Skeptical

The idea of theism has always seemed a little strange to me, but it is only recently that I have considered it long enough to really assess _why_ I thought it was strange. To me, the idea of an infinite being is patently incompatible with emotions such as "caring" and "want". That is, I make the assertion that a god who was the attributes posited by theists cannot have human emotions such as "want" or "desire".

A few of the attributes of a theistic god that I have seen posited by theists are listed below with a brief description of my understanding of the attribute and why I think they are not cogent:

1) Infinite - This one seems to refer either to being infinite in mind, infinite in space or infinite in duration. I will assume it refers to all 3.

Incompatible: It seems self evident that a being that has an infinite capacity to think every thought, be everywhere and has always existed and will always exist would not have a "desire" for something outside of itself. It would be completely self-contained and have all necessary knowledge, and this state would continue forever.

2) Changeless - No attributes of the being ever changes

Incompatible: If one desires something and one never changes, either one will always desire something and it will be unfulfilled or one will satisfy the desire and it will be fulfilled indicating a change. So, either a theistic god has continual desires that can never be fulfilled or they will be fulfilled and the changeless attribute is incompatible.

3) Omnipotent (also sometimes referred to as all-powerful) - The ability to do anything that is logically possible

Incompatible: I consider it another self-evident thought exercise that a being with power over everything cannot have something resembling desire in the human sense of the term and not have destroyed the universe. Power corrupts and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. A being with absolute power _and_ desires would inevitably be a evil maniac.

These ideas are not "proofs" in the traditional sense, but I think they clearly show why I view the idea of a theistic god to be nonsensical. My conclusions are that either:

A) Only a deistic god makes any sense
or
B) a theistic god would be more like the gods of the romans and greeks, something like humans with superpowers, but very limited.

I think most, if not all, theists really have the conceptions they do because it is very emotionally comforting to believe that someone "like us" is watching out for our best interests. They view a universe with a deistic god as little better than one with no god whatsoever, and that thought is terrifying. In general I think this is the real reason that religion is so prominent. Most people simply can't accept that the human condition may be, as existentialists believe, "absurd".

Jobar

Skeptical, I suggest you read the <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000466&p=" target="_blank">So what does Atheism have to offer?</a> thread. (If you haven't already, of course.) There is an excellent argument, made by Koyaanisqatsi and others, that theism really *doesn't* offer any real comfort. And your points obviously show that it is *not* cogent!

Taffy Lewis

Skeptical,

For most theists, the most important feature of God is that he is personal and our creator and sustainer. Being a person necessarily involves desires.

Further, you seem to be arguing that any being that can intentionally create things must be finite since only a finite being can have desires. But that would mean that finite things can do things that infinite beings cannot (ie. intentionally create). So there is a logically possible ability or power that a finite being would have that an infinite being would lack. But how can a finite being have some power that an infinite being cannot? This seems counter-intuitive.

I don't know why being changeless in every way would be a feature of God. Maybe the idea is that if something changes it either becomes better in some way or worse in some way. But that's not true. A clock changes from 1:00 to 1:01 and doesn't thereby become better or worse.

Also, if God is infinite then he could gain some property and still be infinite. Infinity is still infinite even if you add to it. For example, if a library with an infinite number of books gains a book it is still infinite. Adding a book doesn't mean it wasn't infinite before you added the book.

It's implicit in the above adage that a person gains power and that is a contributing cause of his corruption. The idea is that they cannot psychologically deal with having more power when they are so used to having less.

Also, it is ironic that you accuse theists of being too anthropomorphic since this adage is always applied to humans and is drawn exclusively from observing them.

What do you take to be the difference between deism and theism?

How does it feel to be capable of accepting things that most people can't accept? Pretty good huh?

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Taffy Lewis ]</p>