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.

(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...

(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.

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.

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.

(July 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm)theVOID Wrote:

---

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.

---

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:

---

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?

---

Indeed correct.

(July 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm)theVOID Wrote:

---

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.

---

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.

If "god" were simple, there would only be one religion, and people could explain it.

I always thought god was so irreducibly simple it didn't even suffer the conplication of existence.

(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.

Here it is, explained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mmrF-4rUE