Proof that the Christian god cannot exist

[mrOrangeKitty]

Christians differ over the meaning of "omniscient". Some groups, such as Calvinists, hold that "omniscient" means knowing all events; past, present and future. Some christian groups hold that "omniscient" means knowing all that is knowable. With this definition of "omniscient", the existence of an "omniscient" god does not contradict the possibility of free will.

 

[somellama]

ok, so lately i have been pondering the theory of multiple infinite spawning and collasping universes.. basically the theory that every given possible decision/choice/outcome spawns an identical universe at that moment it becomes decided/chosen/set in motion, so both "choices" play out, this would mean infinite universes spawning and collapsing as each possible outcome is realized each time there can be more than one.

with me still?

this would allow for god to be both omniscient and omnipotent, while giving us freewill, as we can traverse any given choice to it's logical outcome, god knows every possible choice that can be made and it's possible outcome (omniscience) and at the same time can be in every possible universe simultaneously to direct and guide us to salvation (omnipotent) or to those choices that ultimately are the best for us.

he let's us make the choice, but is always there to help when we ask for it no matter how badly we fuck things up...


this theory also (imho) explains dejavu, because when two paths split, and then converge that's dejavu, like two paths that end at the same place when they converge you feel like you've done it before because you have.. at that moment when it merges you are doing it simultaneously doing it twice.


supposedly, mathematically (language of the universe/multiverse) it is possible (proofable).

-llama

 

[spidergoat]

I can give you endless names of people he didn't bother to help.

 

[somellama]

I can give you endless names of people he didn't bother to help.

hmm, well ok for this exercise i'll just assume that the people weren't helped, and ignore any possibility of their refusing/not accepting help when given or not acknowledging help.

who? are they still alive and able to join the discussion?

-llama

 

[spidergoat]

50 million people died during WWII, thousands are raped and murdered every day, need I go on? There may indeed be a God, but it isn't one that cares about helping people.

 

[lightgigantic]

50 million people died during WWII, thousands are raped and murdered every day, need I go on? There may indeed be a God, but it isn't one that cares about helping people.

I guess it depends on how much one insists free will and a lack of omnipotence be an integral aspect in a discussion of good and evil of living entities.

Having a population who are technically no more sentient than rocks or just as powerful as god may appear to solve the problem in the minds of some I guess.

 

[Aqueous Id]

he let's us make the choice, but is always there to help when we ask for it no matter how badly we fuck things up...

Or not. Since behavior is woven into DNA, the ability to make choices will be handed down with or without any Supreme Commander of the Universe getting involved and changing the outcome.

Next time there's a catastrophe and see you the innocent victims in the news, with their lives destroyed and loved ones dead - will you explain it using the same logic as above?

The ability to make decisions may be hard to understand. But inventing imagined answers to explain it doesn't add to understanding. It just follows the patterns of ancient people who applied their superstitions to explain phenomena for which they had no science.

 

[Photizo]

...inventing imagined answers to explain it doesn't add to understanding. It just follows the patterns of ancient people who applied their superstitions to explain phenomena for which they had no science...

 

[GASHOLE]

Hi Cris

Gashole

 

[somellama]

50 million people died during WWII, thousands are raped and murdered every day, need I go on? There may indeed be a God, but it isn't one that cares about helping people.

are you sure 50 million? sounds high, regardless, you consider death proof of god's inaction? so he should give us life eternal? that would be fair?


"thousands are raped and murdered every day"

really? i'm still not sure on your numbers but let's say this is true, being murdered is analogous to dying, see above, rape is the only thing you've said so far that is worth discussing, but to do so you'd need to give names, details, histories.. etc.. in order to make the case that God's not "helping" is in fact just that i need to know that you're not talking about a child molester being raped in prison, that seems a case of punishment not being ignored (for example).

"There may indeed be a God, but it isn't one that cares about helping people."

so says you, the god i know cares more about me than anyone i've ever met or interacted with. maybe you don't know him so you wouldn't know it if he did help you.. i used to be like that.. i was raised without any religion, belief system, etc.. not athiest, just never brought up... it's a lot harder to see if you don't know what you're looking at...

 

[somellama]

"Or not. Since behavior is woven into DNA, ..."

um, i don't think you understand how the human brain works, the only thing we have built in instinctively is a way of ordering and classifying input as we perceive it, all we are is an amalgamation of everything we've experienced expressed in the form the data takes as we organize it from birth to current.


DNA is just a "blueprint" for building whatever organism it represents, a lego is just a block whether used for a castle or car.. same with your embryonic cells until DNA patterns them.

"Next time there's a catastrophe and see you the innocent victims in the news, with their lives destroyed and loved ones dead - will you explain it using the same logic as above?"

i would rather ask you to define "innocent". there are victims that have never wronged anyone, never thought of themselves before others, never lied, cheated, stolen, etc.. etc.. because if you are defender of "innocents" then you should direct this argument to those who cry out for justice and punishment for the ones who are evil.

or are you saying you know enough to accurately judge who is worthy to be spared from punishment or death?

"The ability to make decisions may be hard to understand. But inventing imagined answers to explain it doesn't add to understanding. It just follows the patterns of ancient people who applied their superstitions to explain phenomena for which they had no science. "

you said our DNA forces our decisions, now you say we make them but can't always understand them? I was proposing a theory, which is what science is all about, if there IS a god, can we not apply scientific understanding and theory to him and his ways?

it seems intellectually deficient to not consider the merits of a proposed theory or discussion, especially so when one doesn't know the subject matter being offered.

"But inventing imagined answers to explain it doesn't add to understanding. "

please direct this comment to string theory, grand unified theory research, and physics in general.. i think a man, working as a patent clerk who happened to be thinking about time while riding a bus home about 80 years ago also might tend to disagree with you.

 

[Sarkus]

are you sure 50 million?

Most estimates put it between 50-70 million.
http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm

 

[Yazata]

Christians differ over the meaning of "omniscient".

I think that's true. 'Omniscient' is kind of an abstract philosophical concept that's often adopted by religious believers as an item of doctrine, one of their divine attributes. But they don't always interpret it in exactly the same way.

Some groups, such as Calvinists, hold that "omniscient" means knowing all events; past, present and future. Some christian groups hold that "omniscient" means knowing all that is knowable.

The problem that I see for that (a problem for traditional theists anyway) is that it seems to suggest that God's scope of knowledge and realm of action are limited by higher principles that govern even God, such as logic, and the nature of time and contingency.

But traditional theism wants to say that God enjoys absolute freedom and absolute power, that he is the creator of what appear to us humans to be inexorable logic, time and contingency, their master and not dependent on them.

With this definition of "omniscient", the existence of an "omniscient" god does not contradict the possibility of free will.

I think that kind of argument can certainly be made. And often has been, by philosophical theologians. But it does seem to threaten to do violence to traditional theism's ideas about things like prophecy and the inevitability of God's intentions eventually coming to pass.

To argue that God can still be 'omniscient' even without knowing the future, because nobody and nothing, however divine, can possibly know what the future holds, leaves the concept of 'omniscience' (and the idea of 'omnipotence' along with it) hollowed out and in tatters.

It suggests that even God has no idea how his little 'universe' experiment is going to evolve and how it will ultimately turn out.

 

[Balerion]

I think that's true. 'Omniscient' is kind of an abstract philosophical concept that's often adopted by religious believers as an item of doctrine, one of their divine attributes. But they don't always interpret it in exactly the same way.



The problem that I see for that (a problem for traditional theists anyway) is that it seems to suggest that God's scope of knowledge and realm of action are limited by higher principles that govern even God, such as logic, and the nature of time and contingency.

But traditional theism wants to say that God enjoys absolute freedom and absolute power, that he is the creator of what appear to us humans to be inexorable logic, time and contingency, their master and not dependent on them.



I think that kind of argument can certainly be made. And often has been, by philosophical theologians. But it does seem to threaten to do violence to traditional theism's ideas about things like prophecy and the inevitability of God's intentions eventually coming to pass.

To argue that God can still be 'omniscient' even without knowing the future, because nobody and nothing, however divine, can possibly know what the future holds, leaves the concept of 'omniscience' (and the idea of 'omnipotence' along with it) hollowed out and in tatters.

It suggests that even God has no idea how his little 'universe' experiment is going to evolve and how it will ultimately turn out.

But it isn't as if Yahweh shows up in the Bible and proclaims "I am omniscient!" and we're all left to figure out what it means. "Omniscient" is simply the word we give to describe the attributes given to him in the texts, so there shouldn't really be any room for different interpretations. He's said to know your heart and your thoughts, and to have foreknowledge of events to come, as well as the ability to alter those events. That's what omniscience is.

And that concept contradicts the concept of free will. We can't possibly be free to choose our actions is they have already been determined beforehand.

 

[Yazata]

this would allow for god to be both omniscient and omnipotent, while giving us freewill, as we can traverse any given choice to it's logical outcome, god knows every possible choice that can be made and it's possible outcome (omniscience) and at the same time can be in every possible universe simultaneously to direct and guide us to salvation (omnipotent) or to those choices that ultimately are the best for us.

I'm not sure how well that will work, theologically speaking.

A many-worlds tree-ontology seems to suggest that anything that can exist, does exist, in some alternate universe.

So given the Christian salvational scheme, there would be universes in which I accept Christ's offer of salvation, and universes (like this one) in which I don't. So there are going to be timelines in which I'm saved, and timelines in which I'm damned.

There will be universes in which somebody inherits a billion dollars and looks like a movie star, and universes in which they are born with terrible birth defects and die in infancy.

That seems to me to create bigtime problems for free will, since in effect all possible choices are always being made and all possible states of affairs come to pass, in some alternate reality at least. If everything happens, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the big picture to talk about choosing one alternative over another, even if from our perspective that's precisely what defines a particular branch of the multiverse as opposed to all the others. All the other alternatives are still out there and are just as real as our own, just different branches of the infinite tree of being.

Divine providence turns into anything (and even worse, everything) goes.

If we call in the tree-trimmers and try to cut that infinitely luxuriant ontology down to size, arguing that only one branch is ever actually chosen, only one alternative ever comes to pass, and that all the other branches are just shadows, unrealized possibilities of what might have been, we seem to have returned to our original problem. If God is omniscient, presumably he already knows which path up through the branches is going to ultimately be realized.

 

[kx000]

50 million people died during WWII, thousands are raped and murdered every day, need I go on? There may indeed be a God, but it isn't one that cares about helping people.

Get a first hand account, then speak.

 

[Believe]

Get a first hand account, then speak.

? Do you not believe that these things occur or something? Have you ever watched the news?

I understand that these are the works of man not God, that is all.

 

[Aqueous Id]

"Or not. Since behavior is woven into DNA, ..."

um, i don't think you understand how the human brain works, the only thing we have built in instinctively is a way of ordering and classifying input as we perceive it, all we are is an amalgamation of everything we've experienced expressed in the form the data takes as we organize it from birth to current.

Animals raised alone in captivity will exhibit behaviors of socialized animals precisely because that's how the brain works.

DNA is just a "blueprint" for building whatever organism it represents, a lego is just a block whether used for a castle or car.. same with your embryonic cells until DNA patterns them.

And DNA imparts sentience, intelligence and reason. And superstition to fill the void of knowledge until it matures and fills the void with evidence.

"Next time there's a catastrophe and see you the innocent victims in the news, with their lives destroyed and loved ones dead - will you explain it using the same logic as above?"

i would rather ask you to define "innocent". there are victims that have never wronged anyone, never thought of themselves before others, never lied, cheated, stolen, etc.. etc.. because if you are defender of "innocents" then you should direct this argument to those who cry out for justice and punishment for the ones who are evil.

OK. The babies who died in the earthquakes in Haiti and China, the tsunami in Japan, the tornados and hurricanes in the U.S., and so on. I define them as innocent. Everyone else is guilty and deserved to die in the name of the justice those crusaders you mention are crying for.

or are you saying you know enough to accurately judge who is worthy to be spared from punishment or death?

Yes. Babies are universally innocent. Everyone else deserves to die.

"The ability to make decisions may be hard to understand. But inventing imagined answers to explain it doesn't add to understanding. It just follows the patterns of ancient people who applied their superstitions to explain phenomena for which they had no science. "

you said our DNA forces our decisions

No, I didn't say that.

now you say we make them but can't always understand them?

No, I do not.

I was proposing a theory, which is what science is all about, if there IS a god, can we not apply scientific understanding and theory to him and his ways?

And I responded that the very notion of God arises out of primitive myths, fables, legends and superstition, and that these were invented to explain phenomena for which they had no science. Therefore, when you begin with the premise "if there is a God" you are invoking an ancient superstition, as if to explain a phenomenon. But there is no phenomenon here, and there is no need to apply any new science to explain the myth. Science has already done that.

it seems intellectually deficient to not consider the merits of a proposed theory or discussion, especially so when one doesn't know the subject matter being offered.

So apply that reasoning to what I've said and you've resolved it.

"But inventing imagined answers to explain it doesn't add to understanding. "

please direct this comment to string theory, grand unified theory research, and physics in general..

OK. They have nothing in common with superstition, and everything to do with science. :shrug:

i think a man, working as a patent clerk who happened to be thinking about time while riding a bus home about 80 years ago also might tend to disagree with you.

If you mean Einstein, he was long retired from the patent office by 1932. And I was under the impression his insight into the nature of light came while walking at night, contemplating the distances to stars. I am equally certain he would disagree with you.

 

[somellama]

I'm not sure how well that will work, theologically speaking.

A many-worlds tree-ontology seems to suggest that anything that can exist, does exist, in some alternate universe.

So given the Christian salvational scheme, there would be universes in which I accept Christ's offer of salvation, and universes (like this one) in which I don't. So there are going to be timelines in which I'm saved, and timelines in which I'm damned.

There will be universes in which somebody inherits a billion dollars and looks like a movie star, and universes in which they are born with terrible birth defects and die in infancy.

That seems to me to create bigtime problems for free will, since in effect all possible choices are always being made and all possible states of affairs come to pass, in some alternate reality at least. If everything happens, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the big picture to talk about choosing one alternative over another, even if from our perspective that's precisely what defines a particular branch of the multiverse as opposed to all the others. All the other alternatives are still out there and are just as real as our own, just different branches of the infinite tree of being.

Divine providence turns into anything (and even worse, everything) goes.

If we call in the tree-trimmers and try to cut that infinitely luxuriant ontology down to size, arguing that only one branch is ever actually chosen, only one alternative ever comes to pass, and that all the other branches are just shadows, unrealized possibilities of what might have been, we seem to have returned to our original problem. If God is omniscient, presumably he already knows which path up through the branches is going to ultimately be realized.

well what i've been working with currently is you only make one choice.., it may be possible that that choice ultimately leads us to a very shitty outcome or death, if so god might let it play out we see this and are allowed to try the alternate path and when you snap back it's dejavu since yah you did actually do this before, and you just went backwards through it..

but to deal directly with the question of Omni, i'm not saying that all possible choices exist simultaneously.. i might have worded it vaguely.. i meant like in this: you choose something, then that split is basically like a train track fork, with one side active the other side not, like you can only ride the train on one track.. it didn't go on the other track, does that make sense?

it's hard to imagine this outright, but give it some thought, i mean ultimately nothing is "real", all matter is like 99.9999% space and .00001% actual mass(something, whatever.. e.g. atoms are like solar systems, most of it is just tiny particles orbiting, but we "feel" it as solid.. it's not.. but we perceive it to be) so unless someone is with you every second, you don't have to share the same universe they are currently in, only when paths cross..

maybe im making it worse lol

There will be universes in which somebody inherits a billion dollars and looks like a movie star, and universes in which they are born with terrible birth defects and die in infancy.

That seems to me to create bigtime problems for free will, since in effect all possible choices are always being made and all possible states of affairs come to pass, in some alternate reality at least. If everything happens, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the big picture to talk about choosing one alternative over another, even if from our perspective that's precisely what defines a particular branch of the multiverse as opposed to all the others. All the other alternatives are still out there and are just as real as our own, just different branches of the infinite tree of being.

Divine providence turns into anything (and even worse, everything) goes.

If we call in the tree-trimmers and try to cut that infinitely luxuriant ontology down to size, arguing that only one branch is ever actually chosen, only one alternative ever comes to pass, and that all the other branches are just shadows, unrealized possibilities of what might have been, we seem to have returned to our original problem. If God is omniscient, presumably he already knows which path up through the branches is going to ultimately be realized.

ok so the theory supports infinite, simultaneous, interacting, generatig, collapsing verses, but it still works, since if we choose A or B, we made the choice both times, whatever we made first was ours to make, just because he can see all possible choices and their repercussions doesn't mean we have to live them all, but in order for me to be able to kill you, you have to be able to die, or it's not free will. i think with so many people that interact in some many little ways.. the actual number of decisions we WILL make are small.. e.g. name something that is your choice.. something that you can do right now, that is completely in your power.. that won't cause negative repercussions that by your personality means it's not possible either (like child rape, just an example)... not much is there.. and i bet everything you think of has a predictable outcome right?

"If God is omniscient, presumably he already knows which path up through the branches is going to ultimately be realized."

i'm saying, he knows the ultimate end result of any permutation of branch trimming, we make the choices. he can help us from cutting off vital pieces too but ultimately (like our salvation) our future is in our hands...

the theory is just that.. something to use to wrap your head around something very ethereal, just that more than one version can co-exist is enough to make both omni's compatible, and it's plausible too as even light exists in both forms simultaneously.. and some particles arrive at their destination before they are actually sent.. like the only result possible from a branching multiverse?

-llama

 

[somellama]

Animals raised alone in captivity will exhibit behaviors of socialized animals precisely because that's how the brain works.


And DNA imparts sentience, intelligence and reason...

no.. i did mean to mention animals, as they do mimic reason but this is still just structure not sentience or reason... intelligence is arguable as a qualifier since your talking a measure of understanding from which reason and sentience are possible, but not absolute.. alone in captivity.. um, that sounds like an oxymoron.. they socialize with their captors.. if you mean they have no contact with anything then how do they exhibit socialization behaviors? that would only be possible with at least 2 of anything.. otherwise you mean self preserving.

Yes. Babies are universally innocent. Everyone else deserves to die.

That's an opinion i share.. but only in the way that babies are innocent of not doing anything.. so if nothing is done what is lost? a good kind man killed next to a greedy backhanded, rapist being killed. that i could see some form of "injustice" but a rock is a rock is a rock, it has no moral action to judge, and we are but the same material as rock.. every person who is sentient and self aware of the consequences of their actions will be held accountable (that's what the bible says) but that's not babies.. it's like young children who start to understand what genitals are for.. that's more like the cut off for responsibility.

if a baby's soul just pops into the next born baby.. would that be fine?

No, I didn't say that.

you said this:

Or not. Since behavior is woven into DNA, the ability to make choices will be handed down with or without any Supreme Commander of the Universe getting involved and changing the outcome.

so if DNA dictates our ability to make a choice, to perceive the choice before us, the circumstances and possible outcomes.. then because of DNA we have to make that choice... isn't that forcing? or am i misunderstanding your point.. it seemed to be that we are what we are because of the random strings of molecules that make amino acids generate in a specific sequence. thus = no god?

yah?

i'm saying, well check the math on possible sequences for single cell organisms in a pre-life earth, given say .. 6 million years.. 3 permutations a day... 18 million permutations? even close to the maybe 5 that make life? (iirc it's in the billions), but more specifically, it's "understanding" that just for starters separates us from animals.. taking primates, and the code that designates the ability to "reason" etc etc.. what is the mathematical probability that we would branch out and hit the exact sequence that makes us the only technologically and "aware" species on the planet (aware as in looks in the sky and ponders the mysteries that don't directly interact with him).

And I responded that the very notion of God arises out of primitive myths,

actually that's not entirely true... the notion of "gods", and the supernatural was a way to explain things unknown sure.. but that doesn't mean that supernatural forces don't exist, nor that One God does exist.. the timelines is pretty much this.. everyone tried to understand as best they could. got some things wrong, some right, and muddled through.. God came and said"

look world, you believe in "myths/gods/folktales" this is how it really is.. there is a God, one actual "true" god, me, and this is why i made things the way they are.. he then spent the next 2000 years proving via the "supernatural" that any other so called power or "god" could do nothing against him (see moses in egypt, his snakes ate the mystic's snakes, just one of tons of examples).

I'm saying, this shit he said back then hasn't changed, people still believe in magic, some still practice it, and God is still more powerful than anything else.. but to, as you put it " not apply any reasoning to what God has provided" and just accept what someone tells you.. how is that better than religion?

If you mean Einstein, he was long retired from the patent office

yes but didn't gain acceptance for any of his works till much later.. i think late 40's they were still trying to prove his theorem by measuring the way gravity affected star light bending around planetary forces in the night sky. and he came up with the theory of relativity when pondering how time would be perceived while watching the face of a clock as you sped away from it at the speed of light.. he was riding a trolley home from work at the patent office (maybe 1920s?)