Talk:Atheism/Archive 3

Conjecture on the non-existence of a God

My belief is, supposing for one minute, that there is an omniscient being, that at any one point in time, that being would know the exact position and properties of all matter, anti-matter, energy, etc. From this complete map of the universe, and using his/her ultimate knowledge, a God could predict how all matter, anti-matter, energy, etc would interact with each other, therefore predicting their exact position and properties for the next instance in time. Through this method, any omniscient being could know all that has happened and all that will happen. Therefore, when this God created the universe, he/she would know the exact consequences of placing everything where it was placed and, also, how to alter said placing to result in alternate outcomes. Therefore, no God could give free will, only the illusion of it.

Thank you

Dated January 2, 2002 by User:212.2.189.xxx

Ah, but matter doesn't exist at exact positions. :)

Dated January 18, 2002 by User:Dan

Larry removed something from first paragraph

I removed the following from the first paragraph of the article:

Among theists, the term means either a belief that no god exists or a belief in a god which is not their own. For example, most Christians and Jews use this term to refer to the belief that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God of Abraham (as described in the Old Testament of the Bible) does not exist, whereas early Christians were called atheists by the Romans.

I have never heard of "atheism" being used by, e.g., a Christian to describe, e.g., a Muslim, just because the Muslim does not belief in the Christian God. I'd like to see evidence of this claim. It could be wrong, I suppose, but I'd be a bit surprised. Where, for example, is the word (the cognate in Latin?) used by Romans to describe early Christians? --LMS

Of course, if I am wrong, the text should be put back into the article. But even then the example or evidence would help quite a bit.

The OED would be nice to consult, by the way. For now, there's this: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=atheism which only gives the weakest support to those of you who are maintaining that lack of belief in God can constitute atheism. --LMS

Bad example, Larry: Muslims do believe in the Christian God; Allah is the God of Abraham, the same individual, personal God the Christians believe in. But I can imagine a Christian calling, say, a Zoroastrian or Pagan "atheist". I would consider such a usage incorrect, but having grown up among southern Baptists such a usage wouldn't surprize me at all. I don't know how common the usage is in the real world. --LDC (Dated January 18, 2002 by User:Lee Daniel Crocker)

Ah, but the Muslim doesn't exist in the Christian God, if we stipulate that the latter is the Trinity. --LMS (who had pizza with LDC last night after the talk !)