The burden of proof is on believers to prove God exists (according to atheist philosphers)

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All in all, atheists are not being irrational by justifying their atheism simply in a lack of evidence for God’s existence, any more than I am being irrational in justifying “a-bigfootism” in a lack of evidence for Bigfoot.
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Bigfoot and atheism explain nothing whereas God explains the ratiocentric nature of the universe. The very fact that we can understand reality to a great extent is overwhelming evidence that it is not absurd, valueless, purposeless and meaningless. To attribute our origin to mindless molecules is a hopelessly inadequate explanation of our insight, knowledge and understanding. It is a miracle we are even aware of an incredibly immense system in which we are infinitesimally minute. We underrate our power of reason and imagination which enable us to destroy virtually all life on this planet as well as create great works of art, music, drama, architecture, literature, science, technology, philosophy and theology. All these achievements are far beyond the capacity of naked apes… and that is why the burden of proof is on atheists to prove we exist by chance for no reason or purpose whatsoever…
 
Tomdstone said:
Some people have cited the problem of evil as evidence that there is not an all-loving all powerful God. Some have argued from the idea of inconsistent revelations, comparing Hinduism with Judaism, etc. Others argue from the idea of poor design since the activity of some humans seems to indicate that humans could have been better designed. Others argue from the fate of those who reject Jesus. There are people who know almost everything there is to know about Jesus, and yet reject him openly and categorically. They adhere to their own religion (incompatible with Catholicism) and lead decent lives. What is their fate?
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One can always throw a ton of spaghetti at a wall and hope that some of it will stick.

After all you’ve said, there’s still no argument that God does not exist.

What you have said above mostly concerns difficulty with identifying the nature of God if God does indeed exist.

Clearly, the finite cannot grasp the Infinite in its totality, so confusion must abound.

But confusion or ambiguity about the nature of God is not evidence that God does not exist … only that perplexity exists.

Atheists can in principle treat others decently and do what they can to lead decent lives, but it is problematically decent to deny God … which would seem to be the greatest indecency of all.
 
Tomdstone said:
Some people have cited the problem of evil as evidence that there is not an all-loving all powerful God. Some have argued from the idea of inconsistent revelations, comparing Hinduism with Judaism, etc. Others argue from the idea of poor design since the activity of some humans seems to indicate that humans could have been better designed. Others argue from the fate of those who reject Jesus. There are people who know almost everything there is to know about Jesus, and yet reject him openly and categorically. They adhere to their own religion (incompatible with Catholicism) and lead decent lives. What is their fate?
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Anyone who lives a truly decent life has nothing to fear. What we really believe is revealed by the way we live… with love for others or lack of concern.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
One can always throw a ton of spaghetti at a wall and hope that some of it will stick.

After all you’ve said, there’s still no argument that God does not exist…
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First of all, I don’t waste food and I don’t throw spaghetti around.
Secondly, there are arguments that God does not exist. Obviously, many people do not agree with them. You have dismissed them, but I don’t see the answer in detail, except that you talk about throwing spaghetti around. I doubt that a discussion about throwing spaghetti at a wall would convince an atheist of theism.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
One can always throw a ton of spaghetti at a wall and hope that some of it will stick.

After all you’ve said, there’s still no argument that God does not exist.

What you have said above mostly concerns difficulty with identifying the nature of God if God does indeed exist.

Clearly, the finite cannot grasp the Infinite in its totality, so confusion must abound.

But confusion or ambiguity about the nature of God is not evidence that God does not exist … only that perplexity exists.

Atheists can in principle treat others decently and do what they can to lead decent lives, but it is problematically decent to deny God … which would seem to be the greatest indecency of all.
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There are argument against existence of God. This is what I found by googling.
 
STT said:
There are argument against existence of God. This is what I found by googling.
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You didn’t find much by googling.

Here is the last paragraph of the article you cited.

"A sound argument for the nonexistence of a god is possible, if the concept of “God” in question is factually meaningful. I think this conclusion is one which even many theists should be willing to accept. After all, the mere possibility of a sound argument for the nonexistence of a god is logically compatible with theism; what theism requires is that there actually are no sound arguments for the nonexistence of God."

He admits the sound argument is possible, not actual.

I’m not interested in “possible” arguments against God. There could just as well be “possible” sound arguments for God, so how does “possible” settle anything?
 
Tomdstone said:
First of all, I don’t waste food and I don’t throw spaghetti around.
Secondly, there are arguments that God does not exist. Obviously, many people do not agree with them. You have dismissed them, but I don’t see the answer in detail, except that you talk about throwing spaghetti around. I doubt that a discussion about throwing spaghetti at a wall would convince an atheist of theism.
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You didn’t cite any specific arguments against the existence of God, and then meandered all over the place talking about different theological issues, which is what I meant by throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping some of it will stick. None of it stuck so far as I could see.
 
inocente said:
Paul isn’t Christ, he isn’t God. Not sure you can expect every word from his mouth to be God’s wisdom. Paul says “Women should remain silent in the churches”. Is that the mind of Christ speaking through Paul?

In the passage I quoted, Paul says specifically what he thinks it is to be in the mind of Christ. Did he include “Women should remain silent in the churches”?
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I wouldn’t suppose (assume) that Paul was talking about all women in all churches for all time. There is good exegetical evidence that Paul was speaking about particular women in particular churches under particular circumstances that obtained at that time. I will suppose (assume,) that Paul knew what he was talking about when he wrote his letter intended for the audience which received it. And that God had good reason to include the incident in inspired Scripture, but that reason may not be the first one that comes to our minds.

I will also suppose that the mind of Christ will sort that all out if we have the mind to fairly pay attention to it.

Still, the fact that Jesus’ words about marriage between one man and one woman were what God intended – according to Jesus – “from the beginning” and that Paul never made the claim that God intended women to keep silent in church “from the beginning” means the two are not equivalent cases in terms of the intention to be formed in the “mind of Christ.”

What I do find interesting, however, is that you are fine with allowing that Paul speaks “with the mind of Christ” when it is a point you want to make, but when it isn’t then you fly off to the observation that Paul “…isn’t Christ, he isn’t God.”

Nice!
 
Charlemagne_III said:
You didn’t find much by googling.

Here is the last paragraph of the article you cited.

"A sound argument for the nonexistence of a god is possible, if the concept of “God” in question is factually meaningful. I think this conclusion is one which even many theists should be willing to accept. After all, the mere possibility of a sound argument for the nonexistence of a god is logically compatible with theism; what theism requires is that there actually are no sound arguments for the nonexistence of God."

He admits the sound argument is possible, not actual.

I’m not interested in “possible” arguments against God. There could just as well be “possible” sound arguments for God, so how does “possible” settle anything?
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Do you have an actual argument for existence of God?
 
STT said:
God could be evil.
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No because God is all good. What you might be talking about is Satan. What is your definition of God? I thought that Catholics teach that God is all good. It seems that you are redefining the definition of the Holy Catholic Church. It is bad form to change your definitions in the middle of a discussion.
 
Tomdstone said:
No because God is all good. What you might be talking about is Satan. What is your definition of God? I thought that Catholics teach that God is all good. It seems that you are redefining the definition of the Holy Catholic Church. It is bad form to change your definitions in the middle of a discussion.
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Lets stick with the Catholic definition of God. So what is the next step?
 
STT said:
God could be evil.
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Yes, in your mind that is possible, that God is evil.

If you entertain that possibility, all the reason not to offend God by denying that He even exists. 🤷
 
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