Author Topic: General Religious discussion  (Read 67567 times)

benvolio3

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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #60 on: April 24, 2009, 02:24:42 AM »
It might work if you ever get pulled over by someone like Ookla...

not that I would ever imply that Ookla would give you a ticket, let alone pull you over
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #61 on: April 24, 2009, 02:27:31 AM »
If work=fine and possible arrest, then yes.  :)
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #62 on: April 24, 2009, 04:30:45 AM »
Okay... I'm confused.
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #63 on: April 24, 2009, 08:07:50 AM »
Wow this discussion has denigrated.  Let's try to keep on topic, or allow the topic to drop, eh?
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #64 on: April 27, 2009, 03:16:56 PM »
just because I'm bored, and i feel like it, I fan the flames of this discussion (not in the internet flaming way) and bring up the logical paradox inherent (usually called the "stone" paradox) in theism in general, that is general used by some to argue against it to see what everyone's comments and takes are. Note that this applies in any situation where the religion believes in truly supreme (as in can do anything) being(s).

It goes:

God is all-powerful, or as theologians put it, “omnipotent”; there is nothing that he cannot do. This is part of the definition of “God”.

So can God create a stone that is so heavy that he cannot lift it? Either he can or he can’t.

If God can’t, then he isn’t all-powerful. If God can’t create a stone that he can’t lift, then there is something that he can’t do: create the stone.

If God can create a stone that is so heavy that he can’t lift it, though, then he also isn’t all-powerful. If God can create a stone that is so heavy that he can’t lift it, then there’s something that he can’t do: lift that stone.

There is, therefore, no way of answering the question above that preserves God’s omnipotence. If there is an omnipotent God, then he neither can nor can’t create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it. This, though, is absurd; he must be either able or unable to perform this feat.
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #65 on: April 27, 2009, 03:56:56 PM »
You are making the assumption that an all-powerful being is exempt from all rules.

But if we're speaking rationally, a creature with infinite strength (as only one example), would still have to obey the laws of physics in applying that strength.  His strength does not allow him to break out of those laws.

On the same note, an infinitely powerful being would still be bound by physical realities—he would just be the master at manipulating them.  This could preempt any paradox like that which you bring up.

But this is more to the point:  If God is perfect, and perfectly honest, then he is inherently restrained, for if he says anything, he is automatically bound to keep his word, and cannot act in a way that would break his word.  You might consider that a limitation of his power, but I would consider it the fulfillment of his honesty.

So, you have to tell me:  Why would a creature create an object they couldn't move with the intention of moving it later on?  (Remember, it is assumed that God is also omniscient.)

Kind of makes your paradox theoretically impossible, I fear.

Edit:  But more to the point, you are simply arguing that omnipotence is impossible.  First you define omnipotence as having the ability to do all things, regardless of their purpose, necessity, or accordance with universal principles.  Then you say that it is possible for someone onnipotent to create impossibility.  But by your very definition of omnipotence, you have rendered this impossible.  Think about it this way:  If God were to strip himself of omnipotence, he would no longer be omnipotent.  On the same note, if God were to make something impossible for himself, he would simply be stripping himself of his own omnipotence.  This does not mean that he was not omnipotent to begin with, simply that he has the ability to limit his own omnipotence in the future.

An entirely separate logical escape from your paradox is this:  If God created an immovable object, God can also, presumably, remove the immovability from that object, and make it moveable again.

(Using standard physics models, an object so heavy it cannot be lifted by something omnipotent is a physical impossibility, as weight is limited by gravity, and anything too "heavy" [i.e., dense] becomes weightless within the context of space, while force has no such limitations.)

So, there you have it:  4 solutions to your problem:
1.  An omniscient creature could not fathomly do such a thing.
2.  Omnipotence need not be eternal, and as such your scenario wouldn't nullify its existence.
3.  Limitations on omnipotence could be interepreted as being necessarily inferior to the omnipotence itself, invalidating suggestions that omnipotence could be limited.
4.  The scenario you give is a physical impossibility, and such a scenario is absolutely incomprehensible physically.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2009, 04:20:08 PM by The Jade Knight »
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #66 on: April 27, 2009, 04:43:46 PM »
But let me give you the solution I find most elegant of all (drawing from my 3rd solution, with a dash of Islamic philosophy thrown in):

Let's assume your scenario:  An omnipotent being.  He creates something that he cannot lift/move.

What does the existence of the object that he cannot lift/move depend on?  It depends on his will.  Without God's will, the unmoveable object could not exist to begin with.  Logically (as God is omnipotent), the object cannot remain unmoveable without God's will.  And so the immovability of the object is tied direclty to God's willing it to be so.  The moment God wills otherwise, the object is no longer immovable to God, and God can move it.

The only possible way for an irresistable force and an immovable object to exist at the exact same time would be for God to will it so: the existance of both depend on God, and so if God were to create an irresistable force and an immovable object, it would be the will of God as to what followed when they met (whether the object was moved or the force was resisted)—and an assumption that they can be both irresistable and immoveable upon meeting at the same time makes the assumption that God would will himself to act in direct contradiction of his own will.  This is tantamount to suggesting that God can be God without being God.  It's a logical impossibility.
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #67 on: April 27, 2009, 05:10:26 PM »
But let me give you the solution I find most elegant of all (drawing from my 3rd solution, with a dash of Islamic philosophy thrown in):

Let's assume your scenario:  An omnipotent being.  He creates something that he cannot lift/move.

What does the existence of the object that he cannot lift/move depend on?  It depends on his will.  Without God's will, the unmoveable object could not exist to begin with.  Logically (as God is omnipotent), the object cannot remain unmoveable without God's will.  And so the immovability of the object is tied direclty to God's willing it to be so.  The moment God wills otherwise, the object is no longer immovable to God, and God can move it.

The only possible way for an irresistable force and an immovable object to exist at the exact same time would be for God to will it so: the existance of both depend on God, and so if God were to create an irresistable force and an immovable object, it would be the will of God as to what followed when they met (whether the object was moved or the force was resisted)—and an assumption that they can be both irresistable and immoveable upon meeting at the same time makes the assumption that God would will himself to act in direct contradiction of his own will.  This is tantamount to suggesting that God can be God without being God.  It's a logical impossibility.

the definition of omnimpotence implies that the creature can do anything, so if the creature can will itself able to do something previously established it couldn't do, then it, in fact, can do it. This paradox applies to an omnipotent being able to create limits upon itself, since it can do everything, it should be able to create things that it cannot do/use/whatever, which means it cannot be omnipotent, since it cannot do what it just created.

Note that this paradox is referred to as the omnipotence paradox, and the one i gave is just the most common example, it need not apply to rocks (this was the common example in the past before the properties of space were known). This has been argued for centuries, with both sides bringing up many differing points.

It basically boils down to "Can an omnipotent being create something it can't do? If so, it isnt omnipotent, because it cant do that. If not, it isnt omnipotent because it can't create that."

Wikipedia has a rather good article on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox which is an interesting read, if nothing.
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benvolio3

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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #68 on: April 27, 2009, 10:43:05 PM »
But then again... you are looking at it with your own point of view and your own humanly perspectives of rules and physical laws. What's to say that something omnipotent--God in this case--plays by our rules. Since we clearly are not omnipotent and we cannot judge for one that is omnipotent (since no one can set a standard but that one single omnipotent being), who's to say that it can't judge for it's own laws. And in that situation, paradoxes according to us are not necessarily paradoxes to another, omnipotent being.

does that make sense? because I don't know if it did...
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #69 on: April 28, 2009, 03:40:56 AM »
the definition of omnimpotence implies that the creature can do anything, so if the creature can will itself able to do something previously established it couldn't do, then it, in fact, can do it. This paradox applies to an omnipotent being able to create limits upon itself, since it can do everything, it should be able to create things that it cannot do/use/whatever, which means it cannot be omnipotent, since it cannot do what it just created.

You're making several faulty assumptions, including that omnipotence must somehow be a permanent feature.  And you also must realize that, logically, when an omnipotent person wills to temporarily not be omnipotent, their lack of omnipotence depends on their will.  Were they to will themselves to permenantly no longer be omnipotent, then they would no longer be omnipotent; this does not deny previous omnipotence any more than seeing a dead creature denies previous life in that creature.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2009, 03:44:05 AM by The Jade Knight »
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #70 on: April 28, 2009, 05:31:19 AM »
benvolio: that actually made tons of sense for said discussion.

benvolio3

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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #71 on: April 28, 2009, 06:20:48 AM »
YAY! My giddiness level just skyrocketed ten points!
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #72 on: April 28, 2009, 06:23:17 AM »
Figured I'd just throw out the old obligatory Lewis quote:

His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.

If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.'

"It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.


In short, I suspect you gents are overanalyzing the issue. I have difficulty believing that omnipotence is so legalistic as you describe. You make a point, Benvolio, but it's applicable to your position as well: what's to say we have the definition of omnipotence right? In fact, I don't think 'we' do.

It is a  tenet of my faith that God is internally consistent. I find it difficult to believe he would break his own laws or go about doing incomprehensible nonsense. Of course you're free to believe whatever you want, but I think my understanding is rather more consistent with the idea of a perfect being.
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The Jade Knight

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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #73 on: April 28, 2009, 06:25:40 AM »
Well put, Epistemological.
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Re: General Religious discussion
« Reply #74 on: April 28, 2009, 08:11:24 PM »
Here's a question are we an ant farm or does god really care...and if he cares where do other sentient beings (aliens and the like) fit in to the big picture?
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