Automaton

foresquareman: I am God. Disprove.

Remember, being God, I am not limited by your lousy, human conceptions of "logic", which I ofm course invented. So nothing you can ever say, will ever disprove that I, myself, am God.

Have fun.

foursquareman

i don't believe you are God. I also don't feel obligated to prove you are God. If you think you are God, good for you.

I am having fun, obviously so are you

Devilnaut

Four, why don't you believe that he is God?

I certainly hope it isn't because of some appeal to rationality, because as Automaton stated, he is above these rules, since he in fact created them.

foursquareman

I believe he isn't because I have faith that he isn't. I don't ask you to agree.

Automaton

So you believe because you want to believe (for no reason at all). Fine. But, why then are you attempting to engage in a rational discussion?

And, if it is perfectly alright to base existial beliefs on nothing at all, would you accept my faith that you don't, in fact, exist? I mean, there is evidence that you do, from your actual postings here, but faith is more powerful than evidence or reasoning, eh my Christian amigo?

P.S., As the One True(tm) God, I am upset that you have no faith that I am actually this. If you persist in this lack of fidelity, I will be forced to smite you. Can you really afford it?

foursquareman

My faith is based on evidence. You have not shown me any evidence to who you are.

I accept your faith that I don't exist, but if I don't, how are you going to smite me?

Devilnaut

Four, for future reference: if you're using the 'faith as confidence in a proposition' definition, and someone asks why you believe what you do, cite the evidence, not the faith. This avoids much confusion in debates such as these, especially since your definition of faith differs from the typical theistic version of 'belief with lack or in spite of evidence'.

Can you explain how you can rely on lack of evidence for your belief that automaton is not God, when if he is correct, the concepts of evidence and proof do not even apply to him?

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

Automaton

On the contrary, if you had any evidence, it would not be faith, now would it? You would have said "I believe he isn't because I have evidence X that he isn't," instead of stating "faith" as if it were an actual reason, that would warrant the use of the word because.

Please show us this supposed "evidence" that I am not God. Even lack of evidence does not warrant lack of belief, because as God, I invented the very rules of logic that you cognitively use to determine that there is a lack of evidence, and that this warrants nonbelief.
So what? This reasoning of yours is inherently flawed, because you are just a mere human that does not have the capabilities to determine that I am actually existent. Nothing you can say, under any terms, can warrant your lack of, or disbelief, in me as God, as I invented logic. There is no possible argument or piece of evidence good enough.
As a reasonable position?
Uh... er... ehm... I work in mysterious ways! Yes, that's it *nervous chuckle*!

Thomas Metcalf

Well, "to create a rock God can't lift" is a logically impossible action, but "to learn" isn't. That's why they're different. If you say God can do any logically possible action consistent with His nature, you run into other problems. I can elaborate if you'd like.

The way it putatively solves the "to learn" problem is that there is no logically possible world in which God learns, so to bring about such a state of affairs is logically impossible. In this way, no essential property (such as omniscience) could conflict with omnipotence. God wouldn't have to learn or change, because states of affairs in which He learns or changes are logically impossible.

Thomas Metcalf

Well, definitions are analytic, so it'd take quite a bit to argue successfully for skepticism about them. I'm pretty sure I know what I mean when I say "omnipotent" -- we can kind of choose what we want our words to mean.