On Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:39:48 GMT
Catawumpus <kimmerian@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> patty:
>
> > How did that comma after "ways" turn into a point?
>
> I quoted it just like you posted it, my ****-witted little
> friend.
Sorry about that, but you are partly to blame for it too because you
deleted the second of two sentences that were close linked in
my mind. This resulted in the appearance of a phantom comma.
> > It is you who is
> > falsely representing my position by altering my sentences.
>
> You're misrepresenting yourself, Patty, either because you
> can't think of any better way to reply or because you're
> genuinely too stupid to read what you wrote. I quoted you word
> for word with your punctuation.
No, it's because of your disingenuous contemptible omissions.
> > The "Maybe more, not any fewer." position was one you took
>
> Not according to you: you insist I argued "there are only
> three deviations possible for a god" which can answer the
> question of evil. But that's the very opposite of what I wrote.
Your willingness to accept more than three options is only for display,
it is empty of content. In your earlier posts you included the option,
like some politician trying to please all voters, but later on you
dropped the false pretense and showed your real intentions.
> > in an
> > earlier post before you cemented your position into a 3 way dogma
> > with
>
> You're lying again. I didn't contend there are only three
> ways to reply to the problem of evil. On the contrary, I
> plainly explained that there might be more, and I never removed
> the possibility.
>
> > another -- later -- post were you asserted 3 basic ways, power,
> > goodness or knowledge.
>
> Wrong again. I first used the phrase "three basic ways to
> answer the problem of evil" on April 19th, earlier than I
> wrote "Maybe more, not any fewer," which Google tells me was on
> May 1. You screwed up, as usual.
So where is your alibi for Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:36:30 EDT ?
Catty:
"Round about then I explained there are three basic ways to
answer the problem of evil: denying God's power, his
knowledge, or his goodness. A god who isn't all-powerful could
be fighting evil but unable to win. A god who lacks
omniscience may not know about its existence. And a god low on
goodness wouldn't mind."
> > No
>
> Oh, yes: definitely. Your claim that I don't see sarcasm
> in _Job_ is false, since I've given examples, namely the
> sarcastic questions Yahweh asks Job toward the end of the story.
>
> > isn't it pitiful enough that I as a non English speaker have to
> > teach you the difference between rhetorical questions and sarcasm?
>
> Aren't you being pitifully stupid again? I didn't contend
> rhetorical questions were identical to sarcasm. I simply
> noted the sarcasm in the rhetorical questions the Creator poses
> to Job.
>
> > The former is what God's questions are in Job.
>
> False dichotomy. Yahweh's questions to Job are rhetorical
> and sarcastic, both.
No, that can't be, because sarcasm is something that applies to
messages because of their context. It is not something that can be
detected purely by analyzing the sentences themselves.
> > No, that's rhetorical questions God asks Job.
>
> Same mistake you made above. A rhetorical question can be
> sarcastic or sincere. Examples: "If Winter comes, can
> Spring be far behind?" (Shelley) is sincere. When the Almighty
> wonders whether Job was present at the Creation, whether he
> put the stars in their places, if the sun rises at his
> command, whether he gave the horse its mane, and so forth, he's
> being highly sarcastic.
So here's where your real position towards the three ways of evil is
revealed. Instead of allowing for God to be sincere you judge him
according to your three deviations dogma. What if God was a more
advanced version of yourself that created you only as one of a
multitude of simulations because it was interested in what would have
happened if things went differently, like some historian re-enacting
classic battlefields? It isn't all that unlikely that the
computational capacity to do such things will be in reach for almost
everyone within a few decades, at least if we believe the
singularitarians. In that case you couldn't judge God any
harsher than yourself making an appointment with the
dentist next Monday.
> > The sarcasm lies in the
> > whole conclusion the reader has to make after reading _Job_ in that
> > there is no way Job's suffering can be explained or made
> > acceptable.
>
> False. The Bibical story gives a clear and understandable
> explanation of Job's suffering by showing the Creator and
> Satan tormenting him in order to see whether or not his loyalty
> to Yahweh withstands misfortune. The Creator boasts aloud
> about Job's merits; Satan replies skeptically, claiming that he
> would curse Yahweh if his life took a turn for the worse.
> Instead of defending Job, the Creator immediately puts him into
> Satan's hands. Job 1-2.
That's not difficult to explain under the proposed scenario:
Satan is the aspect of your future self that is curious. Your dogma
falls apart.
> In other words, the Book of Job shows the Creator imposing
> terrible sufferings on Job as a test of faith, contrary to
> your illiterate idea that his torments can't be explained. The
> test results are mixed: Job's loyalty to Yahweh holds up
> through the deaths of his children and his servants, as well as
> the loss of his wealth, but things change after Satan goes
> back to the Creator and gets permission to harm him in bone and
> flesh: after another week or so Job's patience finally
> expires. He doesn't curse the Creator, but he rejects his life
> in the Creation and asks what the hell is going on. Yahweh
> replies by rebuking his questioning rather than telling him the
> truth.
Of course not. You don't want to think about the dentist all the time.
What if people would start asking questions about their work, wouldn't
they quit immediately? Is it not true that they are willfully ignorant?
Maybe all God is doing is asking whether Job was there when all of this
was created because Job *was* there but he doesn't remember or doesn't
want to remember.
> > If you cut things out of context
>
> Precisely what you're doing with _Job_: you're taking the
> Almighty's claim that his actions are beyond mortal
> understanding out of its context in the story, which gives them
> a clear and comprehensible explanation: Yahweh and Satan
> torment Job in order to see whether his loyalty to the Almighty
> survives horrible suffering.
No, that is only the meme that was propagated the best among people who
were already bogged down because they lived under a repressive regime.
If we want to understand what is going on in a way that is helpful to us
we must provide the context our selves, and in this case it leads to
the conclusion that it is a sarcastic description of the fate of the
people under the rulers of their time. Maybe it survived because it
provided relief for the phantom pain of the people who lost their
freedom or part of their spirit. By turning the story into a metaphor
for reality you are doing the people of that time an injustice, and
yourself a great disservice.
> > it's no wonder my sentences do not make sense to you.
>
> Your sentences make sense to me; that's how I can tell the
> arguments you offer are nonsensical.
>
> > The problem is you are using a metaphor for reality while that
> > metaphor is made incomprehensible deliberately because that is the
> > way its meme evolved into propagating.
>
> The problem is that you can't or won't read. The Biblical
> story gives Job's sufferings a fully comprehensible
> explanation: the Creator and Satan afflict him in order to try
> his faith.
No they don't necessarily. Maybe they are trying to make him remember.
> > As such it is more like a koan, a sarcastic joke or a chain letter.
>
> You're like a fool, a moron, or an illiterate ninny, since
> your ever-so-confident claims about the Book of Job are
> contradicted by the story there, which depicts the Almighty and
> Satan torturing Mr. Job in order to see how he replies to
> misfortune: just the opposite of your claim that his suffering
> is incomprehensible.
It is incomprehensible until he remembers he is God.
P.
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