An act of God

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 5:54 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Jul 14, 2019 10:55 pm
Well, H., me old mucker, there are quite a few problems with the analogy, I'm afraid.
Yes, the main one being that it doesn't comply with your views on the matter.
Naw. :D I don't really care, honestly. It's not close to what or how I believe, so it doesn't really reach me. But I do think that if it is supposed to reflect somebody, it would need to be plausible...and, one would hope, incisive in some way.
Besides, I think you are assuming that I am trying to say more than I am.
Yeah, that's possible. I was just trying to understand how the analogy could be relevant, but maybe I guessed wrong. Culpa mea. But if, as you say, "It doesn't comply with [my] views," then I can't imagine how that could be, if you didn't mean to promote any particular view through it in the first place.
It was only an illustration of two different ways of thinking; two different approaches to explaining how things happen.
I get that.

But wouldn't you think that an analogy has to actually "work," in the sense that it must accurately reflect how somebody would reason in real life? I just don't know who you would ever find who reasons in the way you describe. And, as you say, it's open to the sort of misinterpretation of it you suggest I may have made...so something's not quite 'on' there, any way one looks at it.
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Harbal
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Re: An act of God

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:08 pm
But wouldn't you think that an analogy has to actually "work,"
Well I'm getting the impression that it works rather too well for your liking. If it was as ineffective as you are suggesting, I doubt you would be putting any effort into discrediting it. While it is a caricature, it isn't too far away from instances I have witnessed on this very site.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:18 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:08 pm But wouldn't you think that an analogy has to actually "work,"
Well I'm getting the impression that it works rather too well for your liking.
But you said not. You were suggesting it didn't mean that. And I'm fine with believing you.

I just couldn't figure out what it did mean, then.
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Harbal
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Re: An act of God

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:25 pm
But you said not. You were suggesting it didn't mean that. And I'm fine with believing you.

I just couldn't figure out what it did mean, then.
You seem to be trying to make something that makes sense look like nonsense. Have you ever been a churchwarden, by any chance?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:37 pm You seem to be trying to make something that makes sense look like nonsense.
No. Just trying to figure out what you were trying to say...

I had an idea, but you said it was incorrect. I believed you. So I'm not "trying to make" anything, except "making sense" of what you were aiming to say.
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Harbal
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Re: An act of God

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:45 pm So I'm not "trying to make" anything, except "making sense" of what you were aiming to say.
Don't you like stories with an air of mystery?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:13 pm Don't you like stories with an air of mystery?
Sure.

That'll do, then.
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Harbal
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Re: An act of God

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:52 pm
Sure.

That'll do, then.
I always prefer it when our discussions end amicably, IC.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:01 pm I always prefer it when our discussions end amicably, IC.
Yep. Me too.
Belinda
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Re: An act of God

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote:
"Why was there such a thing as a football, a window, a glass, a vicar, repairmen, and a coherent universe in which they could discuss causes and effects in rational manner?"
There are three hypotheses:-

1 God made order from chaos.
2. Nature made order from chaos.
3. Man made order from chaos.
Walker
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Re: An act of God

Post by Walker »

Harbal wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 5:56 pm
Walker wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:28 am
I'm certainly not anti-fenestration. No need to deprive workers of beer and good times. Besides, blaming the football, the gun, and cars may be silly but effective, but at what threat to continuing the Age of Enlightenment, as judged by the reduction of real suffering for huge swaths of folks?
I don't know what you are talking about, Walker, but it seems to have very little to do with this thread.
You know enough to say no, and that's likely all you need to know.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 11:15 pm Immanuel Can wrote:
"Why was there such a thing as a football, a window, a glass, a vicar, repairmen, and a coherent universe in which they could discuss causes and effects in rational manner?"
There are three hypotheses:-

1 God made order from chaos.
2. Nature made order from chaos.
Well, we must be careful not to imagine "nature" refers to some intelligence capable of creating a universe. If it means that, then you're back to God -- a supernatural intelligence that could plan, intend and execute a universe.

You must mean, "Randomness accidentally produced order from chaos." Except that, stated that way, it becomes much harder not to notice the implausibility of that option...so people prefer to use the more anthropomorphic term, "Nature."

A third problem: "chaos" cannot be the starting point, if by "chaos" we mean a state in which some things already existed. Those contingent elements of chaos would then also need a prior origin-explanation.

The Biblical account doesn't say "chaos," but "nothing": a creation ex nihilo, as they say.
3. Man made order from chaos.
That's really not an option. Man is manifestly a contingent being, and thus isn't even a rational candidate.
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Lacewing
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Re: An act of God

Post by Lacewing »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:01 am Well, we must be careful not to imagine "nature" refers to some intelligence capable of creating a universe. If it means that, then you're back to God -- a supernatural intelligence that could plan, intend and execute a universe.
Why do you leap to that conclusion? The concept of "God" suggests an entity separate and distinguishable from that which it creates, correct? Separateness is a model of human thinking. Why can't nature express intelligence in its own creation and evolution?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: An act of God

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lacewing wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:28 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:01 am Well, we must be careful not to imagine "nature" refers to some intelligence capable of creating a universe. If it means that, then you're back to God -- a supernatural intelligence that could plan, intend and execute a universe.
Why do you leap to that conclusion?
It's not a leap.

If you anthropomorphize "Nature," and attribute to it creative power, order, intent, preferences and directions, then you've turned it into a weird kind of "god." Nature, according to Naturalism, is impersonal, has no intentions, does not plan, direct or control. It just exists. It is not even capable of knowing or caring what comes out of it. It's just another form of random chance.
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Harbal
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Re: An act of God

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 5:43 am Nature, according to Naturalism, is impersonal, has no intentions, does not plan, direct or control. It just exists. It is not even capable of knowing or caring what comes out of it. It's just another form of random chance.
Perhaps Lacewing isn't talking about nature according to Naturalism. Maybe she has her own concept of what nature is. If so, she may well have arrived at it through her own observation and experience, rather than just thinking it is so because she read it in a thick book written by primitives hundreds of years ago.
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