I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[chatpilot]

Thanks for clearing that up JP I was wondering what the hell you were talking about for a moment there. I don't believe that the scriptures or any other documents of old (Nostradamus eg.) prophesy anything since the so called prophecies are usually veiled in such esoteric language that they can be manipulated to apply to pretty much any situation in the future of its original writing.So called prophecy is based on the beliefs and intents of the interpreter and and are therefore subject to his interpretation.

[Ryft]

Since that amount [of time] goes on forever and ever and ever, what actual difference does it make?

Both an infinite amount of time and an amount that goes on forever and ever express the same thing. So you are simply asking the same question all over again. Yet it was already answered, ironically by the very question itself.

An "infinite amount of time" or temporal series (i.e., goes on forever and ever) can obtain only where a temporal dimension is the case. By definition. Conversely, "outside of time" is by definition where a temporal dimension is not the case, or atemporal (which renders "infinite amount of time" meaningless, for you cannot have an infinite amount of something that is not there). The difference is in the very definitions, Mike—temporal on the one hand, and atemporal on the other.

You say God isn't made of many parts and, therefore, is not complex. But to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, etc.—you can't just say he's made up of one part.

It sounds like you're saying that God has to be composed of parts because he has all these attributes. This is the informal fallacy of argument from personal incredulity and is not a meaningful response, such that your incredulity toward one scenario does not support the truth of the alternative scenario. Listing the attributes of God does not somehow prove that he is composed of parts, for divine simplicity accounts for his attributes as being identical with himself. For example, "God is good" is not a moral valuation (God has goodness) but an ontological statement (God is goodness); i.e., the being of God is identical to the attributes of God. (As a point of interest, divine simplicity proves the bifurcation fallacy of the Euthyphro dilemma.)

He's complex because he is unlikely to arise from chance alone, or just be there from the beginning, or before the beginning, without explanation.

First, objections involving notions of temporal finitude can be ignored as mere Straw Man, since God by definition as Creator is not part of our space-time manifold. Second, the likelihood of something is not determined by whether or not you have received an explanation. You may not believe something until then, but that is quite a different matter altogether. Third, complex in this context has nothing to do with "hard to understand" (and even if it did, it would commit the personal incredulity fallacy to base the likelihood of God on that). As I said, complex is defined theologically and in contemporary dictionaries as composed of, or characterized by, an arrangement of parts. That God is not composed of parts has nothing to do with the likelihood of his existing eternally.

[God] is an absolutely extraordinary claim and he requires absolutely extraordinary evidence.

This reflects your personal epistemic criteria, which is relevant only if your belief is required. And it's not, for the truth of something is not proved by whether or not Mike believes it (according to the rules of logic).

---

The second law of thermodynamics is descriptive and can be written, "Heat generally cannot flow spontaneously from a material at lower temperature to a material at higher temperature."

Ignoring the significant problem that plagues such a statement (deriving a prescriptive from a descriptive on a basis other than sheer fiat), it is irrelevant at any rate to the point I had made—viz. that the law of non-contradiction is an a priori normative statement. It is not a descriptive statement, for nothing a posteriori produces it. I offer you the same challenge I gave theVOID: Describe an a posteriori (empirical) test of the law of non-contradiction. Just by trying to conceive of such a test, it will soon become evident that this prescriptive cannot be written as a descriptive.

[Tiberius]

Erm, what significant problem? I didn't derive it...Wikipedia did. I'd always been taught at school that the laws of thermodynamics were written in that way (at least for a simplified version).

Logic is in our minds, so one could say our minds produce it. The law of non-contradiction is a description of how we perceive logic, in that it describes that in logic, two things cannot be both false and true at the same time.

Could you explain your logic as to how the failure to describe a physical test for logic (which seems ludicrous in itself) means that it is prescriptive rather than descriptive. One could say that the law of non-contradiction is self-evident given that our minds work the same way, and logic is built into our minds.

[Edwardo Piet]

Both an infinite amount of time and an amount that goes on forever and ever express the same thing. So you are simply asking the same question all over again.

No not at all. My point is that if it goes on forever, it's infinite... then what actual difference in reality does it make to being nontemporal? Simply defining God as nontemporal doesn't make him need any less of a temporal if he'd been here forever. All you're doing is saying he was here 'before time', but without any explanation - he still requires just as much of an explanation, you're not helping the issue, you're dodging it. He still requires just as much evidence, you're just defining him 'outside'.

It sounds like you're saying that God has to be composed of parts because he has all these attributes.

I'm saying you can't just define him as simple and lacking parts. I'm saying that whether he arise from chance, was here for ever, or is nontemporal, he still is just as complex and improbable as he would be if he arose from chance alone.

If he were to arise from chance alone that would be extremely improbable, this is how complex he is. To simply say that "Oh, well he's outside of time, he's nontemporal" that does fuck all to help, he is just as improbable, and complex, and requires just as much an explanation - you still have to provide just as much evidence as if you'd dodged it by saying "Oh he was just there at the beginning", the 'nontemporal/atemporal' move, is just as much of a dodge as it is to say that he was here from the beginning. Untill you actually provide some evidence your defining him outside does fuck all.

Ok you say he's nontemporal/atemporal you still need to provide the same degree of evidence. You can't just define outside him out ot explanation.

This is the informal fallacy of argument from personal incredulity

Wrong. The Argument from Personal Incredulity goes like this: "This doesn't make sense to me personally...therefore it's wrong/probably wrong". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I don't see any evidence so I myself won't believie untill I do. And you can't just dodge matters by defining God outside of explanation.

and is not a meaningful response, such that your incredulity toward one scenario does not support the truth of the alternative scenario.

I know this. As far as I know, I never fall the the argument of personal incredulity. Because I never believe that something is wrong just because it doesn't make sense to me, out of a lack of imagination. I won't believe untill I know of any evidence, this is perfectly acceptable and not the argument from personal incredulity.

Listing the attributes of God does not somehow prove that he is composed of parts,

Obviously not. But God needs an explanation. If he is outside of time that doesn't make him any more reasonable to believe in than if you believed he arised spontaneously from chance alone. It's still exactly the same problem. You still need to explain God, you still need just as much evidence. You can't just define him 'outside'. Besides, then you've gotta provide evidence for that claim too!!

for divine simplicity accounts for his attributes as being identical with himself. For example, "God is good" is not a moral valuation (God has goodness) but an ontological statement (God is goodness); i.e., the being of God is identical to the attributes of God. (As a point of interest, divine simplicity proves the bifurcation fallacy of the Euthyphro dilemma.)

All this is irrelevant to the fact you need to explain God. You can't say he's nontemporal anymore than you can say he was 'just there' from the beginning. It's still a total and utter fucking dodge. You still need to supply evidence for God's existence.

First, objections involving notions of temporal finitude can be ignored as mere Straw Man, since God by definition as Creator is not part of our space-time manifold.

Wrong. As I have said, you are dodging the question by making bullshit strawman objections. It's not a strawman because whether he's nontemporal/atemporal, whether he arose from chance alone, or whehter he was "there from the beginning": makes no difference whatsoever to my argument. I'm saying that however you define him, you cannot just dodge the question.

Saying he is nontemporal and that I'm making a strawman is just completely dodging the fucking question.. Any of these 3 and it still has the same problem, a lack of explanation and a lack of evidence.

He has exactly the same problem as if he was here from the beginning or if he arose from chance alone. The whole point of the definition of complexity being 'something that it would be highly improbable to arise from chance alone' is the matter it addresses....and God as exactly the same problem if you define him as being outside of this. Arising chance is an analogy that applies to eternal things, and to nontemporal things - equally. It addresses the same question, God still has the same problems.

Second, the likelihood of something is not determined by whether or not you have received an explanation.

Which is an equivocation of you're point. I'm not talking about any explanation. I'm saying that there's no reason to believe untill there's an actual one. The explanation. I cannot know what's the answer for sure, but nor can anyone else. Whatever the real likelihood is I can't know for sure...this doesn't matter...what more do you expect?

You may not believe something until then, but that is quite a different matter altogether.

Is it? I can only know what I know. I am agnostic. My qualm here is untill I know of an explanation, untill I know of evidence, then as far as I'm concerened it's nonsense. The burden of proof is on the theist.

Sure you could be right, but anybody could be right and anybody could be wrong. That's bloody obvious. This is about what we believe because we can't know anything other than what we know! All we're dealing with is what we know. So speaking of what we can't know if irrelevant...unless you're actually accusing me of gnosticism!.

Third, complex in this context has nothing to do with "hard to understand" (and even if it did, it would commit the personal incredulity fallacy to base the likelihood of God on that).

I never sait it was to do with difficult to understand at all. And I've already dealt with the charge of that fallacy so read above if u haven't.

As I said, complex is defined theologically and in contemporary dictionaries as composed of, or characterized by, an arrangement of parts. That God is not composed of parts has nothing to do with the likelihood of his existing eternally.

He is complex because he requires the same amount of explanation as if he did arise from chance alone. He needs an explanation...he's supposed to be creator of the universe for christ sake! He needs an explanation just as anything else does. And for you to be rational - he needs evidence.

This reflects your personal epistemic criteria, which is relevant only if your belief is required. And it's not, for the truth of something is not proved by whether or not Mike believes it (according to the rules of logic)

Ahahhaa.....'extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence' is the only rational way by definition. You can call it 'personal epistemic criteria' if you want, but that doesn't chance the fact that evidence by definition=something that gives credence to the validity of a belief...so to believe without evidence is to believe without valid reason to believe it is true. Which is irrationality. If you want to believe without evidence, 'on faith', fine by me. But as far as I'm concerened it's irrational by definition and special pleading

Why 'have faith' when "faith" is belief without credence for it? When faith is without evidence? And....why have faith in some particular things??? Why?...

So...furthermore....cherry picking alert!

EvF

[Jon Paul]

(1) Saying he is nontemporal and that I'm making a strawman is just completely dodging the fucking question..

First of all, God as a hypothesis is implicitly the question of a nontemporal ontological entity. So it is not "dodging the question" to say that God is atemporal; it is directly addressing the question and the hypothesis, whereas you are the one actually dodging the question and addressing a Straw Man.

(..) (2) and it still has the same problem, a lack of explanation and a lack of evidence.

You again confound entertaining a hypothesis without necessarily conceding it, such as you are doing by calling God "complex" without conceding his existence, with extrinsically inferring the truth of the hypothesis, or evidencing it. And I will repeat, though it is a wholely different matter, that I've first of all evidenced, and then thoroughly explained my claim of God as actus purus, and what I am doing by discussing it now is exactly further explaining it, anyway.

If he could arise form chance and was temporal he would be very unlikely to arise from it.

But to say "if God was temporal" is like saying "if a triangle was a rectangle". It's a contradiction in terms and is meaningless. You cannot change Gods ontology into a temporal ontology and pretend that you are actually analysing Gods ontology; you are not analysing Gods ontology, but the ontology of a temporal being. This is the Straw Man fallacy.

It's a matter of chance because God has a probability of existing somewhere between 0%and 100%. Whether he is nontemporal or not he still needs just as much of an explanation and is still just as complex and improbable.

You can't just dodge it by defining him outside of need for explanation. He requires the same amount of explanation.

We are not defining him out of explanation. I've been eager to explain what I mean by God. And if God requires the same amount of explanation, it does not follow that he requires the same kind of explanation, because if you apply a standard of explanation (temporal) which is mutually exclusive with the object of explanation (nontemporal), you are not analysing the actual object, but inventing another object which conforms to that standard (e.g. a temporal object which is not God). This is a Straw Man fallacy.

[Edwardo Piet]

First of all, God as a hypothesis is implicitly the question of a nontemporal ontological entity. So it is not "dodging the question" to say that God is atemporal; it is directly addressing the question and the hypothesis,

And my point is that it's completely irrelevant to my argument. My argument being that whether he's nontemporal or not, he still requires an explanation. Stating him to be 'nontemporal' doesn't mean you can duck the issue. He is still just as complex and requires just as much of an explanation, you can call him what you like. But whether he arises from chance alone or whether he's outside time...he is sitll just as improbable as that happening. Saying he is outside of time does nothing untill you actually provide evidence.

whereas you are the one actually dodging the question and addressing a Straw Man.

What strawman? I've already said repeatedly that whether he's nontemporal or not is irrelevant to my argument. He still needs evidence.

And I will repeat, though it is a wholely different matter, that I've first of all evidenced, and then thoroughly explained my claim of God as actus purus, and what I am doing by discussing it now is exactly further explaining it, anyway.

So you've apparently already given evidence and then this is further explaining it? Well I don't know what you think evidence is! Lol.

You need to indicate that God somehow exists...what you're doing is talking about him being nontemporal and saying that he's simple and necessary, and as you did with the TAG, how atheism=self-contradictory, blah, blah, blah - and none of this actually addresses the issue, none of this is actually evidence for God. Got any or not?

But to say "if God was temporal" is like saying "if a triangle was a rectangle". It's a contradiction in terms and is meaningless. You cannot change Gods ontology into a temporal ontology and pretend that you are actually analysing Gods ontology; you are not analysing Gods ontology, but the ontology of a temporal being. This is the Straw Man fallacy.

This is all irrelevant to my argument. He still requires an explanation and still requires evidence...you've just playing with words - give me some evidence instead perhaps?

It's not a Strawman because I'm not saying he's temporal I'm saying that whether he is or not is irrelevant to the fact he requires evidence.

We are not defining him out of explanation. I've been eager to explain what I mean by God. And if God requires the same amount of explanation, it does not follow that he requires the same kind of explanation, because if you apply a standard of explanation (temporal) which is mutually exclusive with the object of explanation (nontemporal), you are not analysing the actual object,

No because you have to give evidence that nontemporal makes any difference to the matter as well as giving evidence for God then. Saying his nontemporal does not make a difference untill you've explained that as well. Otherwise you might as well call him "cabbage" and claim that that somehow makes him more reasonable. You need evidence this notion of nontemporal making him any more probable, and then you need to evidence God.

This is a Straw Man fallacy.

Once again, what stawman? It's irrelevant to my argument untill you provide evidence. It's not a strawman if there's no reason to believe that the man is any different because you haven't evidenced him!

EvD

[Jon Paul]

And my point is that it's completely irrelevant to my argument. My argument being that whether he's nontemporal or not, he still requires an explanation.

I have already given long and thorough explanations of A), what the word God signifies, and B) why God exists. Within the many pages of the thread I presented several reasons why. You have virtually only addressed the TAG; the state of affairs in reality of potency/actuality you haven't addressed at all, though it is fundamental to my understanding of God.

StHe is still just as complex

You have failed to demonstrate that and only managed to repeat it using your fallacious definitions.

what you're doing is talking about him being nontemporal and saying that he's simple and necessary

And have you actually wondered why? I never said that merely postulating that a thing is nontemporal proves that it exists. What kind of straw man is that? I am saying God is nontemporal because that is what the knowledge from potentiality/actuality mandates.

, and as you did with the TAG, how atheism=self-contradictory, blah, blah, blah - and none of this actually addresses the issue, none of this is actually evidence for God. Got any or not?

I have already laid out my reasons to think that God exists. Again you misrepresent me. TAG is not the only argument I gave. But my activity for the last ten pages has not been proving Gods existence, but answering questions. Now you made a postulate that God was complex. This was not about my evidence; I have not seen a refutation of the given evidence, and now I am elaborating on what God signifies in relevance to your claim he is complex, not proving he exists (if you want evidence for the notion of God I have presented, read again my numerous posts about reality, potentiality and actuality).

This is all irrelevant to my argument. He still requires an explanation and still requires evidence...you've just playing with words - give me some evidence instead perhaps?

It is not irrelevant to your argument. Your argument was not about the evidence for Gods existence, but about the complexity of God. I categorically refuted your fallacious Straw Man which you tried to use as evidence that God is ontologically complex.

It's not a Strawman because I'm not saying he's temporal I'm saying that whether he is or not is irrelevant to the fact he requires evidence.

You are saying that you can analyse a temporal ontology and by that prove that God is complex, which is categorically a Straw Man fallacy, since you are addressing the ontology A and pretending to make significantive conclusions about the ontology B in addressing the mutually exclusive ontology A.

No because you have to give evidence that nontemporal makes any difference to the matter

A temporal ontology is fundamentally different from a non-temporal one. A temporal probability of a thing to come into existence is completely irrelevant to the existence or non-existence of a nontemporal being, which is a matter of purely actual ontology, not of potential ontogeny. What relevance and difference does this make? It makes a difference in essence and therefore a difference to the measure of complexity, which was what the argument was originally about. The measure of complexity is not temporal in a non-temporal ontology. It is not potentiality in a non-potential ontology. The measure of complexity in a non-temporal being is not about the probability of ontogeny (an irrelevant statistical issue of the likelihood of a potentiality to become actual, impertinent to an ontology with no potentialities), but about essential and purely actual ontology (composition of parts or lack thereof).

[amw79]

the argument from potency/actuality you haven't addressed at all, though it is fundamental to my understanding of God.

Come on then JP, one more time. Succinctly explain or put forward this argument without resort to entangled definitions or theological presumptions, references, definitions and assertions. In English if you can.

[Darwinian]

Explain it as you would a child.

[amw79]

Explain it as you would a child.

Are you calling me a child? Ha ha