HelenM

I expect the meaning was: God has to do it because it would go against His attributes/character not to.

In that sense He has to.

It's similar to how [theologically speaking] God cannot do evil. He can't choose whether to or not to. He can only choose when he has more than one choice which is good - if you see what I mean. Otherwise He has to do what is good.

love
Helen

rainbow walking

rw: "US", as in, everyone but the people physically involved in the WTC incident? So you think wanton wholesale mass murder is a meaningful way to express his love for you?

rw: Then all the folks who perished in the WTC incident were mis-behaving and caused God to punish them? I seem to remember alot of airtime given to the fact that many of those individuals were christians. Aren't you afraid that you might do something to make your loving father god angry enough to murder you and your family?

rw: It was a go-to-sleep-call for many people also, as in forever.

rw: Do you realize that when you promote this reasoning for 9-11 that you are actually agreeing with the Muslim fundamentalists who used some of this very reasoning to justify their acts of hatred? They believe America is a decadent land full of vile infidels who deserve to be exterminated like cockroaches and they teach this to their children daily like a mantra or rote proverb. Only, their idea of repentance is for us to subjugate ourselves to them as the righteous representatives of Allah whats-his-name.

Do you want to go on record as agreeing with those who would have gladly waited for you to load your pious little family into one of those buildings before they struck?

So, if I'm following your reasoning here, you believe that if everyone in America began to pray and seek god that the mean old Muslim radicals would approve and go away and leave us alone? That we should have followed this course of action rather than rooting them out from under their rocks and administering a little justice of our own?

Whoever you are, I suggest you search your very human heart for a better explanation than this. It not only renders your god a hideous monster but makes you look like you are in collusion with the ideas and religious fanatics who perpetrated this vile act on innocent people.

Methinks you are in need of another BRAIN WASHING.....

Now I've got to go and baptize my hard drive just to remove the stench.

rainbow walking

rw: I am quite pleased that you have seen this, my friend, because that is precisely the point I was trying to make....I think

Philosoft

Okay. So, I'm still a bit confused. Do you agree that the letters G-O-D do not refer to a concept at all? I am a non-cognitivist and this is basically my position.

HelenM

This is an interesting point.

I find that Christians rarely 'just pray'.

Even though in theory they could trust God to do what He wants to do 'without them', they tend to do all they can to accomplish what they want accomplished. They pray too but they don't stop 'doing' until there is nothing else they can do except pray.

Is this because they don't trust God very much?

Or another reason?

love
Helen

rainbow walking

rw: Well, my friend, I may not be able to help you here at all. Concepts exist that are not empirically verifiable. They exist in an abstract form within the mind but cannot be related to anything in reality that is verifiable perceptually.

CONCEPT: 1. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences. 2. Something formed in the mind; a thought or notion. See Synonyms at idea.

Concepts are like an illusion we create in our minds to mirror our reality. Sometimes they reflect reality as it is...sometimes they reflect reality as we wish it were. God is just such a concept. There is nothing to support a claim that god is a real being that exists outside the mirror of our conceptualization. But to deny that the concept of such a being exists in the minds of many people is counter-productive to identifying just what this concept really means.

Deja vu is a classic example. It is a concept that mirrors a genuine experience many people have had. But the experience itself, seems un-real when experiencing it. In fact it isn't real but it seems so. Would you say that deja vu, just because it conceptualizes an experience that one feels they've experienced before in spite of knowing they couldn't possibly have, isn't a genuine concept that accurately conveys that experience?

No, I cannot say that the letters G-O-D do not refer to an actual concept because they do. The concept exists. The being it defines does not.

Are you confused enough yet or shall I continue?

rainbow walking

Helen, methinks you've just resurrected that age old theological dispute between faith and works.



I guess faith only works when you do...eh?

HelenM

Resurrected it?

That's only possible if it had ever been laid to rest!

I am moved by people who will do radical things because of what they believe - I'm talking about benign things, not killing...

I guess I'm moved by the ones who don't do stuff when it's easier to do stuff and who do stuff when it's easier not to. People who have courage, who don't give up, who don't shrink back just because other people around them are critical of them.

Because that's the way I am - those are my heroes - that's why I have to be careful about "Maybe God is telling me to do something way out-of-the-box that everyone else thinks is crazy". With me it could well be crazy.

Oh well. So much for my aspirations to heroic individualism, huh?

love
Helen

rainbow walking

rw: Good point!

rw: What about the people who believe in themselves? Who make no appeals to divine intervention or providence? Who see that something isn't right and set out to prove it and rectify it? Even if they alienate themselves from everyone around them? Even if they spend their entire lives trying and the only thing they accomplish is to build a platform upon which abler minds can be launched?

Those are my heroes.

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

HelenM

Well, see, if I may cross out the 'if they make no appeals to divine intervention or providence', yes, they are mine also

I don't rule people out as heroes simply because of their theism.

I would rather decide on a case-by-case basis

Anyone who tries hard to change the world is a potential candidate for a hero of mine, regardless of their belief system. As long as they don't do it at the expense of other human beings. Regardless of their belief system .

love
Helen

[edited to fix quote]

[ May 09, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>