Your experience here reminds me of my experience with a priest. I was writing a paper in high school about the churches opposition to birth control. My topic was not that, but rather the rapid increase in population in India.
His response to my question was that I could not have known anything about overpopulation in India since I had never been there. Since then, the population of the US more than doubled. In the rest of the world it's more than doubled, and still unconscionable number of people die from lack of food and cheap medicine.
Veronica----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 4:38 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: TUESDAY'S FORCAST
WO:A thinking that itself creates in the act of thinking knows all, sees all but tells nothing.Yes, you are almost there. "There" being where I was in 1968 when I was called before the Curia in Rome to defend my preachings. The Catholic Church is very jealous of its doctrines. Gruff and growly Benedictines stand guard. My thesis was (is still, though I've promised not to preach it) that GOD cannot be thought about since to think of GOD is to place him in a time frame. Time and GOD do not work. They are contradictory. Eternal, omniscient, omnipotent. Such expressions demean GOD. They suggest that there is reality other than GOD. Even to say "GOD is" is a blasphemy for it intimates that there's the possibility that GOD isn't. But let us be bold and speak in blasphemies. Walter writes: "A thinking [i.e., GOD] that itself creates in the act of thinking ...". This is good Catholic dogma such that existence is the mind of GOD. Everything that is is sustained through GOD's constant, diligent knowing of it. Every leaf, every blade of grass, every sub-atomic particle even. So, please, don't distract GOD with silly arguments against his existence, for who knows what might disappear -- not even GOD knows.I could go on, but I won't. Mike Geary Memphis PS. Loved the riff on cars.----- Original Message ----- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "veronica caley" <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 2:16 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: TUESDAY'S FORCASTQuoting veronica caley <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx>:Mike: "God has his reasons, I know,Walter, reminded of a conversation with Father Herbert McCabe (*Love, law andlanguage*) over a lovely pasta dinner, with a chianti to kill for, at the Orthodox church in Oxford, circa 2002, goes: Hmmm ... Does an omniscient and omnipotent "being" really have reasons? Rendering this thought in transcendental locution: Is it *possible* for a"being" answering to this description to have reasons? (That we mere mortalsoften do attribute reasons and intentionality to god is not in question.) I would have thought that god had no need for inferences - that what she"thought" would always already be the case in the moment of the thought. (And of course she has great powers of control over her thoughts; that's part of what omnipotence is all about after all.) Her intuition would thus have to be of an intellectual form, not a sensible one. A thinking that itself creates in the act of thinking knows all, sees all but tells nothing. If she would love and tell, we'd all end up in heaven and the place would be as crowded as NikkiBeach in mid-July. Life's a beach.No, I can't remember what position Herb maintained at that time. He was eager tomove the conversation to Witters' *On certainty* instead.Tempering his desire to extoll the virtues of his '71 Valiant and lamenting itsultimate demise in '78, Walter O.I just wish that He would slow down his retribution against mankind for fucking up his grand design." Veronica "What grand design?"My comment was in reference to the above lines in Mike's poem. Nothing to do with car designs. God's design is how I took it. Clarification from Mikeplease. Veronica----- Original Message ----- From: AndyTo: lit-ideas Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 10:37 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: TUESDAY'S FORCASTThe Grand Design was made by Chevrolet. It was replaced by the Mini Mouse subcompact, which runs on bird seed. They're running a contest for amarketing jingle. I was thinking, See the U.S.A. in your Mini Mousesubcompact. Well, yeah, it is kind of small. See Rhode Island in your MiniMouse subcompact. Andy --- On Tue, 7/28/09, veronica caley <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: veronica caley <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: TUESDAY'S FORCAST To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 8:56 PMI like the poem. It made me laugh. I hope you get more heat soyou can get more work. What grand design? Veronica----- Original Message ----- From: Mike GearyTo: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 12:42 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] TUESDAY'S FORCAST WEATHERING THE WEATHER It's uncomfortably cool in Memphis, Life has almost stopped. The sun's turned suddenly gentle and service call have dropped, business is down way down, way, way down. No AC's are breaking under strain. Can you feel my pain? Our bodies struggle to maintain ninety-eight point six degrees when it's only eighty-five outside. God has his reasons, I know, I just wish that He would slow down his retribution against mankind for fucking up his grand design. Mike Geary Memphis------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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