quip

I don't quite understand the difficulty you seem to be having here.

The garbage-in, garbage-out metaphor works both ways. Draygomb's "God" (subject of the paradox) is contrived specifically for generating a non-metaphysical conclusion, yet (the subject is, after all, metaphysical in nature) he gives no justification for disregarding these metaphysical implications. "God-time" is one of those implications.

Lycius

Draygomb states from the beginning that the paradox doesn't include such outrageous ideas as "god is cheese", or what have you.

It proposes a paradox within the known physical reality we exist in, so yes, it does give a justification for disregarding, "metaphysical implications."

If you choose to exceed this limit, then as I've said before, once you open up the door to this, as you have license to imagine up a scenario to counter the paradox, I have just as much license to counter whatever it is you imagine up.

In other words, if your only recourse to a reality paradox is imaginary realms, then so be it. Just expect it to be countered with imaginary counter-realms (neither of which having any bearing on reality, but what the heck?)

If you're promoting the idea that gods are entirely imaginary, well, then we're on the same side of the fence.

quip

Refusal to acknowlege these metaphysical implications does not disprove them. Until so, this "paradox" is simply smoke and mirrors....ie....rhetoric (as I have pointed out several times.)

Simply stating that God is subject to "known physical reality" (thus can't be TFC) is simply Draygomb's opinion.

Draygomb chose, by default, to exceed this "limit" by including God within his paradox. :huh:

Draygomb beat you to it! It works both ways....if the concept of an all-mighty God is somehow bothersome to you, imagine one that is completely impotent.

I'm agnostic to the concept of God therefore ANY knowledge claim toward an absolute God-concept is susceptible to creative mutation.

Stephen T-B

"ANY knowledge claim toward an absolute God-concept is susceptible to creative mutation." (Quip).

This assumes any "knowledge claim towards an absolute God-concept" (which I think I understand) can be made in the first place.
But it can't.
If gods were subject to "knowledge" in the same way as georgraphy is, for instance, there would be no such thing as an atheist, and there would be but one religion in the world.

There are atheists, and there are thousands of religions and religious sects for the very reason that gods are the subject of speculation - not of knowledge.

We are dealing here with fantasy entities, and to that extent Draycomb''s paradox cannot be said to work.

However, the Universe works because it is material and subject to the natural laws which constrain all matter. And being natural, they are susceptible to investigation.;
We can make sense of them - and in making sense if them, we can make sense of our universe.

But once we begin to imagine supernatural entities, which (being supernatural) are exempt from the natural laws, there is no sense to be made of them.

They are, in other words, non-sense.

And non-sense destroys Draycomb'e paradox.

What sort of triumph is that?

quip

Positive positions regarding Draygomb's paradox seem to hold heavily onto presuppositions and a bias of rationality taking precedence over metaphysicality. Your post seems likewise (Good post nonetheless!)
My approach was a touch more objective (hopefully).

First, I question your personal impressions of what constitutes sense, non-sense relating to the subject at hand. Why is positing an all-powerful God non-sense?

Life is an enduring mystery in which atheism/materialism holds no less speculative answers. Why are we here? Why do we suffer? Is there meaning and purpose in life? .........etc.

Stephen T-B: "there are thousands of religions and religious sects for the very reason that gods are the subject of speculation - not of knowledge."

Therefore, we have billions seeking (speculative) answers to life's unknowable questions. Such a quest by so many, is far from non-sensical; ironically, seeking answers outside the physical realm may have pragmatic implication.

So proclaiming a belief in God as indicative of senselessness is simply Stephen T-B's subjective bias against "outside-of-reality" speculation.

It seems individuals of this forum with similar presuppositions are the ones ballyhooing this paradox as "undefeatable", and "proof God does not exist." -- I vehemently disagreed with such hype and stated why and how.

My goal was not to triumph, or destroy Draygomb's paradox, just simply to expose its (IMO) obvious myopic flaw and somewhat disingenuous construction.

Lycius

Now that's an odd stance to take. By that measure, refusal to acknowledge the existence of any imaginary being doesn't disprove it, so every metaphysical being ever imagined is as likely to exist. Any argument against their existence is simply smoke and mirrors. So we have leprechauns, mermaids, Brahma, Shiva, Thor, Yahweh, Zeus, Mithras, greys, quetalcoatl, Ra, and so an and so forth, all existing, except for some smoke and mirrors attempt to disprove them.

It all must be rhetoric (as you have pointed out several times).

So one being, which many see as mythical, is exempt from "known physical reality" where the others are not. Who's opinion is that then?

Why stop there? Why not include every other supernatural being? Throw them all into the mix and see if they meet up to it.

Then why in the world would you consider such a thing a god?

Well, that statement makes you an atheist, not an agnostic.

If, in your eyes, any knowledge of gods is subject to creative interpretation, then you realize that gods are fictional recreations. Not examples based on observation.

It took me awhile to come to terms with this, myself.

I couldn't find a single observable god that wasn't just a cultural idealization that had evolved from a previous culture's idealizations. Upon further studying history, and seeing how those ideals changed, and how the gods they worshipped changed along with them, I came to see the idea of a "god" as the representation of what these societies aspired to.

It's a pretty pragmatic approach, I'll grant you, but it does seem to bear out. If modern fundamentalist Christians had truly upheld the dogma they claim they espouse, at least half the country would've been dead on arrival, and countinuously killed in perpetuity, and you and I would never have existed.

But ideals changed, as our society changed.

I suppose I'm kinda rambling now. I guess my point is that the gods people now propose to exist, are so far removed from the beings they were derived from, that the whole subject is well beyond pointless. Might as well ascribe any supernatural exemption to the act of body piercing, or fragrant incense.

Where does it end?

quip

This misunderstanding, I believe, is the crux of our miscommunication.
No, I'm an agnostic. Agnosticism deals with knowledge toward God; atheism, belief. An Agnostic's position is that one can never aquire objective knowledge in relation to "God", atheism on the other hand states a disbelief in God. One can be agnostic and still believe in some form of metaphysical God-concept.

The rest of your post seems to reflect this misunderstanding:

Again, if you want to discount and thus disbelieve the metaphysical aspects of all the above mentioned Gods, go for it!

But, don't construct a paradox thereby positing knowledge (proof) that these gods don't exist all the while ignoring their metaphysical aspects because it doesn't fit within your "proof"......

...otherwise your argument simply asserts belief cloaked as knowledge. (classic smoke and mirrors)

Lycius

I understand this, and went through addressing this conundrum myself. But it came to the point where on the one hand, I had observable reality, and on the other, simple "wanting to believe" in some form of metaphysical God-concept. But every god-concept I evaluated wound up being a heavily modified derivative of some previous god-concept. Lacking any observable representation, none of them, as they were presented, could in any way possibly coincide with whatever deities were originally proposed. So knowledge towards gods became unachievable, and thus, irreleveant.



But to do that would be to abandon any means of acquiring any cohesive information as to how the universe functions. We observe that time/space functions in such and such manner. "Yet this conflicts with my traditional fables, so I'm just gonna re-engineer the characters in these fables so as they still fit within the paradigm."

This acheives nothing other than maintaining comfort.

Okay, let's take your stance and apply it to leprechauns. Say someone like Draygomb were to propose a "Leprechaun paradox" involving the mechanics of em radiation and rainbows, and how one couldn't place a "pot of gold" at the end of one, due to the fact that the "end" of a rainbow, if one even existed, was entirely dependent on the viewer's stance and position in relation to the event in question.

The equivalent counterargument would be that leprechauns move about through an undefined dimension, ever keeping their pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, no matter what lightspeed constants were, or time mechanics were in place. They could just do it. Like Santa Claus.

Then where do you draw the line between "belief" and "knowledge"? Which factors count towards belief, and which count towards knowledge?

quip

So, Draygomb's paradox is somehow excluded from this point.....how?


I don't understand how this concllusion was drawn. :huh: We have science for this.

True, but would anyone seriously care?

I see a huge catagory error within the God/leprechaun analogy.

Do the existence of leprechauns provide any theological answers to life's spiritual/moral questions and/or dilemmas?

I don't think so, not even close.

If you presuppose that God is a product of the imagination then leprechauns make a humourous analogy. Yet, other than generating humor and/or pissing off the occasional Christian, the analogy is useless.


I guess that requires faith.....choose your source wisely!

Lycius

Not excluded, included. It's another example of how supernatural entities can't impinge on observed reality.

Eh? A paradox is presented utilizing observed physical limits. A counter to this is proposed in the form of a made up sci-fi scenario. If any sci-fi scenario can be put into play, regardless of actuality, then why study anything at all? Why not just make up whatever coincides with what feels nice, and call it science?

That's just silly. Neither provides any more answers to life's spiritual/moral questions and/or dilemnas than the other, apart from arbitrary cultural definitions. Okay, let's replace leprechauns with genies, or Egyptian ancestral spirits, or totem animals, or Greco/Roman gods, or even the entire Norse pantheon. Would exchanging any of them for the Judeo/Christian god/gods make a difference?

And if I presupposed God as something more psychologically phenomenal, this would make some kind of difference as to its existence? Would a more successful marketing campaign for Coke make it better than Pepsi?

Does it require faith? Really? Or does it require relegating "faith" to being wishfull thinking?