From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: A Contradiction in Terms?  [was: Reasons for enlightenment]
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 10:51:34 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

jbrown@doc.bmd.trw.com writes:
> Mathew, let's look at what you cite as being "essentially contradictory",
> shall we?
> 
> (a) God is *able* to do anything.
[...]
>     Most of you are probably familiar with this exercise in semantics.  One
>     may have the power or ability to do something, but one may not have the
>     freedom to do it.  God has the power or ability to do most things, 
>     including putting an end to murder, torture, and starvation, but He does
>     not have the *freedom* to do so without violating human self-determinatio
>     Since He decided to give humanity self-determination, to put an end to 
>     human suffering would be tantamount to repealing self-determination for
>     humanity.

The problem with God is that he's given me the wrong freedoms.

He's happy to curtail the freedoms I would really like to have.  For example,
I'd like to have the free will to be able to choose to breathe underwater. 
I'd like to have the freedom to fly without the aid of machinery.  I'd like
to have the freedom to teleport myself between locations.

God won't give me any of those freedoms.  Yet he gives me all sorts of
freedoms I don't want; the freedom to kill people, the freedom to starve to
death, the freedom to catch a fatal disease, the freedom to get hit by a car,
the freedom to die at age seventy.

What's so special about the freedoms he has given me that means he had to
give them to me?  And what's so special about the freedoms he hasn't given me
that means he isn't curtailing my free will by witholding them?

> (b) God is "good".
> 
>     Another catchy phrase, but one that bears careful scrutiny.  God certainl
>     is "good", but this implies much more than we commonly attach to the term
>     God is certainly *not* good in the sense that He is "nice" to everyone.
>     Rather, God's goodness is exemplified by His holiness and lack of sin.
>     The fact that He is Holy, without sin, and Just to an infinite degree
>     causes Him to require retribution for wrongs that self-determinate beings
>     commit.  Every wrong or injustice must be exactly recompensed by the
>     offender for this is what is "good" and what is required by His Holy
>     nature.

So because God's some perfect individual, he thinks that gives him the right
to punish us when we're not perfect.  We have to obey rules which he can
ignore because he's so perfect.  Well, I'm afraid this God fellow sounds like
a pompous self-righteous judgemental git to me.  Who elected him?

> (c) God does "nothing".
> 
>     Interesting observation, but totally wrong.  "Nothing" usually bears the
>     connotation of "nothing at all".  What you seem to mean by this, Mathew,
>     is that God does "nothing that you, in your wisdom, would do."

No, what I actually mean is that I see no evidence that God does *anything at
all*.  I could understand if maybe he held back from time to time, following
some sort of celestial Prime Directive.  But assuming he exists, the evidence
suggests that he does absolutely bugger all.  Every event I see apparently
has some cause other than divine intervention.

Now, there are some unexplained events; events with no easily explicable
cause.  Mysterious falls of fish.  Crop circles.  UFO sightings.  Maybe
that's how God spends his time?

>                                                                   However,
>     God, in His wisdom, has provided humanity with a way out of the human
>     dilemma discussed in (b) above.  God, through His love and mercy, and
>     through His desire to reconcile sinful people with His Holy nature,
>     condescended to incarnate Himself on this earth in the form of a man,
>     and being in the form of a man chose to suffer and die in our place 
>     bearing the required retribution for our sins for each of us.  Each of
>     us now has the opportunity to appropriate this pardon for ourselves by
>     freely giving up our *self*-determination and submitting ourselves to
>     His Will, allowing Him to lead us and bring order to our lives.  In this
>     way we are reconciled to Him, and we become blameless and sinless in
>     His sight.

This all sounds very good, but I can't help but notice that I have never met
a man who didn't suffer the same problems and lack of free will I and the
rest of humanity suffer -- death, disease, famine, war, inability to choose
to breathe underwater, inability to fly, and so on.

Where are these people who are so miraculously gifted?  Call me suspicious,
but I'm reluctant to risk throwing away my life on the course of action you
suggest unless I'm going to see some evidence that it's actually going to
help matters.  There are a lot of other self-improvement schemes out there
where I can see evidence that something's happening; religious and secular
ones.


mathew
-- 
Down, boy!  There's a good dogma.