I'm not clear on what it is you want to say.

1. The guilt of the principal is clearly established beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. In other words should we, given this knowledge, act upon it?

Or

2. The principal's guilt is suspected and should we act on this suspicion based on our own moral standards?

If it's 1, then the best action is one that's decreed by a cour of law. Taking personal action amounts to vigilante justice and we all know two wrongs don't make a right

If it's 2, then we're at risk of making an error. Are we jumping to conclusions derived off of our prejudices and emotions?

Well, your POV makes sense too. Why rely on the promises of religion - they could be empty and false - and let an injustice continue? Why not act, if you can, and right the wrong?

However, you must be absolutely certain about your course of action; that you haven't overlooked every relevant aspect of the issue.

Is the principal really bad? Are his victims really good?

To answer these questions you'd need to be a clairvoyant - a God. Only someone who knows everything - in this case the true nature of the perp and victims and perfect knowledge of morality - may don the robes of a judge (in my opinion).

Please read here

It looks like what you're saying is that God A can either make something that God B cannot destroy, or he can't. If God A can make something that cannot be destroyed by God B, then God B isn't omnipotent. If God A can't make something that God B can destroy, then God A isn't omnipotent. <--- is that a valid summation — anonymous66

You put it better than me.

There's big hole in our knowledge bank when it comes to consciousness. People just don't know what consciousness or how it works.

This situation provides ample room for myriad theories e.g. yours. Notice however that, without any concrete basis for your theory, it's just play - a daydreaming episode.

I'm not sure how the above helps your argument- if you're saying that the USSR and the US are like gods, then you must admit they both exist, and you've provided us with a counter-argument — anonymous66

Both couldn't achieve all powerful status because they checked each other's power. Similarly, 2 powerful Gods will prevent each other from achieving omnipotence.

How about this counter-argument?
Gods (immortal, all-powerful beings) can't be killed. — anonymous66

Well, leave aside the killing part. Two all powerful beings won't be able to achieve omnipotence because of the country analogy I gave above.

Suppose there are 2 Gods (A and B) who are equally powerful. Imagine now that A creates an impenetrable shield. Now if A is omnipotent then B can't create an unstoppable spear - limiting B's power and thus B can't be omnipotent.

I don't know...

From a Buddhist perspective, one must trust in Karma and good and bad experiences can be explained in terms of merit and sin of previous lives. As you can see, explanation given, there's no place for hate or even gratitude. Everything that happens does so for good reason.

From a Christian perspective too, forgiveness is very important. Hate and revenge just don't figure in Christianity. Perhaps, here too it doesn't make sense. Lacking the Karma principle, it becomes difficult to explain suffering or wrong but I've heard many say that trials and tribulations are a test of faith in God.

So, from a religious perspective, hate is the wrong thig to do.

From a philosophical perspective, I believe in what some say ''No one is knowingly bad.'' There's always some deficiency in a sinner - ignorance of morality, lack of empathy, lust for power, greed, etc. So, sinners or evildoers need sympathy, rather than hate.

Subjectively, anything's possible - eternity in a moment and a moment in eternity. Objectively, however, it isn't possible because eternity stretches for ever and a moment is but one single instance of time.

Another of your unstated premises is: "a God can be killed".

I don't know what would happen if one God attacked another, but I can imagine that the God being attacked wouldn't even bother defending Himself if He couldn't be killed. And if the attacking God knew His attacks would be ineffective, He wouldn't even bother attacking in the first place. — anonymous66

Well, you've moved to intentions. This is relevant but doesn't hurt my argument.

If there were only 1 God, he's faced with the well-known paradox of "Can God create a stone impossible for God to lift?" The only way out of this paradox is to say that God would never actually create such a stone i.e. he will not - an intention.

In the case of two/more omnipotent Gods this inhibition of intent doesn't exist. One God, through his omnipotence, create a stone impossible for the other to lift. However, this isn't possible because the other God is equally omnipotent and should be able to lift the stone. As you can see, it's a power deadlock. I referred on poster to the situation during the cold war between USA and USSR. They both wanted to become all powerful but that was impossible because they checked each other's power.

What is right or wrong? Can someone be right in the wrong situation — Ponderer

As far as I can see, right and wrong are human standards, applied to us in particular and to the world in general.

Being based on universal principles such as joy and pain, it has universal application. However, nature isn't obligated, like we are, to be right and avoid wrong. That's to be expected, nature isn't a conscious being. The problem is humans have a difficult task to bring nature into the world of right and wrong, to say nothing of the problem that human standards may be wrong.

Well they can't exist at the same time, but the intention in meaning is some sort of crossover perhaps. Special relativity teaches us that the order of events is observer dependent. — Jake Tarragon

Yes, time is relative (so they say). According to Theory of Relativity (note I'm not an expert), time depends on the frame of reference i.e. a perspective A may show time x but another perspective, B, will show time y. However, within the same perspective A or B or whatever, time flow is linear. At least that's what I think is the case.

Another possible intention in saying they exist "at the same time" is perhaps that they exist together in some sort of container. I think general relativity possibly supports the notion of "block spacetime", which is that the whole of spacetime is one gigantic block that doesn't change. It has a philosophical counterpart I believe in "eternalism", which is a sort of democracy of all points of spacetime - they simply exist in and of themselves without a flow of time. — Jake Tarragon

Yes, block time makes sense but trivially so. Take our everyday experience by the watch. Every second ticks by and we move from the present into the future and leave the past. However, our entire experience of time can be put into a block - say a day, or a month, year, decade, etc. So, in a sense, the past, present and future for a certain duration of time, can be grouped in a single block of time. However, this is an uninteresting observation because it doesn't reveal anything about the nature of time. It's just a conceptual schema.

Thanks for your reply. Good argument. I like it. However, there is no necessity of entailment in your argument i.e. from omnibenevolence it isn't necessary that there be two or more Gods.

My argument, if it's a good one, proceeds from the notion of ominipotence to the necessity of there having to be only 1 God.

Can you find a loophole in my argument?

How do I find my purpose for life? — TheMagicSchool

The purpose of life may be found at many levels:

1. At the level of the self - to flourish (to acquire wisdom)
2. At the level of family - to nourish and nurture your family
3. At the level of community - to contribute to the betterment of your town
4. At the national level - to contribute to your country's progress
5. At the global level - to contribute to the environment, to knowledge, etc

I'm guessing this is not what you mean and that you're looking for some, what I call, higher purpose; something that transcends the worldly and this because all the purposes I described above are temporary, not everlasting, doomed to fade and disappear with the passage of time.

If I'm correct about this then you're not looking for purpose. You're seeking immortality. Answer a simple question: If you're immortal would purpose be of any value to you? Would you seek purpose?

If "yes" then you'll have to fall back on the purposes I described above.

If "no" then you'll have to admit that it wasn't purpose you were looking for in the first place.

But what then do we do with what's left over? There will always be some surplus of meaning left behind in ordinary language which logic hasn't captured. Logic, then wouldn't provide a translation, nor an interpretation, but a narrowing of meaning — mcdoodle

I think the worst part is, as you say, logic can't grasp the entire content of a sentence in natural language. The best part is, logicians are cognizant of this shortcoming.

Another point is that, may be these other aspects of language aren't so much of a problem (like I've been saying).

From what I've read, the point of logic is to capture only those elements in a sentence that have logical import. In your statement "P = If McDoodle works hard, he will get Distinction in his exam.", the only logically pertinent thing is the sufficient-necessary connection between "McDoodle works hard" and "he will get Distinction in his exam". So, why can't this be captured by the material conditional? I can see that we'd have to wait to decide the truth value of the consequent (McDoodle gets a Distinction in his exam) but that doesn't hamper the material conditional interpretation.

What if world peace is only achievable without free will? — Bryce

This is self-defeating. Without free-will, or at least the delusion of it, peace would be meaningless. In other words, freedom is essential for peace.

he problem with suicide is we are built by nature with an innate fear of death, so instinctively that isn't the best choice. — MonfortS26

So the survival aspect is more of an instinct than reasoned choice. In other words, it's more of an emotion than a rational choice.

If we manage to create an artificial superintelligent being it would still need to be concerned with survival, but nothing else would matter to it. All emotion would no longer be useful because emotion is just another survival instinct. — MonfortS26

What would motivate the AI to survive if it's already been shown that survival is instinctual and AI lacks it.

I'd choose both. If death is on the plate why not go out in a spectacular way.

Linear time: The past, the present, the future have to flow into each other in a specific sequence: past-present-future.

Non-linear time: The past, the present and the future, all, exist at the same time. There is no specific sequence and if there appears to be so, it's an illusion.
Is this what you mean?

NO...then what do you mean?

YES...Well, what does it mean to say that the past, the present and the future, all, exist at the same time? I like to use space to make sense of this. We don't dispute that all events (past, present, future) can occur at the same place e.g. all events in human history have taken place at one and the same place - Earth. Could we, then, extend this thought to time itself and claim all events (past, present, future) occur at the same time? For this to be reasonable, the flow of time must be an illusion too. Otherwise how could we say that all events are occurring at the same time?

Well, without change time wouldn't make sense at all. Imagine a universe without motion or any kind of change. How would we measure time and would time be of any significance at all. Imagine you're immortal; would time matter to you? So, change is essential for time. Given this is so, we can imagine a world without time. In such a world the past, the present and future, all, will be identical. Thus making time non-linear or even non-existent.

However, in a world with change, time does flow and that makes it impossible for the past, the present and the future to occupy the same point in time. I think non-linear time is an incoherent concept.

Yes, we don't have definitive, conclusive answers but it's not a total failure. At least we know our errors and learn not to repeat them. We continue the search until such a time an answer is found.

Word salad

There is difference between good and bad. Just not in their treatment or consequences. There is no contradiction betwden 1 and 2. — BlueBanana

Perhaps we have to draw a distinction on the matter of consequences. The first type of consequence would be that which concerns people involved in a certain act. For example, A assaults B and B gets hurt. B getting hurt, a consequence, is relevant to the moral status of A's act. However, the other consequence, that of A being punished for the act, isn't relevant because that would be fear tactics and that, I think, undermines the whole concept of what morality is. Morality is an end in itself, having intrinsic worth. It doesn't, or rather shouldn't, need any further incentive/disincentive to behave morally.

However, what is the logic of heaven and hell then? Why do all prophets preach it? Is it because we haven't matured enough to understand the true value of morality, thereby requiring a carrot-stick paradigm to encourage us to be moral?

What? How? Why? Is this the "atheists are evil" argument? Or is not believing in itself bad? ??? ? — BlueBanana

I mean not believing in God would be tantamount to not believing in Good, in morality.

What a coinidence! I have the same doubt. I'm not taking a course but reading introductory books on logic.

P = If McDoodle works hard, he will get Distinction in his exam.

P can be translated into the material conditional because the truth functional interpretation involves ALL possible worlds. That's why it doesn't matter that P is about the future. What do you think?

It's no so much about answering questions as it is about questioning the answers. Rationality doesn't guarantee answers but it can assess the quality of the inquiry and the answers.

Also, as @Rich said, it's a work in progress. We're in the middle of a movie that hasn't finished telling its story.

Of course it's difficult to find people willing to listen to your ideas. The scarcity of willing people increases with the difficulty or stupidity of your ideas. That doesn't mean you should turn your back on the world. Rather you should refine and better articulate your position through careful examination of criticism. I think the dialectical method is essential because no single person can be fully aware of all the mistakes s/he commits. So, being a hermit is shooting yourself in the foot. What could be achieved in a few hours of rational dialog with another may take days to months of thinking by yourself.

It could be that your philosophy negates society and anything it has to offer. If that's the case, then your choice to be a hermit makes sense. That's what I meant when I said hermits need first socialize and gather information for analysis.

Anyway, overall, a hermit stands to lose from the lack of constructive criticism and the creative input of others.

S = All statements are false
S' = All statements, but S, are false AND S is false

So you're saying S can't be false because S', the equivalent statement, can't be false because of the "S is false" part.

But there's a contradiction in your claim:

All statements, but S, are false is literally saying All statements, but S, are false AND S is true ("but S") and then you contradict this claim by saying, in the latter part, S is false.

But what's the point of sharing ideas with people don't listen? — John Days

Listening to others is more important than others listening to you. We may be biased in our judgment and that usually requires hearing the other side which isn't possible in solitude.

As I said before, hermitic life is an after kinda thing - it can only be fruitful after you've seen the world.

To be a hermit is a strange path to wisdom. Isn't there value in the sharing of ideas? Isn't there value in worldly knowledge?

Perhaps becoming a hermit comes after experiencing worldly life but the questions above still stand.

Just curious. What aspect of the Computer do you think will prevent it from doing 1 as well as 2? I think the missing aspect is Consciousness. — SteveKlinko

It lacks a name that satisfies me. Anyway, what is ''comprehension''? We seem to think that comprehension is an entirely different ball game compared to rule application. Bottom line is comprehension requires logic and that we know is a agreed upon set of rules. Why can't a computer do that too?

All I can say is that you'll have to find a balance between the needs of the self and the needs of others.

The search for good women, if it means finding ONE woman in which all desired qualities are invested, is inconsistent with the well known fact that no single person ever has all desirable qualities. Every person has strengths and weaknesses - this is the fact - and it leads us to the inevitable conclusion that no single person may possess all desirable qualities. So, a good woman is pure fiction.

That said, I think there's some sense in searching for good women, in the plural sense. One woman may be intellectually gifted - we can engage her mind. Another may be sexually attractive - we can engage her vagina. Another may be an artist - we can engage her creativity and so on. Much like our shopping behavior. No single shop/outlet satisfies our every needs. We need to visit different places to get all what we need.:P

Everybody is entitled to an opinion. I haven't found God, yet, but I have learned a lot through my search. Perhaps you've already passed that stage and are at a different level where you don't see anything fruitful in carrying on the investigation.

But how can you keep saying this when god himself said he cannot even be imagined by humans? If we cannot even imagine his properties then you cannot write about them. — Sir2u

You're right but that's a big IF isn't it? I'm familiar with the incomprehensible - I find math very difficult. However, that doesn't mean it's universally incomprehensible. I don't think my limits are yours and vice versa. The claim God is imcomprehensible to ALL is what I doubt. There are many who've seen God. Shouldn't we try?

Infinite regress arguments are usually used to demonstrate a reductio ad absurdum against a position. — Mr Bee

Is infinite regress preposterous? By whose standards, one may ask? How do we know that the standards of seriousness are correct? On this view, it seems even more absurd to say an infinite regress is absurd. May be it's turtles all the way down.

That said, I like the distinction vicious regress vs benign regress. To me, the former undermines a position that led to the regress. The latter, on the other hand, seems to be just an uninteresting fact of a position.

I mean these qualities aren't disputed. Omnibenevolence, omnipotence and omniscience are universally accepted as attributes of God.

The argument doesn't work. An organism that can asexually reproduce doesn't have gender. So, women can't claim to be the ones who were reproducing asexually. Both men AND women can claim that territory.

Another thing is that specialization is an obvious fact in biology. Molecules to cells to organs to animals, to social units, all, display this trait. So, gender is just another instance of specialization - the male has certain traits and the female has another set - that increase the survival probability of the species.

It's interesting. The question is "How does an error-prone instrument detect error?"

I think the observer bias (OB) is human error (HE). The data itself is pristine. And the OB is specific to a particular study/experiment. That mean anyone who doesn't have anything to gain/lose from the study/experiment is free of the OB. Perhaps it's these independent observers who detected the observer bias. Of course there can't be an observer who isn't biased but the point is their biases are irrelevant to the study/experiment. For instance the sexual preferences (bias) of an observer has no relevance/effect to/on a scientific experiment.

Does that answer your question?

So you admit them the idea of your god being perfect is only relative to your own conception of perfection? — Sir2u

It sounds that way. But we can come to some agreement on what perfection entails e.g. omnibenevolence, omnipotence and omniscience aren't controversial.

You will find it out When you get there. — Vajk

Did your search end in disappointment? Many seem to have found something.

BTW, what do you mean by "greatest"? — Harry Hindu

Well, what do you think Anselm meant by ''greatest''? To keep things simple, let's say by ''greatest'' we mean embodying all that is good.

Just so you know @Michael has already found a nice big hole in the argument