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Infinitely Powerful

Well I think a lot of the ideas here support what most of us have assumed. That the concept of an "all knowing deity" and freewill are mutually exclusive.

LLH
 
jjramsey said:
This presumes that God must physically touch the universe to affect it, ignoring the possibility of what might best be called remote influence. It also assumes that God would be made of "stuff" that could be in or out of something.
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That's not exactly an unfounded presumption. That is the way our universe works, based on everything we have been able to determine about it. The type of God you are proposing has no discernable characteristics. There is no indication how He exists, except the illogical "outside of time and outside of the universe". Perhaps philosophy has no problem with such concepts, but it violates a whole bunch of natural principles.

And of course, with such a poorly defined, outside-the-rules God, it is difficult, to say the least, to discover what He considers to be evil, so again, the only way the omnipotent, omnibenevolent concept of God works is if you throw away the meaning of benevolent as we define it. We might be "starter species" for a higher intelligence and he intends to have us wiped out to make way for a future species of superminds. That might be beneficial in the mind of an infinite being, but is sure ain't to us.

jjramsey said:
Careful now. One problem here is that we are talking about things so abstract that it is hard to tell whether our problems in comprehension are due to faults in the concepts that we are discussing or due to failures of our imaginations. I think you are falling into the trap of "I can't imagine it, therefore it can't happen."
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Oh no, I can imagine it just fine. I can imagine all sorts of illogical things. I can imagine your God, but it fails the sniff test. And as you mentioned before, logic rests on the premises. One of the premises that we use regularly is that the universe works in natural ways. It is a premise that has been justified by mountains of observation. Throw out that premise, and you must replace it with another premise of how the universe works. You may have no trouble with that, but I like my premises to have evidence for them. But that's just me.
 
jjramsey said:
The same thing that make "pigs flying" logically possible; it doesn't violate the laws of logic.
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Yes, for suitible definitions of "pig" and "fly".

(Man holding cat enters.)
Compère: That is Tiddles, I believe?
Man: Yes, this is, this is Tiddles.
Compère: Yes, and what does she do?
Man: She flies across the studio and lands in a bucket of water.
Compère: By herself?
Man: No, I fling her.
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Similarly, omnipotent and omnibenevolent are not logically incompatible if suitibly defined. For example if omnipotent means "able to do most things" and omnibenevolent means "what God thinks is best".
 
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jjramsey said:
I see that you haven't grasped the difference between "logically possible" and "physically possible."
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Oh, I think I grasp it well enough. For anything is logically possible provided it doesn't violate its own premises. If one of your premises is that it is possible to exist outside of time and space, then your conclusion that God can exist outside of time and space is "logicaly possible", even though it may not be "physically possible".
 
Tricky said:
Oh, I think I grasp it well enough. For anything is logically possible provided it doesn't violate its own premises. If one of your premises is that it is possible to exist outside of time and space, then your conclusion that God can exist outside of time and space is "logicaly possible", even though it may not be "physically possible".
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Why is such a thing physically impossible? Particularly if this diety isn't 'physical', but something else, a 'spiritual being'?

Probable, I dunno, but possible? I can see no reason why it isn't possible.
 
username said:
Why is such a thing physically impossible? Particularly if this diety isn't 'physical', but something else, a 'spiritual being'?
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If it violates the laws of physics, then it isn't physically possible. Atemporal things violate the laws of physics. Even the most famous equation in physics, E=MC^2 has a time element (C is the speed of light. Speed is distance/time).

So if you want it to be spiritual, fine, but you'll have to explain how a spiritual being interacts with the physical universe in order to keep it from being a logical contradiction.

username said:
Probable, I dunno, but possible? I can see no reason why it isn't possible.
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You can't see why "existing outside of time" is, to be very generous, highly unlikely? Think of the paradoxes it would create.
 
Tricky said:
So if you want it to be spiritual, fine, but you'll have to explain how a spiritual being interacts with the physical universe in order to keep it from being a logical contradiction.
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You were the one putting forth the claim that the timeless and the temporal could not interact, so the burden of proof is on you to establish that our problems with imagining how a timeless being interacts with the time-bound physical universe are due not to the limitations of our human imaginations, but to inherent problems with the concept of such an interaction.

Oh, another thing.

Tricky said:
I can imagine all sorts of illogical things.
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Actually, no, you can't. If something is illogical, then it cannot exist in any possible universe, and cannot be imagined at all. One can imagine pigs flying. One cannot imagine a square circle.
 
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jjramsey said:
You were the one putting forth the claim that the timeless and the temporal could not interact, so the burden of proof is on you to establish that our problems with imagining how a timeless being interacts with the time-bound physical universe are due not to the limitations of our human imaginations, but to inherent problems with the concept of such an interaction.
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LOL. It was you that was proposing that God could exist outside of time, and yet have an effect on our temporal universe. I do not propose that anything exists outside of time. I have no burden of proof to prove the relationship of two things, one of which I do not think exists. Once you have shown that something can exist outside of time, then perhaps you can address how it interacts with the temporal universe.

jjramsey said:
Oh, another thing.

Actually, no, you can't. If something is illogical, then it cannot exist in any possible universe, and cannot be imagined at all. One can imagine pigs flying. One cannot imagine a square circle.
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Come now, JJ, you're not that dumb. What you are essentially proposing is that nothing can be illogical, because if it can be imagined, it is logical. I'm imagining a square circle right now. I'm sure you have not got a problem imagining a timeless being who existed yesterday and will tomorrow.
 
If God were the singularity, then He should have infinite control over what that entails ... 1/∞ x ∞/1 = ∞/∞ = 1/1 = 1.
 
You can't see why "existing outside of time" is, to be very generous, highly unlikely? Think of the paradoxes it would create.
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God not existing also seems to create paradoxes at first glance.

So if you want it to be spiritual, fine, but you'll have to explain how a spiritual being interacts with the physical universe in order to keep it from being a logical contradiction.
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God is timeless yet omniscient, then he is certainly capapable of knowing tensed propositions. A timelessly eternal omniscient God sees the world from every temporal perspective the entire history of the universe has to offer. If God is timelessly aware of all events then he is also aware of how they are positioned with respect to one another. And can therefore without any logical contradiction exist outside of time yet work inside time.
 
Iacchus said:
If God were the singularity, then He should have infinite control over what that entails ... 1/∞ x ∞/1 = ∞/∞ = 1/1 = 1.
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You're an idiot. (that deserved an ad hominem)

1/73.5 * 73.5/1 = 73.5/73.5 = 1/1 = 1.

So all things are one (even irrational and transcendental numbers). And the point of ignoring all characteristic differentiation has what purpose (beyond mind-numbing navel-gazing)?

Go take a course (you probably need several thousand).
 
jjramsey said:
[...] our problems with imagining how a timeless being interacts with the time-bound physical universe [...]
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If we don't understand what a timeless being is well enough not to have such problems, it seems to me to be premature to propose that God is one. For all we know, the phrase "a timeless being" could be meaningless to begin with.

I see the problem with saying "I can't imagine a timeless being; therefore, one doesn't exist." But there's also an obvious problem with saying, "I don't really know what a timeless being is; yet, I assert that one does exist." What exactly is the content of such an assertion?
 
God is timeless yet omniscient, then he is certainly capapable of knowing tensed propositions. A timelessly eternal omniscient God sees the world from every temporal perspective the entire history of the universe has to offer. If God is timelessly aware of all events then he is also aware of how they are positioned with respect to one another. And can therefore without any logical contradiction exist outside of time yet work inside time.
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just as a side note to this, i dont personally hold a very particular belief about God's eternality.
 
Tricky said:
LOL. It was you that was proposing that God could exist outside of time
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Ahem.

You were the one on this thread who first brought up the issue of God existing outside of time, claiming that it was illogical. I pressed you on the issue, and you had yet to come up with a defense that was remotely rigorous.

Quite frankly, I cannot imagine something timeless, let alone how such a thing would interact anything not timeless. However, I am well aware that such a failure of imagination is no proof of anything on its own. There's a big difference in saying "I can't see how it can ..." and "I can see how it can't ...".

Tricky said:
jjramsey said:
If something is illogical, then it cannot exist in any possible universe, and cannot be imagined at all.
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Come now, JJ, you're not that dumb. What you are essentially proposing is that nothing can be illogical, because if it can be imagined, it is logical.
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No, I am saying that despite your protestations to the contrary, you cannot imagine a square circle. There isn't even anything to imagine because "square circle" is a meaningless phrase, not a reference to even a hypothetical object. You might as well have said that you were imagining a colorless green idea sleeping furiously. If you think that you are really imagining a square circle, go and draw a sketch of what you are imagining. I doubt you'll be able to do that.

You cannot imagine logically impossible "things" because logically impossible "things" aren't actually things.
 
kuroyume0161 said:
You're an idiot. (that deserved an ad hominem)

1/73.5 * 73.5/1 = 73.5/73.5 = 1/1 = 1.

So all things are one (even irrational and transcendental numbers). And the point of ignoring all characteristic differentiation has what purpose (beyond mind-numbing navel-gazing)?

Go take a course (you probably need several thousand).
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Well, is existence singular? Yes or no? If it's all part of the same domain, and ruled over by the same entity, why shouldn't that entity entail omnipotence?
 
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