"You acknowledge your inability to know the best course of events and yet stipulate what the best course of events would be?"
Perhaps I should have been more clear: I cannot conceive of the specific timeline of a "perfect" Universe, but I can broadly describe its nature (as above) by extrapolating from moral concepts. It's similar, if I may present an analogy, to extrapolating the characteristics of the concept of infinity; one can do it, in extremely general terms, but it, as a concept, is inherently alien to our reality, and is thus incapable of comprehension.
"Further, my view of a creator is not that of an overbearing tyrant that feels the need to control everything."
As previously stated, this discussion specifically concerns Monotheistic theology, which does indeed present the concept of God as being an active agent in the world.
"I imagine that a God, if/when taking any action on his creation at all, would merely gently guide people."
Sounds like a derivative of Deism, and, if God does indeed exist, that would be the belief set most consistent with observable reality.
"Firstly, you assume that omnipotence makes impossible events possible."
It does, by the very definition of the term.
"In addition, if suffering didn't exist but pleasure still had significance, we cannot even imagine such a reality. Since we cannot even imagine such a reality how are we to compare and contrast it with our current reality?"
To reiterate, I'm not discussing specific possible events; the only comparison I'm making between the two is in terms of morality, and even then the only relevance this possesses to my argument is which one's greater in terms of morality and fortune.
"Dictated? So you don't believe in free will at all? Obviously as a psychologist I am aware that there are environmental, genetic, social etc. influences on behavior but taking a stance of pure determinism requires belief."
I'm simply referring to the physical nature of the human psyche. Obviously people act of their own volition, but their will, which is not random in nature, is continually formed and influenced by a variety of factors, the nature of which I'm sure you're far more familiar with than I am. Of course, that means anyone could theoretically do anything, but that doesn't follow along the lines of reality; for example, I could theoretically attempt to execute a bank heist right now, rather than writing this post, but I possess no will to do so (in this case, my moral nature prohibits it), so I won't.
"If one accepts free will (admittedly also unprovable), however, one can see that God has no responsibility for the actions of his creations."
Assuming that reality is fundamentally regular in nature, which it must be (for reasons I'd be quite happy to elaborate on in another post), it follows that God created the Universe with exact knowledge of the repercussions of its actions. Rejecting God's responsibility for the outcome of these actions is, to reiterate from my previous post, morally analogous to blaming the firearm for the murder, since it didn't stop the murderer from firing it.
"Atheism certainly isn't a lack of a worldview, everybody has a worldview. One could be an agnostic atheist and not hold any belief on the existence or non-existence of God, however they would still hold a worldview."
In what context? I must admit, I'm somewhat confused as to your meaning of the term "worldview".
"Moreover, in your statement that "theism is inherently self-contradictory", you are demonstrating atheism in a non-agnostic manner. In other words, your assertion implies you don't believe a God is even possible, rather than simply lacking a belief that one exists."
My original post specifically condemned the idea of a Theistic God. If Theism were the only belief set in which God could exist, then yes, that would be the case.
"Just so you know, I used to be a Christian, then became a militant atheist, then an agnostic atheist and now I'm theistic."
I'm sure there's quite a story there.
Or, given the specificity and regularity of these downvotes (near-simultaneous, exactly the same in number, and all targeting exclusively my posts that contradict yours), the only rational conclusion is that you abused multiple accounts to downvote my posts, presumably to compensate for your arguments' inability to hold water.
Failing to hold a particular position on a given issue does not imply one takes the opposite stance on said issue. Atheism, the term literally meaning "lack of Theism", is a failure to take a position on the existence of God. Disbelief in God's existence (a definite claim that shares the burden of proof) is properly called "Antitheism", being the direct opposite to Theism.
This is something of a long-winded manner of describing a simple set of two dichotomies: regarding a given issue, one either takes a position on that issue, or doesn't. In the former case (this dichotomy is a subset of that option), one either takes a positive stance on the issue in question, or takes a negative stance. But a prerequisite to the latter dichotomy is that one takes a position on a given issue to begin with, which Atheism explicitly denies.
Other than several posts (exclusively those rebutting yours, interestingly) all receiving exactly five downvotes near-simultaneously? Seems legit.
"You simply need to make logical assessments and claims that make sense."
Do you have any specific examples, or are you going to follow along the lines of Dermot-style argumentation, and simply claim my fallaciousness with no basis?
""An omnipotent god must choose a 'moral path' according to me" is as bad of an argument as is possible"
Fortunately, I've not made that argument, as I've explicitly and repeatedly stated.
"Everytime someone demonstrates that you are a pseudo-intellectual, you ban"
If that we're the case, everyone taking the "I disagree" position in this debate would be banned. As you are the only person banned from this discussion, it follows that your statement is wholly false, like your other statements, but this one is by far the most blatantly inconsistent with reality, and as such is worth responding to.
You're right; there's just no recovering from a mortal blow like this.
Perhaps I should have been more clear; the initial assumptions and context of the terms used (specifically "Morality" and "God") were derived from Monotheistic theology. Of course, without a "holy book" to go by, the concept of "God" becomes far less concrete, and therefore more inclusive of characteristics like the absence of omniscience or omnipotence.
"I notice that, not only are you capitalising random words"
I'm not sure that proper nouns and indications of Monotheism over Polytheism (as is the case with "Deity") constitute "random words".
"after it was explained to you very precisely,"
That you say that both as if it's true and that it wasn't you engaging in said "explanation" is, I must admit, quite amusing.
"unaware that part of having debates is acknowledging when your argument is wrong."
I'd be happy to do so, if you could prove it in a rational, rather than baseless, manner.
"A man who cannot admit error is a man who cannot learn."
I'm sure you know all about that.
"This probably explains why all your posts are thin on reason"
Other than the fact that my accusations are pointed, you have yet to make any specific accusation against my reasoning, and the majority of my original post consisted of categorical extrapolations?
"You can find synonyms easily through Google."
Or through reading for years, as I have. Call me an elitist, but I'm of the opinion that eloquence derived solely from third-party resources is meaningless.
"Reason however is a bit more difficult to come by. You can't fake that."
That certainly doesn't stop you from attempting to do so, does it?
I must say, I find it quite amusing that all of my rebuttals to your statements in this debate magically received exactly five downvotes. That you're abusing this platform's features to decrease the apparent intellectual value of your opponent's position belies the invalidity of yours.
"First of all, I have no idea how any human with such a small amount of information and such limited ability to process said information is making such a claim. (Please note I'd describe myself as such too) How would you know what the "best" reality would look like? It's like how a child only wants to eat sweets and ice cream for every meal: they don't know what's best for them and neither do we."
I don't possess this information, and I didn't claim to. I can, however, logically extrapolate from given information; the "best" possible course of events, being set up by an omnipotent, omniscient Deity must be universally perfect, and therefore homogeneous in terms of morality and fortune of outcome. As history does not follow along these lines, it follows that these assumptions are inaccurate.
"Evil, immorality and misfortune are all necessary phenomena."
We're talking about an omnipotent, omniscient entity here. If suffering is an immutably necessary prerequisite to our existence, it follows that God is not, in fact, omnipotent. If it was, it would, by definition be capable of creating reality in a manner that did not require suffering, in which case its existence is deliberate, thus tying into my original point.
"Finally, one must realize that if life has free-will then things can never be perfect."
This follows along the lines of the prior argument. Further, "free will" does not abdicate God of responsibility for the effects of its actions; our actions are dictated by our genetic predispositions, coupled with environmental circumstances, both of which God orchestrated with full knowledge of their implications. Denying this is intellectually analogous to abdicating a murderer of responsibility for their actions because the firearm they used to commit the act didn't refuse to fire, despite having ample opportunity to do so. Sure, it could, but that course of action would be contrary to its inherent nature (in this case, being an inanimate object, rather than thought based on the aforementioned parameters). It's simply asinine.
"However I think when you realized your worldview was incomplete you latched onto another incorrect worldview simply because it incorporated the dissonant piece of information: the existence of suffering."
Atheism (when using the term accurately, as is so often not the case nowadays) is, by definition, a lack of a worldview. To what are you referring, then?
