spin

I told you grammar wasn't intuitive.

And you are certainly not alone with problems which arise from that.

Yeah.

a) That actor who I like very much is very handsome.

This tells the listener or reader that they should know which actor (and in this particular case the "who" can be omitted). In this case one can presume that the speaker/writer has already indentified the reference in previous communications.

b) That actor, who I like very much, is very handsome.

This sentence implies that the listener or reader already knows which actor is being referred to, perhaps just named (and the "who" cannot be omitted). The speaker/writer has already indentified the reference in this communication.

c) They've just arrested that actor (who) I like very much.
d) They've just arrested Mel Gibson, who I like very much.

The comma is essential in d) but wrong in c).

My premise is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, as accepted by almost all Cristians.

My premise is that people should learn grammar, as I'm sure you'll agree. (My premise is not that people should learn grammar as school teachers teach it.) (Oh, and commas have other purposes.)

If the distinction is still too hard, I'd recommend that you drop law, because you've wasted too much of my time over your grammatical inadequacies and their consequent presumptuousness.

If you feel magnanimous, you might apologize to Sven for your act of being stupid and arrogant. (I'm assuming that this is a one-off stupidity and arrogance and is no real reflection of your normal being.)

Back to the topic, do you think

1) animals were wicked and deserved to die?
2) a less horrid death could have been found for sinners than drowning?
3) God checked out everyone of those millions' misdemeanors?
4) everyone had been not just imperfect but downright wicked and thus deserved to die?
5) Adam and his brood were all good enough, as compared with all the millions, to live? (Remember, it wasn't too long before sonny boy Ham would "expose" his drunken father.)


spin

Sven

Thanks! If only my PhD-advisor would see this the same way...

You're wrong again. This actually my first debate (or discussion, I think a debate is more formal) on this topic from this viewpoint. Up to now, I've only discussed the flood from scientific viewpoint for only a few weeks. The reason I've trouble understanding your points thus may be that I've too little experience, not too much.

OK, thanks for the (brief) clarification (as far as I know, the catholic church won't necessarily agree with your last sentence, i.e. the dichotomy hell/heaven). So let me only briefly ask: If humans (apparently by their very nature) can not live up to God's (moral) standards, why does he not simply judge us by the moral standard we are (in principle) able to achieve? That is, why isn't the requirement for reaching heaven not that a human being tries to live according to the highest human standard which he can reach in principle, but instead this (IMHO weird) condition of belief in God? Let me phrase it another way: If every human being is a sinner, that means that we were created that way; otherwise it would be theoretically possible to always make the right (in God's standard) decision using our free will and thus live up to his standard. Thus it is very unjust to judge our actions on his standard, even though he created us in a way that we can not follow it by our very nature.

Perhaps we can indeed start a new thread on this; but since I'm not very well versed on the philosphical side of this argument (as you probably have noticed ), it very well could happen that I'll only lurk in this new thread to learn nsomething new - perhaps from both sides of the fence.

LP675

[I]It seems to me you have just made an elementary mistake. ‘Adam’, unless I am more tired and overworked than I feel, should actually be ‘Noah’. Instead of making a big deal about it, I think it would be best if I attempted to deal with the substance of your post (if one could really call it substance). It would be nice if you could pay others the same courtesy, because your last post exemplifies the selective pettiness you have been trying to make me out as possessing. I won’t suggest you desist in your whimsical multiple authorship speculations because of this minor error (neither will I drop law), I will just put it down to adrenaline still pumping from the thrill of a good cheap fundy bash.

Frankly I believe any thinking person has the right (even the duty) to remain unpersuaded regarding your waffling posts on the ‘comma’ issue. But leaving aside the comma controversy for a second, I will again repeat the point I have made which you have refused to acknowledge. If the premise is to be understood as “My premise is an omnibenevolent God, which is an idea accepted by almost all Christians”, and we define ‘omnibenevolence’ in a way that is incompatible with hell, then THIS PREMISE IS UTTERLY FALSE! This is the first reason my rendering of the premise is to be favoured.

The second is you still haven’t shown how your admittedly grammatically archaic perception of how the comma affects sentences which assume one’s having been given information other than that contained in the sentence relates to the stand alone statement of Sven’s OP.
You still haven’t shown how my much more analogous example of interpreting the function of the comma in a stand alone statement (the monks) is flawed.
If you believed me to be stupid I wonder that you didn’t simply and clearly explain the various element of the OP, and the ways I was wrong and you were right in regard to its interpretation. Instead you left me with nebulous hints as to how we could interpret it, and claimed I was stupid for not understanding. And I think I know why you didn’t spend time talking about the OP itself. It is obvious that the sentence was not grammatically perfect if you want to force your interpretation onto it.

Spin-”My premise is that people should learn grammar, as I'm sure you'll agree. (this is a similar sentence to the interpretation you want, making an assertion, then saying someone agrees with it. 'My premise is not that people should learn grammar as school teachers teach it'. (This is similar to the sentence structure you are asserting Svens OP should have had to understand it the way I have). However what he actually said was;

"My premise is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, as accepted by almost all Cristians."

I have said already yours is a tortuous interpretation, because of his use of ‘as’. If he had put it this way; ‘as IT IS accepted by almost all christians’, then we know the 'as' could be interpreted ‘because’ (although my interpretation again is acceptable). If he meant ‘which is an idea accepted by almost all Christians’ then he could have said that. But the way the sentence stands your interpretation is in need of the ‘ekking out’.



“Spin- because you've wasted too much of my time over your grammatical inadequacies and their consequent presumptuousness.”
I have an idea. If you don’t want to waste your time answering posts don’t. No one is forcing you to. I personally feel I have wasted a lot of time here, but I blame no one but myself for that. Arrogance and presumption are not becoming for anyone, regardless of whether they are in the right or not.

Spin- Back to the topic, do you think
1) animals were wicked and deserved to die?
They were under the curse of sin, if thats what you mean.
2) a less horrid death could have been found for sinners than drowning?
Probably. Maybe everyone could have heart attacks in their sleep or something. So what?
3) God checked out everyone of those millions' misdemeanors?
If omniscient gods can be said to ‘check out’ these misdemeanors, yes. He certainly knew their actions (I wonder if you have the Sodom episode in mind).
4) everyone had been not just imperfect but downright wicked and thus deserved to die?
The Bible seems to indicate this is the case.
5) Adam and his brood were all good enough, as compared with all the millions, to live? (Remember, it wasn't too long before sonny boy Ham would "expose" his drunken father.)
The narrative seems to focus on Noah’s ‘righteousness’, on his family I could only speculate, but again yes the text seems to indicate Noah was righteous enough to escape the judgment.

LP675

Gutten Tag! Ich mag Spin und das internet Infiedels! (how’s my German?)

Sven

Nice, overall
Altough I would suggest using "die" (plural) for "Internet Infidels" - or "das Internet Infidels Discussion Forum" (the ugly German language with three different articles )

Stephen T-B

Animals under the curse of sin" what does that mean?

A guinea pig snuffling around a South American hill top had to drown because it came under the curse of sin?

And the ant which is climbing up its right front leg?

Trying to make sense of the Flood calls for some of the most ludicrous statements I've ever come across

Sven

I don't think the premise is false. I simply stated that Christians say their God is omnibenevolent and that this is inconsistent with Noah's flood. That omnibenevolence is also inconsistent with Hell (and many other things) is not my or spin's problem, but the problem of Christians who are not able to grap this. If they define their God incoherent with the Bible/their overall theology, they have to live with that someone takes their definition and shows exactly that.


Shall we conduct a poll who else understood my OP the way you did? If your answer is no, then I'll suggest to drop this silly point.

If I had meant what you understood me to mean, I would have written "An omnibenevolent - in a way accepted by most Christians - God." or something similar.

Spin- Back to the topic, do you think
1) animals were wicked and deserved to die?
Then we have to blame their death not on the flood but rather on the very unjust action of God after the fall to blame all the animals too for the misdoing (if we accept it was a misdoing) of Adam and Eve?

2) a less horrid death could have been found for sinners than drowning?
Simple. Unnecessary suffering contradicts omnibenevolence. I repeat: Even if Hell were consistent with omnibenevolence, why is this suffering necessary?

3) God checked out everyone of those millions' misdemeanors?
We're back to the point that either (1) God doesn't know the future actions of these people (which acou deny) or (2) there's no free will (which you also deny) Please provide an explanation.

4) everyone had been not just imperfect but downright wicked and thus deserved to die?
See my first answer: This is not illogical, but completely against common sense. No society would work with 100% of the people being like this.

5) Adam and his brood were all good enough, as compared with all the millions, to live?
(Remember, it wasn't too long before sonny boy Ham would "expose" his drunken father.)
Let's focus on the "his brood" of spin's question. Were they righteous or not? If yes, why this episode happened shortly after the flood? If no, why weren't they killed, too?

spin

Isn't it good to know that if you kept plugging away you'd finaaly find something to belch about!

Yes, you're perfectly correct. I did mean Noah. Adam had no son called Ham, though Noah did. Good going.

The issue, as you are well aware, is the significance of a sentence which you abused, not the comma.

In this there is finally a hint of acceptance of the significance of the OP as intended by its author, a significance with which you disagree because of the difficulty entailed in a potentially over generous definition of ‘omnibenevolence’. Again, good going.

There is nothing grammatically archaic about it. It might be wise for you to grasp the point, for it will prove important to finer understanding of legal texts, which are writing with such precepts in mind.

The sentence is inherently ambiguous. If one could, one would leave the comma out, but then one wouldn't know to what the "as" claused is attached. You simply need a better constructed sentence.

If I truly believed you to be stupid, I wouldn't have bothered. Do you understand the following distinction?

a) He is stupid.
b) He is being stupid.

(Churchill, known for his alcoholic indulgence, was once confronted by a woman: "you're drunk!" to which he retorted, "you're ugly!" So she repeated herself and he again said she was ugly, adding, "at least I'll be sober in the morning.")

I gave you what I considered sufficient tools to analyse the problem. You condemn yourself.

You're gulling yourself.

(Assume some contextualising...) My premise is a heliocentric solar system, as accepted even by most xians.

No problem with the "as". It seems to be with you.

I'm an inveterate pedagogue.

The listed points were those of Sven, which you have attempted to deal with. Once again, good going.


spin

Doctor X

The woman was political opponent Bessie Braddock (sp?).

Carry on. . . .

--J.D.

Stephen T-B

The God of the Old Testament was certainly capable of flooding the Earth and drowning every living thing except for a few chosen samples because not only is he portrayed in story after story as capricious, but also as violent, vicious and wrathful.
He in fact epitomises the qualities of all great and powerful rulers with whom those who compiled the OT stories, and those who heard them told, would have been familiar.
The fact that Yahweh was greater than any ruler on Earth made it necessary for these qualities to be exaggerated, or he would have seemed just ordinary.
He could do ANYTHING, on a whim. He could stop the sun in the sky, he could even make it go backwards (what human ruler could do that?) he could slay thousands and ten of thousands of people - and when he caused the Flood he did it it because he could. He was that powerful.
The gods worshiped by Judaea’s much more powerful neighbours weren’t even in the same league: think what it did for the Jews’ morale to be told they were the chosen people of a mighty God, a god which made up a thousand times - a hundred thousand times - for their own weakness and insignificance.

The problem the Christians have is that they’ve inherited this same God, but the one they worship is utterly different. It’s a loving god, a just god, one which brought people back to life and made the blind to see and the lame to walk and healed the sick. Nowhere in the New Testament are there accounts of it promoting wholesale slaughter.

Christians who believe that the OT stories record real events must reconcile two opposing ideas, and in doing so must perform mental gymnastics which are wonderful to behold.

It's why these "Flood" threads are so very entertaining.