What created God?

Originally posted by tomtom232
I understand the concept of forever just fine. You just don't get the concept of 0.

If God can do anything he can also do nothing. If God can do nothing once he can do it infinitely if he chooses which means he can do something once if he chooses and then proceed to do nothing for the rest of infinity.

If god does nothing, (and this includes thinking or moving, in so much as god does such things)
then how do you detect any instant from any other instant?

In fact how do you claim time is passing at all?

EDIT: If god is doing nothing, including thinking, he can't ever do anything else again without
some outside influence kicking him back into life.
If this is in the range of gods possible actions it would be indistinguishable from death.
Which as I have already said, if he has been around for an infinitely long time he would have done this
already. Agerg's argument not withstanding.

If god is thinking and continuing to decide not to do something then for the decision to have meaning then
he must be able to change his mind and start doing things again.
And of course forever being forever at some point he would change his mind and start doing things again.

Originally posted by googlefudge
If god does nothing, (and this includes thinking or moving, in so much as god does such things) then how do you detect any instant from any other instant?

In fact how do you claim time is passing at all?

I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that God can do nothing infinitely which if so he can do 0 + 1 infinitely which is much different than doing infinite things infinitely.

God can blink once and time can pass infinitely he can then proceed to do nothing for the rest of infinity.

You are the one who is trying to quantify infinity not me. Infinity is not a quantity thus it has no value thus it is equal to zero which also is not a quantity which also has no value... you are trying to quantify zero.

Originally posted by tomtom232
I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that God can do nothing infinitely which if so he can do 0 + 1 infinitely which is much different than doing infinite things infinitely.

God can blink once and time can pass infinitely he can then proceed to do nothing for the rest of infinity.

You are the one who is trying to quantify infinity not me. Infinity is ...[text shortened]... zero which also is not a quantity which also has no value... you are trying to quantify zero.

whoa, infinity is not equal to zero.
It is not equal to any number.

I am not trying to 'quantify' infinity.... I don't think you have understood what I am saying.

Originally posted by tomtom232
If God created the universe then what created God?

Well, I propose that God did. What, you say? That is laughably circular!

It is circular but not laughably so.

Just read on.

Take an infinite line, we'll call it eternity.

<----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

The absolute value of a s forward as a fact just as a possible and interesting answer to a controversial question.

A more nearly accurate illustration of the relationship of eternity to human history/time would be an important speck of dust

within an infinite sphere, a single dot on a piece of paper or in linear form an interrupted line without a beginning or end:



ETERNITY PAST) --------------------------- [human history/time] --------------------------- (ETERNITY FUTURE



😉

Originally posted by googlefudge
You are presuming of course that there are an infinite (of any cardinality) number of things god can do.

I was limiting god to a finite (if fantastically large) set of actions.

However if you ARE making god infinite in his actions... Why are you limiting god to only doing one thing, or even
a finite number of things at once?

You also presume a n)

And so I rebut the argument that god can only perform first cardinal numbers of actions.

I don't think I'm making assumptions as much as, for the sake of argument, closing doors only on lines of enquiry I can be absolutely sure don't work (to that end I reject the notion of a self creating god). Remember, the typical theist without understanding what he/she means will readily assert the number of things a god can do is infinite.

Moreover if I admit (again only for the sake of argument) a god infinite in it's actions, I impose no limitations on such gods that they can do only one or finitely many things at once. the basic problem is that if the set of single (loose definition, for convenience, of single) things to do is infinite, then taking the powerset of this set is a different (bigger) size of infinity and it's difficult to argue it couldn't then do any of the things in this new set (even infinitely many of them at once so to speak) - but then you could take the power set of that (and suppose it could potentially do any of all those things), ... ad infinitum. The cardinalty of time however would simply be what it is (whatever that may, for arguments sake, be where some god is concerned)

Originally posted by googlefudge
whoa, infinity is not equal to zero.
It is not equal to any number.

I am not trying to 'quantify' infinity.... I don't think you have understood what I am saying.

You're right but zero is not equal to any number either... zero is not a number as much as infinity is not a number. They are the same concept. Nothing is just as limitless as infinity. Ie 0 = infinity.

Basically, I can say I have an infinite amount of nothing in my hand. Am I wrong?

Originally posted by Agerg
I don't think I'm making assumptions as much as, for the sake of argument, closing doors only on lines of enquiry I can be absolutely sure don't work (to that end I reject the notion of a self creating god). Remember, the typical theist without understanding what he/she means will readily assert the number of things a god can do is infinite.

Moreover if I a ...[text shortened]... set of that (and suppose it could potentially any of all those things), ... ad infinitum.

Indeed, which renders the idea ridiculous.

Which is why I had god only doing a finite number of things.

If you omni max your god then you hit logical paradoxes which are easy to point out.

Once you get past that by making god not omnimax simply 'as powerful as logically possible'
then you can deal at the same time with god doing an infinite number of [different] things
and/or doing them all at once.

Originally posted by tomtom232
You're right but zero is not equal to any number either... zero is not a number as much as infinity is not a number. They are the same concept. Nothing is just as limitless as infinity. Ie 0 = infinity.

Basically, I can say I have an infinite amount of nothing in my hand. Am I wrong?

What you say is not correct. Moreover infinity * zero is undefined.

oh and zero *is* a number

Originally posted by tomtom232
You're right but zero is not equal to any number either... zero is not a number as much as infinity is not a number. They are the same concept. Nothing is just as limitless as infinity. Ie 0 = infinity.

Basically, I can say I have an infinite amount of nothing in my hand. Am I wrong?

0 is very much a number and it is not equal to infinity.


You need to learn maths.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Indeed, which renders the idea ridiculous.

Which is why I had god only doing a finite number of things.

If you omni max your god then you hit logical paradoxes which are easy to point out.

Once you get past that by making god not omnimax simply 'as powerful as logically possible'
then you can deal at the same time with god doing an infinite number of [different] things
and/or doing them all at once.

But if the slightly more cautious theist (=/= RJHinds and his ilk!) limits the set of things a god can do to be only those that are logically possible (i.e. no making rocks it can't lift) I don't see how you can force them to agree it must be of finite potency. But then if you allow this god to do infinitely many things I don't envy the guy who tries to rigorously show it must do all of these, infinitely often, things given infinite time - for the reasons I've pointed out.

As a certain classical probability lecturer once told me 2 years ago - don't mess with infinity, it's toxic!

Originally posted by googlefudge
0 is very much a number and it is not equal to infinity.


You need to learn maths.

Says maths. Every rule maths gives for a real number always gives exception to zero because it needs zero to make these rules. 🙄

Zero doesn't even exist(ie it is nothing in as much as nothing can "be" ) yet you believe in it because you need it for every other number to exist. 🙄

Well religionists are the opposite... every rule we give for a real person always gives exception to God because we need God to make these rules.

I guess we're all just a bunch of hypocrits.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Says maths. Every rule maths gives for a real number always gives exception to zero because it needs zero to make these rules. 🙄 The same rules that don't apply to zero also don't apply to infinity yet because infinity is the "end" of the number line and zero is the "beginning" we call zero a real number but not infinity.

If you start at one and contin ...[text shortened]... mber until you get to zero when will you get to zero?

You're numbers are ludicrous. 🙄

The number line has no beginning and no end. that is why it is infinite.

0 is just the number in the middle.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Says maths. Every rule maths gives for a real number always gives exception to zero because it needs zero to make these rules. 🙄 The same rules that don't apply to zero also don't apply to infinity yet because infinity is the "end" of the number line and zero is the "beginning" we call zero a real number but not infinity.

If you start at one and contin ...[text shortened]... mber until you get to zero when will you get to zero?

You're numbers are ludicrous. 🙄

give us a moment...

Originally posted by Agerg
You can say the same thing about 5. Consider the sequence {5 - 1/n} where n is a natural number. How big does n have to be before we can say 5-1/n = 5? 😕

Exactly.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Exactly.

Sod it, no need to tighten that one up, 5 isn't a number!!! 😵