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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 1:49 am
Smart?
This is the atheist v christian equivelent of a kirk vs. picard debate.
Which is to say an entirely pointless conversation about imaginary people, places, things, and events where no one comes out of the conversation a winner in the eyes of anyone.
On the up side, I would assume that most of us aren't virgins and enjoy human contact on occasion.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 4:22 am
(February 15, 2011 at 1:49 am)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: This is the atheist v christian equivelent of a kirk vs. picard debate.
It took me 15 minutes to clean the soda I spit all over my laptop when I read this.
And I mean, Yeah, I know it's a complete load of crap, but it's so fuckin' deep. My little mind would have never come up with that whole square circle stuff. whew! I can't believe I made it through in just two readings! 
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 6:39 am
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2011 at 6:40 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(February 8, 2011 at 7:18 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: IN all seriousness though, perfection as a attribute to a being is so vaguely defined that the term is meaningless when used that way. Which is to say, how can a being be perfect?
Perfection is a little different to omnipotence I reckon, and I don't see how it is vaguely defined at all if we are to think of a perfect thing to be a thing without flaws. Perfect=flawless. A being can be perfect if it can be flawless.
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 6:42 am
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2011 at 6:43 am by KichigaiNeko.)
(February 15, 2011 at 6:39 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: (February 8, 2011 at 7:18 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote: IN all seriousness though, perfection as a attribute to a being is so vaguely defined that the term is meaningless when used that way. Which is to say, how can a being be perfect?
Perfection is a little different to omnipotence I reckon, and I don't see how it is vaguely defined at all if we are to think of a perfect thing to be a thing without flaws. Perfect=flawless. A being can be perfect if it can be flawless.
But a 'flawed life' (= life experience from one perspective) can be 'perfect' from another perspective. .... The one who lived the life and learnt many things that experience can only teach.
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 6:46 am
It just depends whether you're talking about subjective flaws (i.e "flaws" according to whoever) or actual objective flaws (which do not exist).
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 6:48 am
(February 15, 2011 at 6:46 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: It just depends whether you're talking about subjective flaws (i.e "flaws" according to whoever) or actual objective flaws (which do not exist).
It's all subjective is it not??? So what YOUR concept / definition of perfect is will be entirely diferrent to MY concept / definition would this not be the case??
So the question is moot as it is all relative and dependent upon the observers position in time/space??
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 6:50 am
(This post was last modified: February 15, 2011 at 6:52 am by Edwardo Piet.)
The definition of perfect isn't subjective if we are talking about the definition that means "flawless" for example. But what we consider to be "flaws" is subjective, yes.
Objective perfection doesn't exist because objective flawlessness doesn't exist because objective flaws don't exist. But we can still talk about it. Just as we can still talk about a Pink Goblin With A Kinky Tail named "Jenny", despite her nonexistence.
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 11:57 am
(February 15, 2011 at 6:50 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: The definition of perfect isn't subjective if we are talking about the definition that means "flawless" for example. But what we consider to be "flaws" is subjective, yes.
Objective perfection doesn't exist because objective flawlessness doesn't exist because objective flaws don't exist. But we can still talk about it. Just as we can still talk about a Pink Goblin With A Kinky Tail named "Jenny", despite her nonexistence. mmmm Jenny. I am holding on to that image
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Man, that's just wrong. What have I done?
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RE: Musings about omnipotence and perfection.
February 15, 2011 at 2:03 pm
(February 8, 2011 at 3:00 am)Ryft Wrote: So it is immediately obvious that to ask if an omnipotent being can perform any members of a null set Ø is very absurd. It would be incorrect to say that he cannot; rather, it is that there is nothing there to perform. Aquinas again: "It is more exact to say that the intrinsically impossible is incapable of production, than to say that God cannot produce it."
Well, this was a little bit tricky at first but I understand it now. You have a more sensible argument than mine. Thanks for the explanation. 
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