• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Can God Defy Logic?

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
I have believed a lot of things since whenever I started believing stuff. Not everything I believed in my many years of believing things could be tested by those that could I found out later I was wrong. Maybe 90%. So 10%, and that's being generous, my beliefs were right. Usually because I based it as least partially of information and evidence I was somehow able to verify. So as far as what you believe to be true, I don't see were we are justified in placing much faith in.

Right! That sounds like non-belief. I understand that. I don't get the dis-belief.

Or all of them could be 100% wrong. What we humans know about the universe is very limited. We don't have the knowledge to make any educated guess. From this position, one guess/belief about God is as good or bad as any other guess. Reality or whatever the truth is could be something that no human has ever imagined before. Because of our limited understanding of the universe, we may not even be capable of imaging what the actual "truth" is. To me I see it like being blind in the middle of the universe and trying to hit a spec of dust a billion light years away with a bow and arrow.

"Or all of them could be wrong", is still non-belief. Dis-belief is "Y'all are certainly wrong." And that's where I still don't really get it. The weak point in the chain is non-belief. So the whole chain resolves to non-belief not dis-belief.

And it's not like hitting a spec, when there are two mututally exclusive options. Now the odds are 50/50, not 1/infinity.

For reasons stated above, no one need necessarily have actual knowledge about God. Far more likely that no one, regardless of how many people have tried shooting at it have been able to hit that dust spec with no knowledge of which of an infinite number of directions to aim in nor how far away it actually is.

Not if it's a 50/50 binary option. Omnipotent or Not. All that's needed is two people who disagree, and one of them is going to correct about that 1 aspect.

Perhaps a bow and arrow isn't even the right tool to make the attempt. IMO, we have to start with what we know we can verify to the best of our ability to verify and build on that. Not try to hit a target at some unknown direction/distance away with tools we don't is even capable of hitting it.

As the god concept gets bigger and bigger and bigger, then the odds of hitting that target get bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, it's stacking the deck. But, the same thing happens when the number of arrows increases and they are shot in all different directions.

As far as verifiable, it's verifiable that people have been thinking about God/god/gods for a long time, and many people have claimed encounters with the divine. That's a place to start for those who care about a god concept. I'm not one who says, a person is going to punished for being an atheist.

However, let me put it a different way.
I can tell you all you need to know about God. I've have had several conversation with God. God has given me visions to explain reality to me. I even know how something came from nothing. I asked God to show me and they did.

Oooh. Don't tease me. :hearteyes: I love that stuff. :sparkles:

While I've no reason to intentionally lie to you as I don't care whether you believe me or not.
Why should you believe anything I tell you?

It would be like I said. What you told me would be compared to my life experiences. And. If i like it, I would test it and see if it accurately predicted observable phenomena: how people, animals, plants, insects, inanimate objects, forces of nature, actually behave. And maybe-maybe if there was a method for connecting with the divine, if it was kosher ( fit for a Jew per jewish law ) and didn't seem like it would break my poor little brain, I might try it.

But. If it undermined what currently works for me. If it introduced doubt in my own, let's call them, known good methods... I wouldn't try them. But that doesn't mean I would conclude they werent true. Just that I wasn't going to dabble in that.

Make sense?
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Right! That sounds like non-belief. I understand that. I don't get the dis-belief.

Well, do you disbelief that I could without any breathing apparatus of course, live completely underwater like Aquaman?

Or that Aquaman really exists I suppose?

"Or all of them could be wrong", is still non-belief. Dis-belief is "Y'all are certainly wrong." And that's where I still don't really get it. The weak point in the chain is non-belief. So the whole chain resolves to non-belief not dis-belief.

And it's not like hitting a spec, when there are two mututally exclusive options. Now the odds are 50/50, not 1/infinity.



Not if it's a 50/50 binary option. Omnipotent or Not. All that's needed is two people who disagree, and one of them is going to correct about that 1 aspect.

I'm not talking about whether God exists or not, non-existence is only one possible attribute. I can imagine at least a dozen more possible attributes. Like is God physical or non-physical. Does God even feel emotions like love. Does God know we exist. Perhaps was an accidental byproduct of the creation of the universe. Perhaps God simply enjoys watching things suffer. That is why God created the universe in the first place. Everything you would assume about God could be wrong even if they do exist.

As the god concept gets bigger and bigger and bigger, then the odds of hitting that target get bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, it's stacking the deck. But, the same thing happens when the number of arrows increases and they are shot in all different directions.

As far as verifiable, it's verifiable that people have been thinking about God/god/gods for a long time, and many people have claimed encounters with the divine. That's a place to start for those who care about a god concept. I'm not one who says, a person is going to punished for being an atheist.

I've been thinking about a lot of things. That doesn't mean anyone of them exist. Maybe one does but why should I believe that if I have no way of verifying it?


Oooh. Don't tease me. :hearteyes: I love that stuff. :sparkles:



It would be like I said. What you told me would be compared to my life experiences. And. If i like it, I would test it and see if it accurately predicted observable phenomena: how people, animals, plants, insects, inanimate objects, forces of nature, actually behave. And maybe-maybe if there was a method for connecting with the divine, if it was kosher ( fit for a Jew per jewish law ) and didn't seem like it would break my poor little brain, I might try it.

But. If it undermined what currently works for me. If it introduced doubt in my own, let's call them, known good methods... I wouldn't try them. But that doesn't mean I would conclude they werent true. Just that I wasn't going to dabble in that.

Make sense?

I don't know how you would test it when if come to God since there is no physical evidence. Just claims. Sure I suppose I've read of a few experiences like mine but just as many, more really unlike mine.

You would I assume, trust your own experiences. I've found reasons, supported by science, not to trust mine.

Is it possible that "God" actually spoke to me? Sure, I can't prove otherwise.
It is also as possible that "God" was a persona created by my subconscious mind. That I had no conscious control over and certainly seemed a lot smarter than me about life. Certainly that is the most convincing part. To be told things you couldn't even imagine to be true but made perfect sense to explain the truth behind the reality you experience.

If you start to question that, it is pretty difficult not to question what others have claimed to experienced.
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
Well, do you disbelief that I could without any breathing apparatus of course, live completely underwater like Aquaman?

Or that Aquaman really exists I suppose?

Yes, I dis-believe those things.

I'm not talking about whether God exists or not, non-existence is only one possible attribute. I can imagine at least a dozen more possible attributes. Like is God physical or non-physical. Does God even feel emotions like love. Does God know we exist. Perhaps was an accidental byproduct of the creation of the universe. Perhaps God simply enjoys watching things suffer. That is why God created the universe in the first place. Everything you would assume about God could be wrong even if they do exist.

Yes. Unless you correct me, we're talking about the dis-belief that anyone anywhere knows anything correct about God/god/gods. In other words, were talking about the proposition: "anything anyone anywhere says about God/god/gods is false."

From what you're saying, it sounds to me like the propostion: "anything anyone anywhere says about God/god/gods is completely unreliable" is 100% justified. But I still don't see why it's being taken to the the next step from "is completely unreliable" to "is false".

I've been thinking about a lot of things. That doesn't mean anyone of them exist. Maybe one does but why should I believe that if I have no way of verifying it?

To me, it depends on the thoughts, it depends on the implications. Some people, when they think about the divine, it's literally irrelevant. The implications are not valuable or useful at all. For that person and those thoughts, there is no reason to spend a single second on them.

I don't know how you would test it when if come to God since there is no physical evidence. Just claims. Sure I suppose I've read of a few experiences like mine but just as many, more really unlike mine.

I would be testing the implications. I accept that anything I'm told and anything that I come up with on my own about God is going to be incomplete and just a model. So I'm not testing for God. I'm testing to see if the model works. If it doesn't work, then, I would assume that the model is faulty.

You would I assume, trust your own experiences. I've found reasons, supported by science, not to trust mine.

Is it possible that "God" actually spoke to me? Sure, I can't prove otherwise.
It is also as possible that "God" was a persona created by my subconscious mind. That I had no conscious control over and certainly seemed a lot smarter than me about life. Certainly that is the most convincing part. To be told things you couldn't even imagine to be true but made perfect sense to explain the truth behind the reality you experience.

If you start to question that, it is pretty difficult not to question what others have claimed to experienced.

There are objective ways to test the implications. For example. I would be a terrible manager. I managed very small teams twice in my life, and it did not go well. I did OK, the second go-round, but the first time was not good. But! I'm a great adviser. Generally speaking, I'm a worker-bee. But what I understand about human nature, comes from my model of God. And from this model, I'm really good at predicting how teams and individuals will react to management decisions. And also rapid root cause analysis of HR type problems. I need very little info to figure out what's underlying the issue. I often hear, "Wow, that is exactly what they said, word for word." It just happened yesterday, TBH. It happens often. How often? I don't know. A lot. And the converse happens too. I'll ignore what matches the model, and when I do, I regret it.

It's not perfect, and I'm saying not it's proof of anything other than the model works for me. And other people have models that work for them.

So it's similar to what you're saying, but taken in a totally differen direction. I'm not expecting nor looking for proof of God/god/gods. I'm just looking for models that work, and listening to people who have models that work for them. One of the reasons religions are popular is because they contain popular models that have worked for many people.

The problem is, the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Delving into the divine has great potential for both getting big, and falling big. So, in a way it's almost better to avoid it. People use religion to subjegate and oppress and seize power. That cannot be denied. But that doesn't mean there aren't people out there who aren't subjegating, oppressing, and seizing power. The fact religion can be used for those things, is evidence that it does have power behind it. Not that this is evidence of God/god/gods, but it's evidence of something. Divinity? Spirit? I like these words, but, they're just place-holders. It could be anything. I could call it, quimby. Doesn't matter. The name doesn't matter at all.

Anyway, hopefully that answers your question for how to test whether a God/god/gods belief has merit. It's making a model, then testing the implications of the model.

Regarding justifying the stronger dis-belief of people's knowledge compared to the non-belief of God/god/gods, I'm still just guessing about what that is. I mean, well. I have a model that predicts what I think is happening. But I also feel like launching into that prediction would be rude.
 
Last edited:

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
From the unitary, advaita, perspective, what we experience is "God's great dream" which includes nature's laws and human logic.
Well, if God dreamed of human logic, I am not sure whether that was not a nightmare, instead.

ciao

- viole
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.

An easy example would be an omnipotent God.
Logically an omnipotent God cannot exist.

Does this mean the existence of a God cannot be logically explained?
I was reading yesterday that Thomas Aquinas once said there are three things God cannot do.
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot make a copy of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle whose angles add to anything other than 180 degrees.

I think that third statement answers your question about whether God can be illogical. :)
 
Last edited:

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Logic is a tool, a mental construct. It has no connection to the world outside phenomenon. It has utility and predictive power but only hints at what kind of world we might be living in. Fortunately, a few hints in the right direction can be helpful.

Yeah, we agree. Now welcome here.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
The Christian version of God is not omnipotent, IF, those verses are interpretted literally.
And then while we're at it, the Christian version is not monotheistic either if Satan is literally the God of the earth.
So, the god concept changes depending on how literally a person interprets scripture.
Yes, some people even interpret Matthew 5:29 as literal instead that Jesus was Not advocating self mutilation but speaking metaphorically.
Satan is the 'god' of this world of badness - 2nd Cor. 4:4 - but 'god ' as a title and Satan is never addressed as Almighty God.
Remember too that Satan is an angelic son of God. Satan is a creation and Not the Creator - Rev. 4:11 (Satan is Not even his name )
1st Cor. 8:5-6 ...... there be gods many, and lords many.... (KJV) but to Christians there is but one God.......
Also, please notice Psalm 82 because even the human judges were ' gods' in title because they used God's judgement to judge right or wrong.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Well if we can't depend on a literal interpretation of the Bible to get the correct concept of God, what can we depend on?
Jesus' parable illustrations were Not literal happenings but teachings for us.
Jesus too taught Not oral law or quoted from the rabbis or those in authority but from Scripture as religious truth - John 17:17
Those unfaithful religious leaders spread rumors like ' hate your enemies ' - Matt. 5:43 - which was Never any part of the Mosaic Law.
Whereas, in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount Jesus included many direct or indirect references to the old Hebrew Scriptures and Not rumors.
Jesus was metaphorically speaking at Matt. 5:29-30 to be willing to ' cut out of one's life ' anything harmful like an amputation could save one's life.
So, to me we can depend on what Jesus taught and rediscover God's original purpose for us and Earth - Gen. 1:28; Ecclesiastes 1:4 B. Psalm 104:5
That humble meek people will inherit (live forever) on Earth as Jesus promised at Matthew 5:5 from Psalm 37:9-11; Psalm 22:26; Proverbs 2:21-22
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Jesus' parable illustrations were Not literal happenings but teachings for us.
Jesus too taught Not oral law or quoted from the rabbis or those in authority but from Scripture as religious truth - John 17:17
Those unfaithful religious leaders spread rumors like ' hate your enemies ' - Matt. 5:43 - which was Never any part of the Mosaic Law.
Whereas, in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount Jesus included many direct or indirect references to the old Hebrew Scriptures and Not rumors.
Jesus was metaphorically speaking at Matt. 5:29-30 to be willing to ' cut out of one's life ' anything harmful like an amputation could save one's life.
So, to me we can depend on what Jesus taught and rediscover God's original purpose for us and Earth - Gen. 1:28; Ecclesiastes 1:4 B. Psalm 104:5
That humble meek people will inherit (live forever) on Earth as Jesus promised at Matthew 5:5 from Psalm 37:9-11; Psalm 22:26; Proverbs 2:21-22

Sure some people for example claim that Jesus was not a literal person but a metaphor for the son of God each person is meant to be.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Well if we can't depend on a literal interpretation of the Bible to get the correct concept of God, what can we depend on?
It is not as convenient, but people manage to understand that the bible is not always literal all the time and do just fine.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Right! That sounds like non-belief. I understand that. I don't get the dis-belief.



"Or all of them could be wrong", is still non-belief. Dis-belief is "Y'all are certainly wrong." And that's where I still don't really get it. The weak point in the chain is non-belief. So the whole chain resolves to non-belief not dis-belief.

And it's not like hitting a spec, when there are two mututally exclusive options. Now the odds are 50/50, not 1/infinity.



Not if it's a 50/50 binary option. Omnipotent or Not. All that's needed is two people who disagree, and one of them is going to correct about that 1 aspect.



As the god concept gets bigger and bigger and bigger, then the odds of hitting that target get bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, it's stacking the deck. But, the same thing happens when the number of arrows increases and they are shot in all different directions.

As far as verifiable, it's verifiable that people have been thinking about God/god/gods for a long time, and many people have claimed encounters with the divine. That's a place to start for those who care about a god concept. I'm not one who says, a person is going to punished for being an atheist.



Oooh. Don't tease me. :hearteyes: I love that stuff. :sparkles:



It would be like I said. What you told me would be compared to my life experiences. And. If i like it, I would test it and see if it accurately predicted observable phenomena: how people, animals, plants, insects, inanimate objects, forces of nature, actually behave. And maybe-maybe if there was a method for connecting with the divine, if it was kosher ( fit for a Jew per jewish law ) and didn't seem like it would break my poor little brain, I might try it.

But. If it undermined what currently works for me. If it introduced doubt in my own, let's call them, known good methods... I wouldn't try them. But that doesn't mean I would conclude they werent true. Just that I wasn't going to dabble in that.

Make sense?

Based on the fallible nature of humans and conflicting diversity of beliefs and ancient anthropomorphic tribal scriptures atheists and agnostics have good reasons to reject their Gods and supernatural beliefs.

Verifiable?!?!?! Thinking of Gods for a ]long time' is not justification to believe. Neither is a 50/50 proposition justify anything except the result of the flip of a coin.

Actually considering the problems of human nature we are all likely wrong concerning what exists beyond our physical existence. Ancient world views have the weakest possibility. In this case non-belief is a more rational conclusion for thos who propose 'there is no reason to believe.'

In a previous post you question the difference between 'being unreliable versus being false. Being reliable would be in support of in some way being possibly true.
 
Last edited:

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Logic is a tool, a mental construct. It has no connection to the world outside phenomenon. It has utility and predictive power but only hints at what kind of world we might be living in. Fortunately, a few hints in the right direction can be helpful.
. . . but considering the limits of the fallible human nature it is extremely inconclusive.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I think the provable, the unprovable and the logical paradox make a threesome with God that He uses all together.

Sure it's not that I have a concept of God I'm trying to defend. Some folks have said God can defy logic others not.

If you say God can defy logic then you don't really have to defend anything since a defense would require a logical argument which doesn't, in this case apply.

If you say God cannot defy logic, that's ok too. But if you say both God cannot defy logic and is also omnipotent then it seems a reasonable conclusion that an omnipotent God would necessarily be able to defy logic.

So that is my argument, how can you have the concept of a God which can both defy logic and be unable to defy logic at the same time.
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Sure it's not that I have a concept of God I'm trying to defend. Some folks have said God can defy logic others not.

If you say God can defy logic then you don't really have to defend anything since a defense would require a logical argument which doesn't, in this case apply.

If you say God cannot defy logic, that's ok too. But if you say both God cannot defy logic and is also omnipotent then it seems a reasonable conclusion that an omnipotent God would necessarily be able to defy logic.

So that is my argument, how can you have the concept of a God which can both defy logic and be unable to defy logic at the same time.
I'm saying God doesn't defy logic.

I'm saying by classifying everything as provable, unprovable and as an actual paradox there is nothing out there God can't handle.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
It is not as convenient, but people manage to understand that the bible is not always literal all the time and do just fine.

I believe that there is sufficient historical, literary, and archaeological evidence that those that wrote, compiled the Bible from different sources including oral traditions like all ancient tribal scriptures that authors consider it for the most part literal.

The concept of considering the scriptures symbp;oc and anecdotal in many ways when confronted with recent science and textual analysis is relatively recent since the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
 
Top