Define God

[steve_bank]

There is n way to know who the gosel writers acryaluy were.

You see a line that says god is love and now you have a god who loves you no matter what, A panacea through thick and thin that is always there for you. That is Christianity.

James 1:10-12 New Living Translation (NLT) The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower dration.oops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and tempt

All bible believers pick and choose. For one it is god of love, for others a god of retribution.

Christian capitalist conserves ignore the above and other lines attributed to Jesus.

To me the bible is the ultimate Rorschach test.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Einstein was not speaking of a literal god and, based on the extensive evidence we have, he was wrong about the dice-rolling business.

I really didn't give much attention to what Einstein meant, I gave the various ways in which the use of dice throwing can be taken and a simple theological look at ways in which those could interpreted.

No. Not at all. Do you know what Einstein was referring to as "playing dice"? That's what I meant by "appropriate context".

I'm not really that concerned with what he meant. If it were relevant I would have considered it, but it was given in a sort of tongue in cheek way.

so, it was just a useless throwaway? You mention Einstein but don’t care about the reference you brought to the conversation?

Were you hoping that we would just be impressed by the name drop? And not call you on it?

This seems a disingenuous approach to the conversation. If Einstein’s comments aren’t relevant why bring it up?

 

[DLH]

Einstein was not speaking of a literal god and, based on the extensive evidence we have, he was wrong about the dice-rolling business.

I really didn't give much attention to what Einstein meant, I gave the various ways in which the use of dice throwing can be taken and a simple theological look at ways in which those could interpreted.

No. Not at all. Do you know what Einstein was referring to as "playing dice"? That's what I meant by "appropriate context".

I'm not really that concerned with what he meant. If it were relevant I would have considered it, but it was given in a sort of tongue in cheek way.

so, it was just a useless throwaway? You mention Einstein but don’t care about the reference you brought to the conversation?

Were you hoping that we would just be impressed by the name drop? And not call you on it?

This seems a disingenuous approach to the conversation. If Einstein’s comments aren’t relevant why bring it up?

Here's a thought. Go back and read it again. I was responding to someone else quoting Einstein.

 

[WAB]

Yes, yes, I brought up the dice. I was trying to be silly. Proceed...

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

 

[DLH]

Democrats want to destroy.​

I said Liberals. And destroy as I use it could accurately be translated into constructive demolition, eventually to rebuild. Middle English: from Old French destruire, based on Latin destruere, from de- (expressing reversal) + struere ‘build’.

My anecdotal observation of Democrats and Republicans, or Dumacrats and Repugnicans as I like to refer to them, is that the former are rich land owners who want to prevent anyone else from being rich; they pretend to or think they are poor and say they're for the poor, but they actually hate anyone poorer or richer than themselves. They want everyone else to serve them. Thus, their position on slavery, voting for minorities (Suffragette, Jim Crow). Being as such, so remarkably hypocritical they often attract idiots who are rich and think the party helps the poor when a cursory examination reveals with alarming clarity that they are full of shit. Even if their motives do appear to be constructive it's thinly veiled attempt to destroy everything, including Democracy which they always want to transmogrify into socialism and Marxism.

Repugnicans differ in that they are rich, but more honest and straight forward because they want poor people to at least be able to be rich as well as themselves.

They are both only bullshit distractions for stupid people, which is why I see politics and religion as different sides of the same coin. Politics thinks, foolishly, that man can solve their problems and religion thinks, perhaps even more foolishly, that God is doing that. But at least the religious have the supernatural as an excuse for their obvious foolishness. Even if it is only their own foolishness that projects God in their image for doing it.
​

Conservatives tout Christian values, I just don't see those alleged values.​

They're fake. You don't know them, you only know the distortion and how it's abused. ​

 

[DLH]

Yes, yes, I brought up the dice. I was trying to be silly. Proceed...

I got that, but I think it's an interesting aside nevertheless.

 

[DLH]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Really? Who cursed Adam and his offspring (mankind) to sickness and death?

 

[Shadowy Man]

Einstein was not speaking of a literal god and, based on the extensive evidence we have, he was wrong about the dice-rolling business.

I really didn't give much attention to what Einstein meant, I gave the various ways in which the use of dice throwing can be taken and a simple theological look at ways in which those could interpreted.

No. Not at all. Do you know what Einstein was referring to as "playing dice"? That's what I meant by "appropriate context".

I'm not really that concerned with what he meant. If it were relevant I would have considered it, but it was given in a sort of tongue in cheek way.

so, it was just a useless throwaway? You mention Einstein but don’t care about the reference you brought to the conversation?

Were you hoping that we would just be impressed by the name drop? And not call you on it?

This seems a disingenuous approach to the conversation. If Einstein’s comments aren’t relevant why bring it up?

Here's a thought. Go back and read it again. I was responding to someone else quoting Einstein.

Fair enough. I stand corrected and will agree you made no positive or negative statement about anything Einstein said. It’s more that you were agreeing with the general sentiment “god does not play dice with the universe” than Albert’s specific claim, yes?

 

[pood]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Really? Who cursed Adam and his offspring (mankind) to sickness and death?

That would be J. Hovah. Read Édouard Tahmizian s essay The Origin of Evil, highly recommended though I don’t agree with parts of his analysis of free will.

In any case, Tahmizian is deconstructing a myth. We now know there was no first human man and woman — there was a first human population, probably around 1,500. We also know there was no literal Garden of Eden or prelapsarian state. Modern scientific discoveries have wholly disconfirmed the accounts of both the New and Old Testament.

 

[DLH]

We now know there was no first human man and woman — there was a first human population, probably around 1,500.

We don't know anything of the sort, in fact it's ridiculous. A population probably of about 1,500 sprang up out of nowhere and nothing but it certainly wasn't 1 man and one woman? We don't "know" whether or not they existed.

We also know there was no literal Garden of Eden or prelapsarian state.

No, we don't.

Modern scientific discoveries have wholly disconfirmed the accounts of both the New and Old Testament.

Biblically the concept of the New and Old Testament doesn't exist. It's a Latin mistranslation of the Greek word for covenant. If your "modern scientific discoveries" can't even get that right I don't take anything they "think" "seriously."

 

[pood]

We now know there was no first human man and woman — there was a first human population, probably around 1,500.

We don't know anything of the sort, in fact it's ridiculous. A population probably of about 1,500 sprang up out of nowhere and nothing but it certainly wasn't 1 man and one woman? We don't "know" whether or not they existed.

Yes, we do. See: evolutionary biology and molecular biology. Individuals don’t evolve, populations do. There was no first man or first woman.

We also know there was no literal Garden of Eden or prelapsarian state.

No, we don't.

Of course we do. We have traced life back to as early as 4.2 billion years, to the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) which was surprisingly modern. Life has been eating life since life began. No Garden, no prelapsarian state. All mythological bullshit.

Modern scientific discoveries have wholly disconfirmed the accounts of both the New and Old Testament.

Biblically the concept of the New and Old Testament doesn't exist. It's a Latin mistranslation of the Greek word for covenant. If your "modern scientific discoveries" can't even get that right I don't take anything they "think" "seriously."

That is fine and dandy, but it is not what most Christians believe. They believe in a cock and bull story about how Adam sinned and Jesus sacrificed himself to himself to redeem that sin. But there was no Adam, no sin, and no prelapsarian state. Now, whatever your specific beliefs are — I don’t know, because you won’t cop to them, but I don’t really care, either — the fact is that we are an evolved species that has nothing to do with covenants or the bible or Jay Hovah or the supernatural. Those are just tall tales written in old books.

 

[DLH]

Fair enough. I stand corrected and will agree you made no positive or negative statement about anything Einstein said. It’s more that you were agreeing with the general sentiment “god does not play dice with the universe” than Albert’s specific claim, yes?

I said he was right, meaning the quote was right. What he meant I have no idea. Since it was mentioned as an amusing aside and I gave my own take on it, more or less in the same spirit, then maybe you have something to say about exactly what my take on it, the amusing aside itself, or most specifically how they differ according to what Einstein MIGHT have meant?

That's the difference, in my opinion, between an ideological argument and a good discussion.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Really? Who cursed Adam and his offspring (mankind) to sickness and death?

No one because Adam and Eve never existed.

 

[pood]

Fair enough. I stand corrected and will agree you made no positive or negative statement about anything Einstein said. It’s more that you were agreeing with the general sentiment “god does not play dice with the universe” than Albert’s specific claim, yes?

I said he was right, meaning the quote was right. What he meant I have no idea. Since it was mentioned as an amusing aside and I gave my own take on it, more or less in the same spirit, then maybe you have something to say about exactly what my take on it, the amusing aside itself, or most specifically how they differ according to what Einstein MIGHT have meant?

That's the difference, in my opinion, between an ideological argument and a good discussion.

Einstein disagreed with the nonlocality, antirealism and indeterminism (dice) implied by quantum mechanics. Later experiments after he was dead appear to have proved him wrong. Einstein’s “god” was entirely metaphorical. He deemed belief in the literal reality of entities like Jay Hovah to be “primitive” thinking.

 

[pood]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Really? Who cursed Adam and his offspring (mankind) to sickness and death?

No one because Adam and Eve never existed.

Right. DLH does not realize this. But even if we take the Genesis story on its own terms and pretend it is true, a logical analysis of the situation makes clear that his very own Jay Hovah was responsible for the “first sin.”

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Really? Who cursed Adam and his offspring (mankind) to sickness and death?

No one because Adam and Eve never existed.

Right. DLH does not realize this. But even if we take the Genesis story on its own terms and pretend it is true, a logical analysis of the situation makes clear that his very own Jay Hovah was responsible for the “first sin.”

And I'm still not sure how omniscience and free will are compatible.

 

[pood]

Epicurus and his riddle don't appear to get on too well with the God of Love.

Rabies doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Malaria doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Ebola doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Marburg virus doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Childhood cancer doesn't seem to get on too well with the god of love.

Really? Who cursed Adam and his offspring (mankind) to sickness and death?

No one because Adam and Eve never existed.

Right. DLH does not realize this. But even if we take the Genesis story on its own terms and pretend it is true, a logical analysis of the situation makes clear that his very own Jay Hovah was responsible for the “first sin.”

And I'm still not sure how omniscience and free will are compatible.

Omniscience and free will are logically compatible.

If an Infallible Predictor (which you can call God if you want) knew ahead of time, infallibly, everything you would do in life, even before you were born, it does not logically follow that you HAD to do those things. It just follows that you WOULD do those things, not that you HAD to.

The problem for free will does not arise from omniscience, but from omnipotence. If God exists, he created exactly the world he wanted, including the one in which the mythical Adam and Eve sinned.

 

[pood]

The logical structure of reconciling free will with an Infallible Predictor is exactly the same as the logical structure of Aristotle’s Problem of Future Contingents.

If it is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then tomorrow there must (necessarily) be a sea battle, and there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Thus, no free will.

The argument takes the form:

If today it is true that tomorrow x, then necessarily x.

But his constitutes a modal fallacy.

The corrected modal version:

Necessarily (if true today that x will happen tomorrow, then x will, but not MUST, happen).

If y happens instead, then a DIFFERENT prior proposition would be true:

Necessarily (if true today that y will happen tomorrow, then y will, but not MUST, happen).

I think it is easy from there to work out how the Infallible Predictor’s foreknowledge of what you will do does not preclude your free will. You can freely do either x or y; you just can’t escape the infallible predictor’s foreknowledge of what in fact you do.

 

[DLH]

No one because Adam and Eve never existed.

And neither did God in your estimation so what's the point in blaming him? That's like blaming Darth Vadar for:

• Destroyed people on Ryloth with Palpatine
• Took out dozens of rebels in Rogue One
• Executed dozens of repair crew members
• Used civilians as weapons against
• Took out five officers at random for every person who tried to off him
• Tricked Kanan and Ezra into a trap
• Dismembered his own inquisitors to teach them about loss

Do you see? You can't have it both ways. God can't be a monster that exists if he doesn't exist.