Thinking too much with my wrong head
As some of you will know, at The Philosophers’ Magazine we have a number of online interactive type things which are designed to flag up some of the possible difficulties with religious belief (problem of evil, that kind of thing).
And since it is always amusing to tease the religiously afflicted, I thought I’d post an email I received yesterday about one of the activities. It kind of teases itself, so I won’t say any more.
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Your message is stupid as well as your test. There is a all loving, all caring, all knowing and all every where at one time God who truely exists. You think too much with your head and it is the wrong head. You should think about this…if there was not a God as you say there is not than why does He, not she, show you so much mercy every single day of your life. You must be one more miserable person to develope such an idiot of a test and pass it along out there into Internet space. You are not as smart as you want to think that you are and one day you will see just how dumb you really are when you ask such stupid stuff.
God is a God of mercy and total love but He is also a God of judgement. The reason there are famines and earth quakes is because people just simply refuse to serve and trust Him and it was also forewarned in the Holy Bible that such things would happen. If people obeyed the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength than they would see in this world a whole lot less evil.
It was man who got us into all this mess, not God.
If you read the Word of God you will find that it states that Satan has power over the air. Which means that a whole lot of the problems with the weather has to do with his doing…a fallen angel from Heaven.
You people are duped!!!!! You are so deceived that you are the blind leading the blind with your ridduculous tests.
The reason you don’t want to believe in a Supreme being is because you want to be God and you think that you could do a much better job than what He does but if you really look over the last part of your life, you will see that you have a trail of messes that you have caused on yourself.
You are persumptious to think that there cannot be a God who can be everything to anyone who choses to live for Him. If you read the Bible, you will find that it predicts all this clamaity that is going on around us.
Oh foolishness that you, a human being will whip up to start conflict in a world already sufferring with more conflict than it truely needs.
I feel sorry for you, whoever you are on the day of God’s White Throne Judgement.
The problem with you is that you do not know how to have faith in someone you do not understand. It is painfully obvious to me as well as many others that you lack faith and are a very sad, sad person.
Sincerely,
Katie
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Well, thanks for that Katie.
I just love the “You think too much with your head and it is the wrong head” bit!
“It was man who got us into all this mess, not God.”
Where to even start with Katie’s load of garbage I have no idea. I don’t know which is worse, the childish reasoning, or the childish articulation of that reasoning. I also don’t know who I am annoyed more with Katie for writing this painful trash, or OB for subjecting me to it ;-). Only kidding OB.
I would like to pick up on the point above however. It was not man’s fault (well except for the fact that “man” is responsible for all religion). God stuck a tree in the garden and told the naive inhabitants not to eat of it. Hmmm, not very sensible, would you leave a 2 year old in a room with an iron with instructions not to play with it. Even the way the bible tells it, god comes across as the asshole. How anyone can swallow this rubbish amazes me.
Chris
OB didn’t post that, I did. So don’t blame her!
“God stuck a tree in the garden and told the naive inhabitants not to eat of it.”
It’s more than this. God stuck a tree in the garden, told people not to eat of it, already knowing that they would! And what’s more he created them in the knowledge that they would!
Madness, I tell you, madness!
“OB didn’t post that, I did. So don’t blame her!”
Oh yes, I’ve only just noticed the initials against each entry in N&C. It was only tongue in cheek whoever it was directed at, unlike my comments on Katies post which is still making my blood boil hours after reading the letter.
For me the most infuriating thing about it is not the beliefs expressed (although they were bad enough), but the fact that not a single assertion was backed up by any kind of argument whatsoever. At least bad arguments show some understanding that a position on something/anything requires defending.
Sure, go ahead, blame me for everything, blame me for the weather while you’re at it.
snicker
“And what’s more he created them in the knowledge that they would!”
Just so – which is why the Chinese students that William Empson taught in the 1930s said to him after reading ‘Paradise Lost’: ‘We knew your God was wicked but we didn’t know he was as wicked as all that!’
“Sure, go ahead, blame me for everything,”
It would be easier to blame satan and god for everything, surely?
But we weren’t put on this earth to do things the easy way! Slothful heathen.
Yep. The logic is amazing.
There was a great parody of a Jack Chick cartoon (you Brits don’t know how deprived you are not having Jack Chick everywhere in your country) showing the Lord on his throne: “That’s Absurd. Why would I need to sacrifice Myself to Myself to allow Myself to change a rule I made Myself?
“http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/
I wonder if G_d has the capability of being surprised. If she doesn’t, and we do, does that mean that we have capabilities which Go_ does not have?
I can just imagine her sitting on her throne as whichever one it was ate the golden goose (or maybe it was an apple, my memory isn’t up to much), saying:
“My God, the bastard just ate that fruit, I’ll get him”.
Memory not up to much? You must be using the wrong head then – try the other one.
“You must be using the wrong head then – try the other one.”
In my reply to Katie, I asked her to let me know if she came across my right head. So I’ll guess we’ll have to wait until she gets back to me…
“Where to even start with Katie’s load of garbage I have no idea. I don’t know which is worse, the childish reasoning, or the childish articulation of that reasoning.”
And still Michael Shermer says that believing weird things is statistically orthogonal to intelligence. Yeah, maybe, but there are myriads of people like Katie out there that don’t seem to be too bright. I have yet to read an apology of rationalism that is so poorly reasoned and moronically argued.
“I have yet to read an apology of rationalism that is so poorly reasoned and moronically argued.”
But again, that would be some sort of oxymoron, or at least it would defeat its purpose- he said pensively as he stroke his chin…
“but there are myriads of people like Katie out there that don’t seem to be too bright.”
I must admit that I don’t think this is what is going on here.
Katie, I suspect, is a youngster. Probably she has never been exposed to philosophical arguments about God. And then we tell her that her beliefs are somewhat problematic. So she reacts like this; but, of course, doesn’t have the tools to respond properly.
In a way, I find her much less irritating – and, frankly, less pathetic – than the likes of the Cliopatria crowd. She, at least, has good excuses.
“I wonder if G_d has the capability of being surprised. If she doesn’t, and we do, does that mean that we have capabilities which Go_ does not have?”
Jerry S (or should that be Zaphod Beeblebrox? ;-). Can being surprised be considered a capability? To me it seems more an internal emotional state than an capability. Capabilities imply affecting the external world in some way rather than. I am far from convinced by the argument I have just advanced because “thinking” could be seen to be internal, but also affecting the outside world. But I could certainly see how a beleiver may – with at least some justification – say that this does not really amount to a capability that we have that _o_ does not. It may be correct to say that we can experience things that g__ does not, comitting sin for example, but that is not the same as an ability (maybe).
Not that I in anyway want to be associated with any religious beliefs whatsover.
Hmmmm, come to think of comitting sin seems to be a capability we have that ___ does not. A most enjoyable capability it can be at times too.
ChrisM
I think I could make an argument that the possibility that a being will be surprised is a capability.
Not least, it has evolutionary advantages, so in that sense it does affect the external world (it means you’re likely to live longer).
But there are other involuntary, internal type things we would consider capabilities, I think. For example, the ability to see, hear, etc.
So I’m not convinced. But I guess your intuition that theists aren’t going to lose too much sleep over my musings is probably right. :-)
(Yeah, I’ve been chuckling at the Zaphod idea too.) I don’t know, I think being surprised is a kind of cognitive capability, isn’t it? Because it relies on expectation, which relies on some understanding of how things are expected to be? It’s like ‘object permanence’ – isn’t it? Probably someone who knows a lot about child development could tell you at exactly what age children start to be surprised.
Jerry S:
“I wonder if G_d has the capability of being surprised. If she doesn’t, and we do, does that mean that we have capabilities which Go_ does not have?”
My understanding is that God exists in a constant state of delighted surprise at His own goodness.
Oops – came in at the end.
As for theists not losing sleep – well let’s just see about that! Wake ’em up!
“My understanding is that God exists in a constant state of delighted surprise at His own goodness.”
Not unlike Peter Cook’s bit in ‘Bedazzled’ – “Oh I’m so good, oh I’m so lovely, oh I’m so perfect” etc.
“Katie, I suspect, is a youngster. Probably she has never been exposed to philosophical arguments about God.”
I was going to (and still am going to) do a Comment on this subject. I’ve been watching a tv show over here, ‘Colonial House,’ which has just such a youngster – the daughter of a Baptist minister in Texas. She argues passionately for theism, but of course – she’s probably never been exposed to any countervailing arguments.