God is an Impossibility

That is why they invented adjectives and adverbs; Living being, inanimate being, free being, spiritual being, artificial being…

The word obviously came from “to be”, to exist. Imagine that notion of absolute nothingness. Then imagine a rock appears within that void. That rock would be and be the only being.

If you insist that a being must be a living being, then define “living” in a unambiguous way. :sunglasses:

Just because something reveals to you, doesn’t mean that it was a living being. Science says many things. Is Science a living being? With human features?

Really? Who ever actually said that God is a “living thing”? “Supreme Being”, yes. “Perfect Being”, yes. "Infinite Being, yes. I don’t remember “living thing” ever being a part of any definition of “God”. But then define “living” in a scriptural way. Superficial, naive presumption leads to all kinds of myths and consequential rants born from such ignorant presumption (such as “God must be empirical and thus impossible:confused: ).

“Being” is the equivalent to the Ancient-Greek “ὄν” (“ón”) whick led to “ontology”, the “science of being”.

Therefore I used the word “being(s)” instead of the word “thing(s)”. The other reason was the succession or the chronology from beings (things) to living beings (things) and to human beings (things).

Now my question: Is it customary to say “human things”?

Depends on the company that you keep. :sunglasses:

Your logical fallacy again.

I am pretty sure that most readers know what is meant by the word “being”.

How do you come to the false conclusion again that it would be “ridiculous” to define “God as a non-living without agency”?

Do your mutual masterbation somewhere else and get to the points.

The default is; God is the creator of the Whole Universe. It would be ridiculous if such a creator God is not living and has power of agency.

If you bother to stop and think, it is “ridiculous” to think that the God that created literally all physical existence, is a “living being”.

But of course, you have trouble with defining “living” anyway.

You are running out of ideas to counter my arguments.
It is obvious the idea of God is attributed with qualities that are different from living human beings.
“living” as attributed to God meant ‘active’ i.e. capable of generating effects rather than ‘dead’ or ‘dormant’.

Well, you have only been wrong in a limited number of ways. Even you haven’t been infinitely wrong.

But you not accepting what everyone is telling you are your errors, hardly negates the fact that they are errors.

A static or “potential” electric field is capable of generating effects - electric current. That is why it is called “potential”. Every form of potential energy is capable of generating actualized energy (eg. kinetic, electric, whatever).

So every potential is “living”?
They do call it “a live wire”.
But that’s seems a poor definition of “living” and in this case, undermines your final intent.

It is not ridiculous. So you have concluded falsely agian.

Why do you not say: “Living beings or living things are not perfect; so it is very likely that God is different from them”? This would make much more sense than your ridiculous statement: “It would be ridiculous if such a creator God is not living and has power of agency”.

Ultimately? In my view, only in the sense that this is circumscribed within the parameters of your own definitions and meaning. And thus circumventing the definitions and the meanings of those who don’t share them.

I’m less interested in what Kant did or did not say about the transcending font/Moral Framework, and more interested in what, for all practical purposes, he was able to demonstrate as true for all of us “out in the world” of actual human interactions. Sans God, what is the most [or the only] rational argument when confronting the “inquiring intruder”?

Still, you state these things in the manner of what I construe to be an objectivist frame of mind. As though infinitesimally tiny specks of existence in the vastness of All There Is [you and I] could actually be privy to the one and only explanation regarding matters like this.

And, sure, you may well be. But the fact that others here dispute your definitions, meaning and logic speaks volumes regarding that yawning gap between what we think we know about God [here and now] and all that would need to be known in order to demonstrate conclusively what all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

And there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of objectivists out there all clamoring to insist that their own take on God finally does pin Him down.

For example, the Real God. Right, James?

Okay, but even secular philosophers have to grapple with conflicting goods on this side of the grave. How are they not in the same boat as the rest of us?

How [for all practical purposes] are their own values [out in any particular world] not entangled in the manner in which I construe the existential interaction of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

God in my view is the only entity that all of this can be subsumed in. Other than the profound mystery that would come embedded in a wholly determined universe.

Kant did not say “God is an impossibilty”.

All truths are circumscribed within the parameters of a specific framework of principles, definitions, meanings, assumptions etc.
If it is a personal, then it is subjective and has minimal credibility until it is shared and agreed by many.

The ultimate idea of God as an absolutely perfect God is inferred from various terms and definition of God is not mine but claimed by the majority of theists, i.e. 5.4 out of all 7+ billion people. As such my inference has a credible basis.

Based on the above, I have supported with detailed arguments why such a God is an impossibility.

Obviously there will be disputes.
But so far there is no convincing counter from anyone against my arguments.
You meant JSS’ counter based on his narrow-minded definition of ‘perfect’ which ignore its association with ‘absolute’?

Non-theistic spiritualities do grapple with mortality but they do not venture beyond the grave to promote a soul that survive physical death with an eternal life in heaven or paradise.

God is only an idea [not even a concept] which is non-empirical. God emerges as a thought to subsume [& relieve] all the related psychological sufferings arising from an existential crisis. God is an impossibility within an empirical-rational reality.
What is worst is the idea of God as a psychological crutch is double-edged and bring along its negative baggage of terrible evils, terror and violence against non-believers.

Non-theistic spiritualities like Buddhism and others address the psychological suffering directly and deal with it on a spiritual-psychological basis. There is no consideration for what happen on the other side of the grave, e.g. eternal life in Paradise. The plus point of these spiritualities is its holy texts do not contain evil laden elements that inspire its % of evil prone believers to commit evils in the name of its founder.

If you read the CPR carefully, you will note [read carefully] Kant concluded [not in exact] words, “God is an impossibility” within an empirical-rational reality.

Here is one clue [mine] where the idea of a God is illusory without empirical premisses;

???
Wow, you must have quite an imaginative bias when reading. Exactly how did you pick “impossible” out of Kant’s phrasing?

Btw, are you aware that to many far more educated, “God” is (has always referred to) Logic or Reason itself? To some “God” refers to Wisdom itself (slightly different than Reason). And to some “God” has always been referring to Truth itself. To say that God is “impossible” is to say that “Logic/Reasoning, Wisdom, or Truth is impossible”. In postmodern times, it is a move against using reason and truth and in favor of restoring emotionalism, magic, and mysticism. You are supporting the postmodernists, yet obviously unaware of that.

Arminius wrote:

That would probably be a contradiction in terms. If some look on humans as things, then the human has been downgraded to a thing.

Just as i cannot see things as being beings ~~ things are not capable of love, hate, emotions, relationships, growth and maturity, except perhaps in an unconscious, evolutionary way, if the latter made sense to you.

So, I am right: Kant did not say “God is an impossibilty”.

The term “human things” comes pretty close to a contradiction.That was the reason why my question above was a more rhetorical one.

Tell me, how can an illusion be real within an empirical-rational reality?? This is one of the central theme of Kant’s thesis in the CPR.
This is why I know and insist your philosophical views are very narrow and shallow.

Btw, the idea of God is a transcendental illusion which is another level beyond the illusion relating to the empirical senses.
Note I spent 3 years full time researching on Kant, so I know what he is talking about. The only provision Kant opened for the possibility of God is on Moral grounds and I don’t agree with that.

How can you claim to be more educated when you are using the the above spurious rhetoric.

It is very stupid to equate ‘God’ = wisdom, truth, logic or reason, then condemn those who insist God is impossible as illogical, irrational, against reason & truth and the likes.
This is the most stupidest idea I have come across in a philosophical discussion.
Show me any reasonable dictionary that equate the above to ‘God’.
Wisdom, truth, logic and reason are very specific philosophical topics with their own specific definition and has no direct association with an illusory God.

Note how ‘god’ is used in other ways;
-a person or thing of supreme value: had photos of baseball’s gods pinned to his bedroom wall; ‘don’t make money your god’
-a powerful ruler: Hollywood gods that control our movies’ fates

In this OP, I have explained and defined what is the idea of God is taken to be.
Note I raised the OP and it is up to me to define what is God with reference to this topic.

See my reply to JSS above.

To clue you in, in the Critique of Reason, Kant raised a detailed chapter [N K Smith] regarding;

Chapter III. The Ideal of Pure Reason …
Section 4. The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God … 500
Section 5. The Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God … 507
Discovery and Explanation of the Dialectical Illusion in all Transcendental Proofs of the Existence of a Necessary Being 514
Section 6. The Impossibility of the Physico-theological Proof 518
Section 7. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles of Reason . . . . . 525

In the finality following the above, Kant presented the conclusion, the idea of God is an impossibility within empirical-rational reality. re B397 I quoted above. The conclusion of B397 is based on one big argument represented by the whole of the Critique of Pure Reason.