I was thinking again about the ALL-POWERFUL and ALL-KNOWING God again and I just couldn't remember our last debate so I thought I'd bring up a couple of points. 1) God is defined as ALL POWERFUL (can do anything) 2) God is defined as ALL KNOWING (knows everything) But, we know humans can doing things god, in these states of being, can not do - like learn. We can learn. God can not learn. What else? We can think. God can not think. Also thinking is a rational process. God therefor is not rational because It can not think. It can only be in the state of ALL KNOWING. We can Laugh in surprise at a funny joke. God is humorless. It can not be surprised by the ending of a joke. It does not laugh. It can only exist in the state of ALL-KNOWING. We feel emotion. Emotion is a change in mental state. God never has a change in mental state. It exists in only the ALL-KNOWING mental state. It has no emotions. It is unemotional. We feel sensation. Sensation is a change in neural conduction registered as a change in mental state. God is in a constant state of numbness. It can not "feel" as it's mental state is only in one position - - that of ALL-KNOWING. It doesn't learn, love, hate, feel feelings, feel warmth .... nothing. It just exists as an ALL-KNOWING Thing. Aside from the fact that we humans being able to do some many things a purportedly ALL POWERFUL God is POWERLESS to do, I'd like to say this God is a f*cking creepy thing to worship. It's also pointless to worship It as you can have ZERO affect on it's mental State - which stays at all times and forever in only one immutable state: ALL-KNOWING. Someone said that perhaps the action of thinking is not BETTER than that of knowing all. I said that not only is BETTER subjective, that's not the point at all, God CAN NOT exist as ALL POWERFUL and at the same time NOT be able to do all these things we can do. It therefor is not ALL POWERFUL. That aside, God is a thing that ONLY exists in the state ALL KNOWING like some huge computer Hard-Drive. God is this massive information storage device. A humorlessness, numb, emotionally dead, cold, impassive, unfeeling, irrational ALL-KNOWING Thing. An extremely large USB stick. THIS Thing, someone suggested is BETTER because it exists like this?!?! Well I don't think so, Michael
Michael, I'm afraid your pespective here is nonsense. You are ignoring the facts of completeness. For example if I have filled a bucket with with water and then to say I cannot add more water isn't in anyway a failure but simply that the task is complete. To say God cannot learn is not a failure but just that there is nothing more to learn. Etc, etc.
Very important and well spoken point, Michael. William S. Burroughs said a similar thing once: If Control’s control is absolute, why does Control need to control? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3koFsAnVn0M
You guys are so stupid, I don't even want to laugh at you because I'm scared God will punish me. All Knowing means that he knows everything you do bad or good. Is it really that hard to understand? All Powerful means he has power that you non believers will never see until the end of time. Ill give you the "All Powerful" one because that one took me a minute to put it in common sense.
Right, but this is a common definition of God. All powerful means nothing is beyond His control, so why would anything get out of control in order to require Him to then exercise control? There is nothing for Him to do! It's the same with thinking. If you know everything, there can be no flow of thought, it's total paralysis. If the universe is a being, it's more like a braindead amoeba than a king. It might have an IQ of 1, which means that evolution creates at least slightly more order than a totally random system.
The idea of God punishing you for a thought, is ridiculous behavior for a god in control. It makes no sense whatsoever. If you feel the need for God to punish your thinking then you must believe God is not in control or is a least attempting to gain it.
If we assume that God is all-knowing, doesn't that mean that He or She exists outside of our timeframe, and is looking in at all of history, because from the viewpoint of God history has ended? Because that is the only way can see for God being all-knowing...
I always find this kind of deduction unconvincing, and I do not mean only in relation to theism. Things that seem must be logical conclusion given what we know often turn out not to be the case when we realize assumptions we took as obvious were actually built into the language, for example, but do not reflect reality, or for other reasons involve assumptions we do not realize we are making. Something is either a particle or a wave. Light can't be limited to x miles an hour because you can just shine a flashlight from a moving object and add on more speed. People have long thought they could count on their deductions and then later found out they knew so little about the playing field their proofs were grounded on very little.
Not a wise thing to say on a science forum. You will get crucified for that little tidbit. Time for wise acre to pick up a book.
ND, There is also - All Benevolent - always does good. All knowing also means knowledge of past and future. While the concepts seem simple, together and with other related religionist claims, they create paradoxical scenarios rendering such a being as impossible. 1. If he is all beneveolent why would he create beings that can do bad? The argument goes that he created us with free will to do good or bad, but then if he is all powerful he could have created us to understand why bad is not a good idea such that we would not ever do bad. Since with his all powerful ability he must have deliberately created beings that do bad that is in direct conflict the claim of all benevolent. He cannot be all good and all powerful. 2. If he is all knowing, e.g. knows everything we are ever going to do even before we do them, even from the beginning of time he would know everything we will do, then we cannot have free will since all our actions will have been pre-determined from the beginning of time. But then if we have no free will then we are simply puppets that can only do exactly what he planned from the beginning of time. That makes a nonsense of choices for good and bad since we have no choice. So then if we have no choice why are some sent to heaven and some to hell? Obviosuly not our choice but his. To make sense of any religious claim that we have free will to do good and bad then the deity cannot be all-knowing. So out of - All powerful All knowing All good We know all 3 cannot be present. If we assume we actually do have free will since that is the only thing that makes sense then he is not all knowing. That only leaves - All powerful All good But we know that he cannot be both since he could have created a good universe if he was all powerful and all good. Since bad exists then he cannot be all good. That only leaves - All powerful But if he was al powerful that would mean he could give himself the ability to be all knowing but we know he isn't all knowing so it is reasonable to conclude that he cannot be all powerful. So we end up with nothing. That is - he cannot exist.
Hello. I know that is incorrect. That was the point of using both those examples. Please reread the post - or actually read it - and try to understand the point I was making about the problems with deduction. It's funny that you skipped over the particle wave statement. You realize that is incorrect also, right? If you don't I can recommend a book for you.
So you don't believe in the power of reason? I find your response unconvincing. Extending that reasoning further is also paralysis, since the conclusion is that if we don't know everything, we know nothing, therefore we can never get to everything, there is no bridge to everywhere.
'The power of reason' seems to me a vague category. If I question one kind of reasoning - in this case very abstract deduction - this does not mean I don't believe reason has many powers. That is the only conclusion you can draw from my post? I am now doubly convinced there are problems with your confidence in your deductive powers. Care to respond to the two points in physics I raised? At a certain point in history people felt quite confident in the first assertion, via deduction. Empirical studies showed that their deduction was incorrect. This latter process involved the use of reason. So I am certainly not saying that reason has no power. My only point is that deduction, like the kind you did, can be convincing because of our limited viewpoint. And induction often points this out rather embarrassingly. It shoves counterexamples in our faces. Which is why you will find scientists relying in most of their papers on induction, to varying degrees. This happens all the time within science - finding out that what seemed obvious deduction was incorrect - though somehow once people start talking about God they suddenly think they can use deduction and be certain.
Cris, normally you are a little bit more clear. I just can't understand your post this time. I never said God's inability to learn is a failure. I don't think failure is even an appropriate adjective. I'm talking about the consequences of being all knowing.
I really liked the flow of this Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The last bit was especially interesting and I had never read before. Thanks Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
:bugeye: This is interesting. It fits with something I wrote in another thread. I'd much rather I spend my life doing something useful rather than worrying what some Alien Overlord thinks of what I think. Of course if it were God, you wouldn't have to worry about this as It doesn't think - being a rather large USB stick and all. Imagine wasting your whole life worrying about what this non-thinking USB stick is going to do to you AFTER you're dead and gone :bugeye:
