There's Valid Reasons to Disbelieve in God

Hello DemosthenesLocke and welcome to DDOArgument 1: Magic8000's Non-Cognitivism Argument God is outside of our understanding and experience We give meaning to words by referring to what we understand and experience C. “God” is meaningless (From 1 and 2) Con probably agrees with 1. It's logically proven if he doesn't. God is usually defined as “Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent” We have no experience of these things in reality. We have no experience of all power or all knowledge. George Smith says [1] “God is epistemologically transcendent; i.e., it falls beyond the scope of man’s intellectual comprehension. The full nature of god is not merely unknown, it is unknowable. Man’s rational capacity does not allow him to understand the nature of god, and any knowledge that man does possess concerning god is necessarily inadequate in some respect. God, by definition, is that which man cannot understand.” Michael Martin writes [2] In the first place, when terms like “is loving”, “is forgiving”, and “brings about” are applied to God, they seem to mean something very different from what they mean when they are applied to human beings. For example, when we speak of a mother as being loving, we are referring in part to her behavior, and in particular the way she responds to her children. When we say that Jones brought about a fire, we are referring to certain of his bodily actions, such as his carelessly throwing a match onto a pile of paper. But when we say God is loving or God brought about a miracle, we cannot be referring to the behavior or bodily action of God, for He has no body. Finally, George Smith says [1] All of the supposedly positive qualities of God arise in a distinctively human context of finite existence, and when wrenched from this context to apply to a supernatural being, they cease to have meaning. By classic Theistic reasoning, God is perfect, we are not. We can't understand “perfection”. In fact the Catholic Church actually said God is “incomprehensible” and “ineffable” [3]. God is outside the universe, yet what we know and understand is within the universe. 2 is simply known a priori and I don't think it will be disputed. If Con wishes to dispute it, he must provide a meaningful word that doesn't refer to anything that is within our understanding and experience. Preventing misunderstanding of P2 Some attack premise 2 by stating something that is meaningful, but that we don't really have full understanding of. The premise isn't that we must understand and experience everything, just that something must refer to what we understand or experience in order to be meaningful. If a word is meaningless, any attempt to prove it is useless! This makes atheism the only justified position. As a god can no more exist than any other meaningless thing that doesn't refer to reality such as a “zsgarbub”. Strongatheism.net writes [4] “...to say, “A God exists” insofar as it attempts to construct itself as a proposition is false because the term “God” does not refer to an actual concept, and therefore to posit such a statement supposing that it does and that this referent exists in reality as something is an untrue positive declaration...... One cannot posit the existence of something if that something means nothing. The term itself, without referring to any specific concept or possible instantiation, holds no actual or even potential place in reality. In truth, it is amusing to note that the theistic position is unwittingly equivalent to the atheistic position, as to posit belief in “God” actually means “belief in nothing” – the stance of atheism.” Argument 2: The Problem of EvilThe problem of evil shows a logical contradiction between God's properties and the world we observe.Classic formulation"Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"- EpicurusBasic formulation1. If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.2. There is evil in the world.3. Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist.Complex formulation1. God exists.2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils.4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence.5. An omnipotent being, who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, has the 6. power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.7. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.8. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists.9. Evil exists (logical contradiction).C. God doesn't exist. The resolution is affirmed Now to Con for his arguments and rebuttals. [1] George Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1979), Chapter 3. [2]Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, Chapter 1 [3] 1968 National Catholic Almanac, edited by Felician A. Foy, O. F. M. (Paterson: St. Anthony’s Guild, 1968), p. 360 [4] http://www.strongatheism.net...