God is an Impossibility

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Veritas Aequitas
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

seeds wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 5:09 pm As was pointed out by atto, your problem lies in the false assumption implicit in P2 of your syllogism.

God does not have to meet some ideal form of “perfection.”

He (or she, or it, or whatever term you wish to use) simply needs to be in possession of the attributes necessary for creating a universe.

The idea of God needing to be “perfect” falls within the same category of false assumptions that insist that in order to qualify for the title of “God,” an entity must also be in possession of impossible levels of omniscience and omnibenevolence, for example,...

...all of which is just human-contrived nonsense.
_______
Note as mentioned in the OP, an imperfect God would be a potential loser to a God that is claimed to be perfect.
Note my argument above why a less than perfect God is an inferior God which most theists will not accept because such an inferior God will be ridiculed by theists who believe in a more superior or perfect God. Note how the Abrahamic believers condemned the pagans and those who pray to a God represented by idols, etc.

This is why the more smarter advisers [theologians, clergy] of theists resort to the ontological God to avoid in believing in a lesser than perfect God which is vulnerable to be ridiculed. It is also very instinctual [especially theists] to ensure their God is one-up on the God of others.

Another point is a less than perfect God will be exposed to the problem of infinite regression.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: God is an Impossibility

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-1- wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 7:25 pm There are tons of attributes that are attributed to God that are impossible.

There are two solutions to this type of reasoning:

1. You insist that god have impossible characteristics. This way you deny the existence of that god.

2. You admit that god does not possess impossible characteristics: God is Everywhere, god is all good, god is all powerful, and here, god is perfect, and then you are logically allowed to believe in god.

Your proof does not prove there is no god; it shows that god does not have all the characteristics that stupid theists attribute to him; and it allows the existence of a god which god, smart theists will admit, does not have all the attributes normally attached to him.
The ultimate God that I mentioned is the Ontological God, which is,
A God than which no greater can be conceived [idealized], St. Anselm.
and
is Supreme and Perfect - Descartes.

As I had mentioned above, Kant proved such an ontological God is a resulting illusion arising from thoughts and Pure Reason. [to be discussed].

Note the alternative,
the real empirical reason why the thought of God arose in human consciousness is adaptive and driven by the need to relieve an inherent existential crisis or Angst. Thus the issue is basically psychological and should be dealt with psychology, philosophy and other relevant fields of knowledge.
This approach is fanciful thinking but practical strategy adopted by the Eastern religions and philosophies, e.g. Buddhism, some religions of Hinduism, etc.
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Dubious wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:51 pm In any event proof of god as being or not being is beyond the jurisdiction of any logic known to man.
Note I have shown God is an impossibility to be real empirically and illusory if transcendental.
So the question of God is a non-starter.
Therefore the question of God existing or not existing is moot, i.e. a non-starter.

Since the cons [besides the critical pros] of theistic religions are contributing to terrible evil deeds and violence all over the world, humanity and theists should address the root cause of theism which is psychological and not divine stuffs.

Point is the Eastern religions and philosophies have been doing that since 2500 years ago [Buddhism] and long before that [Jainism & others].
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Necromancer »

I'd like to note there's a plausible psychological argument why Atheists do not believe in God.

It concerns Atheists assumed immorality in their personal lives. That they have become eligible for Hell by their sinful/immoral mentalities and actions and that this impacts their minds so hard that they fail to be able to believe in both Hell and Heaven (which is now beyond their lives) and consequently God and the Devil (Beelzebub, Satan, etc.) as well.
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

double posted
Last edited by Veritas Aequitas on Mon Aug 06, 2018 6:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Necromancer wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:38 am I'd like to note there's a plausible psychological argument why Atheists do not believe in God.

It concerns Atheists assumed immorality in their personal lives. That they have become eligible for Hell by their sinful/immoral mentalities and actions and that this impacts their minds so hard that they fail to be able to believe in both Hell and Heaven (which is now beyond their lives) and consequently God and the Devil (Beelzebub, Satan, etc.) as well.
This is off topic, but I will add a few points which the details can be discussed in another thread.

Both theists and non-theists [atheists] are subjected to the same fundamental existential forces that compel theists [majority] to cling to a God.
For various reasons [many], non-theists while driven by the same fundamental existential forces are deflected from theism [the path to God].
Example, driven by the fundamental hunger drive most people eat meat but a minority 'some' for various reasons preferred to be vegan.
(for good reasons [to be debated] non-theism and veganism [without side effects] will be prevalent in the future].

You seem to imply theists are good while non-theists are evil people.
There are no exceptions and there are good and evil people within theistic and non-theistic people and their respective religions and beliefs.
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Necromancer »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 6:18 amYou seem to imply theists are good while non-theists are evil people.
There are no exceptions and there are good and evil people within theistic and non-theistic people and their respective religions and beliefs.
While I claim this is not off-topic, I have this to say for now:

Theists must be good or their holy book will no longer mean anything to them. Thus, evil "Theists" are in fact hypocrite-Theists!

However, with Atheists it's different. They have no moral code. And you may wonder why they are not (Secular/Atheistic) Humanists if they are so good? You don't get it? Ooohh, I bet you do!
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Re: God is an Impossibility

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There is no claimer to have ever claimed there is a God or not.

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Re: God is an Impossibility

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-1- wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:42 amYou think this is a question of personal bias? Have you ever heard of a priori truths?
I assume you either are a programmer, knows the deep web well or have access to hack program?
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Dontaskme »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:12 amNote I have shown God is an impossibility to be real empirically and illusory if transcendental.
So the question of God is a non-starter.
Therefore the question of God existing or not existing is moot, i.e. a non-starter.
To even percieve the idea aka the concept of God in the first place is to conceive God into manifestation as perceived. The seed of thought is sown.


You are basically perceiving the idea that there is a God of impossibilty as you conceptually percieve it. You're sowing the seed of there being a God and at the same time denying God.


If your just going to unperceive,deny a perception as you've conceived it,then why make the perception/conception in the first place,what's the point in that?


So this thread topic is absurdism. The folly of a shackled mind.

.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Immanuel Can »

Wow. For a person who claims to prefer short answers, you sure give long ones. :wink:

But I'll stay brief, because you asked me to.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:39 am Thus you can see from the above;
  • If one's God is empirical which 80% of theists believe,
Actually, they don't.

An "empirical" God would be a created being, a product of material reality only.

It's one thing to say that the Supreme Being can act into the material realm when He so chooses. It's quite a different thing to say that God is a member of the subset of things within the material realm. And I have known no Theists (and believe me, I know a lot) who believe the second view.
If God is claimed to be transcendental, then it is an illusion, thus impossible to be real.[/list]
This also isn't what the Transcendentalists believe; but I'll let them speak for themselves, I think.
Whilst the majority of humans need God as a psychological crutch and cannot do without it

Wow. The old "psychological crutch" argument.

Well, really, this has always been a very, very weak argument. The "psychological crutch" insult works every bit as well as a counter to Atheism as it does a rebuke to Theism, actually. One can have a "wish fulfillment" (Freud) desire for God to exist, sure; but one can also have a "wish fulfillment" desire to imagine there's no God, when actually, there is. The first option may provide a sense of consolation, but the second promises a sense of freedom from judgment. An human being actually can have deep psychological longings to believe either way. Even Freud himself, who really invented the argument, said this was true. He thought Atheism was an expression of the Oedipal desire to "kill the father." But if it is, it's potentially just as much a "psychological crutch" as any other wish-fulfillment desire.

And either way, the presence of psychological longings does not logically tell us anything about the existence or non-existence of the thing longed for. You can long for a unicorn, or you can long for a glass of cold water. The former does not exist, but the latter surely does. But if one has to choose between the two, it's more likely that if you experience a profound longing, you're longing for something that corresponds to reality. For how do we explain, as a survival instinct, that we just happen to have a lot of unaccountable deep longings for things that simply don't and can't exist in reality?

So you'd have to say that if the "psychological crutch" argument counts for anything, it probably counts more for the existence of God than against it. But maybe it just doesn't count at all.
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Re: God is an Impossibility

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Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:50 am Here is an argument, Why God is an Impossibility to be real.

There are two types of perfection for philosophical consideration, i.e.
  • 1. Relative perfection
    2. Absolute perfection
1. Relative perfection
If one's answers in an objective tests are ALL correct that is a 100% perfect score.
Perfect scores 10/10 or 7/7 used to be given to extra-ordinary performance in diving, gymnastics, skating, and the likes. So perfection from the relative perspective can happen and exist within man-made systems of empirically-based measurements.

2. Absolute perfection
Absolute perfection is an idea, ideal, and it is only a thought that can arise from pure reason and never the empirical at all.
Absolute perfection is an impossibility in the empirical, thus exist only theoretically.
Examples are perfect circle, square, triangle, etc.

Generally, perfection is attributed to God. Any god with less than perfect attributes would be subjected to being inferior to another's god.
As such, God has to be absolutely perfect which is the ontological god, i.e. god is a Being than which no greater can be conceived.


So,
  • P1. Absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real
    P2. God, imperatively must be absolutely perfect
    C. Therefore God is an impossibility to be real.

Can any theist or non-theist counter the above?
A relativistic truth is an approximation of a constant non-changing truth with this approximation effectively observing a part of this unified infinite and whole truth.

As deficient in the unity and whole of this supreme truth, it is strictly an extension of this truth and not a truth in and of itself but rather a part of it. Hence what we observe as parts, as extensions, effectively shows that all parts are medial points to the whole truth (through the whole truth) in themselves and maintain a degree of perfection in the respect they exist, with this degree of existence as perfection still being "existence as perfection".

All evil is merely a deficiency of being, as an inversion of being, through its fracturing and multiplicity implying an apparent seperation. Bad health, morals, etc are merely an observation of imbalance through seperation in which a structure is "lacking" so to speak. In these respects "impossiblility" as an absence of the "possible" leaves what is existing, existed, and will exist as possible; hence the argument that is "existing" necessitates that God, through an idea from which all arguments maintain an inseperable base, exists at minimum as a concept to be negated. This conceptual nature of God, as thought or measurement (further reflecting the Divine One as the ultimate measurer) effectively observes a process of continual negation where God as Impossible must always be continually logically argued ad-infinitum thereby proving that God as Concept, or Measurer, always exists.
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Re: God is an Impossibility

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Dontaskme wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 1:39 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:12 amNote I have shown God is an impossibility to be real empirically and illusory if transcendental.
So the question of God is a non-starter.
Therefore the question of God existing or not existing is moot, i.e. a non-starter.
To even percieve the idea aka the concept of God in the first place is to conceive God into manifestation as perceived. The seed of thought is sown.

You are basically perceiving the idea that there is a God of impossibilty as you conceptually percieve it. You're sowing the seed of there being a God and at the same time denying God.

If your just going to unperceive,deny a perception as you've conceived it,then why make the perception/conception in the first place,what's the point in that?

So this thread topic is absurdism. The folly of a shackled mind.
You are conflating perception, idealization and conception. That is not critical thinking.

At the ultimate level, God is merely an idea, not a concept nor empirical thing to be perceived.
At the ultimate level, God as an idea is merely idealized not conceptualized nor perceived.

God as an ideal is an illusion, i.e. an impossibility to be real.
God as an illusion is something like [not exactly] an idea [thought only] of a square-circle which based on reasoning and it is an impossibility.
Would you insist a square-circle exists to be conceived, perceived or there is evidence that it exists?
Similarly the idea [not concept] on God is an illusion and impossibility and thus there is no question of it existing as real other than existing as an illusion.
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:38 pm Wow. For a person who claims to prefer short answers, you sure give long ones. :wink:

But I'll stay brief, because you asked me to.
Thanks and I appreciate that.
Unfortunately to get to the point, the answers has to be somewhat necessarily long. I am trying to make it short [just enough] to save time. I am only scratching the surface at present.

My point is, if you break my responses into too many smaller points or line by line then I will have to spent more time on a reasonable reply to each point [tendency to be long-winded] and at times there tend to be repetitions.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 3:39 am Thus you can see from the above;
  • If one's God is empirical which 80% of theists believe,
Actually, they don't.

An "empirical" God would be a created being, a product of material reality only.
Nope, note.
  • Empirical = based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
God is the ultimate creator and not [never] a created being but yet 80% of theists believe God is either verifiable by observation [based on hope] or can be experienced.

Therefore 80% of theists believe in an empirically-possible God.
Theists who are informed of the limitations of an empirical God will turn to the transcendental ontological God.
It's one thing to say that the Supreme Being can act into the material realm when He so chooses. It's quite a different thing to say that God is a member of the subset of things within the material realm. And I have known no Theists (and believe me, I know a lot) who believe the second view.
The majority of theists do not deliberate consciously on whether God is empirical or transcendental.

Note the definition of 'empirical' above.
By the thoughts and acts of the majority of theists, they imply these theists believe God to be empirical, i.e. a real God who answer prayers, intervene in world affairs and its presence can be experienced.
If God is claimed to be transcendental, then it is an illusion, thus impossible to be real.[/list]
This also isn't what the Transcendentalists believe; but I'll let them speak for themselves, I think.
In contrast to the definition of empirical above, what is transcendental is not empirical but rather based on theory or pure logic. This is the God of the Deists or panentheists who avoid any empirical characteristics for their God.
Whilst the majority of humans need God as a psychological crutch and cannot do without it

Wow. The old "psychological crutch" argument.
Note the definition of 'psychology';
Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, including conscious and unconscious phenomena, as well as feeling and thought.
It is an academic discipline of immense scope and diverse interests that, when taken together, seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, and all the variety of epiphenomena they manifest.
As a social science it aims to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases.
-wiki
Psychological is the study that involve behavior with the mind as the basis.
So my reference re "psychological crutch" is not directly related to Freud.

I am more interested in neuro-psychology i.e. to understand the neural connectivity and the underlying issues that drive theism.
Well, really, this has always been a very, very weak argument. The "psychological crutch" insult works every bit as well as a counter to Atheism as it does a rebuke to Theism, actually. One can have a "wish fulfillment" (Freud) desire for God to exist, sure; but one can also have a "wish fulfillment" desire to imagine there's no God, when actually, there is. The first option may provide a sense of consolation, but the second promises a sense of freedom from judgment. An human being actually can have deep psychological longings to believe either way. Even Freud himself, who really invented the argument, said this was true. He thought Atheism was an expression of the Oedipal desire to "kill the father." But if it is, it's potentially just as much a "psychological crutch" as any other wish-fulfillment desire.
As explained and my attention on the "psychological crutch" in relation to neuro-psychology and neuro-psychiatry, the above is not applicable.
And either way, the presence of psychological longings does not logically tell us anything about the existence or non-existence of the thing longed for. You can long for a unicorn, or you can long for a glass of cold water. The former does not exist, but the latter surely does. But if one has to choose between the two, it's more likely that if you experience a profound longing, you're longing for something that corresponds to reality. For how do we explain, as a survival instinct, that we just happen to have a lot of unaccountable deep longings for things that simply don't and can't exist in reality?

So you'd have to say that if the "psychological crutch" argument counts for anything, it probably counts more for the existence of God than against it. But maybe it just doesn't count at all.
As I had argued the 'longing' for God is ultimately defaulted to an illusion.
For theists who insist God is an empirical thing, they are caught in a dilemma of ending with an inferior God and infinite regression.
To escape the dilemma they have to jump from the frying into the fire, i.e. the transcendental God of pure logic which is a transcendental illusion.

The only reasonable and provable case for God is psychological. There is an Everest to climb here. Many has taken this path, I had mentioned Eastern religions and philosophies so it is not a mere fanciful idea.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: God is an Impossibility

Post by Immanuel Can »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:23 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:38 pm Wow. For a person who claims to prefer short answers, you sure give long ones. :wink:

But I'll stay brief, because you asked me to.
Thanks and I appreciate that.
Unfortunately to get to the point, the answers has to be somewhat necessarily long. I am trying to make it short [just enough] to save time. I am only scratching the surface at present.
Nope, note.
  • Empirical = based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
God is the ultimate creator and not [never] a created being but yet 80% of theists believe God is either verifiable by observation [based on hope] or can be experienced.
"Can be experienced" is not the same as "empirical." Your definition is basically correct, but you're not understanding its application correctly.

To say that God can choose to manifest something in the empirical realm is not to say that God is Himself empirical. No Theist believes God is made up of empirical matter. When they speak of "experiencing" God, they are referring to experiencing the effects of some of the things they attribute to Him, not that He himself is empirical.
Theists who are informed of the limitations of an empirical God will turn to the transcendental ontological God.
There's no "turning" there at all. All the major versions of the identity of the Supreme Being understand Him to be transcendent. But transcendent doesn't mean incapable of impacting the empirical world.

You've just completely misunderstood what they're saying, I'm sorry to say.
It's one thing to say that the Supreme Being can act into the material realm when He so chooses. It's quite a different thing to say that God is a member of the subset of things within the material realm. And I have known no Theists (and believe me, I know a lot) who believe the second view.
The majority of theists do not deliberate consciously on whether God is empirical or transcendental.

That might be true, when one considers ALL Theists in the world. It certainly isn't true in Western theology. But I see you have no familiarity with that, so I may not be able to convince you.
Well, really, this has always been a very, very weak argument. The "psychological crutch" insult works every bit as well as a counter to Atheism as it does a rebuke to Theism, actually. One can have a "wish fulfillment" (Freud) desire for God to exist, sure; but one can also have a "wish fulfillment" desire to imagine there's no God, when actually, there is. The first option may provide a sense of consolation, but the second promises a sense of freedom from judgment. An human being actually can have deep psychological longings to believe either way. Even Freud himself, who really invented the argument, said this was true. He thought Atheism was an expression of the Oedipal desire to "kill the father." But if it is, it's potentially just as much a "psychological crutch" as any other wish-fulfillment desire.
As explained and my attention on the "psychological crutch" in relation to neuro-psychology and neuro-psychiatry, the above is not applicable.
The "crutch" word certainly pegs your view as Freudian. You may not know it, but it is. If you were not intending to denigrate Theism and represent it as a sort of emotional dependency, you would certainly have used a better word to describe it. For example, you could have said "phenomenon," not "crutch." But if you misspoke, I'll let you walk that back.

So you don't believe in the "psychological crutch" argument. Good. It's terrible logic.
As I had argued the 'longing' for God is ultimately defaulted to an illusion.
For theists who insist God is an empirical thing, they are caught in a dilemma of ending with an inferior God and infinite regression.
Well, as I said, this is just a misunderstanding of both "empirical" and the content of Western theology.

Sorry. It's just not true. Theists do not say what you think they say, and they do not believe God is empirical. Nor, apparently, do the Transcendental-God folks believe that a Transcendent Creator would be incapable of empirical activity. Unfortunately, there's no nicer way to say it: you've just got that completely wrong.
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