An important point in Hart’s answer to Ivan Karamazov is the emphasis on the Augustinian view that evil is nothing in itself; it is simply the privation of the good. “Christian thought, from the outset, denies that (in themselves) suffering, death, and evil have any ultimate value or spiritual meaning at all.” That is, although in some isolated cases, suffering might be “explainable” as being necessary or even good, we should not expect this to always be the case. Suffering and evil, in general, do not make sense.
In that case, we might ask, why do suffering and evil exist at all? Hart’s answer, not surprisingly, is a version of the free-will defense. Creation as we see it is not how God intended it. “[I]n the fall of man, all of material existence was made subject to the dominion of death.” Hart insists that God’s will “can be resisted by a real and (by his grace) autonomous force of defiance,” and that “there is a kind of ‘provisional’ cosmic dualism within the New Testament: not an ultimate dualism, of course, between two equal principles; but certainly a conflict between a sphere of created autonomy that strives against God on the one hand and the saving love of God in time on the other.”
Hart, therefore, rejects both the “best of all possible worlds” view under which every single good and evil event is perfectly accounted for in a gigantic mathematical equation, and the Reformed view that everything that happens—including sin—is perfectly in accordance with God’s divine will. So he is able to agree wholeheartedly with everyone, believer or unbeliever, who feels instinctively that the horror of the tsunami is totally discordant with what God wills for us.
Many Christians, of course, will be unable to agree with Hart’s position on free will and divine sovereignty. What I personally find more frustrating about Hart, however, is that he never fully addresses the question of the mechanism by which the fall of man caused the physical universe to “languish in bondage to the powers and principalities of this age.” Does he accept, in broad outline at least, the current scientific understanding of the history of the physical universe? If so, then presumably the fall of man happened very late in this history. Did the fall of man change Maxwell’s equations? Or did it affect the laws of physics from the beginning of time, by backwards causality of some kind? Or is there something fundamentally flawed with the very concept of “laws of physics”? There are various options here, none of which is easy to defend. Hart does not seem to sense the difficulty, perhaps because he is untrained in science. Evil that arises from human volition can be accounted for at least partially by the free-will defense, but the whole point of a natural disaster like the tsunami is that it seems to have nothing to do with human will. If, despite appearances, it does have something to do with human will, then this surprising connection demands further explication. Unfortunately, Hart is of little help here.
Review of 'The Doors of the Sea' by David Bentley Hart
" target="_blank">http://www-math.mit.edu/~tchow/reviews/hart.html[/QUOTE]
[ 27. December 2014, 18:10: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
Those are pretty long quotes. We worry about violating copyrights around here, so I would caution you to keep quoted material down to a paragraph or so in the future. Posting a link to extended material is fine, but try to limit actual quotes as much as possible.
--Tom Clune, Purgatory Host
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
I dont go with a "Fall" in any sense. Even less with a Fall in nature.
The world as created was not created risk averse.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
It's only in a dangerous world with fixed laws that we are capable of being free moral agents.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:[/QUOTE]
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
I recently read David Bentley Hart’s “The Doors of the Sea”, which is a response to the problem of natural evil in the context of the 2004 Tsunami.
He discusses Dostoyevsky’s “The Brother’s Karamazov” at length and rejects the idea that God is responsible for every evil that afflicts the world, or that He inflicts evils upon us as part of some unfathomable Master Plan. Bentley Hart concurs with Ivan Karamazov that any God who is responsible for or makes use of unbearable suffering as a method of achieving their goal cannot be respected, whatever the final outcome. Instead he argues that death, cruelty and suffering are the result of a Fallen World in a Fallen Cosmos, and that consequently the suffering and untimely death of the innocent is every bit as horrifying and objectionable to God as they are to mankind. However he also maintains that despite this God will ultimately and inevitably redeem the world and bring death, cruelty and suffering to an end.
l
Open theologian Greg Boyd has been working along these lines for some time. His latest book is a very detailed and well-thought out explication of this pov.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
Meant to add that J. Hick Evil and the God of Love is good on this topic.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
I was impressed enough with his essay Tsunami and Theodicy to pick up a copy of The Doors of the Sea.
To be frank, while I really wanted to like this book, I was ultimately disappointed in DBH's conclusions. Yes, his talents as a writer were on display (see the last paragraph of his essay, for example) but the heart of his argument was lacking.
Death must have been present before the fall. There is no evidence to suggest that the universe suddenly became finite, or that predation just happened, or that tectonic plates and volcanoes appeared after the fall. Again, death, pain and suffering must have been around before the fall.
Perhaps it makes more sense to distinguish between agents of death. Meaning that we view death as either a consequence of a natural, and essentially random, process (e.g. a volcano taking a dump on your head) or an intentional act of evil (e.g. The Holocaust).
It seems to me that Creation was never perfect; Genesis contains many references to God declaring his work as good. All of this suggests to me that, irrespective of sin, the universe in its current state was never the final stage in the project.
As far as I am concerned, it is unquestionable that the potential for death and some form of suffering existed as the finite universe began to exist. As life began this potential was realised. With this in mind, perhaps instead of stating that death happened as a consequence of the fall, we should be describing the type of death that exists in a world of sin.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:I think part of the problem here is your thinking of the fall in rather literalistic terms, even though (I'm guessing) your understanding of creation is more figurative (i.e. theistic evolution). For Boyd, "the fall" is a figurative event that occurred in the very beginning (i.e. prior to or concurrent with the Big Bang)-- it is the way Satan (however you want to configure that) "corrupted" creation-- from the very beginning. So, yes, death and suffering would have been part of creation from the very beginning--or at least what WE would think of as "the beginning". But that doesn't mean it is part of the ideal. Indeed, Boyd presents a good biblical argument that draws on the imagery of "lion laying the lamb" etc. to show that the way things are now is not the way it is meant to be.
Originally posted by Squibs:
I was impressed enough with his essay Tsunami and Theodicy to pick up a copy of The Doors of the Sea.
To be frank, while I really wanted to like this book, I was ultimately disappointed in DBH's conclusions. Yes, his talents as a writer were on display (see the last paragraph of his essay, for example) but the heart of his argument was lacking.
Death must have been present before the fall. There is no evidence to suggest that the universe suddenly became finite, or that predation just happened, or that tectonic plates and volcanoes appeared after the fall. Again, death, pain and suffering must have been around before the fall.
Perhaps it makes more sense to distinguish between agents of death. Meaning that we view death as either a consequence of a natural, and essentially random, process (e.g. a volcano taking a dump on your head) or an intentional act of evil (e.g. The Holocaust).
It seems to me that Creation was never perfect; Genesis contains many references to God declaring his work as good. All of this suggests to me that, irrespective of sin, the universe in its current state was never the final stage in the project.
As far as I am concerned, it is unquestionable that the potential for death and some form of suffering existed as the finite universe began to exist. As life began this potential was realised. With this in mind, perhaps instead of stating that death happened as a consequence of the fall, we should be describing the type of death that exists in a world of sin.
Posted by Foxymoron (# 10343) on :
quote:Sounds right up my street. Would that be "Satan & the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy"?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Open theologian Greg Boyd has been working along these lines for some time. His latest book is a very detailed and well-thought out explication of this pov.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:Yes. I haven't actually had a chance to read it yet, but attended a professional seminar (Open & Relational Theology Subgroup of AAR) where he was the keynote speaker & presented a paper based on this work (prior to the publication of the book), and had a chance to talk with him afterward. I was most impressed with the work he was/is doing in this area.
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
quote:Sounds right up my street. Would that be "Satan & the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy"?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Open theologian Greg Boyd has been working along these lines for some time. His latest book is a very detailed and well-thought out explication of this pov.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
quote:It seems to me that Creation was never perfect in the way we would like it to be, and that God declared it as very good because it was perfect for his purpose, which apparently was not for it to function as an idyllic paradise.
Originally posted by Squibs:
It seems to me that Creation was never perfect; Genesis contains many references to God declaring his work as good. All of this suggests to me that, irrespective of sin, the universe in its current state was never the final stage in the project.
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
quote:
Foxymoron:
[David Bentley Hart] ...rejects the idea that God is responsible for every evil that afflicts the world, or that He inflicts evils upon us as part of some unfathomable Master Plan ...Instead he argues that death, cruelty and suffering are the result of a Fallen World in a Fallen Cosmos, and that consequently the suffering and untimely death of the innocent is every bit as horrifying and objectionable to God as they are to mankind.
quote:
Squibs:
...death, pain and suffering must have been around before the fall ...It seems to me that Creation was never perfect; Genesis contains many references to God declaring his work as good. All of this suggests to me that, irrespective of sin, the universe in its current state was never the final stage in the project.
quote:I'm seeing a common theme here, and it's along the same lines as I've been thinking. If I may summarise:
W Hyatt:
It seems to me that Creation was never perfect in the way we would like it to be, and that God declared it as very good because it was perfect for his purpose, which apparently was not for it to function as an idyllic paradise.
- The fall of man is not responsible for natural evil. Death was in creation from the start, either through Satan's agency (however defined) or because creation is an ongoing process, and imperfect because incomplete.
- God abhors the suffering and cruelty caused by natural evil, but does not intervene to stop it. However, this is not because some divine master plan makes it necessary for humans to suffer in this way.
- Chris.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
It seems to me that the effects of the Fall aren't temporally linear. So that they stretch back before the Fall happened (whatever it actually was - I am disinclined to believe that there was a single event involving a concrete piece of fruit and a literal talking snake). Creation's relation to God is non-temporal, God being outside time, so that the fall of creation as a whole from God is also non-temporal affecting creation at all time.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
quote:Yes, I accept evolution but I don't feel the need to put "theistic" in front of it.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think part of the problem here is your thinking of the fall in rather literalistic terms, even though (I'm guessing) your understanding of creation is more figurative (i.e. theistic evolution). For Boyd, "the fall" is a figurative event that occurred in the very beginning (i.e. prior to or concurrent with the Big Bang)-- it is the way Satan (however you want to configure that) "corrupted" creation-- from the very beginning. So, yes, death and suffering would have been part of creation from the very beginning--or at least what WE would think of as "the beginning". But that doesn't mean it is part of the ideal. Indeed, Boyd presents a good biblical argument that draws on the imagery of "lion laying the lamb" etc. to show that the way things are now is not the way it is meant to be.
Boyd's argument -- at least as you have explained it -- throws up some difficulties. For instance, if sin (or the fall) existed before we did, or even "before" the universe was created, then humans are just hapless victims of some battle that is utterly beyond our control. It suggests to me two things. Either God needs our existence, and consequently our suffering, to remove sin. Or knowing that blueprints were flawed (before the material universe began to exist) he was unwilling to redesign things.
Even if one does not accept the Genesis creation accounts as a blow-by-blow history, I think that Boyd's interpretation -- or what I understand of it -- is entirely incompatible with the general thrust of the stories: creation came to exist, it was good but then something went wrong, and God through Christ did something about it.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
I'm seeing a common theme here, and it's along the same lines as I've been thinking. If I may summarise:
- The fall of man is not responsible for natural evil. Death was in creation from the start, either through Satan's agency (however defined) or because creation is an ongoing process, and imperfect because incomplete.
I would agree with this. I don't think there is anything in Genesis to suggest that the author(s) believed Adam and Eve (doesn't matter if one thinks them as representative of humanity, a large group or actual individuals) were immortal. Indeed, in Gen 3 the concept of death is already understood by Eve.
- God abhors the suffering and cruelty caused by natural evil, but does not intervene to stop it. However, this is not because some divine master plan makes it necessary for humans to suffer in this way.
I don't agree that pain is necessary, and despite my disappointment about the heart of DBH's essay and book, neither does he. There seems to be a contradiction in your words. If God abhors suffering then one would imagine he did and is doing something about it, even if it isn't exactly what we would expect. Perhaps replacing "necessary" with "consequence" would be more helpful. Earthquakes are a consequence of living in this universe just as sound is a consequence of music.
quote:I don't think that you are forced to deny God's omnipotence. However, one must think that God limits himself in some ways in deference to our free will and the limitations of a finite material universe. In other words, God's will runs through the maze of our future and our history towards his inexorable goal.
Originally posted by sanityman:It seems that, accepting these positions, you either are forced to deny God's omnipotence (Epicurius' argument) or affirm with Leibniz that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Is there another option? And is it necessary to invoke a third party (Satan) to get God "off the hook"?
- Chris.
As for the best of possible worlds... Well, maybe I agree with this but only up to an extent. We live in a finite universe -- as stars are born and die and as galaxies gradually slip away from each other leaving only void it seems that creation is on the road to an agonisingly slow and cold death. The clock is winding down. Still, it must be said at this point that if one accepts "the fall" then the world we live in isn't the best of all possible worlds, it is a corruption of something that was better. Something happened and creation suffered because of it. Romans 8:22 hints at this suffering but also provides hope of new creation - the next phase in the project.
quote:
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
I once read an argument that much (not all) natural event pain is caused by our sin in the sense that, if we know there are such things as tsunamis, why are we living in areas where they can harm us?
Not a totally satisfying answer, we also "know" Yellowstone is going to blow some day, but that's a geological some day, it's a geological overdo, could be tomorrow could be 50,000 years from now.
Still, there are communities living on the sides of volcanoes known to be alive, does it make sense to live there and then complain if it blows?
I do know people who live in California saying they know the risk of a big one but it's worth the risk to live there. They are acknowledging a choice to live somewhere safer and rejecting that choice.
There is also the related issue of people seeing natural events as something to explain accusingly ("Katrina hit New Orleans because of the evil there") instead of as calls to get busy helping relieve some of the pain of the victims.
I keep thinking pain is optional in the sense that God can make use of the painful incident ("all things work for good") but doesn't need it, there are alternative ways that would have gotten us to the same good.
Posted by Foxymoron (# 10343) on :
quote:Positing the fall as a corruption or distortion that was present within creation from the beginning does solve the problem to a certain extent. The free-will defence must apply equally to angelic powers (e.g. Lucifer) as it does to us.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think part of the problem here is your thinking of the fall in rather literalistic terms, even though (I'm guessing) your understanding of creation is more figurative (i.e. theistic evolution). For Boyd, "the fall" is a figurative event that occurred in the very beginning (i.e. prior to or concurrent with the Big Bang)-- it is the way Satan (however you want to configure that) "corrupted" creation-- from the very beginning. So, yes, death and suffering would have been part of creation from the very beginning--or at least what WE would think of as "the beginning". But that doesn't mean it is part of the ideal. Indeed, Boyd presents a good biblical argument that draws on the imagery of "lion laying the lamb" etc. to show that the way things are now is not the way it is meant to be.
It reminds me of Tolkien’s account in The Silmarillion of the creation, in which God creates a race of angels (the ‘Ainur’) and teaches them a great theme to sing together. The song forms the first part of the creation of the world, a kind of platonic vision. Melkor the most powerful angel weaves his own themes into the melody to increate the glory of his part within it, and causes discord all around him. Later when the world is being formed by the angelic powers according to the great design of the theme, Melkor wars with the other angels and spoils as much of their work as he can, producing unstable extremes of heat and cold that make the world a far more dangerous place than it might otherwise have been.
In another more obscure piece of his work, (Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (The Debate of Finrod and Andreth, in Morgoth’s Ring) which is a theological discussion on the fates of elves and men when they die, Tolkien suggested that originally the nature of man was to be immortal like the elves, with the difference that when eventually they died they would physically leave the world with their bodies, as in the biblical assumption of Mary into heaven. But this original nature was warped by contact with Morgoth so that humanity subsequently suffered the natural deaths we are familiar with. This was Tolkien’s way of imagineering a solution to the puzzle of the origin of death and our unfallen nature.
quote:Perhaps we are responsible for moral evil but not natural evil? The fall of humanity may have been a separate event from the spoiling of creation (although perhaps influenced by it) – a later ‘flowering’ from the same initial spoiling of creation.
Squibs in response to cliffdweller wrote:
Boyd's argument -- at least as you have explained it -- throws up some difficulties. For instance, if sin (or the fall) existed before we did, or even "before" the universe was created, then humans are just hapless victims of some battle that is utterly beyond our control. It suggests to me two things. Either God needs our existence, and consequently our suffering, to remove sin. Or knowing that blueprints were flawed (before the material universe began to exist) he was unwilling to redesign things.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
Why think creation is spoiled in any way? Just because it doesn't always work out for us doesn't mean it's not good.
Tsumanis, eartquakes and floods are no more evil than flowers, butterflies and sunsets. They are just the way the world is. If humans cared more for each other we would have much less to fear from natural events, building earhquake-proof houses and keeping development away from flood prone areas etc.
I think only humans are capable of evil. There is no evil in animals or nature - and that we never 'fell' but often 'fail to become' the best that we could be.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
quote:But there must be some interface between the two. For example, this Mosque, including its delicate minaret, remained standing after the '99 earthquake in Turkey. You can't see from this particular image (I'm unable to locate a wider shot) but most of the other modern buildings that surrounded the Mosque were raised. Here is another stark image from Indonesia after the tsunami.
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
Perhaps we are responsible for moral evil but not natural evil? The fall of humanity may have been a separate event from the spoiling of creation (although perhaps influenced by it) – a later ‘flowering’ from the same initial spoiling of creation.
While one can't get God "off the hook" for deaths associated with tsunamis and volcanoes, the point I'm making is that humans are often responsible for much of the death and misery that follows in the wake of natural disasters. Whether this trough incompetence: not addressing impending problems -- inadequate defences in New Orleans, for example; Greed: the scourge of poverty or penny pinching developers skimping on quality building materials or whatever else; or inaction: governments and aid agencies unable to coordinate their efforts -- see the mess that was the initial aid response in Haiti.
You might find [http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/NZ%20White.mp3]this[/URL] talk by Prof Bob White interesting. It entitled Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Results or Human Folly? It you go to the media section of The Faraday Institute you will find loads of interesting talks on a range of issues. There was also a really interesting documentary aired a few days back called Surviving Haiti. (Sorry, it's UK only.) It might give you an idea of the greed, incompetence and inaction that an already poverty stricken country faces post disaster.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
quote:I read that most of the damage Haiti suffered wouldn't have happened if buildings had been built to their required standards, but most of the the contractors cheated on materials. So what caused all that pain, nature or human sin?
Originally posted by Boogie:
If humans cared more for each other we would have much less to fear from natural events, building earhquake-proof houses and keeping development away from flood prone areas etc.
So often we suffer from the sins of others who aren't seeking specifically to hurt us but are just focused on their own immediate profit.
Still, the earth is still "forming" to the geologists. Or it's "alive" in some sense, changing, and sometimes violently. That may not be sin but it causes pain. If not all pain is sin-caused in some fundamental sense then we have to deal with whether God invented pain.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
Sorry, messed up that link to the Bob White talk.
http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/NZ%20White.mp3
If you head to the main website you can download the talk as opposed to stream it.
Anyway, this is all probably an aside to the debate at hand.
Posted by Foxymoron (# 10343) on :
quote:I'm not sure I understand the point you are making. What do you mean by "an interface between the two" e.g. natural and moral evil?
Originally posted by Squibs:
quote:But there must be some interface between the two. For example, this Mosque, including its delicate minaret, remained standing after the '99 earthquake in Turkey. You can't see from this particular image (I'm unable to locate a wider shot) but most of the other modern buildings that surrounded the Mosque were raised. Here is another stark image from Indonesia after the tsunami.
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
Perhaps we are responsible for moral evil but not natural evil? The fall of humanity may have been a separate event from the spoiling of creation (although perhaps influenced by it) – a later ‘flowering’ from the same initial spoiling of creation.
quote:That's true now, but for hundreds of thousands of years of human history we didn't have the resources or knowledge to make those kinds of judgments. We were helpless in the face of nature's arbitrary wrath, not just in terms of tsunamis and volcanos but also infectious diseases, parasites, predators etc etc. Bentley Hart argues that there can be no 'reason' that explains and justifies this: it is morally unintelligible that God would make us endure such harsh environments for some unfathomable greater good.
Originally posted by Squibs:
While one can't get God "off the hook" for deaths associated with tsunamis and volcanoes, the point I'm making is that humans are often responsible for much of the death and misery that follows in the wake of natural disasters. Whether this trough incompetence: not addressing impending problems -- inadequate defences in New Orleans, for example; Greed: the scourge of poverty or penny pinching developers skimping on quality building materials or whatever else; or inaction: governments and aid agencies unable to coordinate their efforts -- see the mess that was the initial aid response in Haiti.
Posted by Foxymoron (# 10343) on :
quote:No, thanks for the link. I may already have heard it, but I'll check. I've downloaded a number of talks from there for listerning to in the car.
Originally posted by Squibs:
Sorry, messed up that link to the Bob White talk.
http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/NZ%20White.mp3
If you head to the main website you can download the talk as opposed to stream it.
Anyway, this is all probably an aside to the debate at hand.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:Open Theists (eg Boyd) would want to tweek your statement just a bit to say that the position to say that they are not denying omnipotence, but rather are affirming that God voluntarily self-limits omnipotence to allow for freedom. Process theologians like Hick might be more comfortable with your configuration.
Originally posted by sanityman:
[QUOTE]I'm seeing a common theme here, and it's along the same lines as I've been thinking. If I may summarise:It seems that, accepting these positions, you either are forced to deny God's omnipotence (Epicurius' argument) or affirm with Leibniz that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Is there another option? And is it necessary to invoke a third party (Satan) to get God "off the hook"?
- The fall of man is not responsible for natural evil. Death was in creation from the start, either through Satan's agency (however defined) or because creation is an ongoing process, and imperfect because incomplete.
- God abhors the suffering and cruelty caused by natural evil, but does not intervene to stop it. However, this is not because some divine master plan makes it necessary for humans to suffer in this way.
- Chris.
I think it's necessary to invoke a third party to explain natural evil if you want to avoid:
1. logical inconsistency
2. falling back on mystery
Not saying that you SHOULD avoid either of those two things. There are certainly far worse things that one can do than be inconsistent or affirm the transcendent divine mystery.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:Your caveat is probably a good one, I'm most likely not doing justice to Boyd, especially since I'm relying on the earlier form of his work (the paper presented at the seminar I attended) rather than the finished product in book form.
Originally posted by Squibs:
[QUOTE]Yes, I accept evolution but I don't feel the need to put "theistic" in front of it.
Boyd's argument -- at least as you have explained it -- throws up some difficulties. For instance, if sin (or the fall) existed before we did, or even "before" the universe was created, then humans are just hapless victims of some battle that is utterly beyond our control. It suggests to me two things. Either God needs our existence, and consequently our suffering, to remove sin. Or knowing that blueprints were flawed (before the material universe began to exist) he was unwilling to redesign things.
Even if one does not accept the Genesis creation accounts as a blow-by-blow history, I think that Boyd's interpretation -- or what I understand of it -- is entirely incompatible with the general thrust of the stories: creation came to exist, it was good but then something went wrong, and God through Christ did something about it.
You seem to be switching the discussion from natural evil to human sin (admittedly, bringing the term "the fall" into it lends itself to that confusion). But in terms of theology, they're really quite different. Those who are open to a fairly generous or Arminian view of human freedom, in particular open & process theologian, have never really had much trouble explaining the existence of sin or even suffering that can be tied to human sin (e.g. starvation or genocide). They can be easily tied to God's radical commitment to human freedom. The much more difficult problem for theologians has always been, as the OP indicates, natural evil, which is really what we've been talking about here. That's where Boyd's work is really much more ground-breaking. And it's why his configuration of "the fall" needs to encompass more than just human sin, but really the entire "system"--the way the world works.
I don't see a problem accomodating Boyd's view with the Genesis accounts as long as you're not seeing them as literal history. Even though you preface your concerns by acknowledging a figurative interpretation, your hang up still seems to be chronology. But those who give them a figurative interpretation are generally not bound to chronology (which doesn't work for Gen. 1 any more than it works for Gen. 3). I actually think Boyd's/Open theism's understanding of Gen. 3 fits the text better than the traditional Augustinian "original sin" interpretation, because of the emphasis on human freedom. The element of choice seems to be prime in the biblical narrative.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:Yes, exactly. That would, I believe, represent Boyd's position (as well as my more humble one)
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
Positing the fall as a corruption or distortion that was present within creation from the beginning does solve the problem to a certain extent. The free-will defence must apply equally to angelic powers (e.g. Lucifer) as it does to us.
...Perhaps we are responsible for moral evil but not natural evil? The fall of humanity may have been a separate event from the spoiling of creation (although perhaps influenced by it) – a later ‘flowering’ from the same initial spoiling of creation.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:Exactly. And there is also, as Boyd points out, the whole area of animal suffering (something we know God cares about from the last ch. of Jonah, among other places). The way nature itself "works" is dependent upon animal suffering in a distinctly (at least from our perspective) amoral if not immoral way: e.g. a lion cannot survive w/o preying on the weak. In fact, a lion is uniquely formed in such a way that it is basically a killing machine-- muscles, body, teeth, claws all perfectly formed for that function. That reality-- the suffering of other, smaller, weaker animals at the hands of large predators-- is a reality whether or not humans are on the scene.
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
[QUOTE]That's true now, but for hundreds of thousands of years of human history we didn't have the resources or knowledge to make those kinds of judgments. We were helpless in the face of nature's arbitrary wrath, not just in terms of tsunamis and volcanos but also infectious diseases, parasites, predators etc etc. Bentley Hart argues that there can be no 'reason' that explains and justifies this: it is morally unintelligible that God would make us endure such harsh environments for some unfathomable greater good.
Boyd solves that by suggesting that we don't know what a "pre-fall* lion" looks like.
*maybe it would help to use a different term, since "fall" seems to imply human sin, perhaps better to say "pre-corruption" lion.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
quote:That probably has to be unpacked a little. I mean that one feeds off the other. Earthquakes generally don't kill people, it's things like falling buildings that do. If humans decide to inhabit an area on a known geological fault then it seems only reasonable to construct building that can resist severe quakes. This wasn't the case in Sichuan province and hence many children died.
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
I'm not sure I understand the point you are making. What do you mean by "an interface between the two" e.g. natural and moral evil? [/QB]
quote:True! I'm not saying that there isn't a point where we say, "What the hell was that about, God?". At this point I guess I would fall back on the idea the the word was made good but it got knocked off kilter against his will.
Originally posted by Foxymoron: That's true now, but for hundreds of thousands of years of human history we didn't have the resources or knowledge to make those kinds of judgments. We were helpless in the face of nature's arbitrary wrath, not just in terms of tsunamis and volcanos but also infectious diseases, parasites, predators etc etc. Bentley Hart argues that there can be no 'reason' that explains and justifies this: it is morally unintelligible that God would make us endure such harsh environments for some unfathomable greater good. [/QB]
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
Boogie:
quote:Tell it, sister!
If humans cared more for each other we would have much less to fear from natural events, building earhquake-proof houses and keeping development away from flood prone areas etc.
If all the energy we spent on animosity, wars, and even just engrossing, selfish pursuits were put to improving the world, we'd probably have built Paradise all around us by now. But for whatever reason, we don't pull it together. Original sin? Inherited "wisdom"? Archaic evolutionary tendencies?
But that's another thread.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
quote:Seeing how you identified me as part of the common theme, I'll take that as an excuse/opportunity to jump back in here.
Originally posted by sanityman:
I'm seeing a common theme here, and it's along the same lines as I've been thinking. If I may summarise:
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
quote:Personally, I'm in the camp that claims that there is no such thing as natural evil (because I think evil can only be predicated of human decisions and actions). Creation is an ongoing process, and perfect partly because it's dynamic and constantly changing. I think that a world without plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, etc. would be a completely dead world.
It seems that, accepting these positions, you either are forced to deny God's omnipotence (Epicurius' argument) or affirm with Leibniz that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Is there another option? And is it necessary to invoke a third party (Satan) to get God "off the hook"?
- The fall of man is not responsible for natural evil. Death was in creation from the start, either through Satan's agency (however defined) or because creation is an ongoing process, and imperfect because incomplete.
- God abhors the suffering and cruelty caused by natural evil, but does not intervene to stop it. However, this is not because some divine master plan makes it necessary for humans to suffer in this way.
I agree that God abhors the suffering caused by natural disasters, but does not intervene to stop it. I believe he has made it collectively our job to mitigate the suffering (per Boogie's post) and cannot do our job for us without compromising our eternal happiness. He does not require us to suffer at all, but suffering is a natural consequence to our collective decisions (in a very abstract sense) and he cannot completely shield us from those consequences (again, without compromising our eternal happiness).
I actually have no problem envisioning humans living in almost perfect peace and prosperity with the world being just as we know it today because all it takes is one simple change in our relationship with God to avoid all the pain and suffering from so-called natural "evil." If we had the kind of relationship with God that he intended for us and wants for us, it would be trivially easy for him to warn us about impending danger by sending his angels to let us know what we had to do to avoid it. In our fallen spiritual state, though, with our modern civilization and incredible scientific knowledge, most of us are in no position to be receiving messages from angels without loosing our freedom to continue with the kind of life we have collectively chosen (and we are all in this together).
To your last point, I do see God's omnipotence as applying only to his ability to do good things for us (and I firmly believe that he never fails to do every possible good thing for each of us) but that the primary good thing he does for us involves protecting our freedom to believe in the appearance that our lives are our own for each of us to live as we choose. (Is that denying his omnipotence?) I think the perfection of creation can only be seen with that caveat in mind. So I don't think a third party is necessary, because I think God's absolute and total respect for our freedom is sufficient.
So do you want to reconsider including me as part of that common theme? Now's your chance to denounce me!
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
W Hyatt, you'll have to excuse me for trying to find rules everywhere! Sorry if I was being a bit Procrustean on a nuanced issue.
I take you point about 'no such thing as natural evil' - in that an earthquake can't really be said to be evil, it just is. However, I have real difficulty not thinking of the consequences of an earthquake as evil when I see pain, suffering and the death of innocents. It's obviously exacerbated by human evils (overcrowding, poor building etc), but I don't think that can ever explain it all. You/Boogie are right about us being the instruments of God's will to bring good out of the suffering.
As to this being the consequence of humanity's estrangement from God - ok, even if I'm a little unsure about your angels argument! Does that cover things like genetic abnormalities, cancer and parasites though? I call them evil because the alternative seems to imply that God/I think they're somehow ok.
Airbrush yourself out of the photo if you want
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
- Chris.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
quote:Awful, horrendous, dreadful, appalling - yes. But not evil. 'Evil' implies intent, I would think.
Originally posted by sanityman:
I take you point about 'no such thing as natural evil' - in that an earthquake can't really be said to be evil, it just is. However, I have real difficulty not thinking of the consequences of an earthquake as evil when I see pain, suffering and the death of innocents.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
quote:No, it doesn't. I have no pat answers for those cases.
Originally posted by sanityman:
Does that cover things like genetic abnormalities, cancer and parasites though?
And I can easily see why you would label the resulting pain, suffering, and death as evil.
[ 21. August 2010, 20:38: Message edited by: W Hyatt ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
OK, instead of "evil" call it "natural suffering". The problem is still the same.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
Yes, the problem is still the same, but I do prefer calling it natural suffering instead of natural evil because I think that the latter implies that the problem lies in the cause and is therefore inherent in nature and comes from God, which I can't accept. I don't think God causes the slightest bit of suffering in any way. He allows it to occur, but it is always counter to what he desires for us.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:OK, but again, the question remains of how do you explain natural suffering. You can't blame horrible, painful birth defects or the predatory cycle of life in the jungle on human sin. So how do you explain it?
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Yes, the problem is still the same, but I do prefer calling it natural suffering instead of natural evil because I think that the latter implies that the problem lies in the cause and is therefore inherent in nature and comes from God, which I can't accept. I don't think God causes the slightest bit of suffering in any way. He allows it to occur, but it is always counter to what he desires for us.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
OK - I'll give it a shot, but I need a lot more time than I have at the moment. Writing is painfully slow for me, although I do enjoy having to figure out exactly what I think so that I can put it into words.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
The main difficulty with the fall appears to be understanding it as a temporal event, with regular causation forward in time. However, God is not temporal, but eternal, and hence can act non-temporally but causally. That is to say, God can act on both what we call past and future due to some event that occurs in what we call the present.
In fact, there is already a non-temporal but causal Catholic dogma, namely that of the Immaculate conception (and it is likely no accident that this dogma concerns a related issue). Mary was born free of original sin by virtue of Christ dying on the cross. Clearly this is causation backward in time. The usual paradoxa of time travel are avoided because the causation is happening by an external agent, God.
For Adam and Eve, the consequences of their actions were in the future - since they were temporal creatures. This does not exclude God from re-arranging the entire universe across all time, non-temporally, so that is causally consistent with their choice. There is in fact no logical contradiction in assuming that before the fall of Adam, there was no death in the universe, and after the fall of Adam there had been death in the universe for billions of years. All that is necessary for making this happen is an all-powerful non-temporal Agent, and this we call God.
Now, perhaps all this seems less absurd once you consider Einstein's relativity. For in most regards, time does appear like just another spatial dimension. It just happens to be the case that we, and all things bound by entropy, can traverse this dimension only in one direction. But from this perspective a Being that can traverse this time dimension just as freely as the spatial ones is certainly not absurd, just outside of the grasp of entropy (as God must be if He is to create).
So I think basically Adam and Eve triggered a moral phase change of the universe, which spread across all spatiotemporal dimensions like the ice crystals do in this movie. And New Creation will be yet another such phase change, one back to the old state in a sense, except that history will play a role this time. (One can imagine as physical analogy that some parts have formed bounds with other elements, and hence are not free when the front of phase change hits.)
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
quote:Yeah, messages from angels would be a last resort kind of scenario. A more pedestrian part of the solution would be that the more we live in harmony with God, the more we live in harmony with nature and the more sensitive we are to signs from nature (e.g. by watching animal behavior) and from God (e.g. in dreams). And the less likely we would be to live in large structures that kill people when they collapse.
Originally posted by sanityman:
As to this being the consequence of humanity's estrangement from God - ok, even if I'm a little unsure about your angels argument!
quote:I realize that many Christians think of the world prior to the Fall as being a perfect paradise, with no death, no disease, and no decay - nothing unpleasant or negative or stressful - everything perfect, good, free, and abundant. And of course this requires a belief that the laws of biology and the physical world were different then. But I see it from a completely different perspective that allows me to stick to a belief that the world operates now the same as it always has and always will, with no need for extra-temporal causation or for the idea of a world with different rules.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
... the question remains of how do you explain natural suffering. You can't blame horrible, painful birth defects or the predatory cycle of life in the jungle on human sin. So how do you explain it?
[PREAMBLE]
To explain, I have to go back to what I believe is the whole purpose of creation. I think that God is, at to his essential nature, pure and infinite love. To have someone to love, he created humans with the ability to freely receive his love and freely return it, and in doing so experience joy and happiness.
In order for us to receive absolutely everything from him and yet still feel joy and happiness as our own and not as God's joy and happiness coming from outside us, he needs us to feel like our life is our own, and to freely choose to use that life to receive his love and return it. So he designed creation to do two things for us: first to help us make a free choice about how we want to respond to him and second to allow us to enjoy the most possible joy and happiness from our decision. By separating those two steps, he allowed the first step (life in this world) to be only temporary and the second step (life in heaven) to be unconstrained by the requirements of the first step.
The first step is not designed so much for experiencing the most possible joy and happiness like the second step is. It's designed instead to be an opportunity for us to experiment with our freedom and decide who we want to be, to make that decision in countless small steps over our whole lifetime and see the consequences of each step as we go. But since the process of decision making is not as conducive to joy and happiness as being able to follow through on those decisions and simply live them, the first step is only temporary.
So the physical world is designed to help us decide who we are and to force us to make that decision over and over until it accumulates into a choice that is beyond accident or ignorance or whim. The limits of time and space make it so that it takes some effort for us to be nice to each other. And because it takes effort, we have to really think about it and struggle with it repeatedly, but in the end we make our choice with a strength of commitment that can't be matched in a one-time decision made in one short duration of time.
[/PREAMBLE]
So I see a straight line going from God being infinite love, through his purpose in creation, to the world as we know it today. To me, the question of why God allows natural suffering is simply a matter of degree. Instead of being a perfect paradise for us, I think God wants the world to impinge on us a little bit, to make us have to deal with obstacles, to make us a little uncomfortable from time to time, and to make us have to think about what we're doing. But only just enough to help us really commit to our decision to love him with all our heart and mind, and only for a limited amount of time.
In the course of history, though, I think we as a species have gradually chosen to live less and less like God wants us to, to the point where almost none of us can have any direct communication with God or angels, where our modern civilization is built on large and vulnerable structures and on dangerous machines, and where we regularly expose ourselves to all sorts of chemicals and pollutants. The result is that we are so far from God that he can no longer protect us from our environment the way he wants to. Our environment no longer just challenges us, it kills us. Disease and birth defects occur far more often and to a much greater degree. We no longer experience just a little bit of a struggle, we can experience unbearable suffering and crippling pain. Death is no longer just a peaceful transition from one stage to the next, it's often a long and absolutely miserable experience.
But it's not because the world was once free from all death, disease, and decay and is now broken, it's because we've abused our freedom in the extreme. But it's still a system that works the way it's supposed to: we each have to choose who we want to be and we have to make that choice repeatedly in the face of resistance from the world we live in. It will only get better as we each decide to turn back to God and to help each other. It won't be all fixed and restored to some pristine ideal in a miraculous event because it has never been broken to begin with.
What's broken is our relationship with God and his creation, and the result isn't God's punishment, it's just the natural consequences of the way we've chosen to live, without regard to which individuals actually made the decisions or when. If God were to shield us, or even just the innocent victims from those natural consequences, he'd just be encouraging us to continue making the same bad choices. Instead, he allows each of us to make our choices and allows all of us to see and learn from the results. It's not at all what he would most like us to have, but it still works the way it's supposed to.
As far as animals go, I don't think any animals have self-awareness the way we do. And not being self-aware, they simply receive life from God passively so that even though they experience pain and suffering, there's no individual inside them to be aware of that pain and suffering. I understand that such a view will not sit well with some people, and I do struggle a bit to accept it myself, but it makes sense to me intellectually to the point where it isn't enough of an issue to really bother me.
So that's my take on natural suffering - sorry for the long background, but I'm very aware of how unusual a view it is. I look forward to any and all responses.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
IngoB, that is the most imparsimonious thing you could have possibly said, that can possibly be said, although you do consistently say it along with high Anglican Alan in that shared Bender hadron.
At least you are on the Roman Catholic side of the Augustinean dualist coin, infinitely preferable to the Islamic-Calvinist.
But still completely pagan.
Their are enough entities in the Trinity without Plato's and Ptolemy's.
Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
Wow. Thanks for that reply, W Hyatt. As usual it takes a lot less effort to throw hard questions around than to attempt an answer. I must read what you and IngoB said more slowly, and think about it.
Cheers,
- Chris.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
BTW, next Saturday Unbelievable? will be running a show about The Fall. The normal format will be dispensed with as a "seeker" who says he is very close to becoming a believer asks some difficult questions of a couple of theologians. The names of the latter didn't mean anything to me so I have no idea about their stance on things like evolution or Open theology or anything for that matter. Still as the show is usually of high quality it might be worth checking out.
http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable?
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
quote:I appreciate the attempt to perceive the fall from the perspective of an atemporal being, but what do you suggest happened on the ground, so to speak? What was it like from the perspective of a one directional temporal being?
Originally posted by IngoB:
The main difficulty with the fall appears to be understanding it as a temporal event, with regular causation forward in time. However, God is not temporal, but eternal, and hence can act non-temporally but causally. That is to say, God can act on both what we call past and future due to some event that occurs in what we call the present.
In fact, there is already a non-temporal but causal Catholic dogma, namely that of the Immaculate conception (and it is likely no accident that this dogma concerns a related issue). Mary was born free of original sin by virtue of Christ dying on the cross. Clearly this is causation backward in time. The usual paradoxa of time travel are avoided because the causation is happening by an external agent, God.
For Adam and Eve, the consequences of their actions were in the future - since they were temporal creatures. This does not exclude God from re-arranging the entire universe across all time, non-temporally, so that is causally consistent with their choice. There is in fact no logical contradiction in assuming that before the fall of Adam, there was no death in the universe, and after the fall of Adam there had been death in the universe for billions of years. All that is necessary for making this happen is an all-powerful non-temporal Agent, and this we call God.
Now, perhaps all this seems less absurd once you consider Einstein's relativity. For in most regards, time does appear like just another spatial dimension. It just happens to be the case that we, and all things bound by entropy, can traverse this dimension only in one direction. But from this perspective a Being that can traverse this time dimension just as freely as the spatial ones is certainly not absurd, just outside of the grasp of entropy (as God must be if He is to create).
So I think basically Adam and Eve triggered a moral phase change of the universe, which spread across all spatiotemporal dimensions like the ice crystals do in this movie. And New Creation will be yet another such phase change, one back to the old state in a sense, except that history will play a role this time. (One can imagine as physical analogy that some parts have formed bounds with other elements, and hence are not free when the front of phase change hits.)
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
My response to W Hyatt is to say 'Thank you'.
And also to say that it is not that unusual or 'way out' as he might suppose.
Earlier in this discussion I made mention of John Hick's book "Evil and the God of Love" and it seems to me that much of what W. Hyatt says is compatible with the thesis Hick advances. The terminology is different as is the basis on which the thesis is argued.
Hick works with the classical theological responses to the problem and contrasts the Augustinian view ( traditional) with the view of Irenaeus which he sees as being compatible with an evolutionary, scientific view. This latter was unknown to Irenaeus.
So I am comfortable with what W. Hyatt has expounded and he need not feel isolated in propounding his theodicy.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
WHH - God needs no one to love as He has always been content in that eternal, perichoretic, internal, triune dance.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
I believe God to be a single person who needs to create people to love, in numbers that will grow to eternity. If God needs no one to love, why do you think he created people?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
WH - sorry for the stutter - God is a metaperson of three persons and needs nothing. He certainly made us to love us to love. And of the increase of His government there will be no end.
If He needed us how come He managed for eternity without us ?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
By the way, you've got shamwari on side, well done!
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
Time was part of creation as a precursor to creating people, and therefore had a beginning. There has not been an eternity for him to have to manage.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
What's His name ?
And does He know if it's going to rain tomorrow ?
[ 22. August 2010, 21:32: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
It is very gratifying to know that sanityman and shamwari responded positively to my post. Thank you both for mentioning it.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
My questions weren't rhetorical WH, but that's OK.
They are of course related to your Augustinean pagan, presupposition.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
quote:Sorry - I did not take your questions as rhetorical, I simply missed them with the page break.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What's His name ?
And does He know if it's going to rain tomorrow ?
A few of his names are Jehovah, I AM, and Jesus Christ. In the New Church, we usually just refer to him as the Lord. Does that answer your first question?
I see by your second question that you're picking up where we left off a few months ago, before you got a cold. Yes, I think he does know the future. But if I have to choose between freedom and foreknowledge, I'll yield on the foreknowledge. I just don't see yet that I have to.
[ETA: Presupposition, yes. Pagan, maybe, Augustinian, no (although I admit to not being familiar with his work).]
[ 22. August 2010, 22:00: Message edited by: W Hyatt ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
WH! You're memory is better than mine!! That cold musta bin a good 'un! I'm fishing for The Eternal. And HOW does He know the future ?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
The same way we can know the past. How can he be limited by time, which is simply part of his creation?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:Unless time is integral to reality itself, rather than a created thing.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
The same way we can know the past. How can he be limited by time, which is simply part of his creation?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
I see your point, but is there any way we can know the difference?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:None whatsoever. Which is what keeps us theogeeks yakkin'.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I see your point, but is there any way we can know the difference?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
How can He know what hasn't happened ?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
Good question, but I have no real answer for how - only a vague notion about the problem being inherent only in our temporal view. Do you have an answer for how he can be limited by time, which seems to me to be as much a created thing as space is?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Time is a prerequisite of Love. Time is as much an attribute of God as forgiveness, patience, justice, mercy, relationality, sanity, will, thought, meaning. Regardless of some of those manifestations of love requiring a creation.
A timeless God, an unprocessing, unproceeding, static, frozen, danceless God is ... nothing. Does not exist. Meaningless.
After an eternity of doing, thinking, relating, discussing, feeling, playing NOTHING He changed ?
Not possible. As even the pagans knew.
The only alternative is that He's always been omni racing up and down editing the canned infinite omni movie of created eternity, until He got it right ? Where every omni Planck tick of the infinity of infinities of ... is spooled on the floor in His omni chest ?
Which 'now' is real in that ? Is there one now ? Or an infinity of nows ?
The only meaningful, necessary, parsimonious possibility between those two meaningless extremes is that created time - now - occurs in Time - Now.
What's gone is gone. And that is not the eternal indeterminate future.
[ 23. August 2010, 00:02: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
quote:For pleasure? We all do and create things we don't need. Why should it be different for God? I don't see this as a deficiency?
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I believe God to be a single person who needs to create people to love, in numbers that will grow to eternity. If God needs no one to love, why do you think he created people?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
That sounds to me like a reasonable view - thanks.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
So how does Dostoevsky's God being at least as horrified as we are (being omnipathic He would be wouldn't He) by suffering let Him off the hook of responsibility for creating us to inevitably cause and experience the most appalling, mindless, unjust evil ?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
I don't think it was inevitable. I also think God makes it turn out far better in the end than we can possibly imagine.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
What, there was a 'chance' we wouldn't fall ?
(Like there was a 'chance' Jesus could sin ?)
With a friendly, neighbourhood, door-to-door, lying, murdering, cosmic psychopath about ?
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
Yes, I absolutely think we could have chosen not to fall. The only inevitability was that we'd be less than completely perfect, not that we'd completely turn away from God and choose evil.
I suppose even Jesus, being free, could theoretically have chosen to sin, but that's not something I can actually imagine as a reality.
As for hell, I believe that it was a result, not a cause because I believe that both heaven and hell are populated only with human-being type people who first lived their mortal lives in this physical plane of existence.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
How ?
What were the odds ?
And why did God set us up with the ultimate catalyst for failure ?
How ?
And again, what were the odds ?
And what would have happened if He had ?
And how do you come to think these things ?
There are no former humans - bar one - in either. Apart from the Hell of Sheol-Hades. The grave.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
quote:A continuation of Earth with the choice 'for' God being much clearer as s/he is there and visible?
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Yes, I absolutely think we could have chosen not to fall. The only inevitability was that we'd be less than completely perfect, not that we'd completely turn away from God and choose evil.
I suppose even Jesus, being free, could theoretically have chosen to sin, but that's not something I can actually imagine as a reality.
As for hell, I believe that it was a result, not a cause because I believe that both heaven and hell are populated only with human-being type people who first lived their mortal lives in this physical plane of existence.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
My contribution is in 3 parts ... (1) Reflections (on the preceding debate) (2) The implications of cosmology and the life sciences for theology (3) A theological proposal.
REFLECTIONS
There seems to be a spectrum here (as in Christian theodicy generally) between the "best of all possible worlds" extreme and the "left-wing-open-theist-dualism" of God "having a tough time against the devil" (if one rules out the gnostic idea of the Demiurge or Tolkien-esque neo-pagan "angels having a bad hair day" pseudo-solutions ... fatally compromised, at least for monotheists).
So we have a kind of Pollyanna-ish denial of Karamazovian outrage where death and suffering get sanitised and instrumentalised for a greater good or we have a outrageous universe where "God" has been sleeping on the job only to wake and realise that demons are scurrying round chucking spanners in the works.
Now, although Pollyannaism has a certain plausibility to it in forcing us molly-coddled, spiritually flabby, self indulgent westerners to face the fact that natural suffering "ain't all that bad" .... for example, life couldn't exist without the recycling of plate tectonics and the radiation protecting effects of the magnetosphere connected to the dynamo of the molten core .... it APPEARS to breaks down at the level of indiscriminate innocent suffering. Actually I am not sure that it does break down totally but we will leave that to the last section.
It is no defence at one level to claim (quite reasonably) that physical laws have to apply to everybody and that pathogens do not take moral inventories. For such a universe capable of sustaining life to have to exist this way NECESSARILY (always part of the Pollyanna defence) REQUIRES that there could have been no other way of doing it. Of course the last ditch defence of the Pollyanna hypothesis that since we are in a world in which this is not only what we ONLY know but only COULD know, we might HYPOTHESISE other more perfect worlds (allegedly) but these would simply be mental artefacts with no basis in any observable reality.
One gets the same kind of debate in cosmology between the Tegmarkian Infinite Multiverse relativisers and the more restrained weak anthropic priniciple realists. In any event this so-called theodicy is too "cosey" and fails Karamazov's test. There was a particularly powerful restatement of that challenge in the last Dr. Who spin-off Torchwood series where one child had to die horribly in order to save all the world's children. The child had no say in the matter and an anguished John Barrowman watched as the ultimate sacrifice was paid to the unspeakably cruel aliens (a bit like Anselm and Calvin at their worst, except that the similarity of the aliens to Satan at least gave a nod in the direction to the classic theory of the atonement).
The Boyd-open-theist deconstruction has a certain attraction for conservative Methodist types and the Orthodox on account of its insistence that God is not the author of bad stuff and that the pre-Fall existence of corruption, death and evil (snake in the Garden anyone?) indicates the necessity of resurrection victory for a truly eschatological Christian understanding of redemption. However, as Hick pointed out in "Evil and the God of Love," extreme dualism falls into the Epicurean trap of an emasculated immoral deity who can barely keep his own head above water never mind anyone else's.
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
Let's see what we know about Life on Earth and the Hominids:- (Sorry IngoB .... your divine retro-causality dodge once appealed to me but it fails Occam's razor even theologically speaking).
(1) Death, suffering, bad stuff generally existed well before some apes got attitude and cleverness and became hairy-us.
(2) All the great apes (I am not convinced by the aquatic ape hypothesis) started off in the jungle ... a veritable paradise of Eden and whereas chimps can be vicious little b*****s, organised hunting (and a brain that can plan that) was hardly necessary for species adapted to plucking stuff off trees.
(3) Then climate change. Hurrah! Down we come from the trees, stumbling across the forest floor, we emerge bipedally onto the savannah and start learning to be predator rather than prey ... in hunting groups of course as befits puny primates. Carnivorey, cooking and a more intricately wired planning-capable brain stimulate a deepening of conscious awareness. We kill and we KNOW that we can kill. We die and we KNOW that we die. We kill regardless. We fall ....
THEOLOGY
We fall ....
One of the things (a detail only) that Genesis gets wrong is the idea that the eating of fruit of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil happened in the Paradise-jungle from which we actually evicted ourselves ... yet truly, we remained paradisal until our deadly knowledge was activated in the emergence of true and full consciousness on the savannah. Now, here it is that we have a choice but of course we do not always choose wisely.
So, myths are told to make sense of these historical events. How soon in the hominid line these stories are told we just don't know but I suspect that Genesis's themes about guileless (ie naked) living off the land (gathering not hunting) followed by the shame of alienation (clothing) and, ultimately eviction and violence, the struggle between hunters (Cain) and agrarian cultures (Abel), the rise of cities (Babel) all reflect deeply embedded anciently transmitted archetypal species memories of what later became known as "the Fall." Postmodernism is not just a modern phenomenon!
Of course, with awareness / consciousness came an experience of the divine and the rise of tool making and magic/science as a way of reflecting and manipulating the rationality of the created order (rather than a world uncreated and meaningless). It is but a very small jump from this to the hydrogen bomb. Along the way we realise that we have messed up big time ... but the myth endures of the golden age which is NOT factually false (relatively speaking) but rather dressed up in mythological garb to make it both memorable and meaningful.
The early church fathers did NOT believe that the cosmos was created perfect or humankind either. With St. Paul in Romans 8 they remained committed to the Genesis aetiology of the thorns and the sweat on our brows as we labour under an unforgiving sun, a creation that labours and groans with us. What they DID articulate was a theology that humans were created to achieve and acquire perfection through communion with God and a freely disposed and active will harnessed to his will as co-creators and priests of creation. For a more detailed account of this in some of my writing go here ...
Ancestral Sin and Salvation
When our harmony with God and the Cosmos was broken in Eden (er, I mean the savannah somewhere in East Africa 200,000 years ago) then articles on theodicy on a web site in 21st century Europe became necessary.
The Fathers also emphasised that we were created with the POTENTIAL for immortality in Eden ... not the reality. So the Irenaean theodicy of the Fall as the "tragic failure to rise" is not only more user friendly to evolution than the Augustinian view but it also makes much more sense in psychological terms. The Risen Christ is the Omega point of our evolution, except that faith and communion with God are now co-instrumental factors, transcending the strict and purposeless limitations of merely biological evolution (without denying that as an historical legacy). Of course if we start messing around with our genetics to create the Homo Sapiens 2.0 upgrade then Eden's tragedy will perhaps find a new manifestation.
Finally, what of suffering ... natural suffering that is, not natural evil? And I am talking here about childhood cancer, not living next to a volcano.
Cancer (let's take this example) is not "evil." Even the suffering it can cause is not "evil" in the sense of volitional irrational purposeful and personal maliciousness. No, cancer is a malfunctioning in a necessary evolution-driven plasticity in our DNA that makes the genomic adaptation of an organism to its environment possible. Could God have arranged things differently? Did Satan or his angels muck about with the Big Bang? Did God exercise a bit of retrocausality just to universalise the tragedy?Who knows? But these hardly seem either necessary, desirable or attractive solutions. Why build into your theology things we can never know (at least this side of death)? Let's get real with what we have right here and now and the revelation God has seen to fit to impart to us as our guide, and supremely of course in Christ our God who in our humanity itself has conquered sin and death and bequeaths all this to us through repentance, metanoia and his deifying life. Immortality is again within our grasp.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
ERRATUM
quote:For some reason I always get the Cain and Abel story muddled in my head. This should read:-
the struggle between hunters (Cain) and agrarian cultures (Abel)
the struggle between the settled agrarian cultures (Cain) and the nomadic tribes (Abel)
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:tweak: You're doing a bit of conflating here of Open & Process theology (Boyd is the former, Hick the latter)
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
There seems to be a spectrum here (as in Christian theodicy generally) between the "best of all possible worlds" extreme and the "left-wing-open-theist-dualism" of God "having a tough time against the devil"
...The Boyd-open-theist deconstruction has a certain attraction for conservative Methodist types and the Orthodox on account of its insistence that God is not the author of bad stuff and that the pre-Fall existence of corruption, death and evil (snake in the Garden anyone?) indicates the necessity of resurrection victory for a truly eschatological Christian understanding of redemption. However, as Hick pointed out in "Evil and the God of Love," extreme dualism falls into the Epicurean trap of an emasculated immoral deity who can barely keep his own head above water never mind anyone else's.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
So Phi Gamma, the fall is this: "We kill and we KNOW that we can kill. We die and we KNOW that we die. We kill regardless. We fall .... " or killing (murder, not predation ?) leads to it somehow ? We became morally responsible before "God" when our consciences started troubling us for killing others ? Surely not. There isn't any is there ? "Evil" ? Certainly no personification of it. We can't do the final evolutionary leap to divinity ? Or can we ? By preterist social evolution alone ? Why do we need "Jesus" ? Divine solidarity ? To catalyse the process ?
[ 24. August 2010, 18:36: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Is a chimp morally responsible before God for murdering its own kind?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Only on my mother's side.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
quote:Would the other chimps hold it responsible?
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Is a chimp morally responsible before God for murdering its own kind?
(I very much like your earlier thoughts about the 'Fall' Father Gregory - they make great sense to me)
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
Posted by Father Gregory
"So the Irenaean theodicy of the Fall as the "tragic failure to rise" is not only more user friendly to evolution than the Augustinian view but it also makes much more sense in psychological terms. The Risen Christ is the Omega point of our evolution, except that faith and communion with God are now co-instrumental factors, transcending the strict and purposeless limitations of merely biological evolution (without denying that as an historical legacy). "
When this way of looking at things is expressed not only by Irenaeus ( a Catholic) but in 20th cent by John Hick ( a Protestant) and Teilhard de Chardin ( a RC) then one can safely assume it must be right.
I so assume. But on the grounds of the argument advanced.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Indeed I think so Shamwari ... but contemporary western traditions perhaps need to re-evaluate their adherence to Augustine on this one. There is a radical incompatibility between a view that holds that we fell from perfection and tasted death through sin and the other (the Greek fathers generally) that we missed the mark (failed to rise) and tasted sin through death. Of course, I am somewhat overstating the difference. The wages are sin are death but equally it is the corrupting effect of death (not least the impact on our psyche) that wreaks havoc through sin. The former focusses on the cross, the latter on the resurrection.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
What evolutionary niche does Satan occupy in the Savannah?
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
On earth? Somewhere in the human mind ... sometimes, that is, but not always and everywhere simultaneously. I can't think why you should have any problems with this Martin. Do you think angels hover, and if so, how?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
What, you believe in an embodied personification of evil ? Why ? Did God walk with us on the savannah ?
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Because eating of the tree of learning knowledge of good and evil was just that, learning knowledge of good and evil. Why learning good is ejected from this in most thinking and doctrines is the problem here. That's what made us like God, to know both good and evil. Learning is a process, God doesn't desert us in the process. But created in image and likeness means that already in us is the end of the process, conscience, the finding and exercising of same.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
We are incapable of discerning Good and Evil: It made us the arbiters of good and evil based on our alienation: hence the world as it is.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:That may be an appealing theory, but it's not really consistent with the text.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We are incapable of discerning Good and Evil: It made us the arbiters of good and evil based on our alienation: hence the world as it is.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Young's Literal Transalation:
Gen. 3:22 And Jehovah God saith, `Lo, the man was as one of Us, as to the knowledge of good and evil; and now, lest he send forth his hand, and have taken also of the tree of life, and eaten, and lived to the age,' --
Hmmm. I'm sure the Hebrew scholars will be along in a moment to say what the only permissible interpretation of the translation is.
My meaning stands with any other until then:
In disbelieving and disobeying God we obviously chose - choose - our own morality.
[ 26. August 2010, 19:28: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Inconsistent with the text is right on, let the Hebrew scholars take that apart.
But, logically if we're created in the image and likeness of God with free will then that exchange can't be seen as disobeying an order for which the punishment is death (as God would not contradict himself by imposing totalitarianism which is a denial of free will) - for example, Orthodox read it as warning of consequence, eat of the fruit of learning of the knowledge of good and evil and you will die. So they did and stepped into mortal existence, becoming in the process 'as one of us, God, to know good and evil'. Orthodox teaching is that they were neither mortal nor immortal in the garden.
This is the first step in making a choice, the first exercise in free will, the beginning of rational thinking, and the beginning of self consciousness. God asks 'who told you you were naked, did you eat of the tree?' etc. Didn't he know?
I really love this story, I love the dialogue between the prototype mankind in image and likeness and God - and I love most of all that the tree of life isn't different from the tree of knowledge of learning good and evil, it's described as also being the same tree of life. So far, no Hebrew scholar I've asked has been able to show that this says there are two trees with different functions.
Which, that they are one and the same tree, makes the parting shot from God even more interesting.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Funny how myths become the filter through which everything is interpreted. How very circular.
Posted by The Revolutionist (# 4578) on :
My understanding of the Fall is that it wasn't primarily the world itself that changed. There was never a time without plate tectonics, plants and animals living and dying, and so on.
Adam and Eve could have lived forever by eating from the tree of life in the paradise of God, by being in fellowship and communion with their creator. The difference pre-Fall was not a radically different natural order, but God pouring out an additional supernatural sustenance and power through unfallen humanity. It was through us in God's power filling the Earth and subduing it that the world would have been free from death and evil.
With Jesus' resurrection, we see the whole project get back on track - we can once again be in fellowship with God the life-giver who is renewing all creation and will raise us to new life.
quote:I understand that God was perfectly happy and delighted within the love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God didn't create because of any lack in himself, but out of the overflow of his love.
I believe God to be a single person who needs to create people to love, in numbers that will grow to eternity. If God needs no one to love, why do you think he created people?
quote:"Hasn't happened" implies that God exists in a "now", that he moves from past to present to future as we do. But that's exactly what the idea that God is outside time denies.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
How can He know what hasn't happened ?
From God's perspective, he doesn't foreknow the future, what "hasn't happened"; he simply knows all of history. It's only from our perspective within the flow of history that we can speak, metaphorically, of God's foreknowledge.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:But can be fun if you know where to start.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Funny how myths become the filter through which everything is interpreted. How very circular.
This story is an amalgamation or influenced from others and is more fascinating when some of this is thrown into the mix.
For example, 'rib' isn't quite right as translation, it is describing 'side' and so we have midrash saying that in the beginning of proto ADAM, mankind from the red earth, in the image of God, the male and female were halves side by side with 'nothing' at their backs, the split into male and female the beginning of differentiation and relationship.
Add to that the Tree of Life was feminine, of the Goddess Asherah, the universal mother, she was the consort of El. El-YHWH is the Tree of Knowledge, the patriarchal father creator of the world and guarantor of rain and fertility.
In the image of the 'tree of life in the midst of the garden, and [which is] the tree of knowledge' is this El and Asherah. As male and female are split from the one image of God so the One Tree is split into Life and Knowledge. They are both still one and the same.
Proverbs 3:18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.
How do we get Wisdom without Knowledge?
Anyway, as as filter to establish reality is not how Orthodox see the story, which is why we don't agree with the West's doctrine of Original Sin for example, but we view it through our own filter of Teaching about God. So, as above for example, Because we teach free will in relationship to God in which we're created in image and likeness we reject any such interpretations as OS.
Our basic teaching is that we are born innocent as Adam and Eve and can't/don't sin until we reach the age of reason. Adam and Eve are our ancestors, all the way back to the proto-ADAM, mankind.
So our teaching that we individually and as mankind have the potential and are in the process to become what we were created to be in the image and likeness of God, as at the beginning, we're very cosmically minded.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
You have started with a modern, rationalist narrative ignoring the text.
The text is about relationality. Not 'evolving' consciousness. How does that happen by the way ?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
The Revolutionist
God can be as outside time as much as He likes, whatever that could possibly mean, that still doesn't explain how He knows the unhappened, non-existent, omnisciently indeterminate, unknown future.
Unless you are breaking Occam's razor a tad and suggesting that every static Planck tick of future eternity is spooled on the cutting room floor static, infinite Bender-God's chest.
Is there one 'now' in that or an infinity ?
God thinks 'now' in His.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:It's the way the Jews have always understood it, it is primarily about being created in the Image of God. What does that mean? For Jews this is a story about the beginning of self-consciousness, of rational thinking, of exercising free will, of becoming what we are created in the Image and Likeness of God. Of continuing relationship between creator and created, as we have it (Orthodox).
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You have started with a modern, rationalist narrative ignoring the text.
The text is about relationality. Not 'evolving' consciousness. How does that happen by the way ?
Orthodox teaching is about mankind becoming God, we are cosmic beings in our thinking because God is.
We have all kinds of doctrinal arguements with the majority Christians in the West because we understand words and teaching differently. For example, most Christians in the West think God became 'a man', we understand it God became 'mankind', so from that we can see you've missed out a comma in the Creed and so now have it as a definition of God as Trinity, rather than a statement about Christ's relationship. (Instead of 'we believe in one God the Father, etc. for us, you have 'we believe in one God, the Father, etc.) We differ rather a lot in our views of God and our relationship to God.
Myrrh
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
quote:The proposal here is that "the Fall" (or corruption of creation) happened before any of those things came into being, so yes, all of those things were present from the beginning.
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
My understanding of the Fall is that it wasn't primarily the world itself that changed. There was never a time without plate tectonics, plants and animals living and dying, and so on.
.
quote:There is a long and rich tradition of that pov w/in Christianity, of course. But what irks process & open theologians is when you state it as an assumed truth as you appear to be doing here. God being "outside time" is an unproven assumption, just as the open/process pov is. IMHO, the biblical record makes a LOT more sense and requires a lot less hermeneutical gymnastics if we assume God is "in time" as we are "in time". That might be because time is not a created thing, but rather an inherent reality. Or it may be because God chose to put Godself in time because that is the only way to be in relationship w/ us. But either way the Biblical account makes much more sense when read that way, and it helps avoid some (albeit not all) of the issues we're discussing here.
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
My understanding of the Fall is that it wasn't primarily the world itself that changed. There was never a time without plate tectonics, plants and animals living and dying, and so on.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
[qb]
From God's perspective, he doesn't foreknow the future, what "hasn't happened"; he simply knows all of history. It's only from our perspective within the flow of history that we can speak, metaphorically, of God's foreknowledge.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Sorry, you've put in a comma, after God, where none exists for us.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Myrrh.
No it isn't.
Posted by Foxymoron (# 10343) on :
Fascinating thread! I'm struggling to absorb it all and keep up. Thanks in particular to Father Gregory for his fascinating elucidation, and The Revolutionist for his more concise summary, both of which chime with my own feelings/intuitions.
Father Gregory:
Is it your position that the natural world (from which we arose) has always been the way it is and that its open and dynamic nature is what makes it both creative and capable of evolving, but with the inevitable possibility of suffering and disaster (mirroring the nature of Free Will)?
Is that not a "best of all possible worlds" scenario? At the beginning of your post you describe that view as an "extreme"....
Also, I read your "Ancestral Sin and Salvation" essay, which says:
quote:I don't understand why, after eating the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we subsequently became subject to death. Weren't we already mortal before we knew God e.g. in our pre-conscious/moral/rational state? There seems to be a significant difference between the two pre-God and post-God 'implementations' of death. Yet you argue that we had not been cursed by God but by ourselves. Was it because we had changed and understood what had happened?
The sin of Adam and Eve was one of disobedience born out of a demonically induced pride and we know from St. Paul that wages of such sin is death [Romans 6:23]. Cast out of Eden and barred from re-entry for their own good, Adam and Eve, in their mortality are now subject to the corruption of death. Corruption here does not merely mean physical decay, it describes the fallout from the Fall as death spawns yet new evils. As St. Paul taught in the context of the resurrection as the remedy for sin and death, ("O death where is thy sting …?"), "the sting of death is sin." [1 Corinthians 15:55-56]"
quote:Are you saying that if we had not Fallen then God's power would have acted through us to remove death and evil from the whole world - that we would have been God's instrument for bringing about a new, perfected, Earth?
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
Adam and Eve could have lived forever by eating from the tree of life in the paradise of God, by being in fellowship and communion with their creator. The difference pre-Fall was not a radically different natural order, but God pouring out an additional supernatural sustenance and power through unfallen humanity. It was through us in God's power filling the Earth and subduing it that the world would have been free from death and evil.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
quote:You said the exact opposite a post back - that the comma was 'missed out.'
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Sorry, you've put in a comma, after God, where none exists for us.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
And CharlieDelta, the future ain't history yet. It becomes so now.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:That's why I corrected it..
Originally posted by leo:
quote:You said the exact opposite a post back - that the comma was 'missed out.'
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Sorry, you've put in a comma, after God, where none exists for us.
Myrrh
I was thinking misplaced, wroted missed out. In a bit of a hurry.
Hope that makes it clear.
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
It'd derail this thread if I started to protest that Myrrh's got all us Trinitarian Western Christians wrong. But I'll say it anyway. You put your commas and full-stops where you like but stop presuming to tell the rest of us what we actually believe.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
We've been through trinitarian discussions about this before. We understand the Creed differently, it begins with the placedment of that comma. Stop telling me what I can and can't do, take it to Hell.
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Why should I? You wouldn't follow me down there for a fair fight.
Listen, I'm a Western Christian and I'm no more no less Trinitarian than Fr Gregory is.
So now you'll tell me that he's not Trinitarian enough.
You know what you can do with your commas.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
But it changes the meaning..
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Only if you are determined to be pedantic and want to make out that us poor benighted Westerners worship a different God to you.
You can find evidence for anything if you look hard enough. You certainly seem able to find evidence for your cranky views on virtually every subject. So I'm not surprised that you can find support for your twisted view that Western Christians are worshipping a different God to the one you worship.
And apparent 'evidence' for much else besides.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Gamaliel. You've got Myrrhitis. I prescribe a mind game I've successfully used with her. Question EVERYTHING.
We're all futilely trapped here with our own vanities, so let's play. And let's dare to get therapeutic. Because we are ALL demonstrably insane here. Broken, feeble creatures inflated by our risible intellects, self righteous in our liberalism or pragmatism or conservatism, thinking we're achieving more than we would with the un-, non- and anti-intellectuals of Premier or UKchristians.
We're sick.
Let's play doctor.
This thread startlingly demonstrates how hopelessly fallen we are.
[ 28. August 2010, 11:58: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
quote:Question the fact that you are fallen. I dare you.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Gamaliel. You've got Myrrhitis. I prescribe a mind game I've successfully used with her. Question EVERYTHING.
We're sick.
Let's play doctor.
This thread startlingly demonstrates how hopelessly fallen we are.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:You really have no idea how insulting that is, have you?
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Only if you are determined to be pedantic and want to make out that us poor benighted Westerners worship a different God to you.
quote:You want to claim my God so you abuse me.
You can find evidence for anything if you look hard enough. You certainly seem able to find evidence for your cranky views on virtually every subject. So I'm not surprised that you can find support for your twisted view that Western Christians are worshipping a different God to the one you worship.
And apparent 'evidence' for much else besides.
That comma makes all the difference in the Creed. With it after God, you have given a definition of what God is, we say God cannot be defined.
We belief in One God the Father, etc. This is not a definition of God.
Sorry, I can't put it more simply. I do not worship One God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You are perfectly free to worship whatever God you like, but your God is not mine.
The difference matters to me.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Then be Christian about it.
[ 28. August 2010, 14:29: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Oh right Martin, you're all so Christian about it abusing me left right and centre insisting I also worship the insane God who damns his creation to hell for exercising their free will.., but when I try to disabuse you of your mistaken ideas about the God I worship, I'm not being Christian..
There, Christian enough or you?
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
No. Be Christian about it. Not MAD.
Be Christ to us lesser erroneous mortals.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
And Evensong, the alternative is that I'm evolving to the light through some dualistic even metempsychotic process: reincarnation till I'm morally perfect despite this flesh. That ISN'T Biblical. At all. You got another ?
So you want me to dare to believe that it's all cool Zen behind the Bronze Age psychosis ?
That's pure rebellion. In self deceit. Absolute proof that we are fallen, that we have decided what will be good and evil. This we declare ourselves good.
That isn't orthodox.
It's JUST as my simplistic little synopsis says. And the BEST case of that.
Dare to believe that you are a self justifying, proud, terrified, lost, lonely, aching, lying, murderous rebel.
In Christ.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Au contraire, Myrrh, you're the one who is insulting on these boards.
You are the one who insists that otherwise inoffensive Western Christians are worshipping some hideous deity that isn't the same as yours.
Have you any idea how offensive that is?
Anyway, I don't see how putting a comma after God in the Creed in anyway implies that we are trying to 'define' God who remains beyond definition.
Besides, I've just taken down my Orthodox prayer book and found that it also puts a comma after God.
The version there runs:
'I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ ...' etc.
Ok, so there wouldn't have been any punctuation in the original Greek, but the comma seems to fit the 'plain meaning' of what the Creed is trying to say ie. that there is One God in three divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That's a pretty standard Trinitarian formula. One common to both East and West.
Ok, so there will be nuances and some differences of understanding in how this works out in practice, as it were, but I've never bought into the charge that the Orthodox are Tri-theists anymore than the West is Modalist or Sabellian. I would accept that there are tendencies in the West that can lead to Arianism and to Modalism, but for the most part I don't see any essential difference between Trinitarian understandings on either side of the Schism.
You obviously think there are. And the burden of proof lies with you if that's the case.
Harping on about commas and dots and tittles isn't going to get us very far.
I'm sorry but I think you are sadly mistaken.
And perhaps I have picked up a case of Myrrh-itis, Martin. Perhaps I've developed an allergy to the smelly stuff.
That doesn't mean that I believe I'm any more on the side of the angels than Myrrh. But at least I don't go basing sweeping generalisations and crack-pot theories on where commas are placed in a sentence.
That's barking. Plain daft.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Dear Foxymoron
quote:No, I don't think one can PROVE that this is the best of all possible worlds. This is an old version of the strong anthropic principle. "Isn't it amazing that the earth is just right for life and isn't it amazing that the constants of nature generate a Universe that exists long enough for life to evolve?" Er, no. There may be countless other "better" or "worse" universes .... we are here simply because this one just happens to suit us to be here to say that.
Is it your position that the natural world (from which we arose) has always been the way it is and that its open and dynamic nature is what makes it both creative and capable of evolving, but with the inevitable possibility of suffering and disaster (mirroring the nature of Free Will)?
Is that not a "best of all possible worlds" scenario? At the beginning of your post you describe that view as an "extreme"....
We might dream of another Shangri-La cosmos where cancer can't happen or dread a dystopic version where everything is likely to collapse into the void at any time without warning, but these are simply theoretical constructs of our mind, distractions from reality, albeit our reality. (They may be fun to play with in SF stories, they may even prove to be useful aspects of cosmological theory but at the moment this is all very speculative).
quote:There are two assumptions in this characterisation (which is broadly the Orthodox position, although Myrrh will probably demur).
Also, I read your "Ancestral Sin and Salvation" essay, which says:
The sin of Adam and Eve was one of disobedience born out of a demonically induced pride and we know from St. Paul that wages of such sin is death [Romans 6:23]. Cast out of Eden and barred from re-entry for their own good, Adam and Eve, in their mortality are now subject to the corruption of death. Corruption here does not merely mean physical decay, it describes the fallout from the Fall as death spawns yet new evils. As St. Paul taught in the context of the resurrection as the remedy for sin and death, ("O death where is thy sting …?"), "the sting of death is sin." [1 Corinthians 15:55-56]"
I don't understand why, after eating the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we subsequently became subject to death. Weren't we already mortal before we knew God e.g. in our pre-conscious/moral/rational state? There seems to be a significant difference between the two pre-God and post-God 'implementations' of death. Yet you argue that we had not been cursed by God but by ourselves. Was it because we had changed and understood what had happened?
(1) Before we were alienated from God we had the potential of immortality but not the actuality. A bit like Schrodinger's Cat in the quantum mechanics mind game of superposition of two alternate realities ... we were neither mortal nor immortal. (My article gives the patristic background to this which I won't go into here).
It all depended on relationship with God. Continuing with Schrodinger's Moggy analogy ... With God looking at us we were immortal. With us hiding from God (not being observed) we became mortal, falling into this world of corruption and death from Paradise (Eden). Once in a world of dying our consciousness became a curse not a blessing. It is at this point that the savannah dawn of realisation of alienation (ante) kicks in. I don't think we can speculate on the Edenic state .... whatever that was and where that was and when that was. Conceivably it might have been with a precursor species to us or even another form of life entirely in an alternate but connected cosmos. Perhaps we are too myopic about humanity alone being the imago Dei. Maybe there is a primordial history to all of this that we can barely conceive right now. Nephilim anyonew?
(2) The fall from Eden is repeated everytime we hide from God (hell) and reversed everytime God looks at us (heaven). His look is ALWAYS the look of Love. How we experience that (heaven or hell, bliss or wrath) is always our choice. In order to choose wisely we need the grace of being able to gauge the barometer of our hearts ... not to become insensible ... in other words to become fully human, fully alive, en-God-ded, (Leontius of Byzantium, enhypostasised) leading to theosis, deification.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Then don't participate on this board..
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Au contraire, Myrrh, you're the one who is insulting on these boards.
You are the one who insists that otherwise inoffensive Western Christians are worshipping some hideous deity that isn't the same as yours.
Have you any idea how offensive that is?
I don't know your majority Western God. Seems a total crackpot to me. Prove he isn't..
And, I'm not going to rehash Orthodox arguments about the influence of the West...
Myrrh
Martin - I was taught to see everyone as Christ, so why not be Christ to me?
Myrrh
Gregory, can't agree with this 'alienation from God' concept. Firstly it's clear that Adam and Eve never spent a moment alienated from God, secondly, makes nonsense of Christ teaching us to prayer to our father in heaven..
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
Myrrh, you know very well that I'm not promoting an idea of God that you associate with Western Christianity ... vengeful, perverse, irrational ...
All I was saying was that, barring some differences in nuance and emphasis, Western and Eastern understandings of the Trinity are not markedly different.
But you clearly believe that they are. Unlike the Orthodox Christians I've met in real life who've confirmed that this is indeed the case and contrary to everything I've ever read on the subject. There are differences, but not substantive ones that would indicate that we worship different deities.
But of course, you know best.
How foolish of me to think otherwise.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Blessed be Myrrh, blessed be her holy name. Only she understands. She alone on these boards is the proponent of the One True Faith.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Because Myrrh, that's not the Christian deal. YOU be Christ to us, regardless of how unChristlike we are to you.
STOP IT. Get HELP. This has NOTHING to do with theology. You can't DO theology. Leave it. You utterly deny the dangerous pragmatic God seemlessly revealed in the Bible in whom we MUST trust. You are projecting your rationalist, materialist liberalism on to Him. That square can't be circled. Even other liberals here see that.
I've just watched the stunningly beautiful near perfect film, flawless to me in fact, The Hours for the first time, it says it ALL about struggling to get by, bipolar incidentally, with a great intellect in a Godless universe.
I thought of you. And your intellect ISN'T that good and neither is anybody else's here. Not as Virginia Woolf's.
It's NOBODY'S FAULT. We have to suffer the madness of inevitable, accelerated fallen existence and STILL trust Him. NONE of us here disagrees with you that God is good and kind and will bust Himself yet - although He did already, get bust by us - to save all. Apart from the odd damnationist.
But ALL liberals fail to see the perfect God of love in the ghastly RECORD of His lethal interventions in an already psychotically demon infested murderous world and reinvent the uncompromising killer Judeo-Christian God in their own image. Despite reality. Reality is VILE. Beyond belief. The reality of our depravity makes God's head reel. Just as Dostoevsky said. And so He KILLS. He KILLED all of humanity in Eden. Everything that follows is a formality, done for style points. Direct or by proxy. Global or personal.
Your liberal gentle Jesus is the SAME person who had the Amalekites butchered down to helpless infants by proxies 'only obeying orders'. Who drove out the Canaanites with hornets. Men, women, children, babies. Sick, depraved, foully evil, murderous, irredeemable Satanists, every last one of them, guilty of everything forbidden in Exodus. Better off DEAD where they can be healed, de-adapted, cleaned, educated to face Judgement. What in this life, on Earth can prevent the demon inspired horror of female circumcision and the knifework necessary on subsequent wedding nights and all of the massive, dark, oppression of women in religion that commands that and justifies paedophilia ? Niceness ? Death. And resurrection. What will stop the deliberate, slow, torturous stoning of women alleged to have dishonoured men ? The burning of them alive with fire or battery acid for apostasy or rejecting men ? The ANNIHILATION of such cultures.
His ways AREN'T your ways.
Despite EVERYTHING, despite KILLING, He saves. He'll cheerfully kill us by the billion to save us.
If He could do it your way, He would. He CAN'T. Reality does not work that way.
Does it.
That's NOT a question.
No nice God would allow religiously blessed, mandatory female circumcision and rape with beating at knifepoint as a honeymoon. No nice, liberal God would allow us to be as revoltingly, gut curdlingly, falling down the elevator shaft of horror, foul as we are. Your liberal God is INSANE. Worse than useless.
A NON-God would do that. Materialism would do that. And then NOT. There would be no Abyss, no Tartarus full of demons broadcasting their venomous, insane angst.
The Judeo-Christian God is as REAL as we are. Down in the dirt with us but remains clean. AND makes it ALL better. After death. The death He imposed.
Go and be FOR something Myrrh. Take time out. Go to a desert retreat. I'd love to. This site is doing YOU no good at all. Get out and serve.
I understand your screaming back in the mouth of madness. Been there. It doesn't go away. It will. It doesn't go away if we pretend that niceness is the answer and the truth.
But it WILL go away. Trust HIM. The giver of life to whom He has killed.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:And I'm saying they are. The Western completely different from what I was taught as Orthodox.
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Myrrh, you know very well that I'm not promoting an idea of God that you associate with Western Christianity ... vengeful, perverse, irrational ...
All I was saying was that, barring some differences in nuance and emphasis, Western and Eastern understandings of the Trinity are not markedly different.
It changes the meaning dramatically for me. We're not in agreement here, what's offensive is for you to keep telling me we are. There were several things I didn't agree with Andrew about, but here we both had the orthodox Orthodox understanding and could understand each other.. We did not put a comma after God. I do not believe in a God defined as Father Son and Holy Ghost. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Andrew has explained this very well on several threads about trinitarian differences. Neither of us agreed with you.
quote:Quit the crap ad hominems. Take it Hell and fecking stay there if you have no self control over it.
But you clearly believe that they are. Unlike the Orthodox Christians I've met in real life who've confirmed that this is indeed the case and contrary to everything I've ever read on the subject. There are differences, but not substantive ones that would indicate that we worship different deities.
But of course, you know best.
How foolish of me to think otherwise.
Blessed be Myrrh, blessed be her holy name. Only she understands. She alone on these boards is the proponent of the One True Faith.
Myrrh
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:? I think Christ would have loved a board like this to cut through the crap he argued with the Pharisees..
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Because Myrrh, that's not the Christian deal. YOU be Christ to us, regardless of how unChristlike we are to you.
quote:And you can't tell the difference between good and evil as Christ taught so think your theology which is a mish mash of the traditions of men and the Words spoken by the Great Idol Holy Bible is what theology is.
STOP IT. Get HELP. This has NOTHING to do with theology. You can't DO theology. Leave it. You utterly deny the dangerous pragmatic God seemlessly revealed in the Bible in whom we MUST trust. You are projecting your rationalist, materialist liberalism on to Him. That square can't be circled. Even other liberals here see that.
We'll have to agree to differ.
quote:I don't do duality..
I've just watched the stunningly beautiful near perfect film, flawless to me in fact, The Hours for the first time, it says it ALL about struggling to get by, bipolar incidentally, with a great intellect in a Godless universe.
But forced fed lithium is the biggest problem here isn't it? So Spike said.
quote:I've never pretended any different.
I thought of you. And your intellect ISN'T that good and neither is anybody else's here. Not as Virginia Woolf's.
quote:Fallen from what? More Gnostic nonsense?
It's NOBODY'S FAULT. We have to suffer the madness of inevitable, accelerated fallen existence and STILL trust Him. NONE of us here disagrees with you that God is good and kind and will bust Himself yet - although He did already, get bust by us - to save all. Apart from the odd damnationist.
[quoite]But ALL liberals fail to see the perfect God of love in the ghastly RECORD of His lethal interventions in an already psychotically demon infested murderous world and reinvent the uncompromising killer Judeo-Christian God in their own image. Despite reality. Reality is VILE. Beyond belief. The reality of our depravity makes God's head reel. Just as Dostoevsky said. And so He KILLS. He KILLED all of humanity in Eden. Everything that follows is a formality, done for style points. Direct or by proxy. Global or personal.[/quote]
No he fucking didn't. He said, eat of this tree and the consequences are death. The fruit of the tree looked good, was death worth it? They didn't know what death was, they didn't know what immortality was either. But, heck, wouldn't you want to KNOW?
Here, take a bite.
quote:Oh, Martin. Niceness is our default.
Your liberal gentle Jesus is the SAME person who had the Amalekites butchered down to helpless infants by proxies 'only obeying orders'. Who drove out the Canaanites with hornets. Men, women, children, babies. Sick, depraved, foully evil, murderous, irredeemable Satanists, every last one of them, guilty of everything forbidden in Exodus. Better off DEAD where they can be healed, de-adapted, cleaned, educated to face Judgement. What in this life, on Earth can prevent the demon inspired horror of female circumcision and the knifework necessary on subsequent wedding nights and all of the massive, dark, oppression of women in religion that commands that and justifies paedophilia ? Niceness ? Death. And resurrection. What will stop the deliberate, slow, torturous stoning of women alleged to have dishonoured men ? The burning of them alive with fire or battery acid for apostasy or rejecting men ? The ANNIHILATION of such cultures.
His ways AREN'T your ways.
Despite EVERYTHING, despite KILLING, He saves. He'll cheerfully kill us by the billion to save us.
If He could do it your way, He would. He CAN'T. Reality does not work that way.
Does it.
That's NOT a question.
No nice God would allow religiously blessed, mandatory female circumcision and rape with beating at knifepoint as a honeymoon. No nice, liberal God would allow us to be as revoltingly, gut curdlingly, falling down the elevator shaft of horror, foul as we are. Your liberal God is INSANE. Worse than useless.
A NON-God would do that. Materialism would do that. And then NOT. There would be no Abyss, no Tartarus full of demons broadcasting their venomous, insane angst.
The Judeo-Christian God is as REAL as we are. Down in the dirt with us but remains clean. AND makes it ALL better. After death. The death He imposed.
Go and be FOR something Myrrh. Take time out. Go to a desert retreat. I'd love to. This site is doing YOU no good at all. Get out and serve.
I understand your screaming back in the mouth of madness. Been there. It doesn't go away. It will. It doesn't go away if we pretend that niceness is the answer and the truth.
But it WILL go away. Trust HIM. The giver of life to whom He has killed.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Empty projection. The gnosis is entirely yours.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Ok, then Myrrh, then how do you explain the comma after 'God' in the Creed as printed in my copy of 'A Pocket Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians'?
It was published by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America in 1956 with the eleventh printing in 1997.
Is that not Orthodox enough for you? Or were they subject to Babylonish Captivity?
It renders the Creed as:
'I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth ...'
Which is pretty much the same as it appears in Anglican and RC formularies.
The difference between Western and Eastern versions hinges on the introduction of the 'filoque clause' by Western Christendom rather than where people later chose to insert commas or full-stops. And I incline towards the Orthodox view on that one. I don't say '... and the Son' these days when reciting the Creed in Western churches.
Just in case.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Anyway, I think I can see where you're going with this one and I suspect it certainly isn't orthodox or Orthodox in any recognisable sense. Andreas certainly didn't propound an orthodox view of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
If my memory serves me correctly you were both promulgating a confusing mish-mash of subordinationism and Monarchianism with lots of other isms thrown in.
It certainly wasn't close to anything I'd recognise as Orthodox or orthodox.
But of course, you know best. Whatever the 'Doctors of the Church', the Fathers, theologians and millions of faithful believers have said down the years, Myrrh knows better.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:I'm not rehashing the Orthodox arguments of Western influence. But I'll remind you of one, it's no longer PC from the last century Constantinople RCC alliance to even mention ..
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ok, then Myrrh, then how do you explain the comma after 'God' in the Creed as printed in my copy of 'A Pocket Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians'?
It was published by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America in 1956 with the eleventh printing in 1997.
quote:Well, isn't it odd then that Andrew argued that God comma was wrong from his extensive knowledge of the fathers? And his knowledge was extensive.
But of course, you know best. Whatever the 'Doctors of the Church', the Fathers, theologians and millions of faithful believers have said down the years, Myrrh knows better.
Myrrh
Martin, gnosis is what Orthodox is all about. That doesn't equal Gnostic. Adam and Eve wanted to KNOW, the quest for knowledge is what makes us human, and thoroughly divine.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
No it doesn't.
Try the dialectic dear. Three times a day.
You ARE sympathetic, believe it or not. You're close to a red letter Jeffersonian deist. And you ignore the bits of the red letter even that make Jesus perfectly congruent with El Shaddai, YHWH Adonai. God the Killer. Which is understandable. He terrifies you. The God of the Bible is terrifying. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son most of all. Just like life. Reality.
It's a tragi-comedy tha liberalism makes Jesus good cop to His OT old man bad cop when they are the SAME PERSON.
And the NT good cop is the one who will judge, who will exercise the wrath of God on His enemies, who can destroy body and soul in Hell.
So that makes me a bibliolater and follower of men ? Uh huh.
You want everything to be nice dear. That's nice. It ISN'T.
Do the WORK Myrrh. Do the dialectical WORK. None of you liberal Orthodox have or can I know.
No liberal can see recognisable love in the God of the Bible. Some have the courage to throw it away: Sam Clements.
That blindness is exacerbated by Augustinean-Islamic-Calvinism as Orlando and IngoB demonstrate. In that you are SO right Myrrh.
But how you can justify the obscene, insane, meaningless suffering we all endure one way or the other as being OUR responsibility and NOTHING to do with your nice, helpless, permissive, almighty God ... loses me. God denied us life in Eden. Sentenced us to death and unjust, random, suffering and causing the same all the way to it.
God KILLED us all. HIS choice. HIS rules.
Rave against that to us obscene fact obscenely all you like.
And when you sob yourself hoarse with it, He'll be doing the same with you. Dostoevsky was certainly more right than Tolstoy. The Cappadocian Fathers infinitely more than Augustine.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon
As given by Robert F. Kennedy on the murder of Martin Luther King
In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
Life is a bloody awful, bloody, awful business.
There is NO other way to glory.
YOU are to keep seeking the beatitudes with me. And let God be God. It's NONE OF OUR BUSINESS.
Go and serve someone Myrrh. Make someone's day till it HURTS.
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
quote:That's one of the problems living in a multi-cultural society. When all boundaries that kept apart various civilizations in the past fall apart, then misunderstandings and confusion are about to happen.
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It certainly wasn't close to anything I'd recognise as Orthodox or orthodox.
Your religious culture has been shaped over the course of many centuries, influenced by various historical personalities. Those personalities, for the most part, were separated -because of the long distances, the limited means of communication, the differences in language, and so on and so forth- from their counterparts that shaped the Orthodox religious culture.
It's little wonder that what you view as orthodoxy, which in truth is the orthodoxy of your own religious culture, does not coincide with the orthodoxy of the Byzantine religious culture that is Orthodoxy.
Now the boundaries have been shattered to pieces, but it doesn't matter any more, because the various Christian religious cultures have declined. The average people on the streets of Rome or Moscow are no longer interested in theological minutiae, and even the people that would describe themselves as church goers, have a rather poor religious education.
Which is understandable, since today the abundance of knowledge about the natural world and the advances of technology have driven away theology from basic education and the public domain.
Now, in the past, I have tried to explain to you that your orthodoxy not only has nothing to do with byzantine theology, but in fact it was condemned at length during the various theological controversies that led to and stemmed from the ecumenical councils. My attempts have been in vain, mainly because the gap in byzantine theological education could not be bridged.
Not that it matters, of course. The world is much bigger than both the byzantine and the western theology, or jesus himself for that matter.
It's sad that you insist on seeing history under the lenses of what's familiar to you, rather than examining critically the primary sources, but I guess that it's just human. Not many people would accept such a worldview-shattering event.
[ 29. August 2010, 13:14: Message edited by: El Greco ]
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
...Which brings me to the problem Christianity now has with theodicy. The problem goes much deeper than what scientists like Dawkins seem to realize, because the question of evil doesn't stand on its own for Christianity, as many might think, but it was tightly knit with every other theological issue.
Modern science shows that the old answer to the problem of evil was mistaken. It wasn't man that turned a good creation into the problematic nature we experience (i.e. pain and death were not introduced in nature by human activity). This has implications to all aspects of old theology, since if that's the way the world was created from the beginning, then the Incarnation, for example, to save the world from a fall that didn't happen is rendered meaningless.
And it's not only that old theology becomes meaningless. Christianity has an additional problem to face. If those old theologians composed theology that is mistaken in those important areas, then new theologians will have to show that they are not falling into the same mistake, i.e. that their theologies aren't just the result of their creative imagination as well.
And this is something they won't do, precisely because their theologies are made up by them, and they do not correspond to Objective Truth.
People can respond to the challenges in many ways. Most, decided that Christianity isn't what it claimed it is, and gradually put it aside.
Others insist that the traditional theologies are Objective Truth, and decide to reject modern science. American fundamentalists are notorious for their silly and stubborn practice, even among other Christians. But this approach is by no means peculiar to the other side of the Atlantic. It has many adherents in Orthodoxy as well.
I remember talking to a monk the other day about Darwin, and he said that "we do not accept these things". My response was that that was besides the point, and that what mattered was the reasons for rejecting modern scientific consensus, their arguments against what science teaches.
He said he would think about it. And when we spoke again, he said that a) we are not to trust modern western scientists because many are driven by an animosity towards God and religion which was created by religious violence in the past from the part of the Catholic Church, b) what science says often changes, and c) that man could have been created along with the first animals, and then, when he sinned, animals started to die and natural selection began.
The other day I was reading in the press that the Russian Church was putting pressure on the Russian government (a la their creationist counterparts in the US) to start teaching their side of the controversy in the schoolrooms, along with modern scientific consensus, because apparently "God's word" is true and science is telling lies.
But most sane people who are a bit knowledgeable about scientific affairs, can't deny the scientific account about the world. So they cope by picking and choosing parts from their traditions' theologies, or creating new theologies that by-pass the problems, or deny that a problem exists.
Anyway this is getting rather long. But before I go, I'd like to say two more things.
First, it's a pity that so much bile is shed from people whose dogmas are threatened against people like Dawkins, who seems a rather insightful scientist, or against other Shipmates, when their dogmas collide.
And second, it's worth noting that father Gregory changed his sci-fi opinion that the fall changed the world both ways in time. I reckon that the easiness with which you change opinions, father Gregory, on so important issues, is something you need to reflect on.
Anyway. Enough said. Off I go.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
quote:pot.......kettle.....black
I reckon that the easiness with which you change opinions, father Gregory, on so important issues, is something you need to reflect on.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
I'm really, really sorry, but it was just too too too tempting to let it go
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Hello and good bye, Andrew!
quote:It's a tragi-comedy tha liberalism makes Jesus good cop to His OT old man bad cop when they are the SAME PERSON.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No it doesn't.
Try the dialectic dear. Three times a day.
You ARE sympathetic, believe it or not. You're close to a red letter Jeffersonian deist. And you ignore the bits of the red letter even that make Jesus perfectly congruent with El Shaddai, YHWH Adonai. God the Killer. Which is understandable. He terrifies you. The God of the Bible is terrifying. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son most of all. Just like life. Reality. ...
And the NT good cop is the one who will judge, who will exercise the wrath of God on His enemies, who can destroy body and soul in Hell.
So that makes me a bibliolater and follower of men ? Uh huh.
You want everything to be nice dear. That's nice. It ISN'T.
Do the WORK Myrrh. Do the dialectical WORK. None of you liberal Orthodox have or can I know.
[/quote]
Oh goody Martin, I am right about something...
But I have done the work. What you have is a point of view and I don't agree with it. In my view, Christ was arguing against your view. He was arguing against the Pharisees who thought God was this wrathful shit etc. who demanded certain stuff, but how was he arguing against this?
He was making the point, and made it constantly, that they didn't know the difference between good and evil. In not knowing, they called evil good. And from that their manmade doctrines in which to their logical conclusion they would rather see their parents starve than give them the shew bread to eat.
He was really quite scathing about it, I'm not sure where you get this good cop idea from..
Love is our nature, it's what God is in us. What's the prick of conscience based on? Confusion as to what is good and what evil? This is the beginning and the end of Christ's teaching. And, imho, no one's come close to getting to the heart and mind of the matter as Christ did.
That's where we get rebalanced.
quote:Painful enough for you...?
[qb]Life is a bloody awful, bloody, awful business.
There is NO other way to glory.
YOU are to keep seeking the beatitudes with me. And let God be God. It's NONE OF OUR BUSINESS.
Go and serve someone Myrrh. Make someone's day till it HURTS.
Myrrh
xxx
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
Hello Myrrh to you too!
Wanted to add a news report I found in English about what I mentioned took place in Russia.
From Reuters
I quote from the church official's statement:
quote:Sounds familiar?
"Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."
Nope, it doesn't come from US fringe fundamentalist groups, but from a Russian Church official, from a man who has studied at Oxford, worked in Vienna, and heads the department of external church relations, speaking to Russian Foreign Ministry officials.
quote:But I guess this might not sound "close to anything some Shipmates would recognise as Orthodox". I wonder why...
Hilarion said the theory that one species could evolve into another had never been proved. Children "should know about the religious picture, the creation of the world, which is common to all the monotheistic religions," he said.
P.S. fletcher christian, taken out of context, it sounds ironic. But once we take the context of my post into account...
[ 29. August 2010, 14:06: Message edited by: El Greco ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
No Myrrh, you deceive yourself. We are evil. As Jesus said. It's you who has the good cop, bad cop false dichotomy. The same cop gave the Torah which the Pharisees hedged thickly about with thorns to hang the poeple out to bleed white. That cop came undercover to trump His law, to transcend it. We - YOU and me - murdered Him in our natural, default loveLESSNESS. The Law was the only mechanism capable of creating the most meaningful milieu for Jesus to come to.
Jesus did not say they were wrong to stone the woman caught in adultery, that the sentence He had prescribed fifteen centuries before didn't apply. The sentence that when carried out at the Heresy of Peor by Phinehas immediately assuaged His lethal wrath.
He exposed the emperor's new clothes of HIS Law.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:Firstly, assertion is not argument. Secondly, parsimony is not the be all and end all of human thought. It certainly is not the main drive of science. Parsimony is one of many criteria of an "aesthetic of thought" that tends to guide scientific explorations. Thirdly, what I said was in fact a rather parsimonious solution to an apparent contradiction.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
IngoB, that is the most imparsimonious thing you could have possibly said, that can possibly be said, although you do consistently say it along with high Anglican Alan in that shared Bender hadron.
quote:Seriously, Martin, your denial of the powers of the human intellect do not make you holy, just silly. Faith does not consist in despising what God has given you. Grace perfects, it does not abolish nature.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
But still completely pagan. Their are enough entities in the Trinity without Plato's and Ptolemy's.
God can be deduced from nature (Wis 13:1-9, Rom 1:19-20), conscience (Rom 2:14-16), and religion history (Act 14:15-17, Act 17:26-29). Plato had some right thoughts about God, and some wrong ones. It takes Christian discernment to retain what was good and reject the bad. However, it certainly was no accident that Christ came at a time when Greek culture dominated the ancient world. It is the marriage of Jewish and Greek thought that produced Christian theology, and I have zero doubt that it was a match made in heaven.
quote:Well, just as the bible explains it to be: Gen 3:14-19. Basically, life and nature suddenly turned rather unaccommodating, or even vicious. And there was death now. It must have been quite horrid, really. But Adam and Eve were likely in no position to deduce any change back in time, it's not like they got busy digging up fossils. So for them it was all about the forward in time change to "life sucks, and then you die".
Originally posted by Squibs:
I appreciate the attempt to perceive the fall from the perspective of an atemporal being, but what do you suggest happened on the ground, so to speak? What was it like from the perspective of a one directional temporal being?
quote:Here are a few examples for what one cannot say about God:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Time is a prerequisite of Love. Time is as much an attribute of God as forgiveness, patience, justice, mercy, relationality, sanity, will, thought, meaning. Regardless of some of those manifestations of love requiring a creation.
- God loved me yesterday, but now His love has grown cold.
- God was confined to only the earth in the past, but now he governs the universe.
- The Father and the Son are not talking to each other anymore. They had a row about the Holy Spirit.
- Something caused God to be, before He was not.
- God has spoken the truth so far, but eventually He will lie.
- One can never be sure what's going to happen next. God is fickle.
- God knew everything, but He's getting old and is starting to forget things.
- God (as God) is dead. He died like everything must eventually die.
Of course, that God is changeless is also biblical: Jas 1:17, Ps 102:25-27, Isa 46:9-11, Heb 6:17-18, Mal 3:6.
quote:Almost all the pagans actually believed in the sort of gods that you wish for: gods that are humans written large. It was a small minority of "pagan philosophers" that saw - correctly - the impossibility of such gods as true God, and tried to reinterpret the conventional pantheon in terms of an eternal One.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
A timeless God, an unprocessing, unproceeding, static, frozen, danceless God is ... nothing. Does not exist. Meaningless. After an eternity of doing, thinking, relating, discussing, feeling, playing NOTHING He changed? Not possible. As even the pagans knew.
Two things need to be said here. Firstly, the interaction of something changeless with something changeable generally leads to change of the changeable. Or said more directly: our life with God is temporal, because we are temporal, not because God is temporal. Our experience of God will not be static simply because He is changeless. Secondly, as my examples above indicate, changeless is not intended to mean lifeless. Rather it is the lack of all dependence, decay and fickleness in life. This is indeed difficult for us to grasp, since all our life is shaped by these imperfections. Yet scripture addresses the apparent paradox: Wis 7:24,27, and so did the (decidedly non-pagan!) St Augustine:
quote:
The City of God, XII, 17:
For our part, we dare not believe that God is affected in one way when He works, in another when He rests. Indeed, to say that He is affected at all, is an abuse of language, since it implies that there comes to be something in His nature which was not there before. For he who is affected is acted upon, and whatever is acted upon is changeable. His leisure, therefore, is no laziness, indolence, inactivity; as in His work is no labor, effort, industry. He can act while He reposes, and repose while He acts. He can begin a new work with (not a new, but) an eternal design; and what He has not made before, He does not now begin to make because He repents of His former repose. But when one speaks of His former repose and subsequent operation (and I know not how men can understand these things), this “former” and “subsequent” are applied only to the things created, which formerly did not exist, and subsequently came into existence. But in God the former purpose is not altered and obliterated by the subsequent and different purpose, but by one and the same eternal and unchangeable will He effected regarding the things He created, both that formerly, so long as they were not, they should not be, and that subsequently, when they began to be, they should come into existence.
quote:Close, but no cigar. There is no Divine Time, only Now. And what is gone for us is ever present to God, as is what will be. And that the future is indeterminate means merely that you cannot determine it from the present. That is strictly a statement within time. That says nothing about the ability of a timeless Being to see it all.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The only meaningful, necessary, parsimonious possibility between those two meaningless extremes is that created time - now - occurs in Time - Now. What's gone is gone. And that is not the eternal indeterminate future.
Again, we find plenty about this in scripture. That God knows the future before it occurs (Sir 23:20, Dan 13:42), and in particular also that He knows what free-willed creatures are going to do (Ps 139:3-6,16; Jn 6:64), even that He knows what they would do (Mt 11:21, 1 Sam 23:10-13, Wis 4:10-14). And of course there are plenty of fulfilled prophecies. Even an omnipotent but time-bound being could not make the indeterminate future happen in a given way, and any attempts to force the future into some scheme would be clearly visible.
There's more to be said about other subsequent posts, but unfortunately I do not have an eternal now to write it.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Andreas ... (El Greco)
quote:Oh here he goes again, Byzantium, Byzantium, Byzantium.
It's little wonder that what you view as orthodoxy, which in truth is the orthodoxy of your own religious culture, does not coincide with the orthodoxy of the Byzantine religious culture that is Orthodoxy.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Yes.. But, it is only a theory and there's been some interesting work done lately on how species can change dramatically within an extraordinary, it seems to us, short space of time. Some tribe, ah my memory, think it was among the Indonesian islands, appears to have shrunk to practically pygmy size within a possible 100-200 year span, because resources were scarce. (The teeth show still full size, they it appears take longer to reduce to scale). And today there was something about the apple tree's genetics being traced back to the cataclysmic events which killed off the dinosaurs. It said that the apple was actually related to the strawberry plant, but around that time, 65 million years ago, it suddenly doubled up on its genes and became a tree.. I'm not one to rule out anything...
Originally posted by El Greco:
Hello Myrrh to you too!
Wanted to add a news report I found in English about what I mentioned took place in Russia.
From Reuters
I quote from the church official's statement:
quote:Sounds familiar?
"Darwin's theory remains a theory. This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."
quote:I don't know where all this 'fundamentalism' comes from. I've never experienced it in my community, I can't recall anyone teaching anything remotely like 'the world was created 6,000 years ago'. I mean, Andrew, we think in terms of ages after ages after ages don't we? Isn't Gen I aeons? We teach we walk in eternity - how do you get from that to any kind of narrow minded thinking?
Nope, it doesn't come from US fringe fundamentalist groups, but from a Russian Church official, from a man who has studied at Oxford, worked in Vienna, and heads the department of external church relations, speaking to Russian Foreign Ministry officials.
quote:But I guess this might not sound "close to anything some Shipmates would recognise as Orthodox". I wonder why...
Hilarion said the theory that one species could evolve into another had never been proved. Children "should know about the religious picture, the creation of the world, which is common to all the monotheistic religions," he said.
And we believe in miracles..
Myrrh
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Show where Christ says we are evil.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No Myrrh, you deceive yourself. We are evil. As Jesus said. It's you who has the good cop, bad cop false dichotomy. The same cop gave the Torah which the Pharisees hedged thickly about with thorns to hang the poeple out to bleed white. That cop came undercover to trump His law, to transcend it. We - YOU and me - murdered Him in our natural, default loveLESSNESS. The Law was the only mechanism capable of creating the most meaningful milieu for Jesus to come to.
Jesus did not say they were wrong to stone the woman caught in adultery, that the sentence He had prescribed fifteen centuries before didn't apply. The sentence that when carried out at the Heresy of Peor by Phinehas immediately assuaged His lethal wrath.
He exposed the emperor's new clothes of HIS Law.
Myrrh
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Nope! Not in my Bible.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Which all fits perfectly into evolutionary theory.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
it is only a theory and there's been some interesting work done lately on how species can change dramatically within an extraordinary, it seems to us, short space of time. Some tribe, ah my memory, think it was among the Indonesian islands, appears to have shrunk to practically pygmy size within a possible 100-200 year span, because resources were scarce. (The teeth show still full size, they it appears take longer to reduce to scale). And today there was something about the apple tree's genetics being traced back to the cataclysmic events which killed off the dinosaurs. It said that the apple was actually related to the strawberry plant, but around that time, 65 million years ago, it suddenly doubled up on its genes and became a tree.. I'm not one to rule out anything...
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
OK let's be REALLY silly: let's posit that God is timeless, whatever that could possibly mean (I haven't the faintest idea, have you?). None of the rhetorical examples you gave have anything to do with demonstrating timelessness except in the poetic sense. The future still does not have to exist. At all. No matter how 'big' God's now is. Neither does the past apart from as INDERTERMINATE history. Because even God cannot know the spin of electron pairs that met positron pairs, despite Him thinking them. Can He. And that isn't a question. And yes, you know I know what your Ph.D.'s in.
Does God NEED a chain of being behind leptons ? A Platonic projector with transcendent mathematical light that projects with determinacy somehow lost on the cave wall ?
Does He need all of future eternity spooled in his infinite chest to be God ? To be LOVE effectively ? What's wrong with this PICTURE ? This Deus ex machina ? This enslaving slave God ? Slave to his own meaningless 'Sovereignty'?
Tell me I've got it wrong mate. That you don't believe that future eternity is history ? That I truly am a dullard.
You can use all the rhetoric you like Ingo, with all of your vast intellectual credentials, authority, staggering ability and fluency but that's ALL it is. So DON'T try and it on mate. You're on the same ground here. Rhetoric. Predicated on your feelings. Just like Einstein. When he was wrong for 30 wasted years.
Based on your disposition. Your intellect does NOT come first as we notice theologically elsewhere. For you to dispense with parsimony on some dispositional whim and attempt to justify it 'philosophically' is ... worse than silly. It's guffawably pathetic mate. You have NO AUTHORITY to do that. No credentials. NONE. Scientific or theological.
Alan did better on Fermi and still couldn't win.
There is NO NEED to use rank paganism in theology. Augustine - a GREAT Christian who's blocked up toilet I'm not fit to clean even though he treated the mother of his child and the child worse than an infidel - through Plato and Ptolemy, was paganized. Made God in to a stainless steel, faceless, clockwork monster made yet worse in Islam and Calvinism.
A monster we saw in YOUR judgement of Hitler.
NOBDOY knows what Hitler will do under Judgement.
Because God doesn't. How could He ? How could omiscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnipathic God POSSIBLY know ?
How anthropomorphic of me to believe that the Father know's the Son's return but the Son does not.
Intellectualism just makes me BLOODY angry Ingo. I expect better of you. Far better.
I'm DISAPPOINTED Ingo. I'm NOT IMPRESSED.
Insufferably sodding dim as I am, doesn't mean I'm wrong. At all. Unbelievably brilliant as you are, don't make you right boy. At all.
Did you see Dawkins recently sneering at Muslim girls in Leicester for being creationists whilst aspiring to be doctors ? That kind of category error of his, common in MERE rhetoricians, is what I'm smelling here.
I would WELCOME you humbling me Ingo.
Believe me.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
And Myrrh, Phi Gamma, if you don't know, you can't be shown. It's in MINE. I'm reading it RIGHT NOW.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Go on then ... quote ... if you think you're hard enough!
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
You LIKABLE old bugger. No, I'm so 'ard, YOU'RE going to have to tell me what I was reading.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Probably Jesus having a go at his fellow Pharisees or perhaps something in Romans or perhaps one of his hyperbolic sayings about fathers.
[ 29. August 2010, 22:21: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Yeah that covers it. We certainly hyperbolically murdered Him didn't we!
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Those who killed Christ were not evil. I am not evil. You are not evil. Only Satan is evil.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Bollocks.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Not as it is writ, from what I've gathered so far, which is that changes are incremental. This is something different, more chaotic in possibilities than Newtonian linearity.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Which all fits perfectly into evolutionary theory.
Myrrh
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Martin ... and that's an argument?
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
[ 29. August 2010, 23:02: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
No mate, it's an equation.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
unsolvable. Only one term.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Those who killed Christ were not evil. I am not evil. You are not evil. Only Satan is evil.
=
Bollocks.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
OK, now let's try and find out if this is anything other than a binary declaration.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
you persistent heterodox old charmer you.I owe you MUCH Father Gregory. Your insistence on the hypostatic union with which I still wrestle even after submission to it.
Most non-Roman, Western, high church Christian intellectuals - like you - are 'modern' liberals. Episcopalians and Anglicans the most so, Orthodox, Methodist.
Jesus was no modern liberal. Unless you want to play blessed are the cheesemakers.
Who did the superior dialectical antithesis ? When ? How ? Why ? Are we BETTER than Jesus and His Spirit said now ?
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :
Answer my question rather than try and charm me. I am uncharmable.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
I have on the other thread. May be we need to bring that back here ? Brilliantly done by the way.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Myrrh, my good cyber-friend Andreas (El Greco) obviously knows more Greek than I do. I don't know any so he's got a head start.
And he's certainly read The Fathers in the original Greek. Which I haven't.
But, I'm sorry, his somewhat bizarre take on the Trinity isn't something I've come across in any sources whatsoever, whether Orthodox, RC or Protestant.
And where there does happen to be any convergence whatsoever between the Western and Eastern Christian traditions you immediately raise the spectre of nasty, evil, Babylonish Western influence on the previously unsullied Orthodox.
If a Western Christian said that the world was round you'd immediately react against it and declare that it was flat.
That's how you're wired and that's why you're wierd.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Time you did.
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Myrrh, my good cyber-friend Andreas (El Greco) obviously knows more Greek than I do. I don't know any so he's got a head start.
And he's certainly read The Fathers in the original Greek. Which I haven't.
But, I'm sorry, his somewhat bizarre take on the Trinity isn't something I've come across in any sources whatsoever, whether Orthodox, RC or Protestant.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
quote:What possible convergence can there be with Christians who begin with a God who murdered his creation and condemned it to hell for exercising their free will? Maybe we use the same words, phrases, but if we're referring to a different base then we're not talking about the same thing.
And where there does happen to be any convergence whatsoever between the Western and Eastern Christian traditions you immediately raise the spectre of nasty, evil, Babylonish Western influence on the previously unsullied Orthodox.
A rose is a rose by any other name because we agree on what a rose is.
We do not agree on what God is or our relationship to God.
quote:Rather be thought weird by you, or wierd, I do note you called it by another name, than wierd to myself by agreeing with you that we worship the same God.
If a Western Christian said that the world was round you'd immediately react against it and declare that it was flat.
That's how you're wired and that's why you're wierd.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Love kills.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Then parents don't love their children.
Myrrh
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
quote:It's not a special skill to read carefully. The quotation you made says "we believe in one god, the father, blah blah blah. Period. And in..." The first sentence refers to the one God. Then the sentence stops. Then another sentence begins, saying to whom else they believe in.
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Myrrh, my good cyber-friend Andreas (El Greco) obviously knows more Greek than I do. I don't know any so he's got a head start.
And he's certainly read The Fathers in the original Greek. Which I haven't.
But, I'm sorry, his somewhat bizarre take on the Trinity isn't something I've come across in any sources whatsoever, whether Orthodox, RC or Protestant.
It's very simple. You won't see it, because you are so used to thinking the trinity is what you were taught it is, that anything else doesn't even register on your radars. It's only human. What's not acceptable is the meanness and the innuendoes of some of your posts about Myrrh and me.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
What did I call by another name, Myrrh. Sorry, I didn't follow you there.
If you're saying though, that only the Father is God and that the Son and Holy Spirit aren't, then I'm afraid that's not particular orthodox nor Orthodox (as I understand it).
I presume that's what you're saying with the contention over the comma in the Creed.
I don't have a problem with:
'We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.'
Nor do I have a problem with:
'We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.'
Nor do I have a problem with Jesus being both the Son of God and God the Son, or the Spirit being the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ and God the Holy Spirit.
The Father is God.
The Son is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
Is that not the Orthodox faith?
I must have missed something somewhere along the line. If that's the case then I am eternally grateful to Andreas and yourself for being the only people in the whole wide world to point out the error of my ways.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Then stop answering for all Western Christians.
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Apologies, Andreas, we cross posted.
And apologies if my posts sound somewhat harsh at times.
I can see what you're getting at with your issue with the comma, but I'm afraid the edifice you both build on that slight foundation doesn't stand.
Find me an Orthodox priest - other than a schismatic or idiosyncratic one - who agrees that the Nicene Creed doesn't teach the deity of Christ and the deity of God the Holy Spirit - in conjunction, of course, with all the other Creeds and formularies of the Undivided Church - then I may give some credence to the things you contest.
I honestly don't see a great deal of difference between the Orthodox and Western understandings of the Trinity - other than a tendency in some Western 'takes' to weaken the links, as it were, and end up with a form of Monarchianism or Subordinationism that can lead towards Arianism and Sabellianism.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Myrrh and your goodself seem to have an understanding of the Trinity that is certainly not Orthodox by Orthodox standards nor orthodox by orthodox standards.
Consequently, my somewhat blunt assertions are that you are peddling an idiosyncratic view of your own devising that may be current among some minority schismatic sect or other but which certainly aren't representative of mainstream Orthodox thought as I've been given to understand it.
I also respond somewhat bluntly to Myrrh as what I take to be the hectoring and self-righteous tone of her posts often invites a response of that kind. It's what gets her so many hell calls. But she seems oblivious that that.
Myrrh also appears to assume that I'm promulgating the same kind of views as Martin, the Ship's biohazard, without bothering to check whether this is indeed the case.
I'd take a lot more measured and conciliatory tone with the pair of you if you didn't give the impression that you were the only ones in the world with the right take on things and that everyone else is wrong.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Love loves us SO much that it will kill, murder us in your unique usage and die with us at our utterly depraved, lost, unenlightened truly Satanically murderous, loveless hands to give us life.
I thank God for His murdering of me. I just did half an hour ago on my knees. That He's murdering my old friend Tony who has six months to live. Thank God for His tender murders. That this aching insane void will end in paradise.
With you Myrrh. I can't get to dance with you without being murdered. By God the Murderer.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
You missed an important word, Myrrh. That word was 'if'.
I'm not missing anything. You are.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Seems to me, and I apologise for choice of analogy, but I can't think of anything else to explain it, but you're like Arjuna here, overwhelmed by the vision of the terror of Krishna, but, Krishna's answer is really no answer at all, because in the end utterly without purpose. In Christ we come back to earth, we find the God that's involved in his creation, that doesn't want to escape it..
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Sorry, you've lost me there.
I have as little familiarity with the Vedas and Hindu mythology as you appear to have with orthodox, creedal Christianity.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
I wasn't talking to you.
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Ok, point taken. Apology offered.
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
quote:Can you? I don't think you grasp what it is that we are saying. Neither what the Creed is actually saying.
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I can see what you're getting at with your issue with the comma, but I'm afraid the edifice you both build on that slight foundation doesn't stand.
quote:Did anyone say that the Creed doesn't confess the deity of Christ or of the Spirit?
Find me an Orthodox priest - other than a schismatic or idiosyncratic one - who agrees that the Nicene Creed doesn't teach the deity of Christ and the deity of God the Holy Spirit - in conjunction, of course, with all the other Creeds and formularies of the Undivided Church - then I may give some credence to the things you contest.
Nobody said that. That you think we did, shows that you are not following the nuanced explanations about what the Creed is actually saying. I don't blame you for that. All that ancient discussion is irrelevant for modern life, even for Christians.
The philosophical presuppositions, the ideas, the questions, the concepts of the ancients have grown obsolete. They are only relevant in this discussion because the Creed itself is an ancient text and you want to know about that ancient text.
quote:You are wrong. My understanding of the Trinity was as Orthodox as it could get. I had no relations whatsoever with fringe groups, I read authoritative sources on the matter, primary sources mostly, I heard the Byzantine hymns and services, I spoke to learned Orthodox theologians.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Myrrh and your goodself seem to have an understanding of the Trinity that is certainly not Orthodox by Orthodox standards nor orthodox by orthodox standards.
Consequently, my somewhat blunt assertions are that you are peddling an idiosyncratic view of your own devising that may be current among some minority schismatic sect or other but which certainly aren't representative of mainstream Orthodox thought as I've been given to understand it.
Let me give you an example from the lectures of John Zizioulas*, when he was a professor of Orthodox Dogmatics in Thessaloniki. his theological lectures are very nuanced, and they can be difficult to read for a Protestant layman, but what the heck, I have posted so much this small passage won't do any more harm.
quote:Read those passages carefully. If you find them difficult to read, feel free to disregard them. If they help you see what Myrrh and I have been saying, that's nice. In any case, I don't think I have anything more to add, other than perhaps clarify what those things mean.
In God, essence does not come first; first comes the person of the Father, Who causes essence to exist. The Greek verb ‘exist’ is the root from which the word ‘hypostasis’ is derived; thus we say ‘he exists’. Therefore, to exist means that you are you, and not someone else; that you are an individual.....
.....That which causes God to exist, is the person of the Father......
...... I have insisted on these details, because I wanted you to see what happens in the West with Augustinee, who moves in an entirely different way in theology, by not bearing in mind the Cappadocians’ theology. It is important to stress that the West never assimilated the Cappadocian Fathers’ theology, to this day........
........And not only the FILIOQUE, but a number of other problems related to East-West differences are attributed to the fact that the Cappadocian theology was not assimilated historically by the West. Augustinee’s theology had interposed, and especially during the Franks era, it became the West’s theological flag, in contradiction to eastern theology, from whence, tremendous problems ensued. But the roots of these problems are found in the fact that the Cappadocian theology was not assimilated by the West; instead, Augustinee’s theology was sanctioned. What, therefore, is Augustinee’s theology?.......
.......The mistake is that he searches for an analogy or a model in one single person, whereas the Cappadocian Fathers could never see the analogy of the Trinity through the observation of a single person. They always needed three persons to draw the analogy. In other words, for the Cappadocians each divine person was a complete entity, a complete being: thus, in terms of our human experience, an exact correspondence to a trinity would be a Peter, a Kostas and a John, whereas with Augustine this is exactly the mistake he made, in that he believed the Trinity to be found only in Kostas, i.e., by observing only the one person........
.......In Augustine’s theology, God is related to the essence of God; i.e., there is that which the easterners call “godhood”. There is a difference between the word god and the word godhood. Godhood has the same meaning as the essence: God is the Father (God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ).......
........Well, this godhood is translated in the sense of DIVINITAS, which bears the meaning of essence. With Augustine, it is clear that godhood is the impersonal, single, divine essence; thus, the one God – the essence - comes first, and logically the Trinity follows, as the means by which that one God, that one essence, exists. In other words, even the notion of the Father becomes secondary, with respect to God. This is a very large mistake: Who is the one God? Are the Fathers monotheists? If so, then who is the One God in Whom they believe, when they say “ I believe in one God….”? If we say that the one God is the essence (which is what Augustine did), then the three Hypostases – the Father, the Son and the Spirit – are all the same, from the point of view of ontological existence. The Father is no longer the cause, in the strict ontological sense. He is a “source”, but only a “source” in the sense of godhood, meaning that godhood pre-exists before Him. He is not the One who causes essence to exist. Therefore, the one God is an essence. This is also heard from many orthodox – that God is a single essence. He is not an essence. To us, God is the Father........
quote:People have different posting styles. I respect that.
I also respond somewhat bluntly to Myrrh as what I take to be the hectoring and self-righteous tone of her posts often invites a response of that kind. It's what gets her so many hell calls. But she seems oblivious that that.
*now metropolitan of Pergamon. He is not part of a schismatic group, but is considered to be one of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's leading theologians.
[ 30. August 2010, 12:17: Message edited by: El Greco ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Seems to me that that's how it seems to you.
It doesn't to me.
Have a NICE day.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Read some more then. Evolution theory accounts for very rapid changes. In fact, the only bona fide example of speciation that we have was a very sudden extreme selection (it was in Galapagos finches a year or two ago if you want to look for it). There's parts of the genome that we expect to change rapidly, and repair mechanisms which will do the same.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:Not as it is writ, from what I've gathered so far, which is that changes are incremental. This is something different, more chaotic in possibilities than Newtonian linearity.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Which all fits perfectly into evolutionary theory.
Yes, the classic idea was very slow changes, but the modern theory accounts for (and expects) much more diversity in how this will happen.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Gamaliel, accepted.
Myrrh
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:So, referring back to the news article Andrew linked to, there are other theories. And if you allow these to still be called 'the theory of evolution' then where does expected diversity end?
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Yes, the classic idea was very slow changes, but the modern theory accounts for (and expects) much more diversity in how this will happen.
Myrrh
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
Ah, El Greco, John Zizoulas ...
I read his 'Being as Communion' and barely understood a word of it. Perhaps because I'm a Protestant lay-man ...
Ok, from what I was able to follow from the quotes you provided, I largely agree that Augustine wasn't as thorough enough, if that's the right term, in his Trinitarianism. Arguably, the Holy Spirit is relegated to an almost impersonal role to some extent in Augustine's theology.
As for the rest of it ... well, I'd need to wrestle with that to see if I could work out what Zizoulas was talking about.
As a rule of thumb, though, I tend to work on the assumption that the Orthodox can veer into Tritheism if they're not careful and the West into Arianism if it isn't careful.
Swings and roundabouts.
Anyway, all this is pretty academic as you're no longer a theist, let alone a Christian.
I'm not sure where Myrrh's at, and it's none of my business, but it doesn't seem to be on the same page as me - nor indeed the rest of her fellow Orthodox, come to that.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:There is one theory of evolution. It has evolved since Darwin's time to encompass the huge amount of data we have. Shockingly, it's still pretty close to what he wrote at the time, but we know more. We know that evolution can happen very rapidly. We know that there is a much more Lamarckian side to evolution via horizontal gene transfer. We know mechanisms, fault points, and can generate heat maps for genomic regions that are likely to be mutated. We know how things have happened, instead of just guessing.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
So, referring back to the news article Andrew linked to, there are other theories. And if you allow these to still be called 'the theory of evolution' then where does expected diversity end?
Natural selection is still the deciding factor as to whether a mutant lives or not, so evolution by natural selection is still a perfectly valid statement.
A scientific theory is a somewhat malleable thing. It can change based upon more data being added - the theory is made to fit the data, so it *has* to change. That doesn't mean it's a new theory whatsoever.
These "other theories" that the article speaks of are simply evolution/intelligent design. This is a theory in the lay use of the term, but in the scientific use, it is merely a discredited hypothesis, since it doesn't fit the data.
One theory of evolution (theistic evolution falls w/in this). A bunch of crackpot creationism theories.
[ 30. August 2010, 15:31: Message edited by: pjkirk ]
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Missed edit window. This should read "creationism/intelligent design."
Originally posted by pjkirk:
These "other theories" that the article speaks of are simply evolution/intelligent design.
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
quote:Christian or no Christian, I still respect historical accuracy. And I don't like being portrayed as odd, when in fact it has always been me the one that was representing mainstream ancient credal Christianity in these boards.
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Anyway, all this is pretty academic as you're no longer a theist, let alone a Christian.
As for your cliche that the Orthodox can veer into tritheism, it's just that, a cliche. You can't account for the difference in theology, so you imagine there is some apparent difference, but no essential difference in the final analysis. Which is a mistake.
I shouldn't be bothering you with this, as it turns out that it doesn't matter whether you think correctly about the trinity or not. Today what the Creed's authors meant by it is an obscure historical issue. It's not at all important whether you are of the same mind as they were, or whether you use that term to mean other things. So, pax.
It is tempting however to note how various people react to the possibility that their entire faith is problematic. Zizioulas saying "To us, God is the Father", and you responding the way you did. Oh well. I wish you well.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:OK, I understand all that. But still his actual theory is falsified by these things, his understanding of 'natural selection' is compromised by these, isn't it?
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:There is one theory of evolution. It has evolved since Darwin's time to encompass the huge amount of data we have. Shockingly, it's still pretty close to what he wrote at the time, but we know more. We know that evolution can happen very rapidly. We know that there is a much more Lamarckian side to evolution via horizontal gene transfer. We know mechanisms, fault points, and can generate heat maps for genomic regions that are likely to be mutated. We know how things have happened, instead of just guessing.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
So, referring back to the news article Andrew linked to, there are other theories. And if you allow these to still be called 'the theory of evolution' then where does expected diversity end?
..
Individually, say, these each could at some imaginary spacetime have been considered a like theory.
quote:I really don't understand what you mean here, would you unpack it a bit more?
Natural selection is still the deciding factor as to whether a mutant lives or not, so evolution by natural selection is still a perfectly valid statement.
quote:I'm not a scientist, but 'sfar as I understand it, a theory that has changed is no longer the same theory. If you want to keep gathering facts until you come up with a theory, that I can understand as science, but istm what you are describing is a variation of the 'I've had the same broom for 50 years, etc.', but in this case it's become an electic powered vacuum cleaner, and you're still no closer to producing a theory.
A scientific theory is a somewhat malleable thing. It can change based upon more data being added - the theory is made to fit the data, so it *has* to change. That doesn't mean it's a new theory whatsoever.
quote:Ah, I didn't read it like that. I thought the 'other theories' were as I've been saying, there are different ways of looking at it and since Darwin's is actually falsified in scientific terms, then it becomes just one of the mix of 'interesting things are being discovered now'.
These "other theories" that the article speaks of are simply evolution/intelligent design. This is a theory in the lay use of the term, but in the scientific use, it is merely a discredited hypothesis, since it doesn't fit the data.
Although reactions to this article included thinking this meant replacing it with creationism/id I thought the plural use, theories, meant there are actually more than one alternative. It doesn't say what these are.., so I may have misunderstood this as being just 'interesting things are being discovered'. Do you know of any other theories besides creationism/id?
quote:Well, I don't rule out creationism/id, but you'd have to bear in mind when I say that I'm not agreeing with some 'fundamentalist' understanding of biblical literalists, as comes out of US. (We don't have Sola Scriptura literalism in the Church I was brought up in).
One theory of evolution (theistic evolution falls w/in this). A bunch of crackpot creationism theories.
..I don't rule out that for God this would be possible, either...
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:No. Darwin's theory is vehemently NOT falsified. He is still correct. But, instead of the abridged version that he wrote out of his observations we have the full 20-volume OED version. It is fleshed out. What Darwin wrote was largely supposition based on a few observations. We've now had thousands of studies which refine and extend his theory.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
OK, I understand all that. But still his actual theory is falsified by these things, his understanding of 'natural selection' is compromised by these, isn't it?
Individually, say, these each could at some imaginary spacetime have been considered a like theory.
And a secondary point, but an extremely important one. It doesn't matter that it has changed from what Darwin wrote. The theory describing how evolution works is based on the data. Personality has nothing to do with it. "Darwinian evolution" is simply an easy phrase to remember and visualize, and generate interest (or to decry).
quote:Say a mutant animal is born. Let's say it's a finch on the Galapagos with a larger beak, slightly different coloring, and a new song. That animal is a new species, but it doesn't matter if he can't find a mate and dies. Or if he can't survive given the food available that season Or if he can't stand the temperature extremes of his climate. So, if he dies, he has been "selected against." If he does find a mate (or a few), have hatchlings, and say survive a bad drought w/ his offspring because they can crack larger seeds than the other finches on a small island (which kills the competition), and thrive, we have a new species. His mutations have been "selected for" because they gave him a competitive/survival benefit. This is a real life example, it's the first example of speciation we've observed, on the Galapagos Islands, actually.
quote:I really don't understand what you mean here, would you unpack it a bit more?
Natural selection is still the deciding factor as to whether a mutant lives or not, so evolution by natural selection is still a perfectly valid statement.
New species are made constantly (or at least mutants). But the vast majority of them die off right away since their mutation doesn't provide any advantage or them.
quote:Absolutely wrong. Atomic theory circa 1900 is not a different theory than atomic theory circa 2000. It is simpler, yes. But it is not wrong. I'd accept saying that a theory which has been *disproven* is a different theory (like Lamarck's thoughts on evolution which are substantially wrong)
I'm not a scientist, but 'sfar as I understand it, a theory that has changed is no longer the same theory. If you want to keep gathering facts until you come up with a theory, that I can understand as science, but istm what you are describing is a variation of the 'I've had the same broom for 50 years, etc.', but in this case it's become an electic powered vacuum cleaner, and you're still no closer to producing a theory.
quote:Again, Darwin is *not* falsified. He is expanded upon. Last year was an anniversary of his findings. The scientific community is still lauding what he accomplished.
Ah, I didn't read it like that. I thought the 'other theories' were as I've been saying, there are different ways of looking at it and since Darwin's is actually falsified in scientific terms, then it becomes just one of the mix of 'interesting things are being discovered now'.
quote:There are no other credible theories. Hell, there's only one credible theory. Anybody can come up w/ their own, but unless they manage to fit all the data, it's a piece of junk. So far nobody has managed to do that.
Do you know of any other theories besides creationism/id?
[code]
[ 01. September 2010, 02:50: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
p.s. just been looking at this. Seems that creationism and ID are considered different things, ID having many atheists supporting or not ruling it out, they're disagreeing with blind watchmaker (and saying Darwin's theory went kerplunk).
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:The vast majority of ID proponents who try to separate the two fields are creationists trying to do so to shed the taint of creationism from a hypothesis which is essentially identical.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
p.s. just been looking at this. Seems that creationism and ID are considered different things, ID having many atheists supporting or not ruling it out, they're disagreeing with blind watchmaker (and saying Darwin's theory went kerplunk).
Myrrh
I'd also have a very hard time believing that an atheist believes in it. Either they don't know what ID is, or they don't know what atheism is.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
110% correct PJ, but Myrrh is NEVER, EVER wrong on anything. EVER.
ID is a subset of creationism. Now I'm a creationist by faith and an evolutionist by reason. The way you're a socialist at 20 and a conservative at 30. And both at 56.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Well, I don't know much about this. Will explore a bit further, will be sporadic, but would like to understand the arguments.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:The vast majority of ID proponents who try to separate the two fields are creationists trying to do so to shed the taint of creationism from a hypothesis which is essentially identical.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
p.s. just been looking at this. Seems that creationism and ID are considered different things, ID having many atheists supporting or not ruling it out, they're disagreeing with blind watchmaker (and saying Darwin's theory went kerplunk).
Myrrh
I'd also have a very hard time believing that an atheist believes in it. Either they don't know what ID is, or they don't know what atheism is.
Would help if you'd explain what you mean here by atheism and and ID. And thanks for the clarification your last post.
Myrrh
Oh, what I've been recalling is a couple of things, besides the question raised 'why did the apple plant suddenly turn into a tree from being the size of its related strawberry plant, I recalled that moths became butterflies and the explanation I remember reading was that it was proposed to be a 'driven' change. Because fluttermoths were bat food the change came in avoidance of them. How long that took can't recall if mentioned, but say, leaving it later to feed at night and making an earlier start before nightfall the survival would be enhanced by being out of bat hours, and these somehow extended and hey presto or gradually over time, flutterbys in myriad colours. There was something else.
Oh, yes, this 'a mutation happens', are you saying that this just keeps happening until a mutation is found useful? Only, I'm thinking of the red grapefruit here. Suddenly appearing on a tree of generations of pink grapefruits, which themselves come from a long line of interbreeding and change of continent and such over time which one would expect, but then, one would think that there would have been some sign of other mutations which didn't turn out to be so deliciously special within this time span and changes. Did these happen and just went unrecorded or was the red grapefruit unique mutation?
Myrrh
Martin, I told you, I don't know everything, you're the one who claims you do.
Myrrh
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:Well, in fact yes, I have an idea. Though it is an experiential one, not an intellectual one. It is however an experience which I believe is accessible to everyone, because it really only involves being still. For extended periods of time, regularly - nevertheless, it's the opposite of rocket science. One can experience how time stops but life doesn't. Sure, it is an illusion in the sense that the body still does its usual time shtick. However, I do not believe that it is a delusion... Been there, done that, Martin - have you?
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
OK let's be REALLY silly: let's posit that God is timeless, whatever that could possibly mean (I haven't the faintest idea, have you?).
quote:Nonsense. My examples are not something you can deal with, so you try to fob them off. But there is no easy way out for you here. When we say "time" then we mean precisely the space in which changes as I have described occur. In fact, our language is very inspiring. Because we can say things like "This story is timeless." By which we do not mean that nothing is happening in the story, nor that it cannot be accessed in time. We rather mean that there is no (serious) dependence of this story on the the time when it was invented, that it says something to us that is true, stays true, will ever be true.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
None of the rhetorical examples you gave have anything to do with demonstrating timelessness except in the poetic sense.
When you say to a girl "I will love you forever," you again make a similar point. Of course, it's quite possibly a hormone-induced lie, yet it still says that there is something that cannot ever fail, that always stays true, that ever remains the same. I think God's eternity is best understood this way. And hence I think that it is this "poetic" time that is ultimately true, not the physical time of some cesium transition. I think the latter will dissolve in the former, not vice versa. This is also the only way that we humans, time-based creatures, have any logical chance of becoming God, as we must. We can never become God by the measure of an atomic clock, that's bullshit. We can however become God by the time of poetry, that moment of eternity when she looked you in the eyes. This time will rule, and the time of the cesium transition will be a turn of phrase, a gesture, a high note of a song. God loves you ... forever. You must experience the machinery grinding to a halt there, or in my opinion you understand nothing. That said, God is real. So if you insist to time Him with cesium transitions, and you can insist, then the answer is that He is shorter than a single one and longer than all there will ever be. Which is not the case for us. That's because we are not the poet, we are part of the poem. Poetic time is something give to us, we do not create it. We are a complex ballad that can be timed with the cesium iambus: da-Dum.
quote:Rather, neither future, nor present, nor past have to exist - because God is "big". Our dependence on Him is radical. If He takes away His essence, Being, then not only are we not and won't be, we will never have been.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The future still does not have to exist. At all. No matter how 'big' God's now is. Neither does the past apart from as INDERTERMINATE history.
quote:Indeed, it isn't. It is obvious and necessary that God has counted every hair on every positron. He is omniscient. Not because He breaks His own laws of physics. But because these laws are about what is. And all that is, is with God, in God and through God. "To be" is simply the verb form of the noun "God". You cannot talk about there being a spin without saying that God knows it. God's memory banks are what we call reality.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Because even God cannot know the spin of electron pairs that met positron pairs, despite Him thinking them. Can He. And that isn't a question.
quote:Dear Martin, of course you are a dullard. It is your pride and joy to be one, and far be it from me to insult you by claiming otherwise. Yet what is wrong with your picture is simply this powerful statement of the 4th Lateran council: "For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them." You do not think other enough about God. When you imagine God controlling past, present and future, you see some technician before a giant switchboard or perhaps a painter before the canvas. But while these analogies can be useful, ultimately God is nothing like that. God is what is. If the future is something, anything, then it is alive in God. So it is with the past and present. It was, therefore it is in God. It is, therefore it is in God. It will be, therefore it is in God. There is no degree of separation.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Does He need all of future eternity spooled in his infinite chest to be God ? To be LOVE effectively ? What's wrong with this PICTURE ? This Deus ex machina ? This enslaving slave God ? Slave to his own meaningless 'Sovereignty'? Tell me I've got it wrong mate. That you don't believe that future eternity is history ? That I truly am a dullard.
quote:Not really, Martin. There's a little Buddhist story which explains rather precisely where I am at:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You can use all the rhetoric you like Ingo, with all of your vast intellectual credentials, authority, staggering ability and fluency but that's ALL it is. So DON'T try and it on mate. You're on the same ground here. Rhetoric. Predicated on your feelings. Just like Einstein. When he was wrong for 30 wasted years.
quote:I am a good horse, and I've seen the shadow of the whip. And I'm running hard, at least whenever I remember the shadow.
A philosopher asked Buddha: "Without words, without silence, will you tell me the truth?" The Buddha sat quietly. The philosopher then bowed and thanked the Buddha, saying, "With your loving kindness I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path." After the philosopher had gone, Ananda asked Buddha what the philosopher had attained. The Buddha commented, "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip."
quote:Oh, but I have. You are trying to teach a plumber about pipes.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
For you to dispense with parsimony on some dispositional whim and attempt to justify it 'philosophically' is ... worse than silly. It's guffawably pathetic mate. You have NO AUTHORITY to do that. No credentials. NONE. Scientific or theological.
quote:Now, that's just projection.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Made God in to a stainless steel, faceless, clockwork monster made yet worse in Islam and Calvinism.
quote:Sigh. Your thinking is so binary. It is true that I do not know how Hitler will be judged by God. Does that mean that I know nothing about his case? No, it doesn't. God wasn't happy about Auschwitz.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
monster we saw in YOUR judgement of Hitler. NOBDOY knows what Hitler will do under Judgement.
quote:No, and I think you have no future in the perfume industry.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Did you see Dawkins recently sneering at Muslim girls in Leicester for being creationists whilst aspiring to be doctors ? That kind of category error of his, common in MERE rhetoricians, is what I'm smelling here.
Posted by El Greco (# 9313) on :
IngoB, what did Buddha mean, and isn't that teaching by silence?
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:
Originally posted by El Greco:
IngoB, what did Buddha mean, and isn't that teaching by silence?
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Pjkirk - is this site OK for your view?:
Creationism
Intelligent Design
Evolution
Myrrh
coding
[ 31. August 2010, 11:47: Message edited by: Myrrh ]
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Maybe Buddha didn't understand the question?
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
One step at a time as I am very old and very dim (must change muh name to Ship's Dullard):
Me: OK let's be REALLY silly: let's posit that God is timeless, whatever that could possibly mean (I haven't the faintest idea, have you?).
IngoB: Well, in fact yes, I have an idea. Though it is an experiential one, not an intellectual one. It is however an experience which I believe is accessible to everyone, because it really only involves being still. For extended periods of time, regularly - nevertheless, it's the opposite of rocket science. One can experience how time stops but life doesn't. Sure, it is an illusion in the sense that the body still does its usual time shtick. However, I do not believe that it is a delusion... Been there, done that, Martin - have you?
NICE rhetoric Mr. B. In other words, no, you haven't.
Being still FOR HOW LONG ? While the clock of life keeps ticking. Ah, but you say rhetorically, when God's still there's no life around Him to tick. He is all after all.
Can He be tickless while His thoughts - us - tock ?
Surely there's an intellectualist Ph.D. in QCD answer Mr., sorry Dr. B. ? A Bayesian network analysis of sentential logic that will leave us all gasping ?
Is anyone else keeping score here ?
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Re Darwin v ID.
The problem I have with Darwin is that its claim is to show the origin of life by a particular set mechanism and it fails to do this. Thinking of the finches and your explanation, it really doesn't make sense of what Darwin found. What I find interesting is that these finches, and it's shown time and again in all places where there's been a closed eco system for a while, that what we have is a diversity life within what is there making use of different aspects of its environment by different adaptations, it doesn't show a sequential mutation until a new form is found that then makes use of the environment.
There are probably numerous examples, similar to the shrunken humans which show this mutation by chance and death simply can't apply. Earlier also I'd thought of the elephants off California. These are examples of dramatic changes of form to environment. Much as our own colouring, shape, size of limbs etc., have been adaptations to environment. (Shorter limbs, stockier in cold climates and so on).
It is not chance mutations finding themselves with something useful, it is adaptation from necessity, it seems to me.
Thinking about this, it's where the argument against ID fails.
"Intelligent design (ID) is based on the idea that some organisms are too complex to have evolved without a supranatural designer, but every example it puts forward proves evolution rather than ID."
Now, I haven't yet found any scientist's work on ID, so these are my own thoughts. If the argument against is this, that 'steps' have been found in such things as eyes, that still doesn't prove the Darwin theory. All it shows is that eyes are adapted to species, environment, resources and so on.
Evolution by natural selection is described as:
"this combination of reproduction, mutation and environment can also be described as natural selection. (This is, however, an unfortunate term, because "selection" implies a consciousness which selects and the process takes place without any consciousness.)"
So, Darwins' theory is as you've already outlined, and here stated as without consciousness.
I don't know what ID people mean by 'supraconscious', it seems to me a Western idea, like 'supernatural', and, it appears to me to come out of a Western religious mindset, because we don't have it in the Orthodox Church, (for us the difference is between uncreated and created, not between supernatural and natural).
So, bearing that in mind, from my point of view, consciousness is at one and the same time natural and supernatural, and what I do see in examples of eco-systems, and we have that now quite well understood in human changes as mankind spread over the world and including the finches, is that consciousness can't be excluded. Whether you call that God or supraconsciousness or necessity doesn't matter here, what you can't call it is always unconscious. These examples falsify Darwin.
Unconscious step mutation, however complex the step, until a eureka moment when a creature finds itself with a fin which just happens to be better than the billionth or whatever failed mutations of the critters drowned for not having a fin, just seems too absurd.
Darwin's theory doesn't make sense.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
It does to us. It's not transferable. It's a Western thing.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Seems pretty viral to me..
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:I don't like the site, but I don't see any obvious misrepresentations. Wikipedia pages even are generally more complete, accurate, and free of the obvious bias that this site has. A great many things are left out from the pages you linked, but perhaps it's wise to stick to fewer bullet points.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Pjkirk - is this site OK for your view?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
That's RNA for you.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
quote:Which shows you have absolutely no understanding of evolution.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Unconscious step mutation, however complex the step, until a eureka moment when a creature finds itself with a fin which just happens to be better than the billionth or whatever failed mutations of the critters drowned for not having a fin, just seems too absurd.
Darwin's theory doesn't make sense.
Myrrh
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
That's how Darwin's theory is defined.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Myrrhdarwinism. Like Myrrhder eh ?
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
According to pjkirk. Myrrh makes an effort to read for comprehension.
Myrrh
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
tries.... and fails
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
The ascent of Myrrh:
Myrrhder
Myrrhduhhh
Myrrhdar-winism!
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
Martin: I assume you know what you are talking about and what you mean.
I wish I did.
Your posts are about as clear as the heiroglyphics (sp?) which end them all.
Please, please, state unequivocally and in plain English just where you stand and where you are coming from.
Else us lesser mortals are fog-bound.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Why is that ?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Doc Bee:
Here are your rhetorical examples which somehow are supposed to relate to God existing outside all of time, all change, all future eternity (which has already happened despite Him not POSSIBLY knowing about it); here's your nonsense which apparently I've failed to refute as proof that God knows that it's going to rain tomorrow and what the INDETERMINATE spins (I mean REALLY did you say that ? That God knows what they REALLY are?!) of a pair of past electrons which have collided with a pair of past posittons:
Here are a few examples for what one cannot say about God:
God loved me yesterday, but now His love has grown cold.
God was confined to only the earth in the past, but now he governs the universe.
The Father and the Son are not talking to each other anymore. They had a row about the Holy Spirit.
Something caused God to be, before He was not.
God has spoken the truth so far, but eventually
He will lie.
One can never be sure what's going to happen next.
God is fickle.
God knew everything, but He's getting old and is starting to forget things.
God (as God) is dead. He died like everything must eventually die.
Er, can you join up the dots for me please ? You know WHAT a dullard I am. And you follow that with a LOT MORE rhetoric don't you alte bohne ?
Come on Doc, you MUST be able to do better than this ? Mustn't you ? Brain as big as a planet AND humble with it as you reminded us.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
The previous installment is 14/15 comments up Herr Doktor.
I dunno why you can't keep up, you operate outside of time don't you ?
Why don't you reply here to what I'm going to say tomorrow ?
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:I have no need for rhetoric. I know what I've experienced, and I know what I did to get there. Whether you care or not doesn't change my past one whit.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
NICE rhetoric Mr. B. In other words, no, you haven't.
quote:A year or two, at least half an hour a day. Or perhaps a week of 9 hours a day, a few times repeated. The latter was way more effective for me, but on this mileage varies.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Being still FOR HOW LONG ?
quote:We are not His thoughts, but His creation.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Can He be tickless while His thoughts - us - tock ?
quote:Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. And you'll never know, unless you are nice to me. Perhaps you don't care if you don't know. Then we have that at least in common...
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Surely there's an intellectualist Ph.D. in QCD answer Mr., sorry Dr. B. ? A Bayesian network analysis of sentential logic that will leave us all gasping ?
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:Of course He knows, trivially so. Here, I'll make you God:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
INDETERMINATE spins (I mean REALLY did you say that ? That God knows what they REALLY are?!)
determinate: A -> B
indeterminate: A B
Are you capable of seeing A and B? In both cases?
quote:What happened in all my examples?
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Er, can you join up the dots for me please ?
quote:I'm not humble.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Brain as big as a planet AND humble with it as you reminded us.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Ingo
Mate.
Brother.
I'm cool with still.
My chipped old broadsword is sheathed.
I have made some FAST friends this way.
Martin
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Entirely incorrect. Evolutionary theory (ET) (which is what you're talking about, not Darwin...science hasn't stood still for 150 years). Abiogenesis theory deals with the origins of life. While it may dovetail to a certain extent with ET, and be informed by it at least by analogue, they are certainly different things.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
[QB] Re Darwin v ID.
The problem I have with Darwin is that its claim is to show the origin of life by a particular set mechanism and it fails to do this.
quote:I want to focus on this last sentence, since this has been proven false for at least 60 years. A living organism cannot adapt to change in environment beyond a fairly small degree. Actual larger scale changes to fit the environment require random mutation occuring in a new generation. One major experiment toward this was the Luria-Delbruck experiment in 1943.
Thinking of the finches and your explanation, it really doesn't make sense of what Darwin found. What I find interesting is that these finches, and it's shown time and again in all places where there's been a closed eco system for a while, that what we have is a diversity life within what is there making use of different aspects of its environment by different adaptations, it doesn't show a sequential mutation until a new form is found that then makes use of the environment.
There are probably numerous examples, similar to the shrunken humans which show this mutation by chance and death simply can't apply. Earlier also I'd thought of the elephants off California. These are examples of dramatic changes of form to environment. Much as our own colouring, shape, size of limbs etc., have been adaptations to environment. (Shorter limbs, stockier in cold climates and so on).
It is not chance mutations finding themselves with something useful, it is adaptation from necessity, it seems to me.
There is no other valid explanation which remotely fits our observations to describe changes in the genome/physiology of creatures.
quote:Except there's a very clear evolutionary tree of genetic changes throughout many phyla that also dovetail with this concept, along with other evidence.
Thinking about this, it's where the argument against ID fails.
"Intelligent design (ID) is based on the idea that some organisms are too complex to have evolved without a supranatural designer, but every example it puts forward proves evolution rather than ID."
Now, I haven't yet found any scientist's work on ID, so these are my own thoughts. If the argument against is this, that 'steps' have been found in such things as eyes, that still doesn't prove the Darwin theory. All it shows is that eyes are adapted to species, environment, resources and so on.
quote:They mean, though try to avoid stating, the Abrahamic God.
I don't know what ID people mean by 'supraconscious'
quote:And it does come straight from a religious mindset since the original ID proponents were repackaging creationism to attempt to sell it as separate and more valid.
, it seems to me a Western idea, like 'supernatural', and, it appears to me to come out of a Western religious mindset
quote:Your logic here is egregiously flawed, and you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're talking about. Croesos would be far better qualified to describe why there is explicitly no evidence for or need of any sort of conciousness. Barring that, Francis Collins presented a great disproof of ID from a Christian, scientific, viewpoint in his book at http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/0743286391.
So, bearing that in mind, from my point of view, consciousness is at one and the same time natural and supernatural, and what I do see in examples of eco-systems, and we have that now quite well understood in human changes as mankind spread over the world and including the finches, is that consciousness can't be excluded. Whether you call that God or supraconsciousness or necessity doesn't matter here, what you can't call it is always unconscious. These examples falsify Darwin.
I suggest you read this, as you're simply missing a great deal of the picture.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:You said: "Natural selection is still the deciding factor as to whether a mutant lives or not, so evolution by natural selection is still a perfectly valid statement.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:Entirely incorrect. Evolutionary theory (ET) (which is what you're talking about, not Darwin...science hasn't stood still for 150 years). Abiogenesis theory deals with the origins of life. While it may dovetail to a certain extent with ET, and be informed by it at least by analogue, they are certainly different things.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Re Darwin v ID.
The problem I have with Darwin is that its claim is to show the origin of life by a particular set mechanism and it fails to do this.
As I said, building what now looks more like an electric vacuum cleaner is still a broom you've had for fifty years if the concept hasn't changed. Natural selection means as you've described and confirmed as being basic understanding in the pages I posted.
quote:
Thinking of the finches and your explanation, it really doesn't make sense of what Darwin found. What I find interesting is that these finches, and it's shown time and again in all places where there's been a closed eco system for a while, that what we have is a diversity life within what is there making use of different aspects of its environment by different adaptations, it doesn't show a sequential mutation until a new form is found that then makes use of the environment.
There are probably numerous examples, similar to the shrunken humans which show this mutation by chance and death simply can't apply. Earlier also I'd thought of the elephants off California. These are examples of dramatic changes of form to environment. Much as our own colouring, shape, size of limbs etc., have been adaptations to environment. (Shorter limbs, stockier in cold climates and so on).
It is not chance mutations finding themselves with something useful, it is adaptation from necessity, it seems to me.
quote:You realise that you haven't actually any proof of natural selection as defined?
I want to focus on this last sentence, since this has been proven false for at least 60 years. A living organism cannot adapt to change in environment beyond a fairly small degree. Actual larger scale changes to fit the environment require random mutation occuring in a new generation. One major experiment toward this was the Luria-Delbruck experiment in 1943.
There is no other valid explanation which remotely fits our observations to describe changes in the genome/physiology of creatures.
Larger scale changes depending on random mutations however you speed it up (until you include consciousness, necessity etc.), are made nonsense by actual events, shrunken humans, elephants, etc.
Where is your actual "proof"?
quote:
Thinking about this, it's where the argument against ID fails.
"Intelligent design (ID) is based on the idea that some organisms are too complex to have evolved without a supranatural designer, but every example it puts forward proves evolution rather than ID."
Now, I haven't yet found any scientist's work on ID, so these are my own thoughts. If the argument against is this, that 'steps' have been found in such things as eyes, that still doesn't prove the Darwin theory. All it shows is that eyes are adapted to species, environment, resources and so on.
quote:NO! My point is that you can't take examples of change and claim it for your own theory without proof.
Except there's a very clear evolutionary tree of genetic changes throughout many phyla that also dovetail with this concept, along with other evidence.
All these examples show is that there is adaptation to environment and resources and diversity.
quote:
I don't know what ID people mean by 'supraconscious'
quote:That's creationism, I think ID encompasses more than that as I've gone on to say.
They mean, though try to avoid stating, the Abrahamic God.
quote:
, it seems to me a Western idea, like 'supernatural', and, it appears to me to come out of a Western religious mindset
quote:Repeating it doesn't make it so. I was actually meaning a difference between my background which doesn't see a 'supernatural' v 'natural' distinction. I can see consciousness as a perfectly valid mechanism versus random unconscious mutations, regardless of whether there is a 'God in the Abrahamic idea'.
And it does come straight from a religious mindset since the original ID proponents were repackaging creationism to attempt to sell it as separate and more valid.
quote:
So, bearing that in mind, from my point of view, consciousness is at one and the same time natural and supernatural, and what I do see in examples of eco-systems, and we have that now quite well understood in human changes as mankind spread over the world and including the finches, is that consciousness can't be excluded. Whether you call that God or supraconsciousness or necessity doesn't matter here, what you can't call it is always unconscious. These examples falsify Darwin.
quote:]http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/0743286391.[/quote]
Your logic here is egregiously flawed, and you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're talking about. Croesos would be far better qualified to describe why there is explicitly no evidence for or need of any sort of conciousness. Barring that, Francis Collins presented a great disproof of ID from a Christian, scientific, viewpoint in his book at
Put his explanation in a nutshell here, I not going to buy the book.
You have yet to prove that adaptations to the environment and resources and diversity are by random unconscious mutations.
quote:Let's stick with dealing with the basics. Your basic random unconscious mutation is not proven.
I suggest you read this, as you're simply missing a great deal of the picture.
Myrrh
[ 02. September 2010, 10:39: Message edited by: Myrrh ]
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
Myrrh,
If you're interested, do your own damn research. I'm not starting a debate centered around your issues with, and misunderstandings of, the theories. The resources are out there by the multitude. Stick w/ academic ones though and build up from there. Your usual sources are shite.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Your explanation plus you said my site was acceptable for basics says your theory is what is shite.
You cannot prove from your basics that this is the mechanism for all the changes and diversity. No matter how long you give it..
Like how long and how many monkeys does it take to write a shakespearian play.
It doesn't explain reality. Which is what the claim is.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
ID is a lack of faith.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Faith in what?
ID posits intelligence. Something obviously lacking in unconscious random step mutations which then find a mate of same species, if there is no interbreeding between, etc., which just coincidentally find themselves able to utilise what is available in said environment fitting into niche and relating to others in particular niches fitting into said environment.
And, none of this has actually been set out by proof. Where are the examples?
Intelligence says there is a vast diversity of form in all stages and environments in creation, it is not intelligent to claim this is by a particular method without proof.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
You know.
There is NO evidence for ID apart from at the extremes of life: life itself and consciousness. That evidence is of course the self-refutation of materialism that is Fermi's paradox.
I Adam and Eve it obviously, but that's a matter of faith.
NOTHING to do with science and the axiom of evolution.
No Christian need believe in ID within those boundaries for any rational or faithful reason whatsoever.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
We don't exclude intelligence from our own being..
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Evolutionary theory is as proven as anything can be proven in science. The evidence is that ubiquitous, and strong, and no other explanation comes remotely close to fitting. Amusingly enough, I was reading about an evolutionary biologist a couple weeks ago who has decided to try and re-prove evolution using the typical methods that IDers use to try and disprove it. He's having great success so far, having proven that birds are descendants of dinosaurs strong enough that it's been published in ID journals.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Your explanation plus you said my site was acceptable for basics says your theory is what is shite.
You cannot prove from your basics that this is the mechanism for all the changes and diversity. No matter how long you give it..
Like how long and how many monkeys does it take to write a shakespearian play.
It doesn't explain reality. Which is what the claim is.
Myrrh
I refuse to try and restate 150 years of science for you to misunderstand a trivial point in the 2nd line and come up w/ another whacky theory like in the climate change threads of yore. If you're interested in actually learning, go read some Steven Jay Gould, or some other biologist who writes for a lay audience. They know the material far better than me, and can explain it far better anyways.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:Oh, please. Evidence for evolution is notoriously scarce and weak, as is to be expected for a history-dependent science considering geological time scales with entities that perish almost entirely over relatively short times. It's an observational nightmare, and the only saving grace is the sheer mass of life delivering some evidence ("fossils") against all odds.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Evolutionary theory is as proven as anything can be proven in science. The evidence is that ubiquitous, and strong, and no other explanation comes remotely close to fitting.
Evolution fits exceedingly well with things we can experimentally observe (breeding, genetics, and to some extent micro-evolution), is in accordance with the little evidence we have across geological time scales and logical. Thus it can be classed as a very reasonable extrapolation from what is quite well known to what is barely known. It is a compelling hypothesis.
But that's it. To say it is proven a the level of an ordinary theory in physics is just a joke. We are one hell of a lot more sure about atomic transitions and their governing theory than about biological transitions and their governing theory. Because, well, we can look at them. We can gather new data.
And yes, that means that it is hard work to dismiss other theories. Not only that, but it is unlikely that the entire field will ever be "done and dusted". It's something evolutionary theorists need to live with. When they posture with Newtonian certainty, then I find that cringeworthy. The real problem here is a sociological one: the usual authority defense of science against amateurs making a mess has been breached due to religious reasons. Scientists are hence unable to do their thing properly, and react defensively. But asserting authority from data that is just not there will not help. In the end we must trust that society prefers professionals to evaluate these difficult matters.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Hmmm Ingo.
Not good. You're provoking me to bad works again
Shhh-inGGGG!
Doesn't feel right, your rhetoric. Evolution is axiomatic, a given, like AGW and the Trinity. Agreed the details are even more ineffable due to the timescale, unlike your QCD bailiwick from which you wildly - imparsimoniously (which is an understatement) - extrapolate with your wooden literalism to cage God.
Evolution is a FACT. No less a fact than quantum indeterminacy.
(This vain, futile, rhetorical environment doesn't bring out our perichoresis does it?)
I love you Ingo, in your frailty, but I'm going to beat the shit out out of you.
Because it's there and I can.
And we are going to get somewhere despite your lack of humility and my terrible, moron's confidence.
Don't worry, that always goes soft. Because I don't want to cause more pain than perichoresis.
Martin
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:No, Ingo is definitely not wrong in comparison to the field he works in. Any sort of biological evidence is usually very weak compared to physics....hell, it's a job and a half just to have some biological signal stand out above the noise in many fields (esp. in a complex uncontrolled system like a drug trial, ecological studies, etc). When you look at the statistical metrics which result from these studies, this is abundantly clear. I certainly overstated the case in my tiredness last night.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
[QB] Hmmm Ingo.
Not good. You're provoking me to bad works again
He does err, however, when calling it a mere hypothesis, as it passed that point a long time ago. (Though his statement was again somewhat comparative to what is considered useful evidence in physics).
quote:No, it is not. Evolution is not based on axioms. It is based on experimentally verified principles.
Evolution is axiomatic, a given, like AGW and the Trinity.
I am not, and will never be, and evolutionary biologist, so I can't answer this question, but I am curious if the fossil record is even remotely needed as evidence for evolution any more. The entire phylogenetic tree can be constructed from sequenced genomes with ease (though it does shift a bit depending on method used). For that matter, taxonomy has gone from classic morphological studies to being dominated entirely by genetic/molecular methods. Everything I can think is needed can be shown, but perhaps I am missing something.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
In other words, it's pragmatically, empirically self-evidently true: axiomatic.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:No. An axiom is something which is unprovable and is an assumption taken for granted. Given that there are evolution is deducible from experiments and observations, it does not need to be taken as axiomatic.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
In other words, it's pragmatically, empirically self-evidently true: axiomatic.
A statement that there is a causative agent/intelligence in ID, however, would be an axiom since there is no deducing it from the observations/experiments (at least not from any so far).
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
... agreed.
Thank you.
Bastard.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:No, it is not. Evolution is not based on axioms. It is based on experimentally verified principles.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Evolution is axiomatic, a given, like AGW and the Trinity.
quote:Probably not, as so far they haven't shown any examples of multiple random mutations creating new species.
Oh, good. Then please show. I'm interested to see how unconscious haphazard mutations create new species and how one such new species comes to be at exactly the right time a mate for it has been randomly unconsciously created.
[quote]I am not, and will never be, and evolutionary biologist, so I can't answer this question, but I am curious if the fossil record is even remotely needed as evidence for evolution any more.
Wasn't the fishy thing that put paid to that avenue of 'proof'? When they did find a living example it was exactly like its 70 million year ancestor, a bottom feeding fishy, and not as evolutionists claimed, a half fishy half mamaly.
quote:Logic? Mutations show deviance from form, have you been able to show anywhere that this isn't so and that they are capable of producing brilliant new species and brilliant adaptations to different food sources among species, and so on?
The entire phylogenetic tree can be constructed from sequenced genomes with ease (though it does shift a bit depending on method used). For that matter, taxonomy has gone from classic morphological studies to being dominated entirely by genetic/molecular methods. Everything I can think is needed can be shown, but perhaps I am missing something.
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
Your code sucks.
quote:I've given you several places to read up on this. As stated earlier, I will not bother with this.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Oh, good. Then please show.
quote:If you think the continuing presence of an old creature disproves evolution, you need to think a bit more. There are also a great many fish species which are pretty damn indicative of evolution - there are lungfish which can breathe out of water for a significant period of time. There are also various species of walking fish. Etc.
Wasn't the fishy thing that put paid to that avenue of 'proof'? When they did find a living example it was exactly like its 70 million year ancestor, a bottom feeding fishy, and not as evolutionists claimed, a half fishy half mamaly.
Do your own research. If you're smart about it, you will find it very hard to disprove evolution. If you do manage to, and are able to develop a competing theory which better explains our (collective) observations, feel free to publish it. If it holds up to peer review, you will be a celebrity for sure.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
hmm, must have missed it, please be so kind and post site and page and so on, no books, I don't have time to read books. Please, you are allowed to post information, in quotes, from your source. Helps the discussion along. Obviously, if I was asking for information tangential to our discussion, I would of course take myself off and do my own research.
Myrrh
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
quote:Gosh. Why am I not surprised?
Originally posted by Myrrh:
...no books, I don't have time to read books...
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
quote:And this is interesting how?
Originally posted by Myrrh:
... as so far they haven't shown any examples of multiple random mutations creating new species.
The so-called "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology is explicitly about how speciation works in ways that DON'T have "random mutations creating new species". Nothing random about it at all.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution is a worthy start. ~300 references cited.
http://books.google.com/books?id=HCh7n6zuWeUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=evolution&hl=en&ei=l6CBTPWHEsH58AbVyt2iAg&sa=X&oi=book_r esult&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false has the first few chapters available for reading which will cover a few topics in more depth.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/W/Welcome.html and http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookTOC.html are online biology textbooks with some treatment of this.
http://evolution-textbook.org/content/free/notes/notes.html condensed notes from a leading evolution textbook.
If you think you can get a proper understanding of the field in 20 minutes online and be able to argue against it, though, you are extremely deluded.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:[/quote]
quote:And this is interesting how?
Originally posted by Myrrh:
... as so far they haven't shown any examples of multiple random mutations creating new species.
The so-called "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology is explicitly about how speciation works in ways that DON'T have "random mutations creating new species". Nothing random about it at all. [/QB]
They have, though, as I've stated, Myrrh. Read, please.
Also, Ken, mutations are 100% random. They may be driven by different things (mutagens, radiation, etc), but the mutations themselves are random. So, I'm not sure what you're getting at.
[ 04. September 2010, 01:50: Message edited by: pjkirk ]
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:For the sake of argument, let's ignore all the practical problems of constructing a phylogenetic tree from genomes (and there are many). What you get is essentially a bunch of data giving a measure of genetic distance between species, species that are largely contemporary. The only way to construct something like a tree out of such distances is to assume that these distances indicate temporal branching. That's fine, nothing wrong with using an assumption to make predictions. However, you cannot test your assumption if you are using it to make sense out of your data in the first place. That would be circular. You need independent evidence about the tree structure for a check, and that's much harder to get.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
I am not, and will never be, and evolutionary biologist, so I can't answer this question, but I am curious if the fossil record is even remotely needed as evidence for evolution any more. The entire phylogenetic tree can be constructed from sequenced genomes with ease (though it does shift a bit depending on method used).
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:They have, though, as I've stated, Myrrh. Read, please.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:
quote:And this is interesting how?
Originally posted by Myrrh:
... as so far they haven't shown any examples of multiple random mutations creating new species.
The so-called "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology is explicitly about how speciation works in ways that DON'T have "random mutations creating new species". Nothing random about it at all.
Also, Ken, mutations are 100% random. They may be driven by different things (mutagens, radiation, etc), but the mutations themselves are random. So, I'm not sure what you're getting at. [/QB][/QUOTE]
First of all, thank you for all your links, I shall take a look tomorrow.
But back to this. Random is my problem here. You gave the example of the finches, you said:
quote:Seriously, what are the chances of two such random events happening which "select for" continuation? I know there are mathematicians on this board, but it seems to me the probability of a finch randomly mutating with new beak and new song and a different colouring meeting at the same time another of the opposite sex just randomly mutating at the same time is creating a God Random, who organises such. Meanwhile the island is littered with the tiny corpses of random mistakes - with this kind of probability, it must surely be astronomical (?), there wouldn't be room on the island for anything else buried as they'd be under this deluge of random "not selected fors".
Say a mutant animal is born. Let's say it's a finch on the Galapagos with a larger beak, slightly different coloring, and a new song. That animal is a new species, but it doesn't matter if he can't find a mate and dies. Or if he can't survive given the food available that season Or if he can't stand the temperature extremes of his climate. So, if he dies, he has been "selected against." If he does find a mate (or a few), have hatchlings, etc. (from page 4 this discussion)
Do you see the problem I'm having here? It appears even more improbable than saying there is a Creator..
..oops, but there is, God Random, the Litterbug.
Now, as far as I've been able to gather, the new study of finches didn't show anything like this. Sure, it showed rapid changes, sometimes the species closer to each other sometimes further apart, but no mention of piles of little corpses of not selected fors.
So, and I haven't read all the book, so do correct me if they also recorded masses of unselected fors corpses, this brings me back to my point that all these kind of examples as being claims 'proving' "Evolutionary Theory", don't actually, when it's boiled down, prove the mechanisms claimed for ET as you've described them.
Which brings me back to my point, that what I see, and sure, if this has never been considered let Myrrh go down in history as the first to see it, that the finches new study shows intelligent selection, I would say is good proof of it.
These finches went through rapid changes in response to environment, to resource. Just as the shrunken men and elephants did. It's an intelligent conscious response, by conscious here I mean awareness of environment, not an unconscious random mutation which just by chance finds itself OK with the surroundings and wow, there's another one of me, let's go multiply.
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:There are many of these. A great many (the vast majority) of mutations don't make it to birth. Many more die soon thereafter. Given the sparseness of the paleontological record, there's a good chance we won't see any there. Or we already are, but we have no mechanism to distinguish if a species seen once was a one-off or not.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
[QB]So, and I haven't read all the book, so do correct me if they also recorded masses of unselected fors corpses
You apparently also vastly overstate mutation rates. If they were so high, we would have no chance of surviving. Our systems are amazingly awesome at performing DNA repair.
quote:Absolutely wrong. The mutations occured prior to the selection event. As all do. Obviously you didn't read the experiments on mutation which I linked earlier, or you failed to understand them.
These finches went through rapid changes in response to environment
quote:I'd love to see what you can dredge up that you think is evidence for this. Not only is your timeline wrong, but you're inventing unseen mechanisms for a creature to willfully change their genetics and their phenotype. That would sure be neat (we could self-cure a ton of diseases and do a lot of awesome things), but it's pure bull-hockey.
It's an intelligent conscious response, by conscious here I mean awareness of environment
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Rosemary and Peter Grant, the Galapagos Finches - their, the finches, changes came from a response to the environment, not random, haphazard mutations.
No doubt these results will still be touted as 'the theory of natural selection', regardless it contradicts everything you've explained that to be...
I'm sorry the antagonism here has spoiled this, I was genuinely interested in learning about and discussing this.
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:I'm not sure which problems you are referring to.
Originally posted by IngoB:
[QB]For the sake of argument, let's ignore all the practical problems of constructing a phylogenetic tree from genomes (and there are many).
Sequencing a genome is now a pretty simple process and very cheap. A pretty high quality draft bacterial genome, for instance, can be sequenced in a matter of hours (assembly is a bit harder, however).
Reference genomes are so ubiquitous now that genomic studies have completely overtaken classical taxonomy/botany/zoology and are the trump card - as new phyla/etc are sequenced, they definitively rearrange branches of the tree.
There are certainly some gaping holes still, but projects like GEBA are doing a pretty good and quick job to fill them. Amusingly enough, naming an organism now is the most difficult step, according to one of their leads (Jonathan Eisen).
One of the biggest problems, though I would call it theoretical and not practical, is methodology. 16S rRNA has been used for much identification work, but the resolution is provides appears to be more dubious than expected based on some ongoing ecological metagenomics studies. The continuing rapid advance of pyrosequencing and shotgun sequencing are rendering the need for 16S sequencing rapidly moot. Algorithms are still in flux, but seem fairly close to settled.
quote:We are in a rather circular mode for this though. The genetic information was first assumed to fit the tree we had from phenotypic information, but now it rearranges that tree at-will, and the zoologists struggle to find an effective set of common features to glue their story back together again.
You need independent evidence about the tree structure for a check, and that's much harder to get.
You have me more curious now...I'm going to have to ask one of my profs where our long-term change rates come from.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Again, no. You are simply wrong.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Rosemary and Peter Grant, the Galapagos Finches - their, the finches, changes came from a response to the environment, not random, haphazard mutations.
They saw a weird finch w/ a new song (the mutant), and it mated. The odd phenotype and songs persisted though. After 4 generations of this lineage, a drought came along and wiped out all the finches on the island but one pair of mutant siblings. Those mated, and their children mated. The hybrids have persisted, and now mate only within the new species.
quote:Learn about it and come back then. If you are interested, nothing I say, or attitude that I have, should change your mind. But the data is far more resistant to disproof than you seem to think it is. Given how little you think it takes to disprove something (as evidenced in the AGW threads), I don't expect you will sway me, but I'd be delighted to have misjudged you.
I'm sorry the antagonism here has spoiled this, I was genuinely interested in learning about and discussing this.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:The example I was thinking about was the beaks. But in the above all it shows is that change happens. You can't from this claim it as proof of random, unconscious mutation.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:Again, no. You are simply wrong.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Rosemary and Peter Grant, the Galapagos Finches - their, the finches, changes came from a response to the environment, not random, haphazard mutations.
They saw a weird finch w/ a new song (the mutant), and it mated. The odd phenotype and songs persisted though. After 4 generations of this lineage, a drought came along and wiped out all the finches on the island but one pair of mutant siblings. Those mated, and their children mated. The hybrids have persisted, and now mate only within the new species.
Which is now definitely my gripe here..
That no matter what is found from observation you claim it for your "Evolutionary Theory" to be "Natural Selection" which you have defined, when it shows nothing of the sort doesn't make a jot of difference to you.
You can't from this claim it as proof of random, unconscious mutation.
quote:
I'm sorry the antagonism here has spoiled this, I was genuinely interested in learning about and discussing this.
quote:I doubt 'my going away to learn about it' is going to change anything here, determined as you appear to ignore my questions about the validity of reasoning in this theory. Even though you said you thought it better to limit this to basics..
Learn about it and come back then. If you are interested, nothing I say, or attitude that I have, should change your mind. But the data is far more resistant to disproof than you seem to think it is. Given how little you think it takes to disprove something (as evidenced in the AGW threads), I don't expect you will sway me, but I'd be delighted to have misjudged you.
Perhaps when you have some answers you'll let me know?
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
You're asking questions? You sure fooled me.
I see you denying the theory and proposing a ludicrous replacement with no basis whatsoever except an apparent refusal to accept that mutation is a random, unconscious, happening.
Of course, you're providing no hint of proof otherwise. You're in fact speaking from an admitted position of ignorance in the area.
Give a reasonable hypothesis (not even evidence) for an alternative mechanism by which this change could be happening. A testable one, at that, and I will judge it fairly. If it's in an area unfamiliar with me, I will do my damnedest to find out enough about it.
Simply, the onus is on you to prove these wild ideas, not on me to prove the theory as it stands. There is over 150 years of biological, mathematical, chemical, etc, research behind the theory that I support. What's behind yours?
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Common sense..
I began by asking questions, you gave me an explanation and definition and I'm saying it doesn't make sense. I'm saying it doesn't make sense. To my way of thinking. If you're not willing to interact with what I'm actually writing here then I can only think you're not reading it for comprehension and so have missed it or you don't know the answers. Referring to me to countless pages which may or may not address my points as your proof I'm wrong by saying it is well known, researched, etc., isn't giving me an answer. If you can be more specific I'd still like to know.
If you don't know the subject well enough to reply, which you intimated earlier might be the case, then continually reminding me of my ignorance on the subject rather than making an effort to engage isn't an acceptable substitute for me...
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Projection.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:It's common sense to think that a mutation which happened before a selection event was a reaction to a selection event? How does that work?
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Common sense
In the 1940s, it was shown that mutations are a random occurrence that happen before a selective event, and not as an adaptation to a change in environment. Since then nearly 70 years of research has confirmed this. None of it has contradicted this.
You're saying it's common sense the to throw out 70 years worth of confirmatory observations in support of a hypothesis that doesn't match the timeline or any known mechanism, and you call that common sense. I don't see much sense there.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
Sorry for the double post....
quote:Then change your way of thinking to something which is evidence-based. The different sites I've linked are a good start.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I'm saying it doesn't make sense. To my way of thinking.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:Well, because mutations by their very definition are changes to something that went before, from a 'norm' even. And you've yet to show how, show me the effin research if you're saying it exists to prove your point, that there are random mutations in play to such a degree that the probability of one such happening to coincide with a change in environment is less than an astronomically large coincidence.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:It's common sense to think that a mutation which happened before a selection event was a reaction to a selection event? How does that work?
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Common sense
quote:I really can't believe this is true. Surely all the recent understanding of our genetic heritage through DNA contradicts it? We've changed dramatically from what we were in Africa to how we came to look through adapting to changes in the environment in the different countries we reached and living through different climatic conditions. But the same pattern is there. I recall when I first travelled and ended up in Japan being amazed at seeing the 'same' face of a school chum in one of the Japanese girls I was with, yet they were also distinctly different from each other by racial features.
In the 1940s, it was shown that mutations are a random occurrence that happen before a selective event, and not as an adaptation to a change in environment. Since then nearly 70 years of research has confirmed this. None of it has contradicted this.
quote:Well, my argument is for intelligent design, and I don't see anything intelligent in random mutation.
You're saying it's common sense the to throw out 70 years worth of confirmatory observations in support of a hypothesis that doesn't match the timeline or any known mechanism, and you call that common sense. I don't see much sense there.
Myrrh
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
There is no necessary argument for intelligent design within biology. Or theology.
You are being imparsimonious.
Stop it.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:On the contrary, the simplest way to a solution is by way of conscious intelligence. Imparimonious is billions and billions and billions year after year after millenniums after milleniums of some thicko unconscious still screwing up bits of paper and chucking them into an overflowing basket. We're not suffocating under a pile of random unconscious mistakes, like waste bins all the way up.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There is no necessary argument for intelligent design within biology. Or theology.
You are being imparsimonious.
Stop it.
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:Believe it or not, it's true.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I really can't believe this is true. Surely all the recent understanding of our genetic heritage through DNA contradicts it?
quote:You actually have no argument, you only have assertion. And you're right that you don't see anything intelligent in random mutation. Because it isn't there. Perhaps there is some random deity behind the screens making mutations happen, but there is not a speck of evidence for one. There is also not a speck of need for one, scientifically. All of the non-intelligent mechanisms that are in the theories work very nicely, thank you very much.
Well, my argument is for intelligent design, and I don't see anything intelligent in random mutation.
quote:K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid (or Occam's Razor).
Originally posted by Myrrh:
On the contrary, the simplest way to a solution is by way of conscious intelligence.
You are adding steps to the process and positing the existence of crazy beings outside of space and time and our knowledge, who can act upon us without showing their hand. That is extremely imparsimonious. You are adding to the system.
quote:Actually, we are. We see this all the time in things like cancer, birth defects, etc. Many of them though are either harmless and won't affect phenotype (by occuring in a non-coding region such as a SINE), or offer some sort of secondary selective benefit (Cystic Fibrosis was actually beneficial against the Plague, Sickle Cell Anemia against Malaria, etc), or die before they are born/before maturity. The miscopy rate from DNA polymerases is actually pretty damn high given how many bases they copy and how often. However, we have many DNA repair pathways which take care of fixing insertions, deletions, dimerization, mismatches, etc. They aren't perfect though, and mutations get through regularly.
We're not suffocating under a pile of random unconscious mistakes, like waste bins all the way up.
[ 06. September 2010, 00:18: Message edited by: pjkirk ]
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:I've given you my argument. That coincidence to the astronomical power for every given change that if then 'selected for' does not seem reasonable, especially when multiplied by the number of selected fors through millions of years. Nor has any actual proof been given that this is anything but an assertion.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:You actually have no argument, you only have assertion.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
[qb]
[QUOTE]Well, my argument is for intelligent design, and I don't see anything intelligent in random mutation.
quote:As I said, all you're asserting is the existence of the God Unconscious Random. His method of astronomically against chance of an unconscious random mutation coinciding with an unconsciously randomly mutated environment proves you believe miracles, unless you can show actual evidence that this has happened, is happening and will continue to happen.
And you're right that you don't see anything intelligent in random mutation. Because it isn't there. Perhaps there is some random deity behind the screens making mutations happen, but there is not a speck of evidence for one. There is also not a speck of need for one, scientifically. All of the non-intelligent mechanisms that are in the theories work very nicely, thank you very much.
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
On the contrary, the simplest way to a solution is by way of conscious intelligence.
quote:What you say is fact is absurdly complicated!
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid (or Occam's Razor).
Are there any mathematicians reading this?
quote:Grr. I have explained what I mean by Intelligent Design.
You are adding steps to the process and positing the existence of crazy beings outside of space and time and our knowledge, who can act upon us without showing their hand. That is extremely imparsimonious. You are adding to the system.
If on re-reading it you're not sure what I mean, I will be happy to unpack it a bit more.
quote:
We're not suffocating under a pile of random unconscious mistakes, like waste bins all the way up.
quote:Hmm, "actually we are" and as explanation, "many of them though are harmless etc.", doesn't quite gel..
Actually, we are. We see this all the time in things like cancer, birth defects, etc. Many of them though are either harmless and won't affect phenotype (by occuring in a non-coding region such as a SINE), or offer some sort of secondary selective benefit (Cystic Fibrosis was actually beneficial against the Plague, Sickle Cell Anemia against Malaria, etc), or die before they are born/before maturity. The miscopy rate from DNA polymerases is actually pretty damn high given how many bases they copy and how often. However, we have many DNA repair pathways which take care of fixing insertions, deletions, dimerization, mismatches, etc. They aren't perfect though, and mutations get through regularly.
How does this correction prove unconscious random mutation?
Rather I see it a KISS example of an intelligent solution to avoid duplicating error at the very least, that some also have other benefits as a side line is interesting.
Here of course you're talking about mutation as an error to a 'perfect function'.
You still have the problem of explaining how unconscious random mutation came to build the 'perfect function' for the diversity of life and environments we see around us today, at the right time in each case to fulfil the perfect function of each to the other.
Every single aspect of existence is example of this, from the 'big bang' on, but I'll give here one I read recently - that of a plant sending out scent signals to attract the predator of a particular caterpillar chewing its leaves.
Myrrh
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:I've no particular desire to defend Myrrh. However, this obsession with parsimony isn't actually scientific. Parsimony is only one part of the "scientific aesthetics". There are others, some more important (like "not contradicted by data"), some of equal importance (like "having a wide scope of applicability"), some less important (like "my peers will be interested").
Originally posted by pjkirk:
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid (or Occam's Razor). You are adding steps to the process and positing the existence of crazy beings outside of space and time and our knowledge, who can act upon us without showing their hand. That is extremely imparsimonious. You are adding to the system.
Ockham of course originally invented his razor in order to prove the existence of God. It is hence particularly ironic to attempt to cut God out of the equation with it. You are actually using "Laplace's shaving cream", namely "I do not need this hypothesis". Because Ockham's razor actually states "Do not needlessly multiply entities." However, there's the rub. Laplace could say that he doesn't need God to explain his astronomical data, because his theory had such great predictive power. And evolution may have explanatory power, but is really short on prediction. Or can you predict say the probability of a new species arising in Germany in the next ten years? While evolution theory is operating almost exclusively in "hindsight is 20-20" mode, it is very difficult to claim conclusively that you do not need other entities. Hence the possibility to attack evolution by ID or whatever...
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
Impure Ingo.
Scientifically.
Philosophically.
Lovely rhetoric.
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:I'm guessing you're unaware just how closely evolutionary biology and mathematics are tied together. It takes many years of mathematical study to read many of their papers. For that matter, many areas of biology. And all research (essentially) is backed by statistical analyses. And the answer comes out to what I am saying.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Are there any mathematicians reading this?
But, I am done replying to you on this thread. To paraphrase you, do your own damn research. Trying to teach you science is a task I would not wish upon many an enemy.
Ingob,
I love the "Laplace's Shaving Cream"
Show me how God or ID (or anything else) gives predictive power to the theory, and I'll gladly incorporate them to my personal beliefs. I wager it can't be done however, as all they've done in the field is neutral at best, and very often harmful.
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
quote:?
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:I'm guessing you're unaware just how closely evolutionary biology and mathematics are tied together. It takes many years of mathematical study to read many of their papers. For that matter, many areas of biology. And all research (essentially) is backed by statistical analyses. And the answer comes out to what I am saying.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Are there any mathematicians reading this?
But, I am done replying to you on this thread. To paraphrase you, do your own damn research. Trying to teach you science is a task I would not wish upon many an enemy.
I'm talking about the mathematics of probability re random unconscious mutation.
If you didn't understand that, you could have asked me to clarify.
Myrrh
Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
quote:My statement still holds. The theories are mathematically (i.e. probabilistically) sound.
Originally posted by Myrrh:
I'm talking about the mathematics of probability re random unconscious mutation.
If you didn't understand that, you could have asked me to clarify.
[ 07. September 2010, 04:49: Message edited by: pjkirk ]
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Show me yours.
Monkeys
And now put that in context, say, of a fish living in muddy water which can see with two eyes above the water and two eyes below catching something it likes to eat and doesn't poison it, and is available in sufficient quantities for survival.
Remembering that every single stage of evolution from the big bang on to produce the solar system and the earth and the moon and everything to create the fish and the brackish water and the food and the particular relationship which includes all the geological creation for habitat etc., and not forgetting a mate who just also unconsciously randomly appears at the same time and place and is ready for nookie.
Oh, and including the fact that they have odd mating requirements.., left-'handed' of one sex will only mate with right-'handed' of the other. Unlike snails, they can't decide at the time which sex they'd like to be..
But, what's impossible for the monkies, you might recall, Christ said was possible for God, so there is one way you could keep your theory..
Myrrh
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
quote:The point is rather that if you have two merely explanatory theories operating in hindsight without hard and fast predictions, then you will find it damned difficult to objectively decide between the two. They are no truly testable, not truly falsifiable. What will happen upon the emergence of new evidence is simply that the explanation gets modified, the story will be changed a bit. And then it boils down to which story you happen to like best. Take for example phyletic gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium. This potential crass change of perspective on evolution has been declared by our favorite spiritual village idiot Dawkins as "interesting but minor wrinkle on the surface of neo-Darwinian theory". And he is of course right, because evolution as story told in hindsight has near infinite flexibility to adapt to whatever gets thrown at it. If there had been anything remotely like a prediction about rate of species formation in the game, then this would have been a game changer at the level of quantum vs. classical mechanics. Instead it is a "minor wrinkle" - nothing more need to be said at that point, it's theoretical seppuku.
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Show me how God or ID (or anything else) gives predictive power to the theory, and I'll gladly incorporate them to my personal beliefs. I wager it can't be done however, as all they've done in the field is neutral at best, and very often harmful.
All this of course does not prove that evolution is wrong. But it does mean that evolution theorists need to be very humble indeed - a feature not so commonly observed. As for the ID proponents, they have made some serious predictions. Usually of the form "this or that biological feature cannot have evolved by random mutation". This mean that the can be, and I bet have been, attacked. Good. I call that process science. State what you think you know about nature in a form where it can be falsified by others. Have your position attacked, defend it if you can, and then let the evidence decide what wins out. If you don't do that, then you are merely a story teller.
Posted by Captain Smudge (# 15676) on :
So are you saying that evolutionary theory needs to be made less general in its assertions if it's to be considered a useful theory?
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Just pointing out the mathematical impossibility of unconscious random mutation as origin of life.
To say this is fact is believing in the impossible, which is not a problem for me from my view, but its proponents need to come up with something better than "miraculous" to prove that unconscious random mutation created all the interactive order of life we see in the universe around us which is shown to be mathematically impossible, and by common sense, irrational.
As I said, what this creates is the God Random Unconscious Mutation and saying it is proved to be true and yet providing no proof that the impossible is the reality our our creation is a faith position, not science.
Myrrh
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
"faith position not science" in the propounded view of those arguing for random unconscious mutation as alternative fact to belief that anything else is necessary.
In my view there is no dichotomy between "faith" and "science".
Myrrh
Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
Agh, sorry, didn't see IngoB's post.
Myrrh
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0