Re: The logic of atheism

Ben Goren <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
prabbit1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> What evidence do you have that no god of any type exists?

I'm gonna make two /very/ small stretches in answering your
rhetorical question.

The first is that all gods have as an essential property
some sort of supernatural characteristic. The second is that
``supernatural'' is merely a synonym for ``really, truly,
honestly, I really really mean it, no exceptions at all,
perfectly, absolutely, impossible.''

No, it's not. It's a synonym for "violates the laws of nature." I.e. it does
something that natural law says can't happen. Now that doesn't make it
impossible, it just makes it impossible inside our universe and under our
laws of nature. Now a supposed god could exist outside our universe. It
could also, if it's really a god, suspend or break the laws of nature.
There's nothing inherently illogical about such.

Sure, there're idols of all sorts--including most emperors from
history--but they're only worshiped as gods because of some
presupposed supernatural property. The idols are real, but their
godhead ain't.

Those I don't call gods. If someone said "this stone is a god with the power
to bring people back from the dead" but it could do nothing but sit there,
it's not a god no matter what people want to call it.

As for the impossibility of the supernatural...well, all we have
to do is establish one truly universal and immutable natural law
to forever banish the supernatural. And nature is rife with
natural laws--all of math and logic, for starters. Even if we're
in some sort of Matrix-style simulation, the familiar laws of
physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics, etc., still apply; in that
situation, they'd just be ``reduced'' to logical rules, with the
``natural'' law being the logical impossibility of violating those
laws /without/ altering the simulation.

Nothing says any god must exist in this universe or interact with this
universe. An entity could exist that created this universe that exists fully
outside of it. Note that I'm not arguing that such an entity DOES exist,
just showing that it'd be impossible to prove it does not.

That's not to say that we've got a perfect understanding of
natural law, of course. It's a safe bet that the overwhelming
majority of what's currently classified as paranormal is pure
bull***...but it's also a safe bet that at least /something/
currently considered paranormal today is a real, misunderstood
phenomenon. Of course, if I only knew which is which....

So, yeah. No god of any type exists. Unless you'd care to offer up
how a god could still be a god without supernatural properties...?

See above. "Natural law" only applies in our universe (although a
supernatural god that could only exist outside of our universe would
probably never be proven to exist either and thus would basically be
meaningless to us.)

But also a being could exist that could be considered to be a god that would
simply have enormous powers "beyond those of mortal men." (Yeah, too much
old Superman comics<g>.) Think of the old greek and roman gods. Those could
have been something along the lines of Q from Star Trek and be considered to
be gods without being fully supernatural.

--
Mike

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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop
thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do
we," George W. "Shrub" Bush Aug 5, 2004
.