DaveJes1979

from Philechat: Dave: hmmmm...I wasn't aware that the Bible was supposed to be either aesthetically pleasing or entertaining.

In any case, I am not at all embarrassed by the fact that God is proven circularly. Everyone's worldview must start somewhere. But I argue that one MUST start with God otherwise one cannot come to any knowledge whatsoever. His existence is the necessary precondition for logic, morality, or any form of knowledge.

The Quran's Allah cannot possibly exist since Allah is described as unknowable. Thus, the Quran cannot even be what it claims to be - Allah's self-revelation. It is a self-refuting worldview.

Automaton

Dave: hmmm...don't recall saying or implying that "logic doesn't apply to God." My above post merely stressed that one ought not confuse the categories of logic and power.

Dave Gadbois

E_muse

It wasn't a brilliant discussion.. believe me I'll just restate the principles here if that's alright.

Why is it odd? Are definitions, arguements and concepts not 'things' or rather entities in space and time?

Anyway, quick definition of demonstrate:

Do you agree that to present a logical arguement is seeking to demonstrate the validity of a proposition.

I agree that my wording was clumsy.. it was late. Apologies, allow me to reiterate.

To demonstrate that a proposition is founded upon circular logic cannot be taken as proof that the proposition is false a priori.

Perhaps that is why, in every day life, people are not rigidly logical and give credence to intuition and gut instinct.

It's good to know that logic is not all it is often cracked up to be.

Only if one presupposes that rigid logic is the only means of establishing truth or knowledge.

Isn't our ability to know limited to our sense perceptions and how much we are able to understand through them? Because we can't test everything empirically we must build up logical rules in the hope that they lead us closer to truth. Isn't this what the above statement is about?

Is knowing through logical deduction the same as knowing through experience and which would apply to God if he existed?

No, I took the example of square circle and applied it to the term X. I wasn't suggesting that this is what you were doing. As you've stated below, X represents an impossible action because it is logically impossible. Above you've said that a square circle is logically impossible and so it seemed appropriate to apply the example to X.

This may be so.. but does this mean that the conclusion is false or simply unreliable?

Isn't something logically impossible because it is actually impossible?

Circular definitions are repetitious but not meaningless. They don't add any new information.

Omnipotence is a statement concerning God's abilities. There is a big difference between saying that God will never do something and God is incapable of doing something.

If I have two choices, x and y and I choose x, does this mean that I am therefore incapable of doing y (I lack the power to do it)?

[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: E_muse ]</p>

Automaton

sikh: Your God is an undefinable being, indistinguishable from a space alien? How convenient. I am not dealing with some ineffable concept, rather the God of classical theism, which deals with the God of Christians, Jews, Muslims and many other religious denominations.
Elaborate. Why does free-will have anything to do with my argument?
Do you realise you have just given your God a definition over and above the one you claim is the absolute maximum you can define it as? I don't recall you originally saying omniscience and logical contradiction were a part of your supposedly undefinable concept. What do you mean by the "existence of a square circle"? Don't you know such a thing could never exist, as the properties of a square are directly in opposition to a circle, and vice versa?
What does this even mean?
If a website said it, it MUST be true. Most atheists (and even theists) here would contend this notion, I believe.

[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: Automaton ]</p>

Automaton

DaveJes1979: If one of the ultimite attributes of God is his ultimite power, and logic doesn't apply to this power, it necessarily follows that logic doesn't apply to God.

philechat

DaveJes1979:

Very weak argument. Platonism had been refuted again and agian by subsequent philosophers. And just by examining world cultures one finds that the Christian God is not needed with the creation of culture, knowledge, and morality in the majority of the cases. (ever heard of Confucius, the Buddha, Aristotle, Egyptian and Mayan civilization...etc)

Let's not use the famous western ethnocentrism when discussing cultural knowledge, okay?

[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Automaton

E_Muse: Fair enough.
Well, you could say they exist as a electrochemical states in the brain, but an electrochemical state that creates the idea is obviously not the same as the idea, and thus at best they are only epiphenominal on spacetime events.
Yes, alright. What relevance does this have?
Yes it is, a proposition is only a proposition if it has meaning. Circular definitions lack meaning.
I don't think has anything to do with incompleteness theorems, but more to do with the fact of our evolutionary past as creatures of nearly pure instinct.
Logic is still the same useful tool it always was, it's simply impossible to know all knowledge about all systems, the very thing omniscience requires.
If you think one can "know" something without establishing its logical factuality, the burden of proof is on your shoulders to show that this means of knowledge exists.
The above statement refers to the incompleteness of axiomatic logic placing limitations on inductive reasoning, not the other way around.
Huh?
X represents an action that is impossible because what God does is limited by his being (I was showing this is circular however). Creating a square circle is not an example of this, because square circles are merely logically impossible, not something said to be impossible because it conflicts with God's being.
What conclusion?
No...
By Jove, I think he's nearly got it! When is a meaning not a meaning? When it contains zero information. Hence, meaningless.
But what if your ultimite desire was to do x. Would you have really had any choice? Would you have gone against your ultimite desire and chosen x?

BTW, sorry if not much of this recent post makes sense, I'm tired and sick at the moment.

Ron Singh

Once again, you aren't comprehending what has presented. I never said this. I said that if you were to make a case against GOD, then this is the lowest common denominator that pertains to Gods. If you want to disprove GOD, then you have to disprove THIS, God's supernatural existence.

No, this is not classical, this is just the theism that you may be more familiar with. If you want to try to disprove a certain brand of a God of a certain religion of a certain denomination, then feel free to. If you want to disprove God, then don't use a certain brand of God to disprove ALL Gods.

Once again you fail to understand what I have presented you. I never once told you any information that pertains to MY God.

I merely gave that quote to give you some insight, moreover, if you are in opposition to that quote, feel free to tell me its faults.

Peace, Mutton. ~Your friendly fifteen year old neighborhood Sikh.

DaveJes1979

automaton said:

Dave: I didn't say that "logic doesn't apply to power." Once again, I said that power and logic are two distinct (but not completely unrelated) philisophical domains.

philechat


Dave: I don't recall appealing to Platonism. You can criticize it all you want. And you are confusing the idea that "the Christian God is not needed" with the fact that certain cultures don't ACKNOWLEDGE the Christian God.

Dave: I would criticize ANY worldview - whether you label it distinctively "western" or otherwise, that does not ground its knowledge in the One True God. I believe that these philosophies and distorted forms of theism fall just as much as "western" atheism does. My challenge for them remains the same, as I have challenged atheists in here. How does their worldview, non-arbitrarily account for moral norms?

Dave Gadbois

[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: DaveJes1979 ]</p>

Ender

Ah, another presuppositionalist! Glad to make your acquaintance, DaveJes, 1979!

Simple and quick. <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=000134" target="_blank">Existential phenomenology.</a>
~WiGGiN~

[ May 13, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>

Automaton

What does "distinct but not completely unrelated" even mean? How can something be of any degree "distinct" from logic? It may surprise you to know that there are no square circles, no amount of "power" will negate this.