A challenge to Atheists! #2

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by garbonzo, Feb 16, 2012.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Do you mean by this that you see no reason to either believe or not believe in God?
     
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  3. garbonzo Registered Senior Member

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  5. Balerion Banned Banned

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    That makes absolutely no sense. How would defecating help one "recognize the folly of opposing God?"

    I also didn't say I found it demeaning. You must be projecting in this case. I simply said I found it odd that it's something a created being would have to do.

    I didn't say I found it problematic. Though, one could argue that it is slightly less than convenient in a large household sharing one bathroom, or when one is forced to do so in a public restroom. It's far from an ideal condition.
     
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  7. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    What happens when the immovable object meets the unstoppable force? The unstoppable force goes around the immovable object. What happens when God makes a stone not even he can carry? He either A, leaves it as it lies, or B, if it needs to be moved he takes it out of existence, or C he creates something strong enough to move it, after all he created something to heavy for even He.
     
  8. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    He may not be able to carry it, but he can task me to do so.
     
  9. Balerion Banned Banned

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    You're missing the point, chief. If he created a rock that he cannot move, then he is not omnipotent.
     
  10. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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  11. garbonzo Registered Senior Member

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    Why don't you read the site?

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    I want to accomplish this: convert someone to agnostic. :shrug:
     
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I glossed over it.

    People have the constitutional right to free speech in many countries, and the poster you are referring to seems to be under the jurisdiction of such a country.


    Oh.

    Why??
     
  13. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    It's just the first step in doing so.

    As you yourself admit, you perceive the need to defecate as


    As far as standard definitions go, God has created living beings with the need to defecate. And no matter what else they do, no matter how much they rebell against God, they still need to defecate - which is something they find demeaning, or at least "far from ideal".
    So God wins, and humans see that it is impossible to override God's will.
     
  14. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    wow this may be the first god thread in which "defecate" was not part of an ad hom



    God can not solve for x and y such that x=y and x≠y.

    God can not have existed forever, as He would be forever approaching the present asymptotically.

    The God of this very moment ... *now*... can not time travel to the moment he is telling Moses "I am the Lord your God", (i.e. coexist with himself) without lying.

    God could not say "Let there be light" in Hebrew, since the language wasn't invented yet.

    Before God said "let there be light" there was no light, only darkness. Therefore darkness existed forever. Therefore darkness can not be created.
    That is, even God can't create darkness.

    God can't create nothing.

    God can't create "round" or "flat" or "ugly".

    God can not draw a line that occupies 1cubic centimeter.

    God can not do anything faster than the speed of light.

    God can't guess.

    God can't go online and argue here against his existence.

    God can't make Rush Limbaugh "the Most Interesting Man in the World".

    God can't commit suicide. Oh wait: Jesus. Uh, no, that's a keeper after all.

    God can't uncrucify Jesus, and reinvent him as Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden.

    God can't make me greater than Him.

    God can not get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness, do 3 donkey kicks, lick my boots, and say: "Oh what a goose I am", while opening a brothel on every street corner in America.

    God can't make you do anything. He can't make you hate him. He can't make you burn down a church, or use the Bible as emergency toilet paper.

    God can't destroy Heaven.

    God can't slap Jesus in the face.

    God can't have an accident.

    God can not: pray to Baal, or love Satan, lie, steal, commit adultery, or kill. Oh, wait: God can kill. OK so there's one thing he can do. Maybe he can lie, too. But I'm pretty sure he can't commit adultery.

    God can not: turn himself into Gumby, with chewing gum legs, and make it the only chewing gum in the universe, and then walk and chew gum at the same time.

    God can't take the apostrophe out of "can't".

    God can't tell me what he can't do.

    God can not do anything on demand. For example, when I snap my fingers, God can not appear before me, impersonating Father Guido Sarducci,
    *snap*. see, nothing. He can't do it for you either. Try it.
     
  15. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, the weight of enlightenment!
     
  16. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure what you mean.

    In my case, I don't believe in the literal existence of God. So all of my thought about God is about the various concepts of 'God' that are prevalent on Sciforums and in the world. So yes, it's reasoning about the meaning and logic of concepts.

    If I was to become a theist, the variety of theism that I'd probably gravitate towards is an a-gnostic apophatic "negative theology", in which God exceeds all of our understandings and all of our religious concepts.

    So even if I was to become a theist, I'd probaly still be skeptical of all these nice pat little theological formulas, such as the trinity or the 'omni-'s' -- God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent etc. (How could a human being possibly know all that?) I'd probably still be interested in the logic of saying such things.

    Yes.

    It's just an example of a possible logical problem in the idea of omnipotence. Arguably omnipotence might not be a logically consistent concept, since it would seem to imply its own contradiction.

    As to what's true of a really existing God, should any such God exist, I have no way of knowing. I'm addressing theological tradition more than I'm trying to talk about God. It's the theological tradition that's doing all the talking about God.

    I'm not sure that's true. The example asks whether God can create a task that even God can't perform. But that created task needn't be a circular reference to the task of creating it. The impossible task might be an entirely different task. I can imagine the answer being 'yes', that God can create an impossible task, and the impossibility of the created task doesn't present any logical contradictions that I can see at the moment. Except the contradition with the theological doctrine of God's omnipotence, of course.

    That's not true for me. As we discussed up above, I don't know anything about God. All I can really talk about is what various theists say about God. So my interest is largely in the meaning and the logic of theological statements.

    I don't have any interest in worshipping God, which is precisely why I feel no need to generate rationalizations.

    People who feel a big need to rationalize their failure to worship might still be fighting an interior battle within themselves. Many of them may still feel some kind of inner compulsion to worship God, if they are feeling the need to produce arguments against it.

    I don't believe in God. Never have. I'm comfortable with that. But I'm deeply interested in religion and very interested in what the theists around me say. I often think about doctrines that I don't personally believe in, though doubtless in a more abstract fashion than many of the more devout theists would.
     
  17. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Well, is it to heavy for him, or did he rule that not even he can "move" this rock as a rule of thumb? If he made it to heavy he can surly make it light again.
     
  18. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Automatically when we agree that we don't actually know anything about God, all our talking on the topic "God" is merely a matter of our reasoning.


    But what is that, "literal existence of God"? I don't understand what you mean by that.


    The notion of omnipotence also exceeds our human concepts.


    Those three are not knowledge claims in the sense of empirical knowledge.


    That's the interesting part, yes.

    I find it interesting how contemplating the implications of the usual definitions of God place one in a network of connections that are both limiting as well as providing direction and freedom for action.


    There are many kinds of logic. How do we choose which one to use for which problem?


    But for some reason - and that is another interesting part - you get involved.

    Why are you interested in this topic? How far back, how deep can you trace your intentions for getting involved in discussions about God?
    I think asking oneself such questions can help a lot making one's involvement in discussions more meaningful to oneself.


    For one, the question "Can God create a task that even God can't perform?" operates with particular notions of what God is, and how and why tasks are created and accomplished.
    Those notions can be shown to be problematic.


    "Can God act in irrational ways?"
    "Can God strip Himself of His omnimax status?"
    "If He can't, then He is not omnipotent."

    Do these two questions and the conclusion make sense?


    Then there are formal issues of logic:

    In a system of statements, do we measure the system's internal consistency by comparing any two statements?

    What if the system itself proposes to be ordered hierarchically, so that only statements that are on the same level are to be compared, but not those that are on different levels?

    We'd be making a mistake to treat a hierarchical system of statements as if it were a non-hierarchical one.
     
  19. Balerion Banned Banned

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    I've never encountered someone so eager to call themselves enlightened, nor somrone who would say it so often, without regard for its appropriateness to the conversation.

    I've also never encountered a truly enlightened person who was so self-congratulatory.

    I'll leave it to you to decide which of these streaks has come to an end.
     
  20. arauca Banned Banned

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    If it would be so . you would be god . You talk as the tempter ( satan ) tempting Jesus . " bow to me and I give you the whole world "
     
  21. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Your sarcasm radar, is, apparently, trash.

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  22. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    yes, it's quite absurd to conjure up impossible tasks for the Almighty....

    almost like designing software for a system which has not yet been built....

    or, better yet, one which will exist virtually, once it's instantiated....

    or, better yet: can be instantiated on your platform, which tolerates errors...

    and rejected on mine, which purges the program, as in a virus sweep.
     
  23. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Anything to make yourself feel good and superior, eh?


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