posted
If God hated the people he wiped out, he wouldn't have given places like Ninevah so many warnings, now would he? Being omniscient means making hard choices sometimes. We've been over this.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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Hypothetically speaking, if God was omniscient, he wouldn't have to give them warnings, he would already know the result of giving them warnings.
Heck, if you had total knowledge then he shouldn't have bothered creating them in the first place, because he would already know what the result would be.
Actually, thats an interesting question, would God be the only man-made construct that does not have to follow the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Hypothetically speaking, if God was omniscient, he wouldn't have to give them warnings, he would already know the result of giving them warnings.
Heck, if you had total knowledge then he shouldn't have bothered creating them in the first place, because he would already know what the result would be.
Actually, thats an interesting question, would God be the only man-made construct that does not have to follow the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
Did you ever read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's "The Watchmen"? Dr. Manhattan can see all of time at once and yet he's preordained to react to things as they happen.
MANHATTAN: This is where we hold our conversation. It commences when you surprise me with the information that you are Deiberg have been sleeping together.
LAURIE: Y...You know about me and Dan?
MANHATTAN: No. Not yet. But in a few moments you're going to tell me.
(snip)
LAURIE: Listen Jon, okay, I'll play it your way...but you have to help me understand. I mean, I can't tell the future.
MANHATTAN: There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.
A bit later she mentions sleeping with Drieberg and he reacts as he just learned it, because it's all simultaneous to him. Would it be that way for God? Hmmm...
Okay, getting waaaaay off topic.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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Watchmen, and to a lesser degree, Oxygen and the proper daily doctor recommended servings of minerals and vitamins, is what keeps me alive.
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Oops. Okay, now we're sequeing into a discussion of God (any particular flavor) - existance and morality.
I had this discussion last week with a fellow agnostic. We determined that if God (Jehovah) were a person, he'd be institutionalized: - schizophenic (multiple personalities) - messianic complex (thinks he's the second coming) - unstable (desperate need for anger management - kills people who piss him off) - psychotic (creates us and our problems - then blames us for them) - sadistic (has his own private torture chamber for anyone he doesn't like - well, Hell is hardly private) - obsessively externally validative (has an overwhelming requirement to be externally validated [believed in] by others)
As Heinlein would say, any God I choose to believe in has to be MORE moral (and saner) than me - and Jehovah doesn't cut it. Face it, he's just a fictional manefestation of a Stone Age patriarchal father-figure - drawn larger-than-life.
Besides, with the way the world is - if he existed, I'd have to hate him.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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Well, that's nice and all, but I mean, it hardly works. You can't rightly be delusional when you claim to be the messiah if you actually ARE the messiah. If any god existed, especially the sort of all-encompassing Thomas Aquinas style god popular in modern Christianity, your attempt to frame it in human terms would be meaningless.
I mean, I'm an atheist, or at least a mildly angry agnostic. There are just no gods of any kind out there when I look, nor can I see a god-shaped spot in the universe for one to fit. But the idea that we can just sit around in the afternoon and quickly dismember a religion strikes me as kind of silly and pretentious, suggesting as it does that no one in thousands of years has ever had the same thoughts. Any theology so poorly constructed is quickly replaced by other, more robust species. Religion is an exceedingly Darwinian affair.
So, I don't know. This sort of thing just gets under my collar for some reason. Things like the problem of evil, or the nature of God or gods have not gone undebated or unconsidered.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Liam: A priest hole was/is those places where Catholic priests used to hide, mainly during Elizabeth I's reign- Mission England and all that stuff. They're usually found in noble's houses, quite a few still exist. Although they're not used as often now.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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- unstable (desperate need for anger management - kills people who piss him off)
Kills people who need to die so that others can live.
- psychotic (creates us and our problems - then blames us for them)
- sadistic (has his own private torture chamber for anyone he doesn't like - well, Hell is hardly private)
Death and hell are natural consequences of our sin, not punishment meted out by a vengeful God. You're looking at things entirely backwards, as do quite a few people.
- obsessively externally validative (has an overwhelming requirement to be externally validated [believed in] by others)
God doesn't need us. We need God, and he knows it. Therefore, he wants us to believe in him because otherwise, we're screwed.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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quote:Originally posted by Omega: God doesn't need us. We need God, and he knows it. Therefore, he wants us to believe in him because otherwise, we're screwed.
Which reminds me of...
'I refuse to prove I exist' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing'. 'But', says Man, 'The Babel Fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore you don't. QED'. 'Oh dear', says God, 'I hadn't thought of that' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and, for an encore he proves that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.*
*crosswalk
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Fit the First" by Douglas Adams
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
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[ September 25, 2003, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: Obi Juan ]
-------------------- "Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It?s us. Only us." Rorschach
Registered: Mar 1999
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Excellent quote! Thankfully not relevant, but excellent none the less!
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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