you’re missing a piece or two of the puzzle to get to your logical certainty. That is, the purpose of creation , and exactly how the wheel turns. If there is a god we interact with how does that interaction work? According to most major religions it has something to do with faith and the true intent of our own hearts {consciousness, whatever} but even those concepts are somewhat vague and mystical because true intent is so hard to pin down.
So, I reject your logical certainty as woefully incomplete
I missed nothing. Omnipotence means something, and what it means is that if you’re doing something as a means to an end, then you’re not omnipotent, because being omniptent means you don’t have to jump through hoops.
This means, with logical inevitability, that I am an asshole because god wants me to be an asshole. He specifically wants it, since he’s omniscient and my assholishness can’t have slipped under the radar. It can’t be to teach me or anyone else things, because he doesn’t need to allow assholery to teach things.
I honestly don’t even have to get into things that are vague and confusing because the facts here are so direct and the consequences are so clear.
Consider this sentence: “I am a cheeseball.” I had complete control over its content - so there is no other possible explanation for the second word being “am” than because I wanted it that way. If I wanted it to be different, it would be. Such it is with god - if any god exists with complete control over the world. Proven. QED.
He didn’t. We grasp what we are able to grasp and try to grow from there. That’s why holding beliefs provisionally is better, and clinging to tradition as truth is a bad idea.
I don’t think I’d assume that positively. It depends on the nature of that interaction doesn’t it?
well that’s one way of avoiding the challenge you accepted. Honest, those are basic concepts of God shared by lots of Chriatians as well as other religions.
according to him, just about everything, but I can’t say for sure.
No. I mean that details of doctrine and relgious tradition can be disproven to a very reasonble scientific certainty. The claim that one can disprove god concepts with reasonable certainty surprised me and I’m interested if anyone can actually do it.
We talk about God in metaphorical language for the most part. God is not unknowable; we know God through by what has been revealed to us, primarily through scripture and an indwelling of his spirit in us.
He’s not undefinable; it’s that our language is awkward to use to describe him. He is a personally knowable God, not an inanimate force.
The final two sentences do not necessarily follow from the first. God may wish things to change over time for whatever incomprehensible reasons God has. This is Gad as dramatic playwright. We mere earthlings percives these changes as progress, or as deterioration, depending on how God has written us to perceive things.
But I do agree the the omniscience thing eliminates free will. Maybe cause and effect too, I’m a little fuzzier on that. I suppose we can consider cause and effect still exist, so long as God is the cause in all cases.
If I don’t have the IQ for advanced calculus should I abandon basic math?
The acknowledgement that we can never grasp God fully in this mortal life doesn’t mean we can’t experience God in some way and strive to fathom the meaning of that experience.
Also , I reject that omnimax gods are logically inconsistant because of the reasons I mentioned above. We don’t have the proper knowledge to declare logical inconsistantcy.
If a peaceful society with unity and education and quality and whatever were the god’s wish, then that’s the way it would be. If the god wants the world to be currently mired in injustice and giving the appearance of gradually working its way to perfection, that will happen. But the god has to actively want the current injustice for it to be currently happening.
This isn’t a disproof of all gods, but it wasn’t meant to be; it was opposing the bahai and christian gods, both of whom are defined to want people to act other than how they do. All such gods are handily disproven; as are any other omnipotent gods who supposedly wish the world to be even slightly different than it is.
I will note that I didn’t come up with this - it’s just the Problem Of Evil unwound one step. The POE also presumes that the god is omnibenevolent - that is, that it doesn’t want unnecessary suffering (which is to say, any suffering), and thus the existence of suffering disproves the god. This is merely a specialized case of the (irrefutable) argument that whatever an omnipotent/-scient god wants, that and exactly that will be happening, and if anything else is happening the god is disproven.
Of course we do - unless you declare the word “omnimax” to have no meaning. If it has meaning, then we have the knowledge of what that meaning, um, means.
Not pissed. I agree. I meant sadly because it’s unfortunate so many relgions and religious people are so rigid they impede thier own growth and the growth of our society.
My point being that if we concentrate on the principles we believe in and the goals we don’t have to worry about god belief or atheism.
To get almost back to the topic, are you saying that people 3,000 years ago were incapable of holding sophisticated moral ideas, even when inspired by some kind of deity? I think they were, just as they would be capable of understanding scientific ideas - they just didn’t have the foundation. The foundation was built by the great thinkers of the OP, and I’d also contend that the reason religion is supported by fewer and fewer of the great thinkers is that the combined foundations of ethics and science have grown beyond it. Paine said he believed in a god, a deistic one, because of the structure of the solar system. Today I’m almost sure he’d be an atheist.
Almost every interaction is measurable and testable, not just physical ones. My daughter is doing all sorts of interesting studies for her Psych PhD research. For instance, does the interaction tell someone something he didn’t know and couldn’t find out from watching Oprah? Are the many people who claim to be talking to God having some sort of consistent message?
:rolleyes: You are basically admitting that you just make all this nonsense up, contradicting yourself further, and you are using a useless source. The Bible has internal contradictions and numerous factual errors, and therefore can’t be taken seriously as evidence. And besides that, the God of the Bible isn’t remotely like your carefully-vague God; if the bible is evidence, it’s evidence against your claims not for it. And this line of argument is further demonstration that neither you nor probably anyone else actually believes in VagueGod.
You are simply being incoherent. He can’t simultaneously be “wholly Other - ineffable and beyond human comprehension” and personally knowable and describable. Which is it?
You obviously want your god to be beyond the human ability to describe or understand when someone critical come along, but then want to be able to say all sorts of specific things about what it’s like. Either he’s understandable and definable, or not. You aren’t just moving the goalposts; you’ve mounted them on a flywheel.
Of course. Omnipotence means god can do anything. That doesn’t answer the question of purpose. If the journey itself, the experience itself is part of the purpose then it is not logically inconsntant. iow, If I take the long way instead of the most direct way because that’s my intent, then it makes sense.
I reject this as a logical inevitability. Again, without considering purpose and intent the logic is incomplete. Yes God knows you’re an asshole , who doesn’t? and yes an omnipotent god doesn’t have to allow it, unless the experience itself is the purpose. Even if that experience is the illusion of free will, so that you exist with certain potential and choose what to do with that potential. If the experience is the purpose then there is no logical inconsistancy.
not that I see.
If an all powerful god created the world as it is then why is certainly a legitimate and troubling question. Still, I maintain you cannot proclaim logical inevitability without considering the purpose of that creation.
If;
God created us.
God wants us to love each other rather than hurt each other
God is omnipotent
he could have created us already loving each other.
IMO that logically indicates that the experience of choice and the journey to loving each other through choice, consequences and experience, must be part of the point of creation.
Is that logically inconsistant?
And it would also mean that you don’t want to be there - not now, not soon. And arguably not ever - or at least not for the sake of being there. You’d get there eventually as a side effect of that being where the journey was pointed at, but clearly actually being there wasn’t a serious goal, or you wouldn’t have dawdled.
I understand this, because I write fiction and thus play god. The point is the journey/story. My characters are assholes becoming nicer - but I don’t want them to be nice now; it would ruin the story. I want them to be assholes now and nice on page 284. And not a minute before.
You can’t say that god wants both the journey and the destination - one would trump the other inevitably and utterly. Unless you want to get into debates about logical impossibilities and the like.
If the experience is the goal, the supposed goal is a complete and total lie - it can’t be the goal, because the trip is the goal.
If I go on a round trip vacation, it wasn’t because being at home was my goal. If being at home was my goal, then I wouldn’t have gone on the trip.
I’ll note that this gets considerably worse if your god is unchanging, but even a malleable god has to choose only one of the journey or the goal to be of overriding importance.
Look again.
Yes, because “God wants us to love each other rather than hurt each other” and “the journey to loving each other through choice, consequences and experience, must be part of the point of creation” are utterly inconsistent; he can’t want to have eaten his cake and be eating it too. He can’t simultaneously want his goal and want not to have it (wanting to be 116 pages away from it instead). The two positions are completely logically incompatible.
If you wanted to posit a god that was pleased to torture people and thrust them through trials for the enjoyment of watching the drama, then that could work. But the bahai and christian gods, who shake their heads sorrowfully at the misdeeds of humanity, don’t.
It’s a good argument, but it’s not a logically inevitable one.
If the experience of making the journey through freewill and choices to a society of peace and unity is what that god wants, then that’s what’s happeneing.
It’s true that with an omnipotent god that isn’t neccessary but that’s where purpose of creation comes in.
right. The foundation is built upon over time and generations. There’s the question of how many are able and willing to understand, education, etc.
I think spiritually , like science, we as a people and a growing society, build on the understanding of previous generations. I’m glad to see a rejection of myth as generations pass and people become more knowledgeable. I think the great teachers didn’t want us to cling to those things but it was somewhat inevitable because of the nature of man at the time.
I was searching for something else and came upon this from
Mankind has to recognize and become comfortable with what we don’t know. We have to understand that we are still, with all our advances, still struggling and learning with much more to understand. We have to lose our inclination and emtioal attachment to thinking we actually know, when in many cases, we don’t.
I wouldn’t expect consitancy. Years ago I likened man’s communion with God to the purest water coming through an impure filter. You might also say it’s the truest brightest light coming through an imperfect lamp. There are simlarities, but we also get some of the filters and the lamps which vary and are imperfect.
One of my own experiences was concerning a profound insight that led to peace of mind. It’s that question of where that understanding comes from that keeps me entertaining the possibility.
I don’t think we’re at a place yet where we can test or measure to determine the source of certain experiences. We’re getting closer and we may yet discover that it’s just fireing nuerons or endorphines . Or we may remain open to the possibility that we are connected in a way we never imagined before and that connection has something to do with certain experiences.
No. It would mean the route and the journey itself were equally important as the final desitnation.
I don’t see why one has to trump the other. In fact I might even say that God being omnipotent and omniscient knows the destination is inevitable, being part of initial creation, and the journey itself is an equal part of that inevitable whole.
Not so. Both can be equal components.
Interesting analogy since many religions speak of us returning to God.
Ultiamtely your desire is the experience and to be home again after the experience right? That fits what I’m suggesting quite well.
you haven’t demonstrated this is true.
okey dokey, whacha got?
I don’t see that they are. I honestly do get your point, that an ominipotent god can’t want the goal and the experience at the same time. I don’t agree. I can see them as equal parts of a larger whole.
because under the concept of free will , illusion or not, we could choose differently. We do not have to choose greed, resentment, power over others, selfishness.
we’re getting into an area that can go on forever and I don’t want to highjack. I was interested in the assertion you made earlier and now I’ve seen the argument and I’m satisfied I understand it.
