Freethought & Rationalism Archive

GunnerJ · 04-09-2002, 10:36 AM

Hi Olorin! You've hit the nail on the head in identifying one of mypet peeves with theistic argumentation:

Quote:

...it seems that the majority of these arguments cannot work if the assumption is made that God exists outside of time, or is unconstrained by it.

Of course not! The reason theists use this "outside time" claptrap is because it reduces the entire argument to meaningless, illogical dribble that they can mold anything out of. Watch:

Quote:

Theist: I belive god exists outside time, and is not constrained by it. So give me your best shot!
Atheist: If we have free will, then God cannot be omniscient because he would know ahead of time...
T: Wrong! God exists outside time! Try again.
A: Well, if god exists outside time then how could he have created/caused the universe? Creation/causation requires time...
T: You just don't get it? God exists outside time. Therefore, he's so incomperhencable, he can do anything! And anyway, it's my personal opinion that causality doesn't require time, but time requires causality.
A: Um, right. So, how can God interact with a universe in time? I mean, Jesus supposedly was here for a while, but before that...
T: Before? Before, you say? That requires time, and God exists outside it, so no dice, pal.
A: <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

This is called special pleading, and should be rightly looked down upon as a shoddy debating practice.

Welcome aboard!

WJ · 04-09-2002, 11:10 AM

Although the concept of God is 'logically impossible' from the [same] timeless argument (ie, formal logical approach, ontological argument, etc.), the distinction I think here is the theist's assertion about creation from ex nihilo along with a mixture of free-will and determinacy being logically coherent viz. an existing timeless Creator.

Otherwise, one is back to the questions of what does it mean for some thing to exist viz. Being.

The analogy to the former argument is made thru use of the game '20 questions' whereby both chance and choice determined its outcome. And thru which both contingency (the contingent world)and necessity (God) can logically co-exist. I'm assuming this is where Olorin was going, but am not sure... .

Walrus

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas · 04-09-2002, 11:25 AM

Rimstalker,

Quote:

Originally posted by Rimstalker:
<strong>
This is called special pleading, and should be rightly looked down upon as a shoddy debating practice.

Welcome aboard!</strong>

It's been a long time since I've seen a post this misguided.

Saying 'God is outside of time' is special pleading is like saying 'A basketball above the 2 dimensional plane of the court floor' is special pleading.

Wow.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

GunnerJ · 04-09-2002, 12:19 PM

Quote:

It's been a long time since I've seen a post this misguided.

Saying 'God is outside of time' is special pleading is like saying 'A basketball above the 2 dimensional plane of the court floor' is special pleading.

Wow.

Wow, indeed. With a straight face, you make a flawed analogy to refute my criticism, without even trying to refute the whole post in which I demonstrated through example that the "God is outside time" argument is special pleading. In fact, when the whole post is considered, your pithy and childish "refutation" is can only be generously judged as adequete to counter the portion you quoted, and fails completely to assess my entire argument. And if this weren't enough, all this shoddy and dishonest argumentation directly follows you accusing me of making a "misguided" argument.

Once again, "wow." Even I'm astounded.

Pomp · 04-09-2002, 12:25 PM

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas,

Saying 'God is outside of time' is special pleading is like saying 'A basketball above the 2 dimensional plane of the court floor' is special pleading.

I think Rim's point is that, unlike the basketball, which we three-dimensional beings can plainly observe to be above the two-dimensional plane of the court, we have zero evidence for the existence of any god who is outside the dimensions we operate in. Lacking such evidence, any "explanation" of the logical contradictions inherent in the Xian god concept which rely on its being "outside of time" are, necessarily, ad hoc. You wouldn't apply this same line of ad hoc reasoning to explain away logical inconsistencies in the concepts of Zeus, Shiva, or Quetzoacatl, so this line of argument from Xians is correctly termed "special pleading."

Theli · 04-09-2002, 12:31 PM

Olorin...

Quote:

However, God, as the creator, can manipulate each and every frame simultaneuosly, so that it would seem that, from the perception of those in the movie, the one controlling the movie and editing the frames, is not constrained by time.

I have discussed this before with Tercel. There are basicly 2 errors in this theory. First, the movie is constantly running (from the beginning to the end).
The present can be seen as a dot moving on a line, and where the past is unchangable (remember the grandfather paradox) and the future is unclear (hence free will + chaos).
If the god is to change something in our world he will have to choose a point in our time to do so. And for him to be able to choose "the present", his notion of the present must change as the dot moves along the line.
Therefore time exists for himself aswell, his not timeless.

Here's the second problem. If god had no time and thus had no chain of events, all event's would be simultainesly. Then he cannot change his mind, because the changed state exists simultainesly as the prior state, along with the change itself.
Another way of looking at it is. Say you have a lamp with an ON/OFF switch.
1. First the light is OFF.
2. Turn the lightswitch ON.
3. Then turn the lightswitch OFF again.

We have a simple Chain of Events. Now, if time existed there would be a delay between switching the light ON and then OFF again, meaning that the light was ON between step 2 and 3.
If we now delete time. What happens?
There is no delay there is no chain. The duration between step 1 and 3 is as long as between 1 and 2. Then, is the switch ON or OFF? Was it ever ON?

Quote:

But if we can conceieve of more than one possible universes, why is it logically impossible or improbable that God exists in his own universe, the universe he supposedly created us from, and in that sense he is constrained to the "time" of his universe?

Another problem, when was that universe created? And by what? Note that god cannot step backwards in time to create himself. Remember the movie "The Terminator" where Skynet sent a terminator back in time wich then became the base for building Skynet (the microchip). It's impossible.

Amen-Moses...

Quote:

What's to refute? To the flatlander a 3d creature would appear as a two dimensional object, but the 3d'er would be completely oblivious of the flatlanders, iow a controlled interaction between the higher dimensional being and the lower ones is impossible, in the same way a being "outside of time" or, as the analogies really indicate, a being for whom all of time is compressed into a point could not interact with beings in a particular time frame.

A typical problem when someone calls time the "fourth dimension" It's very missleading. The 3 preceding dimensions are geometric dimensions, not timedimensions.

The flatlanders is an example to explain a 4th geometric dimension, by decreasing the dimensions one step. Where the flatlanders (meaning us) are 2-dimensional, while the extradimensional creature has 3 geometric dimensions.
If a 3D sphere were to travel in the 3rd dimension through the flatlanders 2D world it would look like a circle growing until the sphere is halfway through, where it then starts to shrink back to nothing.
If we say that the 4th dimension is time, it would mean that we would not have any time at all while the extradimensional creature would. You turned this backwards.
The flatlanders example doesn't have anything to do with time.

Automaton...

Quote:

Being outside of time itself, means that you are not within time, and thus you lack time. Time can be defined as the measure of change, it is the dimension in which spatial change occurs. There is no change without time. A causal relationship requires both a cause and an effect, in which the "cause" is a change which triggers change in the "effect". There is no causation without time. Therefore, if a timeless God exists, he cannot cause, or do, anything.

Excacly.

Automaton · 04-09-2002, 06:39 PM

Quote:

That is where the attribute of transcendance comes in. God exists more than our four dimensions, and he exists in ours and his, but he is somehow magically able to operate differently in ours than to his (the ones we are not capable of perceiving (i.e Heaven)).

Metatime panentheism, eh?

All this theistic hurdle jumping does nothing more than confuse the issue. The question of whether or not God exists in time itself is binary. There are no "kinds" of time. Now, if they claim their God exists in time (no matter what they call it, "transcendental time", "metatime"... time is time), then your original problem of the theist using this vague, nonsensical objection is solved. And if they claim he is without time, timeless, atemporal, then they're screwed because of the argument I posited above.

Olorin · 04-10-2002, 12:07 AM

Thanks for all the responses. I am busy atm however , so when I have a chance I will post my arguments here (or rightly, on the thread concerning these arguments).

WJ · 04-10-2002, 04:37 AM

Orlorin!

Thanks. A good source for this issue which will stregnthen your argument in your favor, is the book 'The Mind of God' by physicist Paul Davies.

Intellectually, the argument [God a timeless creator] is successful when you combine contingency with ex nihilo (choice and chance) in explaining why the world is the way it is.

Walrus

GunnerJ · 04-10-2002, 06:59 AM

Once again, Pompous Bastard bails me out! Thanks for the support. But while your point was an excellent one, it wasn't the one I was trying to make. In fact, the point I was trying to make was based on a flawed understanding of the "special pleading" fallacy; I should merely have called it an "ad hoc" explanation, and an unfalsifiable one. That would ahve been more in tune with the whole post.

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04-09-2002, 11:10 AM	#12
WJ Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 812	Although the concept of God is 'logically impossible' from the [same] timeless argument (ie, formal logical approach, ontological argument, etc.), the distinction I think here is the theist's assertion about creation from ex nihilo along with a mixture of free-will and determinacy being logically coherent viz. an existing timeless Creator. Otherwise, one is back to the questions of what does it mean for some thing to exist viz. Being. The analogy to the former argument is made thru use of the game '20 questions' whereby both chance and choice determined its outcome. And thru which both contingency (the contingent world)and necessity (God) can logically co-exist. I'm assuming this is where Olorin was going, but am not sure... . Walrus

04-09-2002, 12:25 PM	#15
Pomp Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Indianapolis area Posts: 3,468	Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas, Saying 'God is outside of time' is special pleading is like saying 'A basketball above the 2 dimensional plane of the court floor' is special pleading. I think Rim's point is that, unlike the basketball, which we three-dimensional beings can plainly observe to be above the two-dimensional plane of the court, we have zero evidence for the existence of any god who is outside the dimensions we operate in. Lacking such evidence, any "explanation" of the logical contradictions inherent in the Xian god concept which rely on its being "outside of time" are, necessarily, ad hoc. You wouldn't apply this same line of ad hoc reasoning to explain away logical inconsistencies in the concepts of Zeus, Shiva, or Quetzoacatl, so this line of argument from Xians is correctly termed "special pleading."

04-10-2002, 12:07 AM	#18
Olorin Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Here Posts: 27	Thanks for all the responses. I am busy atm however , so when I have a chance I will post my arguments here (or rightly, on the thread concerning these arguments).

04-10-2002, 04:37 AM	#19
WJ Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 812	Orlorin! Thanks. A good source for this issue which will stregnthen your argument in your favor, is the book 'The Mind of God' by physicist Paul Davies. Intellectually, the argument [God a timeless creator] is successful when you combine contingency with ex nihilo (choice and chance) in explaining why the world is the way it is. Walrus

04-10-2002, 06:59 AM	#20
GunnerJ Banned Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: a place where i can list whatever location i want Posts: 4,871	Once again, Pompous Bastard bails me out! Thanks for the support. But while your point was an excellent one, it wasn't the one I was trying to make. In fact, the point I was trying to make was based on a flawed understanding of the "special pleading" fallacy; I should merely have called it an "ad hoc" explanation, and an unfalsifiable one. That would ahve been more in tune with the whole post.

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