h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

warner:

'What's your problem? '


Please see my previous two posts wherein I explain the 'problem' I have with your offensive and insulting treatment of my request to join me in prayer for the healing of an innocent child, and wherein I explain the horror I feel at the implied nature of the 'god' you claim to worship.

I don't suggest you are deranged, but if you can't understand why I am disturbed by what you have posted, than you certainly are not very bright.

>> the pope being gods chosen representative on earth <<

I suppose you could say that. The representative for a group of Christians
known as 'Catholics', whom I deeply respect.
But you wouldn't tell me the Pope was God though, I hope. All men are
not infallible, only God!

anhaga,

What 'god' do you worship?
I can't join you in prayer without some
feeling of mutual understanding and respect.

warner:

Any respect you may have earned from me during this exchange was lost when you revealed that the god you worship might, in the face of a sincere and humble prayer for the healing of an innocent child, actually honour a malicious prayer for the maintenance of that child's deformity.

Added to that is your dismissal of the desire for a child to be healed with stupid talk of 'some people want rain and some people want sunshine so somebody will get what they want' which is acid for any respect you may have earned in its insulting diminishment of both a child's illness and the god you claim for yourself (your god seems to be nothing other than blind chance).

No. Please don't join me in prayer. Whatever I may believe in, it is certainly not your god.

It's a complicated business this believing in gods.

All different types and kinds, and even if they insist just one, there is this version and that version. Like windows 3.1 The old covenant, stone tablets primitive technology, and charton ehston screaming 'let my people go!' Then after a few schism, and one fat german nailing his shopping list to the fornt of church and yes you too can be an adherent of big tent CoE or windows 98, but now that's less popular, riven by viruses and no longer supported. So everyone starts using Windows XP, and not killing babies and definitely not being gay and absolutly on no account using contraception and then you get these modern upstarts, all bells and whistles with big flashy knobs on and terribly dysfunctional. Which is probably what using Vista or being a scientologist is like

It takes all sorts I suppose.

You say 'tomato', they say tomata': I say lemon - as in you've been sold one.

<>

the bishop of rome is the voice of god on earth

this was established right at the begining

do you deny the word of god

are you a heretic with your own agenda or do you submit to the Will of The Lord

anhaga,

>>Whatever I may believe in, it is certainly not your god. <<

If you don't offer an explanation of what you believe,
then I don't know WHAT to think.

Taff,

Yeah, we're all free to think and formulate an opinion, or perhaps
follow a 'tribe' blindly for some reason etc. etc.

I am a scientist by nature. Not that bright. But I am not very popular
with any 'sect', really, because I don't accept things blindly
without question and contemplation. It has its dangers.
But that's me!

Goodnight all.

<>

And my moment of whimsical levity gets ignored.

Typical.

dont worry clive

post you tippex thing here as well give us all a laugh

> Although, as any composer/artist will tell you, they put their heart and soul into their creation.< mikey

So God's an artist now is he. Excellent analogy mikey; like eg Gilbert and George's 'shit' series?

How interesting that you have suddenly become an expert on the pychology of artists. And of course there is Andres Serrano's, 'Piss Christ'...or maybe you are referring to the work of the Chapman brothers?

Actually maybe the best analogy for the christian god's creator/artist tendancy of putting your heart and soul into your creation, is the painting 'Myra' by Marcus Harvey.

E

Hi

I am an artist

M

Yes well I had surmised that mikey because you have finally used an appropriate analogy.

But of course the big diffence is that artists are merely using metaphors to draw attention to the *reality' of aspects of 'reality' or as you refer to it the christian's god creation. I was hugely amused that you should use such an appropriate anology...given your previous attempts on this thread.

>>So God's an artist now is he. Excellent analogy mikey; like eg Gilbert and George's 'shit' series?<<

In the context in which the analogy was used, it is a terrible one. Otherwise I would agree.

mikey initially claims a necessary characteristic or 'feature' of God is that it must exist outside of creation.

This can have no other meaning than that the postulated entity has an existence separate and distinct from the universe, which by definition includes space/time.

mikey's response to my post: >>Of course. A Creator must necessarily be outside of what he's creating. Although, as any composer/artist will tell you, they put their heart and soul into their creation.
<<
contains additional contradictions, and logical errors.
First, the repetition of the initial claim is in no way an argument or explanation of the claim
Secondly, any creative endeavor requires not separation but rather intimate involvement and contact with that which is created. One does not compose a sonnet or paint a picture without a direct relationship with the object of creation.
mikey even appears to unwittingly acknowledge the inherent contradiction, when he talks about 'putting the(ir) heart and soul into the(ir) creation' It is difficult to see how one could put one's heart and soul into something with which one had no contact, as in 'separate and distinct' or 'outside' of.

In the same paragraph in the original post, mikey claims this separate and distinct entity isn't really separate and distinct, because it 'revealed some of himself to us'

Admittedly, this sounds like some kind of celestial peek-a-boo, but in the subsequent response to my post, mikey clarifies(!) further: >>God has humbled himself to become as a man. <<

Leaving aside the inherent fallacy, (begging the question), and the absurd additional contradiction, (an infinite being reduced by a finite amount remains infinite), and indeed the insult to all humanity, mikey does admit the notion of a entity 'outside' of, yet somehow able to affect or interact with the material universe is indeed contradictory.

Happily, mikey feels he is able to resolve the contradiction by an appeal to miracles, and by, (apparently deliberately, but let's stretch the ol' benefit of the doubt thing), misapprehending details of my argument

mikey, for the record:
1. The universe, (creation, if you like), is not an object. It is everything, including space/time. An entity which is described, however meaninglessly, as being 'outside' of the universe is not simply standing out on the sidewalk somewhere, like your geezer.

More to the point, even if the phrase, 'outside of creation' had meaning, it is still not possible to be BOTH outside of it AND affect events within, or even for an entity to be aware of those events. Separate and distinct, remember?

2. The 'convenience' I mentioned casually was referring, not to any advantages pertaining to an alleged divinity, but to those which the definition, 'outside creation' illusorily provides for the deluded theist apologist, attempting to construct a rational argument in the course of a hopefully meaningful dialogue.

3. Omnipresence is one of the three 'divine characteristics' typically attributed to God, and is incompatible with the claim of 'outside' agency: If your definition of God includes the omnipresence attribute, that entity is, by definition, everywhere, all at once, throughout space/time -- that's what omnipresence means. The corollary: There is no place where God is not. An omnipresent God cannot exist 'outside of creation', nor be 'separate and distinct' from it.
Kind of like, 'no matter where it is, there He goes'

4. Finally, the argument from miracles is neither an argument nor miraculous, it is merely stupid.

There are limits even to 'taking the mickey', mikey

>In the context in which the analogy was used, it is a terrible one. Otherwise I would agree.<

In the context of a faither never giving a damn, or just downright mentally handicapped in understanding context...I thought it was fun to ignore his context, as it was astonishingly apt in many ways, given the output of many artists, particularly those that have been to the forefront in the UK in recent years.

And in the context of his previous attempts at any sort of analogy that was anything other than laughably ridiculous and meaningless, I thought there was something there worth taking futher in terms of his possible response.

So it is truly a revelation that may explain much, to discover that mikey is actually an artist.

Hi Tal, Clive, and anyone else I missed,



Happy New Year!

Gif

Hi Mikey,

>Take, for example, a geezer outside a burning house.

Just out of interest... who, in your metaphor, is responsible for setting fire to the house? (And if your answer is 'the occupants of the house', who gave them matches, kerosene and a desire to experiment?)

>It may well have been more *convenient* for God to remain outside. Thankfully, he chose not to.

So once you accept that God has entered/intervened in the universe, He is no longer fully outside it and undetectable. If He has interacted with the Universe, you should be able to produce some evidence for that.
You've also said that, although being outside the Universe and inside it are logically contradictory, this is not a problem for God, since he is able to do logically contradictory things (which we call 'miracles'). Unfortunately, this undermines your best defence against the Problem of Suffering. If God is able to do logically contradictory things, why can he not both give us free will and prevent suffering? Can God make a stone so heavy He cannot lift it? This whole 'able to do logically contradictory things' is a non-starter as far as I can see.

>the spiritual world that christians believe in (and experience, I might add), is one of those mysteries that is taken on faith.

But hang on... if you experience something, you're not taking it on faith, are you?

And, once again I have to ask, why are your own personal religious experiences valid when other people's are not?

>Christians pray, expecting God to answer. though they cannot scientifically prove the existence of their God's nearness, they are encouraged by Christ himself to believe that persevering in prayer will be effective...

This is exactly the kind of thing that *is* scientifically measurable, surely? If prayer has an effect, we should be able to measure it.

Gif

Hi Warner,

>All men are not infallible, only God!

A few posts back, you were happy to take the weight of numbers of people believing in God as evidence for the existence of God. More recently, Mikey has said (and I'm assuming you agree) that his own personal experience of a feeling of the divine is good evidence for the divine.

Why, then, does the personal feeling of huge numbers of Catholics worldwide not give good evidence that the Pope is infalliable when speaking ex cathedra?

>I am a scientist by nature.

Could you explain what you understand by 'being a scientist'?

Gif