read into the Frankfurt style cases,
basically imagine this,
"there are three people, Black, White, and Jane, Black and Jane both hate White and want to kill him,
so Black installs a chip in Jane's brain that basically determines, that if Jane is given the chance to kill White she has two options, one, she kills him from her will, thus the chip does not intervene, two, Jane is hesitant and doesn't want to kill White, then the chip will intervene and control her brain to kill White"

this story presents a very interesting case which kind of is based on intent and defeats the principal of alternate possibilities, Jane can do only one thing, and that is kill White, but she either can kill him out of intent or out of control.
if she kills him out of intent, then we would morally blame her, but why is that different from control? she still has no choice?
that's a basic summary

very interesting read, well done

I would agree completely but not for a few points,
I think the struggle for statues or power is inherit in our nature, and so is hate, we had them changed and broken like we do with other parts of our nature, like for example sexual attraction which we turned from the most powerful evolutionary trait for reproduction mainly to a big dopamine machine.
Anywho by extension of that, humanity's nature is rooted in evil, and truly you cannot change that unless you change humans,
it can be masked and disregarded on an individual basis but for general populations I think such is impossible especially when we follow irrational desires almost daily.

Real is whatever that is not useful to humans as a concept or tool.

I will second philosophisim and Tim, Yes

I don't think that works if we keep in mind that there is energy or light. Some substances have no mass at all. Should you then call them matter? and well..That nothing is a negation in and of itself. So its not worth saying that it's not matter. It's not anything. — DoppyTheElv

energy and light are made of photons, particles, things.

So then is this a mistake on the definition of omnipotence or is this a mistake within the question "Can God create a stone he cannot lift?" ? — DoppyTheElv

the definition of omnipotence.

god being powerful but not powerful is a part of it essentially.

god is both defeated and victorious over himself in this situation, a contradiction, thus illogical.
god can be both omnipotent and not omnipotent here,
he is powerful to create it, but by creating it he isn't powerful.

No, it's not. The stone paradox has as a conclusion the non-omnipotence of God. It doesn't employ contradiction to make that point. The contradictory nature of the stone paradox is what we discovered in this discussion. — TheMadFool

I beg to differ,
you cannot have a green red, it is contradictory/illogical, thus impossible
it is a conclusion that can be extracted from the contradictory nature of the paradox.

You haven't defined matter so I do not know why this would be a problem given in this situation what ever aspects are to be defined as god gave rise to the universe and not vice versa. — substantivalism

everything, can be defined as matter.
nothing, as no matter

I — substantivalism

I'd curious know to know what those arguments are but besides that because we're talking about panentheism (not pantheism) as well assuming a string of philosophical assumptions (or philosophical interpretations of spacetime) this is rather dubious a critique. At most this particular part of god temporally wasn't before at some point in time then after another point in time it was (the clay was an amorphous blob then it was sculpted into becoming davids statue but all throughout the process the clay still existed where clay = god). — substantivalism

touche.

Which I think is a mainly small viewpoint to take as there are other ways of approaching defining omnipotence that do not explicitly write into their definitions that they can perform impossible tasks which is a sort of low hanging philosophical fruit to me. — substantivalism

well I didn't specify correctly, which was a fault at my part, I was mainly discussing the abrahamic god which has a set definition of omnipotence throughout holy scripture

it is contradictory, thus impossible logically, that's the point.

if so, yes, and it would be logically contradictory

I would disagree, as God here is meant to be the most powerful, the best at doing everything, so it is an absolute which isn't relative, hmm it may differ in a way, I mainly used it to describe his power, and Ability to do everything, according to Abrahamic definitions

"God can do everything"
is an absolute trait,
being the world champion is not an absolute

Noob here. — DoppyTheElv

Welcome to the club, mon amie.

Doesn't the logical impossibility speak for itself here? A logically impossible thing can by definition not be done. Right? So it's contradictory to think anyone. Even God could do it? — DoppyTheElv

That is correct, it means it basically is impossible/doesn't exist, which would be really fatal to religious doctrines, mainly Abrahamic religions.

But the problem is that once you have God who is there to create then it is no longer creatio ex nihilo. As sub said panentheism for example. The universe would be within God. And if you subscribe to idealism then this can work out without ever having an issue. However im not even sure if Craig goes that far. He seems to specifically argue against creatio ex nihilo with God as the fix. Something about sufficient causes as well.

When you ask where this specific substance came from then..Well I suppose they would just say it's part of God and thats the end of it. Maybe they would even go as far as say its obvious where it came from. — DoppyTheElv

It isn't a sufficient fix, because if it is Panentheism it would also entail many other problems such as, is god matter? and if the universe is a part of god, that still doesn't fix the problem of the Universe's creation, since I believe it would entail god also needing a cause since he would be material, if we assume the Kalam cosmological argument is correct (other arguments to prove Panentheism would be insufficient I believe)

, let me start by dealing with energy becoming unavailable and the universe eventually becoming dead as far as living organisms are concerned. I focus on living organisms because of their importance but, in fact, all activity will eventually cease. Every action requires that matter and energy are conserved. However, energy exists in two parts, usable and non-usable energy. Every action converts more energy from the usable to the non-usable form. Eventually all the energy will become non-usable and thus no action can take place. — Marco Colombini

that "usable/ non usable" categorizing is very human centric, practically all types of energy are "usable" to the universe.

s the Universe hostile to life? Yes in a sense it is. However, the fundamental conditions for life to form at all are very difficult to achieve and our science only understands these in a very limited way. For example, if all there was in the Universe is Hydrogen and Helium, life could not possibly exist. A small change in the fundamental constants of the Universe would have that result. If there were no carbon atoms, there would be no life as we know it. — Marco Colombini

Carbon was formed out of Helium and Hydrogen, and how could you prove there would be no life without carbon? this is again a very human centric view, which is flawed, since we cannot imagine a being made differently from us, but you know the funny thing? we are creating a being out of silicon, in the form of AI, life doesn't mean only what's made of Hydrogen Dioxide, it means anything that has the process of living, so it could possibly be made of any material if it is characterized with living.

Again, it is well understood that the amount of carbon is critically dependent on the energetics of subatomic particles. A small change would not allow sufficient carbon to exist for life to form. Even the simplest cell is extremely complicated, relying for survival on the exact amount of interaction energy between its molecular components. In short, it is very easy to get the wrong conditions and have a dead universe. — Marco Colombini

our universe could possibly be considered a dead universe already, if we look at it outside of our perspective, the universe is practically dead, and will be after we die,
this also explains something important, what if life could exist in a different universe but it never survives to be conscious, would that even be accounted as life then?

plus to add the point that you cannot truly imagine or comprehend other types of universes because we can only do so from our own which would be biased/contradictory perhaps

For a poor analogy, consider that it is very easy to assemble something that looks like a car but does not function...anyone could do that. Whereas it is very difficult to produce a working car if one is stranded in an uninhabited island. The information and skills required are enormous.
It is very easy to misuse logic because, unlike mathematics, words and meanings are not precise — Marco Colombini

a car could be easily assembled by anyone, all you need is a lot of wood, and a rope, and it would be semi functional, it takes literal seconds to think of such a solution.

The fact is that the Universe exists and did not exist. Did it come from nothing? All we know is the matter/energy with which we are familiar. Is there other "stuff"? Our senses can only detect our matter/energy so we cannot detect any other stuff. — Marco Colombini

we can scientifically predict other stuff, like dark matter and dark energy, or for example string theory, and so on.
matter logically cannot come from nothing, it always causes a logical contradiction to try to prove so, the essay I linked should be an interesting read on so.

That implies there is actual purpose to human life other then reproduction (which is correct btw).
I myself am not an anti natalist, but if we go according to OP's proposal, there isn't a line, since the sum of a person's life is suffering and anguish, so it would ultimately justify Antinatalism, which might be valid/invalid according to whatever your belief is,
but for OP, it entails it for him, so it would be a hypocritical argument to just enact it on the poor.

the paradox arises from absolutes, which aren't present in your example

just ask yourself if you went back in time to that decision, could you have made another one? and with that take everything into consideration that factored in your initial decision, and even then you won't be able to account for what you,
and I believe a deterministic conclusion would be reached ultimately under physicalism (materialism).

Wouldn't that mean we live under a huge illusion all the time though? — Gregory

you do.

no offense mate but this is not what stoicism is about at all it doesn't even say anything, this is a quite fallacious representation,
other people have probably already educated you on it now.
I understand your mindset, but it might have been based on false assumptions, so take that into consideration

why have children at all? I mean every child inevitably is going to suffer, and that's just one argument

false equivalency, they're not comparing since we're not talking in absolutes such as "everything", or the best, but for the sake of argument,
if he manages to knock himself out, he is both the world boxing champion and not the world boxing champion at the same time, contradictory.
if he can't then he would be the world boxing champion, but here we aren't dealing in absolutes, unlike with god in which he can do everything, or he is the best (implying no one could be better) at such.

Russia's not going anywhere. And who comes after Putin? — tim wood

His son/daughter? we bringing back the empire

D -> O (If God defeats himself, he's still top dog) — TheMadFool

if god defeats himself, god is both not the top dog since he got defeated, and is the top since he is also victorious, such is contradictory, thus impossible

~D -> O (If God can't defeat himself, he's still omnipotent) — TheMadFool

Omnipotence's regular definition is the ability to do everything, D is a thing if he can't do it it entails for him not to be omnipotent

1- S ∨ ~S
2- S -> D
3- ~S -> ~D
4- D -> O ∧ ~O
5- ~D -> ~O
4 is contradictory as he cannot be both at the same time, hence it cannot be put as a constructive dilemma, and therefore the conclusion is false.

5 is still basically the paradox of omnipotence

I wouldn't even that is the strongest argument i've seen. To wave away other arguments with a single sentence they must of have been rather poorly constructed then. — substantivalism

well most arguments for god are poorly constructed.

Or that the world is made of god, were basically then disagreeing on what properties (emergent or fundamental) that physical (needs defining) objects consist of and whether, if god makes them up, this means god metaphysically grounds them (or they metaphysically ground god). Much similar to a discussion in the philosophy of spacetime in which some assert spacetime makes up objects (super-substantivalism), it's reductive to physical relations/properties (relationism), or according to some working on quantum gravity that you can't have spacetime without matter nor matter without spacetime, it's a two piece package. — substantivalism

I would fail to see an objection then, but I would also ask how is that proven so to be the case deductively?

Yes, similar to a person who refuses to even discuss truthfully his terms or willingly obscure the conversation sometimes does imply you simply can throw your hands up and walk away. Philosophers can get into heated but informative discussions of non-classical logics while layman may abuse the concept as a philosophical gotcha question to assume the win. — substantivalism

ah yes the classical gotcha moment will go along the lines of "if god doesn't exist then how do you explain you being born"

I can't answer your questions because i'm an ignostic and would leave those questions to be the philosophical burden of those who do happen to propose answers. Quantum physics in certain stripes or models propose spontaneous changes in the fields resulting universes being created or spontaneous production of particles as we know them. . . creation of the material from these involves some further specification on what were defining matter as or the intuitive/philosophical key points of being physical. — substantivalism

Seems like not many theist folks around these parts, anywho it would, but I think for a normal theist a conclusion on the definitions could be easily reached.

Mathmatics is the language we use to understand the properties of the universe and everything truly

Life is always the selfish answer,
anywho truly following the concept on an honorable death would be, to be remembered for something most people view good in history, but it truly doesn't exist outside of being a concept, as the dead would be and stay dead forever

First of all, the universe is not in steady state but began about 13.8 billion years ago. All the universe began at that time: matter/energy and space/time. Before time zero there was no space into which matter or anything else could be placed. There was also no time in which processes could occur. This event cannot be explained by established Physics. A number of proposals to circumvent this problem have been published. None of these can be explained by established Physics and thus are in the realm of science fiction. — Marco Colombini

this assumes creatio ex nihilo, which is an illogical concept truly, if you want further reading, here.
anywho, if we assume god doesn't abide by the laws of logic, then it would defeat the point of trying to prove him using science or logic, or the universe really.

Secondly, the properties of the universe are such that as the universe self-assembled into what it is today, life could form and indeed also intelligent life. There is no reason that the fundamental constants and other properties should be as they are. Yet, most of these must be as they are in order for life to form. Even small changes result in a dead universe. The typical response is that if the properties were not what they are we would not be here to ask the question. That misses the point. Not only does established Physics have no explanation for how the universe began and no explanation of the reality before the universe formed but it cannot explain why the properties of the universe are as they are since there is not reason for the properties to be as they are. A proposal, that there are actually an infinite number of parallel universes with all possible variations in physical properties, attempts to explain the this but in doing so it introduces an infinite number of unmeasurable parameters and thus it is not a viable hypothesis. — Marco Colombini

1- how are you so sure changes would result in a dead universe? that assumption would require you to actually verify in such universes, we know that we would be dead there, but what about different forms of what we call life?

2-this is just a reformed version of the teleological argument, which truly doesn't prove god's existence, a good counterargument would be that our universe is actually terrible for life, especially with the amount of dead space we know of and radiation and explosions, it is completely hostile to life actually, we might be a tiny probability that happened, so its ignorant to assume the universe is fit for life.

Thirdly, well before the "big bang" was proposed, scientific observations required that the universe had a beginning. The second law of Thermodynamics, a law often tested and always found to be correct, requires that energy be less available to do work every time it is used. Thus the universe started off at insanely high energy levels and useful energy has been lost ever since...converted to heat. Eventually this loss of usable energy will result in a lifeless Universe. Thus the Universe is highly tuned for life to come into existence but its properties will eventually extinguish all life. Physics can describe this in detail but not explain why this is the case. — Marco Colombini

The universe is terribly tuned for life to exist, and you just proved it, the universe will end one day, that is the most terrible for life, for it to end, the universe is pretty hostile

The existence of God naturally explains all these and gives a purpose to existence. In addition there is direct historical evidence for the existence of God from the many scientifically impossible events performed by God and witnessed at times by few and at other times by thousands of skeptical observers. — Marco Colombini

one no it doesn't at all as explained above, the existence of a first mover? maybe if we do some scientific gymnastics with the Kalam argument.
I would love to see any direct historical evidence lol.

I believe it's contradictory to say God is good and yet I can beat a kitten to death. If he is so deficient in nature that he can't bring the "greater good" about without the kitten being beaten, then why call him God? After all, creation is supposed to reflect his nature — Gregory

that's the problem of evil, there are many theodicies which are mostly weak.

what I am mainly talking about is the paradox of omnipotence, which is basically, "god can do everything" therefore we can assume he can for example create a rock he can't lift, or a god more powerful then him.

Not every theist is a presuppositionalist or such about god in which they think he must ground/give rise to even the laws of logic or that they even apply to him. Assuming we are not dealing with such a theist then saying you could define god without being constrained to logically possible actions isn't going to convince the theist who doesn't buy such an understanding of god to then accept a definition in which it can do logically contradictory things. — substantivalism

that is correct

If we defined god as having certain characteristics that in the end lead to him being contradictory or definitionally incoherent then he would be illogical and conclusively non-existent. The key point here is in specifying those specific attributes then discovering whether they are or are not collectively contradictory. — substantivalism

I agree, but here I presumed that he doesn't follow the rules of logic in that statement (and followed after), meaning they don't apply to him and therefore he cannot be proven to exist, so we could basically throw him in the pile of unicorns and cathulus.

Ex materia or profundis would probably involve the theologian here saying they coexisted with god himself merely that he crafted the universe from them. Basically, perhaps, the idea that you couldn't have one without the other. — substantivalism

what entails god's existence then and not just the material? why would god be necessary? according to quantum physics it could be an imbalance in a field that produced such, ruling out god's necessity.

No, this would imply that the substance that makes us up is the same as that which makes up god in some manner or gives rise to us. Think of a dot picture in which up close it's made of small circular dots but far away perceptually we gain awareness of the structures that emerges giving the appearance of a face. The dots are not equivalent to the face but the face wouldn't exist without the dots being there in some patterned way. — substantivalism

yes that's correct but besides my point, my point is that god is made up of matter if he is, or uses a part of him to create the universe, since the universe is 100% made of some types of matter and energy,
that would logically entail god also being from matter.

The Kalam assumes a lot of metaphysical baggage as far as i'm aware of including rather choice metaphysical interpretations of general relativity or that even the model itself fully describes or applies to descriptions of spacetime emergence/creation. If anything it also assumes an A-theory of time which is difficult to parse with general relativity as far as i'm aware and i'm still unsure that any philosophers model of time even has the last word on it's nature. — substantivalism

I would agree entirely, I just used it since, its the strongest argument for the existence or at least necessity of a god/first cause, other arguments can be debunked in one sentence truly.

Economic collapse, if their economies collapse, their systems will go too, as the people would be too starving to shut up, especially in our time, the time of not ever shutting up and protesting 24/7

Some theists define it this way and I agree that if they seek to avoid a god doing logically contradictory things then this definition of Omnipotence wouldn't be what they were looking for. — substantivalism

Yes my argument is that they cannot truly escape it, for most theists anyways (meaning people who believe in Abrahamic or similar religions)

Not exactly to save it from the rock paradox but rather make this property they ascribe to god consistent with their need for it to be logically constrained to classical logic. The definition that is given, after abandoning the previous, would usually be something similar to "For a being x to be omnipotent, x would only be able to do all that is logically possible". This falls prey to other misconceptions or problems given it's a rather vague statement without too much extra detail but this is to be expected. What are your thoughts/criticisms on this definition? — substantivalism

The rock he can't lift is what I meant as an example of him being logically contradictory,
I would criticize this definition with the same problem of creatio ex nihilo, as well as there is nothing that entails god is constrained to logical possibility, but if he was illogical then you cannot prove him logically, which makes them fall into another problem, of proving god's existence without using logic, or science, which I believe is impossible, making the entire idea of his existence absurd.

This is assuming that god could only have given rise to the universe through creatio ex nihilo means while under different philosophical traditions (I hopefully recall correctly) they don't have to strap themselves to this. God could give rise to the universe by manipulating matter as we know it (creatio ex materia) or similarly some previous chaotic substance (creatio ex profundis) or even out of god himself (creatio ex Deo) which would mean god either becomes the universe in totality (pantheism) or still remains separate somewhat (panentheism). Not every definition of god will fall prey to your argument there assuming it even holds at all. — substantivalism

But then comes the question, where did that matter come from for creatio ex materia or creatio ex profundis?
god becoming the universe or taking a part of him and making it into matter, would imply god is made of some sort of matter, and anything made of matter, should have an origin if we assume the kalam cosmological argument is correct.
And that is correct, not every type of god, but I had the Abrahamic god in mind, which is a fault on my part,

Holy substance? Are you talking about philosophers or believers speculating on the idea that perhaps the substance of the universe or things within are not the same as what god is made of (physical vs. non-physical substances)? — substantivalism

I meant Creatio ex deo.

Of course we take into consideration what happened to us before, and what our desires are. That’d be why we have memory and desires, I suppose. To take them into account when making choices. — Olivier5

exactly, then it wouldn't be your choice, because it comes from something, something is influencing/forcing it, so defies free will ultimately.

You choose between different wants which have different strengths. Even if compatibilism is true and you choose the strongest want every time, you would still be free — Gregory

but in order to choose you must want to choose,
randomness can be present, in the form of quantum indeterminacy, but I doubt this even applies to human beings, and if it did, then you can't control what this particle turns into, which would defeat the point
compatibilism and physicalism don't go hand in hand,
anywho that doesn't mean the choices aren't ours, it just means we didn't get as a self to make them

I have a feeling this is not the nothing that creatio ex nihilo or ex nihilo nihil fit is referring to. What is something, here being contrasted with nothing? — TheMadFool

Something is anything you can imagine, or anything that actually exists, even quantum fields are a thing,
and nothing can only mean one thing, nothing, there isn't much definitions to it now.

Where did you put the dirt you dug out? — TheMadFool

In front of the trench, but that would be irrelevant, point is, you can build and make up space at the same time.

It doesn’t apply, period. Even a god cannot freely will what he wants to will. But we do have, I believe, the capacity to make choices, with a certain degree of freedom. — Olivier5

but every choice either warrents a want or is influenced by what happened before it

for example lets say you like chocolate cake,
I offered you either chocolate cake or pancakes, you will either choose the chocolate based on preferences which never were your choice,
now lets assume you don't care about either you just want to eat

in order to do something you either are forced to do it or want to do it,

lets say you wanted chocolate cake and took it, if we went back in time, could you want pancakes? you would have to not want to want chocolate cake, and then want to want pancakes, and it would lead you down an infinite path of wants this way, which is illogical, the simple explanation is you cannot control your wants therefore you cannot control your doings

What is nothing then? — TheMadFool

you know we humans ultimately can't comprehend nothing since if we try to imagine it would be something, but basically its no matter, no volume, no laws of physics, no atoms, no energy, no fields, nothing

Even so, something would be impossible without nothing. Think of it...without nothing in which something can be placed, there would be no something. In other words, nothing is necessary for something. — TheMadFool

alright, there is this way we learnt in the military academy, basically, when you try to dig a trench, you you dig and build one central hole at the same time, and expand from that, digging more and building at the same time.

I would agree free will as a concept doesn't apply to living beings.

I would agree, my wording may have been a bit off/incorrect, I apologize
Consciousness is a process, free will is an illusion.

would that count as creatio ex nihilo? — TheMadFool

No since that energy isn't nothing, and there would be the question what caused that energy?

Also, a thing exists only if there's a preexisting "space" of possibility in which to establish itself. For instance, if one wants to build a house, there has to be, before the construction can begin, space for that house. In other words, space for existence must precede existence itself, no? If yes, one thing is certain then, to wit that nothing (space) precedes something/anything. It must be then that creatio ex nihilo is true. — TheMadFool

is space nothing? it has no mass nor energy, but is it nothing? we cannot be sure of that, especially with dark matter and energy making up 95% of the universe, so we could possibly assume they are something.

But if we assume it is nothing,
what entails that nothing must precede something? for example they can bot appear and expand at the same time and at the same rate,
and even then, I believe OP's logic still stands
there is this interesting essay which points out the modal problem of creatio ex nihilo should be an interesting read.