Consequences

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No, the movie is Minority report.

 

My bad - all those stupid Tom Cruise movies blend together after a while.

 

A movie has a fixed sequence of events. The person will catch the ball if the movie version has been filmed that way. Or you can create a movie in which the ball drops.

 

If God is indeed an infinite being, God would be required to encompass all of sexuality by definition (you can't be infinite and be asexual, you have to be infinitely having in gender, it's a contradiction otherwise). Specifically since if we do indeed exist (Skeptics go away) and God is infinite, we have to exist within God (go Berkeley) in order to keep him spacially infinite and then therefore, all properties that exist within our universe must exist within God (yes I know this doesn't fit with the Judeo-Christian notion of God). It doesn't mean God can't go beyond the scope of our finite world, but at the same time he can't be lacking in any non-negatitive varible in this world, unless it creates a contradition of God's infiniteness (Contraditions of other kinds have to exist with an infinite being), is the negation of another variable (such as being infinitely inactive or infinitely immoral or infinitely powerless, items that are reducable to a 0 quantifier) or a comparative variable (such as infinitely small or infinitely large, thank you Plato).

****... this looks like Sophistry

 

First off, God (judaeo-christian from here on out) isn't infinite in that sense. He is infinite in powr, in knowledge, in pressence, but He is not all things. God is not sin, nor can He sin. His characteristics are pretty well spelled out in the Old Testament. In this sense, He is not infinite in gender, nor in the characteristics of gender, or of humanity. God is not dependant, nor does He look to others to lead, as we humans do. He made us to be that way so that we would look to Him.

 

I'm unable to except that God is anything less then completely infinite. Making God finite as an entity defeats any rationalist purpose for a/the Rational God (Spinoza provides the best example of the rational god). Infinity of God is a requirement for certainty of knowledge (in a rational sense, empiricism can get by without it, they they become subject to the Law of Induction), for without complete infinity for God, the aspects God doesn't have have, to borrow from Plato, no form of which certainty comes from. There certainly can be no other being with certain qualities being infinite for non-god qualities to ascribe to without seriously damaging God's own infinite qualities, not to mention with two compeating sources of knowledge, you loose the certainty of knowledge.

 

You assume that reality, or at least knowledge, is relative, that there is no absolute unless it is exemplified. I understand your arguement. If God is not X, how could anything that is X have been created? X did not exist with God. My point is that X is X, regardless of whether there is anything with characteristic X or not. God, being the sole source of actual creative power in the universe, can create things that are not Himself, things that didn't exist before. Ex. "And God said, 'Let there be light.'" If God had to say it, light obviously didn't exist yet, so God created it from nothing.
Humans have a similar ability, that of creating ideas which didn't exist before. We can't create the actual thing, we can only forge it from pre-existing creations, but we can think up an idea from nothing. That idea is absolulte, regardless of any lack of characterization or reality in the material work.

 

Sorry, but I did not understand a word of the last 3 posts. Surely if there is a God, then he is some superpowerful guy with loads of powers who can do whatever he wants. The last few posts in this thread just sound like mumbo jumbo to me.

 

Hmm, Relative Infinity?

A fly on a wall may not percieve the corners, and may believe that the surface of that wall to go on forever, when in reality, the wall has it's limits, but the fly may not be able to perceive them.

Likewise, God may have some limits, but we, as mere mortals cannot comprehend them. In my religion, we are taught that "As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become."

This means that God was once human just like us. If we are to return to Him, we are expected to follow the example he set for us.

 

I like that, Gnarff, it deserves some pondering.

As was discussed before, according to the Torah God's name is YHVH, and no one knows how to pronounce it or what it means. But in my religion we're taught that when Moses received God's message he asked what name he should give to the people who were waiting, and God's response was something along the lines of "I am what am". Some also interpret this as "I will be what will be."

More pondering.

Re: God's Nature
There are as many interpretations of God as there are people in the world. Read this slim little book to get an overview of 10 interpretations of God that are very, very different, yet all fall within the scope of Jewish belief. I'm sure there are many, many more - and that's even before you throw Christianity, Islam, and any other religions into the mix.

 

This brings up images of Sid's Alpha Centari and Galactic Civilizations where there scientific victory ascended your species/faction into godhood.

Yet I've yet to be convinced the universe was designed by some 'creator' being. Frankly I think the universe never began... it just 'was' 'is' and will 'be'.

 

I agree with this completely, but likely not how you think of it. Have you ever seen MiB? Especially the main plot trying to find a marble that contained a universe, and then the ending where it kept zooming out until the marble that contained our universe was revealed. I'm of the opinion that some species created our universe in, say, a grain of sand or something, and someday, we too will create a universe within our own. God, therefore, would be nothing but a man (or whatever that species calls themselves), and we too will become a God to a different universe. Of course, that brings up the question of who created the 'first' universe, but I think it would be the denizens of the 'last' universe. Everything goes in a circle.

 

The curse of being a philosophy major... it actually becomes harder to talk philosophy once you become one. Everything sounds like Sophistry. I've become Gregorius...

 

Ilmater's Suffering, I don't even understand your explanation of my misunderstanding. Sophistry? Gregorius?

 

Sophistry is a reference to a popular pre-Socratic school of philosophy. If basically means to use exessive language and philosophical jargon to confuse your "opponent" into thinking he lacks the intellect to understand your argument.

Gregorius was one of the premier sophists and an absolute master of the art. I'm quite knowledgable of philosophical jargon and tend to excel in the analytical parts of philosophy and I can't even understand him half the time. He writes pages without even saying anything.

 

@HB:
That's ok, we can't all be uber geniuses.

@Gnarff:
Wha? What religion is that? The only time God was human was when Jesus was Human, as far as I know. Also, I'm not talking about relitive infinity, I'm talking about particular infinity: infinity in onve variable isn't infinity in all.
God obviously isn't infinitely sinful, since He can't sin at all, and He obviously isn't infinitly wrathful, or we wouldn't be here and His wrath couldn't subside. I'm not even sure He's infinitely merciful, there's some debate as to that in Christianity: "Is there an unpardonable sin?" Anyway, the Christian God obviously isn't infinite in all qualities.

@Rally:
The other interpretation I've heard is: "I am that I am." Wouldn't this mean that God is self-defining? Ooooh, fun!

@Fel:
You do realize that MiB was a movie, don't you?
Seriously, though. Fun theory, but even worse back up than atheism.

 

Technically, no. If you're truly sorry and repentent, your sins will be forgiven - at least that's in all forms of Christianity I'm familiar with. But that's the thing, you have to be truly sorry for what you've done. If you aren't sorry, then even a relatively minor sin won't be pardoned.

 

I thought Catholics believed in an unpardonable sin? And there is biblical evidence for it, its just rather unclear what "blaspheming against the Spirit" is. From context, this seems to be turning against God after you have been saved, or maybe telling non-christains lies that are designed to turn them away from Christ, but we're not really sure. A lot of protestants also believe that this was just a dire warning from Paul about something the recipients knew he was talking about. This has caused a few minor divisions among the denominations.

 

I have heard the "blaspheming the Holy Spirit" interpreted rather strictly, i.e. giving Satan credit for miraculous works performed by the Holy Spirit.

 

Huh? No unpardonable sin? Isn't that a bit of a cop-out? What's the point of defining sins at all then, if the religious justice system is going to let you off with a pardon every time.