God and Logic?

[Kilgore Trout]

God is limited in what He can do? What limits him?

The (current) parameters of the story plot.

 

[Thief]

Hey Arimoff...Thief here....

The story on Moses was presented a bit differently when it came my way.

Moses went up unto God's mountain, leaving the people to wait.
Forty days and nights later, Moses returns to find the people have made a golden calf to represent God.

Of course, the commandment broken was at the top of the list.

For that transgression 3000 followers were killed immediately.

It wasn't a culture shock really....and it wasn't God doing the correction.

 

[Thief]

Thief here....
In parallel form...we impose restrictions upon ourselves.
God does refrain some things.

 

[Cordoba]

The utter weakness of the claim is totally exposed in the supporter resorting to "well, there's no way to understand it, so it has to be fully accepted without explanation".

Hello MSizer

I'm not suggesting that we should fully accept "without explanation"

Quite the opposite

God gave us an advanced intellect, and He encourages us to use it to contemplate, learn and think

What I'm saying is that while using logic we must be aware that our knowledge of this immense and amazing universe is like a drop in the ocean. What humanity thought was an established fact not that long ago, like the earth being flat, turned out to be incorrect, and all conclusions based on that wrong assumption were also therefore incorrect

What we need when contemplating this universe is to be humble and to acknowledge that we know very little of what is actually out there, but at the same time keep learning, researching and thinking ...........

 

[richardlowellt]

Exactly

Logic which is based on incorrect information leads to wrong conclusions

Do we have all the correct information about the universe?

Or are we still at the early stage of learning and understanding?

I didn't say they had "wrong" information, I said they had NO information.

I think science has much information about the universe, and no I would not say we are still in the early stages of learning and understanding.

 

[richardlowellt]

Hey Arimoff...Thief here....

The story on Moses was presented a bit differently when it came my way.

Moses went up unto God's mountain, leaving the people to wait.
Forty days and nights later, Moses returns to find the people have made a golden calf to represent God.

Of course, the commandment broken was at the top of the list.

For that transgression 3000 followers were killed immediately.

It wasn't a culture shock really....and it wasn't God doing the correction.

Aren't you glad that these are only fictitious stories. maybe someday they'll make it into a movie----------Oh wait, i guess they already did, and it wasn't very good, way to much over acting, and the special effects sucked.

 

[richardlowellt]

Hello MSizer

I'm not suggesting that we should fully accept "without explanation"

Quite the opposite

God gave us an advanced intellect, and He encourages us to use it to contemplate, learn and think

What I'm saying is that while using logic we must be aware that our knowledge of this immense and amazing universe is like a drop in the ocean. What humanity thought was an established fact not that long ago, like the earth being flat, turned out to be incorrect, and all conclusions based on that wrong assumption were also therefore incorrect

What we need when contemplating this universe is to be humble and to acknowledge that we know very little of what is actually out there, but at the same time keep learning, researching and thinking ...........

"God gave us advanced intellect" HE encourages us to use it. Before you make sweeping statements like this you need to show us your evidence of this God and just how you know it is a male God.


We actually know quite a lot about the universe, the Hubble telescope has advanced our knowledge of the universe a hundred fold. Humble is never the answer, sheep are humble, most Christians who consider themselves miserable sinners are humble, humble never gets the job done, thankfully most cosmologists and anything but humble, otherwise we would in fact know very little of what is actually out there.

 

[Dunemeister]

Under the right conditions, humans simply form beliefs about God. These beliefs can (indeed quite often, but not always) constitute knowledge quite apart from there being any good arguments for God's existence (although I think there are several good ones).

Getting back to your question directly, yes I have evidence. But that evidence is, strictly speaking, not the basis for my belief. At best, they offer aid and comfort, but even without them, my belief in God is perfectly rational.

To me the difference between you vacation memories (V) and your god beliefs is that your vacation beliefs came from the naturalistic realm.

So do my God beliefs. My beliefs are acquired naturalistically (that is, by natural processes). It's only the content of those beliefs that are supernaturalistic. I look out at the stars at night, and I form the belief that God is indeed majestic and wondrous (implying, of course, his existence). This belief arose in me through the proper functioning of my cognitive faculties.

So because I have no belief in a god I was not exposed to the "right conditions?" "These beliefs often constitute knowledge?" What knowledge?

I have argued that beliefs about God acquire warrant in the basic way. Specifically, through the proper function of cognitive faculties. There may be many ways in which one might not form a belief in God. It may be that those conditions have never obtained for you. Or you may suffer some sort of cognitive dysfunction with respect to those faculties responsible for beliefs in God. Or you may be so averse to God beliefs (you have a really, really rotten attitude toward them, whether that attitude is conscious or not -- imagine me invoking Freud!) that even when your cognitive faculties form such beliefs, your attitude is revulsion rather than acceptance. Or......

"Yes I have evidence" what evidence might that be? even though they may not be the basis for your belief.

I would like to hear your "several" good arguments for the existence of god.

It's not the place in this thread to go into them. I imagine you've heard them: the teleological argument (arguing from order and design to a designer), the cosmological argument (arguing from the brute fact of creation to a creator), the ontological argument (now out of favor, it involves arguing from the nature of God to his necessary existence), the ethical argument (arguing from the truth of moral statements to the existence of God, the basis of their truth), the historical argument (arguing from, say, the resurrection of Jesus to the existence of God), and others. (I'm doing this off the top of my head, and I don't feel like perusing my bookshelf right now.) All of these arguments present evidence and arguments for God's existence. Exactly none of them are so conclusive as to coerce consent except on pain of insincerity or irrationality. Of course, that's also true of atheological arguments. But some of them, or some versions of them, are quite enlightening and helpful. (The same can be said for atheological arguments.) That said, I don't dwell on them too much because, as I have already argued, they are not necessary to provide warrant for belief in God. Belief in God is quite rational and proper apart from them.

 

[Dunemeister]

I think G-Ds actions are limited here to work only through logic, He can't actually show his hand, according to scriptures he did it only once and it caused a cultural shock and as a result people build the golden calf.

Not a bad point. God more or less fully revealed himself to the people, and they quite literally told God to go away! When he did, and when Moses went up to receive the law, Israel immediately fell into the crassest debauchery. I guess this story is, on one level, a warning against wanting too much of a good thing ("I'd believe in God if only he'd show himself in all his glory." Yeah, right!).

 

[Dunemeister]

We actually know quite a lot about the universe, the Hubble telescope has advanced our knowledge of the universe a hundred fold. Humble is never the answer, sheep are humble, most Christians who consider themselves miserable sinners are humble, humble never gets the job done, thankfully most cosmologists and anything but humble, otherwise we would in fact know very little of what is actually out there.

Spoken like someone who is a fan of science but not actually a practitioner. Most practicing scientists who have written about their methods have always emphasized how little they actually know, how much more is waiting to be discovered, and how much humility their craft demands.

 

[arimoff]

Hey Arimoff...Thief here....

The story on Moses was presented a bit differently when it came my way.

Moses went up unto God's mountain, leaving the people to wait.
Forty days and nights later, Moses returns to find the people have made a golden calf to represent God.

Of course, the commandment broken was at the top of the list.

For that transgression 3000 followers were killed immediately.

It wasn't a culture shock really....and it wasn't God doing the correction.[/QUOTE

What do u think it was? Peope who were slaves have seen actions witch go against any logic, and now they are alone for fourty days and nights in the middle of a desert, what do you think they gonna do? They will look for that hand again and if they can't find it they will create it.

What do you call a situation if a city like New York sees G-Ds direct intervantion? First it will cause the city stop functioning and people will become dependable on getting food and everything else, it is called a cultural shock.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Is God's actions constrained by logic, or is God able to circumvent logical laws? Why or why not? Or is a question involving God and logical laws inherently meaningless?

Well, I know my actions are not constrained by logic. I often make irrational decisions and am often being illogical.

I see know reason why any God would be constrained by them. Especially when we are limitless in our own imagination.

 

[rojse]

Well, I know my actions are not constrained by logic. I often make irrational decisions and am often being illogical.

I see know reason why any God would be constrained by them. Especially when we are limitless in our own imagination.

I mightn't have expressed myself as clearly as I had wished, then.

I don't mean constrained as in "God will only act in a logical manner" but as in "Can God do things which are inherently illogical by our standards of logic."

 

[Cordoba]

"God gave us advanced intellect" HE encourages us to use it. Before you make sweeping statements like this you need to show us your evidence of this God and just how you know it is a male God.

We actually know quite a lot about the universe, the Hubble telescope has advanced our knowledge of the universe a hundred fold. Humble is never the answer,

I agree that the Hubble Telescope has had an immense impact on our understanding of the universe, but there is one point to remember:

All what we can observe through Hubble and other telescopes is historial information on the universe which took place millions or billions of years ago. The distant star or galaxy we see today is in fact it's image and location millions or billions of years ago

Does that galaxy still exist today?

Maybe, maybe not

If it exists, is it in that same place?

Surely not

To acknowledge that our knowledge of the universe is still a drop in the ocean is therefore a logical thing to do, and all true scientists by the way used to be very humble people as they understood how much there is out there to learn and understand ...............

 

[Dunemeister]

I don't mean constrained as in "God will only act in a logical manner" but as in "Can God do things which are inherently illogical by our standards of logic."

If logic is, as I suppose, simply the way God thinks, that's like asking whether God can act in a way contrary to the way he thinks. It would be possible but only in the case of divine madness. Is it possible for God to be mad? Well, that would imply that God's cognition is supposed to operate a certain way but doesn't. How could God possibly dysfuntion? What is so mighty an ailment that it could affect God's functioning? The more I think along this line the more I think the very question is absurd.

 

[rojse]

If logic is, as I suppose, simply the way God thinks, that's like asking whether God can act in a way contrary to the way he thinks. It would be possible but only in the case of divine madness. Is it possible for God to be mad? Well, that would imply that God's cognition is supposed to operate a certain way but doesn't. How could God possibly dysfuntion? What is so mighty an ailment that it could affect God's functioning? The more I think along this line the more I think the very question is absurd.

Either you are several steps ahead of me or I haven't quite gotten my question across. In either case, I'll make an attempt to respond so at least you can see where I am coming from.

There seems to me to be an unanswered question regarding whether God is contstrained by logic or not. I have seen this pop up several times in a variety of threads, and thought it worth asking the question outright.

Logic has a variety of definitions based on the context of the word's use, but here I shall presume that most people, using the word "logic" mean it to be a series of statements that can help us to make conclusions about the world in which we live, based on a set of statements that we presume true.

A simple example (which is extremely inadequate for the following conversation but will suffice as a starting point):
1. I am not wearing a jumper.
2. Everyone else around me is wearing a jumper.
3. I feel cold.

Presuming that all of these statements were correct, we might reasonably conclude that if we put a jumper on, we would not feel cold any more. However, after a moment's consideration, we might also be able to conclude that we might have an illness, we might be in a drafty spot, or so forth, all of which explain our feelings of being cold without the reason being a lack of a jumper.

Now, in regards to God, do you think that God is limited by our own rules and systems of logic or not? Or is this an inherently meaningless question?

 

[Beaudreaux]

Is it possible for God to be mad?

Is it possible?? Have you SEEN the duck billed platypus?

 

[Cordoba]

Now, in regards to God, do you think that God is limited by our own rules and systems of logic or not? Or is this an inherently meaningless question?

Let's give it a try:

1- All matters that have a starting point come into existence by an earlier cause (example: a child is born after its mother gets pregnant)

2- Our universe is not eternal as it is around 14 billion years old

3- Therefore our universe came into existence around 14 billion years ago by a cause which preceded it

Let's call that cause (A), for now

The logical argument to follow that sequence is that if (A) is the origin of all what exists, (A) must itself be eternal, as if that was not the case (A) would need an earlier cause

The only solution therefore of the puzzle is that in fact (A) - the origin of all what exists - must be an eternal cause which is not constrained by the laws which govern this universe, and therefore (A) is the eternal free designer and creator of all that exists .....

Therefore The Eternal Creator - God - is not constrained by our own rules, as He is eternal and free, in the same way a software engineer who designs a robot is not constrained by the software he designs for building this robot

Makes sense?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

The logical argument to follow that sequence is that if (A) is the origin of all what exists, (A) must itself be eternal, as if that was not the case (A) would need an earlier cause

The only solution therefore of the puzzle is that in fact (A) - the origin of all what exists - must be an eternal cause which is not constrained by the laws which govern this universe, and therefore (A) is the eternal free designer and creator of all that exists .....

Therefore The Eternal Creator - God - is not constrained by our own rules, as He is eternal and free, in the same way a software engineer who designs a robot is not constrained by the software he designs for building this robot

The ability to correctly apply and understand logic is a prerequisite for engaging in a debate about logic.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Either you are several steps ahead of me or I haven't quite gotten my question across. In either case, I'll make an attempt to respond so at least you can see where I am coming from.

There seems to me to be an unanswered question regarding whether God is contstrained by logic or not. I have seen this pop up several times in a variety of threads, and thought it worth asking the question outright.

Logic has a variety of definitions based on the context of the word's use, but here I shall presume that most people, using the word "logic" mean it to be a series of statements that can help us to make conclusions about the world in which we live, based on a set of statements that we presume true.

A simple example (which is extremely inadequate for the following conversation but will suffice as a starting point):
1. I am not wearing a jumper.
2. Everyone else around me is wearing a jumper.
3. I feel cold.

Presuming that all of these statements were correct, we might reasonably conclude that if we put a jumper on, we would not feel cold any more. However, after a moment's consideration, we might also be able to conclude that we might have an illness, we might be in a drafty spot, or so forth, all of which explain our feelings of being cold without the reason being a lack of a jumper.

Now, in regards to God, do you think that God is limited by our own rules and systems of logic or not? Or is this an inherently meaningless question?

As syllogisms go, this is not a very good one. A better example of logic in action is:

1. I am a mechanic
2. All mechanics wear jumpsuits
3. Therefore I wear a jumpsuit

In this example, if premises 1 and 2 are true then the conclusion in 3 MUST also be true. That's how logic works.