I will prove to you that God exists

[Angrboda]

It's not clear that people are speaking correctly about infinity and the transfinite.  These terms have specific meaning that is often ignored in favor of intuitive but incorrect senses.  But then, the intuitive sense predates the mathematical one, so a choice has to be made about whether the older usages are constrained by the mathematics.  If not, it would seem that infinity and the transfinite do not possess the behaviors that our/their intuitions attributed to them.

I guess if you allow for mathematical sense infinities (i.e. in a mathematical hierarchy of infinities) than either god is or is not the biggest infinity. I suspect the latter is not endorsed by christianity (god is GOAT). If the christian god is GOAT than my counterproof leads to the same result. If not, the christian god definition is breached. Maybe there is a hierarchy of gods all the way up, as there are turtles all the way down. Solves the fine tuning of the christian god.

Somewhat reminiscent of Kripke's concept of truth, I would guess there are infinite infinities, and thus speaking of a greatest would also be intuitive but incoherent.

[LoneWolf]

As I understand it, the Christian God is not said to "radiate" temperance, modesty, or any of the other virtues. Those virtues are habits people develop through their behavior, but God has no behavior. As the Form of the Good (for Neoplatonic Christians) and as actualization without potentiality (for the more Aristotelian kind) a Christian would attempt to become in line with God through such behaviors. Though God, being ideal, wants nothing, people say metaphorically "God wants you to be temperate." This really means that it's in one's own best interest to be temperate, in order to be as good as possible.

How can god act in the world if he has no behavior? Without action/behavior it becomes very difficult to put on your socks, let alone create a universe. Another argument getting us deeper in illogical reasoning.
As for temperance, it was adopted by the church as one of the seven holy virtues. If the holy virtues are not an indication of what is meant with doing/being "good", than what is? At least it was the interpretation of the church at the time that those things belonged in the category "good". Or do we have different categories of good, one for gods and one for mortals? Further in the trench we go.

As for Giordano Bruno, he was an early adopter of lots of newish ideas, but that's not what got him killed. He was executed for going to Rome and loudly advocating the overthrow of the Catholic Church, so it could be replaced with a set of even wilder ideas supposedly recovered from an ancient tablet, which even then was identified as a forgery. If he had published his cosmological speculations as speculation, and not poked his thumb in the pope's eye he would have been OK. 
...
From our modern perspective, Bruno's fake-ancient beliefs may be no better than what Catholics believe. But it wasn't the science-y part that got him in trouble.

I never said Bruno "radiated" science and was therefore burned. The point is there were and still are a lot of views within christianity that go against doctrine. In fact christianity (say the Catholic Church) nowadays evolved from a vast array of different opinions competing in the early church. Power and politics certainly played a role. So, how can we discern who's proof of the christian god we should take seriously?

[LoneWolf]

Somewhat reminiscent of Kripke's concept of truth, I would guess there are infinite infinities, and thus speaking of a greatest would also be intuitive but incoherent.

Well mathematics indeed developed a hierarchy of infinities and found that you can say that one type of infinity is greater than another. This started with Georg Cantor in the late 1800s and developed further with Richard Dedekind, David Hilbert, Kurt Godel, Paul Cohen and Ernst Zermelo, no small potatoes. Sometimes what seems intuitively incoherent can be proven mathematically. But maybe I misunderstood you.

[Angrboda]

Somewhat reminiscent of Kripke's concept of truth, I would guess there are infinite infinities, and thus speaking of a greatest would also be intuitive but incoherent.

Well mathematics indeed developed a hierarchy of infinities and found that you can say that one type of infinity is greater than another. This started with Georg Cantor in the late 1800s and developed further with Richard Dedekind, David Hilbert, Kurt Godel, Paul Cohen and Ernst Zermelo, no small potatoes. Sometimes what seems intuitively incoherent can be proven mathematically. But maybe I misunderstood you.

You did. I was suggesting that hierarchy may be unbounded. But I'm just following my intuition here.

[Belacqua]

As I understand it, the Christian God is not said to "radiate" temperance, modesty, or any of the other virtues. Those virtues are habits people develop through their behavior, but God has no behavior. As the Form of the Good (for Neoplatonic Christians) and as actualization without potentiality (for the more Aristotelian kind) a Christian would attempt to become in line with God through such behaviors. Though God, being ideal, wants nothing, people say metaphorically "God wants you to be temperate." This really means that it's in one's own best interest to be temperate, in order to be as good as possible.

How can god act in the world if he has no behavior? Without action/behavior it becomes very difficult to put on your socks, let alone create a universe. Another argument getting us deeper in illogical reasoning.
As for temperance, it was adopted by the church as one of the seven holy virtues. If the holy virtues are not an indication of what is meant with doing/being "good", than what is? At least it was the interpretation of the church at the time that those things belonged in the category "good". Or do we have different categories of good, one for gods and one for mortals? Further in the trench we go.

As for Giordano Bruno, he was an early adopter of lots of newish ideas, but that's not what got him killed. He was executed for going to Rome and loudly advocating the overthrow of the Catholic Church, so it could be replaced with a set of even wilder ideas supposedly recovered from an ancient tablet, which even then was identified as a forgery. If he had published his cosmological speculations as speculation, and not poked his thumb in the pope's eye he would have been OK. 
...
From our modern perspective, Bruno's fake-ancient beliefs may be no better than what Catholics believe. But it wasn't the science-y part that got him in trouble.

I never said Bruno "radiated" science and was therefore burned. The point is there were and still are a lot of views within christianity that go against doctrine. In fact christianity (say the Catholic Church) nowadays evolved from a vast array of different opinions competing in the early church. Power and politics certainly played a role. So, how can we discern who's proof of the christian god we should take seriously?

In classical theology it's standard to argue that God, being ideal, has no desires, no passions, and takes no action. How things work from there is explained, usually, in standard Platonic terms. The Parmenides, the Symposium, etc. 

It's a lot to work on and not really amenable on a forum like this. 

Yes, temperance is one of the classical virtues, adopted from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, mostly. Temperance is a habit that people may develop, and is not applicable to God. 

As Dante makes clear, the virtues are virtues because they are what's best for us, and sin is sin because it is harmful to us or to others. It's not an arbitrary set of commands. 

Giordano Bruno's ideas were not "within" Christianity. He intended to throw out Christianity entirely. 

You are correct that there is a wide variety of belief within Christianity. I sometimes think that "Christianity" is a kind of umbrella label for a number of different things which might best be described as separate religions. How do we know which set of ideas to take seriously? As with all philosophical arguments, we can only do it by using our brains.

[emjay]

From my perspective, Bel, classical theology and/or God-of-the-gaps arguments like Fine Tuning etc are at best wishful/fantasy thinking on the part of theists or people like you (theist-wannabes or agnostics or however else you describe yourself), because at the end of the day they have to be tied to the actual world we see, and they are not, in the slightest. How on earth for instance to do you/they equate an all-loving, all-good classical god with creating a brutal world where everything must eat everything else to survive, a world full of suffering on account of that, in both humans and other animals? Christian claims that non-human animals only exist to be subjugated to human needs like food or work, is bad enough, but then to build them so that they suffer as well... that makes no sense whatsoever from an all-good/all-loving god. But without god... as a consequence of evolution and natural selection alone, it does make sense. Sad, often nihilistic sense yes, but sense nonetheless.

I much prefer the approach of the author Sean Carroll to these sorts of questions. I'd really recommend his book The Big Picture. He for instance accepts that there are many God-of-the-gaps arguments, but treats them as hypotheses to compare with other hypotheses (treated equally I might add), in seeking which hypothesis better explains a given state of affairs, such as the actual form of the universe, or actual biology/evolution on this planet etc. Dealing with God-of-the-gaps arguments is not the purpose of this book... he's actually probably one of the most theist-friendly authors I've ever seen... but just a wonderful, perfectly logical side effect.

[Paleophyte]

In classical theology it's standard to argue that God, being ideal, has no desires, no passions, and takes no action.

In classic make-believe, it's standard to argue that you can't get a really real universe out of a do-nothing deity.

[The Grand Nudger]

No one cares about a god like that. Certainly not the believers. No desires, passions, or actions….no theism.

[Belacqua]

From my perspective, Bel, classical theology and/or God-of-the-gaps arguments like Fine Tuning etc are at best wishful/fantasy thinking on the part of theists or people like you (theist-wannabes or agnostics or however else you describe yourself), because at the end of the day they have to be tied to the actual world we see, and they are not, in the slightest. How on earth for instance to do you/they equate an all-loving, all-good classical god with creating a brutal world where everything must eat everything else to survive, a world full of suffering on account of that, in both humans and other animals? Christian claims that non-human animals only exist to be subjugated to human needs like food or work, is bad enough, but then to build them so that they suffer as well... that makes no sense whatsoever from an all-good/all-loving god. But without god... as a consequence of evolution and natural selection alone, it does make sense. Sad, often nihilistic sense yes, but sense nonetheless.

I much prefer the approach of the author Sean Carroll to these sorts of questions. I'd really recommend his book The Big Picture. He for instance accepts that there are many God-of-the-gaps arguments, but treats them as hypotheses to compare with other hypotheses (treated equally I might add), in seeking which hypothesis better explains a given state of affairs, such as the actual form of the universe, or actual biology/evolution on this planet etc. Dealing with God-of-the-gaps arguments is not the purpose of this book... he's actually probably one of the most theist-friendly authors I've ever seen... but just a wonderful, perfectly logical side effect.

All very fair criticisms.

Thank you for being civil about it.

[emjay]

From my perspective, Bel, classical theology and/or God-of-the-gaps arguments like Fine Tuning etc are at best wishful/fantasy thinking on the part of theists or people like you (theist-wannabes or agnostics or however else you describe yourself), because at the end of the day they have to be tied to the actual world we see, and they are not, in the slightest. How on earth for instance to do you/they equate an all-loving, all-good classical god with creating a brutal world where everything must eat everything else to survive, a world full of suffering on account of that, in both humans and other animals? Christian claims that non-human animals only exist to be subjugated to human needs like food or work, is bad enough, but then to build them so that they suffer as well... that makes no sense whatsoever from an all-good/all-loving god. But without god... as a consequence of evolution and natural selection alone, it does make sense. Sad, often nihilistic sense yes, but sense nonetheless.

I much prefer the approach of the author Sean Carroll to these sorts of questions. I'd really recommend his book The Big Picture. He for instance accepts that there are many God-of-the-gaps arguments, but treats them as hypotheses to compare with other hypotheses (treated equally I might add), in seeking which hypothesis better explains a given state of affairs, such as the actual form of the universe, or actual biology/evolution on this planet etc. Dealing with God-of-the-gaps arguments is not the purpose of this book... he's actually probably one of the most theist-friendly authors I've ever seen... but just a wonderful, perfectly logical side effect.

All very fair criticisms.

Thank you for being civil about it.

Does this mean you don't have an answer to this question? If that's the case, doesn't that bother you at all?