(February 14, 2014 at 9:25 am)DeistPaladin Wrote:

(February 14, 2014 at 12:55 am)Rational AKD Wrote: you will find your answer here.
...When the text says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it means that God would permit or allow Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened.

Ah yes, more of "when the Bible says... it really means..." apologetics. Always good fun. Even if true, it means the translators were inept which means that Yahweh allowed his Word to be mangled by incompetent humans. So much for omnipotence.

In all fairness, isn't it possible that an all powerful god would make sure his word was mangled as a test of human faith? Without a perfect degree of imperfection, god's word would draw to Him both the chaff and the wheat of humanity. Well played God.

(February 14, 2014 at 11:20 am)whateverist Wrote: In all fairness, isn't it possible that an all powerful god would make sure his word was mangled as a test of human faith? Without a perfect degree of imperfection, god's word would draw to Him both the chaff and the wheat of humanity. Well played God.

Depends what you're testing for, I guess.

If you're testing so that only the best and brightest get into Heaven, you'd want to rig the system so that the brightest problem solvers could figure it out. If that's the case, atheists and other free thinkers are going to Heaven.

On the other hand, if you're testing for gullibility and people who'll just do as their told without question, than Christianity is a great test for that.

Thought I'd share from another thread:

ONTOLOGICAL LOGIC APPLIED IN REAL LIFE

***Walks into a bank***
"Hi, I'd like to withdraw one million dollars from my checking account."

"Sir, you don't even have an checking account at this bank."

"Well, is it possible I could have an account at this bank?"

"Um, sure, but I don't see..."

"And is it possible that a checking account could have 1 million dollars in it?"

"Well, theoretically, but..."

"And an account with one million dollars would have a million dollars in it, right?"

"Sure but..."

"And if I didn't have an account at this bank, it couldn't have 1 million dollars in it?"

"Exactly, and..."

"So we can imagine that I have a checking account with one million dollars at this bank, such a thing could exist and if it didn't exist, it wouldn't have 1 million dollars in it. So my account with 1 million dollars in it MUST exist."

"Wait! What?"

"So I'd like to withdraw my million dollars, please."

***Get thrown out of the bank***

(February 14, 2014 at 2:52 am)Rational AKD Wrote: there are several things that are non-physical that exist. one I can easily name is the color red. what is the color red? is it a range of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum? or is it a stimulation of nerve cells in your retina? or is electrical signals sent between neurons in your brain? the answer is none of the above. the color red is a process of your mind. it is not material, it is a concept called qualia. immaterial things certainly exist.

So...god is a concept in our minds, then? Makes sense...

(February 14, 2014 at 2:52 am)Rational AKD Wrote: if something exists but not because it is contingent upon an external factor, then the only other reason left as to why it exists is because of an internal factor. internal factors can't be contingent factors. as I said to DeistPaladin, A is A and A is necessarily A. God is God and God is necessarily God. so an internal factor must be a necessary one. so it is then an internal necessary factor for its existence which means it necessarily exists in and of itself.

And it is possible for something to rely on an internal factor for its existence? How would we know? Like I said before, I highly doubt that omnipotence is even theoretically possible. Aside from it not being self-contradictory, why would it be possible? Or are you suggesting that literally nothing is impossible so long as it is not logically impossible?

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote: no, as i said before God is an immaterial mind.

The immaterial mind is produced by the material brain. No mind has ever been known to exist sans brain.

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote: since there are clear examples of things that are immaterial (color, sound etc.) it is certainly possible for the mind to be immaterial.

In what sense? Colors, sounds, etc. are the result of energy (either directly or indirectly) and while they certainly exist, this does not lead to them being sentient.

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote: and given most would claim there is no clear defeater for extreme solipsism, most have already admitted it is possible for mind to be immaterial. therefore, it is possible for God to be an immaterial mind.

Not really. The mind, as a concept, is indeed immaterial; however, the existence of the mind is inherently contingent on the physical brain. Or does a magical omnipotent mind not need a brain? I still fail to see why an omnipotent being must exist; I would still hold to the first objection.

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote: again, there are several things that necessarily exist. i also have an argument to support this: http://atheistforums.org/thread-21748.html

I would posit that necessary truths, if they exist, cannot be known to us for certain. Solipsism cannot be disproven, so "necessary truths" are really more akin to things, such as gravity, that seem absolute, but can we really know for sure? There should, one would think, be a final layer, so to speak. That is, something that is not contingent upon another thing, but only the laws of physics come to mind. And the laws of physics are not sentient.

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote: that's the only reason i need. something can only be metaphysically impossible if it has a self contradiction, for example a square circle.

So it follows that literally everything that is possible is also true?

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote: logical impossibility has to do with coherence within a system. metaphysical possibility has to do with coherence in itself since we can imagine numerous systems for different metaphysically possible worlds and it only needs to be possibly true in one of those systems to be metaphysically possible.

It is metaphysically possible for their to be no god, then? I can certainly imagine a universe without one.

Is this argument an application of the "if you can't convince them, confuse them," principle?

As you are positing this omniscient God as being coherent, can you please tell us how He knows He is omniscient? Do you need another 'omnipotence means being able to do anything not logically impossible' crutch?

(February 15, 2014 at 3:02 am)Darkstar Wrote: The immaterial mind is produced by the material brain. No mind has ever been known to exist sans brain.

lets see... first you're making an assumption that the mind is produced by the brain, i would argue it is the other way around and i can give some evidence but that involves different arguments including the introspective argument and the implications of modern quantum mechanics such as the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. such things are off topic of this thread but i will address them in the future. second, you're making an argument from ignorance fallacy in an attempt to support your assumption. just because no one has ever seen a mind function independent of the brain doesn't mean that can't be the case, there are many things that we haven't seen before that turn out to be true. lack of evidence has nothing to do with the truth of the statement.

Quote:In what sense? Colors, sounds, etc. are the result of energy (either directly or indirectly) and while they certainly exist, this does not lead to them being sentient.

i never suggested they were sentient, i simply stated they exist and can't be broken down to matter. as such, the mind can't be broken down to matter either. even Sam Harris agrees with this.

Quote:Not really. The mind, as a concept, is indeed immaterial; however, the existence of the mind is inherently contingent on the physical brain. Or does a magical omnipotent mind not need a brain? I still fail to see why an omnipotent being must exist; I would still hold to the first objection.

again, you're making baseless assumptions. from what we can observe, there is a clear connection between mind and brain. we can also clearly observe that the functional capabilities of the brain can determine how well the mind can interact with the brain. but none of that clearly shows that the mind is dependent upon the brain. there is nothing you have said that shows a necessity of a brain dependent mind. even if you indeed showed that our minds are brain dependent, that doesn't mean it's impossible to have one that isn't.

Quote:I would posit that necessary truths, if they exist, cannot be known to us for certain. Solipsism cannot be disproven, so "necessary truths" are really more akin to things, such as gravity, that seem absolute, but can we really know for sure? There should, one would think, be a final layer, so to speak. That is, something that is not contingent upon another thing, but only the laws of physics come to mind. And the laws of physics are not sentient.

i don't think you realize that by admitting necessary truths can exist, you have also admitted the possibility that something's existence can be necessary in and of itself. if something can be true because it is necessary for it to be true, then it can be true that something exists simply because it is necessarily true that it exists. the rest is irrelevant since the argument is ontological so it doesn't rely on our physical senses. the only way to refute the argument is to show P1 is wrong or to deny logic itself (which would have to be a baseless assertion BTW).

Quote:So it follows that literally everything that is possible is also true?

no, it follows that anything that is metaphysically possible but not metaphysically contingent is metaphysically necessary and anything that is metaphysically necessarily is also true.

Quote:It is metaphysically possible for their to be no god, then? I can certainly imagine a universe without one.

when you analyze the coherence of the statement in conjunction to the validity of the MOA, you can see that it is not. if it were possible for there to be no God, then this would mean it is impossible for God to exist, or God's existence is contingent. but upon further inspection, necessary existence is a necessary part of the property of omnipotence, and omnipotence is a necessary property of God. therefore, it is only metaphysically possible for there to be no God if it is metaphysically impossible for God to exist. so given the MOA is sound, it is not possible for there to be no God.

(February 15, 2014 at 2:37 am)Rational AKD Wrote:

(February 14, 2014 at 11:09 am)Alex K Wrote: Haha, are you taking a piss? Here you changed from stating a few hypotheticals (e.g. if it exists, its existence must not be dependent upon an external factor because blabla) and in the next step just dropped the conditional "if it exists" and called it a proof? That's just a cheap exploitation of imprecise language, nothing more.

incorrect. P4 is speaking of metaphysical necessary since the definition is necessarily part of the concept. C2 is hypothetical in nature, but P5 is deductive in nature not hypothetical.

The slippery part about your argument is that none of the language is precise enough to really nail down what is stated where, so you can shift back and forth the point where you switch from necessary properties of God to actual properties of God. This becomes more clear if one puts the argument in one sentence, where it is harder to do stealth shifts in meanings of words.

Because the concept of God includes omnipotence, God's existence is not dependent on an external factor, and therefore God's existence is necessary in and of itself, and God thus exists.

This is precisely a condensed version of your argument, no?

So what went wrong here? The second sentence is wrong if you mean it to talk about God's actual existence in the world rather than elaborations on the properties included in the concept of God.

You cannot conclude that God's existence is not dependent on an external factor from saying that the concept of God includes this necessity. Since you have before only said things about the concept of God, it only allows you to conclude statements about God's existence if he exists: something that does not exists does not have to fulfil the requirements laid out in its concept. This is confusing in this case because you put existence as a requirement into the concept.

If you let your logic work like this, it would mean that any idea you dream up is necessarily realized in the world if only you attach the necessity of existence in its definition.