RE: Is God a logical contradiction?
July 30, 2019 at 5:00 pm
(This post was last modified: July 30, 2019 at 5:01 pm by mordant.)
(July 29, 2019 at 2:09 am)Tom Fearnley Wrote: Is God a logical contradiction? Is saying an [all-powerful] immaterial intelligence [God] like saying a square circle or married bachelor? To the best of my knowledge there are no immaterial things, such as energy waves, that exhibit intelligence. I need help with this. Anyone?
Can you give me a list of all immaterial things known to us? Do any of them exhibit intelligence? Are all immaterial things known to us (as in there can't be anymore)?
The problem with the above: Is it possible there could be something immaterial which is intelligent? Maybe, maybe not imo. This could be like asking "is it possible that a bachelor could be married?" No, it's not possible. But then maybe I'm wrong.
Thanks.
Material beings cannot discuss the immaterial because it is not available to them.
Natural beings cannot discuss the supernatural because they have no perceptual equipment for that.
The supernatural and immaterial are realms of pure speculation and baseless assertion.
The things in the world that we as a race of beings haven't understood in the past, have invariably proven to be grounded in the natural, material realm and we have sorted them out using observations of the natural material world. There is no reason to suppose that this will suddenly change.
So ... supernatural, immaterial beings and realms, including deities, are useless concepts for actually understanding reality and its workings.
The standard-issue supernatural interventionist god, therefore, IS a logical contradiction in that you're describing a thing with attributes (eternal, immutable, invisible, supernatural, immaterial) concerning which you not only have no data, but cannot POSSIBLY have any data.
Once you have actual data to discuss, you're talking about some aspect of the material, natural world. Present any data demonstrating the existence of an all powerful being that's allegedly responsible for the creation and maintenance of reality, and you're describing a part of reality itself, and you have the infinite regress problem of talking about a first mover that cannot be outside the closed system it created and still be observable and discussable. One could only speculate concerning it ... which is exactly 100% of what people do.
