Jesterballz, I’ve migrated the thread to my site for readability/loading time.
Taken from this post for readability.
I honestly can’t see how you can seriously say “I welcome civilised argument in the comments” when your name is “jesterballz”.
In any case, we can do this the easy way (testing for coherency, universality, and uniqueness of claim to truth) or the polemic way (point by point rebuttal/back and forth until no conclusion is reached). Up to you.
You said:
There are a whole lot of people out there who believe in “God”. Billions of people are Christian, Muslim or Jewish, and are following their religion (most often blindly). But I strongly refute the claim that this particular “God” exists, and I have pretty good reason, too. So all those curious people out there, please read this and maybe you will realise your mistake. That said, I am not accusing anyone who believes in God of being stupid. Please make comments to explain your reasoning if you disagree with my theory.This is based on the three premises put forward by the three major monotheistic religions. God is all powerful, God is all knowing and God is all good. If you refute any of these three premises, then you are not a Christian, Muslim or Jew, and I have no beef with you.
no beef
1. Assume God exists.
2. God is all powerful
3. God is all good
4. All good beings are opposed to suffering
5. All good beings who are able stop suffering will do so immediately
6. God is opposed to suffering (from 3 and 4)
7. God can stop suffering completely and immediately (from 2)
8. God will eliminate suffering completely and immediately (6 and 7)
9. Suffering exists
10. Therefore, God does not exist (8 and 9)
I can’t believe I didn’t see this (looks like I need a brush up). Your “proof” is an example of pseudo-logic. Why? Look at point 1 and point 10.
You basically say: “Assume G. Therefore, not G.”
Okay…
…
Second point (from 7 and 8): “G can… G will.”
This is not logical rhetoric. Therefore, this is not logic.
A popular argument against this one, is that “God gave us free will”. Well this argument is utterly useless and completely refutable. Consider those thousands of children who starve in developing nations. How could anyone justify this as free will?
You use free will in the wrong frame of reference. It is exclusively used in the Bible as a choice between choosing God and choosing sin – suffering plays no role in that. Influence the decision, maybe.
What do you think about the Buddhistic notion that life is suffering?
And if you believe that it is the fault of human beings, then explain to me how an all good being could justify an innocent child being born into this situation. Is it that child’s fault?
No, the child is not at fault until he/she starts crying for food. Secondly, you ontologically assume a child is always innocent: look here for your supporting evidence (or try raising a kid! Ever hear of the colloquialism “little devil”?).
Or if a person is crossing the road, and gets randomly hit by a bus. How does this in any way constitute free will?
Again, the frame of reference is with choosing God or choosing sin. But “free will” – as you define – it can be inferred from their decision to get up that morning, or schedule the appointment which made them get there. So no, that doesn’t work either.
Finally, a person is born with a particularly painful and severe disease. If this has happened, explain to me how there could possibly be an all powerful, all knowing, all good being out there?
Jesus said that people such as these were born to bring glory to God. It is the problem of Christians that we aren’t doing enough to make that happen (whether by medicine or miracle).
Again, I am not a Christian hater. I am simply offering a debate on the possible existence of your god. I welcome civilised argument in the comments.
Response to my comment:
I have taken free will into account. Did you read the whole post?
Actually, no – sorry. Most of my attentions were caught by the “proof”.
In heaven? If a man is tortured for hours, is it all OK if he gets an icecream at then end? I did the state the direction of the post. I have firstly proved that either God does not exist (as Christians know it), or Christians are wrong about the God. In regard to free will, I asserted that this is a poor argument. Please explain how my arguments are wrong, rather than pointing out what I have not addressed.
I hope I’ve done this.
Fundamentalist Christianity 
Great post by Albert, good critique, but aside from all the theological rhetoric and doctrine attacking fallacy in the premises of Jesterballz’s post, even if we assume the premises are true, the conclusion simply does not follow as a logical necessity. One can perhaps inductively show its truth, but it is not deductively valid at all.
Here’s what I understand to be the basic structure of this argument in logical terms:
A) There is an x such that (1)x is God and (2)x is all powerful and (3)x is all good.
B) For all y, (4)if y is all good, then y is opposed to suffering
C) For all y, (5)if y is all good and y is able to stop suffering immediately, then y will stop suffering immediately
D) (6)If there is an x such that x is God and x is all good, then x is opposed to suffering
E) (7)If there is an x such that x is God and x is all good and x is opposed to suffering and x is all powerful, then x is able to stop suffering immediately
F) (8)If there is an x such that x is God and x is all good and x is opposed to suffering and x is all powerful and x is able to stop suffering immediately, then x will stop suffering immediately
G) (9) it is not the case that x will stop suffering immediately (because suffering exists, as we know)
H) (10) Therefore it is not the case that there is an x such that x is God
Now Albert is right, there are several problems with the logical language, but let’s not address those now. I just want to address the basic logical structure.
Assuming (A) through (G) are true, it is still a fundamental fallacy to assume H. The most important arguments here are (F) and (G). I’ll try to simplify this as much as possible but I’m going to have to go into symbols a little bit.
For the sake of convenience, let’s symbolize (F) as
1) [Gx & Dx & Oxy & Px & Sxy] → Txy
Gx = x is God
Dx = x is good
Oxy = x is opposed to y
Px = x is all powerful
Sxy = x is able to stop y immediately
Txy = x will stop y immediately
y = suffering
Ok, here’s a crash course on basic logic. This statement is of the form p→q which reads ‘if p then q’. It is a true statement as long as if p is true, the q is true. If q is false then p must also be false. So far, so good. If we add on (G) we’d symbolize it like this:
2) ~Txy
Through modus tolens, ((2) is the q in the form mentioned above and if it is false, then the p is also false) we can correctly deduce:
3) ~[Gx & Dx & Oxy & Px & Sxy]
However, this brings us to the problem in the argument. The above statement (3) is false if and only if at least one of its conjuncts is false. That is, if Gx or Dx or Oxy or Px or Sxy is false. But we can’t determine which one it is. We certainly cannot say for sure, using your deduction, that ~Gx (‘it is not the case that there is an x such that x is God’, or ‘there is no God’) because it might be the case that there is a God but he is not all powerful or he is not all good or he is not opposed to suffering or he is not able to stop suffering or any combination of these possibilities.
So the conclusion is in fact that God does not posses an explicit combination of all the traits mentioned. He may have some of them, however. Some Christians would argue that he exists, but is not all powerful; he has given some power over to Satan and some over to man. Some Christians argue that he exists and is all powerful and is opposed to suffering but is not able to stop it because of the freewill he has given to humanity. What all Christians do agree on is that God exists and God is all good.
So what you could do is replace your (10) with ‘Therefore either God does not exist or God is not all powerful or God is not all good or God is not opposed to suffering or God is not able to stop suffering.’ That would make the argument valid. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. Your argument needs only a little modification and it will be deductively impenetrable (except from those pesky right wing conservatives who believe in faith above reason and all that nonsense 😉 ).
Prost,
Joseph
Thanks for the repost Joseph. That thread has gotten far too long.
Thanks also for pointing out where the logic is errant.. perhaps I presume to know too much about logic? After all, my specialty is specific to world events, areas of orthodoxy/praxis, and areas of philosophy.
I will definitely be reviewing this post for a refresher.
Also, it doesn’t seem like you have a blog. Would you be interested in contributing to FC (Fundamentalist Christianity)?
I appreciate your thanks and I also appreciate your knowledge and hard work to foster genuine discussion and understanding on these sites.
Logic is hardly my specialty, I still have much to learn, but it’s amazing what a basic understanding can do. It turns rhetoric into math, and while this might seems unpleasant to some, it fascinates me.
And you’re right, I don’t have a blog, but I’m honored by your request. The sheer scope of FC, from futurism to SUVs, is impressive and I would be happy to contribute in whatever way is helpful.
an easier way to get in touch with me is silvrio@yahoo.com
take care