Attitudes and behaviour.

[horsethorn]

We don't know yet.
...
It should also in their books shut down any thought on the matter.

Why should it 'shut down thought', when the obvious response is 'then let's find out'?

ht

[horsethorn]

It is the God and where the writings came from which can be trusted.

That's what the authors claim, but how do you know they can be trusted?

Do any of us in this life time know the writers?

Exactly. They are all dead and gone.

We know the author and giver of the Words to man.

No, you know what the authors *claim*, but you haven't yet said how you know they can be trusted.

ht

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is fine by me.

However, I would think that if you hold the view that all is intentionally designed by the a (3 x Omni) God then it would give pause for thought regarding the omnibenevolent claim since influenza is something that we all seem to want to try and eradicate.

Or I could believe that God has provided overall laws(more than ten BTW) and a universe in which things can work themselves out.
The influenza question is a favourite of holders of an arseclenchingly narrow reductionist view of biology or life espoused
by Dawkins and popularised by the likes of Adams and Fry.
Ecology is part of biology as is novelty and conscious human agency.

Such atomisation allows the above people to forget an ecological and human interventionist approach to focus on things like, the influenza virus and use it as the standard of the creation......forgetting, of course, to celebrate the immune system.

That the universe involves getting caught up in machinery which has redundancy is the universe we have been given. It is not all bad though.

[Stranger]

......forgetting, of course, to celebrate the immune system.

While the immune system is really rather impressive as a product of evolution; as the creation of an omni-god, it's a bit rubbish.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

While the immune system is really rather impressive as a product of evolution; as the creation of an omni-god, it's a bit rubbish.

irrelevant. You are putting evolution in place of God. That is a category blunder. However,  if you are ascribing bad things as proof of God not existing or that God is the most evil thing rather than the least then your argument hasn't taken good things into account.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

While the immune system is really rather impressive as a product of evolution; as the creation of an omni-god, it's a bit rubbish.

Omni God eh, I think you've been watching too many marvel films , hasn't our Lord and Saviour Stephen Fry warned us against that?

[Stranger]

irrelevant. You are putting evolution in place of God. That is a category blunder.

I was only comparing two possible causes for the immune system. That is not a category mistake - you should really find out what that term means - you keep on making an arse of yourself, by misusing it.

However,  if you are ascribing bad things as proof of God not existing or that God is the most evil thing rather than the least then your argument hasn't taken good things into account.

I wasn't. I was arguing that if the immune system is the best immune system god can come up with, then god is a bit rubbish.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Why should it 'shut down thought', when the obvious response is 'then let's find out'?

ht

It's just me being sarcastic at those who guff on about 'Not knowing' and the rest of us should shut up,  being the virtuous position. Good to see you aren't in that number.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

It's just me being sarcastic at those who guff on about 'Not knowing' and the rest of us should shut up,  being the virtuous position. Good to see you aren't in that number.

I don't know anyone who is in that number.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Or I could believe that God has provided overall laws(more than ten BTW) and a universe in which things can work themselves out.

In which case he is entirely responsible for how things pan out. He mad the rules and set it in motion.

The influenza question is a favourite of holders of an arseclenchingly narrow reductionist view of biology or life espoused
by Dawkins and popularised by the likes of Adams and Fry.
Ecology is part of biology as is novelty and conscious human agency.

No, it's just a reasonable questions when told that everything in the univers has intentional design running through it.

[/quote]

Such atomisation allows the above people to forget an ecological and human interventionist approach to focus on things like, the influenza virus and use it as the standard of the creation......forgetting, of course, to celebrate the immune system.

That the universe involves getting caught up in machinery which has redundancy is the universe we have been given. It is not all bad though.
[/quote]

Indeed it is not all bad. Never suggested it was.

However, it doesn't all seem good either, and as Christians tend to ascribe this design to a 3 x Omni God, this seems a bit odd.

Some of the alleged design seems a little ropey to say the least, see my earlier posts to Gonnagle re the female birth canal. As I said if the tear rate for a jumper manufacturer was as high as it was for the aforementioned system the business would soon be out of business.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't know anyone who is in that number.

Well I do, though the people around here are generally ''We don't know, but we know it can't be God'' people.

Then of course there are the dogmatic agnostics...we know, we can never know brigade.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In which case he is entirely responsible for how things pan out. He mad the rules and set it in motion.

Then you can't believe in personal responsibility then
Or the evolution of it even.

[Maeght]

We don't know yet.

That should be a perfectly acceptable answer especially for the guffers on about the virtue of answering in the agnostic.
It should also in their books shut down any thought on the matter.

Sassy said 'In creation we know that everything has a purpose....' hence the question to her I should think - perhaps she does know.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In which case he is entirely responsible for how things pan out. He mad the rules and set it in motion.


No, it's just a reasonable questions when told that everything in the univers has intentional design running through it.



Such atomisation allows the above people to forget an ecological and human interventionist approach to focus on things like, the influenza virus and use it as the standard of the creation......forgetting, of course, to celebrate the immune system.

That the universe involves getting caught up in machinery which has redundancy is the universe we have been given. It is not all bad though.


Indeed it is not all bad. Never suggested it was.

However, it doesn't all seem good either, and as Christians tend to ascribe this design to a 3 x Omni God, this seems a bit odd.

Some of the alleged design seems a little ropey to say the least, see my earlier posts to Gonnagle re the female birth canal. As I said if the tear rate for a jumper manufacturer was as high as it was for the aforementioned system the business would soon be out of business.

I need to chide you for your refusal to accept my belief in universal aseity in favour of churning over a caricature calvinistic determinist Christianity investigated by a caricature Intelligent design based biology. You have thus made several spurious statements on the back of that error .

In aseity God does not specifically design stuff....although in theism he is perfectly free to do so.

I must also pull you up on your 3 x Omni schtick which somehow yields something you call Omnibenevolence( whatever that is ). We are left to ask which therefore of the classical omnis have you discarded....Omnipotence, Omniscience or Omnipresence? (although even these are not explicit in the Bible)

[wigginhall]

I think Sassy demonstrates a more old-fashioned view, that everything has a purpose.   This view has changed a lot in Christianity, I suppose under pressure from skepticism and scientific knowledge, so to say that earthquakes or flu have a divine purpose, seems odd today.   Of course, there are Christians who do say that.

One of the interesting consequences of moving away from that is that you start to approach deism.   I'm not sure where many Christians are on the spectrum from deism to 'total purpose'. 

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Then you can't believe in personal responsibility then
Or the evolution of it even.

If there is a 3 x Omni God then yes you are right I don't.

I don't believe in one though so I do (up to a point).

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Sassy said 'In creation we know that everything has a purpose....' hence the question to her I should think - perhaps she does know.

That's the theists equivalent of the atheists ''We don't Know but we know it isn't God.

It is a belief that there is no waste nor lack of knowledge about anything by God even though it might sometimes look that way from the atheists POV.

So although we believe in purpose we need not know what it is and some us certainly are of the disposition that we can ask God in prayer.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

In aseity God does not specifically design stuff....although in theism he is perfectly free to do so.

Take it up with Hope. He is the one who said:

"There is a clear indication of intentional design running through the whole of the natural world, Floo."

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

That's the theists equivalent of the atheists ''We don't Know but we know it isn't God.

It is a belief that there is no waste nor lack of knowledge about anything by God even though it might sometimes look that way from the atheists POV.

So although we believe in purpose we need not know what it is and some us certainly are of the disposition that we can ask God in prayer.

So can you ask him what the purpose of the influenza virus is please.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think Sassy demonstrates a more old-fashioned view, that everything has a purpose.   This view has changed a lot in Christianity, I suppose under pressure from skepticism and scientific knowledge, so to say that earthquakes or flu have a divine purpose, seems odd today.   Of course, there are Christians who do say that.

One of the interesting consequences of moving away from that is that you start to approach deism.   I'm not sure where many Christians are on the spectrum from deism to 'total purpose'.

You seem to be talking about a kind of ''right on'' type of Christianity where we must shut up about purposes etc. But in the evolution of these modern ideas all we are doing is going back to a kind of fatalism. Just chucking in scientific knowledge doesn't detract from it being old fashioned fatalism.

''New christian'' Giles Fraser summed it up when he took the BBC's shilling to talk about The creation something he didn't see as particularly relevant to his largely social Gospel. By the end he came round to saying that this trad old idea was in fact very relevant to what he was saying.

I believe he has therefore taken a greater step in changing view than Dawkins who frequently guffs on about his preparedness to do.

For me it's the all right in the end and the aseity God has granted to the universe to make itself what it is....although, as a theist I would say he is perfectly at iberty to design anything he likes.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So can you ask him what the purpose of the influenza virus is please.

Yes......and so can you.

[wigginhall]

Vlad wrote:

For me it's the all right in the end and the aseity God has granted to the universe to make itself what it is....although, as a theist I would say he is perfectly at iberty to design anything he likes.

Sounds like a form of deism. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Take it up with Hope. He is the one who said:

Yessssssssss............What about this ''Omnibenevolence'' malarkey then. Stephen?

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Yes......and so can you.

I did, no response yet though.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Yessssssssss............What about this ''Omnibenevolence'' malarkey then. Stephen?

What about it?

It's not a controversial view amongst Christians:

" For if He was not morally perfect, that is, if God was merely a great being but nevertheless of finite benevolence, then his existence would involve an element of contingency, because one could always conceive of a being of greater benevolence. Hence, omnibenevolence is a requisite of perfect being theology."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibenevolence

Can you honestly say that you have never heard this view expressed?

Hence a God of the 3 omnis could only produce a world that it wanted to. (I use the word want, but it is not clear to me how a god who is perfect would "want" anything).

If God is perfect (as claimed by Christians) then the world must be perfect i.e the only world that could exist.

Now it could be that the influenza virus and the female birth canal are perfect, but they don't seem it to us.  In fact most of us try to eliminate the first and make the second less dangerous. Which is a strange thing to attempt on things which are already perfect.

Maybe we should cease flue jabs and never perform C-sections.