"Is it necessary to define what you mean by 1, +, =, what base you are using, etc., every time you write an equation ?  No.  Base 10 is assumed unless specified otherwise, normal rules of addition unless specified otherwise, etc."

It is when there is money on the line.  And it is when your whole dismissal of a position is based on framing it as base 10.  Next time get a lawyer. 

"Similarly, if the analogy holds, you are claiming that Jesus / HS / God are different in such a way that at least portions of them cancel out to zero.

"By your logic, I can correctly claim that you weigh zero pounds at sea level."

While I disagree with some of your other comments, I agree with the basic gist of this here.  Yes, if you change your system's parameters, and your assumptions, things that seemed absurd before might actually make fine sense.

"Before we get too far, let me clarify.  I have an engineering background in terms of work experience - nuclear power in the navy and general mind-set.  I don't have an engineering degree."

Thanks for that.  As for me, I found no use for vectors after high school so I didn't pursue much math in college, quickly determining that it was useless. 

"Mono-theism - one God - means a scalar unit of one.  It is an answer to a counting question.  "How many Gods ?  One."

Says who?  Where does it say that it is 'scalar'?  Why not some other type?  What drives you to choose only that and nothing else?  What is that one God?  A vector will, by definition, include different components.  One can talk about one infinity being bigger than another infinity.  With the world as your oyster for possible ways to look at 'oneness' on what grounds do you choose 'scalar'?

"For the umpteenth time, provide something.  Stop obfuscating.  What is this model of addition you are talking about ?  What is the number line or alphabet or method of theology ?"

I'm not obfuscating.  Obfuscating would be if I had actually provided the solution but did so in a deliberately confusing way.  I have a standing personal policy against squeezing water from rocks.  You can do it sometimes, but it's a lot of work.

You don't like playing with vectors.  Let's change it up.   It bothers you that Christians can maintain that there is only one God but that one can accurately state that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God.  It sounds like a contradiction in terms to you.  Let's talk about light.  Isn't it a contradiction in terms to posit that light is a wave, as it can propagate without a medium, while this is in fact something that a wave is said to not be able to do?

"By basic common understanding and communication.  When I ask how many kids someone has, or how many dollars they have, or how many Gods there are, they are giving scalar answers."

But the basic definition of God, as Christians understand him, is that there can only be one, see?  But that need not be the final word.  How many dollars do you have?  1, you say.  But what is a dollar?  It is an entity composed of various kinds of pluralities, is it not?  These pluralities work together and are so arranged so that they become a whole dollar.  What is God?  That there is only one is a redundancy, even if you don't see it.  What is he, and how could you find out?

"It all goes back to that number line that is the basic introduction to math."

I always hated the number line, and I think its funny that you keep using it.  I haven't had to use a number line in my daily life since I think third grade.  There had to have been a point where I, in my immense wisdom as a 12 year old, decided that number lines had no utility, and abandoned them.  I haven't felt their loss yet. 

"No, because at the level where light is a wave, matter itself has the same wave properties.  Matter needs no medium - unless you consider space-time a medium, in which case light DOES have a medium."

Unless you consider space-time a medium?  If I didn't know better, you're attempting to do with light what you're refusing to let me do with the spring scales.  You're changing the system so that what seemed to be absurd can be seen in a context where it isn't necessarily absurd.  No fair that you get to do it but I can't! 

And just exactly where would 'at the level' be?  While we're on it then, since you have so satisfactorily created an arrangement where light can be a wave, you must then deny that light is a particle, which would work fine since the photon has no mass.... right?  Don't particles require mass, definitionally, to be particles?

"Well, if you really want to get into the details, then strictly speaking a particle (in terms of physics) is a temporary aspect:"

Yes, but the wiki article doesn't clarify that what it means in that it is implying in that statement a general acceptance of the standard model.  'Strictly speaking' from within that model, perhaps.  There are other models.  Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

"It's headache inducing if you try and make any intuitive sense to it."

That's too bad, really, don't you think?  Seeing as our intuitions are formed through years of sensory experience and interpretation, it would almost seem like our senses led us to doubt our senses.   That's an interesting epistemological conundrum.  Interesting that this area of physics, so mind boggling that people like Feynman assert that no one understands it, doesn't seem to faze you.  I mean, light is a wave... but requires no medium.  It is a particle, but it has no mass.  Etc, etc, the cat is both alive and dead, you can't be sure the moon is there if you aren't observing it, for every new observation there is a new universe... etc, etc... with how utter bizarre it has turned out that reality appears to be, driving us from this unintelligible notion to that, you single out one 'unintelligible' notion out of all of them (the Trinity), to summarily dismiss?

In other words, even if we thought the Trinity was 'unintelligible' it wouldn't necessarily follow that it isn't true.  Surely what matters is not whether we can understand the position, per se, but the evidence that leads us to consider it?

"No.  It doesn't violate any logical laws."

Says you.  Spooky action at a distance?

"Matter is also a wave.  Did you miss that ?"

Light is not matter.  Did you notice?

"I dismiss it because it violates the logical law of non-contradiction.  Saying that the universe at small scales is very different than our every-day experience of the universe at human scales is very different from saying 1+1+1 = 1 AND 3."

Well, as I think I've highlighted pretty well by now, it is YOU that has reduced the matter to 1+1+1=1 AND 3.  If saying that the universe at very small scales is very different than our every-day experience, it certainly is reasonable to consider that the universe at very large scales may be very different as well.  And if the reality is that we aren't even talking about the universe, but that which creates the universe with a word and sustains it each and every instant, then we can reasonably suspect that reality at the level of God, the 'creator-sustainer,' may be very different than our every-day experience, too.

"Lay out the evidence that leads you to propose whatever it is you are proposing."

A very mature question, and I thank you for it.

"What logical law does that violate ?"

As our logic rests pretty firmly on our experience of cause and effect, locality, etc, nonlocality would seem to violate logic itself.  Especially if we are an empiricist in the school of Hume.

To follow up with your question, I didn't immediately answer it because I was thinking about the best way to proceed.  I'm worried about opening up a can of worms just as I'm getting ready to go on this trip.  However, we've crossed a lot of ground, and I don't think it would be fair not to bring it to some culmination.  While I won't share with you my preferred model (you can discover it yourself on this forum in the meantime) I will draw the conclusion of the argument for you.  I will also go a little beyond it, knowing full well that I can't invest the time to defend all that you would want me to defend.  At least you'll hear the basic position, though, and you won't be able to accuse me of obfuscating. 

Here it comes in the next post.

The only way that we could gain any kind of direct evidence about the nature of the Creator-sustainer (God) is this:  God himself would have to give us that evidence.  He would have to reveal it to us.

I want this to soak in.  There is no other way.  This is it.   This is why rebuttals that hinge on the desire for 'empirical' (read:  amenable to the scientific method) evidence fails.  Given the definition of the thing, we cannot go 'out' of our system to examine this entity.  If such an entity exists, the initiative belongs fully to it.

Therefore, the reasonable person seeking to learn about this entity, whether it exists or not, what is its nature, so on and so forth, will have to focus on recorded claims of this entity revealing himself or attempt to solicit such self-revelations himself.  There are no other alternatives.

But what would lead one to propose a Creator-sustainer God in the first place ?  Why not just a Creator-God ?  Why not the FSM ?

Also, why would one believe that such a Creator-sustainer God would have any special interest in one species on one planet ?  A planet that is 1 / (10 ^ 60th) the size of the universe and a species that has existed for roughly 7 / (10 ^ 6) of the history of the universe ?  I'm as easily convinced of this as I am that President Bush, while ostensibly president of the entire country for eight years, actually especially cares about one quark in one proton in one leaf in one tree in New Jersey for the last half-minute of his presidency.

There are an infinite number of these kinds of things:

The only way that we could gain any kind of direct evidence about the nature of the Creator-sustainer (Pasta God) is this:  The Pasta God himself would have to give us that evidence.  He would have to reveal it to us.

I want this to soak in.  There is no other way.  This is it.   This is why rebuttals that hinge on the desire for 'empirical' (read:  amenable to the scientific method) evidence fails.  Given the definition of the thing, we cannot go 'out' of our system to examine this entity.  If such an entity exists, the initiative belongs fully to it.

Therefore, the reasonable person seeking to learn about this entity, whether it exists or not, what is its nature, so on and so forth, will have to focus on recorded claims of this entity revealing himself or attempt to solicit such self-revelations himself.  There are no other alternatives.

There is only one such recorded claim of this entity revealing himself: to Bobby Henderson.  Therefore, we can find the nature of the Pasta God, the Beer Volcano, the Stripper Factory,  and the Wait Staff from The Gospel of the FSM.

Now, if I've come to this point where I have valid reasons for believing Jesus to be God and therefore precisely the one entity that can best tell me about God, even if I find what he has to say to be difficult to understand, or even unintelligible to me, it does not follow that it really is unintelligible.  In such a situation, I would be perfectly justified in adopting the position even if I didn't understand it.

Based on this logic, you could never arrive at a conclusion that God was lying or wrong.

"But what would lead one to propose a Creator-sustainer God in the first place ?  Why not just a Creator-God ?  Why not the FSM ?"

One reckons that the FSM would give evidence characteristic to his kind.  One might be led to propose the existence of such an entity if there appeared to be evidence that he has revealed himself.  You may not like it yourself, but there seemed to be quite a bit of buzz generated by such a claimed revelation about 2,000 years ago.  It would seem reasonable to check it out.

There has also been buzz generated by Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Muhammad, and the Star Wars movies.  (Yes, there really is a Jediism religion going.)  Bobby Henderson has generated buzz as well.

"Also, why would one believe that such a Creator-sustainer God would have any special interest in one species on one planet ?"

Again, this would be the kind of question that he would have to tell you, or you would not know at all.

I agree. 

" A planet that is 1 / (10 ^ 60th) the size of the universe"

So, you would think it more plausible if the universe consisted of just a spherical shell at the edge of our atmosphere that we could make our rockets bounce off of.  Then we would think this is plausible.  Give me a break.  Then all you'd say is "Some God, he can only make tiny universes."

What ?  He would still be maker of 'all that is seen and unseen.'  He was considered God by the people who DID believe about the spherical shell.

I believe I am important to my wife, my parents, etc., partially because I am one of few children of my parents and am my wife's only spouse.

But this is neither here nor there, is it?  The size is irrelevant, to the universe or to the planet.  If he indicated he cared, you'd know that he did.  If he didn't, you wouldn't.

In the absence of his indication, the size makes it less likely.  But, yes, an indication would render the previous guess of likelihood moot.

"There are an infinite number of these kinds of things:"

That you can imagine.  The number narrows when faced with actual claims.

Not really.  You said 'One might be led to propose the existence of such an entity if there appeared to be evidence that he has revealed himself.'  There are also the entities who have no interest in us, no interest in revealing themselves to us, or who have an interest in misleading us.  None of these are narrowed down by actual claims.

"There is only one such recorded claim of this entity revealing himself: to Bobby Henderson."

Now you're getting into the quibbling about some of the evidence, aren't you?  How did I know that you wouldn't be able to exercise a little discipline here and focus on the logic chain rather than how you felt about the evidence?

Because the logic chain breaks at the first step: proposing a creator-sustainer God.  If you are going to propose [Y], and then say IF [Y] exists you can learn about it by doing [Z], I am going to point out that you can do that with any number of [Y]s.  I want empirical reasons to propose [Y].

If Bobby Henderson is the only person such an entity is said to have revealed himself to, that would be a very weak epistemological claim.  The analogy doesn't hold.   Unless you belong to the ranks of people who believe that Jesus didn't even exist, the evidence at least suggests that he was witnessed by many, many people.

True.  The evidence also suggests a lot of other things, too.

"Based on this logic, you could never arrive at a conclusion that God was lying or wrong."

Well, no you couldn't.  You probably think you've just said something insightful.  It is nothing more than a simple question of regress.  The only way that you could know that is if you could occupy the same level of existence that he exists in, just like the only way you could know if I was wearing glasses right now would be to be in the room with me.  Apart from that, you could never arrive at a conclusion that I was lying or wrong.  Big deal.

Then how do you arrive at a conclusion that God is good ?  If it is true and non-disputed that you could never arrive at a conclusion that God was lying or wrong, you also cannot ever arrive at the conclusion that God is honest or right.  You have a supreme being of unknown malevolence or benevolence.

Even worse for you, this type of situation exists even if the universe is all there is.  Ultimate statements about the nature of the universe are impossible unless you're in a position to grasp the universe as a whole.  Scientists say things all the time about the universe that we are not in a position to verify, and some can't be verified even in principle apart from an external observation of the universe- and tell me exactly where you'd stand to make that observation?  Your alternative is to regress it back infinitely, which would be yet another clear dividing line between us.  But I won't put words in your mouth.  Let's see what you have to say.

Of course.  My understanding of G

There has also been buzz generated by Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Muhammad, and the Star Wars movies.  (Yes, there really is a Jediism religion going.)  Bobby Henderson has generated buzz as well."

Yea, sure.  And these require explanation as well.  You don't dismiss them.

"Also, why would one believe that such a Creator-sustainer God would have any special interest in one species on one planet ?"
Again, this would be the kind of question that he would have to tell you, or you would not know at all.
I agree.

Keep that in mind.

"What ?  He would still be maker of 'all that is seen and unseen.'  He was considered God by the people who DID believe about the spherical shell."

Yea, but that's not what you are objecting to.  You are assuming somehow that it is ridiculous to believe in the entity merely because we are a small part of the observed cosmos.  But if we were a big part of the observed cosmos you wouldn't be impressed, you'd just shift your assumption "Some God, so big and mighty, all he can do is create this teeny place." 

"I believe I am important to my wife, my parents, etc., partially because I am one of few children of my parents and am my wife's only spouse."

I can just see the philosophical ants in the ant farm arguing about whether or not they are in a farm or not.  "Why would massive intelligent agents care about us, we're so small and they'd be so big!"  Or, the philosophical microscopic bacterium discussing whether or not they were just observed or not.  Why would macroscopic entities be looking at them?  Why, what interest could such entities have in them?

"In the absence of his indication, the size makes it less likely.  But, yes, an indication would render the previous guess of likelihood moot."

Ok, so let's focus on this.  In Christianity, we have the claims of just such an indication.  You have a man, Jesus, who says "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air;  they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?"  (Matt 7:25-34)

Followed by statements like "I it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."  (Matt 9:12, and then claims to be God and representing the Father (John 5:36-47, 8:54-58).  Allegedly, he follows this up with a number of miracles, culminating in rising from the dead, as he had assured everyone he would do.

If you say that these allegations are not likely precisely because God wouldn't actually care, you are begging the question.  In other words, if any time you are presented with evidence of an indication your reply is that it is unlikely that he would give such an indication, that is circular reasoning.  The issue before you, then, is to take the evidence as it is.  If the evidence is unsatisfactory, fine, but none of this rubbish presuming to know that God wouldn't care as your argument that claims that God does care are unreasonable.

""That you can imagine.  The number narrows when faced with actual claims.""
"Not really.  You said 'One might be led to propose the existence of such an entity if there appeared to be evidence that he has revealed himself.'  There are also the entities who have no interest in us, no interest in revealing themselves to us, or who have an interest in misleading us.  None of these are narrowed down by actual claims."

Nonsense.  We are not considering these other entities because we have no reason to do so.  Assuming that you don't merely mean other human entities, we would only need to consider these hypotheticals if they seemed to be relevant.   We could also propose an infinite number of explanations for who is currently writing this post to you.  There are, after all, more than 6 billion people on the planet.  Perhaps it is one of these that is corresponding to you, and not one A. Horvath, apologist residing in Wisconsin.  By your reasoning, it must be equally plausible that some Chinaman is corresponding to you.  Indeed, it may be another atheist.  Anything and everything should be on the table by your reasoning.

"Because the logic chain breaks at the first step: proposing a creator-sustainer God.  If you are going to propose [Y], and then say IF [Y] exists you can learn about it by doing [Z], I am going to point out that you can do that with any number of [Y]s.  I want empirical reasons to propose [Y]."

Here we again have your insistence on 'empirical reasons.'  This is ironic since you're taking issue with the logic chain.  The reasons need to be concordant with the thing being claimed.  But even more ironic is that you have just denied that you can exclude infinite hypothetical once evidence emerges pointing towards one preferred explanation over another, but you have no 'empirical' reasons to consider them.

Now, you've still got it wrong.  The proposal isn't necessarily starting with proposing a creator-sustainer God.  That's merely the definition.  The evidences could be the walking on the water and rising from the dead things.  I disagree that these are 'empirical' in the sense of the SM, but you say they are.  Therefore, even by your own usage, you would have your 'empirical reasons' to justify your inquiry.  In other words, I am not proposing that you start with the belief of a sustainer God, only that you understand that this is the definition of the thing we are discussing from a Christian POV.  You are more than welcome to start by examining the claims of Jesus and the allegations about his claims that have shown themselves to be compelling to quite a lot of people.

"True.  The evidence also suggests a lot of other things, too."

Then, focus on the evidence, and not these absurdities.  What you are doing in your philosophical dancing is perfectly evident.  You are paving the way for yourself to even concede the claims, concede the miracles, and yet still deny the conclusion that Jesus is who he says he is.   We will be left to wonder if there is anything that could even possibly or conceivably lead you to believe it is reasonable to believe in an entity such as Christians describe.  I would suggest that if you have no way of personally accepting such a claim, your metaphysical naturalism is, as I have said, framed so that it cannot possibly be refuted.

(BTW, I have been meaning to say that I think my abbreviations to MN may have led us in places to speak at cross purposes.  I think in the main I meant methodological naturalism but realized, perhaps too late, that perhaps you interpreted that as metaphysical naturalism.  My apologies if that happened, and I don't know if it is even possible now to fix it)

"Then how do you arrive at a conclusion that God is good ?  If it is true and non-disputed that you could never arrive at a conclusion that God was lying or wrong, you also cannot ever arrive at the conclusion that God is honest or right.  You have a supreme being of unknown malevolence or benevolence."

Well, again, he'd have to tell you.  And then, to be trusted in his claim, we'd expect to see some sort of verification.  Again, the claims by Christians is that God demonstrated this by making, from our perspective, the ultimate sacrifice, submitting himself to taking on flesh and dying. 

 This is not a new problem for theists, either.  It has been handled through the centuries. 
You do not escape the problem by pointing out that even still he could be lying, etc, because it could also be true that solipsism is true, or that we are in a matrix, or any number of hypotheticals.  Eventually, we are reduced to 'brute fact' and whether you ascribe this raw level of reality to a mindless universe or to a mindful God, you are still reduced to it.  Such are the dilemmas of existing at all....

"All we can do is slowly build up more and more little pieces of knowledge."

Right.  So, when faced with an entity that says he can account for all of reality and backs it up by apparently doing things that none of us can do (ie, the resurrection), it might be a good idea to give the fellah a hearing without presuming that we know enough to dismiss the claims outright.

"You said 'One might be led to propose the existence of such an entity if there appeared to be evidence that he has revealed himself.'  There are also the entities who have no interest in us, no interest in revealing themselves to us, or who have an interest in misleading us.  None of these are narrowed down by actual claims.""

You could actually make this out as an argument for theism.  Since you can not preclude one or the other, you could say that you cannot rationally deny the possibility that you have a genuine revelation, either.  If you're taking evidence out of the mix, the best you can be is agnostic.

I would call the disinterested god argument an argument for deism, not ordinary theism.  Sntjohnny, I think that the issue here is not whether it is reasonable to deny the possibility of gods or genuine revelations, but whether it is reasonable to deny their plausibility.  And, given the number of false gods and false revelations that people have invented and believed throughout human history, it becomes extremely implausible that any one proposal in this area ought to be treated seriously.  So, again, the real argument is over why one should take the proposal seriously, not whether one should consider the proposal a logical possibility.