Does anyone have a strong argument against God?

[doublecross]

Will do.

[Daxx]

Firstly, you can't just say shit like that without giving a source. "Them" and "they" are weasel words which essentially mean that you don't know anyone who has actually said that, but you'd like to believe that they've said that.

Stephen Dawkin one of the most famous evolutionists in britain? Peter Atkins  Professor of chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford in England? Julius Axelrod American Nobel Prize winning biochemist? the list is endless. And they all are famous for trying to gather evidence against religion.

Can you actually provide a quotation, rather than just randomly posting names in the hope that I will believe what you said? I'm not sure you can, largely because as far as I can tell your characterisation of the arguments that the people you've just named tend to advance is not accurate.

[LongDono]

Not to long ago I did not believe in a god or anything like that. Right now it is hard to explain but back then even when I was strongly disagreeing with the possibility of a god or anything like that I never once forced my ideas of why I don't believe god on another. Not once....
I honestly hate when people tell me to believe something, and hate when they tell me not to. Just because soemthing can not be proven dose not mean it is not real. When tech was less advanced 100's of years ago there were tons of things that were real even though we could not prove they were real.

[doublecross]

First off, here is my thread about religion as a meme.



http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,19557.new.html#new



I will give some of what Richard Dawkins has said.

Evolution acts on the level of genes, not of individuals or of species.
You have a 50% genetic similarity with your siblings, as do you with your children. Thus, from an evolutionary standpoint, if evolution works on the level of genes (which it does), evolution would encourage a tendency to do self-sacrificing behaviour to save a large number of children or siblings, which explains evolved altruistic behaviour.
He famously said "I would gladly give my life for 3 brothers, or 9 cousins"

[QuantumT]

I honestly hate when people tell me to believe something, and hate when they tell me not to. Just because soemthing can not be proven dose not mean it is not real. When tech was less advanced 100's of years ago there were tons of things that were real even though we could not prove they were real.

But that doesn't mean you should suppose those things to be real without any proof. There a variety of ways of explaining why, but I'm reminded of something that one of my high school teachers said.

There [may be] thousands of ways to be right, but there are billions of ways to be wrong.

Basically, if you take some idea completely at random, it's much more likely to be wrong than it is to be right, so you should be very discriminating in what ideas you accept as "right".

[avantasia666]

Atheists don't need to find arguments against god. Religions do this on their own.
Just an example: Bible says god is almighty, knows everything and is kind.

Why are there natural disasters and war?

If god knows there are problems, could help but don't want- he's not kind.
If god knows, wan't to help but isn't able - hes not almighty
If good could help, want's to help but doesn't know there are any problems- he doesn't know everything

possible answer of an christian: "That's because of Satan. He does all the bad things."

Wait! Satan aka Lucifer is an fallen angel. God created the angels. So he makes a failure? Thanks for helping my(yours?) argumentation.

Last argument: "Everything happens just because god want it to happen like this!" o.O

This argument will be repeated until the atheist fell to sleep or loses interrest in this discussion.

Similar argumentation is possible on all religions I know. (Of course I don't know all   )

[OldTrees]

Atheists don't need to find arguments against god. Religions do this on their own.
Just an example: Bible says god is almighty, knows everything and is kind.

Why are there natural disasters and war?

If god knows there are problems, could help but don't want- he's not kind.
If god knows, wan't to help but isn't able - hes not almighty
If good could help, want's to help but doesn't know there are any problems- he doesn't know everything

possible answer of an christian: "That's because of Satan. He does all the bad things."

Wait! Satan aka Lucifer is an fallen angel. God created the angels. So he makes a failure? Thanks for helping my(yours?) argumentation.

Last argument: "Everything happens just because god want it to happen like this!" o.O

This argument will be repeated until the atheist fell to sleep or loses interrest in this discussion.

Similar argumentation is possible on all religions I know. (Of course I don't know all   )

Problem of Evil

Possible valid responses (Note: almighty does not mean able to do the impossible)
1) God values Free Will more than preventing evil.
2) Everything happens because this is the best possible outcome. Even better than the world responding to a tyrannical controlling deity.

[QuantumT]

Problem of Evil

Possible valid responses (Note: almighty does not mean able to do the impossible)

There are many Christians who would disagree with you on that point.

1) God values Free Will more than preventing evil.
2) Everything happens because this is the best possible outcome. Even better than the world responding to a tyrannical controlling deity.

The whole notion of 'free will' kind of breaks down when you consider an omnipotent, omniscient god as creator. If god is omnipotent, then he creates me exactly the way he wants me to be. If god is omniscient, he can see every choice that I am going to make from the moment he creates me, and is choosing to create me that way. I'm really more akin to a robot executing a program than a being with actual free will.

[BluePriest]

The whole notion of 'free will' kind of breaks down when you consider an omnipotent, omniscient god as creator. If god is omnipotent, then he creates me exactly the way he wants me to be. If god is omniscient, he can see every choice that I am going to make from the moment he creates me, and is choosing to create me that way. I'm really more akin to a robot executing a program than a being with actual free will.

There is a difference between knowing what you will do and forcing you to do it.

[UTAlan]

I'm really more akin to a robot executing a program than a being with actual free will.

God's knowledge of the choices you make does not mean that you are not the one choosing.

Edit: Ninja'd.

[QuantumT]

Let me try to explain with an analogy. Let's suppose I build a robot and I put it on to a grid. I program its exact path into it, and it will be followed exactly. Does the robot have free will simply because the possibility to go a different way exists?

[UTAlan]

Let me try to explain with an analogy. Let's suppose I build a robot and I put it on to a grid. I program its exact path into it, and it will be followed exactly. Does the robot have free will simply because the possibility to go a different way exists?

No. But let's say you create a robot who can make its own choices. You watch it for a week, then travel back in time. Now, you have full knowledge of all the choices the robot is going to make, but you are not forcing it to make those choices.