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Off-Topic Does God actually exist?

Salt said:
Do you have a verse you can reference?
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I will get back with this request. I have been setting some plants on fire. There have been some effects. But not drugs. I didn’t mix anything with water flour or baking soda!! 😎Katt Williams the GOAT
 
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imurcane said:
Would certainly give an interesting perspective to the phrase god in man’s image.
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Not sure that is a good take. God by definition as the greatest possible being would have to exist in every possible world, including one in which there was no man to conceive of him.

The ontological argument is clever in that the atheist would have to argue that the existence of God would be impossible in any possible world. If God's existence is even possible, then he would have to exist in every possible world since a being like God would not be the greatest if he exists in some possible worlds but not others. We could conceive of a greater being.
 
imurcane said:
Possible/Probable Scenario right?
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Not possible because of certain logical contradictions when actually applying infinity to the actual world. Infinity is an abstract mathematical concept not an actual one.

For example, if I am walking from point A to point B I would never be able to arrive to my destination since I would only be halving the distance I get there each time. Mathematically that could go on forever but in actuality we do eventually arrive at our destination.

Another example is that infinity + infinity = infinity - infinity. Applying real world math to an actual infinite just doesn't work.
 
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Salt said:
Not possible because of certain logical contradictions when actually applying infinity to the actual world. Infinity is an abstract mathematical concept not an actual one.

For example, if I am walking from point A to point B I would never be able to arrive to my destination since I would only be halving the distance I get there each time. Mathematically that could go on forever but in actuality we do eventually arrive at our destination.

Another example is that infinity + infinity = infinity - infinity. Applying real world math to an actual infinite just doesn't work.
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For the first example, a mathematician would argue that the discordance stems from our lack of understanding about the real world. In reality, you can never travel from point A to point B. All numbers, when applied to reality are unreachable and just as obtuse. We travel in space, through space, at quantum levels in fuzzy probabilities. This is partly why physicists and engineers deal with significant digits and probabilities.

For the second example, the issue is lack of specificity. Infinity is better defined by infinite sets. One infinity might be the set of all integers while another may be the set of all real numbers between 5 and 6.

Most importantly, this has nothing/everything to do with God.
 
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We the Boss said:
A finite being with limited perception will never understand the infinite.

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”
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Great quote, hadn't heard it before. Googling I found this take on it...

Wittgenstein, Culture, and Value: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” – Thinking Prismatically

prismatically.blog
In his work called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein ends his book with the stunning phrase: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”. Although this phrase of his has deeply affected me and my thinking, it is quite ironic that what I am doing right now contradicts with the literal meaning of the phrase, that is choosing not to be silent in interpreting Wittgenstein, and writing about it. However, I cannot stop myself from sharing some of his notes and his thinking along this Wittgenstein Series that I intend to write.

To get back to the phrase, Wittgenstein was initially interpreted as trying to narrow down the problems that philosophy engages with by limiting it to the observable; where supernatural concepts like God, beauty, justice, love were to be avoided, because it was meaningless to do so. However, his later notes reveal a different reality. Wittgenstein not only believes that such concepts are essential in being a human, but speaking of them degrades and cheapens our intuitive understanding of these concepts. Therefore, other means of expression take over when the capacity of language cannot withstand the significance of such concepts and the weightiness of human emotions. Hence when words fail to express, other forms of art (as in poetry) and culture (as in various rituals) take over.
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It made me think of a book I'm currently reading: The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes - Donald Hoffman. A fascinating take about the limits of our perception.
 
imurcane said:
Would certainly give an interesting perspective to the phrase god in man’s image.
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Yes, I believe God exists. Earth and its inhabitants had to be created by a greater power. That power is God.

On a separate note, we've come to understand that virtually everything in our universe has a beginning and an end. The concept of infinity should therefore be a complex one for us to grasp. Does our universe not have an end? Anyone have any practical answers on that?
 
Suhrthing said:
Great quote, hadn't heard it before. Googling I found this take on it...

Wittgenstein, Culture, and Value: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” – Thinking Prismatically

prismatically.blog


It made me think of a book I'm currently reading: The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes - Donald Hoffman. A fascinating take about the limits of our perception.
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Here’s another one:

Words always take on the color of the deeds or sacrifices the evoke.
 
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Canegrad89 said:
Yes, I believe God exists. Earth and its inhabitants had to be created by a greater power. That power is God.

On a separate note, we've come to understand that virtually everything in our universe has a beginning and an end. The concept of infinity should therefore be a complex one for us to grasp. Does our universe not have an end? Anyone have any practical answers on that?
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I agree. I just think He has been pretty hands off for a long time. To me, He's given us the ground rules and lets us find our own way and judges us at the end.

On your separate note, from what I've read the scientific theory is the universe is finite, but growing after the "Big Bang". Supposedly it will reach a maximum point and start to retract once it reaches its maximum stretching point. Kind of like a bungee cord.

Who knows?
 
BlastUla said:
For the first example, a mathematician would argue that the discordance stems from our lack of understanding about the real world. In reality, you can never travel from point A to point B. All numbers, when applied to reality are unreachable and just as obtuse. We travel in space, through space, at quantum levels in fuzzy probabilities. This is partly why physicists and engineers deal with significant digits and probabilities.

For the second example, the issue is lack of specificity. Infinity is better defined by infinite sets. One infinity might be the set of all integers while another may be the set of all real numbers between 5 and 6.

Most importantly, this has nothing/everything to do with God.
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I was only making a case that the universe could not be past eternal and that the concept of infinity doesn’t apply to our reality for the very reasons you illustrate. I can take an infinite set of negative numbers and add them to an infinite set of all the positive numbers and still get the same result if I then subtracted the infinite set of all negative numbers from all the positive.

However, there is nothing probable about the distance travelled by the head of a hammer that meets your skull and makes a loud thud with all due respect to physicists and engineers with their fuzzy quantum probabilities.
 
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