From: David Hill (dhill@spee-dee.com)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 08:34:24 MST
Wow, such big words and so many of them. And me such a poor pitiable high
school dropout.
You just ask with varition and at length, "If God is all powerful, can he
make a rock so big even he can't lift it."
And answer, "No, it would lead to paradox."
I answer, "Yes, of course He can, He is all powerful."
To which you respond, "But I can't conceive of a universe, consistent with
this one in which logical paradoxes are factual."
With which point, I concur, "No you can't conceive of such, neither can I."
But I can conceive of the idea of concepts of which I can't conceive. At
least I can go one level down. I have similar difficulty with second law
violations or with proofs of the non-existance of God which involve narrow
definitions of Reality or The Universe which involve what we "know" about
this planet and observations made therefrom.
I cannot personally conceive of 6*9=42, but we haven't really shown that the
sum of angles in a plane triangle is pi empirically. If I flipped a fair
coin 50 times and came up with 50 heads, you'd probably conclude that the
51st toss would also be a head. I can't tell.
This does not make me believe in a god, I just can't be that kind of Strong
Athiest. My dictionary does not have strong and weak athiesm, only a one
liner "Athiest- one who believes that there is no God." I interpret that as
a rock hard and steadfast conclusion that "there is no God." Any ground
given on "believes" means that the holder would have doubts and therefore
admit the possible existance of God which makes him an agnostic. "no" means
not any which is pretty clear and also precludes the possibility of Gods
(plural) and encompases all Gods, great and small, Christian and pagan. I
consider strong athiesm a statement not of evidence or fact, but of pride
much like special creation. I believe I know nothing, but act as if I do.
Damn, blew my whole break.
Tweety (Bird)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
Of Steele, Kirk A
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 2:48 AM
To: 'virus@lucifer.com'
Subject: RE: virus: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:02:51 -0700
"Owieeeeeeeeeeeeeee! You hurt my widdle bwain!" - Tweetie
-Somewhere near Burlington,
Wi
-----Original Message-----
From: joedees@bellsouth.net [mailto:joedees@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 8:37 AM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: RE: virus: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:02:51 -0700
On 25 Jan 2002 at 8:16, David Hill wrote:
I will do this one more time:
The classical attributes of a deity are singularity ("there can only be
one") omnicience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful),
omnipresence ('(S)He's everywhere!"), omnibeneficence (all-good), and
omnisoothience (all-true). One can immediately see that the attributes
of omniscience and omnipotence cannot simultaneously inhere in a
single universe. If a deity were omniscient (knew everything), then it
would know the future and thus be powerless to change it, but if it were
omnipotent (all-powerful), then it could change the future, and therefore
could not know it for certain. It's like the simultaneous impossibility of
an irresistable force and an immoveable object; if one of these two
deific properties exists (and they are considered to be the most
important two), then the other logically cannot.
Furthermore, If deity were everywhere, it could perceive nothing, for
perception requires a point of view, that is, a spatiotemporal
perspective other than that of the perceived object from which to
perceive that object. Deity being omnipresent (everywhere), there is
nowhere that deity would not be, thus nothing it could perceive.
It gets even worse. Deity must be perfect; in fact, perfection is what is
broken down into all those 'omni' subcategories. thus, a perfect deity
could not even think. Thought is dynamic, that is, to think, one's
thought must move between conceptions. Now, thought could
conceiveably move in three directions; from perfect to imperfect, from
imperfect to perfect, and from imperfect to imperfect (from perfect to
perfect is not an alternative, perfection being singular and movement
requiring distinguishable prior and posterior). But all of the three
possible alternatives contain either prior or posterior imperfection or
both, which are not allowably entertained in the mind of a perfect deity.
There's much, much more that I could add, but this should more than
suffice to demonstrate that asserting the existence of a deity
possessing the attributes that most consider essential to it deserving
the deific appelation mires one in a miasmic quagmire of irretrieveable
contradiction, once one journeys beyond emotion-driven faith and uses
one's noggin to divine (Luvzda pun!) the nonsensical and absurd
consequences necessarily entailed.
>
> Show the proposition to be false or accept its possibility.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> Of Nicholas Johns
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 7:32 AM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: RE: virus: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:02:51 -0700
>
>
>
> With the advancement of computing power comes the revival of the
solipsist.
> I know nothing, yet I believe I know everything.
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On
Behalf Of David McFadzean
> > Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 11:07 PM
> >
> > David Hill] <SNIP>
> > Again, the problem is all in the semantics.
> >
> > -Nicq MacDonald
> >
> > "For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build
a
> > fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a
fantasy,
> > your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are
too
> > lazy or too busy to question it's truth." - Renark von Bek, The
Sundered
> > Worlds (Michael Moorcock)
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