God Paradox

[Goldensheep]

See if my logic follows:

1) If God is not omnipotent, then [insert name of Abrahamic religion] has lied or is mistaken
2) If God were not omnipotent, then there should be something God cannot do
3) God cannot not exist (or if He can, then He does not exist)

Of course, you could argue that since 3) is logically impossible, then it is not fair to expect God to do it. Then the argument would run

1) If God is not omnipotent, then [insert name of Abrahamic religion] has lied or is mistaken
2) If God were not omnipotent, then there should be something I can do which God cannot do
3) I can make a table
4) God can make a table
5) I can make a table God has not made
6) God cannot make a table God has not made
7) Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent

You could argue that God both "making" and "not making" a table is logically incoherant, but it doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that I can make said table, whether or not it is possible for God to do it.

My question is not "Does God exist?", since that's hackneyed. My question is, firstly, "Is this logic correct?", and secondly, "Does it mean anything, even if it is?"

[Draconias]

At 1/18/07 02:56 PM, Grammer wrote: He can do anything, even bend the rules of logic and human understanding as we know it.

Bull. That's called an "escape route" for someone with a complete unsupportable position. Nothing can "bend" logic-- either it fits or it doesn't. There's none of this "humans can't know god's logic" or "god can alter logic" crap, it's just logical or not.

To the OP: While your logic is fairly consistant, your choice of action is not necessarily good. It is possible to argue that "existance" doesn't apply to God one way or another, so existing or not is irrelevant. Alternatively, it may be possible for God to cease to exist, such as if he jumped forward in time one second-- for that one instant he did not exist, but then he returned to our existance.

[AdamRice]

At 1/18/07 02:56 PM, Grammer wrote:

At 1/18/07 02:34 PM, Goldensheep wrote: See if my logic follows:

1) If God is not omnipotent, then [insert name of Abrahamic religion] has lied or is mistaken

But he is.

2) If God were not omnipotent, then there should be something God cannot do

He can do anything, even bend the rules of logic and human understanding as we know it.

3) God cannot not exist (or if He can, then He does not exist)

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes it does make sense. If god is omnipotent, then he could make himself not exist right? But if he did that, he wouldn't exist anymore, so chances are he wouldn't do that under any circumstances. So you could say that god can not do that to himself because then he would be gone forever.

[Joodah]

alternately, God could be building that table through you.

[Draconias]

At 1/18/07 06:28 PM, Grammer wrote: You can call it w/e you want, but it only makes sense that an all-powerful God has the power to bend anything. Just because you can't comprehend it, doesn't mean it can't happen.

My ability to comprehend the subject has nothing to do with it. While God may be omnipotent, you can't do something for which no course of action exists. Logic is an artificial construction, akin to a definition; static concepts can not be bent. They can be changed at the initial point of definition, but never bent or temporarily altered.

For that reason, no God does not have the power to "bend" logic-- it's impossible because logic can not be acted upon in that manner.

To the OP: While your logic is fairly consistant,

Hahaha, no it's not, it's got more holes than cheddar cheese. Why can't you see it?

Cheddar cheese? It may help you to know that cheddar cheese has no visible holes. His logic is fairly accurate, but the weakness is that his agrument relies on the inability of anyone to think of a method, but the lack of a response is not proof that no method exists.

[SmilezRoyale]

Ok, listen to me. First of all, i dont understand why they dont make a religon thread so i dont have to keep answering 'god' questions.

Second of all, the best person to ask a religon question is not somone who understands politics, but a theologist.

Third of all, it's a Religon, Religons are reinstated, retaught, reused, remade, and refocused, so trying to bind them to modern science is a futile effort, but i will do my best:

God created all matter in the universe, that's the 'logo' behind the impotency concept. God did not construct the universe, the universe constructed itself, he mearly created the universe. Just as Staples office supplies doesn't create offices, it creates the things that are found in office supplies. [matter]

Just like the scientifically excepted theory that the sun 'created' all of the energy on earth, because it's the source of all energy on earth. [energy in fuel and coal comes from plants, energy from plants comes from the sun.]

You dont have to be bound to beleiving the bible stories just because your a beleiver in a super intelligent being who played part in creating the laws of the universe as well as creating the energy which forms matter.

[theDeity]

1) If God is not omnipotent, then [insert name of Abrahamic religion] has lied or is mistaken

Ok.

2) If God were not omnipotent, then there should be something I can do which God cannot do

Sounds fair.

3) I can make a table

Still good.

4) God can make a table

Ok.

5) I can make a table God has not made

How do you know that? As Ray Comfort is fond of saying, that is an absolute statement. To validate such a claim, you must know every table in the physical (and metaphysical, since we're talking God here, folks) world. Also, just because God hasn't done something doesn't mean he can't do it. To be omnipotent doesn't mean that you've done everything there is to do. It just means that you can do it, if you so desire it. Also, Ray Comfort is an idiot.

6) God cannot make a table God has not made

Why not?

7) Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent

[JudgeDredd]

There's a story that goes like this; God once made a statue of himself, but upon completion, he found it lacking, lacking in very subtle ways, so he set forth to make an even better one, one so elaborate that it changed exactly as he changed! ..and we call it the Universe.

The moral of this story is simple; debunking God is like debunking the existence of the Universe, and equally futile.

[elmosera]

Nice to see more of these around. I hate religious people who justify everything with "he can do anything!"

[Dealy-rizazamatizazz]

God or gods or whatever you may believe has been a topic of discussion forever. Ecspecially his limitations and what have you.

Can god make a mountain so (large,big,heavy) that he can't lift it.
Yes, but if he does want to lift it, he lightens it to lift it, or uses the power of nature, years of erosion, earthquakes, whatever he wants to till its light enough.
Any paradox is not truly a paradox you simply haven't thought it over.

Even Archemedes boasted that if you gave him a place to stand he could lift Earth, not with strength, but with his mind and other meens.

Q:What is a paradox if it isnt a paradox?
A:A paradox that is answerable.

[Togukawa]

At 1/20/07 07:26 AM, Dealy-rizazamatizazz wrote: God or gods or whatever you may believe has been a topic of discussion forever. Ecspecially his limitations and what have you.

Can god make a mountain so (large,big,heavy) that he can't lift it.
Yes, but if he does want to lift it, he lightens it to lift it, or uses the power of nature, years of erosion, earthquakes, whatever he wants to till its light enough.
Any paradox is not truly a paradox you simply haven't thought it over.

Which means he has indeed lifted the rock, which means the rock wasn't unliftable, which means he failed at creating a rock he couldn't lift. That's not the answer to the paradox, AT ALL. A possible answer is that it is unreasonable to demand an omnipotent being to do something that is logically impossible to do. Not being able to perform what's by very definition impossible, doesn't degrade the omnipotence.

Not having thought it over eh?

Even Archemedes boasted that if you gave him a place to stand he could lift Earth, not with strength, but with his mind and other meens.

Completely wrong quote, and completely unrelated. Archimedes was talking about the possibilities of a lever. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Q:What is a paradox if it isnt a paradox?
A:A paradox that is answerable.

No if a paradox isn't a paradox, it isn't a paradox at all. Besides, being answerable or not has nothing to do with being a paradox or not.

[theDeity]

There are different explanations for what "omnipotent" really means and how it applys to God. Many argue that there are many things that God cannot do, but that He is still omnipotent.

Could God deny himself?
Could God create a triangle with angles that do not add up to 180?
Can got make 1+1=15?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_para dox

[Leeloo-Minai]

At 1/20/07 08:43 AM, Togukawa wrote: Which means he has indeed lifted the rock, which means the rock wasn't unliftable, which means he failed at creating a rock he couldn't lift.

"Can God speak so quietly even he couldn't hear himself?"

Will God see it necessary to create an entity even he has no sway over?

Think about free will and put 2 and 2 together.

Q:What is a paradox if it isnt a paradox?
A:A paradox that is answerable.

No if a paradox isn't a paradox, it isn't a paradox at all. Besides, being answerable or not has nothing to do with being a paradox or not.

If an unliftable object must be lifted, it's not impossible, just illogical. And it's not God failing, it's you :)

[stafffighter]

God could creat a weight beyond his current capabilities and then later make himself strong enough to lift it meaning that for some time there would have been something God couldn't lift.

[Togukawa]

At 1/20/07 08:49 AM, Leeloo-Minai wrote: "Can God speak so quietly even he couldn't hear himself?"

Will God see it necessary to create an entity even he has no sway over?

Think about free will and put 2 and 2 together.

It's omniPOTENS not omniVOLENS. Free will has nothing to do with this.

If an unliftable object must be lifted, it's not impossible, just illogical. And it's not God failing, it's you :)

Yes it is impossible. By it's very definition, unliftable means "impossible to be lifted". At all. Loopholes like "oh but he could only be able to lift it later" aren't loopholes at all. If the object can be lifted at some point in time, then it was not unliftable.

And yes, it's God failing at doing something. Can God do X? No God can't. Hence God fails at doing X...

[Togukawa]

At 1/20/07 01:05 PM, Grammer wrote:

My ability to comprehend the subject has nothing to do with it. While God may be omnipotent, you can't do something for which no course of action exists.

There is no course of action, in our plane of thought. God is all powerful, why wouldn't he be able to manipulate what is and isn't real?

We are talking in an axiomatic system. By changing the system in itself, you don't accomplish the action itself. It's like making 2+2=0. Even I can do that. I just use modular arithmics modulo 4. Then 2+2=0. Have I now actually completed the challenge of making 2+2=0 in REGULAR arithmics? Nope.

By changing the system, you can't solve its challenge. God might change what's real and what's not, but by doing that he still isn't able to do, what by it's very DEFINITION is impossible.
Basically the argument goes like this: A is an impossible action. By definition (the axioms of language) of the word impossible , no entity can perform the impossible, hence no entity can perform A. God is an entity, so God can't perform A. Period.

Now less retarded people than us have pointed out that if no entity can perform action A, then action A can't reasonably fall within the definition of omnipotence. Hence, even while not able to perform action A, God is still omnipotent.

Most of the explanations I've read here are complete and utter bull faeces.

For that reason, no God does not have the power to "bend" logic-- it's impossible because logic can not be acted upon in that manner.

Only the way humans see it.

Which doesn't matter, since the challenge is posed in the human logic system. "Bending" logic is equal to just creating another logic, in which the challenge is possible. But then you haven't solved the challenge in the initial logic.

(By the way, there are many logics, there's the classical logic with which most of us are familiar, but there's also relative logics, fuzzy logics, inconsistent logics, and so on.)

[Leeloo-Minai]

Okay, I guess I should explain more about "Can God speak so softly even He couldn't hear himself", which is essentially the same as magically creating the universe and then creating something He has no power over, but not human free will, because that would have nothing to do with it...

If you set God to a task, for example, like your really big rock even He can't lift, what's to stop God from creating said rock, making a really convincing show to YOU and YOU alone that indeed, God could not lift the enormous rock? You'd go out and preach with your proof that God created something He couldn't lift (ie manipulate).

Once you leave or die or your bloodline has bred itself out, what is now to stop him from lifting the rock? The Faith in your belief that God cannot improve? Fuck, single celled bacteria can do that, why not God?

[Dealy-rizazamatizazz]

One Archemedes..i did not quote, there were no quotations, i simply stated something i knew he said, or the jist of it, and yes it is relavent, God can make it so heavy he cant lift it but he can lift it through other means, as previously stated, he made it, couldnt lift it, so he made it liftable, as Archemedes believed he could lift earth with his own means but not strength, yes a lever, but he also enjoyed pullies. It's like inventions or upgrades, maybe god made it un-liftable but then he went to a gym for a few months and came back to lift it...time is a meens of conveiance, besides Chuck Norris can lift anything, God made Norris..he could so help, watch Clerks 2, the Elias part about robots and man..it's perfectly legal.

[Humbucker740]

At 1/21/07 12:11 AM, Dealy-rizazamatizazz wrote: God made Norris..

You had me at Norris.

Its all true because he put Chuck in it. BELIEVE.

[fireball6283]

Maybe nobody should start these kind of threads anymore because Religion+discussion+idiots=argument. Praise Allah!!

[Humbucker740]

At 1/21/07 12:28 AM, fireball6283 wrote: Maybe nobody should start these kind of threads anymore because Religion+discussion+idiots=argument. Praise Allah!!

Maybe you should stay out of these threads because everyone hates you.

[fireball6283]

At 1/21/07 12:35 AM, Humbucker740 wrote:

At 1/21/07 12:28 AM, fireball6283 wrote: Maybe nobody should start these kind of threads anymore because Religion+discussion+idiots=argument. Praise Allah!!

Maybe you should stay out of these threads because everyone hates you.

My God, your right. Nobody on this website likes me. I'm worthless, just because some people on some website don't like me. I should die. I'm gonna cry myself to sleep.

[DJ-Jerakai]

The logic is fair and well constructed at the start of this thread.

End of thread.

[Ravariel]

At 1/20/07 08:44 AM, theDeity wrote: Could God create a triangle with angles that do not add up to 180?

Shit, I can do that... no need for a god.

[Goldensheep]

At 1/21/07 12:34 AM, intrinsik2 wrote:

I think you could use many more intermediary proofs, because as it stands now, almost all of your points are not supported by anything.

How so? I thought most of them just rest on the premise "God exists and is omnipotent" and "I exist"

[MortalWound]

I like to thing of God as a computer programer. He can type in what he want's making his "game" which we call life, into what he wants. Sometimes, he may need help so calls on his friend Allah, Shiva, Yaweah(sorry if that's mispelled), and others. You can tell a program to do something that you can't, such as flying. He wouldn't be breaking any biblical rules(the game/program manual) that were set by humans because he programmed them to think, do, act or say that. You can be wrong with a line of code sometimes to causing game paradoxes like cheat codes. But anyways, that's all i got to say.

IT'S THE MATRIX?!

[Imperator]

The moral of this story is simple; debunking God is like debunking the existence of the Universe, and equally futile.

Thank you.

Which means he has indeed lifted the rock, which means the rock wasn't unliftable, which means he failed at creating a rock he couldn't lift.

When we begin talking about 3rd party influences (gravity, people to lift the rock) the rules change, now don't they?

Sure, God can both create a rock that is unliftable, and then lift it. You're assuming that it's a 1 dimension problem, but what if it isn't? That's the BEAUTY of paradoxes, they're designed to provoke thought on multiple levels.

And to answer the question:

God creates the unliftable rock. God then shifts the Universe around it, thus "moving" the rock. Paradox "solved". Again, it's perception and interpretation at work, which is why people who "believe in science" for lack of better terms, often disbelieve in God. Math and other sciences have resolute answers, religion and humanities may not.

Completely wrong quote, and completely unrelated. Archimedes was talking about the possibilities of a lever. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

See above. God can use "levers" as well.

For that reason, no God does not have the power to "bend" logic-- it's impossible because logic can not be acted upon in that manner.

We can also apply the "move the universe" equation to this and thus, "bend" logic. Logic itself will not have changed, but the surrounding drives behind logic will make it appear "bent".

Put on someone else's pair of glasses to experience this. Have the objects actually changed, or has the universe around them changed?

Basically the argument goes like this: A is an impossible action. By definition (the axioms of language) of the word impossible , no entity can perform the impossible, hence no entity can perform A. God is an entity, so God can't perform A. Period.

A is an impossible action IN A DEFINED setting. Change the setting, and you change A. Therefore, A may no longer become impossible.

Which doesn't matter, since the challenge is posed in the human logic system. "Bending" logic is equal to just creating another logic, in which the challenge is possible. But then you haven't solved the challenge in the initial logic.

Well now you're asking us to solve math problems by slitting our wrists. If you don't offer the proper tools, of course it's not going to work. Pose the challenge in a different logic system, and we may have different answers. Again, perception and interpretation.

Politics would be screwed if logic couldn't be bent.

My thoughts exactly.....

Shit, I can do that... no need for a god.

lol. University of Michigan, creating gods since 1815.....

[Minty-Hippo]

It would be impossible to prove god is not omnipotent as the mere mention of which would call into effects the fact that god in being omnipotent can not not be omnipotent. It would also be impossible to get people to believe he is not omnipotent as there mere belief in his omnipotence would therefor make him omnipotent to said person, If god does exist then he would be omnipotent if not, then he would be nothing.

[Draconias]

At 1/22/07 03:57 AM, Imperator wrote:

For that reason, no God does not have the power to "bend" logic-- it's impossible because logic can not be acted upon in that manner.

We can also apply the "move the universe" equation to this and thus, "bend" logic. Logic itself will not have changed, but the surrounding drives behind logic will make it appear "bent".

Put on someone else's pair of glasses to experience this. Have the objects actually changed, or has the universe around them changed?

With someone else's pair of glasses, nothing has changed, only your own view is distorted and warped. It is impossible to "bend" logic-- it is not something you can act upon in any way because it is a set of definitions. If God were to alter it in any way, it would be a permanent change of a definition, not a possible temporary thing. There is nothing more to the issue: God can't "bend" logic because logic can't be "bent"-- only misunderstood and misapplied.

Well now you're asking us to solve math problems by slitting our wrists. If you don't offer the proper tools, of course it's not going to work. Pose the challenge in a different logic system, and we may have different answers. Again, perception and interpretation.

But isn't that the point of the impossible? No tool can help you do it because it isn't possible! Sure, you can cheat and lie to make it appear that you did it, an illusion, but you still can't do the impossible-- for a reason.

Politics would be screwed if logic couldn't be bent.

Lying and propaganda avoid logic entirely.

[Altarus]

God can overcome all of these paradoxes because he is inconsistent (note inconsistent is not the same as illogical). To prove this, I present Godel's Second Incompleteness Theorem: "If an axiomatic system can be proven to be consistent and complete from within itself, then it is inconsistent."

If we assumed that God was consistent, then he must be able to prove that he is consistent because he is omniscient. Also, God must be complete, because if he were not complete then there are truths that he could not prove. That, in turn, would deny his omniscience. Thus, the Incompleteness Theorem implies that God is inconsistent.

Since God is inconsistent, then there exist fundamental inconsistencies in truth itself. Thus means that ANY statement can be proven true, and hence there is truely no limit to God's power.