this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
70 points (80.7% liked)

Atheist Memes

5568 readers
19 users here now

About

A community for the most based memes from atheists, agnostics, antitheists, and skeptics.

Rules

  1. No Pro-Religious or Anti-Atheist Content.

  2. No Unrelated Content. All posts must be memes related to the topic of atheism and/or religion.

  3. No bigotry.

  4. Attack ideas not people.

  5. Spammers and trolls will be instantly banned no exceptions.

  6. No False Reporting

  7. NSFW posts must be marked as such.

Resources

International Suicide Hotlines

Recovering From Religion

Happy Whole Way

Non Religious Organizations

Freedom From Religion Foundation

Atheist Republic

Atheists for Liberty

American Atheists

Ex-theist Communities

!exchristian@lemmy.one

!exmormon@lemmy.world

!exmuslim@lemmy.world

Other Similar Communities

!religiouscringe@midwest.social

!priest_arrested@lemmy.world

!atheism@lemmy.world

!atheism@lemmy.ml

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

If God must be omniscient, God doesn't exist

@atheistmemes

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't disagree with your criticism of religion, but semantic absolutes are like mathematical infinity, you can approximate the concept, but standard logic fails when discussing the actual thing. It's the inverse of dividing by zero, because a set that includes everything necessarily divides everything else into nothing.

Consider the infinite hotel. You work at the desk in a hotel with infinite rooms. There's always room for more guests. But then an infinite bus pulls up with infinite guests. Good luck they came to you, because you're the only hotel that has room for everyone. Infinite hotel, infinite rooms, you're just about to turn on the No Vacancy sign when a second infinite bus pulls up. They have another infinite group of guests. Shit, you're already full, right? Nope, all you need to do is have the group from bus 1 stay in the even numbered rooms, and bus 2 stays in the odd number rooms. Easy peasy.

The thing is, infinity exists. We know it exists. The hotel does not exist, but just because it doesn't exist does not mean it cannot exist. Time is infinite. Consider a hypothetical bacteria that reproduces every second, simultaneously dying and creating a new bacteria. If you were to number them forever, you would never run out of numbers nor would you run out of bacteria. But if you had a second one in a second petri dish, you could number them with even numbers in one dish and odd numbers in the other. You would never run out of numbers, but you'd have twice as many infinite bacteria.

Now take the paradox of the unliftable boulder. Could an omnipotent creator make a boulder so large that the omnipotent mover could not move it? Yes. First, the omnipotent creator makes the boulder, because there is nothing they cannot make. Then, the omnipotent mover moves the boulder, because there is nothing they cannot move.

Religion is a tool, a crutch used by people uncomfortable with uncertainty. There are things we don't know, things we can't know, and things we'll never know. Faith allows a person to pretend they know all three.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I like the creativity in some of your examples, but I think I missed your point about infinity. Okay, it exists. Hotels, bacteria, got it. How does infinity play into the topic here?

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Infinity is a mathematical absolute. It can be bounded conceptually, but the set of numbers is unlimited. Absolute power can by bounded conceptually (omniscience is knowing everything, omnipresence is being everywhere always) but the power is unlimited within those bounds. You can think of those as infinite knowledge, or infinite presence. Infinity breaks traditional logic the same way it breaks basic math.

So just as

infinity + 1 = infinity

{all known things by an omniscient being} + some new unknown = {all known things by an omniscient being}

Now, if you wanted to disprove something, the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient creator is inconsistent with the concept of free will. At the moment of creation, the being would be fully and solely responsible for all things that have happened, are happening now, and will ever happen. I don't like the idea that we can all absolve ourselves of guilt or responsibility by claiming "God's plan" and the just wank on while other people suffer unimaginable horror. Believing in God is an abdication of your place in the world, even if your faith guides you to do good works.