Dear Conde,
this variety belongs to monotheism - pantheistic gods are usually more family oriented
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
So you agree your god is not omniscient. But you are inadvertently conceding also that your god is not omnipotent, since it has limitations to its knowledge derived from its impossibility to put itself in a time and space of future events. It can only have a present and a past, but the future remains uncertain for your god. Even more, it cannot determine what the future will be (otherwise it would know it) and it cannot change it. The future will be that which comes on its own and only when it becomes present tense, your god will know what has brought. That brings too a major problem for your god being infinite, because it's restricted by time and space.attofishpi wrote: I did not say God cannot change the future - i stated with regards to omniscience that it is unlikely to know ALL the future. Not knowing ALL the future does not render God unable to change the future - especially when it comes to its subjects - us.
This point is something atheists like to use all the time - to state God is not omniscient if it does not know ALL of the future for me is short sighted, as you might then state this God is. But its fine then if thats precludes your definition of omniscient, then fine i'll agree - God is not omniscient! - so what??
Of course God knows at least some of the future, much like we all do. From my experience of it, it certainly knows enough of the future to put in effect its omnipotence.
You said it yourself: whatever people think a god does, it is not obvious, it's not evident. So they believe things, like karma or something affecting their existence, but that's all: a belief without evidence. If you believe the light of remote stars affects very deeply your existence, stating it so won't make it more real.attofishpi wrote: Yes in general if you look at the world around us there is no obvious God changing the course of things. But to some individuals, including myself, this God certainly has affected our existence - karma is what some spiritual people call it.
If god does not know future events and can't control those future events, it is not omniscient, nor omnipotent. Having limited powers and knowledge makes such a being less than a god and quite imperfect.attofishpi wrote: Why? If God AND myself do not know that next year i am going to kill someone and then that point in time arrives and i kill someone - that does not equal that there is NO God, it simply means that God permitted the event to take its natural course, however unpleasant.
Supposing it knows every present thought in your mind, you have made clear that it will not know your future thoughts, and even worse, your future actions. If tomorrow you will want to kill someone next week, your god will not be able to prevent it today, not even one second before the thought appears in your mind.attofishpi wrote:But i assure you, from experience it certainly does have the power to prevent this killing. It does know every thought that passes through my mind - and i know this from testing and being tested by it, so i have little doubt since i am just a human, that the same applies to your mind and everyone else's.
Most preachers of the "born again" kind, which are a lot, usually claim that they have a "personal relationship" with their god, that they talk to him (they call it prayer, BTW), get rewards and punishments, etc.attofishpi wrote: No there is a big difference. I have never met a priest that states they KNOW for a fact that God exists (obviously experience of it is required) - they merely believe and that belief usually comes from somewhere such as the bible and i don't merely buy bull.
Again, that's just a belief, without any evidence to support it objectively.attofishpi wrote: My actual belief on the matter and one which a sage from the aether confirmed to me, is that we are born into the family, be it atheist, catholic, hindu etc..based on what God has decided is appropriate for us.
But it goes against your claim that all faiths believe in the same god. Your own interpretation could be a man's folly.attofishpi wrote:Conde Lucanor wrote:Actually, it can be easily seen that the different gods of monotheism have attributes, desires, plans, etc., which cannot be reconciled among them.
And that is man's folly. It still does not change the state of God.
Sure, I'll get to it. Promise.attofishpi wrote: Good, let me know what you think of the site.
That's why the sentence begins with "generally", meaning most of the time, but not always.waechter418 wrote:"Generally, a god would be an entity that by definition excludes other gods"
Dear Conde,
this variety belongs to monotheism - pantheistic gods are usually more family oriented
No. I stated if knowing ALL of the future is a requirement for your definition of omniscience then i will agree it is not omniscient. My definition of all knowing is knowing everything up to the current point in time. But let me add - i dont think it is a requirement for a God to be omni anything!!Conde Lucanor wrote:So you agree your god is not omniscient.attofishpi wrote: I did not say God cannot change the future - i stated with regards to omniscience that it is unlikely to know ALL the future. Not knowing ALL the future does not render God unable to change the future - especially when it comes to its subjects - us.
This point is something atheists like to use all the time - to state God is not omniscient if it does not know ALL of the future for me is short sighted, as you might then state this God is. But its fine then if thats precludes your definition of omniscient, then fine i'll agree - God is not omniscient! - so what??
Of course God knows at least some of the future, much like we all do. From my experience of it, it certainly knows enough of the future to put in effect its omnipotence.
No, you really do strain yourself with logic. An entity that does not know ALL of the future can exist in a time and space of future events.Conde Lucanor wrote:But you are inadvertently conceding also that your god is not omnipotent, since it has limitations to its knowledge derived from its impossibility to put itself in a time and space of future events.
So if 10 years in the future not ALL circumstances are currently known to God, but it does have the power to put any circumstance it likes in place as time progresses, where has it lost any omnipotence?Conde Lucanor wrote: It can only have a present and a past, but the future remains uncertain for your god.
How could anyone believe in an entity that knows ALL the future?? That is ridiculous but your insistance that for this entity to be a God it must, is also laughable.Conde Lucanor wrote:Even more, it cannot determine what the future will be (otherwise it would know it) and it cannot change it. The future will be that which comes on its own and only when it becomes present tense, your god will know what has brought.
You made that point already and i have already refuted it above.Conde Lucanor wrote:That brings too a major problem for your god being infinite, because it's restricted by time and space.attofishpi wrote:Again, not knowing ALL of the future is irrelevant, since God can CAUSE an (or even ALL) future events to occur.
I did not state it is not evident to ALL. Since God has made itself extremely evident to me over 20yrs, it is likely that there are plenty of others that have had the same degree of knowledge of its existence....certainly my sage has.Conde Lucanor wrote:You said it yourself: whatever people think a god does, it is not obvious, it's not evident. So they believe things, like karma or something affecting their existence, but that's all: a belief without evidence. If you believe the light of remote stars affects very deeply your existence, stating it so won't make it more real.attofishpi wrote:Yes in general if you look at the world around us there is no obvious God changing the course of things. But to some individuals, including myself, this God certainly has affected our existence - karma is what some spiritual people call it.
You are the one making the claim that God cannot control future events - as i have already explained, not knowing ALL the future does not mean it cannot CAUSE all of the future (as to how it sees fit).Conde Lucanor wrote:If god does not know future events and can't control those future events, it is not omniscient, nor omnipotent.attofishpi wrote:Why? If God AND myself do not know that next year i am going to kill someone and then that point in time arrives and i kill someone - that does not equal that there is NO God, it simply means that God permitted the event to take its natural course, however unpleasant.
Heidegger is a good place to look. I am convinced the question you pose is the heart of philosophy. It gets very complicated and involved but the question you ask - or imply others are asking - is central.waechter418 wrote:It seems that since we are aware of ourselves we have been trying to find out who, why & where we are and that many of our religions, cosmologies, philosophies and sciences developed around this quest.
The answers differ widely, see for example neurologists, Buddha, Hegel, astrophysicists, Lao Tse or Christian fundamentalists - yet each insists to have found the right answer, which is understandable, after all, it is not easy to admit that the quest has been in vain and increases our confusion.
What went wrong?
I don't believe it's "my definition" of omniscience, but a concept generally known of an almighty god's infinite knowledge. If you have a different concept of omniscience makes no difference, because what matters is whether your god has infinite knowledge or not. Infinite knowledge includes all knowledge of future events, which your god is incapable of.attofishpi wrote: No. I stated if knowing ALL of the future is a requirement for your definition of omniscience then i will agree it is not omniscient. My definition of all knowing is knowing everything up to the current point in time.
But you did say your god was omnipotent and likely omniscient. But in any case, if your god does not have infinite power and infinite knowledge, if that's not part of its essence of being a god, in what sense it can be a god?attofishpi wrote:But let me add - i dont think it is a requirement for a God to be omni anything!!
No, that was not the argument. We are supposedly talking about an infinite being that lives simultaneously in the past, present and future, because it would not be restricted to time and space dimensions. If your god has such strict limitations, it is not all powerful and certainly not all knowing.attofishpi wrote:No, you really do strain yourself with logic. An entity that does not know ALL of the future can exist in a time and space of future events.Conde Lucanor wrote:But you are inadvertently conceding also that your god is not omnipotent, since it has limitations to its knowledge derived from its impossibility to put itself in a time and space of future events.
It lost it when it was not able to control the future. It can't prevent future circumstances, so they'll be imposed on this god when it arrives to that point in time. They're circumstances it will face and yet it will be unable to avoid them.attofishpi wrote: So if 10 years in the future not ALL circumstances are currently known to God, but it does have the power to put any circumstance it likes in place as time progresses, where has it lost any omnipotence?
You get the point!! It's ridiculous, but that's what a god is supposed to be.attofishpi wrote: How could anyone believe in an entity that knows ALL the future?? That is ridiculous but your insistance that for this entity to be a God it must, is also laughable.
First I gave you the chance to define your god as not being omnipotent and omniscient, but you voluntarily accepted those attributes as belonging to your god. Infiniteness is consubstantial to omnipotence and omniscience. It means "without limits", that is, unlimited power and unlimited knowledge.attofishpi wrote: You have brought the words such as omnipotent and omniscient into the debate - now you want me to believe God is infinite. Friggin hell - man cannot even comprehend infinity so dont expect me to start speculating over it.
The point is that since your belief is completely subjective, it only happens between the boundaries of your own perceptions and is has no truth value to anyone else, unless you could make it objectively evident to others, which has not been the case. At best, it can be a truth valid only for yourself.attofishpi wrote: I did not state it is not evident to ALL. Since God has made itself extremely evident to me over 20yrs, it is likely that there are plenty of others that have had the same degree of knowledge of its existence....certainly my sage has.
If god were the ONLY CAUSE of all future events, then it would necessarily have to know all future events (because god would determine all of them). But you claim it does not know all future events, therefore accepting that at least some future events are not caused by god. Those events are out of reach of your god, become outside circumnstances it must deal with, which makes it not being all powerful.attofishpi wrote: You are the one making the claim that God cannot control future events - as i have already explained, not knowing ALL the future does not mean it cannot CAUSE all of the future (as to how it sees fit).
I can claim that no bachelor is married, without requiring to search the entire universe to attest that there's actually no married bachelor. There is no god because the idea of god is absurd.attofishpi wrote:to claim to KNOW there is NO God, would require knowing everything about the universe, which i'm pretty certain you don't.
A ridiculous analogy. Your short-sightedness is all that is absurd.Conde Lucanor wrote:I can claim that no bachelor is married, without requiring to search the entire universe to attest that there's actually no married bachelor. There is no god because the idea of god is absurd.attofishpi wrote:to claim to KNOW there is NO God, would require knowing everything about the universe, which i'm pretty certain you don't.
Surely God would not live in the past, present or future. These may be the ways we humans think about time, and our own lives, but even we know that ultimately they don't make sense.Conde Lucanor wrote: No, that was not the argument. We are supposedly talking about an infinite being that lives simultaneously in the past, present and future, because it would not be restricted to time and space dimensions. If your god has such strict limitations, it is not all powerful and certainly not all knowing.
We bring in the notion of time if we want to describe a sequence of particular events, but by selecting out particular events we are again imposing our own subjective view on the universe. Seen holistically, the universe simply is always what it is. No event is really discrete, rather it is integrated with the whole state of the universe, so to separate it out into 'events' is to misrepresent it.If god were the ONLY CAUSE of all future events, then it would necessarily have to know all future events (because god would determine all of them). But you claim it does not know all future events, therefore accepting that at least some future events are not caused by god. Those events are out of reach of your god, become outside circumnstances it must deal with, which makes it not being all powerful.
Oh!waechter418 wrote:....and the question still is WHO-WHY-WHERE are we ? (without blaming a god)
Who - ask your mumwaechter418 wrote:....and the question still is WHO-WHY-WHERE are we ? (without blaming a god)
Well, that particular analogy right there is one of the classics of analytic philosophy. If you're going to be daring and challenge it, at least show some wit in doing it by presenting the logical counterargument. It was a logical statement, if you think it's false, you should be able to prove it easily.attofishpi wrote:A ridiculous analogy. Your short-sightedness is all that is absurd.Conde Lucanor wrote:I can claim that no bachelor is married, without requiring to search the entire universe to attest that there's actually no married bachelor. There is no god because the idea of god is absurd.attofishpi wrote:to claim to KNOW there is NO God, would require knowing everything about the universe, which i'm pretty certain you don't.
And the logical support for that statement is?Londoner wrote:
Surely God would not live in the past, present or future.
And other than your wishes to believe so, is there any support to that statement from empirical evidence or logic? You say that "he can know", but assuming such a deity existed, how do you know it has consciousness?Londoner wrote:God does not have that problem. He can know the universe as a whole, so for God it isn't necessary for him to break it down into 'events' in order to understand it.
If we can't accurately represent the deity because human understanding is limited, how do you get to know all these things about god? According to you, they are most likely misrepresentations and that should make us ask also if that misrepresented idea exists as a concrete being at all.Londoner wrote:So the state of God cannot be understood in itself, but only in contrast with our own. We humans are trapped in our subjectivity, obliged to use certain concepts and techniques to get by, while being aware that these must also be misrepresentations of what is.