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Why I do not believe in God

SolitaryWalker

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Axiom: The Universe is Infinite, therefore the existence of God is impossible independent of the existence of the world.

Infinity: Continuous, incessant flow of entities.

This world is finite because not all things in this world are continuous, if they were, they all would be part of the same entity.

Therefore if God exists in the infinite world, he is all things. The God of Judeo-Christianity is personal therefore not a thing, but an individual separate from all other things.

How do we know that the universe is infinite? In order for there to have been a first cause that rendered the existence of this world possible, it must have been infinite. Suppose it was finite. God made the universe? Who made God? Another God? We could go ad infinitum following this pattern without arriving at what we can accept as the first cause.

The first cause must have been self-established, as the 'first' implies, which means has not been preceeded. Such an entity has no beginning, as the metaphysical truism 'of nothing comes from nothing' evinces. In other words it could not have simply come out of nowhere. Yet it has always existed. Mathematically, we know that an entity that has no beginning has no end also. Therefore the infinite essence must be all things. This infinite essence cannot be the Judeo-Christian God because what is infinite by definition occupies all things. Thus it cannot be seperate from the world as aforementioned and hence cannot be a creator.

This world is an unconscious representation of the infinite realm. Our minds are finite, therefore translate the infinite into what we can understand in finite terms. We all see the similar world because we, by virtue of being human operate with minds of the same design. This is the cornerstone of modern metaphysics established in the Critique of Pure Reason.

"Consequently, there is no pure knowledge outside of the world based on our senses, and no objectivity of knowledge possible without being founded on subjectivity. The way we perceive the world seems to consist simply in receiving outside information, and yet, according to Kant, it is a rather complicated relation of first giving and then taking, and consequently any epistemic relation we have to another implies a relation also to ourselves. Kant is not thereby advocating a subjectivism; he invites us to reconsider the nature of objectivity as dependent on our subjectivity. Thinghood or causality, for instance, which Hume sceptically claimed to be merely subjective constructs (subjective in the bad sense of representing something that in reality does not exist), are acknowledged by Kant as indeed subjective concepts, but subjective to a degree that all objectivity of our knowledge depends on them. They are so fundamental, so deeply rooted in our subjectivity, that without them no empirical world remains for us to know." Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason.

Accordingly, God either exists in this world, or not at all. At this point we have found no evidence for existence of such a thing and it is altogether irreconcilable with laws of nature. The universe is a closed system of causation, as Albert Einstein famously said 'God does not play dice'. If it was not a closed system of causation, laws of nature that we take for granted would be impossible. If God existed, all things could be adjusted in accordance to his Will. The question to ask is, if the Universe as we know it is an unconscious representation of our minds, it necessarily means that it flows from the infinite realm to our finite. Creationism is therefore ruled out. Where is the place for such a God in this universe? Did he also flow out of the infinite realm as a result of an unconscious representation of our minds? In that case his existence and his activity are not a result of his omnipotent will, but a necessary entailment of the previous occurence. Thus, even if such a God existed, he would only appear omnipotent and in command of the world, when he inevitably obeys every law of nature like all things. However, existence of such a God is not possible as it is manifest to us that a seemingly omnipotent person (which is no doubt how he is portrayed in the Bible) cannot exist outside of our known world. )

It is certainly possible that there could be an alien creature who is only somewhat like a person who appears to be controlling all or some of our activities and in effect appearing omnipotent (yet inevitably obeys other laws of nature) from a planet we cannot access, this we do not have the adequate technology to investigate. Therefore we are not in the position to refute such a claim. However, such a creature is certainly not the God of the Old or New Testament.

I have argued that the existence of a Judeo-Christian God is not possible on the grounds of the impossibility of an infinite and an omnipotent creature, as well as the impossibility of a being who is the creator of the universe.
 
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Jack Flak

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I don't believe in God either*, but what about hyperspace/quantum mechanics? Could God not exist and take action there? *skims rest of extremely long post*

*I am an atheist, but I allow for the possibility of the supernatural. It's only logical to do so.
 

nomadic

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you must have the highest "average words per post" on this board!
 

Bella

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Why I DO believe in God.

Because He's toooooooooooo wonderful.
 

Bufo

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"Don't speak too soon for the wheel is still in spin.."
 

Totenkindly

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If BlueWing and myself have a long conversation, it will be one of the oddest things in history.

At least we won't agonize it for long, since I think the universe will collapse into a black hole when we put together the longest serious laborious poster and the shortest tongue-in-cheek sound-bite poster.

Axiom: The Universe is Infinite, therefore the existence of God is impossible independent of the existence of the world.

Infinity: Continuous, incessant flow of entities.

This world is finite because not all things in this world are continuous, if they were, they all would be part of the same entity.

Therefore if God exists in the infinite world, he is all things. The God of Judeo-Christianity is personal therefore not a thing, but an individual separate from all other things.

Questions:
- Is God personal?
- Does the 'self' (i.e., separate entities) actually exist or is it a construct?
- Or do these answers depend on one's frame of reference / the parameters of the discourse?

Interestingly, the Judeo sense of God seemed to involve those paradoxes. JHVH was supposedly personal and separate, yet every aspect of the universe was actively being upheld (i.e., was involved with) by him, flying against a "watchmaker pov" ... he was considered to actively hold the stars in their patterns in the sky and make nature work the way it did, etc.
 
O

Oberon

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Axiom: The Universe is Infinite, therefore the existence of God is impossible independent of the existence of the world.

I can't evaluate your position properly, Mr. Wing, because your thesis as you've expressed it is a tautology. Your axiom presupposes your conclusion.

Much depends on your definitions, and it appears at first glance that yours have been specifically structured in such a way as to preclude the existence of a deity. It's a pretty exercise in semantics thus far.

Let us not forget... we are homo adorans, the Worshiping Man. We will worship something. In presenting a mental exercise that proposes to dispense with the concept of deity, you implicitly state that the power of your intellect is sufficient to dispense with deity.

In other words, you have committed an act of self-worship.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I can't evaluate your position properly, Mr. Wing, because your thesis as you've expressed it is a tautology. Your axiom presupposes your conclusion.

Much depends on your definitions, and it appears at first glance that yours have been specifically structured in such a way as to preclude the existence of a deity. It's a pretty exercise in semantics thus far.

Let us not forget... we are homo adorans, the Worshiping Man. We will worship something. In presenting a mental exercise that proposes to dispense with the concept of deity, you implicitly state that the power of your intellect is sufficient to dispense with deity.

In other words, you have committed an act of self-worship.

This is how every argument works. A conclusion is always presupposed in the thesis. As Kant's famous denotation of 'analytic' shows that 'analytic' is not a discovery of something new but a review of what we have already discovered in order to get a more clear idea of what we have.

At least we won't agonize it for long, since I think the universe will collapse into a black hole when we put together the longest serious laborious poster and the shortest tongue-in-cheek sound-bite poster.



Questions:
- Is God personal?
- Does the 'self' (i.e., separate entities) actually exist or is it a construct?
- Or do these answers depend on one's frame of reference / the parameters of the discourse?

Interestingly, the Judeo sense of God seemed to involve those paradoxes. JHVH was supposedly personal and separate, yet every aspect of the universe was actively being upheld (i.e., was involved with) by him, flying against a "watchmaker pov" ... he was considered to actively hold the stars in their patterns in the sky and make nature work the way it did, etc.


If we take the Bible for what it says. Yes, God is personal. Yet, if we assume that it is to be interpreted allegorically and start inferring things from what has been written, perhaps not. If we did that, we would discover a myriad, maybe even thousands of ways to read the text. As it is not surprising at all that there are thousands of religious groups who claim to be Christian and have their own way of reading the text and insist that their way is the only correct way.

Thus when we have a discussion with someone on this board who makes an ambiguous or a seemingly absurd statement, we should take it for what it is. If we are to infer plausible arguments from what he said, we are dealing with the possibilities of how his thought could have advanced and not with his thought itself. We should simply tell him, 'clarify, I do not understand' or 'what you have stated is absurd, and here is why, restate if this is not what you had in mind.' Same approach is needed for the Bible and analysis of all literature.
 

Didums

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*starts slow-clap, awaiting others to join and to increase the rate and volume of the claps*
 

reason

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Axiom: the set of natural numbers is infinite, therefore the existence of Bluewing is impossible independent of the set of natural numbers

Premise: Bluewing is not a natural number

Therefore: Bluewing does not exist
 

redacted

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^Ha. But that doesn't really follow the form of BWs argument, since he defined God differently than you defined Bluewing :)
 

SolitaryWalker

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Axiom: the set of natural numbers is infinite, therefore the existence of Bluewing is impossible independent of the set of natural numbers

Premise: Bluewing is not a natural number

Therefore: Bluewing does not exist

Natural numbers are not entities of the natural world like stones and trees. They are merely abstract symbols representing what we observe.


Whatever is infinite cannot be observed in our finite world of experience, however, necessarily exists in the world that we observe. It exists by virtue of our unconscious apriori representation, as established by Kant earlier.

BlueWing is an observable phenomenon of this world, therefore he is a 'natural number'.
 

reason

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The infinte-ness of the universe is irrelevent.

Just because something is infinite doesn't mean that nothing can exist outside of it, unless that 'it' in question is defined as 'everything'. However, if the universe is defined as everything, then it hardly matters whether it is infinite or not, nothing could exist outside of it, by definition, and so nothing could have created it, God or not.
 

SolitaryWalker

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The infinte-ness of the universe is irrelevent.

Just because something is infinite doesn't mean that nothing can exist outside of it, unless that 'it' in question is defined as 'everything'. However, if the universe is defined as everything, then it hardly matters whether it is infinite or not, nothing could exist outside of it, by definition, and so nothing could have created it, God or not.

You missed the point. The infiniteness of the universe matters most with respect to the impossibility of a creator which is an essential aspect of the Judeo-Christian divinity. Moreover if the universe is defined as everything it does indeed matter if it is infinite or not. Because if it is infinite, it is necessarily everything. If it is finite, it means it is not everything, it was created by something else, because it could not have been created by itself (nothing comes from nothing). Therefore, the only way the universe could be defined as everything is if it is infinite.

Just because something is infinite does indeed mean that nothing exists outside of it, as infinite is synonymous with ubiquitous. It means it covers all things. If something is all things, than nothing but this entity that is all things could exist. Something could inhere within the infinite essence, but this is the same thing as being part of that essence that comprises all things, therefore such an existence is not to be considered as seperable from that infinite entity.

For this reason, in Spinoza's philosophy the infinite substance is deemed to be one thing and in itself inseparable. Nearly identical element is referred to as the Will in Schopenhauer, Zeitgeist in Hegel, the Noumena in Kant, and Aristotle's God as well (famously ridiculed by Bertrand Russell in the Unpopular essays as the God who only thinks about himself.)

Therefore God must be part of all things if he exists. We do not see him as part of the world that we know. Because he can only exist by virtue of being part of the world, and he does not, he does not exist at all.

It should be clearly noted once more, that we do not have access to the infinite world. As famously evinced by Kant, we only have access to the finite representation of this world. Very importantly, this is not solipsism because the ultimate essence of the universe is the one infinite substance. Thus whatever we see in our finite world is not a concoction of our imagination, but a translation of the ultimate essence into our transfigured representation.

As once more, everything that we know and can possible know inheres in this representation. Because God does not, he does not exist. One may say, perhaps he exists in the noumenal world. This is not possible because noumenal is undefinable or infinite, which means we cannot attribute any definable quality (one of which is God) to such an entity.

In summary, the term infinite is relevant in the following regards.

1)God cannot exist seperately from the world.
2)He cannot be a creator
3)He cannot be omnipotent because all things that exist are necessarily part of the system, therefore obey the laws of the system they inhere in.
 

Grayscale

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does existing infinitely into the past and future necessarily equate to complete omnipresence? parallel lines go on forever but never cross
 

redacted

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Just because something is infinite does indeed mean that nothing exists outside of it, as infinite is synonymous with ubiquitous. It means it covers all things.

Sorry dude, but no. The set of all even numbers is infinite. Are you implying that there are no odd numbers?
 
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