tronvillain

Did you mean to quote me? It's just that nothing you said seems to bear any relationship to the quote.

99Percent

tronvillain: Perhaps you would like to actually show how such an entity is self refuting, rather than simply asserting that it is. There is nothing logically necessary about "the laws of nature" so being above them does not appear to entail a logical contradiction

The laws of nature are necessarily logical perse.

So if it is being above the "laws of nature" then it is being what, if not a seemingly logical contradiction in itself?

99Percent

joedad: Seems like the inference has been made that whatever is possible is logically consistent. Does "possible" therefore include simply any imagined phenomenon?

Of course not. I am discussing about non-logical entities that are necessarily named "god", precisely because they are not logical, and therefore beyond human understanding. These I argue are automatically self refuting.

Possible imaginary beings that are logically consistent, say unicorns, could exist in theory, but these are not and never would be gods.

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>

Pomp

99Percent,

The laws of nature are necessarily logical perse.

They are necessarily logical, perhaps, but not logically necessary which is, I believe, what tronvillain was pointing out. There is nothing logically impossible about the laws of nature being breakable, so I don't understand how you can say that a supernatural being is self-refuting.

99Percent

Pompous Bastard: There is nothing logically impossible about the laws of nature being breakable

Of course because the laws of nature are defined by our human understanding of reality and therefore invented by us.

so I don't understand how you can say that a supernatural being is self-refuting.

If we re-adapt the laws of nature to fit the explanation of this supernatural being that is violating our original premises then the supernatural becomes natural and at that moment the being who held these supernatural attributes becomes a natural being - in effect the god concept of this being is demolished. It ceased to be a god. So in the end it was never a god to begin with!

I think this has happened countless of times in the existence of human conciousness, just look at the greek gods, like Zeus, or the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.

Pomp

99Percent,

If we re-adapt the laws of nature to fit the explanation of this supernatural being...

I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting. Are you saying that our existing law "E=mc^2" would become the new law "E=mc^2, except when god X wills otherwise." That "matter can be neither created nor destroyed" would become "matter can neither be created nor destroyed except when god X wills it?" I'm not sure how else we could modify our understanding of the laws of nature to accomodate a being who was truly "above" all such laws.

Note that I am speaking here of a being who is truly exempt from all natural laws, not a being who is bound by natural laws, but in some way beyond our understanding. The hypothetical being I am talking about does not merely appear supernatural to our limited perspective, it truly is supernatural. This differs from the discussion you and I had the other day, in which we discussed a hypothetical being who existed outside our Universe, but was still bound by some set of laws which we were not privy to.

99Percent

PB: Frankly I have been thinking about this greatly, since that discussion you mention.

Now that you clearly mention will in both of the following:

and
I am thinking of a being that can be logically accepted to exist that participates in a realm of defined laws but yet has a will of its own that can make it have seemingly whimsical and maybe even random choices.

Such a being would either be misunderstood and therefore have to be obeyed accepting his more powerful will - or it is understood that this will has to be submitted and controlled to us. I rather accept the latter, of course

I think that in this case, accepting the notion of free will in this uncommunicatable entity would boil down to to the problem not unsimilar to that of encountering non human intelligence such as aliens or neanderthals.

So not only must a god be accepted to exist, it also has to be understood because of its possible free will nature. And then, only then this god would cease to exist.

tronvillain

You appear to be a strong atheist as a result of defining "God" in an extremely narrow way, making it an extremely unimpressive position. Under your definition, an entity corresponding to the Christian God could exist, but it wouldn't "really" be God.

99Percent

Dammit tron, did I ever mention the Christian God? Did I ever "pretend" to impress anyone?

Please don't use the rolling eyes graemlin, it is unbefetting to a moderator

tronvillain

I'll use it when I think it's justified. Still, I don't see you denying under your definition, an entity corresponding to the Christian God could exist, but it wouldn't "really" be God.