From: gfritz@sage.cc.purdue.edu ("Happy Fun Ball")
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Do Atheists have Thier Own "Faith"?
Date: 13 Apr 92 21:11:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: mentor.45220
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center

>Jonathan W Newton originally writes:
>  In my humble opinion, yes they do.  Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure
>  someone will), but atheist means:  "to conclude that God(s) does not exist",
>  while agnostic means:  "to draw no conclusion about the existence of God(s)."
>
>Colman Reilly states:
>  Jonathon seems right here.
>
>I state:
>  There can be no all-powerful entity.  It just defies the properties of this
>  universe.  
>
>Colman asks:
>  Why not? Which ones?

Okay, let me make a statement:  There can be nothing in existence that has
absolute power ("omnipotent").  Why?  Because being all-powerful would in 
itself would put limits on that power.  I will post the same question as I did
to someone who responded to my post via e-mail.  I read this in _The Emperor's
New Mind_ by Roger Penrose:  "Can God create a stone too big for Him to lift?"
Either answer limits His power.  It ranks right up there with the Immovable
Object vs the Unstoppable Force.  What happens when these two collide?  The
classic answer is an Inconceivable Event.  An argument against the paradoxes
is that such a being would be beyond our logic, understanding, and the physical
laws of everything as we believe them to be.  This is true.  My argument is
this:  If a being has properties that are not affected by the physics (whatever
they may be) in which we exist, then by the same token that being cannot affect
our world.  I don't beleive that we live in a bubble of a much larger universe,
in which the outside can affect us, but we can't affect outside.  If one does
believe this, then my arguments are not valid.  But aren't one's arguments
only valid under the beliefs of whoever made the argument?

>I later state:
>  I could accept the idea of a higher life form, which might _seem_ omnipotent,
>  but not without proof of such.
>
>Colman answers:
>  Fair enough.
>
>Somewhat ambiguous on my part:
>  A note on the concept of good, bad, & evil.  There is no such thing as evil.
>  Bad is just entropy, and good is the lack of entropy.  
>
>Colman justifiably inquires:
>  What? In what sense are you using "entropy"? I don't understand what those
>  sentences mean. In fact I'm not sure they mean anything.

Entropy as in the physics/thermodynamic sense: disorder.  Most things that 
might be classified as "bad" would have higher entropy.  A dead person has more
entropy than a living one.  A shattered glass has more entropy than an intact 
one.  The tendancy of "good" is to maintain or lower entropy within a system.  
A "good" government would keeps things in order, whereas anarchy would lead to 
a "bad" very unorganized society.  I don't feel that "evil" is its own property
but just an extreme form of "bad".   
  
I admit that last statement really had nothing to do with the original post or
my asnwer in response to it -- the "good/bad" statent.  I should have posted it
separately.  I apologize for the tangent.  :-)

Here's a followup thought:  Can there be more than one omnipotent being?  If so
how can one be so without limiting another?

Just food for thought.
Geoff
--
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 || "Maybe its imaginary, I'd like to know. ||            sage.cc.purdue.edu ||
 ||  What's the world coming to, and where  || gfritz @--(       or          ||
 ||    will it go?" -- Kirsty MacColl       ||            mn.ecn.purdue.edu  ||
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