And how is that a contradiction? Don't squiggle. Don't squoggle. English. Come along.

You don't understand Descartes. Why do you think virtually all philosophers take Descartes to be one of the main representatives of the view that God can do absolutely anything?
There's what we can conceive of, and there's what God can do.

Yes, I think a lot of them do, or at least allow them to govern what decision they make on important occassions.
Yet they make one less wise, not more.

And so you accept, do you, that it is entirely consistent with it being possible for a contradiction being true, that none actually is?
— Bartricks

No. Contradictions cannot be true, even in paraconsistent logic. This is some weird invention of your own, that mixes Dialetheism with modality without much by way of explication. — Banno

So your whole case against me is not that my view can be shown to generate a contradiction, but simply that it is false. All you are doing, again and again, is asserting that it is impossible for contradictions to be true - the very claim I deny.

Yet what you have claimed is that my view generates a contradiction. It doesn't. If you think otherwise, show it without assuming that there are necessary truths (and without assuming that if something can be the case, it is).

You can't. All you can do is reiterate your conviction that it is impossible for there to be true contradictions and then to put a label on that.

Once more: there are no necessary truths. I have an argument for that. And I know full well that there is apparently good evidence that there are necessary truths. I have an argument undercutting that evidence.

But you think that the claim is incoherent: that by making it I am committing myself to affirming actual contradictions. Yet at no point have you shown this. All you are doing is repeating, in stupidly grandiose ways that you don't fully understand, that it is impossible for there to be true contradictions, which is precisely what I deny. It's called begging the question. Stop it.

Reason and God denote the same person - namely, a person who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. But that does not mean that the words mean the same thing such that one could use them interchangeably (although if it is understood that both denote the same person, then I suppose they could be).

Let's say I am the richest person in the bar, but the person I am drinking with does not know this. They just think I am Bartricks. They see that I have finished my drink and want another. They know that Bartricks wants another drink. Do they know that the richest person in the bar wants another drink? No. If you asked them 'does Bartricks want another drink?' they would say 'yes'. If you asked them 'does the richest person in the bar want another drink?' they'd say 'I don't know'.

Reason is the name for the source of all (normative) reasons. That's what it denotes. Most people don't realize it's a person. It is and this can be discovered easily enough. But there you go. Once one understands that Reason is a person, what we say about Reason makes sense (listen to Reason, follow Reason, the imperatives of Reason and so on).

God is the name of a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Reason will have those qualities. Thus Reason is God.

To go back to my analogy with myself, imagine that the person who owns the goldmine is, by virtue of this, the richest person in the bar, for that's the most valuable asset in these parts. The person I am drinking with does not know that the person who owns the goldmine is, by virtue of this, the richest person in the bar (for she does not know it is the most valuable asset in these parts). But she does know I own the goldmine. Does she know that the richest person in the bar wants a drink? No, she knows that Bartricks - the man who owns the local goldmine - wants a drink.

Similarly then, many people know that Reason wants them to do this and believe that. And many people also know that God is a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Do they know that it is God who wants them to do this or believe that? No, not necessarily - not unless they realize that Reason is a person and that the person of Reason would have the attributes constitutive of being God.

Likewise, many of those who know that Reason wants them to do this and believe that, also believe that God wants them to do this and believe that. Do they know that Reason and God are one and the same person? No. Just as my drinking partner may know that the richest person in the bar wants a drink - someone has told them - and know as well that I want a drink, yet not realize that myself and the richest person in the bar are one and the same person.

An omnipotent being is free to do anything, including cease to exist or ceasing to be omnipotent. Obviously. There's no problem in this. Having the ability to do something does not mean one is doing it or is fated to do it.

You’re so confidently wrong I am about to throw up. I’m leaving to preserve my health. — khaled

Ah, is that an argument from ad nauseum?

You're confident I'm wrong, yes? Odd. Why so confident?

He thinks that if it is possible for a contradiction to be true, then it is true.
— Bartricks
Where did I say anything even approximating this? — Banno

So you accept, do you, that if it is possible for a contradiction to be true, then it does not follow that it is?

And so you accept, do you, that it is entirely consistent with it being possible for a contradiction to be true, that none actually is?

And so you accept, do you, that my position - that it is possible for there to be a true contradiction, but in fact there are not any - is coherent and does not generate a contradiction?

Or do you think it does generate a contradiction? In which case, HOW?

Don't say 'this - a principle you don't accept because it includes the claim that contradictions are necessarily false - entails, via squiggle squoggle calculumus calculartum - that contradictions are necessarily false and therefore if you accept that there is a possible world in which there is a true contradiction, then ipio nipio fallatio calculatumio, there is a true contradiction in the actual world'.

Actually explain. Come along. In English. Don't say you have. You haven't. You've just squiggled and squoggled

Focus. Whether there are any isn't the issue. The point is it is entirely possible for there to be none.
Dummo thinks that if it is possible for there to be true contradictions, then there are some. Do you agree?

What? There aren't any true contradictions. I keep saying that. Yet now you ask me to show you one. Your name is clearly spot on.

There are no centaurs.

Madfool: well in that case, show me one.

What? That makes no sense at all

He isn't 'beyond time'. See OP. And yes he can, he can do anything. He's omnipotent. What stops him, exactly?

what? Have you read McTaggart?

I don't know what you are talking about.

I think God can create true contradictions. That is, he has the power to confer truth on any proposition whatever.

That doesn't mean there are any true contradictions.

Dummo thinks it does, though christ only knows why as he won't say, he just squiggles and squoggles and asks supercilious questions.

It's a given that there are no true contradictions. Note, that is something I believe, as surely as anyone else.

McTaggart thinks that our concept of time contains a contradiction and thus does not have anything answering to it in reality.

But this, I think, is a result of thinking that change essentially involves time. Which it doesn't

contradictions do not have to make mention of time, so far as I can see. If a proposition is true, it is not also false.

Why are you up -thumbing that? Is it going somewhere the sun doesn't shine? The guy hasn't a clue. He thinks that if it is possible (metaphysically, not epistemically) for a contradiction to be true, then it is true. That's dumb beyond belief. And irony of ironies, it demonstrably generates contradictions!

So, by Dummo's logic - which you are persuaded is good because you are either as bad at it as he is, or you are impressed by symbols you don't understand and words like 'calculus' - if it is possible for you to be 6ft total height, then you are. And as it is also possible for you to be 5ft total height, then you have a 5ft total height too. And so now you are 5ft tall in total and 6ft tall in total at the same time. Which is a contradiction. Good reasoning?

No. It's shit. Obviously it doesn't follow from you being possibly 5ft that you actually are. And likewise it does not follow from a contradiction being possibly true that it is.

It's simply unwise not to get vaccinated, at least once it becomes almost inevitable that you will be exposed to the virus.

Not doing so threatens the health of yourself and others who have made the same choice. It doesn't threaten - not in any serious way - the health of the vaccinated. Look up the odds of dying if you are vaccinated - they're very small.

It is ludicrous to cite the tiny minority who can't get vaccinated - that's like arguing that peanuts should be banned because a tiny minority have a deadly allergy to them.

What about the fact that unvaccinated people will clog up the hospitals? Well, the site of the injustice there - if injustice there be (and there isn't) - lies with the hospitals and their admission procedures, not with those who have decided not to get vaccinated. Take it up with the hospitals. Argue that hospitals should discriminate, based not just on medical need, but how the need was acquired. Don't pass the buck and place the blame on the unvaccinated. That's like blaming immigrants for immigration policy.

There is no contradiction. We have sensations of time. They are 'of' time, but do not constitute it. Hence why we can have false impressions - something can appear more past than it is, etc.
But what they are sensations of, will themselves be sensations, for sensations resemble sensations and nothing else. And thus though time is not made of our temporal sensations, it is made of someone's.

What? Read the OP

You have the burden of proof, remember? So you need to show how it could be that God and time could exist without the former being subject to the latter. Which you can't discharge. And asking me to just imagine it is lame and I can't.
Plus it is easy to generate a contradiction. If time exists, then everything that exists will exist in the present, or the past, or the future. Time exists. God exists, but not in the present, past or future. Therefore God exists in the present or past or future and God does not exist in the present past or future.

Subtle and not so subtle distinctions seem lost on you. First, believing something is not the same as knowing it. I don't know if we deserve every specific harm that befalls us or just the risk of them. That's consistent with not believing every rape victim deserves to be raped.

Second, if we deserve to be exposed to a risk of harm, then even though this may result in some receiving more harm than others, it does not follow that any injustice has been done. Again, consider the lottery example. In exchange for your dollar, you deserve a chance of winning the jackpot. However, if you lose, you do not thereby deserve to lose, even though your losing was no injustice. Likewise if you win; you do not deserve to win, but no injustice exists if you do. A good person who set up the lottery would not redistribute the winnings among the losers.

Why would God trouble himself to know what is going on with each of us?!? We're all bastards. That's why we're here. He hates us. Why would he monitor us? More efficient and less mentally harrowing just to put us aside and let us wallow in each other's company. Note, the very arbitrary nature of the harms that befall one, and the ignorance are all part of the punishment. Note too how little here seems fully knowable, a fact exploited by sceptics, but that also implies that God, the arbiter of knowledge and possessor of all of it does not know much of what goes on here.

"So we shall come to understand that necessary existence is contained in the idea of a supremely perfect being" Descartes — Gregory

Yes, but that doesn't mean that God lacks the ability to cease to exist, for he can cease to be perfect whenever he wants.

You don't really understand Descartes and what he's doing. He thinks God would give us a way of knowing he, God, exists. That he finds such a way then confirms that God exists. If God exists, there would be a proof of his existence. That is, there would be a way of being certain that he exists. You need to understand what he's saying with that in mind.

It would be disingenuous of me not to state up front that I find your writings entertaining & bizarrely fascinating. — EricH

Okay, now I'm waiting for the insult that inevitably follows such statements...

It's not merely the things you say, but that you state them with such certainty and conviction. — EricH

Yes, because I have good arguments for them and I know what I am doing.

Perhaps I've overlooked it, but I am not seeing anything in your posts that indicates anything resembling humility or acknowledging the possibility that you are mistaken. — EricH

Ah, there it is. Knew it was coming. Yeah, yeah, I'm a bad person and you're a saint. Does it show a lack of humility to believe that 3 x 14 = 42? No. You have to reflect on it a little bit, but once you've done so, you're justified in being pretty damn certain about it. Now, how much time have you spent thinking about the nature of reason? I've probably racked up about 15,000 hours (and that's a conservative estimate). So I'm pretty sure of myself, yes. But that's no vice when you've put the hours in. I'm justifiably sure of myself, as most of us are about 3 x 14 = 42

That out of the way, I understand your position that God is not bound by LNC - otherwise (s)he would not be all powerful. — EricH

Yes. So God is Reason, as that's how she wouldn't be bound by LNC or any other law.

Would you clarify what you mean by "God is Reason"? Is "Reason" simply an alias for "God"? I.e., could we copy & paste the word "Reason" for the word "God" in your writings without any loss of meaning? — EricH

The word 'God' does not mean 'Reason' anymore than water means H20. The word God denotes a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

Reason denotes the source of all normative reasons.

It's just that the single source of all normative reasons - Reason - is a person, and that person will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, and thus will satisfy the definition of God.

I am sure you feel that way about atheists. — Tom Storm

Yes. There are dogmatists who are uninterested in what reason has to say until or unless they think reason supports their own view. It's kind of pathetic.

Again, Descartes is talking about what he can conceive of. And he does not mean that God lacks the power to do anything. That's precisely why he is associated with the view of omnipotence that I am defending

You didn't even get the number of meditations right, remember? You thought there were 5! He does not deny that God has the ability to lie, he just finds it inconceivable that he ever would.

But anyway, much as I love discussing Descartes with those apt to misunderstand virtually everything he says, the bottom line is that i think God can do anything, and no one has yet shown otherwise.

Descartes: I am in agreement with that. It has been some years now since I realize how great Bartricks is at thinking, and how wise it is to agree with him. He like good truffle hunting pig. His nose to floor, sniffing out arguments. Gregory, not so much.

Gregory: God can't change
Jesus:with God all things are possible. Are you dumb mate?
Gregory: he can't change
Jesus: I'll take that as a yes. Me almighty! I can turn water into wine, but I can't fix stupid.

Descartes: it seems, by the light of reason, that God always exists.

Gregory: so he can't commit suicide?

Descartes: for sure he can commit suicide. What you mean? He do anything. He God!

Gregory: you said he always exists. So he can't commit suicide.

Descartes: Always does not mean can't. He can commit suicide, this is okay with you, yes? He has not, he will not - umi sure of it like I sure of own mind. You are, how we say, like a ripe brie; very thick and smell as dead rat. I insult you good, no? You think, therefore you confused. Because you no good at thinking. Ha.

Not my problem you don't understand them.

Jesus: with God all things are possible

Gregory: he can't commit suicide though

Jesus: yes he can. What did I just say??

Gregory: I think you'll find you said he couldn't.

Jesus: are you having a bloody laugh, mate? Sweet me, you are a few marbles short. Me!

I am not, just noting that they are on my side.

Well, it is possible I am ok and thus i am. And possible also that i am not, and thus i am not. I am, thus ok and not ok.

That's your view, yes? If x is possible, it is actual

Generates an actual contradiction. Your view. Not mine. Yours. You ok?

Clearly they do not. They should.

Because he said with God all things are possible. Not that I consider that evidence.i'm just noting that jesus agrees with me. First some, that may count for something. Jeseums, I think they are called.

Geach: master Dummo is surely correct and has expressoriumed my point to, I may say, a pointus perfectum pointlessium. As the Greeks might say, he is a man - a hummus - of the utmost tediousos emptous nonsomous. For of course, what one is able to break, one has brook. And what has been brook, cannot be brack. That is why I cannot use this glass or that one or that one to drink my sherry from, for as I can break them, then they must, ad fallatium grotesquium, already be broken, and so I must drink from the bottle instead.

Geach: that God can do absolutely anything - anythingius regorium fingertorium ad nautium - must be admitted to be incoherent - incoherentius noveltius rebarbitarium - for in that case God could take evening supper in an oxford college and a cambridge college at the same time, while puddinging in Durham. And this, as we know, is against the rules of all three.

There's no criticism there! I read that section. What is the criticism? Note, it can't be that such a god could violate the laws of logic, for that's just to describe the God, not locate any problem in the notion.
Jesus, Descartes and me: God can do absolutely anything
Geach: well, as I said to the Bishop of Durham, who had expressed - or should I say, expressiumed - the same idea, but that I later discovered to be a walnut credenza and not the man of god at all, if a little bit of education is a dangerous thing, think what a lot of it can do! Now, it has to be admitted that those three gentlemen are geniums of the first order, but this does not mean that everything they say is true or even that more truth is to be found in them than in others. But it must be remarked that were God able to do absolutely anything - that is, absolutariumius thingius ad meritoriam expedentialium - then God would be able to do anything. The logical problems - problarium logicarius - that this creates are, needless to say, ones I cannot name or talk about. But I think we can now move on.

Banno: boom! You just got owned, Barty!

Yes.

It is certainly true that I exist. Yet I exist contingently.

There's some confusion here. You were talking about science. Science doesn't investigate whether God exists. Philosophers do. That doesn't mean that empirical evidence is impotent to affect the reasonableness of belief in God. It's just that any such case would be philosophical and would appeal to some non empirical premises.

Not sure what you mean by relativism.

I don't understand.
I was not born believing in God (some may be, but not I). And it seemed far from common sense to think he existed until I encountered a proof.

I have already told you! That God exists is a toity truth, not a hoity one. Toity, not hoity. Contingent, not necessary. Toity, not hoity. Again, there is a horse. It has a big testicle on it's back, riding it into battle. And that is in front of the proposition 'God exists'. Toity, not hoity.