Atheist misconceptions of Christianity

[Safe-Keeper]

There's an atheist claim to omniscience? Please, who makes this claim and why?

Radrook thinks one must be omniscient to not believe in God, the same way he is omniscient and thus doesn't believe in Zeus and trolls.

 

[X]

Strange that you don't find the atheist claim to omniscience bizarre.

Keep in mind that this depends on the description of "god".

It is entirely possible (and frequently done) to describe a "god" that is impossible. Normally be making it self-contradictory.
Like being invisible and pink, at the same time.

You don't need to be omniscient to know a god is impossible. And if the god is possible, it cannot exist. No omniscience needed.
However, for the vacuous and vague descriptions favored by many of the more liberal set, I'll grant you the point.

 

[RandFan]

Strange that you don't find the atheist claim to omniscience bizzare.

Ignorance. Not new and certainly it has been dispatched years ago.

Russell's teapot

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

 

[fuelair]

Plus, I would imagine it was inferred that Jesus didn't want his disciples to dismember him and eat him on the spot.

Well, if you say "Eat me!!" without a context...........

 

[Radrook]

I understand all the arguments so far postulated. However, there is something which physicists say that keeps coming to mind when people mention the impossibility of certain things existing because they seem to be self contradictory. That is their recent penchant and tendency to theorize about multiple dimensions where anything is possible due to their infinite variety of laws within those universes. One type of universe is the one which mimics ours but with differing histories. This one is based on observations of subatomic particles which have the habit of being in different locations at the same time and disappearing and appearing at randomly. The question is whether they are serving other duties in other dimensions something the Hadron Collider will strive to answer. Another is the idea that our universe is part of just one of an infinite number of branes and that collision between branes causes Big Bags and the emergence of new universes on regular basis. This would create a sea of bubble universes each with its own distinct set of natural laws making things impossible in one universe possible in another. All this is an effort to take physics beyond the moment of the Big Bang, into areas previously considered beyond scientific hypothesizing and theorizing.

Now, within that framework which physicists are now delving into, I see no difficulty whatsoever in imagining a being located in one of those other universes [heaven]? having great power like the Q in Star Trek and going about creating universes and even seemingly contradicting himself in human eyes and forcing some humans to reject him because they can't seem to understand his way of thinking.

BTW
I have heard physicists discussing this subject speculate the possibility of such things as the existence of elves, unicorns, fire-breathing dragons. What they never speculate about is the existence of God because if they did then all academe would come down on their heads like and avenging sword.

 

[Radrook]

Keep in mind that this depends on the description of "god".

It is entirely possible (and frequently done) to describe a "god" that is impossible. Normally be making it self-contradictory.
Like being invisible and pink, at the same time.

You don't need to be omniscient to know a god is impossible. And if the god is possible, it cannot exist. No omniscience needed.
However, for the vacuous and vague descriptions favored by many of the more liberal set, I'll grant you the point.

You are ignoring the possibility that what seems contradictory to you might not seem that way to the entity in question. In short, you are limiting possibilities in order to exclude such an entity because that entity might be said to be God. Right?

 

[Radrook]

That's why even Dawkins qualifies his atheism depending on which God you are talking about.

If there was a god who's holy writings said if you said "Pudding please" there would always be pudding, then it'd be pretty easy to be an atheist about that god because it'd be easy to disprove the claim.

Any atheist would adjust their degree of atheism if you proposed a god that was just there but never directly interacted with anything from strong to more weak.

So the entity you demand has to be and entity that doesn't interfere with mankind. Reality doesn't work that way. At least if we are to take the current physics seriously it doesn't.

 

[Radrook]

Dawkins type 7? Sure, agreed. Only an omniscient being can know absolutely there is no God, as in any other case God can be outside of their knowledge.

cj x

Perhaps he's outside of their knowledge because they find the thought a God telling them what to do and not do repulsive. You know, like Adam and Eve and the entity called Satan are said to have found it. Is that possible?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Radrook, for the third time: Have you searched every cubic meter of Norwegian mountains? If no, why are you 100% sure trolls do not exist?

Perhaps it is that you find the idea repulsive?

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Radrook, for the third time: Have you searched every cubic meter of Norwegian mountains? If no, why are you 100% sure trolls do not exist?

Perhaps it is that you find the idea repulsive?

Come now, you're making a circular argument as well by proposing to introduce a troll into the Norwegian mountain habitat in order to prove that trolls live there.

 

[Tubbythin]

I understand all the arguments so far postulated. However, there is something which physicists say that keeps coming to mind when people mention the impossibility of certain things existing because they seem to be self contradictory. That is their recent penchant and tendency to theorize about multiple dimensions where anything is possible due to their infinite variety of laws within those universes. One type of universe is the one which mimics ours but with differing histories. This one is based on observations of subatomic particles which have the habit of being in different locations at the same time and disappearing and appearing at randomly. The question is whether they are serving other duties in other dimensions something the Hadron Collider will strive to answer. Another is the idea that our universe is part of just one of an infinite number of branes and that collision between branes causes Big Bags and the emergence of new universes on regular basis. This would create a sea of bubble universes each with its own distinct set of natural laws making things impossible in one universe possible in another. All this is an effort to take physics beyond the moment of the Big Bang, into areas previously considered beyond scientific hypothesizing and theorizing.

AFAIA, the primary purposes of the LHC are (possibly not in primary order) to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson, look for supersymmetric particles and other WIMP candidates, study symmetry breaking in order to search for the answer to the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe, study quark-gluon plasmas at unprecedented "temperatures" and do detailed studies of the top quark.

Now, within that framework which physicists are now delving into, I see no difficulty whatsoever in imagining a being located in one of those other universes [heaven]? having great power like the Q in Star Trek and going about creating universes and even seemingly contradicting himself in human eyes and forcing some humans to reject him because they can't seem to understand his way of thinking.

The problems being, among other things:
Its conjecture without any evidence. It doesn't answer the question of where said God came from in the first place. It bares no resemblance to the Christian God (or any other God that I've ever heard of). It doesn't solve anything whatsoever.

BTW
I have heard physicists discussing this subject speculate the possibility of such things as the existence of elves, unicorns, fire-breathing dragons. What they never speculate about is the existence of God because if they did then all academe would come down on their heads like and avenging sword.

Got any references for this? I'm curious.

 

[articulett]

Come now, you're making a circular argument as well by proposing to introduce a troll into the Norwegian mountain habitat in order to prove that trolls live there.

Got any references for this? I'm curious.

I suspect the source may be his sphincter...

 

[zooterkin]

Perhaps he's outside of their knowledge because they find the thought a God telling them what to do and not do repulsive. You know, like Adam and Eve and the entity called Satan are said to have found it. Is that possible?

Is there an agency handing out 'arguments' against atheism? yrreg was trying this one on a couple of weeks ago.

No, atheists don't choose not to believe in god because they find him repulsive, they don't believe in him because he doesn't exist. Unless you happen to have some evidence for either god or satan?

 

[Tubbythin]

I thought he might be referring to this from Michio Kaku:

Because of Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, there is a tiny chance that anything will occur. There is a chance that firebreathing dragons will be produced by the LHC.

In which case he's completely missed Kaku's point.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Now, within that framework which physicists are now delving into, I see no difficulty whatsoever in imagining a being located in one of those other universes [heaven]? having great power like the Q in Star Trek and going about creating universes and even seemingly contradicting himself in human eyes and forcing some humans to reject him because they can't seem to understand his way of thinking.

And I see no problem in imagining that trolls existed. I still don't believe they actually did, though.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Like every other believing Irish householder, I leave a saucer of milk outside the back door each night for the 'little people', and by morning it's been drunk. That's what I call convincing evidence.

My Dad did that (put out a saucer of milk) one evening when I was about 7 (this was in England) and then we waited nearby quietly. Eventually, just around dusk, a creature appeared from under the bushes --

a hedgehog

-- that lapped up the milk and then silently went on its way.

There are mundane explanations for many "mysteries".

In the case of the Bible, the simplest is that it was all made up by goat herders sitting around their fires at night and telling tall tales.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Norsemen (farmers, at least) leave porridge in the barn every Christmas. Whether that's any healthier for the critters than milk (which I know you're not supposed to give dogs and cats, at least), I do not know.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

<snip>
It is entirely possible (and frequently done) to describe a "god" that is impossible. Normally be making it self-contradictory. Like being invisible and pink, at the same time.
</snip>

Cursed unbeliever. She is pink by faith and invisble by definition!!

 

[interwaff]

I speak English. I know what "a day" means.

Rewrite the bible if it is supposed to mean anything else.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

What they never speculate about is the existence of God because if they did then all academe would come down on their heads like and avenging sword.

Scientist rarely (if ever) comment on letter groupings that do not have a definition.