RE: A good reason not to believe in God
February 23, 2011 at 3:10 am
(This post was last modified: February 23, 2011 at 11:23 am by Ryft.)
(February 20, 2011 at 8:42 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: Divine simplicity boils down to God not being a thing but a collection of 'properties' ...
Err, no. A collection (complex, composite) of properties is precisely the opposite of divine simplicity.
(February 21, 2011 at 4:05 pm)reverendjeremiah Wrote: To just simply say "the God of Christianity" is deceptive in and of itself ...
Only if you are new here. (And I think you are. Greetings, and welcome to the forums.) Thanks for catching my sloppy language. I will do better at maintaining precision in the future, so other newcomers won't mistake my meaning as I allowed you to here. I am well known here for arguing only the God of biblical Christianity; I never waste my time arguing beliefs I don't hold. So to be precise what I should have said was that his "argument ignores at least one omniscient deity—the God of biblical Christianity." That would have obviated your response, as Gnostic Christianity is not biblical (an exegetical point between myself and them).
(February 21, 2011 at 4:06 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: There is not a time that God can ever exist, because he is atemporal.
There is a time that God exists—namely, at every single moment of time (omnipresent).
DoubtVsFaith Wrote:For God to be "before" or "after" anything he would have to be temporal, since "before" and "after" imply time and temporality.
If what you mean is temporal succession, then no they don't imply that. Saying that God is before and after does not imply temporality in that sense (whereas saying that God is before then after would). What those terms do imply is temporal locality—but that is what one should expect from omnipresence; i.e., existing at every temporal locality.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)