Why I Am An Atheist

[Immanuel Can]

Design can be collaborative and collective and synchronistic... and maybe energetic. There does not need to be "a Designer".

You're misunderstanding your own language here. You speak of "design," but "design" is a word that implies a process of intention. Things are designed-for purposes. Things that are not "designed" are accidental, random, haphazard, circumstantial.

On the other hand, "collaborative, collective and synchronistic" are words implying multiple designers, working in an even more complicated interrelationship than a single designer. That hardly helps your case. It would rather tend to make you a Polytheist.

[uwot]

...it would seem that He chooses to leave the cynical and hard-hearted in the state they choose for themselves...

So your god, being almighty, could have created Arising, myself and all other atheists more like you. Instead, it chose to condemn us to whatever hell you believe in. What a bastard. Personally, my idea of hell is spending eternity fawning over some omnipresent sociopath. I suspect many atheists were encouraged as children to open the door to Jesus, as I was. I tried very hard, but there was nothing on the other side. Your god didn't condemn a middle aged man to hell, he did it to a little boy. Your god can kiss my arse.
Anyway, you are getting desperate. The only ontological argument I can remember, off the top of my head, is Descartes'. That fails because of Descartes' demonstrably false premise that existence is a perfection. If you don't know the Anselm or Plantinga versions, I'll look them up and tell you exactly why they are unsound.

[Skip]

Artifacts are designed, for some purpose, on the basis of human (or crow) observations of how natural things work.
Natural things were not purpose-made; they just growed. We can describe them, and retroactively allege that their purpose is serving us, which proves that 1. Somebody designed them 2. The Designer had us in mind even before He lit the fuse and
3 we are the only important thing in the whole entire universe, and all other universes, should they exist.

[henry quirk]

...if you're there, if you care, if you have the power, please...

SMITE THEM, LORD!

SMITE THEM, ALL!

[uwot]

...if you're there, if you care, if you have the power, please...

SMITE THEM, LORD!

SMITE THEM, ALL!

As I understand it, the plan is to wait until we are dead.

[henry quirk]

Well, the whole point of (Jehovah) SMITING (us with His Big, Hoary, Fist) is to make folks dead (and finally settle the issue of 'is/isn't').

If SMITED and trundled off to one of the three places (up, down, or the middle ground), we'll all know the facts...if not...

[Lacewing]

Design can be collaborative and collective and synchronistic... and maybe energetic. There does not need to be "a Designer".

You're misunderstanding your own language here. You speak of "design," but "design" is a word that implies a process of intention. Things are designed-for purposes. Things that are not "designed" are accidental, random, haphazard, circumstantial.

No, I'm not using the word (apparently) the way you are. A design can be in a snowflake. There is no intended purpose. It's just a design. A manifestation.

On the other hand, "collaborative, collective and synchronistic" are words implying multiple designers, working in an even more complicated interrelationship than a single designer. That hardly helps your case. It would rather tend to make you a Polytheist.

No, I am referring to natural relationships... attracting, repelling, growing, shrinking, etc. Why do you have to personify everything? SURELY, we (and our models) are not the center, nor the template, of all that is.

[Immanuel Can]

bastard

I fear I have done you a disservice: in your anger with me you have said something for which you must give account one day. I would not, for all the world, wish that upon you.

I will provoke you no further. I do not wish to add to that.

[Immanuel Can]

SURELY, we (and our models) are not the center, nor the template, of all that is.

Quite right. That would be to reverse the actual order. "Personhood" was a property of God long before it was that of any man or woman. We are the copy, He is the original.

[Lacewing]

"Personhood" was a property of God long before it was that of any man or woman. We are the copy, He is the original.

How do you know that?

[Immanuel Can]

"Personhood" was a property of God long before it was that of any man or woman. We are the copy, He is the original.

How do you know that?

Easily. If He is the First Cause of all things -- which conceptually, is what people mean when they call Him the Supreme Being or the One God -- then our positive identities are derivative from His supreme intelligence.

Of course, if you don't believe He exists, you are thrown back on guessing that our personalities are just another supremely improbable but hugely fortuitous way the atoms just happened to line up in a totally random universe.

Pick your version of the story. But of course, if "personality" is merely the random lining-up of a collocation of atoms, then being a "person" earns you no claim to respect, interest or dignity from the indifferent universe or other people. So that's a steep price to pay for holding onto the second story. Yet there's no reason you can't do it if you insist...

[Arising_uk]

Easily. If He is the First Cause of all things -- which conceptually, is what people mean when they call Him the Supreme Being or the One God -- then our positive identities are derivative from His supreme intelligence. ...

Not so, for this to be true you have to assume an interfering 'God'. You also have to assume that the purpose of the Universe is us?

... Of course, if you don't believe He exists, you are thrown back on guessing that our personalities are just another supremely improbable but hugely fortuitous way the atoms just happened to line up in a totally random universe. ...

No you're not, you can take the Spinozian 'God' or you could take Obvious Leo's 'Leibnizian' Universe or the Transhumanist Ancestor Sim or Zuse's Calculating Space as 'God', etc, etc, or if Kant is right there are and always will be endless metaphysic one could apply. It's also not 'improbable' given that the probability is evidently 1.

Pick your version of the story. But of course, if "personality" is merely the random lining-up of a collocation of atoms, then being a "person" earns you no claim to respect, interest or dignity from the indifferent universe or other people. So that's a steep price to pay for holding onto the second story. Yet there's no reason you can't do it if you insist...

Not so, you'd have to assume people are indifferent and they are obviously not with respect to each other.

[Arising_uk]

Quite right. That would be to reverse the actual order. "Personhood" was a property of God long before it was that of any man or woman. We are the copy, He is the original.

In what Universe is this 'personhood' expressed?

[Arising_uk]

I fear I have done you a disservice: in your anger with me you have said something for which you must give account one day. I would not, for all the world, wish that upon you.

I will provoke you no further. I do not wish to add to that.

I'll take my chances as the 'God' you describe is obviously a bastard.

In fact by your own scant definitions 'it' literally is one.

[uwot]

bastard

I fear I have done you a disservice: in your anger with me you have said something for which you must give account one day. I would not, for all the world, wish that upon you.

I will provoke you no further. I do not wish to add to that.

I'm really not angry and genuinely have no wish to spend eternity with people who think as you do, so do your worst. But if you have any faith in any version of the ontological argument, you might do me a great service in proving that it is sound.