I really thought I’d made it abundantly clear by arguing that the absurdity of your, and the fundamentalist, definition points to the likelihood of another, more sensible and historically correct reference for the word. In my first response I also described in a number of ways how a limited, common-sense definition would make both historical and logical sense. I think you really do insist on whacking away at a straw man, albeit one most fundamentalists would defend.

If you want to start over, rather just re-read my previous posts with a more relaxed state of mind. I’m not trying to defend the popular idea of omnipotence. I thought I’d made that clear. We agree that it is absurd. I’m arguing for a redefinition – one in line with the way an ancient king would have been called omnipotent. I’ll see if I can come up with a way of making my point which has some traction with you.

Since you did not actually address any of the reasons I gave why “omnipotence,” in all its incarnations, is incoherent bullshit in the finest traditions of bullshitting and instead invented some bizarre straw man parable about a time travel fantasy into an ancient faery tale, I can only conclude that you either have no argument to actually present or that your definition of the term is not one of the many that I demonstrated incoherent.

Personally, I’m going with the former option. But, if it really is the latter, we can start over, if you’d like, by you offering your own definition of the term — in which case I’d be happy to address it.

Cheers,

b&

Imagine you and I and another “wise” friend were travelling together one night through the South African interior and I looked up at a large bright star and said to you we should stop over in Bethlehem. Now would you go on for the next half hour about how absurd that was – Bethlehem, being practically on the other side of the planet, our not having visas for all the war-torn countries in-between, our only having one tank of petrol, and besides we’re not the three wise men, etc. – or would it occur to you that perhaps when I used the word Bethlehem I was not referring to the one in Israel?

I think the answer is probably yes, but suppose the real reason you went on so long about how absurd it was was because you wanted to paint me as an imbecile to the other passenger. Who would be the one looking stupid when we arrived at a sign saying “Welcome to Bethlehem”?

And imagine for just a bit longer that the third passenger were a real imbecilic fundamentalist, or perhaps just a child, who did think we could miraculously stop over in the Israeli Bethlehem. Would that somehow have an effect on what I meant by “Bethlehem”?

PS: I really enjoyed your tangent about achieving a triply-right triangle on a globe. I hadn’t thought of that one!

I AGREE that dualism is a violation of nature. I was saying that when it is NOT involved — when you have an apparent violation of nature which does not, in any way, involve some purported pure immaterial mentality or mental property — then nobody thinks nature has been “violated.” Nobody thinks we’re dealing with the supernatural. They simply change the descriptive laws.

If a supernatural phenomenon — one which by definition involves some form of dualism — is proven they’ll also adapt the laws, sure, but they’ll probably note that these new descriptions are describing not nature, but ‘the supernatural.’ They’re confined. Naturalism is falsifiable, like any good science theory. Reality has two “realms.”

The dualistic mind is but one popular example amongst many of the supernatural.

“Dualistic mind?” Sure. It’s one example. But my criteria is broader than that. I’m talking about causes, forces, essences, or beings which are irreducibly mental. Consciousness, values, goals, intentions, moral judgements, intelligence, and so forth. Karma was just brought up in the other post — a ‘law of nature’ (a “force”) which ensures that everything will end up fair. Supernatural.

You cannot name one ‘supernatural’ claim which doesn’t have this feature.

It’s a defining feature which tracks with how the word is actually used and applied. And it doesn’t get tangled up with non-supernatural cutting-edge research in new areas. Every supernatural event violates an accepted law of nature — but not every violation of an accepted law of nature is ‘supernatural.

We are getting snaky again …

And circular, too — this is probably a good time for closing arguments.

If dualism is not involved in a “violation of nature,”

But it is, in very profound ways. We might as well be speculating on whether or not caloric, humors, and the aether are involved in a violation of nature. They are; we know so; and we understand why this is so.

then the laws of nature would simply be changed to accommodate the new observation and there would be no reason it wouldn’t be considered naturalism.

…and, right there, you’ve perfectly conceded my point. If dualism didn’t violate the laws of nature, it would be considered a natural phenomenon. It’s because it violates the laws of nature that it’s supernatural.

All I’m suggesting is that everything else which violates the laws of nature is also supernatural. I’m also offering the observation that if it exists, it’s natural (whether or not we understand it); and, therefore, if it’s not natural, it doesn’t exist (even if it has the appearance / illusion / imaginative fantasy of existing).

The dualistic mind is but one popular example amongst many of the supernatural.

b&

That’s the whole point I’ve been making, except that I’m pointing out that it’s not only dualism that violates the laws of nature.

You’re still missing my point. If dualism is not involved in a “violation of nature,” then the laws of nature would simply be changed to accommodate the new observation and there would be no reason it wouldn’t be considered naturalism.

As to your original challenge to me…well, if I am to turn String Theory into woo, I would have to do it by making it violate the laws of nature…at which point it really wouldn’t be String Theory (as currently understood), would it?

It may or may not be String Theory, but if this is all then nobody would claim the supernatural is vindicated and reductionist materialist naturalism is now dead. Wouldn’t the consistencies under the new conditions be incorporated into the standard naturalistic model?

It matters not whether I give String Theory a Chopra-esque intelligence or if I make it something that mindlessly and randomly teleports macro-scale objects from one point on the surface of the globe to another.

Yes it does! Those two scenarios are significantly distinct from one another. The first one is surprising AND supernatural; the second one is only surprising.

Think about it. QM (even the purported ‘spooky action at a distance’) is only ‘woo’ when somebody connects it to consciousness. Otherwise, they’re arguing only over the science.

Let me try another angle: magic. We agree that all magic is either sleight-of-hand or fiction, right? And would you object to that being so practically by definition?
No?

Yes.
Yes I would object to magic being fiction “by definition.” I have an 18-page file on my computer defining and describing and outlining the technical definition of “magic” as understood in theology, anthropology, philosophy, and New Age pseudoscience. This is only a very small fraction of what is out there. Defining it that way is only okay as slang, a quick and easy shortcut used when talking to people don’t take it seriously.

But a lot of people DO. Still. They’re going to want the details back in, and they’re not going to accept what amounts to a presuppositional argument. I don’t blame them. I don’t like presupps either.

That magic is wrong — it is fiction — is a conclusion which was the result of examining evidence and rational thinking and scientific testing. Science killed it. Not semantics.

My dictionary defines the term thus:

the quality of having unlimited or very great power

Yes, some go with the limited form — we’ll get to that in a minute. But some also go for the unlimited form. And it most emphatically is not my fault that the unlimited form is as insanely idiotic as “the largest integer.” Just because somebody thinks that it’s rational to worship the largest integer doesn’t mean that it’s a position any more defensible than geocentricism.

Now, limited omnipotence. The Catholic Encyclopedia puts it this way:

The power of God to effect whatever is not intrinsically impossible.

Interestingly enough, the article that comes from, the article devoted to God’s unlimited powers, devotes almost all of its text to limiting the unlimited.

But never mind that.

If it is your position that the fact that God can’t draw, on a flat sheet of paper, a closed figure with three straight sides that each join at right angles — if that fact is not to be taken as evidence that God is not omnipotent, then it cannot be taken as evidence that I am not omnipotent when it turns out that I, too, cannot complete that task.

God, of course, could trivially stretch the paper over a globe and thus draw the triply-right triangle. But so could I; therefore, God’s power to do this task on a globe is irrelevant to my inability to do the task on a table.

And, so, you might claim that God (in the form of Jesus) could run a one-minute mile, and I cannot. But so what? It is intrinsically impossible for me to run a three-minute mile; just as the geometry of the flat table won’t let me draw a triply-right triangle, the geometry of my body won’t let me complete that path through four-dimensional spacetime. I could do the three-minute mile on a bicycle, but that’s as irrelevant as drawing the triangle on a globe or Jesus’s super-speed.

Some at this point will attempt to modify the claim and effectively give God a superset of all of everybody else’s powers…but, once again, that falls flat.

For I have the power to commit suicide, and no omnipotent being can possibly have that power. For, once the omnipotent being does so, it’s ultimately powerless. How does the term, “omnipotent” even hypothetically apply to a dead god?

Again, some will claim that suicide would be something evil or against God’s nature, but now we’re getting into silly excuses. God also couldn’t retire his throne and let his son fully and forever take his place. In every kingdom throughout history, doing so has been understood as a right and noble thing in all non-criminal circumstances.

The list of admirable things that I can do that God can’t is endless. I can be empowered by frustration or loss to overcome my perceived limits, for example; not so with God. If you can’t think of more examples in that vein, you’re deliberately blinding yourself.

Lastly, God can’t even know if he’s the ultimate power in the universe or if he himself is merely a pawn in an even bigger Matrix-style simulation. This post is already overly long, so I’ll omit that here, except to note that the proof is essentially the same as that commonly used for the Halting Problem. Either Jesus can’t make a perfect simulation for Satan or he himself has no perfect test for simulation; ergo, no such simulation can exist and neither can any guaranteed test for simulation.

So, sorry. It ain’t my fault that omnipotence is its own self-contained contradiction, no matter how you attempt to slice and / or dice it.

Just like it’s not my fault that Santa’s not gonna be leaving any teeth on the White House lawn this Easter.

b&