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r505Matt on 29 April 2011
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GameOver22 said:
r505Matt said:
GameOver22 said:
r505Matt said:
pizzahut451 said:

And  how is atheism any diffrent than Christianity when it comes to evidence and faith? Is there any evidence that supports non-existance of God? HELL NO. Atheist believe theire is no God based on no evidence. Christians beleive there is a God based on no evidence. So we should ridicule Atehism as well right? But, Richard Dawking forbiid than anyone thinks anything even remotly bad about your supeiror beleif. Stop acting like atheism is a proven beleif or something. its not even close to that.

This is one of the more ridiculous things I've read in one of these kinds of discussions. Let's set this up simply (though it is probably falsely dichotomous). If there is no God, there cannot be evidence for either side of the debate. It would be impossible to find evidence supporting or disproving the existence of God. You cannot prove or disprove something that does not exist.

However, if there is a God, then there could be evidence to prove the existence of God, but there will still be no evidence to disprove God's existence. In both cases, you cannot have evidence to disprove something, it is logically impossible, therefore the burden of proof falls on believers, not atheists.

Now again, this is assuming a dichotomy when that's not really the case, so I think it's better to say whether or not there is a higher power or not. Since God and other possible celestial beings can be classified as a higher power, that wording probably works better. 

Lastly, it can be difficult to discern what is actually evidence and what is merely just a 'red herring' in the end. Maybe there is some true evidence in the Bible or Koran or other religious work that truly points to a higher power but we will probably never know (in life that is).

First off, I like your posts. You raise some good points.

With your claim, "You cannot prove or disprove something that does not exist", the truth of this statement depends on your criteria for knowledge. I can definitely make a strong inductive argument for the non-existence of unicorns, the flying spaghetti monster, the little green man who sits in my hand, etc. I can base these arguments off of observations. Their truth will never reach certainty, but I would still classify these inductive arguments as proof that these things do not exist.

However, the statement is clearly false when moving away from observation and into the meaning of terms. I can prove without observation that there is no such thing as a square-circle because of the meaning of the terms square and circle. You can transplant any counter-example in here and get similar results using characteristics such as color, weight, measurement, etc.

Thanks =) I like your posts too.

For the most part, I agree. I just want to get a little further out and talk about the 'false by meaning' things you bring up. In our world's rules, I completely agree. I'm going to get a little philosophical here but yes, in our perspective, a square circle cannot exist since the meanings of the terms directly clash with each other. But maybe we don't see the full picture. We perceive 3-4 dimensions (3d time to keep it simple) and yet scientists theorize there may be as many as 11 dimensions. Is it not possible within those other 7 dimensions some sort of 'loophole' that could make a square circle exist logically? We only perceive 3-4 dimensions, so we only see 3-4 dimensions of an object, we don't necessarily see the whole picture. 

Now this idea won't necessarily apply well to the square-circle idea directly, since even with other perceived dimensions, maybe it wouldn't change. Just like how a line is still a line even though we perceive more dimensions than it requires for us to perceive (and I won't even get into cubes and spheres). However, I meant to bring up the idea to apply as a whole to any kind of terms conflict in the manner of the square circle. The square circle is such a good example that I had to use it =)

I know this is the basis for refuting some God theories as well, mostly in terms of the traits given. I've used it myself when people try to say God is omnipotent and omniscient and yet those same people believe in free will. I posit that omniscience and free will cannot co-exist. But it may all lie in semantics and the definitions assigned. To me, free will is more than simply the ability to choose your own course of action, but to explain fully requires adding in omniscience. All knowing. A very powerful word, a being who is omniscient is ALL knowing. I cannot stress that all part enough. If God is all knowing, he knows all of the past, all of the present, and all of the possible futures. Just the mere fact that he knows any future you could possibly act on disproves the concept of free will for me.

I won't leave it at that. Most people think free will just means there is no set future, but I don't believe that to be the case. An omniscient and omnipotent creature would be able to foresee every infinte possibility. Just his or her or its mere knowing and understanding of every possible choice would rule out free will possibility existing. At that point, your not choosing your own path, your still walking along a predetermined path. Rather, one of infinite possible predetermined path, but the true choice is beyond you.

Lastly and most importantly, if God is omniscient and omnipotent, not only does God then see every possibilty, but God will still know EXACTLY which path will be taken. That's still part of the all knowing. If God doesn't know which path will be taken, then God is not all knowing and none of this really matters. It took a while to lead up to this most important part, but I had to lead up to it. Omniscience and free will cannot co-exist. Unless, of course, in those other 7 unknown dimensions, there may lie a loophole. So I'm open to the possibility of such a thing, but at this time, just as I accept there cannot be a square circle, omniscience and free will cannot co-exist. 

I went a little far out there but I brought it back in the end =P

With extra-dimensions, there is always the possibility that we do not have the whole picture, but you don't really need extra-dimensions to recognize this point. There was a great example I was reading in a book addressing the problem of evil that emphasized this point. Imaginge you are standing outside an empty garage (completely empty- just walls, floor, air molecules- hopefully you get the point). Someone asks you whether there is a dog in the garage. You would feel justified in saying there is no dog. The person then asks you whether there are any fleas in the garage. In reponse to this question, you don't feel justified in saying there are no fleas because your frame of observation is not exact enough to make the claim.

You get the same results with extra-dimensions, especially given that some dimensions are posited to be so small that they are beyond human observation. There might be some celestial unicorn galloping around in the 11th dimension, but we just can't see it (unlikely, but possible). I don't know if these examples directly apply to a square-circle though, particularly because the dimension would actually need to change the meaning of the terms. Point being, a square-circle is a logical contradiction.

Now, onto foreknowledge and free will. The problem gets a lot of discussion. To play devil's advocate, there are a number of responses. First, there is a difference between saying someone knows that x will happen, and saying that someone causes x to happen. God could know that some human will make a choice, but this does not mean he is causing the person to make this choice. God's omniscience allows him to know what action I will take, but the actual action of making that choice is still made by me. However, this argument is not conducive with what we generally think of as free-will because there really are no other options. As you noted, we cannot go against God's knowledge without sacrificing his omnisicience.

The other response is that God does not know our future actions, but this does not eliminate God's omniscience because there is no knowledge of the future, at least where free will is concerned. Knowledge requires that there is a way to test whether the claim corresponds with reality, but there is no reality to test the claim because the claim depends on some as-yet unobserved state of the universe. This response makes more sense to me although it would require that God's timelessness (eternal viewpoint) be denied.

What are you doing here, actually making me think! Go back from whence you came! =)

My only point with the extra dimensions was that, well, how to put this. The usual idea of these other dimensions is that there is more stuff going on around us than we can actually perceive or know. I guess, in a far too roundabout manner, I was trying to put out an idea that maybe it can be the opposite or something else, and a dimension might actually remove or change something we already perceive. We don't really have much to compare to with our limited perception of the whole spectrum, so who knows? What if in perceiving more layers and more dimensions we would actually perceive less or something completely different? That's all I was getting it. We have no proof either way, I just like to bring up stranger points from time to time.

Let's put some free will in more human terms. If a mother asks her son "do this for me" and he does it, is that free will? You can say he made the choice to do it or not do, and the choice of doing it implies free will, but there are other factors at work. If there is a God, can you say with any reasonable amount of certainty that God isn't in some way doing this? Maybe you don't even know it. Maybe the messages appear to you as dreams, or random thoughts during the day. This wasn't really where I wanted to go with this, but it just kind of popped in my head anyways.

Back on target, we'd have to clearly define what is free will. Omniscience is pretty self explanatory, all knowing, it's pretty simple and straight forward. However, what is free will? My point was that if any higher power does know the future, then it is no longer free will. This can merely be a discrepancy in defintions which I why I don't really argue too much for it. So yes, maybe God does know everything that will happen and does not influence it at all. But in that case, to me, there is no free will. You are following a set path. The decisions you make, that you feel you freely make, are actually predetermined. You were supposed to make this decision at that time. That's not free will to me.

As for omniscience without knowing the future, that's not all knowing. The word all is, well, simple. It means ALL. Not all but not X (where X is the future). That is not all. If a deity does not know the future, then that deity is not omniscient. I'll concede often about definitions of free will, but this is pretty explicit. Saying "God knows of everything except..." means there is something he doesn't know. Sure, as humans, we require knowledge have a basis in reality. But God is not human, he doesn't necessarily face the same issue. Or rather, we start getting into questions like "Well, what is reality? What is knowledge?" which can each be a thread on their own.