Being omnipotent indicates that, “For every x, (x is an ability/capability & is logically possible) -> s has x" — xinye
Is there such a thing as “a rock that God cannot lift”? (it either exists or it doesn't exist)
If there is no such rock, then -> god cannot create a rock that he cannot lift (because such rock does not exist) -> god is not omnipotent (because he cannot create the rock) — xinye
Premise: God is omnipotent.
1)Is there such a thing as “a rock that God cannot lift”? (it either exists or it doesn't exist)
If there is no such rock, then -> god cannot create a rock that he cannot lift (because such rock does not exist) -> god is not omnipotent (because he cannot create the rock) -> which contradicts the original Premise
2)If such a rock exists, can God create such a stone? (he can or he can’t)
If he can, then -> god can make such stone -> god can't lift this stone -> god is not omnipotent -> which also contradicts the original Premise
If he can’t, then -> god can't make such stone -> god is not omnipotent ->
which still contradicts the original Premise — xinye
God must be able to defy a contradiction just as easily as he winks a mote of dust into existence. — TheMadFool
Why does being omnipotent have to be logically possible, assuming that the definition of logical pertains to something with sound reasoning? — Isaac242
To my understanding, the kind of capabilities a being described as omnipotent may possess are far beyond what the definition of logical encompasses. — Isaac242
The very definition of omnipotence means nothing is impossible for god, and nothing is impossible for god means everything is possible insofar as god is concerned. God must be able to defy a contradiction just as easily as he winks a mote of dust into existence. — TheMadFool
The stone paradox fails because all that God would have to do is simply decide not to create the stone — freewhirl
It's this definition that is the issue. Omnipotent can just be defined as "Can do everything that is possible" and now there are no problems — khaled
we derive contradictory results from a premise, which further proves that the property of “omnipotent” does not exist. — xinye
Premise: God is omnipotent.
1)Is there such a thing as “a rock that God cannot lift”? (it either exists or it doesn't exist)
If there is no such rock, then -> god cannot create a rock that he cannot lift (because such rock does not exist) -> god is not omnipotent (because he cannot create the rock) -> which contradicts the original Premise — xinye
the omnipotent paradox isn’t going to disprove God’s omnipotence because it is built on something that's contradict itself — xinye
Being omnipotent seems to only require having maximal power, which would only require the ability to make what is logically possible. — Naomi
1. Seeing is believing.
2. I can’t see God.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.
I will be challenging the first premise.
What is belief? According to a quick Google search, it’s either an acceptance of a statement’s truth or a complete faith in someone or something. So, which is it? An acceptance or faith? Do you accept that astronauts float in space because they say so or because you really think there is no gravity in space? Do you accept that your chair will probably not fall apart or do you trust that it won’t? My guess is, it’s acceptance. Somewhere in the back of your head, you’re probably second-guessing the workmanship of the chair-maker. Is there a screw loose? Did I mess up the chair when I leaned way back on it yesterday? There was just an acceptance of the chair’s quality.
A complete faith would be—well, I couldn’t prove it. It all depends on you and what you think to be truth. You might have total confidence that fairies are real. I could think you’re crazy and there’s no way they’re real. Who’s right, you or I? Either of us would likely say, “Prove it!” How do you prove a belief? You must see something, observe it, then share your idea. But what does that prove? If I, the non-believer, saw magic, I would say it was just a trick of the light. Light refracted off particles in the air and made an illusion of magic. If I saw God, was it a dream, hallucination, or simply a vision?
There would always be doubt, therefore, not complete faith. Seeing would be acceptance, not faith. In the traditional sense, belief is associated with complete faith. Seeing is not believing. It’s about what you think you see. If you don’t see God it means you don’t have faith, not that God doesn’t exist.
So, if you see God but think you didn’t see God, then it’s not because he doesn’t exist but because you chose not to believe he exists.
1. Seeing is believing.
2. I can’t see God.
3. God does not exist.
I will be challenging the second premise.
What is sight? It is the ability to see. Can all humans see? Yes, originally. Humans are created with the ability to see. But then when babies are born, they may lose their sight. Or a teenager, after years of gaming, develops bad vision and cannot see. Then, this teenager needs to get glasses to see clearly again. Ability to see God may be similar.
Maybe humans at the beginning of time could see God. As we see in the Bible, that is true. We learn that God and Adam walked side by side. So, Adam likely saw God. But after generations of angering God and making him speak through his appointed people, the amount of people that could see God grew fewer and fewer. So, without special instruments such as a Bible or a church to guide your sight, you would not be able to see God.
The Church teaches that though we can’t see God, we can see his sign. We can see miracles as a sign of grace and power. Is that even testament to God’s existence, though? By now, perhaps, no one can see God anymore. The ability to see him has diminished after centuries of scrutiny and disbelief. But does that mean he does not exist? I can’t see the other side of the moon, but I’m positive the moon has a butt too. I can’t see a thought, but I know it exists.
Seeing is not necessary to believe. Even if I see something, I might not believe my own eyes, thinking it’s a trick of the light. Is seeing believe if I don’t believe I’m seeing right? As such, the ability to see God does not matter in the argument for the existence of God.
1. If Group A believes Religion A is true and Group B believes Religion B is true
2. And Religion A and Religion B is not the same.
3. And you won’t know for certain what religion is true until you die
4. Then, there is no “correct” religion
(Sorry. I just took a history test and history is still on my mind, so here’s a history example)
When Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, he was disgusted by their religious practices and beliefs, such as human sacrifices. He thought that Christianity was the true religion and that the Aztecs were savages and uneducated. He often uses their practice of human sacrifice as the main reason for conquering them. He wanted to destroy such thoughts. He even destroyed all of their idols and altars and replaced them with figures of the Virgin Mary. Though religion was not the only reason why Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan, it was the one thing that most infuriated him. He couldn’t believe how backwards their religion was. He looked down upon the Aztecs because he believed they were uncultured and also dumb because they thought their sacrifices of people to the gods were right. Another factor for the successful conquest was the Aztec’s own beliefs.
The Aztecs believed Cortés was a god come to kill them and destroy their city. They feared him and did not put up much of a fight. Cortes thought his defeat of the Aztec empire was virtuous because he was destroying a city with a horrible religion. Cortes believed the Aztecs were evil. The Aztecs believed Cortes was a wrathful god.
Both people really believed what they thought was true. And yet, Cortes believed the Aztecs were wrong and that he should enforce his own religion.
The only way to find out what happens after death is to die. But once you die, you’re disconnected from humans and there’s no way to find out what the dead person discovered. And so, there is no way to know for certain what religion is true.
If you can’t know for certain what religion is the truth, there is no way to ascertain which religion is the right one.
"Nobody denies that there are some people who don’t find life to be meaningful and/or purposeful. But if God exists, why is this the case? Wouldn’t God be concerned with us wanting to find purpose and meaning? Wouldn’t God want us to think that there really is purpose and meaning?
On classical theism, meaning and purpose start with God. Apart from the question of ‘objective’ meaning and purpose, we’d still expect the perfect love of God to help people find purpose and meaning. Just like a parent, God would want what is best for God’s creatures. But, what we find in the world is people who feel like they don’t belong or don’t see any objective or subjective purpose/meaning to life.
However, the problem is not just limited to human animals. The problem also extends to non-human animals. There are many animals that find life not worth continuing, and (one way) we know this is because animals, like humans, can commit suicide. The issue, on theism, is not whether animals will have a richer life in a possible afterlife (i.e. a reward is not the same as a justification). Rather, the issue is why God would have animals in this situation at all. 3 observations that can be made are: many humans find life to be meaningless and purposeless, many humans find life not worth living and continuing, and many animals find life not worth continuing.
1. It is a known fact that many people find their life and journey to be meaningless, purposeless, and many humans/animals find life not worth living/continuing
2. (1) is very surprising on the hypothesis of classical theism, but not surprising on the hypothesis of indifference
3. The intrinsic probability of indifference is much greater than that of classical theism
4. Therefore, other evidence held equal, classical theism is very probably false
It is important to notice that premise one isn’t so much concerned with objective values. In other words, perhaps every life really does have intrinsic value and purpose. Nevertheless, some people don’t see this.
It might be tempting for some to try and reduce this argument to being just an instance of the argument from evil. But however tempting this may be, one should resist this temptation. That’s because there are (quite obviously) possible worlds where people don’t experience suffering but don’t find life meaningful or purposeful, etc. In addition, there are worlds where some people suffer a lot but still find life meaningful and purposeful."
In this post, I will argue against the position of Alvin Plantinga and other reformed epistemologists that there aren’t any de jure objections to religious belief.
I will now briefly summarize Plantinga’s argument for this. He first argues that belief in god can be properly basic, meaning self-evident or incorrigible. And if Christianity is true, then it is likely to be the case that belief in god is properly basic--in which case, Plantinga explains, that god would have probably created us with a faculty that he calls sensus divinitatis which would allow us to know him and thus we would be rational in believing. Plantinga reasons that since we don’t know if Christianity is true or not, we don’t know if it is rational. His argument looks something like this:
If we don’t know whether Christianity is true or false, then we don’t know if it is rational
We don’t know whether Christianity is true or false
We don’t know if Christianity is rational (1,2 MP)
If we don’t know if Christianity is rational, then there is no de jure objection to Christianity
There is no de jure objection to Christianity (4,3 MP)
By a de jure objection, he is referring to one that tries to undermine belief in Christianity, whether or not is true. As opposed to a de facto objection, which would challenge the truth of Christianity.
My initial problem with this argument was that I thought it undermined rationality. After all, under this conception of rationality, many nonsensical beliefs that we would usually think were irrational would be rational. For example, we wouldn’t be able to call an adult who believes in Santa Claus irrational if her belief in Santa has a similar epistemic structure. Looking at situations like this I thought that if you were to adopt a basic definition of rationality, this would violate it and thus be proven irrational.
I found that my peers were much more willing to concede that the Santa Claus believer is not irrational. After this pushback from some of my peers, I realized that this disagreement that we were having was a semantic one rather than one on the actual material. It seems that what I was defining as rationality was more akin to what we would more often refer to as reasonableness. For the sake of this argument, let us define a belief b as reasonable for a subject S if and only if S possesses good reasons to believe b. This way instead of criticising the Santa believer by calling her irrational--which Plantinga argument makes a strong case against--we can call her unreasonable because she probably doesn’t have any good reasons to believe that Santa Claus exists. Similarly, we can level this objection against some theists.
Albeit this objection wouldn’t apply to all theists or Christians in the way that a claim of irrationality would, it surely would apply to some of them--namely those churchy, dogmatic believers. For this specific type of believer their belief in god is unreasonable, because, in short, they don’t have any good reasons for their belief. Moreover, this type of believer believes in Christianity (or any religion) not because of the merits of it or because they possess some argument that proves god's existence (or makes it likely), but rather for more anecdotal reasons. For some of these theists, when asked why they believe, they won’t even be able to come up with an actual answer and rather say something like “I have faith.”
Even though this objection doesn’t apply to all Christians or the belief at large, it is still, by Plaintiga’s definition, a de jure objection to Christianity. I say this because it undermines Christianity--and more specifically some Christians’ belief--whether or not Christianity is actually true.
Anselm’s ontological argument
1. God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. That than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the mind, but not in reality.
3. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.
4. It is conceivable that that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in reality.
5. We cannot conceive anything greater than God.
6. Therefore, God exists in reality.
Gaunilo’s Response
1. The perfect island is that than which no greater island can be conceived.
2. that than which no greater island can be conceived exists in the mind, but not in reality.
3. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.
4. It is conceivable that that than which no greater island can be conceived exists in reality.
5. We cannot conceive anything greater than the perfect island.
6. Therefore, the perfect island exists in reality.
My response:
1. Either Gaunilo’s argument does not disprove Anslem’s argument or it does.
2. Gaunilo’s argument does not address the unquantifiable and immaterial traits of Anslem’s that than which nothing greater than can be conceived.
C. Gaunilo’s argument does not disprove Anslem’s argument. (1,2 DS)
Gaunilo’s response, while in valid argument form, does not disprove Anslem’s argument. The perfect island has quantifiable qualities. One could measure the qualities that make the perfect island the perfect island. For example, one could measure the average temperature, the air quality, the fineness of the sand, the humidity, and the uv index. All of these values are objective values. Anslem’s argument is a fitting way to describe theists’ deity because it encapsulates the omnipotence, omniscience, and maximum goodness of the deity. God on the other hand is made up of knowledge, power, and goodness. While one can be familiar with these concepts, there is no objective or absolute scale to measure them. Take knowledge, for example. There is no measurement of the maximum amount of knowledge. This is due to the fact that we as humans are constantly learning new things and reevaluating old ideas. We have yet to discover the maximum amount of knowledge in existence. Because Gaunilo does not address the immaterial qualities of Anslem’s that than which nothing greater can be conceived, he does not successfully disprove Anslem’s argument.
(Disclaimer: I think Anslem’s argument is sound because it clearly identifies the deity of theists, however I do not think that on its own it provides sufficient evidence for the existence of God)
What I'm trying to say here is that omnipotence is logically possible only if with this definition in the parentheses, which is (x is an ability/capability & is logically possible) -> s has x, Sorry for the confusion. — xinye
"The problem of this paradox is that the concept of omnipotent(God can do everything) is faulty.
Being omnipotent indicates that, “For every x, (x is an ability/capability & is logically possible) -> s has x", but being omnipotent also can be defined as “For every x, (x is a ability/capability & is logically possible & x isn’t logically contradictory with other ability of s) -> s has x.” If with the former definition, omnipotence is logically impossible, because “creating a rock that can’t be lifted” and “lifting any rock” can both exist, but cannot coexist. If we adopt the second definition, omnipotence is logically possible, but why it is called omnipotence then — It seems that this is not the common understanding of omnipotence.
Or there is a way that shows it more directly:
Premise: God is omnipotent.
1)Is there such a thing as “a rock that God cannot lift”? (it either exists or it doesn't exist)
If there is no such rock, then -> god cannot create a rock that he cannot lift (because such rock does not exist) -> god is not omnipotent (because he cannot create the rock) -> which contradicts the original Premise
2)If such a rock exists, can God create such a stone? (he can or he can’t)
If he can, then -> god can make such stone -> god can't lift this stone -> god is not omnipotent -> which also contradicts the original Premise
If he can’t, then -> god can't make such stone -> god is not omnipotent ->
which still contradicts the original Premise
So the omnipotent paradox isn’t going to disprove God’s omnipotence because it is built on something that's contradict itself, also we derive contradictory results from a premise, which further proves that the property of “omnipotent” does not exist."
Schrodinger's cat paradox, double-slit experiment paradox. — TheMadFool
Surely then, God, capable of these paradoxes, can manage another one. — TheMadFool
@xinyeSo the omnipotent paradox isn’t going to disprove God’s omnipotence because it is built on something that's contradict itself, also we derive contradictory results from a premise, which further proves that the property of “omnipotent” does not exist."
In the conclusion of Bertrand Russel’s “Is There A God?”, he makes a final analogy about a China teapot orbiting between the Earth and moon. The teapot is too small to be seen by a telescope, and he is the only one to have seen it. And yet, no one can disprove his assertion and it must be taught as sacred scripture.
A common counter argument that Russel addresses is that the difference between theism and the teapot is that many people have had religious experiences, thus proving that many people have seen this tea pot.
This sets the scene of the argument I am going to address. Russel attacks the idea the widespread belief does not mean it is a reasonable belief. He provides many examples, one of which was the Soviet Union. I took the liberty of making the implicit claims explicit in the regimentation of Russel’s final argument:
1. If a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable in believing in it.
2. The Soviet Union had widespread beliefs.
3. These beliefs resulted in many atrocities against other human beings.
4. When a belief causes widespread harm to other people, it is not reasonable.
5. Therefore, even if a belief is widespread, it is not always reasonable.
**link to Russell’s essay http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/isThereGod.htm
A regimented summary of my argument is as follows.
1. When a belief is widespread, it is not inherently unreasonable.
2. It is a widespread belief to stop, drop and roll if your clothing catches on fire.
3. It is reasonable to not want your clothing to be on fire.
4. Not all widespread belief is inherently unreasonable.
Some reasons why theism, a widespread belief, is not unreasonable.
The Soviet Union as a generalization of an unreasonable, widespread belief is not a proper analogy to theism.
It is reasonable not to hurt people. Religion born of theism is a way of life; it is a philosophy on how to best live life. By looking to Christianity, we can see that one of the commandments is not to hurt others: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-9). While there are events that warped the Christian message, bringing about events such as the Inquisition, at its core Christianity does not command the harm of others. The same goes for other religions, such as Islam and Buddhism. While there have been individuals that warped the message, these religions are peaceful and also do not call for violence against others. By evaluating a wide variety of religions, we can see through inductive reasoning that theism as a whole generally does not call for violence against others.
A belief can be reasonable when it is accepted in a multitude of cultures. Theism is not limited to a single nation, but rather it is widespread throughout the world. There have always been theists over the course of time. The concept of a deity has grown and changed over the course of human existence. By looking at Christianity as an example again, the belief in God remained, even after two thousand years of scientific and philosophical advances. It is also practiced in six of seven continents today, meaning that the same religion can thrive is a multitude of different cultures. Additionally, considering that the Christian God is the same God as Judaism, then the same concept of the same deity has remained for even more centuries. The theism of Christianity and Judaism has survived and thrived in the face of change and continuity over time.
So it is argued by the major religions that their ancient text and writings are binding on people in the 2000's. But as my title says above, could not they be for a previous age? How much do you know know about time to make a judgment about this?
Just a thought, but i don't think it's refutable. If you disagree, present your analysis and i will respond to it
We seem to have an influx of religiously inclined threads recently — StreetlightX
@GregoryHow much do you know know about time to make a judgment about this?
I am not going to get into long discussions with people over it whos intent is merely is to make everyone Christian. — Gregory
Fifty percent of young people don't believe in God. — Gregory
Fifty percent of young people don't believe in God. — Gregory
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