But the one claiming that God does not exist is also making a positive claim. The only one that bears no burden of proof is the one who simply "lacks belief" in God.
Do you see the problem your rationale faces here? You too are asserting something about the actual state of reality (namely that God does not exist) yet you are not providing proof to show that such a reality is true.
No, I'm not. I'll try and clarify here; I'm not stating that God doesn't exist as a matter of fact. I am stating that there is no objective evidence that God exists. This is acknowledged by both of us. From there, I am saying that it is not unreasonable to believe he probably doesn't exist, as we take that rational approach to almost every other deity and scientific concept. I add that, when there is no evidence to suggest that an entity exists, it is rational not to claim knowledge that one possibly cannot have (that such an entity exists).
So in the absence of any evidence, I assert that I believe God probably doesn't exist, and even if he did I would assert that we have no way of knowing the slightest thing about him or his nature, let alone anything meaningful about his intentions and personality.
It is not a positive claim in the sense that you think; I do not say "God doesn't exist". I operate on the idea that if there is no evidence for an entities existence, and the phenomena attributed to that entity over the past several thousand years can be demonstrably understood by completely natural means, then it's safe enough to operate, on a level of personal belief, that he probably doesn't exist. However it it imperative that one understand that it is not a scientifically verifiable argument.
The only claims I am making are that there is no evidence to suggest that God exists and that the vast majority of phenomena once attributed to his 'wrath' or 'pleasure' are now explicable as entirely natural occurrences, and these are both factually verifiable. Where I think we differ is, in terms of ontology, what the logical implications of these are.
Why not? Isn't that exactly what you are trying to do by pointing out logical inconsistencies in various conceptions or forms of God?
No. I am showing why the idea of a loving, intervening God is problematic and I find it rather irrational, not a God himself.
God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient: God is all-powerful and knows everything including the best way to bring about the greatest good. God's greatest good isn't synonymous with human flourishing and happiness but instead includes bringing the maximum amount of people possible into relationship and knowledge of him (such a relationship could also facilitate Gods desire to raise responsible moral agents). Human suffering as the result of natural evil could facilitate humans in coming into relationship with God and/or the raising of responsible moral agents. Thus is it entirely possible that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing natural evil to exist in the world.
I would be stupid to say I did not anticipate this point, but I find it no more convincing and absolutely morally despicable.
Can you attempt to explain to me why an omnipotent God would need to kill
200,000 poor, East Asian peasants, most of whom aren't Christian so are going to hell as far as Christianity is concerned (thus there is no reward in any next life either), in order to do
anything? He wouldn't That the drawback of omnipotence, you don't need to do anything in order to accomplish anything. There is nothing that forces God to use human suffering in order to do anything, as he is omnipotent and could thus accomplish it without human suffering.
The fact that he apparently regularly chooses to do things via human suffering when he is omnipotent and thus
entirely capable of doing things without the suffering of his powerless creations is irreconcilable with any idea of God being benevolent.
Three words, "In the beginning"-Genesis 1.1....there is no time frame given in the bible whatsoever...The bible states that humans came from clay, perhaps it means the bacterium that would have been present in the clay as ancient Hebrew has no word for bacteria (that i know of anyway). The time frame is given as days but, to an eternal being, th concept of a day may be very different to our concept of a day. To God, 1 day may be any period of time at all. If we came from the bacterium, God may have slowly evolved us from our primordial form.
Yes. Three out of thousands of thousands of words. This is getting really fucking tiring, the fact that you point to one passage that can be vaguely and absurdly interpreted as
not being completely and utterly irrational even to the scientific understanding of a modern high school student does not excuse the other dozens of basic scientific, historical and factual mistakes the Bible makes. You, however, do this over and over as though it actually proves something.
Even if I am to contend that your interpretation, which is poorly reasoned and extremely vague, makes sense, what you essentially have is one time where the Bible can be sort of interpreted as not being completely wrong as opposed to dozens where it can.
we have already had this discussion, sea levels cannot rise all that far above where they currently are, it was most likely caused by a tsunami or something if the flood did indeed happen..I believe that if you search back a couple of pages, you'll find a post where i outlined that most religious scholars outside of the USA don't regard the old testament as pure fact...its a myth, not meant to be entirely literal although often mis-interpreted that way.
This in no way helps your point. What you are doing is admitting that terrified peasants, witnessing a
perfectly natural event, were so confused, baffled and mystified that stories quickly circulated based on a primitive and flawed understanding of nature that brought God into the picture. They saw what was likely a tsunami or localized flood, and invented stories to explain it in the lack of any real, logical explanation.
What is your point? You've really just shed more light on the primitive origins of such beliefs.
Going to reiterate this, as well:
I would also love to take this opportunity to point out the irony of the fact that when we question the morality of God ordering for entire people to be wiped out for trivial things or ordering that women be put to death if they are raped, we are confronted with "We puny humans are in no position to understand the thought processes of the omnipotent God", yet when it suits theists, they are happy to tell us the intricacies and most nuanced details about exactly what God knows, how he knows it and his entire understanding of temporality and determinism down to the most minute details.
