A perfect god can not exist?

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;158986 wrote:

Outside all cultures nothing is right or wrong.

Again, so "'Killing of Jews is wrong' is true" is true, and "Killing of Jews is right' is true" is true? How can those both be true outside all cultures if what is wrong right and wrong is true only relative to cultures?

Are they even saying anything at all if they are both true?

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;158987 wrote:

Again, so "'Killing of Jews is wrong' is true" is true, and "Killing of Jews is right' is true" is true?

No, it's neither true nor false in much the same way that "the present King of France is bald" is neither true nor false. There is no present King of France and there is no right or wrong outside of cultures.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;158991 wrote:

No, it's neither true nor false in much the same way that "the present King of France is bald" is neither true nor false. There is no present King of France and there is no right or wrong outside of cultures.

Oh, Ok. Now you are tellilng me that "'P' is true" is not true or false and "'~P' is true" is not true or false. So you haven't actually told me what proposition is true or false of anything. Therefore, "all moral truths are relative" is actually truth-valueless because I don't know which proposition is true or false, here. Consequently, I can't make sense of your claim at all.

(And you are wrong. "The present King of France is bald" is actually false according to Russell since "~∃x(Fx & ∀y(Fy → y=x) & Bx)" is true. If there is no King of France who is bald (as you claim) then it is true that there does not exist one and only one thing that is the King of France and is bald. This, I can understand. But I don't even understand what you are claiming.)

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@Extrain,

[duplicate post]

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159006 wrote:

The problem is by your same reasoning you are also commited to the belief that "the present King of France is not bald" is also false. In either case there is no present King of France that is bald or not bald because there is simply no present King of France.

This is wrong: "there does not exist an x such that x is the King of France and is bald" is true. That's the Russellian rewrite of the English sentence. Get a grip and look it up. Definite description - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Night Ripper;159006 wrote:

Let me explain how sentences usually contain several propositions with an unproblematic example.

1. Invisible God created the visible world.

This sentence contains the conjunction of several propositions.

2. God exists.
3. The world exists.
4. God is invisible.
5. The world is visible.
6. God created the world.

Now let's do the same thing for the other example.

huh? What does this have to do with truth-relativity?

Night Ripper;159006 wrote:

7. The present King of France is bald.

This contains the following propositions.

8. The present King of France exists.
9. The present King of France is bald.

But as you can see, this doesn't actually save you at all because (9) is simply the original sentence. We can both agree that (8) is false but (9) is still neither true nor false because there is no present King of France.

If I were to say, "The present King of France is bald" and you were to respond, "No, he is not" then you would also be affirming that he exists.

Again, you are wrong: When someone says "The King of France is bald" there are actually 3 propositions:

there is an x such that x is a present King of France (∃x(Fx))
for every x that is a present King of France and every y that is a present King of France, x is y (i.e., there is at most one present King of France) (∀x(Fx → ∀y(Fy → y=x)))
for every x that is a present King of France, x is bald. (∀x(Fx → Bx))

But this is a theory of definite descriptions. This has nothing to do with your claim "all moral truths are relative." I don't see how any of this has to do with truth being relative to culture. "all moral truths are relative" doesn't even express a proposition. So your claim is empty!

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@Alan McDougall,

Extrain;158993 wrote:

"The present King of France is bald" is actually false

The problem is, according to your reasoning, "the present King of France is not bald" is also false.

Run your same argument on this sentence and you will see that you are forced to hold that both of them are false.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159009 wrote:

The problem is "the present King of France is not bald" is also false.

That's right. The proposition Russell said that it expressed is not actually contained in the surface grammar of the sentence. Again, so,

"~Ex(Fx & ∀y(Fy → y=x) & Bx" is true. I can understand this. But I don't understand what proposition is expressed by "all moral truths are relative" whatsoever.

Night Ripper;159009 wrote:

Run your same argument on this sentence and you will see that you are forced to hold that both of them are false.

If you want to draw a direct analogy to Russell's theory of definite descriptions, then you are committed to believing that the sentence "all moral truths are relative" is not true or false at all since the proposition that gets expressed by it is not contanined within the surface grammar of this sentence. I am trying to figure out what that proposition is. Russell solved it for the king of france. How do you solve this?

I simply don't understand what proposition you are claiming is true, here, because you think, "'P' is true" is not true or false and "'~P' is true" is not true or false. So aren't even saying anything

1 Reply

@Extrain,

My point was that, outside of all cultures, "killing Jews is right" is false and "killing Jews is wrong" is false because there is no right or wrong outside of all cultures just like there is no King of France.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159013 wrote:

My point was that, outside of all cultures, "killing Jews is right" is false and "killing Jews is wrong" is false because there is no right or wrong outside of all cultures just like there is no King of France.

No, again, this is either an explicit contradiction or you are not saying anything at all. And this case is not analogous to "there is no king of france, such that..." What does "all moral truths are relative" have to do with existence anyway?? Your claim expicitly has to do with truth, not with quantification over existent entities or the denial that such and such an entity with this or that description exists. You are desperately "grasping at straws."

The real problem, now, is that you are also actually contradicting the law of bivalence. Russell held that the sentence "The King of France is not bald" does not literally express a proposition if a person did not want to commit to the existence of the Present King of France. So this problem is a problem of quantification, not a problem of truth-relativity. This quantification problem with respect to non-existence is precisely why he gave the sentence a re-write with his theory of definite descrptions so that it would be properly existentially bivalent. He said there is a scope ambiguity about the word "not" in cases like these. But he did succeed in making the proposition expressed by the sentence "The King of France is not bald" existentially bivalent. He said it really means, "There does not exist one and only one entity that is the King of France and is bald." You, however, have not given such a rewrite for the claim that

"'Killling Jews is wrong' and 'Killing of Jews is right' are both false". This doesn't even make sense! It's a contradiction because it violates bivalence. So does "'the King of France is not bald' is false and 'the King of France is bald' is false, violate the law of bivalence. But Russell was not committed to holding that they were both false. He just said you are contradicting yourself if you think "the King of France is not bald" does not commit you to the existence of the King of France. So he said "The King of France is not bald" actually expressed "There is no thing that is King of France and is not bald." That's the purpose of his rewrite because,

"'The King of France is bald' or 'The King of France is not bald" is still true because it is bivalent. It's a tautology.

So your analogy with Russell's theory of definite descriptions is a false analogy. You have a strong penchant for red-herrings. I simply cannot determine what proposition gets expressed by the sentence "all moral truths are relative" at all. And until you give me one, I have the epistemic right to consider your proposed view complete nonsense.

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

Quote:

A perfect god can not exist?

It really hinges on ones definition or notion of what "perfection" is, doesn't it?

The greeks and the medievals told us perfection was changeless, eternal, impassive, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.

Logic and science tells us that these traits are not the features of our world and in fact are mutually self contradictory.

My notion of "perfection" is a divine element which interacts with the world in a persuasive not a coercive manner. Which both delights in the novelty, diversity and creativity of the world (i.e. influences the world towards creative advance) and suffers with the creatures of the world (i.e takes in the experience of the world). At least for me immutable eternal changelessness is an uninspiring and lifeless vision of the divine. Furthermore it does not represent the world as we know and experience it.

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;159019 wrote:

"'Killling Jews is wrong' and 'Killing of Jews is right' are both false". This doesn't even make sense! It's a contradiction.

Yet you said that the king of france is bald and the king of france is not bald are both false. Special pleading.

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;152613 wrote:

but alan all this is predicated on the notion that we can form an idea of God. It might be something utterly beyond your reckoning and what you are talking about is just the dregs of several hundred centuries of conversations about what people think.

within fantastic imagination anything is possible.

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@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159044 wrote:

Yet you said that the king of france is bald and the king of france is not bald are both false. Special pleading.

No. You don't even listen to people.

I explicitly said "The King of Fance is not bald" is false, like Russell said, because it expresses the propostion,

"There is one and only one king of france and that thing is not bald." This proposition is false. It is false because this proposition is true,

"It is not the case that there is one and only one king of france and that thing is bald."

Look:

"Either 'The King of France is bald' or 'The King of France is not bald' but not both" is true because it is bivalent. It is an exclusive disjunction of two contradictory propositions which cannot both be true.

You, however, have this problem:

"'Killling Jews is wrong' and 'Killing of Jews is right' are both false". This is a contradiction because it does violate bivalence. It is a conjunction of contradictory propositions which are presmably both false, but one of them must be true.

This also violates the law of bivalence,

"'the King of France is not bald' and 'the King of France is bald' are both false." It is a conjuction of contradictory propositions which are presumably both false, but one of them must be true.

But, unlike you, Russell was NOT committed to holding that they both were false. He just said you are contradicting yourself if you think "the King of France is not bald" does not commit you to the existence of the King of France--because it actually does commit you to the existence of the king of france. So he said "The King of France is not bald" actually expressed the sentence "There is no thing that is King of France and is bald." That's the purpose of his rewrite--to assist one in not commmitting to the existence of a thing to which one is implicitly committing.

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@Extrain,

Extrain;158993 wrote:

"The present King of France is bald" is actually false

Extrain;159048 wrote:

I explicitly said "The King of Fance is not bald" is false

Alright then. Laughing

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159052 wrote:

Alright then.

Oh, you're so witty for pulling lines out of context. :rolleyes: So cheap.

Cynical humor is the last refuge of a man who doesn't even know what he is talking about, and who has been shown his beliefs are nonsense.

Go strawman and red-herring other people. I know what I hold. You don't even understand the theory of definite descriptions or the problem it was meant to address. Nor do you understand the difference between a sentence and proposition. You don't even understand what "all moral truths are relative" means, precisely because it is a nonsensical claim. You consistently undercut your own position.

Your only two options are these: either assert nonsense or assert a contradiction. You've been had, so I rest my case, Sherlock.

'P' is false and '~P' is false--violates bivalence.

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;158993 wrote:

"The present King of France is bald" is actually false

Extrain;159048 wrote:

I explicitly said "The King of Fance is not bald" is false

Extrain;159055 wrote:

"'P and ~P' is false" violates bivalence.

It's weird how you can see that the above claims about the King of France don't violate the principle of bivalence yet you can't see how "X is wrong outside all cultures" and "X is not wrong outside all cultures" doesn't either.

There does not exist a King of France and there does not exist wrongness outside of all cultures.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159059 wrote:

It's weird how you can see that the above claims about the King of France don't violate the principle of bivalence yet you can't see how "X is wrong outside all cultures" and "X is not wrong outside all cultures" doesn't either.

Hello. If "P" and "~P" outside all cultures, then this is a contradiction.

And what you just said here is too ambiguous. Do you mean that X is wrong outside all cultures, but it is not the case that X is wrong outside cultures? Or do you mean, X is wrong outside cultures and that X is not wrong inside all cultures? Or do you mean,

"Either X is wrong or not wrong outside all cultures"--if you mean this, then I agree because it is an instance of LEM, P or ~P, and is trivially true.

What are you even saying here??

I just want to know which proposition you are actually asserting. If you think "all moral truths are relative" is TRUE, then I want to see an instance of that formulated in a truth-valuable proposition.

E.g., "All moral propositions are true or false, but not both"

An instance of this would be,

"Killing Jews is wrong" is true or false, but not both.
"Killing Jews is right" is true or false, but not both.
And, "It is not the case that P and ~P"

If you can't even formulate an instance, write it down on paper, then you haven't even said anything.

Night Ripper;159059 wrote:

There does not exist a King of France and there does not exist wrongness outside of all cultures.

This is not the same thing. Like I keep saying, quantification has nothing to do with truth-relativity!

And is this true inside cultures? If it is not, then we just reintroduce the same problem again about what it is that you are actually claiming and your assertion is empty.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;159030 wrote:

It really hinges on ones definition or notion of what "perfection" is, doesn't it?

The greeks and the medievals told us perfection was changeless, eternal, impassive, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.

Logic and science tells us that these traits are not the features of our world and in fact are mutually self contradictory.

My notion of "perfection" is a divine element which interacts with the world in a persuasive not a coercive manner. Which both delights in the novelty, diversity and creativity of the world (i.e. influences the world towards creative advance) and suffers with the creatures of the world (i.e takes in the experience of the world). At least for me immutable eternal changelessness is an uninspiring and lifeless vision of the divine. Furthermore it does not represent the world as we know and experience it.

There was a romantic comedy on Broadway, in New York City, for a time. Its title was, I Love You; You're Perfect; Now Change.

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@Extrain,

Extrain;159062 wrote:

This is not the same thing.

They are both propositions that involve things which don't exist, a King of France and wrongness outside of all culture.

2 Replies

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper;159065 wrote:

They are both propositions that involve things which don't exist, a King of France and wrongness outside of all culture.

But a King of France can exist, but doesn't. Are you saying that absolute values can exist, but do not?

1 Reply

A perfect god can not exist?

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