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Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

"Like most people, questions about the existence of God and all things spiritual plague me frequently. I want to believe in such things, especially when it comes to continuity of my consciousness. I don’t like the idea of disappearing when I die."

One way to address this is to deal with these thoughts rather than entering a philosophical rat hole of trying to simulate our existence and find an analogy to the computer. Once you accept that an outside meta-influence is possible then you don't have to worry about all this "is there a God or not?" If God exists then God has powers that make Him imperceptible; if God doesn't exist then He's imperceptible. You can't tell the difference.

Oh well.

Better to live a life of good deeds and actions then worry about what's next.

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> If God exists then God has powers that make Him imperceptible; if God doesn't exist then He's imperceptible. You can't tell the difference.

This is the omnipotence paradox[1]. I often help friends and relatives understand why my religion (or lack thereof, actually) is `Tooth Fairy Agnosticism' by asking them whether or not God can create a stone that He can't lift.

> Better to live a life of good deeds and actions then worry about what's next.

I agree. This is how I try to live my life, but it's hard to stop worrying when you have severe thanatophobia[2] like I do.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanatophobia

> This is the omnipotence paradox[1]. I often help friends and relatives understand why my religion (or lack thereof, actually) is `Tooth Fairy Agnosticism' by asking them whether or not God can create a stone that He can't lift.

Lol, I've heard little kids ask that at church. Never heard an adult seriously ask that though, usually just as a gag.

> Lol, I've heard little kids ask that at church.

Did you happen to overhear any of them getting an answer? I'd love to read about how some church-going parents (guardians?) explain the omnipotence paradox to youngsters. In my experience, at least, I find that Jews treat the matter gracefully while managing to `uphold the faith', if you will.

> Never heard an adult seriously ask that though, usually just as a gag.

You don't know many Tooth Fairy Agnostics, do you?

Omnipotence means God has limitless power (or better, his power cannot be improved), not that he can do anything, whether logically impossible or not. This argument is a cavil, not a sound philosophical argument. Consider the set of natural numbers. You (given enough time and patience and brainspace) may have the ability to count up to any specified natural number. That does not imply you have the ability to count all natural numbers. Once you start dealing with infinities, your intuition goes out the window.

The natural numbers can be algorithmically generated. Consider streams in Computer Science, for example. But note that the existence of streams does not imply the existence of an actual infinity in the computer's memory, only an algorithm to reach any finite member of the infinite set.

As mentioned elsewhere. If God is the first cause of the physical universe, then his existence is necessary (in the philosophical sense) and therefore changeless (in the philosophical sense) and therefore eternal (as his existence is necessary - and he exists entirely apart from time).

Once you start to enter into a discussion of infinite things like omnipotence, omniscience, necessary existence, etc, you enter the realm of infinite cardinalities, transfinite induction, the axiom of choice, Hilbert's Hotel, Russel's paradox, and so on. Philosophers have understood the issues regarding God's natural attributes for thousands of years, but only in the last 100 or so years have we had the mathematics to start saying things about infinities that are not nonsensical.

Consider that, as a human being, you are only aware of the present. You remember the past, and you have no knowledge of the future. Now imagine a being who is as aware of the past as He is of the present. This is one who calls himself "I am". He says, "before Abraham was, I am". Or, he calls himself the "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End". We aren't talking about a being with changing state and an awareness only of the present, as you or I. We have to be very careful with our intuition when examining such a subject.

Only the most rigorous and methodical mathematical argument can hope to establish anything positive or negative about such an entity.

> Omnipotence means God has limitless power (or better, his power cannot be improved), not that he can do anything, whether logically impossible or not.

I'd like to write a well-thought-out reply, but I'm a little confused. How is `power' defined (for God, that is)?

If all that exists is God and his creation, then it is enough to state that God determines his own will (i.e. has free will) and that he has all power with relation to his creation. No force, whether moral, physical, spiritual or temporal has the ability to oppose God and ultimately prevail. Thus he has no limits on his power. It is limitless.

This all stands to reason if God created time and space and matter ex nihilo. He has all the power there is. "For from Him and to Him and through him are all things"... forever. In fact, nothing that has power has so without it being given by Him. All power derives from God.

As God is changeless, his power necessarily cannot be improved.

I'll be honest and say that I do not know of any argument which proves in a direct way that a God who created the physical universe must be able to do any thing which is possible. Of course, that does not imply that there is not such an argument, nor that I do not believe it to be so.

I think that the necessary existence of God implies that there exists no being greater than God.

> I think that the necessary existence of God implies

There is no necessary existence of God nor can any logical argument establish it so.

Can you explain how the existence of a first cause can be contingent?

As I already said, the notion of a first cause is absurd, it's an idea that has no basis in reality or evidence to support that such a thing is. Just because you can think a thought doesn't mean reality must reflect it.

If you insist the universe had to come from something, then you can't solve the problem by inventing a god that doesn't.

If you can accept that a god is eternal, then you must accept that the universe itself can be as well thus excluding any need to invent God.

If you insist that God can be eternal but the universe can't be, or that the universe requires a creator but God doesn't, well... then you're just not being rational and there is not point in having a rational discussion.

Do you believe the universe came from nothing? I find that absurd.

I do not see what is absurd about the statement "nothing begets nothing".

By the way, you attacked the premise, not the logic of the argument, which is not what you claimed in the first instance.

You find it absurd, but then believe God came from nothing. I find that irrational.

The universe didn't come from anywhere, the universe is.

Ok, the premise of your argument is flawed in that the very question is not logical.

Ah, I see that you do believe that the universe came from nothing.

You say that the universe is and that it came from nothing. That means you believe the existence of the universe is not contingent, which implies its existence is necessary. It's also remarkable that you posit that a first cause is an absurdity, yet then postulate that the universe has the properties of a first cause.

I find a logical contradiction in that the universe is known to have had a beginning. By any definition of contingent that I know of, something with a beginning has contingent existence.

Or perhaps you think it more scientific to suppose that things can happen without a cause (e.g. universes). Good luck with that theory. You had better hope that a universe doesn't happen without a cause under your bed. Now you live in a universe where miracles can happen without any reason whatsoever. They just are.

It actually sounds like in your world anything can happen any time for no reason. This begins to look very different from the universe I appear to live in.

> Ah, I see that you do believe that the universe came from nothing.

No, I don't and I just told you that. The question is invalid; the Universe didn't come from anything. Even the visible universe, which we know was born from the big bang, no one believes came from nothing; Big bang theory says it came from an infinitely dense energy and the bang converted some of that into matter. No where does the theory state it all came from nothing.

> You say that the universe is and that it came from nothing.

No, I did not. The rest of your rebuttal fails because you've setup a straw man to knock down while ignoring what I actually said; I expected as much.

> It's also remarkable that you posit that a first cause is an absurdity, yet then postulate that the universe has the properties of a first cause.

I did no such thing.

> I find a logical contradiction in that the universe is known to have had a beginning.

False. We know there was a big bang; we explicitly do not know that it was the beginning, or the only big bang, or that the visible universe it applies to is the only one, or that big bangs aren't cyclical. We just don't know.

> Or perhaps you think it more scientific to suppose that things can happen without a cause (e.g. universes).

No, I believe there are answers we don't yet have. You are the one that believes things happen without a cause (e.g. gods), the universe at least is known to exist undeniably.

I'm sorry, I'm completely lost. So now you are trying to tell me the universe may not have been the beginning, but that it did not come from anything.

You are aware of the scientific issues with the cyclical universe model I take it? There are issues with entropy, fine tuning, the fact that information cannot leave our universe through the event horizon of black holes (singularities), that universes of the size of our own are almost infinitely less probable than much smaller universes, that our universe does not look to be headed for a "big crunch", etc.

You also say, "You are the one that believes things happen without a cause". So now are you trying to tell me that you believe things cannot happen without a cause and that I am the only one asserting that?

If so, then do you not see that an infinite number of prior causes (e.g. your cyclical universe theory) leads to an actual infinity of prior events and that we never get to this point because there are an infinite number of events that must precede it? (This is but one of many absurdities implied by such a presupposition.)

The only escape from your argument is to suppose that there is a first cause which is uncaused, outside of the physical universe whose existence is necessary but which is sufficient to explain the existence of the universe.

If you do not accept that, then your position seems to be that our universe does not have a reason for its existence (a cause) and that it does not need one (you seem to have claimed that, regardless, quite apart from my deduction from your claims). I claim only that things which do not have a beginning need no cause. And I claim that it logically follows that such things are changeless. If not, you have to accept the existence of an actual infinity, something which leads to a multitude of mathematical contradictions (look up Hilbert's Hotel).

You can't argue with a deductive argument by saying that it is wrong but we just haven't figured out any workable alternative yet but that we are working on it. You have to either refute the premises or demonstrate a self contradiction in the argument. Without that, the argument stands.

You are welcome to your opinion that you are suspicious of the premises.

You haven't made a deductive argument yet. In fact you've made no argument at all. If you think you have, please do point it out, as I've seen nothing but a series of questions trying to pin down what I think and not a one making an actual argument as to what you think and why it must be. Other than your original statement which was an assertion, not an argument for why it must be true.

Your tactic appears to be an attempt to bait me into making an argument that you can dismantle without actually making your own case hoping that I don't notice you haven't actually made your case. I'm not biting. I don't need to explain the presence of the universe to say that claiming gods did it isn't logical nor do I need to provide a counter argument. If you believe gods did it, you must make that case; you haven't.

> If God is the first cause of the physical universe, then his existence is necessary (in the philosophical sense) and therefore changeless (in the philosophical sense) and therefore eternal (as his existence is necessary - and he exists entirely apart from time).

What nonsense. The whole notion of a first cause itself is nonsense let alone the first cause being something as complex as an intelligent being when the very reason you'd propose a first cause to begin with would be that you couldn't accept that something always existed.

The "Omnipotence paradox" and its many variations are not a real paradox:

These all reduce down to "Greater Than Infinity" line of thinking. Clearly the actual premise is flawed, thus creating the so called "Paradox".

An Example (The Well Story):

A child finds a man near an old well. He observes the old man throwing stones down the well.

The child asks the old man how long it will take the stones to reach the bottom of the well. He Replies "It will take 4 blinks of an eye".

The next day the child finds the same old man at another well. He asks the same question. However this well is unlike the other, it is a bottom less well.

The child asks "How long will it take for the stones to reach the bottom of this well?"

The old man replies "child, this is a bottomless well. It is not that it will never reach the bottom. IT HAS NO bottom! Your question is wrong because your understanding of the well is wrong".

Great point up to the last sentance which, whether you intended to or not, draws a line between the worlds major religions and quasi-endorses those on one side.

What major religion doesn't endorse good deeds?

Send me an email and I'll explain.

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