Notes

"Hideness Of God"
- Pascal "Evidence not too vague but not too obvious".
- Circular reasoning where you begin by declaring atheism true, the evidence for theism false and that there is no evidence and thereby a hidden God.
- Pew research research and survey concluded that 49% of Americans have experienced some mystical or religious experience. (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2009/12/29/mystical-experiences/)
- Who defines what constitutes as evidence? Keith Parsons in his debate with WLC said that even if God physically reveals himself then he would doubt it and call it a hallucination or a simulation. On the other hand, St basil said that the best evidence he has for the existence of God is the peace he finds at Church and the calmness he receives at church as well as how much scriptures conform to reality. An Arab woman was asked what her evidence of God was and she replied that the baby camel indicates a mother camel, the footprints in the sand indicate a traveler, do not the heavens and the earth indicate the omniscient expert. So who decides what's sufficient evidence?


"Problem of Evil"
- Moral evil is resolved by free will. If God did stop every single murder, theft, robbery, rape and so on. What is the point If God created the world with everybody good, no freewill and no ability to sin or cause moral evil, what is the point of the divine test if everybody must pass and no one can fail? Why even call it a test? It is much like a professor giving a test yet fixing all the wrong answers before collecting the test.

- Hundreds of natural evil theodicies
- Earthquakes, tsunamis and others are all morally-neutral i.e. it is not good or evil, right or wrong that the ground shakes.
- Ecological Equilibrium and balance between the members of species is necessary and is sustained by the necessary natural evil of prey and predators. There must be predators and preys in order to maintain ecological equilibrium in the environment.

Augustine's Theodicy: Evil is not a thing for naturalists. Naturalists can not say that anything is right or wrong. Good or evil. The objective morality argument. If good and bad, right and wrong are subjective, why is any "evil" or "suffering" brought about by natural disasters "bad"?

Aquinas' theodicy: Events that are essential and necessary to our survival have natural evil as a byproduct. If those events that accidentally cause natural evil as a byproduct did not exist, we would not exist because they are essential to our survival. Volcanoes are necessary to vent pressure that builds up under the crust of the Earth or else the Earth would explode from all the pressure.

"Theism is less parsimonious"

In order for one theory to be less parsimonious than another, it must first be able to explain all the data and then make less assumptions than competing theories.

Some of the data that prove the existence of God and that theism explains while naturalism can not explain are:
- The beginning of the entirety of the natural world (multiverse, n-branes, etc.) in the kalam argument can not have a natural cause because self-creation is impossible so it must have a supernatural creator
- The contingency of the universe in the contingency argument which must be explained by a necessary spaceless timeless immaterial cause can not have a natural cause because the universe is contingent not necessary.
- Fine-tuning of the natural world
- Objective morality
- The reliability of reason
- Religious experiences
- The possibility of a maximally great being entails that it must exist.
- The fact of motus in the motion argument of Aquinas entails a spaceless timeless being. Since the natural world has space and time, that being must transcend the natural world, namely be supernatural.


"God of the gaps"
- At best an argument against some religions with "storm God" and the "thunder God" and the "lighting God"
- Circular reasoning since it begins with the presumption that atheism is true then God does not exist then there can be no supernatural explanations then all explanations must be natural.
- There has never been a single argument or proof for the existence of God that has a premise called "well we do not know" therefore God exists or "we have a gap in our scientific knowledge so God exists" simply because all (except one, the fine tuning) arguments for the existence of God are philosophical arguments that could not be accused of filling gaps in science. It is like saying that abiogenesis just fills in gaps in our mathematical knowledge or that the Pythagorean theorem fills in gaps of our biological knoweldge. It is just an incoherent statement.

"Evolution"
- The only time efficiency ever matters to a being is when that entity is limited in resources but God an infinite omnipotent being is not and can not be limited in resources.
-Catholic Church accepts evolution.
- Evolutionary argument for the existence of God. Barrow and Tipler (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHQsaiMcPLc)
P1) Evolution happened
P2) Evolution can either happen non-naturally (supernaturally) or naturally. [Follows by the law of excluded middle]
P3) Evolution can not happen naturally. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHQsaiMcPLc)
Conclusion: Evolution had a supernatural cause or in other words there is a supernatural creator of the diversity of life.

"Universe is hostile to life"
- Affirming the consequent fallacy.
- The only time efficiency ever matters to a being is when that entity is limited in resources but God an infinite omnipotent being is not and can not be limited in resources.
- The rest of space is useless but merely for us to wonder on about and reflect upon God's glory
- I feel like that Atheists would also object if God created a small universe and they would start calling into question God's omnipotence by asking "If God is omnipotent, why did he not create a big universe for us to marvel at his power and glory"?

"Why would God create people he knew would go to hell"
- Free will.
- These people actively chose to sin and to not worship God so they can not be reuntied with a wholly good and perfect God free of sin.
- If God created the world with everybody good, no freewill and no ability to sin, what is the point of the divine test if everybody must pass and no one can fail? Why even call it a test?

"Why Would not God reveal himself as of now"
- It would disturb the divine test because now everyone would have evidence and would all stop sinning and worshiping God.
-Why give a test and then directly give the answers? It would be the equivalent of a professor giving out a test then putting the answer key on the board while you are writing.


"Rational non-believers"
- There are rational flat-earthers
- There are rational creationists
- There are rational geocentrists

"Why did God stop sending prophets"
- Prophets were sent when the followers of God would start worshiping other Gods or when they start not worshiping God or when they start messing up on a lot of practices and worship.
- That is not happening anymore because the followers of my religion are still worshiping God and definitely did not Go and worship other gods.