If you can do what you can't do, then there would be nothing to do

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f you can do what you can’t do you are living in a fantasy world!
 
tonyrey said:
God doesn’t have a spatial dimension!
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More powerful than him.

If he can, it means he wouldn’t be the most powerful of all times.

If he can’t, that does meam he isn’t all powerful.

What is the answer?
 
If you can do what you can’t do, then there would be nothing to do.
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:bigyikes:

Sounds like you’ve been trying to sign up for health insurance on the Obamacare website.

:rotfl: :extrahappy:
 
LibralAteoJesus said:
More powerful than him.

If he can, it means he wouldn’t be the most powerful of all times.

If he can’t, that does meam he isn’t all powerful.

What is the answer?
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No, because there’s a contradiction inherent in the question.

“A being more powerful than God” is what you’re asking about. God is all-powerful, so by definition, he is the pinnacle of what it means to have power, he is power itself. So you’re asking if there could be “A being more powerful than the all-powerful being,” which by definition could not happen. The combination of words is essentially a nonsensical one with no possible correspondence to reality.

-ACEGC
 
edward_george said:
No, because there’s a contradiction inherent in the question.

“A being more powerful than God” is what you’re asking about. God is all-powerful, so by definition, he is the pinnacle of what it means to have power, he is power itself. So you’re asking if there could be “A being more powerful than the all-powerful being,” which by definition could not happen. The combination of words is essentially a nonsensical one with no possible correspondence to reality.

-ACEGC
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Is he asking this, or is he making a statement about how motivation to live is caused by an inability to do all things. If I was excellent at lsat logic games, I would perhaps be less motivated to become good at solving them. I lift weights because I want to be stronger. If I already had the body of an Olympic weight lifter, without having to lift weights, then I would never work out. I’m not sure what he is asking, however.

If he is discussing God and trying to provide a paradox that would disprove creation, then the statement would not apply to an infinite God, who of course would be able to do all things.

An item cannot do what it cannot do. It only can do what it can do.

Also, part of the definition of God is that he is all powerful and the most powerful of all possible things. That being the case, there could be nothing more powerful than God.
 
Is it possible a god of the multi-verse created our God of this universe to believe He is infinitely powerful and existed? Or do we just accept and have faith on what archaic men wrote in a book centuries ago and asserted by theists today?.
 
I would say that yes this is possible. Also, there is no way to know. So faith is necessary. If you are looking for absolute certainty that there is or is not a God, you will not find it.
 
john330 said:
I would say that yes this is possible. Also, there is no way to know. So faith is necessary. If you are looking for absolute certainty that there is or is not a God, you will not find it.
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Do you think faith is a good passage to your beliefs or trust based on evidence?
 
PendingTheist said:
Do you think faith is a good passage to your beliefs or trust based on evidence?
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Trust based upon evidence. I believe there is a good argument for the existence of God based in quantum physics and classical mechanics, which results in an infinite regress back to infinite universes and then God. Of the three (atheism, agnosticism, theism) I believe that agnosticism is the most honest argument. I cannot fathom that a finite physical system, or even an infinite system of universes (each individually being finite and have physical laws causing their finiteness) could exist on its own. I feel like the cosmological argument is pretty good, but not perfect. I think it is better than atheism’s argument. This is why I progressed from atheism to agnosticism to theism.

The argument for Jesus is less persuasive, but has many persuasive elements. I “met” Jesus in a spiritual way through my own life. I believe, therefore, that in order for one to become a Christian, he/she must have evidence and spiritual experience. Intellectual evidence, as I’m sure you can attest to, is not enough when Christianity claims that God changes our lives. I’m also sure that you will admit that a spiritual experience by itself will not suffice, as spiritual experiences often result from odd brain chemistry, or ingesting drugs, or from schizofrenic crack up. Both intellectual proof and reasonable spiritual experience must lead a subject to faith in God. One nor the other will suffice alone. Thoughts?
 
john330 said:
Trust based upon evidence. I believe there is a good argument for the existence of God based in quantum physics and classical mechanics, which results in an infinite regress back to infinite universes and then God. Of the three (atheism, agnosticism, theism) I believe that agnosticism is the most honest argument. I cannot fathom that a finite physical system, or even an infinite system of universes (each individually being finite and have physical laws causing their finiteness) could exist on its own. I feel like the cosmological argument is pretty good, but not perfect. I think it is better than atheism’s argument. This is why I progressed from atheism to agnosticism to theism.

The argument for Jesus is less persuasive, but has many persuasive elements. I “met” Jesus in a spiritual way through my own life. I believe, therefore, that in order for one to become a Christian, he/she must have evidence and spiritual experience. Intellectual evidence, as I’m sure you can attest to, is not enough when Christianity claims that God changes our lives. I’m also sure that you will admit that a spiritual experience by itself will not suffice, as spiritual experiences often result from odd brain chemistry, or ingesting drugs, or from schizofrenic crack up. Both intellectual proof and reasonable spiritual experience must lead a subject to faith in God. One nor the other will suffice alone. Thoughts?
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First lets define terms. Trust and faith are subsets of belief. Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see”. So it is blind and without empirical evidence. You just know it’s true in your heart. Some people, on the other hand, want to know if their beliefs are true even if they don’t like the outcome. As responsible adults we need to understand and accept reality to help make the world a better place. There is an important distinction to make here. Trust is not the same thing as faith. For example, I place trust in science. That trust is always provisional, always conditional, and scales up or down based on the evidence presented and the confidence I have in it. That is not faith. It is not blind or absolute or unquestioning or unwavering. It is not strongest in the absence of evidence but instead would diminish.
Although not synonymous, faith and trust do nevertheless share something in common. They are both ways of establishing standards for deciding what to believe and how to evaluate claims about reality. They just go about this very differently, leaving faith to be little different from credulity and gullibility. I consider it potentially harmful and inferior as an analytical tool. How does one decide which of the 4700 religions are true using faith as its decisive tool? Are the holy books of Hindu’s Bhagavad Gita, Islam’s Quran, Buddhist’s Tipitaka and the Book of Mormon correct? Or even the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, Judas, Mary and apocalyptic gospels of Peter, Paul and John to name a few. Can you be convinced that pixies, leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster exist? Does the Shroud of Turin prove Christ’s divinity? Wouldn’t you want extraordinary evidence if your friend said they have a fire breathing dragon as a pet? Do you believe people who claim they’ve been abducted by aliens even though they have detailed, emotional stories of their experience? Would you believe me if I told you I had a personal relationship with God and He revealed to me the falsity to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy?

Gnosticism deals with knowledge and Theism deals with a belief. So I agree, we both Don’t Know, thus agnostic. That is why I am “pending” my commitment to Christ or any belief. I am an agnostic Atheist meaning I don’t know but I believe there are NO gods, you are an agnostic theist, however you are able to conclude on the Christian God out of thousands. Westboro baptist and militant atheists may self describe as gnostic theist or gnostic atheists respectively.
 
john330 said:
Trust based upon evidence. I believe there is a good argument for the existence of God based in quantum physics and classical mechanics, which results in an infinite regress back to infinite universes and then God. Of the three (atheism, agnosticism, theism) I believe that agnosticism is the most honest argument. I cannot fathom that a finite physical system, or even an infinite system of universes (each individually being finite and have physical laws causing their finiteness) could exist on its own. I feel like the cosmological argument is pretty good, but not perfect. I think it is better than atheism’s argument. This is why I progressed from atheism to agnosticism to theism.

The argument for Jesus is less persuasive, but has many persuasive elements. I “met” Jesus in a spiritual way through my own life. I believe, therefore, that in order for one to become a Christian, he/she must have evidence and spiritual experience. Intellectual evidence, as I’m sure you can attest to, is not enough when Christianity claims that God changes our lives. I’m also sure that you will admit that a spiritual experience by itself will not suffice, as spiritual experiences often result from odd brain chemistry, or ingesting drugs, or from schizofrenic crack up. Both intellectual proof and reasonable spiritual experience must lead a subject to faith in God. One nor the other will suffice alone. Thoughts?
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I once believed God was able to create miracles thru quantum mechanics without suspending the laws of physics. However, this was a belief without evidence and something I created to keep my belief true. Quantum particles constantly come in and out of existence from “nothing” and apparently without a cause. The kalam cosmological argument states whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. It’s assumed the cause is an infinite uncreated deistic or theistic god although logically one can’t go beyond deism at this point. The laws of physics came into existence after the Big Bang (post-Planck-time 1x10 -43rd sec ) so they cannot be applied before this event so the first premise is without merit. Also, if you insert the word “natural” before the word “cause” you get the same answer to everything we discovered to have a cause that our ancestors thought were from gods, like, earthquakes, diseases, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, schizophrenia (demons), lightning…it’s just a matter of time before we discover the universal “cause”. Why is there something rather than nothing? Let’s go one farther and ask why is there anything including a God? Every time we look for nothing we find something, i.e. dark matter. To simply assert an eternal uncreated being, which must be more complex than anything we could ever imagine, is our creator is not being in touch with reality. If God is eternal then why can’t energy be eternal since it cannot be created or destroyed in this universe? All matter in the universe is essentially a condensed form of energy (E=mc2). Why is there something rather than nothing? Nothing is far more subtle than you might imagine, in the Bible for example, nothing would have been a vast, eternal empty universe. That would have been a void. That kind of nothing we now understand–namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation–that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated. In the modern universe at the quantum level it’s a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence on a timescale so short you can’t see or measure them. So there’s nothing there but actually lots of stuff is happening. You just can’t see it or measure it, and that kind of nothing is unstable. The fact that virtual particles pop in and out of empty space so fast we can’t measure it prevents it from violating the First Law of Thermodynamics which states energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another; heat, light, chemical or electrical energy.
So I am waiting for better evidence to come to a final conclusion about my belief. I have no problem saying I don’t know instead of saying there must be a God and then leap to a Christian God as that to me is not honest.
Most Christians use an experience to come to their belief just as Saul-Paul had a spiritual experience from a “light from heaven” in Damascus. Many claim such experience with other religions and beliefs, such as alien abduction. Do you believe them?
 
PendingTheist said:
I once believed God was able to create miracles thru quantum mechanics without suspending the laws of physics. However, this was a belief without evidence and something I created to keep my belief true. Quantum particles constantly come in and out of existence from “nothing” and apparently without a cause. The kalam cosmological argument states whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. It’s assumed the cause is an infinite uncreated deistic or theistic god although logically one can’t go beyond deism at this point. The laws of physics came into existence after the Big Bang (post-Planck-time 1x10 -43rd sec ) so they cannot be applied before this event so the first premise is without merit. Also, if you insert the word “natural” before the word “cause” you get the same answer to everything we discovered to have a cause that our ancestors thought were from gods, like, earthquakes, diseases, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, schizophrenia (demons), lightning…it’s just a matter of time before we discover the universal “cause”. Why is there something rather than nothing? Let’s go one farther and ask why is there anything including a God? Every time we look for nothing we find something, i.e. dark matter. To simply assert an eternal uncreated being, which must be more complex than anything we could ever imagine, is our creator is not being in touch with reality. If God is eternal then why can’t energy be eternal since it cannot be created or destroyed in this universe? All matter in the universe is essentially a condensed form of energy (E=mc2). Why is there something rather than nothing? Nothing is far more subtle than you might imagine, in the Bible for example, nothing would have been a vast, eternal empty universe. That would have been a void. That kind of nothing we now understand–namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation–that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated. In the modern universe at the quantum level it’s a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence on a timescale so short you can’t see or measure them. So there’s nothing there but actually lots of stuff is happening. You just can’t see it or measure it, and that kind of nothing is unstable. The fact that virtual particles pop in and out of empty space so fast we can’t measure it prevents it from violating the First Law of Thermodynamics which states energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another; heat, light, chemical or electrical energy.
So I am waiting for better evidence to come to a final conclusion about my belief. I have no problem saying I don’t know instead of saying there must be a God and then leap to a jChristian God as that to me is not honest.
Most Christians use an experience to come to their belief just as Saul-Paul had a spiritual experience from a “light from heaven” in Damascus. Many claim such experience with other religions and beliefs, such as alien abduction. Do you believe them?
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I believe that the quantum particles that you are referencing are hypothetical. They do make sense when added into an equation, but God also makes sense when added into the equation for creation. The particles are thought to come into existence when free photons or other rays or waves move through a field of electromagnetic energy. So the photons give mass to a charged field. I may not be right on the nose with this, but I feel like I am close. So the particles do not come in and out of existence, there is a cause and a medium to give them energy, charge, and mass. I could be wrong. At gym, so don’t have time to search it.

I think that you should obey your conscience when it comes to being honest about your beliefs. If you don’t feel you can honestly believe something, don’t believe it. Believe in what you think is true. I believe that that is all the God that I worship can ask of us.
 
Since God wrote the laws of physics, I’d imagine He knows them better than any of us, and controls what is and isn’t.
 
Do you mean “can” as in the freedom to do X or “can” as in the ability to do X? And cannot would be the negation of this? What does “there would be” mean? Did mean “there would be nothing for me to do?” And what do you mean by nothing? Did you mean to say “there is nothing to do” instead of “there would be nothing to do?” Sounds like you’re saying that I would be doing nothing to do in the future. The future doesn’t exist now, so of course I’m doing nothing in the future.
 
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