this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

If we assume that god, by definition, must be omniscient, there is actually a way to disprove the possibility with the following paradox:

This sentence is not known to be true by any omniscient being.

There are also more traditional arguments like the problem of evil

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Theists roll their eyes at that, because nobody really thinks their god is omniscient or omnipotent. They may say so, either to deceive the nonbelievers, or out of ignorance of what omnimax really means, but every religion I can think of has had a fallible god, sometimes very fallible. There are the notoriously arrogant Greek gods, the stupidly belligerant Norse gods, the Jewish/Christian god foiled by iron chariots, and deceptive serpents, even Buddhists with their infallible smug asshole of a god have as a saying "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

Fact of the matter is no god is omni-anything, since that would prove they don't exist, and cannot be believed. Gods don't have to be omniscient. They only have to be way more knowledgable and aware than anyone else. They don't have to be all powerful, only way more powerful than anything mere mortals could muster. So saying "Aha! But your god can't possibly be all powerful, because then he could make a stone that he couldn't lift! Checkmate, theists!" falls flat, in the face of (outside of boasting) doctrine basically saying that their god makes mistakes and can't do everything.

CC: @[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

If we assume that god, by definition, must be omniscient

Why must that be true by definition? Many of the Greek gods were clearly not omniscient, because the stories about them all involve intrigues and hiding things from each-other.

Also, you can't disprove a god's existence by making a logic puzzle that's hard for you to puzzle out. Just because it's a toughie for you doesn't mean that it disproves the existence of gods.

That isn't even a particularly difficult logic puzzle.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Self-referential paradoxes are at the heart of limitative results in mathematical logic on what is provable, so it seems plausible a similar self-referential statement rules out omniscience.

Greek gods are gods in a different sense than the monotheistic conception of god that is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. Sure, so the argument I give only applies to the latter sense.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

That's not a paradox though, it's a silly logic puzzle that isn't hard to solve. It doesn't prove or disprove anything about omniscience or gods.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It is a paradox if you believe there are omniscient beings. If there are no omniscient beings, there is no paradox. The sentence is either true or false. If the sentence is true, we have an omniscient being that lacks knowledge about a true statement. Contradiction. If it is false, there is an omniscient being that knows it to be true. This means that the statement is true, but the statement itself says that no omniscient being knows it to be true. Contradiction.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It's not a paradox, it's a dumb logic puzzle. It's no different than saying something nonsensical like "This sentence contains 2 words".

If it is false, there is an omniscient being that knows it to be true

No, if it is false, then it is simply wrong. A wrong sentence doesn't imply something else is right, it's just wrong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

"This sentence contains 2 words" is a sensible sentence. It has 5 words, so what the sentence says is false.

The self-reference in the sentence is similar to that of the Liar's paradox. Cousins of that paradox have been used to prove major limitative results in mathematical logic such as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theorem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_incompleteness_theorems

In usual logic, a false sentence implies every sentence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional

Also, if sentence P is false, then "P is false" is true

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

"J Lou has stopped beating their spouse."

If this sentence is true, it means you used to beat your spouse. If it is false, it means that you currently beat your spouse. Therefore, it proves that you are married and at some point in time you beat your spouse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I'm sure the official line would be that God is also ineffable to man. "omniscience" as some human has expressed it in whatever flawed language it is probably a flawed translation from ineffable divine meaning.

Where is the evidence that god is actually "omniscient" or caims to be in the way that this proof interprets the term? It seems like hearsay to me.

But irrespective of what this god-thing may or may not have said about itself to whom, I don't see how the statement does more than show that "'omniscience' is a poorly defined/illogical term". Or maybe, "People who use the word 'omniscience' to describe the extent of knowledge are not expressing themselves clearly or accurately".

This should not be all that surprising as most humans - as I understand them - rarely need to communicate clearly about infinites - so those that do should probably not use English and choose a more apposite language. Maybe hebrew or watever languages these supposed prophets might have used has better terminology.

I suspect Moses might have flunked maths.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Man I don't know if I'll ever get over seeing Mastodon toots on Lemmy and all of the other wild cross-fediverse fun the Fediverse enables

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

I didn't notice until you said something. Wild.