How about there being no counter-evidence to prove God does not exist?

[cho_pilo]

Has anyone done that?

 

[I_R]

personally, all i ever seen is atheist using hols in the bible. which if you ask me is pretty weak

 

[Exalt]

Sure it has, but it depends upon the definition of God.

If you’re talking about the traditional, orthodox Christian definition of God, a few classic observations/criticisms are as follows:

• God is said to be good, yet he is also said to have commanded the genocide of whole cities, nations, and the entire world at one point; he advocated slavery and rape; and he is a misogynist.
• God is said to meddle in human affairs (“your faith will move mountains”), yet evidence for divine intervention is non-existent. Empirically, appeals to the divine have no effect on the world, and this can easily be demonstrated on a personal basis by any skeptical mind.
• God is said to be our loving father, yet he demands our obedience under penalty of torture that will never end. What kind of loving father is that?

There’s more, but there’s a good start.

 

[I_R]

Sure it has, but it depends upon the definition of God.

If you’re talking about the traditional, orthodox Christian definition of God, a few classic observations/criticisms are as follows:

• God is said to be good, yet he is also said to have commanded the genocide of whole cities, nations, and the entire world at one point; he advocated slavery and rape; and he is a misogynist.
• God is said to meddle in human affairs (“your faith will move mountains”), yet evidence for divine intervention is non-existent. Empirically, appeals to the divine have no effect on the world, and this can easily be demonstrated on a personal basis by any skeptical mind.
• God is said to be our loving father, yet he demands our obedience under penalty of torture that will never end. What kind of loving father is that?

There’s more, but there’s a good start.

those are more of counters on the philosophy

to me, these in particular seem to be arguments out of ignorance. anyone of basic christian knowledge can counter these. i would now, but its midnight. if no one does later, then i will be back

 

[momor]

Sure it has, but it depends upon the definition of God.

If you’re talking about the traditional, orthodox Christian definition of God, a few classic observations/criticisms are as follows:

• God is said to be good, yet he is also said to have commanded the genocide of whole cities, nations, and the entire world at one point; he advocated slavery and rape; and he is a misogynist.
• God is said to meddle in human affairs (“your faith will move mountains”), yet evidence for divine intervention is non-existent. Empirically, appeals to the divine have no effect on the world, and this can easily be demonstrated on a personal basis by any skeptical mind.
• God is said to be our loving father, yet he demands our obedience under penalty of torture that will never end. What kind of loving father is that?

There’s more, but there’s a good start.

Nothing of what you offer amounts to proof of evidence that God (Christian) doesn’t exist. It most certainly does not measure up to the level of evidence that atheists insist on for proof God exists. Let’s try to keep the same yardstick for measurement of proof.

Actually, if you want proof of measurable divine intervention I will refer you to the Vatican files on documented miracles attributed to interventions of saints. They are all based on scientific medical proof of spontaneous healing.

 

[William_Pitts]

Without faith no evidence is sufficient, with faith evidence is not required. If you believe in God look around: you find his fingerprints everywhere. Belief changes your perspective. You see things much different.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

If the topic is “can it be proved that [it cannot be proved that [God does not exist] ],” the answer is yes. Or at least, it is obvious that we cannot definitively prove that there is no all powerful entity, because such an entity could arrange things so that it appeared that he did not exist. This is, of course, not at all what Christians (or at least those I know) believe to be the case, but it does show that an absolute denial of anything supernatural is not possible

Sure it has, but it depends upon the definition of God.

If you’re talking about the traditional, orthodox Christian definition of God, a few classic observations/criticisms are as follows:

• God is said to be good, yet he is also said to have commanded the genocide of whole cities, nations, and the entire world at one point; he advocated slavery and rape; and he is a misogynist.
• God is said to meddle in human affairs (“your faith will move mountains”), yet evidence for divine intervention is non-existent. Empirically, appeals to the divine have no effect on the world, and this can easily be demonstrated on a personal basis by any skeptical mind.
• God is said to be our loving father, yet he demands our obedience under penalty of torture that will never end. What kind of loving father is that?

There’s more, but there’s a good start.

I think this is something of a fallacy. If God exists as Christians believe, He is not just good and incapable of doing bad things, but the very source of goodness. It would be impossible to Judge His actions as bad simply because He is the standard you would have to judge against. So, from a Christian perspective, any argument that attempts to show that an action of God is evil will have to fall into at least one of these categories:

1. God did/ does not do that and/or there is nothing to the accusation whatsoever
2. The nature of the action is misunderstood or misrepresented (if things were as presented they might be bad but they aren’t)
3. The application of morality to the action is flawed (Things may be as presented, or nearly so, but the reasoning that says they are bad is wrong)

In order you list them -

The accusation of Genocide is a 3 (and maybe also a 2). But certainly, if you’re going to trust Scripture to tell you that God came down and told someone to do something, then you should also trust it when it says God did so for justifiable reasons. If you accept some and reject some of scripture at the beginning stages of the argument like this, you’re not even arguing against Christianity, and certainly not Theism in general.

An easily recognizable absence of mandated evidence is definitely a 1. First, there is no reason to think the evidence demanded should be easily recognizable if it is there (equivalent to it’s absence being easily recognizable), and second a couple billion people see the evidence and fail to see the hole you are claiming should be easy for any appropriately skeptical person to spot. Claiming that anyone who sees the evidence wasn’t appropriately skeptical is cheating, that’s assuming the answer before you start.

The final is a 2 first and a 3 second. People in Hell are there because when they died they were in a state of absolute rejection of God (mortal sin). Even if God offered heaven - what heaven really means, a perfect union with the body of Christ, not just some warm and fuzzy feel good be happy notion of pleasure - to such a person, he would reject it. This is what rejection of God means. Rejecting God (in the mortal sin sense) is not just like not wanting to talk to one of your friends at the moment because you’re in a bad mood, it’s denying that what all that is good is good and that what is true is true - and that what is not is not.

A person who has decided that all that is good is anathema would hardly allow himself to be united to absolute goodness. God respects our wishes in this regard. Everything else is just the application of justice.

 

[danserr]

Sure it has, but it depends upon the definition of God.

If you’re talking about the traditional, orthodox Christian definition of God, a few classic observations/criticisms are as follows:

• God is said to be good, yet he is also said to have commanded the genocide of whole cities, nations, and the entire world at one point; he advocated slavery and rape; and he is a misogynist.
• God is said to meddle in human affairs (“your faith will move mountains”), yet evidence for divine intervention is non-existent. Empirically, appeals to the divine have no effect on the world, and this can easily be demonstrated on a personal basis by any skeptical mind.
• God is said to be our loving father, yet he demands our obedience under penalty of torture that will never end. What kind of loving father is that?

There’s more, but there’s a good start.

Actually, this is a good illustration of what OP is talking about, because not a single one of these is a reason against belief.

1. Old Testament atrocities- This is not a reason to reject the Christian God, only a reason to give up one’s belief in biblical inerrancy, while still holding to divine inspiration.
2. Obviously, Christians don’t need to believe that just because God intervenes in the world, He sprinkles miracles in like a pepper shaker or that He will perform miracles in repsonse to scientific studies.
3. Again, not a reason to reject the Christian God, just the doctrine of hell and become of universalist. I am not a universalist because there are good answers to this, but it’s an option.

The point is that none of these are reasons to reject Christianity because one can still be a Christian and hold to modified views of this stuff. And this is the case of most stuff people think is evidence against Christian God. It’s not; worst case, it’s just a reason to adjust one’s views on those issues.

 

[cho_pilo]

@Exalt - what is atheist logic?

 

[tonyrey]

Sure it has, but it depends upon the definition of God.

If you’re talking about the traditional, orthodox Christian definition of God, a few classic observations/criticisms are as follows:

• God is said to be good, yet he is also said to have commanded the genocide of whole cities, nations, and the entire world at one point; he advocated slavery and rape; and he is a misogynist.

Orthodoxy does not demand that the entire Old Testament be interpreted literally.

God is said to meddle in human affairs (“your faith will move mountains”), yet evidence for divine intervention is non-existent.

You think you can dispose of all the evidence for miracles with one dogmatic sentence!

Empirically, appeals to the divine have no effect on the world, and this can easily be demonstrated on a personal basis by any skeptical mind.

Go ahead…

God is said to be our loving father, yet he demands our obedience under penalty of torture that will never end. What kind of loving father is that?

A distortion of the facts. If you deliberately reject your father’s love and choose to live entirely for yourself you punish yourself and cannot blame him -** if **you are reasonable…

There’s more, but there’s a good start.

In your opinion! A good philosopher leaves others to decide… rather than exalt himself.