God is an Impossibility

Yes. I think the ‘seductive’ aspect to people like Prismatic, and you and I have probably been like him at least in a post or two, is that he is smart, but closed. But the smart makes it seems like just around the next corner he might admit that there is a possibility, given he didn’t think of point X someone just made, that he is wrong about Y. But around each corner you encounter the same thing, the same formulations even, the same fallacies, the same certainty.

I think Phyllo spent some time, and I chimed in, trying to show that objectively perfect is problematic. That things are perfect for someone. That it is inherently subjective, even if it is a universal subjective evaluation. Or, at least, it is not an easy thing to say what objective perfection means. Prismatic didn’t bite or question his own certainty. And that’s dealing with the argument he makes based on all his assumptions of what God must be like and so on. IOW even if we accept a lot of nonsense for the sake of his argument, his argument still has problems.

I have to look at my own reaction to posters like Prismatic, and others such as Iambiguous. Why do they trigger so much in me? And I think it is because they present such certainty as if it should be obvious to others. I don’t really have a problem with certainty. I am, certainly at times, quite certain of things. We more or less have to be to navigate reality. But it is another thing to press this certainty as words on a screen, as if you have accomplished a not refutable certainty here and others should see it. Now Iamb might find it odd to be categorized this way since he likely sees himself challenging certainty, but he makes the same arguments and also draws conclusions about others with great certainty himself. These are not the conclusions of his posts, but the means. When this is pointed out he also can never admit anything. And he presumes that one should be able to demonstrate all sorts of things via words on a screen that one cannot.

This kind of stubbornness and certainty spreading is, I think, part of the problem out there. Part of a larger closed mind. A kind of undermining, shaming smugness, and despite having so many scientists who adhere to this kind of attitude, is precisely unscientific. So, I can react with great vehemence to people who pull this kind of thing. After a while I tend to move to a meta-position in reaction to them, responding more to others around them, than to them directly. As a way of avoiding the ‘just around the next corner of the discussion’ seduction.

These voices create a static that delays a more open community discussion because they share a sense that words on a screen can settle much more than they really can. Both think that if you cannot demonstrate idea X via words on a computer screen, then believing in X is irrational. This belief that Iamb and Pris share is so hopelessly confused about the human situation, but it is an idea shared by corporations and technocrats and power brokers of all kinds (when it suits them to put forward this idea) and is, I think, causing a lot of damage in the world as it marginilizes all sorts of things as irrational and with great certainty.

It’s a bit like the bureaucratic mind when you come with a health problem or whatever that does not easily fit in their categories. These minds look at the papers and rules and your problem or experiences and reality does not exist. I do understand a bureaucrat who says: I am sorry, I can only do so much, you may be quite right, but I have my own job and needs to think of. But that openness is too much for them. Most will act as if you are hallucinating. It’s all you. As if their papers couldn’t possibly be limited or problematic.

“a human-being claiming to know that absolute perfection [of God as real]” itself is a contradiction thus an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically. As such the above claim is moot and a non-starter.
If it is moot and a non-starter, it should not be a starter for anything else.

P1. Now what you are claiming the whole of the above is an impossibility because there is no absolute certainty, i.e. the whole paragraph below is an impossibility because there is no such thing as absolute certainty.

“a human-being claiming to know that absolute perfection [of God as real]” itself is a contradiction thus an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically. As such the above claim is moot and a non-starter.
If it is moot and a non-starter, it should not be a starter for anything else.

As stated above what is in blue above is a non-starter.
What is in brown is to confirm what is in blue is a non-starter.
Therefore the above non-starter cannot be used to start your new proposition P1.

This is a bit dumb.

However, the point that,
“a human-being claiming to know that absolute perfection [of God as real]”
itself is a contradiction,
is justification it is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
As such the above claim is moot and a non-starter.

It is also dumb to insist ‘what is moot and a non-starter’ that such a statement of moot and non-starter also ‘moot and a non-starter’ thus leading to an infinite regression.

Btw, if you don’t get the above, I am not following up because whatever your responses, they are accompanied by stinking-shit side-comments.
Condemn all you want, I am not giving a damn.

KT,

I believe that you react, like me, because their conduct is the antitheses of your spirit. There are (we may perceive) things missing from them; a warmth, a reasonableness and/or association with naturalness. Which is why they leave people like you and I always thinking “what the fuck?”

Prismatic,

I’ll unpack your comment on the weekend.

But what I want to say now, is that you have natural intelligence - that cannot be disputed. You possess it like a cloud has water molecules, but the problem I see is an issue of bottle-necking. I think that you could do with being more flexible, then you will see the change in the things that people say to you, and about you.

You’ve said some shitty things to me too. I don’t think we need to dwell on it, even though it is upsetting. When people say shitty things to me I reflect - I don’t just dismiss it out of hand. People are a valuable resource for self-assessment, and at times it may help to question “why are people reacting to me like this?” The things people say, great or shitty, can be due to observation of our behaviours and/or ability. Put aside your ego and sense of offense for just a second and deal with the things that people are saying.

I doubt that you’ll take any of this on board, but I am speaking from both education and experience. You may not respect the latter, but you do respect the former.

Prismatic—

You admit:

And yet your claim that “God is an impossibility” is a claim of absolute certainty. How do you explain the contradiction?

Even the first sentence is a paradox:

Impossibility is an absolute term.

Which is an odd appeal to authority.

This repeats the paradox, though in a more cautious form.

And here of course we have a false dilemma. There are more things in heaven and earth than questions/absolute certainty. And Russell certainly believed in knowledge.

Again, just for the record, this is his rendition of me, not my own. Although, sure, it may actually be possible [philosophically or psychologically or otherwise] to determine which of us is closest to the actual objective truth. If, in regard to relationships of this sort, there even is an objective truth.

Same with God. One of us here may be closer to the whole truth about Him [or No Him] than anyone else. Or maybe someone in another philosophy discussion on another website is. Or maybe someone around the globe that none of us have any access to is.

Or…someone from another planet? Or from an entirely separate universe?

Look, if he wants to believe that I am certain that my own argument here is the closest to the whole truth [going back to the complete understanding of existence itself] let him.

He has a “personal problem” with me that I suspect I understand.

But, in no way, shape or form am I certain of it.

Yeah, I never said that, the bolded portion. After what he quoted I went on to mention that he would be surprised to be categorized this way, I thought, and that his certainty related to means. A common practice of Iambs: strawman argument, shift context, and often in ways that imply that the other person is off in some way . And when it is pointed out, he’ll deny he did anything wrong. In fact he’ll just start asking questions because everyone has the onus, even for his acts, not him.

And sure, what I meant by means could be explained in detail, but it would take a rather manipulative mind to interpret it as

his certainty is that his argument is the closest to the whole truth going back to a complete understanding of existence itself.

He suspects he knows what the root of my personal problem with him is. IOW he suspects it is not what I have said it is.

It’s good that someone who does not know his own ‘i’, experiences himself and fractured and fragmented and so on, still finds the confidence to dismiss what other people say their motivations are and to think he can read their minds. Yes, he’s not certain, that I am wrong or lying about why I react to his posts the way I do. LOL. IOW he doesn’t know his own self, he doesn’t know how to find what is authentic in his own mind - he’s said this - but he can still figure out what other people’s minds are actually like inside, yes, without complete certainty.

But let’s applaud his development. He used to just announce that people had problems with him because his ideas scared them. Now he just has suspicions. He used to tell people what their contraptions were: iow he would tell them what they believed and then also that they did this to soothe themselves. Now he makes little passive aggressive implications to the gallery. He’s even taken responsibility, without qualification, for driving people from ILP and even predicted he would do this to me. Several psychic abilities at once. But he’s pulled back to just implying shit about other people.

I honestly thought he would not change at all. I stand corrected by the changes.

I do wonder if implying shit about other people shows an epistemological caution or if it’s just passive aggressive. But he is more consistant now. He doesn’t just tell people what they feel and think and have as motivations. He implies and he suspects.

If only he could have acknowledged his previous more open hypocrisy. Heck, he’d solved the problem of other minds. Deny certainty in one post. Tell people what they really thought in another post.

It seems he learned something…to be cagier.

Right, as though a common practice of his isn’t in making accusations of this sort about me as though in asserting them, it makes them so. Me, I’ll let others decide for themselves if his points are applicable.

On the other hand, we hear accusations of this sort time and again here at ILP. In other words, whenever someone isn’t able to convince someone else to think like they do. It more or less goes with the territory in discussion venues of this sort. It’s just that the objectivists really do insist that all rational men and women must think like they do [here about the impossibility of god] or be charged with one or another of KTs allegations.

Again, my point about certainty here revolves around this:

But I’m certainly not suggesting to others here that it is mine. My points make sense to me, but only given the manner in which I myself am able to distinguish between what I believe and what I am in fact able to demonstrate. For the objectivists, I have found from vast personal experience that this gap is considerably narrower. And, for some, doesn’t exist at all.

And, in regard to this thread, my point is still this:

That’s his subjective take on me. My own subjective assumptions reflect more the points I made on another thread:

This still seems reasonable to me given my ample experience with objectivists over the years. But it is certainly no less an existential contraption than his own is here. And in focusing in on my sense of certainty, he needs to be reminded of his own in regard to me.

No, my point is that in regard to our thoughts and feelings about God, to what extent is the confidence one has in his or her own propositions, able to be reconfigured into demonstrable evidence that all rational people are obligated tlo believe the same.

To argue for the impossibility of God is not the same as demonstrating that God does not exist. That’s always my point. Where’s the actual evidence? And it is simply preposterous to argue that I can figure out what’s going on in another’s mind!!

All I do [can do] is to take an existential leap to one or another extrapolation based on my past experiences. After all, for any of us, what else is there?

The best way to explore these accusations is for him and I to focus in on a particular aspect of a belief in God or No God. Then agree on a context in which people hold conflicting assessments that then translate into conflicting behaviors.

We can discuss this. Thus allowing him to point out in much greater detail why his assessment of me is more reasonable.

For example, my argument regarding a fractured and fragmented self embedded in the manner in which I construe “I” as the embodiment of dasein…re my own particular belief in God/No God.

Or let him choose his own context. Anything to get us down out of the clouds.

As explained above I did not actually claim “God [existing as real] is an impossibility” is a claim with “absolute certainty”.

It is the theists [more advanced theologians] who claimed “God exists as real” with “absolute certainty”.
What I have done is showing [demonstrating] the above claim of absolute certainty is moot and a non-starter.
If it is moot and a non-starter, that mean the claim is meaningless in the first place [it precedes anything else] and cannot proceed further as reasoned.

It is irrelevant to state I have made a claim of “absolute certainty” when ‘absolute certainty’ to me is an impossibility.

Note,
-that the theists [more advanced theologians] who claimed “God exists as real” with “absolute certainty” is itself a contradiction. “Absolute certainty” cannot be equivocated with “real” as in “real empirically and philosophically.”

Nope!
What I have is a philosophical problem [issue] with “your” self-declared psychological “personal problem” that you have dug yourself of a deep shit-hole and is stuck in it - seemingly pleading for help.
Whatever solutions me and others offered, you have a readily defense mechanism to ensure you are stuck in there for good [habituated] so you can wallow in it, with your dogmatic counter i.e. the solutions or counters by others are merely ‘intellectual contraptions’.
When that is the case as evident, why should any one be bothered and waste time with your own self-created shit-hole you are stuck in.

Yours is definitely ‘your’ personal problem and not a general philosophical issue.
Suggest you research;
simplypsychology.org/defens … nisms.html
where you always resort to use ‘intellectual contraptioni’ as a denial and other defense mechanisms as a psychological strategy to feel secure for your own selfish interests.

You cannot be even certain of what is your own personal problem.
You are so ignorant [have to emphasize this] that you are unable to differentiate between your ‘personal psychological problem’ and what is a ‘general/specific philosophical issue’. You have conflated the above two issues.

Since this is a Philosophical Forum, you should not have conflated your personal psychological problem with a general/specific philosophical issue.
I believed those who participated earlier in ignoring this mixed-up is driven by empathy to help, since you seemingly pleaded for help.

To avoid all the above, I suggest you represent the specific philosophical issue, i.e. an existential issue, in terms of Heidegger’s Dasein, angst, conflicting good, etc. and NOT to bring in your personal problems, of abortion, this life and other side of the grave, personal dasein, various diversions, blah-blah, etc.
Make sure it is a general/specific philosophical issue and has no subjective personal elements in it.

My presentation ‘God is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically’ is purely a philosophical issue, not a personal problem.
All you need to do is to show [with evidence and rational justification] which of the premise 1 or 2 are false within the syllogism presented to affirm the conclusion is false.
My presentation is aimed primarily as a greater good for the well being of humanity, NOT for my own selfish interest.

Iambiguous:

Occasionally, and here as part of his profile, the hidden certainty is expressed directly. Which is actually to be encouraged.

Absolute certainty is implied by the word “impossibility” regardless of whether you explicitly claim it or not. So now by denying absolute certainty you are admitting that you’re not certain about your own proposition.
You have, in effect, joined the club with myself and others who think that God is at least possibility. Welcome!

When you state that theologians claim absolute certainty for the God hypothesis, who exactly do you have in mind? Christian theology going all the way back to the New Testament is explicitly a matter of faith not certain knowledge. That’s why Christians are normally referred to as “believers” not “knowers”.

This seems the reasonable result of a lack of certainty of impossibility. Prismatic believes that a god is an impossibility.

First of all, “he” above was in reference to KT. And, for the most part, I actually do respect his intelligence. Yours on the other hand I do not. Well, based on what little of yours I have read here.

But, sure, this too is no less an existential contraption.

With you I am only interested in this part:

Come on, what could you, an infinitesimally tiny speck of existence in the context of all there is [like me] possibly know with any degree of certainty about the existence of God – going all the way back in turn to a comprehensive understanding of Existence itself?

Other than in an “argument”. The truth of which is largely tautological. A world of words in which one insists that the manner in which they define the meaning of the words in the argument [about God no less!] are true by default.

Words that are almost never actually connected to a world such that evidence can be gathered, experiments can be performed, predictions can be made, results can be replicated.

Unless I missed this part in one of your posts.

Then [from my point of view] the psycho-babble part aimed at pinning me down once and for all:

All I can do here is to challenge you as I did KT above:

Again, note a particular context relating to the belief in God/No God, and let’s examine more substantively our respective sets of assumptions and conclusions.

The irony here being that the whole point of that [mine anyway] was in ridiculing the objectivists who construe all those who are not “one of us” in much the same manner.

Although, sure, sub-consciously, unconsciously, who the hell knows what propelled me here.

Besides, I become more and more convinced it may well have been nature itself that compelled me to put it there.

Prismatic,

If this is the function of your argument – how can it not be one of absolute certainty?

And of course many Christians, certainly mystic and many priests and pastors doubt, have periods of doubt, have dark nights of the soul and crises of faith. All of these people, who are on the expert end of their religion, don’t see belief as binary and pure, but something that shifts over degrees. And you’re quite right about christianity iit is not knowledge based, though many adherents don’t quite get this, but faith based. Other religions are much more empirical. I am black boxing the issue of are the interpretation of the experiences correct, but they are not faith based in conception.

Faith always implies doubt. Where there is certainty, there’s no need for faith.

As stated I am not making any claim of absolute certainty, it is the theists [advanced] who make the claim.

I gave the analogy;
If you claim within basic arithmetics 1+1=7 with absolute certainty I can show you, your claim is false, moot and is a non-starter.
I don’t have to claim with absolute certainty, it the basic arithmetic rules that you are wrong in your claim.

Yes, whilst Christians relies of faith, they are relying on faith to insist God is real with “absolute certainty” [in their mind] that God is of absolute perfection which is a contradiction.
Where have you heard a Christian or Muslim claimed ‘I am not very sure God exists or not?’

I have stated many times, note Descartes’ supremely perfect God and others who claimed God is absolute.

You can google ‘absolute God’ in relation to Christianity, Islam, and others, e.g.