God is known by intelligent thinking on logic and facts

[valekhai]

Now, tell me what are the attributes you determine that the creator of heaven and earth, of the universe, must have to be deserving of the title God; you seem to be very particular about the name, God, as to oppose it to the title of creator of the universe.

I’m rather stuck in the Western monotheist mindset, so the word “God” automatically brings to mind something that is necessarily personal and is probably omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent (or is as close to those three attributes as anything could be). When the word “God” is used to describe something without those attributes, I can’t help but hear it as a metaphor.

 

[tonyrey]

The only thing I am saying is that for some, reason and intellect and logic and facts have little bearing on whether they encounter God in their lives each day. May want to know instead why their life stinks and where all the peace and joy Christians always talk about is. If you can answer those questions, then you will have a convert.

If the OP is not getting results by logical reasoning with people then maybe the definition of insanity applies here.

My other account with 7000+ posts is not accessible. I’ll leave you all to your philosophy and retire with grace like Richard Petty.

-Tim-

Jesus constantly appealed to reason and so did martyrs like St Justin but apologetics is not everyone’s cup of tea.

Go in peace, Tim. God bless.

 

[oldcelt]

I’m rather stuck in the Western monotheist mindset, so the word “God” automatically brings to mind something that is necessarily personal and is probably omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent (or is as close to those three attributes as anything could be). When the word “God” is used to describe something without those attributes, I can’t help but hear it as a metaphor.

Careful…I saw one argument on New Advent that since the word “God” exists and is generally understood…then God exists. Yep, God exist because the word exists.

I am finding to my dismay that holding a monotheistic belief in God is not enough for many of the posters here. I’m also beginning to have much lower view of “philosophy.” I was never a great fan, but some of what I have read here as philosophical proof of this or that is really troubling.

 

[oldcelt]

The only thing I am saying is that for some, reason and intellect and logic and facts have little bearing on whether they encounter God in their lives each day. May want to know instead why their life stinks and where all the peace and joy Christians always talk about is. If you can answer those questions, then you will have a convert.

If the OP is not getting results by logical reasoning with people then maybe the definition of insanity applies here.

My other account with 7000+ posts is not accessible. I’ll leave you all to your philosophy and retire with grace like Richard Petty.

-Tim-

I feel your pain, but some of it is so darned entertaining,

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Being omniscient is a claim about possessing knowledge, which is only possible for intelligent beings. I’m still not on board with the idea of the uncaused cause being such a thing.

Apparently you’re on board with yourself being more intelligent than the uncaused cause?

 

[Partinobodycula]

God is known by intelligent thinking on logic and facts.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of theists, and to be fair the vast majority of people in general, are simply incapable of either intelligent thinking, or logic, and this thread is a prime example. But to be fair the brain is simply not designed to think logically. It is designed to make sense out of what it perceives, and to do this it uses a set of rules and algorithms to assimilate the available information into a predictable and coherent representation of the world.

It does this without any conscious (name removed by moderator)ut on our part. It uses its understanding of what it believes it should see, to build a picture of what we actually do see. It gives greater weight to that which supports its preconceptions, and often simply disregards things which contradict those preconceptions. In other words, it’s biased toward seeing what it expects to see. And it does this without our even being consciously aware of it. The trick to logic is to recognize these preconceptions and to retroactively re-examine them in light of the evidence.

For example, the very premise that everything has a beginning, may seem at first glance to be patently obvious, but logically, nothing that you see around you has an actual beginning. There is the exact same amount of matter and energy in the universe today as there was ten billion years ago, it has merely transitioned from one form to another, continuously. It’s like asking which came first the chicken or the egg. You could arbitrarily designate a point at which the chicken came into existence, but in reality there is no distinct position at which this occurred. Unless of course you choose to believe that God created the chicken whole and complete from nothing, in which case you have to disregard the available evidence, and invoke a creator. Which is of course an argument that is impossible to refute, but could hardly be regarded as logical, unless supported by strong corroborating evidence.

But if nothing around you has a beginning, then what was originally an argument in support of your claims of a creator, instead becomes an argument against such a creator. Specifically, you appear to argue that since everything around you has a beginning, then it is only logical that the universe too had a beginning. But the reverse argument should also be true, that if nothing around you has a beginning then it would be illogical to assume that the universe had a beginning, but rather that it did what everything else around you did, it transitioned from one form to another.

The idea that the universe had a beginning is an assumption based upon our preconceived ideas of space, time, and reality. Once you have such a preconception, the brain automatically looks for ways to explain it, and finding nothing else, it invokes what it perceives to be a logical explanation. Although logical is probably the wrong term to use. It looks for a defendable explanation, and since the existence of a timeless creator cannot possibly be disproven, such an explanation is a safe one. No amount of evidence can ever prove you wrong. But intelligent thinking is concerned with what can be proven, not with what can’t be disproven.

The existence of a creator, although defendable, cannot be regarded as logical. It is illogical to presume the existence of something for which there is no evidence, and the existence of the universe does not constitute evidence for a creator, unless you can provide evidence that it was indeed created.

 

[oldcelt]

Unfortunately, the vast majority of theists, and to be fair the vast majority of people in general, are simply incapable of either intelligent thinking, or logic, and this thread is a prime example. But to be fair the brain is simply not designed to think logically. It is designed to make sense out of what it perceives, and to do this it uses a set of rules and algorithms to assimilate the available information into a predictable and coherent representation of the world.

It does this without any conscious (name removed by moderator)ut on our part. It uses its understanding of what it believes it should see, to build a picture of what we actually do see. It gives greater weight to that which supports its preconceptions, and often simply disregards things which contradict those preconceptions. In other words, it’s biased toward seeing what it expects to see. And it does this without our even being consciously aware of it. The trick to logic is to recognize these preconceptions and to retroactively re-examine them in light of the evidence.

For example, the very premise that everything has a beginning, may seem at first glance to be patently obvious, but logically, nothing that you see around you has an actual beginning. There is the exact same amount of matter and energy in the universe today as there was ten billion years ago, it has merely transitioned from one form to another, continuously. It’s like asking which came first the chicken or the egg. You could arbitrarily designate a point at which the chicken came into existence, but in reality there is no distinct position at which this occurred. Unless of course you choose to believe that God created the chicken whole and complete from nothing, in which case you have to disregard the available evidence, and invoke a creator. Which is of course an argument that is impossible to refute, but could hardly be regarded as logical, unless supported by strong corroborating evidence.

But if nothing around you has a beginning, then what was originally an argument in support of your claims of a creator, instead becomes an argument against such a creator. Specifically, you appear to argue that since everything around you has a beginning, then it is only logical that the universe too had a beginning. But the reverse argument should also be true, that if nothing around you has a beginning then it would be illogical to assume that the universe had a beginning, but rather that it did what everything else around you did, it transitioned from one form to another.

The idea that the universe had a beginning is an assumption based upon our preconceived ideas of space, time, and reality. Once you have such a preconception, the brain automatically looks for ways to explain it, and finding nothing else, it invokes what it perceives to be a logical explanation. Although logical is probably the wrong term to use. It looks for a defendable explanation, and since the existence of a timeless creator cannot possibly be disproven, such an explanation is a safe one. No amount of evidence can ever prove you wrong. But intelligent thinking is concerned with what can be proven, not with what can’t be disproven.

The existence of a creator, although defendable, cannot be regarded as logical. It is illogical to presume the existence of something for which there is no evidence, and the existence of the universe does not constitute evidence for a creator, unless you can provide evidence that it was indeed created.

As also seen on this thread, there are many people who take great offense if someone does not share their exact view of God. Being a believer is not enough; you must accept every dogma created by their particular belief system or they question your intelligence.
Having been on this board since the death of John Paul II, I have long since grown accustomed the inability of some to admit that what they are saying is opinion. If they could it would be a much more pleasant atmosphere.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

As also seen on this thread, there are many people who take great offense if someone does not share their exact view of God. Being a believer is not enough; you must accept every dogma created by their particular belief system or they question your intelligence.
Having been on this board since the death of John Paul II, I have long since grown accustomed the inability of some to admit that what they are saying is opinion. If they could it would be a much more pleasant atmosphere.

You are by your own admission no longer a Catholic. So it seems odd that you have been on this Board for so long and still think that Catholics should “admit that what they are saying is opinion.” Surely you are aware that Catholics are aware they have more than opinions. They believe they have truths revealed by almighty God, rather than some remote and heartless Deity who doesn’t even offer opinions.

 

[TarkanAttila]

But to be fair the brain is simply not designed to think logically. It is designed to make sense out of what it perceives, and to do this it uses a set of rules and algorithms to assimilate the available information into a predictable and coherent representation of the world.

So in other words you’ve gone mad, and the whole human race along with you. You are a thinking thing, and you’re thinking it all wrong.

 

[mattdantuono]

This seems like an equivocation.
If you were hungry and I put a plate in front of you with a sandwich and a rock, you wouldn’t look at the two and say “both the sandwich and the rock are made of atoms, so they’re the same; since the rock can’t nourish me, the sandwich can’t, either.” Grains of sand and neurons are very, very different things, and you can’t ignore the difference just by saying “they’re just atoms.”
The idea of “trusting” a beach doesn’t make sense. The idea of trusting a massively interconnected network of cells that are able to receive, compare, and store sense experience does. One provides information, the other does not.
And, yes, they are both physical.

They are different things, but at bottom they are the same. What exactly do you mean by “stores information”? I know that may sound like a silly question, but it is something that everyone takes for granted, but cannot be accounted for in a purely materialistic framework.

If it seems like an equivocation, what terms or ideas am I equivocating?

Those things you refer to (logic, math, truth, etc.) are all descriptions of relations of things. The things exist, the relationships exist, our understandings of the relationships exist, so this is all compatible with merely a physical reality.
If that is insufficient, I don’t see how adding a God to the picture improves it. Taking just the example of the laws of logic, how can a God provide a satisfactory account for logic that a merely physical universe cannot?

If they are just descriptions of relations, they are ABSTRACT, non-physical descriptions, having to do with some things that are themselves not physical (e.g. you have never seen the number two, only symbols that represent the number two - same for perfect circles and all other mathematical objects). There must be something abstract to do the abstracting. Purely material entities do not have the potential for abstract processes.

God provides an account for logic because God has a mind in which logic can exist, since logic (an abstract thing, like the number two and a perfect circle) cannot exist except in an abstract mind.

I’m going to reject this. I think it’s another equivocation. If an artist makes a sculpture, we call that “creating.” There is will involved. But when we are talking about “Being itself” creating something, we are not talking about the same kind of process, so I don’t take it as a given that there is will involved.

I agree, there is a big difference between the two. The artist is using pre-existing materials and rearranging them. God creates from nothing.

But why is there no will involved in Being itself creating? Our potential existence is merely potential, so how did it become actual? Something had to bring it about. Was that process accidental or purposeful? How do we go from uncaused cause to suddenly having something apart from the uncaused cause? All things must derive their existence from Being itself, so Being itself must have brought those things into existence.

Does this work for all attributes? How about fizziness? There is no such thing as pure fizziness, only things that are fizzy, so fizziness must find its source somewhere. All things that exist find their source in God, so God must be fizzy.

Haha. More than that, God is the essence of fizziness!
Yes, fizziness, too, unless fizziness is just a word for lack of some perfection. Everything other than God has limited being since it is not Being itself. Limited beings are not actual in all perfections, as Being itself is. Define fizzy, and I will describe how it has its source in God.

 

[Partinobodycula]

So in other words you’ve gone mad, and the whole human race along with you. You are a thinking thing, and you’re thinking it all wrong.

You are perhaps correct. I humbly leave such judgments to others.

 

[mattdantuono]

“since the universe does not have to exist”…I do not accept that premise.
And like I said before, I’m not convinced that the concept of “will” is applicable to the uncaused cause.

That wasn’t a premise. I gave an argument for it. I summarize:

Either the universe and all things in it necessarily exist, or they exist unnecessarily.
1)If they existed necessarily, they would always exist. Since things come into being and pass away, they do not exist necessarily.
2)Things also are unable to sustain their own existence. This is obvious since we see things that would like to continue existing as they are but pass away.
3)Things depend on something for existence other than their efficient cause. e.g. a chair may continue to exist after the carpenter that made it dies. Something other than the original efficient cause must sustain the merely potential existence of the chair.

What is your argument that they exist necessarily?

 

[Partinobodycula]

Surely you are aware that Catholics are aware they have more than opinions. They believe they have truths revealed by almighty God, rather than some remote and heartless Deity who doesn’t even offer opinions.

I have been on these boards for some time now, and I must admit that there are Catholics on this forum who do an admirable job of defending their faith. Their beliefs are well reasoned and their attitudes are humble. Both qualities to be admired. Although I often disagree with their conclusions, I respect their points of view, and the manner with which they present them. If at times I challenge the claims of some posters, it is more often due to attitude than substance. To have confidence is one thing, to have arrogance is another.

I do not post here often, but when I do I try to choose my words carefully. I try to respect and understand the views of others, with the hope that they will do the same, not only with me, but with everyone. I give my honest opinion, for that is all that I can do. I cannot make you accept it. I can’t even make you listen to it. I realize that we learn and grow, and our attitudes change, and so it is wrong to judge others too harshly, who perhaps do not have the humility that comes with time.

It may be that Catholics have more than mere opinions, it’s not for me to know. I do know that what I give is an opinion, and nothing more. I am a solipsist, there is very little that I hold to be absolute. I concede that you may be wiser than I, you are doubtless more assured than I, and so I will leave you to continue as you were. I have said my piece and that is all that I wanted to do, anything beyond that is up to each individual to decide as they see fit.

I shall graciously return to the silence from which I came.

 

[mattdantuono]

It is designed to make sense out of what it perceives, and to do this it uses a set of rules and algorithms to assimilate the available information into a predictable and coherent representation of the world.

As a solipsist, do you believe that there are actual perceptions?

For example, the very premise that everything has a beginning, may seem at first glance to be patently obvious, but logically, nothing that you see around you has an actual beginning. There is the exact same amount of matter and energy in the universe today as there was ten billion years ago, it has merely transitioned from one form to another, continuously.

BTW, that is not true for matter. Matter is lost in processes like atomic decay, fission, and fusion.

But this is an interesting statement. You referred above human brains. Since you can have reference to such things, then those are things in themselves. Those things have not always existed (have they?).

The other big problem with this is that there is not such thing as pure matter or even pure energy. If you want to see a physicist squirm, ask him was energy is. They make up things or are properties of things.

Also, as a solipsist, do you actually believe in the 10 billion year old universe? Have you existed for that whole time? Were you conscious of it, or only recently? I don’t mean to sound pugilistic, but I just want to know how all this rhymes with your personal beliefs.

It’s like asking which came first the chicken or the egg. You could arbitrarily designate a point at which the chicken came into existence, but in reality there is no distinct position at which this occurred.

Well, how do you define “chicken” At some point in time, you did not have something that fulfilled that definition. At another point in time very soon after, you did have something that fit that definition. That is the time, not arbitrary, that the chicken came into existence.

But if nothing around you has a beginning, then what was originally an argument in support of your claims of a creator, instead becomes an argument against such a creator.

I’m not sure which theists you have been reading, but you should know that the most philosophically rigorous (and why would you pick on anyone less?) do not regard the beginning as a beginning necessarily in time. They mean an ontological, metaphysical beginning. Some source of existence.

But intelligent thinking is concerned with what can be proven, not with what can’t be disproven.

I disagree here. Not even science claims that it can be proven, only that it can be disproven. Falsifiability is the great battle cry of science.

However. I would say that intelligent thinking is concerned with that the evidence points to. After carefully examining all the available evidence, what option best fits the evidence? Physical theories are judged by how much observable phenomena they can explain. Then, they are put to the test with new available data.

For the most part, I find atheists claiming that this or that COULD have come about some other way, or perhaps this happened or that. Intelligence is about making a decision based on the available evidence, not speculating endlessly on what could have been in the absence of such evidence.

The existence of a creator, although defendable, cannot be regarded as logical. It is illogical to presume the existence of something for which there is no evidence, and the existence of the universe does not constitute evidence for a creator, unless you can provide evidence that it was indeed created.

By illogical, I understand “containing logical contradictions.” Where are the logical contradictions? I agree that Christianity and theism don’t make any sense, but neither does quantum mechanics (sorry for the sound quality): youtube.com/watch?v=pm43k6V7-uY

and

youtube.com/watch?v=m5QixiwvCkw

 

[KingCoil]

Originally Posted by KingCoil
Now, tell me what are the attributes you determine that the creator of heaven and earth, of the universe, must have to be deserving of the title God; you seem to be very particular about the name, God, as to oppose it to the title of creator of the universe.

You have used the words. “I’m rather stuck in the Western monotheist mindset” like a pleading for you to not do intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts, but purely on attachment of an emotional character, i.e. without any grounding on, forgive me for repeating, intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts.

I like to request you to intelligently think about why you insist that the creator of the universe does not have omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc., which you know are ascribed to God by the adherents of the Abrahamic faiths.

And what do you know about the omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc., of the creator of the universe, Who created humans capable of intelligence, prolific and versatile productivity, love, goodness, justice, mercy, etc.

Do you get my drift?

Forgive me for being harsh, but you swallow a lot of non-intelligent brain work of atheists whose works are best sellers among their non-intelligent readers, who are not in the habit of employing their brain creatively, i.e., according to logic and facts.

These atheists are good at making startling statements, like if God created everything who created God, which dazzle their non-thinking readers; but when you do intelligent thinking based on logic and facts, they are non-sensical statements owing to their not being founded on, and I repeat, intelligent thinking on logic and facts.

Or this socalled conundrum, can God make a rock so heavy He cannot carry it?

All grotesquely designed to dazzle their own non-intelligently thinking brain, but in particular their fans who are impressed for not knowing the abuse of language by these and also non-intelligently thinking atheist writers.

You will get my drift, and forgive me, if you all the time continually as you use your brain keep to the canons of intelligent thinking based on logic and facts.

Forgive me again for being harsh on you, do you do your own thinking or just swallow, hook, line, and sinker, the thoughts of non-intelligent thinking atheist writers who are the idols of their even more unthinking fans?

Okay, tell me how you get to convince yourself that the creator of the universe cannot and hence does not have omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc., but Who created humans capable of intelligence, prolific and versatile productivity, love, goodness, justice, mercy, etc.

KingCoil

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I do not post here often, but when I do I try to choose my words carefully. I try to respect and understand the views of others, with the hope that they will do the same, not only with me, but with everyone. I give my honest opinion, for that is all that I can do. I cannot make you accept it. I can’t even make you listen to it. I realize that we learn and grow, and our attitudes change, and so it is wrong to judge others too harshly, who perhaps do not have the humility that comes with time.

Humility is a virtue we can all use. It is not arrogance that makes us believe we have the truth and others don’t.

Thank you for sharing.

 

[TarkanAttila]

You are perhaps correct. I humbly leave such judgments to others.

Perhaps it is wrong, then, to think you are thinking at all - i.e, that either you are not, or that thinking is not with you.

 

[valekhai]

What exactly do you mean by “stores information”? I know that may sound like a silly question, but it is something that everyone takes for granted, but cannot be accounted for in a purely materialistic framework.

I can’t agree. In as much as anything about intelligence or the mind can be said to have been accounted for, it’s been accounted for in a physical framework. I can’t recall ever hearing anything non-physical added to the mix that did anything except add more complexity and mystery.

When I say “stores information,” I’m talking about how sense experiences are encoded within physical structures in the brain.

They are different things, but at bottom they are the same.
…
If it seems like an equivocation, what terms or ideas am I equivocating?

Yeah, sorry. Equivocating wasn’t the right term. It’s actually a modo hoc, which is a type of fallacy of composition. If you say that a brain can’t do something that a beach can’t because they’re both just collections of molecules, you’re ignoring the fact that they are different arrangements of different molecules. Those differences allow for a vast array of different abilities.

A block of ice and a pool of water both are made of H2O. They are made out of exactly the same kind of molecule, but just because of a structural change in the way those molecules bind due in different temperatures, each can do things the other cannot. You can carve a sculpture out of a block of ice and you can swim in a pool, but you can’t sculpt the water in a pool or swim in a block of ice. “At the bottom they are the same,” but a simple change in structure makes for completely different uses. So even though a pile of sand and network of neurons are on some level made of the same stuff, that’s no reason to think that the neurons can’t do something just because the sand can’t.

If they are just descriptions of relations, they are ABSTRACT, non-physical descriptions, having to do with some things that are themselves not physical (e.g. you have never seen the number two, only symbols that represent the number two - same for perfect circles and all other mathematical objects). There must be something abstract to do the abstracting. Purely material entities do not have the potential for abstract processes.

God provides an account for logic because God has a mind in which logic can exist, since logic (an abstract thing, like the number two and a perfect circle) cannot exist except in an abstract mind.

I actually have seen the number two. So have you. Here it is: 2.

Remember, “two” is just a word. Don’t confuse the word with the referent. “Two” refers to a particular quantity. Actual quantities are physical, and potential quantities are entailed by the existence of actual quantities. The ratios and other relationships of those quantities – real or potential - form our language of mathematics. The language of logic is something similar, a way of describing relationships between real or potential things.

Nothing I see in this necessitate the existence of anything non-physical.

I agree, there is a big difference between the two. The artist is using pre-existing materials and rearranging them. God creates from nothing.

But why is there no will involved in Being itself creating? Our potential existence is merely potential, so how did it become actual? Something had to bring it about. Was that process accidental or purposeful? How do we go from uncaused cause to suddenly having something apart from the uncaused cause? All things must derive their existence from Being itself, so Being itself must have brought those things into existence.

You tried to show that Being had will by calling what it does “creating” and comparing that to an artist “creating” something, which is an act of will. But like you just admitted, we are talking about two very different things (creating from nothing vs. rearranging existing materials), so will being a part of one process does not necessarily entail it as being part of the other. That would need to be demonstrated.

In fact, the “rearranging matter” type of creating doesn’t even necessitate will. A painter exercises will in creating a painting out of a canvas and paints, but a hailstorm does not exercise will in creating a pile of broken glass out of an intact window.

Maybe you can show that Being has will, but you can’t do that just by saying that it “creates.”

Haha. More than that, God is the essence of fizziness!
Yes, fizziness, too, unless fizziness is just a word for lack of some perfection. Everything other than God has limited being since it is not Being itself. Limited beings are not actual in all perfections, as Being itself is. Define fizzy, and I will describe how it has its source in God.

“Fizzy” describes a liquid that is releasing carbon dioxide that has been dissolved in the liquid.

 

[valekhai]

You have used the words. “I’m rather stuck in the Western monotheist mindset” like a pleading for you to not do intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts, but purely on attachment of an emotional character, i.e. without any grounding on, forgive me for repeating, intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts.

No, it’s not “pleading” at all, let along pleading to get out of “intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts.”

Here’s a fact: the overwhelming majority of people who I speak to consider God to be something more than just “the uncaused cause.”
Another fact: most of those people use the word “God” to describe some sort of omnimax personal being.
Yet another: if I distilled the word “God” to mean something much more basic than what the majority of people around me mean when they use it, they’re going to think that I’m talking about something else when I talk about “God.”

Logically, if I want to cause confusion when I communicate, I shouldn’t use words in a way that people wouldn’t understand. Based on that logic and the above facts, I shouldn’t call something “God” if I mean something different than what the overwhelming majority of people who have used that term are describing.

Tell me, why are you so keen on getting me to use the word “God?”

Forgive me for being harsh, but you swallow a lot of non-intelligent brain work of atheists whose works are best sellers among their non-intelligent readers, who are not in the habit of employing their brain creatively, i.e., according to logic and facts.

And forgive me for being harsh, but you don’t know what you’re talking about here. I haven’t read any of the atheist “best sellers,” and even if I had, my idea of the word “God” describing an omnimax personal creator is an idea I get from theists, not from those atheists.

Okay, tell me how you get to convince yourself that the creator of the universe cannot and hence does not have omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.

The important part isn’t that I’ve “convinced myself” that the creator of the universe doesn’t have omniscience, etc. so much as it is that the people who do claim that it does have those attributes haven’t made their case.

But if you really, really want me to, I can make an argument against omniscience.

Who created humans capable of intelligence, prolific and versatile productivity, love, goodness, justice, mercy, etc.

Why is it a “who?” Will you even try to answer that?

 

[KingCoil]

No, it’s not “pleading” at all, let along pleading to get out of “intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts.”

Here’s a fact: the overwhelming majority of people who I speak to consider God to be something more than just “the uncaused cause.”
Another fact: most of those people use the word “God” to describe some sort of omnimax personal being.
Yet another: if I distilled the word “God” to mean something much more basic than what the majority of people around me mean when they use it, they’re going to think that I’m talking about something else when I talk about “God.”

…]

But if you really, really want me to, I can make an argument against omniscience.

Why is it a “who?” Will you even try to answer that?

First, your mistake is to take seriously what you think is the common information from what you imagine is a poll on people who know God to exist and is more than the creator of the universe, or that being creator of the universe does not include omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.

Do you know at all that majority of ordinary folks do not think intelligently grounding themselves on logic and facts, if indeed that is the finding of your polls whatever, or polls done by scientific pollsters.

That is why politicians can make them go to war to kill other human beings in the name of anything at all, like which country wins in a football match.

You see, when an entity is the creator of the universe in which universe he also creates human beings who are intelligent, prolific and versatile in producing things of all kinds useful to themselves, and are doers of justice, who show love, mercy, etc., then this entity who is the author of humans as parts of the whole universe which he creates, then it is intelligent thinking founded on logic and facts that he has also all the best qualities of his creature, mankind.

By the way, I like you to produce whatever polls you have made of folks on what they think that the creator of the universe is not possessed of omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence; etc., for according to you, you have facts.

Okay, bring up the facts based on the polls you have conducted or polls conducted by scientific polling bodies.

Second, what if any at all opposition is there between being creator of the universe and being an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc., entity?

Third, what exactly are you conveying with your question why the entity creator of the universe is a who instead of a what?

The reason why the creator of the universe and of mankind is a who is because just like human beings, he is a person.

Or you want the creator of the universe to be a what? Like a robot for example?

In which case then the robot is not the creator of the universe, but the creator of the robot is the creator of the universe.

Fourth, if the creator of the universe is not the God of Christians, which God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc., then tell me after you make a poll of adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths, is there another God, which other God did not create the universe, but is what, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc.?

That is really dumb, to postulate a God that is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc., but did not create the universe.

What universe are you talking about?

It saddens me that your way of thinking is so, forgive me, naive.

It is not intelligent thinking, it is not grounded on logic and facts.

Forgive me, if you take an IQ test and answer the items there according to the way your brain works, as is conspicuous in the manner you insist that the creator of the universe is not the God of Christians, Jews, and Muslims: because being creator of the universe does not implicate being omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc., then I fear you will certainly flunk the test and will not qualify for college work in a decent college, not any diploma mill.

Oh, I almost forget, you say:

“But if you really, really want me to, I can make an argument against omniscience.”

Go, make an argument against the omniscience of the creator of the universe, and we will work together to see whether it is an intelligent argument grounded on logic and facts.

KingCoil