Binary Systems

Greg Erwin errancy@freethought.tamu.edu
Sat, 30 Sep 95 02:46 CDT (00812468760, 199509300743.DAA24508@freenet2.carleton.ca)



>>On 29 Sep 95 at 23:46, Aditya wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>My point is just the contrary. You do not lose anything by
>>conceding such an entity since logically it cannot exist. It is
>>what is know in logic as "reductio ad absudem".
>>
>
>I have never heard this argument before, can you elaborate on it. If I
>understand your premise, you are saying that an omni* being can not by
>definition exist. How is this so?
>
>Lance Cote

Hello, Greg Erwin here, new to this list, but old to the debate.

I would say that omni* will always involve some kind of contradiction. Though the real world is a place of random events with no overall purpose, human minds attempt to find patterns in it. This is an urge built-in (by natural selection). Christians assume that everything that happens serves the purposes of a creator and sustainer, and work backwards from the events to find the "purpose" every time. Seeing as they "find" a purpose every time, the obvious conclusion is that that the purposeful entity is omnipotent as 'everything' that happens is what he wants to happen.

However, things happen at cross-'purposes', things happen with no 'sense' to them. Unless your god is the indifferent Brahman, or the nature's god of the Deists, you cannot attribute purposes to what actually happens. Christians, unlike Hindus or Buddhists, will not admit a god that is repsonsible for both evil and good.

Well, enough for a a start.

-- To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist--all this is but the beginning of wisdom.--Robert G. Ingersoll / Greg Erwin, VP, Humanist Association of Canada