SKLANSKYANITY DEBUNKED

[BluffTHIS!]

David has postulated in his theistic religion Sklanskyanity, that there is a God who created the universe, there is an afterlife, and that God will reward or punish men based upon their actions in this life. However, he does not believe that such a God would "interfere" in our lives here and now, nor has He done so in the past. I have said that such non-interference would not make sense, but David has said that it would. David also has said that part of Sklanskyanity would be a God who is not or chooses not to be all-powerful. I would like to delve into this a little deeper.

Now of course David can postulate any axioms he wishes for a certain system. However, those axioms must not logically conflict, and they should not be too far-fetched. However, his axioms are indeed in logical conflict with each other and do seem to be far-fetched.

1) A God who is not or chooses not to be all-powerful

Regarding this, which religious people refer to as the divine attribute of omnipotence, this axiom can be seen to be illogical because it follows an axiom with which it is in conflict: that God created the universe. Thus, an all-powerful action par excellance, creation of the universe, is followed by God then not being all-powerful. This is an illogical conclusion, and even if it were to be insisted upon as a second axiom, such an axiom in relation to the first would be far-fetched.

2) That God having created the universe does not “interfere” again until the divine judgment that determines a person’s reward or punishment in the afterlife

This too is an illogical and far-fetched assertion because such asserted non-interference is sandwiched between the two biggest acts of interference possible, between creation and divine judgment for a person’s place in the afterlife. It also is illogical for another extremely important reason. That reason is the purpose of God in creating His creatures. Now for a God who by virtue of His creative power is necessarily self-sufficient, creating lesser creatures can only be for a malevolent purpose, or for a beneficial and kind purpose. I discount the possibility of a malevolent purpose for obvious reasons and because David has not postulated same. Therefore, God created us for a beneficial and kind purpose, and our relation to Him may precisely be seen to be the same as a Father to His children. Thus just as human parents “interfere” beneficially in the lives of their children, through powers that the children lack, so God too occasionally interferes to our ultimate benefit with powers that we lack, namely to violate the physical laws of the universe. Since our earthly life is in furtherance of an eternal afterlife and thus insignicant compared to that, God might choose to interfere for may reasons: to let us live longer so as to change and be judged worthy of that afterlife, so that we may benefit others to that end, or even just to provide some evidence for faith, as was the case with many Biblical miracles.

There is also a final reason to believe that interference is not unreasonable. Namely that what for us would seem to be interference, either obviously supernatural acts contrary to the physical laws of our known universe, or as I believe often is the case more subtle acts that break the physical laws but are not obvious to us (God wants you to avoid a traffic accident and instead of sending an angel to stand before you and block your path merely causes your fuel line to rupture but is not seen to do so), is really not that great an interference at all because we do in fact experience only a limited part of a multi-dimensional universe and thus are as two-dimensional objects in our previously discussed Flatland in relation to God who is a sphere or a tetrahedron. Thus He might not actually be violating the physical laws of the universe by His interference but only seem to do so since we lack the means to physically observe higher dimensions.


Therefore I formulate the following syllogism:

1st Premise: There is a God who created the universe, and by such creation is shown to be all-powerful.

2nd Premise: That God cares about His creatures, and particularly about those intelligent creatures that will have an afterlife and thus desires that they have the best afterlife possible and the best life here and now in furtherance of that ultimate end.

Conclusion: Because God created and cares for His creatures and wants them to have the best afterlife possible as well as a life here and now that furthers that end, He occasionally interferes in the lives of men both in ways that would be deemed by man as supernatural, and in ways that do not actually break the physical laws of the universe, but whose cause cannot scientifically be discovered to be God (BECAUSE HE LOVES US).


Nota Bene: Obviously all humans do not experience the best possible earthly life and many such live lives of great suffering, but I have asserted that such earthly life is not the ultimate end but rather in furtherance of the afterlife, so if you want to argue about “the problem of evil” or “why bad things happen to good people”, start another thread on that topic.

[PairTheBoard]

BluffTHIS --
"that God created the universe. Thus, an all-powerful action par excellance, "

As godlike acts go, creation of a universe might be a small thing.

PairTheBoard

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]

As godlike acts go, creation of a universe might be a small thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

An example of a bigger thing?

Your premises are flawed creating the universe doesn't prove allpowerful just powerful enough to create a universe which like was stated may be a small task. Your second premise that he cares because he created us is also flawed, he may have created us to take his anger out on for theraputic reasons or to get an A on his second grade science project. Saying that he created us in no way proves it was kind in nature or even purposeful. With your premises being flawed it is unlikely your conclusion is valid either.

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
2) That God having created the universe does not “interfere” again until the divine judgment that determines a person’s reward or punishment in the afterlife

This too is an illogical and far-fetched assertion because such asserted non-interference is sandwiched between the two biggest acts of interference possible, between creation and divine judgment for a person’s place in the afterlife.

[/ QUOTE ]
That a period of non-interference would be sandwiched between "the two biggest acts of interference possible," in no way makes it logically implausible.

[David Sklansky]

1. Firstly creating our particular universe is not evidence of all powefulness. The entity that created it could be like us building an ant farm. The fact that he created it out of "nothing" simply means he had access to another dimension (where there was already something). If all this implies that he is not God and that this entity has his own God, so be it. It is this entity that is concerning himself with us and who we are concerned with.
Secondly there is the possibility that he was all powerful but gave up what was necessary to give us true free will. I would think such a possibility would please those who like to believe that he let his only son suffer for us. Giving up his omnipotence (which seems logical that omnipotent entity could do) for us is at least as big a deal.

2. Sklanskyanity does not insist that God won't become involved in our day to day lives. For instance the punishment or rewards could conceivably be in the here and now. The point that BluffTHIS is arguing about relates to whether it makes sense that a concerned father would ignore his children. I already wrote why it does but maybe he missed it. I pointed out that you can't use the human father analogy because God is all powerful (save for the seeing the future which he gave up) while fathers are not.So while a father will do everything he can for you God can't because that would mean doing everything. That being the case it is reasonable to believe that God chose to stay out of things completely rather than to sometimes get involved and sometimes not. As to he idea that God would go to great lenghts to prevent your car accident but allow tsunamis, is at least as implausuible as the idea that he will remain above the fray completely. In any case the whole subject of whether or not he gets involved is only my opinion, based on evidence, not a tenet of Sklanskyanity.

[ QUOTE ]


2. Sklanskyanity does not insist that God won't become involved in our day to day lives. For instance the punishment or rewards could conceivably be in the here and now. The point that BluffTHIS is arguing about relates to whether it makes sense that a concerned father would ignore his children. I already wrote why it does but maybe he missed it. I pointed out that you can't use the human father analogy because God is all powerful (save for the seeing the future which he gave up) while fathers are not.So while a father will do everything he can for you God can't because that would mean doing everything. That being the case it is reasonable to believe that God chose to stay out of things completely rather than to sometimes get involved and sometimes not. As to he idea that God would go to great lenghts to prevent your car accident but allow tsunamis, is at least as implausuible as the idea that he will remain above the fray completely. In any case the whole subject of whether or not he gets involved is only my opinion, based on evidence, not a tenet of Sklanskyanity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont have the best understanding of qauntam mech or Sklanskyanity, but if God, as Sklanskyanity allows for, does become involved would the "spookiness" of QM disappear?....would the Schrodinger wave equation collapse at the subatomic level?

i dont know if that ques even makes any sense but iver been reading about that crap all night and i was just wondering if i have any type of understanding of it.

[David Sklansky]

According to Sklanskyanity, God can't make Quantum spookiness disappear. He gave forever up the power to do that. If he didn't he would be able to use his vast calculation abilities tos see the future (and eliminate our free will) even if he couldn't just snap his fingers and do it. Thanks for the question.

[Girchuck]

An entity that is capable of creating the Universe is not necessarily all-powerful.

[bohemian]

I have never seen anything more useless than debates on this forum. What a stupid waste of time.