It's not my logic, but that of Rutles4Ever in post 141, who said "Anything that exists was created." I am simply demonstrating the logical contradiction between the assertion that "Anything that exists was created" and the assertion that "God exists."
You can, of course, adopt a different set of assertions than were stated by Rutles4Ever, such as "Anything except God that exists was created" and "God exists." Then there is no contradiction. But once you permit one exception to the rule that "anything that exists was created," it becomes much more difficult to justify the universality of that rule. If God is an exception, why not other things? Why not everything?
The empty set is a rational construction used to describe something.
As are all the terms in every statement anyone ever makes.
The empty set can not exist w/o someone to ponder it and in fact can not if there is nothing.
The empty set can exist whether anyone ponders it or not. Same as anything else. And nothing cannot exist universally, since 'nothing' is itself something. Absolute nothing is a logical contradiction, and its universal existence would be a clear example of a violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction.
There are no distinct forms of nothing. Nothing is indistinguishable from itself.
Nothing is always distinct from whatever is not-nothing. That is intrinsic to what it is. It can only be defined as the negation of existence--which requires both that existence and negation exist.
Oh, OK.
"You can, of course, adopt a different set of assertions than were stated by Rutles4Ever, such as "Anything except God that exists was created" and "God exists." Then there is no contradiction."
In order for anything to exist, there must be an underlying physics to support the existence. There can be no being w/o an underlying physics to support that being. That means that existance itself can't be created. Also, existence can not be created out of nothing.
"The empty set can exist whether anyone ponders it or not."
No. COncepts and rational constructions only exist, because of the machinery the underlying physics provides to support it's existence. W/o the physics and the machinery, there is nothing. Nothing is simply realized and contemplated, becausee of the machinery that supports it.
" nothing cannot exist universally, since 'nothing' is itself something."
If nothing exists, it is a universal. It means there is only nothing, and no existence can possibly arrise out of it. nothing != something The concept of nothing is something. It is a member of the set of concepts, which is a subset of existence.
"Nothing is always distinct from whatever is not-nothing. That is intrinsic to what it is. It can only be defined as the negation of existence--which requires both that existence and negation exist.
Negation is a logical operation. The concept of nothing is defined. It is not the result of any logical operation. The logical operation itself depends on the definitions.
Strictly speaking, since God is not a "thing" there is no logical contradiction between the assertion that "Anything that exists was created" and the assertion that "God exists". In other words, if Rutles4Ever's "anything" is understood literally as any thing then the assertion that there is a logical contradiction between the two propositions is based on a common category error and is itself illogical.
Cordially,