Gibberish of the day!

[Kaelik]

I never would have associated the concept of omnipotence with a lack of consciousness. The idea that you have unlimited power but can't act on it is rather bizarre to me.

Well, you'll notice that Jovian explicitly denied that consciousness would have to be an aspect of God, because he knows better than to use any definition of god we would actually call god, since all of them are disprovable.

@Jovian.

You are a lying whore. I specifically asked you to make clarifications about omnipotence and omniscience. Your response was to not make any clarifications at all and avoid the question. Which is why you aren't worth my fucking time. Don't pretend you are being reasonable by being willing to address the exact issues you avoided for no fucking reason.

@anyone else who cares and is not that retard.

I can define God as "a four legged object for sitting on, often with a back to lean against." And that would totally exist. But when we talk about "god" we are actually talking about something which has, amongst other qualities, a will, and performs actions. Sometimes the only action we ascribe is creating the universe, often times, many other actions are described.

But any serious description of god that anyone who isn't a retarded "agnostics are better" bitch hole would ever call a god is going to feature a will, and perform actions. Which means we can determine if those actions were actually performed.

[Murtak]

Again, sort of. Believing in something without even the slightest shred of evidence is not a rational act, is it?

Nope! But I never said faith was rational, either.

Well, that kind of sums it up, doesn't it? I will go into a little more detail though.

God is actually totally fine with me murdering and raping my way across the country, leaving untold suffering in my wake, as long as I really regret it afterward?

No. He was pretty explicit that raping and murdering and whatnot is not cool and you shouldn't do it. However, if you do do it, and you do legitimately repent afterward, then he's not going to hold it against you.

Mind you, he is omniscient, so he can see what will happen. That is, in one word, evil.

Which is more evil: forgiving someone for something they are genuinely sorry for, or holding someone to a literally impossible standard of behavior?
He is fucking omnipotent and omniscient, no? He is therefor absolutely capable of fast forwarding to me realizing I am being a fucking psycho, including me being sorry and in the process saving a dozen lives and preventing a metric fuckton of misery. He does not need to mess with my free will at all, he can just sit down with me, show what I am going to do, wait for me to be sorry, forgive me and then put me back down on earth, redeemed.

I have no evidence that what my senses tell me are real. It could be a dream/hallucination/Cartesian Demon/The Matrix/whatever. Therefore, because I have no evidence that what I'm experiencing is real, they must not be real! Reality is a lie and I'm just a brain in a jar, dreaming of being a guy arguing philosophy on the internet!

You do have evidence, namely your senses. You don't have proof. In respect to God existing this is reversed. We have no evidence that he exists, but we can not prove he does not exist. By that reasoning the world evidently exists (the alternative being possible but far-fetched) and God does not (the alternative being far-fetched). Or, as I stated above, if your computer exists, God doesn't.

On the other hand, atheists regularly say that everyone who does believe in God is a nutcase. Which is how this whole thing got started: you cannot prove that God doesn't exist any more than you can prove that God does exist. It's equally irrational to believe either. Both beliefs require faith, not reason.

Exactly. I am fine with that, mind you. Everyone is irrational to some degree. But I don't people they will go to hell for not believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I don't even see the room for arguing. You admitted faith is irrational, that much is pretty much a given. The question is whether we can prove God does not exist, not whether believing is sane.

Believing in an invisible sky fairy who can do anything and everything but just sits there doing nothing except saving us all, unless he is busy torturing souls for eternity is certainly not sane.

Let me ask you a different question: Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Shiva? Zeus? Odin? And if not, why not?

[Murtak]

Maj: Regarding Mormons (not) being christians, I don't have a specific reason. Perhaps because I never heard of them when we discussed different faiths in school?

[violence in the media]

You motherfucker.

My bad; I must have missed that at the time because I was looking at other posts. There's a lot of material in this thread, after all.

The short version: God being omnipotent doesn't negate free will. It constrains our choices (we can't choose to ignore gravity and fly away, because that's not how reality works -- limits which God, with his omnipotence, presumably imposed upon the universe), but it doesn't make those choices for us. Though an omnipotent God could force our choices (and even leave us the illusion of free will while he did it), the mere fact that they're omnipotent doesn't mean that they are forcing our choices.

Being omniscient is trickier, but it depends on how you define free will. If you define free will as "the ability to do otherwise", then omniscience does preclude free will. If someone knows, unerringly, what you will do, then you can't do otherwise (because then they'd be wrong, and they're omniscient, so they can't be wrong). However, that confuses cause and effect. The knowledge is the effect of the choice, not the other way around. The knowledge exists because of the choice that was made; you could choose otherwise, and this would change the knowledge. This is why I don't like the commonly-used "ability to do otherwise" definition of free will. "Could have done otherwise if you had wanted to" is a better one. I choose to do X because I want to do X, and God knows that I will choose X, and God is omniscient, so I can't do other than X, because otherwise omniscient God would be wrong (which is impossible). However, if I wanted to do Y instead, I would have, and God would have known that I wanted to do Y instead, so he's still omniscient. I can do otherwise in that situation -- but only if I want to.

It's cool. I just read that an my first thought was, "you have to be fucking kidding me."

Now, regarding your actual response, you're separating the omnipotence from the omniscience and trying to handle them as two discreet chunks, which I don't think quite works for a typical conception of god.

Omnipotence is related to your capacity for free will because of the control it exerts on all things that go into your arrival at any given decision. If an omnipotent god designed biological processes that resulted in you being born with brain damage, that constrains and channels your ability to make decisions. What you perceive and the way your brain interprets it is a result of physiological processes. Processes that a supposedly omnipotent creator designed all the interactions and governing laws for.

Think of it this way, if a magician or con man tricks you into doing something you didn't want to do or ordinarily wouldn't do or that you feel regret for doing afterwards, can you have been said to have exercised your free will? What if you believed that you were doing the right thing or engaging in the proper course of action?

Now, we know that con men can fool people into doing things by controlling the information and situations that go into arriving at a decision. God has orders of magnitude greater control over your environment and designed all the biological components. Even if his manipulations are not malicious, his omniscience grants him the ability to know, based upon all the inputs that he has created or controlled, which choice you are going to make. It's not that you might choose B and his omniscient knowledge will change to accomodate that expression of free will, it's that he knows that you will only ever choose A under the existing circumstances.

Another example, I'd wager there are some people you know well enough to be able to predict their reactions and decisions in certain situations, right? Now imagine having perfect knowledge of everything and, to top it all off, to be able to influence this process through control of random events that are outside the free will debate. Also, on the topic of influencing choice, how is a concept of hell or punishment not an attempt to constrain and channel behavior? I think most of us would agree that a situation of "Do X or I'll shoot you in the face" doesn't present a real opportunity to exercise one's free will. Arguing that you're free to be shot in the face counts as a choice is simply an unsatisfying technicality, especially if you know that they'll never select it. There's an irreverant saying that my circle of friends has to illustrate the stupidity of undesirable or non-viable "choices": You can always kill yourself, too.

[Username17]

Maj: Regarding Mormons (not) being christians, I don't have a specific reason. Perhaps because I never heard of them when we discussed different faiths in school?

A fair number of people do consider them Christians, a fair number do not. The Hindu analogy was not flippant.

Personally, I view Mormons as Christians simply because when you ask them if they are Christians they mostly say "Yes." Other people constrain their set of possible Christians to those who follow the teachings of the original Christian sect: the various books of the bible as copied down from those 1800 year old manuscripts. And that gets into a whole big circle jerk about "Are Eastern Orthodox Christians really Christians?" because what books people accept as part of the bible vary wildly.

But it's frekking obvious that Joseph Smith's piece of crazy bible fanfic was never part of any of the teachings of any of the original sects. Whether Psalm 151 is the work of their God through David or just some Slavonic heretical nonsense about how little kids grow up to be kings sometimes is something that people stab each other over, but I honestly don't give a shit. And yet no one is going to be able to make a coherent argument that Joseph Smith's rambling diatribe about horses and steel in pre-Columbian North America was ever written or spoken of by any first millennial Jew. So if you have any biblical purity standards at all, then you're not going to accept Mormons as being Christian. But from the standpoint of an outside observer, Mormons making shit up about how the Native Americans are really Jews who have been cursed with darkened skin is no more outlandish than the Protestant Rapture Cult, and probably no more offensive and destructive when you get down to the nitty gritty.

That being said, Mormonism is empirically false. It makes specific testable claims that have been tested repeatedly and soundly rejected. It is a scientific fact that Mormonism is baloney. And it is a social fact that Mormonism gave us Glenn Beck and is still feeding us Glenn Beck to this day. And this may or may not be more important to you than the fact that "regular" Protestant Christianity is logically impossible, and can be dispelled by reason alone.

So again, from my standpoint: if you ask them if they are Christians they say that they are. And their stuff is not true and it is scary, destructive, dangerous, and retarded. But that doesn't put them on an uneven playing field with the rest of Christians, so whatever.

-Username17

[Falgund]

He is fucking omnipotent and omniscient, no? He is therefor absolutely capable of fast forwarding to me realizing I am being a fucking psycho, including me being sorry and in the process saving a dozen lives and preventing a metric fuckton of misery. He does not need to mess with my free will at all, he can just sit down with me, show what I am going to do, wait for me to be sorry, forgive me and then put me back down on earth, redeemed.

Are you trying to create a religion worshiping The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come ?

[Orion]

Actually omniscience is more compatible with Free Will than omnipotence is. Look,I think free will is a meaningless buzzword, a inherently unimportant and undecidable question. So It's hard for me to opine about it at all.

But it seems to me that if you postulate a being which is outside time, the fact that it can "see" your future choices in no way means you don't really MAKE choices, just as my ability to "see" your past choices doesn't disprove your free will. Of course once you add quantum mechanics there's some question about whether "seeing the future" makes sense at all, but hypothesizing a God who can do it doesn't mean that they control us. Omnipotence, on the other hand, directly contradicts free will. A being who can do anything controls everything. Nobody else makes any choices. Any decisions you think you make, God MADE you make.

Christians like to argue that an omnipotent god can still allow for free will. He COULD change your mind for you, but he chooses to allow you to make your own decisions. The problem with this is that if God is omnipotent, it's exactly as much effort to change something as to leave it unchanged. And if it made you, it made you in such a way as to be what you are. Basically, since you can't choose anything God didn't want you to choose, you can't choose at all.

[NativeJovian]

I don't think you'd be satisfied with the definitions of god left over,

Which is why I specified "some combination of traits that could legitimately called God". Defining God as "the whole universe" isn't what I -- or most people, I believe -- would consider legitimate.

I specifically asked you to make clarifications about omnipotence and omniscience. Your response was to not make any clarifications at all and avoid the question. Which is why you aren't worth my fucking time.

Funny; I asked you to present your evidence against God first, and you did the exact same thing to me. Your asking for clarifications came after me asking to see the evidence you claim to have. You're the one with the evidence -- I want to see what definition of God you're using and what evidence you have against its existence. Don't bullshit me about how you can't disprove God without a definition -- you claimed to have evidence, which means you have to already have a definition you're using.

But any serious description of god that anyone who isn't a retarded "agnostics are better" bitch hole

I never said agnostics are "better", I said that they're more rational. You're the one who took "more rational" to mean "better". Personally, I think people who have faith are pretty incredible. Faith seriously allows people to do amazing things; I wish I could have more faith, because I honestly do believe that it makes people's lives better. For every psychotic asshole who blows something up in the name of God, there are ten people doing charity work and generally trying to make the world a better place.

a god is going to feature a will, and perform actions. Which means we can determine if those actions were actually performed.

Is that what you're using as your definition for God? Show your evidence disproving that, then.

He is fucking omnipotent and omniscient, no? He is therefor absolutely capable of fast forwarding to me realizing I am being a fucking psycho, including me being sorry and in the process saving a dozen lives and preventing a metric fuckton of misery. He does not need to mess with my free will at all, he can just sit down with me, show what I am going to do, wait for me to be sorry, forgive me and then put me back down on earth, redeemed.

Not everyone repents, though. Some people are fucking crazy and think they're doing a good thing by killing people and whatnot. Some people are legitimately evil and just don't give a shit about other people, and so being shown the err of their ways beforehand wouldn't change their behavior at all.

There's also the question of whether such knowledge would really be free will. If you're thinking to yourself "hm, I'd really like some key lime pie" and all of a sudden God flashes the knowledge of the evils of gluttony and how if you eat the pie you'll be doing an evil thing but eventually you'll get over it and be forgiven for it but until they God will totally be pissed at you... is that really a free choice? By comparison, if I overhear you musing about pie and I say that if you get that pie I'll kick you in the groin, but it'll only hurt for a little while and eventually you'll get over it and the pain will go away like it never happened, is that a free choice?

You do have evidence, namely your senses. You don't have proof. In respect to God existing this is reversed. We have no evidence that he exists, but we can not prove he does not exist. By that reasoning the world evidently exists (the alternative being possible but far-fetched) and God does not (the alternative being far-fetched).

Sure. I never said that God's existence is particularly likely by any standard, just that you can't prove that he doesn't exist. Or that he does, but we already knew that.

Or, as I stated above, if your computer exists, God doesn't.

Well, but like we've already discussed, your senses don't "prove" anything. If you want to "prove" that your computer exists, you have to take it on faith that your senses are showing you reality. Does that mean that everyone who believe in what their senses show them is irrational?

Let me ask you a different question: Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Shiva? Zeus? Odin? And if not, why not?

Nope, for the same reasons that I don't believe in God. But I don't deny the possibility that they might exist. My stance is "I don't believe that they exist", not "they cannot exist" or "it's impossible for them to exist".

Basically, since you can't choose anything God didn't want you to choose, you can't choose at all.

That's silly. People choose things that God doesn't want them to choose all the Goddamn time. Like raping and murdering and stealing and saying "Goddamn". Just because we can't choose to do literally whatever we want (ie, we have to obey the laws of physics) doesn't mean that we have no free will at all.

[Murtak]

Or, as I stated above, if your computer exists, God doesn't.

Well, but like we've already discussed, your senses don't "prove" anything. If you want to "prove" that your computer exists, you have to take it on faith that your senses are showing you reality. Does that mean that everyone who believe in what their senses show them is irrational?

My computer being real is 99.9.. % likely. God being real is 0.0...1 % likely. You are essentially stating that the statements "my computer is real" and "God is real" are both equally rational.

[Username17]

That's silly. People choose things that God doesn't want them to choose all the Goddamn time. Like raping and murdering and stealing and saying "Goddamn". Just because we can't choose to do literally whatever we want (ie, we have to obey the laws of physics) doesn't mean that we have no free will at all.

That's completely retarded.

If God can change anything, he can change whether I rape a girl. He can decide to make me rape the girl, and he can decide to make me not rape the girl.

Since his choice will countermand mine, and my choice will not countermand his, his choice is the only one that counts. I make a choice to turn left or turn right, then God decides whether to change my choice to left or right. Whether or not he actually decides to change my direction is unknowable, but more importantly doesn't actually matter. If I turn left it is because God chose to make me turn left or God chose to allow me to turn left because that is what I was going to do anyway.

My life is just a damn car at that point. Whether God actually chooses to put his hands on the wheel and steer me at any given moment is completely irrelevant to the fact that he is driving and I am not. If you have an omnipotent being who is even eventually aware of all your decisions, then you never make any real decisions ever.

Billiard balls end up in different holes, God knows what all those holes are going to be. He can change what holes they end up in. So whatever holes they end up in are ones that God chose for them to end up in.

THE END.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Nope, for the same reasons that I don't believe in God. But I don't deny the possibility that they might exist. My stance is "I don't believe that they exist", not "they cannot exist" or "it's impossible for them to exist".

See, this is you being retarded. You apparently never considered the option of "God doesn't exist" being an option for what you can say.

It is possible for me to be hit by a car. It can happen. It won't happen. See how that works. The statement "God doesn't exist." is not equivalent to "cannot exist" and you keep ignoring that for basically no good reason.

That's silly. People choose things that God doesn't want them to choose all the Goddamn time. Like raping and murdering and stealing and saying "Goddamn". Just because we can't choose to do literally whatever we want (ie, we have to obey the laws of physics) doesn't mean that we have no free will at all.

And here's where you being stupid raises it's head. You presuppose a specific god that is in every way not possible, instead of addressing the god you tried to define earlier, or the god you actually think it possible.

'God' doesn't care if people rape other people. It's fucking omnipotent. If it cared about rape, it could stop it. It could for example, not make domination and subjugation and shit like that be a sexually enjoyable experience for people. If it's omnipotent and omniscient, then it would have had to choose whether to let humans evolve into beings in which that stuff is sexually enjoyable or not.

'God' clearly wants rape as much as he does not want rape, or more. So yeah. Fail. People don't have free will, and cannot ever act against it's wishes.

[violence in the media]

Not everyone repents, though. Some people are fucking crazy and think they're doing a good thing by killing people and whatnot. Some people are legitimately evil and just don't give a shit about other people, and so being shown the err of their ways beforehand wouldn't change their behavior at all.

There's also the question of whether such knowledge would really be free will. If you're thinking to yourself "hm, I'd really like some key lime pie" and all of a sudden God flashes the knowledge of the evils of gluttony and how if you eat the pie you'll be doing an evil thing but eventually you'll get over it and be forgiven for it but until they God will totally be pissed at you... is that really a free choice? By comparison, if I overhear you musing about pie and I say that if you get that pie I'll kick you in the groin, but it'll only hurt for a little while and eventually you'll get over it and the pain will go away like it never happened, is that a free choice?

Ahem.

You don't read the things I write, do you.

[Orion]

Look, I'm not knocking faith. Even Atheists have faith, and I agree that charity workers tend to be people of strong faith. Faith isn't some super speical character trait, it's just an epistemology, a way of knowing. Faith is the conscious decision to hold as true something which you can't demonstrate empirically.

This is an awesome, and even necessary thing if you're going to have morality at all. Things like "pleasure is better than pain" "life is better than death" and "knowledge is better than ignorance" are all statements which have to be taken on faith. There's simply no empirical evidence by which you could ever hope to prove that something is GOOD or BAD.

Faith is actually a kickawesome way of generating moral knowledge. It's not such a hot way of generating knowledge about the content of physical. world, for instance. Anything which COULD be empirically verified, SHOULD be empirically verified if you're going to go around believing in it. For this reason, most of the gods people believe in are actually not very bright things to have faith about.

Sure, there's other gods like the Watchmaker God who you totally can have faith in, and SHOULD if it makes you happy. Just don't try to twist that into a concession toward bullshit fairy-tale monsters.

[TarkisFlux]

I don't think you'd be satisfied with the definitions of god left over

Which is why I specified "some combination of traits that could legitimately called God". Defining God as "the whole universe" isn't what I -- or most people, I believe -- would consider legitimate.

First off, references to 'most people' when you are trying to argue for some christian / islamic idea of god is fucking stupid. You have, on a good day, about 54% of the world's population that could be considered to have a similar idea of god. That's not a particularly impressive majority, even if your bullshit bandwagon argument held any real water. Besides that, there are rather large portions of Buddhism, Taoism, and others that actually do believe that god is not a conscious thing but is the sum total of the universe (and as a result of that, we are all divine ourselves), and you're in the interesting position of writing them off to maintain your stance. They make up about 18% of the world. Not a majority, but not a small enough group that anyone else would write it off.

But aside from that, it's an especially odd position given that Kaelik says you explicity denied that consciousness must be an aspect of god (though I can't be assed to go find where you did say that and he may be wrong). If it's not conscious, it can't be omniscient as there is no consciousness present to 'know' everything. Of the big three, that leaves us with the other two properties, omnipresent and omnipotent, entirely intact and happy in the definition I tossed out that you're unhappy with. It's litterally as close to the christian god as you can get without it having aspects of a person and being self-aware. But since you're unhappy with it, the only thing left to add is a will and consciousness, which contradicts a position someone claimed you had... Short of Kaelik being wrong (which would be nice, because that would actually give everyone in the thread something concrete to work with you on) it looks like you're just goal-shifting or actually trying to be contradictory.

[Orion]

Dude, Jovian, defining God as the "whole universe," often called Pantheism or Monism is actually a surprisingly popular option.

[Kaelik]

But aside from that, it's an especially odd position given that Kaelik says you explicity denied that consciousness must be an aspect of god (though I can't be assed to go find where you did say that and he may be wrong). If it's not conscious, it can't be omniscient as there is no consciousness present to 'know' everything. Of the big three, that leaves us with the other two properties, omnipresent and omnipotent, entirely intact and happy in the definition I tossed out that you're unhappy with. It's litterally as close to the christian god as you can get without it having aspects of a person and being self-aware. But since you're unhappy with it, the only thing left to add is a will and consciousness, which contradicts a position someone claimed you had... Short of Kaelik being wrong (which would be nice, because that would actually give everyone in the thread something concrete to work with you on) it looks like you're just goal-shifting or actually trying to be contradictory.

It would be better phrased as "Did not list it as a quality of god." Followed by "When asked if it was a necessary quality of god, denied it."

Maybe that doesn't count as explicit to some people. But if his favorite definition of god that he wants to argue about is an entity with no consciousness or will, he's still in the same place.

[mean_liar]

Dude, Jovian, defining God as the "whole universe," often called Pantheism or Monism is actually a surprisingly popular option.

I'm rather partial to it.

[Orion]

Incidentally, I believe people who think of "god' as "the whole universe" are actually a kind of atheist, but I can't get them to identify as such.

Sigh.

[Kaelik]

Seriously:

As a Pantheist do you:

A) Believe the universe has a will and consciousness? Okay, you are retarded and weird, but still better than all the other people who might be qualified as theists.

b) Believe the universe does not have a specific/collective will and/or consciousness.

Congratulations, you just defined God = Universe (not ==, you just redefined God.)

By that logic, I could say I am a Chairtheist. I believe that God is a really comfy chair.

[NativeJovian]

My computer being real is 99.9.. % likely. God being real is 0.0...1 % likely. You are essentially stating that the statements "my computer is real" and "God is real" are both equally rational.

Where did those numbers come from? How did you determine that it's very likely (but not certain) that your senses are reliable, and determine that it's very unlikely (but not impossible) that God exists? You didn't. Seriously, you just made those numbers up. There's no reason to believe one of them any more than the other. You just believe that your senses are reliable because that makes you happy -- you don't know if you're in the Matrix, but if you were that would suck, so you assume that you're not. Believing in God is the same thing.

Since his choice will countermand mine, and my choice will not countermand his, his choice is the only one that counts.

Unless he chooses to let you act freely. Just because he can choose to take away your free will -- so your free will only exists because he allows it to -- doesn't mean that you don't have free will.

See, this is you being retarded. You apparently never considered the option of "God doesn't exist" being an option for what you can say.

Because it either means "God could exist, but I don't believe he does" (which is agnostic), or you're saying "God doesn't exist, and I know for a fact he doesn't" (which is just another way of stating the atheist position "God can't exist"). When you say "God doesn't exist", you may be expressing an opinion that you admit may be mistaken (agnostic), or you're stating a fact that you believe to be objectively true (atheist).

"I won't be hit by a car", as in your example, is more formally "I may be hit by a car, but I don't believe that I will", which (when applied to God) is agnostic, not atheist.

You presuppose a specific god that is in every way not possible, instead of addressing the god you tried to define earlier, or the god you actually think it possible.

Explain this. How was what I was talking about (in reply to the comments of others, mind, not something I defined myself) impossible?

'God' doesn't care if people rape other people. [...] People don't have free will, and cannot ever act against it's wishes.

That's just begging the question. Stating your belief as a fact isn't an argument. It's perfectly consistent for rape to exist even if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and doesn't want rape to happen, if he believes that free will (eg the ability to choose whether to rape or not) is a greater good than not raping. Given that without free will, no morality can exist at all, it's not even hard to prove that free will results in more good than not.

Ahem.

You don't read the things I write, do you.

I did, I'm just not sure what your post has to do with the bit you quoted, or with the larger "god can't exist/atheism is irrational" debate in general. Yes, our will is constrained by the laws of physics and the physical makeup of our bodies and whatever else you want to mention, all of which were presumably dictated by God. That doesn't mean that we don't have free will within the confines of what is possible for us.

You ask whether "do X or I'll shoot you in the face" is a free choice. It depends on what you mean by "free". In the most general terms, we're free to do whatever we can do. It sounds like a tautology, but the fact of the matter is that we're free to choose to do whatever is physically possible for us to do. If someone says "do X or I'll shoot you in the face", we can choose to do X, or we can let them shoot us in the face, or we can try to keep them from shooting us in the face, or we can do anything that we're capable of doing. So that is, by the strictest definition, a free choice. What's not a free choice is that if we are shot in the face, we die. We can't decide not to die after being shot in the face.

There's a lot of philosophy about free will and self-determination, but my favorite has always been the existentialists. The existentialists say that mankind is doomed to freedom -- we are always free, no matter what. We can't not be free. Even if you're in prison, or a slave, or almost any other situation you can think of -- you're free to choose whether to do as you're told, or try to escape, or attack your captors, or whatever. The situation we find ourselves in may have limited our options -- in some cases very severely -- but we're still free to choose between the options available to us. Even if those options are only "do X or get shot in the face".

Sure, there's other gods like the Watchmaker God who you totally can have faith in, and SHOULD if it makes you happy. Just don't try to twist that into a concession toward bullshit fairy-tale monsters.

I can agree to that. My only point here is that proving that God exists and proving that God doesn't exist is equally impossible. If you want to believe that God exists, that's fine. If you want to believe that God doesn't exist, that's fine too. Just don't say that you can prove that you're right, because either way, you can't.

But aside from that, it's an especially odd position given that Kaelik says you explicity denied that consciousness must be an aspect of god (though I can't be assed to go find where you did say that and he may be wrong).

Kaelik is a special individual and sees what he wants to see rather than what's actually there. I never said that God was or was not conscious, or that he had to be or didn't have to be. What we've been talking about here is clearly a consciousness of some sort -- or so it seems to me (if I'm wrong, someone feel free to correct me). So that's what I've been talking about, because that's what's been under discussion.

[Orion]

here's the thing though Jovian: Most people don' believe in unfalsifiable gods like the Watchmaker, they just pretend to to win internet arguments.

The Deist god may not be disprovable, but the Christian, Jewish, Neo-Pagan, and Hindu gods absolutely can.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Oh perhaps atheists say 'God does not exist' in the same sense that I say 'I don't have a cat'.

Except that "having a cat" is an empirically observable phenomenon, and "God existing" isn't.

If atheism's position was "there may be a God, but I don't think there is" then they'd actually be agnostics. (Or "weak atheists" instead of "strong atheists" if you prefer that terminology.) I'm not arguing against the belief that God doesn't exist. I'm arguing against the idea that you can prove it.

Actually, whether I currently have a cat is unknowable, which is a point that you apparently missed. It's unknowable for me, and it's even more unknowable for you. I believe my cat does not exist just like I believe God does not exist.

I'd probably be more willing to believe that I had a cat which I never noticed than that there's been a god that I didn't notice. I've seen cats, and they can be sneaky little bastards.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why does God have to be omnipotent/omniscient/omnifuckest anyway?

Everytime I hear someone define Yahweh as being these things I can't take them seriously. It's like hearing someone claim 'well MY wizard is level infinity and you have to do what he says because level infinity is bigger than level 3'. What kind of childish schoolyard shit is that? It's like I'm trying to play a game of Street Heroes with Cartman and Skeeter.

I mean, Jesus fucknuts monotheists. Have a little restraint. The fanboyism is annoying.

[Username17]

Unless he chooses to let you act freely. Just because he can choose to take away your free will -- so your free will only exists because he allows it to -- doesn't mean that you don't have free will.

No matter what I choose first, he chooses second. And his choice is bigger than mine. So no matter what I choose, the choice that actually created the outcome that occurs is his, not mine. We're talking Iranian elections here. You can vote, but no matter what you vote, Khameni will decide who the president is.

Not of course that rape is a particularly good example, since apparently Jehovah is in favor of rape. Look it up.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why would someone actually want to worship Yahweh anyway? I can't think of any fictional deity that would be worse to worship than Yahweh.

Remember, Yahweh personally took time out of his day to invent Hell. That is an act of douchebaggery that's pretty hard to top right there. At least total bastards like Asmodeus can claim that he just got dealt a very bad hand and as doing the best he can with his fate.