philechat

Let's suppose an apologist wants to establish the existence of God, who satisfies the condition as indicated under the definition "omniscience". Could the existence of such a being be verified? I would said boldly here that all attempts to such proves are futile.

To verify the existence of such a being, another omniscient being is required, since without omniscience humans cannot possibly conceive all the knowledge existing and possible (still to be discovered). That is, unless verified by another omniscient being, the existence of an omniscient being is unverifiable since there is no instrument to detect all the knowledge available and could ever be concieved.

But again, the existence of another omniscient being must also be verified by yet another omniscient being, and so on, ad infinitum. And so there is in no way human can concieve of an omniscient being, since humans are not omniscient.

Even by the so-called "revelation" done by God, a person can never know such a revelation is indeed coming from an Omniscient being, and to assume such a "revelation" comes from such a being is an overestimation of human knowledge.

Any comments?

[ June 29, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Philosoft

I think the average omniscient-being theist is willing to stipulate to what you say because it won't affect their arguments. They would most likely go for one of the following:

1) God's omniscience is a revealed characteristic. It is supernaturally, rather than naturally known.

2) God's omniscience is a logical conclusion given that he is the creator of all things and he has biblically demonstrated a great deal of knowledge already.

3) God's omniscience is a necessary conclusion given that he transcends time and observes all moments at once.

Theli

Philecat...

I asked the same thing.
<a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000401&p=" target="_blank">Omnipotence+Omniscience?</a>

A person cannot verify the omniscience to be true since that would require that the person himself is omniscient. He would have to be, in order to confirm the truth of the answers given to him.
Omniscience is an assumption at best.


Philosoft...

May I have a try?

The observer is not supernatural and therefore cannot benefit from "magic". He has to observe omniscience the old fashion way, by asking questions. And there aren't enough questions in the world.
If the theist wants to imply that the info was handed down to the observer in a "supernatural way", he has his work cut out for him.
1. He must show that supernaturalism is true.
2. He must show that something supernatural led to the observations, and not just plain imagination.
3. He must show how info can be beamed down into the brain of a human, and also why that info must be reliable.
The list goes on, but I'll leave it there.

Does creating an always evolving universe require the creator to know everything in it?
We cannot even establish that the creator god would still exist now.
Moving to the second point. "Great deal of knowledge"?
1. The bible has been shown to be wrong about a great many things (creationism).
2. Alot is not everthing. You couldn't possibly squease in all info that exist, and every answer to every question that could possibly exist in the bible.

You cannot prove an unlikely observation to be true by assuming the truth of an even less likely observation. How can you from a brief observation reach the conclution that what you observe is "timeless". I suspect that the person who wrote that had no idea, and simply wanted to make his god sound even more powerfull.

Thanks for the examples, Philo.
I hope we can get a real apologist in here.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Theli

And also, you must establish what "everything" mean.
Does everything include god's own future actions?
Does everything include false knowledge?
Does god know his own limitations?

The truthfulness of all god's info can be no more than assumption on his part.
You can't argue that because he's omniscient, his knows that all his knowledge is true, because the knowledge of his own omniscience is also under questioning.

And if god's omniscience is an assumption made on his side, it can be no more than an assumption on our side.

Concerning omnipotence (among having other problems stated in my link above), god's ability to test his omnipotence is aslo questionable.
If god was not omnipotent, he could still reach the conclution that he was, based on his own limited power to examine.

Can god create a planet made out of strawberries?
If he lacked the power to imagine a strawberry planet, it could be excluded from his own idea of omnipotence. He could reach the conclution that he was omnipotent, but still be limited in power.

Well, this was alot of fun.

Blu

I would like to address the proof of God (or any Creator or omniscient being).

Human being are limited in knowledge. We (human beings as a species) have created our ideas of what God is like, and have created our ideas of God's characteristics. But human beings are limited in knowledge because we are not Gods and we do not know Absolute Truth. Are our ideas of God correct? If they are incorrect, how does having false ideas of God's characteristics make God non-existent period?

I would say that the very existence of life and the existence of earth is evidence that there is something, something we can not even comprehend, behind it all. Perhaps if life in the Universe was more common, perhaps if there were several other species in the Universe who have already made contact with our species, maybe it would be harder for people to believe life is not just a random freak occurance. Perhaps if evolution can be proved from beginning to end, perhaps if the missing link was found and that there was no longer that gap then it would be harder for some to believe in a "God" type energy or essence, behind human consciousness and existence. Perhaps if there was NO LIFE on earth than all the atheist would be proved "right," because then there would be no evidence of an intelligence or energy in the Universe that is behind all creation. But Life does exist and it still holds a certain amount of mystery.

I still say that God (or an intelligence, energy of the Universe we do not yet understand)cannot be dis-proved and because of our limited knowledge it cannot be proved. We have life to look upon as evidence that there is something.

Philosoft

Possibly. But it does not follow that we cannot know all things that can be known.

<strong> We don't actually have any "ideas of God." We just act like we do.

<strong> It doesn't. But how do we decide what can possibly exist if all our ideas of its characteristics are false? If God is nothing like our alleged conceptions, what exactly are you claiming might exist?

<strong> Why life? Why not aluminum? Or Cheetos? Do you have anything save an arbitrary distinction?

<strong> Have you been reading Fermi? He makes some giant leaps of logic, you know.

<strong> I am constantly astounded people have the gall to claim the morphological and genetic similarities between the higher apes and humans, combined with the fossil evidence from Australopithecus, is insufficient to establish an evolutionary link.

<strong> Yes, well you just keep thinking about that.

<strong> Only for some.

<strong> We can't disprove something we don't understand? This seems like a reasonable argument in favor of God? I can only shake my head in disbelief.

Theli

Blu...

If those words that are used to define "god" is false, then naturally that "god" is nonexistent.
If you want to establish new attributes you cannot rely on the bible to do so, and must therefore observe them (not invent them).

Something you can't comprehend, or something you don't want to comprehend?

Eh, why?

Noone here has stated that life on our planet is a unique occurence. I would think that the discovering of intelligent alien life would be bad for christian belief.
Did god create us in his image, or did he create the aliens in his image?

I don't see why we had to fill the gaps with god to begin with.

What atheists? If there were no life, there would be no atheists.

And there is now?

I never understood this. Some people think that "mystery" equals god. And in order to keep god alive they try to make everything even more "mysterious".

I agree. You can't find direct proof for the nonexistence of something. But if it cannot be proven then we have no reason to believe it exist.

[ July 06, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Jobar

If something is mysterious it can be answered- not necessarily *will* be answered, but an answer exists.

I personally think that the notion of God is mystical- which means that it is wordless, inexpressible, and fundamentally unanswerable. And for that reason, all worship, all theology, and all preaching is pointless, meaningless, worthless.

If all the holy joes on Earth took a vow of silence, I'd have far more respect for them. (One of the reasons I like Zen!)

philechat

That's my problem with any organized religion. If God (or whatever it is) is unknowable, then how can we assume that such a being would want us to behave a certain way over another? The only way to appreciate the mysterious is through art and through experience. Any forms of theology or religious tenets are fundamentally flawed in my opinion, and whatever is mysterious must remain mysterious, open to all forms of interpretations and comform to none.

Blu

Theli and everyone:

My point in pointing out that life is still somewhat of a mystery is we do not have all the answers, not scientists, not people, no one... I am not saying that this point somehow equals God. I am saying that as long as we do not know all there is to know about existence and the Universe no one can say there isn't a "God" (or some energy, in the Universe)and yet people say there isn't because they do not have awareness of "God."

Let's talk about proof.... Scientists say there needs to be proof ... Atheists say they need proof as well... What proof exactly are we talking about? mathematical?

I personally see the proof of God (or Universal energy or whatever you want to call it) every time I wake up, every time I go outside, and every time I feel love for absolutely no earthly reason. Did someone ever ask another person to prove that they felt love? How would you prove that if it was only a feeling? I see the result of love. But how can you prove a feeling? I see the result of the Universe (God)but how do you prove the Universe (God)exists?

Yes, we cannot prove that God is some sort of human-like entity living in the clouds and throwing down His wrathe whenever someone "sins"... Who says that "God" is like that anyway? I didn't. Yes, we cannot prove that God created the earth in the way human beings create ... But we really do not know how the earth was created. There is a whole bunch of theories and hypothesis... how do we prove that God (or some intelligent energy that we cannot even fathom) didn't have anything to do with it?

People want to have tangible proof... you have it everywhere if you care to look.

Most do not care to see because I believe they are too busy feeling superior, angry towards religious groups, and they are too caught up in scientific theory to see. Adults have learned to anesthesize themselves to the wonder of the Universe... and its mysteries. What happened to their pure and child-like wonder?

The bottom line is people will always see about 3 Billion different ways to this.... question .. argument. I see it as a question. But a lot of people have chosen to see it as an argument and they do this because they want to be right. And they are very intent on making everyone else see that they are right too. It is too scary to them to look at it as a question that has not been answered. People need answers and answers that can be scientifically proved. How many scientific theories and hypothesis haven't been proved that atheist and non-religious people believe simply because it came from a scientist, an astronomer, or an astrophysicist? They are a lot safer, huh?

Once that mystery is gone from your mind, what do you have? The world looks like a meaningless and placid place where people run around doing their chores in life. I personally don't see any happiness in that. I personally don't see why people would choose to kill the mystery and only believe in what is scientifically proven or theorized (not proved).

Atheist say they need proof.... I don't think it is proof that they need.

This quote is appropriate:

"For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

That is really what it comes down to. Of course, when it comes to scientific theory or hypothesis, no proof is necessary for non-believers but hey, it seems more tangible right?