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Atheism

...a hypothesis that stands in the absence of evidence...

So, a bit like Flat Earth ?
 
One curious possibility is that God is an atheist. In fact He or She almost certainly is, if She exists at all.

The God that created the Universe may well believe that He or She is the embodiment of the 'greatest entity imaginable', and that He or She created themself out of nothing; but that might simply be a failure of God's imagination or faith. If the God that created the universe did not create themself, but was created by an even greater God (that the universe-creator refuses to believe in), then the universe creator is an atheist.
 
..If the God that created the universe did not create themself, but was created by an even greater God (that the universe-creator refuses to believe in), then the universe creator is an atheist. ..

Are you assuming that this super-entity would not ask the question 'where do I come from' ?
 
It is incredibly difficult to describe to some believers what not having such belief means.

You can point to "Off" not being a TV channel or say that "no opinion" is not an opinion but still they cannot grasp the idea of not holding a belief in any deity.

My personal understanding is that atheism is a null hypothesis, a hypothesis that stands in the absence of evidence. Present me with evidence of a contradiction to that null hypothesis and I will change my stance

Maybe the analogy is while there are so many different channels, some manage without watching a TV at all.
 
If this super-entity truly believes that it is the ultimate entity in the universe, but it is not, then it is deluded; if it believes in some higher power, but it is wrong, then it is equally deluded; if it believes in a higher power and is correct, then this is either justified true belief, or a lucky guess.
 
But matter and substance are included in the term maximally great, because if not included then maximal greatness is not maximal


Whether it is more or less consequential is irrelevant to the argument regarding maximal greatness


I am not talking about what is or is not worthy of the title God, only about the description "maximally great"


This merely demonstrates that philosophy (which itself is predicated on the use of language) is an ineffective tool


Sorry, we do NOT know the cat exists, the cat could have existence or it could be fantasy. Only if you specify that the cat has existence a priori can we discuss the meaning of the words used. It seems that Lewis Carrol was making a similar point about philosophical constructions when he was writing about the Cheshire Cat


These qualities logically incomprehensible. The problems associated with omnipotence, omniscience and omniprescence as well as with the term "maximally great" are only resolved by introducing special pleading, insisting on special definitions of these terms.


I'm grateful for your taking the time to respond to what I wrote, but I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by 'great'. When you repeat 'maximally great' you seem to be using it to mean 'all encompassing', which is not what Anselm means.

I've just gone and checked a translation of The Proslogium, there's another slightly different but seemingly serviceable one here:

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/anselm-proslogium.asp

Please tell me what definition of 'great' you were using when you wrote that 'matter and substance are included in the term maximally great'.

Anselm (elsewhere):

...whatsoever things are said to possess any attribute in such a way that in mutual comparison they may be said to possess it in greater, or less, or equal degree, are said to possess it by virtue of some fact, which is not understood to be one thing in one case and another in another, but to be the same in different cases... (Monologion, 1)

He means, I think, that 'great' is a comparative measurement of the degree to which an entity possesses an attribute: a man who can lift a car has greater strength than a man who cannot do so.

Whatever things there are else then, exist through something other than themselves, and this alone through itself. But whatever exists through another is less than that, through which all things are, and which alone exists through itself. Therefore, that which exists through itself exists in the greatest degree of all things. There is, then, some one being which alone exists in the greatest and the highest degree of all.
So, to take 'great' as a comparative measurement of the attributes we find elsewhere, Anselm would have us accept, for example, that as we see fair and equitable actions by men and label them 'just', so would God be that being who we could not conceive of as possing justness to a greater degree.

He applies this to the attribute of existence and finds that a being that exists in the imagination and not in reality is less great (in the sense that it has possesses the attribute to a lesser degree) than a being that exists in both the imagination and reality. For that reason, 'The Greatest' being necessarily exists.

He moves on and applies this schema to 'goodness'. Having proved to his own satisfactiom that God must exist, he states that God has created all that exists and, by extension, all that is good. He must, therefore, possess goodness in a degree greater than all others as well as all the attributes that 'it is better to be than not to be', such as 'kind', 'tolerant' or 'agreeable'. (Personally, I find this unconvincing, but I'm not opening another can of worms until we resolve the more fundamental one).

He abbreviates all these constituent examples of attributes that God 'must' possess to the highest degree and labels God 'the greatest'. What he means in longhand is: he is the entity that possess all the traits that it is desirable for an entity to possess to a higher degree than any other entity.

It would be better to leave behind the paraphrasis 'maximally great' as it has led us astray. I'll return to dispute your points about cats when we've deakt with this first order point.
 
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As I said earlier I am using Platinga's restatement of Anselm which is as follows
  1. A being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and
  2. A being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.
  3. It is possible that there is a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)
  4. Therefore, possibly, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good being exists.
  5. Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
  6. Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
The problems begin with omnipotence, omniscience and, of course, "good"

An omnipotent being should be able to create another being with equal or greater power to itself - which would mean it was not omnipotent.
An omniscient being would exist only in a world of predetermination (plus, of course, the problems it engenders with quantum randomness and the quantum Zeno effect)
Good is an entirely undefined term and, worse, any attempt at definition must fail as it is always a term whose meaning changes with the person, culture or species. A good (!!??? sic) example is that for mallard ducks gang rape is "good," but, most certainly, it is not "good" for humans.

It is notable that Platinga (despite his affirmation that he is Christian) fails to include "omniprescence" in his definition of excellence and greatness in this discussion
 
As I said earlier I am using Platinga's restatement of Anselm which is as follows

The problems begin with omnipotence, omniscience and, of course, "good"

An omnipotent being should be able to create another being with equal or greater power to itself - which would mean it was not omnipotent.
An omniscient being would exist only in a world of predetermination (plus, of course, the problems it engenders with quantum randomness and the quantum Zeno effect)
Good is an entirely undefined term and, worse, any attempt at definition must fail as it is always a term whose meaning changes with the person, culture or species. A good (!!??? sic) example is that for mallard ducks gang rape is "good," but, most certainly, it is not "good" for humans.

It is notable that Platinga (despite his affirmation that he is Christian) fails to include "omniprescence" in his definition of excellence and greatness in this discussion

There is a curious lack of imagination in some of this.

If God is eternal (as difficult for us to truly grasp as infinite) perhaps he IS all of creation and we are actually in his stomach (or other organ of choice) I'm not saying I believe this, I don't . But any discussion about the existence or otherwise of God should take into account there can potentially be things we are unable to perceive but nevertheless exist - other dimensions, other planes of existence. Things too small, things so large that the universe is tiny (Like in Men In Black)
 
An omnipotent being should be able to create another being with equal or greater power to itself - which would mean it was not omnipotent.

Anselm says that some of God's omnipotence is born of impotence: he is not capable of those things that would result in his being or becoming less powerful. For example (mine), God is not capable of destroying himself or corrupting himself or creating something that is capable of confounding his own will as these potencies would result in less than the greatest potency that can be imagined.

Text below:

He, then, who is thus capable is so not by power, but by impotence. For, he is not said to be able because he is able of himself, but because his impotence gives something else power over him. [...] So, then, when one is said to have the power of doing or experiencing what is not for his good, or what he ought not to do, impotence is understood in the word power. For, the more he possesses this power, the more powerful are adversity and perversity against him, and the more powerless is he against them.

Therefore, O Lord, our God, the more truly are you omnipotent, since you are capable of nothing through impotence, and nothing has power against you.

Source:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/anselm-proslogium.asp#CHAPTER V
 
The universe coming into existence on its own may be problematic philosophically but what has that to do with anything? There are probable physical processes that allow this universe to come into being as long as there is a space-time: and space and time had to exist because a deity has to occupy a space and time is required to allow an action to occur (time before the action, time of the action and time following the action. Claims that a deity can exist outside of all space and all time is not just philosophically knotty it is philosophically incoherent.
It has everything to do with the question that someone asked a page or so back which basically was what knotty issues bother agnostics or atheists about origins.....so for me being agnostic the idea that the universe simply originated on it's own is knotty since I am unsure about 'God' or any such being.
 
Anselm says that some of God's omnipotence is born of impotence: he is not capable of those things that would result in his being or becoming less powerful. For example (mine), God is not capable of destroying himself or corrupting himself or creating something that is capable of confounding his own will as these potencies would result in less than the greatest potency that can be imagined.

Text below:
So Anselm's argument is that omnipotence only means the bits of omnipotence that do not allow the concept to be disproven. This is special pleading
 
There is a curious lack of imagination in some of this.

If God is eternal (as difficult for us to truly grasp as infinite) perhaps he IS all of creation and we are actually in his stomach (or other organ of choice) I'm not saying I believe this, I don't . But any discussion about the existence or otherwise of God should take into account there can potentially be things we are unable to perceive but nevertheless exist - other dimensions, other planes of existence. Things too small, things so large that the universe is tiny (Like in Men In Black)
The apologist William Lane Craig pointed to the problem of eternal in his formulation of the Kalam Cosmological Argument; anything that is eternal (temporally infinite) is subject to infinite regression making it impossible to have any point of origin for the universe as each cause must have some prior cause. Of course, WLC is careful to exclude his god and "His" creative process from being subject to this same problem by interjecting the long discarded "uncaused cause" originating in Aquinas' corruption of Aristotle.

He ignores the fact that quantum events can be such "first causes" because they occur randomly, spontaneously and continuously
 
Question: "What is an apologist?"

Answer: Apologists are people involved in apologetics, a branch of theology concerned with the defense of the faith. An apologist hones his ability to defend the Christian faith by presenting proofs from the Bible, logic, and other empirical and intellectual sources.
 
I'm not understanding the linkage between atheism and eugenics that's seemingly being presumed here.

That came from my post which compared some extreme views on the atheist 'side' with similarly extreme views on the religious fundamentalist 'side'. My view being that they were both examples of zealous nutbaggery that have very much in common and are essentially stemming from the same root of quest for control and imposition of ideology. Both examples previously I mentioned boil down to using Utilitarianism.

Prof R Dawkins has publically stated that he thinks it's immoral* to allow unborn babies with Down's syndrome to be born https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-28879659 and various hardline fundamentalist groups have also argued the reverse re. abortion rights in terms of morality, even resorting to violence and terrorism. Both are doing their belief systems and society a disservice, and potentially feed ideologies that can end with results like Aktion T4 or, conversely, Ceacescu's regime of state-enforced births.

[*as opposed to 'unadvisable in my opinion' or 'a personal choice' which is a reasoned, libertarian view]
 
So Anselm's argument is that omnipotence only means the bits of omnipotence that do not allow the concept to be disproven. This is special pleading

Rather that the naive conception of omnipotence as the unlimited power to do anything is self-contradictory. If a being is omnipotent enough to bind himself, he cannot be truly omnipotent.

I don't accept all of his argument, but this seems cogent to me.
 
Rather that the naive conception of omnipotence as the unlimited power to do anything is self-contradictory. If a being is omnipotent enough to bind himself, he cannot be truly omnipotent.

I don't accept all of his argument, but this seems cogent to me.
Words have meanings, claiming that the understanding of a word is "naive" is special pleading and hides the fact that the concept itself is flawed.

Using omnipotence only to mean what he wanted it to mean merely made Anselm Humpty Dumpty.
Humpty Dumpty.gif
 
Words have meanings, claiming that the understanding of a word is "naive" is special pleading and hides the fact that the concept itself is flawed.

Using omnipotence only to mean what he wanted it to mean merely made Anselm Humpty Dumpty.

Omnipotence is an extrapolation that is non-observable in the universe.

Man has observed numerous entities that were potent to varying degrees, observed the apparently boundless scale of the universe and concluded that the creator of such a vast creation would need to be possessed of a boundless potency. Quite what this might entail has, for the most part, remained the demesne of theologians; St. Anselm, an Archbishop of Canterbury, was writing in this tradition.

Discussing what a word describing a theoretical quality could mean if actually instantiated in an existing entity seems perfectly cromulent to me.

As to Humpty Dumpty, you have excised the three lines directly prior in your quotation:

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.


They are arguing semantics, as is St. Anselm--and not in the trivial sense.

He is not claiming that omnipotence means what he would like it to mean (what it is convenient to mean for the sake of his argument) in the way that Humpty wishes to redefine 'glory', he is analysing whether omnipotence in the literal sense is even possible. Dodgson is stalking the territory later explored by Wittgenstein and Saussure: is a private language in which words are given definitions subjectively even coherent? Humpty's approach is absurd not because he wishes to redefine words (Dodgson himself accepted that, see quotation below), but because he wishes to do so privately and without consultation with his interlocutors:

Screen Shot 2019-02-12 at 23.48.25.png


Anselm, then, is following Dodgson, not Humpty, by making explicit how and why he will understand the word omnipotence; in fact, he is going one better than Humpty, who, you will recall, is most obliging to requests that he define his terms, but such definitions are only forthcoming after his novel use of these terms. Anselm at least does us the service of defining his terms up front instead of turning the tables on his reader after the fact. You are at liberty--as Dodgson was--of judging his semantic decisions injudicious, but then the onus is on you to explain why.

Anselm could I suppose have given his new logically-valid version of omnipotence a new name (logico-omnipotence Vs ur-omnipotence) perhaps, but given that he had found that the logically invalid version fails to refer to any intelligible phenomenon, it would seem reasonable to retrieve it from the dirt whence it fell, give it a dust off and see what may be salvaged; it is after all an awfully big universe to have been created.

To return to the text:

CHAPTER VII.
How he is omnipotent, although there are many things of which he is not capable. --To be capable of being corrupted, or of lying, is not power, but impotence. God can do nothing by virtue of impotence, and nothing has power against him.
BUT how are you omnipotent, if you are not capable of all things? Or, if you can not be corrupted, and can not lie, nor make what is true, false --as, for example, if you should make what has been done not to have been done, and the like. --how are you capable of all things? Or else to be capable of these things is not power, but impotence. For, he who is capable of these things is capable of what is not for his good, and of what he ought not to do; and the more capable of them he is, the more power have adversity and perversity against him; and the less has he himself against these.
He, then, who is thus capable is so not by power, but by impotence. For, he is not said to be able because he is able of himself, but because his impotence gives something else power over him. Or, by a figure of speech, just as many words are improperly applied, as when we use "to be" for "not to be," and "to do" for what is really not to do, "or to do nothing." For, often we say to a man who denies the existence of something: "It is as you say it to be," though it might seem more proper to say, "It is not, as you say it is not." In the same way, we say, "This man sits just as that man does," or, "This man rests just as that man does"; although to sit is not to do anything, and to rest is to do nothing.
So, then, when one is said to have the power of doing or experiencing what is not for his good, or what he ought not to do, impotence is understood in the word power. For, the more he possesses this power, the more powerful are adversity and perversity against him, and the more powerless is he against them.
Therefore, O Lord, our God, the more truly are you omnipotent, since you are capable of nothing through impotence, and nothing has power against you.
You may disagree with some or any of this, but it is not the wittering of a fool or a charlatan. You ought at least try to engage with his words or there was little point in citing his thought in the first instance.
 
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Dodgson was satirising the semantics of philosophers changing the meanings of words to support their arguments - which is exactly Anselm's "crime" - the fact Dodgson he used "Glory" in his example is probably irrelevant although given the religious meaning of "Glory" possibly not.

The quotation from Chap VII essentially makes this point clear, Anselm continues to use the word omnipotent (necessary because it is part of the dogma of faith) instead of inventing a term "nimis-potent(?)" (exceedingly powerful) and ignoring the dogma.

Alteration of the meaning of a term to exclude unwanted corollaries is special pleading and, what is worse, opens the door to other exclusions. Example (though I'm sure you can think of others)
Would preventing the actions of Satan also be excluded from omnipotence because it would impinge upon free will?
 
Dodgson was satirising the semantics of philosophers changing the meanings of words to support their arguments - which is exactly Anselm's "crime" - the fact Dodgson he used "Glory" in his example is probably irrelevant although given the religious meaning of "Glory" possibly not.

You appear to have skipped over some important distinctions I was making.

Dodgson--as evidence by the quotation from his private correspondence--had no objection to the redefinition of words. The practice that he was parodying was of writers redefining terms ex post facto and claiming an unspoken intention as justification.

Anselm is not doing this.

His argument is:

1) That omnipotence cannot mean 'capable of all things' because that would entail God being capable of actions that make him less powerful.
2) That omnipotence is not concerned with capacities, but with power.
3) That to ensure maximum power it is necessary that God not be capable of certain actions.

I think the difficulty lies in the definition of 'omnipotent'.

Does is mean:

a) capable of being or doing anything whatsoever?

or

b) as powerful as it is possible to be?

Because these are two different things. Anselm is pursuing the latter as he sees the former as incoherent.

Subscribers to a) must be content with a God that could make a door simultaneously both open and not open. I'm not sure that I can be so.

And many Christians have viewed omnipotence as being defined a third way:

c) able to do anything he wishes to do.

Which is different in key respects and might relate to your question about free-will.
 
You appear to have skipped over some important distinctions I was making.

Dodgson--as evidence by the quotation from his private correspondence--had no objection to the redefinition of words. The practice that he was parodying was of writers redefining terms ex post facto and claiming an unspoken intention as justification.

Anselm is not doing this.

His argument is:

1) That omnipotence cannot mean 'capable of all things' because that would entail God being capable of actions that make him less powerful.
2) That omnipotence is not concerned with capacities, but with power.
3) That to ensure maximum power it is necessary that God not be capable of certain actions.

I think the difficulty lies in the definition of 'omnipotent'.

Does is mean:

a) capable of being or doing anything whatsoever?

or

b) as powerful as it is possible to be?

Because these are two different things. Anselm is pursuing the latter as he sees the former as incoherent.

Subscribers to a) must be content with a God that could make a door simultaneously both open and not open. I'm not sure that I can be so.

And many Christians have viewed omnipotence as being defined a third way:

c) able to do anything he wishes to do.

Which is different in key respects and might relate to your question about free-will.
Analysing what we mean by the word "omnipotence" is genuinely an interesting. It is not just semantics.

I have often thought that there are three ways of looking at it.
A God who is literally able to do anything and everything simultaneously. Such a God would have to be omnipresent in the sense of being everywhere (and every time) simultaneously. God would then be synonymous with the cosmos: a pantheistic view that Spinoza seems to me to have reached.

This version of "omnipotent" is the one that renders the "God hypothesis" meaningless: if there is no conceivable set of circumstances that cannot be explained by God, then there is no conceivable set of experimental results or observe data that could falsify the God hypothesis, and therefore the hypothesis adds nothing to our understanding, or our ability to make useful predictions about what will happen.

I think many theologians tend to this view of God, but most religious believers have a more homely view of God.

A God who is able to do anything and everything except where there is a logical contradiction. The door cannot simultaneously be both open and closed, etc. This is really little more than a refinement of the first version.

Limited omnipotence: a God who can do anything but not everything, and can be anywhere, but not everywhere. This is nearer to the old idea of Zeus. Zeus could appear as a lion or a swan, or direct a thunderbolt, etc., but could not be in two places or doing two unrelated things at the same time. Logically, this version of God is much harder to argue against. It is also nearer to the one that my Grandma believed in. It is perhaps the one who helps the right boxer to win a fight, and who miraculously saves one person from a flood that kills thousands.

I don't believe in any of them, but I do recognise that if we take a broader view of what we mean by "omnipotent" then we avoid some of the sillier "angels on a pin" type of arguments, and can at least find something worth debating rationally.
 
Prof R Dawkins has publically stated that he thinks it's immoral* to allow unborn babies with Down's syndrome to be born https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-28879659 and various hardline fundamentalist groups have also argued the reverse re. abortion rights in terms of morality, even resorting to violence and terrorism. Both are doing their belief systems and society a disservice, and potentially feed ideologies that can end with results like Aktion T4 or, conversely, Ceacescu's regime of state-enforced births.]

Yes, Dawkins certainly said that, and he also apologised for saying it subsequently. Like you, I also think that he chose the word immoral poorly, and I suspect so does he. Clearly in a liberal democracy we need to respect other people's choices on these difficult issues. I personally wouldn't keep a Downs Syndrome child, but I wouldn't care if someone else did, provided they took full responsibility for that choice.
 
Did the writers of the Old Testament even view God as omnipotent? I feel like that came later.
 
Did the writers of the Old Testament even view God as omnipotent? I feel like that came later.
Omnipotence is implicit in the term "Almighty", for which is used in the Old Testament. The Old Testament Hebrew word for Almighty is pronounced Shaddai, and is equivalent of the term Pantokrator in Greek which also means "all powerful".
 
More student censorship.

People often think universities are places where your views are challenged, refined, and improved. They are seen as places of debate and pluralism where beliefs are contested and scrutinised.

The majority of students enjoy engaging with opinions that are contrary to their own, but I believe the freedom to criticise ideas is being eroded. Amongst university students an intolerance of views that cause offence has begun to flower. This is not grounded in a dislike of inaccuracy or falsehood, but an intolerance of opinions that diverge from an acceptable consensus. What counts as an acceptable view seems to have narrowed to such an extent that even liberal views, based in fact, are deemed too offensive to be published.

Earlier this month I wrote an article profiling Armin Navabi. Navabi is the founder of Atheist Republic, an organisation that connects atheists across the globe. It promotes LGBTQ and women’s rights and fights the persecution of atheists. The article outlined his views and life story.

The piece was published in Cherwell, Oxford University’s independent student newspaper, but it will not be published online. The reason given was that the piece “may be considered offensive.”

It is with regret that I have resigned today as profile editor for Cherwell. ...

https://www.newstatesman.com/politi...ing-british-universities-and-thwarting-debate
 
Ramonmercado,

I can't think why atheist should feel a need to be connected. Doing so would appear to be making an organised 'non-religion' out of it.

Organisation leads to a power structure, the very thing that is the problem with religion.
 
Ramonmercado,

I can't think why atheist should feel a need to be connected. Doing so would appear to be making an organised 'non-religion' out of it.
To have the companionship of others with similar thought processes.
 
Possibly. But atheists would tend to just go about their business without the encumbrance of quasi-religious discussion. There is nothing to discuss.
 
Possibly. But atheists would tend to just go about their business without the encumbrance of quasi-religious discussion. There is nothing to discuss.
Well, they could discuss whatever they wanted without fear of arousing the irrational ire of a religious person.
 
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