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Can I disprove the Christian god? I think I just might be able to.?

These questions are directed at Christians but feel free to put your $0.02 in even if you aren't.

My argument consists of the following...

Premise 1 - God listens to, but does not necessarily act on, all prayer

Premise 2 - God acts on prayer as long as it is in accordance with his will

Premise 3 - It is God's will that everyone go to heaven and that no one go to hell

Premise 4 - The only way to heaven is to accept Jesus as your lord and saviour

Therefore, if a Christian was to pray for god to give them the words that would convince an atheist to become a Christian, god would have to supply those words to them. To not do so would violate one or more of the above premises & be in contradiction to 2 millennia of Christian doctrine.

Does anyone disagree so far? If so, please point out where you believe I have gone wrong.

However, if you agree, we're just about there. Now, to all the Christians, I propose an experiment...

I want you to pray to god right now to give you the words that will convince me to become a Christian. Then I want you to type those words in as your answer.

Assuming my logic is sound to this point, and I believe that it is, I will either become a believer or I will continue to be an atheist.

In the case of the former, it would not prove the existence of god but I believe that it could be considered as evidence towards that end.

In the case of the latter, however, I believe I will have just disproven the existence of god.

I await your answers with bated breath.

Update:

@Lefty: That is certainly more concise but you have not demonstrated that omniscience is impossible as far as I can see. Are you able to do that?

@Nik: I see nothing on that page that either convinces me to be a Christian or contradicts any of the premises or the conclusions within my argument (not sure which of the two you were trying to do). Can you clarify exactly what it is that you are trying to get at?

Update 2:

@Went ham the other day: "I await your answer with bated breath."

Let it be abated no longer, here it is...

"you can't just take verses and throw them out there."

Why not? Christians do it all the time. You have just done it yourself (and I quote)...

""You must not test the LORD your God.'""

However, I don't see any bible verses in my question, do you? I ask sincerely because, being a Christian, you have a history of seeing things of which there is no evidence.

"Post the entire chapter and i will answer."

So, let me get this straight, you want me to copy and paste an entire chapter of the bible here? Are you a total nutcase? Apart from being a complete waste of time (I mean, how hard is it to simply look up a verse reference?), I'd hit the character limit before I even got a fraction of the way through.

"i can disprove evolution"

I very much doubt that you can but, even if that was true, how does this

Update 3:

Bugger, must have hit the character limit & most of my reply is gone. In short, I basically pointed out your obvious high level of ignorance about evolution & the BBT. You're too ignorant about them to legitimately criticise them.

@I belong to God: Yes, I had considered that but I am truly willing to let myself believe. Life would be a lot more pleasant if I could believe that god was looking out for me & I had an eternity in paradise to look forward to. I just can't bring myself to believe it is all.

Update 4:

@Nik - Again: But god is supposedly omniscient & omnipotent. To say that god could not come up with an argument that would satisfy me that he exists would surely contradict at least one of those things. No?

Update 5:

@Lefty - Again: WRT Speed of light/info - I agree but, in my attempt to frame the argument in terms that Christian lay people would both accept and understand, I was granting them that god can act supernaturally & is unbound by the natural universe's physical laws.

WRT deterministic/probabilistic universe - I'm not sure I completely agree.

Firstly, the same loophole mentioned above may apply.

Secondly, as I understand it (as you say, according to the Copenhagen interpretation), it's the observation, not the knowledge, of the wave/particle state that causes the waveform to collapse. So, couldn't it be possible for god to have some way of knowing the state without actually observing them (eg. calculating it)?

Alternatively, if observation was necessary, perhaps he'd only need to observe the waveforms intermittently. Always assuming I understand it correctly (I'm certainly no quantum mechanics expert), the waveform would collapse the instant it was observed bu

Update 6:

@Nik again - I don't know that I agree with you there.

I doubt that someone can choose to believe or not believe something, I don't really think it's a choice. For example, do you think you could, through an effort of will alone, choose to believe that gravity didn't exist? I doubt that I could. Likewise, if given good evidence for god's existance, I doubt that I could choose not to believe in god. Likewise, in the absence of that evidence, I can't simply choose to believe in god. Sure, I can act as If I believe (i.e. go to church, pray, etc.) but within myself, I'd know it was a lie.

However, even putting that aside, it doesn't apply within the context of this experiment. As I mentioned to another answerer, I am fully willing to be convinced, all I require is good evidence of god's existance (or evidence of something that would require god's existance). I'd actually like to believe that there was a god up there looking out for me & an eter

6 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    http://apologetics101.co.cc/pdf/apologetics101/Wee...

    (It's my site, so I'm not just throwing it off on someone else.)

    EDIT:

    The paper was just to address the issue in the general form it comes up.

    On your argument in particular, the conclusion does not follow from the premises. I don't disagree with any of your premises, but it may be the case that there is nothing that could be said to convince an atheist to become a Christian. Since it's impossible to force someone to freely do something, and there is not -necessarily- anything which can be said to convince an atheist of Christianity, the conclusion falls apart. The end of the paper addresses this indirectly, stating that all who could be saved will be saved. The converse of this is that anyone who is not saved could not be saved (it's an impossibility).

    EDIT again:

    No. Omniscience and omnipotence means knowing everything that can be known and being able to do whatever is possible, respectively. For example it can never be known what the area of a square circle is, since by the very definitions of squares and circles, such a shape cannot exist; the phrase "square circle" is just two words put together in a logically incoherent manner, like "Can you Disney a purple?" This is also why God can't make a rock too heavy for Him to lift - there can only be an immovable object or (xor) an unstoppable force; they cannot coexist as this is logically inconsistent.

    In the same light it is logically impossible to make someone freely do something. Such a phrase doesn't represent anything in reality. Because of this there is not -necessarily- something which will convince someone freely. For example what if someone doesn't -want- to believe it? Not that there are no reasons to believe it, but the person refuses to out of an emotional or psychological disdain? Your conclusion falls apart because it is even possible for someone to hear every possible thing and still not believe as it is a matter of the will.

    EDIT again again:

    The analogy is flawed. Whether or not I believe in gravity, gravity exists because truth is objective. Your point is valid if we’re talking about the existence of God, but not if we’re talking about belief in the existence of God. If God exists, my believing in Him or not doesn’t change the fact of His existence. However whether or not I believe is a separate issue. When we talk about belief, we invoke evidence (justification for belief); however everyone’s standard of what is sufficient evidence is different. It could be that someone has a bar so high that it is off the charts – that is to say they will not believe no matter what is said because they have set their bar higher than reality will allow. In other words no evidence would ever be sufficient because they don’t want to believe.

    None of this was an attempt to convince you of God’s existence. I was just showing that your argument is not valid nor sound because the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises. It is not necessarily true that a person must believe if presented with evidence because it is possible that some will not believe regardless out of their desire not to believe. If this is even –possible-, that is to say it’s not logically contradictory in itself, your conclusion fails.

    If you want me to give some evidence of God’s existence, shoot me an email at nik@lupirapaes.co.cc or nik@apologetics101.co.cc. I’d be more than happy to have a conversation over email about it. It's way too long and involved to put in a Yahoo! Answers comment box.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    This is a shorter and easier version...

    The Abrahamic god is claimed to be an omniscient entity, and omniscience is not possible. Therefore, the claim of the Abrahamic god is a logical impossibility.

    Yes, omniscience can be disproven. Information only propagates at the speed of light (fastest). It is not possible to know what is occurring outside of range. At best, we can only see the sun as it was about 8.5 minutes ago. Time is required, ergo at any point in time, omniscience is not possible.

    Also, omniscience precludes the possibility of change in the system, or the possibility of anything but a purely deterministic universe. The universe is probabilistic, not deterministic. (q.v. Copenhagen interpretation)

    If you give someone "the supernatural might exist", then don't get involved in such debate. There is no supernatural, just like there aren't any gods. Definition of words are important.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    i'm very satisfied you requested this question, opposite to usually occurring idea in this board i do no longer hate agnostics or atheists. I have many pricey acquaintances who're agnostic and that i recognize them dearly they're tremendous human beings to be round. notwithstanding to bypass at the same time with your question and statements, quite adequate(to many) I trust you. Any be conscious worth scientist of our time will agree that our clinical methods of learn aren't to any extent further proper, they have more suitable a great deal yet there remains room for progression it quite is why we nonetheless have clinical breakthroughs. i myself am someone of religion, i trust in God basically placed. As for proving or disproving God scientifically, i trust God to be proper, in announcing that how can we teach or disprove perfection with imperfect technology? am i able to teach my beliefs to you? No I cant, and all and sundry who says they can is a liar, because... i'm also imperfect and my information teach that. My aspect being until eventually as you're saying that is a possibility that we some day have a technologies that ought to enable us search for scientifically measured evidence... as is always the case its a count of religion, some are keen to settle for on faith... some aren't to any extent further. Have a large call for a nicely theory out and presented question, I loved it.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    you can't just take verses and throw them out there.

    Post the entire chapter and i will answer.

    i can disprove evolution

    if you actually READ dawins book most of it is speculation.

    He mostly say's "if" "maybe" "the possibility" "hopefully" "it should" "there is a chance"

    so much for a theory right?

    with evolution to disprove it you can add the "before that" theory...

    since with evolution life was created witht he big bang you ask and what was before the big bang and before space and before that and before that and before and before that and before that

    evolution is like a hurricane going through a junkyard and making a fully bifunctional being

    I await your answer with bated breath.

    and if you knew anything about God (Jesus) the devil came to tempt God when he came in the flesh which is whom we call Jesus.

    Now what did the lord jesus say? "You must not test the LORD your God.'"

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    Lefty said, "omniscience is not possible." I'd like to know why we should accept this claim.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    Nice argument!

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