God reveals himself through what he has made says Pope's astronomer

[Martin Harran]

The challenges faced by modern science are “wonderful spurs to asking
theological questions” the Pope’s astronomer, Bro Guy Consolmagno,
said in Maynooth this week.

Addressing students and academics at St Patrick’s College, the
director of the Vatican Observatory said science had impacted his
experience of God in the same way that an artist experiences God by
doing art and a poet experiences God by writing poetry.

“It is where I find God,” the American Jesuit said. “You don’t base
your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your
theology,” he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
and science.

[...]

Bro Guy Consolmagno, whose talk was titled: “The things they ask the
Pope’s Astronomer”, told the packed lecture hall: “My religion tells
me God made the universe. My science tells me how he did.”

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/16084/god-reveals-himself-through-what-he-has-made-says-pope-s-astronomer

[*Hemidactylus*]

George Coyne seemed pretty cool. I saw him on Maher’s Religulous. I don’t
recall if he had some dustup with or under Benedict.

[Kalkidas]

On 11/9/2022 5:11 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>
> The challenges faced by modern science are “wonderful spurs to asking
> theological questions” the Pope’s astronomer, Bro Guy Consolmagno,
> said in Maynooth this week.
>
> Addressing students and academics at St Patrick’s College, the
> director of the Vatican Observatory said science had impacted his
> experience of God in the same way that an artist experiences God by
> doing art and a poet experiences God by writing poetry.
>
> “It is where I find God,” the American Jesuit said. “You don’t base
> your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your
> theology,” he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
> and science.
>
> [...]
>
> Bro Guy Consolmagno, whose talk was titled: “The things they ask the
> Pope’s Astronomer”, told the packed lecture hall: “My religion tells
> me God made the universe. My science tells me how he did.”

I would dispute the claim that science has discovered "how" God created
the universe.

If it were true, the scientists could prove it by creating a universe
comparable to the one God created.


>
> https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/16084/god-reveals-himself-through-what-he-has-made-says-pope-s-astronomer
>

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 08:11:58 -0700, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub>:

That's one of the more egregious errors of logic I've seen
this week.
>
>>
>> https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/16084/god-reveals-himself-through-what-he-has-made-says-pope-s-astronomer
>>
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[jillery]

I know how the first hydrogen bomb was made, but I still can't make
one.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[Zen Cycle]

Watt nomination?

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, 9 November 2022 at 12:15:07 UTC, martin...@gmail.com wrote:
> The challenges faced by modern science are “wonderful spurs to asking
> theological questions” the Pope’s astronomer, Bro Guy Consolmagno,
> said in Maynooth this week.

You don't expect British Roman Catholic publication
"The Tablet" to get this wrong, and I haven't checked
other articles on the site, but as far as I can see,
Brother Consolmagno isn't usually referred to elsewhere
as "Bro Guy".

[Zen Cycle]

My guess is that it's a sloppy abbreviation for Brother. The Vatican lists him as Br. Guy J. Consolmagno
https://www.vaticanobservatory.va/en/who-are-we/staff/br-guy-j-consolmagno-s-j

I could see him being casually referred to as "Brother Guy"

Of course, given the historical omerta of the catholic church, I could be wrong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bro_Code

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 11:06:05 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Zen Cycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com>:

Probably, but it's up to you; I won't bother.

[Glenn]

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Bro+guy+Consolmagno%22&client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=MkpsY73bO53LkPIP0pq3qA4&ved=0ahUKEwi9vMH5saL7AhWdJUQIHVLNDeUQ4dUDCA8&uact=5&oq=%22Bro+guy+Consolmagno%22&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQAzIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKsCOggIABCiBBCwAzoICAAQCBAeEAo6BQgAEKIEOgcIABAeEKIESgQIQRgBSgQIRhgAUNMNWNKwAWCmsgFoBHAAeACAAZEBiAHpCpIBBDAuMTCYAQCgAQHIAQLAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 09 Nov 2022 14:00:26 +0000, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>Martin Harran <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>

>> The challenges faced by modern science are ?wonderful spurs to asking
>> theological questions? the Pope?s astronomer, Bro Guy Consolmagno,

>> said in Maynooth this week.
>>

>> Addressing students and academics at St Patrick?s College, the

>> director of the Vatican Observatory said science had impacted his
>> experience of God in the same way that an artist experiences God by
>> doing art and a poet experiences God by writing poetry.
>>

>> ?It is where I find God,? the American Jesuit said. ?You don?t base

>> your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your

>> theology,? he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
>> and science.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Bro Guy Consolmagno, whose talk was titled: ?The things they ask the
>> Pope?s Astronomer?, told the packed lecture hall: ?My religion tells
>> me God made the universe. My science tells me how he did.?

>>
>> https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/16084/god-reveals-himself-through-what-he-has-made-says-pope-s-astronomer
>>
>>
>George Coyne seemed pretty cool. I saw him on Maher’s Religulous. I don’t
>recall if he had some dustup with or under Benedict.

Naw, he asked Pope Benedict to replace him and the usual culprits like
Evolution News tried to make out it was because of his anti-ID
statements, ignoring the fact that he was 73.

He was away on vacation when the replacement was announced and was
taken aback at the reaction when he returned.

https://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20060912185519/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0605165.htm

https://bit.ly/3A3RKXG

<quote>
Upon his return from vacation, Father Coyne responded to queries from
CNS and others with a written statement Sept. 8 explaining that he had
for several years been requesting a replacement as head of the
observatory.

"For some years I have, upon realizing that a scientific research
institute such as ours requires a continuous input of new initiatives,
suggested to Jesuit superiors that they search for a new director of
this work," Father Coyne wrote. "In May of this year upon my repeated
request, they finally agreed to begin a search for a new director,
resulting, rather rapidly to my delight, in the appointment of Jose
Funes.

"This is truly a wonderful and blessed choice," he said. "Jose is a
well-established international scholar, an excellent teacher and
lecturer, very devoted to the intellectual life of the church and he
will have new ideas and initiatives."

Father Funes, 43, an Argentine, has been on the staff of the
observatory since 2000.

Father Coyne, who will remain president of the Vatican Observatory
Foundation, said he only learned about the speculation surrounding the
transition once he returned from vacation.

Media reports that he was dismissed by the pope are "simply not true,"
his note to CNS said.

"The work of the Vatican Observatory under my directorship has been
enthusiastically supported by John Paul I, if for ever so short a
reign, by John Paul II, in many marvelous ways, and now by Pope
Benedict XVI," he said. "Pope Benedict, to my mind, has renewed his
enthusiastic support for the observatory's work by the appointment of
Father Jose Funes and I am grateful to Pope Benedict for his enduring
and loving care for this work of the church."
</quote>

Undoubtedly there are those who will convince themselves that
Evolution News got it right and Father Coyne is really just a
bare-faced lying atheist :)

[Martin Harran]

I know how lots of things work but am unable to make them myself. Does
that mean that they can't work the way I think they do?


>
>
>>
>> https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/16084/god-reveals-himself-through-what-he-has-made-says-pope-s-astronomer
>>

[Zen Cycle]

On Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 7:00:08 AM UTC-5, martin...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Undoubtedly there are those who will convince themselves that
> Evolution News got it right and Father Coyne is really just a
> bare-faced lying atheist :)

Undoubtedly those that operate with their own definition of 'atheist' and refuse to admit what they think it means.

[Kalkidas]

Do you really know how they were made? If you do then you should be able
to make them. If you can't then maybe you don't really know....

The argument seems sound to me. Especially when applied to God, who is
so many orders of magnitude more intelligent than any scientist.

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:55:56 -0700, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub>:

Just a hint: Doubling down on a logical error isn't
generally a very good idea. Unless, of course, you want to
be viewed as not very bright.

>
> If you can't then maybe you don't really know....
>
>The argument seems sound to me. Especially when applied to God, who is
>so many orders of magnitude more intelligent than any scientist.

[Mark Isaak]

Or maybe he just doesn't have a drop forge in his closet.

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

[jillery]

Or more likely, he just doesn't have the tools and materials.

>The argument seems sound to me. Especially when applied to God, who is
>so many orders of magnitude more intelligent than any scientist.

Since you say God is more intelligent than scientists, that would
explain why scientists can't build universes, IOW Goddidit.

[Martin Harran]

Our own arguments tend to seem sound to ourselves even when they are
obviously unsound to other people.

.

>Especially when applied to God, who is
>so many orders of magnitude more intelligent than any scientist.

No argument there but not sure how it contributes to your argument
about "how" he did things..

[Kalkidas]

Because he doesn't know how to make a drop forge. And even if he knows
how to make one, he needs to know how to procure the needed ingredients,
and so on and so on and etc....

Which is my point about the state of scientific knowledge of "how" God
made the universe. Science knows no more than the Bible about that subject.

[Kalkidas]

Maybe you're reading too much into my argument. Bro. Guy says that his
"science" tells him "how" God made the universe. I say that that
statement is hyperbole on steroids to the millionth power. Can you show
me any scientific papers that address the issue of "how" God created the
universe? I've never seen one. So where is Bro. Guy's "science"? You'd
think if there really is "science" that shows "how" God created the
universe, the Vatican would be publishing that "science" like crazy!

[Mark Isaak]

I have seen papers on how to tie a tie that do not give every detail
about how to tie a tie. In fact, *every* paper, book, blog, and video
about how to do anything fails, by your standard of "how to", to explain
how to do what they address. Not a single "how to tie a tie" source,
for example, goes into the details of fiber cultivation, weaving, and
fashion design to explain where the collar comes from that the tie goes
under (not to mention the tie itself). And yet the "how do" documents
and videos get made and used and appreciated as "how to" documents.

I submit that you are the one reading too much into things. Science
unquestionably tells big parts of how to make a universe. That it
doesn't tell all of it does not invalidate Br. Guy's statement.

[Martin Harran]

No need for the Vatican to do that, science does a more than adequate
job of publication.

Let's just take one part of creation. Science has taught us that
everything we see around us is made of atoms. [1]. Do you reject
atomic theory or do you not consider atoms part of how God created the
universe?


[1] Atoms can, of course, be broken down into constituent parts but
that doesn't invalidate the point I am making - on the contrary, it
takes us even deeper into science telling us *how* God made the
universe.

[Kalkidas]

What you call "big parts" I call "next to nothing".

[Kalkidas]

"How God made the universe" should start with step 1. Without step 1,
there is no certainty of step 2. And the uncertainty increases with
every later step.

I have never seen a scientific paper that attempts to name step 1. In
fact, I have never seen a mainstream scientific paper that even
acknowledges the existence of God! they all try and figure out how the
universe could have come into existence by assumed-to-exist impersonal
forces acting on an assumed-to-exist "something" according to
assumed-to-exist mathematical rules. God is nowhere to be found in this
kind of "science", not even as an assumed-to-exist person.

Saying that science, now or in the future, tells us how God made the
universe is supreme arrogance.

[Zen Cycle]

More eggplants....

[peter2...@gmail.com]

I've never seen you argue so persistently before, Kalkidas.
You took a wrong turn early in the piece, but are finally heading
in the right direction.

On Friday, November 11, 2022 at 2:25:09 PM UTC-5, Kalkidas wrote:

> On 11/11/2022 11:27 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 05:26:17 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> >
> >> On 11/10/2022 11:48 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:55:56 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 11/10/2022 5:02 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>>>> On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 08:11:58 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On 11/9/2022 5:11 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> The challenges faced by modern science are “wonderful spurs to asking
> >>>>>>> theological questions” the Pope’s astronomer, Bro Guy Consolmagno,
> >>>>>>> said in Maynooth this week.

> >>>>>>> Addressing students and academics at St Patrick’s College, the
> >>>>>>> director of the Vatican Observatory said science had impacted his
> >>>>>>> experience of God in the same way that an artist experiences God by
> >>>>>>> doing art and a poet experiences God by writing poetry.

This is a subjective statement, and is not conducive to theological questions,
only religious ones.

> >>>>>>> “It is where I find God,” the American Jesuit said. “You don’t base
> >>>>>>> your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your
> >>>>>>> theology,” he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
> >>>>>>> and science.

Theology can also challenge science, by noting that the extreme sensitivity of the
basic physical constants necessary for life as we know it cries out for an explanation.

I've made a strong case that the only tenable hypotheses are that an immensely
powerful being designed our universe, and that there is a vast multiverse of which
our own universe is only one of an unimaginably large number of universes within this multiverse.

Ron Okimoto utterly loathes this kind of argument, because he wants theists to base
their faith in God on subjective statements like the one Brother Consolmagno
made. I have long suspected that this is because he knows that theists will inevitably
lose arguments with atheists with their hands tied behind their backs in this way,
and is delighted with that scenario.

> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> [...]
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Bro Guy Consolmagno, whose talk was titled: “The things they ask the
> >>>>>>> Pope’s Astronomer”, told the packed lecture hall: “My religion tells
> >>>>>>> me God made the universe. My science tells me how he did.”
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I would dispute the claim that science has discovered "how" God created
> >>>>>> the universe.

Of course, it has done nothing of the sort. But now you went astray:

> >>>>>> If it were true, the scientists could prove it by creating a universe
> >>>>>> comparable to the one God created.

Scientists lack the tools for that, just as Australopithecines
lacked the tools for building a Saturn V rocket, or any device
capable of landing people on the moon and bringing them safe and sound back to earth.


<snip to get to the point where you headed back in the right direction:>

> >> Maybe you're reading too much into my argument. Bro. Guy says that his
> >> "science" tells him "how" God made the universe. I say that that
> >> statement is hyperbole on steroids to the millionth power.

Absolutely right!

>>>Can you show
> >> me any scientific papers that address the issue of "how" God created the
> >> universe? I've never seen one. So where is Bro. Guy's "science"? You'd
> >> think if there really is "science" that shows "how" God created the
> >> universe, the Vatican would be publishing that "science" like crazy!
> >>
> >
> > No need for the Vatican to do that, science does a more than adequate
> > job of publication.

Martin went astray here.

> > Let's just take one part of creation. Science has taught us that
> > everything we see around us is made of atoms. [1]. Do you reject
> > atomic theory or do you not consider atoms part of how God created the
> > universe?

Atomic theory is part of the "what," not the "how" of creation.

> >
> > [1] Atoms can, of course, be broken down into constituent parts but
> > that doesn't invalidate the point I am making - on the contrary, it
> > takes us even deeper into science telling us *how* God made the
> > universe.

What it *does* do is to tell us some basic facts about the blueprint
a designer of our universe would have used.

And what a blueprint! For over a century the fact that all electrons are exactly alike,
all protons are exactly alike, and all neutrons are exactly alike, were three of the
fundamental mysteries of our universe. The more natural guess is that no two
electrons, etc. are exactly alike, just as no two snowflakes are exactly alike.

But that would make living things as sophisticated as ourselves impossible.
Life needs to be able to reproduce, and to undergo eons of evolution with
just small differences from one generation to the next to get to intelligent species.

> "How God made the universe" should start with step 1. Without step 1,
> there is no certainty of step 2. And the uncertainty increases with
> every later step.
>
> I have never seen a scientific paper that attempts to name step 1. In
> fact, I have never seen a mainstream scientific paper that even
> acknowledges the existence of God!

Or, more relevantly, the huge dilemma of "stupendous multiverse, or God".
However, there are mainstream *books* which do address this conundrum.
Two that I recommend are the book by the British Astronomer Royal,
Martin Rees: _Just_Six_Numbers_, and then the more detailed and far ranging book by
world class physicist Paul Davies, _The Goldilocks Enigma_.
Both of them take the possibility of a creator of our universe
more seriously than most of the talk.origins regulars.

> they all try and figure out how the
> universe could have come into existence by assumed-to-exist impersonal
> forces acting on an assumed-to-exist "something" according to
> assumed-to-exist mathematical rules. God is nowhere to be found in this
> kind of "science", not even as an assumed-to-exist person.
>
> Saying that science, now or in the future, tells us how God made the
> universe is supreme arrogance.

Science *per se* doesn't do that, but theistic scientists can take off
from that starting point. I have a book by one of them, Stephen M. Barr [1], also a world
class physicist, which does a fairly good job of harmonizing religion and physics:
_Modern_Physics_and_Ancient_Faith_, University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0268021988.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Barr


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Robert Carnegie]

Versus https://www.google.com/search?q=Consolmagno+brother

[Kalkidas]

But did I really go astray? God is "triple-O", omniscient, omnipotent,
and omnipresent (or omnibenevolent). He is completely independent of
anything outside Himself. Scientists neither possess nor can comprehend
those attributes. And that is why they can not possibly know how God
created the universe. If they did know how, they would be God
themselves, and could indeed create a universe comparable to His.

So I stick to my statement.
You'd have to be God to really know how God does things.
"The God is in the details".
Best to just surrender to Him.

[Martin Harran]

So you have a problem with people working backwards to a solution.

>
>I have never seen a scientific paper that attempts to name step 1.

I've seen plenty suggesting how it *might* have started but nothing
yet conclusive. Sounds like you belong to the school of thought that
says that if you haven't worked out everything, you've worked out
nothing.

>In
>fact, I have never seen a mainstream scientific paper that even
>acknowledges the existence of God! they all try and figure out how the
>universe could have come into existence by assumed-to-exist impersonal
>forces acting on an assumed-to-exist "something" according to
>assumed-to-exist mathematical rules. God is nowhere to be found in this
>kind of "science", not even as an assumed-to-exist person.

God is not part of science so science has nothing to say either way
about the existence of God. What it can do is give us explanations of
*how* things came to be.

>
>Saying that science, now or in the future, tells us how God made the
>universe is supreme arrogance.

God made Man in his image, a big part of which is intelligence, reason
and the ability to know God. In my mind, it seems supreme arrogance to
put limits on those God-given gifts.

[Martin Harran]

So, they left out full stop, big deal.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:09:09 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I've never seen you argue so persistently before, Kalkidas.
>You took a wrong turn early in the piece, but are finally heading
>in the right direction.
>
>On Friday, November 11, 2022 at 2:25:09 PM UTC-5, Kalkidas wrote:
>> On 11/11/2022 11:27 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> > On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 05:26:17 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 11/10/2022 11:48 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:55:56 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> On 11/10/2022 5:02 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >>>>> On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 08:11:58 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>> On 11/9/2022 5:11 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> The challenges faced by modern science are “wonderful spurs to asking
>> >>>>>>> theological questions” the Pope’s astronomer, Bro Guy Consolmagno,
>> >>>>>>> said in Maynooth this week.
>
>> >>>>>>> Addressing students and academics at St Patrick’s College, the
>> >>>>>>> director of the Vatican Observatory said science had impacted his
>> >>>>>>> experience of God in the same way that an artist experiences God by
>> >>>>>>> doing art and a poet experiences God by writing poetry.
>
>This is a subjective statement, and is not conducive to theological questions,
>only religious ones.

Care to distingusih between what you mean by religious questions as
opposed to theological ones?

>
>
>> >>>>>>> “It is where I find God,” the American Jesuit said. “You don’t base
>> >>>>>>> your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your
>> >>>>>>> theology,” he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
>> >>>>>>> and science.
>
>Theology can also challenge science, by noting that the extreme sensitivity of the
>basic physical constants necessary for life as we know it cries out for an explanation.

The anthropic argument is getting rather worn out at this stage.

So God lets us see his blueprint but he doesn't allow us to understand
how he used it. Care to explain why?

[Kalkidas]

My whole point is that God is a different kind of being from us. We are
facsimiles of God, but we are not His equal. We are dependent, God is
independent. We are totally controlled by powers greater than us. God is
not. And that makes all the difference when we presume to understand
something that only God can do.

We just don't appreciate how great God is. He can't be figured out. But
if we humble ourselves and surrender to Him, He will give us all the
knowledge we need to fulfill His plans. We won't have to try and figure
it out.

[Martin Harran]

Yet you insist on trying to circumscribe how much knowledge he can
give us.

[Kalkidas]

I don't know where you're getting that idea from. There's a difference
between what God can do and what God does do. And He certainly hasn't
given us the information of how He made the universe, except in summary
form with zero detail, as in statements like "let there be light, and
there was light". Modern science has not improved on that in the
slightest. Modern science has no idea how God can speak light into
existence.

I'm not circumscribing anything. I'm just being honest about the
weakness of the claim that modern science knows anything substantial
about how God made the universe.

[Martin Harran]

You just have, above, again.

You are right that There's a difference between what God can do and
what God does do but you are taking it upon yourself to decide what
God does, you are essentially claiming that he does not allow us to
understand how he created the universe.

P.S. You never replied to my comment about us figuring out atomic
theory - do you not consider atoms to be part of how God made things?

[jillery]

As you say, the Bible provides almost no evidence for how God made the
universe. However, if God created the universe, he left behind an
abundance of evidence in the stars, and in the rocks made from the
ashes of those stars. So, even though you declare your honesty, the
fact is modern science knows a fair amount about how God made the
universe.

[Glenn]

One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means, as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book. Apparently you know what "God" is. Is that from personal experience?

[Glenn]

Quantify "fair amount" of "how".

[Zen Cycle]

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:50:12 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
>
> One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means

Just because you don't doesn't mean no one else does

> as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book.

Extremely arrogant assumption on your part.

> Apparently you know what "God" is. Is that from personal experience?

I'm not going to speak to Martins interpretation of what god is, but everyone has their own interpretation, based on their own personal experience. Were you brought up in some perversion of faith that described an objective absolute definition?

[Bill]

The problem is not a lack of evidence but rather how to interpret it.
Everything in existence is evidence pointing to everything else in
existence. What is lacking is some consistent understanding that we can all
agree on.

Bill

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 10:00:10 AM UTC-5, Kalkidas wrote:
> On 11/11/2022 5:09 PM, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I've never seen you argue so persistently before, Kalkidas.
> > You took a wrong turn early in the piece, but are finally heading
> > in the right direction.
> >
> > On Friday, November 11, 2022 at 2:25:09 PM UTC-5, Kalkidas wrote:
> >> On 11/11/2022 11:27 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>> On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 05:26:17 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 11/10/2022 11:48 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:55:56 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On 11/10/2022 5:02 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Wed, 9 Nov 2022 08:11:58 -0700, Kalkidas <e...@joes.pub> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On 11/9/2022 5:11 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Bro Guy Consolmagno, whose talk was titled: “The things they ask the
> >>>>>>>>> Pope’s Astronomer”, told the packed lecture hall: “My religion tells
> >>>>>>>>> me God made the universe. My science tells me how he did.”
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I would dispute the claim that science has discovered "how" God created
> >>>>>>>> the universe.
> >
> > Of course, it has done nothing of the sort. But now you went astray:
> >
> >>>>>>>> If it were true, the scientists could prove it by creating a universe
> >>>>>>>> comparable to the one God created.
> >
> > Scientists lack the tools for that, just as Australopithecines
> > lacked the tools for building a Saturn V rocket, or any device
> > capable of landing people on the moon and bringing them safe and sound back to earth.

That was a very modest analogy. What you envision is scientists being able to get outside
our universe to build another one. No amount of knowledge of how to do the building, once outside,
will take them past that impossible first step.

> >
> > <snip to get to the point where you headed back in the right direction:>


> But did I really go astray? God is "triple-O", omniscient, omnipotent,
> and omnipresent (or omnibenevolent).

Atheists love the definition with "omnibenevolent". It makes their task so much easier:

"If God is omnipotent, He could rid the world of suffering. But there is an enormous
amount of suffering, so He isn't ridding it; and this rules out "omnibenevolent."

"Therefore, God does not exist."

Thomas Aquinas grappled with this problem in _Summa_Theologica_. This is near the beginning,
in Question II (On the Existence of God), Article 3.
The best he could come up with is Augustine's praise of "the infinite goodness of God, that He
should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good."

However, this makes the "omni" in front of "benevolent" at best problematic. The atheists
have had something like two and a half centuries to polish their side of this subsidiary argument.


And so, I take my stand on a much less vulnerable ground:
I define God as the designer of our physical universe, giving the atheists a much
smaller and, therefore, a more difficult target at which to aim. Of course, the main
bone of contention is whether even such a God exists. And I am agnostic about that.

> He is completely independent of
> anything outside Himself. Scientists neither possess nor can comprehend
> those attributes. And that is why they can not possibly know how God
> created the universe. If they did know how, they would be God
> themselves, and could indeed create a universe comparable to His.

This is a drastic conflation of omniscience and omnipotence.

> So I stick to my statement.
> You'd have to be God to really know how God does things.
> "The God is in the details".
> Best to just surrender to Him.

Ah, but we'd have to know more about God, even as you envision Him,
in order to have a good idea what form the "surrender" should take.
The Pharisees thought they knew the way by scrupulously following
the rules of the Torah, but Jesus was very strong in his condemnation
of letting things go at that. Ascetics of many religions think they have found it,
but have they?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 3:00:12 PM UTC-5, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:50:12 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
> >
> > One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means

> Just because you don't doesn't mean no one else does

That retort settles nothing. I'll wait until Martin shows that he does understand -- if he can.

> > as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book.

> Extremely arrogant assumption on your part.

Since books differ greatly on the God they talk about, you have your work
cut out to justify this retort.

Saying "lots of people here think Glenn is arrogant" would be fallacious.
Can you see that?

> > Apparently you know what "God" is. Is that from personal experience?


> I'm not going to speak to Martins interpretation of what god is, but everyone has their own interpretation, based on their own personal experience.

Your use of "god" in lower case, without the qualifier "a" in front of "god," suggests
that you are completely out of your depth here.

As for "personal experience": my 60 years of personal experience in grappling with religious
and theological issues, starting with the blind faith in the God I was taught about in Catholic schools,
and going through one intellectual crisis after another, refuting one shallow book author after another,
and also going through a number of emotional "great awakenings,"
is far from adequate to form a good interpretation.

> Were you brought up in some perversion of faith that described an objective absolute definition?

Turn it around: were YOU brought up in a "faith" that "Man makes God in his own image, and
one image is just as good as every other, because man is the measure of all things."?


By the way, Kalkidas seems to have been brought up in what you call a "perversion of faith,"
but I wouldn't call it that. See how respectful I am of him even while strongly disagreeing with
some of what he says.


Peter Nyikos

[Zen Cycle]

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 4:35:13 PM UTC-5, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 3:00:12 PM UTC-5, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:50:12 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
> > >
> > > One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means
>
> > Just because you don't doesn't mean no one else does
> That retort settles nothing. I'll wait until Martin shows that he does understand -- if he can.

It wasn't intended to settle anything, except to point out glens arrogant animosity towards Martin.

> > > as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book.
>
> > Extremely arrogant assumption on your part.
> Since books differ greatly on the God they talk about, you have your work
> cut out to justify this retort.

That's the point, stupid. It's arrogant for glen to build the strawman "as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book. " when he has no fucking clue how Martin came to any conclusions, and what resources he used to make them. Can you see that?

>
> Saying "lots of people here think Glenn is arrogant" would be fallacious.
> Can you see that?

Attempt at strawman duly noted and summarily dismissed.

> > > Apparently you know what "God" is. Is that from personal experience?
>
>
> > I'm not going to speak to Martins interpretation of what god is, but everyone has their own interpretation, based on their own personal experience.
> Your use of "god" in lower case, without the qualifier "a" in front of "god," suggests
> that you are completely out of your depth here.

Or, It suggests you're clueless to the fact that my conclusions regarding the god entity don't consider the entity to be worthy of a formal reference. IOW - you're diving way deeper than you're qualified to dive. Stick to snorkeling, skippy.

>
> As for "personal experience":
<snipped irrelevant boring bullshit>

> is far from adequate to form a good interpretation.

TL, DR, DK

> > Were you brought up in some perversion of faith that described an objective absolute definition?
> Turn it around: were YOU brought up in a "faith" that "Man makes God in his own image, and
> one image is just as good as every other, because man is the measure of all things."?

nope.

>
>
> By the way, Kalkidas seems to have been brought up in what you call a "perversion of faith,"
> but I wouldn't call it that.

It's the Kalks of the world that drove me away from structured religions to begin with. It's not up to him to tell me my personal interpretations of the god entity are right or wrong.

> See how respectful I am of him even while strongly disagreeing with
> some of what he says.

Goody for you. Why don't you stick to your mutual masturbation session with Kalk then. If I want your opinion on anything you'll be the first to know. Please, hold your breath.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

There is no hard and fast boundary, but theological questions are basically about objective reality
(of course, answers may be lacking or erroneous) that does not depend on one's religious experiences.
Religious questions have a subjective dimension, and typically have answers that are
hard to communicate, such as the "experience of God" that Bro Guy is trying to communicate.

> >> >>>>>>> “It is where I find God,” the American Jesuit said. “You don’t base
> >> >>>>>>> your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your
> >> >>>>>>> theology,” he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
> >> >>>>>>> and science.
> >
> >Theology can also challenge science, by noting that the extreme sensitivity of the
> >basic physical constants necessary for life as we know it cries out for an explanation.


> The anthropic argument is getting rather worn out at this stage.

The anthropic argument is off in another dimension, and does not
attempt to assess just how tremendously lucky we are that ANYONE,
in whatever universe one exists in, is able to comprehend that universe
to the extent that we comprehend ours.

The extreme sensitivity of those constants, which has been found by rigorous physical science,
is what give us some appreciation of the staggering odds against any intelligent beings
existing at all, in any given universe. As I told Kalkidas:

> >I've made a strong case that the only tenable hypotheses are that an immensely
> >powerful being designed our universe, and that there is a vast multiverse of which
> >our own universe is only one of an unimaginably large number of universes within this multiverse.

See above for a very sketchy synopsis. I gave Kalkidas three books that help to
understand the issues and odds involved, in my first reply to him.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

I overlooked something you wrote further down when I did
my first reply to to this post of yours, Martin.

On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 11:50:11 AM UTC-5, martin...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:09:09 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >On Friday, November 11, 2022 at 2:25:09 PM UTC-5, Kalkidas wrote:
> >> On 11/11/2022 11:27 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

> >> > Let's just take one part of creation. Science has taught us that
> >> > everything we see around us is made of atoms. [1]. Do you reject
> >> > atomic theory or do you not consider atoms part of how God created the
> >> > universe?
> >
> >Atomic theory is part of the "what," not the "how" of creation.
> >
> >> >
> >> > [1] Atoms can, of course, be broken down into constituent parts but
> >> > that doesn't invalidate the point I am making - on the contrary, it
> >> > takes us even deeper into science telling us *how* God made the
> >> > universe.
> >
> >What it *does* do is to tell us some basic facts about the blueprint
> >a designer of our universe would have used.

> So God lets us see his blueprint but he doesn't allow us to understand
> how he used it. Care to explain why?

A blueprint is just that: a plan with no bricks, or boards, or window glass...
accompanying it. How God produced the materials, in the form of subatomic
particles, is something we might never understand. But we can marvel
at the combination of the two: the blueprint and the unknown manner of production.

As I next wrote:

> >And what a blueprint! For over a century the fact that all electrons are exactly alike,
> >all protons are exactly alike, and all neutrons are exactly alike, were three of the
> >fundamental mysteries of our universe. The more natural guess is that no two
> >electrons, etc. are exactly alike, just as no two snowflakes are exactly alike.
> >
> >But that would make living things as sophisticated as ourselves impossible.
> >Life needs to be able to reproduce, and to undergo eons of evolution with
> >just small differences from one generation to the next to get to intelligent species.

I might add that there seems to be no intrinsic reason why protons should be
almost 2,000 times as massive as electrons. That is, until we realize that mass
determines inertia, so that the nucleus of an atom does not appreciably move
in relation to neighboring atoms as the electron does. And that makes
solids, and not just plasma, possible. Intelligent beings made of plasma are
the stuff of speculative science fiction, nothing more.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Kalkidas]

No, I'm claiming that modern science does not allow us to understand how
He created the universe. If it did, you or someone else would have given
the scientific explanation. No one has.

>
> P.S. You never replied to my comment about us figuring out atomic
> theory - do you not consider atoms to be part of how God made things?

Peter already addressed that. Atoms are a "what" not a "how". "How"
means "by what means".

Modern science is no more advanced than the Bible in terms of explaining
*how* -- i.e. by what means -- God created the universe. Both are at the
level of "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". There
is an enormous explanation gap between "God created" and "the heaven and
the earth", and neither science nor religion has filled the gap.

So to wrap up this conversation, in the total absence of any scientific
explanation, I am holding to my original objection: Bro. Guy's statement
is an error of wishful thinking. Modern science has nothing whatever to
say about *how* -- i.e. by what means -- God created the universe.

I'm glad this thread has remained mostly civil. That's amazing
considering it's talk.origins.

I look forward to our next wrangling.

Pax Christi vobiscum.
Benedicite...

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2022 10:49:45 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

!) How arrogant of you to presume you know the basis of my thinking.

2) How hypocritical of you to attack me for drawing from a book that
is so beloved of your mentors in Evolution News and from which book
comes the quote that you gave to start the 'Futile' thread.

3) How pointless of you to ask me how I know God when you are
convinced I don't even believe in him.

That's 3 strikes in one post, an abysmal effort even by your mediocre
standards

[Martin Harran]

You said earlier that "Scientists neither possess nor can comprehend
those attributes. And that is why they can not possibly know how God
created the universe. "

That is denying God's ability to let us understand how he created the
universe.

>If it did, you or someone else would have given
>the scientific explanation. No one has.

Science has not worked out all the details but it has given a lot of
insight into the overall picture of how the universe came into
existence and a lot of detail on how it evolved. Your not accepting
that does not invalidate it.

>
>>
>> P.S. You never replied to my comment about us figuring out atomic
>> theory - do you not consider atoms to be part of how God made things?
>
>Peter already addressed that. Atoms are a "what" not a "how". "How"
>means "by what means".

Sorry, Peter trying to play a semantic game doesn't cut it.

>
>Modern science is no more advanced than the Bible in terms of explaining
>*how* -- i.e. by what means -- God created the universe. Both are at the
>level of "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". There
>is an enormous explanation gap between "God created" and "the heaven and
>the earth", and neither science nor religion has filled the gap.
>
>So to wrap up this conversation, in the total absence of any scientific
>explanation, I am holding to my original objection: Bro. Guy's statement
>is an error of wishful thinking. Modern science has nothing whatever to
>say about *how* -- i.e. by what means -- God created the universe.
>
>I'm glad this thread has remained mostly civil. That's amazing
>considering it's talk.origins.

I have no problem remaining civil with people who engage in civil
discussion. Much as I try to be a better person, however, I have my
own human frailties and when pricks like Glenn and Peter try to attack
me, I'm unfortunately inclined to respond in kind :(

>
>I look forward to our next wrangling.
>
>Pax Christi vobiscum.
>Benedicite...

Et cum spiritu tuo

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2022 10:51:56 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

Why sure, just as soon as Kalkidas quantifies "anything substantial".

[jillery]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2022 14:35:11 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton>
*********************************************
Lattice QCD provides a way of calculating the mass of a proton
directly from the theory to any accuracy, in principle. The most
recent calculations claim that the mass is determined to better than
4% accuracy, even to 1% accuracy.
**********************************************

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_QCD>
**********************************************
Lattice QCD has already successfully agreed with many experiments. For
example, the mass of the proton has been determined theoretically with
an error of less than 2 percent.
**********************************************

Also, although atomic weight has something to do with which elements
are solids at STP, the more significant cause is the electrostatic
interactions and bonds among atoms' outermost electrons.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2022 14:10:50 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"

In other words, a difference that makes no difference.

>
>
>> >> >>>>>>> "It is where I find God," the American Jesuit said. "You don't base
>> >> >>>>>>> your theology on science, but you let the science challenge your
>> >> >>>>>>> theology," he said in his discussion of the relationship between faith
>> >> >>>>>>> and science.
>> >
>> >Theology can also challenge science, by noting that the extreme sensitivity of the
>> >basic physical constants necessary for life as we know it cries out for an explanation.
>
>
>> The anthropic argument is getting rather worn out at this stage.
>
>The anthropic argument is off in another dimension, and does not
>attempt to assess just how tremendously lucky we are that ANYONE,
>in whatever universe one exists in, is able to comprehend that universe
>to the extent that we comprehend ours.

I'm reminded of the story about the famous golfer [*] who sank a great
putt and someone in the crowd exclaimed "Lucky shot!" to which the
golfer replied "Yeah, the funny thing is, the more I practice, the
luckier I get."

[*] Often attributed to Gary Player but he himself attributed it to
Jerry Barber.

>
>The extreme sensitivity of those constants, which has been found by rigorous physical science,
>is what give us some appreciation of the staggering odds against any intelligent beings
>existing at all, in any given universe.

I am bemused that someone with your mathematical qualifications would
fall into the trap of talking about the probability of something that
has already happened.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 14 Nov 2022 14:35:11 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"

By coincidence, my wife and I were in Belfast for a couple of nights 3
weeks ago and at last got around to visiting the Titanic exhibition
(something I thoroughly recommend to anyone who ever gets to visit
Belfast).

The exhibition includes blueprints and various artefacts relating to
its construction. I came away from it with a fairly good idea of how
the ship was built but according to your logic, I could not possibly
have understood it as I don't have much knowledge of metallurgy or the
physics of how various materials are manufactured, let alone molecular
knowledge relating to the atoms of which they are comprised.

[Glenn]

Curious that while you claim not to know much of anything, you sure appear as if you think you do.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022 09:32:46 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

You seem to have gone back to sniping from the sidelines as your
head-on attacks weren't working out too well.

[Glenn]

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:00:12 PM UTC-7, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:50:12 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
> >

Martin:

"God made Man in his image, a big part of which is intelligence, reason
and the ability to know God. In my mind, it seems supreme arrogance to
put limits on those God-given gifts."

> > One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means

> Just because you don't doesn't mean no one else does

What I do or do not know is irrelevant here, with the exception of knowing what "In His image" means can only be speculated, not known. And a correct guess would not mean "knowing", but we don't and never will know what it really means.

In any event, "in his image" is incorrect, it is more like "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The Bible also says that he created us male and female.
So God is both a male and female biological organism? Is each male and female human a "trinity"?

> > as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book.
> Extremely arrogant assumption on your part.

Oh? So where do you and Martin get your information from about what the "image of God" is like?

> > Apparently you know what "God" is. Is that from personal experience?

> I'm not going to speak to Martins interpretation of what god is, but everyone has their own interpretation, based on their own personal experience.

Nice one, "Sparky". Apparently you are willing to go so far to defend Martin here, for some reason (cough), that you would put "knowledge" and subjectivity in the same thought.

>Were you brought up in some perversion of faith that described an objective absolute definition?

It may appear to some as odd that you would ask that right after I said "One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means".

Do you understand what "in His image" means? You claim that it is possible that some have that knowledge.

[Zen Cycle]

On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 1:30:14 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:00:12 PM UTC-7, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:50:12 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
> > >
> Martin:
> "God made Man in his image, a big part of which is intelligence, reason
> and the ability to know God. In my mind, it seems supreme arrogance to
> put limits on those God-given gifts."
> > > One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means
>
> > Just because you don't doesn't mean no one else does
> What I do or do not know is irrelevant here, with the exception of knowing what "In His image" means can only be speculated, not known. And a correct guess would not mean "knowing", but we don't and never will know what it really means.

So you've given up trying to understand. Good to know.

>
> In any event, "in his image" is incorrect, it is more like "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

As is typical for you, you cherry pick and quote out of context Genesis 1 26 says "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (KJV)
Genesis 1 27 say "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. "

>The Bible also says that he created us male and female.
> So God is both a male and female biological organism? Is each male and female human a "trinity"?

You very clearly have never sought any input other than you own simplistic and superficial interpretation of "in his image". Every scholarly reference I've ever seen notes the term 'in his image' to mean the spiritual image, which comports with Martins statement regarding intelligence and ability to "know" god. That you are stuck on visual imagery is no surprise, given your complete inability to sea anything beyond its visual appearance. The general idea is that god created the physical forms of man and such that they could best perform the work of god. Our physical forms aren't regarded to be god's actual physical state. You won't find any reasonably established religion that claims gods actual physical state is an old hairy hominid.

https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/what-is-image-of-god/
"The Image of God Is Not Our Bodies"

https://biologos.org/articles/what-does-image-of-god-mean
"Some understand image of God to mean those qualities that make us human, for example: possessing a soul, higher-order reasoning, self-consciousness, consciousness of God and the ability to have a relationship with him. This seems like a good definition, since only humans are in God’s image, and these are qualities that make us human."
(though this source admits to be "fairly skeptical" of this interpretation)

https://www.umc.org/en/content/image-of-god-what-is-gods-image
"One of the ways this imagery is designed within us is in our consciousness - God embedded in our spirit, the ability to be awakened to the consciousness of God"

https://yahweh.co.il/the-light/what-is-the-image-of-god/
"God did not make flesh based on his image but instead, he created people’s spirits in the likeness of his spirit, which is light.

> > > as well as "the ability to know God" simply because you read it somewhere in a book.
> > Extremely arrogant assumption on your part.
> Oh? So where do you and Martin get your information from about what the "image of God" is like?

By reading and listening to other more learned interpretations. The sack of flesh isn't the 'image' of god, The overwhelming consensus is that the soul/spirit (if one believes that sort of thing) are representative of the the image of god.

> > > Apparently you know what "God" is. Is that from personal experience?
>
> > I'm not going to speak to Martins interpretation of what god is, but everyone has their own interpretation, based on their own personal experience.
> Nice one, "Sparky". Apparently you are willing to go so far to defend Martin here, for some reason (cough), that you would put "knowledge" and subjectivity in the same thought.

Very poor attempt at conflating concepts - even for such a dullard as you. I may not agree with Martin on some issues, but he's spot on here. What we "know" regarding the metaphysical realm is hardly objective, sparky. When a person says they 'know' god in means they've come to a conclusion regarding what they understand understand about their relationship with god - this may not align with others knowledge at all.

> >Were you brought up in some perversion of faith that described an objective absolute definition?
> It may appear to some as odd that you would ask that right after I said "One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means".

Only to a half-with with no ability to reach deeper understanding of metaphysical questions.

>
> Do you understand what "in His image" means? You claim that it is possible that some have that knowledge.

I understand what the consensus of "image" is. Maybe if you spent more time reading for comprehension rather than learning-by-headlines you might have a better grasp and stop embarrassing yourself.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

I've never been to Belfast, but I've been to Galway and vicinity twice,
so I might take in Belfast if I go that way again.

> The exhibition includes blueprints and various artefacts relating to
> its construction. I came away from it with a fairly good idea of how
> the ship was built but according to your logic, I could not possibly
> have understood it as I don't have much knowledge of metallurgy or the
> physics of how various materials are manufactured, let alone molecular
> knowledge relating to the atoms of which they are comprised.

These are all physical means, which other humans have mastered and applied.
Kalkidas's point is that no human is capable of applying the means God could have used to
create the atoms you claimed to be part of the "how" of God creating the universe.

As to whether we can "master" the means: we clearly have not mastered them
to date and I seriously doubt that we will ever be able to.

The only loophole I can see is if we give up the idea of God being a creator
of anything *ex* *nihilo* and settle for a Designer radically altering pre-existing "stuff"
to conform to a superior blueprint for making a universe as economical as ours.

This of course "kicks the can down the road" in the eyes of skeptics, as to where
the Designer and the "stuff" came from. But given a grand enough multiverse, that could
lead to an explanation that is good enough for them to at least embrace the possibility that
such an entity could have arisen naturally, via laws very different from those
that govern our universe.

[Bill]

The error is the ancient notion of duality: The material and the spiritual.
This ia an assumption having the sole purpose of confusing us with its value
being reserved to philosophers.

If we accept the obvious, that the universe is the universe and everything
that exists exists. We can invent all manner of distinctions but we can't
show why we should. If there is a Creator-Designer then the raw material He
has available is what has always been there we don't have to agonize over
what might be needed since it's right there, all the time. Our insistence
that there is a spiritual realm is just our limited perspective that garbles
our attempts to understand the obvious.

The universe and the life within it is a miracle whether we acknowledge God
or not.

Bill

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022 16:43:33 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"

That was not Kalkida's central point, it was something he offered to
bolster his cental point which was that "Scientists neither possess

nor can comprehend those attributes. And that is why they can not

possibly know how God created the universe. "

You've already dismissed his argument about our limited ability to
create things being proof of anything; although you don't define
"master", your following comments seem to reject his argument that
scientists *can not possibly know* how God created the universe. Am I
interpreting you correctly?

[Kalkidas]

Another possibility is that the "stuff" and the "Designer" are
co-eternal because the "stuff" is one of the energies of the "Designer".
In other words, God and His energies are one in a sense, but different
in another sense.

That, in fact, is the Vedic version: God has various energies, and they
are simultaneously one with and different from God Himself.

However, it doesn't answer the question of how God programs the
primordial energy ("stuff") to manifest the material universe and the
forms of the things we observe in the material universe.

This remains an impenetrable mystery. The only information we have is
from revelation. Neither theology nor modern science can explain it.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

By God, I guess you mean Brahman, the one essential entity
of which everything is either a part or a manifestation.
The saying, "Atman is Brahman" is a way of saying that
each conscious individual is a manifestation of Brahman, correct?
In line with this, the god Brahma [1] would not be the same as Brahman,
but would be a manifestation of Brahman, correct?

[1] with the honorific, "The Creator"; and Vishnu is "The Sustainer" while
Siva is "The Destroyer." To make matters confusing, there is a story
of creation in one of the Upanishads that reads a good bit like Genesis I.
However, the creator is called Indra there, not Brahma.

> However, it doesn't answer the question of how God programs the
> primordial energy ("stuff") to manifest the material universe and the
> forms of the things we observe in the material universe.
>
> This remains an impenetrable mystery. The only information we have is
> from revelation. Neither theology nor modern science can explain it.

The Christian tradition follows the Bible, basing some fundamental distinctions on what is said
about "the Word" (a.k.a. God the Son) at the beginning of The Gospel According to John.
The Nicene creed elaborates on it by saying that the Son
"was begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father" and "through Him
all things were made." It thus distinguishes between things ("stuff")
and God; things are "made," divine Persons are not made.

There has been a tremendous amount of controversy among
Christian theologians about the exact meaning of "begotten" and
"consubstantial" and there are faint echoes of it today: at Roman Catholic
Masses after Vatican II the words "one in being" were substituted
("one in being with the Father") but this was rejected by the Vatican
recently and "consubstantial" was restored.

In the the last analysis, the reality behind these words is as impenetrable
a mystery as the ones pertaining to creation that we were discussing before.


Peter Nyikos

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 16 Nov 2022 14:55:43 -0800 (PST), Zen Cycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 1:30:14 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
>> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:00:12 PM UTC-7, funkma...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> > On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 1:50:12 PM UTC-5, Glenn wrote:
>> > >
>> Martin:
>> "God made Man in his image, a big part of which is intelligence, reason
>> and the ability to know God. In my mind, it seems supreme arrogance to
>> put limits on those God-given gifts."
>> > > One example of extreme arrogance is to appear as if you understand what "in His image" means
>>
>> > Just because you don't doesn't mean no one else does
>> What I do or do not know is irrelevant here, with the exception of knowing what "In His image" means can only be speculated, not known. And a correct guess would not mean "knowing", but we don't and never will know what it really means.
>
>So you've given up trying to understand. Good to know.
>
>>
>> In any event, "in his image" is incorrect, it is more like "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
>
>As is typical for you, you cherry pick and quote out of context Genesis 1 26 says "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (KJV)
>Genesis 1 27 say "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. "
>
>>The Bible also says that he created us male and female.
>> So God is both a male and female biological organism? Is each male and female human a "trinity"?
>
>You very clearly have never sought any input other than you own simplistic and superficial interpretation of "in his image". Every scholarly reference I've ever seen notes the term 'in his image' to mean the spiritual image, which comports with Martins statement regarding intelligence and ability to "know" god. That you are stuck on visual imagery is no surprise, given your complete inability to sea anything beyond its visual appearance. The general idea is that god created the physical forms of man and such that they could best perform the work of god. Our physical forms aren't regarded to be god's actual physical state. You won't find any reasonably established religion that claims gods actual physical state is an old hairy hominid.
>
>https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/what-is-image-of-god/
>"The Image of God Is Not Our Bodies"
>
>https://biologos.org/articles/what-does-image-of-god-mean
>"Some understand image of God to mean those qualities that make us human, for example: possessing a soul, higher-order reasoning, self-consciousness, consciousness of God and the ability to have a relationship with him. This seems like a good definition, since only humans are in God’s image, and these are qualities that make us human."

Which shows that my interpretation is in line with mainstream theology
and not just something I "read somewhere in a book" as suggested by
Glenn.

>(though this source admits to be "fairly skeptical" of this interpretation)

Peter Enns, the author of that piece, is known for some offbeat
theological views which ended up in him being suspended from his post
at Westminster Theological Seminary. [1] In this piece, he draws his
ideas from the biblical theme of kingship and idols and argues that
'made in the image of God' refers more to believers as God's
representatives here on earth, just as ancient kings used to send
idols and other images of themselves to far-flung parts of their
kingdom to remind subjects of who was in charge. He does make a fairly
persuasive case for this interpretation but I think what he overlooks
is that in order to be meaningful images representing God, we need to
have some of God's particular characteristics which brings
intelligence, reason and the ability to know God back into play.

[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Enns#Suspension_from_Westminster_Theological_Seminary

[Kalkidas]

By "God" I mean Vishnu, or Krishna, the original Personal Supreme Being
according to Bhagavad-gita, the Puranas, and Epics. The word Brahman
does indeed indicate God, but is frequently used to emphasize an
impersonal aspect.

> In line with this, the god Brahma [1] would not be the same as Brahman,
> but would be a manifestation of Brahman, correct?

Correct. Brahma is a derived personality, not God but empowered by God
to engineer and construct the material universe.

>
> [1] with the honorific, "The Creator"; and Vishnu is "The Sustainer" while
> Siva is "The Destroyer." To make matters confusing, there is a story
> of creation in one of the Upanishads that reads a good bit like Genesis I.
> However, the creator is called Indra there, not Brahma.

All these different personalities are derived from the original, Vishnu,
or Krishna. They possess different aspects of His personality in varying
degrees for specific purposes. They are all subordinate beings.

>
>> However, it doesn't answer the question of how God programs the
>> primordial energy ("stuff") to manifest the material universe and the
>> forms of the things we observe in the material universe.
>>
>> This remains an impenetrable mystery. The only information we have is
>> from revelation. Neither theology nor modern science can explain it.
>
> The Christian tradition follows the Bible, basing some fundamental distinctions on what is said
> about "the Word" (a.k.a. God the Son) at the beginning of The Gospel According to John.
> The Nicene creed elaborates on it by saying that the Son
> "was begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father" and "through Him
> all things were made." It thus distinguishes between things ("stuff")
> and God; things are "made," divine Persons are not made.

The Vedic version is that not only are the divine persons beginningless,
but all of us are. Only our temporary material bodies have a lifespan.
The soul, which is the actual person, has no beginning or end. The
difference between divine persons and us is that we are contingent
beings, due to being the energy of God, and not God. Nevertheless, as
God's energy is co-eternal with Him, so are we.

>
> There has been a tremendous amount of controversy among
> Christian theologians about the exact meaning of "begotten" and
> "consubstantial" and there are faint echoes of it today: at Roman Catholic
> Masses after Vatican II the words "one in being" were substituted
> ("one in being with the Father") but this was rejected by the Vatican
> recently and "consubstantial" was restored.
>
> In the the last analysis, the reality behind these words is as impenetrable
> a mystery as the ones pertaining to creation that we were discussing before.

I agree.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

True.

> You've already dismissed his argument about our limited ability to
> create things being proof of anything; although you don't define
> "master", your following comments seem to reject his argument that
> scientists *can not possibly know* how God created the universe. Am I
> interpreting you correctly?

I can only reject his argument by using the loophole below.

> >
> >As to whether we can "master" the means: we clearly have not mastered them
> >to date and I seriously doubt that we will ever be able to.
> >
> >The only loophole I can see is if we give up the idea of God being a creator
> >of anything *ex* *nihilo* and settle for a Designer radically altering pre-existing "stuff"
> >to conform to a superior blueprint for making a universe as economical as ours.

We humans are incapable, in our fallen state, of comprehending
how God could have created the universe *ex nihilo*.
If anyone reading this thinks God did that, then Kalkidas's argument stands.

To forestall getting hung up on semantics if you disagree: you are welcome to keep using your highly expansive
concept of the word "how," but I doubt that any atheists will be impressed by it.


Peter Nyikos

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2022 15:02:05 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"

So just like Kalkidas, you restrict God's power to let us understand
what he might want us to understand.

>If anyone reading this thinks God did that, then Kalkidas's argument stands.
>
>To forestall getting hung up on semantics if you disagree: you are welcome to keep using your highly expansive
>concept of the word "how," but I doubt that any atheists will be impressed by it.

Unlike you, I am not hung up on impressing anyone, atheist or
otherwise.

[Zen Cycle]

Well, glen seems to think you're an atheist and refuses to elaborate on how he came to that decision. I hate to be redundant but if there was ever an indication that glen is clueless, this thread is it.

> >(though this source admits to be "fairly skeptical" of this interpretation)
> Peter Enns, the author of that piece, is known for some offbeat
> theological views which ended up in him being suspended from his post
> at Westminster Theological Seminary. [1] In this piece, he draws his
> ideas from the biblical theme of kingship and idols and argues that
> 'made in the image of God' refers more to believers as God's
> representatives here on earth, just as ancient kings used to send
> idols and other images of themselves to far-flung parts of their
> kingdom to remind subjects of who was in charge. He does make a fairly
> persuasive case for this interpretation but I think what he overlooks
> is that in order to be meaningful images representing God, we need to
> have some of God's particular characteristics which brings
> intelligence, reason and the ability to know God back into play.
>
> [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Enns#Suspension_from_Westminster_Theological_Seminary
> >

I was surprised to see that Biologos would publish that, I guess they aren't quite as dogmatic as I thought. I have seen similar interpretations but IIRC they were more of a Talmudic derivation, and even those were not the prevailing wisdom in Judaism. I don't see his argument as very persuasive however. It seems to leave the vast majority of people out of the conversation - only 'leaders' were made in gods image - Perhaps I'm interpreting that wrong.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 19 Nov 2022 08:58:27 -0800 (PST), Zen Cycle

Don't forget that Biologos was founded by Francis Collins who,
according to Glenn, is the "Poster child for atheists."

[erik simpson]

I may be mistaken, but Glenn may be categorizing everybody he doesn't like as "atheist evolutionists".
And he doesn't like very many of those present.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Either zencycle is engaged in Biblical exegesis, or else he is trying to fathom
deeper metaphysical meanings of "in God's image," in which case he is pretty much on his own.

> I may be mistaken, but Glenn may be categorizing everybody he doesn't like as "atheist evolutionists".

I do believe you are mistaken. Glenn certainly didn't categorize me like one in the olden
days when he often gave me the cold shoulder.

Besides, there are at least two outspoken atheist evolutionists here: jillery
and your hero John Harshman. John even thinks of God and a life after
death to be fairy tales that adults need to grow out of.

> And he doesn't like very many of those present.

With good reason. Here is an excerpt from a reply by me to Hemidactylus
late last month which speaks to that:

____________________________________________________
> If you weren’t such a prickly pear cactus maybe your experiences here
> would be different.

If you were to let go of your perennial campaign of misrepresentation
of Glenn in the process of treating him like dirt, these words of yours
might start to get traction. As it is, it's just rubbing salt into so many wounds.
======================== end of excerpt
from
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/qo9z4PTIEKg/m/cJsa_y3FBAAJ
Re: ...iIncredulity 3

Hemidactylus is far from alone in this. His buddy Ron O has been acting the
same way in relation to Glenn, for many years.

Also, you and your hero John were telling newcomer Sight Reader over in
sci.bio.paleontology that "Glenn is best ignored" despite some
on-topic posts that were directly involved, and which both
of you seriously "misunderstood."


Peter Nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

I said nothing about God's power to do that. I was referring to human scientists
working without any special divine revelation. It would take a miracle
more unusual than any I've heard attributed to God, to make a
mere human understand the *means* whereby God created
something physical out of nothing.

And such a miracle of human understanding seems very counter to the way
the Bible depicts God and Jesus. According to the Gospels,
Jesus was taunted by the devil with "if you are the Son of God..."
to turn stone into bread, and Jesus refused, even though he was hungry.
Then the devil taunted to hurl himself down from the temple,
because angels would bear him up if he were the Son of God,
and again he refused.

Even more telling: when Paul three times begged the Lord
to take away a thorn in his flesh, he was met with refusal
and the words, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9.

> >If anyone reading this thinks God did that, then Kalkidas's argument stands.
> >
> >To forestall getting hung up on semantics if you disagree: you are welcome to keep using your highly expansive
> >concept of the word "how," but I doubt that any atheists will be impressed by it.

> Unlike you, I am not hung up on impressing anyone, atheist or
> otherwise.

On the contrary, I long ago gave up trying to impress anyone in talk.origins, even Glenn.
What I was referring to is trying to get some grudging realization
by the atheists that it is possible that there is something to theism,
and claiming to understand "how" God made atoms is counterproductive.


Peter Nyikos

PS Earlier, I wrote something along the same lines about my purposes:

[Zen Cycle]

It might help if you didn't confuse yourself by replying to something nested 7x. I listed 4 mainstream links stating what I understood "image of god " to mean. Care to try to twist how that becomes "engaged in Biblical exegesis, or else he is trying to fathom deeper metaphysical meanings of "in God's image," in which case he is pretty much on his own." ?

Please try to show how I'm somehow misinterpreting mainstream thought, or better yet, try to give glen a little stroking by showing how there is some legitimate idea that "image of god" is purely within the physical realm (so god must be a hermaphrodite!!)

fucking idiot.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Sorry I wasn't explicit enough. By "deeper metaphysical meanings" I was referring to
your crack about "a half-[wit] with no ability to reach deeper understanding of metaphysical questions."

> I listed 4 mainstream links stating what I understood "image of god " to mean.

"mainstream" could mean "mainstream of Biblical exegesis" which is primarily about
trying to understand what the words meant to the Hebrews of the times, or it
could mean "mainstream of metaphysical thinking about what the words
ought to mean to us in this day and age." It's hard to tell which rubric the
four links are trying to fall under, if any.

The first one does not quote any professional Biblical scholars, nor any philosophy
professors with training in metaphysics.
https://www.umc.org/en/content/image-of-god-what-is-gods-image

Maybe the author, Rev. Stephen Handy fancies himself to be one or the other.
However, his claim that we can be "awakened to consciousness of God"
is either unintelligible or else completely beyond anything I am confident of ever having had.

The second is not in any mainstream you are likely to be comfortable with:
it is a "Jews for Jesus" tract by "Eleazar" which cherry-picks out of I Corinthians 15:

"So, people are spiritual beings inside the flesh. Our flesh is our natural body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44). Our spiritual being is what the Bible is referring to with regard to the image of God."

Actually, the spiritual body to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 15:44 is what we become
when we are resurrected from the dead, according to him. The author, Eleazar, is opting for
a soul-body dualism which is in the mainstream of the Theosophical Society,
but is out of favor both among Biblical exegetes and among philosophers of today.
I doubt that he and Rev. Stephen Handy would agree on much of anything.

> Care to try to twist how that becomes "engaged in Biblical exegesis, or else he is trying to fathom deeper metaphysical meanings of "in God's image,"

I'm sorry you don't seem to have much idea of what the issues are. I was hoping that I could
help you get beyond mere internet surfing. But if you think I ought to take a look at your other two "mainstream" sources,
let me know and I'll do my best.

> in which case he is pretty much on his own." ?

I meant here in talk.origins, wrt the deeper metaphysical things.

>
> Please try to show how I'm somehow misinterpreting mainstream thought,

At this point, it's not clear YOU are doing that, since you don't discuss
the 4 sources but only quote little snippets from them.

> or better yet, try to give glen a little stroking by showing how there is some legitimate idea that "image of god" is purely within the physical realm (so god must be a hermaphrodite!!)

Glenn was being way too literal-minded, but I think he was trying to be sarcastic.
I figure there are enough Glenn haters around so that you don't need me to pile on him too.

>
> fucking idiot.

Temper, temper.


Peter Nyikos

[peter2...@gmail.com]

How widely is this accepted by leading Hindus?

> The word Brahman
> does indeed indicate God, but is frequently used to emphasize an
> impersonal aspect.
> > In line with this, the god Brahma [1] would not be the same as Brahman,
> > but would be a manifestation of Brahman, correct?
> Correct. Brahma is a derived personality, not God but empowered by God
> to engineer and construct the material universe.
> >
> > [1] with the honorific, "The Creator"; and Vishnu is "The Sustainer" while
> > Siva is "The Destroyer." To make matters confusing, there is a story
> > of creation in one of the Upanishads that reads a good bit like Genesis I.
> > However, the creator is called Indra there, not Brahma.

I may have misremembered the source; possibly it was one of the Vedas.
The Upanishads belong to the Vedanta.

> All these different personalities are derived from the original, Vishnu,
> or Krishna. They possess different aspects of His personality in varying
> degrees for specific purposes. They are all subordinate beings.

On the other hand, I have read of devotees of Brahma who
say just the opposite is true, and of devotees of Shiva
who say that the other two gods are subordinate.

Would you say that these are outside of mainstream Hindu thought?
How about the Hare Krishnas? I ask this specifically because
I was once a frequent contributor to a Google group doubling
as an email list, called "Sadhu Sanga", and it was only after
several years that I found out that they were part of the Hare Krishna movement.

I should have become suspicious they were sectarian when
I said some things about the medieval philosopher Ramanuja [1],
and one of them said they don't follow his teachings.
To my mind, Ramanuja was one of the most level-headed and intelligent
Hindu philosophers of all time.

[1] I often wonder whether that great early 20th century mathematical genius, Ramanujan,
was intentionally named after him. There is a film coming out about
Ramanujan called "The Man Who Knew Infinity." Not the most apt title,
but catchy enough to get the attention of ordinary people.

> >> However, it doesn't answer the question of how God programs the
> >> primordial energy ("stuff") to manifest the material universe and the
> >> forms of the things we observe in the material universe.
> >>
> >> This remains an impenetrable mystery. The only information we have is
> >> from revelation. Neither theology nor modern science can explain it.
> >
> > The Christian tradition follows the Bible, basing some fundamental distinctions on what is said
> > about "the Word" (a.k.a. God the Son) at the beginning of The Gospel According to John.
> > The Nicene creed elaborates on it by saying that the Son
> > "was begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father" and "through Him
> > all things were made." It thus distinguishes between things ("stuff")
> > and God; things are "made," divine Persons are not made.


> The Vedic version is that not only are the divine persons beginningless,
> but all of us are. Only our temporary material bodies have a lifespan.
> The soul, which is the actual person, has no beginning or end.

The beginning of our physical universe ca. 14 gigayears ago is a problem
for that. Where were our souls when this universe of ours did not exist?

By the way, I tweaked Zencycle about half an hour ago about
the resemblance of one of his "mainstream" sources to what
I once heard at a lecture of the Theosophical Society.
The lecturer said that our bodies "are like a suit of clothes we put on and take off."

> difference between divine persons and us is that we are contingent
> beings, due to being the energy of God, and not God. Nevertheless, as
> God's energy is co-eternal with Him, so are we.

Ramanuja was not congenial to the idea of Nirvana meaning absorbtion
into God, and doubted that anyone was. He loved his individuality,
just like William James and G. K. Chesterton. I am the same way,
and Jesus's words about how "in my Father's house there
are many mansions" seem to support us.


Peter Nyikos

[Kalkidas]

I don't know who they are. But "Vaishnavism", which is basically the
worship of Vishnu as the Supreme Being, is the majority religion of
India. It's not at all limited to the Hare Krishna movement.

Of course there are many sub-sects within Vaishnavism, as there are in
Christianity.

Concerning "Hinduism", it seems to be the invention of a few Indian
intellectuals and politicians around the turn of the 19th century. I
don't regard it as a religion at all, just a political rallying point
for Indian nationalists, impersonalists and atheists.

>
>
> > The word Brahman
>> does indeed indicate God, but is frequently used to emphasize an
>> impersonal aspect.
>>> In line with this, the god Brahma [1] would not be the same as Brahman,
>>> but would be a manifestation of Brahman, correct?
>> Correct. Brahma is a derived personality, not God but empowered by God
>> to engineer and construct the material universe.
>>>
>>> [1] with the honorific, "The Creator"; and Vishnu is "The Sustainer" while
>>> Siva is "The Destroyer." To make matters confusing, there is a story
>>> of creation in one of the Upanishads that reads a good bit like Genesis I.
>>> However, the creator is called Indra there, not Brahma.
>
> I may have misremembered the source; possibly it was one of the Vedas.
> The Upanishads belong to the Vedanta.
>
>
>> All these different personalities are derived from the original, Vishnu,
>> or Krishna. They possess different aspects of His personality in varying
>> degrees for specific purposes. They are all subordinate beings.
>
> On the other hand, I have read of devotees of Brahma who
> say just the opposite is true, and of devotees of Shiva
> who say that the other two gods are subordinate.

Yet they all will accept the Bhagavad-gita as authoritative scripture.
The Gita clearly establishes Krishna/Vishnu as the original Supreme
Person from whom everything, including all other so-called "gods", has
come. So there is some cognitive dissonance among some people

>
> Would you say that these are outside of mainstream Hindu thought?
> How about the Hare Krishnas? I ask this specifically because
> I was once a frequent contributor to a Google group doubling
> as an email list, called "Sadhu Sanga", and it was only after
> several years that I found out that they were part of the Hare Krishna movement.

They are authentic followers of the Vaishnava religion.

>
> I should have become suspicious they were sectarian when
> I said some things about the medieval philosopher Ramanuja [1],
> and one of them said they don't follow his teachings.
> To my mind, Ramanuja was one of the most level-headed and intelligent
> Hindu philosophers of all time.

Actually the Hare Krishnas accept Ramanuja as a pure follower of
Vishnu/Krishna. There are minor disagreements, but they are more over
matters of emphasis than matters of truth. It's a bit like the
disagreements between, say, Catholics and Orthodox. Both accept one
another as legitimate, apostolic churches of Christ, although they
criticize each other over secondary issues.

>
> [1] I often wonder whether that great early 20th century mathematical genius, Ramanujan,
> was intentionally named after him. There is a film coming out about
> Ramanujan called "The Man Who Knew Infinity." Not the most apt title,
> but catchy enough to get the attention of ordinary people.

Names starting with "Rama" are pretty common in India. Rama is of course
one of the avatars of Vishnu.

>
>
>>>> However, it doesn't answer the question of how God programs the
>>>> primordial energy ("stuff") to manifest the material universe and the
>>>> forms of the things we observe in the material universe.
>>>>
>>>> This remains an impenetrable mystery. The only information we have is
>>>> from revelation. Neither theology nor modern science can explain it.
>>>
>>> The Christian tradition follows the Bible, basing some fundamental distinctions on what is said
>>> about "the Word" (a.k.a. God the Son) at the beginning of The Gospel According to John.
>>> The Nicene creed elaborates on it by saying that the Son
>>> "was begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father" and "through Him
>>> all things were made." It thus distinguishes between things ("stuff")
>>> and God; things are "made," divine Persons are not made.
>
>
>> The Vedic version is that not only are the divine persons beginningless,
>> but all of us are. Only our temporary material bodies have a lifespan.
>> The soul, which is the actual person, has no beginning or end.
>
> The beginning of our physical universe ca. 14 gigayears ago is a problem
> for that. Where were our souls when this universe of ours did not exist?
>
> By the way, I tweaked Zencycle about half an hour ago about
> the resemblance of one of his "mainstream" sources to what
> I once heard at a lecture of the Theosophical Society.
> The lecturer said that our bodies "are like a suit of clothes we put on and take off."

I agree with that statement. Theosophists occasionally get a few things
right.

>
>
>> difference between divine persons and us is that we are contingent
>> beings, due to being the energy of God, and not God. Nevertheless, as
>> God's energy is co-eternal with Him, so are we.
>
> Ramanuja was not congenial to the idea of Nirvana meaning absorbtion
> into God, and doubted that anyone was. He loved his individuality,
> just like William James and G. K. Chesterton. I am the same way,
> and Jesus's words about how "in my Father's house there
> are many mansions" seem to support us.

Indeed, the philosophy of impersonalism, which includes this notion of
"merging" into an impersonal Brahman, is blasphemy against the Lord. It
is very strongly opposed by Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka, Vishnuswami,
Chaitanya, and all the principal Vaishnava groups in the Vedic
tradition. All of them assert the eternal integrity of the individual
soul as an individual person.


>
>
> Peter Nyikos
>

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 14:12:42 -0800 (PST), "peter2...@gmail.com"

You didn't mention anything about special divine revelation, you
simply said "We humans are incapable, in our fallen state, of

comprehending how God could have created the universe *ex nihilo*."

>It would take a miracle
>more unusual than any I've heard attributed to God, to make a
>mere human understand the *means* whereby God created
>something physical out of nothing.

Did it take a miracle or special divine revelation for us to
understand how atoms form molecules and molecules form matter - or do
you dismiss that as part of the universe being made?

<snip rambling>

[Zen Cycle]

It isn't a case of you not being explicit, it's a case of you posting a response to a comment several line above the one you parsed, which incidentally is still a non-sequitur. Try to focus, skippy.

> > I listed 4 mainstream links stating what I understood "image of god " to mean.
> "mainstream" could mean "mainstream of Biblical exegesis" which is primarily about
> trying to understand what the words meant to the Hebrews of the times, or it
> could mean "mainstream of metaphysical thinking about what the words
> ought to mean to us in this day and age." It's hard to tell which rubric the
> four links are trying to fall under, if any.
>
> The first one does not quote any professional Biblical scholars, nor any philosophy
> professors with training in metaphysics.
> https://www.umc.org/en/content/image-of-god-what-is-gods-image
>
> Maybe the author, Rev. Stephen Handy fancies himself to be one or the other.
> However, his claim that we can be "awakened to consciousness of God"
> is either unintelligible or else completely beyond anything I am confident of ever having had.

First off, skippy, that wasn't the first link. Go back and reread the message. The first link was authored by Stephen Ham, the brother of Ken Ham. I posted it because AiG is one of glens favorite websites.

> The second is not in any mainstream you are likely to be comfortable with:
> it is a "Jews for Jesus" tract by "Eleazar" which cherry-picks out of I Corinthians 15:
>
> "So, people are spiritual beings inside the flesh. Our flesh is our natural body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44). Our spiritual being is what the Bible is referring to with regard to the image of God."

And that wasn't the second link, skippy. The second link was from biologos.org, and was authored by Pete Enns, the Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University and a former Senior Fellow of Biblical Studies for BioLogos. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.


The third link is the official website of World Wide Methodist church, and REv. Handy was selected to present the official view of their 12 million membership. Sorry if you don'tt hink the viewpoint of 12 million people is mainstream enough.

>
> Actually, the spiritual body to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 15:44 is what we become
> when we are resurrected from the dead, according to him. The author, Eleazar, is opting for
> a soul-body dualism which is in the mainstream of the Theosophical Society,
> but is out of favor both among Biblical exegetes and among philosophers of today.

Nope, try again.

> I doubt that he and Rev. Stephen Handy would agree on much of anything.

Except that jesus is the son of god. Other than that....

> > Care to try to twist how that becomes "engaged in Biblical exegesis, or else he is trying to fathom deeper metaphysical meanings of "in God's image,"
> I'm sorry you don't seem to have much idea of what the issues are.

Seems to me you're the one whose horribly confused - from repsonding to a comment nested 7x to not even seeing the entirty of my post - If you aren't going to comment concurrently, don't bnother. All you're doing is confusing yourself

I was hoping that I could
> help you get beyond mere internet surfing. But if you think I ought to take a look at your other two "mainstream" sources,
> let me know and I'll do my best.
> > in which case he is pretty much on his own." ?
> I meant here in talk.origins, wrt the deeper metaphysical things.
> >
> > Please try to show how I'm somehow misinterpreting mainstream thought,
> At this point, it's not clear YOU are doing that, since you don't discuss
> the 4 sources but only quote little snippets from them.

Wow, You're really high on yourself with this one. You completely missed the point of my post, then build a strawman about what you think it _should_ mean.....Get a clue, skippy.

> > or better yet, try to give glen a little stroking by showing how there is some legitimate idea that "image of god" is purely within the physical realm (so god must be a hermaphrodite!!)
> Glenn was being way too literal-minded, but I think he was trying to be sarcastic.
> I figure there are enough Glenn haters around so that you don't need me to pile on him too.
>
> >
> > fucking idiot.
>
> Temper, temper.

Fuck off