Is God a "square circle"?

[ateista]

My point is that you are making posts based on reason and logic, yet within your reason and logic there are flaws. This is relevent to the point at hand because the arguments you make contain error and thus invalidate themselves, proving nothing.

Saying it will not make it so…

My comment was that you need to work on your logic skills, this is objectively true, you have flaws within your logic (a good place to start would be by taking a basic course in logic, you will see that of which I speak). Your comments are nothing but sarcastic insults. If your response to someone pointing out the flaws within your arguments is anger, derogation, and insulting comments perhaps philosophical debate is not your calling.

Sure I was sarcastic. You can thank it to yourself. If someone is polite and civilized, I will reciprocate it. You were condescending and insulting, and after a while (giving you the benefit of doubt) I reciprocate that, too. But I have patience. If you drop your insulting remarks, and actually point out logical errors in my reasoning, I will be happy to engage in a conversation with you, too. But not until then.

The soul.

Ah, for a second I thought that you might have a valid example and not just a figment of your imagination. My bad, I suppose.

 

[jkarp]

Sure I was sarcastic. You can thank it to yourself. If someone is polite and civilized, I will reciprocate it. You were condescending and insulting, and after a while (giving you the benefit of doubt) I reciprocate that, too. But I have patience. If you drop your insulting remarks, and actually point out logical errors in my reasoning, I will be happy to engage in a conversation with you, too. But not until then.

Ah, for a second I thought that you might have a valid example and not just a figment of your imagination. My bad, I suppose.

Wow, you posts are most enlightening and entertaining. Even the ancient Greeks recognized the presence of the soul, as have virtually every other religion in the world (even if they do not call it a “soul”: aura, chi, life force, etc.), the fact that you don’t recognize the presence definitely leaves you in the minority. Are you seriously to tell me that you truly believe that 99% of people throughout the entire history of mankind have gotten it wrong and all of sudden you have got it all figured out? I will pray for you.

 

[BlaineTog]

I was very short and so probably unclear. What I meant was that we are all human beings and conscious of being humans. Looking into a mirror was not intended as a definition of a human being, it was supposed to convey the fact that we are all humans and know this. I had quite a long thread about this subject.

My point was that just because the language was unclear doesn’t mean what you said was nonsensical (because it clearly wasn’t).

*Now this one is something we can work with. I would like to explore the ramification of this definition.

I suggest the following method:

1. we can try to come to mutual understanding about each of these attributes - that is decide what they mean.*

We can try to sharpen what we mean, but we’re not going to be about to describe what they mean in themselves. No matter how careful you are, you are not going to be able to craft a truly two-dimensional object out of a three-dimensional figure.

3) Finally we can try to see if these attributes contradict our knowledge about the real world. I hope you can agree that our knowledge about reality is far more substantial that our hypothetic knowledge of God.

Not really. I mean, “knowledge” per se? No, not at all. We don’t know anything about the real world that isn’t contingent on beliefs.

One example is our own existence. It does not require any belief.

Wrong. At the very least, it requires belief in the law of noncontradiction. Otherwise, all bets are off. Additionally, “our” presupposes multiple people, which is a belief that can be questioned even while staying within the boundaries of logic. In fact, even if you presuppose the law of noncontradiction, nothing follows from this alone except 1) I am have experiences, and 2) I exist. You can’t even say “I existed/had experiences in the past,” or “I will continue to have experiences in the future,” because those require additional beliefs.

*As for the Cathecism, I am not in the position to answer - due to my complete ignorance. All I meant was referring to innumerable posts on this board, where the posters asserted and brought forth quotations that the Catholic Church teaches that the existence of God can be known by purely rational reasoning, without appealing to faith. *

Well, it teaches nothing of the sort. It does teach that one can use reason to show ways that God’s existence is shown in the world, but it is heresy to claim that God’s existence is a logically necessary fact.

 

[abucs]

Ateista,

Quote:
By the way, your picture of viewing consecutive events brings up another point: something that had not happened yet, cannot be seen even if viewed “outside” time.

But by making this statement, aren’t you binding this place ‘outside our time’ to our time which would be a contradiction ?

When we reason of things in this universe usually we do it from our perspective of a material reality with time being the starting point. However science seems to say that our origin, or the real reality if you like, is beyond our time. As such we can still reason but we have to let go of our usual thoughts of our physical material reality and time as the defaults to be measured with.

In effect we have to think as if we are trapped within an artificial time and space bubble where our time flows relative to our consciousness. And our consciousness (where our reason comes from) flows relative to our space-time. For the originating reality everything may have already happened relative to how we would experience events, otherwise as i said at the start, you are binding our time to theirs which is an internal contradiction of the term ‘beyond time’.

I re-iterate from the earlier post. We don’t know how things work outside our bubble that science says we were started from so many billions of years ago (relative to our consciousness right now).

On a different point, the issues you raise are valid from how we experience time, they may or may not be valid from outside our time where science said we were created from.

If they are valid, then the definition of God, as i defined it above, with some sort of TIME component gets around the issues you rightly raise - does it not ?

Respect.

 

[itinerant1]

Now comes the 64 thousand dollar question: How can an entity outside time be able to “act”? Any action presupposes a “change”. Action without change is an oxymoron. And any change presupposes a time, a “before” the change (or action) and an “after” the change (or action).

Well, if your argument disproves the existence of God, then nothing matters, not even your argument to disprove the existence of God.

On the other hand, thank God there is one fatal weakness in your argument. You have conceived “action” and “change” only as would a physicist. The physicist’s approach circumscribes reality to the limitations of what the human mind can represent to itself. Of course, Protagoras would not have a problem with this since he believed man to be the measure of all things.

It is strictly true, according to human experience, that all action involves change. We have no experience with action that does not involve change. Now, here is where we move beyond our ancient friend, Protagoras.

The ontological requirement of a prime mover, a first mover who remains unmoved, requires us to posit a type of action that does not involve change. But the mind rebels at such a notion. No matter how hard we try, we cannot imagine an action without change. We remain at the level of contradictory and impossible notions just as long as we rely on the imagination or mental image (phantasm) to help us understand this paradox.

We must now transcend the angst generated by our square circle. :banghead:

The next step upwards requires a turning away from mental images. We must ask ourselves, “What kind of action is this that involves no change whatsoever?” We now find ourselves at a loss to put an answer into words because this kind of action is not a part of human experience. Still, we must take into account the compelling philosophical reasons, (not to mention theological), for positing the existence of a type of action that utterly transcends our limited concept of action that is derived from experience of finite being. We now realize that man is not the measure of all things.

So, when do I get my 64 thousand dollars?

itinerant1 :tiphat:

 

[ateista]

Wow, you posts are most enlightening and entertaining. Even the ancient Greeks recognized the presence of the soul, as have virtually every other religion in the world (even if they do not call it a “soul”: aura, chi, life force, etc.), the fact that you don’t recognize the presence definitely leaves you in the minority. Are you seriously to tell me that you truly believe that 99% of people throughout the entire history of mankind have gotten it wrong and all of sudden you have got it all figured out? I will pray for you.

Ever since when was reality decided my majority vote?

 

[ateista]

We can try to sharpen what we mean, but we’re not going to be about to describe what they mean in themselves. No matter how careful you are, you are not going to be able to craft a truly two-dimensional object out of a three-dimensional figure.

I’m sorry you think so. All these concepts are human concepts. If we cannot decide what they mean, then there can be no meaningful conversation. Moreover, if you don’t know what those attributes mean (even if your understanding is different than mine) then on what grounds did you quote them even as approximations?

As I said before, an adequate definition is something that allows mutual understanding. It may be an approximation, for sure, but within its scope it must be unambiguous.

Besides, I think that most concepts can be defined with perfect clarity. The concept of “absolute zero” as a physical example, or the concept of “numbers” as an abstract one. The alleged attributes of God are not exceptions. Either they are meaningful or not. If they are meaningful approximations then they can be discussed. If they are not then by your definition God is meaningless.

Not really. I mean, “knowledge” per se? No, not at all. We don’t know anything about the real world that isn’t contingent on beliefs.

I wonder what the word “belief” means to you? I suspect that your meaning may be different from mine. By the way, do you know with Cartesian certainty that everything is contingent on beliefs? Or is that just another belief? We have to be careful with the universal operator, its usage can easily lead to Bertrand-type of paradoxes - like the one above.

Wrong. At the very least, it requires belief in the law of noncontradiction. Otherwise, all bets are off. Additionally, “our” presupposes multiple people, which is a belief that can be questioned even while staying within the boundaries of logic. In fact, even if you presuppose the law of noncontradiction, nothing follows from this alone except 1) I am have experiences, and 2) I exist. You can’t even say “I existed/had experiences in the past,” or “I will continue to have experiences in the future,” because those require additional beliefs.

Same question as above. Though you did say that “I exist” is accepted as valid knowledge, so you discredited your prior assumptions that we cannot know anything without a “belief”.

Well, it teaches nothing of the sort. It does teach that one can use reason to show ways that God’s existence is shown in the world, but it is heresy to claim that God’s existence is a logically necessary fact.

I would agree with you and not the other posters who claim otherwise.

 

[ateista]

By the way, your picture of viewing consecutive events brings up another point: something that had not happened yet, cannot be seen even if viewed “outside” time.

Sure I do, but there is no contradiction. As a matter of fact, the opposite leads to a contradiction.

Let’s say that I am “mapping” this world to the “outside”. A “mapping” is necessary if there is to be any meaning to the concept that God “views” our existence.

The phrase “view” is just another way to express “gaining knowledge”. The problem is that it is meaningless to say to have knowledge about something that does not exist. What possible meaning can be attributed to a proposition: “God has information (knowledge) about an event which has not happened”, or “God has information about an object that does not exist”?

I hope we can agree that such propositions are truly meaningless.

Now, if the future has already happened - from God’s perspective, and has not yet happened - from our perspective, then you really have a contradiction. The same thing (future) in the same respect (existence) both happened and did not happen, depending on the vantage point of observation.

And that is a contradiction.

Obviously it is quite possible that two observers will glean different information about the attributes of the observed phenomenon based upon their vantage points. But “existence” is not an attribute. It either “is”, or “is not”, regardless of the observers.

When we reason of things in this universe usually we do it from our perspective of a material reality with time being the starting point.

True.

However science seems to say that our origin, or the real reality if you like, is beyond our time.

I am not familiar with this, so I cannot comment.

In effect we have to think as if we are trapped within an artificial time and space bubble where our time flows relative to our consciousness. And our consciousness (where our reason comes from) flows relative to our space-time. For the originating reality everything may have already happened relative to how we would experience events, otherwise as i said at the start, you are binding our time to theirs which is an internal contradiction of the term ‘beyond time’.

I am saying that the term “beyond time” is nonsensical and leads to the contradiction I mentioned above.

I re-iterate from the earlier post. We don’t know how things work outside our bubble that science says we were started from so many billions of years ago (relative to our consciousness right now).

On a different point, the issues you raise are valid from how we experience time, they may or may not be valid from outside our time where science said we were created from.

If they are valid, then the definition of God, as i defined it above, with some sort of TIME component gets around the issues you rightly raise - does it not ?

Any kind of “time” component attibuted to God creates the problems.

 

[ateista]

Well, if your argument disproves the existence of God, then nothing matters, not even your argument to disprove the existence of God.

I don’t know about you, but to me it still matters. Actually it matters much more, since in this case it is only this life that we have.

You have conceived “action” and “change” only as would a physicist.

Sure thing.

It is strictly true, according to human experience, that all action involves change. We have no experience with action that does not involve change.

Agreed.

The ontological requirement of a prime mover, a first mover who remains unmoved, requires us to posit a type of action that does not involve change.

I do not accept the concept of “prime mover”, because it rests upon the fallacy of composition.

Still, we must take into account the compelling philosophical reasons, (not to mention theological), for positing the existence of a type of action that utterly transcends our limited concept of action that is derived from experience of finite being.

I have never seen a compelling philosophical argument, and the theological ones are meaningless to me.

We now realize that man is not the measure of all things.

I never said it is.

So, when do I get my 64 thousand dollars?

The check is the mail.

 

[BlaineTog]

I’m sorry you think so. All these concepts are human concepts. If we cannot decide what they mean, then there can be no meaningful conversation. Moreover, if you don’t know what those attributes mean (even if your understanding is different than mine) then on what grounds did you quote them even as approximations?

I didn’t say I don’t know what those words mean, only that definitions of them can only be approximations. A definition can be less-than-perfectly precise and yet still accurate. For example, it is accurate to call a kitten an animal, and yet this is not a precise definition.

Besides, I think that most concepts can be defined with perfect clarity. The concept of “absolute zero” as a physical example, or the concept of “numbers” as an abstract one.

That’s because these are human concepts, not descriptions of the real world. In chess, for example, you can state, without ambiguity, what a piece does, because the moves existed first in the mind as mental objects, and mental objects can be simple, unlike physical objects. Similarly, the concept of “1.” We are not describing a real-world object, but something we can define a priori. Absolute zero? No one’s seen it! We don’t even know if it’s possible without a completely empty universe!

I wonder what the word "belief" means to you? I suspect that your meaning may be different from mine.

I take it to mean “that which you assert without proof,” at least in the sense relevant to this discussion.

By the way, do you know with Cartesian certainty that everything is contingent on beliefs? Or is that just another belief? We have to be careful with the universal operator, its usage can easily lead to Bertrand-type of paradoxes - like the one above.

I believe that everything is contingent on beliefs, because I have seen nothing that acts as a counterexample. If you could provide one, epistemologists everywhere would be delighted. In any case, the belief in the objective existence of the world is no more nor no less a belief than in the existence of God.

Same question as above. Though you did say that “I exist” is accepted as valid knowledge, so you discredited your prior assumptions that we cannot know anything without a “belief”.

What did I say that?

 

[jkarp]

Ever since when was reality decided my majority vote?

I am asking how is possible that trillions of people have gotten it wrong and you have discovered some secret that disproves the existence of the soul? I will not expect an answer to that question because it is obvious that you are not capable of a civil discourse with someone who has consistently pointed out flaws within your reasoning.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that one’s initial reaction to the truth is generally anger; perhaps my statements have struck a chord?

 

[abucs]

Ateista,

I am saying that, looking at things from our perspective then yes, time is a problem for God. But if the very definition of time is ‘with God’ such that the real time, is a natural component OF God, then God is not subject to any external process that prevents Him from acting, rather He can act because it is the very fact that time is with God and of God (under that definition) that He is acting within Himself in a purely natural way.
In this way you cannot have time unless there is God.

If this is true then it would not be valid of you thinking of time and God as two seperate things. You could however think of different ‘times’ emanating from God in which He may act.

This seems quite possible and logical. I don’t mean for it to be the truth, i don’t know what the truth is, but it is a scenerio which would explain any contradictions of God and time (such as His acts) by defining time (and the creations of different times) as an attribute of God.

God is reported as saying that He was the alpha and the omega which would suggest that time is a part of Him.

So when you do your mapping, it is not our series of 1 events mapped to His series of 1 events, but MIGHT be our series of 1 events mapped to His 1 and only event.

That then does not preclude other times that He may act in, in other realities. He can be defined as a multi time being if time proceeds from Himself.

Again. i’m not saying that is the way, but it is a possible way.

 

[abucs]

Regarding our creation beyond our time. You just have to read up on ‘time’ to see it is a function of our space (thanks to Einsteins relativity). That is why scientists prefer to speak of space-time because the two go together. The science tells us our space is getting bigger and came from the big bang when our space was at a singularity - no space - therefore no time. Therefore our origin is beyond our time but not perhaps ALL time if time is defined with God. Our science is pretty clear that there was an existance where our time didn’t exist. Nobody speaks of 30 billion years ago because 30 billion years ago did not exist.

I can’t even properly say our universe ( time and space ) is younger than 30 billion years because 30 billion years in the past has no meaning. It’s like saying the current temperature is above 2 degrees below absolute zero, or like saying my age is less than2 numbers greater than infinity.

It is our time as an absolute that is the problem. We are a function of something else. How our time gets mapped to that something else we don’t know. But we know because we are the creation not the originator the mapping goes from that something else to us, not us to the something else. Because we are living in this reality and we have the bias of thinking our reality is fundamental, we want to map time starting from us. We can’t do that.

If all time mappings are eventually self consistant within the definition of God, it might be that we are a bubble with time originating from a being with many times but who sees the physical outcomes of those times.

 

[abucs]

It is impossible within our universe to find suitable examples. Lets try one anyway. Lets say we are a transmitting station and we transmit a signal ‘S’ to a set of receiving stations and they will transmit back an answer either A1 or A2 depending if they are even or odd. So we transmit our signal ‘S’ to two stations R1 and R2 and get back the answers A1 and A2.

Now suppose we add one more step and each of R1 and R2 then relay the signal to a group of other stations who then each send a response back to the originating station (us). The relay groups might be G1 and G2 or whatever. These will relay back information exactly as their parents are inclined to do. In this case because they are odd or even they will transmit back to us 1 of 2 possible signals.

But we already have received the signals from the original R1 and R2. We know exactly (and have also experienced) what the receiving answers will be EVEN BEFORE THE SECONDARY STATIONS HAVE RECEIVED THE CAUSE FOR THEIR SIGNAL.

We can increase the signals, stations, number of stations in each group and the rules of how they are answered and still see ahead of time the result.

We can add a range of free will to the equation on what response to send back and even have rules that the responses effect each of the station relays in a cross over fashion and still be in a position to know what all of the possible responses can be and from the structure of our originating signals we can force a certain finite sets of results (perhaps only 1 allowable result) under all conditions of free will.

The different choices of free will might create different paths but they will ultimately get to the same conclusion and the originator knows what that is from the first sets of responses.

From the perspective of the secondary group receiving stations who then have a range of free will and can interact with eachother in complex ways it would seem a nonsense that the originating station can know the outcome even before they receive the signal - but we can.

If we think like a chess game and say if i do this and that, my opponent can have the following choices but i will end up checking him in this square no matter what he does and end up check mating him sometime later in this other square. There is no other possible result - i know it already. I might sit down with a computer who will go through each scenario but we got to the same result. I then have seen all outcomes on the chessboard before my opponent uses his free will to decide what he will do.

I’m sorry, just trying to give some sort of an indication that we are the opponent, we are the receiving and ‘relayed to’ stations - the originator or the chess master has already seen the future.

We are the result of causes we do not understand and trapped within a reality that from our perspective can go any number of ways but from another perspective might already have happened.
Our choices are still important on which path we go down, but the end result may already be known.

Sorry for the length of the post. I don’t expect you to reply in full. Just tell me i’m wrong and i’ll leave it at that.

Respect.

 

[dmar198]

Do you mean that the universe is sustained by God’s constant attention?

Yes.

the word “universe” means everything that exists, and…the term “physical universe” [means] our (3 spatial + 1 temporal) existence.

That works. People commonly think of the “universe” as this dimensional system, and of God as existing outside of it. I just use “greater universe” to make it clear what I am speaking of.

I sure have a problem with postulating that something “dimensionless” can have a subset with “dimensions”.

It’s a Mystery. Lol, no, but could you articulate where exactly the problem is? Or is it just a new concept?

“dymanic” means…Something that changes over time.

But when “time” is viewed from a “timeless” perspective it would lose such meaning, no?

By the way, your picture of viewing consecutive events brings up another point: something that had not happened yet, cannot be seen even if viewed “outside” time.

I’m not following. I think it makes sense in the same way a timeline in a book can show something that happened in 1950 that hadn’t happened in 1920. If you were stuck on the 1930s page, you might raise the same objection: How can this book have the events of the 1950s published when they haven’t happened yet?
But they sort of already have happened, from the perspective of anyone looking from outside the book. Or rather they are all happening at the same time. Eh?

That sounds pretty nihilistic to me. I consider a definition adequate if it allows mutual understanding. A great counterexample is “pornography”. Now that concept cannot be adequately defined. One person’s porn can be someone else’s mildly interesting entertainment.

You can’t perfectly “understand” anything unless you experience it. In order to adequately define something (objectively speaking), you would have to cause an exact replica of it to be reproduced in someone’s mind. Take a green coffee-cup and try to describe it to someone without showing it to them. You can get them a pretty good imaginary picture, but that would only be adequate if the cup was imaginary. For them to know exactly what the cup was, they would have to see it themselves.

The meaning of a proposition is whatever that the receiver on a communication channel percieves it to be. If the intended meaning (by the originator of the communication) and the perceived meaning is not the same, we have a miscommunication. Happens quite frequently.

Looks like we’ve got a miscommunication, then. And it might be a very long one, since we have already admitted that we cannot communicate it properly. We simply have to experience God to know what we’re talking about. (Luckily, I have done so! He’s my friend!)

This could be yet another instance of miscommunication. I use the word “stasis” as a synonym for “atemporal”. If you happen to be familiar with Larry Niven’s science fiction novels, he speaks about “stasis-boxes”, which preserve anything inside them from decay, since time does not affect them.

I haven’t, but now I want to pick them up. What is the name of one of them?

True, but the file exists as a set of magnetic information on a disk. The magnetic material of the disk is subject to decay as time goes by, and thus the file is not in “stasis”, since its bits may deteriorate overtime. But as long as this decay in too small to detect, it is a static information.

That’s too technical. You know what I mean; it was an example.

I do not think that “supernatural” existence is meaningful. We are familiar with two types of existence: physical existence and abstract (or conceptual) one. Physical existence we are all familiar with. The existence of concepts or abstractions is contigent upon the intellect of a conceptualizing agent. Abstract concepts are “inert”, they cannot be causative agents.

I agree with everything except the first sentence. I think any rational person must accept metaphysical existence, because it is necessary to postulate our own existence. And metaphysical existence is synonymous with supernatural existence.

The “existence” of supernatural is not supposed to be physical, nor it is supposed be an abstraction and it is supposed be “active”. That is a type of “existence” we are not familiar with. Being an atheist it is simply a nonsensical hypothesis for me.

I don’t follow your last sentence. But the rest I do! (Lol.) Just tell me what you think of metaphysics. In order to postulate that anything caused the Big Bang, you have to associate that with being “super” natural, as everything resulting from the BB would be what we perceive as “nature”. Also, the BB (which resulted in this universe) must have been caused somehow, because it is impossible for anything to exist without a cause. And it cannot contain its own cause, for then it would not be finite - and it is.

 

[itinerant1]

I do not accept the concept of “prime mover”, because it rests upon the fallacy of composition.

Explain in detail what you mean you mean by “fallacy of composition” in the context of philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God.

Your explanation better be good or I will slap a 64 thousand dollar lean on your property so fast it will make your head spin 186,000 miles per second. After which you can report back to everyone what your experience of the universe was like at that rate of speed. :whacky:

itinerant1 :tiphat:

 

[ateista]

(Most of) you guys are inundating me with excellent posts. Please be patient, I will try to respond to all your remarks, but that may take time. To compose a post may take me at least an hour. But I do not want to be impolite and make you think that I abandoned your ideas. I did not. (Disclaimer: “most” does not mean “all”.)

 

[itinerant1]

(Most of) you guys are inundating me with excellent posts. Please be patient, I will try to respond to all your remarks, but that may take time. To compose a post may take me at least an hour. But I do not want to be impolite and make you think that I abandoned your ideas. I did not. (Disclaimer: “most” does not mean “all”.)

Ateista has apparently left us, decomposing under a barrage of emails. R.I.P.

 

[ateista]

Ateista has apparently left us, decomposing under a barrage of emails. R.I.P.

No, I did not. I am just too busy at the moment in the other thread about the Modal Ontological Argument and in Real Life. With having limited time I must prioritize. But I will come back to this thread. Sorry for the delay, but it is temporary…

 

[Mom101]

I did not have time to read all the reply’s to this question…but I think it is important to realize what an unmoved-mover is. It is an entity within itself that does not change but effects change in others. How can this happen. We all have desire to know “the good”, (ie ultimate knowledge, ultimate justice, ultimate beauty…basically God) But the key here in discussing movers is the word desire. We all have desire or some emotion which makes us move to do something. (ie A man sleeping on railroad tracks as a train is approaching would most likely move us to go wake him up and get him off the track. That sleeping man was our unmoved mover in this instance. It was our own desire to save him, or fear of what would happen etc that caused us to move. ) What moves us to do anything? Fear, anger, compassion, or love…true agape and eros love…nothing makes us do more ridiculous things than eros love (unless it is ordered). This, I believe, is how an unmoved-mover works…and helps us to prove the existence of a God!