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To: highlander_UW
I'm sorry we cannot understand each other. I really did just mean to give you a thumbnail sketch of a typical theist/atheist encounter. And it's not an ad hominem attack to say that you have chosen faith over logic. The two are not compatible. Period. You've chosen one and I've chosen the other.

It is not a semantic game to speak of "something that is dry and wet at the same moment, or blindingly bright blackness". These are examples to indicate the law of identity. The law of identity indicates that there are LIMITS to concepts. The concept of "God" violates the laws of identity. THAT is the point I'm getting at.

Do you follow me so far?

202 posted on 12/05/2003 3:10:13 PM PST by wizardoz
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To: wizardoz
Your argument doen't obtain. A paradox is a human construct that surely does not apply to a being that preexists t=0.
207 posted on 12/05/2003 3:15:18 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: wizardoz
I'm sorry we cannot understand each other. I really did just mean to give you a thumbnail sketch of a typical theist/atheist encounter.

I accept your explaination here. No hard feelings on my part.

And it's not an ad hominem attack to say that you have chosen faith over logic. The two are not compatible. Period. You've chosen one and I've chosen the other.

You are incorrect. Faith and logic are incompatible only when they conflict. You are missing the conditions where they are both part of the same subset.

It is not a semantic game to speak of "something that is dry and wet at the same moment, or blindingly bright blackness". These are examples to indicate the law of identity. The law of identity indicates that there are LIMITS to concepts. The concept of "God" violates the laws of identity. THAT is the point I'm getting at.

This is from www.importanceofphilosophy.com regarding the law of identity:

A car can be both blue and red, but not at the same time or not in the same respect. Whatever portion is blue cannot be red at the same time, in the same way. Half the car can be red, and the other half blue. But the whole car can't be both red and blue. These two traits, blue and red, each have single, particular identities.

What I've written is consistent with this. It is a violation of this law of identity to say God can do the "impossible" and then to point to the definition of impossible as something that can't be done. This is indeed a word game.

As to your second point, God does have a specific nature, although much of God's nature is beyond our ability to observe or understand. For instance, we can observe that God's creation is orderly and functions on definable and measurable rules. We can speculate that order is a "value" of God's...hence a likely aspect. Clearly since you discount God you will deduce that we're really lucky that there everything works so consistently.

216 posted on 12/05/2003 3:38:52 PM PST by highlander_UW
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To: wizardoz
Is this "Law of Identity" a mathematical law?

If so, then it is only capable of describing corporeal entities/actions and only if they are measureable. Under this "law," we will never know anything about the Creation of the universe, since the hypothetical threshold between nothing and matter can never be breached.

And if you think that logic is in conflict with faith, you are wrong.

Given that science puts a nearly impossible probability that the universe was not created, that life evolved given the conditions, or that consciousness evolved naturally in the time frame--there is always faith that our measurements are accurate.

Probabilities are the name of the game. Probabilites are the base of logic. If you doubt the probability of the Creator, please research the anthropic principle, the origins of life (the trend of evidence), and the evolution of consciousness.
241 posted on 12/05/2003 6:17:51 PM PST by Loc123
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To: wizardoz
The concept of "God" violates the laws of identity.

Jumping in here. Where'd these 'laws of identity' come from? Did nothingness write these laws? Chance? The universe? How can we have laws but no lawmaker? They just are...or always were?

271 posted on 12/05/2003 8:33:06 PM PST by dubyagee
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