₦airaland Forum

muskeeto2: Everyone who does evil in Nigeria is not a TRUE christian...... or Muslim...

but all atheists (note not true atheists) are evil.....

1supremo: ... and you should realise that an absolute rejection of The Absolute is a self-defeating argument.

Ihedinobi: Ok, you are dead sure that there are no deities because there is no evidence for them, but you're not sure about a first cause () and so are of the opinion that they might exist. Then you posit that if there's a first cause, it's most certainly just natural laws.

Ok, define "first cause".

Logicboy03: Yeah, you have to think about eye tests to understand the joke

As for Obama. Obama plays mind games. Talks sofly and destroys yo with drones. See wetin go happen for libya soon

Ihedinobi: Gee, antsy, aren't we? Dude, nobody, at least not me, is condemning you.

Ihedinobi: You want to play linguistics? Sentience or not, God/deity is simply that which caused everything but is itself uncaused. It is a noun that describes the phrase, first cause, just some economy of language. Whether or not it needs to be sentient is not part of this discussion.

Ihedinobi: So, NO, there can only be one first cause, however many entities or elements are involved.

Ihedinobi: "Why" therefore is an absurd enquiry rendering all scholarship meaningless. That is, according to you, of course.

Ihedinobi: If that which is eternal is subject to time, then it did not create time hence it is not eternal. Therefore, it is not God.

If God (read: first cause) exists, then it is eternal. If it is eternal, time is subordinate to it. If time is subordinate to it, then its activities cannot be described by the sequence of time. This means that it cannot be said to program its activities, then carry them out and then change its mind about the sequence etc. It must necessarily operate in an inscrutable manner.

Ihedinobi: Ok. Thanks for the lecture. Will look into it personally a little more.


Back to free will. Like you said, an absolutely free will is an absolutely arbitrary will. This means that its wielder does not operate choices. The owner of an absolutely free will does not choose between options because it recognizes none. The existence of options necessarily presupposes the existence of that which gives them. And the one who must choose from among the provided options must necessarily be subordinate to the one who provides them.

If God is the uncaused cause, there is nothing greater than it. Therefore there exists nothing that can give God options to choose from. So, what God has is purpose, that is, fiat. As such, exercise of free will for God cannot involve a change of mind.

Consider also that to change one's mind is to decide against one option in favor of another. This is not true of God. Being utterly arbitrary in decision, it cannot retract one cause of action to pursue another because there is no other.

Thus, your case against omniscience is thrown out as unfounded.

Ihedinobi: Ok. I'll humor you. You don't know. But you're dead sure there were no deities involved! How does this last sentence follow from the second one? How can you be sure about anything that touches something you also say you know nothing about.

Ihedinobi: Why?

Ihedinobi: Personal or not, anything you think explains existence is what you revere as God. And from your comment above, you have named it to be "natural laws".

Ihedinobi: Ok. Let's handle the simple/complex argument holistically.

I'm of the persuasion that the complex produces the simple, a devolution rather than evolution. By that I mean that if there's an absolute/final/ultimate reality, it must necessarily be more complex than every other reality contingent upon it.

I will deliberate leave the instances I gave initially to show this and use another which I consider a little more immediately conceivable.

Let's consider the seed and the tree. Which would you consider more complex and why?

Area_boy: you shot yourself in the foot with your first sentence lol

damn selfish Christians!!! hahahahaa

Logicboy03: lol.....I dont blame anyone for being cowardly. There is no use going against a crazy person, best is to smile and look for a covert way to avoid him,

Ihedinobi: To make this simple, you tell me: what is deity? What is God?

Ihedinobi: Is it possible for there to be CONFLICTING FIRST CAUSES? Just wanna make the question clearer.

Ihedinobi: Ok. Who is the question, "why", directed at?

Ihedinobi: Is that which is eternal subject to time?

Ihedinobi: Why do you say the bolded?

Ihedinobi: The following are by no means my concept of God. They're analogies of my assertion about the simple taking character from the complex.

Can you explain photons? What are they? How is it that an individual photon is massless but when matter is fully converted into energy, i.e. photons, this system of photons together retain the rest mass of the converted matter?

What is the uncertainty principle? Why such a principle at all?

Is an electron a particle or a wave?

okeyxyz: How can an adult write like this
Smh...

DeeTeeMan: It seems most of this discussion seems to be boiling down to semantics rather than a good feel for the points each other is making. Words cannot describe everything and that is why semantics can be counter-productive in debates. A bit of more regard and respect for each other's point of view will really go a long way to having excellent debate on issues, generally.

Ihedinobi: This is not true. All science shows that the simple takes its character from the complex, not the other way around. The simple is entirely an "unraveling" of the complex.

ayobase: Too much grammars water down a message!

Ihedinobi: Dude, I couldn't care less if you called it God or Pikkiwoki or the Royal Roar: if you attribute first cause to anything, that thing is the deity you recognize.

Ihedinobi: As for the "ultimate" wrangle, shall we call it "first cause" instead? Would it be possible for conflicting first causes to exist?

Ihedinobi: Imagine that I do not know anything about kicking or human beings and I saw a ball flying. What do you suppose is the first question I'd ask knowing what a ball and flying are?

Ihedinobi: So that we can get on the same page, what is free will? Also, what does it mean for anything to be perfectly arbitrary?

Mr_Anony: Being God.

DeeTeeMan: Life is an experience of our contribution in existence. If we can commit our existence to the goodness of our experience in living with others, then we can improve the goodness of our world.

I actually thought recently about difference between good and evil as not necessarily the outcome of an event but the intention of the person. The natural judgement of an individual may not just be the outcome of what he/she has done but his/her intention before, during and after doing it with all due respect and love for others around him/her. We usually know the truth about our original intention when we do things, whether we are prepared to tell this truth or not is another matter.

tbaba12345: @wiegraf

Your arguments are painfully weak...

If we had nobel prizes, hundreds of years ago, they would have been won by muslims...

The problems with the muslim world has been addressed in the first post, you really should do more reading

MacDaddy01: wow, so many failed arguments. Where is Ihedinobi?

Tgirl4real: I don't o. I thought u would have an idea.

Actually, I wanted to ask what happens to u when u die. Could u help me with that info?

Tgirl4real: lol

Do u perchance have an idea when u will die?