God is an Impossibility

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.

Your point is moot.
No fallible human can be absolutely perfect.

Point is my syllogism is logically sound, relatively perfect and acceptable by all rational people.

Note,
must the statement “a square-circle is an impossibility to be real” be absolutely perfect in order to be accepted by rational people?

One of the main point of my OP ‘God is an Impossibility to be Real’ is that the idea of God is triggered by a very desperate psychological existential crisis.

The psychological basis of the idea of God has created and triggered loads of evil, violent and negative acts committed on humanity by zealous believers in the name of an illusory God.

Rationally the solution [eliminate theistic based evils] is to resolve the root cause which is psychological within the believers. Thus theists must be encouraged to reflect upon their own psychological impulses triggered by the inherent existential crisis, i.e. Know Thyself (Socrates).

Think about it, what is the real significant purpose/reason for any theists to believe in a God [illusory]?
Morality? nah… that is very limited where theistic religions condone evil acts.
Charity? do we really need religion to do this?
Peace? my foot! religions are the major reasons for many wars in the past.
What else?

The real reason for theism is a desperate psychological defense mechanism within the believers to deal with an inherent existential crisis.

Throughout history many has taken the non-theistic path to resolve the inherent existential crisis, note Buddhism and other non-theistic approaches with an ideology that do not condone any evil nor violent acts.

Prismatic,

Are you saying here that it is irrational to reject your argument? The grounds upon which others have disagreed with your argument are well documented to say the least. You reject all of those grounds, but that doesn’t mean they are invalid.

What point are you trying to make here? You have created a rule that absolute perfection is an impossibility, but that claim doesn’t seem well supported. The problem you have is that the perception of perfection can be subjective.

Note the only “currency” valid here is sound arguments or counter-arguments.

Yes, I noted there are many disagreements but so far no one has brought forth any convincing sound counter-arguments.

If there are any reasonable unresolved counter-arguments I would have kept at it or bring it up. I have not ignored, avoided or ran away from any counter-arguments presented here.

My point is my argument is similar to “a square-circle is an impossibility to be real” which is acceptable as rational and this do not need to be an absolutely perfect statement.

There are are two perspectives to ‘perfection’ i.e.

  1. relative perfection and
  2. absolute perfection.

Once there were the perfect scores within gymnastics and there are still perfect scores happening in many sports, diving, ten-pin bowling, darts, archery, etc. If you score 100/100 in an objective test, that is a perfect score. But these are only relative-perfect scores conditioned by the criteria used.

In contrast, with God [as believed by theists, not me] there is no room for relative perfection but the only valid property is that of absolute perfection, i.e. unconditioned by nothing relative which is non-God.

  1. not all Abrahamists believe that God is mathematically perfect[/b]. 2) you are making a bizarre argument based on popularity. Christians are right about what a God would be like if one existed, though I believe no God exists. 2) The sentence bolded above makes no sense.

That may make sense to you, but it is not how theists must believe in a God and they don’t. I know theists who do not have this belief.

Yah, exactly. albeit…and what you said after was the precise reason I brought up that Deity.

Sure, though you just simplified one of the most complex religions. Many Hindus never think about Brahman or consider Brahman their God. I know this from direct experience in India. And note also that ultimate reality means that there is nothing behind it, deeper. That does not mean that Brahman can lift stones that he makes heavier than he can lift them. It means there is no reality beyond Brahman.

Yes, sometimes the word perfect is used. Just as in romance people say things like there is no one more beautiful than you and so on. It is only when the bean counter theologians come in that this is taken to mean some kind of mathematical perfection.

[/quote]
Again an argument from popularity. And I disagree. Many people when pressed by atheists will assert a kind of mathematical perfection. But in general their practices, scriptures and behavior in general show that they think God needs information they can give, that they need to ask for things -w hich a perfect God would know they need- that their God is tempermental, gets frustrated, gets angry, Jesus feels betrayed for a while on the Cross, God plays games with the Devil and more.

And sure, the Abrahamic religions have great sway. So

we are supposed to judge theism based on the violent monotheisms that have been involved in colonialism and specfically tried to wipe out all other beliefs. Those of the theisms were are supposed to

first respect as being theism

then focus on only the parts that fit your thesis

then judge the other religions as not as good

then point out that theism is bad based on the violent religions?

Is that your thesis and logical approach?

And yes, I get that your reason is you want to attack Islam. And in doing so you think y ou have to prove God does not exist. So to do this you have to use Allah as a model. And so you have to say first that that is the real God, then show that God is not real.

I mean, seriously this is a joke.

Yes, I understand what you are referring to and I am referring to the what should be obvious and most common misconception of the God and texts you are trying to understand or prove a point against.

The idea of perfection is an idea that is representative of the whole of humanity, not a one single person but the first step to achieving the “utopia” is by the first step of a one person in discovery of self, it starts small. I understand that 50% or more of the population worships an external deity outside of the self and monotheism but they have missed the point, the messages, which are metaphors and obvious expressions of human psyche in that time period just like art is expression for our psyche today. Art and expression are the mirror of the mind, you want to understand the mind? Then you go to art in any time period, literature, etc, to understand their perception and time frame. So basically, the texts aren’t all completely wrong but the thinking used to understand them is. Just like using a hammer as a screwdriver, it doesn’t work as the intended method of usage for this tool.

If you turn on a movie or TV show, you can pickup the messages and see it’s the same thing as before as today, because we have not evolved much in terms of psyche and spirituality but now we are beginning to understand finally so maybe in the next few hundred years we will finally create a new cycle, one not based on ignorance and rushing to conclusions like the mass populace tends to do. Aquaman and hero movies, horror movies, comedies, etc. They are tools of inspiration and expression of self, by telling a /story/ and not all the time are they in the /literal/ sense or style of thinking, sometimes the messages are subliminal and metaphorical, it’s symbolism that represents much more.

In other words, how do you hope to prove a point when lacking in understanding or a full perception? You can’t. You’re making a point against something that doesn’t exist as the way you think it does but instead it’s a point towards mankinds lack of understanding and even knowing of this.

The current “understanding” of religion/mythology is based off of of a misconception of them being the representations of /literal/ figures, when it’s actually /metaphor/ for themselves as individuals and as a species (the people in that time period) and the evils/goods of the ego of which /god is depicted as the subconscious/ serves as the “divine” messenger between both sides of ego, the commandments are a guide of self to avoid self judgement/criticism painted in a literal style to guide man to this perception/state of “god” and how to control/depict or avoid the ego as Jesus or satan, simple summed up representations of characteristics of ego based on what environment pulls out of a man instinctually, it’s a guide on how to control ones ego and stay disciplined.

Yes and in the scripture it is meaning deliver “gods” message as meaning, to express psyche and be self through controlling ones own manifested/disciplined ego. They simply do not understand such because the wrong deciphering of the texts has been taught. You won’t find literal objective evidence for a subjective interpretation/writing of self. Do you understand?

Yes, just because they believe it doesn’t make it so in the literal sense of which they deem or believe it. Mankind is caught in a loop of ignorance and misunderstanding. That book was supposed to be used as a tool to self enlightenment, switch the view and ones thinking and they may see such.

It isn’t just my idea, it is so. I am looking at the texts in the only way they make sense, not in a /literal/ way of thinking or observation/proof seeking. They’re keys to self and individual enlightenment/state of perception, through depiction of symbols, summaries, steps, etc.

I am just stating the fact of the matter, people have been arguing over something that doesn’t exist in the way of which they are trying to view or understand it for the past 100s and 1000s of years. I’m here to clear up the confusion of those texts, mythology and religious scripture.

Prismatic,

Hmm… The statement “a square circle” is an oxymoron. Your argument is an inductive proposition, they are completely different, they aren’t even similar semantically. You don’t believe that God exists, that’s fine, but to claim that it is impossible for God to exist requires more than just belief, you need to demonstrate that claim, which I don’t think your argument does… You gave it go, but ultimately your argument raises more questions than it answers, as can be seen by the lengthy debate, across different philosophy forums. I know you believe you’ve hit the nail on the head, but you haven’t IMV.

For arguments sake, if there is a God that is absolutely perfect, why do you think it would be absolutely perfect? Could it have something to do with the attributes it possesses?