A god would only be impossible by human definition. Any god worth his/her salt woudn’t even pay attention to such a claim. Omnipotence is omnipotence and that is what makes a god a god.
BUT… All or nothing.
All and nothing
All is nothing
Repeat as meditation mantra or as a sleeping aid.
Not so.
I am not shifting the burden of proof at all.
Theists insist God exists as real, I am countering this claim with my syllogism above.
I am proving by sound logic why God is an impossibility.
Note my syllogism above and the related explanations for each premise.
Can you point to any flaws in my premises and syllogism.
The “… rock so heavy …” argument is merely playing with words and empirical elements. It does draw attention to the question of the existence of God but it is not sufficient nor very convincing. God is claimed to be beyond the empirical and is not effected by gravity in space, thus ‘heavy’ has no meaning for an ontological God.
Until you get someone here to make those claims, I’ll refer you to my previous post. Look man, if you don’t want to believe in a god, that’s ok. But I’m not gonna let you get by with bad arguments. I’ve literally never heard any religious person make the claims you’re making in their name about any god. So you should be able to see why I’m skeptical about your argument, even without acknowledging the thing about needing a god to be impossible, then needing that impossible god to prove your point, and even without the whole burden or proof game.
I am making a very subtle point that does not refute but strengthens your point.
It makes it resistant to certain kind of attacks.
The word “impossible” means “highly improbable”.
In order to say that what some word refers to is impossible that word must refer to something specific – something that can be experienced.
If it does not then it makes no sense to say it is impossible.
Perfect circles aren’t impossible/improbable. They are simply without any meaning.
To say that perfect circles are improbable is to suggest that the concept of perfect circles is a meaningful one.
It is to say that perfect circles can exist although they don’t.
Zombies are impossible/improbable.
The concept of zombies is a meaningful one.
Zombies can exist although they don’t.
Justice for zombies.
There are people who think that impossibility and improbability are two different things.
According to these people, an event is said to be impossible if there is not a single of instance of it within the entire universe.
Many people have tried to show that “God is an impossibility”. All of them have failed. That does not prove the existence of God, but it shows clearly that God is a possibility. And there is another evidence: History of mankind. It is full of several beliefs in the same old possibility named “God”.
Yup
God a contradiction? Sure
God being a contradiction? Sure
God making a contradiction? Sure
God making a contraction possible? Sure
God changing the rules so that the same sense, time, and conditions are irrelevant? Sure
Are you getting my approach yet? Negate what you say, and attribute that power to God.
Again, your affirmations are not wrong in my opinion. They’re just not exhaustive/sufficient in defining God.
Is love possible?
Does hate contradict love?
Is hate possible?
Why should God be a contradiction?
Nobody knows whether God is a contradiction.
Why should a contradiction be impossible?
Most of us know that contradictions are possible.
Why should an absolute perfection not be possible?
An absolute perfection is possible. As an ideal, it is possible, can become real; whether it does or not is a different question.
Your premises are not valid, thus false.
As James already said:
James is a moron who thinks that beliefs can transcend probability.
In other words, that beliefs can be more than merely more or less probable.
Basically, a dumb absolutist who thinks that if he’s 100% certain about something that that something has no choice but to happen.
I am not too sure with the above.
I can agree with, the word “impossible” means “highly improbable”.
Kant differentiated between ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’ to exist in the widest sense.
What is possible must have a related empirical reality.
For example, human-like aliens in a planet billion light years away are a possibility, albeit it is of low probability. Note the words in bold are empirically possible as observed.
If meaning = “the end, purpose, or significance of something:”
dictionary.com/browse/meaning
then human-liked aliens has meaning but has a low degree of meaning.
A square-circle is an impossibility because it is a contradiction and has no rational and empirical backing at all. It is also something meaningless [as defined].
God is an impossibility because its imperative necessity of absolute perfection which is an impossibility, but the “idea” [philosophical] of God do has meaning [as defined above], i.e. useful psychological meaning that drove the majority of theists to believe and cling to a god.
Human Zombies are a possibility [empirical elements] but they are of low possibility/probability and low on meaning. There are no evidence of any confirmed corpse coming back to life.
The above are my points re impossibility/improbability in relation to ‘meaning’ and taking into account intensity and degrees.
I am sure it is the other way round. Ever since the “idea” [philosophical] of God emerged no person has ever proved God exists as real positively.
History of mankind?? once it was so obvious “the Earth is flat” as based on normal observation, but that has been proven wrong with additional knowledge. God’s existence at present is so obvious to the majority, but with additional knowledge and thinking power, God is an impossibility.
As I had demonstrated, the idea of God persisted only because it has a critical psychological utility to deal with an inherent existential crisis.
As for my syllogism “God is an impossibility” show me where has I failed on this argument?
“I’ve literally never heard any religion person??”
Maybe your exposure is to lay-religious believers who are merely “sheeps”.
Try researching on theologian philosophers on their views of an ontological supremely perfect being.
I suggest you read up on the ontological God.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/onto … arguments/
Another fallacy will show up in your definition of “perfect” (not to mention your definition of a “god”).
So you are also one of those who have failed.
And also the other way round: No person has ever proved God does not exist.
The flat Earth has not much to do with the existence of God, with the theodicy.
Please, read that part of my post again. It is obvious that you did not understand what I wrote:
This means that humans have always believed in God, because they have always believed in a possibility, in God as a possibilitiy!
Again, this is the other way round. And, unfortunately or fortuantely, the majority believes in God, and the number of this majority increases from day to day.
I have shown it. You have not shown a syllogism, but a wishful thinking.
Show me that “God is a contradiction” (one of your false premises).
Show me that a “contradiction is impossible” (one of your false premises).
Show me that “absolute perfection is an impossibility” (one of your false premises).
Show me that “God is an impossibility” (one of your false conclusions).
Magnus,
As you know, my own interest in God and religion revolves almost entirely around the existential relationship between the behaviors that we choose on this side of the grave and our imagined fate on the other side of it.
And then in closing the gap between what we profess to believe about it “in our head” and the extent to which we able to demonstrate to others that what we believe is true is that which all rational men and women are, in turn, obligated to believe as well.
In that context, how then are you not as well an absolutist [or what I call an objectivist] in regard to your own value judgments “here and now”?
What would really intrigue me, in other words, is a discussion between you and James in which you connect the dots [substantively] between a moral narrative relating to a “conflicting good” that we are all likely to be familiar with, and your respective beliefs about the role that God [or No God] plays in the behaviors that you choose.
On another thread perhaps.
Though I do agree with you that James’s “100% certain” convictions seem clearly to be embedded in the assumption that if he thinks something is true that makes it true.
Though, admittedly, that, as well, is predicated only on the extent to which I really do understand either one of you.
The word “meaning” has many different . . . meanings. And these meanings cannot be reduced to a single meaning. We should accept that fact instead of trying to reduce the irreducible.
The concept of perfect circle is meaningless in the sense that it does not refer to anything that can be experienced. Human-like aliens, zombies, etc are all meaningful words because they refer to something that can be experienced even though the probability of experiencing these things is extremely low.
Does simply having an opinion make you an absolutist? No. In order to be an absolutist you must think that your opinion regarding some state of reality cannot turn out to be wrong.
Beliefs can only be more or less probable/likely. When someone comes along and denies this you can be sure you are dealing with an absolutist.
I think that if you don’t drink water for more than a week that you will die. But this is not an absolute truth. This is merely an outcome with an extremely high probability. As Hume said, the future is under no obligation to mimic the past. It can be anything it wants. If it wants to, it can give us humans who can go without water for months or even years.
To rely on this [no proofs god exists] as primary is insulting one’s own intelligence.
In any case, my syllogism above show that a God cannot exists in the first place because God is an impossibility.
It is the same, i.e. blinded to the more refined truth of reality.
In the first place possibility is not reality. Possibility is merely wishful thinking until one can provide solid proofs a god exists.
As I had shown, god is an impossibility, thus no point hoping for god to be possibly real.
As I had stated majority’s belief do not equal to truth of reality. Note flat Earth, Sun going orbiting the Earth, and the likes. What is needed is proofs to justify one’s proposition.
You don’t seem to understand the principles of syllogism?
Stating ‘your false premise’ is not an argument at all.
This is an argument for why a type of god is impossible, i.e., a perfect god. You set up a device that rates god using the absolute measure of perfection when in fact all our finite selves can apprehend is the relative measure of perfection. The ontological god has the argumentative weakness of whom is doing the conceiving. So, P1 is only true from an empirical perspective and not of essence. God might perfect in a way we cannot conceive. P2, sure, god has to be absolutely perfect, but since such absolute is not empirically apprehensible, we still have to entretain the theoretical possibility of a theoretical absolute perfection. In other words the classic response to the problem of evil, which you haven’t manage to defeat. C does not follow without adding a lot more. The empirical experience of absolute perfection is impossible, according to your argument. The existence of a perfect circle is theoretical because of the observer’s limitations and not because it is impossible itself, like a square circle. A circle might be theoretically perfect and yet errors in the observer’s conception will leave us, empirically, with a a relative perfection. An absolutely perfect God is impossible because an absolute observer is impossible. Does not mean however that such god is impossible but that having an absolute perception is. An absolutely perfect God, in-himself, remains a theoretical possibility.
I think it is true with 100% certainty when I think there is no alternative.
What is Your standard for 100% certainty?