ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM

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ATHEISM ANDAGNOSTICISM

• Material taken from several sources including
  Handbook of Todays Religion.

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Atheism

• Comes from Greek prefix a (no or non) and the
  noun theos (god or God).
• One who believes that there exists positive
  evidence that there is not God.
• All of existence (to Atheists) can be explained
  naturally rather than supernaturally.

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Atheism

• Convinced that all religious belief, evidence,
  and faith are false.
• The evidence favors the supposition of
  nonexistence (Ideas of the Great Philosophers).
• Some contributors include Marx, Nietzsche, and
  Hume

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Agnosticism

• Comes from Greek prefix meaning no or non and the
  noun gnosis meaning knowledge (usually by
  experience).
• One who believes there is insufficient evidence
  to prove or disprove the existence or
  nonexistence of God or gods.
• Agnostics criticize the theist and the atheists
  for their dogmatism of such knowledge.

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Agnosticism

• Refers to the neutralist view on the question of
  the existence of God it is the view of the
  person who elects to remain in a state of
  suspended judgment (Sahakin and Sahakin, Ideas,
  100).
• Two kinds of Agnostics

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Agnosticism

• One says there is insufficient evidence at this
  time.
• Other says they are convinced that it is
  objectively impossible for anyone to know or not
  know with certainty the existence or non
  existence of God.

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Arguments Against Existence of God- Language

• Language- Example Talking about God is
  meaningless.
• Argument does not actually deny that God exists
  but says talk about him his futile.
• Refuting language argument the argument itself
  is self-refuting. To say that one cant talk
  meaningfully about God is to talk meaningfully
  about God (Religions, 426).

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Arguments Against Existence of God- Language

• Complete agnosticism is self-defeating it
  reduces to the self-destructing assertion that
  one knows enough about reality in order to
  affirm that nothing can be known about reality.
  This statement provides within itself all that is
  necessary to falsify itself. For if one knows
  something about reality, then he surely cant
  affirm in the same breath that all of reality is
  unknowable (Geisler, Apologetics 20).

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Arguments Against Existence of God- Knowledge

• Example We cant know the real.
• Argument says, We can know about things in the
  real world through the use of our senses and our
  mind. However, since our senses are imperfect
  and selective, and our mind is affected by all it
  has experienced previously, our perception of a
  thing is thereby affected (Religions, 422).

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Arguments Against Existence of God- Knowledge

• This argument does not specifically argue against
  Gods existence but can be used to deny that one
  can know objectively about God.
• Refuting Knowledge argument One who adheres
  completely to the idea that we cannot know the
  real is another example of one who refutes
  himself.

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Arguments Against Existence of God- Knowledge

• Reasonably we could say that we do not know
  everything about the real, but it is
  self-defeating to say one knows nothing about the
  real. IF one really knows nothing about the
  real, then his statement (I know nothing about
  the real) is false he really knows the truth of
  the statement. His statement cant be true
  unless, contradictorily, it is also false
  (Religion, 426).

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Moral Concepts

• Example The Christian God could not allow evil.
• If he were an all powerful God, then he could
  destroy all evil. If he were all good, the he
  would want to destroy all evil. If your all
  powerful, all good God existed, the He would have
  had to destroy all evil. Evil exists.
  Therefore, your all powerful, all God must not
  exist. Or if he exists, he is not able to do away
  with evil (Religion, 424).

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Moral Concepts

• Does not argue against the existence of all gods
  , but only against the all powerful, all knowing
  God.
• This is probably the most frequent used argument.
  
• Refuting the Moral Concept- Christians and
  theologians dont disagree with the first premise

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Moral Concepts

• Which is if there is an all powerful God, he
  could destroy evil. Where the problem comes is
  the second premise
• If He were all good, He would want to destroy
  all evil.
• First an all powerful God may have beneficent
  reasons for uses for evil.

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Moral Concepts

• Secondly, the arguer has not taken into
  consideration the element of time. What is God
  wanted to use evil for a time and then ultimately
  destroy it. This would allow for a good God.
• Thirdly, who are we to assume that God would want
  to destroy evil Gods ways are not our ways.

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Scientific
Method

• Example God is mans wish.
• Man feel inadequate within himself. He desires
  for God to exist. Therefore God has no objective
  reality, he does not exist.
• Refuting the scientific method To say that mans
  wish for God to exist proves that God does not
  exist is completely illogical.

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Scientific
Methods

• Our wishing does not make things exist nor does
  it prelude things from existing.
• Does the fact that atheists wish for God not to
  exist prove that he does exist?
• One must look at the evidence (we will next week).

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Logical
Arguments

• Example 1 Gods all powerfulness is
  contradictory.
• There cant be an omnipotent (all powerful) God.
  Such a God would be stuck with the following
  contradictory questions
• Can God create a rock to heavy for Him to lift?

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Logical
Arguments

• Can God make 22 6?
• Can God make Himself go out of existence and then
  pop back into existence?
• Can God make a square circle?
• If God is all powerful he should be able to do
  these things, but in doing them he is thwarting
  his own omnipotence, so God must not exist.

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Logical
Arguments

• Example 2 God attributes contradict each other.
• How can one both possess love and wrath? How can
  God be absolutely good and yet absolutely free?
• Because Gods attributes contradict each other
  logically, He must not exist.

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Logical
Arguments

• Refuting the Logical argument God is all
  powerful but cant and wont do the logically or
  intrinsically impossible.
• In other words God cant and wont contradict
  himself.
• Best explained by Thomas Warren

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Logical
Arguments

• Rather than saying that God cant do certain
  things, it would be more in harmony with the
  truth to say simply that such things cannot be
  done at all! God is infinite in power, but power
  meaningfully relates only to that which can be
  done, to what is possible of accomplishment- not
  to what is impossible.

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Arguments Against Existence of God-Logical
Arguments

• (Continued) It is absurd to speak of any power
  being able to do what simply cannot be done. God
  can do whatever is possible to be done, but he
  will do only what is in harmony with his nature.
  Rather than saying that God cannot make a four
  sided triangle one would more accurately say that
  the making of a four sided triangle simply cannot
  be done.

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YOU CHOOSE

• Joshua said unto all the people of Israel,
  . . . choose you this day whom ye will serve
  . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve
  the Lord" (Josh. 242, 15).

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