Fiach

Shawl we coal a truce t'en, eh Old Chap? I steel t'ink ye aire a gobshite, but a bloody smart gobshite.:-)

Fiach

My childhood home, really. No not really, or I really dont know ;-)

http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...asp?id_=471123

K

Albert Cipriani:

I never claimed that God was outside of time. I think the concept is absurd. It's just something that's been used (even within this thread) to try to save God from the logical inconsistencies created if He were a temporal being given the attributes normally assigned to Him.

Jobar

[mod hat on]

Fiach. In the past I have given Albert Cipriani grief for using ad hominem arguments; I hereby tell you that such arguments are no more acceptable coming from the atheist side.

If we gratuitously insult the believers who come here, soon enough we will have no more to cross swords with. If you think their arguments are bullshit, say so. Then stop. Flames are against the rules here, and I and the other mods in this forum enforce it stringently.

This is a formal warning. Continued insults may result in more than just having your posts edited. [mod hat off]

Albert Cipriani

Dearest Fiach,
I go all weak in the knee when you talk dirty to me in that Lowland Scot's English brog. Keep it coming and I might convert to atheism. Ooo la la. You Heeland Boyo, you.

Seriously, or humorously, I got a real kick out of what you wrote. And a double kick out of actually being able to comprehend your hochmagandy. That's a talent. Have you considered writing poetry in Queen's English? It would be something.

You've shamed me. How dare I sign off as the Traditional Catholic when your speech is far more traditional than mine. I'll have to ammend my signature from "Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic" to "Hypocritically, Albert the Wannabe Traditional Catholic."

diana

vs.

So did aie, lahd.

But--Fiach--wot Jobar sed.

d

(Welcom' bahk, Albert!)

Fiach

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Albert Cipriani
Dearest Fiach,
I go all weak in the knee when you talk dirty to me in that Lowland Scot's English brog. Keep it coming and I might convert to atheism. Ooo la la. You Heeland Boyo, you.

I hope we got past the acrimony with a bit of Scottish gabberloony humour. For my part, I apologise.

Seriously, or humorously, I got a real kick out of what you wrote. And a double kick out of actually being able to comprehend your hochmagandy. That's a talent. Have you considered writing poetry in Queen's English? It would be something.

Yes, I have written some poetry in the Queen's English and some Gaelic, but I don't think there are any Gaelic speakers here. As a token of my apology for rudeness, I am posting for you one of the oldest Catholic prayers in Europe. The following is the Old Gaelic version of the Lord's Prayer when Ireland and Rome were the only civilised countries in the West.

"Ár nAthair atá ar neamh, go naofar d’aimn, go dtaga do ríocht, go ndéantar do thoill ar an talamh mar a dhéantar ar neamh. Ar n-arán laethúil tabhair dúinn inniu, agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha, mar a mhaithimidne dár bhféichiúna féin, agus ná lig sinn I gcathú, ach saor sinn ó oic. "

That brings back early school days when we said this every morning in Catholic Parochial School in Belfast (3 years while I lived with my Irish grandmother who spoke mainly Gaelic.)

You've shamed me. How dare I sign off as the Traditional Catholic when your speech is far more traditional than mine. I'll have to ammend my signature from "Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic" to "Hypocritically, Albert the Wannabe Traditional Catholic."

In a mixed Protestant-Catholic family I did attend Mass when they stopped the church Latin (I disagreed). Then they had masses in English and one in Gaelic.

Fiach

Fiach

I apologised to Albert Cipriani for getting "carried away." But I normally do use a rough edged form of Scottish humour. It is my style. If you find my jocular sarcasm offencive, you will do whatever it is you threaten. If you think it is a problem, then why don't you kick me off now and get it over with. I will leave without comment.

Fiach

Jobar

Fiach, I don't have the authority to kick you out, and would not if I did. However, it *is* my responsibility, along with the other mods, to keep the discussions in this forum civil. We can edit your posts, even delete them, but that is not something we do often; we require and expect all those who come here to forego insults.

Albert wasn't offended by you ragging him; that's good, and reflects well on Albert. But only a few weeks ago I gave Albert the same warning.

Internet Infidels is as polite as it is only because it's moderated closely- given the explosiveness of the topics discussed here, if we did not we would soon have nothing but flame wars in every forum. Just go to alt.atheism newsgroup and you'll see what we are trying to avoid.

Remember that ad hominem arguments are fallacious, insults direct are verboten, and you'll do fine.

Enough with the mod stuff. When I started this thread, I thought about extending my initial post by talking about the proper name for what we are discussing here- I'm surprised no one else has used the term omnipresence. Is God immanent in the physical universe? We see that there is disagreement amongst the theists on this; as best I can tell, everyone but Albert thinks God is not immanent in the sense of 'being' the physical world. Albert (if I understand him correctly, and I think I do) believes God *is* omnipresent, except in the souls of men.

Tell me this, Albert. Do you believe that the entire universe is but a stage set for a morality play which revolves around the souls of human beings? Such a central place for the human race is a central tenet of Catholicism, isn't it?

Fiach

I don't think so. Albert is better verse in Catholic dogma. Certainly in the Middle Ages that might be so. But from many of the Pope's recent discourses on science not conflicting with Catholicism, he suggested no conflict with evolution on Earth or other planets on other solar systems. The question for Albert is if there are 100 Earths out there, do they each require an Original Sin, a Jesus, Redemption? Or could there be Earths in which Eve resisted the forbidden fruit? What would they be like according to traditional belief?

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Cool posts,
Jobar: What's wrong with the concept of omnipresent is the concept of presence. It implies distance, space, a difference. None of this is possible with God. Creation comprises distance and extension. So if the only way we can conceive of the Creator being at one with with His Creation is to give Him these temporal finite properties (e.g., position, extension), then so be it. But it is a fundamentally flawed way of thinking.

Tho Theology 101 has God being omnipresent and omniscient, I reject both terms as inadequete expressions of the truth they hint at amid the intellectual white noise they produce. "Soul" is another such word that does more to muddy the water than to raise a drop of truth to our lips.

Perhaps the best way to express what I've been trying to express to you on this board is as follows: Everything in part and as a whole is God save attitudes. Our soul, then, can be conceived of as the sum total of all our attitudes. Our free will, then, can be conceived of as our current attitude. The more our attitudes conform to God's attitude, the more god-like we are. But we are really nothing; there's literally nothing here but God to more or less of a degree, like how your eyes are more you than say your toe nails or your image in the mirror. Thus, the Eucharist can be completely God, more god-like than the godliest saint (because of God'sattitude toward the host).

Jobar: Yes and no. Yes, our universe, as far as we are able to extend it, is the stage set for the morality play that is our purpose here. No, Catholicism does not dogmatize our exclusive place in the universe. It's a matter of legitimate speculation whether or not we are alone in the universe and in that sense function as the only role around which Creation has been designed as the backdrop to, as theater in the round showcasing the sound and the fury signifying nothing.

Fiach: That's what most people think and most people think irrationally. In other words, you're got it as stogged full of habergamillion as all the rest. (Hope my virgin use of your terminology is syntactically correct.)

If matter or energy were not really God in some sense, then they are demigods, something independent of God, which invalidates God's job description.

Fiach: Yes and no. On every Earth that sinned, the full treatment would be required. On every Earth that did not sin, we would walk in the cool of the morning with God, as Adam and Eve did. That's about as traditional as you can get as its mentioned in the first few pages of the first book of the Bible. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

P.S. Sorry to hear of your plans to leave, Fiach. I left for a year, and see, like in the movie Ploitergiest, I'm back. I'd like to think that this is the virtual Hotel California, where you can check out but never leave.