God Is A Psychopath

[steve_bank]

It's almost amusing watching LIRC's tortured attempts to speak for gawd, and to interpret how gawd thinks about omniscience and omnipotence for us non-xtians who just apply logic.
It also occurs that it is remarkably arrogant of LIRC to presume to speak for gawd, since it is abundantly obvious that he (LIRC) is neither omniscient or -potent.

Doing battle and suffering in the name of god is part of the Christian narrative. It leads to a sense of glory and righteousness.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Well, who would want to be a Christian if you couldn't be a Christian soldier? If I ever join, I damn well want a badge and maybe a sidearm. But the badge fer sher.

 

[steve_bank]

Well, who would want to be a Christian if you couldn't be a Christian soldier? If I ever join, I damn well want a badge and maybe a sidearm. But the badge fer sher.

They are called Christian militias.

 

[phands]

Well, who would want to be a Christian if you couldn't be a Christian soldier? If I ever join, I damn well want a badge and maybe a sidearm. But the badge fer sher.

They are called Christian militias.

The KKK is a reprehensible example of such, but far from the only.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I also don't understand why use a flood as the mechanic. It seems unnecessary to punish all the animals for something humans did. Since all humans were to be killed except one already faithful, there's no need to hide. Why not God just make everybody fall down dead instantly. Or make them vanish.

Christians just seem to lack imagination regarding what an omnipotent force can do.

The flood only makes sense if we think that it's a natural phenomena that actually happened and was later mythologised, and of course exaggerated.

That's the point of mythology. If we see it this way there's no need to posit a God that actually exists.

If I were God during the Flood times, I'd have had everyone die in cool and interesting ways, like in the Final Destination movies.

Then people's last thoughts would be like:

"Whoa! That dude just got beheaded by a shovel which fell out of a window after the lady up there was kicking around as she tripped and got strangled by her clothing line. I'll give it an 8 out of 10. Oh look, I'm about to be beaten to death by a gorilla who escaped from the zoo wagon that crashed after the wheel broke and flung the driver into the display window of the knife store ... this should be entertaining for the next guy to watch".

Add a bit of flair to the whole genocide thing.

Since God's omnipotent, it would take him no more time and energy to think up an original and exciting death for each individual person as it would for him to have one generic event kill all of them.

According to Aristotle an omnipotent being wouldn't do anything at all. All animals are propelled into the world be what they lack. They have a deficit they're trying to compensate for. An omnipotent being would have no deficit, so no motivation to do anything. Well explored in many Star Trek episodes. Too many.

That's a definite weakness in Abrahamic theology. Why would God do any of it? It makes zero sense. Or God works in mysterious ways and we can stop speculating

- - - Updated - - -

It's almost amusing watching LIRC's tortured attempts to speak for gawd, and to interpret how gawd thinks about omniscience and omnipotence for us non-xtians who just apply logic.
It also occurs that it is remarkably arrogant of LIRC to presume to speak for gawd, since it is abundantly obvious that he (LIRC) is neither omniscient or -potent.

He's hardly the first. This forum has a long history of cock-sure fundies with leaky theories crashing and burning

 

[Tom Sawyer]

According to Aristotle an omnipotent being wouldn't do anything at all.

Well then, I guess Aristotle can just wander off and go fuck himself.

All animals are propelled into the world be what they lack. They have a deficit they're trying to compensate for. An omnipotent being would have no deficit, so no motivation to do anything. Well explored in many Star Trek episodes. Too many.

That's a definite weakness in Abrahamic theology. Why would God do any of it? It makes zero sense. Or God works in mysterious ways and we can stop speculating

Well, being omniscient, God would be aware of this problem. This could cause him to place artificial limitations on himself in order to keep the universe being an interesting place which he doesn't get bored of every few billion years. It's like if you're a really good Civilization player, so you decide to not build any settlers and try and win the game while only having one city - the standard game doesn't offer a sufficient challenge to you, so you give yourself artificial restrictions to play by in order to keep the game engaging and fun.

 

[Lion IRC]

No fish mentioned there.
No fish taken onto the Ark. (no need - fish don't drown in water)

There are fish and other animals that live in the oceans (salt water) and fish and other animals that live in rivers and estuaries (fresh water). By and large, freshwater fish (and animals) cannot survive in saltwater and saltwater fish (and animals) cannot survive in freshwater. There are a few exceptions, but not many. Are you saying you did not study this stuff in high school biology?

No, we studied chemistry instead.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

So, you're saying that all the fresh water lakes and rivers which were under the ocean during the flood remained intact and got no salt water in them during the 40 days of the flood and all the salt drained away afterwards and left them unaffected when the flood ended?

Science is cool!

 

[Lion IRC]

I’m saying large bodies of fresh water remained sufficiently ‘fresh’ long enough to allow survival of a heritage population.
...and that’s without invoking divine assistance.

 

[steve_bank]

I’m saying large bodies of fresh water remained sufficiently ‘fresh’ long enough to allow survival of a heritage population.
...and that’s without invoking divine assistance.

Is that literal scripture, did you make it up, or did god tell you that?

Was it 40 days and nights of rain? Lakes, rivers, and streams and associated ecosystems that support marine life would be devastated.

And where did all the water come from or go? I suppose god could create it and uncreate it as he, she, or it desired.

And if the world was covered in water Hoah and family would have staved to death. Arable soil would be gone. Water sources would be fouled. No insects for natural pollination.

 

[phands]

I’m saying large bodies of fresh water remained sufficiently ‘fresh’ long enough to allow survival of a heritage population.
...and that’s without invoking divine assistance.

What utter bollocks. Your knowledge of science is as sketchy as your knowledge of your shitty bible. What do you know of salinity gradients, Fick's laws of diffusion and basic biochemistry of aquatic species? Have you ever seen what happens to a slug if you dust it with a tiny pinch of salt?

Even if there were somehow "pockets" of fresh water once the seas receded ALL OVER THE WORLD, how did the surviving species of fresh water fish get to the rest of the world's fresh water?
Or maybe they got splashed there by another ridiculous idea - the moronic Walt Brown's Hydropantsplates "theory"....

Just once in the history of the universe, have the decency to admit that you are wrong. Of course, you wont....what am I thinking?

 

[atrib]

I’m saying large bodies of fresh water remained sufficiently ‘fresh’ long enough to allow survival of a heritage population.
...and that’s without invoking divine assistance.

This is bullshit. You can't dump tens of thousands of feet of water on the planet's surface in a matter of hours and expect the oceans and rivers to maintain their original chemistry. The energy associated with an event like this is ENORMOUS! Just enormous! Where did this energy come from, and how did it get dissipated? If you actually built a model to estimate the energy balance and impacts of this hypothetical deluge on our planet, the energy from the event could probably have boiled off the existing water on the planet and cooked all the fish alive before they could die from changes in water chemistry. And you claim the lakes and rivers and oceans would stay calm and not mix? I know you are not stupid enough to believe that.

Where did all this water come from? Are you invoking divine assistance to answer this question? Why did a deluge of this magnitude not leave any trace in the geological and fossil record on this planet? A 6-mile wide meteorite struck our planet and wiped out most of the larger dominant lifeforms about 66 million years ago, and this event is documented in the geological and fossil record all over the planet. Literally, all over the planet. But an ENORMOUS flood event from a few thousand years ago with an energy content many trillions of times larger than this meteorite event never left a trace? Really??? And I am not even going to get into the lack of genetic bottlenecks we see in living things today or the logistics of building and surviving an extinction event of this magnitude in a wooden boat. Or the complete lack of logic behind the story of an all powerful, intelligent entity that makes a decision to sterilize all life on the planet when it has an infinite array of more humane options with which to address the hypothetical problem with human beings behaving like human beings.

You claim to believe some stupid things that someone wrote a story about 2,000 years ago, but you are not a stupid human being. I know that. Then why are you pretending to be stupid? Just to get out of answering the question, or do you actually believe what you wrote?

I hate what religion does to people. It corrupts the minds of otherwise intelligent and rational human beings and turns their brains to mush when it comes to matters of their faith. This is so fucking sad.

 

[Rhea]

Nice try. Not falling for it. I didn't talk about fish. It's an irrelevant derail.

Poor try, actually. As you might expect from LIRC. There's a major problem: salinity. Rain is fresh water, sea is saline. With few exceptions, marine fish cannot live in fresh water, and vice-versa. There are some species that can live in brackish water too, but the whole flood idea doesn't hold, well....water.

Oh yeah? Well that was before they ate from the krill of life. Before that, their DNA was perfect and they could live in anything. It’s only after the fish fall that they became segregated like the, er, the reef of babel.

 

[Rhea]

Omniscience is not a burden compelling God to maintain permanent conscious awareness of anything and everything at all times in the forefront of His immediate attention. In fact it's precisely because He is omniscient that He can freely elect to know whatever His divine prerogative wishes - whenever He wishes.

I’m pretty sure Lion just claimed his god was
Willfully Ignorant​

 

[phands]

Oh yeah? Well that was before they ate from the krill of life. Before that, their DNA was perfect and they could live in anything. It’s only after the fish fall that they became segregated like the, er, the reef of babel.

Perfect rejoinder.

 

[phands]

Omniscience is not a burden compelling God to maintain permanent conscious awareness of anything and everything at all times in the forefront of His immediate attention. In fact it's precisely because He is omniscient that He can freely elect to know whatever His divine prerogative wishes - whenever He wishes.

I’m pretty sure Lion just claimed his god was
Willfully Ignorant​

But that follows, as xtians are willfully ignorant, just like gawd. Stupidity is an act of worship....

 

[steve_bank]

An old joke.

A priest is playing golf with a friend. His friend misses an easy put and exclaims, 'God damn it I missed!.

The priest warns him not to blaspheme else risking divine punishment.

The game proceeds and the friend curses several times.

Again he blasphemes. As the priest starts to caution him again the priest is struck by lightning burned to a crisp.

A loud booming voice from above is heard 'Damn it I missed'.

 

[DBT]

Omniscience is not a burden compelling God to maintain permanent conscious awareness of anything and everything at all times in the forefront of His immediate attention. In fact it's precisely because He is omniscient that He can freely elect to know whatever His divine prerogative wishes - whenever He wishes.

Whether Omniscience is a burden or not a burden is irrelevant. The word 'Omniscience simply relates to a state of knowing everything that is knowable.

The Bible claims that God is Omniscient. It says nothing about God choosing ignorance.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Well, being omniscient, God would be aware of this problem. This could cause him to place artificial limitations on himself in order to keep the universe being an interesting place which he doesn't get bored of every few billion years. It's like if you're a really good Civilization player, so you decide to not build any settlers and try and win the game while only having one city - the standard game doesn't offer a sufficient challenge to you, so you give yourself artificial restrictions to play by in order to keep the game engaging and fun.

You mean like creating a stone so heavy he can't lift it?

- - - Updated - - -

No fish mentioned there.
No fish taken onto the Ark. (no need - fish don't drown in water)

There are fish and other animals that live in the oceans (salt water) and fish and other animals that live in rivers and estuaries (fresh water). By and large, freshwater fish (and animals) cannot survive in saltwater and saltwater fish (and animals) cannot survive in freshwater. There are a few exceptions, but not many. Are you saying you did not study this stuff in high school biology?

No, we studied chemistry instead.

View attachment 17882

Here's a tip. Don't buy an aquarium. I'm pretty sure all the fishes in your tender care will die. And it will all be a big mystery to you.

Fish are very sensitive to relative salinity levels. In the Baltic, where the water is mixed fresh and salt, we have special fish, adapted for just that environment. Who would have thunk?

 

[Lion IRC]

OK
I played the salt water / fresh water density card.
I played the divine intervention miracle card.
Now the euryhaline evolution card.
Turns out a world flooded with fresh rainwater would not prevent future gradual emergence of saltwater species.