Posted on 05/20/2002 12:53:27 PM PDT by rpage3
See source for details....
It's not a trivial question. Assuming that the words "circle" and "square" have a specific meaning, what is propposed (a circular square) is this: Can there be an "A" which is also -- at the same time -- not an "A". So the question becomes this: Can an omnipotent God contradict the law of identity (A = A)?
On the contrary; I think I get the point too well.
You asked if it is possible for a square to be perfectly cicular and still be a square.
I replied in the affirmative, and you've been ignoring that response ever since, because it ruins what you are trying to illustrate.
It's not my fault you chose a bad example. The intersection of the set of all circles and the set of all squares is not disjoint.
I suggest you revise your illustration by basing it on objects that belong to non-overlapping sets. If you do that, I promise I won't hang a "square-circle-square" placemarker on you.
Junior, The Canaanites were practicing child sacrifice on the arms of the false god Molech. They were wicked beyond repair and God gave them 400 years to repent. He then destroyed them - and they deserved it. The commandments are for men; when God kills someone, it is always righteous judgment and perfect justice. I believe the U.S. is headed for the same end as Canaan, since we have sacrificed our children to our own false god similar to Molech - except ours is called "convenience" and "pleasure".
You made an implicit assumption (which happens to not be true) in your argument.
I'll give you a few moments to think about it.... and if you sneak a peak at my other replies, you may spot it.
OK so you say a square can be perfectly round and still be a square – and say a circle equal to a square. I guess all shapes musts be the same. You are saying shapes cannot be defined.
Do you stick square pegs in round holes? Drive on square tires or triangular tires?
I guess you are one of those guys that I’ve heard about that actually believes the earth is square.
Do I see a square earth place holder?
Yes, I'm assuming that no circle is a square, and therefore a circle is a "not-square", and vice versa. Perhaps it's because I've led a sheltered Euclidian life, but I believe that assumption to be true.
Win? Who said anything about winning anything? :-) By getting both 666 & 777 you lose something! I'm just not creative enough to come up with anything... In Unix 666 means you were readable and writeable by everyone, but 777 means you're readable, writeable and executable by everyone. In prophecy 666 can mean the devil and 777 can mean perfection. (I'm not much into the prophecy stuff so that could be wrong.) Take your pick! If you get 888 I'll be impressed!
No need to prove that. Rocks aren't trees.
To be true to the text it really reads (in the NIV) "You shall not murder," not "kill".
Whoa, don't need that.
bash% chmod a-x general_re
Gotta fix that first, before someone executes me ;)
bash% chmod 444 general_re
If you get 888 I'll be impressed!
chmod 888 general_re doesn't work though ;)
I read your post as objecting that my definition of trees was broad enough to include rocks, so I added to it in order to explicitly state that rocks are not necessarily trees. Although, I suppose that it is still possible that some rocks are trees, based on what I've got so far - just not all of them ;)
Thanks, and you're right.
I didn't think you'd want that feature enabled
bash% chmod a-x general_re
Now you can execute yourself and so can anyone in your group!
Gotta fix that first, before someone executes me ;)
No doubt!
bash% chmod 444 general_re
Whew! You're safe now. Well, you can't write to yourself but you're readable.
> If you get 888 I'll be impressed!
chmod 888 general_re doesn't work though ;)
I'd be impressed if you got that to work as well!
Most folks here probably think we're nuts. Well, I can only speak for one of us... you are nuts. :-)
Good catch. The phrase makes sense up to "God can make a." The problem comes in with the term "square circle." There really is nothing here to refute.
Nevertheless, it is a grammatically and syntactically correct sentence, unlike your proposed analogue. And it is a proposition, the same as any other.
No. The term "square circle" is meaningless rendering the proposition meaningless.
The truth of that proposition may not be accessible to logical proof, but the fact that I can construct two square circles, a la #766
Uh... yuh.
The assertion that "God can't make 2 + 2 = 5" is wrong for the same reason. 2 + 2 = 4, always and everywhere. To say that "2 + 2 = 5" is an error and therefore a meaningless grouping of symbols. Again, the "assertion" doesn't rise to the level of a true assertion.
Gravity exists, always and everywhere, yet I am asked to believe that God can violate this at will. Is it not inconsistent (albeit exceptionally convenient) to suggest that one class of laws is inviolable while another is not?
No. Gravity is not a logical proposition. Gravity is a natural phenomenon. Since God sustains this phenomenon in its existence, he can suspend the phenomenon according to his Wisdom. It's his prerogative as Creator.
Again, "God can make 2 + 2 = 5" considered as a statement is not a coherent assertion but merely a grouping of words.
The answer is a logical no. Self-limitation would be a defect in omnipotence. Since God is omnipotent He "can't" limit His power. But this is a logical limit and not a true limitation. It's really a contradiction in terms, since by definition one who is omnipotent is all powerful and unlimited in power. ...
No, the author is relying on the dictionary definition. Omnipotence means power without limit. A being with unlimited power cannot by definition be limited by anything, even itself.
You propose that omnipotence in terms of a being that has the power to limit itself is inherently self-contradictory.
Yes. But perhaps I am wrong in a sense. See below.
Therefore, to resolve this apparent contradiction, you propose that an omnipotent being cannot have the power to limit itself.
Yes. More below.
However, this new definition is itself inherently self-contradictory also, since we have defined a power that an ostensibly all-powerful being cannot have.
This seems to me to be a paradox and not a contradiction.
It now seems clear to me that any possible definition of omnipotence is inherently self-contradictory.
Or a paradox. See below.
Perhaps we ought to discard the notion of omnipotence altogether, in light of the fact that we apparently cannot resolve the paradoxes inherent within such a concept.
Here's an interesting paradox that I just realized. God's Revelation tells us that "being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:8)." Certainly God in some sense humbled Himself to become man.
How can this paradox be resolved? Perhaps because Jesus humbled himself in taking on human nature while still retaining all of his power in his divine nature.
Perhaps this makes it possible for an omnipotent being to become "limited" while still retaining His omnipotence, thus resolving our dilemma.
Well I think the question relates to whether one can, with ruler and compass, construct a square with the same area as that of a specified circle. The fact that to an infinitesimal degree one can construct a square with the "same" area as a specified circle seems to be ignored.
Now on to more important things.
Many people claim that evolution is evil ("evilution"). How this is, I fail to see. Some people see Darwin's agnosticism in his later years as proof. Nonsense. A theory's validity is in no way, shape, or form based on its formulator's personal beliefs. Its validity is based on how well it fits the way the world works. Evolution fits the way the world works in an exceedingly precise degree. Some say, "It's just a theory, not a fact." Well, atomic theory is "just a theory," as is the theory of gravity and the theory of continental drift. But it is safe to say that these are facts. Last time I looked, matter was made of atoms, things exert gravitational influence on each other, and tectonic plates move around. Facts are just facts, and evolution is fact. If you have a better explanation--a scientific one--then let me know. In any case, evolutionary theory was not made to undermine anybody’s beliefs.
As for acceptance of evolution as per personal beliefs, I would like to elaborate. Even among Christians, the stance of anti-evolution is hardly a unanimous one. The same applies for concepts like creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). Some have no problems with those things. Others have incorporated them as necessary to their belief. So who is right? Riddle me that. Of course, I like Galileo's old phrase "Religion teaches men how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." Even today, the Pope warns about confusing science and religion, as history shows us such confusion has led to disaster.
Different from facts are beliefs. Just as facts are facts, beliefs are beliefs. One can never be the other. For example, I don't "believe" in gravity, but I rather know it exists from experience. However, whether you believe in a God or gods, among other metaphysical things, is purely belief. There is no way to qualitatively prove such things. That's where we go to other means of proving our point. But such means are, to me, not so good at doing what they are meant to do. I am faced with a multitude of different religions--all with their own precepts, ideas, holy texts, and other pertinent things—each telling me that their belief is right. Such division is commonplace even among individual religions--we have denominations and sects each with their own interpretation of the basic infrastructure of their religion. They cannot, obviously, be all right. So who to believe. Since not a single one of them can offer me anything more than the same old rhetoric and references to their sacred texts, rather than solid proof, I have no logical motivations to believe any one of them. That includes atheism. I am, for all intents and purposes, agnostic. I just simply don't, indeed cannot, know for sure (and none of us can, really). Is the Sunni Muslim right? Is the Methodist right? Is the Mahayana Buddhist right? Is the Catholic right? Is the atheist right? I DON'T KNOW, and no logically thinking person can seriously say they can "know" for sure. But I do have sufficient reasons to not believe in Christianity (see links below for things summarizing why, as I don’t have time to go into it now). What I do know is that I am guaranteed my right to believe this by the first amendment.
f.christian (I think that's what his name was), despite his inability to write properly, put across something in his reply to me that I should point out. It doesn’t matter who created the “secular state,” fundamentalists today are trying to de-secularize it. Anything they consider “immoral” they wish to ban, whether it is evolutionary theory, violent video games, Harry Potter books, or homosexual rights, among many other things. Not only that, but they wish to establish what they consider “right” into American culture—prime examples being to force the 10 Commandments into being displayed in public institutions and trying to force “creation science” (which is not science at all) into the classroom. They seem to think that what is good for them must be good for everybody else. In fact, I’m pretty sure that many fundies want all non-theists deported (such was the opinion of several people who wrote letters to the editor to my local paper a few months back). A lot of the things I’ve heard straight from the mouths of fundamentalists seems like shadows of the oppressive Taliban regime—currently nowhere as bad, but could be if left unchecked by separation of church and state. Despite what f.christian thinks, atheists and other non-theists are trying to keep this country secularized. Secularism is by definition “The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.” I also fail to see how evolution has contributed to de-secularization. The only way I see this is that Darwin’s theory has done this indirectly and unwittingly. Fundamentalists who thought the theory was an attack on their belief saw it necessary to stick their noses into what is taught in public schools. So evolution has unwillingly provoked fundamentalists into trying to de-secularize public education. This was of course not Darwin’s intent when he formulated his theory. He was just a simple naturalist who put together a theory based on observation that would give us more understanding of living things than we have ever had and probably ever will.
~Stormblast
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=192
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/index.shtml
Well, that's the trick, if you believe something it is automatically profound to you. But so far no one could really explain to me why this is so profound to him without telling me that I have to believe it first so it makes sense to me. However, with this method I could convince myself (if it worked) of everything.
LOL! That made the slogging through a bunch of other posts well worth it. 8-)
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