Slashdot for Christians. I have no idea what I think of this.
I'm not sure what is up with the survey question "Does God take risks?". Surely, god doesn't take risks, his (her/its?) actions are all part of a divine plan?
Re:survey
FT on 2002-06-08T18:47:41
Here's what's up with the survey question. One of the things that confounds Christians the most is "the question of evil." It's pretty hard to explain a loving God and the existence of evil. Think of it like this: did God, supposing there is such an entity, knowing create Satan to be Satan? Or did he create him with great potential - for both "good" and "evil" - realizing doing so was a risk?I promise to not pullute this journal further. I couldn't resist answering this question. Flamefest at Christot if you're interested.
-John (christdot creator)Re:survey
Simon on 2002-06-08T19:59:36
John wrote:because Gav wrote:Think of it like this: did God, supposing there is such an entity, knowing create Satan to be Satan? Or did he create him with great potential - for both "good" and "evil" - realizing doing so was a risk?Surely, god doesn't take risks, his (her/its?) actions are all part of a divine plan?To me, it's pretty obvious that God does take risks - here's an amazingly stupid risk to take, if you look at it from a human perspective: entrusting the care of distribution of the most important message He had to give mankind to twelve rather frightened weaklings in Jerusalem. But that's precisely what He did.
Taking risks isn't inconsistent with having a plan. I plan to cross the road. To do so is a risk, but I do my risk assessment and decide it's probably OK for me to cross the road. No inconsistency here.
Re:survey
FT on 2002-06-09T00:31:54
I lied. I'm posting again. I agree with your statement that taking risks isn't inconsistent with having a plan. The problem that "traditional" Christian theology has with this is that it makes the future uncertain. That is inconsistent with biblical claims that the future (the "outcome") has already been determined and Christ is victorious. But perhaps _how_ this will happen isn't set in stone. It's like those stories where the other knows the beginning and the end but there's more than one way to get there.The problem I have with the "does God take risks?" questions is that I think it may be illogical - such as asking "what happens when an unstoppable object collides with an immoveable one?" (otherwise known as "can God create something so heavy he can't lift it?). Christians believe that God is outside of time, whatever that means. If that is the case than risk as we know it is kinda irrelevent. If "before" and "after" don't really exist in your reality then what does risk mean?
...and why am I having this conversation on use Perl;? It's been fun, really... but I feel as though I'm violating some unspoken law of the universe by having this conversation here. As you were...
Re:survey
gav on 2002-06-09T02:40:23
I wouldn't worry about it, the non-perl content often turns out to be more interesting than the perl content:) My thoughts were that the question (though interesting) was illogical. If we suppose that God is infallible, he isn't taking a risk because he knows what the outcome is.
However, giving humans free will may have been a bit 'risky'. I've found that given a set of decisions to choose from, people often choose a sub optimal one.
This all reminds me of a wacky theory that came to me after a beer (or 8) which was an attempt to prove god with quantum physics. Given that you need an observer to determine the outcome of a decision, you could trace back the tree of all decisions until you reached the parent. Was that first decision made by God, and was it "hey, all this black stuff is boring, we should have something colourful here"
:) Free Will - Evil
gizmo_mathboy on 2002-06-09T05:29:59
I almost like the idea the Evil(tm) is a consequence of free will. Without Free Will there can be no Evil(tm). Lucifer's fall was basically because of pride (in a very rough way). I don't know if Lucifer is necessarily Evil(tm), maybe a Deceiver (in a Lord Foul/Thomas Covenant sort of way).
Evil(tm) was/is a choice made by humanity, philosophically speaking, if you're will to agree with the idea of Free Will being necessary for Evil(tm). I suppose you could say that Original Sin creates a degree of Evil(tm) in all humans.
But I digress, this is use perl.:-) Re:survey
darobin on 2002-06-10T12:40:31
I'm not christian (nor in fact from any other religion) so maybe I shouldn't interfere, but I agree with gav that the question doesn't make sense. However I did spend quite some time studying metaphysics, a lot of which has to do with a "perfect entity" (used more as a useful concept than as a theological idea) which is often called God, even in atheist philosophy (if only because it's useful to use the same word to mean the same thing).
From the point of view of humans, which have a limited perspective, the question might make sense. But from that of an entity that has universal perspective it's completely irrelevant. The question is a contradiction in itself.
If you're interested in further reading on that topic, I'd recommend Leibniz and Deleuze on Leibniz (notably "Le Pli", which might have been translated as "The Fold").
Re:survey
pudge on 2002-06-09T02:23:08
What do we think of all this? I think you should have used Slash!Re:survey
FT on 2002-06-09T02:59:25
I thought about using slash. After all, I live about 3 miles from Rob Malda (went to school with him for ~12 years growing up) and he might answer a question or two from me. He helped me get linux up and running the first time back in '96. But... slash was a little more complicated (read: bloated) than what I needed. And, dare I say in this environment, I'm no perl expert. PHP, though less elegant and inefficient is easy to learn by just looking at it. I should really spend more time learning Perl but I just don't have much occasion to use it day to day (MPI development).Re:survey
belg4mit on 2002-06-09T00:46:36
Doesn't answer the question,
but read "The Salmon of Doubt".
DNA has an interesting hypothesis
in his idea of an artificial god.
Do Christdot trolls yearn not for a First Post but instead for a Second Coming?
