(November 26, 2011 at 3:52 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Here's a question for you: Why do you think anyone wants your answers? You have no demonstrable authority and are an unknown here.

Because we are obligated to give others what we know. What we give them we leave for them to decide whether is true or not. In your world you have many masters, in our world we are masters of our selves. We can show you to be masters of your own----so you will be free. As long as there are those who are masters over others they will always be a henderence to us. We are here to take them away. Consider carefully---the only thing the world could possibly need saving from are those that run it.

(November 25, 2011 at 1:46 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Btw, Tack, Eve never had a chance, god knew exactly what was going to happen did he not? Chance or choice assumes that there are at least two options, two outcomes. If god already knew the outcome, it was set. There was only one way it was going to turn out. Precognitive ability (whether possessed a by god, a human being, or some rock somewhere) annihilates choice, chance, free will, etc. If you want to keep one or the other of these things (gods precognitive abilities, or our free will) you'll have to make a choice as to which is more important to you. Were I a christian, I'd keep free will, alot of the story rides on free will, not so much on god's ability to foretell the future.

In the broadest perspective there is no free will because one being has a perspective of viewing all. This does not negate Eve's choice because God knew what would happen because Eve doesn't share God's perspective. God has free will, Eve has free will; it's a matter of perspective whether a human has an effective free will.

Free will either is or isn't. It doesn't have to do with someones perspective. Whether or not you know the magicians trick you aren't actually being offered a choice when he says "pick a card, any card". But hey, we've gone from free will to choice, and then back to free will. Even "choice" is a meaningless concept when dealing with precognitive entities. Choice, again, implies that you could have gone with a or b, but if it is already seen, it is already set, and you could have only gone with a, or the precog is not a precog.

"In the broadest perspective there is no free will because one being has a perspective of viewing all. This does not negate Eve's choice because God knew what would happen because Eve doesn't share God's perspective. God has free will, Eve has free will; it's a matter of perspective whether a human has an effective free will."

Did you really just try to "if by whiskey" me? I thought we were buddies..I rep'd you you bastard, lol. The precog/free will bit applies to god too btw. He is either a prisoner of his own precognitive ability, or he has no precognitive ability.

More precisely: "This does not negate Eves illusion of choice".

Punished for doing exactly what he knew she would, cursed for it into eternity(and all of her children) as though she could have picked any other card when he had stacked the deck to begin with. Disgusting. Even if he weren't precognitive he still should have known exactly how all of this would end, if only as the creator of a complex machine. This narrative makes god sound like a bumbling idiot, as though he were an emotional cripple who flies off the handle when people don't conform to his wishes(after creating them specifically to have wishes of their own). It's utter garbage Tack. Were I a christian, I'd insist that this was just a fanciful story, and in no way indicative of god, his mind or will, or our origins. I'd want my god to be a little bit bigger than this. Anyone who tries to sell the fruit narrative as factually accurate is doing the concept of god a great disservice, in my opinion.

I can't help wondering what henderence prevents you from buying a dictionary or using a spell checker.



I know spelling ability and linguistic competence don't align with either intelligence or wisdom, but there's bad, and then there's unintentionally funny bad. You're the latter.

Dare ye question the collective regarding spelling? Ware ye when thou doest so, for the collective hath answers unto which few men have cottoned.

Hey hey, GC figured your post made sense Tack. So I guess you can circle the wagons or start to question your ability to think clearly when the things you offer as explanations seem perfectly reasonable to the crazies.....
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canary_in_a_coal_mine

Here's something fun to mull over;

If we wanted to maintain the integrity of both free will and gods precognitive abilities we could do so "simply" by invoking multiple possible futures (within multiple concurrent realities), god being able to see each one. Since the list of possible futures would be infinite, any particular possible future in which I committed any particular sin by exercising my free will against the wishes of god would be an unimaginably small ratio of all possible futures. In this case I give even less of a shit, seeing as how only infinitely small portions of my total "possible self" are being punished or rewarded for any given thing. Due to that perspective bit you mentioned I am not privy to the state of all of my possible selves or futures, only this one. It would be like sweating bullets over whether or not a single cell in my body just died. Doesn't matter, just another drop in the bucket. But at least it works in the hypothetical. Even after all of this god still created evil, it's his card trick. Your BS explanation of god, his precognitive abilities, and free will (and by proxy the origins of "evil", however the hell you want to define that) seems tiny compared to my BS explanation of the same. I understand that it's easier to attempt to give a concept (or in this case a whole set of concepts) a favorable definition than it would be to demonstrate multiple concurrent realities or futures, and so I won't give you too much shit about how awesome my god is compared to yours. The one you offered up is easier to argue for (albeit equally unsubstantiated) as long as whoever you're arguing with will just roll over and let you play fast and loose with the definitions of difficult concepts. So, credit where it's due.

Any attempt to shift the blame for the nasty bits of creation to some woman eating fruit are pretty childish honestly. I understand that you like the guy, but when somebody pulls a dick move lets just go ahead and call them on it going forward? Rather than blaming anyone who happens to be standing near them when they do it, that is. While we're at it, are we sure it was Eve that fucked up and not Adam? The folks that wrote this narrative weren't exactly paragons of gender equality were they? I think it's more than likely that some misogynist cooked this whole thing up for no other reason than to have a good story that took a jab at the ladies while he was at it. Many birds, one stone. "Explains" all the troubles we have, why it wasn't gods fault, and exactly how women fucked it up for the rest of us. All the while being the kind of story that might just fly at the campfire after the days goat-herding. There are naked people who do nothing but chill in a garden all day oogling at each other and "seeing that it was good", maybe petting some rabbits or something. Frankly I was sold at naked people, and I bet they were too.

Here's another link that might help to explain why I find this particular line of reasoning so dissatisfying. The answer you gave is pretty much a direct lift, which is massively ironic considering the subject. The section on effectiveness helps to explain why god has apparently decided not to use this one again. People wise up quick. I think the lesson learned here, is that you have to treat any dealings with the christian god like a game of tic tac toe with a magician - the only way to win is to refuse to play, and you have to keep in mind that your opponent is a professional liar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocatio...Card_force

(I'm still wondering, btw, why you assume the language and rhetoric of someone who is talking about events that actually occurred with regards to the genesis narrative. As metaphor it's powerful, as history it's trash. Demonstrably so in fact. You do recall that within a few hundred years of being exiled from the garden major cities were claimed to have been founded, and agriculture is claimed to have been engaged in? That's a pretty rough timeline to marry yourself to. One might wonder why we don't find evidence of major cities or agriculture that dates back nearly 100,000 years. Or why we were so dismal at both by the time evidence does materialize, considering our earliest examples should have roughly 90,000 years of practice behind them.)

@Rhythm- So you postulate that his "deck stacking" is in his favor right? That he pits so many evil things towards us we have no choice but to choose evil? Is that your stance? We can go the Magicians choice way if you like. BTW, I don't take Genesis as literal.

@Apophenia- Sorry if my post wasn't up to your grammatical or spell check standards, as I'm not sure who your post was referencing.

(November 27, 2011 at 2:18 am)apophenia Wrote:


I can't help wondering what henderence prevents you from buying a dictionary or using a spell checker.



I know spelling ability and linguistic competence don't align with either intelligence or wisdom, but there's bad, and then there's unintentionally funny bad. You're the latter.

Henderence? Did you maybe mean hindrance? I don't care how people spell, but damnit, don't spell things wrong while you are complaining about how people spell.

(November 27, 2011 at 10:15 am)scatterman Wrote:

(November 27, 2011 at 2:18 am)apophenia Wrote: I can't help wondering what henderence prevents you from buying a dictionary or using a spell checker.


I know spelling ability and linguistic competence don't align with either intelligence or wisdom, but there's bad, and then there's unintentionally funny bad. You're the latter.

Henderence? Did you maybe mean hindrance? I don't care how people spell, but damnit, don't spell things wrong while you are complaining about how people spell.

I replied to him using his spelling verbatim, specifically for its comic effect. But your contribution to the farce was wholly unexpected.

That's fine. Upon what basis then were human beings cast out from the garden, or was there ever a garden? What then is sin, and why must we be washed of it? Why do we die, and are we then not fallen or cursed? How does your comment regarding Eve and god have anything to say about free will or evil if it is only a fanciful story? What are our origins (and indeed the origins of everything) if the genesis narrative is not literal, etc etc etc. I may think that the genesis narrative is garbage, but I don't see how christianity can proceed forward without it, it's the initiating moment in the prophetic cycle and without it god has no established authority, nor are we subject to all the nasty shit mentioned therein.

For the record, I'm not the one who postulates deck stacking. It's a certain bent of christian that insists in either the truth of this narrative or gods great omni-ness, not me, as an atheist. You already know I'd tell anyone who asked that the biblical narrative is bullshit start to finish.