That is entirely possible. I know next to nothing about mathematics. Godel seems to think they actually failed. Kurt Godel Teaching and Learning STEM
Most of the commentators seem to think they conceded. But I have very little understanding of mathematics. Yeah, I saw the proof in the first grade. But you must accept the axioms to get there. Without accepting their axioms, their definitions, they didn’t prove squat. http://www.salient.org.nz/columns/the-basics-of-counting-and-other-tricky-maths
Well, you have to accept my definition of Santa Claus for him to exist. Same as 1 + 1 +2. Santa Claus is a custom. The custom exists. You are at the stage of Santa Claus theology that is between little child belief and adult belief. Do you or do you not give gifts in a capacity as Santa Claus? If so, then you too are Santa Claus, and you most certainly exist.
I don’t know the true nature of God anymore than I know the true nature of gravity. It is not by belief that someone without God is necessarily a sociopath, I thought I had been crystal clear on that. Atheists are not sociopaths, or evil in any respect.
I certainly don’t claim to have demonstrated that God exists as most people think of God as existing. I’ve shown how someone might have faith, not how every thinking person must have faith. I think atheism is perfectly rational. As the word rational is usually understood, I do not think theism is perfectly rational. Pay attention!!!
I guess it is possible for gods to exist and not exist at the same time (somehow)…but I fail to see how “believing” one way or another would get you to “know.”
I fail to see any scientific evidence that gods do not exist.
Not sure what you mean here.
Correct…you wouldn’t!
The point you are trying to make here alludes me. If you decide anything exists (gods or anything else) no matter that there is no evidence for it…and no matter if there is evidence it does not (which I do not see in the case of gods)…as far as you are concerned, it IS.
So what?
Are you saying people can be stubborn and unreasonable?
It really depends on how a person defines the nature of God. If God is love, and an atheist treats other people with love, that atheist is just as much part of the Communion as I am, in my opinion. Yes, I am aware that this is a heresy from a doctrinal point of view. I am a very bad boy. In short, even though I am technically a Protestant, who is supposedly saved by belief (Grace) alone, it is perfectly obvious to me that an atheist who treats people lovingly and with care is just as saved by God through the good works of caring for people. I’m one of those “it’s all good” Christians that the fundamentalists get so worked up about.
I’m probably being too cute by half. People who are certain that God does not exist know it by what they consider to be for a fact. So do people who believe that God exists. Only agnostics are in “superposition”, much like I think God Himself might be. It’s an analogy to popularized theory of quantum mechanics.
I’m saying that it would be untruthful for someone to say God doesn’t exist if they have faith, but have no evidence. It’s a statement about me. I have no evidence, I have faith. Yes, I can be stubborn and “unreasonable” despite how highly I value science for what it is good for.
Well…if a person defines “the nature of God” as what the god of the Bible does and says…I cannot conceive on that person also considering God to be “love.”
If one defines “the nature of God” as what the god of the Bible does and says…I could conceive that person considering God to be “vengeance” “tyranny” “pettiness” “possessiveness” “barbarity” and so many other things…but not love.
I am not trying to be difficult here, SS…but to suggest (as you most certainly did) that there is a relationship between love and a “faith or belief in gods” such that atheists (or agnostics) show an affinity with theism by showing love and respect to fellow humans…really is a stretch…and an insult.
I do not believe in any gods…and I think the god of the Bible is a monster…but I am a loving individual by nature.
If you actually are asserting that love and respect can be shown by theists, atheists, and agnostics…that sits well with me. But since I know many loving atheists, I think you would think it wrong of me to suggest that because there are loving theists, they are, by dint of showing that love, showing an affinity with atheism.
You’re right about Heisenberg at least. Godel (and Turing for programs) showed that you can construct undecidable propositions in any system. However, it is not clear that this supports your point. You cannot know if any program will halt - but you can know that most programs will or will not, and you can also know that you can’t know.
As for 1+2=2, as begbert2 said you don’t get what Russell and Whitehead were attempting. Look up Peano. That is an axiomatic definition of arithmetic. Given the axiomatic definition of “1” and the successor function (+1 for most of us) 2 is defined as
succ(1). You can obviously write any number as a series of successor functions applied to 1, and you can define the arithmetic operations also in terms of these. You have to forgive me for not doing it here, it has been almost 40 years since I had this and the proof of Godel in college.
But as I said, not being able to know everything about God (which I accept) is not the same as not knowing anything about God, especially if he wants me to know. And an omnipotent God should be able to insert knowledge in our brain. But accepting that it is impossible to know what it is like to see across time and space does not imply that it is impossible to know why that baby had to die in the tsunami.
Russell and Whitehead were well aware that their effort failed. Complaining that arithmetic depends on axioms is silly. All mathematics depends on axioms. The challenge is to see what you can prove using a minimal set. Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry are equally valid. The interesting part was that non-Euclidean geometry mapped into the real world.
If your axiom is “God is love” then it follows that anything God does is love - make us rich, make us happy, but also kill or torture us. It follows just as 2 = succ(1) does.
Now if you add an axiom, such as love is not hurting someone for no good cause, then you run into trouble. If God drowns someone, you either have to say that this contradicts the premise that god is Love, or the premise of the definition of love. The way you guys usually proceed is to add a hidden axiom that anything God does that seems to violate this definition of love is for a good cause. So drowning someone is for a good cause.
The question is, what is more reasonable - torturing the definition of love in this way, or rejecting the premise that god is love? Atheist, by rejecting the premise that God exists, have no problem at all, since no one believes that blind geological forces are love.
To summarize, I submit that your rejection of the possibility of knowing some of God’s motives is an attempt to evade the clear contradiction inherent in your system of belief. In essence you keep adding axioms - this death is axiomatically good, that earthquake is axiomatically good - and your system becomes overloaded with axioms and mathematically and logically ugly.
I certainly do not mean to insult you. But keep in mind that as much off the beaten path as I am, there are many Christians who reject the notion that God is vengence, etc. For God = Love look to 1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another. For he who love is born of God and know God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” That is how I understand the nature of God. If you are personally offended by this very central Christian principle, I regret that you are offended, when I do my best to live up to this creed I do it out of conviction, not out of an intent to offend, but because my best understanding is that the human experience of God is the same thing as treating people with love. All that other stuff has very little meaning to me in comparison.
No. God is love, love is God. God is not Zeus from Clash of the Titans (coming soon to a theater near you!). He is not Superman ™ or God-Man ™. God is the Platonic form of love, agape in Greek. This, idea, relationship, Platonic form, feeling is the only possible thing than can and should be Divine. That is in my opinion the closest that human beings can come to having knowledge of the Divine.
No insult taken…and insult meant from my side either.
But I am not interested in people saying that the god is love and wonderful.
There were people on the streets of Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was in power talking about how loving, kind, and just Hussein was. There were people on the streets of Kampala when Idi Amin was in power talking about how loving, kind, and just Amin was.
But just as you’ve gotta look at what Hussein and Amin said and how they acted…and make a judgment independent of anyone who might be intimidated into an inaccurate judgment…so too you have got to judge the god on the merits.
People were afraid of Hussein and Amin…and that, I suspect, was why the people in the street were saying what they were saying. The god of the Bible, in the eyes of believers like John, has the power to condemn people to an eternity of suffering if they cross him. So hearing John say the god is loving, kind, and just really doesn’t carry the day for me…and it shouldn’t for you either.
If you want me to cite some passages I use to judge the god to be a monster…a barbaric, vengeful, petty monster…I can do it. IN SPADES. I’ve got dozens of passages to tell you what kind of being this god is…according to what the Bible says.
That is why I ask as often as I do:
If you are looking for a kind, loving, just GOD…why on Earth would you choose this god…that you have to spend so much time and energy trying to shoehorn into that model?
I don’t accept your redefinition of the term Santa Claus, 'cause I think it’s pointless to the point of self-deception to engage in argument by language mangleing.
And 1+1=2 has been covered since by others - I’ll just go on to say that I think you’re broadly overstating the implications of Godel’s work. The fact that “This statement is false” doesn’t have a truth value doesn’t invalidate all of knowledge, after all.
I’m paying attention, but you are - literally - spouting gibberish. You make assertions about God’s properties and then immediately turn around and contradict yourself, and then for an encore immediately turn around and contradict the notion that you were logically capable of making the assertions in the first place. One begins to doubt whether you know what you’re talking about.
I asked “Is, or is not, your God a sentient entity that exists independent of human thought or emotion?”. You didn’t answer. If you can’t define this much about your God, I’d have to say that when you use the word it lacks a referent - if you can’t answer this then you literally don’t have even the faintest idea what you mean by the word. If this is the situation then it’s not really a word at all - just a string of meaningless letters.
It’s how I was introduced. See 1 John 4:7-8 I dismiss the rest as irrelevant and added by people who misunderstood. All the massacres etc from the Old Testament can be dismissed as scribes justifying the unjustifiable. I’m well aware of those passages you refer to and I agree about them. The claim John makes is revolutionary and for me it is self evident. As far as I am concerned, everything else in the Bible can be discarded and this one concept kept. Paul’s vindictive pronouncements are pretty much the same thing. Hell is not a concept I accept.
Yes, I can answer that question. I don’t have any personal knowledge with which to answer that question and neither does anyone else. Your demands for a “referent” on your terms are meaningless. The most succinct definition of God I have ever encountered is 1 John 4:7-8. I understand and accept that you do not accept that as an answer suitable for you. I’m not trying to get you to change your mind or heart. I am describing my experience.
I understand what you are saying. Either there is a jolly old elf living at the North Pole or Santa Claus is meaningless fairy tales. Black and white. I think that is a way to live that ignores a large part of our culture.
There is no evidence in the world that would satisfy you that people can refer to Santa Claus and mean what I mean. Yet most human beings who has ever been given a gift with the pseudonym “Santa Claus” should have a pretty good grasp of what I meant.
Keep in mind, I am not trying to make you believe in Santa Clause or any God. I am describing my experience. I am pretty functional in the world, get along with others and hold down a job and have friends and family. Most of them get what I am saying. Even my atheist father (who is sometimes quite militant about it) gets the Santa Claus thing.
So, you just put the tag “God” on the concept of love? This God does not think and does not act, and doesn’t give a crap if he is worshiped or not? Also, no rules? I resume God is absent at the moment of natural disasters, though returns soon after as people try to help those who need it.
Seems kind of pointless, but it is sure unfalsifiable.
SS, I am going to speak frankly here…no disrespect intended. I mean that sincerely, since some of the things I say may seem disrespectful indeed.
I gotta say that I find the Gospel of John to be the worst part of the New Testament.
There was a long time when I thought Paul was disgusting…a man intent on subverting the actual teachings of Jesus in favor of an intense need to constantly harp on the so-called “sins of the flesh.”
But at some point, I came to understand that although Paul obviously had some unresolved sexual problems…he at least spoke from the heart.
John (no nice way to put this) is an ass-kisser of cosmic proportions. It is John who makes Jesus a god. John takes the teachings of a wise, decent human being and makes it all a joke by making the teacher a god.
And if there is an especially offensive passage in the Bible…it is John 3:16…one of the most disgusting things ever said about any god no matter when invented or by whom invented.
1 John 4 is simply John assigning all that is good to some god…for no decent reason other than he wants to do so. He gives no rationalization…no reasoning. He simply asserts that if it is “good” it is the result of this god.
Reminds me of those folks in the street in Baghdad and Kampala!
It is not “revolutionary” and it is not “self-evident”, but you are free to suppose it to be both.
Paul’s “vindictive pronouncements” are in keeping with the attitude of the god of the Bible.
You’d be surprised - most people know that if there’s a god, it’s a sentient entity that exists independent of human thought or emotion. They know this because that’s what the word pretty mugh means - that and that the god is somewhat more powerful, cooler, more extraphysical, or has better hair than the average mook. I have a styrofoam cup here, and most people would be pretty sure it wasn’t God, becuase it doesn’t match the aforementioned definion. Apparently you wouldn’t be sure it wasn’t God, from what you’re saying here.
Regarding 1 John 4:7-8 in just the two verses it states that love comes from God, and that love is God - not to mention that people are born from God. Taken literally, this means that God comes from God, and that people are born from love (and not metaphorically, either - we’re taking this literally). All of which is completely incoherent and nonsensical. Obviously, the writer was just waxing poetic - very poetic.
Admittedly he seems to have thought that all love came from God, as a gift or outpouring from him. Sure that meanst that all humans are naturally psychopaths, but that’s not an unknown philosophy among Christians. (It goes along well with the whole Original Sin and Need Jesus To Be Saved things.) But being the source of all love, and being love itself, are completely different things - despite the fact that the latter can be hyperbole for the former.
Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, no matter how silly they may be (presuming for a moment they don’t harm others), but this is also a debate forum, and we’re all entitled to pick apart anything we like, even other people’s beliefs. And your beliefs as present don’t seem to hold together. If the word “God” lacks a referent then it is meaningless by definition - it doesn’t refer to anything. You’re as good as saying that you believe in grblehaweasyh - it’s meaningless.
Which is why I don’t think you think that its referentless - you think it refers to something. The problem is you’re drawing from a text that makes irreconcileably contradictory claims about the God thing (presuming you take it all literally). Most people cope with this by realizing that through the entire rest of the bible God is obviously a sentient entity - it talks to people and everything. Just becuase in one verse one guy gets overenthusiastic (like when I say that my girl is the personification of all the beauty in the universe - which she is), that doesn’t override and wipe the meaning from the entire rest of the text. That’s just silly.
You wouldn’t believe what’s pretty functional in the world.
And most people who have given a gift with the pseudonym “Santa Claus” know that they’re lying in doing so. Very few think that they actually turn into Santa Claus for the duration. Only one, that I know of.