The best and simplest argument I've seen to bend a sky fairy into paradox comes in the form of a question: can <insert sky fairy here> create an object too heavy for it to move? It's a simple paradox illustrating that omnipotence and omniscience simply cannot exist; that is, there is no way within the bounds of human understanding that such power or knowledge can exist because it would fundamentally contradict itself. Either the deity lacks the knowledge to create the object it cannot move, thereby precluding omniscience, or it cannot move the object it created and, thus, is not omnipotent.

Trying to argue all this free will nonsense without acknowledging the implications of omniscience and omnipresence is just stupid.

Yes, I know the initial statement of this post superficially contradicts the initial statement of my last post. Get over it, it's not central to the points being argued and I can't edit the previous post now anyway.

Damnati fucked around with this message on 05-21-2010 at 03:13 PM.

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I like big butts and Damnati can not lie:

It is no matter of deities being special. We know a movie has a script because we are aware of how a movie is made; having a seen a movie before and knowing how it ends by no means implies a script on its own. My point is that a deity, by its nature as a metaphysical being, exists outside the normal set of rules. If a deity is omniscient and omnipresent, it has seen this movie before and knows how it will end; no script is implied because the deity is not foretelling or predicting anything. A deity has foreknowledge by virtue of being there, not by virtue of there being only one plausible choice.

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You still aren't quite getting it.

Because a deity has been there, and seen what happens, events must unfold in that way. It is impossible for the events to unfold in any other way. Every decision will occur the way it is known to occur, and every random event must go the way they are known to have gone. If there is any possibility for the events or decisions to go any other way, then the deity hasn't been there, it's been in one possible there. And that's not omnipresence or omniscience, it's just probability.

For the future to be known with 100% certainty, there must be 0% possibility for events to differ between the present and the future. In order for there to be 0% possibility for events to differ, free will can not exist, except as an illusion.

Blindy fucked around with this message on 05-21-2010 at 03:19 PM.

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Damnati startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
Incidentally, the entire problem involved with arguing sky fairies is that are special by their very definition. When you're trying to argue away the qualities of something the breaks the rules just by existing, to say nothing of what it chooses to do with itself, you get into a lot of trouble. I don't have much in the way of a personal stake in what you choose to believe, I just think it's amazingly stupid to build a deity-shaped strawman and act like defeating is the same as defeating the sky fairy on its own terms.

The best and simplest argument I've seen to bend a sky fairy into paradox comes in the form of a question: can <insert sky fairy here> create an object too heavy for it to move? It's a simple paradox illustrating that omnipotence and omniscience simply cannot exist; that is, there is no way within the bounds of human understanding that such power or knowledge can exist because it would fundamentally contradict itself. Either the deity lacks the knowledge to create the object it cannot move, thereby precluding omniscience, or it cannot move the object it created and, thus, is not omnipotent.

Trying to argue all this free will nonsense without acknowledging the implications of omniscience and omnipresence is just stupid.

Yes, I know the initial statement of this post superficially contradicts the initial statement of my last post. Get over it, it's not central to the points being argued and I can't edit the previous post now anyway.

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That's not logical.

So, to make it more concrete, I'll give you a scenario and you tell me how your position works:

I'm really thirsty when I get home from work, so I go to my fridge to grab a beer. It's completely empty except for a single bottle of Newcastle and a single bottle of Chimay. If your omnipresent deity knows for a fact I'm going to choose the Chimay...explain to me how I'm making a choice and not following a predetermined path.

But I ain't seen a woman do that.