(June 19, 2016 at 2:52 pm)SteveII Wrote: A maximally great being would be a necessary being because it could not be contingent on another (then that would be a greater being).
You can dream up all the parodies you like but you have to answer the question of why whatever example is necessary rather than contingent.
And how much great can you imagine this being? Can it be so great that it can create a rock so heavy that it can not lift it?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
