Hey VOID. I was merely referencing the page for you as I thought you still didn't understand it. No need for me to summerise or repeat what is stated there, it's quite succinct enough. ie you've made the same argument before and some of us pointed out that you should perhaps bone up on the concept if you're interested. To spell it out again... Christians don't see growing complexity but instead simplicity.

You're approaching the subject from a material perspective, which is great and commendable, but this is never addressed in historical beliefs of the ancient middle east. A problem arises when we try to shoehorn ideas of material origins onto metaphysical propositions. Either side steps outside of it's remit commenting upon the other.

Unless you address the propositions of divine simplicity put forward by the likes of Aquinas, then to state the counter to that seems like an empty statement. You're starting a crit of something you're unwilling to address it seems.

"The plan" isn't an attribute, no. Is what is resultant from God. Those things aren't God, but of God as they came from him. I won't go into that any further, because it's Aquinas again, and I really think you need to address his points.

The evidence line - well you've been presented countless times with what constitues evidence, so I'll assume your comments here to be disingenuous.

(July 11, 2011 at 10:02 pm)theVOID Wrote: Just a recent thought, the start of an argument .......

For christians so long as "god" is insisted to be the conclusion , any words that can be strung together is good enough to form the "argument", unless even to them the combination appear so stupid as to threaten to make their god the butt of common jokes by people they try to convert. But since they themselves make it a principle to embrace stupidity with a will, relatively few arguments can appear to them to be that stupid, therefore most combination of words that can be strung together will suffice in their eyes as "argument". This is why they think the rambling of "divine simplicit", which amounts to "god is true because they would not admit to god needing to satisfy any condition to be true", is something deserving of answer. But in fact one does not need to answer every squeal by each pig, nor any squeal of any pig for that matter, to propose an argument suitable for men.

To continue with the arguments:

A)
1. God is immortal and omnipotent.
2. God cannot kill himself.
3. Therefore God is not omnipotent.

B)
1. God is immortal and omnipotent.
2. God can kill himself.
3. Therefore God is not immortal.

The concept of God is not complex, its all just nonsense.

(July 12, 2011 at 4:13 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Divine simplicity again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simp...an_thought

The entire concept of divine simplicity is a tautological circle jerk and you know it.

Using object oriented paradigms, too little sleep...

Let null be simply nothing, so God is <null> means 'God is'.
Let inheritance of things preserve and extend their parent object.

Example:
Question: What is god?
Proposition from 'Divine Simplicity': God is <something or null>, not made out of composites.


1. What is <something>?
-> Gain <explanation> from/developed in a material world by a material being (Us thinking beings if you will).
--> <explanation> depends on material world as a matter of the processes used to develop it.
---> Material world is made out of composites
-----> <explanation> has roots in composites.
Contradiction reached.

Result: God cannot be <something> as <something> is developed in the material world and the material world is formed from composites, which is a direct contradiction to 'Divine Simplicity' requiring that God not be dependent on a composition of <objects>. If God is <null>, then that is a tautology that reveals nothing.

Just a minor thought expressed from the jackbooted hell of Actionscript 3 land...

(July 12, 2011 at 12:19 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Hey VOID. I was merely referencing the page for you as I thought you still didn't understand it. No need for me to summerise or repeat what is stated there, it's quite succinct enough. ie you've made the same argument before and some of us pointed out that you should perhaps bone up on the concept if you're interested. To spell it out again... Christians don't see growing complexity but instead simplicity.

This argument is different, it does not deal with the nature of minds as the other one did but the nature of information. Both arguments were refutations of the very concept of divine simplicity, in response to both all you did was link to reference pages about the general concept, in neither instance did you offer anything like a refutation of my argument.

A plan is information, God has a plan, god has information. The more information required to describe any entity, object or state of affairs, the more complex that thing can be said to be. The more information in god's plan, the more complex the proposed state of affairs is - This is the very nature of information. If you want to deny that any of these conditions apply then you are simply NOT talking about information and if that is the case then your God cannot have a plan.

If you were to propose a state of affairs that contained God but no plan or information then I would agree that it is relatively simple, however that is not the state of affairs you propose, you require that this God has a plan and caused the universe such as to realise his goals, correct?

Quote:You're approaching the subject from a material perspective, which is great and commendable, but this is never addressed in historical beliefs of the ancient middle east. A problem arises when we try to shoehorn ideas of material origins onto metaphysical propositions. Either side steps outside of it's remit commenting upon the other.

I never once said anything about material states being necessary, I am willing to accept for the sake of argument that information can exist in immaterial states of affairs even though I have no idea how it would even be possible. That concession DOES NOT negate the very nature of information. In order to have information you absolutely MUST have some way to represent a concept. I would be interested to hear how you think concepts are represented in this immaterial realm....

Let me give you an example, For instance take a passage from the bible, something that you believe was written by a person who experienced God and was given information. The information given to said persons by this deity is transformed into a pattern of neural activity and then again transformed into a pattern of symbols/sounds, written/spoken language, so it could be communicated to other people. Assuming that this information is an accurate account of God's ideas it means this information is IDENTICAL to that the information God initially communicated. If we can say something about the complexity of the information in this passage of the bible then we can say something about the information it's self, independent of ANY possible medium.

Quote:Unless you address the propositions of divine simplicity put forward by the likes of Aquinas, then to state the counter to that seems like an empty statement. You're starting a crit of something you're unwilling to address it seems.

Contrary to your claim that I am "unwilling to address it" I am DIRECTLY addressing it by presenting some thing that God is said to have/produce that is by it's very definition contrary to the notion of simplicity.

Quote:"The plan" isn't an attribute, no. Is what is resultant from God. Those things aren't God, but of God as they came from him. I won't go into that any further, because it's Aquinas again, and I really think you need to address his points.

Neither Aquinas, Augustine or anyone else who has proposed divine simplicity has ever said anything about information or it's implications, hardly surprising seeing as all of these men died long before information theory was understood. I can't find anything what-so-ever that addresses information, nor was the word even present on most of the resources I've read, such as; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

Divine simplicity states that God is not composite, he is identical to his attributes. So this being produced a plan, where does this plan exist? Inside God's mind, correct? Or does this plan that he produced that is not 'him' simply exist as a matter of fact as some separate immaterial entity? Either that or the alternative is God == Attributes and Mind is an attribute of God then God not only is his Mind, he also necessarily is his plan.

Quote:The evidence line - well you've been presented countless times with what constitues evidence, so I'll assume your comments here to be disingenuous.

Could you please give some examples?

---

(July 12, 2011 at 8:28 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote: Just a minor thought expressed from the jackbooted hell of Actionscript 3 land...

There is a more simple objection, that being God is supposedly identical to his attributes, for instance;

God does not have omnipotence, God is omnipotence.
God does not have omniscience, God is omniscience.
god does not have omnibenevolence, God is omnibenevolence.

That means Omnipotence = Omniscience = Omnibenevolence = God.

If we can prove that those concepts are not identical we can prove that god is not identical to them. One way to show they are not identical is to present a case where two of the following are true but one is false, many concepts of Allah present exactly that, he is said to be Omnipotent and Omniscient but NOT omnibenevloent, instead he is vengeful, unforgiving and jealous, willing to punish people who offend his vanity - Several schools of Muslim thought express exactly this sentiment, Spider (Rayaan) has even echoed it here.

The point is, if Omniscience and Omnipotence can exist without Omnibenevolence then Omniscience/Omnipotence =/= Omnibenevolence. God cannot be identical to his attributes if the attributes themselves are not identical to each other.

God is complex. The more I understand the bible the more I realize this. His plan has no clear cut guidelines. The attitude towards others changes throughout the fable. It supports slavery, sexism and the continued ignorance of the people. The only times gods plan changes is when men decide to write a new story or have another vision. That is not simplicity.

On the attributes, because I don't have much time...

A being or object has attributes and that is what defines them. A god is a composite of attributes. God does not equal the attributes individually, but collectively. Allah is not God, so has different attributes (using the term loosely).

Omnipotence =/= omniscience =/= loving

God = omnipotence + omniscience + loving (etc)

To sum up all of God's attributes into one label... God = positive force

(July 13, 2011 at 3:37 am)fr0d0 Wrote: On the attributes, because I don't have much time...

A being or object has attributes and that is what defines them. A god is a composite of attributes. God does not equal the attributes individually, but collectively. Allah is not God, so has different attributes (using the term loosely).

Omnipotence =/= omniscience =/= loving

God = omnipotence + omniscience + loving (etc)

To sum up all of God's attributes into one label... God = positive force

Are you sure that I'm the one who doesn't understand the doctrine of divine simplicity? Because what you just described is EXACTLY what divine simplicity is proposed to avoid!

From your own link: "In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea of divine simplicity can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. In other words, such characteristics as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc. are identical to his being, not qualities that make up his being"

And from plato.stanford.edu:

"God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one."

" If each attribute is identical to God, then each attribute is identical to each other by the Transitivity of Identity. For example, if God = omniscience, and God = omnipotence, then omniscience = omnipotence. But how could each attribute be identical to God?"

"So far we have seen how God can be (i) identical to his nature, (ii) identical to his existence, and (iii) such that his omni-attributes are identical to one another."

At the end of the day, there will always be someone who is willing to simply remove any description, remove any attributes from the concept of god to avoid your argument. It's been done. Besides Void, god is simple. Hell, god has half as many letters as simple. Refute that.

"You cannot reason someone out of a position that they did not reason themselves into"-Ben Goldacre

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.

Also, I can't believe Ben Goldacre was foolish enough to come up with that quote, I really like his work on bad medicine and his debates with homeopaths and naturopaths, but he's obviously capable of gaffs too