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ruveyn
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31 Aug 2011, 9:26 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

3) Therefore, a world created by a perfectly good omnipotent being will be the best of all possible worlds.
.

Best in what respect?

And why should a perfectly good omnipotent being give a damn. It will neither help nor hurt it to create a good world or a bad world or any world at all.

ruveyn

Awesomelyglorious
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31 Aug 2011, 12:02 pm

Telekon wrote:

The inference is invalid. You need to establish what a best possible world would consist of. What is the actual world lacking that is instantiated in the best possible world? Also, 6) is contentious. Why think if God exists that he is a perfectly good omnipotent being? Even if Christianity is false, Judaism (which does not posit God as a perfectly good omnipotent being) could be true. Deism could be true. Etc. In fact, there are Christians who do not accept that God is a perfectly good omnipotent being. Alfred North Whitehead and his followers are an example.

No, I actually do not need to establish what exactly is proscribed in a best possible world in order to say that certain traits entail it. In a discussion of premise 4, I will need to discuss reasons why this world is not the best, and this simply requires examining certain unnecessary traits of the universe that suck.

Point 6 is not contentious within the orthodox Christian belief set. Obviously premises of an argument may be contentious amongst the population that an argument is not directed towards, but that's irrelevant.

Alfred North Whitehead is a philosopher, not an exegete or an expositor of the Christian tradition. Christians adopted process theism, but process theology was an outgrowth of a speculative metaphysics, not a Christian enterprise. Process Christians are just a sign of how liberal Christianity is the cheap whore of philosophy, willing to combine with any idea without regard for any standards. I mean, hell, you could argue that my argument is wasted on Christian atheists, thus Christianity is not proven false, at which I will simply roll my eyes.

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31 Aug 2011, 12:08 pm

Knifey wrote:

But the purpose was for you to present evidence that would convince me there is no God. If i'm too stupid or stubborn to understand your evidence then you still lose.

.............. Except that doesn't make sense..... There is no "lose" in a conversation where I admitted from the onset that I thought you were stupid and probably a waste of time. This was entirely "I will present reasons". If you aren't capable of understanding these reasons, I am not at fault for that in any sense. I didn't come in expecting you to change your mind.

Awesomelyglorious
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31 Aug 2011, 12:11 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

3) Therefore, a world created by a perfectly good omnipotent being will be the best of all possible worlds.
.

Best in what respect?

And why should a perfectly good omnipotent being give a damn. It will neither help nor hurt it to create a good world or a bad world or any world at all.

ruveyn

ruveyn, waste your non-existent intellect on bashing Muslims, please.

"Best of all possible" worlds relies on an ranking system wherein worlds are evaluated according to an independent and comprehensive moral standard. If you don't recognize this then you don't have the proper ability to evaluate the argument. You're presupposing some form of subjectivism and that doesn't really engage the position.

Also, to M_P, I didn't use the property of omnipresence, only that Jesus is God. Therefore if Jesus was somewhere, then God can be there. Jesus was around sin, therefore God can be. The effects are basically the same, just one is simpler than the other conceptually.

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31 Aug 2011, 12:16 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

In peace let me say again and again, ever so graciously waving my tail:

What possible ground do you have for deciding which "traits of the universe" are necessary?

What objective ground have you foir saying that aspects of the universe - to reflect your less than formal word - "suck"?

Nor you nor I have the place to stand nor the lever adequate to move that one.

To use another informal term, it is "dumb"

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31 Aug 2011, 1:06 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Also, to M_P, I didn't use the property of omnipresence, only that Jesus is God. Therefore if Jesus was somewhere, then God can be there. Jesus was around sin, therefore God can be. The effects are basically the same, just one is simpler than the other conceptually.

My bullet points weren't merely a summary of the debate. Some were observations of the absurdities in various statements Knifey made that didn't get expressed in the debate.

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Vexcalibur
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31 Aug 2011, 3:17 pm

91 wrote:

AG may wax eloquent but he lacks any sense of irony. Perhaps he should look at the topic title before he bangs on about how silly theists are.

Yes, because arguing for your opinion and justifying it through argumentation and debate makes you a zealot

hardy har har

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31 Aug 2011, 3:26 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:

91 wrote:

AG may wax eloquent but he lacks any sense of irony. Perhaps he should look at the topic title before he bangs on about how silly theists are.

Yes, because arguing for your opinion and justifying it through argumentation and debate makes you a zealot

hardy har har

Zealots are rather sparsely distributed here. Ranters do not really count. Master Pedant is close enough he might accept the label, though atheism is not his zeal. AG is not a zealot, but does read closely what others write.

blunnet
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31 Aug 2011, 4:47 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

3) Therefore, a world created by a perfectly good omnipotent being will be the best of all possible worlds.
.

Best in what respect?

And why should a perfectly good omnipotent being give a damn. It will neither help nor hurt it to create a good world or a bad world or any world at all.

ruveyn

well... first, I agree with the "non-existent intellect" thing, heck, I think I am one of them, but I think I can recognize intellectuals even if I'm lacking some intelect, I have to thank you for your participation in here and giving a demonstration to all readers about proper intellectual discussions, as I believe you come up as the most reasonable and most persuasive.

Anyway, about what ruveyn said,.... well, the issue is that I wondered wether this position was a position strictly against the christian, jewish or muslim omnipontent and benevolent god, rather than other possible gods who don't care and are not as omnipotent. So, I wonder if these properties of benevolence and omnipotence can be atribuited to the deist god or any other god and wether impersonal gods are to be ignored as problematic or taken into account.

Awesomelyglorious
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31 Aug 2011, 6:05 pm

blunnet wrote:

I do need to apologize for that comment though. It was very very blunt. I was rushed as I was trying to type that out during my lunch break. Also, I was more than a little peeved as my argument is *really* just a summation of the various other arguments against the existence of God.

For instance, in the problem of evil, it is argued "How could God have created a world where there is so much EVIL in it?" The presumption here being that a better world without evil is possible. In the problem of bad design it is argued "How could God have created a world with so much BAD DESIGN in it?" The presumption being that a better world would have better designs. And the list goes on and on with inconsistent revelations, natural evils, etc. So, I'm simply taking all of these and recognizing the concern as valid, and saying "Why doesn't God create the world with everything done right?" The idea being that splitting hairs on what an unjustified evil is ends up being pointless, and instead, we just need to say "Hey, this world is just not as good as some other possibility, and it is obvious".

Awesomelyglorious
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31 Aug 2011, 6:15 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

My bullet points weren't merely a summary of the debate. Some were observations of the absurdities in various statements Knifey made that didn't get expressed in the debate.

Oh, sorry. As I mentioned, I wrote it out during lunch and was very rushed.

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31 Aug 2011, 7:39 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Why would I be interested in something you know is not convincing? Thanks for wasting my time.

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02 Sep 2011, 6:30 pm

The only thing I have on this is that humans are probably zealous no matter what the belief or thought system, especially if they are convinced they are the right ones (which I partially garnered from the debates and divisions of the 2000s American landscape, and on certain popular science websites and books too.) That's all I have.

Awesomelyglorious
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02 Sep 2011, 6:31 pm

Knifey wrote:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Why would I be interested in something you know is not convincing? Thanks for wasting my time.

Not what I said. Way to prove my point though that it is a foolish idea to expect you to be rational.

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