Oh, I didn’t take pleasure, which is why I responded respectfully rather than sarcastically. Despite our differences, I have a great respect for you. You are a very savvy man, and have the rare ability to express yourself with great clarity.
I’ve in fact never said that God is omnipotent, other than in a conditional sense — as in, IF God is all-powerful, THEN so and so.
Not according to Him. According to Him, He does not judge you.
“Reality is only obtained when all conceivable points of view have been combined.” — Arthur Eddington
“Wow, that’s really really wrong.” -Some Dude
Objective Reality exists whether or not we observe it, and independent of our modeling of it.
In short, whether or not you believe in it, or see it, or accept it, the light in your fridge really isn’t on when the door is closed.
We don’t get a better picture of Reality by smooshing together whatever flights of fancy people have. If, for instance, we’ve done advanced scientific analysis of the sun, we don’t need to say that we’re not finished just because we haven’t questioned the people who think that Invisible Pink Unicorns make the sun hot by blowing on it.
Even the “god is hands-off” idea, while being a complex issue meriting thought and discussion, is defensible in a way that this hogwash is not. Some of these people seemingly believe in a God who is good enough to grant miracles at random. Not for those who are necessarily best and purest of heart, or those most faithful, or through any standard: God can cure cancer, and He does so at His Divine Whim. The God who observes human evil with sadness is surely a much better being than the God of Arbitrariness that some people worship.
I tried to keep up with this thread, but I’ve had too much work today. And now my head hurts.
Minor hijack:
Last Friday night, Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher Danny Graves successfully closes out a 2-1 win against the Cleveland Indians, and points his finger at the sky in praise/thanks/recognition of The Big Guy’s role in his achievement.
However, the Indians take the next two games, including a debacle Sunday in which Graves is called on to keep the Reds close in the top of the ninth inning, instead giving up 5 runs and getting only one out. As he leaves the field, Graves is heckled by the fans and responds with another gesture, using a different finger this time. Monday, Graves is released by the team.
Question: Why is Jesus punishing the loyal Danny Graves?
Liberal: Again, love is the facilitation of goodness. God is the agent Who facilitates goodness. Therefore, God is love. God is all that is real. The universe is not real. Evil arises from an amoral context, and therefore is not real.
Liberal: But love in the sense of the archaic term “charity” is translated from the Greek agape, and has nothing to do with the emotion of love. If you will search for “facilitation” under my user name, you will see dozens of times this has been explained, and love has been defined in this way in this context. You might trust Kimstu to explain this usage to you, and so I leave it to her to do so.
I’m flattered by the suggestion, Lib, and I’m sorry to let you down, but I have to confess that I don’t understand this theological or philosophical perspective, and couldn’t undertake to explain it.
At least, not in any way that I’d consider logically or rationally consistent. I get the impression that you and I may share to some extent a spiritual outlook that considers charity and understanding very fundamental, etc. etc., but when it comes to using that outlook to explain good and evil in a strictly logical way, I got nothing.
Sorry, all. No enlightenment here, please try our competitors.
Slack is the facilitation of goodness. “Bob” is the agent who facilitates goodness. Therefore, “Bob” is Slack. “Bob” is all that is real. Universe is not real. Anti-Slack arises from un"Bob"ly conduct, and therefore is also not real.
Or how about this:
Will is the foundation of all goodness. God is the agent who facilitates goodness. Therefore, God is Will. God is all that is real. Chaos arises from unWilled actions, and as such is not real.
Or:
Marshmellows are the foundation of all goodness. God is the agent who facilitates goodness. Therefore, God is a Marshmellow. God used to be all that is real, but now fluffernut is. Graham crackers arise from anti-marshmellow actions, and so there used to be no such thing as a graham cracker. Now there’s no such thing as anti-fluffernut.
Mmm hmmm.
It’s really easy when you make up your premises and try to place your stories on the same level as facts.
When faced with the real world, that’ll really kill ya dead if you ignore it, and a definition someone invents in order to prove that the real world is less real than a fantasy… I think I have to choose what’s real. People have no more claim to talk about what God “is” than anybody else. Not all perspectives can be reconciled, and not one has a shred more proof than any other. Worshiping the sun, or manequins or God or even “Bob” ends up spinning a story, and demanding that other people accept it as true.
I can disregard your concept of God until the cows come home, but if I neglect to drink water or a suitable substitute I’ll be dead in a few days.
Universe may not be ‘real’, but then, everything in it, including yourself, operates at that level of ‘unreality’. Everything is ‘as real as anything else’, and has real-enough effects. Next to Universe, we are given something that isn’t even as real as our ‘unreality’, and we’re to accept that as more real?
There is no way to find out if Yahweh or Zeus would be our head honcho, especially when people invoke the ‘mysterious ways’ dodge. In a way, most theism is really soft atheism. One has to say that all the other contradictory superstitions and muttering about things “beyond” reality are untrue, but yours? Oh, they’re true.
I meant only the derivation of love from agape. Sorry, I thought you were familiar with that.
So what you are saying is that God wants me to give up on my diet. That or Mr. Stay-Pufft is a diety.
[tasty nitpick]And I believe it’s marshmallow.[/tasty nitpick]
You might be surprised to learn that there are other schools of thought on that matter.
What if the switch lever is broken?
It truly is sad that ignorant men are making science into a religion. When it becomes also infested with politics, it will declare there to be Invisible Pink Unicorns so long as that declaration is expedient. You did not understand Eddington’s observation. In fact, I’m not sure that you know who he was.
Your diet is not real, I’m sorry to say. If you ate marshmellows, it’s be real. So the good news is that nothing in the real world matters, because God is a marshmellow and will take you to Rock Candy Mountain in the beforelife once you die.
Well… duh.
I’ve seen it spelled both ways, although I have seen it spelled marshmallow more often. But, this is of course merely a challenge to the One True Faith. Marshmellows are the only thing that’s real. Marshmellows are God. Therefore, marshmellows are spelled with an E rather than an A because God wants it that way and has caused us to do that via a process of totaly free will that He directed.
Pay no attention to the marshmallow behind the curtain.
There, I’ve proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Now you get it.
Whoops, spoke too soon.
Unless I’d read. Which I have. ~shrugs~ Lie across train tracks with a train roaring down the tracks at you and try to not get run over by disbelieving in the train.
Shoot someone in the back of the head while they’re not aware of your being there and don’t have you in their field of perspective at all, and then watch and see if they’ll be just fine.
Good luck.
Then the problem lies with material causes which can be tested, not various spooks and spirits.
It’s truly sad when people of any level of intelligence try making religion into anything even approaching science.
Science won’t. Science is a method. People will claim that.
Moreoever, if someone publishes in a peer reviewed journal talking about IPU’s, then their findings can be tested. Other people can see if they get the same results. A conclusion drawn from faith, however, must simply be accepted as true. Despite your claims to the contrary, there’s no reason one should worship your God instead of fire. Contrary to what you say, there’s no reason to think that God is everything, nothing, or some things. Contary to what you say, there’s no reason to put Christian teachings above Jewish teachings or Muslim teachings or Shinto teachings or Buddhist teachings or…
"This is what really happens in magic-land-beyond-reality-that-you-can-never-experience. So please believe me and only me. "
Yes I did, it’s wrong. But surely you can explain exactly why it’s correct rather than suggesting that anybody who disagrees didn’t understand it?
Oy vey.
:rolleyes:
Eddington was an existentialist. Pray tell, how do you reconcile your new found existentialist beliefs with those that you held, say a couple of months ago regarding Popper, evolution, and falsifiability?
I’m quite sure that Gene Wolfe, the great philosopher and inventor of the machine that makes Pringles, would call you an “ignorant eclectic”. I, on the other hand, would simply call you a poorly educated and pretentious jerk.
“Oh dear,” says The Universe, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“Oh, that was easy,” says Liberal, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, that neither really exist anyway, and gets himself killed at the next zebra crossing.
I can’t have been the only one to pick up on that, can I? I was? Oh, ok, sorry. I’ll go away and revel in my geekiness elsewhere then…
[From Joel Cohen’s “A Random Walk in Science.” ]
Lemma 1: All horses are the same colour.
Proof by induction: It is obvious that one horse is the same colour. Let us assume the proposition P(k) that k horses are the same colour and use this to imply that k+1 horses are the same colour. Given the set of k+1 horses, we remove one horse; then the remaining k horses are the same colour, by hypothesis. We remove another horse and replace the first; the k horses, by hypothesis, are again the same colour. We repeat this until by exhaustion the k+1 sets of k horses have been shown to be the same colour. It follows that since every horse is the same colour as every other horse, P(k) entails P(k+1). But since we have shown P(1) to be true, P is true for all succeeding values of k, that is, all horses are the same colour. Q.E.D.
Theorem 1: Every horse has an infinite number of legs.
Proof by intimidation: Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs and in front they have fore legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. Therefore horses have an infinite number of legs. Now to show that this is general, suppose that somewhere there is a horse with a finite number of legs. But that is a horse of another colour, and by the lemma that does not exist. Q.E.D.
Corollary 1: Everything is the same colour.
Proof: The proof of Lemma 1 does not depend at all on the nature of the object under consideration. The predicate of the antecedent of the universally-quantified conditional “For all x, if x is a horse, then x is the same colour,” namely “is a horse” may be generalized to “is anything” without affecting the validity of the proof; hence, “for all x, if x is anything, x is the same colour.” Q.E.D.
Corollary 2: Everything is white.
Proof: If a sentential formula in x is logically true, then any particular substitution instance of it is a true sentence. In particular then: “for all x, if x is an elephant, then x is the same colour” is true. Now it is manifestly axiomatic that white elephants exist (for proof by blatant assertion consult Mark Twain’s The Stolen White Elephant). Therefore all elephants are white. By corollary 1 everything is white. Q.E.D.
Theorem 2: Alexander the Great did not exist and he had an infinite number of limbs.
Proof: We prove this theorem in two parts. First we note the obvious fact that historians always tell the truth (for historians always take a stand, and therefore they cannot lie). Hence we have the historically true sentence, “If Alexander the Great existed, then he rode a black horse Bucephalus.” But we know by corollary 2 everything is white; hence Alexander could not have ridden a black horse. Since the consequent of the conditional is false, in order for the whole statement to be true the antecedent must be false. Hence Alexander the Great did not exist.
We have also the historically true statement that Alexander was warned by an oracle that he would meet death if he crossed a certain river. He had two legs; and “forewarned is four-armed.” This gives him six limbs, an even number, which is certainly an odd number of limbs for a man. Now the only number which is even and odd is infinity; hence Alexander had an infinite number of limbs. We have thus proved that Alexander the Great did not exist and that he had an infinite number of limbs. Q.E.D.
FinnAgain, that was laugh way out loud funny. I must find a copy of that book. It is a book, right?
Ask, and ye shall receive!
(I cited it incorrectly, my apologies)
And now, to temper good jokes with bad:
Descartes walks into a bar and starts drinking heavily. Pint after pint is consumed, and finally he staggers away from his bar stool and makes to leave the pub. The bartender grabs him by the arm and says “Hey! You have to pay!”
René replies “I think not” and vanishes in a puff of smoke.