Comment on Eat lead
jlou@mastodon.social 1 year agoIf we assume that god, by definition, must be omniscient, there is actually a way to disprove the possibility with the following paradox:
This sentence is not known to be true by any omniscient being.
There are also more traditional arguments like the problem of evil
If we assume that god, by definition, must be omniscient
Why must that be true by definition? Many of the Greek gods were clearly not omniscient, because the stories about them all involve intrigues and hiding things from each-other.
Also, you can’t disprove a god’s existence by making a logic puzzle that’s hard for you to puzzle out. Just because it’s a toughie for you doesn’t mean that it disproves the existence of gods.
That isn’t even a particularly difficult logic puzzle.
Self-referential paradoxes are at the heart of limitative results in mathematical logic on what is provable, so it seems plausible a similar self-referential statement rules out omniscience.
Greek gods are gods in a different sense than the monotheistic conception of god that is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. Sure, so the argument I give only applies to the latter sense.
That’s not a paradox though, it’s a silly logic puzzle that isn’t hard to solve. It doesn’t prove or disprove anything about omniscience or gods.
Man I don’t know if I’ll ever get over seeing Mastodon toots on Lemmy and all of the other wild cross-fediverse fun the Fediverse enables
I didn’t notice until you said something. Wild.
howrar@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I don’t understand how this disproves the existence of an omniscient being. What if I said “This sentence is not known to be true by any logical being.” Is my existence disproven now?
jlou@mastodon.social 1 year ago
Being logical doesn't imply knowing every true sentence.
Also, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knower_paradox
@science_memes