HRG

How about the following brain bubble ?

Let's call U the set of statements that an omniscient being knows. S is transfinite and VERY LARGE.

For any subset T of U, let's form the statement
X(U) which is simply composed of all statements in T joined by "and". This would again have to be an element of U. Contradiction with Cantor's Power Set theorem (for any set, the set of its subset is strictly larger).

Any suggestions on improving this rough sketch will be appreciated!

Regards,
HRG.

Automaton

Since there is no way to know if this knowledge is an illusion or not, omniscience is self-contradictory.

ju'iblex

So can we extend this to saying omniscience means determinism? are we then responsible for our own actions considering God knows exactly what we are going to do, and it was determined since the beginning of whatever was the beginning?

wouldnt this rule out all kinds of justice system, including judgement day? or am i way out of the ballpark now.

Tercel

I hate to end the fun you guys are no doubt having kicking the straw out of your definition Omniscience there.

However, what exactly do you think the Church are getting at when they say God is Omniscient? Now we could say that they mean God knows absolutely all truth, and we could have fun arguing about why God wouldn't be able to prove this to himself, and that Set Theory is incapable of having a Set of all truths, or whether God would know his own future actions etc.
Or we could accept that the Church is simply alluding to the idea that God is very knowledgeable indeed, being the most knowledgeable being around, and has reasonable knowledge of the state of all creation. But since that idea's conceivably possible, it wouldn't allow ridule of the silly Christians for believing their silly doctrines, which would spoil the fun.
So, carry on.

Answerer

Since God is ominscience, he surely knows that Satan the angel is sure to become Satan the devil and yet, he didn't stop him and this tell us that either God is really omniscience or that he is not really universally compasionate as the christians believe.

seebs

That's an interesting one; I suppose one response would be to take the idea of someone being an atheist "with respect to Zeus", and come up with omniscience "with respect to a given universe".

I would argue that it's impossible to distinguish between:

1. A being which is omniscient.

and

2. A being which is almost omniscient about a specific subset of reality, but which has the false belief that this subset of reality is all there is.

unless you're outside the box.

Now, the full-blown "yes, really, *everything*" omniscience is immune to this - but I can't see how you'd tell the difference. You just need one slice of false but untestable beliefs.

Cool idea. It turns out that the ability of language to construct things which sound meaningful but which are not, in fact, logically consistent, makes any omni-* attribute hard to make sense of.

You can take the "rock so heavy he can't lift it" and turn it into an omniscience attack by turning it into something like "know how to create a puzzle he can't solve". The mind-numbing power of this attack, which fascinated me for a whole day when I was 4, survives the translation.

Wyrdsmyth

I agree with Tercel. We ought to take assertions like "God is all-knowing" with a grain of salt, similar to how "forty days and forty nights" meant a "long time." Definitions of omniscience seem to be the concern of later philosophers.

Still, this is not a straw man issue. Even if we take down what Tercel sees as the Effigy of Philosophical Omniscience, it is still a valid question to ask how the early writers of the Old Testament knew that God was "all-knowing." If we take their testimony at face value, God is not technically omniscient as his character is portrayed in the Bible. He asks Adam where he is. He tests the loyalty of his servants, Abram and Job (these tests would be unnecessary if he could simply "see in their hearts"). God is disappointed at various times. How can you be disappointed at an outcome that you were expecting all along? So, what did the writers of the Bible mean? What does the church mean when it says "God is all-knowing"? And how can they know it for sure?

If a powerful, highly knowledgeable being appears to you, at what point are you going to call it God? He claims to be all-knowing... but he one day you hear him calling out, asking where you are
(you're hiding in the shrubbery of a garden). Another time he orders you to sacrifice your son to him, because he wants to test your loyalty. Doesn't he already know how loyal you are? Can't he read your mind?

seebs

Obviously, they can't.

As to the others: Surely, at least someone here has asked a child a question to which he knew the answer, to give the child a chance to tell the truth or lie?

As to testing Abraham... God knew what would happen. Abraham didn't. Abraham needed to know.

Koyaanisqatsi

Well stated Word

It's not "our" definition, it's the definition and we didn't come up with it so relax.

I don't agree with it either, but then I'm not the one who misapplies it to describe a fictional creature; millions of christian cult members do, so if there's any straw being stuffed it is by the ones who created the myth to begin with.

Precisely what we've been discussing. They are claiming that God is absolute and all knowledgeable; the "uncaused cause," etc., etc. Don't blame us for correctly taking the "church's" illogic to its obvious conclusion.

Your attempts at obfuscation aside, "we" could say anything we wanted. The question is as you pretend, what does the "church" say and since there is no "church," rather churches, that's impossible to do.

All "we" can say is what we've heard when we were cult members ourselves, so please don't try this apologist nonsense, because you do not speak for "the church."

What my ministers stated and meant when they used the word "omniscient" was precisely what we have been talking about; that God is absolute truth, not merely that God "knows absolutely all truth."

That is just a revisionist's lie and you know it because you know that your own beliefs are the ultimate definition of illogical.

Since they are supposed to be, however, I fail to understand why you constantly try to obscure this obvious fact with every post you make.

We all know it's an illogical construct, but what's even more ironic is when you try to revise the dogma in this way all you end up doing (as Word so eloquently demonstrated) is to further expose the illogic of it all.

"Fun?" What is "fun" about systematically deconstructing the illogical constructs of a belief system that has resulted in the victimization, torture, rape and murder of hundreds of millions of people and remains so entrenched in our society that we're right now in a "holy war" of our own making?

What's even more sickening is the fact that you know exactly what we're talking about and yet set out to deliberately marginalize it with this revisionist crap.

Yeah, that's right. Not that God is all powerful and all knowing and ultimate and as a result of his omniscience the basis for absolute truth and the basis for objective morality and the basis for absolute justice, just a really smart guy, but not that smart.

He knows enough to create the entire universe and breathe consciousness into Adam and what's in your thoughts and whether or not you've been naughty or nice, but that's it!

What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us...?



The Old Testament is just a footnote for you, right Terc old bean?

It is?

No it isn't. Not in the slightest. For a single guy to have created the entire universe including sentience and the realms above and below the universe used to punish and reward, it is entirely unreasonable to state he just had "reasonable knowledge" of the state of all creation.

I have "reasonable knowledge" of the law, but that doesn't qualify me for Supreme Court Justice, now does it?

Yeah, that's what this is all about. Christians are just "silly." Not tax free pedophiles or anything; it's not like they're the President of the United States defending against an "axis of evil" for gosh sakes, right?



Don't worry. We will "carry on" and we're sure you'll be right there along with us hopelessly trying to marginalize it all so you can keep justifying your own desperate beliefs that, ironically, your apologist revision just serves to prove that not even you believe; you're just a victim of intertia.

(edited for formatting - Koy)

[ June 24, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Automaton

Sorry Tercel, I have a little trouble conceiving of a logically necessary Ground of all Being, the substance of all existence, is merely "pretty smart" or "a little smarter than humans."