?s about Xtianity but were afraid to ask

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

02/14/2011 06:31:58 PM · #1177

The person who claims to know the answer to that SP, claims to know the mind of God, so take this all with that in mind. The most common answer I have seen is that God is relational. (One may see evidence for this in the triune nature of God.) So, just as a perfect camera in a universe without light is perfect but unfulfilled of its purpose until there is light, so one could get a feel for a relational God being perfect but an unfufilled perfection without relationship. I'm sure there are cracks in that as presented, but it gives you a taste of the potential answer.

yanko

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

02/14/2011 10:14:38 PM · #1178

Perhaps we should ask a monkey?

02/14/2011 10:26:02 PM · #1179

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The most common answer I have seen is that God is relational... So, just as a perfect camera in a universe without light is perfect but unfulfilled of its purpose until there is light, so one could get a feel for a relational God being perfect but an unfufilled perfection without relationship.

So God has a purpose, and therefore a creator? That is, after all, the basic premise behind assumptions that humans have a purpose and assertions that "God must have something special planned" for people who survive some tragedy. Never mind that fate is inherently incompatible with free will...

Message edited by author 2011-02-14 23:25:11.

02/15/2011 12:16:04 AM · #1180

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
The most common answer I have seen is that God is relational... So, just as a perfect camera in a universe without light is perfect but unfulfilled of its purpose until there is light, so one could get a feel for a relational God being perfect but an unfufilled perfection without relationship.

So God has a purpose, and therefore a creator? That is, after all, the basic premise behind assumptions that humans have a purpose and assertions that "God must have something special planned" for people who survive some tragedy. Never mind that fate is inherently incompatible with free will...

Agreed that the word and analogy fail there. No he doesn't have a purpose like you and I have a purpose. I was just trying to show how something like the "perfect camera" could be made "more perfect" (a paradoxical phrase) by having light. Anyway, like I said, ultimately I do not know the mind of God and why he chose to do this.

Free will keeps coming up. Ultimately it seems to be incompatible with anything. God's sovereignty. Natural physics. Yet, we all believe we possess it. I find that fascinating.

02/15/2011 03:23:05 PM · #1181

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The person who claims to know the answer to that SP, claims to know the mind of God, so take this all with that in mind.

I applaud that you did not rest on the "man cannot know the mind of God" retort. It is a very common response when believers are faced with logical inconsistencies in their own philosophy, but it amounts to nothing more than a deflection. Funny how a believer like yourself is often perfectly willing to accept "I don't know and may never know" for an answer in situations like this, but categorically rejects such an assertion when applied to a secular phenomenon, e.g., our big bang discussion. Suddenly, then not knowing or the epistemic difficulties of gaining specific knowledge becomes a "problem."

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The most common answer I have seen is that God is relational. (One may see evidence for this in the triune nature of God.) So, just as a perfect camera in a universe without light is perfect but unfulfilled of its purpose until there is light, so one could get a feel for a relational God being perfect but an unfufilled perfection without relationship. I'm sure there are cracks in that as presented, but it gives you a taste of the potential answer.

It's not that the analogy fails on linguistic grounds, the analogy fails because it doesn't resolve the problem. A "perfect" camera in a universe without light is not perfect to the simple reason that it is useless/meaningless in that context. Similarly "perfect, but unfulfilled" is, definitionally incoherent. If God is unfulfilled without the creation, then he is not perfect.

This paradox is easily solved if you are willing to abandon the belief in the absolute perfection of God, but most Christians are not willing to go there. I find this odd, because scripturally you do seem to see a deity that advances, grows and progresses from the old to the new testament. Indeed, the god of the old testament appears to make mistakes, have regrets and express repentance for unwarranted wrath, none of which upholds the idea of a perfect god.

Lastly, I will just say that even if you were to buy the "perfect but unfulfilled" malarky, does it not give you even the slightest pause that under your view in order to be "fulfilled" God apparently had to create a universe where the vast majority of his preeminent creation, humankind, would be condemned to some sort of hell for not identifying and/or sufficiently adhering to the "correct" set of ambiguous prescriptions for the unquestioning worship of himself?

Perfection apparently isn't all its cracked up to be.

Message edited by author 2011-02-15 16:03:43.

02/15/2011 03:39:00 PM · #1182

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

I applaud that you did not rest on the "man cannot know the mind of God" retort.

Did he not do exactly that?

02/15/2011 04:02:29 PM · #1183

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
I applaud that you did not rest on the "man cannot know the mind of God" retort.

Did he not do exactly that?

Well, not entirely. Doc's answer is more of a hedge than an all-out mea culpa.

Message edited by author 2011-02-15 16:05:02.

02/15/2011 04:03:37 PM · #1184

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
I applaud that you did not rest on the "man cannot know the mind of God" retort.

Did he not do exactly that?

Well, not entirely. I would Doc's answer more of a hedge than an all-out mea culpa.

It's difficult for me to parse all the indirect speech.

02/15/2011 04:06:06 PM · #1185

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Originally posted by Louis:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:
I applaud that you did not rest on the "man cannot know the mind of God" retort.

Did he not do exactly that?

Well, not entirely. Doc's answer is more of a hedge than an all-out mea culpa.

It's difficult for me to parse all the indirect speech.

Great video. Perhaps I should have said that he did not rest "entirely" on the "man cannot know the mind of God" retort.

Message edited by author 2011-02-15 16:06:26.

02/15/2011 04:13:57 PM · #1186

Heh... I of course meant all the god-speak. I got what you were saying. ;-)

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM

02/15/2011 04:27:58 PM · #1187

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

This paradox is easily solved if you are willing to abandon the belief in the absolute perfection of God...

Actually, and I hope you belive that I felt this before you brought it up, I'm not so attached to superlatives as the have to take the paradoxical portions. The old "can God move an unmovable rock?" question is really just a linguistic bit of nonsense, but it completely disappears if you just consider God to be more powerful than the rest of the universe combined. At that point, any "extra" power means nothing.

"Perfection" as a word does not apply to God because the person using that word, it is assumed, would be using an independent measure of that perfection. God is perfect by definition not by comparison. It would be like holding up a rock and declaring, "This is a perfect rock!" The statement, which seems silly (what rock can be perfect in it's rockiness?), can be true if the definition of "perfect rock" is...that rock.

So, really, the term, while used regularly about God, doesn't really apply in the same way it would be used about anything else. Good is the same. God is good...by definition, not by comparison. We do not measure God up against an independent measuring stick of goodness to judge that he is good.

Message edited by author 2011-02-15 16:28:56.

RayEthier

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

02/15/2011 04:42:01 PM · #1188

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

God is good...by definition, not by comparison. We do not measure God up against an independent measuring stick of goodness to judge that he is good.

...and why not.

Ray

02/15/2011 04:44:55 PM · #1189

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

We do not measure God up against an independent measuring stick of goodness to judge that he is good.

Ah, but we don't measure God by ANYTHING but individual assumption, and with such contradictory variety and continual reinterpretation as to render such "definitions" meaningless. Everybody is holds up a different rock with absolutely no objective measure to validate one definition over another. And that's not even considering SP's point regarding God's own errors and personality changes in Biblical accounts, nor the absurdity of something 'perfect by definition' being incomplete or unfulfilled without something else.

02/15/2011 04:57:13 PM · #1190

Originally posted by RayEthier:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
God is good...by definition, not by comparison. We do not measure God up against an independent measuring stick of goodness to judge that he is good.

...and why not.

Ray

Because if we assume God is the source of everything, there is no independent standard to measure him by. Nothing is "above" or "over" God.

02/15/2011 05:04:00 PM · #1191

Not even the god who made him.

02/15/2011 05:04:52 PM · #1192

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

"Perfection" as a word does not apply to God because the person using that word, it is assumed, would be using an independent measure of that perfection. God is perfect by definition not by comparison. It would be like holding up a rock and declaring, "This is a perfect rock!" The statement, which seems silly (what rock can be perfect in it's rockiness?), can be true if the definition of "perfect rock" is...that rock.

So, really, the term, while used regularly about God, doesn't really apply in the same way it would be used about anything else. Good is the same. God is good...by definition, not by comparison. We do not measure God up against an independent measuring stick of goodness to judge that he is good.

I'm sorry, but this is simply further nonsense, and engages in exactly the type of semantic wordplay that you are implicitly condemning. Is God perfect/good because he/she/it objectively embodies those characteristics, or is God perfect/good simply because he/she/it has declared him/her/itself to be so?

Perfection is definitionally only established by comparison. Something that is perfect is only perfect in comparison to that which is less than perfect. Similarly "goodness" is meaningless unless established by comparison. Something that is good is only good in comparison to that which is not good.

Also, you realize that by stating that "God is good . . . by definition" you just lost any religious claim to objective morality? Unless, of course, "objective morality" is just whatever God happens to say that it is.

This is what I'm talking about. Before you even get to what evidence/science says about the probability of the existence of God/god/gods, the core of religious belief is logically incoherent.*

You like to make a lot of noise about the gaps and ambiguities of scientific knowledge as to the "fundamental questions" of existence being some sort of problem for secularists, or at least providing a toe in the door to keep the question of God open and viable. But the core doctrines of religious belief are fundamentally incoherent. The only way that religious belief can claim a logical basis is if it closes off these core questions to honest, probing inquiry - thus the "one cannot know the mind of God"/"God is beyond humankind"/"through a glass darkly" lines of argument, which amount to nothing more than "you are right, this makes no sense, but I am going to choose to ignore this because I want to continue to believe."

Which is fine, if that's what you want to believe. But then just drop any pretense that your belief is grounded in reason/rationality. Admit that faith is exactly what it is, "belief without evidence," and leave everyone who doesn't share your particular faith the frak alone.

*Note that I am explicitly not attributing this solely to Christianity. This is an equal opportunity rant. All the major monotheisms suffer from this problem. Which is not to say that polytheistic religious are logically coherent, but they at least do not generally try to imagine their gods as super-special-perfect-shiny-double-good sky daddies, that are way too cool and special for us mere mortals to understand, but that nevertheless have a deep and personal concern about whether or not little Jimmy touches himself in the bathroom.

02/15/2011 05:08:56 PM · #1193

Yow! +8

Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM

02/15/2011 05:45:03 PM · #1194

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Perfection is definitionally only established by comparison.

I'll digest the rest of your post and reply to it later (crunched for time), but if you want to say this (which is fine, I think it makes sense), then we should just stop using the term to describe God. Your dilemma then disappears. Does God actually change just because I can't use a word that doesn't apply? I doubt it. The important point is that it doesn't make any sense to compared God to an independent standard because there is no such thing. Either that standard then becomes God (and now you have the real God), or God created the standard and thus you are comparing him to himself.

It's not a logical inconsistency here. It's just understanding how to look at thing.

johnnyphoto

Canon EOS-450D Rebel XSi

02/15/2011 05:55:57 PM · #1195

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

This might be a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I don't think it's correct to draw a comparison between "good" and "perfect". "Goodness" is a quality or characteristic that has different degrees (i.e., good, better, best) while "perfection" is a state of being that does not have different degrees. In reality there is no such thing as more perfect or most perfect. You might be able to say such a thing linguistically but to say something is "most perfect" would be as meaningless as saying something is "most dead." Living is a state just as perfection is a state. You're either dead or you're alive, and you're either perfect or you're imperfect.

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

This is what I'm talking about. Before you even get to what evidence/science says about the probability of the existence of God/god/gods, the core of religious belief is logically incoherent.*

You like to make a lot of noise about the gaps and ambiguities of scientific knowledge as to the "fundamental questions" of existence being some sort of problem for secularists, or at least providing a toe in the door to keep the question of God open and viable. But the core doctrines of religious belief are fundamentally incoherent. The only way that religious belief can claim a logical basis is if it closes off these core questions to honest, probing inquiry - thus the "one cannot know the mind of God"/"God is beyond humankind"/"through a glass darkly" lines of argument, which amount to nothing more than "you are right, this makes no sense, but I am going to choose to ignore this because I want to continue to believe."

I would like to respond to this statement but I'm not exactly sure what it is that you are referring to when you say "the core of religious belief". Could you elaborate on that statement?

02/15/2011 06:00:38 PM · #1196

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

It's not a logical inconsistency here.

That's not logic at all (on several levels).

02/15/2011 06:00:42 PM · #1197

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The important point is that it doesn't make any sense to compared God to an independent standard because there is no such thing.

How do you know? On what basis can you make such a claim?

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

It's not a logical inconsistency here. It's just understanding how to look at thing.

Only if by "understanding" you mean "a way of looking at the question that does not undermine my faith."

02/15/2011 06:01:51 PM · #1198

Originally posted by johnnyphoto:

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

This is what I'm talking about. Before you even get to what evidence/science says about the probability of the existence of God/god/gods, the core of religious belief is logically incoherent.*

You like to make a lot of noise about the gaps and ambiguities of scientific knowledge as to the "fundamental questions" of existence being some sort of problem for secularists, or at least providing a toe in the door to keep the question of God open and viable. But the core doctrines of religious belief are fundamentally incoherent. The only way that religious belief can claim a logical basis is if it closes off these core questions to honest, probing inquiry - thus the "one cannot know the mind of God"/"God is beyond humankind"/"through a glass darkly" lines of argument, which amount to nothing more than "you are right, this makes no sense, but I am going to choose to ignore this because I want to continue to believe."

I would like to respond to this statement but I'm not exactly sure what it is that you are referring to when you say "the core of religious belief". Could you elaborate on that statement?

The claimed nature of God.