The attributes of God and logical problems

[Zeluvia]

Okay, I posted this here to discuss with OTHER non-believers. This post is mine from another board, changed and edited to clarify my question to Keith Rex, whom I know most of you think is a troll, but, well I have nearly infinite patience, even with trolls.

But many times I see arguements about the existance of God go willy nilly all over the place, because people are trying to prove/disprove too many different things, covering too many aspects of the idea of God.

Carpe hit another good point about these kinds of discussions, the "why" trap, which involves a "who" answer, instead of the "how" question, which leaves the field wide open for other answers.

So I wrote this to make sure when we were discussing god, we were in agreement of which aspect we were proving/disproving.

I post this here for you input comment critisms additions clarifications ect.


1. Omnipotent Creator.

This is the God of the unknown. If we don't know how it happened, this guy did it. As we learn more and more "hows" this realm of influence gets smaller. This is the god version who is compatible with evolution, and with other science. Sometimes this is seen as the "transcendant" god, and given no personality attributes, just being the "life force" or the "energy"

2. Omniscient Judge of Morality.

Downtrodden and oppressed and poor, powerless people will fixate on God number 2, because they want Justice and Revenge, maybe not in this world, but by God someday.....This role is also fixated on by people that fear other people, hoping that a finite written definition of morality that everyone adheres to and can agree on will help protect them from other people. They need a leader, and a higher power, possibly instinctivly assigning god the role of Alpha pack leader. The intolerable self-righteous like this God the most.

3. Omnipresent Fixer of things gone horribly wrong, or cause of things going horribly wrong, and intervener in other things.

Then there are people that have the ability to totally ignore God in Role 1 because they never bother to think about it, and in Role 2 because they are too damn busy to worry about it, and only worry about what he up to when things go horribly wrong, in which case they either blame him or thank him, this is the superstitious use of Role 3, and probably the most common. This is the god of miracles, the guy you pray to, the one that blesses you when you send Robert Tilton money.

There is another God...God 4.

God 4 is an ideal that humanity can aspire to become like....God is assigned the attributes that are considered to be the best of human attributes. This god is loving, caring, generous, forgiving, patient, tolerant, compassionate, ect.

[Griggsy]

Great!

[zorathruster]

2. Omniscient Judge of Morality.

Downtrodden and oppressed and poor, powerless people will fixate on God number 2, because they want Justice and Revenge, maybe not in this world, but by God someday.....This role is also fixated on by people that fear other people, hoping that a finite written definition of morality that everyone adheres to and can agree on will help protect them from other people. They need a leader, and a higher power, possibly instinctivly assigning god the role of Alpha pack leader. The intolerable self-righteous like this God the most.



On this point, humans have a sense of fairness, for that matter many other primates have the same sense. One interesting experiment they took monkeys and put them in a situation where they needed to cooperate to get some fruit. However, only one would get the fruit and then be required to "share". If the one who got the reward "shared", then they could expect cooperation next time. When they didn't share, future cooperation didn't happen.

This tendency to desire cooperation and shared benefit is where our sense of morality arrises, AND IT APPEARS TO HAVE A NATURAL BASIS. Social gossip in every society, from the most primative to the most modern revolves around the "fairness" of partialling out various benefits. From respecting another's spouse, "thou shalt not commit adultry" to respecting other people's property, "thou shalt not steal", are based on addressing social rules that benefit members who have vested interest in the system working. After all, there are usually more people who would want to "do you in" than people you would take the time and effort to "do in". As far as outcome, the benefit of killing someone else is fairly limited, while the consequence of getting killed is catastrophic.

The social contracts, rules that we follow form moral precepts that are what John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) proposes are "non-zero sum". An excellent work by Robert Wright, "Non-zero, the logic of human destiny" does justice to the concept as applied to sociology.

[Griggsy]

If God is omnibevelolent, He cannot do wrong; however, if He is omnipotent , He sure can. If he can forsee our futures in detail, then we do not have free will; how can He know that before it happens? He cannot know the feelings of shame,etc. He cannot know how to swim. Thus, He knows less than we. He cannot be omniscient. People merely play word games in ascribing to him His attributes. He is inchoherent. This is part of the ignostic argument[ see that thread]. I concur with y'all.

[Jimmy Higgins]

1. Omnipotent Creator.

This is the God of the unknown. If we don't know how it happened, this guy did it. As we learn more and more "hows" this realm of influence gets smaller. This is the god version who is compatible with evolution, and with other science. Sometimes this is seen as the "transcendant" god, and given no personality attributes, just being the "life force" or the "energy"The uncaused cause. This uncaused cause is what causes things to need to be caused to happen. :teeth:

[Jimmy Higgins]

If God is omnibevelolent, He cannot do wrong;Isn't omnibeveolent a BS term? "All loving?"
If he can forsee our futures in detail, then we do not have free will; how can He know that before it happens?The same way we can flip through a DVD. I don't buy the if he can see the future means we have no free will argument. If he can see the future, it means he can view events along the timeline as he pleases. We make our own choices, he just happens to know which choice we'll be making before we actually make it ourself. It's kinda like how a parent can anticipate a child's action. The parent isn't making the child do something, rather they can just know through past experience (but with god it would be with less uncertainty).
He cannot know the feelings of shame,etc.Why not? If he made man, and man can feel shame, then god can know how it feels. You are being way too limiting here.
He cannot know how to swim.And he can't create a banana so large that he can't eat it. This is merely semantical wordplay.
He cannot be omniscient.He can if he invented the universe.
People merely play word games in ascribing to him His attributes. He is inchoherent. This is part of the ignostic argument[ see that thread]. I concur with y'all.Man's description of god is indeed incoherent. But that doesn't mean god is, if god actually existed.

[zorathruster]

1 The same way we can flip through a DVD. I don't buy the if he can see the future means we have no free will argument. If he can see the future, it means he can view events along the timeline as he pleases. We make our own choices, he just happens to know which choice we'll be making before we actually make it ourself.

2. It's kinda like how a parent can anticipate a child's action. The parent isn't making the child do something, rather they can just know through past experience (but with god it would be with less uncertainty).

3. Why not? If he made man, and man can feel shame, then god can know how it feels. You are being way too limiting here.

4. And he can't create a banana so large that he can't eat it. This is merely semantical wordplay.
He can if he invented the universe.

5. Man's description of god is indeed incoherent. But that doesn't mean god is, if god actually existed.

1. The whole idea of free will is that choices can be alternative than a pre-planned or pre ordained sequence. Using your DVD example, in the DVD of Star Wars, Luke really does not have the choice of "joining the darkside". In the DVD he will always reject Darth Vader's attempt to sway him. He has no choice. The DVD is already pressed. The illusion that he has a choice is still there, it appears he could make the turn to the dark side, but he never will....he really doesn't have a choice. The appearance of choice does not equate to free choice. Either man has free choice and a god wouldn't know what's going to happen, or a god knows which way it will sequence and Luke will never join the dark side.

2 After fathering two I can assure you they will consistently do things you do not anticipate. They will surprise you with their choices. Addtionally a God wouldn't "sort of" know what a person is going to do, they would always know precisely what a person would do. Anticipation of action is what mammals do very well, cats use this capability to catch mice. But this quality is not always precise, the mouse sometimes gets away.

3. There is a big difference between knowing about a feeling and actually feeling it. No matter how eloquent a description of smashing your finger with a hammer it just doesn't compare with actually doing it. Many people's definition of a God prevents such "feelings". Most can be attributed to anthropomorphic tendencies of humans. Humans need emotions to help in decision making. Decision making is used for anticipating future events and possibilities. The common definition of a God that knows all future events does not require emotion or anticipation because all future events are known. She doesn't have to think because thinking likewise is an anticipation and planning activity. That is not required when all is known. Possibilities are a waste of brain bytes if you know what's going to happen.

4. The contradiction between being able to do everything, such as create a banana too big for him to eat is a result of ultimate properties. To describe a god necessarily limits her. If a god is unlimited you cannot depend on them for anything, specifically because they cannot be limited to consistency. A god doesn't have to agree to granting salvation unless he is limited to following some agreement for that salvation. Once he agrees, he becomes limited to the agreement. Thus he is no longer free or unlimited.

5. Correct, I agree. The problem happens when no description ever passes the consistency test.

[Griggsy]

It is question begging to affirm the unknown cause! The known and useful ones are those of the presumption of naturalism.

[Griggsy]

Zorathruster makes the ignostic argument. That God is superfluous and requires more , ad hoc assumptions than natural causes is the Ockham argument.[ See the ignostic-Ockham , contradictions in an agnostic and the two category classification threads to see that the presumption of naturalism is warranted].

[papas]

On this point, humans have a sense of fairness, for that matter many other primates have the same sense. One interesting experiment they took monkeys and put them in a situation where they needed to cooperate to get some fruit. However, only one would get the fruit and then be required to "share". If the one who got the reward "shared", then they could expect cooperation next time. When they didn't share, future cooperation didn't happen.

This tendency to desire cooperation and shared benefit is where our sense of morality arrises, AND IT APPEARS TO HAVE A NATURAL BASIS. Social gossip in every society, from the most primative to the most modern revolves around the "fairness" of partialling out various benefits. From respecting another's spouse, "thou shalt not commit adultry" to respecting other people's property, "thou shalt not steal", are based on addressing social rules that benefit members who have vested interest in the system working. After all, there are usually more people who would want to "do you in" than people you would take the time and effort to "do in". As far as outcome, the benefit of killing someone else is fairly limited, while the consequence of getting killed is catastrophic.

The social contracts, rules that we follow form moral precepts that are what John Nash (A Beautiful Mind) proposes are "non-zero sum". An excellent work by Robert Wright, "Non-zero, the logic of human destiny" does justice to the concept as applied to sociology.

Actually even the talk origins site admits this is a misconception (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html). This is not any morality but a selfishness of a less detectable kind:

Organisms do not perform any behaviors that are for the good of their species. An individual organism competes primarily with others of it own species for its reproductive success. Natural selection favors selfish behavior because any truly altruistic act increases the recipient's reproductive success while lowering the donors. Altruists would disappear from a population as the non- altruists would reap the benefits, but not pay the costs, of altruistic acts. Many behaviors appear altruistic. Biologists, however, can demonstrate that these behaviors are only apparently altruistic. Cooperating with or helping other organisms is often the most selfish strategy for an animal. This is called reciprocal altruism. A good example of this is blood sharing in vampire bats. In these bats, those lucky enough to find a meal will often share part of it with an unsuccessful bat by regurgitating some blood into the other's mouth. Biologists have found that these bats form bonds with partners and help each other out when the other is needy. If a bat is found to be a "cheater," (he accepts blood when starving, but does not donate when his partner is) his partner will abandon him. The bats are thus not helping each other altruistically; they form pacts that are mutually beneficial.

Naturalism 101 is for non theist only. Thanks! :smile:

[Griggsy]

This thread goes with mine on the ignostic argument.
i cite my threads,not for self-promotion, but because they are the crux of naturalism.
I wish someone could compile a best of the threads and posts for a booklet!
I find some reasonable theists here as @ a christian and an atheist.
Anon I will make more comments about the inconsistent and incoherent attributes of God.