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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 11:56 am
I don't get that. Free will prevents us from being completely obedient, which is more important to Yahweh than anything else. He kills people for not being completely obedient, and defines goodness according to how much like him you are. So where did people get the idea that he wanted us to have free will at all? Especially with the whole "knowledge of good and evil" thing. He probably didn't expect us to have free will, considered it a design flaw, and has been punishing people ever since because of his screw up.
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 12:00 pm
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 12:13 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2014 at 12:13 pm by Chad32.)
I think I remember this video. Coercion and blackmail come to mind more than choice, when it's put the way the bible puts it.
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 12:50 pm
(October 2, 2014 at 6:07 pm)MistressD Wrote: I guess perhaps I address this question to theists...if God is so perfect, In neo-Scholastic philosophy, from which the perfection of God is derived, the word 'perfect' would be better translated for moderns as 'complete' and/or 'sufficient'.
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Then why does it seek obedience and worship? Completeness and sufficiency imply no need for anything more.
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.'
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 1:04 pm
(October 7, 2014 at 12:50 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: In neo-Scholastic philosophy, from which the perfection of God is derived, the word 'perfect' would be better translated for moderns as 'complete' and/or 'sufficient'.
A much better translation - however, given your argument in the other thread about significance requiring an external interpreter, your god would be neither.
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 1:19 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2014 at 1:27 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
A Perfect Carpenter doesn't build a shoddy cabinet.
(October 7, 2014 at 10:46 am)orangebox21 Wrote: Often we want God to be how we want Him to be, act how we want Him to act, so as to serve our wills. We want to create a God in our image. This is the perspective of humanism interpreting scripture, namely "It should be all about ME, all for MY benefit." Well, who are you oh man that you should.....
It's not about what we want; it's about what words mean. Perfect has a meaning: flawless.
However, your god is very clearly flawed, and his own behavior in Genesis is a tacit admission of it. I mean, he made humans, and then realized that the vast majority of them were so flawed as to be beyond even his powers to redeem, so he killed all but seven of them.
That is your god saying, "Gee, I fucked up. I'd better start over."
(October 7, 2014 at 11:10 am)Chad32 Wrote: Should a child ever question his parents? Yes. Should a creation ever question his creator, if that was possible? Yes. I know those verses are meant to be rhetorical, and the implied answer is no, but I say the obvious answer should be yes. We should always question, because that's how we gain knowledge and progress as a species.
Here's your eviction notice. You need to vacate the Garden immediately.
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 2:24 pm
(October 7, 2014 at 1:19 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Here's your eviction notice. You need to vacate the Garden immediately.
Well I am male, so I should be ok for the most part.
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 3:18 pm
(October 7, 2014 at 11:56 am)Chad32 Wrote: Free will prevents us from being completely obedient, which is more important to Yahweh than anything else. I don't think free will prevents humans from being obedient, but it gives them the option to be disobedient. The Bible implies (or perhaps outright states?) that being imperfect is what prevents humans from being obedient. A perfect human being has full control of his thoughts and actions, is the idea.
I am more intrigued by the notion that Adam and Eve, who apparently had a direct relationship with god and thus would be expected to know him pretty well, were so unimpressed by this association that they don't hesitate to cross him the moment that someone (in Eve's case, some thing) suggests it.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Gods supposed perfection
October 7, 2014 at 3:24 pm
I'm talking about completely obedient. The level of obedience that would only be possible if we didn't have free will. According to the bible, Yahweh is perfection. Unless we're exactly like him, we aren't perfect, and it's impossible for two free thinking people to be exactly like each other.
The relationship between Yahweh, Adam, and Eve is not really explained. It goes directly from Yahweh saying don't do something, to eve being incredibly easily convinced to do it anyway.
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