Define God Thread

[Speakpigeon]

Define perfect being.

I'm not rabbit holing you, I just want to know your specific definition.

That's legitimate. You yourself aren't perfect as we all know so I can cut you some slack.

Perfection here means God lacks no quality and that he didn't have to be created to exist, unlike anything that isn't God himself.

It also means he cannot be made to cease to exist and cannot be corrupted, i.e. he cannot loose any quality.

That's sort of thing.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

1. God is a perfect being
2. God is unique (he is the only perfect being)
3. God created the universe where we are
EB

What is "perfect' or are you just using the words 'god" and "perfect" interchangeably?

How is god unique? Are there any other beings exactly the same as yourself or are you also unique and therefore perfect as yourself in this same sense?

How is the universe not unique and perfect as it is, along with everything in it?

I don't know if I could be unique.

I suppose I am but I don't know. Maybe there are bilions of exact copies of our universe running in parallel but there can be just one God.

Also, even if there are other things that are unique although they are not God, these things are not perfect. They will have defects. They may have qualities but not all qualities and not all the time. And any quality they have they can loose it and they will loose it.

Totally unlike God that.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm writing for a maximally average audience.

Bilby picked apart your statement and showed what was wrong with it. And that' the best you can come up with?

BTW, the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas made the same argument. But with the rigour of a philosopher. He's still considered the greatest Christian philosopher by the Catholic church. The problem of course it's that it's just nonsense. As the critique of Thomas Aquinas has shown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Criticism_of_Aquinas_as_philosopher

It does show that Thomas Aquinas was less than perfect.

Still, none of us are, which is why we are not and could be God.
EB

 

[DrZoidberg]

Bilby picked apart your statement and showed what was wrong with it. And that' the best you can come up with?

BTW, the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas made the same argument. But with the rigour of a philosopher. He's still considered the greatest Christian philosopher by the Catholic church. The problem of course it's that it's just nonsense. As the critique of Thomas Aquinas has shown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Criticism_of_Aquinas_as_philosopher

It does show that Thomas Aquinas was less than perfect.

Still, none of us are, which is why we are not and could be God.
EB

The Arthur C. Clarke argument. Sure. But it also means we could identify perfection even if it hit us in the face. A less than perfect being (humans) do not have the ability with which to identify a perfect being. So we should stop saying that God is perfect. Anybody making the claim that God is perfect is just letting everybody know that they have no idea what they're just using long words they don't master, and is just hoping that whoever listening isn't smart enough to question it.

In Thomas Aquinas defence, his mission wasn't to prove God's existence. He already "knew" God existed. Universities back then were propaganda institutions with the singular purpose of coming up with more convincing arguments for what everybody already knew. They all had access to Greek pagan texts. Thomas Aquinas' arguments is completely dependent on accepting Aristotelian logic and Aristotelian philosophy. So we know Aquinas had read and understood Aristotle, a Pagan. It's impossible to overstate the dominance of Aristotle in medieval Christian philosophy and theology. They didn't even need to name him. They could just write "the philosopher" and everybody immediately knew they were talking about Aristotle.

Philosophy back then didn't have the purpose philosophy has today.

So using a Thomasinian argument in a non-Christian brainwashed community makes no sense. His theories are written for people who already are Christian. They're dumb. And any non-Christian will immediately identify them as such. I have no idea why his philosophy is not referred to as "Aquinasinian". It's just not done. Anyhoo.

 

[Speakpigeon]

It does show that Thomas Aquinas was less than perfect.

Still, none of us are, which is why we are not and could be God.
EB

The Arthur C. Clarke argument.

Who is Arthur C. Clarke? A perfect being? Because I don't know him.

Sure. But it also means we could identify perfection even if it hit us in the face.

Not 'we could if'. We do. Or at least we can. Yes we can. Or at least some of us can. Precisely when he decides to hit us in the faith.

A less than perfect being (humans) do not have the ability with which to identify a perfect being.

That's obviously not necessarily true. I'm sure some people don't have that ability but you cannot deduce in any way that nobody has it. You're making stuff up as you go. You're less than perfect.

So we should stop saying that God is perfect.

You seem to be a very prescriptive sort of guy. I rather like diversity and plurality.

Anybody making the claim that God is perfect is just letting everybody know that they have no idea what they're just using long words they don't master, and is just hoping that whoever listening isn't smart enough to question it.

I don't agree. Possibly most, but not necessarily anybody.

In Thomas Aquinas defence, his mission wasn't to prove God's existence. He already "knew" God existed. Universities back then were propaganda institutions with the singular purpose of coming up with more convincing arguments for what everybody already knew. They all had access to Greek pagan texts. Thomas Aquinas' arguments is completely dependent on accepting Aristotelian logic and Aristotelian philosophy. So we know Aquinas had read and understood Aristotle, a Pagan. It's impossible to overstate the dominance of Aristotle in medieval Christian philosophy and theology.

I think it was because of the first sceptic views being expressed at the time rather publicly. They had to respond but they had been impressed and really perverted by Aristotle's work and the philosophical principle of arguing your views. They tried to argue faith.

They didn't even need to name him. They could just write "the philosopher" and everybody immediately knew they were talking about Aristotle.

Yeah, same thing for God. You just have to say "perfect being" and we all understand.

Philosophy back then didn't have the purpose philosophy has today.

So using a Thomasinian argument in a non-Christian brainwashed community makes no sense. His theories are written for people who already are Christian. They're dumb. And any non-Christian will immediately identify them as such. I have no idea why his philosophy is not referred to as "Aquinasinian". It's just not done. Anyhoo.

I don't think your interpretation is correct. The schoolmen tried to argue faith not because they knew they could get away with it preaching to the converted but because they didn't know any different. They thought they could convince the sceptics, or future would-be sceptics, by using rational arguments because they had steeped for too long in the Aristotelian bath. They didn't know any better. Later, the Church put a stop to it. You just don't argue faith.
EB

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Arthur C. Clarke argument.

Who is Arthur C. Clarke? A perfect being? Because I don't know him.

It's a science fiction author.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

Sure. But it also means we could identify perfection even if it hit us in the face.

Not 'we could if'. We do. Or at least we can. Yes we can. Or at least some of us can. Precisely when he decides to hit us in the faith.

A less than perfect being (humans) do not have the ability with which to identify a perfect being.

That's obviously not necessarily true. I'm sure some people don't have that ability but you cannot deduce in any way that nobody has it. You're making stuff up as you go. You're less than perfect.

How? How could you possibly know? We don't even know the limits of our own imagination.

Yes, I'm less than perfect. Yes, I'm making this up as I go. As is everybody speculating on perfection. It's like a group of people discussing the interior decorating of a room none of them has visited.

So we should stop saying that God is perfect.

You seem to be a very prescriptive sort of guy. I rather like diversity and plurality.

I'll rephrase that. Anybody who wishes to be talked to like an adult should use adult language. You're of course free to say whatever silly things you want. But people aren't going to take you seriously if you veer off too far into fantasy-land.

They didn't even need to name him. They could just write "the philosopher" and everybody immediately knew they were talking about Aristotle.

Yeah, same thing for God. You just have to say "perfect being" and we all understand.

I don't agree. What's so perfect about being blue? You are talking about Krishna aren't you?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sure. But it also means we could identify perfection even if it hit us in the face.

Not 'we could if'. We do. Or at least we can. Yes we can. Or at least some of us can. Precisely when he decides to hit us in the faith.

A less than perfect being (humans) do not have the ability with which to identify a perfect being.

That's obviously not necessarily true. I'm sure some people don't have that ability but you cannot deduce in any way that nobody has it. You're making stuff up as you go. You're less than perfect.

How? How could you possibly know? We don't even know the limits of our own imagination.

Obviously but your last question does show one limit of your imagination.

As somebody said, the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. You could try it. That won't make a perfect being out of you but it could make you a better man.

So, how could a less than perfect being like we all are possibly know that there is such a thing as a perfect being?

This is not such a really terribly difficult question. Should I tell you or do you want to think about it some more? Remember, it could really make you a better man.
EB

 

[Kharakov]

'Maximally greatest'? That's not so much theology as tautology.

As my three year old niece would no doubt say, 'the most bestest in the whole wide world ever ever the end'. Which is a lovely string of superlatives, but still lacks a noun to which they might apply. 'Being' is a metasyntactic variable, and has no meaning without a context.

So God is a thingy, and not only that, God is 'the most bestest thingy in the whole wide world ever ever the end'.

Having made every possible attempt to extract an actual definition from your statement, I still am not able to see any actual definition of God therein - just a rather childish emission of emotional froth, with no substance at all. Saying 'maximally greatest' instead of 'bestest ever' adds exactly no gravity to your claim, only loquaciousness.

I think God is the maximally greatest being ever in the same sense as Trump is the maximally greatest president ever.

Biggly.

God- Stings like a butterfly, floats like a bee. You know, because of dimensions.

 

[Kharakov]

Define perfect being.

I'm not rabbit holing you, I just want to know your specific definition.

That's legitimate. You yourself aren't perfect as we all know so I can cut you some slack.

You're joking, right?

Perfection here means God lacks no quality and that he didn't have to be created to exist, unlike anything that isn't God himself.

It also means he cannot be made to cease to exist and cannot be corrupted, i.e. he cannot loose any quality.

So God knows the length of the boundary of the Mandelbrot set at 10^33 iterations before God calculates the boundary length of the Mandelbrot set at 10^33 iterations? That's weird, unless God was created in a previous iteration of the universe, and all knowledge already exists.

[. tangent .]

Show

Side note, which might be semi pertinent. I had a brain fart the other day in regards to SR/GR (relativity of both varieties). I realized that the zero point was such, in the equations I was using, that actual spacetime distance (not just space- space distance had discrepancies) was remaining exactly equal for all particles in existence (according to the math I was using).

So basically, multidimensional spacetime would have particles that remained equally spaced within it forever- an unchanging distance ratio between all particles.

No matter which particle you choose, it is equally spaced from all other particles in spacetime, and its mass/energy/momentum would be the same as all other particles like it, although it would have a unique space trajectory (total spacetime traveled would be exactly the same for all particles).

This leaves out the effects of consciousness having an effect upon spacetime trajectory...

 

[Keith&Co.]

Not 'we could if'. We do. Or at least we can. Yes we can. Or at least some of us can. Precisely when he decides to hit us in the faith.

That's cute.
How do you know what God is? God is perfect.
How do you know what perfect is? God shows us.


Your claim that God cannot be corrupted makes me think of The Fonz and the episode where he nearly got married. One of his requirements for a bride was that she be a virgin and his fiancé qualified.
I think it was Potsey that asked, " How do you know she is a virgin?"
Fonz said, "Virgins don't lie."




Say that there is a god, but he's the deist god, totally hands-off as far as the inhabitants of his creation are concerned.
Say further that the being you perceive as your deity is actually Satan.
How would you detect the deception?

 

[Elixir]

Say that there is a god, but he's the deist god, totally hands-off as far as the inhabitants of his creation are concerned.
Say further that the being you perceive as your deity is actually Satan.
How would you detect the deception?

Presumably, if he were Satan, he'd be doing shit like condoning slavery, punishing rape victims, and...

Oh, wait...

 

[atrib]

I'm writing for a maximally average audience.

Bilby picked apart your statement and showed what was wrong with it. And that' the best you can come up with?

That's because LionIRC made a vague, poorly defined claim that he has no way to support. Stuff like that sounds good when you have the pulpit and nobody can question you, but leaves you with nothing when you engage in a debate with a skeptic. Lion has apparently not been able to figure this out in the time he has been here, so he posts his nonsense and runs away to hide, while pretending he has said something meaningful.

 

[Lion IRC]

I'm writing for a maximally average audience.

Bilby picked apart your statement and showed what was wrong with it.

Pedantic grammar nazi doesn't phase me.
I've never seen a philosopher whine about the term maximally greatest being.
I didn't even coin the term.
But hey at least bilby's niece gets it.

And that' the best you can come up with?

Not the maximally best no. Just the best I can muster from my casual apathy towards folks who quibble about banal off topic stuff like whethur peepul iz tawk good enuf.

BTW, the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas made the same argument. But with the rigour of a philosopher. He's still considered the greatest Christian philosopher by the Catholic church. The problem of course it's that it's just nonsense. As the critique of Thomas Aquinas has shown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Criticism_of_Aquinas_as_philosopher

Where in that wiki was Aquinas' ontological argument shown as nonsense?

If there are two contenders for the title of greatest being, we are entitled to consider which of them is the maximally greatest of the two.

 

[blastula]

Bilby picked apart your statement and showed what was wrong with it.

Pedantic grammar nazi doesn't phase me.
I've never seen a philosopher whine about the term maximally greatest being.

Get out more.

 

[bilby]

Bilby picked apart your statement and showed what was wrong with it.

Pedantic grammar nazi doesn't phase me.
I've never seen a philosopher whine about the term maximally greatest being.
I didn't even coin the term.
But hey at least bilby's niece gets it.

And that' the best you can come up with?

Not the maximally best no. Just the best I can muster from my casual apathy towards folks who quibble about banal off topic stuff like whethur peepul iz tawk good enuf.

BTW, the Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas made the same argument. But with the rigour of a philosopher. He's still considered the greatest Christian philosopher by the Catholic church. The problem of course it's that it's just nonsense. As the critique of Thomas Aquinas has shown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas#Criticism_of_Aquinas_as_philosopher

Where in that wiki was Aquinas' ontological argument shown as nonsense?

If there are two contenders for the title of greatest being, we are entitled to consider which of them is the maximally greatest of the two.

If there was one contender for the title, then you might have something; positing two of something you have zero of is a bit premature, not to mention immature. It's a minimally mature philosophy.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Not 'we could if'. We do. Or at least we can. Yes we can. Or at least some of us can. Precisely when he decides to hit us in the faith.

That's cute.
How do you know what God is? God is perfect.
How do you know what perfect is? God shows us.

Good to know some people understand English properly around here.

Your claim that God cannot be corrupted makes me think of The Fonz and the episode where he nearly got married. One of his requirements for a bride was that she be a virgin and his fiancé qualified.
I think it was Potsey that asked, " How do you know she is a virgin?"
Fonz said, "Virgins don't lie."

I will assume you realise this is a derail.

Say that there is a god, but he's the deist god, totally hands-off as far as the inhabitants of his creation are concerned.
Say further that the being you perceive as your deity is actually Satan.
How would you detect the deception?

Sorry I don't know this Mr. Satan. How could I recognise him if I ever met him do you think?
Sounds like another derail to me.


Now, deception. Good point. Oh well, I already admitted I'm not God in that I'm not perfect. So I grant you that I could be deceived. We all could I guess. We're not perfect. So?
EB

 

[Keith&Co.]

I will assume you realise this is a derail.

I don't think so. Your definition of god seems circular, and limited to what you think your god has told you.
But what if he lies?

Say that there is a god, but he's the deist god, totally hands-off as far as the inhabitants of his creation are concerned.
Say further that the being you perceive as your deity is actually Satan.
How would you detect the deception?

Sorry I don't know this Mr. Satan. How could I recognise him if I ever met him do you think?
Sounds like another derail to me.

I have to believe you know the term 'satan' if you've spent any time discussing religion. SO this seems like you're ducking the question.

 

[DrZoidberg]

How? How could you possibly know? We don't even know the limits of our own imagination.

Obviously but your last question does show one limit of your imagination.

As somebody said, the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. You could try it. That won't make a perfect being out of you but it could make you a better man.

So, how could a less than perfect being like we all are possibly know that there is such a thing as a perfect being?

This is not such a really terribly difficult question. Should I tell you or do you want to think about it some more? Remember, it could really make you a better man.
EB

Please, do tell. I'm pretty sure you're going to say something stupid now. But go for it. I might be amazed

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

[Even a] fool, when he hears of … a being than which nothing greater can be conceived … understands what he hears,...
Anselm of Bec.

Descartes most famously posits that God creates all the laws, rules and the very logic of the Universe. The greatest God he could imagine. If so, why is there moral evil? Either that God of Descartes does not exist, or is not good and does not care about us, as per revelation, the Bible. Or perhaps is not so great as Descartes imagined.

If God does not create the laws and logic of the Universe, where do they come from?

The idea of the greatest imaginable God, and perfect being theology does not seem to be very coherent when you examine such ideas carefully.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Your definition of god seems circular, and limited to what you think your god has told you.
But what if he lies?

Gosh, you seem to have something like a vivid imagination. But I never said anything about God talking to me!? You should stop drinking.

Now, you say "your definition seems circular". Could you instead try to explain how it actually is circular?

It seems to me you are confusing my definition and how your vivid imagination tells you I got to think of it in the first place. Personally, I happen to believe that even if Satan had suggested this definition to me, and even if I knew it to be the case, this would not detract to the logical consistency of it. In other words, you really need to judge definitions on their own merit rather than from the way they might have been concocted. In other words, just Satan making up the definition wouldn't make it circular. Circularity has to be a property of the definition, not of the way it may have been procured.

I have to believe you know the term 'satan' if you've spent any time discussing religion. SO this seems like you're ducking the question.

Oh, gosh, this is so sad. First, I didn't duck the question. I responded to it here:

Now, deception. Good point. Oh well, I already admitted I'm not God in that I'm not perfect. So I grant you that I could be deceived. We all could I guess. We're not perfect. So?

See? Well, maybe not. It's just that I put aside the irrelevant reference to Satan since it doesn't appear in my definition. And we don't need to assume Satan to assume the possibility of deception, which was the actual point in your argument, although now it appears you didn't know it yourself.

What is telling is that my response there doesn't appear in yours now! And since I don't believe you could have missed my response I have to assume you're not too queen on having anything like a logical argument. It's Ok, you're not perfect. And you're not unique in not being perfect.
EB