If you could kill God...

Originally posted by googlefudge
You cannot be serious.

There is no possible way you're that dim.

Both theists and atheists can be for or against global warming legislation; both theists and atheists can give to charities or turn a deaf ear; both theists and atheists can live within the law or commit felony crimes. There's no uniformity of human behavior within groups or under labels. Why would an atheist care if a neighbor chose to believe in God?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Both theists and atheists can be for or against global warming legislation; both theists and atheists can give to charities or turn a deaf ear; both theists and atheists can live within the law or commit felony crimes. There's no uniformity of human behavior within groups or under labels. Why would an atheist care if a neighbor chose to believe in God?

I give up.

There is no way you don't get this unless you are doing so deliberately.

I'm done being messed with by you.

Don't ever ask me this question again.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I give up.

There is no way you don't get this unless you are doing so deliberately.

I'm done being messed with by you.

Don't ever ask me this question again.

Question's simple: "If God didn't exist, what possible difference would it make whether or not people put their faith in Him?" My opinion: the probing question doesn't pose any difficulty for a man or woman comfortable in his or her own skin and willing to live and let live; it does pose difficulties for those who wish to control conceptual frameworks they find threatening.

Thanks for another enjoyable conversation. Indirectly or directly, I always learn from you.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Give me one good reason why I should assume that there is only one god.
And one good reason why we can't begin to fathom it's nature.

Why is monotheism so often assumed to be the default... when it is less
intrinsically likely than polytheism... Even given how unlikely polytheism is.

You should read the very interesting set of arguments that Augustine has against polytheism in the first ten books of The City of God Against the Pagans. If you have more time, Aristotle makes many arguments regarding the existence of a single God over many. Some argument is also present in the Socratic dialogues.

That said, it's all bull. But Aristotle makes some very good arguments about the best life in the Nicomachean Ethics, and that's worth looking into independent of some of his less informed reductions to "Uncaused Causes," or Plato's "Form of the Good."

Originally posted by UzumakiAi
You should read the very interesting set of arguments that Augustine has against polytheism in the first ten books of The City of God Against the Pagans. If you have more time, Aristotle makes many arguments regarding the existence of a single God over many. Some argument is also present in the Socratic dialogues.

That said, it's all bull. But Aristotl ...[text shortened]... ent of some of his less informed reductions to "Uncaused Causes," or Plato's "Form of the Good."

Interesting academic perspective. Any particular Merlot?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Interesting academic perspective. Any particular Merlot?

I couldn't help it. I have a final tomorrow in a class that covers ancient and medieval political philosophy, and I've spent the last few days struggling with Augustine. On the one hand, he's a fairly lively writer, but on the other, classical philosophy is just so much more applicable to my life and politics. Though there's a lot of interesting argument in City of God, none of it applies to one's own life or politics unless one has accepted a fundamental premise (which would be easier for you than me, but to each his own). I almost asphyxiated from all the exasperated sighing that accompanied Book 21. "Chapter 2.— Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire" and "Chapter 3.— Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh" were of particular uselessness to me.

Anyways, to answer your question: I eagerly await the day when I can afford to discriminate. For now, beggars can't be choosers, and any Merlot is decent Merlot — as far as I am allowed to care.

Originally posted by UzumakiAi
I couldn't help it. I have a final tomorrow in a class that covers ancient and medieval political philosophy, and I've spent the last few days struggling with Augustine. On the one hand, he's a fairly lively writer, but on the other, classical philosophy is just so much more applicable to my life and politics. Though there's a lot of interesting argument i ...[text shortened]... ow, beggars can't be choosers, and any Merlot is decent Merlot — as far as I am allowed to care.

Your warm tone and fluid style in delineating these passages says much about your maturity and academic self discipline. I'd guess that patience and kindness are among your character virtues. Any site links to Augustine or quotes? When budgets dictate, buy cheap wine and enjoy it ceremoniously. Try Rex-Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon (about $6.00).

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Question's simple: "If God didn't exist, what possible difference would it make whether or not people put their faith in Him?" My opinion: the probing question doesn't pose any difficulty for a man or woman comfortable in his or her own skin and willing to live and let live; it does pose difficulties for those who wish to control conceptual frameworks ...[text shortened]... .

Thanks for another enjoyable conversation. Indirectly or directly, I always learn from you.

I had absolutely no problem answering the question and have done so many many times now.

The problem I have is your intentional and deliberate stupidity in pretending not to comprehend the answers.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Your warm tone and fluid style in delineating these passages says much about your maturity and academic self discipline. I'd guess that patience and kindness are among your character virtues. Any site links to Augustine or quotes? When budgets dictate, buy cheap wine and enjoy it ceremoniously. Try Rex-Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon (about $6.00).

The polytheism that Augustine deconstructs is a polytheism of the Roman sort -- that being, a polytheism with gods invested in the lives of people. He doesn't say much of the sensibility of one god over many with respect to deist gods, but of an activist god over activist gods. I don't have any particular quotes to share... he does it over many, many pages.

However, I found it interesting in reading his writing and Lucretius', separately, how constant rhetoric has been, regardless of the tides of opinion, since antiquity. Lucretius has much to say against theism, and his is some of the only extant Epicurean writing, as much of it was lost because it was sacrilege and not of much use compared to the teleological underpinnings of Plato and Aristotle, who do not so much contradict Christian thought as anticipate it.

Compare a passage from a work of Carl Sagan that I still find quite to my liking to one from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there, on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. [...]

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The sum of space is infinite, reaching far beyond the ramparts of the world. The mind persists in questioning: what can be there? What is there so far off, toward which the urge of the free spirit flies?

There is no end, no limit to the cosmos, above, below, around, about, stretching off to every side. This I have proven, but the fact itself cries loud in proclamation: nature is luminous with proof. The universe is infinitely wide; its vastness holds innumerable seeds, beyond all count, beyond all possibility of number, flying along their everlasting ways. So it must be unthinkable that our sky and our round world are precious and unique while all those other motes of matter flit in idleness, achieve, accomplish nothing, especially since this world of ours was made by natural process, as the atoms came together quite by chance, quite casually and quite unintentionally knocking against each other, massed, or spaced so as to colander others through, and cause such combinations and conglomerates ss form the origin of mighty things, of earth and sea and sky, of animals and men.

Face up to this, acknowledge it. I tell you over and over again -- out beyond our world there are, elsewhere, other assemblages of matter, making other worlds. Oh, ours is not the only one in air’s embrace.

I wonder if the imitation is conscious, or if the same paradigms inevitably carry us to the same notions. The subtle differences in rhetoric point to different audiences, different assumptions, but there's no difference despite the ages.

I'm sorry for not having any good quotes from Augustine, but even though you would quite pointedly disagree with Lucretius, I felt you'd find the similarity interesting enough to merit a read. Thank you for the recommendation -- I'll be sure to give it a try!

Originally posted by UzumakiAi
The polytheism that Augustine deconstructs is a polytheism of the Roman sort -- that being, a polytheism with gods invested in the lives of people. He doesn't say much of the sensibility of one god over many with respect to deist gods, but of an activist god over activist gods. I don't have any particular quotes to share... he does it over many, many pages ...[text shortened]... sting enough to merit a read. Thank you for the recommendation -- I'll be sure to give it a try!

"Compare a passage from a work of Carl Sagan that I still find quite to my liking to one from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there, on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. [...]

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

The object of God's creation is summarized in the phrase "the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). It's my understanding that Hebrew doesn't contain a word comparable to our word "universe". The universe is communicated through the phrase "heavens and earth" with heavens in the plural: indicating all the planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, nebulae--- everything except earth, which refers specifically to planet earth. How remarkable that God singles out from the entire universe this one small planet for a unique role in His Divine Plan! "In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." displays an unfortunate ignorance of God's Plan for man's reconciliation. Thanks.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[bIt's my understanding that Hebrew doesn't
contain a word comparable to our word
"universe".... How remarkable that God
singles out from the entire universe this
one small planet for a unique role in His
Divine Plan![/b]

So where did language come from?
We have heard from many Christians about the
importance of the original Hebrew texts.
But your god fails to have a word for universe
in his chosen language! In fact he fails to have
lots of words. For an omnipotent being his
communication skills are sadly lacking!!!!!!

Originally posted by wolfgang59
So where did language come from?
We have heard from many Christians about the
importance of the original Hebrew texts.
But your god fails to have a word for universe
in his chosen language! In fact he fails to have
lots of words. For an omnipotent being his
communication skills are sadly lacking!!!!!!

"So where did language come from?" -wolfgang59

Let's begin with your first sentence written in contemporary English, since that's the lens/prism through which we're looking at Hebrew: Where did English come from? Do you appreciate the isagogic textual principle that the written word must be understood in the context of the culture/times in which it was written? Your conclusion ["For an omnipotent being his communication skills are sadly lacking!!!!!!"] betrays an absence of genuine interest in the answer to your question.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Question's simple: "If God didn't exist, what possible difference would it make whether or not people put their faith in Him?" My opinion: the probing question doesn't pose any difficulty for a man or woman comfortable in his or her own skin and willing to live and let live; it does pose difficulties for those who wish to control conceptual frameworks ...[text shortened]... .

Thanks for another enjoyable conversation. Indirectly or directly, I always learn from you.

The question posed no difficulty for GF, and his answer wouldn't pose any difficulty for a man or woman comfortable in his or her own skin and willing to live and let live; it might pose difficulties for those who wish to control conceptual frameworks they find threatening. The fact that you never engaged with his answer is telling.

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by Penguin
The question posed no difficulty for GF, and his answer wouldn't pose any difficulty for a man or woman comfortable in his or her own skin and willing to live and let live; it might pose difficulties for those who wish to control conceptual frameworks they find threatening. The fact that you never engaged with his answer is telling.

--- Penguin.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
So where did language come from?
We have heard from many Christians about the
importance of the original Hebrew texts.
But your god fails to have a word for universe
in his chosen language! In fact he fails to have
lots of words. For an omnipotent being his
communication skills are sadly lacking!!!!!!

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"So where did language come from?" -wolfgang59

Let's begin with your first sentence written in contemporary English, since that's the lens/prism through which we're looking at Hebrew: Where did English come from? Do you appreciate the isagogic textual principle that the written word must be understood in the context of the culture/times in which it was written? Your conclusion ["For an omnipotent being his communication skills are sadly lacking!!!!!!"] betrays an absence of genuine interest in the answer to your question.

Originally posted by Penguin
The question posed no difficulty for GF, and his answer wouldn't pose any difficulty for a man or woman comfortable in his or her own skin and willing to live and let live; it might pose difficulties for those who wish to control conceptual frameworks they find threatening. The fact that you never engaged with his answer is telling.

--- Penguin.

If and when wolfgang59 becomes seriously interested in the eternal destiny of his soul, I'll gladly answer any question he has. Until then, he'll have to find other contributors to this forum as complicit targets for his attacks on God's Grace Gift.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by wolfgang59
So where did language come from?
We have heard from many Christians about the
importance of the original Hebrew texts.
But your god fails to have a word for universe
in his chosen language! In fact he fails to have
lots of words. For an omnipotent being his
communication skills are sadly lacking!!!!!!
...[text shortened]... find other contributors to this forum as complicit targets for his attacks on God's Grace Gift.

You have not yet demonstrated either the existence of souls, or of eternal destinations for them.
Let alone what those hypothesised destinations might be like, or how one chooses between them.


Why should we consider the eternal destination of a 'soul' you have not yet proven, to exist?