JESUS CHRIST!! what a wall o'text!!Follow

Par for the course when liberal gbaji gets involved in a conversation.

Extraordinary amount of content combined with extraordinary lack of substance?

I guess cuz we can't stop death and the only death we know right now leaves us as unawares.

Congrats on the engagement. I've been playing lotro too, but not very often. My daughter, my son and I have a threesome of hobbits we play occasionally (Meneldor). We've been at it for about a month now though and have only hit level 11.

I think that dualism is a product of our limited minds, rather than being a fundamental reality of the universe.

The perception of evil arises from the darkness in the space between us when we stand on the circumference of the circle.

This circle can just as easily be understood as a metaphor for love. As our neighbourly love grows we move closer to the centre of the circle, closer to each other, and our perception of reality as an experience of separation fades to become an experience of unification.

Or predicting the stock market without any of that insider trading.

Edited, May 12th 2011 1:52pm by Timelordwho

The ontological argument for god doesn't fail because of different types of possibility, it fails because it is invalid. The claim is that god is, by definition, necessary. So, if it is possible that god exists, that would mean he had to exist (which is valid).

The problem is misunderstanding the term "possibility." God, by his nature, may either exist or not exist in all possible worlds. There's no in between. When someone says "it's possible god exists," they are misusing the word "possible." The proper logical phrasing of that sentence would be "I do not know that God does not exist."

It's an epistemological comment, not a metaphysical one. When you consider the argument's logical form, it fails. Completely.

Possibility is purely logical--there is no other form.

If god can exist, then he does exist. That's true. And no philosophers I know of claim otherwise.

The problem is that you have no reason to claim god possibly exists in a metaphysical way. It's only epistemological. Your lack of understanding of the world isn't grounds for possibility--that's why logical possibility is, well, possibility properly-so-called.

If he were blabbering from beyond it would certainly change the texture of this thread.

Hey speaking of being dead and all; My Nook keeps trying to get me to read The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven. It's become quite a hit. I haven't even opened the free sample that appeared.

Anyone read it?

I'm familiar with infinite regression, but I disagree that it is necessarily fallacious. In fact, circularity as innate fallacy hasn't been adequately substantiated either. There are certainly examples where it is, but there are also simple examples where it isn't. If 2+2=4, then 4-2=2. This, arguably, is circular reasoning. At the very least, as Kelvy clumsily pointed out, the Big Bang (in addition to creationism), is a fallacy of causality.

Granted in terms of the natural world, we have little grounds to speak on what is fallacious, but if I have to choose between infinite regression and a violation of causality, I will pick the former every time. We have plenty of examples of the latter failing, but no grounds to speak against the former other than a combination of ego and an infinitesimal perspective.

I would have never pegged Thor as a Jew.

Well, yes, but that presumes that you buy that the Big Bang created time. And it's certainly plausible; I just don't see it as any more plausible than infinity. I prefer the explanation without a beginning, even if that is a single universe theory (like rubber band theory, or as I understand it at least). But then, I think the idea of a beginning is merely a product of the human ego.

I understand that; however, that really only makes any case for the existence of the universe as we know it, and not for the state of everything before the known universe or other than the known universe, which is pretty important to the discussion of creation/infinity.

i.e., just because the Big Bang created this space time, doesn't mean that spacetime didn't simultaneously exist elsewhere. In such a case, time is a little more "absolute" than the relativity we associate with it today (but only a little).

I may not be making much sense. Colbert is on. I'll check back later.

You're looking at it the wrong way, imo.

Firstly, you are changing the very nature of spacetime here. Spacetime is a relationship between objects in OUR universe. Even should other universes exist, the spacetime of those would be fundamentally separate from our own. Why? Because spacetime is the fabric of our universe--it makes no sense to hold that there are two universes that share spacetime, because those would just be the same universe. If spacetime is shared between them, then we have just arbitrarily drawn a line between the two and called one our universe and the other "Universe 2." That's nothing special, and it isn't multiverse theory.

Furthermore, the very way you are talking about these things is worrisome. You speak about spacetime "simultaneously" existing in two places. That's a temporal relation. For that to be the case, there would need to be ANOTHER layer of spacetime that encompasses those two universes. And we run into the same problem as before--it makes no sense for two universes to be connected by time.

Multiverse theory is fine (and there are plenty of physicists that believe it, though none have any real reason for doing so, afaik). But to hold that two universes exist in temporal relation to themselves makes no sense--it's an empty sentence without meaning. But, the thing is, beyond philosophical questions, multiverse theory is useless. By definition of what a universe is, it HAS TO BE completely separate from other universes. Even should multiple universes exist, if they were connected in any way they wouldn't be universes--they'd just be parts of one big universe. And that's not multiverse theory. It's just... weird.

What it sounds like to me is that you want to hold that there are multiple universes, and time progresses equally across all of them? That's just not compatible with current physical theories, where time is an intrinsic quality of this universe, at all. They could be wrong I suppose... but you really have no reason whatsoever for believing that to be the case (rather, you have every reason to believe they ARE correct).



I find it odd that you are claiming humans to be finite creatures, considering you're religious. I definitely think we are finite, and I don't believe in souls at all. But a person who believes he is a soul, rather than a body, should believe he's infinite, no?

And no, there's nothing about spacetime that implies a "beginning." Not in the way you want it, at least. Spacetime regards the relationship of entities within the cosmos. Before (atemporally) spacetime existed, the energy that would later form matter still did. And the laws of physics as we know them demand that it HAD to exist. They don't know what form it existed, no. And they theorize that the universe doesn't have enough mass to be constantly cycling through Big Bangs and Big Crunches. But it's a basic fact about the universe that energy is always conserved.

Furthermore, people only go to great lengths to disprove the existence of God because pricks like you keep trying to shove your misguided, illogical beliefs down our throats. We ENJOY showing you how stupid you are, because you ANNOY us when you try to convert us.

Plus, if we are soulless creatures (that is to say, creatures such that we are only flesh and blood) then it doesn't really matter if there is a god or not is there. You're going to cease to exist when you die, just like the rest of us. Hell, in that case, I'd be HAPPIER believing there wasn't a God (compared to believing there was and cursing him for being such a ****).

Finally, "nooks and crannies that exist between the finite and the infinite" doesn't mean anything.