Yellum Notnef

Gods building codes? God has no "wiggle room"? People who go to clubs to see shows are really there for drinking and sex in "huge numbers"?

Theres no point trying to talk to this guy anymore. Lyricist was right about Radorth.

Stephen T-B

From Rad: “And even you must admit we are at the mercy of circumstances created by us and our own decisions- crappy roofs, terrible shuttle designs IMO without a protective crew compartment which would have saved the Challenger crew (left out of design to save weight as it turns out). Yes these are "natural" events in one way- but the natural result of our own choices which leave God very little wiggle room.”

This leads to an intriguing scenario in which engineers ask god’s guidance when building space shuttles: they’d be selected, presumably, on the strength of their religious convictions rather than their scientific/engineering expertise, and I’d really like to hear their excuses when their Christian Shuttle turns into a ball of flame because god forgot to mention that fuel pipes need to be made from a heat-resistant, non-corrosive material rather than plastic tubing.

That god causes disasters in order to punish us is a primitive belief which has passed its sell-by date; it is a pointless complication and does not help move mankind towards taking a mature responsibility for its behaviour and actions.
We don’t need a god to tell us that greed and laxity are wrong; we can see where they lead and this practical experience hones our morality. Don’t let’s forget that Christian morality was quite happy with burning witches, torturing heretics, killing pagans and capturing, shipping and owning slaves. I read here at Infidels that nearly all the key players in the great (and not so great) financial scandals which have cost ordinary Americans billions of dollars - robbing many of their life savings - were church-going Christians.
We have nothing to learn from Christian morality, except to be wary of it.
What we do have is the ability to investigate, analyse and understand why things go wrong so that similar mistakes can be avoided in future.

Stephen T-B

I’d like to comment on Fiach’s remark that: ...“the atrocities in the Old testament were not the acts of an imaginary god, but of evil savage nomads using God as the excuse.”
I think scholars will increasingly show us that many, if not most, of those OT atrocities never happened. I suspect they were highly-embellished tales gathered up by the leaders of a relatively weak and insecure people for morale-boosting reasons.
If they were understood to be folk tales and myths, perhaps modern-day hatreds among the Semite peoples could at last be laid to rest.
The Bible has a lot to answer for.

spacedOut

Engineers and managers never become arrogant, nor do they simply say "There was no way to get the crew home if the tiles were damaged, so we won't bother inspecting them." Is that what Gene Cranz said about Apollo 13? It was "impossible" to get Apollo 13 home, but a "miracle" solution was devised.

******

Actually, it was Gene Kranz, and he never uttered the phrase "Failure is Not an Option" during the actual mission, although it made for a cool book title.

The Apollo 13 rescue was a brilliant example of human ingenuity at its best. Engineers working collectively to solve a problem. I would think that if god had been around, he would have notified the flight team that the oxygen tank in the service module was faulty and needed to be replaced BEFORE the mission began.

However, no matter how valiant the effort, we are limited to the physical laws of this universe. If the heat sheild had failed during the Apollo 13 mission (as it did on Columbia's last mission), the Apollo crew would have met the same fate as the crew of STS-107.

MrDarwin

Radorth, are you suggesting that God can do things that have unintended consequences? Are you saying you don't believe God is omniscient, that he/she/it did not foresee the results of his/her/its creation? (Maybe this really is what you believe--I have to admit you've already surprised me by telling me I need to fear God's malevolence.)

thebeave

Amie,
In this thread, you have made three claims (quite passionately, I might add) that seem mutually exclusive to me, and I'm hoping you can clarify it:

1) We have free will
2) Everything happens for a reason
3) Things happen because they are part of God's great plan

It seems to me that theory 1 conflicts with both theory 2 and 3. How do you reconcile these? I'm confused....

The Naked Mage

RADORTH: "Ass mode - ENGAGE!"


What part of the body is the "limp", again?

Oh. Oh, yuck. Don't answer that.


Not millions, but then, I didn't come up with the shrewd marketing concept of forcibly targeting the weak and stupid with my book.

It DID sell a few hundred copies, though, and it had better illustrations to boot.

scombrid

But the godly could go to bed after having faithfully read their Bibles and die in their sleep when the dog kicks over the kerosene heater and the smoke alarm fails.

Statistical anomalies fall well within the view that natural processes explain the world. Do you understand the nature of stochastic events? Such as the reason we can have two 100year storms in one year without violating the assumptions regarding natural events. Often times what looks random on the surface will show a predictable pattern or will occur at some measurable rate. Deviation from the pattern or rate is variance. I once watched 5deer cross a frozen pond. One fell through and died while the others made it. Did that deer not please god? For a given ice thickness, there will be a measurable rate at which deer will fall through, say 1fall per 100crossings. Life sucks if you’re the one. What happens when 2 fall through in 5crossings? Is god out to get the deer? No, it’s equally likely that you’ll go 200crossings without a fall. Luck is a reality, not a cop-out. Our careful observation of the world amounts to reducing the rate of bad event X to an acceptable limit. Variance is the anomaly that bites us. Right now the observed failure rate for the shuttle reentry is something like 1 per 142 (It might be much higher and failure should’ve happened sooner or much lower but with our sample size we’re not positive). We’ve decided that isn’t acceptable and are seeking to alter the design to reduce the rate of reentry failure. Staying home as opposed to going to the club is risk averse only provided that your home is actually safe. Is using a kerosene heater ungodly?


Do you assert here that all the successes are god’s covert intervention? How would the engineer distinguish his design ideas from ideas planted by god? If God has reverted to a “passive plan” why is he meddling in the shuttle program?

God gives out building codes. I’ll be sure to contact the engineering and architecture schools at my alma mater and tell them that they’re obsolete. Students need only meditate and the answers will come. My civil engineering friend need not study past bridge designs to understand how the deck interacts with cross winds. God must not have been in on the design process for galloping gurdy. http://www.vibrationdata.com/Tacoma.htm .

I don’t need to prove that god doesn’t intercede in disasters. God’s involvement in natural events is contraindicated by the fact that human action and decisions affect the effects of various events on human lives. Did god give us satellites so that we can evacuate low lying areas in anticipation of a Hurricane or are we thwarting god’s will by mitigating storm damage. In that vein, god must hate Baptists given that they’re the denomination most affected by Tornadoes.

I think it amazing that your hypothetical infinite god would have its creation fouled up by finite beings. Gee golly Wally we sure are powerful.



Yeah, that’s pretty much it. We are at the mercy of OUR decisions and actions. Experience tells us not to build double decker freeways in earthquake zones or at least the reinforce the damned things properly when we do. Experience and observation of plate tectonics tell us where the earthquake zones are located. Of course just about everywhere is an earthquake zone (http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/factsheets/NewMadrid/) it’s just a matter of frequency of occurrence. In areas where the rate of quakes renders the daily chance of a quake sufficiently low, we take the risk of building structures without earthquake resilience in mind.


No. That is the image of god projected by theists when they assert that our own failings would’ve been prevented if only we’d asked god.

scombrid

God just wanted to make things interesting, like a satiated cat playing with a live mouse just for kicks.

Bree

You'd think that if God really loved His children, He'd protect them from harm. Nooo. He has to play this silly mind game to feed His power trip: worship me or I'll smite you.