Moderated Infinity!!!

[Thermal]

Whatever happened to Jell-O wrestling anyway?

 

[theprestige]

I did read it.

But if playing Don Quixote and going to battle with windmills isn't your game it's not all that applicable. They believers will believe against all reason and logic despite how many well researched lines of text are tossed at them.

They don't care and won't read past the part where each understands you are demeaning them.

Being "christian" isn't one uniform belief. It's at least as many versions as there are practioners. Addressing the specific ideas of even a small portion is difficult, getting most of them an utter miracle.
Good luck but it's wrestling a jello monster at best.

It helps if you're engaging with actual Christians, instead of with devoted anti-theists whose disdain for Christianity is matched only by their disdain for ill-conceived and poorly executed attacks on Christianity.

 

[bruto]

Well... what do you say to this then

You're thinking like an atheist here. If you believe in a creator god who exists outside of the physical universe, and in fact created it, then the fact that the physical universe is finite has no bearing on the infinite qualities of that god.

It is quite within the bounds of theism, I think, to presume that God and his spiritual realm, whatever that might be, are infinite in all sorts of ways, but also that the very fact of the creation demands that the universe be lesser, and it cannot in any way have existed before it was created.

This has nothing to do with any argument about the actual existence or nature of gods or the actual existence or nature of infinity.

 

[alfaniner]

And beyond!!!

To Bed, Bath...

oh wait. never mind.

 

[Myriad]

It is evident you have not even read the first line let alone the rest of it.

On the contrary. When a sentence states that "Christian apologists" do something, it clearly implies that doing that thing is characteristic of typical Christian apologists. Not "all" Christian apologists of course, but more than "a few" Christian apologists or some very specific sub-type of Christian apologist.

Thus the otherwise unqualified claims that "Christians apologists refuse to eat pork" or "Christian apologists pray on Wednesdays" would be at best misleading. Of course there are a few Christian apologists who for various reasons are not willing to eat pork, and there are undoubtedly many Christian apologists who pray every day including Wednesdays. But neither refusing pork nor praying on Wednesdays compared to other days of the week are characteristic of typical Christian apologists. If the writer's intention is to mislead, "Christian apologists refuse to eat pork" and "Christian apologists pray on Wednesdays" become dishonest claims.

It is not true that rejecting the concept of infinity as nonsense is typical of Christian apologists. Appeal to infinities inherent in such concepts as omnipotence and eternity is in fact nearly universal in apologetics. So while there are probably some number of Christian apologists who reject the concept of infinity as nonsense (though you haven't shown any), the phrasing clearly implying that rejecting the concept of infinity as nonsense is typical of Christian apologists is misleading. (Leading with a word such as "some" would have avoided that false implication.) If the misleading is intentional, it's also dishonest.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Leading with a word such as "some" would have avoided that false implication.

But qualifiers like that, or starting a thread with a question, like "what positions do most Christians take regarding the concept of infinity?", don't lend themselves well to the practice of lecturing others about just how incredibly wrong they are.

QED

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Christian and other apologists and casuists keep telling us that infinity is a nonsense concept that is not in reality.

Please get back to me when you find a casuist or Christian or other apologist expressing an opinion about the Whitehead problem.

 

[Leumas]

Please get back to me when you find a casuist or Christian or other apologist expressing an opinion about the Whitehead problem.

Did you see the movie A Beautiful Mind?

In college I had a colleague in the math classes who was a genius and could understand all those number theories and groups and rings and whatchamacallits... and I struggled to make sense of it all... but when it came to calculus and partial differential equations I was not bad... but he... struggled to make sense of that.

So he tried to help me out with his stuff and I with my stuff... I think he failed in helping me... but he got an A in the class I only got a B... so I must have taught him better or I am just a hopeless case when it comes to that kind of pointless useless (kidding) math that I could not see any application for (kidding)... I think the latter is the case.

However... I have always wondered at his brain... how on earth can he fathom all that gobbledygook math and not the useful calculus and partial differential equations with real physical world application????

Decades later I saw that movie and understood how.

And reading about that Whitefoot problem ... I am reminded of those hours after hours I struggled to make any sense at all of that claptrap.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Why is there yet another thread full of gibberish railing against an idea no one here has put forth and arguing as if this is somewhere like RaptureReady rather than a board mostly populated by atheists?

 

[Foster Zygote]

Why is there yet another thread full of gibberish railing against an idea no one here has put forth and arguing as if this is somewhere like RaptureReady rather than a board mostly populated by atheists?

It seems to be railing against an idea that hardly anyone has put forth, let alone here. The OP assures us that Christians keep telling us that they reject the concept of infinity, as though this is a common part of Christian orthodoxy. But I've yet to encounter any Christians redundantly claiming that infinity is "a nonsense concept that is not in reality". Then it gets really weird when the subject of coin tosses is brought up, as though his other thread has anything to do with theism - as though the (mostly) atheists in that thread are somehow invoking a god by disagreeing with him.

 

[Leumas]

... The OP assures us that Christians keep telling us that they reject the concept of infinity....

Strawmanning is a fallacy... I suggest you read the OP again... you either misread it or are deliberately strawmanning it.

Christian and other apologists and casuists keep telling us that infinity is a nonsense concept that is not in reality.

I suggest in addition to reading the OP again... to also read this

One of the common claims which is utilized in arguments for the existence of God is that actual infinities cannot exist, implying that there cannot be an infinite regress of causal events in the history of the universe. If there cannot be such an infinite regress, then there must be some First Cause. Theologians then put forth other arguments attempting to show that this First Cause must be God. Blake Giunta, a Christian apologist,

And this

In defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, apologists such as William Lane Craig, Frank Turek, and myself will argue for the second premise (i.e that the universe had a beginning to its existence) by arguing that an actually infinite number of things are impossible.

 

[Leumas]

Why is there yet another thread full of gibberish railing against an idea no one here has put forth and arguing as if this is somewhere like RaptureReady rather than a board mostly populated by atheists?

Why such a rude comment? I wonder

But thanks... QED!!!

 

[Steve]

Why do you feel so compelled to be rude? I wonder

But thanks... QED!!!

Compulsions are difficult to explain. We have a poster on this very board who appears compelled to pontificate, in thread after thread, on concepts that no one here, and very few people in real life, actually hold. Who can explain that?

 

[jsfisher]

... The OP assures us that Christians keep telling us that they reject the concept of infinity....

Strawmanning is a fallacy... I suggest you read the OP again... you either misread it or are deliberately strawmanning it.

Foster Zygote quoted the essence of part of the opening post. You may recall, it was:

Christian and other apologists and casuists keep telling us that infinity is a nonsense concept that is not in reality.

You expect us to believe that when someone quotes back your very words, that you are being straw-manned (and deliberately so)?

 

[Jim_MDP]

To Bed, Bath...



oh wait. never mind.

Not for very much longer...

 

[Myriad]

You expect us to believe that when someone quotes back your very words, that you are being straw-manned (and deliberately so)?

No, Leumas's big gotcha here is that the claims of Christian apologists must somehow be a substantially different thing from the claims of Christians. Because, you know, most Christian apologists are Buddhists, or something.

 

[jsfisher]

No, Leumas's big gotcha here is that the claims of Christian apologists must somehow be a substantially different thing from the claims of Christians. Because, you know, most Christian apologists are Buddhists, or something.

Ah!! I understand now.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Strawmanning is a fallacy... I suggest you read the OP again... you either misread it or are deliberately strawmanning it.

I suggest you learn what a strawman fallacy really is.

I didn't misread the OP, and I certainly didn't create an argument and then falsely attribute it to you. I paraphrased your first sentence quite accurately.

• Christian and other apologists and casuists = Christians

• keep telling = keep telling

• infinity is a nonsense concept that is not in reality = reject the concept of infinity

The sentence you quoted isn't a strawman because it accurately reflects your claim. The really funny part is that your claim is a strawman, because it attributes to Christians a supposedly common doctrine that is not in evidence.

 

[Leumas]

No, Leumas's big gotcha here is that the claims of Christian apologists must somehow be a substantially different thing from the claims of Christians. Because, you know, most Christian apologists are Buddhists, or something.

I am so pleased to see your concern to defend Christian apologists... from my egregious slander of them.... thanks for that... they need all the defenders they can get the poor oppressed nice guys.

 

[GDon]

"Christian and other apologists and casuists keep telling us that infinity is a nonsense concept that is not in reality."