You are not following the logical argument here. People call different things "god". Some mean it to be a living entity with a mind, some are referring to everything there is. Everyone who claims there is a god, must first define it for themselves. However, that doesn't stop anyone else from applying a logic check to any god they can think of themselves. sid_16 chose to check for the god in a form of an omniscient entity. So he applied logical reasoning and reached the conclusion "the god in the form of an omniscient being cannot exist because ...". He only checked for _this_ particular god. If you call something else "god" that cannot even have the omniscience property according to your definition, then sid's argument doesn't apply and nothing of it is affecting the possible existence of the god according to your definition. However, sid's argument showed us that the existence of omniscience as a property itself is questionable, because it entails logic flaws. If you can logically show that certain properties are logically flawed in themselves, anyone claiming there is a god with such a property instantly loses a lot of credibility. If you can remove enough properties from the list of possible properties, other people are forced to change the definition of "god", possibly up to the point where they are left with nothing except calling "everything there is" a "god", at which point you can simply ask "why not call it everything there is?". Then god completely vanishes as an explanation for anything.
Ok there is a load of nonsense in your reply, but I only quoted the extreme nonsense ! When did I say the first part that is quoted above ? I did not define anything! Also you seem so hell bent on these words "quantify" and "properties" that you are losing track of everything! Sid's argument showed nothing except him adding his boundaries to omniscience in order to quantify it and make properties and what not, incredibly silly at best. Since when can we quantify the infinite ? Since when does a God learn, this is an incredibly silly conclusion ? Let me put it this way, omniscience maybe illogical, irrational and impossible. However this is all a product of your mind, you are ascribing boundaries to it due to your limited knowledge and then making final judgement. The fact is that no one can claim anything to be impossible unless they have knowledge of everything available. Now point me to the person with this knowledge ?
@R29k: Thank you for this. it makes perfect sense to Me. A Christian (Penticostal) once said to Me "The Devil plays in the minds of man, but GOD lives in the hearts of man." This kind of makes sense to me because my mind will have doubts, but my heart knows what feels right to me.
Please don't bring up religion, it gets on my bad side. You don't need religion to have God. Also the Christian God is more flawed than a drunk in the gutter. A God having anger, jealousy and hatred and expecting perfection out of its imperfect creations, really ? Also I am not proving or disproving God, I'm just saying it's probable.
Well then, how would a god that is in "everything there is" but is not acting and is not an entity, even _have_ omniscience? If we can demonstrate that information cannot exceed the speed of light, yet a god is manifested in the Earth and the Sun, how could he simultaneously know what's happening here and in the Sun? It's a paradox that is based on what we actually _know_ right now. If you claim this is somehow possible beyond our understanding, you make the same claim of faith, i.e. belief without evidence that every believer makes. So you have a definition of a god that includes "god doesn't learn" but we are making up definitions? If it contradicts what we actually know, you can draw conclusions from it. You acknowledge our limited knowledge but at the same time claim there are things possible that contradict our factual knowledge, because we don't know anything about them. This seems to me like agnosticism to the extreme, claiming things are unknowable that are demonstrably contradicting what we actually do know, because they somehow operate according to other laws we also don't know. This actually looks more like faith than anything else. Edit: Would it be correct to summarize what you're saying as: Since we don't know _everything_, _anything_ is possible, even if it contradicts what we _do_ know. ? Seems like a very weird position.
1) A better question is, how can you be omniscient without being in everything ? Don't tell me you think God is some old man sitting at a table writing down everything ... Apparently you also missed the last part of my second to last post, basically it's saying that the only thing that can understand God is God ! 2) I never said "God doesn't learn", I said it's a silly conclusion to come to that God learns ! Learning assumes (ass of u and me) that you didn't know something in the first place, is this omniscient ? 3) Knowledge and use of knowledge are two different things. The same knowledge can be applied in different ways so as to attain different results. All possible results from acquired knowledge are not always known immediately. An example, do you think Jöns Jacob Berzelius who discovered silicon would have predicted the microprocessor would use it ? The impossible is only possible when there is not more knowledge to be gained on the particular subject.
Again, I don't think anything that a god should be. I'm not a deist or a theist. So you're basically acknowledging that omniscience as a property is problematic. So why can't we say that any claim someone makes about a god that is omniscient can be refuted by that? It sounded like you asserted that his god could still exist but we don't know yet how. But that's exactly what sid was doing in his argument, showing that omniscience cannot exist because you'd also have to know how to learn when you've never done it. Only that his conclusion was that omniscience and any entity claimed to possess it most likely doesn't exist, whereas you assert that it could exist, because we don't know everything. I wasn't talking about knowledge that extends existing knowledge or is interpreted differently. I was talking about using existing knowledge to refute statements that contradict it.
@TCM I don't mean to be impolite but you're asking stupid questions since a) I already provided a reason and b) you keep asking again for the same reason So one last time. 1) Because the God in question is not only omniscient, it is omnipotent and omni whatever directional. See gorski for more info . When you have all these powers then anything is possible. Remember the Gods with the big G and little g ? I don't know why your interest lies in refuting someone saying something, take up the issue with God ! 2) Absolute nonsense, you need to learn to be omniscient, really? Omniscient means you know the past, present and future. There is nothing you need to know, hence nothing to learn ! 3) What is existing knowledge, is it all knowledge ? A contradiction can only be made when you have all knowledge, otherwise you're fooling yourself. Example, there is a general acknowledgement that nothing is faster than light! This is a flawed statement, nothing is faster that light in the known Universe is a better way of putting it. You may very well discover an area of the Universe where even in a vacuum there might be things that are faster than light. There are places where the laws of physics fall apart like at the Quantum level or in a Black Hole. All is not known so don't jump to conclusions yet. A contradiction is only as good as the data available.
The thing about heart is problematic at best - what about a heart of sociopaths: genocidal maniac, rapist, mass murderer, incestuous pervert, paedophile, assassin, crooked banker/investor wrecking lives of who knows how many for personal profit, racist politicians calling for violence on a large scale etc. etc. etc. You see, this is why we must have Critical Faculties = Reason, to check and double and triple check it all, from all sides... especially in a debate with others... This is where Philosophy might help and anything to do with "heart only" (like Religion) should be viewed with serious suspicion, I think...
Maybe there is a creator in the universe... And what he thinks might not be what we think... Just for the humor....LOL
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? That's what the Bible says about the heart ...
That is the last thing a sane and upright Human, grounded in him/herself, ought to do: try to find justifications/explanations/grounding in such a completely messed up book, made of many different parts, written by different people, in different times and places, incoherently and eclectically jumbled together, full of contradictions galore...
You're thinking of comic books... Quite similar to Bible, I grant you that - comic book of age gone by, sure... Science books are open to scrutiny and keep changing as they are ever scrutinised - not "believed in"...
We have to "believe in" science, I would have never had a job without it. They keep changing because they are can be wrong in their theories, but that's the accepted norm. The scriptures have not changed like science does. A God inspired book does not change like the things that science does. One day science states "this" and tomorrow it could be another thing they call "that". It takes a hellava lot of belief to believe in that type of science. I worked with applied science and for the most part that type of science was consistent, so I do not feel that I am against all science, just the science that is full of itself, and they keep changing their diapers. Lets call that the atheist science!... LOL
You are confused by new knowledge so you stick with 2000 year old knowledge that doesn't even make sense. Yeah, that's a reasonable way to live. I can only imagine what you actually had to do with science. Was it cleaning toilets in a lab? Edit: And again, do you go to the doctor? Why? I mean if you can't understand all of medicine, then medicine must be completely flawed and totally useless, right? Medicine changes constantly. Wouldn't want any of that, would you?
This is so silly I don't know where to start. First of all "God inspired book", why not Santa inspired book ? There is no proof of God yet you have a book inspired by it ? The reason the scriptures haven't been revised is because they have a basis in fiction, Science tries to deal with facts ! Also would you mind explaining to me Deuteronomy 23:1 please, I have difficulty understanding its purpose at all.