God is an Impossibility

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?

Though some oxymorons have turned out to be true. Like particle wave duality. A particle wave would have been considered an oxymoron, until it seemed to be the case. Even worse with his example is that squares can’t be real. A four ‘sided’ thing with sides that extend only in one direction, length, but have no width?

So, even a circle cannot be real.

And then his analogy is based on comparing geometry to what it seems to me is another kind of ‘thing’.

And then that he must assume, as he says above, that God is perfect because Muslims believe that, so in his argument all theists need to have perfect Gods, because it is important to disprove Islam.

Prismatic,

It’s true that many conventional worshippers of God attribute Him with perfection.

But I am not a conventional theist and there are many other such theists, like myself, who will tell you that God does not have to “perfect”, whatever that may mean.

We have argued the above point in the ‘Who is a Christian’ thread.
A Christian is one who had surrendered his Will to God via Jesus and the Gospels.

If no God, no Gospels, that is a pseudo Christian.

Note at the highest level of theological consideration, God is attributed with ‘perfection’ note St. Anselm, Descartes, and others.

Yes, not ALL Christians bothered about the term ‘perfect’ and whatever omni, but when cornered and push, they will easily agree with perfect [in everything not only mathematically].

If a Christian or other theists are cornered with the proposition,
“if your god is not the most perfect, superior god, then your inferior God could be forced to eat shit by the most another superior God [Islamic God for example] that exists over your God” that will get their attention to claim their God is most superior and perfect.

In this case, the Christian will surely insist his God is the most perfect and superior that which no greater can exists. This is just a matter of mental choice and so easy literally, thus every theist when cornered in such a situation will opt for the most perfect and superior God.

Try posing the above ‘eat shit’ challenge to the Christians you know, I bet 99% will opt for the absolute perfect God as St. Anselm and Descartes had presented.

Note I am highlighting the one-up principle in this case. The Greek gods are not a serious issue for me and I don’t think many would believe in these Greek gods at present.

The majority of Hindu religions believe in Brahman as the ultimate God and the Absolute.
The majority of lay Hindus will definitely be driven by the one-up principle to feel secure and thus accept Brahman to be perfect.

It is not sometimes.
Where it counts, they will invoke the term perfection, absolute, ultimate, most superior etc.

Whatever God did or will do, God is still revered as perfect, else they will not have the assurance their God will deliver to heaven with eternal. Otherwise another superior God could override their God and divert them to Hell.

My main focus in on Islam’s evil elements.
I believe the most effective approach to deal with the evil of Islam is to prove God is an impossibility.
My apologies to other theists but I have highlighted to theists there are non-theistic approaches to deal with the inherent existential crisis and its pains without potential evil and violent elements.

Btw, my argument is based on what current theists [especially the Abrahamic] are believing what God is.

The current idea of God inevitable lead to a perfect, most superior and absolute God which are stated and implied in their holy texts.

These theists believed in a real God, i.e. so real where the real God delivered his message and command via prophets and messengers that all humans must adhere to and obey. Some of these God’s messages include commanding the believer to kill non-believers and this is very evident, i.e.
thereligionofpeace.com/TROP.jpg

Therefore when we prove God is an impossibility to be real, then, there is no real God who delivered any texts via humans. Thus there is no God to command believers to kill non-believers.

If you argue for God like you do above, you will allow room for theists to creep back to their holy texts, the Bible, Quran or Torah, etc.

My argument is a 100% completely cut off from any chance of any one relying on God’s words to kill non-believers as a divine duty.

I have argued logically, soundly and rationally God is an impossibility to be real.

I have also topped it up with why the majority of humans have the instincts to believe in a God which is illusory and irrational. The reason is psychological, i.e. driven by an inherent existential crisis. If you look at it from this psychological angle, my argument will make sense.

In addition, there are non-theistic approaches that had been around for a long time that deal with the inherent existential crisis without any elements of evil or violence.

In the long run, my argument is positive to humanity in the sense that there will be ZERO theistic driven [God inspired] evil and violent acts. Point is this proposal will take quite some time [50, 100, 150 or > years] to be produce results.

Humans [naturally born evil prone] will continue to commit evil and violent acts, but that would be a secular issue to be dealt with.

Note, it is not my belief… but if you encounter Islam and claim you are a theist, Islam by its inherent nature will condemn your God as inferior plus various derogatory remarks thrown in. If you can accept that, there is no issue with me.

What will you do if theistic Islamists threaten to kill you and your future generations because you disbelieve in their more superior God and opt to believe in a less superior or perfect god.
What would be your solution for the future generations?
Your insistence your God and God in general exists will actually feed the flame of the Islamist aggression.
In this case, you are very selfish for your own salvation or psychological insecurity, i.e. with no concern for the future generations.

I would propose you sacrifice [don’t be selfish], learn about your own inherent existential psychology and chop off theism at its roots [with the OP argument] so that the Islamists will not have any foundation to make their claim and obedience to kill non-believers as a divine duty to gain Allah’s favor.

This is win-win for all since it will only involve a mental change in rational consideration on yours and the Islamists part and all can then avoid theistic-based evil and violence.

I think what they meant by saying to kill unbelievers, is that to kill paganism or other enemies of war, the texts also could have been altered, should understand the context of when it was the written, that stuff should be removed from modern texts. It’s a matter of common sense to weed out what is relevant and what is not based off of a perception of time now Vs then.

I don’t think the texts mean a real god I think that is people’s misinterpretation of what the text originally is saying.

God is a balance between consciousness and subconscious, as a collective. God has the ability to manifest with satan and/or Jesus attributes based on environment and power of will. Dark and light sides of subconsciousness, the state of duality that evolved into us, it’s all just unique language and symbolism of a reoccurring message of duality evolving, which is “god” manifesting into and as all life and the whole design at the same time.

The basic Abrahamic belief for the common man is supposed to be based off of a common sense that appears to not be so common anymore.

Btw, I spent 3 years on a full time basis studying, researching and analyzing the Quran, plus learning basic Quranic Arabic. Thus what I have stated about Islam is more reasonable and justified than your guesses.

God is a balance between consciousness and subconscious, as a collective.
It is not what you think God should be but rather what is Islam is very specifically stated in the Quran which is supposedly perfected by God and is immutable.
Given the psychology of existing theists I don’t believe your argument will have any influence on the majority of Muslims and other fundamental theists.

As I had argued, if you keep the idea of God alive in some ways, it will definitely provide room for the Islamists [a significant SOME] to hang on to the idea of God to soothe their psychological desperation. Thus their obligation [divine duty] is to carry out the commands of their God based on the immutable commands of their perfect and most superior God in exchange for a promise they will avoid Hell and enter Paradise with eternal life.

When God is an impossibility to be real, the Islamists will have no grounds to insist there is a real God which delivered to them a perfect immutable holy texts to be complied with. Thus we eliminate any possibility of theistic-based evils and violence [100% ZERO] as commanded by a real God.

When it is proven God is an impossibility to be real, and if anyone commit evil or violent acts, then it cannot be from a God [since an impossibility] thus the evil is from the person[s] inherent evil nature which will have to be dealt with by various means.

Prismatic,

Hmm… Thereby meaning that your interlocutors have not done so?

“Absolute perfection” or let’s be honest, “perfection”, is not an oxymoron. There is no rule or law that states perfection is impossible, you just think it is. Furthermore, the added “absolute” is only used for emphasis, the term “perfection” necessarily describes an absolute state (I don’t think you’ll find the term “absolute perfection” in any of the major dictionaries) as we’ve discussed previously. Because, as you’ve stated, you want your syllogism to work in the same way as “a square-circle is an impossibility to be real” you must be able to show that a perfect God is an oxymoron, which I don’t think you can, and there’s a reason for that which you’re either ignoring or unaware of.

Is this supposed to represent some kind of fact? This is your widely discussed theory, it does not IMV add any solidity to your argument, its just your take on why people are theists. The Abrahamic religions do not explicitly purport to deal with existential crisis, I can understand why you say that they do, but that is your interpretation. If they do, then that may be a secondary effect of the religion, not the primary cause of why people believe in God.

I have not come across any logically sound counter arguments to my premises.
I have intellectual integrity, if my premises are proven wrong convincingly I will accept it or change them.

Why should I prove a perfect God is an oxymoron.

Note an absolute perfect God is a possibility in thoughts only but not in reality. Anyone can think of an absolute perfect God and believe in it for whatever reasons, wherein certain cases it results in terrible evil and violent acts committed by SOME theists.

My argument is ‘God is an impossibility to be real’ to the extent of

  1. delivering real holy texts via prophets/messenger compelling believers to obey his words and commands.
  2. answering real prayers of believers.

My argument is, there are two perspectives to perfect and absolute, i.e.

  1. relative perfection
  2. absolute perfection

I have already explain it is very common to see the term “perfection” in the relative sense, e.g. perfect scores in sports, perfect score in an objective tests, etc.
Since relative perfection is attributable to fallible humans, we have to differentiate and qualify God perfection as absolute, i.e. unconditional.
This is the reason why I qualify God’s as absolute perfection.

It is not an established fact but a hypothesis at this stage.

If you have read all the religious texts and behavior of believers it is very obvious their theistic and non-theistic activities are reducible to the inherent existential crisis which is very subliminal and not brought to the conscious level.
I have discussed this point before, it is very noticeable the main purpose of Buddhism [Buddha Story re death], Hinduism [reincarnation], Abrahamic religions [eternal life in heaven] and primitive religions are reducible to the existential crisis.

Buddhism [non-theistic] has turned this existential crisis towards the psychological perspective and its attempts are to rewire the brain to deal with this crisis without any evil and violent elements.

I believe the problem of theism and the related inherent existential crisis need to be dealt psychology after ALL activities of the theists and others religionists are leveraged primarily from the brain [i.e. psychology].

Your limitation is simply to ignore the role of the brain in contributing primarily to theism and thus ignore its associated evil and violent acts by SOME evil prone believers.

Note this formula:

Human brains + God + theistic holy texts = theistic based evil & violent plus good acts

Therefore it is very logical to look seriously into the brain [human psychology] as a significant variable in the resultant theistic-based evil & violent act.

If we take away the God & it texts variables, then we have,

Human brains = evil & violent plus good acts

i.e. ZERO theistic-based evil & Violence acts.

Ultimately what is primary is the human brain and its psychology, thus my insistence theism has to be reduced to human psychology.

Proof in philosophical argument is rare, because most of the issues it deals with are precisely NOT things like geometric proofs or symbolic logic proofs. IOW they deal with things, just as many of the issues around you beliefs around theism, that are radically affected by such floppy things as semantics, POV, psychology, human physiology, language in general. Further you are assuming that your own introspection based conclusions - that you are willing to notice compelling counterarguments- are not fallible.

Here we are dealing with metaphysics questions, yet you are expecting counter proofs and that you have made a proof. That you have not. You have made an argument. Opinions differ about how good that argument is, but it is not a proof.

Why should I prove a perfect God is an oxymoron.

Note an absolute perfect God is a possibility in thoughts only but not in reality. Anyone can think of an absolute perfect God and believe in it for whatever reasons, wherein certain cases it results in terrible evil and violent acts committed by SOME theists.

My argument is ‘God is an impossibility to be real’ to the extent of

  1. delivering real holy texts via prophets/messenger compelling believers to obey his words and commands.
  2. answering real prayers of believers.

Any issue would have the human brain and its psychology as primary. Further what you do is present a very simplified version of human psychology and then universalize it. Then call it a proof.

Your own psychology is affecting both the contents of your argument and your certainty that you have proven something.

Prismatic,

I think there have been. Regardless, you believe that your argument is perfect, relative to the rules of logic etc., with that belief in mind how are you going to accept any counter-arguments as being valid? Do you not realise the conundrum there?

Because, you said that your argument is similar to “a square-circle is an impossibility to be real”.

I think there may or may not be some kind of “higher power” which can be likened to what is described as “God”. If such a thing exists, whether that thing is perfect or not is I think a matter of perception. With so many different religions and views about God, what one religion’s adherents perceive as a perfect God may not be perceived as perfect by others. I mean, Christians generally eschew the Islamic God, yet both perceive their God as perfect. It is I think very problematic to define a perfect God that is universally accepted.

Many would disagree with you regarding the prophets, and there are many people who’ve had things they’ve prayed for come to fruition. For you and me that doesn’t confirm that God is real, but for them it sticks a “verified” stamp on the holy text. For some people, aspects of life unfold as the prophets said they would.

I know, but I don’t believe that is correct. If you research the term “perfection” you’ll find that there cannot be degrees of perfection – that something cannot be more than perfect. Perfection is the absolute.

If you do some research you’ll see that this is not correct. You are just emphasising. Perfection is relative to criteria, such as being flawless. God’s purported perfection is described by different criteria than we use to describe human things, but we are still describing perfection.

So why are you claiming that it supports your argument, which you claim is a logically sound? Surely a logically sound argument is both supported factually, and axiomatic.

Here is a excerpt for Quora which I think is correct: “For something to be “proven” as true using logic, it has to be derived from premises that are universally accepted, which we call “axioms” - and universal acceptability is elusive.”

You can read the full discussion here:

Do you think that your argument fulfills that criteria, and if so why?

This is reducible to interpretation, not fact.

A person can be naturally intelligent and able to figure things out, which you seem to be. But that can easily turn into arrogance and over-belief in their abilities. No matter how naturally intelligent a person is, without formal training in a field there are going to be errors and mistakes. I don’t discuss the role of the brain in contributing to theism, because I don’t know enough about the field. I know a little, the basics, but to make the claims that you do, one would expect you to hold at least one degree in psychology, I don’t even think the academia make the kind of claims you do, you’re really over-shooting IMV.

Case in point: “Human brains + God + theistic holy texts = theistic based evil & violent plus good acts”

Where is the formal research supporting this monster?

Granted, but you have to know what you’re doing. Would you see a doctor who told you that he didn’t go to medical school, but he’s read a lot about medicine?

A teenager (or younger) could surmise that Prismatic. You think taking the idea of God away from people would be a good idea? What guarantee do you have that would solve anything? Some people don’t do evil because they believe in God, its a complex variable with many different layers. You don’t seem to appreciate the subtleties.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:

Exactly.