3 ms·

Seems riddled with holes. "The concept of God". I reject God as a concept. Done. If you can speak God into existence by defining it, then I can speak it out of

Seems riddled with holes. "The concept of God". I reject God as a concept. Done. If you can speak God into existence by defining it, then I can speak it out of existence by calling BS. "It is possible for God to exist". No it's laughably impossible. Done.

jhickok 3y ago
Why is it impossible for God to exist?
- alangibson 3y ago
  Doesn't matter. He gets to assert that it's possible, so I get to assert that it's not.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    In a logic setting, this is a much harder position to hold: it's much easier to assert the possibility of existence than the non-possibility of existence (which requires universal qualification). The OA isn't a good argument for various reasons that others have noted above, but the possible existence of God (or Unicorns, or Colorless Green Ideas) isn't one of them.
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      One way to show non-possibility, leveraging universality, is to show that for all A's, one can prove both B and something contradicting B. Example: ∀(G ∈ gods . card(G) = 3) ∧ ∀(G ∈ gods . card(G) < 3) Whether or not people have "proved" contradictory attributes for gods is left as an exercise for the reader... cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_et_Non https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_et_Non
    - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
      It's much easier to not exist than to exist.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - mistermann 3y ago
    Clever! Do you have enough control over your mind to command it to contemplate what the truth of the matter is?
- mrkeen 3y ago
  An all-powerful, omniscient being invites some paradoxes/problems: Homer Simpson's version was "Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?" Also - if you're omniscient and you already know your future, does that imply that you do not have free will?
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    The first is not a paradox but a nonsensical statement. Omnipotent, (by definition), does not include breaking logic because at its core something illogical is nonsense. As to free will, well that's something only Catholics and Orthodox hold onto. I don't believe Muslims or many Protestants (Calvin?) adhere to that.
  - sorokod 3y ago
    That kind of deity can not be restricted by logical paradoxes, it is beyond their reach so to speak. That of course raises the question why even attempt logical proofs, but here we are.
  - missingrib 3y ago
    You can just claim that omniscience and omnipotence do not require that you can do logically impossible things. For instance, God couldn't will that 2+2=5, or that he could create something so heavy that he could not move it.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > An all-powerful, omniscient being invites some paradoxes/problems: Not really: * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/02/dawkins-on-omnipotence-and-omniscience.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/02/dawkins-on-omnipote...
throw0101b 3y ago
> If you can speak God into existence by defining it, then I can speak it out of existence by calling BS. Yeah: > And that is why modern readers typically do not understand the argument. For example, they often think it is an attempt to “define God into existence,” as if Anselm believed that arbitrarily attaching certain meanings to certain words could tell us something about objective reality. But this is to confuse what Scholastics call a nominal definition – an explanation of the meaning of a word – with what they call a real definition – an explanation of the nature or essence of the objective reality a word refers to. Anselm is ultimately concerned with the latter, not the former. While he no doubt thinks that any reflective language user will agree that the notion of “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” is implicit in his use of the word “God,” the more important point he is driving at is that being that than which nothing greater can be conceived must as a matter of objective fact be of the essence or nature of being divine, just as (to use a stock modern example) being a compound of hydrogen and oxygen is of the essence of water. * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/11/anselms-ontological-argument.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/11/anselms-ontological... Which also has the stronger critique of the argument: > The lesson is not that Anselm’s argument is unsound so much as that it presupposes knowledge (i.e. of God’s essence) that we cannot have. Moreover, the idea that reason points us to the existence of that than which there can be nothing greater is something Aquinas himself endorses as long as it is developed in an a posteriori fashion, as it is in Aquinas’s Fourth Way. * Ibid For a better argument, and summary of that argument, see Aristotle: * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-background.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-backgrou... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-way-moving-tale.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-way-moving-tale.h... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-lemmas-make-lemma.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-l... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/first-way-part-iii-big-kahuna.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/first-way-part-iii-big-... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-cascades.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-casca... * First 30m of this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQldsGrMfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQldsGrMfk Book which covers arguments from Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-the-existence-of-god https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

jhickok 3y ago

Why is it impossible for God to exist?

alangibson 3y ago
Doesn't matter. He gets to assert that it's possible, so I get to assert that it's not.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  In a logic setting, this is a much harder position to hold: it's much easier to assert the possibility of existence than the non-possibility of existence (which requires universal qualification). The OA isn't a good argument for various reasons that others have noted above, but the possible existence of God (or Unicorns, or Colorless Green Ideas) isn't one of them.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    One way to show non-possibility, leveraging universality, is to show that for all A's, one can prove both B and something contradicting B. Example: ∀(G ∈ gods . card(G) = 3) ∧ ∀(G ∈ gods . card(G) < 3) Whether or not people have "proved" contradictory attributes for gods is left as an exercise for the reader... cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_et_Non https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_et_Non
  - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
    It's much easier to not exist than to exist.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mistermann 3y ago
  Clever! Do you have enough control over your mind to command it to contemplate what the truth of the matter is?
mrkeen 3y ago
An all-powerful, omniscient being invites some paradoxes/problems: Homer Simpson's version was "Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?" Also - if you're omniscient and you already know your future, does that imply that you do not have free will?
- thsksbd 3y ago
  The first is not a paradox but a nonsensical statement. Omnipotent, (by definition), does not include breaking logic because at its core something illogical is nonsense. As to free will, well that's something only Catholics and Orthodox hold onto. I don't believe Muslims or many Protestants (Calvin?) adhere to that.
- sorokod 3y ago
  That kind of deity can not be restricted by logical paradoxes, it is beyond their reach so to speak. That of course raises the question why even attempt logical proofs, but here we are.
- missingrib 3y ago
  You can just claim that omniscience and omnipotence do not require that you can do logically impossible things. For instance, God couldn't will that 2+2=5, or that he could create something so heavy that he could not move it.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > An all-powerful, omniscient being invites some paradoxes/problems: Not really: * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/02/dawkins-on-omnipotence-and-omniscience.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/02/dawkins-on-omnipote...

throw0101b 3y ago

> If you can speak God into existence by defining it, then I can speak it out of existence by calling BS. Yeah: > And that is why modern readers typically do not understand the argument. For example, they often think it is an attempt to “define God into existence,” as if Anselm believed that arbitrarily attaching certain meanings to certain words could tell us something about objective reality. But this is to confuse what Scholastics call a nominal definition – an explanation of the meaning of a word – with what they call a real definition – an explanation of the nature or essence of the objective reality a word refers to. Anselm is ultimately concerned with the latter, not the former. While he no doubt thinks that any reflective language user will agree that the notion of “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” is implicit in his use of the word “God,” the more important point he is driving at is that being that than which nothing greater can be conceived must as a matter of objective fact be of the essence or nature of being divine, just as (to use a stock modern example) being a compound of hydrogen and oxygen is of the essence of water. * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/11/anselms-ontological-argument.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/11/anselms-ontological... Which also has the stronger critique of the argument: > The lesson is not that Anselm’s argument is unsound so much as that it presupposes knowledge (i.e. of God’s essence) that we cannot have. Moreover, the idea that reason points us to the existence of that than which there can be nothing greater is something Aquinas himself endorses as long as it is developed in an a posteriori fashion, as it is in Aquinas’s Fourth Way. * Ibid For a better argument, and summary of that argument, see Aristotle: * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-background.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-backgrou... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-way-moving-tale.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-way-moving-tale.h... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-lemmas-make-lemma.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-way-part-ii-two-l... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/first-way-part-iii-big-kahuna.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/first-way-part-iii-big-... * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-cascades.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-casca... * First 30m of this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQldsGrMfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQldsGrMfk Book which covers arguments from Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-the-existence-of-god https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...