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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 9:31 am
It's more an amusing observation that can be used to bring levity to a discussion regarding peoples beliefs than a statement of absolute truth, for sure.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 9:34 am
(July 13, 2011 at 3:37 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Omnipotence =/= omniscience =/= loving
God = omnipotence + omniscience + loving (etc)
To sum up all of God's attributes into one label... God = positive force
I used to generally fail whenever I made up my own answers in mathematics.
Maybe equations weren't really my thing...
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 12:06 pm
(This post was last modified: July 13, 2011 at 12:21 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(July 13, 2011 at 9:20 am)theVOID Wrote: If the theists want to remove the 'god has a plan' concept from God then I've won, they have to concede that God didn't create a universe to meet criteria, he just did it arbitrarily and happened to end up with humans, if that is the case then such a God is a worse explanation than chance.
In that case it would be an exhibition of nauseating self-debasement in the name of wish thinking to worship such a god even if he exists.
(July 13, 2011 at 9:34 am)Napoleon Wrote: (July 13, 2011 at 3:37 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Omnipotence =/= omniscience =/= loving
God = omnipotence + omniscience + loving (etc)
To sum up all of God's attributes into one label... God = positive force
I used to generally fail whenever I made up my own answers in mathematics.
Maybe equations weren't really my thing...
Actually, a omnipotent being must be able to change that which omniscience had allowed him to unerringly know. So:
omnipotence =~omniscience, omnipotence + omniscience = nonsense, nonsense + love = fuzzier nonsense, nonsense + vengefulness = bluffing nonsense, nonsense + anything = wordier nonsense.
To sum up.... God = Lacking coherent meaning, made fuzzier for easier distribution to emotionally needy, associated with a bluff to better overawe the timid, and attached to other ad hoc attributes to allow Christians and Muslims feel special in a good way when they are special only in the most discreditable way.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Yes VOID I cringe when using the term 'attribute' as it doesn't fit. I was hoping you'd see past that tho', as that was the term you were using.
I think you're being too simplistic. For example, trying to force the statement 'God is love' to mean 'God is exclusively love' (as does Plato), isn't honestly addressing the problem as presented. Likewise the elimination of a plan. All we have in Genesis is a functional ontology that sets God as arranger and ongoing controller of the cosmos. It would contradict the basis of Christianity to deny the plan.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 2:14 pm
(This post was last modified: July 13, 2011 at 2:47 pm by Anomalocaris.)
If god is not exclusively love, then god is complex. Hope you can see pass the bull to this. If you were to see past this, you might find even if god is just exclusively one concept, naming that concept with one word does not reduce the complexity the concept must embody so as to become a thing the worshipping of which and prayer to which isn't just a complete waste of time. The thing must embody an enormous amount of highly organized information before worshipping it can Even in theory produce anything more than psychosomatic results. But that's just to empower it understand and grant prayer you might conceive to make with your limited and timid mind. A mafia don who has browbeaten you can do that.
If the concept of omniscience were to have any meaning, then the thing most embody an amount of information equal to or, if it has a plan for the universe which can not materialize without its intervention, greater than to all the information which exists of the universe. In other words, it must be as or more complex, and therefore as or more improbable, than all other things combined.
So if something happened, but whatever the magnitude of it's improbability without god, the magnitude of improbability of there having been a god to guide it's occurrence must be at least as great, if that's the only thing god ever did, or greater still, if god is said to have done a whole lot of other things as well.
So rather then saying god is complex, we might say god can't be used to address complexity paradox. A universe with a god that can make improbable thing happen is less probable than an improbable thing happening by itself without god.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 3:18 pm
(July 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm)theVOID Wrote:
What does divine simplicity address? Material origins of the cosmos? A point of first cause? Are we talking about the primordeal soup at the beginning of the cosmos? Do we have to insist on a linear God to put him at the beginning? What about the God that 'just is'? How does timelessness fit together with complexity/ simplicity?
(July 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm)theVOID Wrote:
Indeed correct.
(July 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm)theVOID Wrote:
I don't see the original information as the actual word of God. That would be Allah and Islam. I see that information as people discerning the nature of God. What can simply defined as positive force disseminates into miriad conclusions and propositions aimed at that simple goal.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 3:54 pm
If "god" were simple, there would only be one religion, and people could explain it.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I always thought god was so irreducibly simple it didn't even suffer the conplication of existence.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 6:26 pm
(July 13, 2011 at 3:18 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: What does divine simplicity address? Material origins of the cosmos? A point of first cause? Are we talking about the primordeal soup at the beginning of the cosmos? Do we have to insist on a linear God to put him at the beginning? What about the God that 'just is'? How does timelessness fit together with complexity/ simplicity?
Sounds like attributes to me, which once again ain't simple.
Divine simplicity, as your link suggests, regards the characterization, nature of God as being mapped to null or X, where null is simply nothing, making a tautology, and X is some fuzzy singular concept that is not a combination of any other set of components.
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RE: The Christian God is NOT simple.
July 13, 2011 at 6:32 pm
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