(May 12, 2010 at 7:05 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:This is beginning to look messy, with quotes inside of quotes inside of....(May 12, 2010 at 12:05 pm)Caecilian Wrote: And you still haven't answered my earlier point, which is this:You can't limit God to humanity. If God were a person, he would indeed be an automaton. What he is is the instigator of this reality.
We attribute goodness to people when they choose morally good courses of action, have good as opposed to bad intentions etc. If we had no choice but to make good decisions (if we really could not do otherwise), then would we really be good ourselves? I would say not- we'd just be ethical automatons.
God, as you describe him, is an ethical automaton.
Anyway, I don't get your point here. How are 'being an ethical automaton' and 'being the instigator of reality' contradictory? I don't see any inconsistency. If anything, it seems rather elegant, since it removes the whole issue of ethical intent from the business of creation.
Quote:Schmod can't be all powerful in his logical environment unless purple is logically non affect-able. In that case we're promoting him to God - who we already have a name for.
That was my point. Schmod = god.
I think that we're operating from 2 different definitions of 'omnipotent' here. For me, an absolute minimum for omnipotence would be the capacity to do anything that is nomologically possible for a finite being to do. Both Schmod and god as you've decribed him are clearly not omnipotent in this sense.
An extreme case would be a deist god, who could create the universe but then play no causal role in subsequent events. Now for me, such a causally impotent being could not possibly be omnipotent. Whereas for you, he/she/it seemingly could be, as long as the causal impotence was a logically necessary part of the nature of the entity.
Quote:If God was only within the universe, and restricted to universal law, he wouldn't be omnipotent. But God isn't contained by the universe.
Now you've got me really confused. The Universe as I understand it includes everything that could possibly interact with its constituents. God in his totality is therefore definitionally part of the universe. When you say 'universe' do you actually mean 'material universe'?
Quote:What you're proposing is that God should be able to act illogically. What we have in God is a proposition of something logical and positive. The opposite of that, and the root cause of theological consideration is the separation of confusion and illogic as negative and the opposite of God. The opposite is possible only if you don't logically separate the two in your construction of God.
Dark is nothingness. Light adds something to nothing. Light can't be dark, or nothing, only degrees of 'something'. This positive force cannot in itself produce dark.
And this is even more confusing. You seem to be conflating what is logical with what is ethical, and throwing in some dark/ light metaphors for good measure. You're obviously an intelligent and rational person, so I'm sure you mean something by this, but frankly I'm not sure what.
He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
Mikhail Bakunin
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything
Friedrich Nietzsche
Mikhail Bakunin
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything
Friedrich Nietzsche