On erroneous assumptions and subjective definitions

JVH:
Christians consider the existence of their God to be an obvious truth that no sane man could deny.

Not quite.
I dont deny some Christians share this view but certainly not all of them, nor even a majority of them.
Many feel that their faith carries with it the weight of tradition and culture (much as Jews feel about their own religion).
Others believe in a very personal revelation that every human reaches a point in his/her life in which God reveals Himself to them.
Some believe in a God who has created ex nihilo, others in a God that uses the very natural phenomenons He set in motion to shape the Universe around us.
Some believe in a literal scripture penned by God's own hand, others believe in a wok penned by the hand of man but influenced by God.

I could go on but I think you get my point. There are a plethora and breadth of subtle variation to many themes of Chrostian belief.

To make such a sweeping generalisation as that about a supposed Christian worldview is as inaccurate and as arrogant an attitude as that with which you implicitly charge Christians.

JVH:
I strongly disagree with this assumption.

As I would strongly disagree with it being an accurate representation of the Christian worldview.

JVH:
not only because evidence for the existence of this presumably ubiquitous yet invisible God is lacking.

How does one provide proof for the existence or, indeed non-existence of an unquantifiable?

JVH:
the very nature Christians attribute to this God is self-contradictory.

Lets see if you prove this?

JVH:
It is taken for granted by Christians, as well as many atheists, that a universal negative cannot be proven. In this case, that universal negative is the statement that the Christian God does not exist.

JVH:
One would have to have omniscience, they say, in order to prove that anything does not exist.

No that does not follow.

I can mathematically prove that this planet does not have two moons say. Or I can prove that this planet is round rather than flat. Or I can prove that it goes around the Sun rather than visa versa.

This is because there exist quantifiable data to dispute the beliefs of an immovable, flat Earth or a geocentric solar system.

JVH:
I disagree with this position, however, because omniscience is not needed in order to prove that a thing whose nature is a self-contradiction cannot, and therefore does not exist.

What IS needed is quantifiable data.

You can only prove that a contradiction exists if you can prove that your assumptions about its nature are correct.

JVH:
I do not need a complete knowledge of the universe to prove to you that cubic spheres do not exist.

Because such a thing is an oxymoron disproved by the very definition of the juxtaposed terms used.

JVH:
Such objects have mutually-exclusive attributes which would render their existence impossible.

In other words, there exists quantifiable data on said objects.

Care to show me the quantifiable data on God?

JVH:
It is my intent to show that the supposed properties of the Christian God Yahweh, like those of a cubic sphere, are incompatible, and by so doing, to show Yahweh's existence to be an impossibility.

I suspect that YOU have decided which properties describe the Judeo-Christian God (Yahweh) rather than settled on a universally agreed-upon set of parameters.
The latter, of course, does not exist, since such parameters are subjective rather than objective.

JVH:
Christians have endowed their God with all of the following attributes:
He is eternal
all-powerful (omnipotent)
and created everything.

Partially correct....though of course the term 'created' is itself a term which carries no definitive meaning and depends entirely upon a the subjective theology of specific Christian traditions.

JVH:
He created all the laws of nature and can change anything by an act of will.

That is the general understanding of the term omnipotent.

JVH:
He is all-good, all-loving, and perfectly just.

Correct again so far.

JVH:
He is a personal God who experiences all of the emotions a human does.

First unsupported assumption.

On what exactly do you base this on?

That God can understand such human emotions is correct.
That He EXPERIENCES them is another statement entirely since that would mean that God Himself were capable of evil.

Such an assumption would fly in the face of the Chrostian belief that God is all-Good.

Christian theology does not support this.

JVH:
He is all-knowing. He sees everything past and future.

Omniscience yes.

JVH:
God's creation was originally perfect, but humans, by disobeying him, brought imperfection into the world.

Not quite.
This is a belief based, in part, on a literal reading of Genesis 1.

Most Christian theology admits to the allegorical nature of Genesis. The world COULD be perfect IF humans did not choose selfishly. However God gives us freedom of will and thus we have the capacity to choose to do good (selflessness) or evil (selfishness).
Humanity's choices have created the world we live in today.


JVH:
Humans are evil and sinful, and must suffer in this world because of their sinfulness.

Not quite.
Humans have the CAPACITY to do either good or evil it is their choice. Such choices carry with them their consequences in this world and the next.

JVH:
God gives humans the opportunity to accept forgiveness for their sin, and all who do will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven, but while they are on earth, they must suffer for his sake.

Again inaccurate.
Humans have the choice to be REMORSEFUL and PENITENT for their sins.
Those who are truly so will indeed have Gods forgiveness.
The Earth is a place of transition and by our choices we make of it a place to do His will (goodness & selflessness) or our own (selfishness & evil) and must accept all that flows from those choices.

JVH:
All humans who choose not to accept this forgiveness must go to hell and be tormented for eternity.

Inaccurate again.
The forgiveness of God is not based on any parameter except the sincerity of our remorse and penitence for our sins.
If we choose to separate ourselves from Him through denial of our sins then, once again, it is OUR choice and not His.
Nor does God place a limit on repentance and forgiveness to this world alone. Eternal torment is NOT a universal Christian belief.

JVH:
One Bible verse which Christians are fond of quoting says that atheists are fools.

Which particular Bible verse do you mean? You seem to have strategically neglected to quote it?

Given that even today arguments persist about defining atheism either as an assertion in its own right or merely the absence of one, I find it amusing that you are construing an attack on modern atheism from a verse written 2000 years ago,

Certainly the term we use today atheism (one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God) is very different in context to the original Greek atheos used in the Bible, which implies impiety and a rejection of what God stands for (in this case a person who is selfish evil).


JVH:
I intend to show that the above concepts of God are completely incompatible and so reveal the impossibility of all of them being true. Who is the fool? The fool is the one who believes impossible things and calls them divine mysteries.

The problem here is that your premises are themselves inaccurate (as I have pointed out).
You have created a straw man which, when you pull it apart is supposed to illustrate your contention that the Christian God is impossible.

I will accept your implicit challenge and answer the body of your essay in my next post.


Cheers