Impossible? God like civilizations?

[Eclipse Now]

And when discussing omnipotence, lets also remember the difference between omnipresence and omniscience.

[Boerseun]

I am going to tell you (1) I disagree, next (2) why I disagree, and (3) why it is important for me to disagree.

Allrighty, then. And I'm going to reply to this (again).

First, I already told you in two previous posts that you should not make the definition of "omnipotent" before you logically think it through. But you insist on defining "omnipotent" as supernatural before any logical thinking.

I certainly did not. I have reasoned, logically so, that omnipotence as ascribed to God, or any Godlike entity, is supernatural because it is not consistent with the Laws of Nature as exposed to us via years of research and probing nature. Please read my posts again. The logic employed in my posts lead to the inescapable conclusion that omnipotence must be supernatural. The definition certainly did not come before the conclusion.

When you define omnipotent as supernatural, you are equating everything that has attribute of omnipotent to supernatural, but not based on logic but by your fiat--by your definition before logic of omnipotent = supernatural. So omnipotent civilization becomes impossible because it is supernatural, but not because it is logically impossible but because you defined it apriori as impossible. You end up dismissing by fiat that which you can't logically.

Certainly not. Read my above comment. The conclusion of "omnipotence" as being "supernatural" is reached after a logic analysis of what Nature allows, and what Nature does not allow, and what we accuse God of having done (creating the universe - implies superluminal travel - which is not allowed in Nature - implies that God must be supernatural because of his omnipotence).

Now to justify this dismissal, you cite as evidence of omnipotence scriptures or accepted religious thinking, and physical absurdities in scriptures, which is precisely that which you deny. You are running in logically inconsistent loops.

I certainly am not. The original post in this thread asks whether we can say a civilization is truly 'godlike', and why we should say it. So, what do you mean when you say 'godlike'? Yes - for the majority of earthlings, that'll be the God of Abraham, be they Jews, Muslims or Christians. And we know the 'nature' of God by referring to His Holy Manual, namely Scripture. Be it the Talmud, the Torah, the Q'ran or the Holy Bible. And those pieces of writing alludes to his omnipotence, which creates the general idea of God's nature, which is the general idea people have in their heads when contributing to this thread, where we discuss the metaphor of calling any civilization 'godlike'. Those pieces of writing are also the only material supporting the existence of such a deity, and is therefore the only evidence we have when we want to discuss anything remotely 'godlike'.

 

When we find a new particle in a particle accelerator, we can only say that it's 'godlike' if it somehow resonates with Scripture - not because of any other reason. Because the only definition of God is to be found in Scripture.

 

I am not running in logically inconsistent loops - it's merely the nature of the topic under discussion.

Second, omnipotent is admittedly just a word, and you are free ceertainly to define it anyway you want for your life, but for purposes of rational discussion we are not speaking of mere semantics of language here.

"Omnipotent" is not "just a word". Open any dictionary of your choice. It's defined as "All Powerful". There's no mystery or ambiguity here. Now, granted - you might suggest that "all powerfulness" means being "all powerful" in terms of what nature can allow you to be. But God is said to have created the universe in 6 days. That requires an "all-powerfulness" that outstrips anything nature allows, and thus either banish God to the realm of the non-existant (my personal belief) or simply define him as supernatural - because of that very self-same all-powerfulness. If you can't follow this simple argument, then there's not much I can do about it.

Logically only supernatural is truly supernatural--outside of nature, absurd. Every other word or attribute that we wish to equate to supernatural must be reasoned to be supernatural before we define it as supernatural.

Done. Look a few posts back.

When we speak of reason, we speak of applying logic--rational discussion. In reason, logic, rationality, absurdities are invalid. So since supernatural is absurd rationally, before we can say that something like omnipotent is absurd we must reason it to be absurd.

Done. If you look a few posts back, you will see that I have logically and rationally arrived at the conclusion that God must be supernatural. If you want to label his supernatural state as 'absurd', so be it.

Omnipotent is not logically absurd, and here is why.

 

Omnipotent literally means all mighty, all powerrful. "All" consists of natural and supernatural. Of the two sets, only one is valid--the natural set. The supernatural is absurd--it is invalid, it has no rational force. Threfore, there are two logical choices for omnipotent: (1) it is either only valid, and contains only the natural set, or (2) it is invalid and contains both sets. Therefore both are logical possibilities.

You've got two sets - the 'natural set' as you call it, and the 'supernatural set'. They are mutually exclusive - what exist in the one cannot exist in the other - by definition. A brick existing in the 'natural set' has no reason to be a member of the 'supernatural set'. Same with God. His 'omnipotence' cast him straight into the deepest pits of the 'supernatural set', because 'omnipotence' does not rhyme with the Laws of Physics. Therefore, God is 'supernatural' - once again because of his omnipotence. If you then want to call that 'absurd', be my guest.

This bring me to Third, the policy. What gives force to your argument is that omnipotent in your definition contains all--both supernatural and natural sets--which is supported by omni in omnipotent. But such definition makes omnipotent absurd. Supernatural does not exist.

Neither does omnipotence. It's physically, scientifically, rationally and logically impossible.

The policy is to save logical possibilities that can be saved, so as to not dismiss them mistakenly. Care is taken. In rational discussion, force is not given to absurd but to rational. There exists possibility that omnipotent can logically exist "all mighty" within natural, and such "all" is only the valid all by the policy of rational discussion, which is only natural. (read Buffy's comments above.)

 

Taken as such, omnipotent means having all powers that are natural.

If that if your definition of omnipotence, then God is not omnipotent. Because having done what he is accused of, requires omnipotence of the 'absurd' type.

 

Relax with the logic, lawcat. Religion is a notoriously unproductive field when rational thought and logic is applied to it.

 

If we want to discuss the validity of calling an alien civilization "godlike", then we have to:

• agree on a popular definition of God

• agree that God did everything he is blamed for - for the sake of defining other civilizations as such (because the discussion is not about God's existence or not)

• consider the limitations under which God can operate

• consider the limitations under which an alien civilization can operate

 

The God of Abraham can only live outside the natural world if he is to have done what he's accused of. We have to accept that as a given in order to see if we can supplant the Godly description to an alien civilization. Therefor, God can only be supernatural, or beyond nature, or absurd - if you want to put it that way. An alien civilization, on the other hand, must operate within the laws of nature, because they share the same universe with us where the same laws apply. They can therefor not be responsible for things like the creation of the universe, which demands superluminal travel, which is not allowed by the Laws of Physics. An alien civilization can therefor not literally be called 'godlike'.

 

But then we can always pull our collective heads out our asses and remember that the term 'godlike' is intended purely as a metaphor, and if anything is sufficiently advanced, it will be considered such by us mere mortal Earthlings. Consider the cargo cults in the pacific during and after WW2 for an interesting case in point.

[geko]

my argument was a waste of space so i saved you the time of reading it.

[freeztar]

There's nothing wrong with saying god is a consciousness that created the universe, nothing more.

 

Well, there's quite a few things wrong with that notion, but there's no need to go there. :singer:

[Moontanman]

God isn't dependent on scripture Boerseun, even though several ideas of it come from it. There's nothing wrong with saying god is a consciousness that created the universe, nothing more.

 

What does this have to do with a science forum? How is this natural?

 

In which case there doesn't have to be anything supernatural about it because the universe could come out of collapsing black holes, a completely natural idea that some cosmologists have put forward.

 

So black holes and a cosmic consciousness are connected?

 

If we assume this idea is correct for the moment, an alien civilisation could conceivably recreate it due to the natural nature of it, ergo, a sufficiently advanced civilisation is god.

 

This makes no sense in relation to the first two assertions much less any notion of God. We can currently create specialized life forms, does this make us god?

 

 

 

I assume many won't like this argument, but god from scripture is more often than not invoked by the apophenic, and this is a science forum. That strict definition has no place here, no matter how easy it makes arguments.

 

I agree, please use this to correct your first assertion.

[geko]

my argument was a waste of space so i saved you the time of reading it.

[geko]

dito

[freeztar]

Really? I don't understand. What about the native american cultures that didn't know of religion or scripture?

 

Native Americans certainly have what can be called religion. They are more pantheistic than most modern religions, but I would still call it religion.

 

Anyhow, the idea that a conscious entity "created" the "heavens and Earth" is an idea that is entangled in problems. Who created the entity? Why do we have no proof of the creator despite libraries of astronomic data? etc...

 

If this universe was created extra-universal, then that initiator, whatever label you prefer, lies outside of the natural laws of this universe by default.

[geko]

and again

[geko]

If this universe came from a collapsing black hole in another universe where the laws of physics were exactly the same as they are here, would the origin of this universe still be supernatural if the black hole was created by a race of conscious beings?

 

Would those beings be considered supernatural?

[lawcat]

 

Would those beings be considered supernatural?

 

Absolutely not. They and their acts would all be natural--they occur in nature.

 

And going back to your previous post about Native American beliefs, ancient Greeks had natural gods as well, and many other cultures. So quoting scriptures to provide evidence for definition does not help. As you said nature defines itself, it does not need scriptures.

[geko]

Sorry, but what about from our perspective? They would still be natural? Or supernatural?

[lawcat]

Sorry, but what about from our perspective? They would still be natural? Or supernatural?

 

From any perspective. In your example, they would occur in nature, and therefore are natural--not supernatural, or mythical, or absurd.

[geko]

Ok.

 

So really, there's no reason why god, as in the creator of heaven and earth etc., etc., 'has to be' supernatural because the above scenario is a possibility?

[lawcat]

Ok.

 

So really, there's no reason why god, as in the creator of heaven and earth etc., etc., 'has to be' supernatural because the above scenario is a possibility?

 

Yes and no. God could certainly be supernatural. But before I proceed, please remember when I say supernatural I mean: It Can Not Exist--it is absurd--it can not be, rationally--it is a mathematical impossibility. So whether God could exist as a creator of heaven and earth depends on the culture, because God as a word, or diety, has meaning according to cultural understanding of that word, beyond a mere creator of heaven and earth.

 

Now let's translate words heaven and earth to the word universe, so as not to use metaphors. If you limit the attributes of some hypothetical entity called God to mere creator of the universe (and let that be the creation with intent to create, so that accidents of creation are precluded from discussion) , the existance of such creator is not irrational. It is within the realm of rational possibility because (1) consciousness and free will are natural, (2) creativity is natural--it exists in nature, (3) the universe as a medium is physical and thus natural. The only question that remains is the question of technology--how could it be created. Depending on our knowledge of universe/technology we can examine whether it is likely or not that some entity could create the universe with intent and to what extent that intent could carry the project based on the technology.

[Boerseun]

I don't care how you try to wriggle out of it, but the Abrahamic God who is billed as the creator of this universe around 6,000 years ago could not have done it unless he's supernatural. The universe is too big, and the only way to do it is to outfly light. Which God can only do if he's supernatural.

 

If you talk about a God who lit the fuse on the Big Bang from some other vantage point, you're not talking about the God of Abraham. You're talking about some imaginary God that you're manipulating to fit the data.

 

The term 'godlike' is a metaphor, for chrissakes. And metaphors don't stand up to logic or scrutiny of any sorts apart from the linguistic and the historical.

 

You don't use a sledgehammer to fix a wristwatch. Use the right tools for the job.

 

Unless you literally mean "God"-like, meaning, that with the same powers of God. Then, of course, you have to then say "which God". Because you could be talking about Zeus or Thor. And then a tesla coil or a big hammer should make you "god-like". But if you're talking about the Abrahamic God who is billed by all the supporting scriptures (the Bible, Q'ran, Torah) to have created the universe 6,000 years ago, then you're talking about a flat-out supernatural God having powers which is impossible in the natural world. Ergo, you're talking about a "supernatural" or "absurd" (take your pick) God.

[geko]

If you talk about a God who lit the fuse on the Big Bang from some other vantage point, you're not talking about the God of Abraham. You're talking about some imaginary God that you're manipulating to fit the data.

 

I can honestly say that god of abraham was not what i was thinking when i first said godlike. All i think of when i think of god is that it's the creator of this universe; that's the concept in my head, and it's just as valid as any other concept or idea that humans have.

 

Further, would you not say it's more accurate and less imaginary to talk about that type of god that the god of abraham? There's thousands of gods strewn throughout history, all as valid as the next, why is inventing 1 more done to fit data and the others are not? Because there's a popular book or 2 on it?

 

Why is the god of the bible given this respect and others are not? If i wrote a book on an alien god would it then be a valid idea?

 

I'm not splitting hairs, I'm honestly curious why this is so as you're not the only 1 who has these sentiments, even in this thread.