Contributing recently to a few threads on atheism-theism I have noticed the recurrence of a particular objection to my position (that of the hard-atheist). The objection goes something like this:
You, The Great Unwashed, necessarily cannot know for certain that god does not exist.
Fair enough, it’s a fair cop (and I won’t bother arguing that such a position, when taken to its logical conclusion, leaves us unable to know anything (with the possible exception of knowledge of our own existence (I think, therefore I am)) at all about anything).
Here’s the rub.
Whichever god we subscribe to, why are they not subject to the same “phenomenological gap”? How can our chosen god know that there is no higher god above them? Let’s call this higher god, “God’s Own Deity” (G.O.D). To put it bluntly:
You, whichever-god-you-are-and-no-matter-how-much-you-claim-to-be-the-highest-god, necessarily cannot know for certain that G.O.D. does not exist.
The Great Unwashed, there’s probablly a bunch of solutions to your “G.O.D.” problem. The mistake you’re making (Well, with respect to a logical believer) when you point out that God wouldn’t know there isn’t a G.o.d. is that you’re assuming the beliver thinks that logical rules are symmetrical with respect to all “entities.” The believer won’t agree, and will simply state one or more of the following assumptions:
God exists, influences humanity, and percieves The Truth in a manner alien and superior to our own. SO the rules of normal logic don’t apply to him.
God exists, influences humanity, but is not an “entity” in any sense we can know; It is instead an aggregation of entities acting as one. SO all of your G.o.d.s are just aspects of the God we care about.
A slight variation on 1 that re-defines what it means to know something and avoids philosophical problems: “Knowing” means simply “the best possible explaination for a phenomonon, judged in light of personal expeirence and with deference to authority.” As humans, we must choose which authority to defer to, and we can never know which is correct because we can’t perceive everything. We assume God would be able to percieve everything directly, so he would never need to defer to authority.
And so on. Though, in reality, you athiests and religious folk need to get over yourself. No one is going to convince anyone else if the other side is moderately intelligent, because you’re both going to just bicker about assumptions and definitions. In my experience, people don’t change thier minds based on some philosophical discussion on a web board; they do it based on social interaction and personal experience. Intuition sets the goal- logic only comes in later to justify it.
Oh yeah? My God is more powerful than yours, so there.
Your post reminds me of Hofstadters suggestion of an infinite line of Djinns, each having a higher one, and G.O.D. Over Djinn being the highest one or the sum total of them. (I’m not explaining this well). Anyways, maybe there is an infinite hierarchy of G.O.D.s, each progressively a little less extra powerful over the last one, and the ultimate G.O.D. is the limit of the series.
I see now that this doesn’t reply to your OP at all, but I’m posting it anyway.
: prays to G.O.D. :
Indeed, even if there is some entity that believes itself to be the Alpha and the Omega, how can it ever be sure that there is nothing outside it’s realm of perception. Even gods must deal with the fact that they also may be brains in a vat. Turtles all the way.
“And I think, therefore I am” breaks down alot easier than my preferred version “I think I think, therefore I think I am!”. Of course, I’m of the opinion that only the agnostic has a reasonable leg to stand on. Coming from a human, anything else seems to be overestimating the range of one’s scope and vision. The best one can do is make a guess based on evidence or on gut feelings. The realist should realize that there just isn’t enough info to make a guess yet. Waiting for more data . . .
Hofstadter’s view on artificial intelligence is of questionable utility, but his books ROCK MY BALLS OFF. Cheers to bringing him up! The Djinn suggestion was in a dialouge in Godel Escher Bach: The Eternal Golden Briad, which is his best known work. But don’t forget his lesser known ones, like Metamagical Themas, which are also a delight.
And far more interesting than this religious nonsense.
I agree completely, God can be experienced, but not rationalized.
You can talk all day for a hundred years and solve nothing. However, one short experience, seeing a miracle, having a NDE, connecting with the inner self, can change the mind and perspective forever.
Certain of the gnostic Christian religions (and I imagine this was not original with them) held that that which the orthodox called “God” was, in fact, the demiurge. Sometimes, he thought he was the only god in town. Sometimes he found out otherwise (usually, as I recall, he’s subordinate to the female Sophia (wisdom)), and got really annoyed. Jealous, in fact.
Do you know, for one second I thought your link was going to be to one of them-there Libertarianesque ontological-type proofs, but I was not disappointed, I got a 404 error instead, which is just as good, and I understand it.
Dangerously, I thought some more banal thoughts (sorry Maximum C, thank you for playing, come again, next time bring refreshment), what I thought was didn’t one of the Aquinases say that it was a heresy to suggest that God was less than omnipotent because He could not perform the impossible?
Isn’t it impossible for any god to know what cannot be known? Of cause it is, it is tautolgical.
Now when I say “cannot be known”, I don’t mean by me, or even you, M.C., I mean what cannot be known by anyone, or, anything – those things that reside in the necessary, and inescapable, phenomenological gap between what you see, and what you don’t see.
I see no god.
God sees no G.O.D.
Same thing.
Q.E.D.
Oh yes, P.S.:Mangetout, my favourite theist (and you’re funny too (what are the chances?))
– you’re not suggesting that infinities cannot be contained within even biggerer infinities are you?
And I don’t know that there isn’t a G.O.D. I accept not knowing and have no problem with it. The OP is not the first time I had thought of it, but it has never concerned me one way or the other.
Many believers, although certainly not all, are not concerned with knowing about God.
My own view of God is as a sort of “cosmic glue.” But that’s a belief.
I think the point of your detractors, TGU, is that the sort of people who’d be influenced by your argument are already atheists and agnostics, and the types who believe in God will be utterly unaffected.
