I Got Hit On The Battleground God
Battleground God says that there are three contradictions in my views about God. Of course I don't believe my views are contradictory. Here are the alleged contradictions:
First, I accepted both of the following as true:
4. Any being which it is right to call God must want there to be as little suffering in the word as is possible.
12. If God exists she could make it so that everything now considered sinful becomes morally acceptable and everything that is now considered morally good becomes sinful.
Is this a contradiction? I'm not quite sure whether (12) is an indicative or a subjunctive conditional, but I think if it was subjunctive it would have to go "If God existed ..." or "If God would exist ...". So I think it's meant to be indicative (in the sense of "If God exists, then it is the case that: She could ..."). Like most people, I find it difficult to evaluate indicative conditionals with false antecedents, but at least for today I felt like embracing the Grice-Jackson-Lewis view that they are true. The website complained that I "say that God could make it so that everything now considered sinful becomes morally acceptable". But that's not what I said!
Then I agreed to these statements:
10. If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist.
14. As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality.
What's wrong with that? Apparently
The contradiction is that on the first ocassion (Loch Ness monster) you agreed that the absence of evidence or argument is enough to rationally justify belief in the non-existence of the Loch Ness monster, but on this occasion (God), you do not.
But I think that the absence of evidence and argument that would support the existence of the Loch Ness monster despite years of trying actually is rather compelling evidence for the non-existence of the monster! If you say that there is a hippopotamus in this room but despite years of searching (actually, minutes would suffice) we just can't find a trace of it, this is very good evidence that there is no hippopotamus in here. What else could you ask for?
Finally, I claimed that
3. Any being which it is right to call God must be free to do anything.
5. Any being which it is right to call God must have the power to do anything.
but, having learned that the website wants me to read statements like the following as subjunctive, I denied that
16. If God exists she could create square circles and make 1 + 1 = 72.
The site argues that from this it follows that "God ... does not have the freedom and power to do literally anything". This clearly doesn't follow because it presupposes that God exists, but agreeing to (3), (5) and the subjunctive reading of (16) doesn't commit me to the existence of God. I guess what is supposed to be the problem is that (16) commits me to the view that if God would exist, he would not have the freedom and power to do literally anything. Together with (3) and (5) this would imply that God is impossible, which I don't believe is inconsistent. But anyway, I do believe that God is possible. The reason why I deny that God could create square circles is that "God creates square circles" is inconsistent, and I don't believe any inconsistent proposition could possibly be true. So whatever somebody does, it is false to describe it as "creating square circles". Likewise, whatever some possible being could do, it is false to describe it as "creating square circles". In particular, if some possible being could do anything, it would still be false to describe any of things she could do as "creating square circles".