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Please critique this argument against miracles

psionl0 said:
I disagree.

To me it would be more meaningful to discuss whether Greek or Roman gods exist than to limit the debate to just one of those sets of gods. Proving that Greek gods don't exist wouldn't say anything about Roman gods.
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You still need to define what exactly you're discussing. I've already explained why you need to do that:

I know that God as he is commonly understood doesn't exist, because his nature is paradoxical. We can keep discussing my definition of God, in which case I still know that he doesn't exist. You can't counter that by ambiguously talking around some unspoken definition that is only known to you, or perhaps not even that.

Or maybe we can discuss that undefined God, in which case something that did something at some point in time totally exists.
 
psionl0 said:
I disagree.

To me it would be more meaningful to discuss whether Greek or Roman gods exist than to limit the debate to just one of those sets of gods. Proving that Greek gods don't exist wouldn't say anything about Roman gods.
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They're the same gods. With different names.
 
Olmstead said:
You can't counter that by ambiguously talking around some unspoken definition that is only known to you, or perhaps not even that.
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Nobody is doing that. The notion of what a "god" is has a wide enough consensus that there is no need to nail down the characteristics and atheists reject all of them.

It would be particularly unhelpful if you insisted that an entity is a god only if it has a precisely defined set of characteristics. Any entity that differed in just one of those characteristics would not be covered by a proof that god doesn't exist and that wouldn't make atheists happy.
 
psionl0 said:
Nobody is doing that. The notion of what a "god" is has a wide enough consensus that there is no need to nail down the characteristics and atheists reject all of them.

It would be particularly unhelpful if you insisted that an entity is a god only if it has a precisely defined set of characteristics. Any entity that differed in just one of those characteristics would not be covered by a proof that god doesn't exist and that wouldn't make atheists happy.
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That's not true. I'm an atheist, but as you might have seen, if the definition of God includes "alien scientist who created this universe as a simulation", I'm happy to concede that there's a chance.

Something tells me that you won't agree with this definition.
 
psionl0 said:
That doesn't address my post.
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I think it does.

Anyway, God as defined by actual "consensus" is definitely an entity that provides moral objectivity, absolute existential meaning, and eternal paradise. Those three things are integral to the concept as commonly understood. And they are all impossible, save for perhaps eternal paradise, which I consider arguable (personally I think it's impossible).

We could discuss why or whether the first two are impossible, but first we'd need to agree that these actually are integral characteristics for a God.
 
Olmstead said:
I think it does.

Anyway, God as defined by actual "consensus" is definitely an entity that provides moral objectivity, absolute existential meaning, and eternal paradise. Those three things are integral to the concept as commonly understood. And they are all impossible, save for perhaps eternal paradise, which I consider arguable (personally I think it's impossible).

We could discuss why or whether the first two are impossible, but first we'd need to agree that these actually are integral characteristics for a God.
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If not impossible, eternal paradise would be incredibly boring, so lets hope it's not in the definition ;)
 
Olmstead said:
Actually, I know that the God from scripture, and God as he is commonly understood, does not exist. There is no entity that will provide moral objectivity, absolute existential meaning, and eternal paradise. I know this because the fulfilment of such desires is impossible, as all attempts to provide such things inevitably lead to unsolvable paradoxes. Thus, God literally cannot exist.
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Ah, but the typical theistic response is that paradoxes are only a creation of your feeble human intellect, with God all things are possible, black is white and Mormons are cool.

The problem I have with that response is that it is madness, and I refuse to devolve into mental illness simply to appease their God.
 
stanfr said:
If not impossible, eternal paradise would be incredibly boring, so lets hope it's not in the definition ;)
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That is one of my objections against it. By definition, an eternal paradise would never get boring. Is such a thing possible?
 
Olmstead said:
That is one of my objections against it. By definition, an eternal paradise would never get boring. Is such a thing possible?
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Sure...God could simply keep erasing your memory so that every day in eternal bliss is a new experience.
Of course, that would be another sadistic quality of God that personally I find despicable, but apparently theists are ok with it.
 
This idea that we shouldn't define terms and their meanings is why I don't like having discussions with many theists. If you can't with precision explain what you mean, the discussion is useless.
 
arthwollipot said:
They're the same gods. With different names.
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psionl0 said:
I wonder if the ancient Greeks or ancient Romans would agree with you.
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They absolutely would.

Greek:Roman
Zeus: Jupiter
Hera: Juno
Poseidon: Neptune
Demeter: Ceres
Athena: Minerva
Apollo: Apollo
Artemis: Diana
Ares: Mars
Hephaestus: Vulcan
Aphrodite: Venus
Hermes: Mercury
Hestia: Vesta
Dionysus: Bacchus
Hades: Pluto

Both nations had other gods that they didn't share. But the gods listed above were so similar that they were essentially the same.
 
acbytesla said:
They absolutely would.

Greek:Roman
Zeus: Jupiter
Hera: Juno
Poseidon: Neptune
Demeter: Ceres
Athena: Minerva
Apollo: Apollo
Artemis: Diana
Ares: Mars
Hephaestus: Vulcan
Aphrodite: Venus
Hermes: Mercury
Hestia: Vesta
Dionysus: Bacchus
Hades: Pluto

Both nations had other gods that they didn't share. But the gods listed above were so similar that they were essentially the same.
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Yeah, but surely they must have argued over who was better looking--Venus or Aphrodite?
 
arthwollipot said:
They did. It didn't turn out well.


Rome didn't even have an independent mythology. Roman mythology was Greek mythology. With a few added bits.
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Rome was overshadowed by Greece for hundreds of years before the Roman Empire. The educated in Rome almost always were taught both Ancient Greek and Ancient Latin. One could easily say Christ was another Greek god they adopted. The New Testament was originally written in Greek, not Latin.
 
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