Prove me wrong: there is no God

[Will Bouwman]

...when we've cleared the hurdle of how Evolution can deal with things like triadic symbiosis and other irreducible complexities in nature.

I'm happy to proceed on the belief that it can't.

But you 're still fighting that. So I don't think you believe it at all.

You're right, and I don't believe you can provide an answer to whether snail parasites are part of your God's design, or a product of the fall of man that isn't preposterous. You're being a useless wånker again.

[Gary Childress]

I'm happy to proceed on the belief that it can't.

But you 're still fighting that. So I don't think you believe it at all.

You're right, and I don't believe you can provide an answer to whether snail parasites are part of your God's design, or a product of the fall of man that isn't preposterous. You're being a useless wånker again.

IC needs to go hang out and chill with his xenophobe and warmongering buddies out there in the world. He doesn't seem to approve of the rest of us godless heathens. What an asshole.

[Alexis Jacobi]

And..how does that differ from that Torah says the world is like?

It isn't, at all. The world looks as if it is a combination of beauty and bestiality, of joy and suffering, of good and bad. Jungles are pretty, and they're deadly. Human beings do great good, and great evil. We were created "in the image of God," as Genesis says, but also are clearly "fallen" and alienated from the Good.

Torah says, that God told man that in the day in which he rebelled, that would be the first day in which he would not only know what evil was, but would experience death...decay...depredation...disaster...all the stuff you're pointing out.

Rather obviously, the Hebrews and ancient man saw the world that we see now, without, say, the detailed understanding we now have. And they devised an ‘interpretive model’. I don’t have much reason to argue against it. That “model” of a Fall, though non-true, can still function.

But the truth is that The World has never fallen, it has been like it is now, and will remain exactly as it is: an ecological system with zero imposed morality.

The notion of “the image of God” is only relevant for men striving in this world with ultra-mundane values, if you see what I mean. And the “God” responded to is literally “not of this world”.

death...decay...depredation...disaster...

These are eventualities for worlds, for planets, for dolar systems, and for all biological beings that can arise in the entire Cosmos, given material “rules”. They existed always, exist now, and will exist for all time.

And yes, wolf cubs and hummingbirds and baby whales have those moments where they frolic in the sun. But it is all subsumed in eternal, violent struggles. Only man can recreate environments where he can frolic longer …

[FlashDangerpants]

Creationism is teleological, which means it has a direction and implies that everything moves towards a design. Evolution isn't teleological, so it doesn't predict that future events will shape out in any particular way, it just tells you where they came from.

Then man is anatural since he is right on the verge of reengineering himself, himself as biological entity. And when he does so he proves himself teleological. How is it that nature has produced this creature that turns against the natural order?! It really makes me angry the more I think about it!

This is the basis of my definition if man as a metaphysical creature. He draws from a model ‘not of this world’.

You are a weird pretentious little man.

[Fanman]

Personally, I believe that it is a category error to discuss the attributes of “God” or “gods”, because they would exist in a different ontology. Without an understanding of the ontologies they exist in, it would be a hasty generalisation fallacy to claim what they are and what they can and cannot do. With that in mind, when it comes to an argument like the omnipotence paradox, I am happy to discuss omnipotence as a concept, but not a being. That’s how I maintain category discipline.

The word omnipotence means all-powerful. So my first thought relative to the paradox is: how can something be impossible for a concept without limitations? That is not logical; therefore, is there an issue with how omnipotence is being understood? I think so. Omnipotence necessarily means (not implies) no upper limit. Therefore, omnipotence cannot create a circumstance it cannot exceed — conceptually, no matter how heavy omnipotence makes the stone, it will always be able to lift it because it always has more power.

So, the question for me is not what God or the concept of omnipotence can do — because it has no upper limit — but rather: Why do people impose a limit on the concept of being all-powerful (without limitation)? From my perspective, the omnipotence paradox is a human category misunderstanding, rather than a thought experiment questioning the capacity of a being that exists in a different ontology.

NB: To avoid semantic arguments, my use of the term "omnipotence" is consistent with the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge dictionaries. So, I won't be discussing that.

[Gary Childress]

Personally, I believe that it is a category error to discuss the attributes of “God” or “gods”, because they would exist in a different ontology. Without an understanding of the ontologies they exist in, it would be a hasty generalisation fallacy to claim what they are and what they can and cannot do. With that in mind, when it comes to an argument like the omnipotence paradox, I am happy to discuss omnipotence as a concept, but not a being. That’s how I maintain category discipline.

The word omnipotence means all-powerful. So my first thought relative to the paradox is: how can something be impossible for a concept without limitations? That is not logical; therefore, is there an issue with how omnipotence is being understood? I think so. Omnipotence necessarily means (not implies) no upper limit. Therefore, omnipotence cannot create a circumstance it cannot exceed — conceptually, no matter how heavy omnipotence makes the stone, it will always be able to lift it because it always has more power.

So, the question for me is not what God or the concept of omnipotence can do — because it has no upper limit — but rather: Why do people impose a limit on the concept of being all-powerful (without limitation)? From my perspective, the omnipotence paradox is a human category misunderstanding, rather than a thought experiment questioning the capacity of a being that exists in a different ontology.

NB: To avoid semantic arguments, my use of the term "omnipotence" is consistent with the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge dictionaries. So, I won't be discussing that.

Is believing God to be perfectly benevolent and all-knowing also a "category error"? And if God is not omnipotent in the sense of "can do anything", then are there some things God cannot do? For example, can God stop an earthquake from happening in a big city on Earth, or can God not do so? Did God create the universe in which the Earth consists of tectonic plates that create earthquakes? Could it not have been created differently? Did God create anything at all? Or is God just something humans label some being that is superior to us but didn't create the universe? And if God didn't create anything at all, then did biological beings miraculously appear in their present form from nothing? Or did they evolve slowly over time from other beings (that evolved from non-living biological molecules that form on their own according to chemistry and physics) according to the properties or conditions present in the physical universe?

[Fanman]

Personally, I believe that it is a category error to discuss the attributes of “God” or “gods”, because they would exist in a different ontology. Without an understanding of the ontologies they exist in, it would be a hasty generalisation fallacy to claim what they are and what they can and cannot do. With that in mind, when it comes to an argument like the omnipotence paradox, I am happy to discuss omnipotence as a concept, but not a being. That’s how I maintain category discipline.

The word omnipotence means all-powerful. So my first thought relative to the paradox is: how can something be impossible for a concept without limitations? That is not logical; therefore, is there an issue with how omnipotence is being understood? I think so. Omnipotence necessarily means (not implies) no upper limit. Therefore, omnipotence cannot create a circumstance it cannot exceed — conceptually, no matter how heavy omnipotence makes the stone, it will always be able to lift it because it always has more power.

So, the question for me is not what God or the concept of omnipotence can do — because it has no upper limit — but rather: Why do people impose a limit on the concept of being all-powerful (without limitation)? From my perspective, the omnipotence paradox is a human category misunderstanding, rather than a thought experiment questioning the capacity of a being that exists in a different ontology.

NB: To avoid semantic arguments, my use of the term "omnipotence" is consistent with the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge dictionaries. So, I won't be discussing that.

Is believing God to be perfectly benevolent and all-knowing also a "category error"? And if God is not omnipotent in the sense of "can do anything", then are there some things God cannot do? For example, can God stop an earthquake from happening in a big city on Earth, or can God not do so? Did God create the universe in which the Earth consists of tectonic plates that create earthquakes? Could it not have been created differently? Did God create anything at all? Or is God just something humans label some being that is superior to us but didn't create the universe? And if God didn't create anything at all, then did biological beings miraculously appear in their present form from nothing? Or did they evolve slowly over time from other beings (that evolved from non-living biological molecules that form on their own according to chemistry and physics) according to the properties or conditions present in the physical universe?

I do not believe in God, so I don’t have an opinion on anything you’ve stated. My post refers to the omnipotence paradox, not the what and whys of ‘God’. A being who purportedly exists in another ontology. My argument is conceptual; your argument is ontological — I will not mix those categories.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm happy to proceed on the belief that it can't.

But you 're still fighting that. So I don't think you believe it at all.

You're right, and I don't believe you can provide an answer to whether snail parasites are part of your God's design, or a product of the fall of man that isn't preposterous.

You're going to find out your wrong about that. But you're going to find out when this topic is done.

[Immanuel Can]

But the truth is that The World has never fallen, it has been like it is now, and will remain exactly as it is: an ecological system with zero imposed morality.

And your evidence that warrants that confidence is...what?

[mickthinks]

You're going to find out your wrong about that.

lol No you’re not, Will. This is just Manny, doing what Manny does.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But the truth is that The World has never fallen, it has been like it is now, and will remain exactly as it is: an ecological system with zero imposed morality.

And your evidence that warrants that confidence is...what?

I am quite sure you know the answer I would give, so really the issue is: Why is it that IC believes in such an absurd story as the Genesis story? Because I cannot believe it, I must accept ‘the evidence of my eyes’ like for example the Grand Canyon which demonstrates 4 billion years of passing time. It is that world presented as I imagine the life forms and landscapes that have existed there that bring about the awareness, the understanding, of immense time passing as things occur here and in the Cosmos.

The notion of a Fall I can only see as a way to describe essentially a feeling that men have. Possibly best represented in a myth of Plato. How could such a deadly, delicate and mutable Reality have come about? when man naturally visualizes a Perfected World? The notion of a Fall is really a psycho-spiritual diagram. “You are fallen but you can rise up”.

What is the evidence that supports our confidence that this World in front of us exists and is real? I do not know how I could help you with your issue around this.

Some posts back I proposed a way to see Reality as God’s projection, as an energy projection of God into which we are ‘cast’. Some in fact say that our ‘real’ existence is on a plane of deathlessness. I.e. a spiritual plane of ever-constant being (which, logically, is what God must be: ever-existing being). But, for reasons no one seems able to explain, we as souls venture down into this World (Loka) and by the force of a perceptual gravity cannot but see World (time, events, etc.) as utterly and inescapably real. But, they say, what we visualize and live inevitably through, is far less ultimately real than we believe.

But if that is true, Who knows why the Supreme Intelligence has set it up like this? To what end? Well, they say: For souls to experience and to learn. Moral and ethical play-acting I guess.

So the sense of “fall” may indicate awareness of higher states of being from which one is pushed out of for a time. What then The Second Adam?

[promethean75]

Adam who? Adam Sandler? Oh god please no.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Adam who? Adam Sandler? Oh god please no.

Let me explain a few things to you, son.

[Immanuel Can]

But the truth is that The World has never fallen, it has been like it is now, and will remain exactly as it is: an ecological system with zero imposed morality.

And your evidence that warrants that confidence is...what?

I am quite sure you know the answer I would give...

Really? I would have thought you'd have no answer at all, to be honest. There is no evidence available to prove that things "remain exactly as [they are]." In fact, it's not evident from the fact that things are a certain way HOW they came to be that way. It has to be assumed, or somebody who was there has to be able to tell you.

...the Grand Canyon which demonstrates 4 billion years of passing time.

Well, Google gives a vast range of possible ages for the GC, ranging from 5 million to 1.8 billion. But let's say you're right. A crack in the earth is 4 billion years old. What does that tell you?

Torah says God made the Earth in "days." But as you know, surely, Hebrew idiom also uses "day" for "period of time," or "era," not at all only for 24 hours. So let's suppose the "days" are longer -- and massively so -- than a 24 hour period. So eras. Hashem made the world in successive eras.

How does that help your case?

The notion of a Fall I can only see as a way to describe essentially a feeling that men have.

Just a "feeling"? In that case, what does it mean? If it signifies no reality, it's just a delusion, obviously.

But, for reasons no one seems able to explain, we as souls venture down into this World (Loka) and by the force of a perceptual gravity cannot but see World (time, events, etc.) as utterly and inescapably real.

Again, how do these speculations help your case? I'm not seeing that they do. Maybe you can explain.

But if that is true, Who knows why the Supreme Intelligence has set it up like this? To what end?

I think those are great questions, and very fair to ask. But what's the way to find the answer?

Do you believe the word of Hashem in Torah? Or would you say that wild guessing is a better option? For if that Supreme Intelligence has not spoken, and never revealed anything about Himself, and, as you suggest, has not even left us any clues in nature, then what can any such scenario be but a wild guess? Upon what are we basing any knowledge?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I cannot explain, no one can explain to you, IC!