Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 03-15-2002, 01:29 AM

Tercel:
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So "Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?". Well, if God is omnipotent, then he could lift any size rock. Thus the question is asking God to make a rock that he both can't lift and can lift. This is not a task, it is just a completely meaningless joining of words.
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This founders on the problems of the notion "omnipotent". The term is linguistic in natural, and idealistic, for we can conceve of the idea, but paradoxes render the notion ultimately without practical significance.

I can happily write music which I cannot play (as in, no classical composer could play all the instruments necessary for a symphony), so the notion that God could create a rock which he couldn't lift is in no sense meaningless. The problem is with the term "omnipotent". Ultimately its use can only be ideal and not related to the world, as such logical paradoxes show.

spin · 03-15-2002, 01:38 AM

Tercel, referring to the trinity:
-----------------------
Perhaps it’s: two edges on one sword?
-----------------------

The analogy cannot be pressed in any way, so of no use! When Jesus is recorded as having said, "not what I want, but what you (father) want", there is an explicit indication of two separate wills between the two "essences". Your analogy doesn't allow us to deal with such data.

Then again, your analogy is simply contradictory to your argument, because naturally a sword is made up of a lot more than its two edges.

-----------------------
Mysterious.
-----------------------

Nothing mysterious. A history of the development of the ideas leading up to it, shows how it is derived, how there's nothing mysterious about it, that it was a necessity for mainstream Christianity which had backed itself into such a corner.

(Christians should make amends for the morally bankrupt acts against Arius.)

HRG · 03-15-2002, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tercel:

Three persons in one essence.
Different. If it was three beings who are one being it would be contradictory as three doesn’t equal one. But by separation of the persons and the essence the contradiction is removed

Tercel

And you separate the essence from the person by using the same machine which separated the grin from the Cheshire cat ?

Of course, three persons would still mean three different entities, whatever their essence. Otherwise, identitas indiscernibilium strikes.

BTW, the actual data - that people wrote texts about the Trinity - are best explained by the assumption that they did not follow their ideas to their logical consequences.

Regards,
HRG.

Tercel · 03-20-2002, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Not Prince Hamlet:
Three persons in one essence.
Different. If it was three beings who are one being it would be contradictory as three doesn�t equal one. But by separation of the persons and the essence the contradiction is removed.

So, how does "essence" differ from "being"? I know that "essence" comes from the Latin esse, which means, literally, "to be".

I don't think it does differ in any ways that matter. Although, I think essence is a slightly better word becuase it doesn't seem to imply existence in a physical body to quite the same extent as "being", though I suppose that's debatable.

It's the persons part that's importantly different to being. Think schizophrenia!

Quote:

The doctrine�s simply the best explanation we�ve got of the observed data.

What observed data?

Various statements in the Bible and the beliefs of the early church.

Quote:

Other way around. If it�s a higher mystery then any attempted description/explanation is going to be a meaningless jumble of words.

So, by your logic, if the question of God being able to create a boulder He can't lift is a higher mystery, then it would appear to us as a meaningless jumble of words?

Uh? Yes, well... something like that...

If something's a higher mystery then even our best attemepts at understanding it aren't going to yield very satisfactory results. However, it is a requirement of logical arguments that everything in them is logically coherent. Trying to formulate a logical argument against omnipotence by using a logically meaningless idea of a rock that can and can't be lifted simply isn't allowed. It's simply one of those limitations of logic.

It might be true that God can do the logically impossible, however it's not possible to logically examine this because logic only deals with the logically possible. Hence for the sake of logical argument it's convenient to restrict God's omnipotence to the logically possible.

Quote:

LOL! You're all right, Tercel.

Same to you.

If I wasn't amused by what's posted here I would probably get very annoyed very fast. A couple of major sources of amusement to especially watch out for are Koy with his repeated "Chrsitianity is a cult" and his impressively crazy attempted logic; and Malaclypse attempting statistics.

theophilus · 03-20-2002, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HRG:


And you separate the essence from the person by using the same machine which separated the grin from the Cheshire cat ?

Of course, three persons would still mean three different entities, whatever their essence. Otherwise, identitas indiscernibilium strikes.

Only if you assume, contra scripture, that God exists in the same "way" that his creatures exist.

BTW, the actual data - that people wrote texts about the Trinity - are best explained by the assumption that they did not follow their ideas to their logical consequences.

Regards,
HRG.

theophilus · 03-20-2002, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Not Prince Hamlet:


Theophilus,

I understand the feeling. However, I think when dealing with theism, things get a little dicey.

For instance, for the sake of argument, assume that the Old and New Testaments are accurate.

Jesus comes along at a time when the land was covered with philosophers, priests, and soothsayers. Born of uneducated parents (well, his adopted parents, at least), he would come across as incredibly ignorant to those philosophers and their ilk. Yet, with the insight provided to us by the Bible, we realize that in fact, he knew more about God than any other mortal on the planet.


Actually, his visit to the Temple at age 12 contradicts this assumption. Also, if you're going to "assume" that the NT is accurate, you must assume that he was, in fact, the Son of God and, while he had to learn the scriptures just like every other Jewish boy, his understanding and applicaiton would have been that of God himself.

Thus, in a theistic debate, it is possible to have read every tract ever written and still be ignorant, or have read nothing of religion and be a sage, according to God's desire.

Read nothing, perhaps, but this does not extend to having no knowledge of God's word. The Bible is clear that knowledge of God, apart from the knowledge of his "creatorhood, is linked to his word.

It is an inequality in the debate: the atheist side doesn't have this handicap. A thing is either provable or it is not provable. The logic is either valid or it is not valid.

Well, here you are making a very big (and very unsupportable) assumption, i.e., that atheists have some special knack for "proving" things and that logic is some magic road to truth.
The validity of an argument is not a demonstration of it's truth. An argument may be logically valid and false. It is the "stuff" of the premises which determine the truth of an argument and I've yet to see that atheists have any sound epistemological basis for asserting that their truth claims are proven.

Still, the theistic side has advantages of its own. For instance, it is impossible to disprove the existence of a god.

Actually, its worse than that. You cannot even argue against the existence of God without assuming knowledge of things which can only be true if God exists, e.g., the reality of existence and the predictability of nature.

However, all God has to do is show His face and say, "Yo. Here I am," and all the atheist arguments crumble into so much dust. (Sort of like if somebody every proves P = NP in Computability.)

Actually that's not true. God did "put in an appearance," and they crucified. Unbelief is a moral condition, not a rational problem.

 Jeff

Thanks for your comments.

Datheron · 03-20-2002, 04:19 PM

Theo,

I know you've argued this stance ad infinitum, but I'm still not convinced. This is what you said:

Quote:

Actually, its worse than that. You cannot even argue against the existence of God without assuming knowledge of things which can only be true if God exists, e.g., the reality of existence and the predictability of nature.

The problem that I see is that I do not have to accept your definitions as long as I can make equal ones. The predictability of nature is not an exclusive property of God; if I can define nature herself as predictable (which most scientists do), then by definition I do not need God to provide this predictability. Similarly, how are you able to say that without God, the reality of existence cannot be realized? To make such a statement is to assume that you have experienced a realm where God did not exist...which is, of course, impossible. Even if God was to tell you that there is such a realm, by the definition of God, that is also impossible. Hence, the claim is based on blind authority more than anything else, the way I see it.

Samhain · 03-20-2002, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by theophilus:

Also, if you're going to "assume" that the NT is accurate, you must assume that he was, in fact, the Son of God and, while he had to learn the scriptures just like every other Jewish boy, his understanding and applicaiton would have been that of God himself.

One does not need to assume that Jesus was the son of god to assume that the NT is accurate. By accurate, I think what is meant is that we must assume that it is historically accurate and coincides with other histories, and is also written by objective historians/journalists of the time, relaying the facts as opposed to spinning some unbelievable folktale about the messiah coming to save his people, etc. And because the NT does none of this, we must "assume" that it is accurate, because we know that it is not. I think you missed the point of what was being said.

Quote:

The Bible is clear that knowledge of God, apart from the knowledge of his "creatorhood, is linked to his word.

Begging the question & Shifting the burden of proof. How can you be sure that these people who wrote down the "Word of God" were inspired at all? Even, for the sake of argument, if they were inspired, how could you know whether or not they were inspired by your "God", as opposed to being inspired by their own delusions, or by another god? How do you know "God's Word" is actually God's true word? Maybe the men who wrote these books forgot some things about what God told them to write, imbellished here, subtracted there. You claim to know that these things are true, why? Because the people who wrote the Bible say so? I could write down that I was inspired by God to murder all the "evil-doers" in the world, and because I write this down and say that it is true because "God" told me, would you believe it? This is essentially the same thing which you put your faith in. You take these things on pure faith, with no possible way at all of proving anything.

Quote:

Actually, its worse than that. You cannot even argue against the existence of God without assuming knowledge of things which can only be true if God exists, e.g., the reality of existence and the predictability of nature

Begging the question and shifting the burden of proof once again.

Quote:

Actually that's not true. God did "put in an appearance," and they crucified.

Begging the question again, with reference to a faulty authority. Prove to me that this happened, in reference to something other than the Bible (which we know to be full of unbelieveable mythologies and biased writings), which coincides with some historical truths, please.

Quote:

Unbelief is a moral condition, not a rational problem.

Yes, because if it was a rational problem, belief is not something which is of concern. It can either be proved, therefore we can rationally decide whether we wish to believe in it or not, or it cannot be proved, and we irrationally decide that we will believe in it anyway.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Samhain ]

HRG · 03-20-2002, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by theophilus:

Actually, its worse than that. You cannot even argue against the existence of God without assuming knowledge of things which can only be true if God exists, e.g., the reality of existence and the predictability of nature

On the contrary. The predictability of nature is easily explained by the hypothesis that no gods exist which could intermeddle and disturb its regularities. Theists have no reason to assume that the default state of a universe would be chaos; and they have to take into account the unlimited possibility of supernatural influences.

Simililarly, we can only be confident that our perceptions reflect reality if there are no supernatural influences. The inference "I saw it, therefore it probably happened" depends on the naturalistic behavior of many processes, including the propagation of photons and their absorption in the retina.

It is true that non-theists - as everyone - can only have 99% confidence in the reality of the external world. But theists are in a much worse position: nature cannot "lie" deliberately, but a supernatural volitional entity can.

"My god doesn't lie" is far less supported as a working assumption than "the external world exists".

HRG.

Not Prince Hamlet · 03-21-2002, 10:04 AM

Theophilus,

Whoops, didn't see you had posted. Oh well, the others refuted your statements handily enough without me.

Jeff

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03-15-2002, 01:29 AM	#121
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	Tercel: ------------------ So "Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?". Well, if God is omnipotent, then he could lift any size rock. Thus the question is asking God to make a rock that he both can't lift and can lift. This is not a task, it is just a completely meaningless joining of words. ------------------ This founders on the problems of the notion "omnipotent". The term is linguistic in natural, and idealistic, for we can conceve of the idea, but paradoxes render the notion ultimately without practical significance. I can happily write music which I cannot play (as in, no classical composer could play all the instruments necessary for a symphony), so the notion that God could create a rock which he couldn't lift is in no sense meaningless. The problem is with the term "omnipotent". Ultimately its use can only be ideal and not related to the world, as such logical paradoxes show.

03-15-2002, 01:38 AM	#122
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	Tercel, referring to the trinity: ----------------------- Perhaps it’s: two edges on one sword? ----------------------- The analogy cannot be pressed in any way, so of no use! When Jesus is recorded as having said, "not what I want, but what you (father) want", there is an explicit indication of two separate wills between the two "essences". Your analogy doesn't allow us to deal with such data. Then again, your analogy is simply contradictory to your argument, because naturally a sword is made up of a lot more than its two edges. ----------------------- Mysterious. ----------------------- Nothing mysterious. A history of the development of the ideas leading up to it, shows how it is derived, how there's nothing mysterious about it, that it was a necessity for mainstream Christianity which had backed itself into such a corner. (Christians should make amends for the morally bankrupt acts against Arius.)

03-21-2002, 10:04 AM	#130
Not Prince Hamlet Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: New Jersey, USA Posts: 1,309	Theophilus, Whoops, didn't see you had posted. Oh well, the others refuted your statements handily enough without me. Jeff

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