How religion can harm young minds...

[SpheresOfBalance]

I take that to mean I'm in his ignore list. I have arrived!

When someone ends up ignoring everyone who disagrees with him/her, you get a pretty good sense of just how important it is for that person to protect his/her beliefs against scrutiny.

Yeah, I'm not afraid of anyones critique. I've only ever ignored two people. One for trying to sell us his religion, obnoxiously following people around to interject his commercial, which got repetitively tiresome. And another for being 'continually,' almost to the point of constantly, condescending and demeaning to ones character with slanderous quips, purely as a means to injure.

Yeah I know, I met him in kind, and I slip from time to time. Hey I'm only human. Though sometimes I'm just playing with people, which I usually let them know.

I don't fear anyones ideas. If they're good, they're good and If they suck, they suck, simple! I can either let them know or not. It all depends upon whether I feel generous that day or not. And that's meant both ways, by the way.

[ReliStuPhD]

'god' must be bored out of his mind.

Perhaps so, lol.

What the hell is 'he' doing there, if nothing requires 'his' intervention?

Where do you get this from. God might well choose to intervene based on "his" omniscient knowledge. The Bible/Qur'an certainly he suggests "de" does.

'He' set everything in motion at the moment of 'creation' and then everything is rolling along on the rails 'he' laid out.

This doesn't necessarily follow from omniscience/omnipotence either.

So nobody can test 'his' omnipotence or omniscience, because the whole theory is unfalsifiable.

So how do you know that 'he' is either of those things?

Because it's part of the definition. What is not omniscient/omnipotent/omnipresent is not God.

Oh, yes, I remember, you guys made up the whole story for forum members to have something to argue and/or laugh about.

Hardly a rebuttal, but OK.

Well, I am done with this topic for the time being.

There are a LOT more interesting topics to think about.

I'm looking forward to them.

Now that I have done it -- it's all yours!

Oh yay.

[ReliStuPhD]

...I slip from time to time. Hey I'm only human. Though sometimes I'm just playing with people, which I usually let them know.

I don't fear anyones ideas. If they're good, they're good and If they suck, they suck, simple! I can either let them know or not. It all depends upon whether I feel generous that day or not. And that's meant both ways, by the way.

Works for me.

[thedoc]

Now that I have done it -- it's all yours!

So are you done patting yourself on the back?

[SpheresOfBalance]

I do get the sense that it's OK for you to insult others' beliefs, but if they do the same to you, they find your ignore list.

You are missing the point again.

The only reason I ignore anyone, regardless weather they agree with me or not, is if they indulge in personal insults against me, or in rare cases, such as SOB, against practically everyone else.
Here, wait for it..., "YOU HAVE YOUR HEAD UP YOUR ARSE!"
Why? Because that's what liars deserve, grow up son. If you point your indiscriminate shotgun at me, I'll point one at you, it's really that simple! Until you pointed your gun at me, I only ever supported you. Talk about a deluded individual! So I'm glad to be on your ignore list as you are seemingly, wait for it..., BRAIN-DEAD!

I may strongly state my opinion about their beliefs but it is not a personal attack on the holders of those beliefs. I do not call anyone names, even if they feel personally threatened when I attack their beliefs.

You and the doc, for example, aren't in my ignore list, even though 'your god' only knows that we disagree. However both of you have been polite to me, even though you show a lot more interest in my personality than in my arguments. But that's all right, you haven't crossed the line yet to call me insulting names.

Last example: I had a few attempts to rationally discuss vegetarianism with HC, quite until he called me 'hysterical' at which time he was quarantined with the rest of them. I have never been hysterical in my entire 72 years of life and there was no call to sink down to that level. At that point there was no hope any more to engage in a rational discussion with him/her. (I strongly believe that it is a 'he' -- women tend to be more polite in my experience)

At one point I was ready to leave this forum but then I realized that there are enough intelligent and decent members I enjoy talking to (they don't always agree with me but they are always polite and civil) so I decided to stay. The ignore list is a great invention because, even though I notice that the chorus follows me wherever I go, but I can't see their posts, so my threads are not polluted and cluttered up with their witticisms, so I can concentrate on the intelligent and civil posts that I do see. In the meantime let them have their fun, it's no skin off my nose.

I hope this cleared it up.

[duszek]

I see the point and I agree:

God cannot change his mind because what he had decided before is perfect and cannot become even more perfect.
Only humans change their minds, for worse and for better.

If God is omnipotent can he decide to stop being God ?

He can but He is not going to do it because it would be stupid and God is not stupid.


Best of
Doosheck

[Ned]

God is not stupid.

Sorry guys, I can't resist this one!

The provocation is overwhelming!!!

'GOD' IS STUPID!!!

Just look at the mess his 'intelligent' design led to.

But that's all right, because 'his' believers are masochistic enough to claim that it is THEIR fault, not god's.

Or is it self-flagellating?

The victims are chanting in unison: "Mea Culpa!", "Mea Culpa!", Mea Culpa!"

I am laughing so hard it hurts!!!

[ReliStuPhD]

If God is omnipotent can he decide to stop being God ?

He can but He is not going to do it because it would be stupid and God is not stupid.

No, God can't. I gather that many think that omnipotence means being able to do the logically impossible, but this is wrong-headed. As C.S. Lewis says, for God, nonsense is still nonsense. If it's logically impossible, God can't do it. Why that should pose a problem, however, is beyond me.

[duszek]

What does it mean that you "can" do something ?

You can or are able to do something if nobody or nothing can prevent you if you decide to do it.

If God decided to do something stupid would someone be able to prevent him ?

No.

But God would not decide to do something stupid in the first place.

"If God decided to do something stupid" (like to create a stone he cannot lift or to decide not to be God any more etc.)
this assumption is stupid and makes no sense.

[Ned]

"If God decided to do something stupid" (like to create a stone he cannot lift ....

'god' has already done something stupid: created a world he cannot control.

Maybe 'he' doesn't want to -- watching all the pain, fear and suffering must be very entertaining!

[ReliStuPhD]

What does it mean that you "can" do something ?

To be clear, I am saying God cannot do the things you're suggesting. That is not part of the classical sense of God's omnipotence. God's omnipotence only extends to the logically possible. Nonsense remains nonsense to God.

[Skip]

Well then, the

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD

billboards are nonsense. In which case, they can potentially harm young minds. I mean, suppose a kid that's just learned to read sees one of those, turns to his grandmother and asks, "Is that true? Like, really nothing is impossible?" And, she, being a woman of simple faith, replies, "Yes, it's true." But then, just to be a pain in his father's neck, as young boys will, he asks a few riddles - the big stone, the fulcrum, changing one's mind - all that guff he's overheard. The father, being mindful of the tendency of youth to stray from the strait and narrow path, explains as how God made everything perfect and would never deviate from perfection.
"But could He, if He wanted?"
"He can do anything He wants."
"Except change His mind?"
"He could do that, too, but He doesn't ever need to. Homework!"
Well, okay. Still, the little boy suspects he's been fobbed off with an incomplete answer. All the grownups seem so sure - and yet...
So he asks the Sunday school teacher, who is supposed to really know. She reads him the dialogue between God and Job, that time he had shingles and everything. Made the mountains and oceans, you're a powerless worm, yada, yada, shuddap and scratch.
Perfection? Waiddaminnit!
So he asks the parson, who's been trained in theology. And the parsons says:

omniscience means there's nothing that comes to pass that God doesn't already know. As such, there is nothing unexpected for God. Satan's unexpected move was expected by God because, by virtue of Satan making that move, it was a true proposition. Something like "The proposition that 'In 1,000 years, Satan will do X' is true, therefore God knows it as God knows all true propositions." So, since there's nothing that can come about that God doesn't already know, there's nothing about which God could change "his" mind, even if "he" wanted.

Finally, the kid throws up his little hands and says, "I'm gonna stick to Anne Rice. Vampires make more sense."

[ReliStuPhD]

Well then, the

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD

billboards are nonsense.

Agreed!

In which case, they can potentially harm young minds.

ALL billboards potentially harm youg minds. But seriously, I agree that bad theology harms young minds.

As for your little kid analogy, I can only tell you what my wife and I do: we educate ourselves in such a manner that we can teach our kids about religion in a thoughtful and intelligent manner. We then always cap it with something like "don't believe this just because Mom & Dad told you, but because it's what your heart and mind tell you."

omniscience means there's nothing that comes to pass that God doesn't already know. As such, there is nothing unexpected for God. Satan's unexpected move was expected by God because, by virtue of Satan making that move, it was a true proposition. Something like "The proposition that 'In 1,000 years, Satan will do X' is true, therefore God knows it as God knows all true propositions." So, since there's nothing that can come about that God doesn't already know, there's nothing about which God could change "his" mind, even if "he" wanted.

Finally, the kid throws up his little hands and says, "I'm gonna stick to Anne Rice. Vampires make more sense."

Hahahahaha. They certainly do!

[Ned]

Agreed!

......

ALL billboards potentially harm youg minds. But seriously, I agree that bad theology harms young minds.

.....

Hahahahaha. They certainly do!

If you can't beat them -- join them, eh?

Welcome to our camp!

[ReliStuPhD]

If you can't beat them -- join them, eh?

Welcome to our camp!

lol. Not quite, but if you and I were driving through Oklahoma, I think we'd be tearing our hair out over the same billboards.