Quote from: BADecker on July 08, 2015, 09:40:50 PM

Quote from: the joint on July 08, 2015, 06:15:02 PM

Quote from: BADecker on July 08, 2015, 04:06:00 PM

Quote from: the joint on July 08, 2015, 03:52:56 PM

Okay, here we go. Finally there

The problem here is two-fold:

First, it's a false-analogy to liken an omnipotent god to some imaginary dragon, even if you ascribe the imaginary dragon to be omnipotent. This is where logic weighs in on things and can catch subtle distinctions which make a world of difference. Instead of an imaginary dragon, let's use the well-know examples of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Russel's Teapot. Again, for simplicity, let's just focus on the FSM.

Specifically, the problem is that the FSM, even if omnipotent, is a false analogy. This is because the identifying characteristics (i.e. what constitutes its identity) of an omnipotent god is its omnipotence, whereas for the FSM it is both omnipotence and the topological characteristics of being a monster made of spaghetti who flies, i.e. its physical constraints. So, an omnipotent god, or ID for "intelligent designer," is defined in terms of a total lack of constraint, whereas the FSM is defined in terms of both constraint and a total lack of constraint.

This is critically important because it means one cannot be the other. If an ID omnipotently assumes a level of topological constraint, it does not lose any aspect of its identity because it remains omnipotent and thus is still equal to itself. However, if an FSM omnipotently changes its topological constraints, e.g. it becomes a teapot or a dragon, then its core identity is changed and is no longer equal to itself. An FSM who becomes a teapot is no longer an FSM no matter how omnipotent it is.

Second, and stemming from this first point, we must then concede that if an ID exists, it falls totally outside of observation and empiricism, and is therefore a priori untouchable by empirical science. Therefore, Occam's Razor, which only applies to empirical phenomena, is irrelevant. What then matters is whether an ID is implied by logical necessity, and the method of exploration required to determine this is in no way based upon observation of empirical events. There needn't be any assumption of a "God-of-the-gaps" if you can determine what is logically necessary at a fundamental level, and at a 100% level of tautological confidence.

My only questions about this are:

1. If God is omnipotent, why couldn't He make Himself to be within the universe and outside of it, entirely, and at the same time, while not allowing the universe to have anything to do with anything outside of it, and vice versa, except that He allowed it to be so in certain instances?

2. Is there any way an Objective God could let some people believe in Him while completely allowing those people who didn't believe in Him to not even recognize that He exists, and also letting a method exist to reach those people who didn't believe in Him so that now and again some of them would become believers?

1) Assuming God must therefore be outside the Universe could in this case be viewed as a semantic limitation of an empirical worldview. I much prefer to use mathematical sets, specifically Real and Unreal. If God is real, then He must necessarily be within the set of reality, and there could be nothing real enough outside of Reality so as to be able to determine it or create it (hence reality must create and/or determine itself). I'd also point out that your own thoughts or feelings cannot be empirically observed. Would you conclude they are unreal or outside of the Universe?

2) Yes, and I actually attempted to linguistically model this within this thread. The most general modeling, which requires a lot of explanation, is that God : reality :: man : perceptions. You could say God is trying to know Himself and self-actualize via a superpositional, singular act of creation; that reality is essentially a theory of itself; that we are stratified, isomorphic images of God who attempt to know ourselves and self-actualize via our perceptions of objective reality and the theories we derive therefrom. Objectivity is a relation. At the "god-level," He knows Himself objectively relative to his creation. At the "stratified-level," we know ourselves relative to the theories we form about objective reality as it is perceived. There must always be a subjective anchor by which objective reality can be known, and it is known in terms of the subjective anchor itself.

Edit: Phrased another way, consider God in terms of both objectivity and relativity, where "objective" God is monistic, and "relative" God is stratified, i.e. "objective god" is distributing its monistic structure or essence into its stratified constituents. This stratification allows for diversity in essence. Accordingly, one person who claims Jesus is the only way may be completely correct, and as correct as someone else who says Allah is the only way -- what the two share is a recognition of the monistic essence in spite of its diversity. However, one who rejects the essence altogether may be in trouble, for he rejects the means by which he can self-actualize and know his true nature as a part of that essence.

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Talk like this might be fun, but it is entirely meaningless. Why? Because even within all the math and logic that mankind has come up with, mankind is so extremely weak in every way imaginable, that we can't know whether or not there is some aspect of even logic that is in God's inside-the-universe realm, but not in man's as yet.

This passage that you wrote is both a mathematical and logical formulation, adhering to the most fundamental algebraic structure of all -- language. Any thought you will ever have, and every sentence you will ever communicate, is mathematical/algebraic. "In the beginning was the Word," i.e. language, i.e. mathematics.

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Mankind is starting to do some great things. And these great things lie withing the realms of both the physical and mental. But man is just barely starting to learn them, like how to regrow limbs... while there are animals by the thousands or millions that do it on a regular basis.

Another statement formulated according to an algebraic structure.

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[blah blah blah]

More math (in structure).

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Math (in structure).

Edit: Correct, there is no way to possibly know whether some higher form of logic exists. That is why it is completely irrelevant to us and I will never entertain it in a discussion (nor should you) other than to say that, well...it's irrelevant. Actually, it's irrelevant, quite literally, because it is unreal...because only that which we know is real accords to our logic. Anything that our logic cannot account for is thus a priori unreal.