God Is Self-contradictory. Hence, God Doesn’t Exist.

Sure! But if the Universe is infinite, then there must be an infinite number of Chimps throughout the Universe doing Shakespeare's right now!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

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Actually, "chimps on typewriters" may be a finite subset of an infinite set "universe." So that isn't really true.

 

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So in otherwords your statement is "Nothing is constant except change" - which is a negative absolute -

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As for finding something that doesn't change - that requires the application of the relevant epistemology - for instance looking for eternal phenomena in the medium of the temporary will obviously not provide what one is looking for (although an intelligent person could perhaps speculate on the nature of the absolute since they are seemingly surronded by phenomena with causes they cannot determine)
Can you name a single thing that has a cause that isn't mysterious?

 

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Hi baumgarten:

If the Universe is an infinite set, then it's absolutely impossible for
the subset of 'chimps on typewriters' to be finite!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

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On Heraclitus and his famous assertion:

If indeed "nothing is constant except change", then it stands to reason that change depends on constancy, and thus the concept's foundation - that change is prevalent throughout - is at the very least, highly suspect. Although I will agree on an temporal level, it would seem that Heraclitus did not consider the necessities of certain changeless qualities, such as eternity and infinity, which necessarily provide the foundation for said changing qualities. That by admitting constancy, Heraclitus all ready undermined his own argument.

ANd as to monkeys and whether or not they are infinite:

In infinite space and infinite time - but even without the latter - an infinite amount of monkeys typing shakespeare would indeed be real. For if we assume that in infinite space all will manifest infinitely, then it stands to reason that monkeys typing shakespeare will manifestly infinitely, just like everything else.

That is, I agree with AAF on this one completely.

 

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PART TWO:

lightgigantic: “To begin with you first have to uncover an argument. This can sometimes be quite a laborious process because people tend to use language cheaply (eg – “God is illogical” …er .. why?). To get the premises (hence referred to as P1, P2) for a conclusion (C) you may have to wade through pages of opinions and even insults ……….”.

Re: Good heaven! It has the feel and the touch of ‘how to become a millionaire’ booklet! Dear visitor; let me know when enlightened and the revelation comes upon you!


lightgigantic: “…Basically atheistic arguments come in two varieties
- Logic that isn’t true - Truth that isn’t logical (and in cases of mammoth foolishness, arguments that are both untruthful and illogical)…..”.

Re: So you heard of the mammoth and its foolishness! That is good! Now, tell me how can a truth be a truth and, at the same time, is not logical? You really need to be more cautious in your wording and a bit subtle. Take a look at Christian apologetics’ websites. Their arguments are certainly false and groundless, but a bit subtle and more sophisticated. Try to learn something from them and use it in defending your own religion!


lightgigantic: “…TESTING THE TRUTH OF AN ARGUMENT
(P1) All turtles have wings
(P2) All horses are turtles
(C) All horses have wings
The sad fact is that this is a logical argument. Of course it is not true but it contains no logical fallacies. Defeating this type of argument requires an analysis of the premises. For example here is the common “Religion causes war” argument……..”.

Re: Why it’s sad? Logical deduction guarantees only the correctness of the conclusion, not the truth of the premises. There is nothing sad about it. It’s just the way it is. To verify the premises, you have to use logical induction and the battle-tested scientific method. Watch, observe, and learn! Are you interested?


lightgigantic: “… (P1) War is regrettable
(P2) Religion causes war
(C) Therefore religion is regrettable
One can defeat this argument by examining the premise of P2 and establishing that violence is in fact caused by many things, the most likely being human nature…….”.

Re: You’ve committed a terrible blunder in your reasoning. It’s absolutely simple and clear that many things can lead to war. But this multiplicity of the causes of war does not vindicate religion or exclude religious beliefs as a major source of violence. And by the way, just war is not regrettable. Freedom itself could never be gained without just and glorious wars against despots and tyrants. Now why is religion is a major source of unjustified violence? Very simple! The sacred books of many religions contain explicit commands and orders for the believers to commit violence, use force, and vanquish non-believers and outsiders by all means. It’s, therefore, the moral duty of every decent human being alive to criticize as strongly as possible those religions and to sustain this criticism as long as it takes to make their followers give up violence and clean up their religious beliefs and overcome their evil tendencies.


lightgigantic: “…TESTING THE LOGIC OF AN ARGUMENT
(P1) Today is Tuesday
(P2) The grass is green
(C) I’m tired
These statements are all true but the arguments are totally illogical – what is not true, however , is that the premises establish the conclusion. Often you encounter this in the form of arguments that are merely tentative suggestions ( in other words the plausibility can often be easily swung to prove the opposite)….”.

Re: Those propositions are simply independent of each other. And the (P1, P2, & C) in front of them mean, in this case, nothing more than simple numeration and bookkeeping. It’s, therefore, ‘mammoth foolishness’ not to recognize an Aristotelian syllogism, when you see one!


lightgigantic: “… (P1) Scientists examine matter
(P2) Study of matter has not revealed god
(C) Scientists have no interest in religion
One can defeat this by showing evidence of scientists that have been interested in god……”.

Re: One doesn’t normally use scientists to prove the non-existence of God! But it’s absolutely fabulous both tactically and strategically to use their science for this purpose in any debate about this hypothetical entity of rationally poor theists.


lightgigantic: “…So the general technique is
1- assist the atheist to form a coherent argument
2 – examine the truth of the premises
3 – examine the logic of the conclusion
From here I guess the thread is open for additions, corrections or clarifications, and –lol – I guess insults” .

Re: ‘Assist the atheist’! What a nice, loving, good fella! I’m not kidding. This is really my ‘testimony’, if you just take out that insulting ‘mammoth foolishness’ up there! And then, assist and help with this simple Aristotelian syllogism:
(P1) Everything whose concept is contradictory does not exist.
(P2) The concept of God is contradictory.
(C) God, therefore, does not exist.
What a nice, loving, good fella!

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The problem lies with your first premise

You use a contradictory definition of god (at least one not accepted by monotheists) as a vehicle for your logic

In otherwords you lack a foundation of theoretical knowledge, so your assumptions/conclusions/speculations are valueless

 

Obviously, Heraclitus' famous assertion is true only in the case of material entities. And it fails miserably in the cases of abstract ideas, absolute entities, and general laws and principles. But for the material essence and its forms, the Heraclitus rule has no exception; and CHANGE is really the rule.

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AAF:

I concur. For all temporal, transient entities, change is indeed the fact of the matter.

 

I totally agree with that, even though there is a very, very, very remote possibility that 'Lumière_Gigantique' could be the exception to this general RULE!

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On the contrary I agree - what I would add however is that there is a superior nature that is not subject to this definition

 

I didn't say you don't agree! I said only it's remotely possible that you (lightgigantic), you could be the EXCEPTION to Prince_James' RULE that 'for all temporal, transient entities, change is indeed the fact of the matter'.

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god exists because he has answered so many people's prayers.

it just annoys that he does bad things to me so often, like making that movie desync and stuff. but yeah... it's probably like with the guy Job... God and satan made a bet... who Job would choose... and satan can do as many bad things against him as he wants...

god doesn't really exist, but he still kind of exists...

 

So you're admitting you have an incomplete epistemological premise?

 

How about:

Can god create existence ?

* If God can create existence. Then, non-existence is greater than Him.
* If God cannot create existence. Then, god cannot exist.

 

If one uses the scriptural definitions of god, and says that the linear appearance of time is concommitant on gods existence (which happens to be eternal BTW) does the above premises hold?

 

God is uncaused and therefore eternal.
Existence is uncaused and therefore eternal.
They are eternal because Time doesn't have a beginning.
If there is no beginning, there is no point of creation.
God did no create anything, Then God doesn't exist.

 

Now you are approaching the vedic concept of god - god doesn't create the material cosmos because it is an eternal aspect of his potency - the material cosmos does however go through periods of annhilation and re-establishment - similar to the way things get devastated in winter and rejuvenated in the spring through an endless series of cycles

 

Some logical problems here.

Let's start with the basics of logic 'Nothing can both exist and not exist simultaneously in the same manner.

By definition 'non-existence' does not ever exist. It cannot be greater than anything therefore because something that does not exist has no properties of itself, only a lack of all properties of everything. It can therefore have no property that could make it greater than anything in any way.

'If God cannot create existence. Then, god cannot exist.' seems to be the common misunderstanding of omnipotence. This is a quality traditionally ascibed to God and implies being able to do all that it is possible to do, even if we cannot conceptualise the vastness of that. It does not mean being able to do that which is logically impossible. God cannot create four sided triangles because triangles by definition only have three sides. He cannot make something so heavy he cannot lift it etc. Likewise God cannot create Himself but He can be eternally existent and He could then create everything else (if he chose to do so).

If ‘Existence is uncaused and therefore eternal’ then the existence of time must also be eternal, or else there will be a time when the existence was, but time was not, and thus a time when time was not, a logical inconsistency. Your next line is therefore the wrong way round logically. Note that ‘non-existence’ having no properties (and therefore not having any property of time) can logically be the state before the creation of anything since the statement before the existence of anything there was total non-existence is logically true.

Your next line is simply a further reinstatement of the simple logic that if there is no beginning (eternal time) there is no finite point of creation (start time).

Even if 'God did no create anything', 'Then God doesn't exist' does not logically follow although it might be a different form of God to many theologies (He could be able to create but choose not to).

So apart from logical errors all these words represent is a statement that what is eternal did not begin at a finite time in the past. This is very much self evident and of itself proves absolutely nothing.

The following is valid logic (irrespective of theology).

First of all, to restate, 'Nothing can both exist and not exist simultaneously in the same manner (first rule of logic).

Therefore nothing can create itself (as it would have needed to exist before it existed in order to create itself).

So everything logically could not create itself from nothing.

Nothing could have existed eternally but this is provably false since something exists now. Note that this is not affected by theories of ‘dark-matter’ etc. since if that exists, it is another something to go with the other somethings in the universe. The logic of this is easily provable by taking any integer and pairing it with -1 times itself. The sum of all of these pairs is always zero (as stated by some to be the total energy matter equivalent of the universe) but the number of such numbers is always a positive even number. So although they summate to zero, they are actually not ‘nothing’ but a ‘something’. This sort of confusion between summation to zero and ‘non-existence’ seems to have led many modern astro-physicists to come up with universe origin theories which are actually not logically sound.

An eternal self existing entity of sufficient power, skill and knowledge could at some point create everything else in the universe including time. In other words an entity with no beginning could create a beginning for everything else. Whether you choose to believe in such an 'entity' or not does not affect the logic of the argument, which is valid.

The universe (in some form of matter/energy/time) could be eternal (the only other remaining logical possibility).

There are problems with an eternal universe in that all the evidence found in recent times seems to suggest the opposite (hence the popularity of 'Big Bang' over other theories).

You also have to resolve the problem of the second law of thermodynamics and the required resetting of entropy to zero or reversing of it or alternatively you have to prove that it does not apply at universe level. No one seems to have got very far with any provable theories in this last regard.

There is a very real problem in regard to entropy not increasing consistently in that our concept of the direction of time forwards is intrinsically related to entropy increase and thus variations in resetting entropy or reducing (or even in it remaining constant) could effectively reset time to zero, move it backwards or stop it. The properties and implications of a universe in eternity when time does not move forward consistently have to be conceptualised and that is not easy to do, being the creatures of time that we are. A form of existence outside of time is usually used by atheists to deride christian ideas of everlasting life but it follows logically if you start 'playing around' with entropy.

So at the present, the eternal 'entity' creating the universe is the best supported and most logical model able to be conceptualised.


regards,


Gordon.

 

The more you believe in God and speak to him in prayer, the more all sorts of coincidences seem to happen. The less you do so, strangely the less the coincidences!


regards,


Gordon.