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The basic theory that just about every Christian who irritates the hell out of me subscribes to is that God is absolutely perfect, without flaw.
There’s, um, a problem with that.
Perfection implies, rather seriously, that no incorrect action is possible, and only the most optimal path can be followed.
Congradulations, you have just removed God’s free will.
I suppose that fits right in there with the utter torture that being omnipotent and omnicient would be.
Now, if we could all just try and draw some conclusions that maybe *match* the universe around us, so Sheer would spend less time in mental hospitals?
It’s not that I’m asking for much. I have no problem with the tenet that we may have to take some things on faith that we can’t directly observe.
But, I’ve been listening to Christian talk radio – and, at this point, I’ve vowed to stop – it’s just about the same thing as listening to Rush Limbaugh – i.e., makes me angry, doesn’t change my mind, doesn’t change his mind, and doesn’t improve the universe in any measurable way – but..
We’re supposed to reject the things of this world, according to said station. We’re supposed to believe in the perfection of a entity that time and time again, ordered the utter destruction of collections of self-aware peoples that it/*e had created. We’re supposed to *not* believe that the things of this world – sex, love, rock-n-roll, science fiction, lucid dreaming, chocolate, take your pick – are good, *even though, by the description of the Christians, diety-of-your-choice created them, and this world, and the Devil, and everything else*.
By my latest insanity, diety-of-your-choice didn’t create us (even though I think said diety exists), we just always were. But that’s subject to change next week.
(Strange – and I’m sure very old i.e. every mathematician learned it in kindergarden – thought: How do you split a infinity? Even if you cut it right down the middle, precisely, you still end up with infinity – i.e., what you started with. Well, kind of. As any Phillip K. Dick fan knows, there are subsets of infinity – i.e. different infinities. A whole infinity full of them, in fact. I think the word infinity might be somewhat heavily overloaded – kind of like love.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
is perfection incompatible with free will? interesting claim. i’m not sure what i think about that, which is unusual.
as for he/she/it ordering the destruction etc., is it necessary to say the he/she/it ordered it? what about the instances of destruction that were the result of human free will? e.g. the Holocaust? if you say that God ordered it, then humans don’t have free will and they’re not morally responsible for their actions, which i personally don’t believe. God allows us to be evil for the express purpose of giving us the opportunity to be good. you can’t have one without the other.
as for instances of natural disasters, that gets a little muddier. why does God let people die from volanoes? i don’t know.
as for christian talk radio, man, you really need to kick that nasty habit. that shit’ll kill you. christianity is really quite simple, despite all evidence to the contrary. jesus says to be good. everything else is crap.
be good, and you’re okay.