The Inconstant Gardener

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Why not start a thread arising from this one with a clear premise to discuss.

... and no referring back to this confused thread.

I put that to twhitehead and divegeester and anyone else interested.

Thanks.

Hey Fred, don't dead head my thread. 🙂


Why do we imbue 'God' with qualities like omniscience and omnipotence? Isn't this just human wishful thinking? Isn't it just as likely that a divine creator 'doesn't' really care about his creation and has moved on to other things, or perhaps 'creating' is the extent of his power, just as a gardener can do no more than grow the plants in his garden, unable to offer them individual attention or eternal life.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Hey Fred, don't dead head my thread. 🙂


Why do we imbue 'God' with qualities like omniscience and omnipotence? Isn't this just human wishful thinking? Isn't it just as likely that a divine creator 'doesn't' really care about his creation and has moved on to other things, or perhaps 'creating' is the extent of his power, just as a gardener can d ...[text shortened]... e than grow the plants in his garden, unable to offer them individual attention or eternal life.

A non-omnipotent, non-omniscience (etc.) Creator who doesn't give a toss is
exactly the same (in practical terms) as no god. Isn't it?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
A non-omnipotent, non-omniscience (etc.) Creator who doesn't give a toss is
exactly the same (in practical terms) as no god. Isn't it?

Finally, we are getting somewhere....

Originally posted by wolfgang59
A non-omnipotent, non-omniscience (etc.) Creator who doesn't give a toss is
exactly the same (in practical terms) as no god. Isn't it?

More to the point, why were we even defining the being as being a god anyway?

If the guys at CERN accidentally created a universe in the LHC we wouldn't call them
gods.

Originally posted by googlefudge
More to the point, why were we even defining the being as being a god anyway?

If the guys at CERN accidentally created a universe in the LHC we wouldn't call them
gods.

Good point. It doesn't automatically follow that a 'creator' has god-like qualities.

Also worth noting that all available evidence (evil in the world, disease etc) would suggest that if 'a Creator' does (or did) truly exist he 'can not' or 'will not' look after his creation; at least not in the manner one would expect from a Christian God.

Originally posted by googlefudge
More to the point, why were we even defining the being as being a god anyway?

If the guys at CERN accidentally created a universe in the LHC we wouldn't call them
gods.

That is why I used Creator.
God does have connotations of Power.
Big hammer/lightning bolts or whatever.

A "weak" god, an immoral god, a "could not care loss god" .... do they cease to gods.

Was "Q" on Star Trek a god?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Whatever he intended originaly, your attempts at reinterpreting it are still wrong. (and his attempts at defending it were also wrong).

[b]You have taken it as some deadly serious, and carefully constructed, comment which has been extrapolated into (amongst other things) a justification for genocide.
No, I have not. I have however taken it at fa ...[text shortened]... ith that interpretation. As I say above, he is free to say he misspoke and meant something else.[/b]

OK - let's agree to disagree, as we are clearly not getting anywhere.

But I think you really should spend some time reflecting on how you come across. No-one agrees with you, and yet you will not entertain the possibility that we may have a point.

This is the kind of closed-minded attitude you often criticise theists for, so it comes across as a bit hypocritical.

Originally posted by Rank outsider
I think I am going to regret this but here is my take on the first response to the opening post, all the bits in brackets being unsaid:

[Dear Goad,

Being a Christian, I am afraid that I do not agree with your analogy at all. Humans beings are not like hydrangeas, we are living sentient beings. And God is not like a gardener who just turns up no ...[text shortened]... et when he digs over a flowerbed, re-turfs the lawn or completely landscapes the entire project.

I think I may employ you as my interpreter when I converse with twhitehead.

Originally posted by Rank outsider
OK - let's agree to disagree, as we are clearly not getting anywhere.

Ok.

But I think you really should spend some time reflecting on how you come across. No-one agrees with you, and yet you will not entertain the possibility that we may have a point.
I do entertain the possibility that you have a point. I do expect the point to be explained to me before I agree with it.

This is the kind of closed-minded attitude you often criticise theists for, so it comes across as a bit hypocritical.
Nonsense. I am not closed-minded. I just expect a valid explanation before accepting someone else's position.

Originally posted by divegeester
I think I may employ you as my interpreter when I converse with twhitehead.

He did a terrible job. I still don't know whether you meant what you said in the post in question or meant what he says you meant (which is not what you said).

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Why do we imbue 'God' with qualities like omniscience and omnipotence?

Not everybody does. Christian's and most Abrahamic religions do because it is part of the doctrine. But even within those religions there are those that do not assume omniscience and omnipotence. The OT strongly suggests the god it is describing is not omniscient (frequent mistakes and change of heart and 'testing' of people).
Other religions with multiple gods often have them being far from omniscient or omnipotent.

Originally posted by twhitehead
He did a terrible job.

Gee thanks.

Originally posted by twhitehead
He did a terrible job. I still don't know whether you meant what you said in the post in question or meant what he says you meant (which is not what you said).

Your opinion; mine is that he and others in this thread did an excellent job of explaining to you how they understood me perfectly.

As I see it the problem here (why we repeatedly fall out) is not your intelligence, it is your (apparent) sneering view of mine. You lack the ability to converse in more than one paradigm of thought and when you are not receiving the output to your input, you get frustrated and tend to slip into snide jibes, which I then call you on, get irritated with you about, and deliver some full blown insults, which I then regret.

As I recall, every time this has occurred I take the trouble of apologising for insulting you you, but you never reciprocate, which is interesting.

Originally posted by twhitehead
He did a terrible job. I still don't know whether you meant what you said in the post in question or meant what he says you meant (which is not what you said).

An interpreter simply translates something somebody expresses from one language to another. It is not the job of a translater to explain or validate the argument.

If what I said is what Dive meant, then I have interpreted it perfectly. The fact that you are still not sure if it is actually true or not has no bearing on my ability as an interpreter.

(Annoying, isn't it?)

Originally posted by Rank outsider
This is the kind of closed-minded attitude you often criticise theists for, so it comes across as a bit hypocritical.

On the topic of hypocrisy the last time I participated in a lengthy thread with div was one where he accused another poster of meaning a particular thing in a post and despite that posters repeated explanations that that was not what he meant, div maintained otherwise to the very end. I am not aware of him ever recanting and accepting an alternative meaning to the post. In this case it is clear that div misspoke but due to the fact that I rub him the wrong way he was not willing to admit it and chose instead to wind me up.