What they mean is mental illness, mostly schizophrenia, but often manifests itself with religious symbology and themes. I dont think they meant religiosity is a mental illness, nor saying religious people are mentally ill.
I mention it because “sociopath” seems a pretty drastic take on the comment. — DingoJones

I don't think he is actually a sociopath, I just think that his intense desire to be regarded as a big brain atheist manifests as verging on anti-social behavior.

I regret creating this thread, especially since no one has addressed the original part of my OP.

In what way, TC, is your wife's or my mother's "experience of God's presence" intersubjective (i.e. publicly accessible)? — 180 Proof

In principle, God is publicly accessible. The ancient Greek saw them living on Olympus Mountain. I have seen them in the shape of clouds, three horses jjumping over the setting evening sun. Quite impressive!

I regret creating this thread, especially since no one has addressed the original part of my OP. — ToothyMaw

I was just about asking what the core of your question is. About God undoing his omnipotence?
I mean, what sum process you refer to?

I don't think he is actually a sociopath, I just think that his intense desire to be regarded as a big brain atheist manifests as verging on anti-social behavior — ToothyMaw

:up:

Btw, you know what D-kers are?

Eyewitness testimony' is notoriously unreliable – uncorroborated it's only an opinion — 180 Proof

Doesn't the same hold for scientific facts? We never measure bare facts.

I did a quick search. If I follow him, B is saying that LNC is true but not necessarily true - i.e. that God has the ability to break/ignore LNC but that She hasn't.

So it seems to me that God cannot be omnipotent over the sum process described above if they divest themselves of their omnipotence. — ToothyMaw

So my point here is that the ability to break/ignore LNC defeats the OP - i.e. God can simultaneously be be omnipotent over the sum process and divest Herself of Her omnipotence.

But maybe I have misunderstood the OP.

So my point here is that the ability to break/ignore LNC defeats the OP - i.e. God can simultaneously be be omnipotent over the sum process and divest Herself of Her omnipotence. — EricH

I think my argument stands so long as God is bound by LNC, but yes, otherwise it appears to defeat the OP. I'll have to think about this. Thanks for reading and understanding the OP.

Btw, you know what D-kers are? — EugeneW

No, what are they?

So my point here is that the ability to break/ignore LNC defeats the OP - i.e. God can simultaneously be be omnipotent over the sum process and divest Herself of Her omnipotence. — EricH

I think it is less so that God is omnipotent and not omnipotent over the sum process, but rather that God can restore her omnipotence at any time, regardless of current status. If God decided to make a contradiction such as: "God is both omnipotent and not omnipotent" true, the principle of explosion would follow and we could then prove any statement or its negation true. Or maybe I'm wrong - I just read about deductive explosion today for the first time.

edit: Whether or not the deductions would be true, I don't know. But it seems to me some logical systems would be all messed up.

second edit: rather, the systems wouldn't be messed up; we would just not be able to rely on logical deductions anymore, I think.

No, what are they? — ToothyMaw

Dunno... 180booze said I am a "D-ker". We are "lil D-kers" (not understanding the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics). But WTF are lil D-kers???

What can gods do with omnipotence? Wouldn't they be omni-impotent?

Who knows. I don't really even care.

How can God choose between infinite possibilities? Can he even do that? I mean, isn't OP a hindrance?

Omnipotence means you can do everything. Imagine if you could do everything, unbounded by whatever laws. I wouldn't even be able to walk. What makes gods different? How can they be OP while being human or animal in shape (creating our world as an image of theirs)?

the systems wouldn't be messed up; we would just not be able to rely on logical deductions anymore, I think. — ToothyMaw

You are not the first person to point this out . . .

I'm sure I'm not, I just didn't read it anywhere, not trying to plagiarize or anything. I don't know if hardly anything I've written is truly original.

Part of the fun is trying to figure this out on my own, at least partially.

To this I ask: do we view the act of divestment in two discrete spans of time - the span of time in which god is omnipotent and the span in which god has divested themselves of their omnipotence by creating the unliftable rock, or do we view it as a process spanning the sum of those two spans of time as they reflect a past and a possible future? If the latter, then I think there is a contradiction. — ToothyMaw

Because an omnipotent being can do anything, he can simultaneously create a rock and divest himself of power such that the rock he creates is one he can't lift. Then it would be true that God created a rock he can't lift. When a bachelor says "I do" he thereby ceases to be a bachelor. But that is something a bachelor can do. If we were to ask "can a bachelor get married?" the answer would be 'yes', even though upon doing so the bachelor would no longer qualify as a bachelor. (We might ask at what point in the process of saying "I do" he ceases to be a bachelor, and it may be that there is no point as such but just a twilight period in which he is neither married or a bachelor...but none of this applies to God and the rock, for God can do both - divest himself of power and create the rock - simultaneously).

Of course, because God can do anything, God can also create a rock too heavy for him to lift and still be God. But in that case God would achieve this feat by rendering the law of non-contradiction false - which is also something he can do.

So God can create a rock too heavy for him to lift in the same sense in which a bachelor can take a wife.
God can also create a rock too heavy for him to lift and remain God after he has done so (in this case he'd be making the law of non-contradiction false).

I think it is less so that God is omnipotent and not omnipotent over the sum process, but rather that God can restore her omnipotence at any time, regardless of current status. If God decided to make a contradiction such as: "God is both omnipotent and not omnipotent" true, the principle of explosion would follow and we could then prove any statement or its negation true. Or maybe I'm wrong - I just read about deductive explosion today for the first time. — ToothyMaw

An omnipotent being can do all these things:

1. Cease being omnipotent
2. Cease being omnipotent but retain the ability to become omnipotent again in the future
3. Be omnipotent and not be omnipotent at the same time.

It is also the case that as an omnipotent being can do anything, then there are no necessary truths. For a necessary truth is a truth that cannot be false, yet an omnipotent being can falsify any true proposition.

As such if God made it the case that a contradiction was true, then this would not necessarily imply anything further whatever.

That God makes it true that there exists an omnipotent being and that there does not exist an omnipotent being, does not commit God to making anything else true or anything else false.

To put it another way, God is no more bound by the principle of explosion than he is by any other principle. He can make the law of non-contradiction false. So he can make the principle of explosion false too.

Omnipotence means you can do everything. Imagine if you could do everything, unbounded by whatever laws. I wouldn't even be able to walk. What makes gods different? How can they be OP while being human or animal in shape (creating our world as an image of theirs)? — EugeneW

You don't seem to have grasped the concept of omnipotence. If a person can do anything, then there is nothing they can't do. So to assert that if you were omnipotent you would be unable to walk is to assert a contradiction. And contradictions are not true.

I don't say you can't walk. You could walk in infinite ways! Try choosing... Omnipotence paralyzes. "But if he's omnipotent, he could choose". He could. But he could choose infinite ways. Which is the best way? "But he could, if he's omnipotent". Yes. But then who says we are not omnipotent too? I just don't wanna show it... What use is omnipotence if not using it? Why not walking in all possible ways if he could? How does he even know he's omnipotent? So either he's human, meaning he could walk normally, or he's an inhuman monster, shape-shifting and being all over the place. You have read to many superman stories...

I don't say you can't walk. — EugeneW

Yes you did.

Omnipotence means you can do everything. Imagine if you could do everything, unbounded by whatever laws. I wouldn't even be able to walk. — EugeneW

You said that if you were omnipotent, you "wouldn't even be able to walk".

Omnipotence paralyzes. — EugeneW

Again! No. It. Doesn't. It wouldn't be omnipotence if it did. You clearly do not know what you're talking about.

And it does not involve having infinite options. It involves being able to do anything. So, anything an omnipotent being attempts to do, it will succeed in doing.

There are a lots and lots of things I have the ability to do right now. Most of them I am not considering. FOr instance, I have the ability to collect all the teaspoons in my house and arrange them in a nice pattern on the floor. That's something I was not - am not - considering doing. Yet I have the ability to do it. Yet by your faulty reasoning, anything I have the ability to do I must constantly be considering doing. That's simply false. Not that it would be a problem for an omnipotent being to do that, of course - they can do anything and so they can just as easily entertain a billion options as two. But the fact remains that having the ability to do something does not entail actively entertaining the option.

But what about the argument that she must be omnipotent in possible worlds too in order to be truly omnipotent? I'm making the argument that if she divests herself of her omnipotence she must necessarily have never been omnipotent - but only in the possibility of her actually taking the route of making herself not omnipotent. It seems to me my argument still stands, unless God violates LNC or chooses to be omnipotent and not omnipotent at the same time.

I also address the contingency in which God violates LNC and makes herself omnipotent again in another thread. I haven't gotten any feedback on it, so I don't know if my reasoning is solid, though.

To put it another way, God is no more bound by the principle of explosion than he is by any other principle. He can make the law of non-contradiction false. So he can make the principle of explosion false too. — Bartricks

But the principle of explosion would be true globally, if not for god, right? How would logical deductions suddenly become valid if LNC doesn't apply for a pair of mutually exclusive propositions? Would God not have to fix the contradiction to make the principle of explosion not true?

Thanks for responding, Bartricks, I appreciate you.

I don't say you can't walk.
— EugeneW

Yes you did. — Bartricks

No. I said you could walk in infinite ways. Im not talking about all possible things you could do, like smoking a cigarette or arranging spoons, but one thing in particular, You wouldn't know how to choose the right way. Your omnipotence would destroy itself. Your omnipotence would paralyze its potency.

I don't think the ability to choose between infinite options would render one incapable of choosing. Like you said, one could walk straight in infinite directions starting from a center point, but one would always be walking a measurable distance, and could say at what angle one was walking at if a circle was projected with its center at the center point from which one began walking, with the radius being the line along which one walks.

The existence of infinite options does not mean that one cannot choose a course of action, or could not have chosen a different course of action, or could not have chosen no course of action. After all, you could have chosen a different angle or distance.

I guess what I'm saying is that if the consequences or parameters of a decision or course of action can be measured, we could theoretically have chosen otherwise; it could have been different.

But what about the argument that she must be omnipotent in possible worlds too in order to be truly omnipotent? — ToothyMaw

To say that there is a possible world in which she does x is just a rather exotic way of saying that it is possible for her to do it. It's possible for an omnipotent being to not be omnipotent, for she would not be omnipotent otherwise. So, if one likes, one can say "there is a possible world in which the omnipotent person is not omnipotent". I do not understand why being omnipotent would require being omnipotent in all possible worlds - for that's just another way of insisting that an omnipotent being is necessarily omnipotent rather than contingently omnipotent. But insisting that an omnipotent being is necessarily omnipotent is to insist that being omnipotent essentially involves an inability - the inability to not be omnipotent. That just seems incoherent to me - indeed, it asserts a contradiction. For how can one say that an omnipotent being is able to do anything if at the same time one insists that there is something that the omnipotent being cannot do, namely divest themselves of their omnipotence? How is that not to assert P and not P? We agree, I take it, that no contradictions are true.

But the principle of explosion would be true globally, if not for god, right? How would logical deductions suddenly become valid if LNC doesn't apply for a pair of mutually exclusive propositions? Would God not have to fix the contradiction to make the principle of explosion not true? — ToothyMaw

I don't think I follow. Let's say that God has made it the case that he is omnipotent and not omnipotent. Well, now he has made it the case that there a proposition that is true and false at the same time. But it could remain the case that all other true propositions are not also false.

If an omnipotent being exists, then there are no necessary truths. And thus no conclusion of any argument follows of necessity. All conclusions follow contingently. This is not a problem. I don't have to think the conclusion of this argument:

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

follows of necessity in order to think it follows. So I don't see a problem. I don't see any explosion. i just see God having the ability to create exceptions.

No. I said you could walk in infinite ways. — EugeneW

No, you said that if you were omnipotent "

I wouldn't even be able to walk — EugeneW

See? You did not say "I could walk in infinite ways". You said "I wouldn't even be able to walk".

Your omnipotence would destroy itself. Your omnipotence would paralyze its potency. — EugeneW

Like I say, you're confused and you don't respect words.

don't think the ability to choose between infinite options would render one incapable of choosing. — ToothyMaw

If you could lift every stone and have infinite power, your behavior would be random. You couldn't discern a heavy stone from a light one.

But insisting that an omnipotent being is necessarily omnipotent is to insist that being omnipotent essentially involves an inability - the inability to not be omnipotent. That just seems incoherent to me - indeed, it asserts a contradiction. For how can one say that an omnipotent being is able to do anything if at the same time one insists that there is something that the omnipotent being cannot do, namely divest themselves of their omnipotence? How is that not to assert P and not P? We agree, I take it, that no contradictions are true. — Bartricks

We agree, I take it, that no contradictions are true. — Bartricks

So we just dismiss this contradiction because it goes against our preconceptions? Doesn't it mean god can't be omnipotent? Or something? I mean, surely the principle of explosion or something like that wouldn't follow. But then again God could just make this contradiction not true, or so you claim.

Maybe God exists, has thought about this, and has smoothed it over?

No, our reason tells us that no true proposition is also false. That's good evidence that no true proposition is also false. (Note, I do not believe any true propositions are actually false too, I am simply pointing out that an omnipotent being has the 'ability' to make some true propositions false at the same time. I am not saying he's exercised that ability. I have the ability to arrange my teaspoons in a pretty pattern - i haven't though).

To be omnipotent is to be able to do anything. Clearly it is contradictory to insist that a person who can do anything can also not do a thing. Thus it asserts a contradiction to say that an omnipotent being is incapable of divesting themselves of their omnipotence. And contradictions are false. So, it is false that an omnipotent is incapable of divesting themselves of their omnipotence.

So, in reality there is an omnipotent being. And in reality there are no true propositions that are also false. None of this is necessarily true. It's just true.

To generate 'explosions' and other such logical dramas one would have to assume the reality of necessity. Yet the reality of necessity is incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent being. Not necessarily incompatible, of course. Just actually incompatible. And thus as an omnipotent being exists, we can safely conclude that there are no necessary truths (including that one). And so if - if - the omnipotent being made a true proposition false at the same time, this would not create any explosion, for it remains down to the omnipotent being whether any other propositions are true and false at the same time.

To generate 'explosions' and other such logical dramas one would have to assume the reality of necessity. Yet the reality of necessity is incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent being. Not necessarily incompatible, of course. Just actually incompatible. And thus as an omnipotent being exists, we can safely conclude that there are no necessary truths (including that one). And so if - if - the omnipotent being made a true proposition false at the same time, this not create any explosion, for it remains down to the omnipotent being whether any other propositions are true and false at the same time. — Bartricks

So God could theoretically just choose to make there be no other contradictions, or could choose to make any contradictions they want to be true, true. Got it.

↪EugeneW
No. I said you could walk in infinite ways.
— EugeneW

No, you said that if you were omnipotent "
I wouldn't even be able to walk
— EugeneW
See? You did not say "I could walk in infinite ways". You said "I wouldn't even be able to walk" — Bartricks

Now it's getting confusing. Allright. Let's consider the stone to lift. You could lift every possible weight. There is no boundary between what you can lift or not. This means there are no heavy or light stones for you. All stones would weigh the same for you, rendering you uncapable of lifting it.

You are pretty clear in your reasoning, I don't get why some of the smart people on this forum don't understand your arguments.