The Unbelievability of Christian Theism

"Christian Theism in its most basic sense entails observations that would necessarily be made by everyone everywhere and at all times, and thus it is as easily disproven as the alien in the bathtub. For instance, God is theoretically omnipresent, and granted us the ability to know him (to feel his loving presence, etc.), yet I have absolutely no sensation of any God or anything that would be entailed by a God, even though by definition he is within me and around me wherever I go. Likewise, God is theoretically the epitome of compassion, and also all-knowing and all-powerful and beyond all injury, yet I know that what demonstrates someone as compassionate is the alleviation of all suffering known to them and safely within their power to alleviate. All suffering in the world must be known and safely within the power of God to alleviate, yet it is still there, and since the Christian 'theory' entails the opposite observation, Christianity is false. Likewise, God theoretically designed the universe for a moral purpose, but the universe lacks moral features--animals thrive by survival of the fittest, not survival of the kindest, and the laws of physics are no respecter of persons, they treat the good man and the bad man equally. Moreover, the universe behaves like a mindless machine, and exhibits no intelligent action of its own accord, and there are no messages or features of a linguistic nature anywhere in its extra-human composition or behavior, such as we would expect if a thinking person had designed it and wanted to communicate with us.
Christians attempt to preserve their proposed theory by moving it into the set of unprovables that lack all evidence. They do this arbitrarily, and for no other reason than to save the proposed theory, by creating impassable barriers to observation, just as requiring us to look in every corner of every universe creates an impassable barrier for one who is asked to decisively disprove the statement "there are big green Martians." For instance, the advanced theory holds that God alleviates suffering in heaven, which we conveniently cannot observe, and he has reasons for waiting and allowing suffering to persist on Earth, reasons which are also suitably unobservable to us, because God chooses not to explain them, just as he chooses, again for an unstated reason that is entirely inscrutable, to remain utterly invisible to all my senses, external and internal, despite being always around and inside me and otherwise capable of speaking to me plainly.

The problem is not, as some theists think, that we can find no explanations to "rationalize" a god in this world of hurt. I can imagine numerous gods who would be morally justified and even admirable, and others who would be neither evil nor good, and still others who are evil, but none of these would be the Christian god. The fact is that Christianity is the proposal of a theory, and like all theories, it entails predictions--but these predictions are not being born out. So Christians invent excuses to save the theory--excuses which have absolutely no basis in any evidence or inference, except the sole fact that they rescue the theory. This is Ptolemy's epicycles all over again: the motions of the planets and sun refused to fit the theory that they all revolve around the Earth, so Ptolemy invented numerous complex patterns of motion that had no particular reason to happen other than the fact that they rescue the theory of geocentricity. It is simply far wiser to conclude that instead of this monstrously complex and bizarre architecture of groundless saving suppositions, it makes far more sense, and uses far fewer suppositions, to simply admit that the universe doesn't revolve around the Earth after all. As for all the other theories--all the other possible gods--there is no more evidence for them than for this incredibly complex deity with a dozen strange and mysterious reasons that only too conveniently explain why we never observe him or his actions in any clear way.

Of course, even these groundless "solutions" to the Christian 'theory' do not really save the theory, because, to maintain it, at some point you must abandon belief in God's omnipotence--since at every turn, God is forced to do something (to remain hidden and to wait before alleviating suffering, etc.) by some unknown feature of reality, and this entails that some feature of reality is more powerful than God. And this feature cannot merely be God's moral nature, since if that were his only limitation, there would then be no barrier to his speaking to me or acting immediately to alleviate suffering or designing the universe to have overtly moral or linguistic features, since any truly moral nature would compel, not prevent, such behavior. Thus, the Christian hypothesis is either incoherent or unprovable, and in the one case it is necessarily false, while in the other it lacks justification, so we have no reason to believe it, any more than we have a reason to believe that there is a big green Martian on some planet in some corner of some universe. This is what it means to "prove a negative.""

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/theory.html

 

That was a nice cut and paste job kid. Now how about you come up with something all on your own. This is equivalent to me going to the atheism forum and cut 'n pasting the gospels in there.

I will briefly reply to Mr. Carrier's aticle even though this kind of baiting really doesn't deserve a response. What Richard Carrier has done here is set up a straw man. He has defined the Chrisitan "theory", as he calls it, in just such as way that he can then easily knock it down thus making himself feel big and important. I could do the same thing for the "atheist theory". I could define an "atheist theory" that was designed for the sole purpose of my refutation if it. It will give it a try here, though I will try to keep it short, and remember I am purposely setting up a strawman in order to demonstrate the tactic used by Mr. Carrier. I do not agree with the arguemnt I am about to make lest anybody think that I do, again I am merely using it as an example of a tactic.

The chief problem with the Atheist theory is that in the end its adheareants must either accept blantant contraidictions, deny all of existance, or abandon the theory. The atheist theory tells us that we can be certain that neither God nor a pantheon of gods exists outside of fiction. We know, however, that the universe itself exists, that it is somehow sustained, and that some how it got here. We cannot say what the specific atributes of God or the gods are or may be. We do however know that some kind of generative force both caused the universe to come into being and sustains it currently. Again while this force maybe not agree exactly with current human notions of "God" or "gods" we know that it is quite appropriate to call this focre "god". Now the atheist theory states emphatically that God or gods and therefore such a force cannot exist, yet at the same time as a matter of course accepts the existance of the universe. It is a blatant contradiction to say both that the universe exists and the the thing that created it and currently sustains it never existed at all. The atheist theory, however, says just that. Thus the atheist theory either is contradictory or must ammend itself to say that the unviverse does not exist.

Mr. Carriers "Christian theory" is so finely tuned to refutation by his argument that Christians themselves would hardly recognize it as a Christian theory. It is fantastically vague except in points where Mr. Carrier chooses to make an espeically smart sounding remark. In short, Mr. Carrier is responding to something of his own invention, which resembels Christian theory in name and only a few other very general points.

 

You'll note that I placed quotes around the entire article and placed the source link at the end. I would simply have posted the link, but it's been my experience that people are more likely to read something if there's text - they're too lazy to click on a link to an external site.

It's a good article, and I felt like sharing. More later.

 

i think the biggest contraditction of god that cannot be escaped is that he is said to be one with time and space, yet he himself changes as a character as time progresses, and is not allknowing at the start of the book, for he has to ask questions. you see if god was all knowing and at all point in time, he would need to ask no questions, only command. he would also not rest on the 7th day, nor take 6 days to create the universe. he would neither look at something, nor see that it is good, because he would know what it looks like before creating it, and know that it is good. he would not change his mind, nor would he wait until confirmation of human events to exert his power. if hes not talkiing to anyone, he would not use a string-command 'let there be light'. nor would he explain the motives of his commands in these string-commands. he would not put adam into sleep and take arib. it would be done.

god cannot abide by the bibles descriptions and also be omni-chronic.

 

i'm wondering, what parts of the given article don't correspond to what is the generally accepted christian theory?

the problem with your argument is that you're throwing in an extra figure called God where it really isn't necessary. you say, the universe exists and is somehow sustained, and that force is the equivalent of God, which is fine and dandy except that there is for one, no reason in there that the judeo/xian god is the proposed God, and two, you could have just left your force at "force", without wandering further into the realm of the supernatural. science is gradually peeling back the layers that shroud your universal "mystery force" anyhow, so if you want to call it God, call it God, but it's only a matter of words, and not religion, and certainly not Christianity. by the way, agnostic athiests do not state "emphatically that God or gods and therefore such a force cannot exist" but rather stay clear of unnecessary, unproved positive statements.

the universe exists somehow; just because there's a question doesn't mean we have to stuff it up right away with gods.

btw.. you say you don't agree with the statement you made, so definitely don't take my argument as a personal dig.

peace,
sophia

 

but god is also supposed to be the creator of logic, so is he outside of logic's confines? i think that the general christian view is that god is NOT understandable by our measly little human brains, so we may as well not even try to figure out how he works.
(ie: where were YOU when i laid the foundations of the earth?")

i see what you're saying, but i think that this is where you'd be slammed.

lol

 

So too for any theory whereby adherants depend upon a purported reality, be it religious, agnostic, scientific, or delusion.

 

ah yes of course god works in mysterious ways. well why cant a criminal claim 'i work in mysterious ways' and have his crimes against humanity ignored. fuckin retarded

 

Nitemarehippygirl, MrRee, what is with you two? Nitemare even quoted the part of my post where I say that I do not agree with the arguemnt but that I am merely using it as an example of a tactic. I'm not taking it as a personal dig here. The "atheist theory" argument that I made was total crap, it was supposed to be crap. The point of it was to exemplify the "straw man" rhetorical style.

 

This, for example "All suffering in the world must be known and safely within the power of God to alleviate, yet it is still there, and since the Christian 'theory' entails the opposite observation, Christianity is false". Christian theory does not entail the opposite observation, it entails exactly the same observation.

And this, while not strictly at odds with Christian theory is ceratinly a weak argument at best. "God theoretically designed the universe for a moral purpose, but the universe lacks moral features--animals thrive by survival of the fittest, not survival of the kindest, and the laws of physics are no respecter of persons, they treat the good man and the bad man equally. Moreover, the universe behaves like a mindless machine, and exhibits no intelligent action of its own accord." Well oaky God did design the universe for a moral purpose, but that doesn't mean that the universe as a signle entity will exhibit dedicated moral qualities. Morphine, for example, was designed for a moral purpose. I do not doubt the existence of the designers of morphine simply because morphine does not of its own accord exhibit any moral features. Neither do I doubt their existence merely because morphine can also be addictive and even deadly. In fact I do not doubt the existence of the designers of morphine at all.

Another example is that Mr. Carrier claims that God is entirely unknowable and undectable in any way at all. His claim is that Christians don't know what to make of this problem as so just ignore it. This is, however, blantly false. Many if not most Chrisitan have a relationshpi with God, many if not most have actually had direct experience of God. This is in direct assertion to Mr Carrier's position that

Most of Mr. Carrier's description of the Christian theory, as he calls it, is so general and vague that it only resembels Chritians theory due to the fact that he threw the term "Chrisitan theory" in there even other sentence. It is, again, a good example of the straw man argument. The theroy of God that Mr. Carrier describes is indeed incohearent and ridiculous, yet is is so far removed from Christian belief as to make it an argment that Mr. Carrier is having with himself.

Finally, Mr Carrier ends with this.
"so we have no reason to believe it, any more than we have a reason to believe that there is a big green Martian on some planet in some corner of some universe". While we do not have reason to believe that there is a "martian" some place, we have every reason to believe that intelligent life does in fact exist on other planets. Not only that, but we have more reason to believe that it exists than that it does not exist. BUt this is a topic for another time.

 

The things you say are wrong about christian thesology are right and other things are wrong.

 

The ever present problem is the assertions of people.

Theists assert that god is this, that, or the other. This is no more than a general asumption, because the only referential points are claim and unproveable biblical texts. Given that theists have a vested interest in proving a doctrinal point, their testimony cannot be given credence.
Those people who have written books testifying to personal experience of God such as Neil Donald Walsch (converrsations with God) tell a very different story to the ones found in christianity. I too have had my own experience when I was a 6 year old child. But such personal testimonies are derided by christians because they don't fit the imaginary picture they get from the bible, and they would much rather a God that fits their imagination than one that was real, infinitely Loving, infinitely caring, infinitely gracious.
If there is a real "God" as such, I don't think it will take too much notice of doctrinal theology and all the clap-trap that goes with it.
My feeling is that God is Life Itself, and Life Loves Itself for It's own sake. It is giving itself for itself every moment. The ultimate sacrifice every moment. Maybe that is the ancient mystery that is presented through the resurrection myths from Osiris/Dionysis/Jesus ~ Life giving Itself for Itself.