From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: Why? (was Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Distribution: world,public
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:21:50 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.174800.9003@ra.royalroads.ca> mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>
> [...]
>
> I don't think that it's so hard for people to believe that there is a God
> out there who is loving and willing to accept them into Heaven. Truth is,
> I think people DON'T WANT to believe that there is a God.

Careful, Malcolm. A scan of the new and shiny alt.atheism FAQ on `Constructing
a Logical Argument' (an ace piece of work by mathew, IMHO) will inform you of
the meaning of the term `ad hominem', and of why impugning the motives and
intellectual honesty of your debating opponent does not constitute a decent
argument. Not to mention the fact that we've heard this one so often that
we're bored with it and wish you folks would get some new gags.

You might also have a look at my post and one from Bob Beauchaine which
address the issue of whether belief concerning matters of objective fact
is (Bob) or should be (me) a matter of wanting or not wanting to believe,
or whether it is/should be involuntary and entirely reason-driven.


> The ramifications of the existence of an omniscient being are beyond what
> most people are willing to accept.

The rest of this post, astonishingly enough, is concerned with this one
sentence and its, erm, ramifications.

Bearing in mind my recent exhortation to you to demystify and thoroughly
explore the logical structure and consequences of your various beliefs,
this talk of ramifications looks like a good start.

Trouble is, when I asked you to do this, you responded with the old `Who
can know the mind of God' or `Ours is not to reason why' stuff, as I noted.
You seem to be trying to have it both ways.

So, at the risk of repeating myself, just what are the implications of
omniscience and omnipotence for notions like want or hope on the part of
said being? IMHO these ideas are nonsense when taken together, but you seem
to pick and choose according to your intended claim of the moment.

God wants our company, and hopes that we will turn to Jesus. In the next
breath, God is omniscient, omnipotent and outside of time, despite the
apparent difficulties this creates for `want' and `hope'. When this is
pointed out, you retreat from these unpleasant "ramifications" -- which
makes your sentence quoted above look more than a little audacious --
into saying that although God *is* omniscient, omnipotent and outside of
time, you aren't, so how can you know the mind of God? But then you turn
around once more and assure us that God wants our company, and hopes that
we will turn to Jesus.

Sorry to go on about this, but I am determined to have a bloody good try
at getting you to see what the hell I'm yelling about. *Why* does he hope?
He always knew, knows and ever will know whether or not somebody did or
will `turn to Jesus' prior to their death. Omniscience and hope have to be
given new and mysterious meanings (`meaning' is hardly the right word)
to make this fly, but having done this, you can't then revert to the former,
common meanings when it suits you. Same goes for omnipotence and want as
goes for omniscience and hope. The common understandings of these words must
be mystified to the point of rendering them entirely useless as referents,
yet you welcome this mystification with open arms as though it were an
insight or explanation, when in fact it is exactly the opposite.

Do you appreciate the point I am trying to make? You have a pat answer for
any question, but your answers when taken *together* are inconsistent or
nonsensical unless infused with some nebulous mystery which strips them
of any meaning whatever. What you appear to do, IMHO, is to refuse utterly
(albeit subconsciously) to address this wider picture, since you have
satisfied yourself that having an answer ready for each *individual*
question means that the whole thing flies. Divine omniscience is the
answer to one question and divine hope is the answer to another. Both
questions fielded, no problem. But taken together, these and many other
concepts in your religion (I merely use these as examples) are dissonant
and incompatible.

The suppression of recognition of this cognitive dissonance is the Jungian
dissociation of which the more psychologically-minded (!) posters on
alt.atheism have talked, and is well covered by Stephen Doe in his posts
from which this thread took its title in the dim and distant past.

The verbosity of which I am unquestionably guilty in this post and others
is an attempt to shake something loose in that department and to bring
the dissonance to your conscious attention.

Cheers

Simon
-- 
Simon Clippingdale                simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science    Tel (+44) 203 523296
University of Warwick             FAX (+44) 203 525714
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:25149 talk.religion.misc:25296