I think that terms such as “absolute”, “supremely”, “maximally” etc., in the context we’re using them, are superlatives that describe the extreme. When used before “perfect” they can be either for emphasis, or to describe perfection which transcends. But conversely, the term “perfect” describes/encapsulates all of those prior mentioned superlatives in and of itself, such that we don’t need to use them when we say something is perfect. As such, I think there may be an issue with language rather than either you or me being right or wrong in that respect.
I understand what you mean when you say God’s perfection is absolute, compared to human perfection which is relative, to deny that I do would be intellectually dishonest. Regardless, I think that we only describe perfection in this way, with a double positive phrase, when God, a supreme being, the ultimate reality etc., is being discussed.
From my experience and re Normal Curve, there is always a continuum and range of people with different intellectual capability from very low to very high.
I have added the emphasis to ensure no one miss or misinterpret the concept with regards to God’s perfection.
Note this will give you an example of my point that differentiate humans’ relative perfection and God’s absolute perfection;
PI. Absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
P2. God imperatively must be absolutely perfect empirically and philosophically.
C… Therefore God is an impossibility.
One of the problems of his approach, which has been pointed out to him, is that he takes theological language, from Christianity, as if it was intended to be taken as scientific language. As if people must believe in mathematically perfect deities to be theists. To describe a being that created the universe some theologians began to bandy about the idea of omnipotence. To take this literally, as an assertion within science, say, that God has to power to do anything at all even if it is self-contradictory, is to choose a definition of God used by some members of one religion and confusing all speech as literal. IOW there is something autistic about his approach. And he has no problems telling theists that they are wrong about their own religions.
And then he goes ahead and makes claims about theism in general based on misunderstandings of language and even the one religion that he places in the role of all religions.
Of course some theists think like he does, but that does not make him right.
Way back in the thread I offered an argument you did not respond to. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it. Again:
An Impossibility can’t be imagined because we live in an existence of structured information. Example: A square circle imparts no information or meaning and is an example of an impossibility. From an informational standpoint only “square” and “circle” are able to inform conceptualization because they possess the structured information of existents. The mind slams shut when it tries to comprehend square circle. A square circle is an impossibility; it fails to offer information to [fails to in-form] a perceiving mind.
God on the other hand–along with concepts like redness or justice–though abstractions, all impart information to minds. Thus, all three offer this common evidence of existence of some sort. All three can be discussed objectively (just as you’re discussing God in this and other threads) because they have informational structure. It appears by this standard that both your first premise and conclusion above are false.
I must have missed it, no intention to ignore any reasonable challenges.
Point is humans can think of anything as a thought, even the impossible.
So ‘impossibility’ can be thought, even defined by the intellect and reason.
A thought can only be an imagination, if it can be imaged from possible images.
For a thing to be imaged and imagine, it has to be empirical and conceptualized.
A thought that cannot be imagined ‘conceptualized’ is an idea [note philosophical] like Plato’s ideas, forms and universals.
Therefore the mind can think and idealize a thought such as a square-circle.
Just like a thought of an idea of square-circle is inferred from its empirical attributes of square and circle abstracted from empirical squares and circles,
God is also a thought of an idea of a perfect being inferred from its empirical attributes and “predicated” to God, i.e.
God [subject or object] + empirical predicates = thought of an idea.
In this case, the empirical predicates can be justified empirically, but that do not prove God exists as real empirically and philosophically.
If I assigned all sorts of empirical attributes to person X, we still need the physical-alive person X to appear to be empirically verified he is alive as a person.
When “Superman” [comic] is assigned with superpowers, if any one insist ‘Superman’ is real, then he will have to produce [to be verified empirically] a physical-alive Superman who can perform all the super feats Superman is claimed to be able to perform.
There are many cases of the mentally ill, e.g. schizos who claim ‘God’ [or Satan] with all its omnipotent powers ordered them to kill humans and they did kill people. It is obvious no court will recognize such a claim.
Note my P2, in the case of God, the qualities attributed to God are absolute; P2. God imperatively must be absolutely perfect
Ultimately and rationally [logically] no theists will accept a conditional God that is not totally unconditional. God has to be absolutely perfect. [Reasons given]
But absolute perfection is an impossibility to be real.
To be real, the thing must be verifiable empirically and philosophically.
Therefore God which must be absolutely perfect is empirically and philosophically impossible to be real.
If you are familiar with the fundamentals of the mainstream theistic religions, you would not have critiqued the above.
Note God as Supreme, Perfect and Absolute in other theistic religions;
In Islam; Tasbīḥ (Arabic: تَـسْـبِـيْـح) is a form of dhikr that involves the repetitive utterances of short sentences in the praise and glorification of Allah in Islam, by saying Subḥānallāh (سُـبْـحَـانَ ٱلله, meaning “God is perfect (free of any errors/defects)”).
For example, the Quran says subḥāna llāhi ʿammā yaṣifūn[3] (37:159; “Glory be to God [who is free from] that which they describe”) and subḥāna llāhi ʿammā yušrikūn[4] (52:43; “Glory be to God [who is free from] that which they associate with him”). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasbih#Interpretation
In Hinduism and other Eastern religions, God is associated with the Absolute [note in Cap];
In idealist philosophy, the Absolute is “the sum of all being, actual and potential”.[1] In monistic idealism, it serves as a concept for the "unconditioned reality which is either the spiritual ground of all being or the whole of things considered as a spiritual unity.
According to Glyn Richards, the early texts of Hinduism state that the Brahman or the nondual Brahman–Atman is the Absolute.
-wiki
Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism or Mazdayasna is one of the world’s oldest continuously practiced religions. Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian-speaking spiritual leader Zoroaster (also known as Zarathushtra),[5] it exalts an uncreated and benevolent deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord), as its supreme being.
Bahai:
God is nothing less perfect than one (eg. plural), but rather something more perfect. bahaipedia.org/God
Examples of divine attributes described in Bahá’í scripture include Almighty, All-Powerful, All-loving, All-Merciful, Most-Compassionate, All-Glorious.
-wiki
Point is if God or the Supreme Being is not assigned [believed] with Supreme, Perfect, Absolute powers, such a God will not have the greatest power to contra and subdue the greatest fears, i.e. the subconscious fear of death, with eternal life in paradise.
To cover any doubts, there is Pascal’s Wager.
In Buddhism, which is non-theistic, there is no unconditional being, like those of Christianity, Islam, Judaism [OT], theistic-Hinduism and other theistic religions.
Would you choose a God who is perfect by your perception (namely, not allow evil to exist), in other words, a puppeteer ~~ or a God who is imperfect and allows humans free will?
How do we evolve if there is no free will? Do we stay in that Garden eternally bored?
You can have no idea what a perfect God, if there is one, would allow. You judge perfection by human definition. Do you know the mind of God?
I think that it may be pretty darn perfect of a God to allow us to walk the Earth, grounded, without having to be afraid of ascending into the heavens on a divine whim. But then again, that may not be perfection but just good thinking/planning/organization if you believe in a designer God. If not, gravity is perfection to me unless one tries to defy it.
My main point is, a perfect God is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
So it is moot for me on the question of what god to choose.
The question of God and the Problem of Evil is a secondary issue.
Logically, a perfect [i.e. morally perfect] God cannot let evil exists especially when God is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omni-whatever.
I don’t judge ‘perfection’ by human definition that is subjective, but rather logical and rationally.
This again is moot.
How can the mind of God ever be known, if God is not known and ultimately it impossible to be real empirically and philosophically.
I can define a square-circle as a thought with the following attributes of the thought:
The idea of a square-circle is a merely thought.
Thus basically a square-circle is a thought that is contradictory.
Since it is contradictory, it cannot be empirical.
Since it is not empirical, it does not have a geometrical shape or empirical shape.
Thus to insist a square-circle is possible to be real empirically and philosophically is delusional. In this case, it is a logical illusion from the abuse of the intellect and reason.
In this abuse and fallacy by ‘crude’ reason, the person is influenced by the fact that squares and circles exist, therefore, a square-circle exists.
In the case of God [illusory], it is also an abuse and fallacy by crude reason, i.e. the person is influenced by cause and effect, created things, therefore the Whole-Universe must have a super creator, i.e. an all powerful God.
When we dig deep philosophically, the bolded terms above cannot be justified philosophically as really real.
Hume stated, whilst useful for survival, the insistence on the absoluteness of ‘cause and effect’ is due to psychology, i.e. customs, habits and constant conjunction.
Note the root of Reason is biology, thus the link to psychology [human behaviors]; The Evolution of Reason: Logic as a Branch of Biology amazon.com/Evolution-Reason … 0521791960
Why people commit the above fallacy, e.g. in the case of God is also due to psychology.
You’re dancing around like a ballerina here so I’ll give the abridged answer you seem to be avoiding:
“I can’t define a square circle by its shape or attributes. An impossible thing has no shape or attributes.”
Okay, thanks for the straightforward reply, Prism. I maintain that impossibilities–which in my view only means unstructured information, so there may be some possible worlds square circles could exist in–can’t be defined because they have no information that is available to intellectual apprehension. The mind slams shut trying to comprehend or describe an impossibility.
The concept of God meets the demands of informational structure in this existence: Particularity and Quintessence or Essence, e.g., thing-attribute. The concept “God” is of a particular entity with at least one conceivable attribute, perfection. Perfection is an attribute that nothing else that falls within our purview has. The point is simple: to prove God to be an impossibility you have to compare the concept of God with that of a known impossibility. In this case, your claim fails the test as I see it.
You queried in the op, Can any theists counter the above?
Is there a cash prize? If so, where should I go to claim it?
I don’t get the question. I understand that matter is one or the other depending on whether it’s being observed–and particles and waves each have attributes–but not aware of the concept “particle/wave” so can’t answer the question. What is your interpretation?
Okay I apologize for last post. After posting realized that what you reference is probably what I recall being called wave-particle duality and jumped on Wickipedia:
Wave–particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that every particle or quantum entity may be described as either a particle or a wave. It expresses the inability of the classical concepts “particle” or “wave” to fully describe the behaviour of quantum-scale objects. As Albert Einstein wrote:[1]
It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do.
Through the work of Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Compton, Niels Bohr, and many others, current scientific theory holds that all particles exhibit a wave nature and vice versa.[2] This phenomenon has been verified not only for elementary particles, but also for compound particles like atoms and even molecules. For macroscopic particles, because of their extremely short wavelengths, wave properties usually cannot be detected.[3]
Although the use of the wave-particle duality has worked well in physics, the meaning or interpretation has not been satisfactorily resolved; see Interpretations of quantum mechanics.
If I understand the above, the idea of pushing ‘wave-particle’ into a single term would be inappropriate as reality (quantumly speaking) can only be properly described from the perspective of one or the other…not both together. Is this a proper reading of the above quote?
Your claim is too premature and intellectually immature.
A thought of ‘a-square-circle’ has information of the empirical elements of ‘square’ and ‘circle’ that can be real individually but not as a combination.
Note ‘define’ dictionary.com/browse/define
In the above I have provided the meaning of the thought ‘square-circle’ i.e. what I meant by a square-circle as a linguistic object, not a real object that can be verified directly as real empirically and philosophically.
Note the focus here is on the definition of the ‘thought’ not the thing.
I can define what is a ‘contradiction’, i.e. dictionary.com/browse/contradiction?s=t
Since a contradiction is definable, does it prove contradictions are possible to be real objects. A contradiction is only a thought without any corresponding real object.
One can define what is a “mirage” and see its attributes that can be grasped intellectually. dictionary.com/browse/mirage?s=t
But is there a real object out there in the desert, sea or elsewhere that is the ‘mirage’ at the specific location the mirage appeared.
The thought or idea of God is no different from a sighted ‘mirage’ [illusion] that is claimed to be real.
It is the same way, you and theists has defined ‘God’ with attributes and the ultimate quality of ‘perfection’.
In this case, you are only attributing qualities to a thought [illusion] but not any real object that is thought.
In the case of God, it is impossible to be a real object that can be verified empirically and philosophically.
Btw, can you define God precisely as something real?
To define God is to condition God with limits.
Because God is supposed to be perfect, unlimited and unconditional, it is contradictory that God can be defined.
I have already argued in the OP why attributing ‘perfection’ to the thought of God make such thought as impossible to represent anything real empirically and philosophically.
Thus my point;
God is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
Everything you posted after the above is the sort of dancing you’re using imo as an attempt to limit everyone else’s response to only your intellectual construct. Trying to limit me (and everyone else in the thread) to the limitations of your rules and regulations is just an all too familiar form of atheistic circularity (Come, let’s argue God together in my arena where the single rule is that only things in time and space are real. Now then, come tell me all about your God!) If you can set up the rules so you necessarily win all arguments, you will, in your own mind, win all arguments.
Empirical necessity and stiff categorical constraints are not pertinent to what I proposed. Set that stuff aside and quit dancing. The proper focus is a simple matter of information…that which has the power to in-form intellectual apprehension. Either a thing is able to provide or stimulate mental content or it is not, it’s that simple. Empirical and linguistic qualifications are irrelevant.
A true impossibility, as I’ve demonstrated several times now, is incapable of making an appearance in intellectual apprehension and cannot thus be discussed objectively. The concept “God” is not merely disqualified as being an impossibility but is a concept that has arguably been objectively discussed throughout history more than any other. You need to understand Prism, I’m not in any way making a case for God’s existence, empirically or any other way. Attention is ONLY on a comparison of one content of thought [square circle] in comparison to another [God] and establishing that the former is an impossibility–a token of the class of impossiblilities–of which God cannot be said to be a member, as you allege in the op.
If you can’t find a door out of your dogmatic hatred for the idea of God to grant intellectually honest consideration to a point of view coming at you from a different angle than your own machinations, then just stay in your dark fortress and don’t bother with a response.
And just drop my winner’s check in the mail, please.
PS: I question your authority to claim what is philosophically legitimate, btw.
Actually you are the one who is limiting the discussion within your intellectual [crude] and psychological impulses.
Note it is theists who claimed their God exists as real to the extent their God will listen and answers to a real creator who created the real universe.
Obvious in this case we have to define and agree what is real before we argue our stance.
My definition of real is,
the foundation of real is the empirical to the fundamental of space and time PLUS philosophical critical review.
So what is your definition of real?
We need to be precise here.
God in this case is an idea, i.e. merely a thought without empirical elements and groundings.
A concept is a thought with empirical grounding.
My point with ‘square-circle’ is merely an analogy.
If don’t get the point of this analogy, we can skip it.
I will find other analogies or other ways to exemplify my main argument.
What is critical is I have also provided an alternative answer to why theists would reify a thought which is illusory as real empirically and philosophically.
The answer is the basis of the idea [thought only] of God is driven by the subconscious fear of death response deep from the brain.
I suppose I am don’t have a conclusion, just raising the issue that what seems impossible or paradoxical, might not be? A bit like non-euclidian geometry seemed like some mathematical fantasy, but then it turns out it actual maps our reality better than Euclidian geometry in certain circumstances. So, it’s what I think of when square-circles are whipped out. Yes, that sure seems like an oxymoron, but then…is it? I haven’t really tried to track where the square-circle came from in the context of this thread or why it got whipped out - or perhaps it was gently introducted, lol - but I thought I would throw in other things that seems like oxymorons, but aren’t or may not be. This is utterly beyond minds like Prismatic’s where the left brain cannot listen to the right brain and so thinks it can rule out all sorts of things with great certainty and also assert things with great certainty. It lives in a model and in that model things seem accessible to infallible deduction.
And what can possibly be done with a mind that thinks this…
Makes any sense.
I charitably assume we are dealing with English as a second language issue, but even assuming this we have serious problems since there seems to be no awareness that this is contributing to all sorts of problems.
The definition of the real begins with
‘the foundation of the real’
So the real is actually the foundation of the real. (?)
then we have ‘the empirical to the fundamental of space and time’
Possibly he meant ’ of the fundamental’ , though I am still left with a mess.
And somehow the real is the whatever is described in the first part of the sentence PLUS philosophical review.
Incredible. The real is some kind of empirical of the fundamental space and time (not the whole of space and time) PLUS philosophical review, which it seems is not part of the set of the empirical.
He seems to be mixing a definition of the real with a description (though a uselessly abstract one) epistemology.
It’s nonsense.
Utter nonsense.
The real is dependent on philosophical review. Or some other muddled concept. There were other equally odd sentences in his responses to you. And hey, that’s fine. We all can be unclear. But when it is couple with certainty and ad homs and often mindreading with no awareness of his own limitations with language, deduction and perview…
