Mind-blowing Theory or Clusterf$ck?

Reading about all these definitions, affirmations, and denials of god's existence and his role in the universe between agnostics, atheists, and atheists made me think of this theory. Since god is defined as being in everything, existing everywhere, and understanding all that there is and should be, it is also likely that he is not in everything, is not everywhere, and does not understand everything. To me god is like a paradox, he/she/it/whatever both is and is not. The reason why some people think he doesn't answer their prayers or make their lives crap is not because he's callous or cruel but that he is simultaneously not existing.

Made a type, I meant to say agnostics, THEISTS, and atheist.

This is more of a logical question.

"Since god is defined as being in everything, existing everywhere, and understanding all that there is and should be, it is also likely that he is not in everything, is not everywhere, and does not understand everything."

I don't agree with that. God doesn't have to be in everything in that sense. Also, "everything" must mean something specific, or else you run into internal contradictions in logic. It's like set theory paradoxes: if you have an all-encompassing set, is the set itself in that set? You need to have a better definition of "set" than just something.

Now using Trivialis handle.

~shrug~

Does it matter?

I am now known as Flyboy.

However you define God, it can't be logically contradictory. A logically contradictory definition is meaningless, nothing more than a trick of language.

For example, consider the question, "Can God create a rock too heavy for even God to lift?" The answer is no, because it doesn't actually describe anything coherent. An omnipotent being can take any meaningful action, but natural languages are expressive enough to also make incoherent or meaningless statements that still sound meaningful at a glance. One can't sensibly define God to be able to take logically contradictory or incoherent actions.

Likewise, saying that God is "everything and nothing" isn't anything profound; it's just clearly false, since the very definition of "everything" and "nothing" precluding anything being both. Even the definition of "everything" must, as abstractematics mentioned, be restricted to avoid paradoxes. In particular, "everything" probably can't include all concepts.

One of the more popular arguments for God's existence goes like this:

1. Imagine the most perfect being that could exist, and call him God.

2. Something that exists is better than something that doesn't.

3. Therefore, by the nature of perfectness, God must exist.

There's a variation of that argument that points out (as well as the original version) how vacuous arguments based solely on the curiosities of language are:

1. The creation of the Universe is the greatest feat that any entity could perform.

2. The greatness of an achievement is the sum of the intrinsic quality of the achievement and the ability of its creator.

3. An achievement becomes more impressive if the handicap on the entity doing it is increased.

4. Non-existence is the ultimate handicap.

5. So if something that exists made the Universe, it's not the greatest entity we could think of; instead, one that carried out creation while simultaneously not existing would be even greater.

6. God doesn't exist.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Except, if you say "one carried out creation", you're assuming that the "one" exists. One's handicap shouldn't reach to the point where an achievement is impossible.

Now using Trivialis handle.

Dialetheism is stupid.

the future we had hoped for

That argument for God's existence mainly fails on formal logical grounds: Existence isn't a predicate, so it's not meaningful to say something like, "Actually existing is a quality implied by perfection."

It also fails because the first point implicitly assumes that "most perfect" is a well-defined concept (which it isn't necessarily), and that the whole thing presupposes an objective notion of good.

Edit: I think that argument for God's non-existence also makes the same fundamental error in treating existence like a predicate.

edited 1st Dec '11 10:36:30 PM by Enthryn

I think that may have been the point.

Right, I was just pointing out the specific error common to both. Also, reading up on the matter a bit, it seems it's more accurate to state, "Existence is not a property." That probably conveys it in a more straightforward manner anyway.

Whole thing with Godand logic is that more power you give them, more contradicting God becomes and thus, either you disregard rules of logic or you admit God does not exist.

Which reaises question that if not bound by logic, how can such deity be served since we no longer have any assurance that whatever said deity claims is what we understand.

Not necessarily. God does not override truth. God's nature can coincide with the constituency and stability of truth, as in equal footing.

Now using Trivialis handle.

Uh, no. Truth and logic are two different things, but without logic how can you trust truth to be truth? Remember, 2000 years ago truth was that world was flat(yes I know this claims doesn't really hold wter but humor me).

If we cannot trust what we are told, how are we going to worship such deity? Our worshipping methods could be totally wrong, since by logic if deity tells us to sacrifice a goat once a month, it is correct way. However, if not bound by logic, truth might that correct thing to was "get stoned at 6 PM on every saturday that has clear sky".

Internal inconsistancy is a nightmare for deities, since more powerfull they are more of those arise and more you need find ways to explain them away. Less you rely on logic, less you can trust anything that is told you.

@Post 6: As I understand it, the first argument is perfectly correct. However, it proves something far, far weaker than the existence of God — basically, all it proves is that the "greatest" (for a certain specific interpretation of the term) thing that a human mind can imagine does exist.

Fair enough. But it does not follow that that thing is God, or that it created the universe, or anything else.

I mean, suppose that God does not exist, and fix any order of "greatness" such that things that exist are better that things that do not exist. Not take any human, and list all the things that he can imagine — for example, a sandwich and God.*

Then, if the sandwich that this person is thinking about exists and God doesn't, it follows at once that that sandwich is greater than God; which is perfectly consistent with the argument, but does not really imply that that sandwich created the universe or existed since before the beginning of time.

As for the second argument, the problem with it does not lie in the form of the argument, but rather on Axioms 1—4. To be honest, I am not particularly convinced that any of them is true.

I kind of like it, personally. I kind of see it as the logical equivalent of projective geometry: as in projective geometry you supplement your space by adding "points at the infinite" and then study the resulting system, you can add to any system expressions for which the law of non-contradiction fails and then see what happens (of course, you have to do it in a delicate way, otherwise you nuke the whole formal system.)

Whether this makes or does not make sense really depends on which intuitive notions of truth or negation you are attempting to formalize, I think — much in the same way in which, for example, whether you should or should not use projective geometry depends on, well, what you are trying to do.

edited 2nd Dec '11 2:37:16 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Yeah, both of the arguments I posted are jokes, and the latter was actually meant to be one when it was originally proposed.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

More in general, the concept mentioned in the original post reminds me of the theories of Nicholas of Cusa, a pretty interesting theologian/mathematician from the Renaissance.

Basically, his idea was that any concept that a human mind could come up with is meant for finite beings, and hence, strictly speaking, neither it nor its negation can be applied to God.

From On Learned Ignorance, Volume I, Chapter 4:

Nonetheless, he argues that it is possible to reach true knowledge of God "in the limit" — basically, through a process of infinite approximation such that every step is still infinitely distant from the objective, but which still "converges" in some sense to true knowledge of God.

He makes a pretty interesting example to describe what this means, by the way. Take a circle, and try to approximate it by inscribing it with polygons with more and more sides — first a triangle, then a square, then a pentagon, and so on. Every single "step" will still be infinitely "distant" from the circle, obviously, and the statement "a circle is a regular polygon with n sides" is obviously wrong no matter what integer you take for n. However, in some sense, you can say that the circle can be seen as the limit of the succession of all these polygons.

As Nicholas sees it, the same can be said of theology. Whatever you could say about God is wrong, entirely so; but still, you can define a process of refinement of theological statements which, even if it will never result in any true statements after any finite number of steps, will converge in the limit to a true knowledge of God.

And this is how you use notions from basic calculus in theology.

Christian theology: for when Zen is not confusing enough

edited 2nd Dec '11 3:40:56 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I am a nobody

and nobody is perfect.

But only god is perfect.

And God is love.

and Love is blind

Stevie Wonder is blind

Thus I am Stevie Wonder.

qlfhu q; qoqhpoh[ mqrhqdfln;wih qphjqpij[ qwoirtj30 wi9fjjeq;4j qw4'4j32fjqw; 248u12[48ujdfcn

edited 2nd Dec '11 3:50:44 AM by Baff

I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.

Eeh, not mind-breaking enough.

That argument is just an incorrect syllogism combined with three literal interpretations of figures of speech. Amusing, but if you cannot feel your brain cells rearranging themselves into new and geometrically implausible patterns then it's not theology

edited 2nd Dec '11 4:03:23 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Jesus was a countercultural figure with long hair.

Hippies were countercultural figures with long hair.

Hipsters are modern hippies but more asinine and pretentious.

Ergo, Jesus was a hipster.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Even disregarding the question whether your premises are true, your conclusion does not follow from them.

From the fact that both Jesus and hippies are countercultural figures with long hair, it does not follow that Jesus was an hippie; for that, you'd need a premise of the form "All countercultural figures with long hair are hippies", and I do not see it in your post.

The same issue happens in the case of your third premise, but that is even worse — not only from "Hipsters are modern hippies but more asinine and pretentious" it does not follow that everything that is a modern hippy but more asinine and pretentious is a hipster, but I see nowhere in your premises anything saying that Jesus is "modern" (let alone asinine or pretentious).

Hence, your argument is invalid.

edited 2nd Dec '11 5:02:54 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

The thread title made me laugh.

Because obviously that was intended to be the epitome of good philosophical arguments.

I am now known as Flyboy.

It was not intended as such? Golly, is my face red now.

...

No, seriously, I knew that. It's only that... well, I don't want to sound harsh, and perhaps I am being too sensitive, but that post looked to me as a roundabout way of calling Big J. "asinine and pretentious" under the pretense of a "hilarious" example of incorrect syllogistic reasoning.*

So I took your example and analyzed it. Entirely seriously. Of course.

edited 2nd Dec '11 5:23:42 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Nah, I like Jesus.

I just felt like making a dumb joke.

I am now known as Flyboy.