An absolute agnostic point of view is to have no belief in either as a
fact but to establish probable levels of certainty.

FreeThink Jan 29, 3:31 am wrote:

If a god concept is omnipotent then could it do the logically
impossible?

The god concept is not the same as a god.
A dog can eat a bone a dog concept cannot.
A real fire breating dragon *could* breathe fire (if it existed) a fire
breathing dragon concept cannot and could not even if real fire
breathing dragons existed.

Answering the question you *probably* meant to ask:
No - God (notice the capital letter) being omnipotent doesnt mean He
can do the (logically) impossible.
The Logical imposible isnt "a thing that can be done" - God is thought
(imagined, believed) to be capable of doing anything and everything
that can be done.

That sure would throw a wrench in our philosophical and
theological gearboxes wouldn't it?

No, not really.

If so, shouldn't you Atheists and Theists give Agnosticism some

serious

consideration?

Agnosticism is just another unverifiable belief.
You believe that people cannot know everything there is to know about
God - but you dont know if thats true - you believe it is but how could
you be certain?

To make it clear-
What IF God doesnt exist.
THEN there is no God to know or not know anything about .
IF God doesnt exist AND I know nothing at all about God THEN in fact I
know the totality of everything there is to know about God.

So I dont know anything about God (I know ***** loads about beliefs,
opinions, ideas and stories about the alledged God (the "concept of
god") but thats not the same thing)
So in fact It is possibly true that I know everything there is to know
about God - which is the empty set. Nill. Nothing.
So agnostics ***believe*** we cannot know everything that it is
possible to know about God - but they cannot know that is true.
If that doesnt mess with your head - nothing will.
8-)

Mark.

FreeThink Jan 29, 3:31 am wrote:

If a god concept is omnipotent then could it do the logically
impossible?

The god concept is not the same as a god.
A dog can eat a bone a dog concept cannot.
A real fire breating dragon *could* breathe fire (if it existed) a

breathing dragon concept cannot and could not even if real fire
breathing dragons existed.

Answering the question you *probably* meant to ask:
No - God (notice the capital letter) being omnipotent doesnt mean He
can do the (logically) impossible.
The Logical imposible isnt "a thing that can be done" - God is

(imagined, believed) to be capable of doing anything and everything
that can be done.

That sure would throw a wrench in our philosophical and
theological gearboxes wouldn't it?

No, not really.

If so, shouldn't you Atheists and Theists give Agnosticism some

serious

consideration?

Agnosticism is just another unverifiable belief.
You believe that people cannot know everything there is to know about
God - but you dont know if thats true - you believe it is but how

you be certain?

To make it clear-
What IF God doesnt exist.

THEN there is no God to know or not know anything about .
IF God doesnt exist AND I know nothing at all about God THEN in fact

know the totality of everything there is to know about God.

So I dont know anything about God (I know ***** loads about beliefs,
opinions, ideas and stories about the alledged God (the "concept of
god") but thats not the same thing)
So in fact It is possibly true that I know everything there is to

about God - which is the empty set. Nill. Nothing.
So agnostics ***believe*** we cannot know everything that it is
possible to know about God - but they cannot know that is true.
If that doesnt mess with your head - nothing will.
8-)

Mark.

FreeThink wrote:

If a god concept is omnipotent then could it do the logically
impossible? That sure would throw a wrench in our philosophical and
theological gearboxes wouldn't it?

If so, shouldn't you Atheists and Theists give Agnosticism some serious
consideration?

God disproved.

By god here, I mean the Grand God of Grand Theology,
the god that is perfect, omnipotent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent. The god that is defined as the
most powerful thing that can be imagined, the creator
of all. This god is defined as being intelligent,
having conciousness,and will. I mean this in the general
overall sense that the word god means dogmatically
to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

1. Can god do the impossible, create a square circle or
a 4 sided triangle?

2. That really asks the question, does god create the rules,
the laws, the logic of the Universe at large? And thus
can change them at a whim, or for a reason?

3. Since god is supposedly omnipotent, let us try
answering yes.

4. If yes, god could easily create a world where man has
free will yet freely chooses only to do moral good.

5. But in this world we see that man often does moral
evil.

6. If god could create such a word since he creates the
Universe's rules, and does not do so, god is effectively
the creator of all evil, past, present and future.
Evil exists only because god allows it to when he could
easily end all evil by creating a Universe where indeed
man has free will and yet freely chooses only to do
moral good.

7. Thus god is the author and sustaining cause of all
evil and is himself evil, that is omni-malevolent,
rather than as claimed, omni-benevolent.

8. Since dogmatically, god is supposedly omni-benevolent
rather than omni-malevolent, this is obviously not
acceptable.

9. God therefore does not make the rules, the laws or
the logic of the Universe.

10. It should be noted, theologians have stated god himself
may not do evil, but that this does not mean god is not
omnipotent, because it is god's nature to be good.
Thus they do not account this inability to do evil
as limiting god's free will either. Thus the idea of
man being unable to do evil should likewise not be
allowed as an argument, if they refuse to apply the
same standards and reasoning to god, that would be
special pleading.

11. Free will in man is insisted upon as a dodge by
theology, to absolve god of the charge of allowing
evil, evil is necessary to allow for free will,
but that dodge is not acceptable in a world where
man explicitly has free will and a nature where doing
moral evil is impossible. It can't be used here.

12. God is said to be the most pwerful thing that can
be imagined,the greatest thing that can exist.
But if god does not make the laws and rules and logic
of the Universe, and cannot change them at whim,
then the Universe with its rules and laws and logic
are more powerful than god, and this dogmatic claim
is obviously not true.

13. This claim is used as a basis of ontological claims
such as Anselm's ontological proof and these type of
ontological proofs are all thus falsified.

14. God is supposedly omnipotent. But if he is limited
by the Universe with its rules and laws and logic,
obviously he is not omnipotent at all. This dogmatic
claim cannot be saved unless you accept a god that
is omni-malevolent as a basic dogma.

15. God is dogmatically claimed to have been the creator
of the Universe, of all that is. But if god does not
make the laws and rules and logic of the Universe,
they must be beyond him, outside him, and must either
preceed him or parallel god's existance, he cannot
have created it thusly, so the dogma that god created
all is false also.

16. One dodge here might be to claim god created the
Universe in the manner that limits him, but god,
being omniscient,superintelligent and omnibenevolent
would have known that by creating such a Universe, he
was creating a Universe tht contained evil only because
he chose to create a limited Universe, so we are back
to claiming god is omni-malevolent. Thus such a dodge
fails.

17. The idea of a perfect omni-everything god preceeds
Christianity, Epicurus noted the pronblem of evil
in 250 BCE. god is omnibenevolent and omnipotent,
yet evil exists. God either cannot or will not end
evil thus must be either not omnibenevolent or
omnipotent or possible neither.

18. Yet over 2,500 years, the theological methodolgy
used to erect the hypothetical Grand God of Grand
Theology which is now dogmatic in all major religous
traditions has failed to see this god as shown above,
cannot exist as claimed.

19. Thus not only is god as so defined an impossible
and failed hypothesis, the theology methodology
used to create such a hypothetical god is a failed
methodology and its basic method, making overarching
assertions without evidence is a failed methodology.

20. Being failed, attempts to patch up the problems
pointed out here cannot be allowed to continue
using a failed methodology, making empty assertions,
special pleading, double standards and failing to
adequately test assertions rigorously. Accepting
assertions not proven one way or another and in
the final anaylsis, often avoiding reason all
together with rhetorical questions "How can limited
man hope to understand an infinte god?". These
sorts of statments are simply indications that the
person in question is not going to be rational or
reasonable or change his or her mind faced with
facts.

21. By doing so, one loses the argument and all
expectations of respect for one's claims, that
person has abandoned reason and intellectual
honesty for obscurantism and superstition.

22. What are the laws and the rules and the logic of
the Universe? And what can we say about them?

23. As far as can be noted, we do have good, basic
understandings of the laws of the Universe. Things
are made up of matter and energy, operating in a
framework of time, and dimensions, with rules known
by science, phsycs, chemistry, astronomy and other
sciences.

24. There is no room in these laws and rules of
the Universe for dissembodied gods or entities
that have will and who act. Thinking beings
are made of matter and energy and subject to rules
of chemistry and physics.

25. If theology wishes to claim otherwise, theology
bears the burden of demonstrating with hard evidence
that a god or other supernatural entity can exist.
And very much has a burden to prove that the Grand
God of theological tradition has actual and real
existance.

26. The failed theological methodology of making
unsupported assertions and deriving subclaims
is not an acceptable method for doing so, since
as demonstrated above, that has proven to be a
total failure as a methodology.

27. At early times, man had no notion of a supernatural
versus a natural world, but as the idea of a natural
world has evolved, the idea of a supernatual world
has faded away. All is seen to be a natural world
of matter, energy, physics, no sign of supernatural
worlds or entities can be found.

28. All claims thus based on the idea a supernatural
world or entities might exist are unproven, and
it is the burden of anyone making such a claim
to prove such a supernatural realm does in fact exist,
before attempting to use claims of the existance of a
supernatural realm as a theoretical basis for
existance of god. And by prove, I mean to produce
good, hard evidence for such a supernatural world,
not assertions that may or may not be true.
This is the failed theological methodology and is
no longer acceptable.

24. There is a difference between making theoretical
claims a god may exist, and actually showing hard
evidence a god exists. Claiming god exists based
on deeper unproven assertions, existance of a
supernatural world, or any other unproven claims
is not acceptable as evidence. One may not stack
up mere assertions and claim it is hard evidence.

25 Arranging assertions in a manner that proof or
disproof is impossible because it involves a general
disproof of a negative is not acceptable as a
methodology for providing hard evidence of a god.

26. Since to save god's omni-benevolence, one must
admit that god did not create the rules and laws
and logic of the Universe, we know that these things
are beyond and outside god. But theology cannot
tell us we what these things are,and where they come
from. Since these things must limit god, failure to
be able to tell us anything about these laws and rules
in the setting of theological claims about god, this
means until theology handles this honestly and
adequately, theology cannot tell us anything about
god, even theoretically.

27. Theology must do this if it is to make further
claims about god in an attempt to save the concept
of god by making further assertions or claims.
One cannot describe god apart from a world in which
god must operate and exist with existing features
preceeding and outside and limiting or constraining
any possible god.

28. Possible alternative gods.
A believer might criticize this as it does not
disprove all types of gods, but, as this does
disprovethe dogmatic god of major religous systems,
that claim does not saves this god. And indeed it
is possible to disprove other god concepts.

29. Example, older Roman and Greek religions and
numerous other older polytheistic ancient religions
were basically built on the idea of nature gods,
that these gods are responsible for features
of the world, for rainfall, fertility of wives,
cattle and fields, for important activities like
growing wheat. But today, science understands these
things without any signs of a god or any other
supernatural entities or phenomenon being found,
and technology has solved many of the problems
that prompted creation of such gods that were
created in hopes of finding some force to propitiate
to assure success in agriculture, producing offspring
and avoiding or curing sickness and ill health.
These gods are thus failed and disprovable and
were so disproven and abandoned by most mankind
some 2000 years ago.

30. Other basic ideas about gods were explored long
ago by Greek thinkers and the basic claims are
similar to the Judeo-Christian theological god
and suceptible to similar disconfirmations.
stoic and neo-Platonist thinkers long wrestled
with these problems. Epicurus noted the problem
of evil long before Christianity. Stoics tried
to explain things by positing all is matter but
souls and gods and such are made of a finer grade
of matter. Which ideas are based on unproven claims
of doubtful nature and are thus disprovable.
These systems also created impossible contradictions,
arguments about pre-destination vs free will that
were never solved when Christianiy overtook them
and left these arguments unresolved, as these
religions faded away.

31. Other arguments, an imminent god versus a
transcedent god, god beyond and outside of time,
a world that does not exist outside the mind of god
and other variations and kinds of gods introduce
a rich soure of further debunkable claims.

32. Example: a god outside of time sees the world
differently from us as a one big now without actual
past nor future. Thus god see the future and can
know the future with exactitude. But such a god
that interacts with the world is part of it, at
such a point that he so acts, the world and god
are frozen in the big now of the Universe, god
thus is frozen embedded in the Universe and thus
like us, has no free will. All is determined
strongly and already is. Since theology demands
god has free will dogmatically, this god out of time
claim must be false.

33. Finally, any empty assertion, unproven, is only that,
unproven. Many claims made for god are just that.
Merely pointing this out when appropriate is the
equivalent of showing that claim is not acceptable
because if is not backed by hard evidence it is true.
Gods based on mere assertions and related concepts
based on mere assertions cannot be said to be true
and are disproven by pointing out they are based
solely on unproven or unprovable or unlikely
assertions.

34. After all, one empty assertion is worth any other,
and merely asserting god does not exist is as good
as any empty assertion made about god. Why accept
theology's empty assertions when we can insist
theology must accept ours? Empty assertions are
worthless.

End











--


Cheerful Charlie

FreeThink wrote:

If a god concept is omnipotent then could it do the logically
impossible? That sure would throw a wrench in our philosophical and
theological gearboxes wouldn't it?

If so, shouldn't you Atheists and Theists give Agnosticism some

consideration?

God disproved.

By god here, I mean the Grand God of Grand Theology,
the god that is perfect, omnipotent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent. The god that is defined as the
most powerful thing that can be imagined, the creator
of all. This god is defined as being intelligent,
having conciousness,and will. I mean this in the general
overall sense that the word god means dogmatically
to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

1. Can god do the impossible, create a square circle or
a 4 sided triangle?

2. That really asks the question, does god create the rules,
the laws, the logic of the Universe at large? And thus
can change them at a whim, or for a reason?

3. Since god is supposedly omnipotent, let us try
answering yes.

4. If yes, god could easily create a world where man has
free will yet freely chooses only to do moral good.

5. But in this world we see that man often does moral
evil.

6. If god could create such a word since he creates the
Universe's rules, and does not do so, god is effectively
the creator of all evil, past, present and future.
Evil exists only because god allows it to when he could
easily end all evil by creating a Universe where indeed
man has free will and yet freely chooses only to do
moral good.

7. Thus god is the author and sustaining cause of all
evil and is himself evil, that is omni-malevolent,
rather than as claimed, omni-benevolent.

8. Since dogmatically, god is supposedly omni-benevolent
rather than omni-malevolent, this is obviously not
acceptable.

9. God therefore does not make the rules, the laws or
the logic of the Universe.

10. It should be noted, theologians have stated god himself
may not do evil, but that this does not mean god is not
omnipotent, because it is god's nature to be good.
Thus they do not account this inability to do evil
as limiting god's free will either. Thus the idea of
man being unable to do evil should likewise not be
allowed as an argument, if they refuse to apply the
same standards and reasoning to god, that would be
special pleading.

11. Free will in man is insisted upon as a dodge by
theology, to absolve god of the charge of allowing
evil, evil is necessary to allow for free will,
but that dodge is not acceptable in a world where
man explicitly has free will and a nature where doing
moral evil is impossible. It can't be used here.

12. God is said to be the most pwerful thing that can
be imagined,the greatest thing that can exist.
But if god does not make the laws and rules and logic
of the Universe, and cannot change them at whim,
then the Universe with its rules and laws and logic
are more powerful than god, and this dogmatic claim
is obviously not true.

13. This claim is used as a basis of ontological claims
such as Anselm's ontological proof and these type of
ontological proofs are all thus falsified.

14. God is supposedly omnipotent. But if he is limited
by the Universe with its rules and laws and logic,
obviously he is not omnipotent at all. This dogmatic
claim cannot be saved unless you accept a god that
is omni-malevolent as a basic dogma.

15. God is dogmatically claimed to have been the creator
of the Universe, of all that is. But if god does not
make the laws and rules and logic of the Universe,
they must be beyond him, outside him, and must either
preceed him or parallel god's existance, he cannot
have created it thusly, so the dogma that god created
all is false also.

16. One dodge here might be to claim god created the
Universe in the manner that limits him, but god,
being omniscient,superintelligent and omnibenevolent
would have known that by creating such a Universe, he
was creating a Universe tht contained evil only because
he chose to create a limited Universe, so we are back
to claiming god is omni-malevolent. Thus such a dodge
fails.

17. The idea of a perfect omni-everything god preceeds
Christianity, Epicurus noted the pronblem of evil
in 250 BCE. god is omnibenevolent and omnipotent,
yet evil exists. God either cannot or will not end
evil thus must be either not omnibenevolent or
omnipotent or possible neither.

18. Yet over 2,500 years, the theological methodolgy
used to erect the hypothetical Grand God of Grand
Theology which is now dogmatic in all major religous
traditions has failed to see this god as shown above,
cannot exist as claimed.

19. Thus not only is god as so defined an impossible
and failed hypothesis, the theology methodology
used to create such a hypothetical god is a failed
methodology and its basic method, making overarching
assertions without evidence is a failed methodology.

20. Being failed, attempts to patch up the problems
pointed out here cannot be allowed to continue
using a failed methodology, making empty assertions,
special pleading, double standards and failing to
adequately test assertions rigorously. Accepting
assertions not proven one way or another and in
the final anaylsis, often avoiding reason all
together with rhetorical questions "How can limited
man hope to understand an infinte god?". These
sorts of statments are simply indications that the
person in question is not going to be rational or
reasonable or change his or her mind faced with
facts.

21. By doing so, one loses the argument and all
expectations of respect for one's claims, that
person has abandoned reason and intellectual
honesty for obscurantism and superstition.

22. What are the laws and the rules and the logic of
the Universe? And what can we say about them?

23. As far as can be noted, we do have good, basic
understandings of the laws of the Universe. Things
are made up of matter and energy, operating in a
framework of time, and dimensions, with rules known
by science, phsycs, chemistry, astronomy and other
sciences.

24. There is no room in these laws and rules of
the Universe for dissembodied gods or entities
that have will and who act. Thinking beings
are made of matter and energy and subject to rules
of chemistry and physics.

25. If theology wishes to claim otherwise, theology
bears the burden of demonstrating with hard evidence
that a god or other supernatural entity can exist.
And very much has a burden to prove that the Grand
God of theological tradition has actual and real
existance.

26. The failed theological methodology of making
unsupported assertions and deriving subclaims
is not an acceptable method for doing so, since
as demonstrated above, that has proven to be a
total failure as a methodology.

27. At early times, man had no notion of a supernatural
versus a natural world, but as the idea of a natural
world has evolved, the idea of a supernatual world
has faded away. All is seen to be a natural world
of matter, energy, physics, no sign of supernatural
worlds or entities can be found.

28. All claims thus based on the idea a supernatural
world or entities might exist are unproven, and
it is the burden of anyone making such a claim
to prove such a supernatural realm does in fact exist,
before attempting to use claims of the existance of a
supernatural realm as a theoretical basis for
existance of god. And by prove, I mean to produce
good, hard evidence for such a supernatural world,
not assertions that may or may not be true.
This is the failed theological methodology and is
no longer acceptable.

24. There is a difference between making theoretical
claims a god may exist, and actually showing hard
evidence a god exists. Claiming god exists based
on deeper unproven assertions, existance of a
supernatural world, or any other unproven claims
is not acceptable as evidence. One may not stack
up mere assertions and claim it is hard evidence.

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