RE: Personal revelation vs. free will
August 22, 2012 at 11:56 pm
(This post was last modified: August 23, 2012 at 12:06 am by Cyberman.)
Indeed. There always seems to be a causal chain from "mundane or even unusual yet plausible thing that happened" straight to "GodDidIt" with no obvious connection between the two. To borrow Prof Dawkins' Mount Improbable for a moment and for a use it was never intended, they've leaped straight from the base of the sheer cliff to the cliff edge in a single bound. Only comicbook superheroes are allowed to do that, and then only because they're fictional.
Either that, or as you say it's something that happened to a friend of a friend. One of my friends, who at least used to be a hobby xtian (in it for the group thing) told me in all earnestness about a supposed incident that his pastor told him had happened to her. Already we're at least two steps removed from the story as it is. Anyway, apparently this pastor was walking down a dark, forbidding street when she was about to set upon by a group of thugs. However, just as they were about to mug her or whatever embellishments were involved, one of said thugs looked up with a look of fear on his face and ran off, followed by his mates. Of course, the story needs a punchline, it can't just end there with no resolution. In this case, some passerby, who may have been a policeman (I forget which and it doesn't matter) collared one of the thugs who reported seeing some angelic-type creature protecting the pastor and that's what frightened them away.
Anyone convinced yet?
Plus, again, even if if this tallest of tales was even remotely true, wasn't the free will of the thugs to do whatever they had planned to do been taken away by direct divine intervention? How does all this, plus my original question, square with the idea of a god and related detritus that values human free will above everything else and, allegedly, refuses to intervene and thus violate that free will? Anyone else getting a headache?
Either that, or as you say it's something that happened to a friend of a friend. One of my friends, who at least used to be a hobby xtian (in it for the group thing) told me in all earnestness about a supposed incident that his pastor told him had happened to her. Already we're at least two steps removed from the story as it is. Anyway, apparently this pastor was walking down a dark, forbidding street when she was about to set upon by a group of thugs. However, just as they were about to mug her or whatever embellishments were involved, one of said thugs looked up with a look of fear on his face and ran off, followed by his mates. Of course, the story needs a punchline, it can't just end there with no resolution. In this case, some passerby, who may have been a policeman (I forget which and it doesn't matter) collared one of the thugs who reported seeing some angelic-type creature protecting the pastor and that's what frightened them away.
Anyone convinced yet?
Plus, again, even if if this tallest of tales was even remotely true, wasn't the free will of the thugs to do whatever they had planned to do been taken away by direct divine intervention? How does all this, plus my original question, square with the idea of a god and related detritus that values human free will above everything else and, allegedly, refuses to intervene and thus violate that free will? Anyone else getting a headache?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
