spin

"Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?"

How about, "Can God make a being he has no control over?" or "Can God make a being who is stronger/greater/nicer/more compassionate/sexier/more intelligent than himself?"

We could drift into Gnostic mythology.

Not Prince Hamlet

Yes, Spin, we get the idea. If you're not interested in the queston, have nothing productive to add to the discussion, then why don't you just go elsewhere instead of bashing those of us who are?

Jeff

Tercel

Can God create a square circle? No. Why? Because there can be no such thing, because the words "square circle" are contradictory and thus the question is meaningless. If something is a square, then by definition is is not a circle. Talking about a "square circle" then is absurd. It's joining two words together that don't have any meaning when put together.

Now assume that God can perform any task or create any thing. Then can God create a square circle? No, because "square circle" is not a <strong>thing</strong>. It is a meaningless nothing.

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.

Not Prince Hamlet

Sort of like "three beings, who are one being" (the holy trinity), right?

So, if it's a meaningless jumble of words that supports the religion, it's a "higher mystery". But if it's a meaningless jumble of words that contradicts the religion, it's ... well, just a meaningless jumble of words.

Sounds like a double-edged sword, with duct-tape on one of the edges.

Jeff

Ender

easy, easy, not-hamlet. Why ruin all the fun with this ham-handed, brusque anal-reaming? Use K Y Jelly (diplomatic words) next time to soothe the after-effects! Or at least forewarn the theist to bring Preparation H for the inevitable hemmorhoids.

~WiGGiN~

Not Prince Hamlet

Ender,

You've got a vivid turn of phrase. Sort of gives a new meaning to "the enemy's gate is down," doesn't it?

Jeff

Not Prince Hamlet

Seriously, everybody, I apologize if my post seemed rude or ham-handed. It didn't seem like it was to me, but if anybody was offended, please understand that it wasn't my intention.

Jeff

spin

Tercel:
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All sensory data comes directly from our sensory perceptions. However for it to be knowledge, the data must be interpreted by our minds first. Hence, I could agree with the first part of your statement above if you modified “directly” to “indirectly”.
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To save further argument, as it's not worth the effort in this context, I'll provisionally accept this, with the rider that the manipulation of the sensory data that you want to call interpretation, may involve the construction from these sensory data of something that does not reflect the world outside you yet based on a combination of sensory data. So, you can make complex ideas from the ideas we receive from sensory data, but those structures do not necessarily represent anything.

spin:
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Would you like to cite an example of any knowledge that you have received, which is not based on knowledge received through the senses (and which you can in some way objectivize for us)?
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Tercel:
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I can “hear” my thoughts in my head,
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Yes, this is training when you were 15 months old or more. You can hear young children organizing their thoughts aloud until they learn to do it in their heads. This is not knowledge. This is mental manipulation of it. Take a child and not program it with language and it cannot do it. There are partial examples of this sort of thing with children brought up in the wild with animals.

Tercel:
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I can “visualise” images too in my mind. I have knowledge that I am capable of both these things, yet neither of these pieces of knowledge came to me through the senses.
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Metaknowledge.

Tercel:
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I do not literally hear my thoughts with my ears
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But "hear" is the wrong word. You mentally manipulate words, you don't hear them. This is only analogy.

Tercel:
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nor do I literally see visualised images with my eyes. I can also directly know my own existence without appealing to empirical sensory support of this.
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In the way an animal "knows" of its existence?

spin:
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Any notion of a god that you have is not based on the primitive sensory data you receive. In fact, you are unable to verify to yourself any direct perception of a god. It would have hit the news otherwise.
If someone had found a way of objectively show the existence of God, you would have heard about it in a big way: Erroll Funt of Austin Texas has stunned the world this afternoon by demonstrating that God is not a figment of the imagination but is alive and living in Hell in Norway, or somesuch.
This has not happened. No-one has direct sensory data regarding God. God is beyond you to know in any meaningful sense of the word.
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Tercel:
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I’m not sure you’re following my argument here. I’m not interested in objectively showing God’s existence. I’m arguing that it is possible to be subjectively absolutely certain of God’s existence.
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How's your unseen interlocutor doing today?


Tercel:
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My point is that Solipsism could be true, the world is only known through the senses which may be being deceived. However, it is possible to know God directly in your “heart”, that is, having an absolute surety in your mind which transcends either the physical senses or rational argument.

spin:
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This is an argument for the paranoic I've mentioned a few times who has an unseen interlocutor. I think you render the word "know" meaningless in the above phrase. You have no way to validify the data you receive.
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Tercel:
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Why it is necessary to validify it? If the conviction of God’s existence comes in such a way that you cannot not be certain of it, then validification or otherwise is a pointless exercise.
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Because there is no knowledge without validation.

Tercel:
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It is a direct knowledge of God. -One just knows.
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spin
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I think you are having linguistic problems. Please distinguish between "know" in the above and what I understand as "believe" in its normal sense.
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Tercel:
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Possibly they are the same, it depends what exactly you understand “believe” as meaning. I am meaning that one is simply absolutely certain of God’s existence without any sensory input. Personally, I attribute this sure knowledge to God’s spirit convicting me of truth.
But the point is that this is subjective proof to me.
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How's the unseen interlocutor doing today?

Tercel:
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However, the whole point of my argument is that it is possible to simply and absolutely know that God exists in some part of one’s mind more basic that the rational or sensory level, call it “heart”, “spirit”, “bosom” (as Albert put it) or whatever.
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spin:
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Please define "know" in the above which makes it different from "believe". You seem to consistently abstract your arguments so you don't have to face the implications of your normal means of receiving knowledge.
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Tercel:
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That’s because this is not the normal means of receiving knowledge. Knowledge is normally acquired through the senses. However it is possible that the senses could be being deceived so one cannot be absolutely certain of knowledge obtained through the senses. But, I contend, that it is possible for knowledge to be obtained another way: By direct impartation. It is conceivably possible for knowledge to be directly imparted to us, not through the senses but directly to our minds in such a way that we are absolutely certain of that knowledge which is to say that the questioning of the truth of such knowledge is not valid any more than questioning one’s own existence is valid.
I further contend that it is possible for God to impart such knowledge of his own existence and further that he has done so to me. And hence I have absolute surety of his existence at a level more basic than that of the rational or the sensory.
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You may contend that it is possible, yet you have no facilities for going beyond that intellectual contention.

Tercel:
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I would also point out that your empiricist definition is rather dubious (depending on exactly how far you’re willing to stretch “empirical” - as by your notion of empirical support being required you would appear to rule out the possibility of knowing your own thoughts since they are not derived from sensual data. (Though no doubt that could be amended without too much difficultly.)

Spin:
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I have said knowledge is directly based on primitive sensory data. We construct complex ideas based on that primitive sensory data. Such ideas could be non-existent monsters, or gods of various flavours, or what a table is. There is no problem of having complex ideas in one's mind. It doesn't change the fact that knowledge is directly based on sensory inputs. We can then test the complex ideas through direct sensory inputs.
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Tercel:
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Can you know that you have these ideas in your head by your definition?
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Is this about heads? or minds? If the latter, consciousness makes no structural distinction between complex ideas, be they reflective of what's outside or not. They are always based on primitive sensory data. As to the basic ideas, which are literal translations of the sensory data, these may be false data, but we have some means of checking depending on the type of data. The ideas we have in our heads are only knowable in the sense that we have received the data from outside and can attempt to verify them. Without having the sensory data we have no ideas in our heads, so we have nothing to know. The relationship is a heuristic one. Awareness develops as we receive more external data on which to structure our awareness. While accepting the ability to know ideas in one's head, I think you are fundamentally wrong in your conception of "subjective" knowledge. I would recommend a few books (if I may be so bold): Lev Vygotsky "Thought and Language", MIT; Gilbert Rile: The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson or Peregrine (probably others as well); some of the essays of Benjamin Lee Whorf (they're in one book to my knowledge); and even 1984 if you haven't read it and taken notice of Orwell's theory of manipulating thought. The first book is immensely important.

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.

Of course you could still probably claim that it’s a meaningless jumble of word since no one claims to fully understand the nature of the Trinity.
The doctrine’s simply the best explanation we’ve got of the observed data.

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

My point was that it is impossible to construct a logical argument against omnipotence by using logically meaningless terms.

Perhaps it’s: two edges on one sword? Mysterious.

Tercel

Not Prince Hamlet

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


Ah! You beat me to the punch!

What observed data?

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?


LOL! You're all right, Tercel.

Jeff