arndt@lymph.DEC (11/06/84)
"man is born with an inward knowledge of God." How do you tell the diffence between a natural or diety-created artifact?" "What difference? The Lord created everything." ----------------------------------------- How do any of you think you can tell if it is gas or God???? (Hint: start with epistomology.) Regards, Ken Arndt
urban@spp2.UUCP (11/09/84)
In article <4139@decwrl.UUCP> arndt@lymph.DEC writes: >How do you tell the diffence between a natural or diety-created >artifact?" Is a "diety"-created artifact something like a thin waist? Maybe it happens if you go on a Diet of Worms?? :-) :-) (This time *I* couldn't resist...) Mike
credmond@watmath.UUCP (Chris Redmond) (10/24/85)
Traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs, as cited in a recent posting: > >1. God created the universe and man. >2. God is benevolent. > Alternative beliefs of the Damager-God theory, as cited in the same posting: > >3. God did NOT create the universe and man. >4. God is malevolent. > That's as neat a summary as anyone has provided of this continuing, and frequently painful, controversy. Now maybe I'm naive, but I am starting to wonder whether everybody is talking about the same thing, and particularly about the same "God". Beliefs 1 and 2 are not (it seems to me) merely descriptions of God, in the same way in which I might say of myself (1A) Chris built this house, (2A) Chris is red-headed and hot-tempered. They are the definitions of what we choose to call God. Beliefs 3 and 4 may well be true of being X, but they are obviously not true of the same being of whom beliefs 1 and 2 are true. If God is the right label for 1 and 2, it is logically the wrong one for 3 and 4. The being whom beliefs 3 and 4 describe needs another label, and may be called Satan, Damager-God, or Marvin -- that's a question of terminology. In other words, the two sets of beliefs are ENTIRELY CONSISTENT except that they insist on using the same label, God, for two apparently different beings. Accordingly (it seems to me, still) someone who argues for beliefs 3 and 4 as true, while saying that beliefs 1 and 2 are untrue, is really saying that God (defined as above) does not exist, and that a being which DOES exist has characteristics 3 and 4 -- and is laying claim to the now-unoccupied name of God. Which is fine but does tend to confuse things. I think Paul Zimmerman would agree that this is a simplified, but not unfair, summary of what he has been saying from the beginning. On the other hand, those of us who DO believe in a benevolent God (and whose belief has not in the end been taken away by the arguments presented against it) now have to consider whether Satan/DG/Marvin exists IN ADDITION to God. Traditional (mediaeval) Christianity of course says yes, but that's not a definitive proof as far as I'm concerned. I am not sure that this analysis leads to new insights, but I thought it might help set out just what the subject of the argument is. Chris