GOD MAY BE A COLLECTION OF A PRIORI NONSENSE?

We are asking if the main religious claims are a priori false. A priori false means that you don't need experience or evidence or anything to know it is absurd/impossible and therefore untrue. You don’t need evidence or experience to tell you that a square circle is absurd. Or that the whole is lesser than the part.

God makes all things from nothing according to Christianity. This is creation. The doctrine then says that nature is kept in existence and therefore regulated by something bigger than itself. It is not a closed system as in that runs by itself without anything to do with a God. Without the notion of God creating all things in a miracle and being able to do miracles of a lesser nature even today God would be as unpopular as Zeus. Thinkers would lose interest and those who want miraculous salvation from a relentless world and death would lose interest too. God would be pointless.

Religion says that those who say miracles cannot happen for nature cannot do them are proven wrong simply if it is true that creation happened. This does not rule out miracles being impossible for other reasons.  They don't tell us that.  Miracles seeming to happen does not mean they are real.

When there may always have been something to turn into the universe, creation is not a certain idea or even necessary.

The miracles we are going to talk about are acts of creation after the big act, the big creation miracle.

A miracle is best not defined but shown by examples such as Jesus rising from the dead, or his being sinless and perfect or God telling him things.

A miracle could just be a miracle and there is nothing more to say. But in religious circles it means “supernatural evidence”. It's evidence that nature is not all there is. I will call that miracle-evidence. Miracle-evidence is an attempt to show the presence of the supernatural and/or give some spiritual message.

Religion limits it to the spiritual thing which is interesting. That they don’t want people getting messages telling them to kill the president for he is about to become a murderous dictator is telling. This sifting is not about truth or evidence or faith but ideology.

A leg appearing where a man had no leg before is a miracle. But nature going on after this as if he never lost his leg is not natural. Contrarian Christian CS Lewis says that when a miracle happens, nature just takes over again. Nature taking over implies the miracle should not happen and is like an interruption. It does not take over. If a man loses his leg it should be permanent. So his walking five minutes later or five hundred years later is still not natural. And also, how do you know that the miracle really is momentary? What if it only looks like nature has resumed and the miracle is mimicking nature? What if each second the man has his leg is a new miracle? Lewis is wrong.

In any case, there is no way to prove that nature is nature in the aftermath of the miracle. Lewis is too sure of himself. He should say, “A miracle is worked and then nature goes on or it seems to for what if the seeming continuation of nature is just part of the miracle?  If so it is not a continuation of nature.  You may find birds in a nest and say it is natural but what if some secret magic put them there?”

Attempts to define miracles by their relationship to nature are a priori nonsense for they stop you knowing what nature means. You are declaring that miracle evidence of something nature cannot do, so such a miracle is by definition a priori false.

Clearly all you should do is say there is a leg there now and nothing else. You cannot know how this affects nature. Yet knowing just that is what a miracle is supposed to be all about. The idea is that you understand nature and what nature cannot do in order to understand anything about miracles.

Miracles never define themselves. People report them and decide what they are though they can do nothing to show that it is natural but unexplainable/unexplained. You can substitute the word natural with paranormal or supernatural. They impose a definition on them and it is always the supernaturally unexplainable/unexplained. We don't impose a definition on anything else. We really let it describe itself what it is.

The definition is definitely a priori nonsense for it is not a definition but an interpretation. An imposed definition is not a definition at all.

Anyway for now we will treat miracle as if the definition does fit.

A miracle according to many philosophers - some of whom are on the Christian payroll - is not a priori false. A miracle that is a priori false would make no sense and be a contradiction and therefore it cannot be real. People often have a hidden premise, “Those miracles are absurd so if the evidence shows they have happened the evidence is fake.” This is wrong. The idea is that if something is a priori false then logically the evidence could say it is true. In the real world the evidence is fake but we are talking logic here. The evidence is irrelevant to showing a miracle is logical.

If a miracle is absurd then logically it can have excellent evidence. A miracle then is beyond evidence. Evidence and testimony have nothing to do with showing a miracle is logically possible.

You need some logical proof that when you are thinking of miracle you are not thinking of magic or some other absurdity. There is none. There is no help from evidence either. By calling it miracle, you show you may be thinking of rubbish and calling it miracle. It is only a word and we need you to know what you mean and mean what you say before we can do logic.

It follows then you don’t know if a miracle is logically possible or not in general. You don’t know if any specific claimed miracle is logically possible or not. You do know however that if a miracle is seen as evidence of the supernatural or some message from God then it is logically impossible.

Miracle-evidence is an oxymoron.

It is only a guess therefore to say a miracle is or is not a contradiction. To say a guess hints at, or is evidence for the supernatural is to contradict yourself. A guess cannot do that.  By definition it cannot.

To say, “I believe in a miracle” or “This miracle is believable”, is a priori false for all you can say is, “I can guess it is a miracle and I can guess that it is not or I can be neutral. It is really no more important than a drop of rain on my window pane.”

If something might be a contradiction and you don’t need it the way you need access to water then don’t make a fuss about believing it. Either don’t bother believing or ignore it.

If you define a miracle as just any event that shows nature is not doing what we would expect – eg a zombie coming out of the grave or a voice coming from the sky saying it is God’s voice that is a non-religious definition. Natural law refers to repeatable norms and is not law as such. That does not mean the norms can break.

You may say a miracle is the supernatural just acting on nature to raise it above its usual powers. This allegedly avoids the notion of anything suspending or breaking natural laws. Nature is not interfered with – something is just added in. Instead of having the notion, “Miracles are not naturally possible therefore they do not happen,” you have an equally biased and bad notion, “Miracles are not naturally possible but they do happen for something that is not part of nature is doing it.”

The game here is to say that natural laws speak only to natural events and that supernatural events are a different subject.  This is a trick to avoid seeing nature and supernatural as being in any way in conflict and to avoid starting to have doubts about nature being the norm.  God or some supernatural force is thought to become present in nature to influence the outcome of natural events.  It is adapting nature not violating it or making in doubtful.  But such a view would imply that the real miracles are discreet and miracles such as men returning from the dead really are just superstitious nonsense.  The more ostentatious the miracle the more likely it is nonsense.

If a miracle just happens then you end up saying, "It happened because miracles are possible and I know miracles are possible for this miracle shows it."  If a miracle is evidence-miracle it ends up being, "If a miracle as evidence is impossible then the evidence for it is wrong.  This miracle happens for the evidence is that it happened."  Any suggestion then that miracles which are just miracles and/or evidence-miracles can avoid the logical fallacy of begging the question is a priori false.  Miracles are a priori nonsense.

Speaking of miracle-evidence from now on, reports are rare. If real miracles like that happen they are even rarer. The fact remains that not every reliable report is right or correct. 

We must be careful that we don’t start saying that just because such a thing is rare that we need huge evidence for it. Rare is not enough. A natural rarity is one thing but a supernatural rarity is another and needs a different approach. What we say is that if we want to say it is supernatural then we must make an excellent case for showing that nature cannot do it. That would mean essentially hard evidence. We demand hard evidence in some things and this is one of them. If a reasonable attempt at finding something to be hard evidence is made then that is all we must ask for. As always, evidence must always be testing and questioning itself.

A miracle by definition should come with hard evidence and uphold it so any miracle that does not is just a priori nonsense.  Yet miracle evidence is nonsense.  The problem is the miracle is nonsense in the first place.

God has many definitions but one meaning is, "That which may tolerate evil but works against it in favour of the best good under the circumstances."

God supposedly makes all things 100%. This is another way of expressing that all things supposedly are called into being from nothing at all.

If God is good then evil is not a power but good failing to be what it should be for God cannot create evil. Evil still happens so God does not always stop it. The Christian religion says God who is goodness itself has done and is doing all he can about evil and yet it happens and can be hard to get rid of.

Evil is seen as something that feeds off good. A parasite can last forever. The thing it grows on being stronger does not mean it can under the circumstances do anything about it. Good being the default and evil the parasite does not necessarily mean the evil has to expire. Do you need to expunge the creature doing the evil then from existence? No. You need to get rid of the creature the evil feeds on no matter if the creature is responsible for it or not. Thus clean A will survive and dirty A will be destroyed. If you want a God who is a threat to those who are a deliberate threat to others then think again.

The idea of evil being tolerated by a God who has the power to destroy it or stop it assumes God is making sure it will fade away. So he is destroying it but gradually. He is regarded as right to tolerate it for it is not going to last. That idea is behind the Christian notion that Jesus saves us from evil by his sacrifice on the cross.

The way things happen is the bad takes time to get rid of.  It does not make sense to say it is okay for God to get rid of evil gradually instead of in a sweep.  It is like, "Evil fades gradually through the power of God therefore God should not get rid of evil at one go."  This is a fallacy where you look at how things are and say that means they morally should be that way.  It is an evil desperate argument itself.  It is proof that defending God cannot be done without acquiescing in some way with evil.

Nobody explains how good overcomes evil or weakens it. In reality, evil is always fought with another evil. Piety seeks to cover that up and paint a lovely picture.

Evil is tolerable for it is self-destructive thanks to God. But that is only an assumption. It is as likely to be right as it is wrong. And when you think of how one evil fights the other it clearly is wrong.

Either way, by the definition of God we have given, God is a priori nonsense. What is wrong with it? It is begging the question. “God is that which tolerates evil for he is making sure it will fail and as evil is tolerable God may exist.” God is assumed to be that which tolerates evil and therefore he may logically exist for evil is tolerable. That is not an argument. It is an assumption lying that it is a proof and trying to fake proof is the lowest form of lying there is. It attacks certainty and people’s right to access to certainty if it is there.

Religion says pure evil, evil as a power, is an impossibility. It defines evil as a non-thing – it is just a good that is not there and should be there. Logic cannot show that its rejection of pure evil is logical. There is something vague about evil – something hard to define satisfactorily therefore pure evil cannot be refuted by logic. Religion says that as evil is anti-reality then the more something is evil the less real it is. This does not make any sense. It means a Satan who does not exist is worse than one who does. Evil provokes fear so how could this non-Satan be evil for he is not there so there is nothing to fear?

Logic only refutes that which is clear and what is a clear true or false matter. This bizarre idea of evil is certainly torn apart by logic. It is clearly an attempt to protect evil by getting you to target the wrong thing and condemn it as evil.

If you look around you, you see that God cannot and does not stop evil coming back or reproducing or growing or changing. Religion says he can but he cannot under the circumstances.

Anyway pure evil that pretends to be good or just a lack of good would be the most dangerous form and nothing is done about it. You then are taking an evil risk by saying evil is not real or a lack of good. The idea of a God asking you to think that of evil means God is evil.

An all-good God then is a priori false.

Logic struggles with what evil is. You really need to know what it is by experiencing it and not only it but all the evil that imaginably will ever happen or has happened. Then you can think of what it is saying and what it is implying. Then you know how to think about it. Instead of a logical premise the experience gives you the premise. A premise has to mean something and evil is an example of something that you really need to experience in its full force. That is impossible which means that anybody talking about evil is really just talking about something they do not understand. They have to be watering it down so the evil is really a straw man.

Religion saying evil is a mere lack sounds thin when it talks as if evil has an intelligence of its own and a mind of its own. Religion does not really believe what it says.

Arguments for God are not really arguments at all for God for arguing about evil comes into it.

They serve to show the incoherence of the God idea. God is a priori false.

The idea of God presupposes that logic, a thing being a and not non-a, is to be discovered. You don't create logic. You discover it and use it. God is logic for being the absolute that means there is no law that he is subject to. He is the law. It is similar to why religion says that God is not ruled by morality but is morality. Atheism presupposes that logic is to be discovered too. God is not logic for God is not necessary to uphold logic. Logic is higher than us. We discover it but we cannot change it. But that does not mean there is a God.

If you try to ground logic in something that is a priori false or illogical that is trying to keep up the trappings of logic while opposing logic. God is a threat to logic.

We can err in what we think is logical. So doing anything to harm logic is a sin if there is a God for sin means whatever despises his will and command. Logic is not morality but you cannot violate it without violating morality. So grounding logic in God backfires if God is an incoherent idea.

If God is logic then we find God even if we don’t realise it when we find logic but it is obvious that we do not find God.

Christian logic says that God can be and is more than one person. They are assuming God must be love and they cannot see how a God who does not have to create anything can be love for he cannot be a relationship God if he is on his own. They say then that God is one being and there are three persons in God who love each other. So God then can be summed up as the perfect relationship. This however makes no sense. It is illogical for they get vague on what person means in respect to God being three and what being means. So a God has to be relationship but he does not need his creatures to have a relationship. But this makes no sense for it implies that God is more than one “person” and only real separate persons can have a relationship. Three cannot add up to one.

FINALLY – God is supposed to reflect and uphold logic. The God idea is incoherent in terms of how it messes up the meaning of evil. The idea is also deceptive for the essence of lying is trying to harm the truth for some short-term gain.  The truth would matter so much that it is best to do without the convenience of a lie. Miracles as in evidence of a spiritual message being true or the presence of something above nature are a priori nonsense. God if he is love is a relationship God which means he has to supernaturally, ie miraculously connect with you, even if it is just inside your soul or heart.  That miracle would matter more than any other so what would he need us to believe he raised Jesus for?  Having no sense that this internal miracle is being offered would disprove miracles.

There are other problems but it is certain: God is absolutely disproven.