/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Also I don't believe this person has a phd, they seem to stupid. Surely someone making this nonsense would have heard of Thomas Aquinas' five proofs which run circles around this r/atheism level drivel

A friend of mine has been believing some of the arguments in it recently and i've been able to provide my own counterarguments but I think I need more

Does this person really think they're intelligent? Why do all atheists have the same arguments as if they really think they're doing something?

>>627023

If he doesn't believe in what everyone calls God then he necessarily believes in eternal regression. But if something necessarily proceeds from something else then eternal regression is impossible as there is no first thing, therefore no second thing, …, therfore nothing at all

>>627014

>>First things first:

>>>If your opponent is willing to accept the validity of standard deductive logic, proving your point should take no longer than 60 seconds. If, however, you’re opponent is not, find another opponent. The one you’ve got is not capable of rational deductive thought.

"When you argue and can't convince people just leave them and go somewhere else, because they are clearly stupid as hay". That's the spirit. And enough reason to safely dismiss anything that is written on this webpage as you can be sure that it contains utter narcissism and dishonesty. There's not even reason to "think about" what is offered there - you can talk about that with a priest.

>>627022

Probably comes from someone who believes in the big bang theory.

>I-Its not the same if scientist say its t-true

is anyone going to discuss this properly tho and take it apart piece by piece

>>627434

Ok lad you seem to be kind of worried by these nonsensical arguments so i'll give it a shot.

>The idea that creation makes God impossible

"What is God’s most relevant attribute? In a word, what makes God, God?

Answer:

“His ability to Create”"

Here we already have him starting with some kind of straw man, The whole question is retarded. What is Gods most relevant attribute? oh wait let me tell you so i can move on with my retarded argument. First of all it is besides the point that the rest of the argument does not follow because Creation is not an "attribute" of God in the first place it is one of his activities, he has arbitrarily added this "the ability to create" which is nothing to do with the essence of God.

>The concept of creation is impossible. Creation, after all, requires that existence “emerge” yet in order for existence to ‘emerge’, clearly existence cannot already be in evidence. All there can be is nothing and from nothing only nothing is possible. In reality, creation is a perfect self-contradiction and, therefore, impossible. But obviously, if creation is impossible, a creating god has to be impossible too.

There is literally no way to respond to this though, it is literally just a bunch of words strung together. Creation is not a contradiction, he hasn't demonstrated it at all. God is the foundation for existence, so although we don't believe in pre-existing matter techincally God isn't creating from nothing he creates through the logos. Say for example God created the world and then suddenly made himself not exist(Which is impossible but just for the example) then the universe would also stop existing. It is really hard to point out the flaw in his logic here because when i read it it literally just looks like "2+7=0 floob doobs: Checkmate theists". Mainly because he doesn't understand the Christian doctrine of Creation so is just arguing against something he thinks we believe and fails to argue against his own strawman.

>Before creation took place, “God didn’t exist, therefore, he did”

Ok here is the problem he seems to think that we think God created himself which as i pointed out is retarded.

This is possibly one of the most retarded things i have ever read, the problems are many fold. Mainly he doesn't actually understand out position so in his little socratic dialogue his "theist" basically says not only what the guy wants him to say but what he thinks one would say.

>>627434

This person’s logic seem to boil down to this

1. If God exists, he must be a creator God

2. A creator God must have brought literally everything into existence, including himself

3. Something can’t come from nothing, therefore something has always existed

4. God therefore doesn’t exist

The problem with this logic is that there is no actual requirement for a creator God to have brought everything into existence, including himself. The Bible says nothing about it, tradition says nothing about it. In fact it is absurd to suggest that the ability to create depends on having created oneself. Humans certainly create things all the time without having created themselves.

>>627447

i'm going to leave you with a quote from St John of Damascus, please read his whole exposition on the Orthodox Faith.

>But even this gives no true idea of His essence, to say that He is unbegotten, and without beginning, changeless and imperishable, and possessed of such other qualities as we are wont to ascribe to God and His environment. For these do not indicate what He is, but what He is not. But when we would explain what the essence of anything is, we must not speak only negatively. In the case of God, however, it is impossible to explain what He is in His essence, and it befits us the rather to hold discourse about His absolute separation from all things. For He does not belong to the class of existing things: not that He has no existence , but that He is above all existing things, nay even above existence itself. For if all forms of knowledge have to do with what exists, assuredly that which is above knowledge must certainly be also above essence : and, conversely, that which is above essence will also be above knowledge.

I google'd this PhD and found this :https://www.amazon.com/Extramarital-Connection-Sex-Intimacy-Identity/dp/0829004602

she is probably a gender studies PhD or something which would explain this level of retardation.

>>627016

what does the scroll say?

I find a lot of problems with arguments about cosmology and creation ignore the temporal aspect of their language. We exist in a universe that has temporal qualities, time runs in one direction and all physical and material things are subject to entropy and change etc.

But God is beyond time, He's atemporal. Time only runs inside the universe, so while creation has a beginning, the creator God outside of time does not, as all things with beginnings and ends are temporal, as are all statements about causality, change and local events. Statements about "before" and dealing with causal chains of reasoning do not apply to God, only things of the physical, localised universe (which science and empiricism study).

It seems author of that page is assuming that God was created, emerged into existence or something, which is not Christian belief.

In Christian belief God is eternal, God was not created, He was not brought into existence, but He always existed.

I hope that's enough.

> "The concept of creation is self-contradictory."

> Then goes on to talk about the Big Bang

> "We are made of star stuff"

I was once an atheist and I can't remember my apologetics having been so clumsy. They usually centered around the idea that God was unnecessary and not that God was impossible. Everyone knows that you can't prove that God doesn't exist. However, once you make God unnecessary, most people will do away with Him entirely because that sin stuff… it's just so inconvenient for them. This is how the devil works too. People usually only require a little nudge to convince them into doing or believing something that they know is wrong. The flesh does the rest. Like this woman, for example. Her book is a case study of women who cheat on their husbands with lesbians. She must hate God. She's tired of dealing with Him, tired of having to listen about Him. I can only imagine the waiting rooms full of pretty young things at her psychiatry practice who came sobbing to her about being sinners. This is why she thought up a way of how to beat Him in 60 seconds or less.