God is an Impossibility

How are we to know the definition of christian if we don’t consult the authorities that defines the definitions?

You are perfectly within your liberties to create a definition of christian that is antithetical to that of representatives of intelligentsia, and encompass an empty set, but I don’t see the value in bullheadedly swimming upstream.

I was a christian all my life and I live in the middle of the bible belt, but you say I don’t know what a christian is.

Now you say the writer of over 100 books doesn’t know what he’s talking about either.

Christopher Hitchens is likewise stupid as well as Alan Watts.

How do you innately know more than people who have devoted their lives to the study of these things?

Just because his ideas on language were shallow doesn’t mean his every thought is shallow.

I’m not relying on Chomsky. I know what a christian is because I never knew anyone who was not. And zero fit into your definition of them.

And Chomsky agrees with me that idealizations of what it means to be a christian or muslim are meaningless.

Only in your mind.

I am a citizen who never pledged allegiance to anything (except that drivel they made us recite in school, which didn’t count as a true pledge). Simply being born in america makes you a citizen. You could wipe your butt with the constitution and still be american. Actually, it’s expensive and difficult to become a noncitizen.

People do blame america for not banning guns. “America, when will you learn?” they say. An american is one who likely has guns and therefore has more capacity to kill than non-americans.

No but it trusts sex-deprived men to be in close contact with lots of kids.

I had a muslim friend once and he didn’t try to kill me, so does that mean he was not muslim?

That just exemplifies the motley mix of interpretations that exist. Some Christians believe commands are to obeyed and some do not. Some Christians believe X, some Y, some Z, some A, some B, some A+B, etc etc etc. There is no such thing as an idealized christian. Same with muslims: some kill and some do not.

The pope hypocritically decreeing to love enemies is not an example of loving enemies. Show me the love he has bestowed on those who he considers his enemies. I can show you the Nazi party and burnings at the stake and the condemnation of Galileo as examples of the Pope’s love for his enemies. What evidence do you have? Did he give his enemies money? Food? Build schools? Or is he all talk?

The only christians I have ever seen who love their enemies only do so in order to heap hot coals on their heads, which isn’t loving enemies. I have never seen anyone genuinely provide care for their enemies.

I already addressed this. You’re going in circles. The NT says to simply believe. The NT can be interpreted anyway one wants.

Then what’s the point of it?

So the bible contradicts itself. Nothing new there.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk[/youtube]

No, the son of man is not the holy ghost. The son, the father, and the holy ghost are 3 distinct persons, but also one god.

I’m not afraid of that. If they set off a dirty bomb we’d turn the middle east into a glass crater and then go sing praises to the lord in church on sunday.

Yes but the people who believe that are essentially chimps. Chimps in the jungle are scary, but chimps with bombs are not scary. All they could accomplish is pissing off the means of their extermination.

Right, because you said so. Hitchens provided reason and rationale which you countered with an authoritative claim that he is wrong without any accompanying reasoning.

That looks like education to me.

One doesn’t need to be religious to hate jews, but to convince a population to hate jews requires religion.

If christianity hadn’t existed, then the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin could not have been accomplished.

Here then, the central premise of Hitchens’ argument is worthy of reiteration. Had Stalin inherited a purely rational secular edifice, one established upon the ethos espoused by the likes of Lucretius, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Einstein and other free thinking and rational secularists, then the apologist’s argument would hold slightly more weight, but such wasn’t the case. Stalin merely tore the existing religious labels off the Christian Inquisition, the enforcement of Christian orthodoxy, the Crusades, the praising of the priesthood, messianism, and Edenic ideas of a terrestrial religious-styled utopia, and re-branded them with the red of communism. Had this Christian machine not been in place, then it is more than likely Stalin wouldn’t have had the vehicle he needed to succeed in causing so much suffering in the name of his godless religion, Communism. michaelsherlockauthor.wordpress … -hitchens/

The best argument for the impossibility of god is here nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sh … hy-n979626

[i]Cora Jones, 52, had been through a lot in recent months: a breast cancer diagnosis in December. A job loss and a move after that. But she had gotten through it thanks to support from members of her family, many of whom lived just several roads away from her in the small community of Beauregard.

So on Sunday, after church, Jones planned to go to her parents’ house and cook them a meal that included her mother’s favorite food: sweet potatoes. It was going to be a chance to have a nice evening together as a family.

Instead, shortly after they returned home from church, Jones’ parents — Mary Louise Jones, 83, and Jimmy Lee Jones, 89 — were killed when devastating tornadoes cut through eastern Alabama on Sunday afternoon.

Jones, whose home was not damaged by the tornadoes, raced to her parents’ place after the twisters hit, hoping to find them alive.

“When I got up that hill, I see no houses. Everything was gone. I just couldn’t believe it,” Jones said. “It looked like someone took a chainsaw and went, ‘swoop.’”

She found her father’s body. Emergency personnel later told her about her mother’s death.

“Just the image — I will never get out of my head. They really didn’t want me to see the picture, but I had to identify the body.”

But the losses did not stop there. A total of 10 members of Jones’ extended family were killed, including a brother, a cousin, a niece and a second cousin of her mother’s.[/i]

Anyone still think a god exists? Or that it gives a shit? Or isn’t a sadist?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLhkPTQvMzQ[/youtube]

Regardless of yours, Hitchens, Watts, or anyone’s definition of ‘who is a Christian per se’ there must be some objective standards to their definitions.

Per Christian theology, there is no way God will accord ‘eternal life in heaven’ to anyone who merely claimed s/he is a Christian on Judgment Day. God is supposedly all powerful, all knowing and is not stupid in accepting anyone’s subjective claim.
In any case, the omniscient God would already a person’s status whether s/he was a Christian or not by God’s own standards.

Thus a Christian must first know what is God’s objective definition of ‘who is a Christian’ rather than relying on his own subjective definition.

Now, from a rational, critical thinking and philosophical perspective, the objective definition of ‘who is a Christian’ has to fall back on the Gospels of the NT, i.e. as per the words and doctrines from God.

As such ‘who is a Christian’ is one who has entered into a covenant [explicitly or implicitly] with God.

The terms of the covenant/contract can only be in the Gospels of the NT.

Can you dispute the above requirements for an objective definition in conformance with God’s standards.

For a wannabe Christian to claim his/her own subjective definition [anything goes] is an insult to the Christian’s God.

When one do not has the habit or inherent nature to think in depth, it is applied to most of their various views.
I am very familiar with Islam and Buddhism in depth and I KNOW Chomsky thoughts on them are shallow.

Note my view of what is an objective definition of ‘who is a Christian’ above.

Note my summarized justifications of an objective definition of ‘who is a Christian’ above.

It is the acts that count not what you think or not done.
Why don’t you make the following claims and intention on some platform in any court in America;

“I will never pledged allegiance to the American Constitution, therefore I call upon all Americans to break the laws or kill others, and the likes.”

You will surely get your ass burnt in any legal issues you have had with the law.

Yes, many people will make all sorts on blames re ‘America’ but such has claims do not have any legal implications in say an International Court or the local court of any Nation.

You can’t blame Christianity per se which is objectively linked to the NT.
At most we can blame the admininistration of the related church and the individual but never the religion itself [unless it can be justified to its holy texts].

If he had entered into a covenant with Allah then he is an ordinary Muslim.
In the Quran there are gradings for being Muslim from ordinary [Muslim], to good [Mushin] to very good [Tagwa] with its respective degree of rewards in heaven.
Your Muslim friend [if he did not kill non-Muslims] would likely be an ordinary Muslim but cannot qualify to be a very good Muslim thus has no assurance and certainty of going to paradise [with virgins for some] with eternal life.
A Muslim who had killed non-Muslims [with it own definition of justifications] is assured of a certain and direct path to paradise with eternal life.

That’s true from god’s point of view, but only god can judge, because he knows the hearts, but how are we to judge? We can only take someone at their word, right? Are you a christian or are you not? We can’t go rummaging around their life looking for good acts and bad acts to discern whether or not they are christian.

You are essentially making a “No True Scotsman Argument”. You say “Well, that’s not a true christian; a true christian does _______”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Simply being born in america makes you an american. Immigration to america is basically paying some money and taking tests, afterwards you can use the constitution for toilet paper and burn the flag.

You can shoot someone, go to prison, and still be american in american prison.

I don’t know what my muslim friend would have said to that as it was 15 years ago, but he certainly wasn’t the type to kill people.

A christian who killed commies goes to heaven too.

That is my point, regardless of whether I am a Christian or not, it is God’s view as stipulated in the NT that objectively defines who is a Christian.
God’s words defining Christianity are represented in the Gospels within the NT.

Since the Gospels are available for all to read, why should we depend on any fallible Tom, Dick or Harry to define who is a Christian?

Straw man.

I stated, rationally and logically, a true Christian is defined within the Gospels in the NT directly from God to Jesus.

Note your definition is more ridiculous, i.e. you claimed to be a Christian previously merely because you claimed to be a Christian based on your own subjective definition.

Note the constitution is not the dotted pixels and the paper it is written on.

That one is an American because one is born n American is still defined by the Constitution and its associated Laws.

The above is conditioned by the Constitution, thus it is the Constitution that prevails.
The Constitution of Christianity is the Gospels supported by various relevant verses from the NT and OT.

The majority of Muslims are social and cultural Muslims who are not aware of the actual principles and elements in the core texts of Islam, i.e. the Quran. The cultural Muslims do not understand the full requirements of what it take to be the very best Muslim.

Your friend is likely to be a cultural Muslims who is being more human than being more Muslim, thus not complying with the higher requirements of being a Muslim.

These days there is a high possibility anyone [you, me, others] could be killed by zealous bad evil Muslims [compelled by their religion] anywhere around the world if you happened to be at a certain location and time.

Note this was what happened to some innocent tourists;

We often hear of surprises of a Muslim who was supposedly a goody-two-shoe or an indifferent Muslim who suddenly appeared in the news as a suicide bomber or killer.
These are the vulnerables who have been convinced by their imam [Islamic experts] who showed them the actual texts in the holy book from God, which promised them a certainty of passage to paradise with eternal life if they kill non-Muslims [with their twisted justifications of a threat].
There are tons of examples on such cases supported with evidences.

I’ve seen this sort of erroneous argumentation before.
While it’s true that God is characteristically attributed with omnipotence (being all-powerful), it’s not a necessary attribute.
I believe that when most theologians describe God as being “all-powerful”, what they mean is that God has such immense power that it causes great awe and wonder.
It’s a sort of figurative expression denoting God’s magnificent power.
God does not need to be perfectly powerful or “all-powerful” in order to exist; one can describe him, rather, as being the most powerful.

God is the supreme power. This, however, does not necessarily mean he has to be perfect.

Any religious person worth his salt will be able to tell you: yes, fellow humble mortal, from our humble mortal perspective, God certainly is impossible.

We call his existence a “miracle”.

Anything that we can logically account for is unfit to be considered Divine.

Of course we can’t account for the existence of the universe without positing a miraculous creation of it out of nothing with a nice big bang. So technically we are all part of a giant miracle.

You cannot bring in humility as far as a God is concern.

Note is it not confined to only omnipotence or all-powerful.

If your God is not perfect in the absolute in every sense and as ‘a being no greater can exists’, then it is implied there exists other Gods which are more superior to your God. The other more superior Gods can then dominate your God to kiss their ass or feet.
If you insist your God is such an inferior God, it is your discretion to downsize and disrespect your God.

However the majority of theists will always be driven to ensure their God is a being than which no greater can exists - St. Anselm, Descartes, etc.

In Islam, Allah is claimed to be the greatest which no greater can exists, thus dominate over whatever other Gods.

By default and human psychology wise, a God has to be ‘a being no greater can exist’ i.e. an absolute perfect God.

Otherwise your inferior God could be a mere dust spot to the more superior God which no greater can exists. Relatively your inferior God could be a speck of atom within the sh:t of the ultimate superior God which is infinitely no greater can exist.

Looks like you have to change your mind, then you are caught in the dilemma presented in the OP.

The reason is because the idea of God is an impossibility and the idea only arise out of desperate existential psychological reasons. The solution is to address these inherent psychological issues within oneself, but it is not easy.

Prismatic,

So many errors you make. Where to begin?

You state one can’t bring in humility where a god is concerned.

Really? Haha amusing.

Isn’t humility considered a virtue in many religions?

“Your god”, you say.

I’m not a Christian, nor a Muslim, nor anything of the such.

You contend that if God is not perfect in the absolute sense, then it “must” mean that there exist other gods more powerful…

Hmmm… How did you arrive at that conclusion?

So, as an example, if the strongest man on Earth, whoever he be, is not “perfectly” the strongest man, if he just have even the slightest flaw, that must therefore mean that there are, of necessity, other men stronger than him?

Really? Are you actually that mentally inflexible that you won’t allow one smidgen of error or potential defect?

Ever heard of the proverbial saying “No need to be perfect” ?

The truth is that you don’t provide any evidence or sound reasoning as to how you arrive at your conclusions. You just arbitrarily assert your positions. Furthermore, you use very crass language when you are challenged. This suggests that you are insecure in your thought process.

Note there are many types of gods, weak, strong, monkey god, elephant gods, the many gods of the Greeks and other cultures.
For all the above gods, there is one master of all gods, i.e. GOD [with a Capital G], the only and 100% perfect God.

By “humility” I mean the theists will not compromise with God’s qualities in any way, so the ultimate God-proper must be an uncompromising 100% perfect GOD in every way.

Note it is not MY view but I gathered such a 100% perfect God from reading theists’ materials, i.e. Abrahamic and others plus the more refined philosophy of theology.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/onto … arguments/

This is very logical.
If you have x, then x+1 is possible.
This one-up claim very common in the children school grounds and other playgrounds.
Thus you will have a 1-up god for every god that is claimed to exist.

To avoid the above never ending one-up to infinity, every theists will claim their God is absolutely perfect, so no theist can claim a 1-up God over others.

If you are well versed with the Philosophy of Theology, you would have been aware the ontological God of St. Anselm or Descartes, i.e. God is defined as;
a being than which no greater can exist”.
see the SEP-Link above

You cannot compare a fallible human to an infallible God.
Your example is moot.

It is not me who is inflexible.
I have explained the psychological states of theists is such that one has to end up with the ontological God, i.e. the absolutely perfect being no greater can exists.

I have to bring in sufficient attention-getters to make the point rational and the point is whether my arguments are sound or not.
Have you read the Quran and Hadith to note how the Islamic God [Allah] had condemned [in crude and crass] the God claimed by Christians, Jews and others?

The whole idea of a GOD [illusory and impossible] is a mess of contradictions and dilemmas.
I have argued above, God is an impossibility to be real.
The idea of God [illusory] is only useful for psychological reasons.
I believe theists should suspend judgment for a moment and learn more about their own internal psychological state in regard to their belief in a God [illusory], note Know Thyself [Socrates].

This is a very Abrahamic concept and even in that a limited one. At some point in some theologies God became this mathematically perfect being. But many religions have even their chief Gods, like Zeus say, being tempermental, changing their mind, having tantrums, etc. And at some point being ‘more powerful than anything else and beyond our understanding’ became 'can do anything at all, even if it seems or is illogical, knows everything and so on, all the omni-characteristics. Equating this poor turning in part of a few religions theologies is misrepresenting religion and theism as a whole.

Prismatic,

The concept of a supreme God, or force, is not monolithic to the Judeo-Christian tradition, which you seem to argue against.

The Hindu version of the ultimate (or supreme) God, called “Brahman”, has some differing characteristics. Additionally, the Taoist “Dao” or “Way” differs from Yahweh (the Judeo-Christian God).

There isn’t just one, concrete or absolute definition of God. There is leeway in regards to varying interpretations of some of his attributes.

You are not understanding the full context of what they mean by “perfection” and “god”. You aren’t understanding their language and description, it’s metaphorical, not literal.

God is by recognizing self and how to manifest self into reality by will to the extent of what universal law applies. It is a state of balance for self, an individual to appreciate what is and also appreciate what can or could be based off of subjectivity/unique diversity.

It works like this, an individual is merely a fragment of environment or the collective of humanity, similar to how a single bee is an individual away from the hive(collective of bee’s), it is similar to a glass puzzle, when separated we are only individual “gods” with limited power but as a collective understanding of self and all of selves, it is the closest thing to “perfection” because it is due to an understanding of what is and what the possibilities are that may be executed if collectively unified as a species/consciousness.

In simple terms, life is not about “finding god” in a literal sense, it’s about finding self and then aligning “god” by helping others understand self as well, embracing/executing an understanding of self and diversity is conscious choice to speed up and expand evolution.

So the idea of “perfection” is an understanding of self as a collective species, unifying the hive… That is why it appears to you as an impossibility and as a “utopia”. and the idea of “god” is a glass mirror, fragmented, each individual as a piece of the puzzle, collectively… the whole image is there and some can see the whole image when they understand them self and how real the subconscious truly is.

Hi guys,

From my perspective, I may be wrong, but Prismatic’s claim that absolute perfection is impossible seems ironic, because for his argument to be correct and logically refute the existence of a perfect God, in the form of a syllogism, for which the general consensus is that the God which he’s talking about can neither be proven to exist or to not exist, the syllogism must itself be absolutely perfect. If it contains any errors, then it means nothing what-so-ever.

The entire system is founded on the idea of trial and error, reactions with results in multiple directions, evolution.

What is “perfect” is when one understands the system fully and how one interacts with it and has the ability to appreciate it for what it is with also seeking to execute/understand what can and what could be through a collective effort.

We see it in movies subliminaly all the time, movies and art being a reflection of our current collective state, they are the options and paths we have available to us, a language of the subconscious, through art, think of movies as options of reality based upon universal laws and understanding of those laws and self.

Mankind creates art and language and stays with what is current out of fear and a lack of knowing/understanding what path to pursue next, collectively. Being afraid of the unknown possibilities and also not wanting to accept responsibility of being a “god” once aligned in understanding of multiple facets based off of reality and self. Trapped in comfort. “Ignorance is bliss” but what one does not know, may kill them.

Note the Abrahamic believers comprised of appx 60% of the world’s population. The Abrahamic God by default [as inferred from believers] is the ontological absolutely perfect God.

The one-up principle is very generic to human beings, thus it is inevitable to avoid infinity nonsense, the ceiling is the ontological God, i.e “a god than which no greater can exists

Even among the many Greek gods, Zeus is claimed by many to the most powerful, i.e. the one-up principle in effect here, albeit Zeus is not attributed to be perfect.

In Hinduism [population appx. 1 billion],

I understand there are many who do NOT claim the only god they believe is absolutely perfect. I have no issues with such claims and their numbers and very marginal.

My main intention to prove God is an impossibility to be real is targeted at the Islamic God. But to do so, I have to prove God in principle is an impossibility as real.
If God is an impossibility to be real, then there is no divine grounds for Islam to stand on.
Thus Muslims cannot insist there is a real God that commands them [within the Quran] to kill, dominate/suppress non-Muslims in the name of a real God. In this case, no Muslim will be inspired and influenced by his Allah to kill non-Muslims.
The solution is there will then be ZERO God-commanded killings of non-believers.

Of course some evil prone Muslims will still kill but they cannot claim it is from a real God which is an illusion. They will be like other believers, Buddhists, Christians, etc., who killed because of their own inherent nature and not because the religion ordered them to kill non-believers. This is then not a theological-based problem but rather a political and judiciary issue.

Note my response above where Brahman is claimed to be perfect.

The Tao is claimed to be absolute.

Not sure which definition of God you are referring to.

Note I explained above, the God I am referring to is the one monotheistic God believed by Jews, Christians, Muslims. The Abrahamic believers comprised >50% of the world’s population.

An Abrahamic believers believe their God is literally real to the extent of delivering God’s message and commands to chosen prophets and messengers that culminated in the present holy texts of the respective religion.
Most Christians and Muslims also believer there is a real God who answers their prayers and will deliver them to heaven with eternal life on Judgment Day.
Where do you get the idea, the Abrahamic believers believe their God is metaphorical?

On top of the above we have Brahman of Hinduism and Tao of Taoism which are defined as Absolute, thus implied perfect.

The Abrahamic believers would not agree with your definition of God.

Can use your argument to counter the following ontological concept of God;
plato.stanford.edu/entries/onto … arguments/

plato.stanford.edu/entries/desc … tological/
Descartes’ version is also extremely simple. God’s existence is inferred directly from the fact that necessary existence is contained in the clear and distinct idea of a supremely perfect being.