Prove me wrong: there is no God

[Immanuel Can]

Fair enough. Then let's use that wording: give me one that's coherent.

IC, I don't know if you re being willfully obstructive,...

No. I'm just asking an extremely simple question: what is your example of a coherent polytheism?

That's it.

So simple. If you have one, just name it, and we'll consider it.

[promethean75]

Yeah, IC's reasons for rejecting polytheism are sound even though he's still an anthropomorph-mongering monotheist. Prolly something put in him in his youf. Boy scouts, oldest sibling who had to take on responsibilities, good strong relationship with a competent authoritative Father. There's a few things that'll prep a young man to become and stay a solid Christian in adulthood. I'd have to have a few sessions with IC to work it out.

Now, there may be kinds of beings that have greater powers and capacities than others, sentient or immaterial (however that would work), and we could call those demigods or x-men or reptilian shape shifting time travelers.

'God', on the other hand, wouldn't be one of these transient, changing finite beings... wouldn't be defined by its properties or dependent on their contingency (the red ball is its 'redness' just as it is its roundness, etc). At one time in the distant past, there was not yet any redness or roundness in the universe, and yet the universe exited. The same would be said about any property an existing thing would have... demigod, mythological greek hero or shape shifting lizard men... duddint matter.

Any conceivable thing can only be an attribute of 'god' (call it Nature, please) because it depends on its properties to exist and is therefore not self-caused... causally determined but contingent, not necessary. 'God' can't be something reliant on properties that pass in and out of existence to have substance and exist. The whole sha-bang is 'god', everything in space a mode of 'god'.

Remember how back in the day them A-rab philosophers usta be negative theologists and be like "every idea that enters your head about god is not possibly about god." Them n_ggaz had it right.

[Immanuel Can]

Yeah, IC's reasons for rejecting polytheism are sound...

I'm ready to see him prove me wrong. But he doesn't seem to want to do it.

Or he's got nothing.

You decide.

[MikeNovack]

Yeah, IC's reasons for rejecting polytheism are sound...

I'm ready to see him prove me wrong. But he doesn't seem to want to do it.

Or he's got nothing.

You decide.

OK IC, I will proceed with model A2 (I will modify A1 toward polytheism). BUT --- although you continue to refuse a CLEAR answer about A1 I am first going to ASSUME you consider A1 to be monotheist and coherent. IF that presumption is wrong, state so clearly BEFORE a response to A2. In other words, no going back on A!. And if you declare A1 to be incoherent, you need to explain why.

Model A2 ------- as in A1 we have seven divine beings, the eternal clan of the gods. There was nothing else. One day the clan brothers and sisters decided, lets create something (*). The first brother said, I will create a universe full of blazing stars, some with balls of rocks circling them, some of those balls of rock with other balls of rock circling around them. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting and pretty. The second brother said, I will take one of those balls circling a star and cover it with water so it shines in reflection. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting, pretty. The first sister said, I will due my fires to to melt the rock below, so that it in places it bursts forth to rise above the water, islands ranging from small to gigantic. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting, pretty. the third brother said I will cause water to rise up form the sea and fall as rain upon those islands, I will create winds, gentle to fierce storms. The rain and wind will slowly shape the rocks of the island. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting, pretty. the second sister said I will create rivers for all that rain to return to the sea, ponds and lakes for it rest on the way. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting, pretty. The third sister said I will create green living things to cover the land and grow in the sea. They will be born and they will die, and their bodies will nourish those coming after. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting, pretty. And the last brother said I will create animals to live in the sea and on land. Unlike the green things they will move around. They will eat the green things and each other. Like the green things they will be born and they will die, and their bodies will nourish those coming after. And so it was done, and all the rest said interesting, pretty.

Then the seven looked and considered, we find it interesting and pretty, but there is none else to do that. Let's take one of the animals and give it discernment, let it be able to perceive our creation that is pretty and interesting. Let them live in harmony within their clans as we do, and let them judge their actions toward their fellow clan members to see if pretty and interesting.

OK --- I am rather certain you will judge A2 "polytheism". But is it coherent or incoherent? If you answer incoherent you must add WHY in the sense of "what has changed from model A! to make A2 incoherent". NOTE -- if it is JUST the absence of a single deity you are not giving a reason for polytheism to be incoherent but simply defining it so. If you answer "nothing has changed, A1 is also incoherent YOU ARE CHEATING. You had to FIRST (before discussing A2) go back and explain WHY you found A1 incoherent (why you consider Yazidism not just a false religion but incoherent -- A1 is close enough to Yazidism to require that)

* BTW -- religions do NOT have to begin with an account of creation. Some have an "emergence" myth instead.

[Will Bouwman]

I said Bacon invented the scientific method. He did.

No he didn't. Lemme help you out, Mr Can: the tack you should have taken when the penny dropped, was that Francis Bacon didn't invent the scientific method, but he was the first to write a book specifically about a scientific method. Welcome to your new point of view. Already the dusty cogs of your intellect are grinding out a reason why that is the same as inventing the scientific method and in less than a month, you will be telling everyone that is what you said in the first place, 13 years ago.

[Immanuel Can]

Model A2 ------- as in A1 we have seven divine beings, the eternal clan of the gods. There was nothing else.

Which one was the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Unmoved Mover, and the one whose pre-existence accounts for everything else that exists, including those other "gods"?

[Immanuel Can]

I said Bacon invented the scientific method. He did.

No he didn't.

Well, we're going to disagree about that. What's next?

[Will Bouwman]

I said Bacon invented the scientific method. He did.

No he didn't.

Well, we're going to disagree about that. What's next?

See above.

[Immanuel Can]

No he didn't.

Well, we're going to disagree about that. What's next?

See above.

Then that's that.

[Will Bouwman]

Then that's that.

Well, until you trot out a version of your thesis that Francis Bacon invented the scientific method, refined as outlined above, and I will help you refine it further.
You're welcome.

[MikeNovack]

Model A2 ------- as in A1 we have seven divine beings, the eternal clan of the gods. There was nothing else.

Which one was the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Unmoved Mover, and the one whose pre-existence accounts for everything else that exists, including those other "gods"?

WTF? You asked for an example of POLYTHEISM. The model I provided has no supreme leader/dictator among the divine ones. Are you totally unable to accept the concept of an egalitarian, cooperative society? In the model they ALL pre-exist, the clan of divine beings pre-exists. has no beginning. If a single god can have no beginning or end, so could a number of them.

That is precisely the (essentially only) difference from model A1.

But that was just a question (about model A2). What are your answers, polytheism? (I can't imagine you considering it monotheism). But coherent or incoherent? If incoherent, WHY?

[Immanuel Can]

Model A2 ------- as in A1 we have seven divine beings, the eternal clan of the gods. There was nothing else.

Which one was the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Unmoved Mover, and the one whose pre-existence accounts for everything else that exists, including those other "gods"?

WTF? You asked for an example of POLYTHEISM.

Yes, I did. But any tradition that actually contains the "God" concept, and not merely the lesser "gods" concept, and any tradition that attempts to address the fundamental questions has to have an answer to the question of the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover, the Supreme Being. Failing that, the tradition is not actually dealing with the basics.

Moreover, if these putative "gods" all think the same and always agree, then they're redundant. What's the point of having Zeus and Apollo, if Zeus alone will do all the work? Why even bother with Apollo, then? What use does he have? What Zeus has declared is already the final word.

But if Apollo matters, and if he has a different view of the good from Zeus, then Zeus is not the final word. Zeus becomes the questionable one. So in the contest between Zeus and Apollo, we poor humans will get no guidance. We won't know whom to believe, or when, or why. We will simply get incoherent conflicts. And that is exactly what you see in something like The Odyssey: Poseidon hates Odysseus; Athena loves him; Zeus is entirely indifferent to him. And Odysseus never knows which way to turn, or what these capricious "gods" are going to do to him next.

If such "gods" don't all agree in all things, then they are limited, local "gods," who preside over only limited issues and territories. There may be a demand for a bunch of them, but they're all contingent, limited beings, not the Supreme Being. None has total knowledge, total wisdom, total power, total authority, or total goodness. Essentially, they're squabbling children. And squabbling children are not the concept of "God." They cannot be the grounds of good, since they don't agree. In fact, they cannot even be moral, as Socrates pointed out in the Euthyphro discourse. Either the gods are not all legitimate "gods," or they know nothing about good; for they disagree as to what its nature is, and what its requirements are. They give only incoherent answers; we can't believe them, because if we believe one, we have to disregard the others...and we've already deemed them "gods."

So the idea of multiple gods is either silly and inadequate to the fundamental questions, or redundant. And there is a profound incoherence in attributing to any "god" authority, so long as the "gods" disagree. But if they do not disagree, then there is no need for any of them: whichever one is infallible in regard to the good is the only true God. The rest have no purpose, and can simply be dismissed.

[MikeNovack]

Which one was the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Unmoved Mover, and the one whose pre-existence accounts for everything else that exists, including those other "gods"?

Stop right there. If you can propose one deity that was eternal, that always was, is, and always will be, then I can propose set set of them, eternal, that always was, is, and always will be. No more need for any of them to be first. They no more need a "cause" than your one eternal deity does. There is no "first" going infinitely far back into the past. I bet you have trouble with "turtles all the way down" too.

Remember, the challenge was to produce an example of polygamy, not that I produce one to your taste by being easy to argue against.

That one deity could suffice is irrelevant. Not an argument against the coherence of more than one.

So give your reason, why is Model A2 incoherent?

BTW -- You give too much importance to "first cause". You ASSUME all religions have creation stories, that consider the universe "created". It is not impossible for a religion to consider that both the universe AND the gods were eternal, always existed.

[Immanuel Can]

Which one was the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Unmoved Mover, and the one whose pre-existence accounts for everything else that exists, including those other "gods"?

Stop right there. If you can propose one deity that was eternal, that always was, is, and always will be, then I can propose set set of them, eternal, that always was, is, and always will be.

Actually, you can't. Contingent, limited beings, "gods" are not sufficient to answer the First Cause problem.

What we know is this: that everything had to begin with an uncaused entity. We know this for certain, because mathematically, we know that an infinite-regressive causal sequence can never start. And we are very clearly participants in a causal sequence.

Remember, the challenge was to produce an example of polygamy,

I think you're misremembering. The challenge was to produce some example of a coherent polytheism. Not only have you had to resort to an imaginary "model," since you could think of no real one, but the model you produced suffers from the same incoherency I identified in other polytheisms. You can see them again, in my last message.

[MikeNovack]

Which one was the First Cause, the Supreme Being, the Unmoved Mover, and the one whose pre-existence accounts for everything else that exists, including those other "gods"?

Stop right there. If you can propose one deity that was eternal, that always was, is, and always will be, then I can propose set set of them, eternal, that always was, is, and always will be.

Actually, you can't. Contingent, limited beings, "gods" are not sufficient to answer the First Cause problem.

What we know is this: that everything had to begin with an uncaused entity. We know this for certain, because mathematically, we know that an infinite-regressive causal sequence can never start. And we are very clearly participants in a causal sequence.

Remember, the challenge was to produce an example of polygamy,

I think you're misremembering. The challenge was to produce some example of a coherent polytheism. Not only have you had to resort to an imaginary "model," since you could think of no real one, but the model you produced suffers from the same incoherency I identified in other polytheisms. You can see them again, in my last message.

You are continuing to not take the model seriously. It no more has to give a "first cause" for the seven than you do for the one. The seven (each of them) are not necessarily any more limited than the one.

"We know this for certain, because mathematically, we know that an infinite-regressive causal sequence can never start"
It really bothers you, the idea that there is no first turtle. Maybe the very idea of infinity bothers you. The infinite "natural numbers" do have a start in "zero". But the infinite "integers" do not (both positive and negative whole numbers). Just as the Peano-Dedekind axioms define the natural numbers, there exist axioms for the integers. But since infinite in both directions, THERE IS NO FIRST INTEGER (just identity integers, one each for the operations addition and multiplication)

" Contingent, limited beings, "gods" are not sufficient to answer the First Cause problem."
WHERE in model A2 were any of the seven described as "contingent, limited, entities"? WHERE in model A2 was it implied that any of the seven would have been unable to do all of creation alone? Could have done and did do are different. Why do you even consider First Cause relevant? You are trying to use what your religion believes to decide what OTHER religions must consider relevant.

Model A2 no more has to account for seven eternal divine beings than yours does for one. Without beginning, without end.

Don't try to retreat to "model A2 was made up". You were not saying that "existing polytheist religions are all incoherent" but "polytheistic religions are necessarily incoherent".

IC -- there is a difference between you considering other religions false (because yours the only true one) and considering other religions incoherent.

PS -- This was precisely why I was insisting on step by step. If you go back and re-examine A1 and A2 you will see that in effect there was ONE minor change going from monotheism to polytheism. A2 removed the one eternal deity from A1, making the divine beings eternal, no beginning, no end. You are in effect arguing that THIS makes A2 incoherent BECAUSE IT LACKS A SINGLE "FIRST CAUSE". Fine for you to consider that wrong, to believe "there is one and only one eternal divine being". But why do you consider "there are seven, and exactly seven eternal divine beings" INCOHERENT?