[lit-ideas] Fwd: Re: Waiting for God... was Re: 9th edition of the EB
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 16:25:27 -0330
Oh my God! Can it be that even God can learn new tricks? Does this really mean
that God herself is subject to governance by norms of rational morality that
not even she can alter or trump? Is God a Kantian, after all?
Walter O.
Front Pew, First Chair,
Department of Atheism, Agnosticism and Secular Cosmopolitanism
Holy Trinity Orthodox Church
Toronto, ON
P.S. (Yes, that's the church that appeared in *My big, fat Greek wedding*)
Quoting Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> That's why I added the bit about my puny understanding...
>
> But...since I was using evidence from the Bible itself, I was speaking
> of the God in the Bible, who does seem to exist, there being all kinds
> of eyewitness accounts and so forth. (If I was talking about
> Raskolnikov, no one would say you can't theorize about him; he's not
> real.) I was looking at the story of Abraham ringing God up to
> remonstrate with him about the destruction of Sodom (told to him by the
> angels on their way there). He wheedles a promise out of God that for
> the sake of ten worthy people, he wouldn't destroy the city. Unless we
> really assume that there weren't even ten worthy people (which we're not
> told), God reneged on his promise.
>
> Even more damning, God destroys the world with a flood and then seems to
> be sorry and promises never to do it again. If God can second-guess
> himself in this way, one suspects that he is growing morally. And if
> he's growing morally, then morality must exist somewhere outside of him
> (as he seems to be groping toward it rather than creating it). The
> discussion began with divine command theory (they're reading Rachels
> among other things...)
>
> wokshevs@xxxxxx wrote:
> > Quoting Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> >
> > snip
> >
> >> Ursula, writing about the immorality of God for a lecture at 8:30
> >> tomorrow morning.
> >>
> >
> > Such a time for such a lecture ought to be declared morally impermissible.
> > (Something like scheduling a grade 10 math class for that same time.)
> >
> > But your topic reminds me of the time RP dressed me down for asking
> something
> > like "How does one spell 'P'?", where 'P' was misspelled. Of course there
> can
> > be no possible answer to that question since there is no such word as 'P.'
> RP
> > defended his view with extended quotations from Plato, all referring to
> the
> > impossibility of searching for the nonexistent, so who am I to disagree
> with
> > Plato.
> >
> > I am reminded of this because I believe that "morality"/"immorality"
> cannot
> > apply to an omniscient, omnipotent being. So whatever you were doing at
> the
> > time, you could not possibly have been writing about the immorality of
> God.
> >
> > Makes one wonder about the epistemic authority of our own intentions and
> > self-knowledge.
> >
> >
> > Fallibly hypothesizing an intention of clarification,
> >
> > Walter O.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Or maybe it's my puny understanding....
> >
> >> Lawrence Helm wrote:
> >>
> >>> So one must go to the Index, Volume 25, find which volume the article
> >>> you want is in, e.g., volume 4; close Volume 25 and open Volume 4.
> >>> The page number you copied down from the Index will not help you find
> >>> this article with any accuracy in Volume 4 because the page numbers in
> >>> the Encyclopedia do not match the page numbers in the Adobe Reader.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> There seems to be room for improvement here.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Lawrence
> >>>
> >>>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------
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> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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