Kyle
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~~~~~ Trust Beyond See ~~~~~ "One light will tear apart the night"
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Post by Kyle on Oct 12, 2007 4:34:40 GMT -5
Ah, I see now! Thanks--you're not attacking me at all, you're teaching me! I think that means that I would use "God" only to refer to God and would not use a pronoun. =)
That reminds me of something I just read for a class: "By default, we (humans) tend to treat the unknown as us." ...Something like that.
Hmmm. So, if I understand correctly, your answers are:
1) Can God create an unliftable mountain? Yes--God would be that mountain. Or, if there happened to be a hypothetical mountain that was 'unliftable,' that would be God (Note how I didn't use a gender-specific term that time!)
2) Can God lift that same mountain? Yes--someone 'filled with God' could lift it.
I started to ask a third question just for you--"Could God be a person?"--but I think you've answered that already in the above response.
kcsifi, if I understand correctly, your perspective is that God is notsomuch a "will" as much as God simply IS. Is that close, or am I totally wrong?
Once again, my disclaimer: I'm not trying to challenge anyone's beliefs or do anything except learn =) ((some people are very sensitive about religion... and it's one of my favorite topics))
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Post by Oliveman on Oct 12, 2007 13:04:58 GMT -5
This, too, belongs in the Ideas forum (trying to set a standard). And yes, I'll actually contribute to this thread... sometime!
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Kyle
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~~~~~ Trust Beyond See ~~~~~ "One light will tear apart the night"
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Post by Kyle on Oct 12, 2007 19:50:51 GMT -5
I actually looked for the Ideas Thread, but it wasn't where it normally was. So =P Besides, according to the descriptions, I can talk about *anything* here. =)
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DamaNegra
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Angolera de cora?ao
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Post by DamaNegra on Oct 13, 2007 11:57:15 GMT -5
Ok, I've slept.
First of all, after all these discussion I feel the need to point out that I'm going to treat God as a he during this post. Why? Because, seriously, I see arguing about God's sex a little weird since he does not have a sex. I could also refer to God as a she and it would still make no difference. It would still be God. I could call him Yeovah, Allah, God, Shiva, Vishna, Brahma, whatever, and it would still be the same entity. So let's not get picky on this. Or, if you want to, we can open another thread discussing God's gender, his face, and the fact that s/he's always dressed whereas Adam and Eve are always naked.
So yeah, for practical purposes of economizing letter, it's gonna be he.
Let us start with the paradox, then:
"If God is omnipotent, could he create a mountain so heavy not even he could lift it?"
The paradox here being, as some have said, that if God is omnipotent he could create such a mountain that not even he could lift it. But if he was omnipotent, he could also lift it.
It is a curious discussion, one I've had many, many times. If you're omnipotent, then you should have the power to put limits to yourself, shouldn't you?
But these limits are something you CHOSE for yourself. So yeah, God could make a mountain so big and heavy he could not lift it, but only because he's choosing the mountain to be that way. If he ever got fed up with the mountain being there, he could chose to make it light enough so that he could carry it.
The fact that he can both not move and move a mountain depends on his will. That is, because God is so powerful he can set limits to himeslf and then take away those limits when he sees if fit.
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Post by kcsifi on Oct 13, 2007 19:30:23 GMT -5
[/i][/quote] I think that's a very accurate summation.
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Kyle
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~~~~~ Trust Beyond See ~~~~~ "One light will tear apart the night"
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Post by Kyle on Oct 13, 2007 21:26:49 GMT -5
Awesome. That's actually more along the lines of my view.
I like that explanation. However, I think it creates the same problem as mine as kcsifi's: We're creating a mountain that God could lift if God chose to--a conditional mountain. I think the question involves an absolute--a mountain that God couldn't lift *period*.
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Post by Oliveman on Oct 13, 2007 22:51:22 GMT -5
I believe that this topic is more of an intellectual mind game to poke holes into a certain theory about the nature of God, is it not? While it is interesting to explore paradoxes like these, I want to bring up another question, perhaps more pertinent- Why ask this question? <-- This question is NOT a pointless one. My assertion is that this can be made for several reasons... though that only gets to one level of the "Why": to upset someone who believes in an omnipotent, to disprove that belief, to use that one iteration of belief as a structure for a puzzle. But what's really at the heart of the question? Why are we pushing and pulling on this issue? Or, more importantly, what are we. Now, while in the discussion several issues have come up which could transfer to human interaction, such as the ability of someone with power over something to choose their own limits, the main subject for this paradox is God, and its main reason for being is to speak about contradictions in faith. But talk of any of these sorts of "infinities" or infinite absolutes would result in a similar conversation. So, in that context, we could just ask the question- "What happens when absolutes contradict each other?" Now, then, it's not quite as satisfying, is it? Faith lends itself well to the confusion of paradox, since if you don't know it, how can it be true? and similar questions. I'm still being unfair, though, since the main reason for using God, I'd assume, is because it's a good example. Traditionally though, an omni-potent God does represent resounding contradictions, this being just one example. But where do we actually bring the conversation? Using this discussion to come up with a definition for God? Well, we still have all the questions that go with the existence of God to deal with. Figuring out a strange but somehow logical pattern to unravel the paradox? Unlikely... since it's a paradox- not that it's not fun or welcome to do so. And on the paradox note, isn't it worse not to argue one way or another? To abandon a paradox is to forget the reason it was pointed out in the first place. So I conclude with some questions that really need answering, brought up by, though not necessarily in the context of, this conversation: Why find or address paradoxs? Why not give up upon coming upon a paradox, or refuse it immediately as nonesense or a waste of time? Does fear play into why we're asking this question? How can someone settle for believing in something within such a paradox (an omni-potent God or otherwise), with full knowledge that the paradox exists? Is the question somehow unfair? pointless? I'm sorry if I'm taking the conversation a way you don't like I just roll that way, and these all are important questions to ask- not all with obvious answers. Neither, have all the pertinent questions on this been asked... either. Or so I suspect.
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Kyle
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Post by Kyle on Oct 13, 2007 23:02:34 GMT -5
Any responses to most of that list of questions need to go on a different thread =P
But now, this topic was not intended to be a mind game to poke holes in theories about God. I engaged the question myself, came up with an answer, and thought it would be fun to engage others in the question.
I didn't ask "What happens when absolutes contradict each other?" because 1) it didn't come to me that way, and 2) it's less concrete and thus less engaging.
How about engaging the actual question? =D
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DamaNegra
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Post by DamaNegra on Oct 14, 2007 14:21:11 GMT -5
Okay, Oliver, I'll bite. I'm not sure how much this thread will be derailed, but here goes.
See, I don't think that the original intent of this post was to question the existence or logic of God. We have already established in another thread which shall remain nameless that belief in God implies a certain degree of irrationality and blind accepting. So a really faithful person could accept that both God couldn't lift the mountan and that he could.
As an aside, by my answer I meant that while God chose not to lift the mountain, no matter how hard he tried, he'd never be able to lift the mountian. Since God is supposed to be timeless, he could eternally not lift the mountain, as well as he could eternally be able to lift it.
But returning to Oliver's questions, which, as I see it, boil down to one single question: "Are paradoxes pointless?"
No, paradoxes are not pointless. They're proof that our understanding of the universe is fouled, incomplet, incoherent. We understand the world through the language, we cannot understand that which we cannot name. Therefore, the available language is the best tool for measuring how good or how faulted our grasp on the universe around us is.
That's what paradoxes are. They are proof that we've still got a long way to go before we can say that we understand the world. That's where the importance of adressing paradoxes lie. We need to take them, rip them apart and take them as a starting point to broaden our conception of the world and correct all the misconceptions we have.
The example here is omnipotency (sp?). There's a paradox. We're not mature enough to grasp the concept of omnipotency, therefore it is something we need to discuss in order to clear it up in our heads. And if this means we need to generate new words for new concepts, then so be it.
Another example is the true-false paradox:
The below statement is false. The above statement is true.
What is truth? What is a lie? We think these two conecpts are as clear as water, but are they? This calls for a much deeper though and is a much deeper problem than what it seems to be at first glance.
And I'll leave that here, just some food for thought.
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Kyle
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~~~~~ Trust Beyond See ~~~~~ "One light will tear apart the night"
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Post by Kyle on Oct 14, 2007 16:25:51 GMT -5
Haha... that pair of questions kinda came up in a game. These creatures were supposed to help you figure out which path to take. Both paths were wrong, though--you had to kill the two creatures. That, or go down the hidden path in the middle, I forget.
I can't help but respect my professor's answer to the mountain paradox: "Who said God is omnipotent?" He said that was a huge weight for anyone to bear and unnecessary, at that.
Then again, he could have simply said that to engage our minds, not express his beliefs. You never know with these professors.
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Post by dangerjane on Nov 5, 2007 21:48:47 GMT -5
Isn't this sort of a way of rephrasing the whole question of free will given by an omnipotent God? How can we have free will if God is omipotent?
Sooo.
God can give us free will because God is omnipotent and can therefore forbid Himself from interfering with our wills. Even though He could.
(this is a though process. I need to think about it in terms of free will first so I can translate it to the mountain paradox.)
So God can create the mountain and forbid himself from lifting it, even though He could. And because we desire proof, we will assume God cannot lift the mountain until he does.
Is that totally pointless?
Okay so NOW I've read the thread (wanted to see my starting point). I like Dama's ideas. Are we asking "Can we create something greater than ourselves?"
Perhaps. In some aspects. We can make robots that perform tasks better than we do. But they can't create art. They can't feel, or they're not robots anymore. We can create brilliant works of art, but are these works really greater than the creator? I don't think so. Because dynamic as they are, changeable as they are, they came from an infinitely more dynamic HUMAN mind. I don't think the mountain can be greater than God.
[btw I used masculine pronouns because that's my conception of God, but like, yeah, I could call Him whatever I felt like, really. It doesn't change His nature--something that is surprisingly universal across cultures. It's just a convention that lets us conceive something much greater than us.)
This goes along with the God discussion we're having. Sorry to derail.
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Kyle
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~~~~~ Trust Beyond See ~~~~~ "One light will tear apart the night"
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Post by Kyle on Nov 5, 2007 22:02:37 GMT -5
So, God is limited? There is something God can't do?
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Post by dangerjane on Nov 5, 2007 22:06:59 GMT -5
Maybe. I guess this'll sound like a cop-out but well...there ARE limitations on human comprehension. Sort of like how we have a hard time conceiving alien forms of life that don't in some way mimic our own--whether that is physical or metaphysical. We have a hard time conceiving something omniscient. Maybe it's not a paradox. Maybe it is both true and not true. Maybe He can and cannot.
And the idea of this infinite mountain....well, my omniscient God is also infinite. And exists in everything. So maybe yeah...God IS the mountain. I don't know what that means, have to think about it some more.
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Kyle
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~~~~~ Trust Beyond See ~~~~~ "One light will tear apart the night"
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Post by Kyle on Nov 6, 2007 2:37:37 GMT -5
Sounds like you came to my conclusion: The logic may simply fail us.
XD
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Post by dangerjane on Nov 6, 2007 17:46:05 GMT -5
Obviously there's something to your conclusion
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