(July 20, 2009 at 3:42 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Hey, I like that scale ... it has potential! OK, I STILL don't like the work "Gnostic" but the scale is simple and if you changed "conclusively established" to "inferred" (especially on the science adherent side) and then added a mid "I don't give a sh**!" position you might have something.

It also strikes me that the two of you could try getting together and developing a scale ... it seems tio me there will ALWAYS be problems when an atheist or a theist develops a scale solo.

Kyu

Is that meant to be sarcastic? I mean, it didn't come across as so, but you do realise we already developed a scale between us in this very thread...

@Arcanus,

Perhaps I haven't explained myself clearly.

1) Person X has attribute Y.
2) Attribute Y is impossible / has been disproved.
3) Therefore Person X cannot have attribute Y, and the description of Person X in (1) is false.

Ergo, the Person X described in (1) does not exist.

If you cannot disprove an attribute associated to someone, then this scenario never comes up (as your James Scott example goes). This only applies to attributes that can be disproven, since if they are disproven, the subject canot posses them in the first place, and the description of the person is false (making the person described by the description false).

If you remove the attribute from the description, and there are no more disproved attributes, then the description holds, and the person described by the new description cannot be disproved. The new description is wholly different (and describes an entirely different entity) than the old description.

(July 21, 2009 at 2:27 am)Tiberius Wrote: Perhaps I haven't explained myself clearly.

1) Person X has attribute Y.
2) Attribute Y is impossible / has been disproved.
3) Therefore Person X cannot have attribute Y, and the description of Person X in (1) is false.

Ergo, the Person X described in (1) does not exist.

Except that a six-day creation event is not an attribute of God. Nobody describes a six-day creation event as something that God is (attribute), but rather as something God did (action). As I originally argued (Msg. #140), it simply does not follow that God is completely different from the one portrayed if you show some action of God did not take place; "it is some specific action of God's that would be completely different from the one portrayed, not his nature or very existence; i.e., acts of God (e.g., six-day creation) are separate from attributes of God (e.g., omnipotence)."

1. Person S has attribute P.
2. Action X has been disproved.
3. Therefore...

Actions are similarly as descriptive as attributes though. I someone is said to have done action X, and action X never happened, then the very person who the action was attached does not exist. Instead we are left with a person who did not do the action.

For instance:

"Columbus sailed to Antarctica" is an action assigned to the person Columbus.

Since Columbus did not sail to Antarctica, this action is false, and the Columbus who sailed to Antarctica (in the above description) does not exist.

This is not to say that Columbus does not exist absolutely though, since the Columbus who did not sail to Antarctica does exist (assuming it also holds that Columbus himself is similarly provable).

I dunno, maybe I'm just over-philosophizing...

(July 21, 2009 at 6:21 am)Tiberius Wrote: I dunno, maybe I'm just over-philosophizing...

It seems like you are arguing for the difference between various possible worlds and the actual world. If that is the case, then your argument against the God of Christian theism fails to accomplish the poignancy it seemed to aim for, since you are left with the conclusion, "There is only one actual God of the Old Testament," which is the God that is consistent with a sound exegesis of the texts in question.

(July 21, 2009 at 2:27 am)Tiberius Wrote: Is that meant to be sarcastic? I mean, it didn't come across as so, but you do realise we already developed a scale between us in this very thread...

Not at all ... I was looking for something else using the search facility and came across that. Sorry ... haven't read much of the thread.

Kyu