Slam Dunk Argument Against An Omnimax God?

[Askance]

[QUOTE= Measure for Measure]

[QUOTE= Askance]
A better argument IMO is that if there were any omnimax being, their existence would be absolutely unarguable, unmissable by any level of observation of the world and universe, and atheism simply couldn’t exist…
[/QUOTE]

(Repeating my point) Deists believe that great watches don’t need to be repaired constantly: they are created and then left to operate without intervention. Similarly, God creates the universe and then, in His perfection, moves on to other matters. I understand that this theory was popular during the Enlightenment.
[/quote]

What is the attraction of theists to watch arguments? To continue with this silly analogy (watch<=>god? really? well, both are man-made I suppose) watches do need to be wound or powered constantly, and do need to be repaired occasionally.

There’s no reason to believe that an omnimax God would leave behind fingerprints. Just because a God can do something, doesn’t imply that He will.

One thing he cannot do is be everywhere, be all-knowing, and be all-powerful, and simultaneously have no effect upon the universe. There IS a reason to think he would leave fingerprints; he has no choice - if he does anything then there is by definition a trace that he did it, which at a minimum is the action or effect he caused. Unless you argue that he only does what would have happened naturally anyway - which again obviates the need for him.

[QUOTE=Measure for Measure]

[QUOTE= Askance]
Impossible to argue against of course, as there is no possible observation that can distinguish between that and no god at all. What the point of such a belief is I don’t know, to me it seems like agnosticism - an inability to completely let go out of beliefs drummed in during one’s upbringing or prevalent in one’s culture or environment, perhaps out of fear of going it alone, or loyalty.
[/QUOTE]

Psycho-sociological argument: only partly substantive. Historically, it’s false insofar as the Enlightenment is concerned. Substantively, theists typically claim that God doesn’t leave fingerprints because of a) it’s a mystery! and b) He wants scope for free will.
[/QUOTE]

(repeating my point) There is no difference between such a god and none at all. It’s a coward’s way to continue to believe in a god while making discussion of the point impossible, thus avoiding challenge to the deist’s last vestige of belief.

[Polycarp]

@SoulFrost

I wonder if God has ever had a crisis of faith.

Mark 15:34, quoting Psalm 22:1, certainly sounds like one to me.

[SoulFrost]

@Polycarp

Mark 15:34, quoting Psalm 22:1, certainly sounds like one to me.

He shoots, he scores!

[The_Hamster_King]

@Candyman74

You disagree that belief in an ominpotent God is a question of faith?

I disagree that belief in an omnipotent God is NECESSARILY a question of faith. Putting God beyond the reach of empiricism is a recent innovation. For most of the history of religion, people were convinced that there was plenty of observational evidence for their beliefs. And it’s easy to imagine an omnimax God providing obvious proof of his existence sufficient to convince even us jaded moderns.

You said “His nature is a matter of faith, not reason. It can’t be anything else.” Of course it could be! If the hypothetical omnimax God wanted to, he could make his existence and intentions obvious to everyone. It wouldn’t require any faith at all to believe in such a God.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Askance

(repeating my point) There is no difference between such a god and none at all.

This point I accept: the objective universe is observationally equivalent to a universe without a God.

It’s a coward’s way to continue to believe in a god while making discussion of the point impossible, thus avoiding challenge to the deist’s last vestige of belief.

Ah, so you know the motivation of every desist who ever lived. Awesome! Personally I am skeptical of mind reading of both individuals and the collective unconscious. Again, deism has more historical relevance than anything else, and it pre-dates large swathes of scientific understanding.

If you don’t accept flashy miracles, then what remains is a subtle God or no God at all. Those who can’t handle uncertainty opt for one or the other.

@Askance

What is the attraction of theists to watch arguments? To continue with this silly analogy (watch<=>god? really? well, both are man-made I suppose) watches do need to be wound or powered constantly, and do need to be repaired occasionally.

Not all theists are Deists. Watches reflect a technology familiar to 17th century thinkers. It’s not hard to imagine a watch that requires only occasional servicing. The proper analogy follows: god is to the watchmaker as the world is to the watch.

One thing he cannot do is be everywhere, be all-knowing, and be all-powerful, and simultaneously have no effect upon the universe. There IS a reason to think he would leave fingerprints; he has no choice - if he does anything then there is by definition a trace that he did it, which at a minimum is the action or effect he caused. Unless you argue that he only does what would have happened naturally anyway - which again obviates the need for him.

I perceive this as the core of your argument.

Firstly, any conscious entity is able to do all manner of actions that he chooses not to. Plausibly, God has a lot on His plate and many of His actions may be other than what humans care about. Separately, human observation isn’t that comprehensive or accurate. The role of randomness in human and natural history is extensive and widely acknowledged: such stochastic phenomenon are observationally equivalent to the occasional nudges of an outside force. Furthermore, a near-Omnipotent God would be expected to be able to hide His tracks. It’s a god in the manner of Zeus or Apollo that might be incapable of subtly.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Polycarp

Mark 15:34, quoting Psalm 22:1, certainly sounds like one to me.

Heh. For those not wanting to google it:

34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

[OrvilleWright]

@Frylock

There is no such father/son pair of Nobel winners. This is easily checkable at the Nobel website, which lists all six father/son pairs and tells what they won for. Only two of the pairs were pairs of physicists, and none of the four were given the prize for proving the electron was a particle, and none for proving it was a wave.

It is a better use of your time and ours not to bring easily checkable falsehoods to the table like this.

Neils Bohr, 1922

Aage Bohr, 1975

Your condescension is most anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

You are right–something’s being a particle is not exclusive of its being a wave.

//

[OrvilleWright]

@SoulFrost

He shoots, he scores!

Ah yes, polycarp and soulfrost, smarter by far than God.

No other explanation is possible.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@OrvilleWright

Consider the fact that after a physicist got the Nobel Prize for proving that the electron was a particle, a few years later, his son got the Nobel Prize for proving that the electron was a wave.

That doesn’t sound right. I have little training in physics, but can’t particle-wave duality be traced to Heisenberg? And didn’t Bohr the elder agree? And didn’t 1975 come more than a few years after 1922?

[Measure_for_Measure]

Everybody’s probably picked up on this but…

The Christian God isn’t necessarily Omnimax: indeed, such a framework would be difficult to reconcile with the Book of Job. As Polycarp implied, God could be roughly all-loving (or more precisely “a whole lotta lovin’”) and quite knowledgeable, and therefore understand the bigots without sharing their venom for example. But this takes us straight into POE-land.

That said, Omnimax God is a popular view and I think the OP dismantles it pretty well. And as I said earlier, I hadn’t recognized that POE applies more intensively to Logic Pretzel God (who can do the impossible, see the invisible, row-row!..). So this has been a pretty good thread.

[Askance]

@OrvilleWright

Neils Bohr, 1922

Aage Bohr, 1975

Your condescension is most anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

Neils Bohr: In 1922, Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics “for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them.”

Aage Bohr: Bohr, Mottelson and Rainwater were jointly awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection”

Neither Nobel was awarded for “proving” the electron was either a wave or a particle. In fact Neils Bohr is explicitly noted for combining these two possibilities: “Bohr also conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analyzed as having several contradictory properties. For example, physicists currently conclude that light behaves either as a wave or a stream of particles depending on the experimental framework — two apparently mutually exclusive properties — on the basis of this principle. Bohr found philosophical applications for this daringly original principle.”

[Askance]

@Measure_for_Measure

Ah, so you know the motivation of every desist who ever lived. Awesome! Personally I am skeptical of mind reading of both individuals and the collective unconscious. Again, deism has more historical relevance than anything else, and it pre-dates large swathes of scientific understanding.

I was voicing an opinion on their subconscious motivation for such a pointless belief, not pretending to read their minds as to their overt motivation for that belief.

Plausibly, God has a lot on His plate

Kanicbird ran this one too, but the thought that God would be too busy to get around to some things he would otherwise have liked to do, denies his omnipotence.

human observation isn’t that comprehensive or accurate. The role of randomness in human and natural history is extensive and widely acknowledged: such stochastic phenomenon are observationally equivalent to the occasional nudges of an outside force. Furthermore, a near-Omnipotent God would be expected to be able to hide His tracks. It’s a god in the manner of Zeus or Apollo that might be incapable of subtly.

So logically, God’s freedom of action is increasingly circumscribed as man’s powers of observation improve? He only allows himself to do what cannot be detected as his work by man’s current (and presumably future) technical abilities?

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@Cort

I’m not saying it’s the most powerful argument out there, but it does seem to be the neatest (after Arkansas). It clearly demonstrates that the very idea of a totally perfect God is logically incoherent.

Indeed. But then again, why *should *God be perfect? He is a construct of human beings who I think are universally accepted as being imperfect.

Any God you can invent will always be inferior to a God that I invent if I want it to be. Because all I have to do is take what ever powers and attributes you bequeathed your God with and create my God with everything your God has +1.

[MrDibble]

@Measure_for_Measure

Plausibly, God has a lot on His plate

So you are giving up omnipotence or even just extreme-potence, then.

and many of His actions may be other than what humans care about.

No human religion has ever postulated such a completely disassociated deity. Every god we’ve actually worshipped seemed to care a great deal about us and our doings. Even the Deist one seems to prize human reason enough to have worked it into his design on purpose, as far as Deist writings seem to show.

Separately, human observation isn’t that comprehensive or accurate. The role of randomness in human and natural history is extensive and widely acknowledged: such stochastic phenomenon are observationally equivalent to the occasional nudges of an outside force.

So God doesn’t play dice, God is the dice?

But those dice are shrinking…like some kind of…gap.:dubious:

Furthermore, a near-Omnipotent God would be expected to be able to hide His tracks.

Able to, sure. Why would it want to, though, that’s the question.

And ineffability is a non-answer.

[MrDibble]

@I_Love_Me_Vol.I

Any God you can invent will always be inferior to a God that I invent if I want it to be. Because all I have to do is take what ever powers and attributes you bequeathed your God with and create my God with everything your God has +1.

mmm, I think I have my first Antitheist’s Commandment:

Thou Shalt Not MinMAx Thy Deity!

(This is also close to Pratchett’s “Thou Shalt Not Submit Thy God To Market Forces!”)

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@RaftPeople

At what point in time? Human beliefs change with time, but our standard for the perfect being should be the same today as it was at all points in time, right?

No. Because human beings create Gods to their own individual standards. As human beliefs change, God changes too because new, improved Gods are created according to the refined standards of a more advanced society.

Once it was popular for people to create a God who condemned people for eating shellfish. As time went by, some people decided they’d like their personally created God to think eating shellfish is OK. God is whatever you want him to be. He is your creation. Knock yourself out!

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@JThunder

It is. That does not make your objection relevant though, since the gap between you and an ant pales in comparison to the gap between you and God.

In other words, you are not analogous to God. Not even close.

Actually, that is not true. My concept of God is a Being that is only slightly more intelligent and powerful than the average human, who in turn, is well known to be much more intelligent and powerful than an ant.

Remember-- my concept of God is just as valid as your concept of God. And both my God and I think your concept of God is rather silly, and just way off base. As my God is perfect, there can be no doubting that your God is, without any doubt, simply a personal fantasy you have created for your own entertainment.

I am serious about this, BTW. Why should I give the alleged strengths of your God any more weight than I do goldfish building log cabins? Unless you have some omnimax power to know all, see all, do all. Do you claim such powers? If not, then my God is every bit as valid as yours. And my God says you’re full of it.

[Frylock]

@OrvilleWright

Neils Bohr, 1922

Aage Bohr, 1975

Your condescension is most anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

To the contrary, your refusal to check basic facts is “anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.” (See subsequent posts by others for an explanation as to why the Bohrs are irrelevant to what you’re talking about)

The “condescension” is deserved. You have a lesson to learn here.

[Frylock]

@Askance

“Bohr also conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analyzed as having several contradictory properties. For example, physicists currently conclude that light behaves either as a wave or a stream of particles depending on the experimental framework — two apparently mutually exclusive properties — on the basis of this principle. Bohr found philosophical applications for this daringly original principle.”

For the record: It’s a mistake to think that these are “contradictory properties.” They are simply properties that traditionally were thought to be exclusive, but exclusivity is not the same as contradiction. They are often found together, but they are not the same.

[OrvilleWright]

@OrvilleWright

Neils Bohr, 1922

Aage Bohr, 1975

My bad.

J.J. Thomson 1906

George Paget Thomson 1937

Nobel Prize in Physics 1937

Your condescension is most anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

My good. Quite accurate.