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From: peru@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Peter Ruhrberg)
Subject: The Allmighty (Was Re:Goedel, and the Proof of...)
Message-ID: <D87rAK.1os@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <1995May3.020925.15657@news.media.mit.edu> <ANSM.95May4002256@term2.tfd.chalmers.se> <j_tadman-0505950536540001@mg4_65.its.utas.edu.au>
Date: Sun, 7 May 1995 15:06:14 GMT
Lines: 45
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.logic:10670 sci.physics:120553 comp.ai.philosophy:27710

In article <j_tadman-0505950536540001@mg4_65.its.utas.edu.au> j_tadman@postoffice.utas.edu.au (James Tadman) writes:
>In article <ANSM.95May4002256@term2.tfd.chalmers.se>, ansm@tfd.chalmers.se
>(Andrew Smirnoff) wrote:
>> Here is still another proof that there is no God:
>> Consider the statement
>> 
>> "Can the almighty God create such a stone that he could not lift?"
>
>Reasoning Line Number 1:
>> If he can then he is not the almighty since he can not lift it.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>True statement. To be almighty, He must be able to lift anything, as the
>last part of this sentence infers. 

not true: he only looses his allmightyness if he *does* make such a
stone. but why should he? why not leave this possiblility unrealised
and stay happily allmighty? unless of course you want to argue that
god cannot give up his allmight, because he is *necessarliy*
allmighty. But then this inability should not count against his
allmightyness as not being able to do something *impossible* surely is
no ground for deneying his supreme power. It's like accusing him of
beeing unable to to produce a ratinal square root of 2. 

>Reasoning Line Number 2:   
>> If he can't then he is not the almighty since he can't.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Almighty: capable of moving anything. By definition, therefore, God, being
>almighty, can move an infinitely heavy rock, since He has infinite
>strength to do it with.

being able to move anything certainly does not imply allmight, unless
you take a very materialist stance. do you?

Needless to say that this of course does not raise the probability of
there being such a thing beyond 0, but it's a possiblility...

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