Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Fundamentalist Nightmare
From: kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 23 Nov 92 05:56:50 EST
 <1992Nov22.211045.18408@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> <1992Nov23.084406.3627@lclark.edu>
Organization: Wesleyan University

In article <1992Nov23.084406.3627@lclark.edu>, snodgras@lclark.edu (Bil Snodgrass) writes:
> In article <1992Nov22.211045.18408@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov22.083116.9474@lclark.edu> snodgras@lclark.edu (Bil Snodgrass) writes:
>>>>>>>It is impossible for us, mere mortals, to have even a 
>>>>>>>minute amount of knowledge about the whole of God!
> 
>>>>>>Oh, fine then.  You don't claim to know God is good, let alone omniscient,
>>>>>>omnipotent, described-in-the-Bible, etc.
> 
>>>>>jThose are just parts of God, not his/her whole!  And it irritaites me
>>>>>that fundementalist really humanize God.  God ain't human, sonny....
>>>>>...
>>>>>It amazes me still that you really think you, a mere person, know
>>>>>all of God.....kind of trivializes God, doesn't it?
>>>>So?
>>>My point is that most of the fundie movement is composed of a group of
>>>people who worship a book.  A group of people who worship a humanbeing
>>>somewhere out there in the universe.  My contention is, that this
>>>isn't Christianity.....
>>
>>You weren't talking about fundies, you were talking about me.  You said that
>>nobody can know God at all; 
> 
> Wrong!  I said nobody can know "all of God"....Big difference, sir....

   Wrong.  You said it is impossible for us to know more than a tiny
bit of the "whole of God."  It's not the same thing.  The trouble
here is that you seem to be distinguishing between the "whole" of
God and its characteristics (omnipotence, goodness, etc.).  Your
original statement that we can't know much about the whole of God
implies that we can't know much about the parts that make up that
whole.  After all, if you know omnipotence and goodness that's
a pretty sizeable chunk of the whole.

>>when I disagreed, you immediately said that I'm
>>claiming to know everything about God.
>>
>>There's a big gap between "something" and "everything".  If I start drawing
>>conclusions from the little bits of information you do let out about God, you
>>have no business telling me I shouldn't do so because I "can't know God"; why
>>did you then say he's good, etc. in the first place?
> 
> Folks,  Fundies pride themselves in the literal interpretation of the Bible..

   What does all this have to do with fundies?

> There is a huge difference between knowing all of God, which is what
> I said, and not knowing God, which is what he thought I said.  I was talking
> about how magnificant and awsume God is.......

   Well, that may be what you meant to say, but it's not what you
said.  Go read your original quote again.  You didn't say anything
about knowing all of God, it was about not knowing much about the
whole, i.e. not knowing much of the parts of that whole.

   It's "awesome," BTW.

> This person has misread (which I find so strange for a literalist
> bookworshiper,

   Heh heh.  Are you calling Ken a literalist fundie?

> and I must take note at this point that this person has
> yet talked about the Greatness of our Lord......which is the whole
> reason for my posting.  Note the difference.  I try to discuss the 
> glory of the Lord, which is quite often missing from the discussions
> in this group, and he goes on arguing about something he misread....

   Ummm...in case you hadn't noticed, this is alt.atheism.  Talk
about the "gory (oops, glory :-) of the Lord" won't get you very
far.  

   BTW, is this "glory" another one of the little things you 
happen to know about this God about whom we can know so little?

Karl
------
"Find a great ideal, a great purpose, marry it, and raise a family."
					 --Negativland, "U2"
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc