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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:00 pm 
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You said all we can do is speculate, did you not? Every religion has/had specific and exact details. If human intelligence and comprehension doesn't allow for a definite answer on whether a deity exists or not, how could people know about the devil and God and the final judgement? How could the Egyptians know about the afterlife? How could the Greeks know about mount Olympus? How would every religion know their Gods and goddesses names and what they do and specialize in?


But Dylan you say, that just disproves religion, that doesn't disprove the existence of deities.

Wrong. Who believes in a God without following a religion? Not many people.

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 12:11 am 
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Both God and Religion are man made entities.

I look at God as a frame of reference. For example, time is a frame of reference. The time on Earth - Earth hours, Earth minutes, Earth years etc, are not gonna be the same for example on...Pluto. If we lived on Pluto, then it wouldnt even be 1 year, before we lived and died. So time there would be different or slower.

So God essentially is this super-human kind of entity, who is all powerful and all knowing that was created by man, to explain various things that people didnt understand back in the old days, when science was not very advanced.

Religion on the other hand, is an ideology. Its not the word of god or whatever, but its an ideology that millions subscribe to. It lays down a set of rules and regulations, it forms the basis for our culture and our way of life. Being an ideology, it is open to interpretation. And we cant say religion is all bad. It was the principle reason that people became literate, it promoted social cohesion and order, centralized law enforcement (cuz anyone believing in one ideology can be subject to the same rules) etc etc.,

Of course we have come far from all that, we have science that explains so many things that we see around us everyday, that we dont understand off hand. Therefore the frame of reference (God) or an ideology like religion, is not needed today.

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 2:26 am 
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Wolowitz wrote:
Wrong. Who believes in a God without following a religion? Not many people.


Plenty of people are "non religious" but still believe in jesus and read the bible. A significant portion of supposed Christians go to church once a year or less.


Jake wrote:
Wolowitz wrote:
What evidence?


What evidence specifically rids the probability of a higher power?

(Just sayin)


The same evidence that specifically rids the probability of unicorns, leprechauns and Megatrons (had to make it rhyme)

Burden of proof is always on the positive claim, there is no way to disprove or provide evidence against the existence of Megatron or Super Laser Space Jesus Shark.

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:10 am 
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shelton9778 wrote:
found this on hubpages by secularist10


Can God create a stone so heavy even he can't lift it?

The paradox of omnipotence is one of the simplest, and therefore one of the most powerful, questions one can ask about God. It forms the basis of a classical argument against God's existence.

The paradox stems from the notion of "omnipotence" as indicating the ability to do anything. One may conclude that if a being is capable of doing anything, therefore it must be able to do even that which is logically impossible. Thus God can create a square circle, God can create a stone that even God cannot lift, and (my personal favorite) God can create another God. Keep in mind that God is defined as an uncreated being. To create an uncreated thing is logically contradictory. But if God cannot do the logically impossible, then he isn't omnipotent, right?

So what may the God-believer respond to such a question? Let's take one form of the paradox, and see where deduction leads us.
Can God create another God?

The answer to this question is either yes or no. For the purposes of this discussion, the main quality of God is his uncreated nature. Therefore, if one responds "yes," it means that God can create something that is uncreated. Let's look a bit closer at the "yes" response.

If God can create something that is uncreated, it means that the ability to create something that is uncreated exists. If that ability exists, somewhere in the universe, then the believer who responds "yes" is met with a dilemma: God himself may have been created.

Think about it. Since the "yes" responder has now established that the ability to create an uncreated thing exists, he has admitted that uncreated things can be created. God is an uncreated thing. Therefore God may have been created. And "God" as typically defined, ceases to exist.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Not only is it now possible that God (an uncreated thing) was created, but the thing that created God--the Overlord that created the Lord--itself may have been uncreated. The "yes" respondent has thus opened the floodgates to an infinite regress of uncreated creators. Interestingly, the absurdity of an infinite regress is one of the major themes offered by God-believers to support the existence of God as an "uncreated creator" or an "unmoved mover."

To sum up the conclusion from the "yes" response:

God is omnipotent
Therefore God can do anything
Therefore God can create another God
Therefore, since God is uncreated, it is possible for God to create an uncreated thing
Therefore, the ability to create something that is uncreated exists
Therefore, uncreated God himself may have been, in fact, created [refuting the existence of God]
By (5), since every uncreated thing may have been created, we are necessarily left with an infinite regress of uncreated creators, each in turn created by an uncreated creator

The "No" camp

Perhaps sensing the inconvenient outcomes of the "yes" response, the main thrust of religious thinking (from such great philosophers as Augustine and Aquinas and Averroes) has focused on the "no" response. However, as we shall now see, this too leaves the God-believer in a profound intellectual predicament.

If one says that God cannot create another God, then one is admitting that God's power is limited. And therefore God is not omnipotent.

Not so fast, says the theist. It's not that God is limited, but rather that power is limited. That is, God can do with power whatever power can do. But since power, by definition, cannot bring about a contradictory state of affairs, God cannot do it. But that is the fault of power, not of God. So (the theist will claim) we are legitimate in identifying God as omnipotent, because God can do whatever power can do. But since power cannot do that which is logically impossible, neither can God.

The problem with this argument is that it confuses the definition of the word "power." Power means, quite simply, "the ability to do something." That's it. The definition doesn't say "the ability to do something that is logical," or the "ability to do something that makes sense." The word "power" makes no reference to logic, to contradiction, or any such thing.

Once we have a solid understanding of the word "power" as the ability to do a thing (not a logical thing, not a sensical or nonsensical thing, but just "a thing"), then we can see why the "no" response digs its own grave.

The "no" respondent indicates that God's power is constrained. Specifically, it is constrained by logic. The question then arises... who created logic?

Obviously, if God cannot violate logic, it follows that he did not create logic. A being cannot create the thing that constrains it. Therefore logic must exist outside of him, external to him, or prior to him.

If logic exists beyond God's hand, then logic is either uncreated, or was created by something other than God. Either way, we have discovered at least one thing--logic--that God did not create. Therefore God did not, in fact, create everything. And the God hypothesis is defeated twice: first, as a being with infinite/ unlimited power, and second, as the creator of everything.

To sum up the conclusions from the "no" response:

God's power is restrained by logic
Therefore God cannot do that which is logically impossible
Therefore, no, God cannot create another God because God cannot create an uncreated thing
Thus, God is not all-powerful
If God's power is constrained by logic, then logic must exist outside of God
Therefore God cannot have created logic
Therefore logic is either uncreated, or was created by another being
Therefore God did not create everything

Final Thoughts

Omnipotence isn't all it's cracked up to be. According to logic, we have seen that it is very unlikely that God exists, as far as "God" is typically defined. It is also highly unlikely that omnipotence exists. The paradox of omnipotence is a fascinating intellectual game, but it would seem that no matter who plays, and no matter what side they take--the "yes" side or the "no" side--nobody wins. Nobody, that is, who is a theist.


This argument is very strong, but it does not disprove God's existence. It simply removes an aspect. Even if he didn't create logic, he still created everything else, and I'm pretty sure Christianity isn't based on this. Christianity is based on love and faith, not omnipotence.

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 7:09 am 
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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 8:55 am 
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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:58 am 
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Quote:
he still created everything else


Dogmatic statement. Are you denying evolution and supporting creationism and rejecting science altogether when it has proven beyond a shred of doubt about the age of the earth? Or are you gonna argue the earth is like 6000 years old? :roll:

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:50 am 
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I hereby take back that statement.

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:25 pm 
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Jake wrote:
In the 4th dimension time is the 4th dimension, so how is the idea of the 4th dimension plausible with the thought process of a being from the 3rd dimension?

It is not possible using our thought process/physics.

Disproving God with our rules means nothing.

For the record I am atheist I just see the logic behind religion and 'god' and anyone open to logic would agree that God can neither be proven or disproved with our physics that is if God was a being from a different dimension. All we can do is speculate. Nothing will be accomplished here.

And it is quite true. This debate is just to see which argument is the strongest, according to what little we know of our existance. The paradoxes of this world (if time is infinite then when did it start; if space is infinite then where does it end) suggest, or rather force, an answer that is completely illogical to all theoretical or scientific knowledge we posess. Therefore, we can be 100% sure it is something beyond it. Still, we try t discard the impossible, so only the solution remains. Ironically though, we consider this to be impossible xD

Religion has been one of the many ways for the human mind to cope with such a problem: we look at the other people, then we think: "What if there is someone better than us that started all of this?" But it is simply an answer that our rationality found to the questions at hand: it isn't man-made, it is simply a possibility that lies there. Now, what really is man-made about religion is that we use it to set rules for our conducts and behaviours. That is entirely man-made, but not religion itself: religion is an answer, let it be a single deity (God), many (gods, eg. the Greek gods), or none (atheism). Atheism really is a religion, by the way: only that the answer to the question is none (no form of God). Also, I would like to know what you meant by saying time was a frame of refferance allen: it really intrigues me, as I am a bit confused at it...

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 Post subject: Re: Religion
PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:36 pm 
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Quote:
For example, time is a frame of reference. The time on Earth - Earth hours, Earth minutes, Earth years etc, are not gonna be the same for example on...Pluto. If we lived on Pluto, then it wouldnt even be 1 year, before we lived and died. So time there would be different or slower.


What? Time remains constant and never slows down or speeds up. Alien civilizations millions of light years away don't measure time in days and weeks and months, etc.

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