God Is Self-contradictory. Hence, God Doesn’t Exist.

[S.A.M.]

Wait, wait, wait.

EVERYTHING is just perception! Our only way to apprehend the nature of what is not-us is to percieve it. We push a "thing" over and we see it fall. We watch others push things over and see them fall. We make a generalization about pushing things over, namely that they will fall. That's all we can expect, and that's all that science claims to deliver.

I'll ask this again and maybe I'll get a coherent response this time.

If our only way to apprehend the nature of what is not-us it to percieve it, then how will you ever "know" that you have percieved "reality", keeping in mind that reality is defined by that which we percieve as opposed to imagine.

Damn, I'm confused! Out of my depth!! help.

 

[TruthSeeker]

'Lao Tzu' got right what?

The Tao.

 

[TruthSeeker]

What if space and time are just perception?

You first say you agree with him and then you disagree?

 

[TruthSeeker]

TruthSeeker: "...How does the reality of your doubt make anything real?...".

The reality of your doubt implies as a necessary consequence the reality
of time, the reality of space, the reality of the law of identity, the reality
of the law of contradiction, and the reality of the law of excluded middle.
Otherwise, your doubt cannot be real and it would not work.

How do you know you are not imagining your doubt? I have doubted while dreaming. Does that make my dreams more real then what we call "reality"?

TruthSeeker: "...How do you know? What if we have solipcism?
What if the anatomy is the same, but the brains are used in different ways? It's like computers that have same hardware, but different softwares. Something that runs in a Microsoft may not run in a Machintosh...".

If their structure is the same, then their functions must be the same.

They are not necessarily compatible. What is true to one is not necessarily true to the other. Maybe some of the functions must be the same, but certainly not all. Otherwise, they would be compatible. Same hardware does not imply same software.

As for 'solipcism', it is what the Cartesian argument is all about.

So what? No proof or disproff there...

TruthSeeker: "...Of perceived realities, yes. That doesn't prove that what we perceive to be outside is indeed what outside is".

And doesn't mean it is not outside either.
We have to check and re-check for that.
That is what the Scientific Method is for.

Sure

 

[AAF]

See why can't you talk like this everywhere? This is a great argument.

Hi samcdkey:

If you were the Grand Mufti of Mecca, you would,
certainly, make your religion look good.

'Why can't'?

Well, as you know, the tone of a discussion is set
by (pros & cons) working together, not by one of
them alone.

 

[S.A.M.]

Hi samcdkey:

If you were the Grand Mufti of Mecca, you would,
certainly, make your religion look good.

'Why can't'?

Well, as you know, the tone of a discussion is set
by (pros & cons) working together, not by one of
them alone.

Not when I'm a poster

 

[Teg]

God is a redundant entity. Because it's much simpler to assume that the world is eternal. The hypothesis of Creator explains nothing. It simply pushes the PROBLEM one floor upstairs! It's futile and redundant.

Perfectly stated. I have generated similar remarks in many of my conversations. But of course it is just such a logical conclusion that independent invention seems too cliche (as redundant as that statement may be).

It is difficult talking about infinities such as eternity CG. As I said Augustus wrestled with this in the 5thC (they had no television then, so they had to do something). His conclusion was that God is present fully in each moment of time (e.g. at 2:30), but also exists outside time - is not confined by time. I suppose a modern image would be a higher dimension whereby all of our space/time exists as a finite object in that dimension. In theory God must exist in all physical dimensions and also be beyond even them.

The most compelling advantage to fiction is the infinite way in which a given story can be imagined. Truth and naturalistic observation have nothing to do with the deus ex and otherwise abberational nature of pure imagination.

It's the equivalent of building an imaginary tank that is always somehow better than that of other children. Improvisation is a very compelling worldview, but alas it is wholly irreconcilable with the concrete reality of observation.

Just because Hume says that the laws of nature can go out of wack and choose not to apply at any given moment, there is insufficient justification in such an unnatural philosophy. In the real reality there is nothing but pure reason. It is how actual humans opperate. No predictive outcomes are based on supernatural or metaphysical philosophy. No one builds a car based on faith. Every activity of your life is governed by the science of humans. Unless you live in a tree, bare naked, and munch on grub worms.

If there ever was a God, he probably got stuck in Planck time and died there because that must have been pure hell.

 

[AAF]

Not when I'm a poster

Yes, but not by much!

 

[Regulus]

The one thing I must say is the idea of God contradicting itself due to our human logic is no more ridiculous than the laws of the Universe and everything eventuating out of chance, which in itself, inexoribly does not exist.

Athiests and believers alike are both left to their own paradox. And in the end all that is left is for us is to just wait and see. Only in death will we ever know, or.... if there is no life after death, then we will never know.

And to simply say God is fake becuz you can't understand how God can do the things God can do is inconclusive.

If it's infinitely complex, then it's complexity to you is undescribable, otherwise it wouldn't exist as the being it is.

Both athiests and believers have a contradictory on their side, and we will never know, until we die, or we just will never know. I myself am a believer, but base it off of supernatural experience.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Truth cannot be understood- it can only be experienced.

...
Therefore, it follows that life is not to be understood- it is to be experienced.

 

[AAF]

The Tao.

As it's clear from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao
the TAO is what the Taoists want it to be.

In it, there is no sense of proof,
no sense of formal argument, no sense of
natural law, and no sense of logic.

Therefore, the idea of the Tao is somewhere
between poetry and religious pronouncements.

Right?

 

[Regulus]

Truth cannot be understood- it can only be experienced.

...
Therefore, it follows that life is not to be understood- it is to be experienced.

That's a very good way of putting it. I like your explanations TruthSeeker.

 

[TruthSeeker]

The Tao has very clear attributes.

 

[TruthSeeker]

The concept of Tao is based upon the understanding that the only constant in the universe is change, (ie. I Ching, the "Book of Changes") and that we must understand and be in harmony with this change. The change is a constant flow from non-being into being, potential into actual, yin into yang, female into male. The symbol of the Tao, called the is the yin yang confluently flowing into itself in a circle.

That's wrong, btw. They follow each other. Yin is not always transformed into Yang. They are cyclical in nature, and always in balance.

But, still, that is the dualist perception. Not exactly what I talk about here...

 

[AAF]

The one thing I must say is the idea of God contradicting itself due to our human logic is no more ridiculous than the laws of the Universe and everything eventuating out of chance, which in itself, inexoribly does not exist............Both athiests and believers have a contradictory on their side, and we will never know, until we die, or we just will never know. I myself am a believer, but base it off of supernatural experience.

Hi Regulus:

The compromise above is, probably, good for social
peace and social harmony. But it is not good at all for
examining the truth of theories, ideologies, and worldviews.
Because simply it is not true.

Above all, 'our human logic' is the only logic we
know of, and cannot be dismissed this easy on the basis
of the assumption that 'it might be other types of logic
out there'. That is because such an ad-hoc assumption can
only be valid and true, if and only if 'our human logic'
is valid and universal.

In addition, the 'idea of God' is contradictory
and absurd, not because we want to, but because
it can be proven, beyond any doubt, that it is
self-contradictory and absurd by even using no more than a simple
'Reductio ad absurdum' method of argument.

Finally, does 'chance' mean (to you) getting results
or effects without any cause at all?

 

[wesmorris]

AAF, the tao is actually a very utilitarian idea IMO. It's "what's on the other side of observational distance". Hence the mysticism "that which cannot be named", etc. And of course any idea that's kind of difficult to grasp and surrounded in the mystery of eastern philosophy or religion will be bastardized.

 

[TruthSeeker]

AAF, the tao is actually a very utilitarian idea IMO. It's "what's on the other side of observational distance". Hence the mysticism "that which cannot be named", etc. And of course any idea that's kind of difficult to grasp and surrounded in the mystery of eastern philosophy or religion will be bastardized.

So... "what's on the other side of observational distance" is "the mother of the ten thousand things"?

 

[TruthSeeker]

AAF,

I will use your logic to prove that God indeed exist. Here it goes:

God is everything
Everything exists
------------------
Therefore God exists!

 

[Regulus]

Hello AFF

God is a redundant entity. Because it's much simpler to assume that the world is eternal. The hypothesis of Creator explains nothing. It simply pushes the PROBLEM one floor upstairs! It's futile and redundant.

Creation is flawed, but no one ever said that God can't have anything to do with evolution. Try harder then that.

Can God create Himself?
He must. Because God is not just any creator. God, by definition, is an Absolute Creator. The Absolute Creator, who cannot create Himself, is a contradiction in terms.

No one ever said God HAD to create anything, only the Bible. Not eveyrone who believes in God is a Christian. Hence forth, God CAN do anything, God CAN create itself, it's just always been. No one ever said it didn't have the ability. Try harder then a few simple old and tired skeptical view points.

But that presents at once a thorny and unresolvable dilemma.

God can create Himself out of NOTHING. Therefore, NOTHINGNESS is greater than Him.

Once again, God has the ability to create itself, it has always been and is everything, therefor can't have a beginning. No one ever said God didn't have the ability. The only way you yourself can contradict God is by limiting it. Next your going to tell me that God has to obide by the laws of gravity.

Or God cannot create Himself out of NOTHING. Therefore, He is not absolute. He is relative, weak, and completely redundant.

Your conclusion is based on the way you view something as weak. If it can create itself, but doesn't need to be created, what's weak about it? And your view on nothingness is also based on spacial reasoning. You have no proof that spacial reasion, time, or shape, exist elsewhere besides our dimension and universe.

In many respects, the idea of God is very similar to the idea of a little spot, which is completely black and completely white at the same time! Such a spot cannot exist as a real possibility, because it is self-contradictory.

Actually it if can do anything it can exist as a black and white spot. God can create a circle square, God can create a black and white spot. You just can't understand it.

In short, the idea of God is self-contradictory, and logically unfounded. Accordingly, it's false. To do away with it, its self-contradiction is enough. No further disproof is required.

Nope, you just tyed yourself in another knot. It's just like said, "infinite causality CANNOT exist becuz every action has a reaction". Though seemingly paradoxal, it still isn't considered contradictabel.

So why do people claim from time to time that 'God' cannot be proved or disproved scientifically?

Becuz it can't be disproven. Your arguement is not bullet proof.

The only explanation of such an obvious fallacy is that 'Homo sapiens' by nature is a social animal and always ready to do anything to please inmates and get along with them even on the expense of reason and logic.

Really, I didn't know chemicals effected you that way. So chemicals control us. I guess that means when you take a drug you as a person no longer exist.

The last refuge for the folks of faith to save their 'Eternal God' from the ravages of logic and reason is to suppose that either He is timeless or He is living outside time all by Himself!

Wait a minute, so a being of Omnipotence has to exist by it's own laws? Gee, I thought it was Omnipotent.Guess your argueing against a semipotence. As I see it, time, is not proven to be apart of any other Universe/Dimension except our 3 Dimensional Universe.

Nice try! But it doesn't help them at all. To say that God is outside of time is logically equivalent to and the same as saying that He does not exist.

Not exactly, time is only proven to be a property of our 3 dimensional Universe. Where's your proof that it must exist elsewhere?

moreover, getting rid of time is absolutely impossible. And even when you deny time in words, you affirm it logically in a big way. The reason for this absolute impossibility is that the flow of time forms a homogeneous continuum of all rates from the infinitely small to the infinitely large all at once. And each rate of time flow implies the rest as a necessary consequence.

So God has to be infinitely small? And large? Aren't you defining it? Definining it limits it. One can infer that it is greater than infinity. You just can't understand it. You don't know what EVERYTHING is. Infinity once again like time is a description using our 3 Dimensional Universe.

Thus there is no escape from time. And life of God outside time is meaningless.

Once again, time is a property of our 3 Dimensional Universe. You've no proof whatsoever that it does not exist elsewhere. Hard to wrap around ones mind, I understand, but it's true. It's impossible to fathom, but once again we are contemplating with minds wrapped around a 3 Dimensional Universe in which we use linear minds that function in a chronological way. Your ascerssion in disproving God imply's that God is bound by it's own laws. If it's bound by the laws of a 3 Dimensional Universe it is not Omnipotent.

Yet again something you cannot fathom in your mind.

You have proven nothing.

AAF,

I will use your logic to prove that God indeed exist. Here it goes:

God is everything
Everything exists
------------------
Therefore God exists!

You never cease to immuse me AAF

 

[AAF]

TruthSeeker: "How do you know you are not imagining your doubt? I have doubted while dreaming. Does that make my dreams more real then what we call "reality"?...".

Very simple!
Your doubt is the mother of all troubles!
And so, if your doubt is not real, then your
entire argument collapses on itself, and reality
remains as real and imposing as ever. And
that is the end of it.


TruthSeeker: "...They are not necessarily compatible. What is true to one is not necessarily true to the other. Maybe some of the functions must be the same, but certainly not all. Otherwise, they would be compatible. Same hardware does not imply same software....".

Software produced by programmers, not by hardware.

The point is, the main argument for solipsism that 'every
mind is an island by itself' cannot be true if the generators
of thought, ideas, and feelings (the brains) are physiologically
the same. Because, same causes always give same effects.


TruthSeeker: "...So what? No proof or disproof there...".

You can choose, if you want to, that no proof or disproof in
the world can satisfy you. And you can always say
"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence",
and get away with it. After all, you are being born to be free.


TruthSeeker: "...Sure".

If you, in fact, agree that the scientific method
should be used on 'case by case' basis to determine
what is real and part of physical reality, and what is
imaginary and illusory, then you are not really a
hyper sceptic about reality. Trust me!