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No-one Knows the Mind of God . . . Except the Committed Atheist

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Fair warning to the regular readership.

Typically I like to cover intelligent design and evolution-related issues, but I trust I may be permitted a bit of a detour.  There have been a couple of interesting posts recently by Sal, vjtorley and Barry about issues of a more philosophical bent.  vjtorley’s OP, in particular, quoted parts of an essay from Professor Jerry Coyne.  I would like today to share some thoughts on point.

With apologies to those not of the Judeo-Christian tradition, my comments will focus in part on the Bible, given that the Bible and the God of the Bible have been the brunt of many new atheist attacks recently, including Coyne’s.  Similar points, no doubt, could be made with respect to other religious traditions.

In Coyne’s Atheism of the Gaps essay, he says:

There are huge gaps in believers’ understanding of God, and in those lacunae, I claim, lies strong evidence for No God. Here are some of those religious gaps:

  • Why would the Abrahamic God, all-loving and all-powerful, allow natural evils to torment and kill people? Why can’t he keep kids from getting cancer? How did the Holocaust fit into God’s scheme?

  • Why, if God wants us to know and accept him so much, does he hide himself from humanity?

  • Why would an omnibenevolent God consign sinners to an eternity of horrible torment for crimes that don’t warrant that? (In fact, no crimes do!). The official Catholic doctrine, for instance, is that unconfessed homosexual acts doom you to an eternity of immolation in molten sulfur. And would the Christian God really let someone burn forever because they were Jews, or didn’t get baptized?

  • Why is God in the Old Testament such a jerk, toying with people for his amusement, ordering genocides in which women and children are killeden masse, and allowing she-bears to kill a pack of kids just for making fun of a prophet’s baldness? How does that comport with the God worshipped today?

  • Why didn’t Jesus return during his followers’ lifetime, as he promised?

JWTruthInLove @23 in that thread provides a number of responses, which are worth reviewing.  He is being perhaps a bit sarcastic, but several of his statements are perfectly reasonable responses to Coyne’s list.

Coyne’s thinks he finds “strong evidence for no God.”  Yet his argument, when we cut through the clutter, is essentially as follows:

1. God, if He existed, would be like X.

2. Evidence shows God is not like X.

3. Therefore, God does not exist.

We can argue specific evidence under #2, and in many cases this is a useful approach because the alleged evidence is not quite what it claims to be.  Yet the first foundational question for Coyne’s Atheism of the Gaps worldview should be: On what basis do you think God is like X?

What Do I Think God Should Be Like?

This exchange highlights the fact that the anti-religious zealot so often approaches the matter with a very concrete God in mind, a concept of how they think God should be (if only there were such a being).  Then when the facts don’t seem to align with that superficial and hypothetical image they have created in their own minds, they proclaim that God must not exist.

In this particular case, for example, Coyne’s complaints mirror the usual grievances that have been leveled against Deity since the beginning:

Why is life hard?

Why is there suffering?

Why doesn’t God just save everybody instead of condemning some to punishment?

Why doesn’t God give me a sign instead of making me exercise faith?

Why does God make me pass through trials and tribulations in life, like having to do my own taxes, rather than doing them for me?

And on and on . . .

Coyne’s list is not novel, nor even particularly intellectually challenging.  It is essentially another in the long tradition of “arguments from evil” against the existence of God.  The argument from evil has been dealt with in detail by numerous capable authors in many writings, so I need not recap, but will just highlight one particular point.

It is a mystery – Coyne doesn’t specify (unless he is willing to confess to a personal revelation he received from God) – why Coyne would think that, say, the God of the Bible is primarily concerned that everyone be happy all the time, that life be a carefree paradise, that there be no suffering, that we should be beat over the head with signs instead of exercising faith, that our modern sensibilities should match up with ancient cultures, that life should even be fair, that God should be primarily interested in our temporary earthly comfort rather than in teaching us lessons and our more long-term salvation.

This isn’t to say I don’t identify with any of his complaints.

It is quite true – and to this extent I empathize with the atheist inquiry – that the Bible (the Old Testament, really) contains all manner of material that we would deem shocking, repulsive, abhorrent, outrageous, unfair, and even cruel if it were to occur today.  I’ve been re-reading the Old Testament myself the past few months and on more than one occasion have had the fleeting thought: “I’m not sure if I want my kids reading this stuff!”  Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether we are reading a passage from the Old Testament or the Police Blotter from yesterday’s newspaper.

Now, it is also true that much in the Old Testament can be better understood if we take time to learn about the cultures and the times, a task so many Biblical critics seem loathe to undertake.  Nevertheless, based on some of the incidents as reported in the Old Testament, I can understand – indeed, even empathize with – the sentiment that “Hey, if that is what God is like, then I don’t want anything to do with it.”

But it simply doesn’t follow from that revulsion, from that rejection of that kind of God, from our desire for a gentler Being that meets with our personal expectations – it simply doesn’t follow from all of this that God doesn’t exist.  So the conclusion that is reached doesn’t follow logically from the evidence – even if the evidence is taken at its absolute worst.

More importantly, for the believer, such an approach also fails to take into account all of the evidence on the other side of the coin: the many accounts in the Bible of tenderness and love and protection and guidance and divine assistance; the culture and practices of the times; evidence for the existence of a creator in the history of the cosmos and life; the “more excellent way” that was subsequently shown through Christ; the tradition of service to our fellow-beings that is taught repeatedly and forcefully in holy writ; the personal divine spiritual experiences that many people have experienced in their own lives even today.

Thus, the atheist rejection of God, based on the cruelties in the Old Testament, or the many challenges and difficulties of life generally, is, in addition to its logical flaws, a move based on a very limited survey of the evidence, a move based on a failure to consider the broader picture, a move based on a myopic blindness to many of the facts, rather than (as the atheist smugly pats himself on the back and loudly proclaims) an objective analysis of all the evidence.

Against this backdrop, one might be forgiven for considering the possibility that the vocal atheist is motivated more by a desire to grind his philosophical axe than by a desire to objectively review all the evidence at hand.

The Great Irony

All of this leads to one of the great ironies in the debate about the existence of God:

No-one seems so cock-sure of exactly what God is like, exactly what God’s characteristics are, exactly how to understand God, than the anti-religious zealot.  He is convinced he knows just how God is and how God should act in particular situations . . . if, of course, such a being existed.

In ironic contrast, those who believe God actually exists take seriously the scriptural caution that “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).  Such individuals recognize that we do not understand everything, but that there is, in the striving, a process of becoming and growing and learning.  That the very essence of life eternal (a goal not yet obtained by the believing mortal, but nevertheless obtainable at some future point) is to come to truly know God (John 17:3).

As a result, the believer is ever striving to learn what God is like and to submit his will to the Divine will in particular circumstances.  In contrast, the anti-religious zealot is convinced he knows exactly what God is like and what God would do – and should do – in those particular circumstances.  The anti-religious zealot, in decrying God’s actions and loudly proclaiming what God should or should not do, attempts to assume the role of the omniscient and demands: “Not Thy will, but mine be done.”

And so, the great irony persists:

The committed atheist is convinced he knows the mind of God.  The believer acknowledges he doesn’t, at least not fully, not yet today.  The committed atheist thinks he has already arrived at the pinnacle of knowledge about God.  The believer realizes he has not, but trusts that in submitting his will to the Divine he can, one day, come to truly know God.

Comments
Why We Made The Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq4b9qJlNbYbornagain77
May 1, 2014
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That Jew Died For You - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXmr_weg2ao Why We Made The Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq4b9...bornagain77
May 1, 2014
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Tony: Thanks for your comments. You have made a valiant effort to defend Coyne and/or dispute my assessment of Coyne, but it just doesn't hold. You are still stuck on the semantic question of whether the claim is framed in the positive or the negative. It doesn't make any difference for the conclusion Coyne is reaching. Again, I accept your point that whether a claim is made about the existence of a particular attribute or about the absence of a particular attribute can affect how much is being claimed. But that doesn't impact what we are discussing in regards to Coyne because he does not take the logical path of limiting his conclusion in that way. He goes all in. He goes for the whole enchilada. Coyne's conclusion is not that a particular attribute doesn't exist. Coyne's claim is that because a particular attribute doesn't exist, then God doesn't exist. This can only be the case -- it is impossible otherwise -- if Coyne presumes to know the attributes of God. ----- As to the other claim you made @62 about Coyne getting his ideas from theists, I am afraid that is not where Coyne is getting his ideas. Although I empathize with the concern that there are different conceptions about God in the world and that some theists may not do a good job of laying out their views, the idea that Coyne is just an innocent listener who was led to his simplistic ideas about God by "theists of all stripes" is absurd on its face. There isn't person of Judeo-Christian tradition around, certainly no-one of any note, who would claim that the God of the Bible wouldn't allow suffering, for example. There are many scholars and writers who have explicitly and specifically addressed the question of suffering and evil in the world. So Coyne isn't getting his simplistic conception of God from them. Additionally, one cannot even make it through the first book of the Bible without understanding quite clearly that God does permit suffering and does mete out punishment. So Coyne obviously isn't getting his simplistic conception of God from the Bible either. A person might complain that they don't like that kind of God. They could even say that they would prefer Coyne's "all-loving" God that doesn't permit suffering and never metes out punishment. Fine, that is their personal preference. But, again, that is not what Coyne is doing. Rather, he is setting up a caricature in his own mind, claiming something that the Bible and Judeo-Christian scholars have never claimed: that the Abrahamic God would not allow suffering and evil in the world, because He is "all-loving." Unfortunately, that is Coyne's simplistic, juvenile claim about what God would be like, not anything he learned from "theists of all stripes."Eric Anderson
April 30, 2014
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Tony:
@Barb I’d love to see you conduct a legal defence:
And I'd love to see you rebut even one of my posts.Barb
April 30, 2014
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Hi Eric I understand your point. But — here is the key — this is not what Coyne is doing. I understand yours, but that’s not what I read your article as accusing Coyne of doing. Yes, A:“If Tony is not 6’8” then he doesn’t exist” is silly, the conditional is false. There are, of course, other statements of the same form that are quite correct. What you’re reading has been, physically, produced by a computer. This leaves the (rather far-fetched) possibility that the content of this post has been computer generated . Were this so then Tony wouldn’t really exist. (Yes, you could have it that “Tony” exists as a computer output, a fantasy or whatever, but run with me.) There are properties of human individuals that are not properties of computers. One of them is that humans are made of meat. And so: B: “If Tony is not made of meat then he doesn’t exist” is not silly, the conditional (given the meaning of “exist” we’re running with!) is true. Now consider another claim: C: “ 1. If Tony is a program written by Microsoft in tandem with the TSA which runs on an Apple laptop linked to the internet via BT Broadband and engages in semantics online then he doesn’t exist 2. Tony is a program written by Microsoft in tandem with the TSA which runs on an Apple laptop linked to the internet via BT Broadband and engages in semantics online 3. Therefore he doesn’t exist” The conditional in 1 is quite correct, but the argument is still silly. Anyone putting forward C has made a number of claims about specific attributes of “Tony”, claims he is unlikely to be in a position to reasonably make. The person putting forward C has made a different error from the person putting forward A. And if you, wrongly, accuse people of making the error in C when they haven’t what is there to stop you accusing people of making the error in C when they have made no error at all? I would say that, whether or not Coyne has made error A, you make no argument that he has. @Barb I’d love to see you conduct a legal defence: “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury. The prosecution has shown that my client entered the premises, took the money and then spent it. I put it to you, though, that to convict him on that account of burglary is an exercise in semantics.”Tony Lloyd
April 30, 2014
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TSErik @65: Well said.Eric Anderson
April 29, 2014
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Tony @62:
The claim that I am not 6’8” has much less content than the claim that I am 6’8” (or 5’7”; 5’8”; 5’9” and so on).
I understand your point. But -- here is the key -- this is not what Coyne is doing. Coyne is not claiming that you are not 6'8", to use your example. He is claiming that because you are not 6'8" you don't exist. That is a much stronger claim than any of the others. And it can only be based on an implicit, if somewhat hidden, claim that you are also not 5'7", 5'8", 5'9" and on and on ad infinitum. Coyne is saying that if you don't fit the particular characteristics he has in mind, then you don't exist. This is not a modest, limited claim. Again, I'm perfectly happy for Coyne to acknowledge that he has a misconception of God and that he needs to rethink his ideas about God. No problem. But none of us should hold our breath awaiting such an acknowledgement. He claims God doesn't exist, because God doesn't fit some personal perception about how God should be. He is most definitely saying "If God existed, He would be like X." He is definitely claiming that he knows what God would be like if God existed. That is the whole basis of his argument.Eric Anderson
April 29, 2014
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ppolish @ 81: Something like that.Barb
April 29, 2014
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You're right, Barb. How about "Love hurts"?ppolish
April 29, 2014
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"Why is there suffering waawaa" "Why does a tsunami drown me and a supernova evaporate me instantly" "Why why why?" Four words Jerry Atheist, four words: HTFU Amen. Ok, 5 wordsppolish
April 29, 2014
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I would disagree with ppolish on one thing: the Christian religion is founded, not on suffering, but on the teachings and life of Jesus Christ. Suffering was only one component of his life, which was primarily spent trying to teach people about God. I used an illustration of a drunk driver in my previous post. To an atheist, this is meaningless because we're only victims of our selfish genes. We don't bear any responsibility for our behavior. Therefore, no action is truly "wrong" in nature. (That we have laws against drunk driving is somehow lost on them if nothing is truly "wrong") It's much easier to argue that there's no God and, ultimately, no reason for humanity to worship anything. There's no reason behind life itself, except what we make of it. And what have we made of it? Is there good in this world? Absolutely. Is there bad? No doubt. But the atheist--who doesn't acknowledge God--can't rightly then blame God for the suffering in the world. We are all victims of blind, purposeless processes that have been going on for millenia. This presents another issue, however: this isn't an explanation for suffering in the world.Barb
April 29, 2014
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The Christian Religion is founded on Suffering. The Crucifix is it's Symbol. To an Atheist, suffering is meaningless. To a Christian, suffering is meaningful. Necessary.ppolish
April 29, 2014
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Did anyone read the chapters before chapter 31 of Numbers? Didn't God directly tried to prevent Chapter 31 of ever happening even use a miracle of a donkey talking to Balaam. Balak wouldn't give up until Balaam give him something to curse Israel. The Jews continually disobey God which cause them to wonder for 40 years. Balaam finally told Balak if he gets Israel to sin God would have to judge them which God did but of course this backfired. This cause eventually lead to war in Chapter 31 and the results of war which is always ugly. The love of wealth is often back of many wars. Balaam love wealth wanted to please Balak just like some American companies trying to get around the monopoly laws help lead to the Holocaust. All God has to do to judge man is to step back and let man reap what he sows.Smidlee
April 29, 2014
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Tony goes on,
“I’m not moving anything.” Then “Has Coyne read Aquinas? Plantinga? Anything?” Now we’re back to “anything”. In 64 the objection is that Coyne has noengagement. In 68 insufficient. In 73: back to no. That is “moving the goalposts”
Arguing semantics? How atheistic. Why not just admit that Coyne’s knowledge of Christianity and the arguments in favor of God’s existence are shallow?
“I didn’t deny anything. Back in 64: (From me): “They are your(plural) claims.” From you: “No” That is a denial.
Again, you are arguing semantics.
I don’t know about Aquinas. I presume that something (if the goalposts are in the “something-being-acceptable” position) was in the reading list he was given. I do know whether Coyne has read any Plantinga, and the answer is “yes”: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/alvin-plantinga-sophisticated-theologian/
Did Coyne learn anything from reading Plantinga? Or is he simply dismissive of any Christian writings because he refuses to read it with an open mind?
Two things: 1. The direct reference to Plantinga quoted was in the context of a discussion between Plantinga and Dennett. It is quite possible to be informed and disagree with Plantinga: which is Dennett’s position. And that of all the co-contributors to “Naturalism Defeated”, all those people who reply to his papers, as Russell was not “profoundly ignorant” in disagreeing with Copleston…. 2. If you are referring to Plantinga’s “free will defence” then, at least in the version I’ve read (in “The Nature of Necessity”) Plantinga makes it clear that it is not an answer to “why” (which would be a “theodicy”) but an outline of how his position can be consistent/logically possible (a “defence”).
And the bottom line is that despite his superficial knowledge of Christianity, Coyne is still asking questions for which there are answers, very good answers. That he appears unaware of this makes him look foolish. That people defend his shallowness makes them look foolish.
Read it. Please. Just calmly read it. Again. You cannot have need of treatment for childhood cancer unless there is … childhood cancer. If we had good government that funded all the treatment you could ever hope for then we would still have childhood cancer.
I did read it. There are very valid reasons for conditions that we see today. You atheists want to blame God (the only time you acknowledge that he might exist is to pin blame on him for something) for it without acknowledging that humans often cause their own suffering. I have noticed that, in general, atheists tend to argue thusly: Evil in the world: “God is a monster! How can he allow it?” – atheists The Earth and life itself: “All happened naturally, no creator” – atheists That you live with such a weird dichotomy is amusing to me. God only exists, or can exist, if he can be blamed for all the world’s problems. Never mind giving him credit for what he did right. The fact is people are denied treatment for numerous diseases…this is not God’s fault. It is administrative and governmental in nature. It is HUMAN in nature. People drink and drive, despite the fact that God explicitly states not to get drunk. Whose fault is that? God’s? Or the irresponsible driver?
Ok. “Explanation”. An explanation is what we commonly use to answer “why-questions” (see Hempel). An explanantion is commonly in the form of an argument with the premises forming the explanans (the “thing doing the explaning”) and the conclusion forming the explanandum (the “thing to be explained”). A valid argument, where the explanans entails the explanandum can be said to be a full explanation with explanantions being worse and worse as they grow more enthymematic/inductive/probabilistic. If there is little substantive “force” from explanans to explanandum then the explanation is too “weak” to, really, be an explanation.
I did answer the questions. You haven’t refuted a single one. All you are doing is blowing smoke because you have no real answer. Your only answer is to blame God for things that he did not do. Which amounts to utter atheist stupidity. I’ll repeat: just because you don’t like the answer does not make it wrong.
No. As was quite obvious, I was objecting to your “Read my post @ 33 and get back to me.” and the implied claim (later made specific) that it answered the questions. I have no objections to the post per se but, if the questions you are now saying it answers are taken as the explanandum then the explanans does to “lead” you to the explanandum, let alone entail it. This shouldn’t be a surprise as, as I quoted you writing you put forward explanations for two other sets of questions.
It did answer the questions. That you refuse to engage me in debate over whether or not you agree with the answers is obvious. The answers are there. Your refusal to acknowledge them says far more about you and your worldview than anything else.
And complaining about it. Absolutely! Do you have such a tin ear that you cannot see how annoying a comment like “Read my post @ 33 and get back to me.” is? Or use of the term “ignorance”, “crazy”, the “(t)ry actually reading some of the answers sometime.” etc.
Then try rebutting them instead of arguing sematics.Barb
April 29, 2014
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The child who died of cancer most likely experienced Love while alive. Should that child never have been born? If that child did not "end up" in a better place, then existence makes no sense. Suffering makes sense only if there IS a God. With no God, suffering is senseless.ppolish
April 29, 2014
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“I’m not moving anything.” Then “Has Coyne read Aquinas? Plantinga? Anything?” Now we’re back to “anything”. In 64 the objection is that Coyne has no engagement. In 68 insufficient. In 73: back to no. That is “moving the goalposts” “I didn’t deny anything. Back in 64: (From me): “They are your(plural) claims.” From you: “No” That is a denial. “Has Coyne read Aquinas? Plantinga? Anything?” I don’t know about Aquinas. I presume that something (if the goalposts are in the “something-being-acceptable” position) was in the reading list he was given. I do know whether Coyne has read any Plantinga, and the answer is “yes”: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/alvin-plantinga-sophisticated-theologian/ “”Then why is he asking what amount to rhetorical questions regarding evil and suffering?” Two things: 1. The direct reference to Plantinga quoted was in the context of a discussion between Plantinga and Dennett. It is quite possible to be informed and disagree with Plantinga: which is Dennett’s position. And that of all the co-contributors to “Naturalism Defeated”, all those people who reply to his papers, as Russell was not “profoundly ignorant” in disagreeing with Copleston…. 2. If you are referring to Plantinga’s “free will defence” then, at least in the version I’ve read (in “The Nature of Necessity”) Plantinga makes it clear that it is not an answer to “why” (which would be a “theodicy”) but an outline of how his position can be consistent/logically possible (a “defence”). “Bad government: denying lower income families the resources to get treatment for childhood cancer.” Read it. Please. Just calmly read it. Again. You cannot have need of treatment for childhood cancer unless there is … childhood cancer. If we had good government that funded all the treatment you could ever hope for then we would still have childhood cancer. Ok. “Explanation”. An explanation is what we commonly use to answer "why-questions" (see Hempel). An explanantion is commonly in the form of an argument with the premises forming the explanans (the “thing doing the explaning”) and the conclusion forming the explanandum (the “thing to be explained”). A valid argument, where the explanans entails the explanandum can be said to be a full explanation with explanantions being worse and worse as they grow more enthymematic/inductive/probabilistic. If there is little substantive “force” from explanans to explanandum then the explanation is too “weak” to, really, be an explanation. So you’re picking apart a post I made to someone else. No. As was quite obvious, I was objecting to your “Read my post @ 33 and get back to me.” and the implied claim (later made specific) that it answered the questions. I have no objections to the post per se but, if the questions you are now saying it answers are taken as the explanandum then the explanans does to “lead” you to the explanandum, let alone entail it. This shouldn’t be a surprise as, as I quoted you writing you put forward explanations for two other sets of questions. And complaining about it. Absolutely! Do you have such a tin ear that you cannot see how annoying a comment like “Read my post @ 33 and get back to me.” is? Or use of the term "ignorance", "crazy", the "(t)ry actually reading some of the answers sometime." etc.Tony Lloyd
April 29, 2014
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Tony writes,
Barb, we’re going to get nowhere if you move the goalposts.
I’m not moving anything.
The negation of “never discussed, debated, or studied Christianity” is not having “read the Bible and studied it for at least a year”. You, unfairly, imply that Coyne is arguing from a position of, willing, profound ignorance and when called out on it you send me on a reading assignment!
Coyne is arguing from a position of profound ignorance. The question of why evil exists has been debated for centuries. Do not presume to be ignorant of this. Has Coyne read Aquinas? Plantinga? Anything? Yes? Then why is he asking what amount to rhetorical questions regarding evil and suffering? The answers are readily available to anyone who wants to know.
“If God, then why all this bad stuff?” has been asked and answered repeatedly by Christians throughout history. That’s in comment 68. In comment 64 you deny that Christians entertain the supposition necessary for the question to make sense. Later in comment 68, it’s a “crazy” question. Still later it’s part of a series of questions you’ve answered.
I didn’t deny anything. Do not presume to speak for me or put words in my mouth. It is a crazy question, at least from the perspective of someone who has studied the Bible. As I pointed out, the answers are readily available.
“Try actually reading some of the answers sometime.” You’ve already been caught out assuming that someone hasn’t read when they have: I can only put this down to you trying to be rude and provocative.
You read my post? Then why defend Coyne, when the questions he asks have already been answered?
Palm your face all you want, a post that considers some “interesting questions” from Eric and what you “think (..) is what atheists want life on Earth to be, if they believed God existed” is not likely to answer a set of different (and “crazy”) questions.
So you’re picking apart a post I made to someone else. And complaining about it.
And, of course, it doesn’t. Is childhood cancer dependent on bad government, religion, human imperfection/selfishness, demonic influence and the “last days”? No. Of course not. So they do not explain why there is childhood cancer.
Wow, so you read my post but didn’t get the point? Okay. Childhood cancer is dependent on many things, including genetics (which Christians will point to as being part of “original sin”). Bad government: denying lower income families the resources to get treatment for childhood cancer. Human imperfection: already noted. Ignoring the answers because you don’t like them philosophically or religiously does not make them wrong. I note that no one has successfully rebutted them, including you.Barb
April 29, 2014
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To atheists and theists Why do bad things happen if there is a God that can prevent them from happening? Answer: Because we live in a Yin-yang reality. You can't have good things without bad things for the same reason that you can't have left without right. Not even God can change this fact of logic. Bad things are a necessary part of humanity's training. That is the price of existence. As a Christian, I also know there is a time for everything. This current age is the time for bad things. After that, paradise. Again, one cannot know the good without knowing the bad. They are complementary.Mapou
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Thank you for the feedback, Barb @12: "the Israelites, in obedience to divine command" For context, I have been a Christian since March 13, 1971. I believed then and still do that Jesus Christ died to pay for my sins and physically rose again from the dead in the most very literal fashion. On the other hand, my views on some aspects of Christianity have changed over time as I have thought about them and exposed myself to readings and discussions both in favor of and opposed to Christianity. I'm operating under the premise that if Christianity is true, there is no need to shield myself from exposure to opposing arguments. Indeed, avoiding contrary perspectives would be an admission that Christianity isn't defensible. Numbers 31 was pointed out to me by an agnostic in a discussion group I'm involved with (http://www.meetup.com/THINK-The-Critical-Thinking-and-Discussion-Forum-Irvine/). First there's the killing of the boys. In addition I was struck by how the young girls and the livestock were all referred to multiple times in almost exactly the same fashion—in effect, just as property to be distributed. There was hardly any suggestion of the dignity of these girls as human beings made in the image of God. In regard to these girls, the implication was virtually identical to the atheist concept that we are all just animals. I think the solution to the conundrum of the conflict between such Old Testament passages and an omnibenevolent God is using the discernment we have received ("guide you into all the truth") to recognize the human limitations within the process of the transmission of God's revelation to us. That's what I tried to do in @6.RalphDavidWestfall
April 29, 2014
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Barb, we're going to get nowhere if you move the goalposts. The negation of "never discussed, debated, or studied Christianity" is not having "read the Bible and studied it for at least a year". You, unfairly, imply that Coyne is arguing from a position of, willing, profound ignorance and when called out on it you send me on a reading assignment! “If God, then why all this bad stuff?” has been asked and answered repeatedly by Christians throughout history. That's in comment 68. In comment 64 you deny that Christians entertain the supposition necessary for the question to make sense. Later in comment 68, it's a "crazy" question. Still later it's part of a series of questions you've answered. "Try actually reading some of the answers sometime." You've already been caught out assuming that someone hasn't read when they have: I can only put this down to you trying to be rude and provocative. An impression bolstered by: *FACEPALM* Palm your face all you want, a post that considers some "interesting questions" from Eric and what you "think (..) is what atheists want life on Earth to be, if they believed God existed" is not likely to answer a set of different (and "crazy") questions. And, of course, it doesn't. Is childhood cancer dependent on bad government, religion, human imperfection/selfishness, demonic influence and the “last days”? No. Of course not. So they do not explain why there is childhood cancer.Tony Lloyd
April 29, 2014
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I think the following text fits in this topic, and I believe it may help clarify some parts of this discussion: Acts 17:16-34 (ESV) Paul in Athens Now while Paul was [...] at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. Paul Addresses the Areopagus So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In Him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed His offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.” Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.Dionisio
April 29, 2014
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Tony continues,
Are you that unaware of the claims made by many of your fellow Christians for God?
I am aware of them, is Coyne? Are you?
Are you, seriously, suggesting that a conception of God need to licence the question “if God then why all this bad stuff” is not part of mainstream Christianity?
“If God, then why all this bad stuff?” has been asked and answered repeatedly by Christians throughout history. Try actually reading some of the answers sometime.
What question is “City of God” trying to answer? Or Plantinga’s “Free will defence”? Or much inbetween these two chronological extremes?
Again, what did you think of the answers?
And did you not “get” the biblical references? The Bible makes the claims.
Read my post again @ 33 which answers the questions.
“Obvious”? It’s untrue. “Under the tutelage of the estimable Eric MacDonald, I have spent several weeks reading Christian theology.” http://whyevolutionistrue.word.....oing-this/
Several weeks? Wow, how impressive. Come back when you’ve read the Bible and studied it for at least a year, just to get the basics down. Several weeks is a joke, as are most of Coyne’s (rhetorical) questions about God.
This is quite a staggering claim on your part.
That you defend Coyne is also staggering. But atheists have to stick together, right?
Why? It doesn’t answer Coyne’s questions. It doesn’t attempt to answer Coyne’s questions.
*FACEPALM* It answered all of Coyne’s questions, as did another post I made in this thread. Your ignorance is astonishing.Barb
April 29, 2014
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Tony Lloyd, but why do you, as an atheist, presuppose that we should know what moral perfection should be? i.e. Just where are you getting your moral perfection from so as to make this moral judgement on your straw man god? “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity “The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.” - Martin Luther King Jr., A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. And, contrary to what the materialist/atheist would presuppose, we find much evidence to back up Dr. King’s assertion that “there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws”. For instance, we find that babies have an innate moral sense thus directly contradicting the notion that morals are learned as we grow older: For instance, a caring, loving, touch from the baby towards the mother's uterine wall is found very early on in a baby's development: Wired to Be Social: The Ontogeny of Human Interaction - 2010 Excerpt: Kinematic analysis revealed that movement duration was longer and deceleration time was prolonged for other-directed movements compared to movements directed towards the uterine wall. Similar kinematic profiles were observed for movements directed towards the co-twin and self-directed movements aimed at the eye-region, i.e. the most delicate region of the body. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0013199 This 'caring touch' is also displayed in twins: Twin fetuses learn how to be social in the womb - October 13, 2010 Excerpt: Humans have a deep-seated urge to be social, and new research on the interactions of twins in the womb suggests this begins even before babies are born.,,, The five pairs of twins were found to be reaching for each other even at 14 weeks, and making a range of contacts including head to head, arm to head and head to arm. By the time they were at 18 weeks, they touched each other more often than they touched their own bodies, spending up to 30 percent of their time reaching out and stroking their co-twin.,,, Kinematic analyses of the recordings showed the fetuses made distinct gestures when touching each other, and movements lasted longer — their hands lingered. They also took as much care when touching their twin’s delicate eye region as they did with their own. This type of contact was not the same as the inevitable contact between two bodies sharing a confined space or accidental contacts between the bodies and the walls of the uterus,,, The findings clearly demonstrate it is deep within human nature to reach out to other people. http://phys.org/news/206164323-twin-fetuses-social-womb.html Even toddlers display a highly developed sense of ‘moral justice’: The Moral Life of Babies – May 2010 Excerpt: From Sigmund Freud to Jean Piaget to Lawrence Kohlberg, psychologists have long argued that we begin life as amoral animals.,,, A growing body of evidence, though, suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first year of life. Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.,,, Despite their overall preference for good actors over bad, then, babies are drawn to bad actors when those actors are punishing bad behavior. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Please note the highly developed moral sense of justice that was detected in toddlers in the preceding study when even the bad actors enforced moral justice!,, The following study goes even further in establishing the objective reality of morality by showing that 'Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional': Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional, brain study shows – November 29, 2012 Excerpt: People are able to detect, within a split second, if a hurtful action they are witnessing is intentional or accidental, new research on the brain at the University of Chicago shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-moral-instant-emotional-brain.html Of course, despite the inherent wonder of the preceding study, which is inexplicable on atheistic materialism, some atheists will, for whatever severely misguided reason reason, insist that this instantaneous moral compass which humans have, completely contrary to the ‘survival of the fittest, dog eat dog’ mantra, ‘just so happened’ to evolve to be an instant moral reaction to violent actions (despite the fact that Darwinists cannot even explain how a single neuron of the brain arose in the first place). But the following study, completely contrary to what atheists/materialists would presuppose beforehand, shows that morality is embedded on a much deeper ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, quantum level. Quantum Consciousness – Time Flies Backwards? – Stuart Hameroff MD Excerpt: Dean Radin and Dick Bierman have performed a number of experiments of emotional response in human subjects. The subjects view a computer screen on which appear (at randomly varying intervals) a series of images, some of which are emotionally neutral, and some of which are highly emotional (violent, sexual….). In Radin and Bierman’s early studies, skin conductance of a finger was used to measure physiological response They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared! Recently Professor Bierman (University of Amsterdam) repeated these experiments with subjects in an fMRI brain imager and found emotional responses in brain activity up to 4 seconds before the stimuli. Moreover he looked at raw data from other laboratories and found similar emotional responses before stimuli appeared. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.html As well, the following experiment, from Princeton, is very interesting in that it was found that ‘perturbed randomness’ precedes a worldwide ‘moral crisis’: Scientific Evidence That Mind Effects Matter – Random Number Generators – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4198007 Mass Consciousness: Perturbed Randomness Before First Plane Struck on 911 – July 29 2012 Excerpt: The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened – but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.,, Now, even the doubters are acknowledging that here is a small box with apparently inexplicable powers. ‘It’s Earth-shattering stuff,’ says Dr Roger Nelson, emeritus researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who is heading the research project behind the ‘black box’ phenomenon. http://www.network54.com/Forum/594658/thread/1343585136/1343657830/Mass+Consciousness-+Perturbed+Randomness++Before+First+Plane+Struck+on+911 Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research - Scientific Study of Consciousness-Related Physical Phenomena - publications http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/publications.html There is simply no coherent explanation that a materialist/atheist can give as to why morally troubling situations are detected prior to our becoming fully aware of them or before they even happen. The materialist/atheist simply has no beyond space and time cause to appeal to to explain why the phenomena should happen! Whereas as a Theist, especially as a Christian Theist who believes that the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again to pay for our sins, I would fully expect that morality, especially since I hold morality to be ‘objective’, would have such a deep, ‘spooky’, beyond space and time, effect since, of course, I hold that God, who is morally perfect, upholds the universe in its continued existence and I also hold that we have ‘transcendent souls’, created by God, in His image, that are able to sense and interact with the perfect objective morality of God. This following study is sort of the cherry on the cake and shows that objective morality is even built/designed into the way our bodies respond to different kinds of ‘moral’ happiness: Human Cells Respond in Healthy, Unhealthy Ways to Different Kinds of Happiness - July 29, 2013 Excerpt: Human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health,,, The sense of well-being derived from "a noble purpose" may provide cellular health benefits, whereas "simple self-gratification" may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found.,,, "Philosophers have long distinguished two basic forms of well-being: a 'hedonic' [hee-DON-ic] form representing an individual's pleasurable experiences, and a deeper 'eudaimonic,' [u-DY-moh-nick] form that results from striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification," wrote Fredrickson and her colleagues. It's the difference, for example, between enjoying a good meal and feeling connected to a larger community through a service project, she said. Both give us a sense of happiness, but each is experienced very differently in the body's cells.,,, But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers. Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.,, Fredrickson found the results initially surprising, because study participants themselves reported overall feelings of well-being. One possibility, she suggested, is that people who experience more hedonic than eudaimonic well-being consume the emotional equivalent of empty calories. "Their daily activities provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical consequences long-term," she said. "We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those 'empty calories' don't help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically," she said. "At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161952.htm To believe that Darwinian evolution could produce such a 'morally nuanced' genetic mechanism, a mechanism which discerns between morally noble causes and morally self gratifying causes, moral causes which are below our immediate feelings of satisfaction, is not a parsimonious belief to believe in to put it mildly. Especially given the fact that Darwinian evolution has yet to demonstrate the origination of a single gene and/or protein in the first place!bornagain77
April 29, 2014
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@Barb Me: They are your(plural) claims. Barb: no Are you that unaware of the claims made by many of your fellow Christians for God? Are you, seriously, suggesting that a conception of God need to licence the question “if God then why all this bad stuff” is not part of mainstream Christianity? What question is “City of God” trying to answer? Or Plantinga’s “Free will defence”? Or much inbetween these two chronological extremes? And did you not “get” the biblical references? The Bible makes the claims. It’s pretty obvious he’s never discussed, debated, or studied Christianity. “Obvious”? It’s untrue. “Under the tutelage of the estimable Eric MacDonald, I have spent several weeks reading Christian theology.” http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/why-am-i-doing-this/ This is quite a staggering claim on your part. Read my post @ 33 and get back to me. Why? It doesn’t answer Coyne’s questions. It doesn’t attempt to answer Coyne’s questions.Tony Lloyd
April 29, 2014
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My point is not that one makes a claim whilst the other doesn’t but that one makes a much bigger, less secure, claim than the other.
That's some mighty strong equivocation there.
- If God so loved the world that He sent His only son, why didn’t He sort out childhood cancer?
Regardless of your aforementioned statements, again, you assume the mind of God. You are assuming that in order for the Abrahamic God to be good, there must be no suffering. Where does cancer fit in? I don't know. We know cancer is a failure of the human body in some way. It is uncontrolled cellular replication. If we can ask that, then ask why do we get sick? Why do we age, and get old? Those who follow the Abrahamic God understand that our bodies are not perfect. Perhaps it is related to the fall? I cannot say. But the presence of cancer only invalidates the caricature of God that atheists erect.
- If goodness and mercy follow those who dwell with the Lord then how did the holocaust happen, even to the devout?
It was never stated that those who follow the Lord will be free from suffering in life. As a matter of fact, there are times where its suggested that those who follow the Lord will see harder times in the form of persecution. Again, this is a caricature from those who don't really understand beyond their facsimile. The holocaust was perpetrated by men, not God. The supreme tenet of the Abrahamic God, is that of free will. If men cause suffering, pain, and death as an expression of their free will, then (in accordance with Abrahamic belief) they will answer for that. Remember, if we are arguing under the terms of Abrahamic belief, then we have to argue under the terms that the afterlife exists as well. And those innocents who died, do receive goodness and mercy, and are comforted after this life. The pain and suffering inflicted on them were but a blip in the face of eternity. If you wish to argue in the paradigm of the existence of YHWH, we have to accept the whole theology. The afterlife is part of that.TSErik
April 29, 2014
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Tony Lloyd states,
And were did Coyne get this, limited, view of certain aspect of God? From being told it, repeatedly, by theists of all stripes. They are your(plural) claims.
No. Coyne's biases shape his view of God. It's pretty obvious he's never discussed, debated, or studied Christianity.
Far from claiming to know the mind of God Coyne is not claiming any knowledge of God. The questions reflect back to you (again, plural), your own claims.
Coyne is claiming that if God exists, he should act in a particular way. He also ignores what the Bible states as to what God does with respect to humanity.
And where those claims appear to conflict with reality I think Coyne is entitled to ask for an explanation - If God so loved the world that He sent His only son, why didn’t He sort out childhood cancer? - If goodness and mercy follow those who dwell with the Lord then how did the holocaust happen, even to the devout?
Read my post @ 33 and get back to me.Barb
April 29, 2014
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How can there be shadow without light? How can there be evil without good? Michael W. Smith - You Won't Let Go LIVE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZusL1OHG4bornagain77
April 29, 2014
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The atheist, in making a claim about what God is like (or is not like, take your pick), is making an affirmative claim about characteristics of God, about God’s attributes, about what God would or would not do in certain circumstances. My point is not that one makes a claim whilst the other doesn’t but that one makes a much bigger, less secure, claim than the other. First a claim of my own about meaning. The declarative meaning of a statement is the negation of its negation. “Not (not P)” is just a longer winded way of saying “P” and “P” is just short for “not (not P)”. If P would not be false were not Q true then P does not mean not Q. That I am not eating a steak does not render “I am eating” false: so “I am eating” does not mean “I am eating a steak”. There are plenty of meals and snacks that do not include steak. If one talks in terms of what X is one, usually, finds, that one claims more than when one talks about what X is not. Take my example of someone’s height. If you say that I am 6’8”, then you say that I am not 5’7”; 5’8”; 5’9” and so on. If you say that I am not 6’8”; you do not say that I am 5’7”, nor say that I am 5’8”, nor say that I am 5’9” and so on. The claim that I am not 6’8” has much less content than the claim that I am 6’8” (or 5’7”; 5’8”; 5’9” and so on). As a result the claim that I am not 6’8” is much less ambitious than the claim that I am a particular height. If we met you would instantly see that I was not 6’8” and most would accept your testimony to that fact without need for further evidence. Were you to take one look at me and pronounce that I was 5’10 ¾” we would all look on you as a bit strange. Whilst we would question your being “cock-sure” about the positive claim, “cock-sure” is not even an appropriate term for the negative claim. Back to Coyne and one of his questions: “Why would the Abrahamic God, all-loving and all-powerful, allow natural evils to torment and kill people? Why can’t he keep kids from getting cancer? How did the Holocaust fit into God’s scheme?” The question clearly does presuppose some claims about that Abrahamic God. It implies that if He were to exist there would not be a combination of killing and tormenting of people by natural evils, childhood cancer and Holocaust. What it does not imply is that the world would be arranged in anyway other than it be arranged absent one of those three things. It does not claim that, were He to exist, the Abrahamic God would be “primarily concerned that everyone be happy all the time”. There are plenty of possible worlds where not everyone is happy all the time but there was no Holocaust, or where there is no childhood cancer but people are still upset that wars take place. The implicit claims simply do not mean “were God to exist then everyone would be happy all the time”. Nor that we would have a “carefree paradise”, nor that there would be “no suffering”, nor that we “should be beat over the head with signs”, nor… It would be inappropriate for Coyne to be “cock-sure” of the things you seem to infer from his questions, but these claims are not presupposed by the questions. The claims are much, much more limited. And were did Coyne get this, limited, view of certain aspect of God? From being told it, repeatedly, by theists of all stripes. They are your(plural) claims. Far from claiming to know the mind of God Coyne is not claiming any knowledge of God. The questions reflect back to you (again, plural), your own claims. And where those claims appear to conflict with reality I think Coyne is entitled to ask for an explanation - If God so loved the world that He sent His only son, why didn’t He sort out childhood cancer? - If goodness and mercy follow those who dwell with the Lord then how did the holocaust happen, even to the devout?Tony Lloyd
April 29, 2014
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For some reason I get the feeling that God is not beholden to our defintions. Nor is God beholden to how we think God should react, what we think God should be like, and what we think God should do/ be doing. I know the Intelligent Designer(s) is(are) not beholden to what we think of God. :cool:Joe
April 29, 2014
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Mung @ 56:
If God exists, children would not die of cancer. Children die of cancer, Therefore God does not exist. QED
I think Eric Anderson answered this nicely: "The real problem is not so much the formulation of 2 and 3 (and it doesn’t matter whether the overall argument is phrased in the positive or the negative). The real problem is in the underlying assumption built into #1." Also, what of the children who don't die of cancer? Do they prove God's existence?Barb
April 29, 2014
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