The Armchair Antichrist

Link HTML:

Permalink:

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed (http://feeds NULL.feedburner NULL.com/TheArmchairAntichrist) or Email Feed (http://www NULL.feedburner NULL.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=67ph9hkenfoe0cqvkb5f56sj1o&loc=en_US).

Tags: angels, atheist, commandments, cosmological, deistic, demons, god, Morality, ontological, satan, supernatural, teleological, theists, universe, witches

God is Weak

Posted 01 Feb 2010 — by The Armchair Antichrist
Category Arguments against God, Nature of God, Religious Arguments

There is just so much mental gymnastics that religious people engage in. It really is a mystery how they handle all the cognitive dissonance so well.This time it is the claim that God cannot do something that is contrary to his nature. His nature is the basis of our morality so it is claimed that God cannot lie or sin. This is such an easily refutable statement that it is a wonder to me that why a large number of Christian debaters including William Lane Craig have used it.

If God cannot do even one thing then he cannot be all-powerful. In an effort to reinforce the ‘morality comes from God’ argument they have sacrificed one of God’s key attributes: omnipotence. Heck, if I can do two things that God cannot then I am technically more powerful than God in some regard. It seems that the concept of God is so fragile that it will fall apart at any moment.

Related to this is the claim that God is bound to the laws of logic. And this is of course to counter the paradoxes of whether God can make a rock so heavy that even he can’t lift it or whether he can make a square circle. This approach again fails miserably. Omnipotence is by definition ‘unlimited’ power. So, God cannot be limited by anything especially if he is supposedly the author of the laws of logic which is suggested by the transcendental argument (which of course also fails epicly).

First, a weak hell. Now, a weak God. What’s next?

Share this:

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Link HTML:

Permalink:

Tags: all powerful, christian debaters, cognitive dissonance, logic, mental gymnastics, Morality, omnipotence, transcendental argument, william lane craig

Good Old Kant

Posted 12 Jan 2010 — by The Armchair Antichrist
Category Arguments against God, Nature of God, Philosophy, Religion

Although Kant believed in God (not the Christian one since he was very critical of Christianity) and tried to provide logical reasons to believe in God, this excerpt from his Critique of Pure Reason illustrates some of the problems with the God concept. Specifically, it helps shed some light onto all the meaningless talk about God being outside of time, space and so on.

“If we suppose an object of a non-sensible intuition to be given, we can indeed represent it through all the predicates which are implied in the presupposition that it has none of the characteristics proper to sensible intuitions; that it is has none of the characteristics proper to sensible intuition; that it is not extended or in space, that its duration is not a time, that no change (succession of determinations in time) is to be met in it, etc. But there is no proper knowledge if I thus merely indicate what the intuition of an object is not, without being to say what it is that is contained in the intuition. For I have not then shown that the object is even so much as possible, not being in a position to given any intuition corresponding to the concept, and being able to say that our intuition is not applicable to it. But what has chiefly to be noted is this, that to such a something [in general] not a single one of all the categories be applied. We could not, for instance, apply it to the concept of substance, meaning something which can exist as subject and never as predicate. For save in so far as empirical intuition provides the instance to which to apply it, I do not know whether there can be anything that corresponds to such a form of thought.”

Share this:

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Link HTML:

Permalink:

Tags: christian, Christianity, god, intuition, logical, reason, space, substance, time

To Hell and Back

Posted 15 Nov 2009 — by The Armchair Antichrist
Category Christianity, Heaven and Hell, Nature of God, University

A few days ago I went to a presentation by “The Embassy (http://www NULL.the-embassy NULL.org/)” a student ministry at a nearby university. The topic of discussion was Hell. Here was what I found out about the event on their website beforehand:

Skeptics Welcome:

Nov. 09/09 – Go To Hell
The concept of Hell is hard to swallow – that a large number of people will spend their afterlife in a place of eternal torment and unquenchable fire. At The Embassy, we want to take a good, hard look at where this idea came from, expose the myths associated with it, and make some suggestions that might just surprise you – whether you’ve been attending church your whole life or have spent an equally long time avoiding it.

And judging by this material I had the impression that this group would be more progressive and rational than other church groups. On the flyer it said that “the concept of Hell is hard to swallow” and I jokingly commented that they would try to make me swallow it. Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened.

When I walked into the small auditorium I was surprised to see band equipment on the stage. I believed that this was going to be a thoughtful discussion. However, I was surprised once more when I had to endure three terrible Christian rock songs before they got to the substance of the discussion. This involved me sitting down while the faithful stood up, some with their arms in the air (maybe even waving them like they just didn’t care).

The first speaker talked about what Hell might be like. He quoted some theologians and apologists and came to the conclusion that we don’t exactly what kind of place Hell is, but it is not a place you want to be. What I thought was going to be a thoughtful discussion was actually a sermon. I was being preached to. This part wasn’t all that bad. The speaker did assume that the Bible was the true word of God and that Hell existed, but I couldn’t have expected much more from a church group.

It was the next part that really surprised me. The main pastor came up on stage and talked about why Hell exists in the first place. He said that God created Hell for Satan and the other fallen angels who rebelled, but made no connection to human afterlife.

He also said that heaven would not be heaven if all the bad people could get in. And he said that these bad people would be getting what they wanted anyways, to be away from God. However, he still maintained that God was still omnipresent because only the compassionate part of his nature would be missing in Hell (also known as a cop-out).

Furthermore, the pastor said that qualifying for heaven has nothing to do with the amount good things or bad things you did. He said that all that was required was belief in Jesus Christ. But, it is never answered what happens to people who have never heard the Gospel. It is also never explained how a belief in a deity has to do with being a good person.

In addition, he ends up contradicting some of the statements he made earlier about it being easy to imagine Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and other evil people being in Hell because he labelled them as evil solely by their actions. It is very arguable that Hitler who was Christian is in heaven. It is even arguable that Bin Laden is in heaven because for all we know he may have been a believer in Christ.

During the sermon we could text questions to the pastor to be answered at the end. Two of my questions came up at the end. The first one was: What if you don’t believe in the concept of Hell? They basically answered me as a Christian and said that the Bible makes it clear that Hell exists. But, I guess that’s the basis of Christian apologetics: assumptions and more assumptions.

My second question (more of a comment) was: An omnipotent God is capable of infinite rehabilitation especially a loving one. And for this they answered me as if I was a Catholic and which consisted of the concept of Purgatory being attacked.

The pastor also said that when you force your will on a person it is the same as rape. So, sending people to Hell in the first place doesn’t count as imposing on someone? And he also made the point that some people might not want to reform. This logically implies that given the option of heaven or hell that some people would actually choose Hell (which is both a very disgusting and fallacious suggestion).

At the end of the sermon, the conclusion they came up to was “God is not loving in spite of Hell, but because of Hell.” By that time I was already thoroughly annoyed, but I still had to endure some Christian rock music as I exited the auditorium. Overall, I felt I was deceived into believing I would hear some rational discussion. Instead, it just ended up being like any other sermon; it was meant for indoctrination, not education.

Share this:

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Link HTML:

Permalink:

Tags: apologetics, apologist, christian, god, hell, indoctrination, ministry, omnipotent, purgatory, sermon, theologian, University

God is Not Objective

Posted 11 Oct 2009 — by The Armchair Antichrist
Category Arguments Against Christianity, Christianity, Nature of God, Philosophy

I have already established in a previous post titled What is God? that theists don’t have an accurate and positive ontology of God. But do theists even mean the same thing when they talk about God? We will specifically look at the Christian conceptions of God:

Trinitarianism: God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth), and the Holy Spirit.

Unitarianism: God is one being that has one personality and Jesus was the son of God, but not God himself

Binitarianism: God is composed of the Father and the Son as two distinct Gods. The Holy Spirit is not a God, but rather is the living power of God that flows/emanates between both the Father and the Son

There are also differing views within each of these three main versions of the Christian God and still more argument over the divinity of Jesus.

As you can see Christians have no objective conception of God. From Christian to Christian what each thinks God is may differ greatly. So Christians should stop assuming that the God they talk about is the only God that could possibly exist. You can’t even step outside Christianity to argue with other religions and atheists without first winning the argument about what kind of god the Christian God is.

Share this:

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Link HTML:

Permalink:

Tags: atheist, binitarianism, christian, divinity, incarnate, jesus, nazareth, Religion, theist, trinitarianism, unitarianism

What is God?

Posted 27 Sep 2009 — by The Armchair Antichrist
Category Arguments against God, Nature of God, Philosophy

Throughout the history of humanity the term God has been tossed around very carelessly. Even today we do not have an accurate ontology for the thing that is called God. All the major religions have only succeeded in describing attributes of what their God would have. But, in philosophy it is useless to try to argue that something exists if you can’t even properly describe what it is. Some theists believe that it is beyond our human comprehension to understand such a being. In that case, it is not logical to try to reason its existence.

For example, God in the Abrahamic religions is considered to be all-powerful. But, how could you be ever sure that a being is all-powerful? At the most you could only know that a being is very powerful, but not all-powerful. Furthermore, some theists claim that God exists in a plane of existence that transcends our own time and space. But, it just might be that there is another plane of existence that transcends the one that God exists in. You could never be able to reason that the plane of existence that God exists in is the ultimate plane of existence.

This point is clearly demonstrated in the short story Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott. In it, a 3-dimensional sphere takes a square out of his usual 2-D environment into the one that transcends it, the 3-D world that we all know and love. The square who before was only aware of his 2-D world became aware of the possibility of multiple dimensions each transcending the one before it.

So, in any case theists are still free to argue that their God exists, but from the examples I have shown I believe that it is impossible to have real knowledge of the existence of an infinite and all-powerful God.

Share this:

Close Bookmark and Share This Page