February 09, 2007

Well, it seems like we are simply unable to agree on the supernatural vs natural distinction. You would like to preserve the possibility of existence outside space-time, while I hold that such a thing is inconceivable, unthinkable to a creature whose very cognitive ability arises from spaciotemporal relations, and is simply a linguistic malady. I find that saying "a supernatural god exists (or might exist)" is an abuse of the word "exists" by maintaining its use in a context in which it has no meaning. I hold that you, or I, or anyone else cannot imagine, and hence cannot describe or define what aspaciotemporal existence means. You seem to be satisfied with our ability to just say it, oh well, guess I'm shit out of square-circled glarbalb.

I agree that I can't describe what aspaciotemporal (a cool word that I hadn't come across before) existence might be. But since I can conceive of a being in a separate space-time context that we would consider to be a deity, I'm comfortable with that.

Agreeing to disagree is an okay place to end up. In fact, that's where I end up with most deep-thinking theists as well. Even though I don't share your opinion, you have convinced me that someone can have valid reasons to call themselves a strong atheist.

Your position seems to be very close to the linguistic argument against the existence of God, which holds that God cannot be defined and therefore cannot meaningfully be spoken of. But where the linguistic argument ends with "we can't discuss God because we don't know what 'God' is" you are able to specifically state that there is no such thing as God because you can see no possible context within which such a thing would exist. I think that's quite clever and hadn't run into it previously. The closest I've come is the creationist argument that it is inconceivable that our universe came into existence without a context, and that context must be God, but the creationist argument doesn't hold up under Occam's Razor and yours seems to.

No comments: