# When did religion jump the shark for great thinkers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2010, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373 "2010-05-31T11:07:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/201 "2010-06-03T02:23:31Z")
random thought; are you claiming it’s logically impossible for an omnipotent being to do something because he’s omnipotent? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/202 "2010-06-03T14:12:18Z")
Sorry if this becomes a long post; it’s my first real chance to reply since yesterday. > [@Voyager](#): > > Since we can’t understand God in any way, we also can’t possibly know what he wants for us. You’re putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say we couldn’t understand God _in any way_. We can, because God had revealed some things about himself to us. > [@](#): > > So we can drop all this moral business now. We have no idea whether God thinks of abortion as a sin or a sacrament. > If you disagree, please help us distinguish what is true or false about God’s supposed actions throughout history and what is true or false with God’s moral direction. First of all, I didn’t say anything about abortion; you are projecting your image of God on me. Reasonable believers disagree on abortion. I would say that God abhors the taking of innocent life; we can disagree on whether or not abortion falls in that category. When you say “God’s supposed actions throughout history” I’m not sure what you’re looking for. God works through people. Any event I point to, you can say “That wasn’t God, it was so-and-so.” As far as God’s moral direction, most of that is part of our nature. God wants us to do justice, to love mercy, and to be in right relationship with each other and God. > [@](#): > > [response to God as Creator]So does every other God ever invented. The only evidence we have that this god was the actual First Cause (assuming there is one) is some very incorrect information in Genesis. God is not dependent on a literal reading of Genesis. I’m declaring that part of who God is, is the First Cause. > [@](#): > > Given that, I think we can correct this claim. If we assume that some deity was the First Cause, and has communicated with us, is it too much to ask that the communication be different from what any clever priest living 4,000 years ago or so can come up with? Asian religions have the beginning a long time ago - it is a concept even people living back then can get. That’s not disproof; you’re just complaining that God hasn’t acted differently than he has. I believe there are bits of truth in Asian religions that point to the Judeo-Christian God, and I don’t have any problem with God creating the universe via the Big Band 13 billion years ago (if that’s what you’re getting at). > [@](#): > > Eternal? Unfalsifiable, but please explain why he didn’t bother to make himself known back in the days of the early Egyptian or Chinese kingdoms? I would say that he did, in some form. But even if he had left the Egyptians comletely in the dark it doesn’t prove his non-existance. The Egyptions didn’t know about me either but I exist. > [@](#): > > Omnipresent? Again, pure assertion. By any test we can do, he isn’t everywhere, he is nowhere. He also didn’t seem to be around when Adam and Eve were getting into trouble. Your average mother does a better job of keeping a kid from sticking his finger in the light fixture than God did in keeping them from Falling. Yes, its an assertion – one that you can’t disprove, which is my point. The Adam & Eve is a red herring, I already said that I (like most Chrisitan thinkers and theologians) am not a literalist. > [@](#): > > So far we have a God who is so mysterious we have no idea of what he wants or is like, not true; we do know things He has revealed to us [/quote] one that created the Universe but told a story nothing like the history of a universe, [quote] it sounds like you’re assuming Biblical literalism again > [@](#): > > and one who is everywhere, but whose presence seems equivalent to his absence. Only because there is no such thing as his absence. > [@](#): > > The only thing here remotely falsifiable is first cause, and he falls down badly there. Got anything else? You haven’t falsified anything yet. I thought this was going to be easily disprovable? It sounds like the only God that’s easily disprovable is the one you think we believe in. > [@Voyager](#): > > If God is fully outside the universe, then he doesn’t interact with any of us inside the universe, does he? If he does, then he spends some time inside the universe, and his interactions with us can be verified. He does interact with us. At least, he interacts with me and we have a history of accounts from people who say that He’s interacted with them. How are you going to verify that? > [@](#): > > I’ll give you points for not claiming that your supposed interaction with God constitutes some kind of evidence, though. It’s only evidence to me. But I’m not trying to prove God here; you’re trying to _disprove_ him. I believe both are impossible. > [@MrDibble](#): > > A god’s commandments are not the same as the god’s characteristics. What are god’s properties? As we’ve already seen, if one of them is “ineffability”, anything else ascribed is bunk. And omnimax gods are logically inconsistent. “Ineffable” just means inexpressible – a shorthand way of saying our minds and language are insufficient to fully comprehend God. I’ve given you some of his properties. I know you’re waiting for bated breath for me to describe God as all-powerful and all-loving. But that’s a trap, because we don’t really know what all-powerful, and especially all-loving, mean. > [@Voyager](#): > > True for most things, but if our understanding of God came from God, how could he have steered us wrong? > > As I mentioned, unfalsifiable god as the universe gods can’t be disproven - but they don’t really interact with us either. I’m describing a God who is not “the universe” and who does intereact with us. > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > I don’t really want to be pedantic, but what did Jesus know about gods? Apparently quite a lot, according to the information we have. > [@](#): > > Do you mean the global floods are impossible to disprove (since they’re obviously not) or what? I don’t think this was addressed to me, but God is not defined by the historicity of an epic flood. > [@begbert2](#): > > I missed nothing. Omnipotence **means something** , and what it means is that if you’re doing something as a means to an end, then you’re not omnipotent, because being omniptent means you don’t _have_ to jump through hoops. > > This means, with logical inevitability, that I am an asshole because god **wants** me to be an asshole. He _specifically_ wants it, since he’s omniscient and my assholishness can’t have slipped under the radar. It can’t be to teach me or anyone else things, because he doesn’t need to allow assholery to teach things. > > I honestly don’t even have to get _into_ things that are vague and confusing because the facts here are so direct and the consequences are so clear. > > Consider this sentence: “I am a cheeseball.” I had complete control over its content - so there is no other possible explanation for the second word being “am” than because I wanted it that way. If I wanted it to be different, it would be. Such it is with god - if any god exists with complete control over the world. Proven. QED. Can you comprehend an omnipotent God who chooses not to control everything? > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > :rolleyes: You are basically admitting that you just make all this nonsense up, contradicting yourself further, and you are using a useless source. The Bible has internal contradictions and numerous factual errors, and therefore can’t be taken seriously as evidence. And besides that, the God of the Bible isn’t remotely like your carefully-vague God; if the bible is evidence, it’s evidence against your claims not for it. And this line of argument is further demonstration that neither you nor probably anyone else actually believes in VagueGod. Yes, the Bible has internal contradictions and errors. That doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist. > [@](#): > > You are simply being incoherent. He can’t simultaneously be “wholly Other - ineffable and beyond human comprehension” and personally knowable and describable. Which is it? Why not? We can not fully comprehend God, but we can understand him partially. “Ineffable” means indescribable, not unknowable. > [@](#): > > You obviously want your god to be beyond the human ability to describe or understand when someone critical come along, but then want to be able to say all sorts of specific things about what it’s like. Either he’s understandable and definable, or not. You aren’t just moving the goalposts; you’ve mounted them on a flywheel. Give me an example of something specific about God I’m not saying. I haven’t seen anything yet that comes close to “disproving” the God of Christian doctrine and theology; only tired arguments against popular misunderstandings and strawmen. Please remember that most of the worlds Jews and Christians do not believe in a literal Bible. The authors were inspired by God, and wrote according to their understanding of what God was doing in their culture, and from that testimony we can learn how God has interacted with people throughout history. But God’s existence does not depend on a six day creation or a great flood or Moses and the stone tablets. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/203 "2010-06-03T14:54:37Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > If I don’t have the IQ for advanced calculus should I abandon basic math? Ineffability means you can’t even add 1+1 and expect to get the same result twice. > [@](#): > > The acknowledgement that we can never grasp God fully in this mortal life doesn’t mean we can’t experience God in some way and strive to fathom the meaning of that experience. That’s not ineffability then, because if God were ineffable, you could not attach any meaning to your experience, with any certainty whatsoever. > [@](#): > > Also , I reject that omnimax gods are logically inconsistant because of the reasons I mentioned above. We don’t have the proper knowledge to declare logical inconsistantcy. But we do. We don’t need perfect knowledge to invoke the POE, for instance. And anyway, you’re just appealing to ineffability again, which renders anything else you might ascribe to god bunk, _by your own admission_, like I said. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/204 "2010-06-03T14:57:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You aren’t just moving the goalposts; you’ve mounted them on a flywheel. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/205 "2010-06-03T15:12:00Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > “Ineffable” just means inexpressible – a shorthand way of saying our minds and language are insufficient to fully comprehend God. I wouldn’t say “just” quite so loosely. > [@](#): > > I’ve given you some of his properties. And every time you do that, you show that you, personally, do \*not \*believe your god is ineffable. > [@](#): > > I know you’re waiting for bated breath for me to describe God as all-powerful and all-loving. But that’s a trap, because we don’t really know what all-powerful, and especially all-loving, mean. \*Of course \*we know what they mean - it’s our terms, after all. > [@](#): > > Can you comprehend an omnipotent God who chooses not to control everything? Easily. But he couldn’t also be all-loving. > [@](#): > > Yes, the Bible has internal contradictions and errors. That doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist. But it is strong evidence that the Bible is no guide to god (especially an omnimax one such as the Christian god). > [@](#): > > Why not? We can not fully comprehend God, but we can understand him partially. “Ineffable” means indescribable, not unknowable. Yet you continually describe him… ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/206 "2010-06-03T15:46:34Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I wouldn’t say “just” quite so loosely.And every time you do that, you show that you, personally, do \*not \*believe your god is ineffable. Give me a break! God’s not _completely, entirely_ ineffable. God has ineffable _qualities_. Is that better? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Of course \*we know what they mean - it’s our terms, after all. No, I do not think we know what perfect power and perfect love look like. At best we have a good idea. > [@](#): > > Easily. But he couldn’t also be all-loving. Sure he can; we just can’t understand how. > [@](#): > > [The Bible is imperfect]But it is strong evidence that the Bible is no guide to god (especially an omnimax one such as the Christian god). Why not? > [@](#): > > Yet you continually describe him… But not very well, you’ll notice.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/207 "2010-06-03T16:45:32Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Sorry if this becomes a long post; it’s my first real chance to reply since yesterday. > You’re putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say we couldn’t understand God _in any way_. We can, because God had revealed some things about himself to us. First of all, I didn’t say anything about abortion; you are projecting your image of God on me. Reasonable believers disagree on abortion. I would say that God abhors the taking of innocent life; we can disagree on whether or not abortion falls in that category. > > When you say “God’s supposed actions throughout history” I’m not sure what you’re looking for. God works through people. Any event I point to, you can say “That wasn’t God, it was so-and-so.” As far as God’s moral direction, most of that is part of our nature. God wants us to do justice, to love mercy, and to be in right relationship with each other and God. I’m very confused. Over the years there have been millions of people who have claimed revelation from gods and thousands of religions. The revelations are often mutually contradictory. This exercise is for you to build some sort of coherent model of god which we can try to refute. You say there are revelations. How do I tell which are from God and which are made up by people - intentionally or not? You say God was us to do justice. Well, much of our moral sense can be explained by social and physical evolution, and we see variation in it, such as the existence of sociopaths, which make a lot more sense with a physical explanation than a religious one. I don’t care what you think about abortion - I care how you extract a position from a set of works which in some places treats it as no big deal, and in others seems to care. I have no image of God, I’m just trying to figure out what yours is, and how you came up with it, and if there is any selection criteria for what you think God wants beyond it more or matches what you think is right. > [@](#): > > God is not dependent on a literal reading of Genesis. I’m declaring that part of who God is, is the First Cause. That’s not disproof; you’re just complaining that God hasn’t acted differently than he has. I believe there are bits of truth in Asian religions that point to the Judeo-Christian God, and I don’t have any problem with God creating the universe via the Big Band 13 billion years ago (if that’s what you’re getting at). How do you know God was the first cause? If Genesis is a bunch of bull, did any God anywhere ever bother to tell his people what the real story was? Clearly humans want to know how the universe began - thus creation stories in almost all cultures. Does God not care? > [@](#): > > I would say that he did, in some form. But even if he had left the Egyptians comletely in the dark it doesn’t prove his non-existance. The Egyptions didn’t know about me either but I exist. Yes, its an assertion – one that you can’t disprove, which is my point. The Adam & Eve is a red herring, I already said that I (like most Chrisitan thinkers and theologians) am not a literalist. You were not around back then, God supposedly was. If there is an eternal god, who cares about his creation, why wait? Is it more plausible that his God just chose not to show up until late in human history, or that this God showed up then because that was when this version was created by that culture? The latter, I think. We’ve already gone over how crucial Adam and Eve are to Christianity - to Judaism they are a just-so story, and no big deal. > [@](#): > > not true; we do know things He has revealed to us one that created the Universe but told a story nothing like the history of a universe, > [@](#): > > it sounds like you’re assuming Biblical literalism again Only because there is no such thing as his absence. You haven’t falsified anything yet. I thought this was going to be easily disprovable? It sounds like the only God that’s easily disprovable is the one you think we believe in. I’m only assuming that if God was in any way responsible for inspiring the Bible, he’d want to get the stories in it close to the truth. Why not give a high level view of what really happened? You say literalism, but what are you really saying is that there is no reason to think the Bible isn’t a pack of myths. Funny thing to base a faith on. If you can’t tell the difference between God being absent and being present, he is as good as absent. How do you see the presence of God? In volcanoes, oil spills, and earthquakes? Does God see every sparrow fall, or does he push the sparrows off the branch also. (I think pTerry wrote something like that.) As for what you believe, we’re trying to figure that out. All I get is that God is nice, and you can tell what God isn’t by anything which is demonstrably false. > [@](#): > > He does interact with us. At least, he interacts with me and we have a history of accounts from people who say that He’s interacted with them. How are you going to verify that? Easy. If five people who have claimed to talk to God say he wants five different things for humanity, this is not verified. If God told them something they didn’t know, that could be verification. Ask God if P = NP the next time you chat with him, and either a proof or a counterexample. No, the big revelation is that we are supposed to love one another. Wow, that sure takes divine intervention to come up with. Hell, you might even ask him for help in debating more effectively. > [@](#): > > It’s only evidence to me. But I’m not trying to prove God here; you’re trying to _disprove_ him. I believe both are impossible. Not if you nail down a definition of God. If a particular God is defined as one who created the world in 6 days 6,000 years ago and caused the Flood, we can disprove him. If it is a tri-omni god, we can disprove him through logic. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/208 "2010-06-03T17:04:04Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > It’s a good argument, but it’s not a logically inevitable one. > > If the experience of making the journey through freewill and choices to a society of peace and unity is what that god wants, then that’s what’s happeneing. > It’s true that with an omnipotent god that isn’t neccessary but that’s where purpose of creation comes in. Purpose of creation? Don’t put the cart before the horse. One, God has goals. Two, God is omnipotent. Three, God’s goals are immediately achieved, because he’s omnipotent. There is no Four. If god is omnipotent, creation logically can’t exist for a secondary purpose, because then it would be a means to an end, and omnipotent beings don’t need means to ends. Creation as it is, now, must logically exist because god sees creation as it is, now, as an _end_ goal. The journey would have to itself be the point, exactly as you’ve been arguing - it logically can have no other purpose. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > No. It would mean the route and the journey itself were equally important as the final desitnation. > > I don’t see why one has to trump the other. In fact I might even say that God being omnipotent and omniscient knows the destination is inevitable, being part of initial creation, and the journey itself is an equal part of that inevitable whole. > > Not so. Both can be equal components. Let’s be quite clear about what we’re discussing, because I see a potential for confusion. Here are three statements: 1. “ **begbert2** ought to be an asshole now.” 2. “ **begbert2** ought to be a nice person now.” 3. “ **begbert2** ought to be a nice person in thirty years.” Logically, one could hold both 1 and 3 to be important; maybe this is a story about dramatic redemption and like in most such stories the person has to start out bad so they can improve as part of the satisfying resolution. Which is to say that what’s important isn’t so much whether I’m an asshole or not, but the story as a whole - the journey. If this is what you mean when you say that both the journey and the destination can be equally important, then there’s no problem - except that this directly contradicts the god-models under discussion. The god-models in question explicitly claim that 2 is true. It should be pretty clear that both 2 and 1 can’t be true at the same time. But if God is omnipotent, then 1 _must_ be true, because I _am_ an asshole and it’s impossible for me to be successfully defying the will of an omnipotent god. This talk of ‘journeys’ and ‘destinations’ is obfuscating the fact that these Gods are claimed to think that people ought to be nice _now_. This is logically impossible, and painting this desire that we be nice as a ‘destination’ is actually sort of moving the goalposts. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > Interesting analogy since many religions speak of us returning to God. > > Ultiamtely your desire is the experience **and** to be home again after the experience right? That fits what I’m suggesting quite well. Right - and it precisely doesn’t match the _other_ stuff those religions tell us god wants us to be doing. The religions in question were designed under a ‘powerful warlord, scaled up’ concept of god, without real comprehension of what omnipotence actually entails. It makes sense for powerful (but limited) warlords to send their slaves our to do stuff and then call them back and reward the most obedient and successful. But for an omnipotent being, having slaves do tasks is unnecessary to start with, unless what you actually want is the _show_ of them doing the task, not the completion of the task itself. And being omnipotent, you’ll make servants that put on exactly the show you want to see. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > because under the concept of free will , illusion or not, we could choose differently. We do not have to choose greed, resentment, power over others, selfishness. > > we’re getting into an area that can go on forever and I don’t want to highjack. I was interested in the assertion you made earlier and now I’ve seen the argument and I’m satisfied I understand it. You don’t get to cite (libertarian) free will until you can convince me that it exists. It’s both conceptually incoherent, mechanically unresolvable, and also explicitly contradictory with an omniscient god. > [@cosmosdan](#): > > random thought; are you claiming it’s logically impossible for an omnipotent being to do something because he’s omnipotent? Yes, it’s another one of those unliftable rocks things. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/209 "2010-06-03T17:20:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ineffability means you can’t even add 1+1 and expect to get the same result twice.That’s not ineffability then, because if God were ineffable, you could not attach any meaning to your experience, with any certainty whatsoever.But we do. We don’t need perfect knowledge to invoke the POE, for instance. And anyway, you’re just appealing to ineffability again, which renders anything else you might ascribe to god bunk, _by your own admission_, like I said. Pardon me for this but I mean it sincerely, The word god is a human contruct that has come to mean different things to different people. We attempt to describe what we think are qualities of god we’ve experienced but we ultimately don’t and can’t know. Still. the experience or experiences lead us to draw some conclusions and to continue on based on those, although we understand that those very conclusions are subject to review and change as we experience more. Is love ineffable? Much of our humanity revolves around it and our concept of love, yet all we can really do is follow the lead of our own heart, mind, and experience which varies greatly from person to person for a multitude of reasons We have general ideas about what love may be and agree on some of those but life still challanges us at times to examine our definition, our belief and faith in love, and to choose based on what can only be uncertainty. Will we stop trying to understand and describe those experiences because love remains ineffable? We don’t need perfect knowledge as much as we need perspective. If we ascribe omi qualities to god that we can never have ourselves then we lack the perspective to claim a logical inevitibility about any argument. IMHO. The POE is a valid argument and a question that needs to be repeated , but we can only appraoch it from our human perspective. We cannot stand back and encompass all creation , how it all works , and it’s purpose. Lacking that ability we can’t really talk about a supposed omni being who has those abilities and claim logic dictates it’s impossible. IMO logic dictates that our limit is that we can personally find god’s existance incredibly unlikely because of that argument. That’s a prerfectly reasonable position. The claim that we can logically disprove god’s existance fails. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/210 "2010-06-03T17:32:52Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > We don’t need perfect knowledge as much as we need perspective. If we ascribe omi qualities to god that we can never have ourselves then we lack the perspective to claim a logical inevitibility about any argument. IMHO. > > The POE is a valid argument and a question that needs to be repeated , but we can only appraoch it from our human perspective. We cannot stand back and encompass all creation , how it all works , and it’s purpose. Lacking that ability we can’t really talk about a supposed omni being who has those abilities and claim logic dictates it’s impossible. IMO logic dictates that our limit is that we can personally find god’s existance incredibly unlikely because of that argument. > That’s a prerfectly reasonable position. > The claim that we can logically disprove god’s existance fails. And in my opinion omnipotence makes things very _easy_ to understand - there are no exceptions to worry about! No special cases, no unusual circircumstaces, because the awesome power of the omnipotence bulldozes through everything. No unusual abilities are necessary to understand that if an onipotent god wants something, then it happens. And honestly I don’t see how a change in perspective could change this fact without stripping the god of its omnipotence in the process. I don’t give god an ineffability/get-out-of-logic-jail card. _Nothing_ gets a get-out-of-logic card, though, so at least I’m being fair. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/211 "2010-06-03T17:35:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’m very confused. Over the years there have been millions of people who have claimed revelation from gods and thousands of religions. The revelations are often mutually contradictory. This exercise is for you to build some sort of coherent model of god which we can try to refute. You say there are revelations. How do I tell which are from God and which are made up by people - intentionally or not? All knowledge of God is imperfect. How do we determine the validity of revelation? We measure it up against other revelation: nature, scripture, human reason, and so on. If someone says “God told me to kill all these children” we compare it to what we know about God to see if it is reasonable or not. A lot of time people disagree, but that means some people are wrong. It doesn’t prove God doesn’t exist. > [@](#): > > You say God was us to do justice. Well, much of our moral sense can be explained by social and physical evolution, and we see variation in it, such as the existence of sociopaths, which make a lot more sense with a physical explanation than a religious one. Social and physical evolution may be the mechanism by which God has instilled in us a sense of justice (or mercy or love or whatever). > [@](#): > > I don’t care what you think about abortion - I care how you extract a position from a set of works which in some places treats it as no big deal, and in others seems to care. I look at Scripture and church tradition in whole and try to determine what my attitude toward abortion should be. Other Christians come do different conclusions than I do. > [@](#): > > How do you know God was the first cause? If Genesis is a bunch of bull, I don’t “know” God was the first cause in any provable sense, I believe he was and there is so far no reason to believe otherwise. Genesis is not a bunch of bull – it’s a very important story that illustrates God’s relationship to humankind in General and (later in the book) the Jewish people specifically. It’s a theological text, not a science text. > [@](#): > > did any God anywhere ever bother to tell his people what the real story was? Clearly humans want to know how the universe began - thus creation stories in almost all cultures. Does God not care? When the bible was written, no one would have been able to understand how the universe began. Gensesis tell us the important things: God created humans and wants to be in relationship with them. The rest is not that important. And as humanity has grown, we have learned more and more about the physical mechanism of creation. That’s how God seems to work. > [@](#): > > You were not around back then, God supposedly was. If there is an eternal god, who cares about his creation, why wait? Why wait for what? [quote] Is it more plausible that his God just chose not to show up until late in human history, or that this God showed up then because that was when this version was created by that culture? The latter, I think. [quote] Late in human history? Awareness of spiritual beings goes back as far as we can reasonably tell. > [@](#): > > We’ve already gone over how crucial Adam and Eve are to Christianity - to Judaism they are a just-so story, and no big deal. I missed that conversation - why is it crucial that A&E were historical figures? > [@](#): > > one that created the Universe but told a story nothing like the history of a universe, He told the important bits. He revealed the details later. > [@](#): > > I’m only assuming that if God was in any way responsible for inspiring the Bible, he’d want to get the stories in it close to the truth. Why not give a high level view of what really happened? You say literalism, but what are you really saying is that there is no reason to think the Bible isn’t a pack of myths. Funny thing to base a faith on. The stories are truth, whether or not they really happend. The Bible is not a history or science book. The Bible may have a lot of myths, but they are true myths. > [@](#): > > If you can’t tell the difference between God being absent and being present, he is as good as absent. How do you see the presence of God? In volcanoes, oil spills, and earthquakes? Does God see every sparrow fall, or does he push the sparrows off the branch also. Whole books have been written about this. In natural disasters, I see God inspiring people to help each other. Taking leave from their jobs to clean up oil. Adopting children orphaned by earthquakes. Helping people recover when their homes are destroyed by flood (which recently happened right here in Nashville). > [@](#): > > As for what you believe, we’re trying to figure that out. All I get is that God is nice, and you can tell what God isn’t by anything which is demonstrably false. Actually, that’s part of it - you’ve hit on something very important. God made us rational beings. If we believe something about God that is shown demonstably false, then we are wrong about ascribing that to God. That’s why God is unfalsifyable incapable of being unproven. > [@](#): > > Easy. If five people who have claimed to talk to God say he wants five different things for humanity, this is not verified. If five people say that God has told them five mutually contradictory things, you’ve only proven that at least four of them are wrong. > [@](#): > > If God told them something they didn’t know, that could be verification. Ask God if P = NP the next time you chat with him, and either a proof or a counterexample. No, the big revelation is that we are supposed to love one another. Wow, that sure takes divine intervention to come up with. Hell, you might even ask him for help in debating more effectively. I’m not trying to prove God. You’re trying to disprove him. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/212 "2010-06-03T17:39:50Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > All knowledge of God is imperfect. How do we determine the validity of revelation? We measure it up against other revelation: nature, scripture, human reason, and so on. If someone says “God told me to kill all these children” we compare it to what we know about God to see if it is reasonable or not. A lot of time people disagree, but that means some people are wrong. It doesn’t prove God doesn’t exist. So God is controlled by the majority rule? Whatever’s in the majority of the stuff we decide is revelation wins? Please don’t pay attention to nature, scripture, or human reason then; in nature “might makes right and the weak get killed and eaten” is the universal rule, in the majority of scripture that I’ve seen unbelievers are treated similarly, and human history hasn’t exactly been populated by nice guys either… ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/213 "2010-06-03T17:56:33Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > So God is controlled by the majority rule? Whatever’s in the majority of the stuff we decide is revelation wins? God is not “controlled” by anything. But as far as developing doctrine, and offering what we think we know about God, we look for general consensus. And obviously there is a lot we disagree about. > [@](#): > > Please don’t pay attention to nature, scripture, or human reason then; in nature “might makes right and the weak get killed and eaten” is the universal rule, in the majority of scripture that I’ve seen unbelievers are treated similarly, and human history hasn’t exactly been populated by nice guys either… No, you’re right, the world is messed up. But how do you know its messed up? By what standard? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/214 "2010-06-03T18:11:24Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > God is not “controlled” by anything. But as far as developing doctrine, and offering what we think we know about God, we look for general consensus. And obviously there is a lot we disagree about. Sorry, I tripped over the fact that God doesn’t actually exist, and thus is entirely defined by what people say about him, regardless of how you choose to pick which opinions win. Playing the game that God is some subtle\* entity whose intents can be plumbed by examining the world, one might point out that science and sociology already has the examining of nature and human nature pretty much covered, with little progress on finding any god’s intents or proterties. And when it comes to examining human opinions on the subject independent of external support, one questions the usefullness of taking a poll about guesses. - in actuality an omnipotent god’s desires are at one level not subtle at all, by definition: what we see is what he wants. _Why_ he wants it may be in question; he may be torturing that baby because he’s a sadist, or because it’s part of the game, or because it’s good drama - that’s up in the air, though we _do_ minimally know that he does want the torture to be occur. > [@Skammer](#): > > No, you’re right, the world is messed up. But how do you know its messed up? By what standard? Who said it was messed up? It’s got _evil_ in it, but evil is a human construct. The world (particularly nature) is barbaric, dangerous, and cruel from the perspectives of a modern civilized society. I like not being tortured, so I have a problem with humans being tortured, but this doesn’t necessarily hold for a god. And if there’s an omnipotent god, then we **know** it doesn’t hold for them, because it’s being allowed to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/215 "2010-06-03T18:27:49Z")
Thank you for your response. You’ve provided a textbook example of the absurdity of the religious view. > [@Skammer](#): > > All knowledge of God is imperfect. How do we determine the validity of revelation? We measure it up against other revelation: nature, scripture, human reason, and so on. If someone says “God told me to kill all these children” we compare it to what we know about God to see if it is reasonable or not. A lot of time people disagree, but that means some people are wrong. It doesn’t prove God doesn’t exist. We have proved that the version of God who actually orders people to kill children doesn’t exist, don’t we? You don’t seem to actually have a definition of god, you seem to have this broad view of his characteristics, which you refine by chopping away ones you don’t like. If we are god’s creations, why can’t he tell people to kill children of enemies? Isn’t odd that the moral guidance of the Bible evolved with the evolution of human ethics? > [@](#): > > Social and physical evolution may be the mechanism by which God has instilled in us a sense of justice (or mercy or love or whatever). A great example of unfalsifiability. I provide an example of how ethics and morals develop without the need for a god, and you shoehorn him in, invisibly. If God directed the evolution of morals through genetics, why did he allow the kind of variance which produces sociopaths? You can’t use a free will argument, for many of these people are driven by their hormones, and do not make informed choices to do evil. Pure evolution explains it quite well, I don’t think you can. > [@](#): > > I look at Scripture and church tradition in whole and try to determine what my attitude toward abortion should be. Other Christians come do different conclusions than I do. Why is your position more valid than theirs? Isn’t what you are really doing is making a decision based on whatever ethical and moral positions are important to you, and then using religion to back it up? An ethical guide which both condones and condemns killing is not much help - to use it you must throw away the parts you don’t like. > [@](#): > > I don’t “know” God was the first cause in any provable sense, I believe he was and there is so far no reason to believe otherwise. Genesis is not a bunch of bull – it’s a very important story that illustrates God’s relationship to humankind in General and (later in the book) the Jewish people specifically. It’s a theological text, not a science text. When the bible was written, no one would have been able to understand how the universe began. Gensesis tell us the important things: God created humans and wants to be in relationship with them. The rest is not that important. And as humanity has grown, we have learned more and more about the physical mechanism of creation. That’s how God seems to work. First, there is no reason to believe in any sentient first cause - it raises the problem of where the first cause came from. But let’s say there is, and we can call it a god. We must connect that god to a human god. If there was some connection, then the human god who was the first cause can be differentiated by human created gods who weren’t by being accurate about creation. Your god either got it wrong or never bothered to describe it. However, there is a better reason why no human created god is the first cause. The universe is very old, and our sun did not even begin until 6 - 7 billion years after the Big Bang. If a god created the universe with the intention of also creating sentient life (if indirectly, through evolution) why wait so long? Thus, it is implausible that any god we know of created the universe. So your supposition about God creating humans doesn’t hold up. Learning more about the universe as we mature works perfectly well if there is no god, even better, since if there was a god he could have told us something useful about it, which he didn’t. > [@](#): > > Why wait for what? Late in human history? Awareness of spiritual beings goes back as far as we can reasonably tell. I missed that conversation - why is it crucial that A&E were historical figures? If God created us to interact with us, why wait until hundreds of thousands of years after the first human. Sure the ancients worshiped - fertility goddesses, animals, the Sun. Are you saying god was fine with idol worship? As for A&E, Christ’s salvation requires there be an original sin to make us be saved from. If God created us sinful, then rescuing was from what he did would be absurd. If there was no Adam and Eve, no one to sin for all mankind, to make that choice, then there is no reason we who live later should suffer. > [@](#): > > He told the important bits. He revealed the details later. Which important bits? Which details got revealed? Is the Large Hadron Collider some sort of holy site where revelations will be made? > [@](#): > > The stories are truth, whether or not they really happened. The Bible is not a history or science book. The Bible may have a lot of myths, but they are true myths. > Whole books have been written about this. In natural disasters, I see God inspiring people to help each other. Taking leave from their jobs to clean up oil. Adopting children orphaned by earthquakes. Helping people recover when their homes are destroyed by flood (which recently happened right here in Nashville). Try to step outside your faith and read this passage. You are sure your religion is true, so you say even the lies it propounds are really true. If someone found the body of Jesus, dead as a doornail, you would no doubt claim that he was spiritually resurrected, and that there is no need to change your belief. I wonder what you could learn that would make you change? As for natural evil, you saying god made these kids orphans so that some nice people could adopt them. Sucks to be their parents, doesn’t it? Could he someone have managed this marvelous feat without drowning entire families? Your god is a monster. > [@](#): > > Actually, that’s part of it - you’ve hit on something very important. God made us rational beings. If we believe something about God that is shown demonstably false, then we are wrong about ascribing that to God. That’s why God is unfalsifyable incapable of being unproven. > > If five people say that God has told them five mutually contradictory things, you’ve only proven that at least four of them are wrong. I’m not trying to prove God. You’re trying to disprove him. This is precisely why we asked for you to define God, and why you are unable to. As people demonstrate to you various aspect of God are false, you just chop them out of your definition and act as nothing had changed. I have news for you - that a view is unfalsifiable is not a good thing - it means the view is intellectually vapid. I can claim that my dog created the universe last Thursday, and you have no way of disproving it. That is as empty an assertion as your god assertions. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/216 "2010-06-03T18:32:13Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > God is not “controlled” by anything. But as far as developing doctrine, and offering what we think we know about God, we look for general consensus. And obviously there is a lot we disagree about. For most of human history the consensus was that there were multiple gods. Why is ours any better? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/217 "2010-06-03T18:34:47Z")
Let’s say you have a beloved dog who the vet discovers to have a cancerous tumor. You might decide to euthanize your pet; or you might decide to have it undergo intrusive and painful surgery; or you might choose to let it go and hope the dog doesn’t suffer too much before it dies. From the dog’s perspective, are any of these loving actions by you? She doesn’t understand cancer, all she knows is that either you’ve killed her, allowed her to be tortured, or allowed her to suffer. Does that mean you don’t love your dog? When you define God as all-powerful and all-loving, yet observe evil and suffering, you come to the conclusion that there is no God. I come to the conclusion that we don’t fully understand love _or_ suffering, nor do we fully understand God. > [@](#): > > we do minimally know that he does want the torture to be occur. We only know that he _allows_ it to occur. I often allow my children to do things I would prefer they didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/218 "2010-06-03T18:52:33Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Let’s say you have a beloved dog who the vet discovers to have a cancerous tumor. You might decide to euthanize your pet; or you might decide to have it undergo intrusive and painful surgery; or you might choose to let it go and hope the dog doesn’t suffer too much before it dies. From the dog’s perspective, are any of these loving actions by you? She doesn’t understand cancer, all she knows is that either you’ve killed her, allowed her to be tortured, or allowed her to suffer. Does that mean you don’t love your dog? > > When you define God as all-powerful and all-loving, yet observe evil and suffering, you come to the conclusion that there is no God. I come to the conclusion that we don’t fully understand love _or_ suffering, nor do we fully understand God. You don’t grok omnipotence - if an omnipotent god decided to euthanize the dog or to have it undergo intrusive and painful surgery or to let it go and hope the dog doesn’t suffer too much before it dies, then all of those actions **are** needlessly cruel. The loving action would be to just cause the pain to stop without needless cost. > [@Skammer](#): > > We only know that he _allows_ it to occur. I often allow my children to do things I would prefer they didn’t. But _why_ do you allow it? Let’s just pick an example - suppose your child steals a candy bar from a store. Keeping in mind omnsicience, you’re watching the whole time and could stop them anytime. Why don’t you? Do you want them to learn from their experience? An omnipotent god could grant that knowledge without inconveneincing the store owner. Do you want them to have a candy bars? Keeping in mind omnipotence you could just give them one. I could keep speculating, and answering my own speculations, but I’ll just let you answer instead. Be wary of citing libertarian free will though - it doesn’t exist, and besides it’s hardly an end unto itself. What’s the end game? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/219 "2010-06-03T18:59:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Thank you for your response. You’ve provided a textbook example of the absurdity of the religious view. Glad to be of help. > [@](#): > > We have proved that the version of God who actually orders people to kill children doesn’t exist, don’t we? I can say this confidently: I don’t understand how God would or could give that order. I could be wrong, but it seems to contradict what we know about God through the rest of the scriptures and the testimony of Jesus. Others will disagree with me. > [@](#): > > You don’t seem to actually have a definition of god, you seem to have this broad view of his characteristics, which you refine by chopping away ones you don’t like. I try to chop away ones that are inconsistent, if that’s what you mean. > [@](#): > > If we are god’s creations, why can’t he tell people to kill children of enemies? He could, but that would seem inconsistent with his character and that’s why I think it’s unlikely. > [@](#): > > Isn’t odd that the moral guidance of the Bible evolved with the evolution of human ethics? I would say that as human ethics evolved, we became better able to understand and apply revelation (from scripture, nature, etc.) > [@](#): > > A great example of unfalsifiability. I provide an example of how ethics and morals develop without the need for a god, and you shoehorn him in, invisibly. Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to tell you? It’s unfalsifiable. > [@](#): > > If God directed the evolution of morals through genetics, why did he allow the kind of variance which produces sociopaths? You can’t use a free will argument, for many of these people are driven by their hormones, and do not make informed choices to do evil. Pure evolution explains it quite well, I don’t think you can. I can, it’s a little doctrine I like to call [The Fall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_Man). > [@](#): > > First, there is no reason to believe in any sentient first cause - it raises the problem of where the first cause came from. But let’s say there is, and we can call it a god. We must connect that god to a human god. If there was some connection, then the human god who was the first cause can be differentiated by human created gods who weren’t by being accurate about creation. Your god either got it wrong or never bothered to describe it. However, there is a better reason why no human created god is the first cause. The universe is very old, and our sun did not even begin until 6 - 7 billion years after the Big Bang. If a god created the universe with the intention of also creating sentient life (if indirectly, through evolution) why wait so long? Thus, it is implausible that any god we know of created the universe. So your supposition about God creating humans doesn’t hold up. Learning more about the universe as we mature works perfectly well if there is no god, even better, since if there was a god he could have told us something useful about it, which he didn’t. Why do you assume God would tell us how he created the universe? He gave us the ability to figure it out. > [@](#): > > If God created us to interact with us, why wait until hundreds of thousands of years after the first human. Sure the ancients worshiped - fertility goddesses, animals, the Sun. Are you saying god was fine with idol worship? I’m saying that God revealed himself in part to those ancients, and they responded as best they knew how. > [@](#): > > As for A&E, Christ’s salvation requires there be an original sin to make us be saved from. Christ’s salvation presupposes sin, but not necessarily the doctrine of Original Sin. > [@](#): > > If God created us sinful, then rescuing was from what he did would be absurd. If there was no Adam and Eve, no one to sin for all mankind, to make that choice, then there is no reason we who live later should suffer. He did not create us sinful. He _did_ create us with the ability to sin, which we have all taken advantage of. The doctrine of Original Sin is not a defining aspect of God - Jews don’t believe in Original Sin, for example, and neither do many Christian denominations. > [@](#): > > Which important bits? Which details got revealed? Is the Large Hadron Collider some sort of holy site where revelations will be made? The parts about who God is and his relationship with us. > [@](#): > > Try to step outside your faith and read this passage. You are sure your religion is true, so you say even the lies it propounds are really true. If someone found the body of Jesus, dead as a doornail, you would no doubt claim that he was spiritually resurrected, and that there is no need to change your belief. I wonder what you could learn that would make you change? They’re not lies, they’re stories. Is the Illiad a lie? But to answer your question, if Jesus’s body were found it would certainly cause me to re-evaluate my Christian faith. I’m not sure it would cause me to no longer be a theist, though. > [@](#): > > As for natural evil, you saying god made these kids orphans so that some nice people could adopt them. Sucks to be their parents, doesn’t it? Could he someone have managed this marvelous feat without drowning entire families? Your god is a monster. You’re looking at it from the dog’s point of view (reference to my earlier post). > [@](#): > > This is precisely why we asked for you to define God, and why you are unable to. As people demonstrate to you various aspect of God are false, you just chop them out of your definition and act as nothing had changed. I have news for you - that a view is unfalsifiable is not a good thing - it means the view is intellectually vapid. I can claim that my dog created the universe last Thursday, and you have no way of disproving it. That is as empty an assertion as your god assertions. Hey, I don’t know what to tell you. You and others made the claim that any God-theory is easily disprovable. Have I won that argument? I can show you a lot of evidence that the universe wasn’t created last Thursday. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/220 "2010-06-03T19:03:13Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > You don’t grok omnipotence - if an omnipotent god decided to euthanize the dog or to have it undergo intrusive and painful surgery or to let it go and hope the dog doesn’t suffer too much before it dies, then all of those actions **are** needlessly cruel. The loving action would be to just cause the pain to stop without needless cost. > But _why_ do you allow it? > > Let’s just pick an example - suppose your child steals a candy bar from a store. Keeping in mind omnsicience, you’re watching the whole time and could stop them anytime. Why don’t you? Do you want them to learn from their experience? An omnipotent god could grant that knowledge without inconveneincing the store owner. Do you want them to have a candy bars? Keeping in mind omnipotence you could just give them one. > > I could keep speculating, and answering my own speculations, but I’ll just let you answer instead. Be wary of citing libertarian free will though - it doesn’t exist, and besides it’s hardly an end unto itself. What’s the end game? Ah, ok, why does an omnipotent God allow any suffering at all to occur rather than magically making everyone perfect automatons? And, I’m not allowed to cite free will? Hell if I know. What am I, God? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373.md?page=12)