philosophy about god

[DaShi]

Happy. Now please take your strawmen elsewhere.

[Aeson]

To me the 'stone too heavy' argument fails to deal with an entity which is not only all powerful, but all encompassing as well. In that case, it is everything that exists including the stone, and so making the stone too heavy to lift is really just transfering power from one part of self to another.

I think the two have to go together as well. An all powerful entity would encompass all laws of interaction, all matter, all everything.. because everything is comprised of, can be a source of, or is power... if only the power to be what it is.

Then the argument becomes: "Can God create something that isn't part of God?"

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by DaShi
Happy. Now please take your strawmen elsewhere.

Huh?

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Aeson
To me the 'stone too heavy' argument fails to deal with an entity which is not only all powerful, but all encompassing as well. In that case, it is everything that exists including the stone, and so making the stone too heavy to lift is really just transfering power from one part of self to another.

I think the two have to go together as well. An all powerful entity would encompass all laws of interaction, all matter, all everything.. because everything is comprised of, can be a source of, or is power... if only the power to be what it is.

Then the argument becomes: "Can God create something that isn't part of God?"

Or another way....which is greater, infinity, or infinity plus one?

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Thriller


Huh?

The point of my statement had nothing to do with time travel. I only meant ahead of time to mean that it was planned ahead of time. Anyway, I'm sorry if it was confusing.

[Ned]

All this discussion shows that to the extent that one attempts to define the attributes of God, clever people can quickly show that such attributes cannot possibly exist in a "supreme being." This either means that the definition of the attributes of God is incorrect, or that there is no God.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Curtsibling:

In a deterministic universe, you would see man as a machine. Now, would it not be in the best interests of the world to figure out how to run these machines as efficiently as possible? Now, what theology does, is that it asks one question. If we are machines, where is the manual?

And that, is how theology, applies to the real world.

Not bad.

Better put than many religionists I have talked to.

But it still is similar to using your Spectrum ZX-28 manual to work out what is going on with a Advent 3.2Ghz PC.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


HongHu:

People have tried, and continue to try to fill this gap. If we do not need him at all, why do we need to believe in him?

Human beings are fragile. Yes no matter now advanced the human species is and no matter how superior it believes it to be, it is fragile. It doesn't know what is the true meaning of its existence. It doesn't know where it should go in the end. It needs to believe in something, anything, so that it can feel safe, and it can feel assured.

Plus it gives us a nice topic to ponder and debate, and to flex those mental muscles.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Cetainly, if this god is unknowable, it is meaningless to argue about it. In fact, it is meaningless to assert that such an entity exists.



Unit? Played too much Civ?

Well you wouldn't expect me to say "a two year old higher intelligent god" would you?

[Ben Kenobi]

Thriller:

Your second question leads into the first. If God is omnipotent, why would he need prophets? They answer that I can think of is not that he needs prophets to spread his word, but that he sends prophets for our sake, in revealing certain truths, and blessing these prophets with abilities to perform miracles.

Both capacities are required, revelation should not contradict previous revelations, and the prophets should have some kind of gift to show that they come from God, and are not just making stuff up. Prophets in the Bible have both capacities.

You also talk about knowing something with absolute certainty. Then you run afoul of my first point. There is very little we regard as true, from our own experience, and a great deal from authority. How do we know anything that we get from authority is true?

Instead, a better point, would be to say that we believe they are true, unless evidence contradicts what they say. If we take this approach to things we know about authority, then why can't we take this approach to the bible?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Because if its power can be taken away, it cannot be all-powerful.

Yes it can. It could prevent the removal of its power, but CHOOSES NOT TO.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Aeson
No.

The "could" and "don't" are incompatible with a deterministic system. They both imply that there is some manner which you can bypass determinism and instead do something that wasn't predetermined. That would mean you are changing the system from deterministic to something else. Since we are talking about a deterministic system, everything that happens in that system is predetermined.

"Could" and "don't" DO work - if I had a different state of mind, I would do this, thus I could - but I don't so I won't.

However, if we accept your argument, then free will is simply nonexistant.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ned
However, you change any law and you unravel it entire ball of wax. The laws comprise an integrated whole. All are necessary and none ever change or can be changed.

A law either can be changed or it can't. If it can't, then it can't, so there wouldn't be "catastrophic consequences" if it was, because it wouldn't be. If it can, then the nature of the universe is such to allow changes to those physical laws, so any "catastrophic consequences" would be a natural result of the physical laws of that universe.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

I came to the conclusion that while our goal is to eliminate "evil", to achieve that would make life ultimately worthless.

How so?

If you win a game of Risk, it's no fun to keep playing, is it? You have to bring back the "evil".

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Thriller
Good and evil are concepts created by man in the context of his experience and spiritual beliefs.....based upon this other concept he developed called "morals". And good and evil are names assigned to describe the quality of certain events and actions.

Tolkien created a world based on his concepts of good and evil. This was essentially flawed since he painted it in terms of black and white, while we know that the lines are not that clearly drawn. The world is grey. Similarly, the boundary between "good" and "evil" is not clear cut, but relative to the individual human being or a particular segment of society.

Taking this a step further, the "morals" that define whether something is good or evil must therefore also be relative.

To say that god created a fixed code of morals, and that man as an imperfect creation is not necessarily able to achieve this perfect morality, means that the existence of such a god-created code of morals is meaningless since man will never know whether or not he is complying.

I'm not arguing any fixed code of morals or definitions of good and evil, I'm making a general statement that applies to ANY definition of good and evil.