Best and worst arguments against the existence of God
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Antonio the Sixth
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« on: August 03, 2022, 04:40:08 PM »

Every thesis needs a good antithesis. We got some interesting discussions (and some... odd ones) from this thread, so let's see if we can do as well for the other side.

As I mentioned there, the strongest "argument" (again, understood fundamentally as an emotional appeal rather than a logical proof) against the existence of God is the Problem of Evil. It is an inescapable reality of the human condition that shaped all of our lives in some ways, and that few can seriously contemplate without being severely affected by. And fundamentally, all the attempts to explicitly reconcile a benevolent, omnipotent God with a world where cruelty and injustice are everywhere fall flat. The free will argument seems to work at first glance, but it only sidesteps the problem. Whether our will is free or not once created, it was nevertheless created by God in the first place, meaning that He set the parameters for how our will might express. And He gave us the capacity to experience suffering in all its infinite nuances. Honestly, the Calvinists have it right that if God is truly omnipotent and omniscient, then he must have willingly destined us for whatever fate awaits us, in both this life and the next. The other main retort is to simply assert that God knows best, and that we can't possibly hope to understand His designs and should just trust that they're for the best. That's how Job ends if I remember correctly. This, frankly, strikes me as an unacceptably authoritarian reflex. Some might be comfortable with that, but I've always believed that the powerful ought to account for their actions. With great power comes great responsibility, right? I don't see why this logic should be reversed when we get to absolute power. Besides, once again, God chose to create us with the desire to understand (if you want to argue that the desire to understand was a result of biting the apple, fine, but then he still gave Adam the willingness to bite the apple - you just can't get away with it), so why wouldn't He give us the faculty to do so? Ultimately, the best we can do here is believe that all our suffering is necessary to our moral edification in some way, and that we all will be compensated for it in the afterlife. I'm sure there are sound arguments theologians can make to the effect, but I can imagine it will ring a bit hollow to someone who's experienced a great personal strategy.

This is the best argument against the existence of God (defined as an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent creator with personal characteristics) in generic terms, but there's another argument that's very meaningful to me, because it is the one that first made me lose my faith. That is, the strongest argument against any given religion being the definite, complete truth is simply the fact that so many people around the world believe in a different one. Can I seriously believe that I, unlike the vast majority of humanity, am among the select few who Figured It Out? Even at 12, it struck me as hopelessly presumptuous. All the more so once it became clear how much one's religion is determined almost entirely by background factors. If there was a singular Truth, surely an Indian or a Chinese would be as likely to arrive to it than a European or an American? Of course, this argument can be turned against atheists just as easily - they make equally strong claims to knowing The Truth and are an even smaller minority! So tl;dr, that's how I became agnostic, and I've never been convinced to budge from that basic stance ever since. There is an alternative, of course, which is to embrace a form of ecumenism that accepts all or most religions as containing at least some kernel of truth and arguing that we're all trying to reach one single fundamental truth through different paths. This attitude can present its own pitfalls, of course, but it can't be dismissed so easily.


Now, the worst arguments. The worst of the worst has to be the sophomoric logical gotchas on the family of "can God create a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it?" These are basically the atheist's equivalent of the Ontological Argument, as both work by setting up their terms speciously such as to presuppose their own conclusion: the Ontological Argument by defining God as something that must exist, these gotchas by defining omnipotence as entailing power over oneself. Both are utterly devoid of substantive content and uninteresting even by the standards of silly logical games. If you want an answer, then the answer is obviously no: God can create a rock of whatever weight He wants, but that won't stop God from being able to lift it later if He so wishes. You'd have to be a complete imbecile to think this is a limit on His power somehow.

To take a slightly more serious argument, though (or at least one that's frequently trotted out by people who ought to know better), another one that really need to die is the idea that Modern ScienceTM somehow disproves God. Never mind that almost all the most brilliant scientists throughout history (including plenty in the past century and decades) were fervently religious and couched their research in specifically religious terms. Never mind that there are countless religious transitions that emphasize understanding the natural world as a way to better understand God. Never mind that, when it comes to the fundamental questions of our existence, all science can really do is climb up a ladder of infinite "why"s (a valuable task, but not one capable of filling existential void). Never mind that there are plenty of areas of life where ScienceTM will do nothing for you whereas religion can actually help. This obsession with pitting ScienceTM against religion is a particularly toxic product of the absurdity of religious discourse in America and other Anglo-Saxon countries that distracts from actually important and interesting debates.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2022, 07:18:50 PM »

Every thesis needs a good antithesis. We got some interesting discussions (and some... odd ones) from this thread, so let's see if we can do as well for the other side.

As I mentioned there, the strongest "argument" (again, understood fundamentally as an emotional appeal rather than a logical proof) against the existence of God is the Problem of Evil. It is an inescapable reality of the human condition that shaped all of our lives in some ways, and that few can seriously contemplate without being severely affected by. And fundamentally, all the attempts to explicitly reconcile a benevolent, omnipotent God with a world where cruelty and injustice are everywhere fall flat. The free will argument seems to work at first glance, but it only sidesteps the problem. Whether our will is free or not once created, it was nevertheless created by God in the first place, meaning that He set the parameters for how our will might express. And He gave us the capacity to experience suffering in all its infinite nuances. Honestly, the Calvinists have it right that if God is truly omnipotent and omniscient, then he must have willingly destined us for whatever fate awaits us, in both this life and the next. The other main retort is to simply assert that God knows best, and that we can't possibly hope to understand His designs and should just trust that they're for the best. That's how Job ends if I remember correctly. This, frankly, strikes me as an unacceptably authoritarian reflex. Some might be comfortable with that, but I've always believed that the powerful ought to account for their actions. With great power comes great responsibility, right? I don't see why this logic should be reversed when we get to absolute power. Besides, once again, God chose to create us with the desire to understand (if you want to argue that the desire to understand was a result of biting the apple, fine, but then he still gave Adam the willingness to bite the apple - you just can't get away with it), so why wouldn't He give us the faculty to do so? Ultimately, the best we can do here is believe that all our suffering is necessary to our moral edification in some way, and that we all will be compensated for it in the afterlife. I'm sure there are sound arguments theologians can make to the effect, but I can imagine it will ring a bit hollow to someone who's experienced a great personal strategy.

This is the best argument against the existence of God (defined as an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent creator with personal characteristics) in generic terms, but there's another argument that's very meaningful to me, because it is the one that first made me lose my faith. That is, the strongest argument against any given religion being the definite, complete truth is simply the fact that so many people around the world believe in a different one. Can I seriously believe that I, unlike the vast majority of humanity, am among the select few who Figured It Out? Even at 12, it struck me as hopelessly presumptuous. All the more so once it became clear how much one's religion is determined almost entirely by background factors. If there was a singular Truth, surely an Indian or a Chinese would be as likely to arrive to it than a European or an American? Of course, this argument can be turned against atheists just as easily - they make equally strong claims to knowing The Truth and are an even smaller minority! So tl;dr, that's how I became agnostic, and I've never been convinced to budge from that basic stance ever since. There is an alternative, of course, which is to embrace a form of ecumenism that accepts all or most religions as containing at least some kernel of truth and arguing that we're all trying to reach one single fundamental truth through different paths. This attitude can present its own pitfalls, of course, but it can't be dismissed so easily.


Now, the worst arguments. The worst of the worst has to be the sophomoric logical gotchas on the family of "can God create a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it?" These are basically the atheist's equivalent of the Ontological Argument, as both work by setting up their terms speciously such as to presuppose their own conclusion: the Ontological Argument by defining God as something that must exist, these gotchas by defining omnipotence as entailing power over oneself. Both are utterly devoid of substantive content and uninteresting even by the standards of silly logical games. If you want an answer, then the answer is obviously no: God can create a rock of whatever weight He wants, but that won't stop God from being able to lift it later if He so wishes. You'd have to be a complete imbecile to think this is a limit on His power somehow.

To take a slightly more serious argument, though (or at least one that's frequently trotted out by people who ought to know better), another one that really need to die is the idea that Modern ScienceTM somehow disproves God. Never mind that almost all the most brilliant scientists throughout history (including plenty in the past century and decades) were fervently religious and couched their research in specifically religious terms. Never mind that there are countless religious transitions that emphasize understanding the natural world as a way to better understand God. Never mind that, when it comes to the fundamental questions of our existence, all science can really do is climb up a ladder of infinite "why"s (a valuable task, but not one capable of filling existential void). Never mind that there are plenty of areas of life where ScienceTM will do nothing for you whereas religion can actually help. This obsession with pitting ScienceTM against religion is a particularly toxic product of the absurdity of religious discourse in America and other Anglo-Saxon countries that distracts from actually important and interesting debates.

I think your second paragraph, on the diversity of religions around the world and the dependence on one's family environment and local traditions is the strongest reason that would lead people to doubt any one religion is true.  As with the arguments for the existence of God, defending the validity of any specific creed is the hard part. 

I don't really agree with your 1st paragraph.  The existence of randomness or statistical processes and entropy in life isn't incompatible with God.  Those processes still had to start somehow.   If there was no sense of free will or creativity, if we were all stuck on train tracks fulfilling some Darwinian imperative as efficiently as possible, that world would be a stronger argument against God, and  for that matter against any transcendent meaning to consciousness.  The fact that we can consciously deviate from the plan vs. following a natural process in lockstep suggests the existence of the supernatural, even when that  deviation produces evil.   
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2022, 04:42:15 AM »

I don't really agree with your 1st paragraph.  The existence of randomness or statistical processes and entropy in life isn't incompatible with God.  Those processes still had to start somehow.   If there was no sense of free will or creativity, if we were all stuck on train tracks fulfilling some Darwinian imperative as efficiently as possible, that world would be a stronger argument against God, and  for that matter against any transcendent meaning to consciousness.  The fact that we can consciously deviate from the plan vs. following a natural process in lockstep suggests the existence of the supernatural, even when that  deviation produces evil.   

I'm not sure how this is addressing my point. My point isn't that "free will" (and we do need to come back to how that is defined, because a lot of definitions are completely incoherent) is incompatible with God. My point is that however "free" our will is, it is still exercised within certain parameters that must have been set by God in the first place. Our will doesn't exist in a vacuum, but is conditioned by all sorts of material and conceptual features of our existence. Our instincts do exist and affect us in certain specific ways, as does our environment and everything else that structures how we relate to each other. Even if we were to grant that God does actually play dice when it comes to our wills and that somehow makes us free (a truly bizarre idea in my book - I never understood why people feel randomness is more freeing than strict causality), He still got to choose if He threw a d6 or a d8 or a d20.

Ultimately, God's omnipotence means something very clear. It means nothing in the universe can happen without God's assent, whether active or passive. Any deviation from this must necessarily be a limitation on God's omnipotence (which honestly is fine by me, it's actually the simplest and most honest answer to the Problem of Evil, but would cause serious problems in the vast majority of schools of thought in Abrahamic faiths). But if we are to call God all-powerful, then he is necessarily all-responsible, and frankly we'd have every right to take Him to court.
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afleitch
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« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2022, 12:43:56 PM »

Just my thoughts on the above.

If 'god' is the right question to ask of the universe (and there's no steadfast reason to think that it is) then the 'answer' isn't anything remotely close to most historical understandings of god.

If god exists, then that doesn't mean that it has to matter if god exists or not, or can ever be found
unless god has to have a material effect on any part of the universe, that it established or oversees outside of what the universe already does.

One of the universe 'happenings' is the conditions in which we are all here. As Antonio says, we are here and able to do what we do because of those conditions. We don't have a truly 'free' will because we are bound by that. What we do is set within those parameters as a species. Within our species there are different parameters for each of us. For example, a neurodivergent person cannot experience or assess the world (which may include postulating 'god') in the manner in which a neurotypical person can.

As far as the universe is concerned everything we do is amoral. We may personally or collectively sort things and events along good/moral lines, but the only acts 'immoral' to the universe are acts that the universe doesn't allow us to do (like levitate, transform into a gas giant, or become a housecat)

For god to be anything close to an Abrahamic god, what we do has to 'matter' which results in consequence. And the effect of that 'mattering' is our actions either influencing decisions and outcomes here (which undoubtedly they do, just as a product of engaging with our environment) or in another place, which has to be proposed, where we can be judged on them. And what 'matters' to this universal god has to specifically be what matters to us if you want to argue for any universal system of ethics and much else that underpins this world view.

There are living things that devour their mate after sex. That is what those things 'do'; the universe set conditions in which this happens so we cannot ethically judge the rights and wrongs of this so we have to assume that the universe/god doesn't do so either. So why would the universe/god judge us? We're all acting inside the boundaries of how we are allowed to act. Unless somehow we matter more to the universe/god which is special pleading, or the universe/god also has a special place to sort good living things from bad living things based on how many bites they take to finish the job or some other moral and ethical framework.

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« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2022, 10:26:58 PM »

The worst arguments against the existence of God are the arguments that involve historical revisionism, such as the claim that everyone thought that the world was flat due to the Catholic Church supposedly having that as their official position at the time until Christpher Columbus came around and decided he was going to travel in a manner dependent on an article of faith that the world be round to get anywhere. The reality here is that not only was it generally understood that the world was round even back then, but Christopher Columbus had an actually worse understanding that other people, as said other people had really good estimates of the size of the Earth, while he made a mathematical error himself leading to a belief that the Earth was way smaller than it actually was.
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« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2022, 01:12:25 AM »

I think you guys are making things a little more complicated than necessary. The best argument against the existence of any deity is that all arguments proposing their existence either fail to pass empirical demonstration or are by their very nature unfalsifiable. Those are the two logical criteria that lead people to reject beliefs in almost every other matter of an assertive nature, and it's patently simple to invoke for gods as well.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2022, 04:23:40 AM »

I think you guys are making things a little more complicated than necessary. The best argument against the existence of any deity is that all arguments proposing their existence either fail to pass empirical demonstration or are by their very nature unfalsifiable. Those are the two logical criteria that lead people to reject beliefs in almost every other matter of an assertive nature, and it's patently simple to invoke for gods as well.

I'd say this is an extremely weak argument, actually. Falsifiability is a criterion for the validity of scientific arguments, but science is only a sliver of the realm of human inquiry. There are plenty of extremely important areas of life of which we can only speak in unfalsifiable terms. Moral, political, philosophical, even in some cases historical and cosmological arguments very often are beyond any human ability to test. If you want to go the hardcore materialist route and say all these arguments are worthless, fine, but you have to accept that for the vast majority of us, these questions matter and are worth discussing regardless of whether they can be tested in a lab or not (actually all the more so because they can't!).
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afleitch
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« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2022, 06:01:35 AM »

I think you guys are making things a little more complicated than necessary. The best argument against the existence of any deity is that all arguments proposing their existence either fail to pass empirical demonstration or are by their very nature unfalsifiable. Those are the two logical criteria that lead people to reject beliefs in almost every other matter of an assertive nature, and it's patently simple to invoke for gods as well.

I'd say this is an extremely weak argument, actually. Falsifiability is a criterion for the validity of scientific arguments, but science is only a sliver of the realm of human inquiry. There are plenty of extremely important areas of life of which we can only speak in unfalsifiable terms. Moral, political, philosophical, even in some cases historical and cosmological arguments very often are beyond any human ability to test. If you want to go the hardcore materialist route and say all these arguments are worthless, fine, but you have to accept that for the vast majority of us, these questions matter and are worth discussing regardless of whether they can be tested in a lab or not (actually all the more so because they can't!).

Why would the universe reflect human enquiry? Science is at least a measurable and testable 'language' of the universe. Because we can observe it, it reflects on us and we can reflect back on it. Other intelligent entities are likely to have this relationship with it too. But there's nothing to suggest that the philosophical questions we can ask of ourselves or construct and discuss with people like us have any bearing on the universe.

If humanity woke up tomorrow and had lost the basic understanding of mathematics and had no texts to refer to we would be able to figure it out again. There are times where various understandings have been effectively lost. But if humanity woke up tomorrow with no knowledge say of Christianity and no Bible or associated texts that understanding would never come back. There's no ability to 'retread' thousands of years of lost events. No way to 're engage' with concepts like the resurrection or the trinity. Or the divinity of Jesus.

We could ask the same question about god, as we do with mathematics, but unlike mathematics the universe would not give us the same answer (whatever of the current answers those who believe in god subscribe to) a second time if we 'lost' the first.

For me, that's because theres no answer. Because it's the wrong question.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #8 on: August 05, 2022, 09:03:24 AM »

I think you guys are making things a little more complicated than necessary. The best argument against the existence of any deity is that all arguments proposing their existence either fail to pass empirical demonstration or are by their very nature unfalsifiable. Those are the two logical criteria that lead people to reject beliefs in almost every other matter of an assertive nature, and it's patently simple to invoke for gods as well.

I'd say this is an extremely weak argument, actually. Falsifiability is a criterion for the validity of scientific arguments, but science is only a sliver of the realm of human inquiry. There are plenty of extremely important areas of life of which we can only speak in unfalsifiable terms. Moral, political, philosophical, even in some cases historical and cosmological arguments very often are beyond any human ability to test. If you want to go the hardcore materialist route and say all these arguments are worthless, fine, but you have to accept that for the vast majority of us, these questions matter and are worth discussing regardless of whether they can be tested in a lab or not (actually all the more so because they can't!).

Why would the universe reflect human enquiry? Science is at least a measurable and testable 'language' of the universe. Because we can observe it, it reflects on us and we can reflect back on it. Other intelligent entities are likely to have this relationship with it too. But there's nothing to suggest that the philosophical questions we can ask of ourselves or construct and discuss with people like us have any bearing on the universe.

If humanity woke up tomorrow and had lost the basic understanding of mathematics and had no texts to refer to we would be able to figure it out again. There are times where various understandings have been effectively lost. But if humanity woke up tomorrow with no knowledge say of Christianity and no Bible or associated texts that understanding would never come back. There's no ability to 'retread' thousands of years of lost events. No way to 're engage' with concepts like the resurrection or the trinity. Or the divinity of Jesus.

We could ask the same question about god, as we do with mathematics, but unlike mathematics the universe would not give us the same answer (whatever of the current answers those who believe in god subscribe to) a second time if we 'lost' the first.

For me, that's because theres no answer. Because it's the wrong question.

That sounds a bit more like the second argument I developed in the OP than like what I'm talking about here. I'm not saying that the relevance of metaphysics to our human lives is proof that this or that religion is true (obviously I wouldn't do that, since I'm agnostic). What I'm saying is that the relevance of metaphysics to our human lives (and all the other subjects of study I described!) shows that we cannot and must not limit ourselves to studying what the small sliver of human thought that we happen to be able to empirically test. It might well be that "the universe" (or rather, the sum of our observations of the universe - as Kant made clear, we know nothing of the universe in itself) has nothing else to tell us beyond this sliver, but that's not going to stop us from trying to figure it out anyways. No one can possibly go through their lives caring merely about empirical facts without any consideration of abstract, non-empirical concepts. The former wouldn't even make sense to us without the latter.
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« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2022, 10:56:28 AM »

The best argument that I am aware of is that the absence of evidence is evidence for absence.

This is self evident to me.
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« Reply #10 on: September 10, 2022, 04:56:35 PM »

Best: The problem of divine hiddenness.

Worst: The argument that it can't be true because it sounds too crazy.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2022, 07:52:45 AM »

Forgot to mention it back then, but I recently got reminded about the Euthyphro dilemma and how people use it to argue against Divine Command Theory, and that makes my list of worst arguments. It's not that it isn't worth discussing at all - it's an interesting conversation-starter for a lot of metaethical debates - but treating it as the ultimate gotcha that's supposed to Demolish Christians With Facts and Logic is really dumb. There are valid theological frameworks that embrace either side of the dilemma (though I have to say, people who take the pure "it's moral because God wills it" side creep me the hell out), or, as seems wiser to me, argue that they aren't as mutually exclusive as they look, because this kind of causal logic breaks down when we're talking about the creator of everything. It's possible to poke holes in many of these arguments, but that requires quite a bit more subtlety that going "muh Euthyphro, checkmate theists".
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« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2022, 12:39:46 PM »

The particular content of myths (perhaps as opposed to their overarching architecture), are but an accident of history. I will leave it at that. That is my postulate.
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« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2022, 06:00:27 PM »

Forgot to mention it back then, but I recently got reminded about the Euthyphro dilemma and how people use it to argue against Divine Command Theory, and that makes my list of worst arguments. It's not that it isn't worth discussing at all - it's an interesting conversation-starter for a lot of metaethical debates - but treating it as the ultimate gotcha that's supposed to Demolish Christians With Facts and Logic is really dumb. There are valid theological frameworks that embrace either side of the dilemma (though I have to say, people who take the pure "it's moral because God wills it" side creep me the hell out), or, as seems wiser to me, argue that they aren't as mutually exclusive as they look, because this kind of causal logic breaks down when we're talking about the creator of everything. It's possible to poke holes in many of these arguments, but that requires quite a bit more subtlety that going "muh Euthyphro, checkmate theists".

Yeah, I got exposed to Euthryphro as a first-year Philosophy student and it quickly became a pretty weak argument for me. It's not that hard for me to see the validity of the middle ground, positing an omniscient, eternal creator who's kind of "naturally aligned" with and inseparable from the Good; basically God being the Good and Good being God. Of course where I fall off is that actually existing, but it makes enough sense to me in theory.
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Statilius the Epicurean
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« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2022, 09:51:12 AM »
« Edited: October 03, 2022, 10:18:11 AM by Statilius the Epicurean »

Forgot to mention it back then, but I recently got reminded about the Euthyphro dilemma and how people use it to argue against Divine Command Theory, and that makes my list of worst arguments. It's not that it isn't worth discussing at all - it's an interesting conversation-starter for a lot of metaethical debates - but treating it as the ultimate gotcha that's supposed to Demolish Christians With Facts and Logic is really dumb. There are valid theological frameworks that embrace either side of the dilemma (though I have to say, people who take the pure "it's moral because God wills it" side creep me the hell out), or, as seems wiser to me, argue that they aren't as mutually exclusive as they look, because this kind of causal logic breaks down when we're talking about the creator of everything. It's possible to poke holes in many of these arguments, but that requires quite a bit more subtlety that going "muh Euthyphro, checkmate theists".

Yeah, I got exposed to Euthryphro as a first-year Philosophy student and it quickly became a pretty weak argument for me. It's not that hard for me to see the validity of the middle ground, positing an omniscient, eternal creator who's kind of "naturally aligned" with and inseparable from the Good; basically God being the Good and Good being God. Of course where I fall off is that actually existing, but it makes enough sense to me in theory.

That only works if (like Plato) one believes in the independent existence of universal properties like "Good." If like most people you don't think goodness or redness or chairness are natural properties in themselves but only properties we ascribe to individuals by convention, then "God is the Good by nature" is a meaningless statement. This is why the ur-nominalist Ockham held strongly to divine command theory: he claimed that even if God commanded us to hate Him it would be good to do so.

I think the Euthyphro dilemma is quite powerful and puts the theist in an uncomfortable position - a lot of the intellectual crisis of the early modern period was in trying to make sense of the alien God that a divine command theoretic position produced. And at any rate it complicates the common theist charge that atheism is incompatible with morality.
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« Reply #15 on: October 07, 2022, 06:44:02 AM »

Heaven and Hell are states of minds rather than physical places but what is the Astral plane and can there be resurrection or Reincarnation
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« Reply #16 on: November 16, 2022, 01:58:13 AM »

Forgot to mention it back then, but I recently got reminded about the Euthyphro dilemma and how people use it to argue against Divine Command Theory, and that makes my list of worst arguments. It's not that it isn't worth discussing at all - it's an interesting conversation-starter for a lot of metaethical debates - but treating it as the ultimate gotcha that's supposed to Demolish Christians With Facts and Logic is really dumb. There are valid theological frameworks that embrace either side of the dilemma (though I have to say, people who take the pure "it's moral because God wills it" side creep me the hell out), or, as seems wiser to me, argue that they aren't as mutually exclusive as they look, because this kind of causal logic breaks down when we're talking about the creator of everything. It's possible to poke holes in many of these arguments, but that requires quite a bit more subtlety that going "muh Euthyphro, checkmate theists".

Yeah, I got exposed to Euthryphro as a first-year Philosophy student and it quickly became a pretty weak argument for me. It's not that hard for me to see the validity of the middle ground, positing an omniscient, eternal creator who's kind of "naturally aligned" with and inseparable from the Good; basically God being the Good and Good being God. Of course where I fall off is that actually existing, but it makes enough sense to me in theory.

That only works if (like Plato) one believes in the independent existence of universal properties like "Good." If like most people you don't think goodness or redness or chairness are natural properties in themselves but only properties we ascribe to individuals by convention, then "God is the Good by nature" is a meaningless statement. This is why the ur-nominalist Ockham held strongly to divine command theory: he claimed that even if God commanded us to hate Him it would be good to do so.

I think the Euthyphro dilemma is quite powerful and puts the theist in an uncomfortable position - a lot of the intellectual crisis of the early modern period was in trying to make sense of the alien God that a divine command theoretic position produced. And at any rate it complicates the common theist charge that atheism is incompatible with morality.

If we accept that goodness is not a natural property and only a property we ascribe by convention (which, yeah, is basically what I think) then the whole Euthyphro thing becomes irrelevant anyway, surely? Things can't be described as "Good" full stop, regardless of how God figures into it.

Perhaps Euthyphro kind of crystallizes the theist position as inherently Platonic - i.e. believing in independent existence of "Good" like you said - but I don't think many theists would necessarily shy away from that position.
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Statilius the Epicurean
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« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2022, 12:36:32 PM »
« Edited: November 17, 2022, 01:15:50 PM by Statilius the Epicurean »

If we accept that goodness is not a natural property and only a property we ascribe by convention (which, yeah, is basically what I think) then the whole Euthyphro thing becomes irrelevant anyway, surely? Things can't be described as "Good" full stop, regardless of how God figures into it.

Well no, many people believe states and actions can be described as good without the property of goodness inhering in things.

Presumably we both think feeding a starving child is good. But why is it good? If we're nominalists it can't be because feeding a starving child is related to the property of good, because we don't think such universals exist. So the classical theist position that neither horns of the Euthyphro dilemma apply because God is simply identical with the property of good isn't valid to us. But it may be that feeding the starving child is good because it aligns with the moral law, and/or because God the arbiter of morality commands us to feed starving children.

Perhaps Euthyphro kind of crystallizes the theist position as inherently Platonic - i.e. believing in independent existence of "Good" like you said - but I don't think many theists would necessarily shy away from that position.

Sure. There are many, many theists who hold to realism about universals. It's historically the most popular theist position. But I think we have reason to reject realism about universals (Ockham's famous razor) and most philosophers nowadays lean towards nominalism, including some theologians like William Lane Craig IIRC. At the very least, it's not as simple as eviscerating the Euthyphro dilemma by saying you're a Platonist of some sort and leaving it at that: such a position involves you in a very thorny and unresolved millennia-long philosophical debate with implications well beyond the particular issue at hand.

Funnily enough, I think the entire point of the dilemma as Plato presents it in Euthyphro is that it's supposed to lead the reader to an intimation of his theory of Forms. The start of the enquiry about the nature of "The Pious" (and in other dialogues "what is Justice" etc.) is almost a form of question-begging by Plato that assumes universals are real in the first place.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #18 on: November 18, 2022, 10:28:19 AM »

The worst argument: "Believe it or burn (at the stake or in Hell)". Any God who is to be so seen is practically a demon, a gangster, or a tyrant. Arguments to fear are powerful, but they are legitimate only when an obvious danger exists.  We need to be careful in the presence of dogs, snakes, waterfalls and cliffs, motor vehicles, criminal-rich areas, and most chemical reagents. Behave yourself  in the presence of dogs, back away from snakes, obey traffic laws, and follow the rules when involved with sulfuric acid, and you will be fine.

The best that I can come up with is that the Universe makes sense. so the cause of the physical and mathematical laws as well as the rules of logic have some supernatural entity establishing and enforcing them.   
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progressive85
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« Reply #19 on: November 22, 2022, 09:50:46 PM »

To me, the best argument FOR a God is "There's no concrete proof that there isn't a God or a deity that watches over us."  Maybe there's not supposed to be anything you can see or hear, it's up to you to believe it without detecting it with one of the senses.

What's interesting is that when you are in pain or desperate need, you say "Please God"... so I think it's human nature to, when you need it, call out to someone or something to help you.
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jojoju1998
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« Reply #20 on: November 23, 2022, 06:28:20 PM »

Bishop Robert Barron is very obsssed if I could use the word about the divine simplicity argument for God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMRyjvN98j4
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #21 on: November 25, 2022, 01:55:47 PM »

We come from the Astral plane we don't know what it is unless we are in Dream state or in Death thats the evidence of God

But, Bible says Jesus was God and Jews are the chosen people but Pharoahs we're black Sudanese and mated with Hebrew slave women as their slaves and Queens, Blks come from Pharoahs and Whites come from Hebrews, whites come from blks, blks we're the original people when you mate a blk and white the offspring has curly hair not straight hair proving blks we're the first ones


But, we don't know what GOD is he is cause and effect and Death is Nirvana either for judgement day or reincarnation or he can be an aliens
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2022, 08:42:10 AM »

Can people here read a f**king thread title? We have another thread about arguments FOR God's existence. It's not this one.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #23 on: November 28, 2022, 09:25:11 AM »

There are good and evil forces out there but are they aliens or just the Universe or as Buddhist call it cause and EFFECT the best argument for God is that someone created us, the worse argument as I said earlier that Jews are the chosen people and they were once considered the the original man but that has been debunked by science that the first Pharoahs we're Sudanese blks and blks as well as Hebrews and Arabs built pyramids

They say on Sci Fi the Ancient Aliens are Blks, Hebrews and Arabs that built pyramids but it was built over thousands of years, not in a decade or so
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« Reply #24 on: November 29, 2022, 09:00:53 AM »

The question in my mind, is not just whether there is evidence that nothing spiritual exists or that there is no afterlife*, but can anyone know for sure (prove) that death=personal extinction.

I don't think that this question is all that important, because whatever my opinion is, the fact of death is not going to change regardless of what I believe. So, if I believe something that isn't true, it won't change the fact of what the truth really is.
(in other words, if I believed in an afterlife, it wouldn't change the fact that there is no afterlife, if that is what is true). So what I believe doesn't really matter anyway.

The solution to this conundrum is to simply live in the present, since that is what matters anyway.

*of course, it is possible to believe in a purely physical afterlife (some beliefs in reincarnation are purely physical.

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