/lit/ - Literature

An actioning of an archaic hat.

*tip fedora*

Have you actually read that book?

>>5696399
>recent
>revival

isn't edward feser the guy who compared gay marriage to the equation 2 + 2 = 5

>recent revival

Atheism has been steadily rising throughout the world.

>>5696399
>new atheism

It's the protestant reformation 2.0, this time with even less magic.

>>5696399
I've yet to see one. Every response so far has been an angry regurgitation of the usual cosmological and ontological arguments that have been picked apart and ridiculed for centuries. Most people just make an appeal to ignorance. Can't no nothing, tips fedora, etc.

>>5696399
>lol u can't prove me wrong ur logic can't prove that my le faith is wrong *tibs febora* lmao XDDD

>>5696399

Indifference.

>>5696399
>implying Atheism isn't going to win

People worship technology now. We don't live in Christendom anymore, we live within the American media machine. The peasants don't spend their time contemplating a beautiful afterlife, but instead contemplating a beautiful future where technology has cured all social problems. They are not assuaged by the church, but by the television.

The era of scripture has been on its way out since the industrial age. Its effects are now precipitating to all classes.

God is dead, OP. You can't "refute" the weltgeist, because it's not an argument, it's a trend.

What is known as new atheism is closely allied with the public thought and personality's of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Chrissy Hitch, Dan Dennet, amongst others that people have come to know.
New atheism in this sense is marked by 'scientism' the main tenets of which are outlined in this article by Susan Haack (yes the joke will come easily, can you resist?) http://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/Haack,%20Six%20Signs%20of%20Scientism.pdf

New Atheism is marked by its reverence for science, it's link with the logical positivism of the vienna circle (although misunderstood and diluted through the main port of communication that New Atheism operates through - mass media and the internet) and its innate sense of either apathy or anti-theism, as opposed to any strong case for atheism.

New Atheism is not a revolution in thought, but rather the same side of the coin that the fundamentalist christians are on. New Atheism makes the first mistake of misunderstanding it relationship to science as akin to substituting the term 'Science' in the place of God as transcendental signifier. The second mistake of new atheism is its failure to recognise the politicised history of both science and religion, and their idealistic values. These have become mixed as they have been filtered through mass culture, which is understandable, but now we have an entire generation whos reverence is towards either media or a quasi-personified image of science, rather than a failed representation of God (both are bad)

In effect, New atheism is nothing more than neo-christianity, still entwined in the monotheistic, eschatological trajectory that requires a transcendental other to survive, but has placed the burden of this on humanistic reason (this is directly related to the genesis myth)

If WW1 and WW2 hepled bring about this apathetic approach to the world, which in turn allowed for the exponential rise in capitalism and exploitation, then we need something much bigger to make people think clearly and properly.

New atheists are just liberally, politicised christians, alleviating capitalist guilt with futile humanitarian endeavours and a neo-christian structure nonetheless.

willful ignorance and muh faith

>>5698310
>I'm better than both
>gotta wear two fedoras so I can double tip

>>5698310
The new era of scientism is worse than much of Christianity, because there is this implicit belief that all social problems can be cured with technology. Now even Christians tend to buy into this sort of outlook, and indeed, Christians of today often bounce back between church and television, and despite the warning of their own scripture, most Christians (like most people) are satisfied on feasting on bread alone.

>>5698320
>critiquing is about being superior

>Systematic representations of reality will always fall short of real reality
>Science is an attempt to construct a systematic representation of reality
>Insisting that science is objectively objective is nothing more than willful denial of the facts
>Insisting that the fact that we're made of 'star stuff' is awe-inspiring and wondrous while mocking the notion of anything like a God and people who derive meaning from the concept of a deity is hypocritical
>The 'star stuff' concept is cool the first ten times you hear someone say it, but after a while you realize it's just a spook
>Religion has been responsible for so many things other than evil that claiming that all religion should be eliminated does more to discredit the person making the claim than it does to discredit religion

>>5696433
Basically this. Also spouting the word "edgy" and telling them Dawkins sucks so they suck too.

>>5698440
lit

where wer u

when you lern

u canna kno nothing

>>5698456
Is that Ellen Page in the Trailer Park Boys? What? Never thought she'd be part of something nice like that.

>>5696417
criminally underrated post right here mayne

In all seriousness though, does it really matter? Not many people subscribe to Nu Atheism, and those who do won't listen to reason anyways. Anyone with a shred of sensibility and empathy won't go for the new breed of antitheism.

>>5698336

>muh scientism

No, you're just a mystifying faggot who wants to suck a metaphysical dick. Luckily, the ontological argument already inserted a perfect dick in your mouth, and because the predicate most perfect must also include existence, it's a long black one

>>5696955
This. Atheism is just protestantism without God. Nothing new is actually achieved by the absence of God either, its just straight protestantism masquerading as some recent zeitgeist.

>>5698499

"Protestantism"

>>5698478
>implying implications

I am not a mystic. I am an atheist, and at that, I am very pro-science. This new era of scientism is about more than its devotion to empiricism. It is about replacing the carrot of the hereafter with the carrot of the future. In any case, the present remains firmly under someone else's heel (thanks Vaneigem).

I am not interested in getting into an argument about "you cannot know nuthin", my point is just that scientism, like Christianity/Islam/insert-scriptural-era-mysticism-here leaves the building of a better world to someone or something else.

But scientism is worse because the culture built up around it asserts that happiness is a material condition. The people with access to comfort will be made happy. That the emancipation of humanity will be through wealth. If that were the case, mankind would already be saved, but if I drive through my local trailer park I can find people swimming in the trappings of comfort, and yet far from flourishing.

>>5698478
Everyone agrees there is some non-contingent basis for existence--that is reality, the fact that anything exists at all, is so by its own inherent nature the act of "to be". The only argument is whether selfsubsistence has consciousness.

This is what Aquinas was talking about. God not as a being, some contingent force in the universe, but rather being itself.

>>5696399
>revival of atheism
where do you live, son?

>>5698220
What is the Refutation of the Epicurean argument?
I know he wasn't actually an atheist, but I think it's a pretty solid reason not to worship any religion regardless of it's truth.

>>5698456
i was a t home when my mom said

'u cant now nuffin anon snow'

'no'

and you????

>>5698220
>the usual cosmological and ontological arguments that have been picked apart and ridiculed for centuries

Usually the picking apart and ridiculing is applied to a caricature of the most well-known cosmological or ontological arguments instead of what a philosopher actually wrote.

>>5698626
Which is coincidentally also what they teach in the typical Phil 101 class in college. They post xeroxed snippets from the Summa, and cliff note the arguments into a power point.

>>5698589
but how can your mum be real if our eyes arent real?

>>5696399
Communism.

>>5696399
Zizek has a good talk about it.

>>5698499
No it's not. New atheism has some massive ontological differences. Don't be fucking retarded, christfag.

>>5698299
Technology worship is purposefully instilled in people.

>>5698336
>those biblical allusions
>2faith19me

Look, the only people shoving everything wrong in the world into this stupid Christian/atheist debate are people who don't have a wider concept of how the world works

Technology worship is instilled because of the destruction of philosophy, which was done intentionally by the elite who want people to accept kantianism. When people philosophize, they tend to lose the idiosyncrasies in belief, but also start fidgeting for social change (often)

>>5698440
>complains of straw men against religion
>proposes this

Just because you find meaning in something doesn't mean it has inherent meaning. Atheists like myself find literally no meaning in church, God, Jesus or worship. The people doing it often look retarded

You will usually hear Christians talk about us having "hard hearts" and act really condescending that we "just don't get it", but we do. You always posture like there's mystery to Christianity. There isn't. There is no mystery. I would know, I was Christian for most of my life.

>>5698572
And you take Aquinas seriously in such primitive mysticism?

>>5698635
The rest isn't any better. Stop posturing.

>>5698572
>God not as a being, some contingent force in the universe, but rather being itself.
>pantheism

>>5698584
Well, the argument basically says that if there's a benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient God, there will be no suffering.

It's easy to refute because if such a infinitely powerful being exists, it's more likely that he has in mind a plan that involves suffering / evil that will ultimately work out and make sense in the end. In other word, it's more probable that a human being with limited knowledge cannot grasp the plan of such being than that the human being does see it all and because of that, such being cannot exist IF we suppose the three attributes of benevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience to God.

>>5700171
This approach implies that the suffering is somehow necessary in God's plan, in other words that he needs to navigate obstacles in order to fulfil his plan, which implies he's not omnipotent.

>>5700171
It's not easy to refute because none of those terms OR god have any fucking meaning.

Perfect has absolutely no fucking meaning, nor does God. You might as well spend your life trying to have "swag".

>>5700186
>suffering is necessary
I can accept that.
>he needs to navigate obstacles
I don't see how that's equivalent to suffering is necessary.

And it's not really my case anyway. All I'm saying is if such being exists, it's more likely that we just don't and cannot understand and thus trying to make sense is useless because human's knowledge is just limited. Do you know all about the world? You probably don't even know enough to win Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Then how can you say that suffering exists then God is not omnipotent?

Bear in mind that I'm not trying to prove God's existence in any ways, just examining the argument with its assumptions in case any new atheists lost his temper.

>>5700186

It doesn't imply that he's not omnipotent, unless you require omnipotence to mean that he can make nine-sided triangles and so on.

I'll try to keep this brief. Let's define 'good' as 'that which is pleasing to God' (never mind whether or not there is a god, we're assuming there is one here). It's no violation of omnipotence to say that God can't find X both pleasing and not pleasing, right? IOW God can only prefer what God prefers.

So then, if it's pleasing to God that humans choose faith in him despite temptation and doubt, then it is better that he create a world containing temptation and doubt than that he not do that.

Similarly, if it's more pleasing to God that humans genuinely *choose* faith in him (ie free will) rather than simply being determined to so, then it's better that God instil in us free will than that he not.

So, long story short, we have free will, which inevitably means some will sin, and we require also temptations, hence the physical possibility of enacting sins ('ought not' implies 'can' just as surely as 'ought', after all) and (tricky bit inbound) *something*, whatever it may be, which will always produce a certain amount of doubt in any thinking person. This last being 'natural evil', ie earthquakes, disease etc.

Now all of the above is wildly implausible and I don't believe it at all (I'm an atheist or agnostic or whatever you want to say, I'm largely indifferent to the label), but 'implausible' just isn't the same as 'false' or 'self-contradictory' or 'logically impossible'.

And I've never seen a version of the AfE where you couldn't tailor something like that to neuter in that way, to reduce it to a question of plausibility rather than logical possibility.

>>5700233
That's a satisfying answer anon. I like the bits about natural disasters so that even those who are gifted with superior intellect have to come to God by genuine faith so that they are not deprived of their free will.

>>5700227
The point is that if suffering is necessary, he's not omnipotent. Omnipotence doesn't come with obstacles.

>Then how can you say that suffering exists then God is not omnipotent?
If suffering exists, he can't be omnipotent and benevolent. It's about the combination.

>>5700233
Again, it's about the combination of omnipotence and benevolence in Epicurus' argument. Existence as it is can be explained by a God being a powerful cunt or an incompetent but well meaning guy, but it can't be explained by him being a well meaning being with literally everything at his disposal to make life pleasant for us.

>>5700359
Man, you just keep repeating the argument without addressing any points that have been raised. Two anons you quoted have raised very good explanations but you seem to not understand and keep insisting that suffering and omnipotence is a contradiction. I doubt that you even understand your own objection. Stop parroting Epicurus. Think on your own feet for once. Don't let your being an atheist cloud your mind that you cannot see any sense in any objections.

>>5698499
It's almost as if you have no concept of history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka

>>5698539
Scientism isn't a thing.

>>5700159
Aquinas writes thousands of pages of carefully reasoned scholastic argument and all atheists can say is 'what caused god? xD'

>>5700164
That's not pantheism, it's orthodox Christian understanding. Divine simplicity means that God's essence is existence.

>>5700474
http://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/Haack,%20Six%20Signs%20of%20Scientism.pdf

>>5700359
>Again, it's about the combination of omnipotence and benevolence in Epicurus' argument.

It's possible to cause someone suffering for their own good, even those who aren't aware of the reasoning. Think of a small child being vaccinated - the needle pinches and the child cries. Yet the action is, ultimately, benevolent. And it's that word 'ultimately' that's crucial.

The basic idea is that there is no greater benefit, no greater pleasure, than communion with God in his presence. Now, remember before that I said God ISN'T omnipotent if 'omnipotence' means capable of making nine-sided triangles and so forth? I also argued that God cannot prefer both X and ¬X. Maybe you will take these 'restrictions', which I would call fundamental propositions of logic, as evidence that God is in fact not omnipotent. Which is fine, but Christians will just shrug and tell you that's not what 'omnipotent' means. And are they wrong?

But getting back to the communion with God bit. God, again, can only prefer that which he prefers. And he prefers that humans believe in him. Those that believe in him are worthy of communion with him and those that do not, are not. He can't make those who are unworthy worthy, any more than he can prefer what he does not prefer, see? They must choose faith in order to be worthy, end of story.


So in fact, he actually DOES have everything at his disposal to make life (technically existence) pleasant for us. It's just that that doesn't entail what you think it does. And even that's ignoring that 'pleasant for us' and 'pleasing to God' (which, remember, is how we're defining 'good') are only partially co-extensive. Much of what God commands even on a basic moral level is in fact quite unpleasant for us, no? Is that also evidence of his impossibility?

And again, it's not that I believe any of this stuff, nor do I think belief in it is warranted. I think the AfE makes a fine appeal to the implausibility of Abrahamic theism. But an appeal to implausibility is not a disproof and shouldn't be treated as one.

>>5700472
>The Cārvāka school thus appears to have gradually grown out of generic scepticism
>150BCE
>grown out of generic scepticism
lol

Book Three of Genealogy of Morality

Atheists still believe in truth. That is what they carry over from religious value-systems.

>>5700497

>Aquinas writes thousands of pages of carefully reasoned scholastic argument and all atheists can say is 'what caused god? xD'

In which he barely even defines what God even is, and provides precisely zero evidence that anything he's saying is even possible, let alone plausible

Face it, your 'proofs' for God are nothing more than a semantic bullshit bingo. They're usually built on ifs and it's possible thats, and the worst part is the people like William Lane Craig actually believe that it's some kind of brilliant epiphany that surpasses even the most advanced forms of cosmology, when really it's just the mindless speculations of a man who lived in a time when plumbing was considered advan ed technology

>>5700502
>It's possible to cause someone suffering for their own good, even those who aren't aware of the reasoning. Think of a small child being vaccinated - the needle pinches and the child cries. Yet the action is, ultimately, benevolent. And it's that word 'ultimately' that's crucial.

Yes, but that's due to the crude nature of our means. We cause someone suffering for their own good because we can't do them good WITHOUT causing them suffering.

An omnipotent God could, if it chose, do good without causing any suffering along the way. If God chooses not to, he isn't benevolent. If God cannot do us good without making us suffer first, he isn't omnipotent.

The only way out of this is to say that suffering ITSELF is inherently good, and so it is good that God makes us suffer.

>>5700497
>Aquinas writes thousands of pages of carefully reasoned scholastic argument and all atheists can say is 'what caused god? xD'
Aquinas writes thousands of pages of circular logic and pulling shit out of his own ass, secure in the knowledge that anyone who dares contradict him will be executed for heresy. There's your rigorous theology - just kill anyone who says you're wrong.

>>5700542
>implying he wasn't condemned by the church 3 years after he died.

>>5700528
>provides precisely zero evidence that anything he's saying is even possible, let alone plausible

But that's not how Aquinas proceeds. Starting with broadly Aristotelian premises he works out what follows necessarily from them. They're not 'my' proofs for God and I'm not even convinced they're sound, but I don't believe they can be handwaved away.

>>5700568

And that's exactly the problem with a lot of this 'proving' of God, because logic will only tell you whether a concept is consistent with itself, not with reality. If you have a logically sound concept (let's just assume that the unmoved mover is, even though it isn't), you still have just that, a concept. You're still left with the task of testing whether your concept holds in reality

This is what really irritates me about what I like to call 'logical proof Christianity'. People who use 'irrefutable proofs' like that ignore that logic is nowhere near enough to call something true

>>5700581
Pretty much every logical proof I've seen of God tended to include its conclusion in its premise. There was a lot of words, but if you boiled it down to its essence, it always said "Okay, given that God is true, we can conclude that God is true!"

Which is perfectly true, just dumb.

>>5700537
That's because you allow only God in your equation and without us, human beings. Suffering is largely result of our free will. It's like you allow your child to make mistakes that are unpleasant to the child but ultimately help him learn his lessons. You can prevent that of course and hammer into the child the lessons or create a child who cannot make mistakes but then that is the anathema to free will. It makes more sense to me that you respect the child and allow the possibility that he can fail (which is an impossibility in either case I mentioned above).

>>5700464
Benevolence, omnipotence and suffering are incompatible here. I repeated it again, since you have forgotten.

>>5700502
>It's possible to cause someone suffering for their own good, even those who aren't aware of the reasoning. Think of a small child being vaccinated - the needle pinches and the child cries. Yet the action is, ultimately, benevolent. And it's that word 'ultimately' that's crucial.
If I were omnipotent I'd vaccinate kids without it hurting. If God can only arrive at end state X in a troublesome way he's not omnipotent. So either he chooses the method that brings about useless suffering because he likes to, or he's an incompetent God that is constantly fucking up. If God, with his tremendous resources, still takes the route through a bunch of world wars and natural disasters instead of a shortcut then that's not very nice. You might say that pleasant to us is different from what's pleasant to God, but in that case God deliberately made us unaligned with his preferences, which is cruel in itself.

Nobody who believes in god in this day and age is intelligent. You're just a dumb beast.

And that's what has got everyone so upset, the fact that they are being left behind by the few individuals that evolution has worked on.

>>5700497
I don't think other anon was implying that the word "scientism" hasn't been used before. But it is a term that only people who don't understand science use, in an attempt to discredit and/or belittle science. No scientist would ever use the term. It's the equivalent of the term "allopathy" that alternative medicine goons such as homeopaths use to describe real medicine.

>>5700608
If I had two kids and I saw the elder stuffing the younger in the oven, I wouldn't stand by and watch because to intervene would be to destroy his free will. I'd slap him.

>>5700227
>I can accept that.
Why would you worship a deity that is supposedly omnipotent and omniscient but still is incapable of creating life that does not feel suffering?

Your "God" sounds like a sadist fuck to me.

>>5700608
>free will
Are you a third grader? Causal determinism is a bitch and a fact.

>>5700821
>trying to explain suffering if God exists which implies free will exists
>if God exists
>if
>a fucking big IF
>wwaaahhh muh science says no free will
No wonder no one argues with new atheists so they all think they "won."

>>5700821
you realize it's not proven

>>5700838
If we do not assume causality, nothing makes any sense.

Everything we know through science or reason rests on the assumption that causal chains exist.

>>5700837
>human suffering
>human "free will"
>omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god
These do not fit together. Face it, your judeo-christian god is a shitty imaginary friend that is riddled with paradoxes.

>>5700839
a) causality may be non-universal, we know causality as a merely empirical rule
b) all the attempts to refute the free will are nothing more than some machinations unless one believes in completely deterministic consciousness and if it is deterministic isn't really known

>>5700850
>a) causality may be non-universal, we know causality as a merely empirical rule
Gee, thanks for the trivia.

>b) all the attempts to refute the free will are nothing more than some machinations unless one believes in completely deterministic consciousness and if it is deterministic isn't really known
The only options are not necessarily hard determinism and indeterminism, causal determinism can still be true (your genetics, upbringing and thus subconscious decides your actions, not you consciously) when it comes to your personal "free will".

Think of it this way: your fate might not (probably is not) be determined by a supernatural entity, but you cannot will what you will, and you are thus in essence a slave to causal determinism when you act according to previous stimuli.

>>5700537
>An omnipotent God could, if it chose, do good without causing any suffering along the way.

What is 'good', though? 'Good' for *us*, right? A cushy life down here is not as good as communion with God in his presence. That is the ultimate, *infinite* good. You know how infinity works - anything less than it is *infinitely* less.

>If God cannot do us good without making us suffer first, he isn't omnipotent.
>The only way out of this is to say that suffering ITSELF is inherently good, and so it is good that God makes us suffer.

No, I've already covered this. It *is* good that God allows us to suffer, but not because suffering is *inherently* good. Only because it is necessary for a greater good.

A toy example: A line from A to B is not and cannot *inherently* be a hypotenuse. That's contingent on the precise positioning and length of two other lines. God can't make a line be a hypotenuse if it's not linked to two other lines.

As I say, maybe you think that God MUST be able to make an independent straight line a hypotenuse without resort to other lines, or else he's not omnipotent. What if Christians disagree? Are they wrong? How do you know?

>>5700858
>these mental gymnastics done in an attempt to defend the paradoxical judeo-christian god
Save your time and don't bother.

>>5700617
>If I were omnipotent I'd vaccinate kids without it hurting. If God can only arrive at end state X in a troublesome way he's not omnipotent.

Vaccination is just an analogy. See the hypotenuse argument above for another refutation of this objection to omnipotence.

>You might say that pleasant to us is different from what's pleasant to God, but in that case God deliberately made us unaligned with his preferences, which is cruel in itself.

It's starting to get annoying how many of the responses I'm getting were dealt with by my first post on the matter.

>>5700233
>Let's define 'good' as 'that which is pleasing to God'
>if it's pleasing to God that humans choose faith in him despite temptation and doubt, then it is better that he create a world containing temptation and doubt than that he not do that.
>if it's more pleasing to God that humans genuinely *choose* faith in him (ie free will) rather than simply being determined to so, then it's better that God instil in us free will than that he not.

>>5700861
...he said, having saved his time and not bothered to refute the arguments made.

Not to suggest, of course, that you can't...

>>5696399
If you have to ask for responses, you're probably not intelligent enough to be using them.

>>5700586
Aquinas starts with Aristotelian metaphysics and ends up concluding that a being of pure actuality exists. Aristotle had even come to a similar conclusion to Aquinas much before Aquinas did and neither of them started with the premise of their being a god..
Don't know what you mean by
>There was a lot of words, but if you boiled it down to its essence, it always said "Okay, given that God is true, we can conclude that God is true!"

>>5700858
>No, I've already covered this. It *is* good that God allows us to suffer, but not because suffering is *inherently* good. Only because it is necessary for a greater good.
You still don't get it, do you? It is only necessary for a greater good because God decided to make it necessary for a greater good. An actually omnipotent god could have simply set up the way things work so that suffering was NOT necessary for a greater good.

But he chose not to. Or was unable to. At any rate, he is either not benevolent, or not omnipotent.

>>5700891
>You still don't get it, do you? It is only necessary for a greater good because God decided to make it necessary for a greater good.

You are literally saying "It's only necessary because it's contingent." I am saying explicitly that it is NOT contingent, ie, that God could NOT have obviated suffering, ie, that it is necessary.

>But he chose not to. Or was unable to.

The latter. Does the persistent non-existence of nine-sided triangles or independent hypotenuses also serve to underline God's non-omnipotence?

>>5700891
It's so obvious too. Why has every Christian philosopher just ignored the fact that it has no answer?

>>5700542
>just kill anyone who says you're wrong
because the church totally did this

right guys?

the church is the mob, right?

>inb4 muh inquisition
modern atheists falling for stale Protestant propaganda, how nice

>>5700897
Congratulations, you've just declared God benevolent, but not omnipotent. Or does omnipotence mean "can do quite a lot of things, but not all" to you?

>>5700898
>Why has every Christian philosopher just ignored the fact that it has no answer?

Dude, what?

>>5700902
>who is giordano bruno

Let's not lose the run of ourselves, lads.>>5700904
>Or does omnipotence mean "can do quite a lot of things, but not all" to you?

To me, it means "Can do anything that it is possible to do."

Could one of you PLEASE confirm or deny whether God's inability to make a nine-sided triangle rules out his omnipotence?

>>5700910
He was executed because he was teaching heresy within the church.

>>5700920

So, he was executed, then. Good chat.

>>5700910
By that logic, I am omnipotent. I can do anything it is possible for me to do.

Also yes, god's inability to make a nine sided triangle rules out omnipotence. Because an omnipotent god would be the god who wrote the laws of math and logic, and decided on what they would be like, and made certain choices and didn't make others, and could always go and make different choices if that god wanted to.

Your god is not omnipotent. He didn't create the laws of the universe, the laws of logic, of morality, of anything. He just showed up and has to deal with the situation as is.

>>5700938
>By that logic, I am omnipotent. I can do anything it is possible for me to do.

Don't be silly. "God can do anything that it is possible to do" - how's that?

>Also yes, god's inability to make a nine sided triangle rules out omnipotence.

>Because an omnipotent god would be the god who wrote the laws of math and logic, and decided on what they would be like, and made certain choices and didn't make others, and could always go and make different choices if that god wanted to.

It is certainly true that God could have engineered matters so that the *word* 'triangle' ended up being applied to nonagons. What we're concerned with is whether or not he could have arranged things such that a nine-sided rectilinear body could have only 180 internal degrees.

Now, you are saying that God could have changed the laws of logic etc. But - to continue your own line of reasoning - shouldn't it be the case that God could create a nine-sided triangle WITHOUT changing the laws of math and logic? Wouldn't NEEDING to change the laws of math and logic likewise rule out omnipotence?

>Your god is not omnipotent.

I don't have any gods.

>He didn't create the laws of the universe, the laws of logic, of morality, of anything.

God did not create God, correct. God did not say "Let there be the mind of God" and lo, there was the mind of God etc.

>>5700955
If you're saying that the laws of the universe, logic and morality are the mind of god, then either God cannot change his mind, in which case not omnipotent, or he could just change his mind until suffering was not necessary for the greater good, in which case he doesn't and is not beneveolent.

And yes, god - an omnipotent one - could have arranged things such that a nine-sided rectilinear body had only 180 internal degrees.

An actual omnipotent god can in fact break the laws of math and logic without changing them, because omnipotence. But I do have to concede that an omnipotent god cannot break the laws of math and logic...without breaking the laws of math and logic.

That said, God cannot ever hide behind laws or the way things work as a reason why something isn't done, because he is the one who decides all laws and laid down the way things worked. He decided, with malice aforethought, that suffering was going to be necessary. He laid down the universe very carefully to make sure people had to suffer for the greater good, when he could easily have laid down a different universe where this wasn't necessary, and the good at the end was equally great.

Theists believe some crazy shit.

>>5700974
>God cannot change his mind, in which case not omnipotent

I've been saying for hours that God can't prefer both X and ¬X.

>And yes, god - an omnipotent one - could have arranged things such that a nine-sided rectilinear body had only 180 internal degrees.

I see. Do you think God is only omniscient if he knows the last digit of pi?

>But I do have to concede that an omnipotent god cannot break the laws of math and logic...without breaking the laws of math and logic.

But you are invoking the law of identity in a claim that God can break the laws of logic. But if God can break the laws of logic, then he CAN TOO do so without breaking the laws of logic, since it is only the laws of logic which dictate that A cannot be ¬A.

>He decided, with malice aforethought, that suffering was going to be necessary.

No, God did not decide to prefer what God prefers. This, again, is something I dealt with in my first post on the matter.

>he could easily have laid down a different universe where this wasn't necessary, and the good at the end was equally great.

No, again this is dealt with by my first post on the subject.

>Theists believe some crazy shit.

They sure do. Lot of daylight between 'crazy' and 'logically impossible', is all I'm saying.

>>5700992
>I've been saying for hours that God can't prefer both X and ¬X.
God can prefer whatever God wants to prefer, or he isn't omnipotent.
>Do you think God is only omniscient if he knows the last digit of pi?
God can make pi have a last digit, or he isn't omnipotent.
>But you are invoking the law of identity in a claim that God can break the laws of logic. But if God can break the laws of logic, then he CAN TOO do so without breaking the laws of logic, since it is only the laws of logic which dictate that A cannot be ¬A.
Good point. In that case, I withdraw my concession! Hurrah!
>No, God did not decide to prefer what God prefers.
He did, though. Or he chooses to not change what he prefers, which is the same thing.

>>5701617
>God can prefer whatever God wants to prefer, or he isn't omnipotent.

I mean, OK, suppose this is true (I don't think it is, but whatever). Why *would* he change it? He does, after all, prefer it.

>God can make pi have a last digit, or he isn't omnipotent.

Again, this may not actually be true by the definition of 'omnipotent' used by the people you're arguing with. But ignoring that, it's not speaking to the point. I didn't ask you if God could make pi have a last digit. The question didn't even concern omnipotence, but omniscience - ie, *given* that pi does not have a last digit, do you suppose God's omniscience to be falsified if he doesn't know what the last digit is?

>Good point. In that case, I withdraw my concession! Hurrah!

In that case, by withdrawing your concession you cede that human logic does not apply to God and so that the Epicurean trilemma is innately invalid. Hurrah indeed.

>He did, though.

No, he didn't. Again, God did not create God. God did not say "Let there be God" and lo, there was God.

>>5701656
>In that case, by withdrawing your concession you cede that human logic does not apply to God and so that the Epicurean trilemma is innately invalid. Hurrah indeed.
Certainly, but with human logic no longer applying to God, it is impossible to make any statements about God that make sense to humans. God is not good, does not love you, and has no intentions regarding you whatsoever, because all of those would be comprehensible, logical things. You can literally make up factual statements regarding god with a random generator, and every single one of them would be equally true.

Atheism is idiotic, agnosticism is the only position worth anything.

Inb4 muh agnostic atheism

>>5701700

Baruch has been expecting you.

>>5700864
You didn't deal with any of it, you're just providing the standard cop-outs.

>>5702742
>you didn't deal with any of it, you just dealt with it

Pip-pip cheerio old boy.

>>5702756
You didn't. "gods works in le mysterious ways" and "god allows you to suffer because he wants a special relationship with you" are cop-outs.

>>5696399
Silence.

>>5702919
you can't just add a "le" and declare something a cop-out.
>le accusing someone of copping-out cop-out

>What are the most intelligent responses to the recent revival of atheism?
Full-hearted public support, if you're not a moron. The idiotic and horribly dangerous strains of fundamentalist stupidity in Christianity and Islam are the greatest problem society has right now.