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July 9, 2010 at 1:31 pm (This post was last modified: July 9, 2010 at 1:33 pm by Paul the Human.)
(July 9, 2010 at 1:27 pm)Godhead Wrote: Paul -
No not at all. It's a hypothetical question, just like whether or not omnipotence and omniscience are compatible, which is also asked by atheists themselves. Atheists asks a lot of hypothetical questions about a god which they already don't believe in, yet they still ask. So the question stands, and so does the answer.
Yes. However, if the answer given inspires further questions... those questions should be answered as well, if possible. That's called 'a discussion', which by the way... is what a discussion forum is for.
Nevermind. Avoidance seems to be your favorite defense, so... just keep avoiding the difficult questions. Unless you actually want to stimulate some thought... then you might want to consider... you know... doing some thinking.
And now my boss is back, so I can't post anymore until after work. Not that this was going anywhere anyway.
Well, any question can inspire any number of other questions. However there's a difference between sticking with a line of questioning and exploring it fully, and going off topic. The answer that I've offered adequately explains what the title of this thread is asking.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.
Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.
You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
July 9, 2010 at 8:28 pm (This post was last modified: July 9, 2010 at 8:28 pm by tavarish.)
(July 9, 2010 at 1:37 pm)Godhead Wrote: Paul -
Well, any question can inspire any number of other questions. However there's a difference between sticking with a line of questioning and exploring it fully, and going off topic. The answer that I've offered adequately explains what the title of this thread is asking.
Not at all. You have yet to define your God. Please do so as your next post. Be specific.
I don't need to. This thread is very specific. The reason why god cannot by definition have a creator is due to the fact that it is selfexistent. This means that it exists of its own accord, and is not created. It also explains why Richard Dawkins' view that to create, it would have to evolve, is incorrect, due to a lack of understanding.
July 10, 2010 at 4:25 am (This post was last modified: July 10, 2010 at 4:27 am by tackattack.)
(July 9, 2010 at 9:38 am)tavarish Wrote:
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: 1 (1,2,3,4) - I get it guys, I really do. I've digested what you've said and Void put it very eloquently and succinctly: If God knows his own future he is unable to change it. The fact that he is unable to change his course means that he is impotent. Therefore it is logically impossible to be both all knowing and all powerful.
Exactly.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: I have a problem with this for 2 reasons. Firstly, I think you're overvaluing the impotent and undervaluing God's scope. And secondly, You're missing the disconnect between knowledge and power.
Actually, in the discussion I'm assuming the scope of God is absolute.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: 1A-There is no direct connect between the knowledge of when/if something is/has/will happen and the power to accomplish said action. You're only limiting the timing of that action and mandating that it must happen.
Sure there is. If the only thing you can do are the things that you know you will do, you have zero room to change your mind or exercise any free will. The timing is irrelevant, since the actions are the things that are being limited. I see that you understand it, but I don't see your problem. On an absolute scale, these attributes are logically impossible.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: You're not limiting the scope of that action's power or it's causal ramifications.
I don't need to, because that's not what the conversation's about. I'm saying that if god is all knowing, there are definitely things he cannot do. Whether his actions have any other grandiose power is a topic for another discussion.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: I agree that if you know everything that will/is/has happened then you're locked into a destiny and have no free will to change within those causal chains.
So you understand how the attributes of your God are logically impossible. Good.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: When talking about forces we classify them as to when they happen, why they happen, the power/force they happen with and the effectiveness or productivity of the resulting force. By saying God can't change his action then you're only limiting the when and then attempting to negate the entirety of the force and it's potential productivity. I'm trying to get you to evaluate the rest of the force, and we've established the perspective: our own. Regardless of the universe we're in the language we use is always assumed to originate from our own knowledge and perspective within this universe.
Again, productivity has nothing to do with it. It doesn't matter if he saves a baby with an action today or kills 100 with an action a week ago. This is not the point of the conversation, nor is it relevant at all. I'm not talking about the product of his actions, I'm simply making the case that his ability to act is severely hindered if he is indeed all-knowing. They are wholly incompatible concepts.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: 1B- Concluding this point I'm saying that it would be more accurate to say it is logically impossible to be both all knowing and have control of when you act, then to completely negate the all knowing and all powerfull.
Tack, do you understand that when you're limited by something, that means you are necessarily not absolute? If God is limited in power to only the things he knows he will do, that makes him necessarily impotent to do anything else. Even if he doesn't wish to do anything else, it doesn't change the fact that he can't.
An omniscient and omnipotent God is logically impossible. That's pretty much as accurate as it's going to get.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: 5- I'm not saying "most everything came from something, therefore nothing could possibly came from nothing, except god" ". I'm saying because it has continuously been shown that most things have a creator, it's very likely that this would apply to the unniverse as well. Will the apple always fall down? No probably not, but most likely and for all intents and purposes it does.
Every bit of evidence shows that consciousness is a product of a brain - a physical entity. Does God have a physical brain? I'm saying because it has been continuously shown that everything with a consciousness has a physical brain to show for it, it's very likely that this would apply to God as well. Where is God's brain?
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: Tav Are you saying there that the answer is too complex to even ask why? If you want to leave the assumtion that the universe is likely to have an initiator, but there's no way of knowing so why bother asking I can understand that.
No, on the contrary. Questions are the cornerstone of discovery, but when you have answers, it helps when those answers have objective evidence that is consistent with reality and not based in subjective perception. With no evidence, all you have is unfounded speculation - which doesn't advance our knowledge at all, it in fact hinders it, because we think we've found the answers to everything, all the while not realizing our answers don't make any sense.
Could the universe have had a creator? Sure. have I been shown evidence for one? No. Therefore I don't accept that it does.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: Also, for the record, I have clearly defined a creator, provided detiled lists of my (rejected) subjective evidence and applied attributes and motives.
Do you understand why subjective experience is, in this case, inadmissible?
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: 6- I can't possibly know what exists outside this universe (That's why Fr0d0 says God just is and can't be proven objectively) but it's highly likely to have a creator, so I endeavor to ask the question at least.
Asking a question and coming to a conclusion are two totally different things. I'm pretty sure everyone on this board has asked this question a few times in their lives, but the difference is whether you formulate an answer, and how you interpret reality.
If you can't possibly know what exists outside the universe, why do you then say God exists and give him various attributes? That really doesn't make sense.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: I try not to be too much of a blathering idiot. Things can exist regardless of a percieving consciousness. A rock will still be a rock when no one's looking.
So why need God for the process if things have a nature and exist regardless of consciousness?
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: However if God does exist as I understand him, and he did create(or at least initiate) everything we know to be the universe, and he does know everything that is/was then there is purpose in every rock's existence regardless of perception as well.
This is contradictory for 2 reasons.
1. You said above that you can't possibly know what's outside the universe - then you talk about understanding God, which is by definition, outside of the universe.
2. You're attributing existence to consciousness and not the other way around. It doesn't follow that the rock exists regardless of consciousness, yet God's consciousness necessarily put it into existence.
(July 8, 2010 at 6:19 am)tackattack Wrote: 6A-We did quite clearly show that logically God could have been created. This does not negate his creative powers. You're excluding the possibility that God could (if finite) developing/ evolve into something complex and powerful enought to create this universe.
Do you know why I exclude this possibility? Because it's one of an infinite number of possibilities you can attribute to a being that exists purely as a concept. If there are any contradictory aspects, someone can surely come along and say "woops, he could be this instead", all without shedding any light on anything. It has zero explanatory power whatsoever, and changing his attributes on the fly is dishonest and a sign of delusion and confirmation bias.
The main point of this conversation is to outline that the Christian God, with attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, and no creator, is logically impossible. He cannot justifiably be. If you have a God with different attributes, he isn't the Christian God, but a God of your personal fabrication - which makes sense, as God is merely a concept anyway.
Ok so we've established I understand where you're coming from and you're not seeing my perspective entirely. Let’s see if I can take this step by step.
1-I think I can clear up things. From your logic, omnipotence itself is contrary on an absolute scale. How can something have the power to do something that is against its own nature? Once you do that thing it then becomes part of your experience and then part of said character. The limits of logical omnipotence have to have at the very least a limit of “All power, within individual’s nature”. Hopefully from that you can see where your definition of omnipotent is illogical in itself and you’ll hopefully use the definition I provided to try and grasp the theological perspective.
5- Completely ignoring transcendence, I’d like to see where any experiments (including the QM theories) on consciousness prove that self-identity can be eliminated entirely physically. Alter yes, I’ve seen experiments on that, but I don’t think science has yet proven the physicality of consciousness yet. If I’m wrong please enlighten me with references.
6.1-Yes, God exists outside the universe by definition, but through God’s revelations he interacts with this universe and can thus be described and defined. This is of course dependant on how we perceive reality.
6.2- I see what you’re saying. You’re saying if a rock exists independent of consciousness, why attribute a consciousness to the universe. Allow me to explain my perspective. The consciousness you’re using is assumed to be human(or any current living species that qualifies) consciousness. Then to that I would say a rock exists regardless of the observer. It just so happens that I believe in God as, by my definition (which is shared), omniscient. He is a default observer when no other qualifiers are present, but it has little to no effect on the rock’s existence.
6A- And you’re entitled to exclude what you feel is appropriate. For the record, I’ve never ( here or anywhere else) changed the attributes I attest to God. You’re assuming I have defined a God that has no creator. That’s simply not in a Christian’s prevue and I’ve defined clearly the Christian understanding of God (to which you’d be hard pressed to find one that disagrees on the basics).
That’s all I have the energy for tonight, but it’s progress I think. When we can get past this I'll deal with the God just is or God just is evolved enough
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
(June 22, 2010 at 3:57 pm)Pastor Ezequiel Davis Wrote: Atheists 'claim' that God doesn't exist, yet the Bible proves them wrong. I can see the Bible, hold it in my hand, and know 1000% that it exists. As God wrote the Bible, this proves that he MUST EXIST too.
I love this guy. I went straight past exasperation, through the blood boiling rage that comes from syllogistic stupidity into laughter.
"Blasphemy! Blas for you! Blas for everybody in the room!" - Eddie Izzard
![[Image: ewacky.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.rationalia.com%2Fforum%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fewacky.gif)
Things can exist regardless of a percieving consciousness. A rock will still be a rock when no one's looking.
