God is Impossible

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Prince_James, Nov 28, 2006.

  1. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    For those of us who are Atheists here, I thought to ask whether any of you can provide a philosophical argument that demonstrates the impossibility of God. That is to say, not simply "the lack of evidence for God", but the logical impossibility.

    Come, we must have some strong atheists and non-agnostics here, so I expect you to come out of the woodwork and show us where the Theists are wrong.

    This ought to be interesting.
     
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  3. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    If people actually stick to the premise of the thread, it should.
    I fear it will revert into "God exists. moron", "No God exists, moron".
    I will hold out hope, though.

    I will, however, beat most of the atheists to the question...

    How would you like "God" defined for the purpose of this thread?
    Without a clear, concise definition, this thread, if not pointless, will not get anywhere productive.
     
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  5. IceAgeCivilizations Banned Banned

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    Proving that God supposedly doesn't exist, wow, that's a tall order.
     
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  7. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Not proof. A sound, philosphical argument against God's existence.
     
  8. KennyJC Registered Senior Member

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    Well I'm almost a strong atheist. I think god is almost certainly impossible because an intelligent and concious being as the root cause of everything is simply absurd.

    And since we don't know how our universe exists, we could just as easily imagine an infinite number of possabilities - and it would be an impossible task to guess correctly. It would be like a monkey guessing that electrons exist (haha I used an electron analogy better than LG could ever do!).

    I think it's also practically impossible that the how's and why's behind the universe would match our most wishful delusions. So that rules out gods, afterlives, heaven etc.
     
  9. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think philosophy is the tool to be determining whether a life form exists or not.
     
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Positive rejection of God (strong atheism) doesn't necessarily involve proving that God is impossible, only that it is sufficiently improbable to preclude serious consideration.
     
  11. In order for God to exist, being as we are told the Creator of all things, God must therefore have had a direct hand in creating Himself in order to exist in the first place - which, of course, is a complete nonsense.

    In short, the existence of God undermines his own status as actually being God - in essence, disproving Himself by dint of His own existence.
     
  12. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Mr Anonymous,
    That only holds true if God is not eternal.
    If God is eternal, God didn't need to be created.
     
  13. Which in itself only remains true if Time remains something God Himself didn't create.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I can accept that, if God is a metaphor for the universe, that it created itself. What I find hard to swallow is the set of assuptions people make about it, the idea of worship, personal intervention in human affairs, a code of morality, miracles, prayer, literal heaven and hell, angels, demons... all that crap.
     
  15. Satyr Banned Banned

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    Existence: As man understands existence, it is characterized by a temporal/spatial nature.
    That is it possesses dimensions. Something is said to exist when it is temporal (changing) and spatial (possibility) - God, often being defined as that phenomenon which ‘exists’ outside ‘reality’ (reality being the temporal/spatial universe), is self-refuting.
    Something cannot be said to ‘exist’, that is having a temporal and spatial nature, by not existing.
    The most one can say is that one imagines a Being which somehow escapes human understanding. But this depends on ignorance and blind hope more than on any reasoned argument.

    Perfection: God is defined by many religions as the 'perfect Being' (omniscient, omnipotent). I would state that if there are no absolutes then everything is in a state of Becoming a Something or Becoming a Nothing. Creation then becomes an act meant to self-realize or self-correct against the ravages of temporal and spatial fragmentation (entropy).
    A ‘perfect’ Being would be characterized as inert and not needing or wanting anything. It would have no reason to create at all, since it possesses the entirety of what is possible and it is unchanging (non-temporal/non-spatial).
    Furthermore action is motivated by an absence, a lack. We act because we are never satisfied or because we need (we have a temporal character).
    To imagine a perfect Being that acts is self-refuting. A God would have no more reason to act than a full bellied man would have to eat.

    Beginning/End: The notion of a beginning or an end is rooted on the mythologies of cause/effect. The concepts of cause and effect insinuate a distance, a separation between what causes and its effect, the observer from the observed.
    In essence it is a contradiction of temporal flow within spatial possibility. There is no actual separation but only relationships and flow.
    The effect is the cause and the cause is the effect as they both express a temporal direction of possibility, perceived in temporal succession by a human mind that can only remain aware of one temporal direction and resulting in the eror of cause followed by an effect.
    This myth causes the need for a starting point and an end point, a beginning/end and is often used as an excuse for imagining a creator who is then imagined (hoped) to require neither, in a leap of blatant double-standard thinking called faith.

    In fact, the universe requires no starting point, for this would require an absolute which is absent from all sensual experiences, no more than their simile of a God requires a creator.

    The Big Bang is but the event horizon of reality.
    The absence of an absolute makes existence possible as a reaction to it.
    The Big Bang, as a starting point is also a flawed perspective. The Big Bang is our universe’s closest approximation of an absolute Something as the Big Crunch is the closest approximation of an absolute Nothing.
    Existence, as we know it, is the intermediating state between the two.

    Life, as a reactive enterprise, can only exist as we know it in this temporal direction (the tumbling into Nothingness or towards an absolute Nothing – decay. Disordering being a human interpretation of growing entropy) which is characterized by constant growing fragmentation of the forces that inter-relate to create the ephemeral unities we call matter or life.

    Consciousness: The mind is the product of this resistance to decay. It is a sophistication of unity trying to attain a level of order and stability within the growing entropy.
    The brain and the mind it produces as a stream of thought (a temporal stream) is a tool meant to direct autopoiesis and to focus energies more efficiently towards this end - in the service of maintenance and growth or resistance to decay.
    Need: an expression of lack.
    Lack: the universes flux.
    Suffering: the conscious interpretation of Need and therefore of flux and the stress of resisting it.

    Therefore a conscious entity ‘existing’ 'outside' entropy would have no need for consciousness.
    What would a perfect, omnipotent omniscient God be conscious of, except Self?
    Human consciousness can also be seen as the universe becoming aware of itself or God awakening to him self.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2006
  16. IceAgeCivilizations Banned Banned

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    "God doesn't exist and Darwin was right," with no indication that either is true, and they call that rational thinking?
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What do you mean, "no indication"?
     
  18. IceAgeCivilizations Banned Banned

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    Sorry Satyr, according to the second law of thermodynamics, there had to have been a beginning of matter, and according to you, it came from nothing, why do you keep trying to sell this stuff?
     
  19. IceAgeCivilizations Banned Banned

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    No indication means no evidence.
     
  20. Satyr Banned Banned

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    Is this what you understood you half-wit?
     
  21. Satyr Banned Banned

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    More....

    Possible: the concept of possibility relies on temporality and spatiality.
    Something is deemed possible when it can manifest itself in a temporal spatial manner.
    Our opinions on what is possible and what is not, is then rooted in our experiences and our interpretations of reality using our senses – logic.
    We deem reasonable or logical that which adheres to the tenants we’ve constructed through our own or centuries of human experience.

    We say it is reasonable to think that ‘what goes up must come down’ or that 2+2=4 because it has never done otherwise.
    There is of course the possibility that our experiential pasts might face a new experience, such as vacuumed space, where things do not come down. That is when a rational mind revises his logic to fit into it this new pattern of behavior.

    Reality is therefore an ongoing construct being constantly revised and open to newer experiences.

    The desire to jump out of experience and imagine a future revision of logic, is the human mind grasping for a safety raft in the stormy seas of uncertainty and insecurity.

    No surprise that religions are such a safety raft and those most needy are the first to climb on board.
     
  22. IceAgeCivilizations Banned Banned

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    Hey Satyr, please let us know when you "experience" that 2 + 2 = 5, and when it happens to you, promise to write about it in Nature?
     
  23. IceAgeCivilizations Banned Banned

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    Your biggest problem, Satyr, is that you don't realize that you are "most needy."
     

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