Subject:
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Re: The nature of the JC god, good or evil? (Was Re: POV-RAY orange color (0)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 22 Aug 1999 05:06:55 GMT
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Reply-To:
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lpieniazek@novera.com/nospam/
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Viewed:
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1400 times
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John Neal wrote:
>
> Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> > John Neal wrote:
> >
> > > The Bible isn't a proof text. It's a collection of many different
> > > traditions, most of them oral. Don't be so "Western Culture, how did it
> > > happen, is it true, what are the facts".
> >
> > Why not? The scientific method works.
>
> Does the scientific method help me to understand the rules of baseball?
Yes, in fact it does. The rules are the way they are because the
devisers of the rules have desired outcomes and want the game to have
certain characteristics. Why the devisers want those characteristics
would be a matter for sociology or psychology, but still explainable.
Given those desires, the rules follow. But we are talking about
cosmology, and the nature of what is knowable, not human devised games.
> A kind of apples and oranges situation,
So I'd agree with you here, your example is an irrelevant one.
> as it is with God and science. You
> can't define something that is BY DEFINITION undefinable.
If it's not definable, it's not useful to make predictions. If it can't
make predictions, it has no relevance to reality. You seem to fail to
grasp that key point. The number of angels that can dance on the head of
a pin is a number that I have no use for whatever. It has no meaning in
my life.
Make some prediction that has a different outcome because god exists. Go
ahead.
> Try expressing 22/7
> as a decimal (I *won't* wait)
Here you go: 3.1 <base 7> (since 22 is 31 in base 7, dividing by the
base merely shifts the base point over one place) or
3.142857<bar>142857</bar> <base 10> Those are both valid expressions..
> It is infinite, and therefore you can't,
> because you can't express the infinite in finite terms. Period. That's not
> circle logic. It's a fact. Facts compute, no? ;-)
You're pretty confused here, and you're not going to get very far trying
to use number theory. The fact that when 22/7 is expressed using base 10
you get an infinite repeating sequence of digits:
3.142857<bar>142857</bar> is quite predictable using science, it's a
clear derivation from the fundamental properties of numbering systems.
Infinity is a well understood concept, and one that we can reason about
and make predictions about. In fact 22/7 is an example of a point on a
countable infinity. Contrast that with the irrational numbers, which are
points in an uncountable infinity. But that doesn't make them
un-understandable. It merely means we need different tools. No such
tools exist for god.
> It seems ridiculous until you consider "what if it were actually true?"
What if it is? What if invisible pink elephants have been secretly
rearranging your bricks every night, but leaving them in exactly the
same place when they finish?
It's definitely true. All you have to do is believe it and you'll know
it's true too. Just take my word for it. I believe in them. Really. In
fact I've seen them, because I'm the elephant boy. But you never will,
because that's just the nature of their special relation to reality. I
am a man AND I have the pink-elephant nature as well, because they
wanted me to convey their message.
But if these elephants have no effect on reality that you can prove or
even measure, *in and of themselves* and the only effect they have is on
you, and that effect is that you go around telling people about them,
and that effect is a result of your beleiving in them, what does it
matter if they exist or not? Even by not existing they've had an effect.
But the cause of that effect was my convincing you I believed in them
and you acted on it.
Maybe they DO exist. But the simpler explanation, and therefore the one
more likely to be true, is that they don't exist. They don't NEED to
exist, they have no effect on anything.
> But anytime I try to pose an
> explanation, you perceive it as squirming because you *know* I am wrong.
When you actually pose an explanation rather than a circular argument of
the form "I believe in X because it's written in a book. That book was
created by the influence of X, and that book demonstrates that X exists.
Since I believe in X, the book is true. Since the book is true, my
belief in X is justified" you won't be squirming.
> You
> need to open your mind a little. As an intellectual exercise, try arguing
> *for* the existence of God. Forget about Christianity for a moment. If you
> *did* believe that a God exists, how would *you* try to explain it?
I'd try to find some demonstrable effect of his existance or verifiable
fact that could be used to prove or disprove it. I definitely would not
engage in the tail swallowing sophistry you seem to pride yourself in.
> > "I am more than a mere man. How so?
> > In ways that you cannot understand. And the fact that you can't
> > understand them proves my godhead. I understand them but I can't explain
> > them to you because I would have to use concepts which you cannot grasp.
> > So there."
I note you skipped that one. That's the essence of the explanation you
give, though.
> > > > > IMO Job is one of the most interesting and honest books in the Bible.
> > > >
> > > > Right, because it shows the true nature of your god.
> > >
> > > No, Jesus revealed the true nature of God, because only Jesus knew it.
> >
> > If only Jesus can know it, how can he reveal it to others?
>
> By example.
What exactly does that mean? That we are to reason about the nature of
god from observation of how Jesus acted? You just said we can't do that.
What validity does it have, anyway? It rests on several unsupported
assumptions, to wit, that Jesus was the son of god (for which we have
only hearsay, not proof) and that by observing a human, and therefore
finite, creature, we can reason about something claimed to be infinite.
> God is a loving God.
How do you know this to be so? Because Jesus told you? Because you're
hoping it's true? Because you're weak and you've decided it HAS to be
true or else your world will collapse? You just told me that we cannot
know the true nature of god. I'll take the evidence in front of me that
says if god exists he's not loving at all. he's "merely capricious,
malicious, and self aggrandizing." Look what he did to Job. Look what he
did to Lot's wife, and the entire innocent town of Sodom. Heck, look
what he did to Jesus. How about what he just did to Turkey? What purpose
could be served by inflicting suffering on the innocent? I'll not accept
that a loving god could do such horrible things. Unless you mean "loves
to watch innocents suffer".
> God does not want your worship, groveling, etc, etc.
So he's cool if I don't go to church, take his name in vain, and erect a
statue of some other god in my house? I don't think that's doctrine...
you may want to reference the ten commandments. Or are those just
allegory and ignorable because they were in some book that isn't to be
taken as literally true?
> God wants our love. And
> the way we love God is by loving each other.
Is that it? Heck, I'm all set then. I love my fellow man, who I believe
to be basically good and honest and trustworthy, intelligent, kind and
forgiving, life affirming and world improving, WAY more than you do.
After all you believe him to be basically evil, likely to steal unless
watched closely, as likely to murder his neighbor as to look at him... a
sinner who has to beg for forgiveness from a malicious and omnipotent
power.
But you know that's not it. In order to be saved in the eyes of the
average christian you have to do a lot more than love your fellow man.
You have to conform in a thousand different ways to a particular code of
living. You can't have any beliefs that aren't in accordance with
doctrine, and you certainly can't act in a way that might go against the
"Moral Majority". (who are neither.)
But wait, you say, that stuff isn't for real... Pat Robertson isn't a
christian? He doesn't represent christian beliefs? The good townsfolk of
Salem MA who burned women at the stake because their priest told them to
beware of witches weren't christians? The good townsfolk of Byron Center
MI who hounded a teacher to his death because he was gay 2 years ago
aren't christians? They all SAY they are. So do you. How do I tell the
difference?
> Even in the OT God said through
> the prophets that he didn't want the people's sacrifices-- but social justice.
And what on earth is that? Is that where we rob the rich to give to the
undeserving poor?
No thanks. I know how that works, we've had those debates... As they
said in Russia when communism fell "72 years on the road to nowhere".
Too bad our interventionist administrations, so ready to kick around
Grenadans, Panamanians and Somalians, weren't of much help to the people
of Russia when the looters stepped in and moved the reins of power from
one hand to the other.
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ Member ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to
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NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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