Why a creative 'God' cannot Exist

Jenyar said:
How does having power over something make you part of it? You make many "logical" assertions that you don't seem to have thought through. Your omni-everything definitions included. Not because there's much wrong with your definition of omnipotence, but because your Omnipotence and my God aren't interchangable. To put it this way: you believe in Omnipotence (in order not to believe in God), I believe in God.
Can God do anything and everything, or not? If so, He must be omnipotent. Omnipotence means that you are, in effect, everything, because there is nothing you are not aware of or in control over. You might consider that your arm, or your nose, or your bowels are a part of you, but we don't have complete control over them (unfortunately). God has complete control over them, so they are more part of Him than of you (but so are you...).

Jenyar said:
For some reason you don't include "the ability to do something new" in your definition of omnipotence. Divine timelessness does not require that the future already exists. Therefore the objection to divine timelessness based on the future not already existing is unsound. Likewise, the definition of omnipotence (or omniscience or omnipresence)does not require that the object over which power/knowledge/presence is exerted already exists. Thus the objection that the act of creation is impossible based on the non-existence of something is unsound.
I said that omnipotence was, in the end, meaningless, because you can't do anything. Think about it - if you have absolute power, there can never be a time in which you did not exist, because otherwise you could not go there, and that would be a limitation on your power. So, He must always have existed. There can also never be a time in which He 'starts' or 'creates' something, because it already exists. He has always known it. And He can’t do squat, because He already has done it, so to speak. Only there cannot be a time in which He ‘did it’. God must be finite to some degree.

If we take your version, then He has complete control over things that He creates, but not complete knowledge of Himself, where He came from etc. But then, He cannot know everything about what He creates, because He doesn't know what He Himself is going to do with it. This makes a lot more sense - it fits with the Bible (what I know of it, anyway) and with most people's idea of God. Nevertheless, He is not all-powerful, does not know where He came from, and does not know whether what He is doing is necessarily 'right' or 'good'. He might need His own God to believe in - ad infinitum. He would just be a big powerful alien looking at us in His own private petri dish.
 
rainbow__princess_4 said:
Ummm, Lucifer wasn't an angel... he was an ancient Middle-eastern king who was nicknamed "lucifer" meaning "evil one" because he was corrupt. Then the Christians/Jews come along and say "evil one? Oh! They're talking about Satan!" wrong, Lucifer=King, Satan=evil. See the difference? They have nothing to do with each other.


Actually, Lucifer is Latin for "Day Star." They translated it from the Hebrew word 'helel', which means "bright one." That may have been the name of a Middle Eastern King, but Isaiah 14:12 is talking about the angel whom rebelled against God.
 
So, god might be finite. We would call him omnipotent if, for all practical purposes, from our point of view, he is. If you controlled 99% of the other humans, you would control humanity. The 1% left would not matter so much. That doesn't mean he doesn't exist, the definitions of god are human ones.
 
spidergoat said:
So, god might be finite. We would call him omnipotent if, for all practical purposes, from our point of view, he is. If you controlled 99% of the other humans, you would control humanity. The 1% left would not matter so much. That doesn't mean he doesn't exist, the definitions of god are human ones.

This couldn't be, because all it would take is a movement to usurp Him or someone more powerful to come along to take Him down. This would have happened in all of the years humanity has been around, but I don't see anyone that can verify taking out God. To say God is finite would mean that someone would have had to create Him, because finite beings can't be self-sufficient. Not even a strong, intelligent human can keep himself alive by himself.
 
If God exists, he must be finite, since infinite things are purely conceptual, there are no infinite things. Even finite things can be very large and powerful. He could be slightly larger than the known universe, but smaller than everything, so nothing from the universe could upset his position. I don't think gods exist now, but they might reside at the end of time. This seems more likely than existing at the beginning. Our visions of god might be reflections from the future.
 
TimotheusBenj, I've been working on that last point. Through several reincarnations I think I've worked the bugs out of my plan to topple the big guy and effect a "regime change" (love that buzzword). He's been in hiding for about 100,000 years since our most recent development. He's only been talking to people for the last three thousand. We've flushed him out! He's a target now and he knows it!
 
jinchilla said:
TimotheusBenj, I've been working on that last point. Through several reincarnations I think I've worked the bugs out of my plan to topple the big guy and effect a "regime change" (love that buzzword). He's been in hiding for about 100,000 years since our most recent development. He's only been talking to people for the last three thousand. We've flushed him out! He's a target now and he knows it!

Actually, the Pentateuch (The books Genesis through Deuteronomy in the Bible) date back to as much as 12,000 years, so He's been talking for more than that due to the fact that oral tradition would have came before that. Anyway, you missed my point. I was saying that to show that God isn't finite. I believe, as it seems to be, that He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. I stated that on the second page of this thread. It's hard to overthrow someone you can't exactly see. Also, what would you do if you could defeat Him? You would be risking destroying the very foundation of our world. God bless.
 
spidergoat said:
If God exists, he must be finite, since infinite things are purely conceptual, there are no infinite things. Even finite things can be very large and powerful. He could be slightly larger than the known universe, but smaller than everything, so nothing from the universe could upset his position. I don't think gods exist now, but they might reside at the end of time. This seems more likely than existing at the beginning. Our visions of god might be reflections from the future.

To whom would infinite be conceptual? To us, yes, but that wouldn't have to be for God. Where would these gods come from in the future? I don't think even modifying the human genome could produce the effect of what we define as God. For, there would always be a way to destroy them. A Creator God would be more fathomable, because we see where this world seems to be held to laws that had to be set up by an Instructor. Especially what C.S. Lewis called the Moral Law, which we all seem to possess. No matter where you go, you will find that several same principles. Such as an abhorrence to murder, rape, and theft. It's the only law that seems to be around that we can either follow or defy. Thus, making the concept of an Instructor and some opposition probable. Few religions that I know of talk of this. Three influential ones are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism seems to be an empty religion in the fact that they can't do their blood sacrifices anymore, which was the basis of atoning sins and keeping them clean to enter heaven. Islam calls for its followers to kill infidels to insure a place in heaven, which makes you wonder why people want to follow it. On the other hand, Christianity calls for its followers in Galatians 5:22-23 to live a life filled with "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." They don't call for bloodshed nor have a problem with their modes of service. It's illogical that God would send His only Son, but it's the truth. You probably want proof. Well, I would like to see someone produce Jesus' body from somewhere. If the disciples had stole the body, then why weren't the Roman soldiers put to death as Roman law commanded? The fear of insurrection surely would've weighed greatly against Pontius Pilot and he wouldn't have allowed them to be spared. Please, think on these things. I hope that you will look at Christ closely. "The Case for Christ" is a good book written by a former criminal-law Journalist, Lee Strobel. He just gives the facts that he dug up and allows the reader to decide on his/her own without pressuring them. He wrote it to see if there was any credence to his wife's conversion, so he made sure it wasn't biased. I hope you will look at this book. God bless.

Here's a link to a review of "The Case for Christ": Review
 
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Alaric said:
Yes, but not to be omniscient!
I think we've gone over it enough times by now. There are indeed some logical problems with absolute omniscience, although I don't agree that an inability to act is one of them. The question though is not about your working definition of omniscience. For most theists I've discussed this with a God that is omniscient in regards to our ST continuum is sufficient and perfect and absolute omniscience as you have defined it is unnecessary. The question can be rephrased as simply as, "Can God change its mind?" I agree that it leaves some peculiar paradoxes lying about but then I don't find that the concept of God is logically reducible in any case.

God must be within our logic, or saying 'I believe in God' means nothing.
This is an issue I've taken up in the past with Tiassa. The point I've come to is that God is simply an expression of the human condition. Like art, it need not conform to logic or reason but is an expression of the ineffable. At some point is simply must be accepted (though not necessarily believed in). Whether we're discussing God or anything else there comes a point in logical reduction where we cross into the absurd and relying purely upon logic will leave you foundering in nihilism.

~Raithere
 
You've come to the point where the verse in the Bible that says, "stay away from vain babblings," makes perfect sense. It's going to be fruitless to try to explain the extent of God, because where does it go? You ask that and you're hit with a ton of questions, which will only wear you down and frustrate you. Also, Alaric, stating, "I believe in God," can mean that you are trusting Him because you can't explain Him. It's where faith comes into complete context. One person once said, "seeing isn't believing."
 
Right, TB. So I guess I'll just have to 'have faith' that something whose existence is logically impossible exists. Of course, I have no reason to, it defies all logic and common sense, and its downright immoral, but none of that matters if you have faith, right? :rolleyes:

If you can't describe something, you don't believe in it. You may think you do, but you don't.
 
If logic and immorality prevents God from existing, howcome you are able to exist? How do you logically deduce that a specific person exists? "I think, therefore Alaric is?"

If you were proven to be a liar, does it logically follow that you were lying about your existence? Like the gullible idiots we are, everybody believed you did. In that vein, are your posts enough reason to accept your existence? Common sense would say yes, but then that's a contradiction, isn't it? And we all know what those mean...
 
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www.godandscience.org

There is too much evidence to be ignored here.

Creation Column: Evolutionary Improbabilities
- by David Skjaerlund

Evolutionists claim that life originated by natural processes, when one organism changed into another solely by chance. They propose that successive species of life arose over eons of time to produce the vast complexity and diversity of life we see in the world today. However, upon closer examination of these "natural processes," one finds the statistical probability of life originating by chance to be incredibly small and unlikely.

The origin of life by natural processes would involve the following steps: 1) Formation of simple building blocks such as proteins and nucleic acids; 2) Arrangement of these molecules into biologically important compounds such as proteins and DNA; 3) Assembly of these proteins into a metabolically active system, and; 4) Origin of the first completely independent, stable and self-replicating cell. The probability of each step occurring by chance has been calculated by many scientists, and their conclusion has been that life could not simply arise by chance.

The Problem with Jelly Beans

Most of the cell's important functions are carried out by compounds called proteins which are a chain of amino acids linked together. There are 20 amino acids which can be arranged in any combination and the average protein consists of over 400 amino acids linked together. The protein's characteristics and function is determined by the number and particular arrangement of amino acids. A protein can be represented by a sentence which derives its meaning from the particular arrangement of letters, or amino acids.

According to evolutionary theories, amino acids were synthesized spontaneously and then linked together to form the first protein from a generic amino acid "soup." In experiments attempting to synthesize amino acids, the products have been a mixture of right-handed and left-handed amino acids. (Amino acids, as well as other organic compounds, can exist in two forms which have the same chemical composition but are three-dimensional mirror images of each other; thus termed right and left-handed amino acids.)

One would think that the formation of amino acids into protein would randomly use both left and right-handed amino acids and result in approximately 50 percent use of each. However, every protein in a living cell is composed entirely of left-handed amino acids, even though the right-handed isomer can react in the same way. Thus, if both right and left-handed amino acids are synthesized in this primitive organic soup, we are faced with the question of how life has used only the left-handed amino acids for proteins.

We can represent this dilemma by picturing a huge container filled with millions of white (left-handed amino acids) and black (right-handed amino acids) jelly beans. What would be the probability of a blind-folded person randomly picking out 410 white jelly beans (representing the average sized protein) and no black jelly beans? The odds that the first 410 jelly beans would be all one color are one in 2 410 or 109 123.

To put the odds in perspective, there are only about 10 18 seconds in 4.5 billion years, the approximate claimed age of the earth, and it has been estimated that there are only 10 30 particles in the universe. Yet the probability of choosing all left-handed amino acids, without even considering their particular order or specific arrangement, is much larger than that!

Monkeys Typing Shakespeare?

Proteins are functional because the amino acids are arranged in a specific sequence, not just a random arrangement of left-handed amino acids. The formation of functional proteins at random could be likened to a monkey trying to type a page of Shakespeare using the 26 letters of the alphabet. Anyone knows that the monkey is not capable of accomplishing the task set before him.

What is the probability of synthesizing a protein with a specific sequence? Let us simplify the situation first. For example, if there are 17 students in a class, how many possible ways exist for them to order themselves in a line? It would take the students a long time to physically try all the possibilities since there are over 355 trillion different ways. If the number of students were increased to 20, equal to the number of amino acids that exist, the number of possible ways would be over 10 18 different ways, the number of seconds in 4.5 billion years!

Remember: this is a simple example of a specific arrangement of 20 amino acids. The probability is even greater when we consider that there are 20 possibilities for each spot. Also, in a specific protein of 100 amino acids, or in the formation of a hemoglobin molecule which has 574 amino acids arranged in a specific sequence, the probability becomes astronomical!

If only one amino acid is changed in the sixth position, the disease sickle cell anemia results. The RNA within the tobacco mosaic virus contains about 6,000 nucleotides. The probability that this molecule resulted by the random chance arrangement of the four nucleotides is 1 out of 4 6000 or 2.3x10 3216 !

A Trillion Years to Solve the Rubik's Cube

Life is not contained within a single protein, however. Several proteins are required for even the basic functions of the simplest living organism. Even the most simple known cell, such as the mycoplasma, may have 750 proteins. The list of proteins essential for survival may be narrowed down to 238 proteins. The probability of forming these 239 proteins from left-handed amino acids has been calculated to be 1 in 10 29,345. Remember, the estimated number of particles in the universe is 10 30. (It seems that the evolutionists certainly believe in miracles ... but not in a Miracle Maker!)

Many times we hear evolutionists using the term "primitive cell," although we have no example of such. One of the simplest living systems, the tiny bacterial cell, is exceedingly complex. Dr. Michael Denton describes the bacterial cell, which weighs less than 10 -12 grams, as: "... in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up of one thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world."1

Our human body has over 200,000 types of proteins in its cells, and the odds of just one of those proteins evolving by chance is vast. Sir Fred Hoyle, still an evolutionist, likens this to a blindfolded subject trying to solve the Rubik's cube. The blindfolded man has no way of knowing whether he is getting closer to the solution or actually farther away. According to Hoyle, if the blindfolded subject were to make one random move every second, it would take him on the average three hundred times the supposed age of the earth, 1.35 trillion years, to solve the cube.2

Out of the 200,000 proteins in our body, roughly 2,000 provided the very essential function of cellular metabolism, similar to that in a bacterial cell. The odds of those essential enzymes arriving by chance is extremely large, almost improbable. As stated by Drs. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, "the trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10 20) 2000 = 10 40,000, which is an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."3 This is about the same chance as throwing an uninterrupted sequence of 50,000 sixes with a pair of dice.

Hoyle described the thinking of those who leap to these improbable conclusions as a "junkyard mentality." To believe natural processes assembled a living cell is like believing a tornado could pass through a junkyard containing the bits and pieces of a airplane, and leave a Boeing 747 in its wake, fully assembled and ready to fly!

The magic ingredient in the evolutionists' model is time and chance, but it seems to take more faith to believe in chance than it does to have faith in the creative power of God. Nobel prize winner and discoverer of DNA's double helix structure, biochemist Francis Crick, concedes: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to have been satisfied to get it going."4

Dr. Hubert P. Yockey, former chief of the Reactor Branch at Aberdeen Proving Ground in England, accurately summed up our present scientific situation: "one must conclude that ... a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."

A Dead Cell Is a Dead Cell

When we gaze into the microscope of life, we observe the precision of an unparalleled system. Yet, even if we took all the proteins essential for a living cell and placed them within a test tube, we would still not succeed in producing life. A dead cell has all the essential components to function but something has offset the precision of its operation. Dead cells in a test tube will always remain dead no matter what is done to them, even though they seem to have the ingredients for life. Life does not simply consist of a mere assemblage of the right compounds or proteins.

When God created life in the beginning, He created life in its entirety - living cells, animals and plants. God imparted His life into all living things and was also the sustainer of what He made. Jesus Christ is often referred to as the source of life (John 1:4, John 14:6) and we know that all things were made through Him (John 1:30). It was through Jesus that God created the world (Hebrews 1:2) and by Him all things exist (Hebrews 2:10). The life of God is the very essence of all living things. Not only was it His infinite wisdom that assembled all the ingredients of life in perfect order, but it was His life that charged those ingredients with life itself.

1 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, Publishers, Inc., 1985), p. 250.
2 Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), p. 12.
3 Fred Hoyle and C, Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space. (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1981), p. 24.
4 Francis Crick, Life Itself (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), p. 88.


There is no way life could have been born on earth without God. The beauty of it all is, is that, the more we learn, the more evidence points toward an intelligent creator.
 
That was a bit unnecessary... Please just provide a link if you're not going to add any comments yourself.
 
Actually, it was quite necessary, because others have done the same throughout the forum without reprimand. He displayed a valuable asset to this thread, which I, and hopefully, others will appreciate. Thanks JIL51. God bless. ~Timothy~
 
While surfing the web, I found a site which relayed the mathematical probabliity of all the things that come together to make life on earth possible. Considering all the factors like the size of our sun, the distance from it, the tides, the carefully networked food chain, photosynthesis, the ozone layer, etc. PLUS the incredibly low possibility of the aforementioned post on the construction of ammino acids. This is proof a creating God CAN AND MUST exist:

One in 1e1023

That is 1023 zeroes following a one. This is an ENOURMOUS number.

Yours in Christ,

Kevin
 
I'm not sure about your reasoning here, Kevin. Life evolved to fit within its environment, and probably shaped it at the same time. The minimum requirements for life to occur are not clear, since we only have one data point to study - Earth. It probably involves the existence of liquid water, and water is everywhere. We don't know that tides or an ozone layer are necessary for life, only that we are adapted to these exact conditions. As to a food chain and photosynthesis; at some point the Earth did not have these things, only a barren ocean.

I suggest that any life intelligent enough to look around will find itself on an improbable planet, because only improbably situated planets produce life.
 
TimotheusBenj said:
rainbow__princess_4 said:
Actually, Lucifer is Latin for "Day Star." They translated it from the Hebrew word 'helel', which means "bright one." That may have been the name of a Middle Eastern King, but Isaiah 14:12 is talking about the angel whom rebelled against God.
*************
M*W: In Greek, it's 'helios'or the 'sun' i.e. 'son god'. 'God is the sun' etc. The sun heats the Earth and causes growth and evolution. Jesus wasn't the 'son of god,' the 'sun is god.' Lucifer sorta sounds like the 'sun god' or 'sun of god,' the "Day Star." Therefore, Lucifer is God, hence the place of 'helios' is a very hot place with lakes of fire. Come on, you Christians, admit you were misled by Christianity.
 
TimotheusBenj said:
A Creator God would be more fathomable, because we see where this world seems to be held to laws that had to be set up by an Instructor.

SG-what laws? Is the world "holding to laws", or did we just apply our own systems of symbolism and relationship to an ever changing situation?

Especially what C.S. Lewis called the Moral Law, which we all seem to possess. No matter where you go, you will find that several same principles. Such as an abhorrence to murder, rape, and theft. It's the only law that seems to be around that we can either follow or defy. Thus, making the concept of an Instructor and some opposition probable.

SG-If moral law were innate, then there would be no question of a choice, you would just do the thing that made the most sense to you at the time. In fact that is what people do anyway. It's good to have a moral code, because society runs more smoothly if we all decide to follow certain rules, but Evil is not an eternal thing, it is a symbolism for an act harmful to society.

Few religions that I know of talk of this. Three influential ones are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

SG-Yes, they are all related. But don't you think you are biased in judging their worth? Weren't you raised by the same standards they teach?

Judaism seems to be an empty religion in the fact that they can't do their blood sacrifices anymore, which was the basis of atoning sins and keeping them clean to enter heaven.

SG-Don't you worship the sacrifice of Jesus? Anyway this is an obvious example of the standards by which you judge. Your premise is that the Jewish the tradition changed until it no longer resembled the christian principle of atoning for sin, so now, to you, it seems empty. So? These type of rituals are symbolic, the real atonement happens within your heart and mind.

Islam calls for its followers to kill infidels to insure a place in heaven, which makes you wonder why people want to follow it. On the other hand, Christianity calls for its followers in Galatians 5:22-23 to live a life filled with "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." They don't call for bloodshed nor have a problem with their modes of service.

SG-Yet somehow when there's a war, it's "God bless our troops". Both cultures do what is expedient. A fixed ideology written on paper won't change that.


It's illogical that God would send His only Son, but it's the truth.

SG-Jesus never insisted he was God's only son. This is a christian invention.

You probably want proof. Well, I would like to see someone produce Jesus' body from somewhere.

SG-How could you tell a set of bones was jesus?

If the disciples had stole the body, then why weren't the Roman soldiers put to death as Roman law commanded? The fear of insurrection surely would've weighed greatly against Pontius Pilot and he wouldn't have allowed them to be spared.

SG- The world's knowledge about these events is all second-hand and filtered through the editors of early church doctrine. Maybe they were put to death, maybe Pilot stole the body as a trophy.
...............
 
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