On the Great Goat
I must apologise in advance to those who are heartily sick of the many Goatist threads that have appeared in this forum over the last few weeks. But so many of those threads break with common sense and agreed reasoning that I am obliged to set out, as simply as I may, the case for the Great Goat.
We know that goats eat everything. This is undeniable.
If A eats B, B cannot eat A; a moment's reflection will show this must be true. SO it follows that either there is an indefinite gastronomic chain, such that goat 1 is eaten by goat 2, which in turn is eaten by goat 3, and hence that there is never a goat that is not eaten by some other goat; or there is one goat that eats every goat; the Great Goat.
But since goats eat everything, there is something that eats the Great Goat.
The traditional answer is of course that the Great Goat eats itself. The self-inflicted suffering of the Great Goat gives meaning to our own suffering.
Now I hope that this short commentary helps divest you of any gnawing doubts. One hopes it will put an end to the mental mastication hereabouts, but that may be too much to imbibe.
We know that goats eat everything. This is undeniable.
If A eats B, B cannot eat A; a moment's reflection will show this must be true. SO it follows that either there is an indefinite gastronomic chain, such that goat 1 is eaten by goat 2, which in turn is eaten by goat 3, and hence that there is never a goat that is not eaten by some other goat; or there is one goat that eats every goat; the Great Goat.
But since goats eat everything, there is something that eats the Great Goat.
The traditional answer is of course that the Great Goat eats itself. The self-inflicted suffering of the Great Goat gives meaning to our own suffering.
Now I hope that this short commentary helps divest you of any gnawing doubts. One hopes it will put an end to the mental mastication hereabouts, but that may be too much to imbibe.
Comments (63)
It would lie alongside the heresy of the Goat that eats, but is not itself eaten.
That's just not true. You falsely imbue the Great Goat with your own limitations.
The logic demonstrated here is a direct mirror of the logic used elsewhere in the Religion section. It is a parody.
Then the goat blows up? If it can consume everything including itself then it's a case of the self containing infinite and innumerable set or more commonly known as Russells paradox?
You're thinking of a goat, aren't you?
The argument is ancient, undeniable and simple: Goats eat everything. So for whatever you imagine, there is a goat that eats it.
Therefore goats are greater than anything imaginable.
Quoting S
Only if you imagine the Great Goat to be at the top of the Great Chain of Eating. But if instead you think of the Great Goat as that which makes eating possible, you would recognize the infantility of your western presuppositions.
Look, it's just different, okay?
Furthermore, Nigeria police hold 'robber' goat (BBC, Jan 2009), and then there's Rick.
Compelling. Undeniable. (y)
This entirely misses the point that goats eat everything. Without acknowledging this basic, self-evident truth, this hinge proposition, your argument about universes amounts to nothing. IF goats eat everything, then the universe is eaten.
Hear, hear.
Oh, that was good. You've out-goated yourself.
The Great Goat is beyond fair and unfair, rational and irrational. We eaters will each in our turn be eaten.
The absurdity of this argument is obvious.
A moment's reflection shows me that this is the opposite of the truth. We all eat worms, don't we? And we understand that eventually we will be worm-food. Your principle does not even apply to individuals, as most of us have experienced being eaten from the inside out by something we have ingested.
It's non sequitur that if A eats B, then B cannot eat A, for example, partially eaten B can still kill A, and also, B can just kill A before A is even aware that it's under attack.
It's arbitrary that goats eat everything. In fact they don't in reality eat everything.
It's counter-intuitive that an hypothetical Great Goat would devour itself, when it could devour something else, it's a Great Goat after all.
There haven't been any other goat threads that l know of.
Other than that, you seem a bit confused,
My friend has both goats and sheep, never has a sheep been eaten by a goat. First premise wrong.
Quoting Banno
If B has been eaten already this is true, but if B eats A first then it is not.
Quoting Banno
Actually it does not follow, there could quite easily be a case where one goat is more interested in eating your underpants and has no interest in other goats. Or several goats eating other goats at the same time which would make it a multi-thread gastronomic chain instead of an indefinite gastronomic chain.
Quoting Banno
Either goats would have to reproduce like rabbits before being eaten or the Great Goat would soon go hungry and become non-existent.
Quoting Banno
Already dismissed as a fallacy.
Quoting Banno
OH NO! That would start another thread on infinite eternity. Please don't do that.
Quoting Banno
Now I hope that this reply to your short commentary helps divest you of any chewing (excuse the pun) doubts. One hopes it will put an end to the mental masturbation hereabouts, but that may be too much to imbibe.
But all is not lost, there is still hope for the Great Goat.
A benevolent Great Goat would not want his followers to suffer, so at the end of their non cannibalistic lives he invites then to the Great Pasture in the sky. And then eats them.
So you don't know Banno.
That's your hard luck.
That some particular sheep has not yet been eaten by a goat. But it does not follow that it will not be eaten by a goat at some later stage.
Indeed, most of the criticisms here have been to the effect it is not the case that goats eat everything. That this thought could be entertained by otherwise intelligent folk shows us clearly the failings of what passes for education on our times. That this very core principle of civilised life could be treated so is an abomination.
Quoting BaldMenFighting
I rest my case.
As is the case of a god knowing everything, facts that cannot be proven are not facts. Show show your evidence.
That is, your doubt tells us nothing about goats, but much about you.
Oh, now I see the light. Of course all i need is faith, the rest will follow.
I am convinced, I have become a believer.
Hail the Great Goat.
Do you think he would mind if we called him GG from now on, The Great Goat is just so over whelming.
Quoting FordFestivaPhilosophy
This is Dreadful. Everything is consumed by some goat; It is this immanent consumption that is the source of the manifestation of that which is consumed.
Things only exist in order to be eaten by a goat.
Where did goats come from? Isn't that the fundamental question, regardless of the failed attempts to answer it?
The Great Goat is, and always has been. He is timeless and exist everywhere at all times.
Have a little faith and just believe.
But this misses the point. Even if I have no faith at all in the eternal and ubiquitous existence of the Great Goat, my question of his origin still remains.
Indeed.
No, it clearly addressed your question. Being everything he is the origin, the end and everything in the middle. There was nothing before him and naught will there be after him because he is all there is.
So for example one of the aspects of Capra's original paper that I find revealing is the way in which it starts half way through an argument, assuming familiarity with other Goatist materials.
I also read his article as a critique of my own views, borrowed from Wittgenstein, that there are truths that it makes no sense to doubt. I've played on that in some of the posts in this thread. The undeniable precept that goats eat everything parallels Moore's "here are two hands".
Goatism ridicules the ridiculous; and this is not such a bad thing to do. But in so doing it keeps an eye on the ridiculous in my own ideas, and the ideas of others.
Here's a fine example from the Followers of the Son showing how a rejection of suffering leads to irrationality. Since the Great Goat eats itself, suffering is built into the vary nature of the world. Tenderfoot's ad hoc fabrication of a New Limbo shows clearly his self-demeaning refusal to accept Goatism.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/goats-airlifted-national-park-developing-thirst-human-urine-084218375.html
Bible, Koran...