From: jeon@carson.u.washington.edu (Sangyong Jeon)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: logic, omni-, theism, and atheism
Date: 9 Jan 1993 08:40:42 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: carson.u.washington.edu

It seems that periodically, (i.e. each Autumn) the issue of omni-anything
comes up in this group. Especially regarding the free will. Bertrnad
Russell, the champion of atheism in my opinion, contributed a lot about
this and other issues from the logical point of view in his book 

Religion and Science.

Any theist who wants to talk about the issues of logic, science and
religion, read this book first and see if you can refute his view
logically. If you can't, don't bother to post anthing, we atheists tend to
be very strong in logic.

If a theist accept the validity of logic, he/she cannot even conceive of
converting atheists because the (non-) existence god is an axiom.
It is not provable in any logical way and both view is capabable of
explaining anything that comes up in life.
If a theist does not accept the validity of logic, atheists cannot believe
a word she/he utters, because there is no way we can attach (deduce) some
meaning to the words. We might as well look at randomly written text and
fathom the profound meaning of those randomness.

Logic is not something you can discard by saying

There are things you can't explain by logic.

If you think about it a little, the use of language itself is deeply
rooted in our ability to be logical. How does a theist try to convert an
atheist? He/She has to argue, persuade, win over, all of which at least
need this appeal to the logic:

According to the Bible....

This very pharase, "according to" presupposes logic. A theist's claim of,
say the salvation thru Jesus, follows logically if one accepts the authority
of the Book. If one cannot accept the validity of logic, "according to"
loses its meaning, therefore any appeal to the authority of the bible
loses its meaning. 

Logic is a double edged sword, once one accepts the validity of logic,
one cannot say,

This you can explain logically, but that you have to accept blindly.

Because once one does that, no communication other than the "divine one"
is ever possible.


Now about omni-potent being, ever heard of

Russell's paradox? :

Let S be the set of all sets that are not elements of themselves.
Then, if S is an element of S, S is not an element of S. If S is not
an element of S, S is an element of S.

(Advance apology to serious set theorists for taking this way out of
context) 

Now if a being is omni-potent, that being must be able to be
C, the creator of all creators that are not creatures of themselves.
Then if C is a creature of C, C is not a creature of C. Contradiction.
If C is not a creature of C, C is a creature of C, another contradiction.

If the omni-potent being cannot exist as our C, that being is not
omni-potent after all. Yet that being cannot exists as C without violating
logic.
Of course there is always that nagging possibilty that an omni-potent
being is really capable of being logically inconsistent and at the same
time exists. But the point is if that is the case, trying to talk about
that being logically is ultimately futile. All an advocate of that view 
can say is

You beliiev, you believe, you don't, you don't.

which is contentfree.

Free will and omniscince is in the same sense at odds with each other. I
know some argues about "future propositions" and similar non-sense, but
that is to say the god experiences time just as we do, from the past to
the future. That limits god, does any theist want that? If one says, until
god decides to know about my future.... that also puts limit on how god
experience times. Besides, what happens once god saw what happens in my
future? Does that mean my action from that point on is pre-ordained and I
am just a puppet that follows god's script? Thus no free will on my part?
What if god saw your future in advance? Then your arguing about free will
itself is a preordained event. Your thinking you have the free will itself
is a preordained event. Do you think you can escape this conclusion
logically? 

Opinions here are mine and mine only.
jeon