joshuagenes

Now your learning Grasshopper. If you look in the dictionary you will find a number of meanings for each word. This is because in making a dictionary they took manuscripts and determined the definition of words from the contexts in which they were used. What was written in the manuscripts were people's experiences both real and imagined. The words in a dictionary are defined with other words in the same dictionary and are meaningless without experience, truth, reality. Weak definitions only apply to narrow contexts. Strong definitions encompass great contexts. Weak definitions are drawn from narrow experience. Strong definitions are the silver thread that connect much common experience. The dictionary is a great tool for understanding the meanings of words but is subordinate to the understanding that created the dictionary in the first place. Here again is the theme of seeking the higher order truth. You would be misapplying this wisdom if you used the dictionary as your understanding. The dictionary is just a tool, a jumping off point for understanding the meanings, ideas, and experiences that shape our world. It is a beginning not an end!

My questions were meant to stir conversation within context of the paradox. The concept of god or gods has always been the basis for moral judgement of men. As to the properties of omnipotent, omnipresent, and being able to answer prayers, these are said to apply to some gods and not to others. Take Artemis as an example, the reason her followers gave that she could not protect her temple in Ephesus from being burned to the ground was that she was off overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great. She was not omnipotent or omnipresent as to the prayers she received concerning fertility I am sure her answers were close in line with the probabilities. And yes you are correct communism and capitalism can both be made gods.

As to your question about knowing whether god had changed the rules on you recently, that would depend of who your god is as well as your understanding of this god. If you are Muslim and hold the Koran as your guide to Allah then you would see god as having stated abrogating and non-abrogating verses. Which means he changed his mind often throughout the time that the Koran was written or having known the future he lied about it the first time. If your God is defined by the truth then what he says cannot be changed. However imperfect people's understanding may change and this will appear as if God has changed the rules. Likewise if a contract has been made between two parties with a stipulation that if the terms of the contract are met a new and better contract will replace the old contract... then the rules will have changed but these rules are governed by higher law and higher truth which have not changed. How do you know anything in this world? You see, you taste, you touch, you hear. If you see a tree in the distance but you don't know what kind it is but on closer inspection you see apples then you know that it is an apple tree if it had pears it would be a pear tree. If it produced good fruit it would be a good tree if it produce bad fruit or no fruit it would be a bad tree. By a tree's fruit you know the tree. For you to know whether the thing that you, Rich, or other men have made a god has changed the rules on you recently or not is to first be humble because you are a fallible human being and appearances are deceiving, next hold the thing that has been made god up to the light of the highest order truth and test it's fruit.

Now back to the paradox! What are all the ways this paradox might be resolved?

Dear Phil, you argue so passionately against the existence of God. You fight for this belief, you defend this belief, and you espouse dogma in accord with this belief. You are so emotionally bound up that each of your responses it is as if you didn't actually read or understand what I had actually written. I have not argued for or against the existence of God but simply exposed the paradox between Rich's belief and the definition of what makes something a god to men. Stop begging the paradox and going off on these tangents. Address the paradox logically, consistently, and within the proper context. Okay Rich? I mean Phil.

I made further clarification when I stated "He has faith in the idea there is no God and this idea is his god." The idea that there is no God very much exists whether or not God himself exists. Also the definition of what defines a god to men also exists. If Rich says he has no god but his actions, his values, and his beliefs say otherwise, what are we to believe? If a god is defined as the root and foundation of a mans values and beliefs. Is the definition of what a god is to man inescapable? Have I not stated "He does everything that makes a god a god to other men." The paradox lays between the reality of what Rich truly believes and the definition of what a god is. I am not playing with words.

A universe includes everything that is connected so any parallel universe that may exist we can not know of because we are not connected. So what happens in this universe has no relationship to any other and therefore we can not make any such comparison or have any such consequence. Freewill is also suspect as some choices are made for us and have to a certain extents have molded the environment in which we operate. I prefer partial freewill as a better model of the choices we make. You have to play the hand that you are dealt to the best or your ability that is all you can do.