Who can argue intelligently for religion?

[Adito]

Send me an email at [email protected]. I do have messenger but I won't be on for awhile. I'll be happy to respond to anyone who isn't just writing to flame me. I want these debates to expand my understanding of christianity and hopefully help at least a few people to move past it. If you have any questions about my points or just think I can answer a general religious question I'll be happy to answer.

I broke this up into two sections. The first deals with why God can not logically exist. The second is about how horrible religion is for us as people. If you want to argue both then please split them up. I understand that the second is far more speculative then the first and I'm not trying to state it as fact. It's just some observations I've made. However, I am perfectly willing to debate either one.

FREE WILL

Free will can NOT exist. I'll make this simple. Now lets pretend for a moment that christianity is correct. God created all of us. It's also stated in the bible that God knows our actions before we make them. Since he is our creator and he knows our actions before me make them...hmmm, that doesn't quite add up for free will now does it? It can't even be explained with "Gods ways are mysterious, who are we to try and understand them?" because it just plains doesn't make any freaking sense. The usual argument against this is that the nature of Gods omnipotence is unkown. Perhaps he knows all the possible futures but not what choices we will make. The problem here is that it's very clearly stated that God knows all. Everything. The whole shibang. If a Christian were to use this argument they would be saying that there are things God does NOT know. That's very clearly a direct contradiction to what the bible says. This kind of self serving double talk just further goes to discredit the bible. But ok, I'll admit that this is a possibility. There's no real way to disprove it. But it's only ever mentioned because it's convenient to believe. There's no evidence to support it. Much like Christianity in general. This is one example of how religious arguments begin with the end in mind and never try to reach an intelligent conclusion.

Now lets assume that all of the above is irrelevant. If God existed and wanted us to believe in him, love him, and live our lives by the (mostly common sense) guidelines he gives us then there is no reason for him not to make himself more obvious. One way for him to do that would be to let the innocent people who grew up believing in something different that they had bought a one way ticket straight to hell just because of where they were born. Maybe he'll mention it as they fly past the pearly gates.

We also have to face the fact that if he knew all of the people who would be born and turn against him (sending them straight to hell) he essentially just made them so they could suffer for eternity. That doesn't quite jive with the general "peace and love" theme the bible has going. In fact I'd go so far as to say that only a being of pure evil could be so cruel. Once again don't give me that "god can not be understood by man" crap. This is very simple HE MAKES PEOPLE SO THEY WILL SUFFER FOREVER! But don't worry, because the bible is full of such drastic contradictions, thus making the entire book a horrible joke.

There is absolutely no reason for us to believe in a outdated, often mistranslated book that was written in a time of extreme ignorance. As intelligent human beings we owe it to ourselves to not simply accept foolish teachings like these and expand our minds to accept other possibilities.


ARTIFICIAL VALUES

In life we struggle. No one will debate this. These struggles eventually go a long way in defining who we are. How we deal with our issues, face these challenges, and the conclusions we come to after all is said and done is who we are. Religion makes all of this essentially unnecessary. It gives us all the values we need. So ask yourself, what kind of person is attracted to this system of thought? What kind of person needs to find the strength and values to live in a book instead of themselves? The weak. These people might accomplish great things and manage to live without ever straying far from these values but a more personal strength could have gotten them so much more.

When we arrive at conclusions on our own with no guidance and no "magic book" to tell us the way; we live up to all the potential humanity has to offer. Imagine someone who finds the strength to live with honor, to never take the easy way, and always do what they believe is right. This person will always be stronger then someone who gets their values from a book because it will be a integral part of who they are.
Very interesting responses. They're the most intelligent I've found so far.

moondogg - I'm under the impression that the all knowing nature of god is explained in the bible. How would a religious person justify the believe that god is not all knowing given the biblicial evidence? Or am I wrong in thinking that the bible says god is omniscient?

The idea behind my second point was to say that those who find their own reasons to be honorable are stronger people then christians. Could you link me to this argument you mentioned?

Urrelles - Text books are facts, easily proven to be so, and universally accepted. The bible relies on what I see as irrational faith and the spreading of its ignorance damages our ability to accept other ideas. To tell a person not to hurt another gets the idea across. The be hurt by another and KNOW that you never want to inflict such pain on someone else is something else entirely.

(continued)
That god often gives seemingly illogical tasks does not prove that the bible and god in general is logical. By pointing out the free will/omniscience paradox I meant to say that the entire bible should be suspect.

Using the bible how can it be shown that god is not all knowing? The tests he puts people through are not enough. It is my belief that the bible was written just as any other superstitious piece of work partly to teach values and mostly to provide answers to the unanswerable. Such tests are a good way a superstitious text could get that across.



Looks like I've finally found some people who can teach me something. Thanks guys for proving that christians can do more then play the faith card. I was losing hope for a while there.

 

[RenA1]

Exactly.

And also, why must Christian's put so much faith in God? Where's the faith in themselves? They try to be like Jesus Christ and only do what they believe Christ would do, which is the "right thing." Make your own decisions for once and do what you would do instead of some fictional character. It's like doing what Superman would do.

Religious people are just so gullible. Let's say that God was real: how can you trust him? You can't say through the Bible because you can lie through paper. I could say right now that I'm 5'6" and everyone would believe me.

But whatever. I don't want to say too much into this or else I'll never stop writing.

 

[calley]

God can through His written word, the bible

 

[BillDoughtreve]

Just go door to door with a tie on and push your beliefs on everyone

 

[Desiree]

Arguing honestly is a more pertinent question; I have yet to see any religious people argue completely honestly.

 

[sophieb1]

the "only" people who are supposed to be discussing and determining things faith based for us all are the ministers, priests and those well studied who are the heads of their religions.

 

[moondoggy]

Well first, I like your post. We need more theological/philosophical problems like this, and less mindless insults. Keep up the good work!

As for your two arguments, the biggest problem is that both are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the actual theological positions involved. It is kind of like the old "why are there still monkeys" argument against evolution - it assumes a belief that is common among a small (and typically uneducated) strata of the population, and ignores the actual published opinions of evolutionary biologists.

The majority of theologians (both inside and outside of Christianity) are either determinists or open theists, meaning that your first argument is not the least bit applicable to the discussion. Your points are a good way to stump the average Evangelical who has no theological training whatsoever.

In order to prove that the existence of God is illogical, you have to prove that his existence depends on a certain attribute. In other words, you have to prove that God *must* have absolute foreknowledge in order to exist. If you can't prove that, then your argument makes a nice thought-experiment, but it doesn't add anything to the discussion of whether or not God exists. Most Christian philosophers believe in open theism - i.e. they do not believe that God has the kind of foreknowledge that you assume.

The other problem with your first point is that it is entirely subjective. You used a theological proposition as the basis for your argument. How do I explain this? You start by asserting a religious dogma: "God is x." Then you are that "x is illogical." Because your argument is founded on religious dogma, it carries no more weight than any other random religious statement about the nature of God.

The second point is condescending, and also misses the point entirely. Theologians actually take the exact opposite view, and insist that values are inherent, not derived from a book (the Bible or otherwise). In fact, that doctrine is so important that it forms the backbone of one of the most widely-used arguments for the existence of God, and the only argument that Kant thought was philosophically viable. This one is a little less forgivable than the first, because you don't have to have a degree in theology to understand the dominant view on morality in Christianity. All you have to do is read a couple of debates or a few articles on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

 

[AshleyD]

dude, your like my new hero. im printing this out and handing it to every religious person that comes to my door trying to hand me stuff.

 

[Janoobee]

Religion helps man to know hie "true" size, he has free will, but this free will won't let him create a flower, knowing the truth will make him work hard to do it, and meanwhile he learn to accept the others' free will

 

[GoLakers#1]

How many times was the bible changed?

I'm pretty sure that wasn't "God"

Pointless question...you know that.

Edit: I didn't even read...until now.

If God knows all of our actions before we act upon them, why didn't he just skip the whole life thing and start us in hell/heaven.

 

[Urrelles]

Here's a real response to you arguments. You idea on artificial values is completely flawed. Simply change the subject of your logic here and you will see the flaw.

---People live their lives discovering scientific breakthroughs. They learn how things work through experience and utilize that experience to their unique lives. So what happens when you take those experiences and put them in books and teach them in schools. That makes it so the scientific discovery is not unique. What kind of person would rely on a "magic school system" to show them all the answers to science? The weak. People benefit much more from discovering electricity themselves, finding out how their blood stream works on their own, and building their own cars than to have others with the knowledge give it to them through books.---

See the flaw in there? What makes mankind, monkeykind, and dolphinkind better than most animals is the fact that we teach our experiences to our next generation. It allows us to advance as a species much faster. Instead of having every child start at step one learning how to share on their own, we teach them.

This goes to our religious books with their Artificial Values. People of the past documented the results of lying, cheating, sharing and put them into books as values we should or should not follow. These values can also be taught in school, by word of mouth, and through experience. The end result is that each human being has an understanding of the consequences of their actions. It is up to them whether they follow these codes of conduct and risk consequence if they do not. Many people believe they can slip past the system and do unorthodox things like murdering people for fun. They get away with it for a while, but it usually catches up to them. Some people actually do get away. But in general, the examples given in our "magic books" tell the average outcome of doing such things and how it affects ourselves and the people around us.


FREE WILL

The God of the Bible is glorified as a super being that knows all. But looking at the examples in the Bible and many other religious text he is not a being that knows all. He just knows how things work.

It's the same principle as a computer programmer who programs an AI in a computer game. He knows how the AI will work. But he does not know what the AI is calculating at that very moment. He can outsmart it nearly 99% of the time. But there is that 1% chance it will do something utterly unexpected due to the situation it is in.

God is the same way. He doesn't know our very thought minute by minute, but he knows how we think and what our flaws are.

It shows up many times throughout the old testament that God calls upon someone to do a task (usually as a test). The task involves something that the person is weak at and will easily refuse. But many times in the bible people push themselves over the limit to complete the task and end up doing something magnificant and different than their normal routine. I believe the story of Jonah is the best example.

The story of Adam and Eve is a prime example of God's blindness to our intentions. IT also shows the result of an outside force manipulating us in different ways too. We were made for one purpose but mankind did something completely unexpected and changed the outcome to everything. God got pissed off for an aeon and tested and poked at us throughout the old testament to see what we were about, then when he figured it all out he threw Jesus down on us and changed how the rules work. That is just my belief though.