God Paradox

asmodeus256 said:
Can God make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?
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Its mass would have enormous amounts of gravity which would attract other bodies of mass which in turn will increase the mass and as mass is proportional to gravity, it would attract even more mass which in turn will....etc etc. In the end you'd reach a point of singularity and the stone would collapse on itself and turn into a black hole.

The answer is no, he'd get sucked into the stone :D
 
the way i see it, the notion of god is one that represents something intangangable and metaphysical, and so for god to lift the stone there would need to be some transition of force from the metaphysical world to the physical, which doesnt make sense because a physical force cannot exist in an intangible environment. so really its just a paradox applied to empty assumptions of the what the universe might be. meaningless really, but still cool to think about i guess... for a minute or two.
 
Been lookin around and found this debate and must say I love it and I will love to post MHO. First of all, before I start with pounding on the rock thing, I feel that I must first explain how I see god. I think there is a big diference between the phylosophical god and religious God. I must say that I am religious, but dont take part in any institution or church! ! ! I dont think of god as an entity with a mind of its own - I think god is just an energy working in chaotic order. It just is, it evolves, it creates and it destroys. Therefor expecting from god or even telling him to create a rock so big he cannot move is absurd - its like praying to electricity. If god was an entity with feelings and was able to listen, if it had the power to hear us and (like catholic church tells us) love us - why all the suffering? Its a paradox that has nothing to do with god, it has to do with us people finding a way to complicate our lives and pounding on paradoxes, running in circles etc. etc. . . Or maybe it has to do with me doing too much acid - only God knows . . .
 
Maybe we should all stop thinking about "god" and instead do something worthwhile. You speak about "god" as if there was anything to it except crazy fantasies and subjective feelings based on absolutely nothing concrete. This really is just inventing paradoxes based on "empty assumptions"
 
But if an omnipotent being already knew the outcome of the stone-lifting experiment, wouldn't he know the outcome of the putting life on earth experiment?

Maybe the whole universe experiment?

That would mean we are just God's fleeting daydream, his temporary musings.
 
Surely if God is an omnipotent being, he can lift any stone he wants. And he can create a stone that no one else but he can lift.

Perhaps a solution to this paradox is that he could create a stone that even he cannot lift, but at any point he wishes he could actually lift it...

Hold on - I've just read what I've written, and I'm going to post it for the pure stupidity of it (no sarcasm...)
 
if God knows he is going to lift a stone, how can he then not lift it?
this is the paradox of omnipotence.
 
That still doesn't explain why he/she/it would want to lift a stone, or create the universe in the first place, not that he/she/it necessarily did, mind you.
 
well that is part of the obvious paradox of omnipotence.

if God knows everything which would happen, if he did THIS.
why would he bother to do THIS?
 
yes, perhaps though, in the spirit of the season of celebrating the shortest day of the year 4 days late like a "good" American, it is not so much the "God paradox" as an omnipotence paradox. Who's to say that omnipotence is even possible, as the very concept applies a boundary to the infinite.
 
Why are we even attempting to answer a question of God with science? It would seem to me, that science and religion conflict just a LITTLE bit...
 
You cannot say that God is omnipotent just as you cannot say that a painting is omnipotent. God is just a word, a representation.

God has no power. The universe is a train rumbling down the track of time. Determinism. No possibilities, just what was what is and what will be.
 
wtfdoe?lol--
-_-

Think..... Think...... Think....... Speak.

No?
ach.....


Like Big Brother in 1984,
it is the idea of God,
the conceptualization/personification of the feelings and wills of those who present this idea,
that has the power.

Thusly, Every church uses the power of the idea of God,
to achieve its own ends,
regardless of God's actual existence.
 
This question has no answer. Just as "what does a square triangle look like?" has no answer.

There's a contradiction in the terms being defined, so it cannot be answered.
 
The paradox boils down to question its self.

Specifically the term: "...a rock so heavy god could not lift it."

Such a thing is logically impossible.


But lets return to god first:
God is omnipotent, which means that he is able to do *anything*. Well the set of *anything* only contains all real things/events. It cannot contain non things/events.

Its the same as the concept normal numbers vs imaginary numbers. No matter what i do i cannot give you the square root of -9 oranges (or 3i oranges). If i had X oranges no matter how many i added, took away, arranged, or changed my oranges i would never end up with 3i oranges to give you. This is because 3i oranges is not a 'thing' to give. If i had a million times more influence over the universe, i would still not be able able to achieve this goal. If i had a million billion billion times more influence it would still not be possible.
Even if i had infinite influence over the universe, i still cannot achieve the goal. This is because goal is not a goal at all. It is not a 'thing to achieve' because it is not a thing at all. Its a non-goal.

For a goal to exists it must be a real goal, not a non-goal. The place i want to get to must indeed be a place to get to.

Now the 'rock god cannot move' is not a real thing. Because god, by definition, can move anything that exists, a 'rock god cannot move' is like saying a 'motionless rock traveling at 100km/h.' It is oxymoronic term, and violates the very definition of what it is.

Other examples are:
A triangle with 4 corners
Red paint that is blue

These are not real things. They are non-things, and do not fall with in the set of 'everything'

So the answer to the question is NO. God cannot create (or move) a rock so heavy god cannot move it. But this does not violate god's property of 'being able to do/create everything (omnipotence)' because a 'rock so heavy god can't lift it' is not in the set of 'everything.'
 
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