No, it means you can do anything THAT CAN BE DONE. God can't do the logically impossible, i.e. 2+2=5.
As for God simply interfering with how our actions affect others, if that was the case, again, what would be the point? There wouldn't be a humanity, there'd be a bunch of individuals in their own isolated worlds.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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"To put in simpler terms -- say you owned two dogs in your household. You love both of your dogs, and give them free reign of the house. Then one day, for some obscure reason they get in a fight. Rather than pull them apart, you let one dog rip the other to shreds. How is THAT love for the dog that gets ripped to shreds?"
It's all part of his bigger plan: to sell pre-shredded dog meat to the Vietnamese restaurant down the street.
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posted
Omega is absolutely right, re: omnipotence. Consider another traditional aspect of God, omnipresence. God is everywhere, in every possible place. But he isn't in places that don't exist, for reasons that are self-evident.
There are plenty of good reasons to not be a theist. But this line of argument isn't really one of them.
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quote:if you're omniscient and you know all possible ends, then the ends DO justify the means.
Wow. A quantum God.
quote:Why should it matter whether it was specifically stated in a verse somewhere? I consider it to be a reasonable extrapolation, because it fits all the data in question, and draws them into a coherant whole. Sure, it's rationalization, but it's a darned good one.
In your opinion. But most of the problems everyone has with Christianity have been people who've 'extrapolated' what God wants them to do. Far too many such people, in fact. If nothing else, if we have free will and can do what we want, couldn't God at least intervene to stop all the misrepresentation?
posted
But most of the problems everyone has with Christianity have been people who've 'extrapolated' what God wants them to do.
Generalization. Judge based on content, not vague similarity.
As for God intervening to stop misrepresentation, wouldn't ANY direct and obvious intervention destroy free will? Who could HELP but believe?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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In addition, Omega, "free will" only applies to the CHOICES you make, not how those choices pan out. If every decision and attempt to do evil failed miserably or backfired on the do-er without harming anyone else, that would STILL be free will (we can see this because some attempts DO pan out that way). People would still be free to choose and act.
Except, well, they wouldn't. Because what would be the point? I can threaten to fly to my university under my own power, but it would be pointless.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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quote:Originally posted by Omega: As for God intervening to stop misrepresentation, wouldn't ANY direct and obvious intervention destroy free will? Who could HELP but believe?
Let's see here... should I go in chronological order, or in order of severity? I'll go chronological: -- God almost wiped out the Israelites at Mount Sinai when they started worshipping the golden calf. -- God did not let Moses enter the Promised Land because he doubted God's power for a moment a few decades before. -- God withdrew his "blessing" from King Saul and essentially destroyed him (allowing him to be destroyed, a technicality) when he decided to pray on his own rather than wait for Samuel, the priest. -- God allowed the destruction of the nation of Israel by... the Babylonians, I believe it was, when they started straying from his set teachings. -- There was the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop witnessed by Peter and one or two other disciples (I think it might have been James and/or John, but I don't recall for certain). -- God's voice came literally booming down from heaven to speak to Saul (who later was known as Paul, or Saint Paul, the "true" founder of Christianity as an organized faith) and literally blinded him for three days.
Now, from these examples, it's obvious that God has had no qualms about revealing his presence to us mere mortals. And yet obviously he's also willing to strike those same people down if they choose not to believe him -- witness the Israelites.
Furthermore, the extended philosophy that God supposedly is a God of Love for every single person, seems an extraordinarily unreasonable theory based on this idea. Never mind my previous reasoning regarding Osama and his gang -- God literally DID reveal himself to Israel, and gave them the free will to choose. And when they chose (briefly) to NOT believe, then he was going to wipe them out! How can that possibly be considered free will?
And I wouldn't try arguing that God has changed, or God has his reasons. I submit that the Jewish God of the Old Testament is fundamentally different from the God that Jesus represented, especially according to modern teachings from the evolution of Christianity. Faith is a funny thing -- yes, you can make a literal leap of faith based on partial facts. But I simply find that the "facts" provided are both inadequate and of questionable origin.
Has anyone here watched the movie "Contact," starring Jodie Foster? It's one of my all-time favorite movies, because it combines science fiction with some deep philosophical issues. I admit that I've altered my position a little bit after watching that movie two nights ago, but I really believe that if there were something so important as the faith that's supposedly advocated by God, there would be a whole lot more proof that keeps up with the times. Not some ancient book filled with stories that could be considered cultural fiction and superstition. It doesn't have to be the classical booming voice from heaven, but I think that for an issue of such importance, more facts would be provided. FACTS, not speculation and interpretation and extrapolation done by a small clique of men who seem to have a thing for pre-adolescent boys or teenage girls. If God has been trying to send me a message, then he should have found a much more reliable group to bring the message.
(Explanation: I was baptized Catholic soon after I was born, and received plenty of religious education, attending private Catholic schools all the way through high school. Though I certainly respect the integrity of many -- even most -- priests and religious figures, I still see all churches as monolithic, reactionary, and corrupt organizations.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
You mentioned Jesus' "transfiguration" as an intervention, but what about the act of sending Jesus to Earth in the first place? That seems a more significant intervention in general than any specific thing Jesus would have done.
And there's a reason the Christian god is so different from the old Hebrew god. Judaism was based on Middle Eastern polytheistic religions. Christianity threw in Buddhism and Zoroastrianism w/ it.
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: And there's a reason the Christian god is so different from the old Hebrew god. Judaism was based on Middle Eastern polytheistic religions. Christianity threw in Buddhism and Zoroastrianism w/ it.
Oh, I agree there. The atheistic view is that philosophies and religion adapted to incorporate new ideas.
However, in my last post I was trying to argue mainly within the events described in the Bible -- whether they're true or not.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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quote:Generalization. Judge based on content, not vague similarity.
You've been complaining about the lack of a decent religion thread, yet by the 4th page you're already resorting to the "dog ate my homework" method of avoiding anything you don't want to handle? You KNOW what I was referring to. You yourself have in the past been quick to stress that Christianity shouldn't be judged by what some people have done in its name. But now such a tack would weaken your whole position in this debate. So you hastily bypass it with your typical bleating about wanting exact sources in triplicate, on parchment, probably endorsed by the fucking Pope for all I know. Do I have to bring up some of your own very public extrapolations of scripture with regard to homosexuality and black people?
"Christianity has about as much to do with Buddhism as it does with, I don't know, Kahless worship."
I know admittedly little about Buddhism, but people who know more of these things than I do have theorized that Jesus may actually have travelled to the east and studied Buddhism to get some of the stuff he taught. So, there must be some sort of similarity. I know the thing where Satan visits Jesus out in the desert and tries to tempt him to the Dark Side was originally a story about Buddha.
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posted
Seems to me Omega's playing the old, and fundamentally flawed, "if you believe in god and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but if you don't believe in god and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist" trump card*. AGAIN.
*Pascal Wager's, to be exact.
Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem. If a person is a follower of one religion, he may end up in another religion's version of hell.
(Of course, in Omega's book, christianity is right and all other religions are horse manure, so this point is somewhat moot.)
Even if we assume that there's a god, that doesn't imply that there's one unique god. Which should we believe in? If we believe in all of them, how will we decide which commandments to follow?
Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in god and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. Suppose you're believing in the wrong god -- the true god might punish you for your foolishness. Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in favor of prayer.
Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that the two possibilities are equally likely -- or at least, that they are of comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a god is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.
Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or cost-benefit analysis.
Formally speaking, the argument consists of four statements:
1. One does not know whether god exists. 2. Not believing in god is bad for one's eternal soul if god does exist. 3. Believing in god is of no consequence if god does not exist. 4. Therefore it is in one's interest to believe in god.
There are two approaches to the argument. The first is to view Statement 1 as an assumption, and Statement 2 as a consequence of it. The problem is that there's really no way to arrive at Statement 2 from Statement 1 via simple logical inference. The statements just don't follow on from each other.
The alternative approach is to claim that Statements 1 and 2 are both assumptions. The problem with this is that Statement 2 is then basically an assumption which states the christian position, and only a christian will agree with that assumption. The argument thus collapses to "If you are a christian, it is in your interests to believe in god" -- a rather vacuous tautology, and not the way Pascal intended the argument to be viewed.
Also, if we don't even know that god exists, why should we take Statement 2 over some similar assumption? Isn't it just as likely that god would be angry at people who chose to believe for personal gain? If god is omniscient, he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as a wager. He will spurn the latter... assuming he actually cares at all whether people truly believe in him.
Some have suggested that the person who chooses to believe based on Pascal's Wager, can then somehow make the transition to truly believing. Unfortunately, most atheists don't find it possible to make that leap.
In addition, this hypothetical god may require more than simple belief; almost all christians believe that the christian god requires an element of trust and obedience from his followers. That destroys the assertion that if you believe but are wrong, you lose nothing.
Finally, if this god is a fair and just god, surely he will judge people on their actions in life, not on whether they happen to believe in him. A god who sends good and kind people to hell is not one most atheists would be prepared to consider worshipping.
(Free will and all that.)
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Except, well, they wouldn't. Because what would be the point? I can threaten to fly to my university under my own power, but it would be pointless.
Doesn't matter if the ability doesn't exist. The will is intact, and will is enough (At least, according to that "sinning in your heart = doing the deed" bit JC spoke of.)
Okay, Omega is right re: Omnipotence means you still can't do the impossible (even if your power is "infinite."
This still begs the question of whether my solution is impossible, which remains unanswered by either God or Omega.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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