin over them.

So, a third grouping but not a different group from my two.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

...

God could be one of those two things, but he can't logically be BOTH.

The bible says that he is both, therefore the God described by the Bible is logically impossible.

...

Your premise is faulty so your conclusion misses the mark as per post #22:

One perfect judge, two methods for two different groups of people.

Peace, Ted

[arian]

.

God is love . . . .

This is known as an unverified claim (or platitude, conjecture, opinion, etc).

That many believe it to be true does not make it true and popular belief is no indication of truth.

Such statements have no merit in debate.

Where did I say; "because many believe this to be true, it must be true?" or any faximility thereof? I would be the last person to abide by what others think, or what the world-view is.

Would "God is a good God" be more acceptable to you, then revealing from scientific observation the wonders of this world as my proof of this?

But then 'good' does not contain evil, and God can do a lot of evil as we seen in the Days of Noah's flood, and as we are told we'll see His truest and most pure anger portrayed in the short days to come; "After the last Trumpet Sound"

God is NOT the definition of Love, love has its own definition.

Love - Merriam Webster
(1) a : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child>
(2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lover
(3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates>
b : an assurance of affection

So no, God is not an 'assurance of affection', it's something He does, it's something we can feel Him doing. Well I can anyways and I don't care what opposite popular belief in what I am really feeling is out there. Unless I'm not allowed to express this in debate?

I can show love, and hate, and so can God, .. only infinitely better. Hitler shown love in many different ways, but I wouldn't call him 'good', especially refer to him by; "Hitler is love!"

If someone says "Odon is funny", doesn't mean I have to act like a joker all the time, right? I doubt anyone would expect me to either.

So God IS love, .. just don't tick Him off by telling others He doesn't exist, or that he is a plural demon named Legion! Is that better?

Thanks Zzyzx.

[atheist buddy]

...

God could be one of those two things, but he can't logically be BOTH.

The bible says that he is both, therefore the God described by the Bible is logically impossible.

...

Your premise is faulty so your conclusion misses the mark as per post #22:

One perfect judge, two methods for two different groups of people.

Peace, Ted

Right. Kinda like how white people and black people are treated differently in America's judicial system. One method to judge one group, another method to judge the other group.

If you don't treat all people equally, you're not perfectly just.

If you use terrible cruelty and torture for some, and are infinitely nice to others, just because they are friends with your son, that's not perfect justice, that's corruption and cronyism.

[ThePainefulTruth]

Please consider the Bible passages below:

God is love - 1 John 4:8
Love is not jealous - 1 Corinthians 13:4
The Lord thy God is a jealous God - Deuteronomy 6:15


That's like saying this:

Skippy is a cat
Cats are not dogs
Skippy is a dog

Logically impossible. Therefore God does not exist.

Question for debate: Is there any way to escape the fact that the Biblical attributes of God are logically contradictory and clearly violate the Law of Identity? Is there any way to come to any conclusion other than that God, as described in the Bible, doesn't exist?

Once again, as atheists are want to do, you argue against the irrational "revealed" Gods. You acknowledge that in your text, but not in the title, and the conclusion should be "Logically impossible: Therefore the God of the Bible does not exist. A laissez-faire God and no God are equally impossible--or equally possible as explanations for the existence of the universe. We have nothing to work with.

[Divine Insight]

If you use terrible cruelty and torture for some, and are infinitely nice to others, just because they are friends with your son, that's not perfect justice, that's corruption and cronyism.

Truly. This is basically the definition of bigotry and prejudice.

And this is indeed innate to all these religions that come from the Middle East cultures. All these religions amount to are the various cultures of the Middle East using their man-made religions to proclaim that if you don't recognize and pacify their God then they have righteous reasons to treat you as a heathen.

This whole Abrahamic picture is nothing but a historical example of how the Middle Eastern cultures designed their religions to use God as an excuse to renounce their enemies in the name of their Gods.

This truly is what this is all about. It's really not at all about personal salvation etc. That actually evolved over history. The original religions were politically motivated to be used as and excuse to condemn anyone who doesn't bow down and worship the religion of the culture in question.