What is God - Who is God

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Aristoddler
 
Reply Thu 27 Mar, 2008 04:27 pm
@Justin,
I see pink.
I see elephants.
Therefore there must be pink elephants.

Love it.

Descartes would cry himself to sleep over this one, lol.
 
ogden
 
Reply Thu 27 Mar, 2008 05:16 pm
@Ruthless Logic,
Ruthless Logic, greetings.

Have you heard of the St. Anselm ontological argument? St. Anselm attempted to prove Gods existance by positing that no greater being than God could be concieved. Gaunilo (Anselems detractor) used an example to dispute this claim; supose there is an imaginary island that is greater than any island in the world. Whatever qualities this imaginary island has cannot surpass an island that exists in the physical world because actual existance is greater than suposed existance. So just imagining an island greater than the one your on does not make it exist.

Quote:
Due to the simplicity of the concept that something greater than ouselves can potentially exist, the praposal for God lends itself as a component truth


This statment doesn't sound like proof, it sounds like a praposal that lends itself to the sugestion that it is proof. Simplistic concepts that are potentially true does not make them true.

Why do we insist on finding proof of God anyway? Proof of God would eradicate faith. Let those that have faith and believe say yes, and those that don't say no. My argument is not to diswade anyone from thier beliefs. And I assume you are not trying to convert any one, so we can freely conversate on this fascinating topic for enjoyment.

Do check-out St. Anselm's ontology though I think you will like it. Smile
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Thu 27 Mar, 2008 05:21 pm
@Justin,
Both claims "God does exist" and "God cannot exist" are claims that cannot be proven. They are both too strong. If you say 'God does exist' all one must do is ask to be shown God - this obviously cannot be done. If you say 'God cannot exist', this claim is just as impossible to support with evidence.
 
Dustin phil
 
Reply Thu 27 Mar, 2008 09:38 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
ogden wrote:
Proof of God would eradicate faith.


I see it as the direct opposite.

It's insignificant to use the term finding proof of God, as in some sort of outward evidence. The proof of God lies within, and within other people. This is the only way God can be seen.
 
Ruthless Logic
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 12:46 am
@Ruthless Logic,
Ruthless Logic wrote:
The quest to prove the existence of God cannot begin without fully understanding the #1 axiom that pertains to the absolute constraint of our natural world, which is that it is impossible to consider, conjure, or create anything that simply does not exist. Let me explain. Factual truths are provable concepts that reasonable people agree to be unequivocally consistent in there existence (1+1=2). My simple equation is a factual truth made up of component truths. What we call the number 1 and number 2 exists, also the concept of the equation sign and the positive sign clearly exists. On the other hand, Falsehoods, such as Flying Pink Elephants are empirically provable (we simply do not see them) not to exist. What does exist is the revelation that falsehoods are simply compilations of component truths (pink exists, flying exists, elephants exist) and that is the utter constraint of our Natural World (Reality). It is impossible for component falsehoods to exist, every provable falsehood requires the compilation of component truths. Getting back to the provable existence of God, the question then becomes is the prospect of God a compilation (potential falsehood) or a component truth(s). Due to the simplicity of the concept that something greater then ourselves can potentially exist, the proposal for God lends itself as a component truth.



Last sentence revision for consistent clarification= Due to the simple ability to consider the very existence of something greater then ourselves, while under the constraint that we cannot create or conjure anything without it actually existing as a compilation of truths (falsehood) or a singular component truth, because of the inherent simplicity of the consideration (God), and lack of potential convolution (inherent in falsehoods with multiple truths within the compilation), the proposal for God lends itself as a component truth.
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 12:45 pm
@Ruthless Logic,
What is the "inherent simplicity" of considering God?

Quote:
It's insignificant to use the term finding proof of God, as in some sort of outward evidence. The proof of God lies within, and within other people. This is the only way God can be seen.


Be careful with your use of "only".
 
ogden
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 04:18 pm
@Dustin phil,
Dustin wrote:
I see it as the direct opposite.

It's insignificant to use the term finding proof of God, as in some sort of outward evidence. The proof of God lies within, and within other people. This is the only way God can be seen.


Yes I see your point and I agree totally that God is not proven with outward evadence, nor with reason IMO.

If you go to court and the lawyer says he cannot show you the proof because it is within, then is it really proof? That is why I challenged this posts attempt at offering proof.

To me, faith is what my beliefs stand on. Why would something tangable require faith?
 
ogden
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 04:34 pm
@Ruthless Logic,
Ruthless Logic wrote:
Due to the simple ability to consider the very existence of something greater then ourselves


Whatever exists in physicality is superior to whatever is conjured with the imagination.

Quote:
while under the constraint that we cannot create or conjure anything without it actually existing as a compilation of truths (falsehood) or a singular component truth, because of the inherent simplicity of the consideration (God), and lack of potential convolution (inherent in falsehoods with multiple truths within the compilation), the proposal for God lends itself as a component truth.


How is God a single component truth? I don't see any inherant simplicity of the consideration "God", in fact one could write many books on God and really never get done explaining.

Give me an example of a simple component truth please. If I say "green" is that a simple component truth? there are many shades of green, some olive drab that could be considered brown.
 
Dustin phil
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 04:59 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:
Be careful with your use of "only".


Well, besides nature and things made. Am I missing something?
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 05:51 pm
@Justin,
Is God absent from those cases?
 
Dustin phil
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 08:06 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
If God is omnipresent, he wouldn't be absent from anywhere. Is there something you would like to elaborate more on?
 
Didymos Thomas
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 08:44 pm
@Dustin phil,
Maybe.

If I go to the mountains, and some morning I wake before dawn to go watch the sunrise over the mountains, and then, when asked about the sunrise I reply "I saw God", would you object to me seeing God somewhere other than in myself or in someone else?
 
Dustin phil
 
Reply Fri 28 Mar, 2008 09:01 pm
@Didymos Thomas,
Didymos Thomas wrote:
Maybe.

If I go to the mountains, and some morning I wake before dawn to go watch the sunrise over the mountains, and then, when asked about the sunrise I reply "I saw God", would you object to me seeing God somewhere other than in myself or in someone else?


Wouldn't you have seen God through the sunset in yourself?
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Sat 29 Mar, 2008 11:10 pm
@Dustin phil,
To me, God is the truth, whatever truth is. He is all that really exists.
 
ogden
 
Reply Sun 30 Mar, 2008 08:23 am
@saiboimushi,
saiboimushi wrote:
To me, God is the truth, whatever truth is. He is all that really exists.


If god is the truth and is also all that exists, then there is no account for the existance of untruth. Are you saying that nothing is false?
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Sun 30 Mar, 2008 10:05 am
@ogden,
I am saying that, yes. But do I understand it? Not at all. It is more of an intuition than anything.

However, if one tries to give an account of error, just as if I were to give an account of Truth, they would eventually run into a dead end in their reasoning, unless they first overcame certain herculean obstacles. In the Theaetetus, Socrates tries to define both error and knowledge, and after much consideration, gives in to the conclusion that error--as far as he can understand--is utterly impossible while knowledge is utterly illusive. I, too, have given in to the conclusion that falsity is ridiculously impossible while infinite truth is ridiculously unimaginable!

So I keep working with these delightful/awful impossibilities, hoping that one day I will understand what is real.
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Sun 30 Mar, 2008 12:09 pm
@saiboimushi,
But let me give you a sample of some of my thoughts on this subject. (It's dead at work.)

All that exists must exist: there must be an All, so far as I can see. This All cannot have anything outside of it, or exist apart from any other thing, or else it would not be All.

This All cannot be a quantity, nor (in all likelyhood) can it consist of different things, or else something could concievably be added to it. For example, if All consisted of 2 things, then it could also potentially consist of three, or four, or a million. The quantity 2, or any quantity, has a limit, therefore an outside. If it did not have a limit, or an outside, it would not be a quantity. In other words, if the universe (the All) had a limit--and if a limit is a boundary, a line of demarcation between 2 or more things--then something (perhaps empty space?) must be waiting on the other side of that limit.

One can count forever and never reach All. Whatever quantity one ends up with, another quantity can be added to it. If no other quantity could be added to it, could it still be a quantity? (This is the question that I am focusing on now, since it may lead me to an understanding of what quantity is.)

But now let's try to imagine dividing All into parts. One can draw a circle and then draw a line through it, thus dividing the circle into two parts. But the only reason why someone can do this is because the circle is finite. If the circle were infinite, then no line could ever reach from one point on its circumference to another. Each point of the circle's circumference would be infinitely distant from any other. In fact, the circle could not have a circumference, since if it did, it would not be infinite. An infinite circle therefore cannot exist, and a circle (any circle) is a quanitity--it is 1 circle.

But what if someome attempted to divide the All, not by drawing a line through it, but by drawing a shape within it, i.e. a bounded shape drawn or superimposed upon shapeless infinity? Now we're getting into some interesting stuff...

Oh yeah, and here's another thing I was thinking about yesterday. A finite quantity cannot be infinitely divisible, since its infinite divisibility would make it infinite--it's continuity would prevent it from being discrete, at least within itself. And ... as the "Natural Light" informs us ... the infinite cannot be contained within the finite. However, to raise the same question again using different terms: Does the internal continuity of a discrete substance REALLY AND TRULY render it incapable of being discrete? Within itself it is continuous, but in relation to other substances outside of itself it appears discrete. Strange.

So what you end up with are two paradoxes, two question marks: a finite quantity with nothing outside of it, and an infinitely divisible quanitity (an All?) with all kinds of things outside of it. No one--not Parmenides, not even Newton--has figured this stuff out. It is an undiscovered country just waiting to be ... discovered.
 
ogden
 
Reply Sun 30 Mar, 2008 12:58 pm
@saiboimushi,
saiboimushi wrote:
Let me give you a sample of some of my thoughts on this subject.

All that exists must exist: there must be an All, so far as I can see. This All cannot have anything outside of it, or exist apart from any other thing, or else it would not be All.


Wow, that is really cool. I like it.

Quote:
This All cannot be a quantity, nor (in all likelyhood) can it consist of different things, or else something could concievably be added to it. For example, if All consisted of 2 things, then it could also consist of three, or four, or a million. The quantity 2, or any quantity, has a limit, therefore an outside. If it did not have a limit, or an outside, it would not be a quantity. In other words, if the universe (the All) had a limit--and if a limit is a boundary, a line of demarcation between 2 or more things--then something (perhaps empty space?) must be waiting on the other side of that limit.


I just respectfully disagree. I devide existance into being and not being. Somehow I cannot abide the impossability of nonexistance.

Quote:
One can count forever and never reach All. Whatever quantity one ends up with, another quantity can be added to it. If no other quantity could be added to it, could it still be a quantity? (This is the question that I am focusing on now, since it may lead me to an understanding of what quantity is.)


Perhaps it is our symantics that are at odds. I do not see how existance is a quantity that neccesserily implies infinity, although I admit I have no proof of nonexistance. If I could subtract one thing from existance would that show existance as a quantity? Darn, I can't do that either! Maybe I could toss something into the "sungularity" of a black hole:).

Quote:
But now let's try to imagine dividing All into parts. One can draw a circle and then draw a line through it, thus dividing the circle into two parts. But the only reason why someone can do this is because the circle is finite. If the circle were infinite, then no line could ever reach from one point on its circumference to another. Each point of the circle's circumference would be infinitely distant from any other. In fact, the circle could not have a circumference, since if it did, it would not be infinite. An infinite circle therefore cannot exist, and a circle (any circle) is a quanitity--it is 1 circle.


OK. An infinite circle cannot exist. But can you say for sure that the universe is infinate any more than I can say it is'nt? Can being spring from being or would it neccessarily come from nonexistance?

Quote:
But what if someome attempted to divide the All, not by drawing a line through it, but by drawing a shape within it, i.e. a bounded shape drawn or superimposed upon shapeless infinity? Now we're getting into some interesting stuff...


What if nonexistance was infinity, and existance was the finite/quantity/shape within it?Wink
 
saiboimushi
 
Reply Sun 30 Mar, 2008 01:06 pm
@ogden,
I love slow days at work.

I would define non-being as non-existence, just as I would define being as existence, or that which is as that which exists. Therefore, I would say that non-being does not exist. It does not be, or else it would be being, it would be what it is not.

To define infinity properly would be to render a perfect image of it, and a perfect image of infinity would itself be infinite, since a perfect image is a perfect reflection. Therefore, I have not yet properly defined infinity, since I have thus far dealt in finite terms.

Since (according to my humble logic) non-being cannot exist, there never could be a time when nothing existed. Or think about it this way: if there were a time when nothing existed, then would TIME exist during this time? During the supposed time when nothing existed, time could not have existed either. So there cannnot BE a time when nothing exists.

When we try to conceive of nothing, we are really trying to conceive of the All.
 
ogden
 
Reply Sun 30 Mar, 2008 01:20 pm
@saiboimushi,
I am really begining to see your point and I do apreciate your clear reasoning.

Let me say that time did not exist for me before I existed. so my existance sprang from nonexistance. It seems irational for me to presume that I allways existed, so I guess I just superimpose that perception onto my idea of the universe.

Does that make sense?
 
 

 
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