Which is just a fancy way of saying that god doesn’t exist.
No it is more like a fancy way of saying that God is beyond existing/non-existing. He transcends our conceptualizations of it.
IOW: it’s just a fancy way of saying god doesn’t exist. Couching it in pseudo-philosophical terms in order to obfuscate that is intellectually dishonest.
Wait, so does this also mean Joseph Smith lied to all of us?
(Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum!)
“Transcendence” isn’t a pseudo-philosophical term, sorry buddy.
It is when you wish to annihilate ontology, buddy.
I’d say trying to study the existence of something that supposedly transcends existence is rather pointless. Which leads us back to my original post concerning ineffability.
The idea that an ineffable and transcendent “being” is somehow limited or confined to our preconceived notions concerning the essence of existence/non-existence seems rather silly to me.
To think that God and God’s nature can be defined, summed up, conceptualized, and debated with words…
Negative theology is nothing new.
Donny, you apparently haven’t been paying close attention to what’s been written in this thread–or even to popular science magazines, books or television shows–since then you should know that your above contention is false. By simply not being so bigotedly closed-mined and taking the time to read over what’s already been written you could have saved yourself from making such ignorant statements.
It’s long been known that no laws of physics can apply to a singularity. The reason is because physical values are at infinity in a singularity, and it is not possible to add or subtract from infinity, hence making any laws of physics impossible to be applied to a singularity.
And yet the known laws of physics (i.e., general relativity) prove that singularities do exist. That is, the laws of physics prove that something exists to which no laws of physics can apply.
This is a fact that has been widely disseminated in popular science books, magazines, and television shows, in addition to the physics textbooks and journal literature, so there’s no excuse for your ignorance on this matter.
Prof. Stephen Hawking, in his book The Illustrated A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1996), pg. 179, wrote: “In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to spacetime and at which the laws of science break down.”
Agnostic and physicist Dr. Robert Jastrow, founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in his book God and the Astronomers (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), pg. 113, in reference to the Big Bang singularity:
“”
This religious faith of the scientist [that there is no First Cause] is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.
“”
For more quotes by Robert Jastrow on this, see:
John Ross Schroeder and Bill Bradford, “Science and Discomfiting Discoveries” in Life’s Ultimate Question: Does God Exist? (United Church of God, 2000) http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/GE/discomfitingdiscoveries.htm
For more quotes by scientists along the above lines, see the below article:
Mariano, “In the Beginning … Cosmology, Part I,” Atheism’s Assertions, February 20, 2007 http://lifeanddoctrineatheism.blogspot.com/2007/02/in-beginning-cosmology-part-i-see.html
For the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems proving that singularities exist according to the known laws of physics (i.e., general relativity), see S. W. Hawking and R. Penrose, “The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London; Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 314, No. 1519 (January 27, 1970), pp. 529-548.
For the proof according to the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) that the Omega Point (i.e., the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God) exists, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler’s below paper:
F. J. Tipler, “The structure of the world from pure numbers,” Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf Also released as “Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything,” arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007.
Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler’s above paper was selected as one of 12 for the “Highlights of 2005” accolade as “the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website.” (See Richard Palmer, Publisher, “Highlights of 2005,” Reports on Progress in Physics website.) Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain’s main professional body for physicists.
Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal’s impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers. (And just to point out, Tipler’s 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper could not have been published in Physical Review Letters since said paper is nearly book-length, and hence not a “letter” as defined by the latter journal.)
Right, because you can’t study the existence of something which doesn’t exist UNLESS you clearly state that you’re doing it from the concept of “realm of fiction”.
Negative theology is just a cowardly way to avoid having to deal with the fact that god is an incoherent concept.
Actually, Prof. Frank J. Tipler had been an atheist since the age of 16, yet only circa 1998 did he again become a theist due to advancements in the Omega Point Theory which occured after the publication of his 1994 book The Physics of Immortality (and Tipler even mentions in said book [pg. 305] that he is still an atheist because he didn’t at the time have confirmation for the Omega Point Theory).
Tipler’s first paper on the Omega Point Theory was in 1986 (Frank J. Tipler, “Cosmological Limits on Computation,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 25, No. 6 [June 1986], pp. 617-661). What motivated Tipler’s investigation as to how long life could go on was not religion (indeed, Tipler didn’t even set out to find God), but Prof. Freeman J. Dyson’s paper “Time without end: Physics and biology in an open universe” (Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 51, Issue 3 [July 1979], pp. 447-460 http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt ).
Further, in a section entitled “Why I Am Not a Christian” in The Physics of Immortality (pg. 310), Tipler wrote, “However, I emphasize again that I do not think Jesus really rose from the dead. I think his body rotted in some grave.” This book was written before Tipler realized what the resurrection mechanism is that Jesus could have used without violating any known laws of physics (and without existing on an emulated level of implementation–in that case the resurrection mechanism would be trivially easy to perform for the society running the emulation).
For the proof according to the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) that the Omega Point (i.e., the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God) exists, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler’s below paper:
F. J. Tipler, “The structure of the world from pure numbers,” Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf Also released as “Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything,” arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007.
Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler’s above paper was selected as one of 12 for the “Highlights of 2005” accolade as “the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website.” (See Richard Palmer, Publisher, “Highlights of 2005,” Reports on Progress in Physics website.) Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain’s main professional body for physicists.
Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal’s impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers. (And just to point out, Tipler’s 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper could not have been published in Physical Review Letters since said paper is nearly book-length, and hence not a “letter” as defined by the latter journal.)
Mathematics is not empirical science. The Scientific Revolution, the foundation and origin of the modern discipline of science, is dated as having occured with the publication of Catholic Church cleric Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in 1543. As well, the university system, which helped make the Scientific Revolution possible, is another invention of Christianity. For the history on the foregoing, see Thomas E. Woods, Jr., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2005).
Well that sort of arrogantly assumes that all things are indeed knowable and comprehendible to us, including the essence of “what it is to exist.”
Basically, words, thought, language, etc can only describe the explicate order of things. Since God is not an explicate thing, but indeed the Implicate Order of all things, confining “what He is” to human thought or words is essentially futile. To say that God exists or does not exist is equally trying to quantify the unquantifiable to mental positions.
God is an “incoherent concept” because he transcends our conception of Him. I don’t really know how “cowardly” pointing that out is but w/e.
is irrelevant.
Yet they clearly had the concept of basic machines.
You fail at history.
That’s not arrogant; that’s proper.
Meaningless gimblebabble.
When will you theists learn that you can’t try to bluff your way out?
First: singularities in physics are hypothetical scenarios which result from following theories to their logical conclusions. This does not mean that they are proven to exist (though perhaps it’s true that what does exist could not have properties inconsistent with those of the postulated singularity). It means that they follow from specific ways of modeling existence.
Second: If singularities do literally exist, they are still physically extant. Some physical laws cannot be applied to them (seemingly because of the incompleteness of our current scientific understanding of the universe), but that’s not the same as saying that they don’t exist in a physical sense. A complete account of the laws of physics would ostensibly allow us to describe the behavior of singularities. The same would not be true of the theistic God.
Third: The only features of singularities which we can coherently postulate are those which follow from the models which entail them. Given that the God of theological accounts has properties like “omniscience,” “omnipotence,” and “omnibenevolence,” and given that such properties could not be modelled given our current understanding of physics, it simply cannot be the case that we can demonstrate the inherence of these properties in anything (never mind a non-physically-extant entity like God). Accordingly, we cannot demonstrate the existence of the theistic God.
In this conversation’s context, it’s not that it’s irrelevant, rather it’s that the facts disprove your false claims. You falsely asserted that the Omega Point Theory is an attempt to justify a belief, when actually it’s a result that ran contrary to its supporters’ belief-systems, Prof. Frank J. Tipler’s as well as mine. I myself was a resolute atheist before I had to acknowledge, if I wanted to be logical, that rationality requires that one believe that the Omega Point exists according to the known laws of physics.
Many cultures before the Scientific Revolution had invented machines. But it was Christianity which gave to the world science as a systematic discipline. For the history on the that, see Thomas E. Woods, Jr., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2005).
No, it is intellectually dishonest to claim that we know the essence of what it is to exist and that we can convey that essence through thoughts and words. We only know our conception of what it is. I feel it is rather pointless to debate someone’s preconceived notions of something that supposedly transcends our preconceived notions of things.
I wasn’t aware that I was really a theist. I feel both theism and atheism suggest attachments to mental positions concerning God. Since I feel that wordsand thought cannot capture reality (they can only point), it is rather pointless to debate the existence/non-existence of what is called God.
What “way” am I trying to bluff out of, exactly?
Yeah, it actually is. You’ve nothing but your desire to co-opt science.
And yet the Greeks wrote about them, described them, and understood their workings. Christianity did NOT give us science as a systematic discipline; it was merely rediscovered as one after centuries of rebuilding.
No it isn’t; it’s proper. It’s intellectually cowardly to hide behind some idiotic dual-or-multi-realmist garbage attempt at ontology. The mind-bogglingly-dumb “Pythagorean Hangover” (as one of my friends calls it) has hamstrung philosophy for millenia.
I’m sure you would like people to believe that.
You’re incorrect.
Ah, so you’re a mystic. Ok. No problem. You want reality to be malleable and respond to your wishes. Gotcha.
From having to acknowledge that there is but one realm.
It is pretty close minded to think that our descriptions of reality are in fact reality.
I see nothing intellectually cowardly about transcendence.
I’m sure I don’t really care whether people believe that or not about me. In fact, if you wish to think of me or consider me a theist then that is your prerogative.
Gee you sure convinced me there.
No I don’t want or believe any such thing. You sure are great at assuming and jumping to conclusions, it seems.
What?
Pray-tell, what is this “one realm” exactly, since you seem to have existence and the nature of reality all figured out?
And it’s pretty closed-minded to think that cyanide is a poison and that 2 + 2 = 4. What is your point?
Sounds like a personal problem to me. In the way you wish it to be used, it’s just code for “I am makiing this up as I go along”.
Just as you convinced me with your “I feel”.
Your words betray you.
Why should I, since you clearly don’t believe that words can accurately describe reality? If I were to do as you ask, you would necessarily have to admit that words do in fact do such. And I wouldn’t want you to be a hypocrite.