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Originally posted by mal4prez:
I'm not debating for him, I'm in it for me. I'm learning a lot. I'm learning about evolution, and I'm learning about the arguments creationists make. As a scientist, this is a topic I may be faced with in the real world someday. I like feeling like I've got some experience with it.

And, well... I think it's fun too.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Or maybe, after backing up my statement for the umpteenth time only to be told once again that I pulled the descriptive: "psychopath" out of thin air and spite, I gave up trying to get my point across to you. Plenty of folks here have demonstrated that they understood perfectly well what I was talking about (thanks everybody, for speaking up, that means a lot to me), so I don't think the problem lies in my ability to get my point across.

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Simply put, if we grant God a psychology

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, and therefore, discernible motivations, then we should be allowed to psychoanalyse the actions and motives ascribed to Him by scripture. The actions performed by AG in the Old Testament--genocide (the flood, S&G, killing the first borns, etc.), torture (Abraham and Job), racism (chosen people), etc.--these actions (to the extent, I say, that God is a being with a psychology) would be congruent with a diagnosis of severe mental pathology (hence the term psycho-path).

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Now, you can say, "But God doesn't have a human psychology" or "His motives are beyond our understanding" and that's fine, but it also DERAILES ANY AND ALL DISCUSSION OF GOD'S PSYCHIC NATURE. Either we are allowed to judge the God of the Bible by His actions, or we are not. If the statement "God loves us" is to mean anything, then we have a right to analyse the form His love takes based on His actions and His defining qualities.

So when I say that an "all-powerful" God would be a "psychopath" it's because of what absolute power does to psychology, what a belief in the justice of absolute power does to those who live under such a regime. If you then come to me and say, "but when God performs acts which to us could be seen as malevolent in the extreme, it's not because he means us harm, it's because we cannot fathom His motives," then you're simply trying to have your cake and eat it, too.

What scares me more than anything about some Christians is that they do judge God's actions in the OT, but rather than being appalled, they find them laudable. They see justice in His genocides, and love in His condemnation. Such folk hold an ideal of Totalitarian intolerance and such folk fuel the central pathology of the present historical moment.

Beyond that, leadb, you simple didn't read what I had to say clearly and sympathetically. In your last post to me you chided me when I said that I'd had the same problem with both you and Causal.

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Originally posted by leadb:
Sadly, it's a different problem; because I'm a different person. Much of of the problem is getting the frames of reference consistent.

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This is the statement I got stuck on, the reason I decided to walk away. You're telling me that I cannot have the same problem with two different people. Nonsense. Two separate people step on my toes, I can say they both stepped on my toes. When you and Causal supply completely self-generated context and implications to what I said, based on absolutely nothing that I ACTUALLY wrote, I call that "having the same problem with both of you."

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When someone you're conversing with tells you, "You're misunderstanding me," simply telling them they're wrong, that you do understand them, does not improve matters. I presented my case for why omnipotence was not a healthy way of looking at God and you rejected it. Fine. The thing I don't appreciate is when you try simply to undermine my position without supplying any ideas of your own (the downside of playing devil's advocate, I guess).

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When you tell me, "I am attempting to prove that the following item -could- (but does not necessarily) exist: An 'all-powerful god' which is -not- 'a dangerous psychopath,'" all you're really doing is trying to undermine my position. You're playing what I would call a "philosophical game" and, yes, students of philosophy love this stuff. After all, that's what philosophers do, they define the limit of what is known and knowable. But, I submit to you that that is in no way the agenda of a Causal or an Antimason.

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Wait a second, leadb. Listen. Fundamentalists love your philosophical gambits, not because they love philosophy as you do; not because they love defining the limits of man's knowledge in the tradition of Socrates. They love the philosophic method because they can hide their most cherished lunacy under a blanket of indeterminacy.

They can go on and on and on listening to argument after argument and trump everything with their, "Yeah, but you can't prove it one way or the other!" You see? They love that part! You gotta wonder about people like that. Who gets off on indeterminacy? Who's greatest triumph is that no one can prove they're wrong?

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Well, criminals. Liars. Corrupt governments.

I mean, here I am with my psychic awareness, my shamanism, my near-death experience, and all kinds of phenomena that no one online can prove or disprove, but the fact that no one can disprove these things is not my crowning argument for their legitimacy. In fact, I don't tend to make much of an argument for their legitimacy, period. 'Cause I simply don't have to. I know what I know, and I know the limits of what I know, AND I understand perfectly well that folks who have not had similar experiences have NO REASON to believe in any of it (other than my personal credibility, such as it is).

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P.S.: Hey, everybody, can we please acknowledge that there are many reasons a person may stop posting on a thread other than their inability to admit defeat or their cowardice? Can we please just recognize that people have lives outside of RWED that (sometimes ) take precedence?

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HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Hey leadb,

I really appreciate your last post to me. I really felt like you heard what I was saying and didn't jump to conclusions. You didn't have to agree with me, but you didn't wildly misinterpret what I was saying either.

In the ensuing calm between us, let me ask you a question or two (you are, of course, under no obligation to answer unless you find the topic of interest ).

Firstly, if God does not have a psychology, what is the significance of "God's love?" Or is there any? Without psychological holism, without any recognizable similarities between the human mind and the mind of God, how are we even to talk about whether God is "good" or "evil?" Do we speak of a storm's love or an earthquake's purpose? Then why speak of God in these terms?

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For me, the central trouble with a concept of God as "All-powerful" is that it romanticizes and legitimizes "absolute power" as an ideal and is therefore at the heart of the Fundamentalist violence we see in the world. My sense is that if we humans were to emphasize God's abdication of powers, for instance; or think of God more as a unified field of light and loving awareness moving through existence, say--we might not be so close to self-annihilation as we are. But when we glamorize autocracy, celebrate hierarchy and lionize absolutism with our concept of the Most High, we plant the seeds of our destruction.

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Originally posted by leadb:
Well Rue, the English language has the indefinite pronoun being 'he'; I really hope the Creator is either sexless or at least not not overly sexed either way ;-) But if you like to envision God as 'she' I have no problem with it. Consider all those masculine references above replaced with feminine.

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I'd be able to convince you the position was offensive (which you might not care) and unsupportable.

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Well, regretably, I have to say that I'm pretty convinced that I'm going to have to bow out of this one. I've been pretty well painted into a corner here--and I'll admit that some of it is my doing. Apparently I'm now perceived as the mouthpiece of unthinking rabid theistic imperialism.

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