Interesting essay

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Hi was in another forum and found an essay frow a high school kid of why he thinks god doesn't exist. I found it an interesting read specially since it was written by a high school kid.
Nothing against high school kids but I thought it was a well structured essay. My old English teacher would be pleased.

Well some of u might not like it, but just take it as someone's opinion. Nothing else.

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did noone read the essay, I know its real long but its really well structured. I should be a English teacher, but I can't spell.:blues: haha rabbi
 
I read it and this popped out at me.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Besides there can exist no free wills at all if god is almighty. If you had a free will, god wouldn't know what you would do tomorrow and wouldn't be omnipotent.
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Didn't God create the plan of salvation before we sinned out of our own free will?
 
THe kid has a misguided view of free will. Free will is not that no one knows what you are going to do, rather,

someone knowing what you are going to do, and not trying to stop or persuade you to do something else.
 
I dunno. It seemed like a rather lengthy task in round logic. It was long, it had a lot of words, but his arguments were lacking backup, and he definitely doesn't have a strong enough grasp of logic, philosophy or theology to effective argue his points.  Though the last is probably due to his age.  You can tell he thinks about things and has though out his opinions, but it still seems he's read something along the same lines and is spitting out his understanding of what he read for someone elses consumption.  Basically it reads more like a long summary than the persuasive paper it's intended to be.
 
Or, it could be argued this way:

- We have free will, and can choose what we are going to do from moment to moment.
- God may not know exactly what you're going to do, but being outside of space and time, he knows every single possible variation of what you could do, and knows every single possible outcome of those infinite number of variations
- God doesn't know what you're going to do, but he knows everything that you possible could do. You get your free will, God remains omnipotent.

That's one way to look at it. It's not water tight, but I think it's a good point. It gets a little fuzzy when you start talking pre-destination and "God's plan" (we have free will but God's will is still being done in this world, regardless of our actions?) and I don't want to get into that here.

Back to the essay...it *is* well written; maybe TOO well written. The authour spends a lot of time laying out his objective, logic-focused reasoning in the middle of the essay, but the thing is bookended by personal interpretations and applications of his logic. It's written in a different style in those portions, either due to the nature of the writing (reason vs. personal experience) or because the beginning and ending are his own while the rest of the essay is based off of the work of others that he researched. I'm not saying he plagerized, but he didn't bring anything new to the table with this essay. It's all based on 100+ year old philosophy and logic. People have been arguing and asking these questions (is there a god? what is the meaning of life?) for eons. There's nothing new here, he's just raised the same arguements for a new generation.

A few extra thoughts:

- he says that lots of people have turned to atheism from christianity after considering all the reasoning, etc. I would think that a number of people have gone the other direction through their own quests in science. His point proves nothing other than that people come to their own conclusions based on the evidence that they have; it says nothing about whether atheism is more true than christianty. For as many great thinkers he can name that went from christianity to atheism, there are many great thinkers who went from atheism to christianity, or never strayed from christianity in the first place (CS Lewis and Hans Kung come to mind; and lots of people say Thomas Payne was an atheist but he was actually a diest - someone who rejects the man-made rules of religion and focuses on the proof of existence of God based on the evidence of the natural world and morality for morality's sake. He wasn't a christian, but as a great thinker and social reformer he still believed that God existed)

- his points on whether prayer matters or not strike a chord with me. I saw a physcist (sp?) speak several months ago about quantum physics and what recent discoveries in the realm of cosmology are saying about our universe and God's role/non-role in it. It was pretty interesting stuff and I'm sure your local pastor's and priests will be preaching on this topic soon, if they haven't already. I digress...the question of the effectiveness of prayer was something that I came out of the seminar with, and didn't really have it answered. If God knows everything that will happen, has selected a history that will be played out on earth and has a plan for it all, something that can't be deviated from, then why pray for something to happen? You can't alter it, and you can't alter the laws of physics through your prayers, so why pray? I've come to my own personal conclusions on this matter, but they are personal arguements on why to pray, they're no good in the realm of philisophical debate. The essay writer presents a problematic issue that I haven't heard a good, "reason focused" response to.

- one thing that gets me about humanists and atheists is that they always end up with the conclusion that we only have each other, there is no god and can only depend on ourselves, and they always say that by doing away with God and religion and focusing on the betterment of humanity, we'll all be better off. The thing is I don't see very many humanists actually doing much good for society or for the world.

Granted they aren't organized enough to set up an infrastructure for a recognized institution that can have a public profile and can start doing all this good that they say they're going to do in the world, and do it better than religious institutions. But still...it seems the only time we see atheists and humanists is when they're fighting a religious organization or they're tying up the courts to get the world "God" removed from the wording of some law or whatever. They're spending all their time trying to prove that religion is wrong and evil and not spending any time proving by their actions that humanism is a viable alternative. I see more good being done when someone drops off groceries for a food drive at a church then I see in someone trying to argue that God shouldn't be written in some of the nation's (US or Canadian) great founding documents. Sure, humanism is the answer, we can only depend on ourselves to fix the world. Great. Then why aren't humanists teaming up with religious organizations, the ones who are doing something about the state of the planet, who have the infrastructure and money to accomplish the goals of the humanist movement, instead of fighting them at every turn? If it's really about what's best for humanity, then why aren't they accepting that belief in God is part of what makes us human? That belief in God, while making some people behave in irrational, destructive and irresponsible ways has also made others better people, kinder to their fellow man, and lifted them up out of the depths of depression and addiction?

Why are they working *against* instead of *with* a major chunk of humanity that DOES believe in a God?
 
yeah but it had a great structure right. I don't care what was writtin but how its writtin
 
structure?  nope.  he's trying to write a persuasive essay, and while the beginning and the ending of the essay stick to that premise, the middle is nothing more than an extended summary of various atheist websites.  He's not persuading anyone of anything, he's regurgitating something he's read, and assumes if you read his regurgitation then you'll be converted to atheism on the fly.  For all the words he wrote there, he never tells you WHY he's right, he just assumes that you'll read it, and assume he knows what he's talking about.


When I was a juniour in high-school, that paper would have been returned to me on either a redo or a failure.  First the switch in paper purpose and secondly the lack of references to the data sources. (...evil honors courses...
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[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Another way to disprove the almighty god is that omnipotence leads to paradoxes. Can god make a rock that is too heavy for him to carry? Can god build a wall that even he can't tear down?

Also, if god knows everything, he knows what he will do in the "future" (in any dimension, not necessary the time dimension). He must have known that from the very start of his own existence. Thus god's actions are predestined. God is tied by faith, he has no free will. If god has no free will god is not omnipotent. Another way to put it is that to be able to make plans and decisions one must act over time. If god stands above time he can not do that and has no free will. Indeed, if god stands above all dimensions god is dimensionless - a singularity, nothing, void!
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the illustration of the rock to heavy to lift is a childs joke. can an atheist create a human he cannot lift?

and on the space time thing: Becuase God is removed from space and Time therefor he has no future in human sense and He has free will lsinec he cares and love humans and sent His Son to die for us. and pluys he sent down fire from heaven to destroy sodom and gamorah (sp?)
 
Free will argument

I will put this in gaming terms so all of us here can understand...

I am playing with a newbie on my team in UT 2004. In the example below we are all the newbie, and I am God (no conceit intended):

The newbie starts out fine one might even say he was "sinless".  He then proceeds to get shot with an assult rifle and he begins to chase after the enemy  who has run around a corner (he was successfully tempted).

I say to the newbie "Hey that's a trap, don't follow him. Instead follow me and we wil defeat him this way.". The newbie refuses to listen and gets hit with a flak shell as he rounds the corner.

Therefore I (God) knew what man (the newbie) was going to do without interfering with his free will.
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Atheistic paradoxal argument thingy
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Is this logical?  A little.  However, the problem is that this bit of logic omits some crucial information, therefore, it's conclusion is inaccurate.

What the above "paradox" lacks is vital information concerning God's nature.  His omnipotence is not something independent of His nature.  It is part of His nature.  God has a nature and His attributes operate within that nature, as does anything and everything else.

For example, I have human nature.  I can run.  But, I cannot outrun a lion.  My nature simply does not permit it.  My ability to run is connected to my nature and I cannot violate it.  So too with God.  His omnipotence is connected to His nature since being omnipotent is part of what He is.  Omnipotence, then, must be consistent with what He is and not with what He is not since His omnipotence is not an entity to itself.  Therefore, God can only do those things that are consistent with His nature. He cannot lie because it is against His nature to do so. Not being able to lie does not mean He is not God or that He is not all powerful.  Also, He cannot cease to be God.  Since He is in all places at all times, if He stopped existing then He wouldn't be in all places at all time.  Therefore, He cannot cease to exist without violating His own nature.

The point is that God cannot do something that is a violation of His own existence and nature.  Therefore, He cannot make a rock so big he can't pick up, or make something bigger than Himself, etc.   But, not being able to do this does not mean He is not God nor that He is not omnipotent. Omnipotence is not the ability to do anything conceivable, but the ability to do anything consistent with His nature and consistent with His desire within the realm of His unlimited and universal power which we do not possess.  This does not mean He can violate His own nature.  If He did something inconsistent with His nature, then He would be self contradictory. If God were self contradictory, He would not be true. Likewise, if He did something that violated his nature, like make a rock so big He can't pick it up, He would also not be true since that would be a self contradiction.  Since truth is not self contradictory, as neither is God, if He were not true, then He would not be God.  But God is true and not self contradictory, therefore, God cannot do something that violates His own nature.
 
There are many good points in that essay. Unfortunately, most of this guy's "work" has been plagiarized, verbatim, from other sources. If he had a little more integrity he might have at least given credit where it is due rather than passing it off as his own intellectual work.
 
The other thing is how he defined existence. It simply cannot be the relationship between one being and another. It just doesn't make sense. Because at the begining of time, God must have existed in relationship to himself. Just as I exist in relationship to myself. If there was nothing except for me at all, I would still exist in relationship to myself.
 
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