The concept of God is incoherent

[Reflex]

sthitapragya,

How many times and in how many ways must it be said that God is being itself? How many links and book recommendations must be posted before you show the slightest bit of curiosity in finding out the slightest bit about classical theism? How about addressing my post? Are you that committed to sound and fury with no substance? What part of "God is "the light of being itself", the answer to the question of why there's existence to begin with" don't you understand?

One article I've linked to on several occasions says that one on the best arguments for atheism goes like this:

Maybe we do need to posit an ultimate First Cause of sorts. But whether we do or not, there's nothing to be gained by saying it's a supernatural entity with intellect and will. No hitherto unexplained facts get explained, and no currently explained facts get explained any better. All we end up doing is making explanatorily superfluous claims. This is what LaPlace had in mind when he said, in reference to God, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”

I've seen the argument used in this forum. But the article goes on to say, and rightly so:

This response would have considerable force against modern conceptions of God, under which God might be viewed as a sort of conjunction of essential properties: God is necessary and omnipotent and the source of all value, etc. Here one is entitled to reject the entire conjunction simply by virtue of rejecting one of its conjuncts. So while a non-theist might not think that anything has all of these properties, she might think that something has a couple or more of them.

But, this way of thinking is incoherent on classical theism, since the First Cause is considered to be utterly simple. In other words, the First Cause isn't thought of as having essential properties, or any sort of parts at all: the First Cause and its power, goodness, and even knowledge all refer to the same thing, just in different senses (much like "Clark Kent" and "Superman" do).

The argument posed above, in case you don't understand the rejoinder, is begging the question, since it assumes that the First Cause could be composite, which entails that Divine Simplicity (a central tenant of classical theism) is false. Your "arguments" are no different; they are based on wilful ignorance. You embrace an ultimate absurdity and posit no argument in its support. You complain that Bentley "does not elaborate what he means when he says "what is logically entailed in denying that there is any God so defined"" without paying the slightest heed to his writings. Why? Shouldn't you take it upon yourself to know what you're talking about? to have some understanding of traditional (classical) monotheism? It's been around for centuries, after all. What's your excuse? It is your responsibility to know what you are talking about.

Right. You said it yourself: you don't "do philosophy."

[Dontaskme]

What happened to my request that you provide the definition of "information" that you're using?

Can ''information'' be defined without using concepts?

No (at least not without that serving as a background for whoever is defining the term). Now, what is the definition you're using, please?

Aren't you trying to have a serious discussion? I can't answer questions you're asking employing the term "information" ("informs" and other permutations) unless I know what definition you're using. If you're not interested in a serious discussion though, that would be useful to know, too.

I would just answer using the relevant sense of "information" that I use in this milieu, as I've done with many other terms (and that I could define for you if you were unclear on how I'm using them), but I don't use "information" in this milieu really.

I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. Or, of mental brain activity. The realm of mental activity is useful for human in that it generates a known reality that is perceived to be real. And life evolved this sophistication process, it was life that manifested the mind, which human thinks or is made to think is required to conduct life. But the mind does not make life happen. It reconstructs it, makes it known. Otherwise life is unknown even to itself. A reconstruction is an artificial representation of reality and not how reality really is. Real reality is functioning automatically and spontaneously without a mind to do so. Life does not know it is alive. Human could not have known they were alive before life manifested a mind.

Life made the brain, the brain doesn't make life. Life is a transformation process of energy. This transformation process is expressed as sophistication. Since life is light the sophistication has to be primarily illusory, an optical and an auditory illusion, a reflection of light, so to speak.When light moves it produces sound, and these sounds later appeared as a word with a meaning. This was the birth of mind, which took place in human. The mind appeared in the sophistication process so that this process, no matter how illusory could be known. Life was present and happening before the advent of the mind therefore the mind has artificially superimposed a false reality over reality as it really is. Life is not an illusion in the sense it's not happening, it's an illusion in the sense it is happening to a someone. There is no one to whom life is happening. All knowledge about reality is illusory. There is no one living life. Life just is without knowing. The grass grows all by itself without a mind to do so.

So man cannot be the doer of life. He is the knower of life only through the artificially created mind of knowledge which life manifested not man and this knowledge is an illusory knowing. Real knowing knows without knowing. Man only thinks he is the knower, he thinks he is intelligent because of his powerful mind. The mind is the architect of man. The mind builds a man. He is measured by it. A mind that is intelligent is admired; it brings a man pride and makes him the centrepiece of society. Believed to be a necessity so that life can function, be maintained and progress. But is that mind free of the unwanted? Yet man is proud of his mind. What value could there be in a mind that can never keep disharmony away? Intelligence is the life that manifested the mind and the body, the body and mind are not the intelligence. Intelligence came before the mind of man. So we are not who we think we are. Life is but it doesn't need a mind or brain to be. That is the only power, the only intelligence that's of any real value.

[bahman]

What you asked to prove are my premises: (1) God is the creator, (2) God is timeless and (3) God is a person (can decide and act). In short, we just showed that there is a problem in the timelessness, the act of creation and decision.

If there is a problem with acting and deciding in the timelessness, then there must be one acting and deciding in time ? who is that one?

Just acting since we know that universe exist. But that means that God is not a person any more since He cannot decide.

[bahman]

God isn't one very impressive thing among many things that might or might not exist; “not just some especially resplendent object among all the objects illuminated by the light of being,” as Hart puts it. Rather, God is “the light of being itself',” the answer to the question of why there's existence to begin with. In other words, that wisecrack about how atheists merely believe in one less god than theists do, is just a category error. Monotheism's God isn't like one of the Greek gods except that he happens to have no god friends, but an utterly different kind of concept.

There are plenty of complaints (like the so-called problem of evil) and lots of ignorance posing as intelligible arguments (like the OP), but there are no real arguments against God's existence. To deny God, properly understood, is to entertain the ultimate absurdity as the ultimate truth. As Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart puts it: “When I say that atheism is a kind of obliviousness to the obvious, I mean that if one understands what the actual philosophical definition of 'God' is in most of the great religious traditions, and if consequently one understands what is logically entailed in denying that there is any God so defined, then one cannot reject the reality of God out court without embracing an ultimate absurdity.”

The OP does sound. It is based on two propositions: (1) God is timeless and (2) God is a person (ability to decide and act). The act of creation need decide and act which one follows another one. This however is impossible in timeless framework. I cannot make it simpler than this.

[Dontaskme]

What you asked to prove are my premises: (1) God is the creator, (2) God is timeless and (3) God is a person (can decide and act). In short, we just showed that there is a problem in the timelessness, the act of creation and decision.

If there is a problem with acting and deciding in the timelessness, then there must be one acting and deciding in time ? who is that one?

Just acting since we know that universe exist. But that means that God is not a person any more since He cannot decide.

Nothing is acting or deciding, it's just happening to life, it's a function of life living itself. No thing is making it happen.

[Dontaskme]

The OP does sound. It is based on two propositions: (1) God is timeless and (2) God is a person (ability to decide and act). The act of creation need decide and act which one follows another one. This however is impossible in timeless framework. I cannot make it simpler than this.

Creation is just an idea born of the mind in timespace duality, it's a dream, illusion. Life manifested this and made it happen. That's all that can be known about that.

All knowledge of Gods and Man are ideas born in spacetime duality aka through the mind of language and knowledge which triggered thoughts and ideas into existence. Which do not exist beyond the mind. The timeless realm of the real is unknowable to the mind. All that's known to the mind about a timeless realm are relative ideas... relative ideas about the absolute are absurd and mute.

Creation never happened..it's an idea born of mind, ideas formed by images. Which are reflections of light. Light has never been seen, it is un-created...but manifests as images. We see the images but not the light reflecting them. Nothing is known of the light...only what it reflects. We worship dead things, images dreams and mirages.

[sthitapragya]

sthitapragya,

How many times and in how many ways must it be said that God is being itself? How many links and book recommendations must be posted before you show the slightest bit of curiosity in finding out the slightest bit about classical theism? How about addressing my post? Are you that committed to sound and fury with no substance? What part of "God is "the light of being itself", the answer to the question of why there's existence to begin with" don't you understand?

I don't understand how you jumped to this conclusion without any proof at all.

One article I've linked to on several occasions says that one on the best arguments for atheism goes like this:

Maybe we do need to posit an ultimate First Cause of sorts. But whether we do or not, there's nothing to be gained by saying it's a supernatural entity with intellect and will. No hitherto unexplained facts get explained, and no currently explained facts get explained any better. All we end up doing is making explanatorily superfluous claims. This is what LaPlace had in mind when he said, in reference to God, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”

I've seen the argument used in this forum. But the article goes on to say, and rightly so:

This response would have considerable force against modern conceptions of God, under which God might be viewed as a sort of conjunction of essential properties: God is necessary and omnipotent and the source of all value, etc. Here one is entitled to reject the entire conjunction simply by virtue of rejecting one of its conjuncts. So while a non-theist might not think that anything has all of these properties, she might think that something has a couple or more of them.

Not really. One can easily conclude that God is not necessary, is not omnipotent and is not the source of all value. I don't see any reason to believe any of the three.

But, this way of thinking is incoherent on classical theism, since the First Cause is considered to be utterly simple. In other words, the First Cause isn't thought of as having essential properties, or any sort of parts at all: the First Cause and its power, goodness, and even knowledge all refer to the same thing, just in different senses (much like "Clark Kent" and "Superman" do).

The argument posed above, in case you don't understand the rejoinder, is begging the question, since it assumes that the First Cause could be composite, which entails that Divine Simplicity (a central tenant of classical theism) is false. Your "arguments" are no different; they are based on wilful ignorance. You embrace an ultimate absurdity and posit no argument in its support. You complain that Bentley "does not elaborate what he means when he says "what is logically entailed in denying that there is any God so defined"" without paying the slightest heed to his writings. Why? Shouldn't you take it upon yourself to know what you're talking about? to have some understanding of traditional (classical) monotheism? It's been around for centuries, after all. What's your excuse? It is your responsibility to know what you are talking about.

What ignorance are you talking about? I understand exactly what you refer to as God. I challenge you. You tell me what your definition of God is and I will tell you mine. They will be exactly the same.

What absurdity? You are the one who has absurdly taken a hypothesis and concluded it is proved without any proof whatsoever. I have never seen anything more absurd in my life.

And Bentley HAS not defined God, has he? It is just a cop out. He wants me to define it to him and reject it, so that he can say, "that is not the God I was talking about." You guys never can and never will define your God. And you cannot accept that.

And why would I take it upon myself? You are the ones who don't know what you are talking about. You keep talking in vague terms about your precious God, but REFUSE TO DEFINE HIM. Well, put up or shut up. Define him. You cannot. You know it and I know it. Because you are doubtful of your definition yourself.

And again, it is your responsibility to know what you are talking about. I know I deny any magical being of any kind whatsoever. Apply that to your God. If he has magical properties like transcendence, I deny his existence as a hypothesis because you would have to prove he is transcendent. You say he is omnipotent. WEll, prove his omnipotence. You say he is the source of all values. Prove he is the source of all values. I do not see any reason to believe any of this bullshit without proof. It remains a hypothesis and that too a very far fetched one.

And just because a thing has been around for centuries does not make it right. For centuries people believed the world was flat. We grew out of it. We can grow out of God. If you guys get the psychological wherewithal to do it.

Right. You said it yourself: you don't "do philosophy."

[/quote]
Yeah. Because any discussion of God is mysticism, or superstition or at most theology. Nothing more. You want to exhalt this absurd discussion to the level of philosophy if it makes you feel better, well knock yourself out. This is a discussion on superstition. Nothing more. IT is NOT philosophy.

[Dontaskme]

How many times and in how many ways must it be said that God is being itself? How many links and book recommendations must be posted before you show the slightest bit of curiosity in finding out the slightest bit about classical theism? How about addressing my post? Are you that committed to sound and fury with no substance? What part of "God is "the light of being itself", the answer to the question of why there's existence to begin with" don't you understand?

I don't understand how you jumped to this conclusion without any proof at all.

Just an obvious observation on my part... I think Reflex is using the phrase ''God is being itself'' as a symbolic representation of this immediate aliveness that is here right now and cannot be denied. Cannot be refuted, and is without doubt, belief, or error.

Symbolic representation in the sense that this immediate presence is known.

And you want proof of that?

Are you not alive right now?

Just for your information sthitapragya... ALIVENESS PRESENCE is, but we don't know what it actually is, only that it is.

[Dontaskme]

Because any discussion of God is mysticism, or superstition or at most theology. Nothing more. You want to exhalt this absurd discussion to the level of philosophy if it makes you feel better, well knock yourself out. This is a discussion on superstition. Nothing more. IT is NOT philosophy.


"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance" - Albert Einstein

All thought based study into the nature of reality IS philosophy.

Who died and made you judge and jury of what is philosophy and what isn't?

[Hobbes' Choice]

God isn't one very impressive thing among many things that might or might not exist; “not just some especially resplendent object among all the objects illuminated by the light of being,” as Hart puts it. Rather, God is “the light of being itself',” the answer to the question of why there's existence to begin with. In other words, that wisecrack about how atheists merely believe in one less god than theists do, is just a category error. Monotheism's God isn't like one of the Greek gods except that he happens to have no god friends, but an utterly different kind of concept. ”

Easy answer to possibly meaningless questions.
You have nothing here. No answers, and no real questions.
It is nothing but fantasy- and the bigger you make god the more ridiculous you look.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. .

This is a typical and false ploy. Not only are you undermining everyone else's arguments, but you are simply also removing the rug from under your own feet and thus invalidating anything and everything you say.

Whilst it is true that the immediate perceptions do not provide the whole story, we also have the benefit of interpretation from experience, extrapolation from limited sensory perception, and a priori truths built up over generations of human thinking.

When I see a up on a table I see an oval shape in 2D standing upon tow parallel lines upon a curve. When I move the geometry of the cup changes and with my experience I can fill in the notion of a 3 dimensional cup. Context builds our knowledge so that we manage to move about the world never having to walk into things because we have figured out they are real and hard. This is the world we inhabit, and we can be pretty sure of managing within it. Science has extended our understanding beyond our senses, and we have gained many benefits from this.

The only time we have trouble is when people make ridiculous claims that lie beyond the world of our immediate senses and scientific instruments to answer non-questions such as "boohoo why are we here", or "why are butterflies so pretty".
Philosophy has much better tools for addressing these questions, as religion always has the same cheap empty easy answer for everything - which of course answers nothing.

[Dontaskme]

I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. .

This is a typical and false ploy. Not only are you undermining everyone else's arguments, but you are simply also removing the rug from under your own feet and thus invalidating anything and everything you say.

Whilst it is true that the immediate perceptions do not provide the whole story, we also have the benefit of interpretation from experience, extrapolation from limited sensory perception, and a priori truths built up over generations of human thinking.

When I see a up on a table I see an oval shape in 2D standing upon tow parallel lines upon a curve. When I move the geometry of the cup changes and with my experience I can fill in the notion of a 3 dimensional cup. Context builds our knowledge so that we manage to move about the world never having to walk into things because we have figured out they are real and hard. This is the world we inhabit, and we can be pretty sure of managing within it. Science has extended our understanding beyond our senses, and we have gained many benefits from this.

The only time we have trouble is when people make ridiculous claims that lie beyond the world of our immediate senses and scientific instruments to answer non-questions such as "boohoo why are we here", or "why are butterflies so pretty".
Philosophy has much better tools for addressing these questions, as religion always has the same cheap empty easy answer for everything - which of course answers nothing.

I don't come at reality from an intellectual stand point.

And is why I'm already living in truth. Sometimes I like expressing in words, and know this is impossible to do ..but do it all the same. Life dictates that.

Say and think what you like about reality ...but it won't effect the truth that I am personally living right here and now so complete and perfect and effortless. I have nothing to prove or disprove. Nothing is missing from life. Life cannot even miss a single blade of grass because the rest of the universe would disappear in it’s lack of appearance.

Be well.

Amen.

[sthitapragya]

I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. .

This is a typical and false ploy. Not only are you undermining everyone else's arguments, but you are simply also removing the rug from under your own feet and thus invalidating anything and everything you say.

He just does not get that. That is why I have him on ignore. The sum total of what he says is always zero. Complete waste of time.

[Dontaskme]

He just does not get that. That is why I have him on ignore. The sum total of what he says is always zero. Complete waste of time.

Well we all have our stories to tell, and you know what they say, we all like a good story, especially when it's about our imagined self.

What else is there to do with our time in the real timeless realm where no one lives..where dreams do come true via the myriad of imagined made up stories running rampant unimpeded unchallenged nowhere and everywhere right here now...where life doesn't care about your story about it ...and life just goes on same as it ever was....same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was....Blah!

In other words there is no one that's going to rear up their ugly head and say hey man that's all wrong dude, that's not how it actually is...because how it is ..is exactly how it's meant to be... because it likes being how it is ..otherwise it wouldn't be how it is... it would be how it isn't....

[Hobbes' Choice]

I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. .

This is a typical and false ploy. Not only are you undermining everyone else's arguments, but you are simply also removing the rug from under your own feet and thus invalidating anything and everything you say.

Whilst it is true that the immediate perceptions do not provide the whole story, we also have the benefit of interpretation from experience, extrapolation from limited sensory perception, and a priori truths built up over generations of human thinking.

When I see a up on a table I see an oval shape in 2D standing upon tow parallel lines upon a curve. When I move the geometry of the cup changes and with my experience I can fill in the notion of a 3 dimensional cup. Context builds our knowledge so that we manage to move about the world never having to walk into things because we have figured out they are real and hard. This is the world we inhabit, and we can be pretty sure of managing within it. Science has extended our understanding beyond our senses, and we have gained many benefits from this.

The only time we have trouble is when people make ridiculous claims that lie beyond the world of our immediate senses and scientific instruments to answer non-questions such as "boohoo why are we here", or "why are butterflies so pretty".
Philosophy has much better tools for addressing these questions, as religion always has the same cheap empty easy answer for everything - which of course answers nothing.

I don't come at reality from an intellectual stand point.

And is why I'm already living in truth. Sometimes I like expressing in words, and know this is impossible to do ..but do it all the same. Life dictates that.

Say and think what you like about reality ...but it won't effect the truth that I am personally living right here and now so complete and perfect and effortless. I have nothing to prove or disprove. Nothing is missing from life. Life cannot even miss a single blade of grass because the rest of the universe would disappear in it’s lack of appearance.

Be well.

Amen.

Not only an idiot but an arrogant and patronising idiot. Gee I guess you must believe that you are god.