There's Valid Reasons to Disbelieve in God

All good points! Let's get to it then. Before we begin: Insofar as I am aware, God the entity and God the word are separate. For example, a human would still be human if he were called something else--a beedledum, for instance. So simply because the word God, as you say, is "meaningless", does not mean that the entity it represents is meaningless, as well. "1. God is outside our understanding and experience. 2. We give meaning to words by referring to what we understand and experience. C. God is meaningless. 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." First, I would like to clash briefly with Pro on his first point, which is an opinion, and not a fact, as it is implied by his stating, "It's logically proven." Many believers in God have claimed to both understand and experience him. I know what you're thinking: "I'm talking about the word 'God', not the actually entity himself." But the two were only separated when I made them so at the beginning of my argument--in your argument, the two are one and the same. In your eyes, the WORD is the THING, and if the WORD is meaningless, so is the THING. But this is a logical fallacy (rule #2 broken), for the simple reasons I gave at the beginning. You don't have to be omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenevolent to understand or experience God. An alien with one eye wouldn't need two in order to understand how we see; nor does he need to understand us in order to experience us. Certainly he might not understand if I were to punch him in the face, but that would not stop him from experiencing the pain; however, he could also understand just fine. He could have just urinated on my shoe, in which case my resulting attack would not have been totally unexpected. That might sound silly, but it's a valid metaphor. Believers claim all the time that they understand what God is doing in their lives. They also claimed to have experienced him during prayer or worship. Thus: 1. Believers understand God. Believers experience God. 2. We give meaning to words by referring to what we understand or experience. C. God is meaningful. Now I'd like to backtrack a bit to when you said, "Con probably agrees with 1. It's logically proven if he doesn't." Nothing is logically proven. It can be logically supported, but not proven; otherwise religion would have been disproved long ago. Furthermore: "Logic is relative." --John Irving (http://www.goodreads.com...) Simply because you find God's existence illogical does not mean a believer will. In the believer's stance, God logically exists because to the believer, it's logical. Not only is saying, "It's logically proven" a fallacy in and of itself, but I even demonstrated how logically your statement is unsound, making your situation all the worse. This might seem irrelevant, but I'm telling you this because simply because you "logically" believe that God is "meaningless", does not mean that other people do, making your point invalid, and illogical. "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 'infallible'." Again, we come to a problem with the word "understand". Perhaps you mean to say that we cannot ACHIEVE perfection. Which means we can't EXPERIENCE perfection. Which means that, by your own definition, "perfection" has no meaning. Which, of course, is perfectly false. Just another example of a faulty system of logic. I don't really understand what you're trying to say in the above quote. Since we CAN understand "perfection", that argument is invalid, really. But I'll try to help you by deducing that you mean to say that we can't understand God because we can't understand perfection (which we can, cancelling out both statements). Or maybe you mean exactly what I said above, which is that we can't ACHIEVE or EXPERIENCE perfection. In which case, you have just provided yourself with a perfectly, logically sound reason why a God should/could/and would exist. "God is outside the universe, yet what we know and understand is within the universe." Where did you get the idea that God is outside the universe? I don't recall the Bible, or any other source of information about God ever claiming that he exists outside the universe. Perhaps you believe that because he created the universe, he could not then logically exist within it. However, I believe the common Theistic standpoint is that he exists in another DIMENSION, but still resides within the universe. "If a word is meaningless, any attempt to prove it is useless! This makes Atheism the only justified position." I'm not exactly sure how the two are relatable... Unless, all this time, Atheists have been arguing against the belief in meaningless words. Again, you're confusing God the entity with God the word. However, let's go with what you're saying here--I'll deduce what I can: Since the word God is meaningless (which, as I showed, it isn't) any attempt to prove it (God, the entity) is useless! Which means that you're essentially saying that any attempt to prove God's existence is useless. I would return that any attempt to disprove him is equally useless, as God represents that which humanity does not understand, and I don't believe that humanity will ever fully understand anything. Meaning there will always be room for a "God gap" that Science will not be able to fill. Now onto your second argument: The Problem of Evil. That opening quote by Epicurus has long bothered me, for this simple reason: It's bullsh*t. To those easily persuaded, it sounds genius, of course. But actually it's logically unsound. According to classic Theistic reasoning, God does not prevent evil because He gives humanity freedom of choice--which means if somebody wants to be evil, that's their prerogative. But here's what it all comes down to: the repercussions of the acts of the evil person. He can be evil, sure, but when his time comes, as it inevitably will, he will face God's justice. Which means, in answer ole Ep's query, "Why call him God?" Because he is a just ruler, not a biased tyrant. That's why. Because he created us as flesh and blood human beings with the ability to make mistakes, not robots who serve him unquestionably. That's why. "1. 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." My following and final rebuttal is in response to your "complex formulation", as well. I would propose the Yin-and-Yang theory for this one. If there is good in the world, there must also be evil. It's logical. God could not be perfectly good if there weren't anything else for him to be. He is good because he chose not to be evil--which, by the way, was totally up to him. Good people are rewarded with Heaven because they chose not to be evil. None of this could be possible if evil did not exist. Now, you're wondering, "How could evil exist in the first place?" It did not come into the world through God, but through us. He gave us the freedom of choice--theoretically, we could have obeyed every order he gave, never sinning. But instead we chose to eat from the apple, bringing evil and sin into the world. "But God created Satan!" you might say. Again, you're wrong. God created an angel with the ability to make his own choices. Lucifer became Satan through his own errors, not God's. "But God knew what he would become!" you might say. Yes, he did. But again, that was Satan's decision to make. God would not prevent him from making it, since he gives us all the freedom of choice. Thanks for the debate so far! It's been very entertaining.