If God is infinite, then he is everything.... right?

[Ooberman]

If he is infinite, then no theistic opinion about God is wrong, even this statement.

It is likely that this deity doesn't exist, and since an infinite God is contradictory, it is probably less likely to be true. (Assuming basic laws of logic, our common presupposition).

Since, according to these laws of logic to be "True",the statement "God obtains" cannot be true, is true, and is also, possibly a quantum state (some "other").

Therefore, God does not exist.

The point of this line of inquiry, I suppose a purpose of this idea is to mull over the technicalities of how we arrive at basic assumptions about the world.

After all, we can't FIRST assume a God in order to prove a God exists. If we are trying to prove a God exists, we have to tip the balance in minds when they hear the actual logical argument.

The logical leap, to me, begins with both the Materialist and Supernaturalist. We don't REALLY know what things are made of, but if we go from what has been shown to be effective according to a large consensus of people that gravity works, and the natural laws appear to be consistent. The drama of nature, or the narrative of our lives appears to be a fact of our nature, and that's about all we know.

1. We are physical beings in this universe.
2. We can imagine real and unreal things.
3. We create narrative to ourselves and others to explain natural events, yet, the laws of nature cannot be translated accurately in the language of Man, but in the language of basic math.

We don't need to presume a God for any of them, and the Theist has to answer the question: "why is god a better answer for each of them, without presuming naturalism?"

Meanwhile, I don't think anything in the data shows any problem with the laws of nature being inviolable, and the dramas of our lives are the unique state of our Nature: we produce thoughts, narratives, and believe many things in metaphor, colloquialisms, and other tropes.

Tropes, and other games of words, twists of logic and other quirks as Man attempts to reflect Nature. We have at our disposal all the arts, and another quirk to our nature, the ability to imagine supernatural beings as if they are real.

Religion is a "greatest hits from mythology" in that religion (the process of creating a religion - a process unique to man, and neanderthals, apparently, and a few other Great Apes... And a few birds... And maybe elephants...) tries to capture a link to the conscience and codify it.

There are good reasons to do this, if you have some idea of your subjective position on "The Good" and how that fits into the larger scope of society's idea of "The Good". If you want to do Good, you find a reason to do it if it's not considered "Good" by society, increasingly to a point to being a psychopath. (There are ranges of experience that make morality, ultimately, an impossible task to normalize.)


Morality, like sight, is valuable to you, because it's valuable to you. We argue for that value by making our argument appear to have more weight than the converse.

The Theist comes up woefully short when they explain the basis of their provenance of their ideas: tradition.

In other words, the theist must presuppose the very characteristics of their God, in order to prove their God. Whereas, the naturalist only starts with the things we have a pretty good idea is true, through verification.

That cellphones work proves what Aristotle couldn't. Likewise, I doubt many people are going to challenge our model of the Solar System. And, genetics will never be overturned. These are really true things, it appears.

We are the awesomest of Apes, but Apes nonetheless. And that's OK.

[Goat]

... but since God's ways and purposes would be otherwise beyond the reach of our faculties, one would have to take a leap of faith.

Indeed. And, worse, I don't buy that God couldn't communicate perfectly with His Creation.


I think the excuse that "finite beings can't understand God" is a dodge to avoid the reality there is no God.

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

Can you show that your claim is right??? You make an aweful lot of claims, but I don't see you , like actually backing it up with either scripture, or evidence (which is distinctly different that scripture.

Now, can you show that ANYBODY 'can listen to God properly'. I assume you think you can. Is that correct? If not, never mind, but if you think you can, how can you SHOW ME that you can?? I would assume people who can will show greater wisdom, .. can you demonstrate greater wisdom?

[mgb]

... but since God's ways and purposes would be otherwise beyond the reach of our faculties, one would have to take a leap of faith.

Indeed. And, worse, I don't buy that God couldn't communicate perfectly with His Creation.


I think the excuse that "finite beings can't understand God" is a dodge to avoid the reality there is no God.

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

Can you show that your claim is right??? You make an aweful lot of claims, but I don't see you , like actually backing it up with either scripture, or evidence (which is distinctly different that scripture.

Now, can you show that ANYBODY 'can listen to God properly'. I assume you think you can. Is that correct? If not, never mind, but if you think you can, how can you SHOW ME that you can?? I would assume people who can will show greater wisdom, .. can you demonstrate greater wisdom?

I don't claim any wisdom or virtue or anything of the sort. These are great words with great depth of meaning. What I do claim is that a spiritual life is a life inspired by God and that God will guide those who will be guided. When people use God's name to justify violence or stupidity it is because they are not being careful enough or are even being arrogant. The simplest understanding of human nature will tell you that some people are unscrupulous and will distort God's word to serve themselves.

[Goat]

... but since God's ways and purposes would be otherwise beyond the reach of our faculties, one would have to take a leap of faith.

Indeed. And, worse, I don't buy that God couldn't communicate perfectly with His Creation.


I think the excuse that "finite beings can't understand God" is a dodge to avoid the reality there is no God.

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

Can you show that your claim is right??? You make an aweful lot of claims, but I don't see you , like actually backing it up with either scripture, or evidence (which is distinctly different that scripture.

Now, can you show that ANYBODY 'can listen to God properly'. I assume you think you can. Is that correct? If not, never mind, but if you think you can, how can you SHOW ME that you can?? I would assume people who can will show greater wisdom, .. can you demonstrate greater wisdom?

I don't claim any wisdom or virtue or anything of the sort. These are great words with great depth of meaning. What I do claim is that a spiritual life is a life inspired by God and that God will guide those who will be guided. When people use God's name to justify violence or stupidity it is because they are not being careful enough or are even being arrogant. The simplest understanding of human nature will tell you that some people are unscrupulous and will distort God's word to serve themselves.

Are they?? I don't find the word from Paul to be of great depth and meaning. I don't find the words attributed to Jesus to be new or unique. From what I see, many people who claim to be leading a 'spiritual life' are actually leading a shallow and eogostical life.

I don't see any evidence for any of your claims, and indeed, my personal experience is at odds with your claims

[Ooberman]

... but since God's ways and purposes would be otherwise beyond the reach of our faculties, one would have to take a leap of faith.

Indeed. And, worse, I don't buy that God couldn't communicate perfectly with His Creation.


I think the excuse that "finite beings can't understand God" is a dodge to avoid the reality there is no God.

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

Can you show that your claim is right??? You make an aweful lot of claims, but I don't see you , like actually backing it up with either scripture, or evidence (which is distinctly different that scripture.

Now, can you show that ANYBODY 'can listen to God properly'. I assume you think you can. Is that correct? If not, never mind, but if you think you can, how can you SHOW ME that you can?? I would assume people who can will show greater wisdom, .. can you demonstrate greater wisdom?

I don't claim any wisdom or virtue or anything of the sort. These are great words with great depth of meaning. What I do claim is that a spiritual life is a life inspired by God and that God will guide those who will be guided. When people use God's name to justify violence or stupidity it is because they are not being careful enough or are even being arrogant. The simplest understanding of human nature will tell you that some people are unscrupulous and will distort God's word to serve themselves.

I agree that no one can justify violence in God's name.

God doesn't exist.

As for your assertions that God does exist, they are unsupported.

[olavisjo]

God doesn't exist.

As for your assertion that "God doesn't exist", it is unsupported.

[mgb]

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

This bothers me, communication is a bilateral transaction and you cannot just blame the receiving party for not doing the job correctly, especially when the other party is omnipotent.

I know people who have really tried to get to know God for years. They have prayed, read the bible, went to the church and yet, years after doing all this they finally come to the conclusion that God either does not exist or is not willing to talk to them. It is very difficult indeed to see why God would not grant these poor guys at least five minutes of audition after all the effort.

I don't know these people or their sincerity or their reasons for wanting to know God. But if they are sincere maybe God is already with them and they need to realize this? Or maybe God knows it is not time yet? If they are trying to be good that is all they need to do until the time is right.

[Ooberman]

God doesn't exist.

As for your assertion that "God doesn't exist", it is unsupported.

It's as equally unsupported as my assertion that fairies, gnomes, unicorns, pixies and other fantastic beings don't exist.

You have to prove that God is more than a name of a character in a fairy tale.

Otherwise, I am fully within my rights to claim those things don't exist.

When you can prove "God" isn't of the same class of beings that are fictional, then we can talk.

As it is, fictional beings don't exist in the sense we are talking about.

Or, do you believe fairies exist?

[instantc]

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

This bothers me, communication is a bilateral transaction and you cannot just blame the receiving party for not doing the job correctly, especially when the other party is omnipotent.

I know people who have really tried to get to know God for years. They have prayed, read the bible, went to the church and yet, years after doing all this they finally come to the conclusion that God either does not exist or is not willing to talk to them. It is very difficult indeed to see why God would not grant these poor guys at least five minutes of audition after all the effort.

I don't know these people or their sincerity or their reasons for wanting to know God. But if they are sincere maybe God is already with them and they need to realize this? Or maybe God knows it is not time yet? If they are trying to be good that is all they need to do until the time is right.

Any position can be defended with the mystery card, it's the last philosophical corner where anyone can hide.

What more can God want from an individual than sincere effort of getting to know him? Many of these people worship God all their lives and die without ever getting a single sign from above. It is absurd to suggest that God is talking to them but they don't realize that, how ineffective can communication effort of an omnipotent being be?

[mgb]

The question is not whether God can communicate properly. The question is whether people can listen to God properly. Only some do listen correctly. People have always used religion to serve their own will and this distorts it. You can see this happening in the modern world.

This bothers me, communication is a bilateral transaction and you cannot just blame the receiving party for not doing the job correctly, especially when the other party is omnipotent.

I know people who have really tried to get to know God for years. They have prayed, read the bible, went to the church and yet, years after doing all this they finally come to the conclusion that God either does not exist or is not willing to talk to them. It is very difficult indeed to see why God would not grant these poor guys at least five minutes of audition after all the effort.

I don't know these people or their sincerity or their reasons for wanting to know God. But if they are sincere maybe God is already with them and they need to realize this? Or maybe God knows it is not time yet? If they are trying to be good that is all they need to do until the time is right.

Any position can be defended with the mystery card, it's the last philosophical corner where anyone can hide.

What more can God want from an individual than sincere effort of getting to know him? Many of these people worship God all their lives and die without ever getting a single sign from above. It is absurd to suggest that God is talking to them but they don't realize that, how ineffective can communication effort of an omnipotent being be?

There are many questions you can ask theists and they don't have the answer. This is not defending with a mystery card. You can ask scientists many questions they can't answer but that does not mean science is wrong.

[olavisjo]

God doesn't exist.

As for your assertion that "God doesn't exist", it is unsupported.

It's as equally unsupported as my assertion that fairies, gnomes, unicorns, pixies and other fantastic beings don't exist.

You have to prove that God is more than a name of a character in a fairy tale.

Otherwise, I am fully within my rights to claim those things don't exist.

When you can prove "God" isn't of the same class of beings that are fictional, then we can talk.

As it is, fictional beings don't exist in the sense we are talking about.

Or, do you believe fairies exist?

If you wish to change your claim to "God the fairy tale does not exist" I will not challenge you, but if you want to say that "God, the greatest conceivable being, a person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things does not exist" then rule 5 would apply, you need to support your claims.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defining ... z2VBuFv7Dn