(Ron) God & Absolute Monarchs
Achilles Sophia achillesz@usa.net
Mon, 21 Sep 1998 23:59:37 -0400 (00906454777, 03593742912746@cfagroup.com)
<snip Hobbs>
>RON
> Your analogy is false because it involves a human king, not the God of
>the universe who is outside of this system and sustains it. You simply
>can't hold Him to our standards. He has certain rules that He determines
>for us based on circumstances. Ultimately I believe he has our best
>interests in mind. If you think in finite terms you will continue to
>misunderstand Him. Whether you do understand Him or agree with His
>actions is irrelevent to His existence and final authority over His
>creation. This is one system you cannot beat.
>
ACHILLES
Three points:
1) " it involves a human king, not the God of the universe who is outside of
this system and sustains it. "
You are evading the question here. The question does not assume any
relevancy to the question at hand, that remains to be demonstrated. Your
answer may or may not provide grounds to make it relevant. You still need to
answer it.
2)"Ultimately I believe he has our best interests in mind."
The question is not what you believe so much as can you prove it. Perhaps I
believe little people live all around me, and have incredible powers beyond
our comprehension which they use for good and for evil. Even if this is so
it proves nothing but that I believe it. It only begs the question of
whether or not I can support it, and to what degree.
3)"If you think in finite terms you will continue to misunderstand Him.
Whether you do understand Him or agree with His actions is irrelevent to His
existence and final authority over His creation. This is one system you
cannot beat."
and in another post you say
"Yes I am a Catholic, as would be anyone who is really familiar with Church
history and Scripture. Others are simply wrong and misguided. "
These statements I find incredibly fascinating, since, with one major
difference, they match precisely with what my housemate says. The one
exception, of course, is that he is not a catholic, and as convinced as you
are that the Roman Catholic church is the correct one, so is he convinced
that the Roman Catholic church is satan's counterfeit, Babylon the mother of
whores.
Here is my personal take - first the "system you cannot beat" is one of
many, in fact as a simple intellectual challenge to you I will offer to
construct such a system around any false belief you choose. Regardless of
how silly or stupid it is, I will wager that I can come up with a "system
you cannot beat" to defend it.
Like yours, it will of course rely on an essentially circular argument. In
your case you are saying that god exists independant of our perceptions,
ideas, and beliefs. A subtext of your argument whether you realize it or not
is the assumption that not only does *a* god exist, but only *one* god
exists and he is indeed identical to *your* idea of who he is. For not one
of these suppositions do you offer any independant objective evidence that a
person not *already* commited to these beliefs you espouse would find
convincing. I believe I can construct a similar unassailable system to
defend the divinity of any ridiculous entity you wish, without necessitating
all these subtexts.
Now in the sense that you can maintain this to your grave and no one can
ever disprove it you are correct, it is indeed a system no one can beat. But
to the extent that such a system can be constructed to support Zeus-pater or
Wotan or any other pagan god you want to name, or for the divinity of
Coca-Cola or Ford cars or anything else for that matter can be constructed,
your argument is simply begging the question.
You cannot convince a skeptic of the reality of your god with arguments
which can also be used to argue for the divinity of a crumpled coke can, or
of cow biscuits. You may convince yourself, but only because you have
accepted the conclusion already and do not feel it is necessary to identify
and validate your postulates independantly. But that is exactly what you
will have to do to convince a skeptic. Identify your postulates, formalize
your argument in a way that allows for objective confirmation.
Secondly, the irony is particular striking when I see you, from all
appearances a loyal catholic, and my housemate who agrees with the majority
of your posts but believes the catholic church to be quite literally satan's
counterfeit of the "true church." I seriously doubt you have any edge on him
with regards to history or scripture. Nor do I mark you down as a neophyte,
for that matter. Perhaps at some point Till will realize the futility of
debating only innerantists and my housemate will be allowed to join the
discussion. It might be very enlightening to watch you two argue.
Achilles
"...we are not simply contending in order that my view or that
of yours may prevail, but I presume we ought both of us to be
fighting for the truth..."
from Philebus, the Dialogues of Plato