Vinterland

I was trying to cover the subject with an atheist friend of mine and the question he posed is: "Can anything logical at all be said about God". I said yes, the most important logical statement that can be madea bout God, assuming it exists, it must FIRST be omnipotent; omnipotence is inclusive of other qualities such as omniscience. Once that is established and agreed that God must be omnipotent, it can then be logically concluded that God is illogical. My friend agreed, but it seems too easy to me and I am suspicious.

I ask, is it logical to conclude that if God exists, it must be omnipotent? Can anything be said logically about God?

marmalade

Not everyone who believes in some verion of a God necessarily believes in an omnipotent God. And God as a religious experience isn't logical, but much of our experience of reality doesn't comform to the expectations of our logical arguments. Logic is based on certain rules that help us to think consistently, but all logical arguments must begin with some beginning assumption. In the case of many religious people, the beginning assumption is an experience.

So, what if a religious person experienced God as omnipotent and so that was their beginning assumption?

But why, starting from that premise, do you think that a logical argument would lead to a conclussion of illogic?

Vinterland

In the case that God is omnipotent, this means that God is capable of doing anything. Once that is said, attempting to define any further distinct qualitites about God such as "all loving" are negated by the first assumption that God is all powerful for if itrue, then it follows that God is all loving and not all loving simultaneously. It's a paradox.

The point is that I think that God is logical to the extent that it is all powerful. That is a logical statement, isn't it? The contrary; "God exists, but is not all powerful" I don't understand. If God is not all powerful, then it may be the highest being, but we would not know that. An omnipotent if it exists is the One; there is no greater being.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

marmalade

I agree that a personal monotheistic God would seem to necessitate the trait of being all-powerful. I assume we're limiting ourselves to that type of God in this discussion, yes? Because if we're speaking about a more impersonal mystical Godhead, then its a whole different ballgame.

romansh

It is a logical conclusion, though not necessarily the logical conclusion.

I like your idea of a deadbeat sort of god ......more impotent than omnipotent???

Much more logical, should a god exist???

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

Vinterland

There are no limits to this discussion! As for this 'Godhead', please do explain.
Oh, but it is.
No offense Romans, but you're English is better on some days than others.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

marmalade

Let me first give you my take on 'God' as a word. 'God' implies many meanings often overlapping eachother: highest principle, universal law, inherent truth, core self, ultimate reality, ruler of the universe, creator, savior of mankind, wayshower, friend to all, longing for the beloved(Sufism), life force/anima mundi, Lila(creative play), The Word, necessary premise, source of all, monotheism, monism, nondualism, various pan- isms, and an endless variety of mystical experiences.

All of these can be stated as ideas, but all of these have also been directly experienced by people. You can dismiss the experiences as hallucinations or cultural expectations, but that wouldn't be helpful. As I've said before, the experiences are like any beginning premise in a logical argument. If you've experienced them, then they seem like reasonable premises. If you haven't then, they seem meaningless.

However, these experiences are also hypotheses that can be tested. And they have been tested by practitioners for thousands of years. If you want to see the complexity of this, then look into Hinduism where they've gone into greate detail.

When I said Godhead, I was using it in an extremely general sense. I was centrally meaning it as mystical experience, but the Godhead is also a theological idea that can be argued about. The problem is that the idea and the various experiences attributed to the idea aren't the same thing. This is the issue of interpretation of experience.

Besides, most religious people admit that God is a paradox, that God isn't limited to logic nor that logic is even the best way to know and understand God. The experience of God is an non-rational experience which isn't the same thing as irrational.

There are some things that simply are outside of logic. You can accept them or you can deny them. If you accept them, then they can be used as a premise for a logical argument... but premises themselves need not be logical.

As we're limiting ourselves to logic here, nothing more can be said unless we agree on the premises. However, to take experiences of God or Godhead as a premise we'd have to refer to various mystical traditions and the complex details of their philosophies.

I'm no expert in this area. But if you want to explore the best attempt to explain such things, then a good website is kheper.net. There is a lot of info there, and it would take years of study to begin to understand it. Its related to other integral theories. Integral is an attempt to integrate the various facets of human knowledge including spirituality.

Here is one definition of Godhead from that site:
http://www.kheper.net/realities/realities/godhead.htm

I don't know how any of this fits into the original post of this thread. And I certainly don't know what all of this means.

Logic is useful, but having a personal practice such as meditation is as or more useful. If you want to know what religious people are talking about, then the only way to find out is to explore it for yourself. In Buddhism, its suggested that you should take nothing on faith and should always test all truth claims. In Buddhism, you need not believe in a god, but 'Enlightenment' is basically no different than what many people mean by the word 'God'

I'll add that even atheists such as Harris reommend mystical experiences as being valid ways to explore what it means to be human and to experience reality as a human.

AB517

It is only mans ego that needs a God to be Omni-whatever. God has no such wants or desires.

WilliamBlue

It is only mans ego that wants a god that cares.

__________________
When you dance with an elephant it's up to you to not get stepped on.
How can we be so arrogant and egotistical to believe that the whole Universe was created just for us?

romansh

V
Should a god exist.

Why should it necessarily be omnipotent?
There is certainly no sensible evidence for this?
Could god have lost it's omnipotence at the moment of the big bang?

How many angels can dance on a head of a pin?

Nobody, but nobody, has a clue.

So my question to you is, "why do we worry about god so much?"

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams