Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 29, 2022

 Gnostic Atheism (“Gnostic” refers to knowledge, not supposition.)

I can’t know for a fact that there are no superhero-type gods like Zeus, Thor, Quetzlcoatl, Brahma, or Anubis. Unlikely, sure, and I absolutely don’t BELIEVE they exist, but can I KNOW for certain? Nope.

But with respect to the monotheists’ beloved “omni” deities — who are claimed to be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent — I can be 100% a gnostic atheist, because such a critter cannot logically exist. Why not? Because any entity can have AT MOST a single ultimate characteristic, not a combination of them. Whenever it’s claimed that there are two or more maxipowers, you can always find a way to put them in conflict with each other, at which point one of them must lose.

For example, if God knows everything that’s ever going to happen (which an omniscient being would), then he’s powerless to change anything (and omnipotence is right out the window). And vice versa. Is he everywhere, including places where unspeakable tortures are being committed (frequently in his name), but also all-loving? Please!

But even a SINGLE ultimate characteristic could be pitted against itself, as in “Can God make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?”. Whatever the answer might be, it puts the lie to being all-powerful.

Oh course we’ve come to expect this from Eddie..

She is a little late. Several very wealthy ministers have been rewriting the Bible for years.

They’ve been re-writing the bible for the last 2000 years. I doubt they’ll stop re-writing now

What if God’s only power is that of suggestion; for non-sentient reality, God’s “suggestion” is accepted non-critically; but for sentient creatures, such as ourselves, where we have the capacity for reflection, the suggestions may outline the best course possible, but we have a certain degree of autonomy, and do not always follow the divine suggestion. God aims for the well-being of all to the degree that is possible. But we can and do choose horrible outcomes despite God’s aims. Jung was unable to make sense of this, but Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy sets the stage for a radically different understanding of the nature of God’s power. For ANW, God’s aims are part of all of reality, God does know all that has happened as well as what the trends are, but does not cause bad things to happen. The Center for Process Studies has tons of references to a large number of scholars who have pursued ANW’s ideas for decades.

Haggling over religious beliefs is like lighting a candle at both ends simultaneously. There is no safe middle ground.

Danae’s conclusion is the best idea, but my interpretation is not one she’ll accept, i.e., eave religion as it is. Accept it or disregard it, whichever suits you. As usual, once she’s on a rant, she won’t stop until she has another brain wave.

@ Richard S. Russell / My mind tends toward literature in trying to make sense of human dealings with the world. Ancient civilizations, knowing only the basic scientific principles, attributed the workings of Nature to anthropomorphized gods. Since the true nature of gods is supernatural and therefore beyond their ability to truly understand, ancient societies actually made gods in their image, contrary to the usual narrative of creation myths.

Although the ancient myths are of necessity naive because of dearth of scientific knowledge, we still can build new myths to explain our concepts of justice and ethics. I suppose our own gods and the angels and demons are the post-Roman manifestation of the old myths. And I think that the dozens of superhero characters in their battle against injustice and evil are a secular substitute as the grip of Christian beliefs fade.

So I combine the ancient, traditional Christian, and comic book superhero factors into a chimera of personal beliefs that I don’t really take seriously but affect me to some extent, anyway, witness I’m writing this (anonymously, to be sure …)

In my personal mythology, the Sun, Solar System and Earth are designed things, and Humans have been situated through the vagaries of put-in-place natural selection to develop here. Some transcendent blind clockmaking process has made it so.

It amuses me to think that “demi-gods” of Type IV civilizations have the Earth in a sort of Vivarium for their observation and amusement. The observation extends even beyond the end of human life, a subset into the realm of “immortal soul” existence.

The mastery from above allows forms of ancient myths to affect human souls. Traditional rewards and punishments are apportioned. Those kings and economic lords of Earth — the Plutocrats, Oligarchs, Autocrats, and petty Dictators will suffer poetically, joining Sisyphus, Tantalus, Croesus, Midas, and Procrustes already in residence.

Oh, if I ruled the World … /p

When I was born, it happened to be in a catholic nation. So guess what? Religion through environment. When I got older, I was introduced to this fundamental biblical cult that said the world was ending in 1974, then 1976, and then “hold that thought”. Oopsies. So I realized that not everything was kosher in Kool-aid land. Today all that I know for certain is that I have been lied to all my life. And if god is god, it (yes, I said “it”) should have done a better job of testifying than using a bunch of old reeds that were transliterated hundreds of times by thousands of people. In conclusion, all that I am certain of is that I do not know. These days I find it repulsive that zealots, who know not whereof they speak, try to enforce their stupidity on the nations of the world. So if there is a god, why isn’t it abundantly clear?

Quite the name for that boat!

Danae is the only one not affected by Cpt Eddie’s tales. Likely that hers are equally imagined :D I don’t fault her for trying, tho..

The boundaries that have been expanded by the James Webb Telescope and each telescope before it and simple acts of compassion, provide the awe inspiring, jaw dropping experience I have never felt inside a church.

I wonder, if not at the dock and at low tide, how does Cpt’n Eddie get to the bridge of his boat?

that’s a whale of a story

I’m waiting for Danae’s rewrite of Revelations. Maybe the sun will super-nova and swallow the inner 4 planets

I think Jonah could be played by a woman. I mean, it worked out so well for Ghost Busters and all.

I really, really, REALLY, want to read Danae’s rewrite of the Bible.

Billions of blind people describing an elephant.

See above.

I would love to read his accounts if Captain Eddie has ever visited Highway 61.

Way to bring them out of the woodwork Wiley.

logical. good on ‘ya. but…. can we really understand omniscience now that we’ve been thrown out of ‘paradise’? to fend for ourselves?

Personally, both sides of the god fearing/ atheistic argument suffer woefully from a lack of imagination and argue from a point of minimal understanding and intelligence.

It Ain’t Necessarily So

It ain’t necessarily so

It ain’t necessarily so

The t’ings dat yo’ li’bleTo read in de Bible

It ain’t necessarily so

Li’l David was small, but oh my !

Li’l David was small, but oh my !He fought Big Goliath

Who lay down an’ dieth !

Li’l David was small, but oh my !

Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale

Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale

Fo’ he made his home in

Dat fish’s abdomen

Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale

Li’l Moses was found in a stream

Li’l Moses was found in a stream

He floated on water

Till Ol’ Pharaoh’s daughter

She fished him, she said, from dat stream

Well, it ain’t necessarily so

Well, it ain’t necessarily so

Dey tells all you chillun

De debble’s a villun

But it ain’t necessarily so !

By not changing what the Bible actually teaches you can find ways to live a full and happy life

We are standing on an electron that is part of a sodium atom in a larger construct. Just as valid as a god.

Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. In line with this he produced an edited the Bible that excluded most mentions of the supernatural, the parts about the Resurrection and most other miracles, and the passages that portray Jesus as divine. His idea was to produce a work that focused on Jesus’s life and moral teachings.

We have two completely correct versions of reality (Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity) but they do not work together. Does anyone honestly believe that any so called contradictory truisms that we have about the nature of any Deity means that the Deity is at fault? I think it is more likely that we are missing a part of the picture.

“Gnostic” refers to knowledge, not supposition.

“Gnostic” means a presumed knowledge, not, necessarily a truthful one. It specifically refers to a secret knowledge, a knowledge not available to all but only available to a select few. Kind of an intellectual elitist thing.