Is the number of gods a whole number?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

An offhand remark in another thread got me to thinking:

Can you - or anyone - demonstrate that there are a whole number of gods?

To refresh everyone's memory: the whole numbers are zero and all positive integers (0, 1, 2, 3, etc.). Fractions, negative numbers, irrational number, complex numbers, etc., aren't whole numbers.

So... has anyone demonstrated that the number of gods isn't negative? Fractional? What is it about "god" that implies we can't have, say, -3 gods or 10.75 gods?

 

[Subduction Zone]

An offhand remark in another thread got me to thinking:

Can you - or anyone - demonstrate that there are a whole number of gods?

To refresh everyone's memory: the whole numbers are zero and all positive integers (0, 1, 2, 3, etc.). Fractions, negative numbers, irrational number, complex numbers, etc., aren't whole numbers.

So... has anyone demonstrated that the number of gods isn't negative? Fractional? What is it about "god" that implies we can't have, say, -3 gods or 10.75 gods?

Or "imaginary, or even worse complex.

I sort of like the idea of an irrational complex number of gods. For example i plus the square root of two gods.

Nice thread concept.

 

[Augustus]

Some of those Greek heroes that were the children of a god and a mortal?

Would be like being half-French or mixed race.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Some of those Greek heroes that were the children of a god and a mortal?

Would be like being half-French or mixed race.

So is that how "god" works? Is a demigod the same thing as half a god?

... or does "god" work the way holes work: fill in a hole halfway and you still have exactly one hole.

 

[Quintessence]

Saying you can have a fraction of a deity (or -1 deities) makes about as much sense as saying you can have a fraction of a child (or -1 child). You either have a child or you don't. There's no half-children, and there's no negative children.

 

[syo]

What is it about "god" that implies we can't have, say, -3 gods or 10.75 gods?

these are daemons

 

[Kemosloby]

Yes, when you have a statue of a fake god, an idol, and a piece falls off, be it an arm or leg, or someone castrates it, it's no longer a whole number god.

 

[Jumi]

Depends on your definition of god. I'm curious as to how that would work with negative, irrational or complex numbers? Would their numbers be something measurable oscillating in a direction, examined at one point in time...?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, when you have a statue of a fake god, an idol, and a piece falls off, be it an arm or leg, or someone castrates it, it's not longer a whole number god.

"Fake god" implies that it isn't actually a god. In whatever definition of "god" that you personally hold, is "0.5 gods" or "-2 gods" a coherent concept? If not, what about "god" requires it to be a whole number?

 

[Sanzbir]

So... has anyone demonstrated that the number of gods isn't negative?

Show me evidence of a negative number of anything and I will accept it as a possibility that something could be negative in quantity.

Until then, the amount of a thing is not negative as it cannot be. Doesn't matter if you are talking about dogs or gods.

Fractional?

What do you mean by "fractional"?? I mean specifically in this context. What do you conceive of being "a fraction a god"?? Do you mean like how Tyr is missing a hand?? Would that count as a "fractional god" since he's missing a body part?? I wouldn't think that would be so, since I'm fairly certain most humans missing hands would still say they are a whole person. So what, in your mind, do you count as a "fraction" of a god??

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Depends on your definition of god. I'm curious as to how that would work with negative, irrational or complex numbers? Would their numbers be something measurable oscillating in a direction, examined at one point in time...?

Depends on what we mean by "god," I suppose.

I also didn't originally touch on "god" as a mass quantity instead of a countable object (e.g. "a pile of god," "15 kilometers of god," or "85 foot-pounds of god").

 

[Jainarayan]

Yes, when you have a statue of a fake god, an idol, and a piece falls off, be it an arm or leg, or someone castrates it, it's no longer a whole number god.

Not true. The idol is not the god. If a picture of me gets torn in half, am I now half a person? The picture is not me. It's only a device for focusing attention. If a piece of Jesus falls off a crucifix...

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Show me evidence of a negative number of anything and I will accept it as a possibility that something could be negative in quantity.

I can't do it with countable objects.

Does "god" describe a countable object?

Until then, the amount of a thing is not negative as it cannot be. Doesn't matter if you are talking about dogs or gods.

Last week, I experienced negative amounts of a thing: Celsius degrees.

What do you mean by "fractional"?? I mean specifically in this context. What do you conceive of being "a fraction a god"?? Do you mean like how Tyr is missing a hand?? Would that count as a "fractional god" since he's missing a body part?? I wouldn't think that would be so, since I'm fairly certain most humans missing hands would still say they are a whole person. So what, in your mind, do you count as a "fraction" of a god??

What "fractional gods" means - or if it's even coherent - depends on what we take "god" to mean. I'm asking each of the people here to answer in the context of their own understanding of "god."

In some understandings, it might make sense; in others, it might not. We can meaningfully talk about, say, half of a skateboard or half of a pair of shoes, but "half of a pile" isn't really a thing - it's still exactly one pile, just smaller than the original pile. So does it make more sense to talk about gods like skateboards or like piles?

 

[columbus]

Saying you can have a fraction of a deity (or -1 deities) makes about as much sense as saying you can have a fraction of a child (or -1 child). You either have a child or you don't. There's no half-children, and there's no negative children.

That depends on whether your definition of God is a person or not.

Abrahamic religions describe God as a person. That would make God a subset of the category person. That would make His Divinity a characteristic, like race. So, if a black person and a white person have a baby, in that group of three how many black persons are there? One could make the case for either 1 or 1.5 depending on what you count.
Tom

 

[Sanzbir]

Last week, I experienced negative amounts of a thing: Celsius degrees.

Well if you know anything about how temperature works, you'll know that a negative Celsius value is still a measure of a positive amount of heat, all the way down to -273.15 degrees.

"Negatives" do not exist outside of the conceptual.

What "fractional gods" means - or if it's even coherent - depends on what we take "god" to mean. I'm asking each of the people here to answer in the context of their own understanding of "god."

That's a really pointless idea for a thread, then, since each answer will vary to such a degree based on a variance of the definition of "god" that such discussion is fairly pointless. The thread will be more about how each person defines a "god" than it will be about answering the question at hand.

But if you want an answer based solely on each person's own understanding of the term and not on a fixed definition which we could discuss in a more theoretical framework, then my answer is this:

Mathematically speaking: ∞ / 2 = ∞.

Thus there is no meaningful difference between a fraction of a god and a whole god, the two are mathematically equivalent. A fractional god is thus a whole god. There is no diffentiation.

 

[LuisDantas]

Can you - or anyone - demonstrate that there are a whole number of gods?

I don't think so.

What would give humans the power to establish the acceptable parameters for the existence of deities?

 

[columbus]

That's a really pointless idea for a thread, then, since each answer will vary to such a degree based on a variance of the definition of "god" that such discussion is fairly pointless. The thread will be more about how each person defines a "god" than it will be about answering the question at hand.

Isn't that the case for nearly every discussion of God?
Including most discussions about religion and and religious morality, afterlife, worship and practically everything that religious people go on and on about?
That's the way it looks to me. What the religious people I know (mainly Abrahamic) are talking about is a fictional character that they have created based on ancient Scripture.

Discussing Him is pointless. Unless everybody understands that they are all talking about themselves and each other, not God.
Tom

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Well if you know anything about how temperature works, you'll know that a negative Celsius value is still a measure of a positive amount of heat, all the way down to -273.15 degrees.

The fact that a negative amount can be mapped to some positive amount doesn't mean that the negative amount isn't negative.

"Negatives" do not exist outside of the conceptual.

So if gods necessarily exist outside the conceptual, then negative numbers of gods necessarily cannot exist.

Is there something about "god" that implies it necessarily exists outside the conceptual?

That's a really pointless idea for a thread, then, since each answer will vary to such a degree based on a variance of the definition of "god" that such discussion is fairly pointless.

And it would make this meta-discussion of yours pointlessness heaped on top of pointlessness.

If you think the thread is pointless, you're free to ignore it. Nobody's forcing you to read it or post in it.

The thread will be more about how each person defines a "god" than it will be about answering the question at hand.

Bingo.

I'm especially interested to hear from people who say that "god" can't be defined, but have still somehow eliminated the possibility that there aren't fractional or negative gods.

But if you want an answer based solely on each person's own understanding of the term and not on a fixed definition which we could discuss in a more theoretical framework, then my answer is this:

Mathematically speaking: ∞ / 2 = ∞.

Thus there is no meaningful difference between a fraction of a god and a whole god, the two are mathematically equivalent. A fractional god is thus a whole god. There is no diffentiation.

But that goes the other way: if there's no meaningful difference between a fraction of a god and a whole god, then what we take as one god could just as easily be a tenth of a god, say. How do you tell the difference? How do you justify saying "this infinity is exactly one infinity and not a quarter of an infinity or fifteen infinities?"

 

[Jumi]

Depends on what we mean by "god," I suppose.

Right, the often given or assumed modern definition of god makes it indivisible.

I also didn't originally touch on "god" as a mass quantity instead of a countable object (e.g. "a pile of god," "15 kilometers of god," or "85 foot-pounds of god").

Whether they're useful or not, sounds like these would make creative names for alternative rock bands.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't think so.

What would give humans the power to establish the acceptable parameters for the existence of deities?

I'm not talking about existence or non-existence, necessarily. I'm talking more about the nature of gods.

As an analogy, consider different countable objects: skateboards and holes. In either case, without even looking in my backyard, I can say with certainty that there isn't a negative number of skateboards or holes in my backyard. I can also say that there may be a fractional number of skateboards, but there definitely aren't a fractional number of holes.

And this is all without looking my backyard and counting skateboards or holes. I can be sure that whatever evidence I collect in the future, it won't justify the conclusion that there are -6 skateboards or 3.2 holes in my backyard.