Difference between 'nothing' and a 'vacuum'

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Re: Can God sin?

St. T.A.:

God is the cause of the act of sin.
God is not the cause of sin.
 
JDaniel said:
Greylorn:

I am not WSP, but I don’t think that the BB is inferential, as you indicate, unless you were to nominally define “inferential.”. We see the change of colors returned to us as we delve further into space. The farther we are is a scientific phenomenon, borne out by those changes of color. Science trusts it as not being inferential.

God bless,
jd
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So I will explain. Suppose that you are a baseball player at the plate, bat in hand. A baseball comes at your head too fast for you to duck, but it just missed you. You complain to the umpire that the pitcher tried to hit you.

Despite your direct and personal observation of the baseball, you cannot be certain of the pitcher’s motives. Neither can the umpire, who also saw the ball. He says, “Why not back a few ticks off the plate, son?”

You tell the ump, “We were in a bar last night and I went home with the girl he was hitting on. He was pretty mad at me.” Says the ump, “Here, we’re dealing with baseball.”

This goes on until you are finally beaned, but the pitcher, having married the umpire’s cousin, stays on the mound. After all, the ball that beaned you was called, “Strike Three!” You have absolute direct evidence of the ball being thrown at your head, but only inferential evidence of the pitcher’s motivations.

Let us consider a totally physical example. You are a soldier in Iraq, and something whizzes by your ear. You complain to your CO standing nearby, “They’re shooting at us!” But nothing whizzed by his ear. He didn’t see a bullet or hear a gunshot. The only whizz was the one he was taking by the roadside. Your whizz was inferential evidence. It could have been an insect. Direct evidence will be a hole in his head or yours.

Other examples. As a kid, you light off a firecracker. It goes boom. You watch and have direct evidence that the minibomb exploded. Your mother, in the house, hears the noise and comes out of the house screaming. “Did you light a firecracker after I told you not to?”

“Of course not, mom,” you lie, while your foot grinds the inferential evidence of scattered firecracker paper into the grass. “That sound was a car, backfiring. Scared the heck out of me, too!” You lie safely, knowing that she only has inferential evidence of your disobedient behavior.

While information sources like the History and NitGeo channels are interesting and informative, they are geared to individuals who are not especially knowledgeable. (If you think otherwise, watch the intervening commercials. Are they hawking good books and great music, or just the same old crud as a primetime cartoon sitcom?)

I recommend that before you adopt and stand up for their “beliefs,” in addition to those you already have obtained from similar sources of effective human-brain programming, make an honest study of the subject you choose to spout off on. You will not get that by reading pop-sci magazines, which promote the same line of pseudo-scientific drivel. They too make their money by appealing to a subsection of the mass-market which has never solved a partial differential equation.

If you do, you will learn that virtually all knowledge of physics and astronomy is inferential.
 
Nothing versus a vacuum.

In outer space, there is an absence of air, which is the definition of a vacuum. Air pressure is less than one atmosphere. So you can have a partial vacuum where there is less than atmospheric air pressure or a full vacuum, NO air pressure.

On the other hand, in outer space, there is not nothing.

In outer space, even with no air, there still is plenty of “stuff” out there. Lots of dust. Lots of solar corpuscles and all kinds of solar wind, cosmic rays, etc. Samples placed in orbit show much erosion over time.

And, even in “inner space” … earth orbit, there is SOME air … a few molecules … and they cause enough atmospheric drag to slow down the satellites’ speed and cause their orbits to degrade. As a result, satellites eventually reenter the earth’s atmosphere, unless their velocity receives a periodic boost.

The International Space Station gets reboosted very often. It has its own rocket thrusters and when the Shuttle docks with it, the Shuttle engines are used to give it a boost as well. Of course, the Shuttle will be permanently grounded in a few months.

Nothing. Means nothing. Zip, zero, nada. A complete void.

Space is not a complete void, of course.

So, space doesn’t have nothingness.
 
I cant believe this thread is still going. Its literally about “nothing”!😃
 
Summation (as I see it):

Premise:

A thing cannot bring itself from absolutely nothing.
(from nothing comes nothing)

Evidence:

The longer we live, the more certain we are of there being things existing.

Conclusion:

How is it that things are existing???
 
Jerry_Vilt said:
Summation (as I see it):

Premise:

A thing cannot bring itself from absolutely nothing.
(from nothing comes nothing)

Evidence:

The longer we live, the more certain we are of there being things existing.

Conclusion:

How is it that things are existing???
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Do you really need someone to explain the obvious, that a state of nothingness cannot have existed? Not ever.
 
JDaniel said:
“He created something where nothing, but God, was before.” In order to do this, He had to bring the fullness of his Power and Omnipotence to bear.
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This here is more in tune with logic. I agree with this version (so long as we remember that Gods act is identical with Gods being). The other arguments you made were false.

God cannot do the metaphysically impossible.
 
Of “impossibility”:

Premise:

All things are possible to God.

Comment:

If all things are possible to God, wouldn’t the opposite of things be nothing?
This nothingness is expressed by the word impossible.
But the word impossible is an expression of nothingness.

Conclusion, with respect to God, any and all kinds of impossibility, when predicated of God, is meaningless.
(Perhaps more exactly - God can not do nothing…only nothing is impossible to God.)

Sincerely,
Jerry Vilt
 
Jerry_Vilt said:
Of “impossibility”:

Premise:

All things are possible to God.

Comment:

If all things are possible to God, wouldn’t the opposite of things be nothing?
This nothingness is expressed by the word impossible.
But the word impossible is an expression of nothingness.

Conclusion, with respect to God, any and all kinds of impossibility, when predicated of God, is meaningless.
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No, your interpretation is meaningless, since in the first place, to speak of all possible things is to speak only of that which is meaningful in regards to reality, and thus that which is meaningless, such as a square triangle, is logically impossible.What God can do does not include that which is meaningless.
 
JDaniel said:
MoM:

I’m not labeling it “deductive logic.” I am saying that it carries the weight of deductive logic.

jd
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It does not carry the wait of a deductive argument. A deductive argument pre-supposes the validity of logic. Your position does not allow for that validity.
 
“to speak of all possible things is to speak only of that which is meaningful in regards to reality,”

if you are the one who is speaking, yes!

but it was I who was speaking…you find it necessary to atempt to limit what I am saying?

(repeat);

Only nothing is impossible to God!

Sincerely,
Jerry Vilt
 
(somewhat incidental):

A square circle is not metaphysical!

Sincerely,
Jerry Vilt
 
Jerry_Vilt said:
Only nothing is impossible to God!

Sincerely,
Jerry Vilt
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Only that which meaningfully conforms to Gods nature is possible for God to do.

God cannot fail to exist or choose not to exist, because this act does not meaningfully conform to Gods intrinsic nature, and thus is not meaningful in respect of Gods nature. Therefore it is impossible for God to not exist or fail to exist.
 
“Therefore it is impossible for God not to exist.”

above is identical to:

Nothing is impossible to God.

Sincerely,
Jerry Vilt
 
(perhaps also incidental):

Irrationality is life (meaning death) without God!
 
Jerry_Vilt said:
(perhaps also incidental):

Irrationality is life (meaning death) without God!
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The meaning of that quote refers to the impossibility of existence and life without God. It has nothing to do with, neither does it imply, death.
 
“The meaning of that quote refers to the impossibility of existence and life without God. It has nothing to do with, neither does it imply, death.”

The above clearly states “the impossibility of life” without God.

Yet the quote is:

Irrationality is life without God!

Sincerely,
Jerry Vilt
 
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