Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
First of all, the one point in which I said "God is anything" should be changed to "God could be anything" as I have it everywhere else (Not sure why I did that, but *meh*). From there, what I had written should logically follow. My goal wasn't to make a statement (a)theistic in nature, but rather to show that if God could be anything, then He can't be nothing, as anything excludes nothingness (Or non-existence). And, if God can be anything but nothing, then an infinite number of possibilities of God being *something* should preclude atheism.
|
Right, but in that case your argument precludes atheism to begin with and thus doesn't really have anything to do with atheism. I'm also not to clear on how you arrive at your conclusion; are you arguing on probability? If so, I would contend that probability has no place in this discussion.
If it is your intent to show that 'God could be anything' is not a strong argument for atheism, you'll get no argument here. There are much better ones to be made, and that statement is better support for agnosticism than atheism. However, it does not invalidate atheistic belief, either.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
(Now as I said earlier, I didn't come up with the statement "God could be anything", so don't go ballistic on me for that one.)
|
But you've adopted the argument for your own ends, making it's origin irrelevant.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
Ehhh... That's not much much different, but fair enough, I guess.
|
The difference may not seem like much to you, but it is significant. By defining God as the creator of the Universe you automatically exclude the possibility that the Universe has no creator, or that it's a self-created machine. Again, this excludes atheism, which is counter-productive in a discussion about atheism.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
I understand what the argument just fine. But, you see, I'm not concerned with proving whether or not a particular God exists, as that doesn't terribly concern me at this point (Especially since trying to argue which God exists with someone who doesn't believe in one to begin with is futile), but rather that, if one assumes God could be anything, then there's no way he, or she, could be an atheist. And, you know, I might be wrong here, but I don't know too many atheists who claim God, assuming he exists, to be only a few, finite possibilities.
|
Actually, I would argue that atheists do use a very finite set of possibilities for God, having it narrowed down to the single possibility of non-existence.