He keeps accusing you of avoiding the question because you keep avoiding it. If you didn’t care about what people want to accept or what idea they consider more plausible than another idea, you wouldn’t have stated this:
and this:
So Der Trihs’ question to you is relevant. He’s answering your questions, answer his.
Whatever question? You know the question, so yes, you’re acting. Answer it or he won’t be the only one believing you don’t really want to debate. You continue to ask questions as if they deserve to be answered. You should treat the question you were asked with the same respect.
They’d have plenty to gain. Survival for one, they wouldn’t want to be beaten to death by a hysterical mob. Or they could want to fit in, or maintain their position by avoiding the inevitable hostility produced by denying the “miracle”.
Don’t be silly. Thoughts and ideas are patterns written down or stored in a brain, they don’t float around in some non-material void. You might as well claim that computer games are proof of God.
No, they can’t exist in the first place without being part of the pattern of something material.
There’s no “by definition” about it; plenty of people worshiped gods who were supposed to be as material as anything else. The modern insistence that “God” isn’t made of matter or energy is just an unspoken concession that people like me who say God violates physical laws are right. And on top of that, God is typically claimed to do things in the world, which is made of stuff that most certainly does obey physical laws. So claims like yours are just an ineffectual evasion.
Since God is eternal (which is not logically contradictory) he knows what he is going to do from before the beginning of time. If a requirement of omniscience is that he rescind omnipotence, he must do so forever, since he knows what he is going to do for all eternity. Ditto for omnipotence. If he is omnipotent at any time throughout eternity, he cannot be omniscient ever, since his omniscience at any time fully constrains his actions forever. I think it is fair to say God never forgets, right?
The usual answer is God just chooses not to change his mind. Your answer, while not helping any better, is at least more creative.
That’s an interesting definition. James Bond still breaks the law even though he has a license to do so. Physical laws cover everything in the universe, not just material things. God still breaks them.
Notice I’m not claiming that God can’t exist because of physical laws. The logical contradiction is far more significant. In any case, no religion has managed to make accurate predictions on just about anything, which is odd given they get information from a deity in some way. If God chose to come down and spell Burma Shave in the stars at my request, I’d probably start believing. “You and me Lord, you and me.” I’m not holding my breath.
Psychologists and social scientists measure things this way all the time. Plus, you ignored my point that we can measure physiological signs. We can often tell when someone else has fallen in love, so it is not like these don’t exist. We don’t have a love scale, but we don’t have a fear or a hunger scale either. There is too much variation to have one.
As Descartes noted, we only know for sure that we are conscious. We can test for consciousness in other people, but, like everything else, we can never absolutely prove its existence. We can’t prove that my measuring something with a ruler is not a delusion either, but that doesn’t mean the measurement is bogus or not repeatable.
Because if he rescinds his own omnipotence, he is not longer omnipotent, and thus no longer fits the criteria established for the Judeo-Christian god. I presume your next objection is something like, “Well, he can always take up his omnipotence when he wants to.” But if he can turn his omnipotence on or off at will, then he’s never really not omnipotent, is he? Moreover, if he’s truly omnipotent, the fact that he deactivates his omnipotence at one particular point in time, does not prevent him from activating his omnipotence at that exact same point in time. After all, if he can literally do absolutely anything, he’s clearly not going to be constrained by our linear perception of the passage of time. If he is ever, at any point in his existence, omnipotent, then he must be omnipotent at every point in his existence. It is, therefore, impossible for God to ever not be omnipotent, and furthermore, it is impossible for him to ever stop being omnipotent. Which means that there is something in the universe which he cannot do. Which makes him not omnipotent, and therefore, not God.
Which, ultimately, means that the concept of omnipotence is, itself, a logical impossibility.
My purple is still your yellow. I’m still right. You are still wrong.
A giant easter bunny is on your roof and I’m going to punch you if you don’t do something about it.
Ok, that was just more mad hatter banter. But seriously
I’d like to think I’m smart enough to believe you are on to something about god being an illusion,
but if a zebra were to appear on my doorstep in the morning, am I psychic? How does this magic trick work if there is not a sentient being behind something that improbable?
Most likely someone left it there as a prank. Or it escaped from a zoo.
One thing to keep in mind about all these hypotheticals about “what do you do if something miraculous and beyond scientific explanation happens”; such things never actually happen. So it isn’t much of a challenge to atheism or skepticism in general.
Considering how a local skeptical newspaper had been for weeks mocking the supposed event without any documented cases of there being threatened violence against them for doing so, and considering how even in the early 20th century the idea of beating skeptics for being skeptics wasn’t overly acceptable, then I’m going to have to say that your contention is pretty weak.
I’m not being silly. Neither thoughts nor ideas have any tangible, material form unless they are given form by tranforming them into a material object, i.e. a video game. That video game, however, is not proof that thoughts exists. As I’m sure we’re all aware, you cannot hear thoughts, nor you see them, nor touch them, nor smell them nor taste them. Yet you would argue they exist, apparently under the assumptions that they exist because they are contained in the minds of a material object (which would also necessitate that God exists under the same assumptions, though you would probably reject such an assumption). This brings us back to my original questions of which you didn’t bother answering, namely the ones asking you whether or not thoughts have structure or if they still exist even if the world they stem from ceases to exist. For if they don’t have structure and they still exist regardless of what happens to the world they stem from, then by your very own reasoning, they defy the laws of physics.
As I’m sure you’ll well aware, then that doesn’t answer the question. You can be introduced to a thought or idea, which have no tangible forms, via someone else without being influenced by those thoughts or ideas. You do think for yourself, don’t you?
I point you the part of my post where I said, and I quote, “I’m unaware of any theist-- more specifically, I should say Christian-- who takes this stance”, as then you would realize that we’re talking of the Christian God, and not just gods in general.
There’s a difference between saying God can’t exist because his existence would violate the laws of nature, and stating that God can act in a way that you would normally think impossible.
Presumably, you’re not arguing that God must act in a certain manner because he’s omnipotent/omniscient. Being omniscient does not require one to absolutely know everything at any specific point, but rather denotes the ability to know everything at any specific point. God choosing not to know what he’s going to do tomorrow doesn’t require permenantly rescinding his omniscience, but rather God choosing to rescind his omniscience in regards to his own actions, which doesn’t make him non-omniscient. Indeed, one could argue the same for omnipotence, though there is no reason for a deity to do this.
If you kick in the front door to my house and proceed to take my laptop, that’s theft. If I kick in the front door to my house and proceed to take my laptop, while stupid for kicking in the front door to my house, that’s not theft. Yet again, you cannot break a law that you are not bound to.
Few religions go out of their way to make predictions about the future.
When did I say love doesn’t exist? What do you mean I ignored your point that we can measure physiological signs? Not only did I not say, nor insinuate, the former, but regarding the latter, you’ll notice that I said that we can measure how someone in love acts or have them explain their feelings (we could even measure their changes in hormones), but that none of these are direct measurements of love, but rather indirect measurements of the effects of being in love. The two are wholely and entirely different.
Descartes statement is not an affirmation of one’s consciousness, but one’s existence. Existence doesn’t require consciousness, but consciousness sure as hell requires existence.
If God rescinds his own omnipotence, then he can’t get it back by virtue of being non-omnipotent (assuming, of course, there isn’t some easy to go through ritual by which he could reacquire his omnipotence). If he could simply will himself omnipotent again, then he never stopped being omnipotent in the first place. If he stopped being omnipotent, then he’d no longer be the Christian God. The question, therefore, is why would God rescind his omnipotence? There would be no point of it, which isn’t to say it couldn’t be done. As it is, you haven’t proven that omnipotence is a logical impossibility, but that it’s impossible to still be the Christian God while acquiesing to every request or demand made of you stemming from the fact that you’re omnipotent.
It’s not that omnipotence, per se is a logical possibility. It is not (although it is a physical impossibility, which is different), but omnipotence cannot logically coexist with omnibenevolence if evil exists. If evil exists, an omnimax God can’t exist.
I see a lot of analysis of the psychology of belief and the rules which may or may not apply to God in post 252, but still no explanation how something as impressive as a dancing sun was not observed by anyone outside of Portugal, nor any explanation why only people in Portugal would have noticed.
Yes, you are being silly; I answered your question; you just didn’t want to hear it. Again; thoughts and ideas have no existence beyond whatever physical substrate they exist within, whether that is a brain or writing or something else. And you most certainly can detect thoughts; a variety of scientific instruments can detect the functioning of the brain.
More nonsense; those thoughts and ideas certainly have a material form; they are part of the brain of the person talking to me, and the pattern of vibrations in the air we call speech. All material. And I can’t be introduced to an idea without being affected by it, because perception is a form of being affected by it.
God does both, something you admit when you insist he can’t be made of anything material.
Since when? Religions, including Christianity are full of predictions about the future. They are always wrong of course, but that doesn’t stop them.
I’d be interested in seeing OaBC address this as well. It seems like an irrefutable debunking of the so-called ‘Fatima Miracle’ to me.
Incidentally, as to what would convince me of God’s existence…well, the number of potential proofs is limited only by my imagination. For now, however, let’s keep it simple. OaBC, I have written a 30 digit long number on a piece of paper and locked it in my desk. If I receive an e-mail or PM from you, or anyone else, containing the entire number, without errors, by this time tomorrow, I will immediately join the priesthood.
The whole truth is that the elephant is what it is, not the perception, but part of the truth is not the whole truth. If onw were to describe an elephant he would need to use all the parts and see the entire elephant, Not just feel, or see a tail and say an elephant is like a rope,etc. One may be sincere in what they percieve but that doesn’t make it truth!
Really? Wouldn’t it be transfinitely more likely that someone had abstracted the number from your locked desk and returned it without your knowledge, than that God had had anything to do with it?
Perhaps. Still, the odds of anyone on this messageboard finding out where I live and breaking in without me knowing in the 20 or so hours remaining is so vanishingly small that it’s not really worth considering. When we’re dealing with improbabilities that large, what’s the difference between believing in God and believing in crack teams of theistic SDMB ninjas? Anyway, that’s my threshold for evidence and I’m sticking with it.
Although, I should revise my earlier statement somewhat. Such a miraculous revelation might convince me that God exists, but it wouldn’t necessarily indicate which specific religion I should follow. If the creator of the universe wants me to be a priest (as opposed to, say, a rabbi) he’d have to tell me personally.
Thoughts are patterns of brain activity. They are like eddies in a pool of water. The eddies are not a “thing”, they are a pattern of activity of a thing. But that doesn’t make them somehow magical or unreal.
Thoughts cannot exist independently of a neurological framework, just as eddies cannot exist independently of a supporting liquid, gas, or plasma. Thoughts and eddies have structure (in fact, you could argue that all they are is structure) but they vanish if their supporting medium vanishes.
What is the medium that supports the structure you call “God”?
In any case, if the sun really did dance around the sky in 1917 it should have been witnessed worldwide, not just in some God-besotted corner of Portugal.
