Logical Disproof of God?

If you choose to define being foiled by the community as 'overcom[ing]... adversity', then yes, in one definition of the word.
 
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Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
-- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book one of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series), p 50
 
Mister Agenda said:
That's a good one, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, there are lots of qualities humans can have that are not possible for God, including virtues defined as overcoming fear or hardship, like courage.

Omni-God as commonly defined cannot: grow, make mistakes, know fear, learn, feel guilt, be sorry, be hurt, suffer, feel helpless, be uncertain, be embarassed, feel shame, be surprised...being all-powerful necessarily isolates you from the human experience.
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I wonder if there have been any religions which allowed God to live as a human, and experience overcoming fear and hardship. Anyone heard of such beliefs?
 
Undesired Walrus said:
1: God is the greatest thing imaginable.
2: The greatest thing imaginable must include greatness of virtue.
3: Virtue is overcoming adversity.
4: If God faces adversity, he is not the greatest of all.5: Therefore, God does not exist.
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Facing adversity would be a negative for an omnipotent being. That would be like using the old pseudo logical question "Can God make a rock that He cannot lift?" That's akin to asking if He could make a four sided triangle. These are simply not things, if you see what I'm getting at.
 
linusrichard said:
Only by logical contradictions.
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Yeah, sorry that's what I meant.
I don't know about the omniscience/free will supposed contradiction, but there's always the omnipotence "can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" contradiction. An omnipotent God should be able to make a rock so heavy he can't lift it. He should also be able to lift that rock. But he can't do both. Or another way to look at it is the Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object. If one exists, the other can't exist in the same universe. But an omnipotent God should be able to create both in the same universe. So, omnipotence, defined in this way, is itself a contradiction, and any being defined as being omnipotent can't exist.
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I believe that is not a valid question. It'd be like asking "Can God make a four sided triangle?" These are not things.
But it's easy to get around by saying something like "God is omnipotent, but only to the extent that is logically possible."
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I don't think that's getting around it. That's pretty much the only way.
 
Mister Agenda said:
That's a good one, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, there are lots of qualities humans can have that are not possible for God, including virtues defined as overcoming fear or hardship, like courage.

Omni-God as commonly defined cannot: grow, make mistakes, know fear, learn, feel guilt, be sorry, be hurt, suffer, feel helpless, be uncertain, be embarassed, feel shame, be surprised...being all-powerful necessarily isolates you from the human experience.
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Again, those are all negative attributes. If God is all knowing, wouldn't it be redundant if He were to learn? Therefore, He cannot learn. That doesn't necessarily make it illogical.
 
JohnTheRevelator said:
I already stated the tri omni God.
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Unfortunately, that doesn't actually define God.
It merely says father, son and spirit are one. The Christian belief, in other words.
The terms father, son and spirit are not defined.

So, not a definition, just a re-labeling.
 
[X] said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't actually define God.
It merely says father, son and spirit are one. The Christian belief, in other words.
The terms father, son and spirit are not defined.

So, not a definition, just a re-labeling.
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What? Omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent...
 
Robin said:
Robin's First Law - Any argument which seeks to prove or disprove the existence of God is valuable only for the practice it affords in finding fallacies.
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I don't think that RFL can be proved or disproved, but there is some supporting evidence in the subsequent posts.
 
If omnipotent, God can do anything.
If omniscient, God know everything.

God cannot be both.
If God was truly omniscient, then God would know everything God would ever do. In that case, God cannot do anything that is not pre-determined, and thus is not omnipotent.
If God was truly omnipotent, then God could do whatever god wanted, but then God could not know everything God would ever do, and thus is not omniscient.

You can also see the quote by Epicurus from Arthwollipot, and the post by MarkCorrigan for more examples.

Or you could go with the old standard of God making rocks so big God cannot lift them.
 
Why do you need it to be spelled out for you? The dictionary definition describes it all in as many words.

As I said before, a being can only be accurately described as virtuous if it can suffer pain.
 
bobhope2112 said:
There's a well-worn argument that God's omniscience and our free will are a logical contradiction. I have yet to see a satisfactory resolution to that apparent conflict. (Most quibble by characterizing omniscience is something other than perfect knowledge.)

If you accept that if God, as defined, cannot logically contradict itself, then the above, if proven, should disprove at least that definition of God.
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How can you prove you have free will? How do you know, say, that it is not "God" pulling the strings and making it seem as though you are moving?

Do you suppose that there is some little being somewhere inside of your head called bobhope2112 who is deciding stuff?

Nick
 
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linusrichard said:
Only by logical contradictions. I don't know about the omniscience/free will supposed contradiction, but there's always the omnipotence "can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" contradiction. An omnipotent God should be able to make a rock so heavy he can't lift it. He should also be able to lift that rock. But he can't do both. Or another way to look at it is the Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object. If one exists, the other can't exist in the same universe. But an omnipotent God should be able to create both in the same universe. So, omnipotence, defined in this way, is itself a contradiction, and any being defined as being omnipotent can't exist.

But it's easy to get around by saying something like "God is omnipotent, but only to the extent that is logically possible."

The short answer is no.
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If you're suggesting that the "logically possible" thing is getting around the problem, and that to be truly be omnipotent would mean being able to do the logically impossible, then there's no possibility of contradictions. God could make square circles, lift a rock he can't lift, be God and not God at the same time...there's no reason any of it would make sense to us.
 
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