A limit to God's power?

TENYEARS

Visions, is one aspect of experience. Sometimes there is no vision at all, just pure knowing. There are other kinds of experience also, 3 kinds which have also happended to me which I will not mention on the forum. Yet ultimately, they are all formed out of a single experience which we tend to place in boxes of our own definition. Maybe I'm just full of carp, then again maybe not. Would you know the difference? Maybe I am a liar looking for attention, forums a good place for that right, no one knows you. Can you tell what truth is by someones word or by their expression or acts? Does an act or word have to be in inorder for there to be truth?

Scott Sieger

TenYears,

How valid is a personal experience to others besides yourself?

If the experience is unable to be shared by others how much value has it?

If you could share your vision and experience with others and not just in the form of words and rhetoric.

Is it a valid presumption that others will share your enthuisiasm if we can not fully share your personal experience?

So alas you are left with a personal insight that others will and quite justifiably denounce as inconsequestial.

Say I stand here and say that I am God, say I wrap it up in all sorts of arguement and verbal persuasion. What does this achieve except nothing but complaints relating to my sanity.

Even miracles require verification and proof of happening, beyond that which is personal experience.

For your own experience is subject to you and your thoughts and not that of others, thus always subject to the limitations of your own understanding.

And the limkitations that apply to the sharing of that expereince.

I am not saying for a moment that your experience is invalid as it is surely valid to you but I am saying there are limitations on how you can share this experience with others and because it is subject to no other scrutiny that your own judgement it leaves it berift of proveability.

Do you expect aothers to submit that your word is all that is needed for what you are about to say being the truth?

TENYEARS

Nice post, I expect nothing. My experiences have been shared by many. Just not so much on this forum. They would stand against scientific inquiry. What I speak is truth, but it is not because I own truth, but because I am part of it and a witness to it. If you look at the words I have spoken and their manner and you are searching for the truth, they will hit you in full, if you are not interested, they might as well be dust in the wind. I try never to speak of what I do not know and separate what I know from what I was taught or what I believe. Credibility is not in proving, it is in realizing. That will always and only be the way. The other way is a trail of bread crumbs in a forest full hungry birds. You will never "know" where you are. If you understand these words, than you are on the begining of an unmarked trail covered with brush and trees. If one believes me they are lost, if one does not believe me they are lost, if one does not understand and they refuse to submit to belief and stand there in the midst of unknowing and refuse to submit, then I see the spirit of a warrior born.

Scott Sieger

so what premises do you wish us to agree upon?

yesicanread

Could God be Omni/Present,Powerful, Omnesent? Sure. Because he is in fact present. The presence of a grasshopper is different presence than God.

God cannot be what he says, and as present as a beatle. The bee is present, and powerful as a bee, God is present, and as powerful as God. See where I'm taking this ?

God didn't say. He was just omnipowerful. Which is what is asked by you. How can God have all power, when we drain it. He can't be all power.

But he said allpower, or him, is allpresent. Present where ? n the kitchen ? In the miami ? Or French restaurant ?

So power exists outside of God. But God/Power, is present where he is, Thinking about taters and such I suppose.

So God the person lacks no power. In Legend or mystery of the Christ's trinity. I won't talk about them too, much. This is a physics forum afterall.

misogynisticfeminist

I've tried to explain this question.......

Does God possess limits? In my opinion, No, (i don't intend to substantiate this assumption just as yet, but its just something.......). When people compare God to something limitless, boundless, they usually think that God is like so Good, so smart, so powerful, that really, he is limitless. But i beg to differ, i mean, how good is good, how smart is smart etc. etc.

If you were asked ,"Why do christians say God is good and God is not the best?" It is really that Best is a limit of Good, when we say best, it cannot get any better. No matter how fantastic and how far out this limit is, a limit is still a limit.

The human mind expands, from the discovery of fire to Fibre-optics, this shows the flexibility and stretchability of the human mind. And I believe that God has a mind which functions the same way as us, the human mind is prehaps the greatest masterpiece (no matter how great your girlfriend may look). God has no fixed limit. Because if he did, our human intelligence would be able to reach it.

So, regarding that question.

Weight of stone=Ifinity
Strength used to lift the stone=Infinity.

So strength used to lift stone=weight of stone. So yea, God can create a stone he can lift.

Dorje

"The concept of god is irrational to the point of absurdity."

--George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God

I suggest you read Smith's book. It will clarify the fact that god does not exist. And since god does not exist, any argument about god is absurd. You can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

Enjoy!

Prometheus

I disagree. Whether or not god exists, whatever that means, people who argue about god react with feelings, beliefs, actions, stress, etc. Such reactions can be life altering. Arguments about god can have significant effect on people, whether or not the subject of their argument actually exists. I do not think the non-existence of god alone is sufficient to label such arguments absurd.

Scott Sieger

I have posted a thread that may be relevant to this discussion.
Titled
a lesson in reasoning?

How the inconclusivity of that which is defined God is a lesson in reasoning.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=36732

olde drunk

god and it's definition will always be a matter of belief; not faith.

if you believe, you will have one particular life experience. If you don't, it will be another type of experience. Further, within each major group, the experience will differ as to how you do or don't believe.

bottom line? your world will reflect how and what you believe. somehow, as with QT, the cosmos will allow(or support) the experience to be influenced by the expectations and/or bias of the individual having the experience.

was or is god so inconcievable that s/he/it loosed us on the physical world as an aspect of itself? with all the rights and priveleges of a god? (again, playing within the rules of physical existence).

if we can sense, feel and understand that eternity and infinity exist, it must exist. are we an idea construct of 'god'?

love&peace,
olde drunk

vanesch

I do not agree. It doesn't testify of the strongness of a reasoning that its author is not convinced by it :-) This doesn't mean that there cannot be elements of reasoning which only tend to point out certain relatioinships between propositions without taking a position on the premises. But this shouldn't be the only form of reasoning allowed. Indeed, if it were the case, reasoning doesn't serve any purpose, because it could never be used to reach a conclusion (take a position).



cheers,
Patrick.

Deeviant

Now we have hit the real arena in which God(gods) should be discussed: psychology. You, and many others have a urgent need to find truth. Unfortunely, the truth is not readily available in our world, so some people are forced to make up their own truth(tm) in order to cope with their inability find the real truth(if there even is a real truth). Some people are very imaginative and are great story tellers and their made up truth(tm) catches other people's fancy, thus religions are born. These truths(tm) evolved and grew like many other ideas and have become very entrenched into a great portion of our worlds population.

There are a great number of different truths, and normally a great subdivision within each "single truth(tm)," which makes a great portion of our worlds population wrong by default. It also supports the idea that god(gods) is(are) made up. And if there is a god(gods), you'd think he'd be able to keep his story straight to his many thousands(millions?) of prophets throughout humanity's history.

Oh wait, I guess this is just all part of the somebody's god's plan, a god who lives in another dimention, outside of our reality and known laws of physics...
Whats that, he talks to you? Oh, **** why does everybody get to talk to god but me I guess it makes sense that he'd(she/it/them) only want to talk to people that already believe in them,

Heres one question for you TENYEARS, who would you be, what would you be without your beliefs?

Philocrat

Omin is right.... infinity cannot wander off the confine of finiteness. In a computer program, you can place what seems like an infinite loop inside a finite loop, does that make all the things that can be done in that program infinite? If you run the program, all the things and events outside the so-called infinite loop won't just get done even though the loop itself is placed inside a finite loop that has an entry and exit logical pathways. Even a piece of chalk in your hand may contain what seems like genuine infinite quantities or dimensions.

We have this problem in philosophy where the truth of a given statement appears to be regressing into infinity and there are disputes about it. I personally steer clear of such disputes. I always attempt to ovoid infinite regress by building what I recently labled 'TRUTH BOUNDARIES' around all my declaratory, existential and quantitative statementes or claims. And only very recently some philosophers are beginning to recognise and appreciate ordinary conversation as a complete boundary of truth. The Conversational Theory of Truth says that the truth of a conversation cannot be sought outside it since the conversation itself is an exclusive and complete boundary of truth. That to seek the truth of a conversation outside it is utter folly.

On the issue of God's existence, I have gone down on record in claiming that God is analytically indestructible because of the evidence that I obtained from my own detailed examination of the subject! That God can create anything beyond His/Her powers is a non-starter!

Namloh2000

I came to this forum to post the same question:

"could god make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?"

I find that someone has already posted this extremely coincidental.

We assume, of course, that God's abilities are without boundary. Quite a paradox, eh? If God could create such a stone, it would contradict the fact that his powers are limitless, hence negating the concept of the nature of his existence. Of course, the same would apply if he could not create such a stone.

We have to remember this, though:

Our minds operate in an environment structured by God, who created time.

Our logic is causal in nature; the algorithms by which our minds operate presuppose time, leading us to rest upon this question as paradoxical. I feel that we are imposing a structure upon the theory of logic, giving it an "infallible nature", one that we need to think abstractly to look past.

We operate through a series of if-then scenarios, a cause leading to an effect. Cause and effect cannot exist without time as a medium. Our logic is based on deductive reasoning, which is based on causation, which is based on time and our biological arrow of time.

So, without time, both causation and our inherent sense of logic break down, and become irrelevant.

It is silly to assume that God, who created time, even operates in a causal environment where such if-then questions are even askable.

It is also silly to assume our logic and comprehension are adequate enough to understand the nature of God.

magus niche

i do not 'believe' god can be proven to exist. but i 'believe' that s/he/it probably does. if one believes in infinity, i believe one is believing in god. to say the finite is infinite is true and false at the same time, no? ie. an infinite set is actually a symbol of a process: ever increasing/decreasing. infinity is not a static number, but as a process it is a 'whole', so to speak.

our minds differ to an nth degree, and so does the universe('s). we all have different ways of conceptualising data, and generalising about our observations (logic is just one method). imagination seems infinite. it is a natural part of humans, no? if our minds are infinite, does this mean space/time is also infinite?

i think here lies clues to the questions posted here. if we 'created' our own language, then all of which we are speaking is OUR own creations. not to diminish the existence of god('s). to me this very much reinforces the notion of a power within/without. each one of us has a slightly different version of 'reality' crystallised/memorised within our own brain structure. when these realities 'overlap', 'objective' reality exists?: science and its 'physical reality' is an example of a common reality, one that can be studied by different individuals using methods combined with technology.

but one still makes the choice to 'believe' that the methods and conclusions of logical science are leading to some sort of 'truth' about existence. similar in value is religion, philosophy, etc. from around the world, that come to conclusions about life and the way to live it.

peace

"the journey is as important as the destination,
and the destination is needed to begin,
but to find the destination is not essential,"
said the wise man to himself and to his kin. (Me 10:12 (gmt-6) 17.9.04)

Lacy33

How would you suggest we build a foundation of global thought, including all of the varied wisdoms, and build a unifying model of the universe including a spiritual dimension?

TENYEARS

Scott Sieger, agreement is not required in life. Common ground comes naturally over time. One of my visions of two years ago will come to pass in your lifetime. It will be a proving of the nature of reality "beyond our skin and our connectedness to it".

Deeviant, who would I be with out belief? I would be me, for that is what I am now, without belief. Jesus was once challanged about gods law or weather it applies to him. This gist of the comment was he came in accordance with the law, one with it. Jesus understood the very nature of reality less he could not have spoken those words from himself. You see truth is not about belief. You may not believe it exists, but isn't that the paradox for you. "believe that it exists". Belief sometimes takes you to a path to the left and sometimes to the right but what is encompasses all things. To a true searcher the path will disappear into the is.

Are you really interested in truth?