Do Atheists Have a Solid Case Here?

[POI]

For many atheists, the go-to topic for debate, is "divine hiddenness". I do not see it spoke about much here? I figured it would be worthy of discussion. Below is a theist's response/rebuttal to the argument:



For Debate:

1. In claim #1, the theist states Abraham, Joseph, and Jesus have their requests ultimately fulfilled at a later date. Why do countless victims of rape, torture, AND murder go unfulfilled in their requests to be saved?

2. In claim #2, the theist states hiddenness does seem to promote a relationship in the long run. This is clearly not the case, as many will die as atheists -- (likely me, unless He is going to reveal Himself to me later in a way for which I will not doubt His mere existence).

3. In claim #3, God remains hidden from the ones who would rebel. I guess this means if I never feel I received His presence, then that means I would have rebelled anyways? Well then, should I ignore the Bible, where He presented Himself to many who reject Him then?

I'll stop here... The theist mentions other stuff, but nothing seemingly worthy of intellectual discussion.

I hope you theists can come up with BETTER reasons than the ones given in the video?

Or, in conclusion, apply Occam's Razor for the following question: Why doesn't God intervene, when prayed upon, where ultimate finite tragedy strikes?

A): Because God does not exist... One assumption

OR

B): God does exist, but.... Commence additional assumptions

******************************

A) needs only one assumption, B) needs more....

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #175]

Even there of course they can make incidental valid points, but broadly and at bottom, they do not have an overall valid argument.

We can easily test this right now. Valid arguments are not necessarily sound arguments. A valid argument means that IF the premises are true the conclusion must be true. A sound argument is that the premises are true and the conclusion is true. Maybe you just used the wrong word here, maybe you meant that they have no sound arguments.

There are valid arguments for God, though, such as William Craigs Kalam argument.

Now Kalam, despite argument by skeptics has some merit. It seems to me that at least it is a credible default that the universe /Cosmos had a cause. But that's as far as it goes; Kalam despite the term 'God' or even Intelligent creator' not appearing, that is what it is intended to validate. But it doesn't; it at best makes a credible case for a necessary start to it all, but nobody knows what that was.

It is a valid argument. If the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. The only way to get out of this argument is to claim one of the premises is not true. This is rather easy to do. Why should you accept the universe has a beginning? You could appeal to an eternal multiverse like Sean Carrol often does.

You cannot get out of the Aristotelean argument in that same way, though, as it works regardless if the universe has a beginning or not because it argues from the nature of change itself.

That's the best I can think of and all the others are less valid than that and more dependent on Godfaith, including anything by Anselm.

Most every single argument proposed by professional philosophers are valid. They would be laughed at if they couldn't in the very least present a valid argument. Atheist and agnostic philosophers do not think the arguments for God are sound, otherwise they would probably be thests.

This is a very good video to watch starring Joe Schmid, who is an agnostic philosopher. He is not a theist. I just want to make that clear. -

The 3 biggest mistakes that atheists make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou6hi-r6GlM

Just in case you never read or at least remembered. anything I have posted, I have never denied that that Cosmic Origins (or 'Kalam' for some reason nobody has explained) is the best case Theism has. But even if the premises are true, such as experience tells us that everything has a cause, we can't be sure that cause was deliberate, which is to say, intelligently designed. So 'God' is a false premise, based on a fathbased assumption. Experience or what we are used to seeing isn't always what we find, as science has shown us many times. I agree that an act of will (intelligence) is less counter -intuitive than a natural start, but we just don't know, so what we don't know cannot be a valid parameter for your case. It's the old fallacy of the Theists having to claim that anything other than their hypothesis is 'impossible'. And even if you could validate an intelligent designer to start off the stuff from which the BB was made, you still have some validating work to do to get to 'God' which both you and I know is not just a deist -deity to you (though I could be wrong ). Kalam (and Aristotle) does your case no more good than Lane Craig and Anselm...


Look..... ...I found that video tiresome, but just a dip into his misunderstood and back to front argument against naturalism shows that he understands nothing logically and I would be doing him a favor by saying it was Godfaith doing it rather than foolishness. It's just Three mistakes and if you would care to take the time to just post what they are, I'll deal with them.

You might want to think more upon it because Joe Schmid is a professional philosopher that publishes. I guarantee that he understands logic and especially how it applies to philosophy and religio better than you and I put together.

Now as to what you said. So you now see that there are valid arguments for God. Good. You seem to even think that KALAM is sound or seems sound. I don't grant KALAM that. So you give it more credit than I do.

So if you agree that it gets us to its claim, which is the uncaused cause, well there are many things we can deduce about the uncaused causes. For example, if it is uncaused and is the cause of everything else, then it has no beginning, i.e. eternal.

Because it is eternal, it would be unchanged, thus it cannot be changing things like energy and mass.

And because it is the cause of everything else, it must in some way have the ability to cause everything else. Nothing in principle could be more powerful than it.

But also, if we apply the principle of proportionate causality, that whatever is in the effect must in some way be in the case, then we must account for consciousness, which is in the effect and so how is it in the cause. If we say it is in the cause in the way that it has knowledge of consciousness, then we grant that it is has knowledge.

Anyway, I am not going to go through the whole things here, but with a bit more work we can get to God. I show how if we grant something eternal we get to God here - https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... ing-at-all

[POI]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #175]

Even there of course they can make incidental valid points, but broadly and at bottom, they do not have an overall valid argument.

We can easily test this right now. Valid arguments are not necessarily sound arguments. A valid argument means that IF the premises are true the conclusion must be true. A sound argument is that the premises are true and the conclusion is true. Maybe you just used the wrong word here, maybe you meant that they have no sound arguments.

There are valid arguments for God, though, such as William Craigs Kalam argument.

Now Kalam, despite argument by skeptics has some merit. It seems to me that at least it is a credible default that the universe /Cosmos had a cause. But that's as far as it goes; Kalam despite the term 'God' or even Intelligent creator' not appearing, that is what it is intended to validate. But it doesn't; it at best makes a credible case for a necessary start to it all, but nobody knows what that was.

It is a valid argument. If the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. The only way to get out of this argument is to claim one of the premises is not true. This is rather easy to do. Why should you accept the universe has a beginning? You could appeal to an eternal multiverse like Sean Carrol often does.

You cannot get out of the Aristotelean argument in that same way, though, as it works regardless if the universe has a beginning or not because it argues from the nature of change itself.

That's the best I can think of and all the others are less valid than that and more dependent on Godfaith, including anything by Anselm.

Most every single argument proposed by professional philosophers are valid. They would be laughed at if they couldn't in the very least present a valid argument. Atheist and agnostic philosophers do not think the arguments for God are sound, otherwise they would probably be thests.

This is a very good video to watch starring Joe Schmid, who is an agnostic philosopher. He is not a theist. I just want to make that clear. -

The 3 biggest mistakes that atheists make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou6hi-r6GlM

Just in case you never read or at least remembered. anything I have posted, I have never denied that that Cosmic Origins (or 'Kalam' for some reason nobody has explained) is the best case Theism has. But even if the premises are true, such as experience tells us that everything has a cause, we can't be sure that cause was deliberate, which is to say, intelligently designed. So 'God' is a false premise, based on a fathbased assumption. Experience or what we are used to seeing isn't always what we find, as science has shown us many times. I agree that an act of will (intelligence) is less counter -intuitive than a natural start, but we just don't know, so what we don't know cannot be a valid parameter for your case. It's the old fallacy of the Theists having to claim that anything other than their hypothesis is 'impossible'. And even if you could validate an intelligent designer to start off the stuff from which the BB was made, you still have some validating work to do to get to 'God' which both you and I know is not just a deist -deity to you (though I could be wrong ). Kalam (and Aristotle) does your case no more good than Lane Craig and Anselm...


Look..... ...I found that video tiresome, but just a dip into his misunderstood and back to front argument against naturalism shows that he understands nothing logically and I would be doing him a favor by saying it was Godfaith doing it rather than foolishness. It's just Three mistakes and if you would care to take the time to just post what they are, I'll deal with them.

You might want to think more upon it because Joe Schmid is a professional philosopher that publishes. I guarantee that he understands logic and especially how it applies to philosophy and religio better than you and I put together.

Now as to what you said. So you now see that there are valid arguments for God. Good. You seem to even think that KALAM is sound or seems sound. I don't grant KALAM that. So you give it more credit than I do.

So if you agree that it gets us to its claim, which is the uncaused cause, well there are many things we can deduce about the uncaused causes. For example, if it is uncaused and is the cause of everything else, then it has no beginning, i.e. eternal.

Because it is eternal, it would be unchanged, thus it cannot be changing things like energy and mass.

And because it is the cause of everything else, it must in some way have the ability to cause everything else. Nothing in principle could be more powerful than it.

But also, if we apply the principle of proportionate causality, that whatever is in the effect must in some way be in the case, then we must account for consciousness, which is in the effect and so how is it in the cause. If we say it is in the cause in the way that it has knowledge of consciousness, then we grant that it is has knowledge.

Anyway, I am not going to go through the whole things here, but with a bit more work we can get to God. I show how if we grant something eternal we get to God here - https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... ing-at-all

Were you ever planning on addressing post 179?

[POI]

(Tam) wants to explain how Jesus/God speaks to all of us, and why many either don't hear him, or other.... Here is her response from another thread:

Why do you complain to him
that he responds to no ones words[a]?
14
For God does speaknow one way, now another
A) though no one perceives it.
15
B) In a dream, C) in a vision of the night,
D) when deep sleep falls on people
as they slumber in their beds,
16
E) he may speak in their ears
and terrify them with warnings,
17
F) to turn them from wrongdoing
and keep them from pride,
18
to preserve them from the pit,
their lives from perishing by the sword.

(POI) I'll start here....

A) If no one perceives it, then how do you know it's happening; let-alone from Jesus?
B) Which dreams, and how do you know?
C) What visions exactly? And have you ruled out delusions/other?
D) Why does He await deep sleep?
E) Are all conscious signal/warnings from God, or just some? And how do you distinguish the ones that are from Jesus, verses the ones that aren't?
F) Are all efforts to avoid 'pride' actually communication from God, or just some, and how do you know?

I'll answer them all with one word --> "faith". And remember, I can use 'faith' for any unfalsifiable claim.

Furthermore, remaining easily mistakable for something else, makes no reasonable sense. You still have 100% choice to follow or reject.

The most logical explanation looks to be that the writers know such a god cannot be demonstrated, so you should rely upon credulity and faith.

*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************

(Tam) I imagine that one reason the questions are continually posed to me is because I cannot provide the proof that some are asking me to provide. I can only provide evidence in the form of:

a) Personal testimony from having heard Christ
b) The written testimony of or about others who have heard Christ
c) What Christ Himself is written to have said on the matter

(POI) Is the above 'evidence'?

a) How did you rule out that it was NOT Jesus? Meaning, ANY other possible external agencies (verses) your internal thoughts?
b) There exists written testimony for all sorts of things, like alien abductions, haunted houses, Big Foot, ghost appearances, communication with alternative god/deities, etc etc etc. How do you know yours, or any of these "Jesus' experiences, have to do with Jesus at all?
c) What exactly has Jesus said on the matter, and how do you know what is said is actually true?

I'll answer them all with one word --> "faith". And remember, I can use 'faith' for any unfalsifiable claim.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #175]

Even there of course they can make incidental valid points, but broadly and at bottom, they do not have an overall valid argument.

We can easily test this right now. Valid arguments are not necessarily sound arguments. A valid argument means that IF the premises are true the conclusion must be true. A sound argument is that the premises are true and the conclusion is true. Maybe you just used the wrong word here, maybe you meant that they have no sound arguments.

There are valid arguments for God, though, such as William Craigs Kalam argument.

Now Kalam, despite argument by skeptics has some merit. It seems to me that at least it is a credible default that the universe /Cosmos had a cause. But that's as far as it goes; Kalam despite the term 'God' or even Intelligent creator' not appearing, that is what it is intended to validate. But it doesn't; it at best makes a credible case for a necessary start to it all, but nobody knows what that was.

It is a valid argument. If the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. The only way to get out of this argument is to claim one of the premises is not true. This is rather easy to do. Why should you accept the universe has a beginning? You could appeal to an eternal multiverse like Sean Carrol often does.

You cannot get out of the Aristotelean argument in that same way, though, as it works regardless if the universe has a beginning or not because it argues from the nature of change itself.

That's the best I can think of and all the others are less valid than that and more dependent on Godfaith, including anything by Anselm.

Most every single argument proposed by professional philosophers are valid. They would be laughed at if they couldn't in the very least present a valid argument. Atheist and agnostic philosophers do not think the arguments for God are sound, otherwise they would probably be thests.

This is a very good video to watch starring Joe Schmid, who is an agnostic philosopher. He is not a theist. I just want to make that clear. -

The 3 biggest mistakes that atheists make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou6hi-r6GlM

Just in case you never read or at least remembered. anything I have posted, I have never denied that that Cosmic Origins (or 'Kalam' for some reason nobody has explained) is the best case Theism has. But even if the premises are true, such as experience tells us that everything has a cause, we can't be sure that cause was deliberate, which is to say, intelligently designed. So 'God' is a false premise, based on a fathbased assumption. Experience or what we are used to seeing isn't always what we find, as science has shown us many times. I agree that an act of will (intelligence) is less counter -intuitive than a natural start, but we just don't know, so what we don't know cannot be a valid parameter for your case. It's the old fallacy of the Theists having to claim that anything other than their hypothesis is 'impossible'. And even if you could validate an intelligent designer to start off the stuff from which the BB was made, you still have some validating work to do to get to 'God' which both you and I know is not just a deist -deity to you (though I could be wrong ). Kalam (and Aristotle) does your case no more good than Lane Craig and Anselm...


Look..... ...I found that video tiresome, but just a dip into his misunderstood and back to front argument against naturalism shows that he understands nothing logically and I would be doing him a favor by saying it was Godfaith doing it rather than foolishness. It's just Three mistakes and if you would care to take the time to just post what they are, I'll deal with them.

You might want to think more upon it because Joe Schmid is a professional philosopher that publishes. I guarantee that he understands logic and especially how it applies to philosophy and religio better than you and I put together.

Now as to what you said. So you now see that there are valid arguments for God. Good. You seem to even think that KALAM is sound or seems sound. I don't grant KALAM that. So you give it more credit than I do.

So if you agree that it gets us to its claim, which is the uncaused cause, well there are many things we can deduce about the uncaused causes. For example, if it is uncaused and is the cause of everything else, then it has no beginning, i.e. eternal.

Because it is eternal, it would be unchanged, thus it cannot be changing things like energy and mass.

And because it is the cause of everything else, it must in some way have the ability to cause everything else. Nothing in principle could be more powerful than it.

But also, if we apply the principle of proportionate causality, that whatever is in the effect must in some way be in the case, then we must account for consciousness, which is in the effect and so how is it in the cause. If we say it is in the cause in the way that it has knowledge of consciousness, then we grant that it is has knowledge.

Anyway, I am not going to go through the whole things here, but with a bit more work we can get to God. I show how if we grant something eternal we get to God here - https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... ing-at-all

You don't need to go through the whole thing here as you are making the same old mistakes and can't see it. You cannot play the miserable gambit of 'Dr X or Professor Y is as Authority and argues for God, so I win without having to post any argument. Make your case, or you have none.

You also misunderstand or misrepresent my position on First cause, it has Legs because we do not know. I do NOT credit the argument because it only posits a cause that itself did not need to be caused. That does NOT, Du Lieber Augustine, get us to an intelligent creator, but to a puzzle as to what the uncreated cause could be, and I repeat that popping an uncreated intelligence in there to 'Explain' it, just compounds the problem.

I won't even spend time on the fallacy of matching god -claims to the Cosmic physics problem and saying that it somehow supports the god - claim (and you still seem unwilling to explain how you get from there to a particular God) or Consciousness which (like Abiogenesis) is, on evidence, better explained by evolution than by appeal to a god, because what consciousness is and how it works is still a puzzle. Gaps for god are not evidence for god, but remaining holes where a god - claim can lurk because of s yet unexplaned puzzles.

You are never going to be able to argue any of this logically (never mind borrowed feathers from this or that Authority) all the time your starting - point is Godfaith.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #184]

To get to the uncaused cause having intelligence is easy. I show how here - https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... ing-at-all

As I said in another thread there is only one possible necessary being, who is existence itself.

So we only need to see what religion best fits that role if any at all.

It is not about trying to find a particular God but if God left us with revelation.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #185]

No. I'm sure we've already done this and the problem is Godfaith as I've said

"It cannot change, and it cannot grow, thus it must always know everything it knows.

Because it is the ultimate cause of all things existing, and the way in which it can be the cause of all things is by having those things virtually, meaning knowledge of them, then the eternal knows all things that were, are and will be.

Also, consider this. He must be the ultimate cause of knowledge itself, but in what way could he have knowledge? It couldnt have it physically, for physical things come to be. It couldnt have it virtually either, but why not?"

The problem is is not even considering evolution ('chemical' evolution here) Hypothetically or demi -hypothetically one could postulate a nothing that can act like something, which is pretty much what matter/energy is. Thus what can form stable complexities works and what does not, cases. In this way, matter /nergy comes into being and the laws of physics come to be. It is not unlike the argument from abiogenesis - given the origins of the basic matter (which we know comes from old novae) hypothetically the emergence of life without the need for a forward -planning intelligence. Cosmic origins is rather the same.

Of course I know that the idea of a nothing that has the ability to spacially relate to other bits of nothing to behave like something is counter intuitive, but turtles all the way down is even worse and the hinted at pr -existing intelligence takes even more explaining. (n.b quotes from the gospel of John prove nothing)

Aside from the clumsy leap from a something that already knows all the laws of physics before they happen and has the magic power to make it come about, which is multiplying logical entities without better reason than "I can't imagine anything else" to a "Him" which tries to get its' fingertips onto Biblelgod to drag it into the argument, the apparently erudite argumty is actually a washout, because it already has a mindset so fixated on Goddunnit that is simply cannot consider any other possibility, let alone see the problems with its' own faithbased mindset, or just leave it as 'nobody knows', which is the fact, here.

Now, I've actually addressed one of these links you keep referring us to and I've done it, even though I'me sure I already did it somewhere. I don't expect to have you referring us to previously debunked argument again.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #186]

That is a gross missrepresenation of what I say, though.

Rather, I first established that there must be causal relations, some principle of causality. This follows from accepting that something is eternal rather than spontaneous existence. Now if you are willing to accept the intellectual price tag that comes along with spontaneous existence, so be it, but most are not cool with it.

So we are left with something eternal. This means everything else that is not the eternal must come to exist and it cannot come to exist spontaneously because we already ruled that out, unless you haven't, then you will incure the cost of that belief.

But if like me, you find far more believability in something being eternal, then there is the eternal and then everything that comes to be. It cannot come to be spontaneously or of itself so it comes to be by the only thing it could, from the eternal thing.

With this, we have established cause and effect. We can now develop some principles of cause and effect.

Then the next thing I established is PPC, the principle of proportionate causality, which basically means that whatever is in the effect must in some way be in the cause. You could always reject this, but doing so comes with consequences that you must be willing to accept.

For example, if PPC is not true, then there is no reason that sometimes it might be the case that if you mix enough water and milk in just the right way, you get rocks or maybe full-grown chickens. If something can emerge without it somehow being in the cause then anything can emerge. There are no limits.

If we accept PPC, which seems most reasonable, then we must account for the effect (knowledge) being in the eternal cause. It cannot have it virtually for to have knowledge virtually means you have knowledge actually. Thus the eternal thing is actually knowledgeable.

But like I said you can always reject PPC and believe in actual magic.